Peter Corris - The Other Side of Sorrow

The wine was smooth and good and would’ve disposed me to eat even if I hadn’t been hungry. I nodded. ‘Please. I missed lunch.’

‘I tried to eat but I couldn’t. I didn’t think private detectives concerned themselves about things like lunch. You disappoint me.’ She concentrated hard, frowning, as she sliced some cheese and put it on a plate with some bread and half a dozen olives and passed it to me with a paper napkin which I immediately dropped.

‘I’ve never been able to keep one of these things where they should be,’ I said. ‘They usually end up on the floor.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m glad to have some company and see someone acting normally. I can’t, quite. Have a bite and I’ll tell you what happened.’

She took a good slug of wine and told me that she’d stayed at the picket line overnight, dossing down in a sleeping bag in the tent. ‘I do that pretty often,’ she said. ‘Act as a sort of organiser and keeper-together of things. Ramsay can’t do it all and there’s sometimes disputes and arguments that need a subtle touch.’

I nodded. I wanted her to get to the point, but the bread and cheese and wine were hitting the spot and I was enjoying looking at her. Unprofessional, I know, but it was polite to let her tell it her way and I sensed that that in her tense, edgy state, politeness was a good strategy.

‘I woke up in the early hours. I knew the noise. It was that bloody van of Damien’s. It’s got a shot muffler. I thought, Good, I’ll try to get Meg to stick around and I’ll get through to Mr Hardy. I went back to sleep. A bit later I woke up again and there was a scream and shouts and lights and bangings and clangs. I pulled on my pants and went out. It was just dawn and bloody cold. I heard a woman scream and I saw the van roaring off. A few people were huddled together over near the creek. There’s a spot where you can cross on some rocks and a log. There was a man on the ground with his head beaten in. It was horrible. The faint light made it worse, sort of. Like in a black and white movie. The blood looked black.’

She had another drink and I finished what I was eating and left the rest on my plate. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen it. Who was he?’

She sucked in a deep breath. ‘One of the security people.’

‘Jesus.’

‘It was hard to work out what had happened because it was dark and there were people moving around. We mount a sort of watch at night, you see. The way it looks is that Damien took it on himself to scout around and found this security man on our side of the creek. There could have been a fight. I don’t know. But the man’s dead and Damien’s gone.’

She set her glass down hard on the table. ‘I know what you want to ask. What about Megan? But think about me. The police are charging Ramsay with being an accessory or something.’

I told her that the charge of being an accessory in matters like this was largely a bluff and seldom led to any serious consequences. ‘Have you got a lawyer?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. We’ve had one all along. Bill Damelian. But he’s really an environmental man. I don’t think he does any criminal stuff.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Environmental lawyers deal with bail and all that stuff regularly. And he’ll know who to talk to if it goes any further,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’

She picked up her glass and looked at me. ‘For some unknown bloody reason I believe you. Why would that be?’

‘Experience,’ I said. ‘I’ve been around lawyers and police and crims for more than twenty years. You get a feel for where the real danger lies. Not always right about it, but…’

‘Okay, the police took Ramsay off, but he was pretty composed and I got onto Bill. He said he’d be right on it. You’re saying he’ll get Ramsay out.’

I nodded. ‘It mightn’t go so well for the protest, though.’

She shrugged. ‘You win some, you lose some.’ She poured some more wine for us. ‘Thanks. You’re a comfort. Right. Well, Megan. She went off with Damien, I’m sorry to tell you.’

I repeated what I’d asked her on the phone. ‘Willingly?’

‘I can’t say. I would say that I think the scream I heard when I woke up was hers, and that I heard her scream again just before the van roared off.’

‘Meaning that the first scream might have been when she saw the body, so she wasn’t there when it happened, and the second one was a protest at being dragged off?’

‘I hope so. For her sake and yours.’ She looked at me keenly. ‘I don’t really know you, of course. But just at a guess I’d say you’re taking this missing persons case rather personally. How come?’

I told her. Before she could respond the phone rang.

She took the call and from the few words I heard I guessed it was from the lawyer so I moved out to the back verandah to give her some privacy. The back garden bore the same hallmarks of neglect as the front. It was somehow sad. I’ve never lived with anyone long enough or in an appropriate place to reshape a piece of land together. Clearly, that’s what had happened here once. A fishpond showed signs of heavy work – not professionally done, but satisfactorily. The flowers in the well-mulched garden beds had been carefully tended at one time; not any more.

I wandered down the overgrown path and found a screened-in vegetable garden that told the same story – crude but solid carpentry, a considerable amount of earth moved, subtle touches.

‘What’re you doing?’

I turned to see Tess on the verandah, shielding her eyes against the late afternoon sun. Her posture was tense, almost aggressive. I walked back, careful to avoid a rake that lay on the ground, teeth up.

‘I was getting out of your way while you were on the phone. Something bad?’

She nodded. ‘They’re charging Ramsay as an accessory to unlawful death and opposing bail. I thought you said accessory charges didn’t amount to anything.’

She was upset, looking for someone to blame. Lawyers are great at deflecting blame, I seem to have a knack for attracting it. ‘It depends. What does the lawyer say?’

‘He says he’s working on it. Ramsay’ll have to stay in custody tonight at least.’

‘It won’t be so bad. He – ‘

‘Oh, he’ll love it! He’s been looking for it for ages. Martyrdom’s just his style, the idiot.’

We went back into the house and Tess made coffee. It seemed to fit the new mood. She told me that her parents had died in a plane crash when Ramsay, who was ten years younger than her, was fifteen. She’d seen him through his adolescence, delaying her marriage to do so. Ramsay had spent the next few years as a part-time student of this and that, dropout, trainee at a variety of things and dole recipient.

‘Somehow, he just couldn’t let go of me. Phillip, my husband, eventually got sick of it. I can’t blame him. Ramsay’d turn up at just the wrong times. Stay too long. Cost too much. I don’t know whether Phillip and I would’ve made a go of it anyway, but certainly not with Ramsay hanging on. He was a sort of catalyst for our breakup.’

‘Difficult,’ I said, thinking: spineless bludger.

‘This was our parents’ house, where we grew up. I rented it out while I was married and moved back after the split. Phillip and I had a flat. That was sold and we divided the money. I had just enough to clear the mortgage on this place. Not enough to maintain it, really. Ramsay helped for a while, but he moved on, like always.’

So I’d read the signs wrongly. The teamwork had been between brother and sister, not husband and wife. I wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse. It sounded as if Ramsay Hewitt had certain characteristics in common with Damien Talbot and that might explain their antagonism. That thought put me back on what was supposed to be my track, locating Megan French.