17

ALICE

Toby Weiss’s house was modest: a shiny red door, a freshly mown lawn, an electric bike leaning against the weatherboards, all on a half-acre at the end of a country street. Alice had assumed that Darwin’s wealth would leach into the family unit, that his relatives would be living in million-dollar homes with pools and landscaped gardens and fountains and butlers: all the kinds of things she pictured when she imagined coming across a lot of money. Moving her mother into a single-level sprawling house around the corner from her. Trapping her sister in a rehab clinic so luxurious she would never want to leave. Alice did not imagine this kind of house, with a cobweb on the glass next to the door, and a circle of rust in the pipes against the roof that dripped slowly down near her shoulder. This house was a rental – she had looked it up already – which was, of course, far bigger than anything she could afford in Melbourne, but it was not a Weiss home, though the man who opened the door was clearly a Weiss.

He had the same full eyebrows, unkempt where Darwin’s were trimmed, and the same toothy smile that stretched across his face, but he was smaller: withdrawn where Darwin was so effusive, hair shaved close to his head, and genuine anxiety on his face when he saw her, shook her hand, nodded a hello.

‘Is that him?’ he asked, pointing behind her, to Valkyrie.

‘Yes. I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘He was important to me,’ Toby said, walking over to the car. He peered in at the coffin, at the flowers on top, his fingers pressed against the window in a way that would definitely leave marks; usually Alice would be mad, but she couldn’t find it in her right now.

He took a few minutes just to gaze in through the glass, then he sighed. ‘Would you like a drink?’

He ushered her over to his front deck, and she sat down in one of two white wooden chairs that looked across at Valkyrie. Alice was comfortable like this; she had a good view of anyone coming down the road. She didn’t want to be seen by Nick and his goddamn Subaru, but Toby’s road dead-ended into a fence and there was nowhere to hide Valkyrie out here anyway. If she saw Nick, she’d have to shoot out his tyres – not an entirely unpleasant thought.

Toby offered coffee, tea or homebrewed kombucha, and Alice said yes to the coffee. She sat in the cool late-morning air and waited for him, wondering what it would be like to live here. Warlington was just inland of the sea, and earlier, when she had driven through the town centre, she passed the beautiful art deco factory that had long ago produced religious leaflets and now hid a noxious and busy abattoir. The town itself had buildings still standing from the 1800s, lovingly restored and still lively, selling second-hand books or bubble tea or six kinds of sourdough. When Toby returned, he smelled of watermelon vape as he leaned over to pass her cup.

The coffee was good. She thanked Toby, and he nodded, unable to take his eyes off the car.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Nobody will tell me.’

‘That’s not what I’m hired to know,’ she said. ‘I met him a few times – I can’t help but be curious too.’

‘What do you think happened?’

‘I don’t even know enough to speculate. I can only hope it wasn’t painful.’

‘He wasn’t sick,’ Toby said. ‘Or, if he was, he didn’t tell me.’ He had brought out a glass of kombucha for himself, and he pressed it against his forehead like he was hot. ‘I just don’t know why it’s a secret.’

‘When you’re famous, I guess you want to keep things quiet.’

‘But from your own cousin?’

She spread out her hands: she had no answer. ‘Do you have other family members you can talk to about this?’

‘Darwin’s mother, my aunt. Bianca. She’s at her home – the family estate – where you will take him at the end of this, I think. We’re not close.’ He looked at Alice. ‘Please don’t mention you saw me today. She thinks I’m a gold-digger, so we don’t really talk.’ He gestured behind him. ‘Does this seem like I dug any gold out of him? She lives in a giant house, and I live here, paying rent. Which is fine!’ He gave a hollow laugh and said, ‘He bought me an air fryer, gave me a very generous travel voucher when I finished university – it’s not like he didn’t look out for me. But we’re cousins, not brothers. He doesn’t owe me anything.’

Alice watched him closely, but sympathetically.

He shook out his hands. ‘I think I sound bitter. That’s not what I’m trying to say. Darwin and I were friends, and he knows how I feel about handouts. He knows how I feel about all that money and lifestyle. What does one man need all that space for? He doesn’t even have any kids rolling around in that giant house of his. How come I’m venting to you?’ He folded down into himself again. ‘I think I’m mad at him for dying.’

‘Why?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ He leaned over and pulled a weed from between the slats. ‘I mean, he did it to himself, right? That’s the only reason anyone would be mysterious like this.’

‘I suppose.’

