‘On the thirty-first of December, at approximately 9.30 pm, a Cessna 182, registration VH-QDK, took off from runway two at Meadowcroft Airport. There were two people in that plane: the pilot, Peter Kasprowicz, and his son, Lincoln Kasprowicz.’
Aimee leaned back in her seat as the details of the flight were read out. The weather conditions, the visibility. The language was familiar; this was essentially the report Damien had read to her in his musty hotel room. It sounded, as it had then, like a story, maybe a feature from a weekend newspaper supplement. The type of thing Aimee had hoped to end up writing. It sounded like something that had happened a long way from here.
Aimee tilted her head to one side as she listened. She felt oddly relaxed, for such a tense environment. There wasn’t a sound in the room as the investigator ran through the plans for the Hensley fireworks display, an event Aimee herself had helped organise. But there was nothing to be nervous about. It wasn’t only medication that had Aimee sitting calmly in her uncomfortable plastic chair, waiting patiently for her moment. It was also the fact that her decision had been made. Another thing the doctors should have told her: panic came with indecision. The moment she’d chosen, that particular drumbeat had ceased.
Lou sat rigid as the first witnesses were called. Ordinary mums and dads, blinking at their unexpected role in this chapter of town history. She gripped her phone as one by one they spoke of seeing the plane above the river. The right turn it had taken towards the hills. Silly to be nervous, given she knew everything that was coming. Lou had read the report twice more over the weekend, had sat on the back porch with a pack of Benson & Hedges and virtually memorised the damn thing.
‘Did the aircraft seem to be in any distress?’ the ATSB officer asked Sam the newsagent.
‘Dunno,’ said Sam. ‘Don’t think so. It was all in one piece, and there wasn’t any smoke or anything. It was flying in a straight line.’
But there was nothing to stop any of these people from remembering a glowing lantern bobbing across the river, straight into the Cessna’s flight path. At any moment, someone could say, ‘Of course, there was the little flame I saw just before the plane went down.’ And then the report in Lou’s lap would be worthless. She checked her phone again.
By the eighth witness, Aimee’s head was beginning to jerk. She forced herself to pay attention as an older man in faded overalls — ‘the aero club’s mechanic at the time, now retired, Martin Smith’ — described the workings of the plane in intricate detail. She could hear the signs of people getting restless: the rattle of chewing-gum containers, the faint tap of fingers on phones. Restless and hot. There was no air in the hall; Aimee’s hair was damp on the back of her neck. She tried discreetly to check if she had sweat marks.
‘Can I go outside?’ Shelley whispered as the mechanic began to explain the plane’s fuel system.
Aimee nodded. ‘But stay close.’
‘Me too,’ muttered Byron, as he slid from his chair.
Aimee smiled faintly as she watched her children weave past knees and handbags towards the fire exit. It would be easier without them.
Nick caught the smile and leaned towards her. ‘How you going?’ he asked.
‘Good,’ she replied, and meant it.
He reached over and took her hand, a move as unexpected as when he’d held it in the Meadowcroft Chinese on their first date. Sixteen years, two children and one nervous breakdown ago. Aimee felt her eyes prickle.
‘Hang in there,’ Nick whispered. ‘I’m proud of how you’re holding up.’
Melinda finally turned her phone over as an aviation expert from Sydney began to explain the intricacies of engine testing. Hardly anyone was listening now; the fire door kept banging as kids escaped to the relative cool of the street. But her phone was alive with messages, its little screen full. Clint, wanting to talk to her. Lou, wanting to know where her money was. Melinda raised an eyebrow: her money? Oz transfers take one day, Lou had messaged. Not over weekend, Melinda wrote back. Because she’d sent the money on a bloody Friday night, hadn’t she. Check again, she told Lou. There were barely forty centimetres between them, yet she was negotiating as though Lou was a jewellery manufacturer in Taiwan trying to hammer her on price. Trust me. She could hear Lou snort as she read that one. But what was Melinda supposed to do?
