IT WAS TWO weeks into Des Liddington’s retirement, and over breakfast one morning, his wife said, ‘I have to admit, I’d been dreading it, having you under my feet all day, but you’re hardly ever here.’
They were in the sunroom, a screened-off section of their back porch, overlooking roses, a lawn, a clothesline and staked tomatoes. Liddington, his bruises fading, sipped his morning coffee. Tore out a bite of jam toast, chewed and said, ‘All in good time. Slippers, a recliner in front of the TV.’ He patted his belly. ‘A slab of beer, a bowl of peanuts.’
‘Yes, well,’ Josie said, gesturing at the exercise bike in the far corner.
Lingering over the paper, toast and coffee, the ABC murmuring from the transistor—they were comfortable with each other. Liddington treasured this, after years of early-morning call-outs. He finished the Advertiser’s sports section, made a stab at the sudoku and said, ‘Gabi called. Forensics told her the tyre tracks at Britton’s house could’ve come from a Triton.’
Josie was reading the letters to the editor. ‘Someone in Rostrevor says her rent went up forty per cent in two years. What about DNA?’
Theirs was a free-form conversational dance worked up from a lifetime together—at the table, in bed, in the car. Hints, abbreviations, ellipses, shorthand outlines and imaginative leaps. Josie Liddington knew that her husband would be interested in the rental crisis because their poor son had just moved out into a place of his own. And Des had always told her everything about his police work—hopes, fears, mistakes, little victories, speculations and suspicions. Right now, she knew that he was trying to track down the woman who’d saved his life. In about an hour’s time he’d be off in the car again, knocking on doors.
‘Nothing,’ he said, switching to the cryptic crossword.
A little while later, Josie said, ‘What about a bus?’
Liddington went still in his chair, the biro in his hand poised over 4 across as he made Josie’s leap. ‘Good point.’ Had the woman rented the Triton somewhere outside the Barossa? Taken the bus there, taken the bus back again?
‘CCTV,’ Josie said, turning the page. ‘He says his brain fog’s got worse.’ Their son.
Liddington shrugged sadly. ‘It’ll take time, I guess.’ He bent over the paper again, absently reaching for his toast—but he’d eaten it. ‘Bail denied, by the way.’
‘Good. Insurance scam?’
‘Insurance scam. I mean, Patmore and his boys were pricks to begin with, but the pandemic made it worse. They just got deeper into debt.’
Time passed, then Josie grabbed their cups and plates and said, ‘Good luck today.’
Luck, meaning finding the woman. Getting a statement from her. Getting her to stand up in court and describe what she’d seen, who she’d seen, what she’d done. Liddington nodded. ‘Gawler could be a good start.’
‘There’s a bus from Angaston,’ Josie said.
‘What are you doing later?’
‘I can’t today,’ Josie said. ‘Book group tonight and I haven’t even started reading it. Tomorrow?’
Liddington looked out at his yard, its neatness and order. Beyond his fence line it was all untidiness and disorder. Potholed asphalt and dusty roads sharply winding. A mess of trees and untamed grass. Clouds of all kinds—sometimes all kinds in the sky at once—and buildings all higgledy-piggledy. The disorder that might worsen in his son as he tried it alone in the world. The elusive Triton driver, who was a good person but maybe also not a good person.
Goodness was his wife in the patched-up Saab beside him tomorrow, tapping address details into an app to show him the way.
And so, on a Tuesday in late October, Desmond Liddington—wearing his old uniform but not feeling too much like he was pulling a swiftie—found himself watching CCTV footage in a Gawler car-rental place called Off-Road Paradise while Josie poked around in a nearby dress shop.
‘Pause it?’ he said.
The clerk complied. Liddington peered at the screen. The woman who’d registered at the Vigneron Motel as Grace Latimer, of Mandel’s Collectibles in the Adelaide Hills, had just been handed paperwork and an ignition key.
Des said his thanks and returned to the Saab. Josie was already there.
‘Success?’
Des turned the key. ‘Success.’
‘Dangerous,’ Josie said. She was stating the possibility; she’d been stating it for as long as she’d been married to him.