CHAPTER 26

She stood in the meeting room on the forty-third floor staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the Yarra River, which, from this angle, looked like an industrial canal—brown and dead straight. The sleek white furniture and the clean silence made the room feel like a cocoon.

Her black suit felt too small. She’d put on weight. Her feet pinched in the new heels. She’d thrown out all her shoes bar her sneakers when she was released from prison over a year ago. And the stockings—she hadn’t remembered nylon being so scratchy and claustrophobic.

It was cold in the air conditioning. The Queensland summer had messed with her body’s thermostat. She rubbed her hands on her arms, trying to get the blood flowing, but it wasn’t just the air conditioning. She always felt the cold when she was nervous.

Since signing the contract, she’d amused herself imagining the trappings of her new life: slick car, trendy new digs…and the cleaner, the blessed cleaner. Fortnightly to start with, then weekly once she’d got her finances back on track.

But now she was about to pick up the threads of her old career and shit was getting real. Standing this high above the river with nothing but glass in front of her, it felt like a platform diving event at the Olympics. Like she’d put her name down for a double somersault with one and a half twist and hadn’t done any training at all. Would she be good enough? Could she handle the pressure? Had she lost her edge, being out of it for so long? And most of all, what would the staff think of her? The partners wanted her on the team—for them, she represented new clients, increased revenue on the back of her celebrity. But what about the others, the secretaries and paralegals, the solicitors? To them she was no more a celebrity than any other thoughtless drunk who’d wiped someone out on the roads. Someone’s mother, someone’s wife, someone’s daughter or sister: dead because she was too careless to get a cab.

Why had she thought this would be any different from the streets of Katinga?

She poured a glass of water from the silver jug. A single slice of lemon slid over the lip and plunged to the bottom before surfacing. It reminded her of that last day with Torrens at the shanty, although this was an elegant sliver—nothing like the chunky wedge he’d so eagerly dropped into her glass. She hadn’t heard from him. Wasn’t sure where he was. She’d tried his number a few times but he never picked up.

The police had deployed a mass of officers across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales like it was the Golan Heights. Jackson was intercepted two days later near Eddies Flat and charged with three counts of murder: Emma Wiseman, Declan Membrey and Helen Westley.

Clem had gone to the grave site. The dirt was still piled in a gently curving mound, yet to subside. Stopping at Turtle Shores on the way, she’d picked up two paperbark branches. She made a wooden cross tying them together with string and pushed the longer branch into the soil at Helen’s head. At the base of the cross she laid a bouquet of frangipani—white, glossy five-petalled blossoms, golden at their centre.

Then she’d stood there and wept softly.

The door to the meeting room swung open behind her and the managing partner, Gary Swan walked in, hand thrust out. ‘Ah, Clementine, so glad to finally have you here. Welcome, welcome.’

Gary had been the one to recruit her, the one she’d been emailing. He was a nice guy, warm and cheery. He asked about her trip and traversed the small talk with the easy style of a man schooled in the arts of civility.

‘So, we have a few things lined up for you today,’ he said, clasping his hands together enthusiastically. ‘Some of the partners from the sports and media division will be meeting with you, along with the head of our corporate team, but I thought I’d show you your office first and do a stroll around the floor to meet some of the team. HR and IT will look after you from there, and then you and I will meet at the end of the day so I can fill you in a little more on firm strategy. Sound okay?’

He held open the door for her and led her down a corridor, striding purposefully past an open-plan area with people dotted about in large, airy cubicles. Clem avoided eye contact as they each looked up from their desks in a kind of Mexican wave of bobbing heads. Gary walked her into a windowed office on the far side of the floor, the sun streaming through the blinds onto a faux-walnut desk with a slimline monitor. She put her laptop bag down on the desk and walked over to the window.

‘You can see the MCG over there,’ said Gary, smiling. ‘We wanted you to feel at home.’

She felt a single thump of her heart, blinked. She should say something, but nothing would come. Finally, she turned around.

‘Um, could you just excuse me for a moment, Gary, and maybe just show me where the bathroom is?’

‘Yes, of course. Sorry, should have showed you on the way here.’

Gary took her out to the lift lobby and pointed to the bathrooms at the far end.