‘What other reason could there be?’

‘I have no idea what this level of wealth means for reputations,’ Alice said. ‘I’ve been hired for two days to drive Darwin’s body around to visit the places he needed to see. Most people can afford a hearse for the time it takes to arrive at a cemetery from the funeral home, and that’s it. I think I’m the wrong person to ask.’

‘But you’ve been around money.’

‘Around it? Sure.’

‘And this is still strange?’

Alice hesitated. ‘I can agree with that.’

‘And suicides are usually kept quiet, right? It’s not like you can drop the Lifeline number in an in-person conversation, but that’s definitely the vibe I’m getting.’

‘All right.’

‘All right?’

He wanted something from her that she couldn’t give him. She watched him quietly.

He swallowed the last of his drink and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Grief is tough,’ Alice said.

‘I haven’t really lost somebody like this before. He was older than me, but not by much. I don’t like that.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t like that at all.’

Alice would have picked Darwin for the younger cousin; she guessed that was what money could do for you. ‘When did you last see him?’ she asked, moving the conversation into calmer seas.

‘A few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘He came up here. He likes the beach behind here.’ Toby gestured over his shoulder towards the ocean, only a handful of kilometres away. ‘He stayed with me overnight, and we went for a few swims, had some beers around the fire in the evening. It was really good, actually. The kind of day where you don’t think anything’s wrong. But I guess it was.’ He turned to her, his eyes a piercing brown. ‘Tell me what you thought of him.’

She told Toby all good things: Darwin’s generosity, his charm, his hope for quiet moments away from his hurried life.

Toby nodded when she told him about the trip up in the mountains – sans the fight – and said, ‘He always did like a good view.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘That’s hardly a unique trait.’

They sat for a while in the slight sunlight. The place where Toby’s street ended was fenced off by wire. Alice had passed maybe four houses after she’d turned into his street, and none of them were close to one another. This was the eastern outskirts of Warlington; you could not go any further without difficulty. Toby sat in his chair, looking tranquil.

Alice’s phone pinged, and she said, ‘Excuse me, I have to check this.’

It was Teddy, updating her via text with what they had done, who they had seen, what she was thinking. Alice felt for her: it seemed like a frustrating case, with either no resolution or an easy one Teddy was refusing to see, according to Art’s (dictated) input. Hopefully the kid would update his Instagram from Coffs Harbour soon, sitting on the beach with a beer in his hand, and everyone could feel all right about it. Hopefully somebody wouldn’t find part of him in a forest.

Toby caught her expression on that final thought and said, ‘You all right?’

‘One of my colleagues,’ she said. ‘She’s working on a missing persons case that’s proving difficult.’

‘Oh?’

‘A nineteen-year-old kid named Cole,’ she said. ‘He seems to have vanished. We think he might have skipped town on purpose.’ She found a picture in her phone, and held it out to him so he could see. He took the phone in his hands, looked at him for a polite long moment, and passed it back to her.

‘So,’ he said, leaning back in his chair so he had to close his eyes against the sun. ‘He’s escaping trouble?’

‘No trouble she can find,’ Alice said. ‘And she’s very good at finding trouble.’

‘So where is he?’

‘She doesn’t know. It seems more depressing than anything. Some kid who grew up without many friends or any family who loved him, who’s maybe taken himself away, or’ – she stopped before she said or out of the equation altogether – ‘or who’s been hurt,’ she finished.

Toby was very quiet. ‘You’re a hearse driver who has colleagues that find missing people?’

‘We’re more a company that does, well, necessary things.’

He wiped his mouth. ‘But the kid, he’s not a criminal?’

‘Not unless he’s hiding it well. Which, of course, he could be.’

‘And he doesn’t have good friends, or family?’

‘Not really,’ Alice said. This was too much for this kind of visit, she knew, and tried to get the conversation back to something better. ‘Not like Darwin,’ she said. ‘He seemed beloved by anybody who met him, and I’m sure he was by his family and friends too, like you.’

‘Like me,’ he said, in a faraway voice.

On Alice and Darwin’s drive home from the fight on the mountain, Alice had said it was strange that they had run into somebody he’d met all the way on the other side of the state. Darwin had said, ‘You’d be surprised – or maybe you wouldn’t – to hear that I have a conversation close to this almost everywhere I go.’

‘Aren’t you universally adored?’

‘Is anyone?’

Alice had thought on it. ‘I guess not.’