Pete listened to the details of his accident as though it had happened to someone else. What amazed him was the lack of hard facts, rather than the information they’d collected. No flight plan had been logged; they hadn’t had to. The aircraft hadn’t been fitted with a data or cockpit voice recorder — neither was legally required. No one had actually seen the plane go down. There was talk of video and a television was wheeled in, but it didn’t sound like it showed much. Pete listened to the tinny recorded bangs of the fireworks and remembered Lincoln’s delighted laughter. The last happy sounds his son had made.
But still, there didn’t seem to be any actual evidence. Just a long list of possibilities being slowly ruled out. If Pete had been a different sort of man, he could have stuck to his story about engine failure, and it would have been hard to discount. Which would have spared both him and Aimee Verratti a lot of grief. Pete rubbed a tired hand across his face. He’d tried to convince her the scrap of paper didn’t mean anything, but he wasn’t sure she believed him.
Lou stared at the back of Pete’s head as Frank, the community ambulance officer, began speaking about lacerations and compound fractures. You had to give the man credit; he didn’t even flinch as his son’s injuries were read out. Beside her, Tansy took a shaky breath. Lou bit her lip. She should be feeling more guilt, or at least more grief. Lincoln was the father of Tansy’s child, of Lou’s grandchild. It should be her obsessing about the accident, not Aimee. Maybe she just didn’t put very much stock in fathers. What’s to say Lincoln would have been any more responsible than Matthew? Or the rest of the Baker family. Lou checked her phone again. Still nothing.
‘I’d like to call upon ATSB investigator Damien Marshall to discuss the findings at the crash site.’
Lou’s heart sped up. They were getting there — to the discovery of the notecard, the only card Lou held. If she was going to say something, it would have to be soon. Could she do it? Lou looked wildly around the hall, full of Hensley old guard. She accidentally made eye contact with Melinda’s father; he smirked at her. Lou scowled back. Yes. She totally could.
‘I’m going to the loo,’ whispered Tansy. ‘I don’t feel great.’
She slipped out of the row, removing the buffer between Lou and Melinda. Lou placed her report-filled handbag on the empty seat. Just to remind her.
Melinda watched the wordless exchange between Lou and her father. ‘Nick,’ she murmured. ‘Tell me something. Have you guys ever liked my dad?’
‘Not really,’ he whispered. As though he didn’t even have to think.
‘Why not?’
‘Pulls you down. Always has.’ Nick spoke without moving his lips.
You only stay here because you’re trying to impress your father. Melinda thought sadly of the life in Melbourne she’d given up, the compromises she’d made to base herself out here. Just to listen to him bang on about whatever Matthew was up to. When she was the one who’d moved back to Hensley, the one who was bringing revenue into the town. She was the one making something of herself in her local community.
‘He’s jealous of you, you know that.’
‘Hardly.’
‘Course he is.’ Nick shot an anxious look at Aimee, then kept quietly talking. ‘Here you are, this business big shot, raising millions, and he’s still a small-town lawyer helping people contest their parking fines. He’s okay with Matthew because he’s not a threat.’
‘But —’
Aimee shuffled over next to her husband. Melinda braced herself as she leaned across. ‘Totally true,’ Aimee hissed.
‘Right.’ Melinda sat slightly stunned, as though the world had realigned itself. ‘Thanks.’
It didn’t mean she forgave her. Aimee sat back in her seat as Damien walked up to the microphone. But Melinda had been trying to impress her dad for far too long. Aimee had never figured out whether he refused to acknowledge his daughter’s amazingness because it threatened his own sense of self, or because he liked her fighting for his attention. It didn’t matter. It was cruel.
And Melinda was amazing. Aimee snuck a peek at her former friend as Damien leaned over to state his name and address. Even in the dim light of the town hall she glowed, not with perspiration like everyone else, but with intelligence and energy and expensive serums. Melinda had started out with the same opportunities and education as Aimee, as Lou even, and through sheer force of will and imported skincare, she’d managed to transform herself. But now, Melinda had to go and be amazing somewhere else. Aimee nodded to herself as Damien recited his credentials. It was obvious: Melinda was only running around in stupid circles after her father, after Nick even, because this town wasn’t enough for her. Nature abhors a vacuum, Melinda always said. Yet she’d created one.