She went inside, put her handbag down and leaned on the wash basin, exhaling as much of the tension as would come out in one breath. The sink was one of those long, trough-style affairs, ultra-modern and spotlessly clean. She looked up and regarded herself in the mirror. Her hair was carefully styled. She couldn’t afford highlights yet, but she’d had it cut and conditioned and it was gleaming. She was wearing make-up for the first time in months. Her eyes looked strange and there was too much lip-liner, too thick, clown-like. She hung her head again. Caffeine rattled around her veins, sending a buzz to her fingertips. Other than that, she felt completely empty.

Her phone pinged, a text from the kennels. They’d said they would send a message to let her know how Pocket settled in.

Doing fine, enjoying the yard and a walk.

Of course they would say that, whether he was happy or not. She felt a pang. Top of her list for accommodation was finding somewhere with a yard big enough for an energetic little blue heeler cross who’d never lived anywhere but the country and the seaside. Pocket was no city dog, and he was used to her being there pretty much all of the time. With law-firm hours she’d be lucky to get home before eight now. So much for the inner-city apartment living with the stylish commute, strolling past manicured parks and groovy hole-in-the-wall coffee shops. A long, rattling journey fighting for a seat on public transport, more like it.

There was another message she hadn’t noticed, from Rowan.

Changed my password: cleMEntine. Capitals harder to hack and you get more of ME

How incredibly corny. She looked up into the mirror and there was the slightest of smiles on her face.

The phone pinged again. John Wakely, Katinga Cats Club President. She opened up the message. A video clip, downloading slowly in the bathroom fortress, stalled on the still shot at the beginning: the Cats players—all of them lined up in three disorderly rows. She pressed play. There they stood in their training gear—odd socks, grubby T-shirts—shuffling about with that restless energy of young men, some of them still teenagers. Todd Wakely’s hair was growing back and Clancy was there. Not dressed for training, but it brought a smile to her face to see him out of the wheelchair. Torrens was conspicuously absent. It made the team look unbalanced—too many runners and ground-level players, not enough height. The captain, Sellingham, was tossing a ball around in his hands.

‘You’re late for training, Jonesy,’ grinning as he spoke to the camera. ‘That’ll be twenty push-ups and an extra lap around the oval.’

A bunch of them jeered and someone yelled, ‘Dose of your own medicine, Jonesy!’

The front row all dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups, grunting and competing with each other for form and pace—all rehearsed, obviously—the rest of them laughing and jostling each other.

Then a tiny old lady shuffled into the shot from stage right. Fluffy white hair and a summer frock in yellow and orange flowers, white ankle socks and white plimsolls so small they were probably a child’s size. Mrs Lemmon.

Sellingham welcomed her and turned her round to face the camera. ‘That’s the camera over there, Mrs L,’ he said, pointing.

‘Ah yes. Thank you, Benjamin.’ She nodded and stared with her permanent smile. A second or two passed.

‘So the camera’s rolling now, Mrs L,’ said Sellingham. ‘Away you go.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, still smiling. ‘Well, they did tell me to say something, Miss Jones, and I can’t think what it was now, but anyway we need you to come and get started on the training. These boys got fat over the summer’—laughter, Mrs Lemmon chuckling—‘and I know it might sound rude of me to say it, but you’re not setting a very good example for them.’ And with her voice ringing as loud and stern as she could manage, ‘It’s high time you got yourself back home.’

It was like being scolded by a budgerigar.

Mrs Lemmon stood there smiling and blinking, as if she knew there had been something else she was supposed to say, until Sellingham leaned down. She only came up to his bottom rib. ‘Tell her about the garden, Mrs L.’

‘Oh yes, that’s right, thank you, Benjamin,’ she said. ‘We went up to your cottage last week, Miss Jones. I took some tea and scones and the boys mowed the lawns and tidied up the garden for you. I’m afraid you’ve had a wombat in the backyard. He made a bit of a mess,’ she tittered. ‘But you’ve got some lovely pink clematis in flower out the front. Clematis for Clementine.’ She was beaming, so pleased she’d remembered the last bit.

The video ended with the whole team shouting the Cats war cry. Clem could feel a heartsickness rising within. She closed her eyes, stayed there in the bathroom another few minutes. Then she took a few deep breaths and headed back out to the office where Gary was waiting for her.

‘Gary,’ she said. He smiled. She reached out with one hand to the walnut desk to steady herself, her face grim, and watched as his smile faded.

‘I’m sorry Gary, I’m not sure this is going to work.’