Now, she watched Toby fidget in his chair, staring at Valkyrie with visible discomfort. It was time to steer the conversation somewhere neutral, and then leave this man to his grief. ‘What do you do for a job?’ Alice asked.

‘I’m a consultant,’ he said.

‘What do you consult in?’

‘Grant applications,’ he said. ‘I help them become convincing. There are a lot of people who really need government money,’ he said. ‘I work mostly for the university sector, but sometimes medicine, too. Often I’m helping to get money for pretty average grant requests, but sometimes I’m doing it for those who I really think might make a change.’

‘That’s admirable,’ she said, with sincerity.

He had stopped fidgeting. ‘I think so,’ he agreed. ‘Another drink?’

‘No, thank you.’ She wiped her clean hands on her pants. ‘I better keep Darwin on track to get him home.’

Toby nodded, and went inside with the empty cups. In the distant sky, she could see a dark cloud with a sheen of rain underneath. She really didn’t like thinking of handing over Darwin’s coffin in a downpour; hopefully there was somewhere undercover to do so.

‘Thank you for doing this,’ Toby said, appearing at her shoulder. ‘I’m glad it was somebody Darwin knew.’

‘Me too,’ she said. ‘I hope this doesn’t sound strange, but sometimes I talk to him like he’s there. Ask if he’s liking the soundtrack – things like that. Ask him questions, like why we made a stop at a lean-to off the road called Rangers Place.’

Toby’s face stretched into a big relaxed smile. ‘That,’ he said, ‘I can tell you about. We used to bike there sometimes.’

‘From where?’

‘From Melbourne,’ he said. ‘It was a family tradition, the very long bike ride. We’d stop there on the way, and there was always a snack and shelter, even though that was it. Just a place not to get rained on, and a couple of cans of beans. Sometimes a friend nearby would go and make sure it was stocked for us, but others always kept a couple of things in it. Darwin told me he was going to upgrade it, add some creature comforts.’ His eyes were glossy, looking over to her. ‘Did he?’

‘He did,’ she said. ‘Inflatable mattress, stove with a gas bottle, a lot of food. It was touching to see,’ she added.

Toby smiled to himself and picked at his fingernails. ‘I’m glad you think that,’ he said. ‘That’s important.’ He shook out his hands and went on, ‘He’d like Nick Cave for your soundtrack. Wanted “The Ship Song” played at his funeral.’

Alice paused. ‘He mentioned funeral plans to you recently?’

‘No, not recently,’ he said, and looked lost in thought for a moment, and less like Darwin in that moment than he had yet. ‘Maybe a while ago? It’s just that I think of him saying that whenever I hear it.’

‘I guess I won’t play it then, to save it for the occasion.’

‘Something else by Cave, though, I think. He’d like that.’

She got into Valkyrie and started the engine. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, tapping at his lip. She released the handbrake, reversed, then leaned out of the window to wave goodbye.

She saw Toby’s face set – he had made a decision – and he jogged up to the car.

‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this,’ he said, when she’d rolled the window.

Nobody ever knew why they told Alice things, but tell her they did. ‘You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to,’ she said.

He tapped his fingers on Valkyrie’s window frame. ‘I think I know why he did it,’ he said.

Alice put on the handbrake.

‘When he was over,’ Toby said, ‘he told me that he was the reason someone had been hurt. Like – real bad. But I guess I don’t know how bad. I didn’t press it.’

‘That doesn’t seem like him,’ Alice said, trying to sell it.

‘He didn’t mean it,’ Toby said. ‘He said he hadn’t meant for it to get so bad, but it did. I got the impression that it must have happened at one of his warehouses or something, like maybe someone got injured in the workplace, but I don’t know. Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I kind of wondered whether that was the reason. The guilt. He tried to act casual about it, but he still told me.’

There was nothing but the sound of Valkyrie’s low rumble. Alice remembered when Darwin had told her about the rose bush, and she wondered. She only had his word that Gavin and his son were all right; she also had no reason to believe this was the only time he had asked for a favour that could break someone like he broke Gavin’s family. Darwin had seemed steely when he told her about all that, but she considered that it could have worn him down, like it often wore down others. Like she could see Teddy wearing down. The faster she finished this job, the faster she could help Teddy. Or go back to her family. One of those.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said.

He slapped his hands on Valkyrie’s side, and Alice tried not to flinch.

‘Look after him, okay?’

She’d started her slow roll down Toby’s driveway, and called out to him:

‘Always.’