Aimee fiddled with her modest engagement ring. Maybe the same was true for her. Maybe her brain would benefit from more to do, rather than less. If we get through this, I’ll go along with whatever he wants to do with this cellar door, Aimee promised the universe. Because look how lucky she was. Her husband really didn’t like her right now, but he was holding her hand anyway, to make her feel secure. Or to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. Regardless, it was nice.
Did she really want to risk this? Aimee asked herself, as Damien began to give his overview of the crash site. To hold a torch to the already flammable remains of her marriage? Damien caught her eye and nodded, reassuringly. She remembered the way he’d initially resisted her kiss. Stood back as she pulled off her shirt. She’d had to be the aggressor, pulling him clumsily onto the groaning hotel bed. He was concerned about her still, she could tell, monitoring her reaction as he carefully described the state of the plane they’d found at Maddocks Clearing.
Nick squeezed her hand as they heard about the fire that had consumed the little plane’s fuselage. Two good men, making sure she made it through this inquiry, neither of them knowing why it mattered so much. Aimee looked sadly at Melinda, with nothing to hold except her phone, and stretched out a hand. Melinda looked suspicious, but took it. Aimee jerked her head towards Lou.
‘No way,’ muttered Melinda.
‘Do it,’ said Aimee.
And Melinda did.
What the fuck? Melinda sat with her arms outstretched, linked to Aimee on one side and bloody Lou on the other. Because that didn’t look suspicious at all. Lou clearly didn’t like the idea any more than she did; her sweaty hand lay limply in Melinda’s with minimal contact, just enough to keep Aimee happy. And she was happy, smiling wetly at them as the greying investigator described the angle the plane would have been flying at when it crashed. The trees that had slowed its descent, saving Pete’s life. The site findings must be coming up soon. Those bloody notecards. For the hundredth time, Melinda cursed herself for not using a sheet of A4, like everyone else.
In her lap, her phone began vibrating. Claudia Lang. It rang silently as the investigator explained about nose altitude. Cut out and rang again as he spoke about compression forces. Finally a message flashed up: Sending email.
Melinda waited what seemed like years as the investigator told them sadly how fire and impact damage meant there was no way of knowing what position the plane’s controls were in before the crash. Well that was good, right? The less they knew the better. Melinda’s email icon finally lit up; she lifted her hand from Lou’s loose grip and opened the email as technical details droned around the hall.
‘The position of the flap-actuating rods suggests they were extended at the point of impact.’
Sorry to inform you that I can no longer support your application for adoption.
‘Unable to take fuel samples due to the post-impact fire.’
Did say that this application could not afford any controversy or scandal.
‘Damage indicates the propeller was still rotating at the time the plane connected with the terrain.’
In light of your current situation, I would not advise you to proceed. Your chances of a successful adoption are extremely slim.
‘While fire had consumed most of the cabin fittings, we were able to ascertain that both seatbelts had been manually undone.’
Trust you understand.
Melinda gaped at her phone. Scandal? They were only halfway through the inquiry. How would Claudia Lang even know? She leaned towards Lou, still staring at that bloody banking page. ‘Who did you tell?’ she hissed.
‘No one,’ whispered Lou. ‘Yet.’
Two hands rested heavy on Melinda’s shoulders.
‘I really need to talk to you,’ Clint said quietly. ‘Come outside. Now.’
Aimee watched Melinda stumble from the hall. Putting business first, as usual. She turned back to the stage, to Damien, as he began to describe the debris they’d found around the plane. This was probably the moment, she thought, as pictures flashed up on the television next to him. One of Pete’s shoes. A pair of blackened headphones. Aimee felt the weight of her husband’s hand around hers. A set of navigational charts, curiously intact, likely blown from the windows on impact. And a small piece of pink and gold cardboard, around four centimetres long, possibly from a birthday card. Lincoln had recently turned sixteen.
Pete listened closely. No one would have given his son a pink birthday card. And Lincoln hadn’t taken any of his presents up with them, except for the new Bose headphones he’d begged for. He’d been so proud of those headphones, exactly like Pete’s own. They were a bit big, but he’d grow into them, Pete had thought. Years of use in those. He took a deep breath, but said nothing.
