You know, Alison, you don’t make it easy to trust what you say.” Detective Mitchell leaned across the table and scrutinized Alison’s face, every pore and line and freckle under examination.
“I’m sorry. I’m telling you everything—I promise.”
“Simone sent you a USB with footage of Michael Watson assaulting her on it?” On her way to the station with Billy, Alison had made a decision. If she kept herself out of it, it would be easier.
“Yes. I have it at Sal’s, in my room. I can go get it, bring it to you?”
“If she had this footage, why bring it to you, a stranger? Why not bring it to us?”
“I don’t think I was her final destination, but from everything I’ve heard about Simone Arnold it sounds like she was a decent person. Maybe she wanted to find out if I could back her up.”
“Could you?”
“I—” Alison felt sick to her stomach.
“And she posted it to you from Wangaratta the day before the fire?”
“Yes. I have the note at Sal’s place. I’ll go get it and bring it straight back.”
Detective Mitchell made a note in her pad and cocked her head to one side like a magpie sizing you up for the swoop. She got up from the table and motioned for Alison to follow her. In the station’s main room she gestured for Billy, who was at his desk, to follow her. The three of them walked silently out to Detective Mitchell’s four-wheel drive and got in.
“Where we off to?” Billy said, looking at Alison, trying to get a read on the situation.
“Sal Marsh’s place. You know it, I assume?” Detective Mitchell asked as she shifted from park to reverse. Spun the wheels on the loose gravel as she backed it up and swung around.
“Yeah, chuck a left here, another one at the roundabout. A little ways down the highway toward Melbourne and you’re there.” Alison felt uncomfortable, tried to think whether it was possible to hide the USB drive with those videos of her on it from the police forever. She didn’t want Billy to see. Didn’t want anyone to see.
They sat in silence as they covered the distance to Sal’s in the late-waning heat of the afternoon. Alison felt suddenly panicked. She shouldn’t have left Sal alone after Gil had come round. What was stopping him from coming back, maybe with a weapon this time? There was nothing to be done but to get there. Detective Mitchell’s respect for the speed limit infuriated Alison.
When they arrived, Alison saw the front door was open with the screen door closed, as usual. She ran up to the screen and saw the mesh had been slit next to the handle, right along the join of the frame. Just enough space for a hand to slide in and unlock the door. She sucked air through her teeth. Something about the situation made her want to stay quiet. She motioned for Billy and Detective Mitchell to come closer, showed them the slit. Detective Mitchell unholstered her gun, reached her hand through the slit, unlocked the door, and swung it open as quietly as possible. Billy followed her in, and Alison, not wanting to stand out there alone, went after them into the house.
Her room was a mess, sheets pulled off the bed, laptop missing, her backpack upended on the floor. She searched the pillows, saw the USB still tucked up in the case of one. She pulled out the one marked “Simone” and handed it to Detective Mitchell. They went back into the hall, staying as quiet as possible. In the makeshift studio Alison’s canvases had been pulled from their frames, slashed or stomped on or ripped by the hands of an angry wrecker. She saw Simone’s eyes staring at her from the floor—their shared jawline blurred where the dirty-brush kerosene had seeped over it—reflecting her own terror and sadness. Why had she painted her so melancholy?
Detective Mitchell and Billy were moving again, down the hall, past Sal’s ransacked room, past the overturned couch cushions in the lounge, and the upended dining chairs, and the open cupboards in the kitchen. Onto the back deck. Alison followed, every step making her more afraid. She squinted into the sun, trying to make out the scene in the rose garden down there, on the slope toward the city.
Sal’s outline on the ground, the way it seemed small, a little insignificant heap of bones and blood and flesh and cloth, made Alison freeze. She watched as Billy ran toward her, stumbling a little, down on one knee and then back up again, calling out her name, while Detective Mitchell went more cautiously, looking around as she moved methodically toward the older woman, as Billy leaned down over her, gently turned her over so she was faceup, held her wrist for a pulse, lifted his radio, said something Alison couldn’t hear, opened Sal’s mouth, stuck his finger inside—she remembered that was a way to check that an airway was clear; she’d learned that at school. Billy rocked back on his knees and looked up toward Alison. He didn’t seem upset anymore, seemed cool, like he’d switched off his feelings and retreated inside himself.
She slowly started to move again, put one foot in front of the other, deliberate small motions; what would she do when she got there, there where her oldest friend was lying because of her? She heard the siren in the distance. She couldn’t tell if it was getting closer or farther away. She picked up speed, felt a new urgency, the hot breeze on her face as she steamed down the hill.
When she got to Sal, Billy was in the way; Billy was pushing her back; Billy was trying to stop her, was trying to be a barrier between Sal and her, like he could create a barrier she wouldn’t tear down. She struggled against him, pushed back, pushed him away, beat her fists against him like the fucking heroine in a thirties film. Her ineffectual fists against his broad deep chest. But Sal was there, behind him, lying there. Not moving. Not doing anything.
Alison felt as though if she couldn’t reach out and clasp Sal’s hand and feel its warmth, feel it radiate with life the way that Simone’s skin had not, then she might go mad. She tried to calm her own pulse, heard Billy talking to her—The ambulance is coming—felt the tears snake down her face and drop in fat circles, and then there was the bustle of the paramedics. Two of them wearing bright blue gloves and lifting Sal’s eyelids and shining a light in her eyes, putting a brace on her neck, rolling her onto a gurney, slick wheels on grass, taking her away, and Alison was following them back up the hill and through the side gate and into the ambulance, and she was there when Sal opened her eyes, confused, and said, What the hell happened? And a paramedic asked her who she was, and she replied, Sal Marsh, who are you? And then he asked who was prime minister and Sal said, Well, it’s a bit hard to keep track these days, and the paramedic asked her what day it was and Sal said, It’s Monday, isn’t it? What’s going on? And the paramedic was listening to her heart and telling her she’d be all right and she’d had a knock on the head, was probably concussed, and they were taking her to the hospital to run some tests, and Sal said, Alison, what happened? You’re white as a sheet. And Alison told her it was Gil and he’d taken her computer and she was going to find that sonofabitch and make him sorry and Sal wiped the hot tears away from her cheeks and said, Love, you have to pick your battles. Can you call Patty for me?