Aimee also said nothing. She listened to Damien describe the mystery piece of cardboard and didn’t act. Just pressed her lips together and let the moment pass. Because she wanted to keep what she had, fragile as it was. You don’t really want to do this, do you? Damien had whispered as she’d fumbled with his belt, eyes closed. Aimee. Stop it. You’re kidding yourself. She was worried he’d be angry but he just smiled sadly as he handed her back her shirt. I don’t know what’s going on with you, Aimee, but this is not the solution.
She met his eye and gave him a small nod. Damien had understood. Had made them both dreadful coffee, granules from an ancient sachet that hit Aimee like a train. They’d climbed back on top of that lumpy bed, him reading the report out loud as she lay staring at the dingy moulding on the ceiling, realising she might still lose everything anyway. Aimee laced her fingers through Nick’s. But she’d keep it as long as she could.
Melinda could hold her hand all she liked; it wasn’t going to stop Lou from doing what was necessary. And now Melinda wasn’t even bloody there. The moment of truth, their evidence, and she’d walked out, as though the inquiry didn’t concern her. As though any repercussions would simply slide right off her, splattering Lou and Aimee instead. Worse, she was probably right. Lou gripped her phone. Melinda could afford to pay whatever fine they were served. Melinda could simply leave any scandal behind, move somewhere else. Melinda’s father would bully or coerce or sue anyone who tried to hold her accountable. Melinda . . . Melinda had paid her the money. Lou blinked at her phone in disbelief. There it was, a column full of zeros. She refreshed the page, but the money didn’t disappear. It was hers.
This was bad. Very bad. Melinda stood blinking at the article in the harsh January sun while Clint raged at her.
‘The investors are freaking out, Melinda. I don’t know what to tell them. You took your eye off the ball.’
‘I took my — you turned my company into something it was never supposed to be! These are your reforms. This is all you.’
‘This woman’s been calling you for the last week, trying to get comment. You could have shut this down, if you were paying attention.’
‘I pay you to pay attention!’
‘No, you pay me to do the things you don’t want to do, except when you decide you want to do them.’ Clint’s face was twisted. ‘You signed off on all these changes, so don’t try and pass the buck. You wanted profits and you wanted investor interest and you didn’t care how I got it.’ He shoved the newspaper at her. ‘You were interested when it suited you. Like with me.’
Melinda’s mind spun. Had he sabotaged her company because she’d stopped sleeping with him? But no, she thought sadly, gazing down at the orderly columns of tiny words tearing her business apart. The rot had set in before that.
‘Just go,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of this. Just leave.’
‘Look, we can fix this.’ Clint walked around in a circle on the concrete, hands on his head. ‘Give me a couple of hours. I’ll make some calls, rustle up some testimonials. Women who dispute these claims. You’ve got hundreds of happy curators, it won’t be hard. You’ll have to make a statement denying it all. Maybe backtrack a bit on some of the reforms —’
But Melinda was through with his fancy ideas. ‘Please go,’ she said again, hugging the newspaper to her chest. ‘I need to make this right myself.’
She should thank her. It seemed only right. Although what was the proper etiquette for blackmail? But she should acknowledge the money at least. Reassure Melinda that she’d bought her silence. Just like her father. Lou pushed that thought out of her mind as she got to her feet. Half their row had buggered off; there was no need for Lou to even sit here. She’d grab Tansy, take her home, get on with their lives. Put this all behind them. Lou paused as she picked up her bag. Tansy had been gone an awfully long time for someone who just needed a quiet spew.
Someone had opened the fire doors to try to let some air in. Pete could hear a couple yelling, the buzz of a helicopter as he leaned forward, trying to catch a breeze. Not much traffic noise though; everyone old enough to drive in Hensley was inside this hall. Arthur was in the hot seat now, talking about Pete. It was slightly surreal, hearing his own habits and routine described in the third person. And sad. Arthur spoke of a man who drove to work every morning at quarter past seven, returned home like clockwork at half past five. Rarely went out in the evenings except to pick up his son from sports practice. Pete tried to focus on what the policeman was saying about phone records, but it didn’t sound like they had any concerns. His only call the day of the crash was to the dentist. His phone was switched off the night before at half past eight. Dull, thought Pete. Boring, predictable. It was good for the inquiry, but really, what they were hearing was the description of a man who’d already given up.
‘Tansy?’ called Lou, as she pushed open the door of the ladies. But quietly — sound carried in this building. She could hear old Arthur droning on from the main hall. ‘Tansy?’ she said again.
There was a rustle in the far stall. Lou stood listening for the flush, the smell of industrial disinfectant giving her flashbacks to all the times she’d popped Tansy on one of these toilets, urged her to go before forcing her to watch whatever public event her parents were patronising. There was a click as the lock turned. Lou looked up smiling, but it was an older woman. One of her mother’s friends. Lou nodded in recognition, then fled.
Melinda sat in the old tyre swing and read the newspaper article again. It was well written, she’d give Stacey that. LoveLocked’s early days. Melinda’s drive to make it more than just another direct sales business. Lou’s story — Melinda winced — without her name, but it would be obvious to anyone local who they were talking about. I credit her with my company, Melinda had apparently said. Without her, there would be no LoveLocked. The article described the company’s caring ethos, its determination to put people before profit. Yes. She’d done that. Melinda swung listlessly. But then the story turned darker. Curators complaining their terms and conditions had changed, and not for the better. Fees for everything, unreasonable targets. Worse, they said, there was a growing emphasis on recruiting new members, taking a cut from their sales rather than selling yourself. It had become a kind of pyramid.
Lou stood on the town hall steps, scanning. The main street was deserted, and why wouldn’t it be? All the action was taking place inside. She wandered down the road, not quite sure what she was looking for. Tansy emerging from the supermarket with a bar of chocolate? Tansy, bored, flicking through magazines in the newsagents? But her daughter was nowhere to be seen. Neither, she realised, as she turned back towards the hall, was her car.
The newspaper had gone into considerable detail about what constituted a pyramid scheme in Australia. Technically, LoveLocked was not — Melinda could hear the warnings of the paper’s lawyers in Stacey’s careful sentences — because there was still a genuine product changing hands. But it had veered well into the murky territory of multi-level marketing schemes, the paper declared. It quoted women whose families were avoiding them after they’d tried to sign up relatives for extra revenue. Women who’d taken out multiple credit cards to buy stock. Women who’d been promised other people would earn the money for them; all they needed to do was sit back and collect. Consumer groups were calling for tougher laws on selling practices. Potential investors were thinking twice about getting involved. The paper’s business editor questioned LoveLocked’s IPO valuation, whether the offering would go ahead at all. Melinda buried her face in her hands.
Lou ran back towards the town hall. She could see Melinda slumped in a swing in the children’s play area. A young bloke smoking out the front, fag held inwards towards his palm like a guilty secret. And Byron, propped up against a side wall, his too-long legs sprawled across the concrete as he watched a video on his iPad.
‘Byron,’ said Lou, trying not to sound frantic. ‘Have you seen Tansy? I can’t find her anywhere.’
Everything she’d built, everything she’d worked for. Melinda crumpled the newspaper in her hands, trying to process what had just happened to her. The adoption at least had been a long shot, although now it had been ruled out, she realised that she wanted it very, very much. But her company — Melinda began to tear the paper into furious shreds, angry not at Stacey or Clint but at herself. She hadn’t been watching. ‘Melinda Baker did not respond to repeated requests for comment.’ Worse, she’d been greedy. Wanting to set records, to force her father to take notice, to have a nicer apartment and car and wardrobe than everyone else. To be the best. And in doing so, she’d turned LoveLocked into the very thing she hated. A company that profited from women, rather than one that helped them. Just another multi-level marketing scheme, a logo you scrolled quickly past when you saw it on a friend’s Facebook feed. Jewellery this week, aloe vera and coconut oil the next.
Melinda wiped uselessly at her face as voices floated out from the town hall. It almost didn’t matter what they were saying in there. Everything she cared about was already going up in smoke.
If there was anyone else, anyone at all, Lou would have asked them. But the car park was empty; even the smoking bloke had wandered back inside for the next instalment. Lou walked slowly over to the playground.
‘I really wish I didn’t have to do this,’ she said to Melinda, deliberately not meeting her red eyes. ‘But can I borrow your car? I think,’ Lou paused, trying to keep the panic out of her voice, ‘I think Tansy might be about to do something really stupid.’