27

That night, while Jun slept and the brawny wind outside scratched branches against their window, Alice looked Darwin up online. People had noticed he wasn’t around, but others said that he did that sometimes: hunkered down before making some new business announcement. One thread speculated he hadn’t been seen in Australia because he was out on a yacht in the Maldives with either Zuckerberg or a Murdoch. Someone said he’d missed his mother’s birthday party, and someone else said his mother’s birthday wasn’t even in May. One person in a celebrity forum said he’s definitely dead, and ten comments in the thread suggested ways he died, from murdered by people jealous of him and suffocated from the weight of his own goodwill to drowned in his pit of gold coins like the fuckin miser he is or knocked off by the people he ripped off. Somebody said This thread is like Tall Poppy Syndrome: the Movie. Can’t a man just be rich and good?

She wasn’t any clearer on if he was dead or not. Alice knew only this: he truly wanted everyone to believe he was dead if he wasn’t, or someone fucked up the delivery process if he was. If the latter was true, the dead body of Australia’s richest man was still out there.

Darwin was the body in this she needed to care about the least. She just wanted to know who killed Cole, to help Teddy, and who killed Art, for both of their broken hearts. But, Alice thought, if they could find Darwin’s live or dead body, then they might get closer to solving the Cole part of this, leaving all the rest of the space they had for Art. And maybe she wouldn’t have to keep thinking about Darwin, even if she didn’t want to; even if she didn’t want to remember the time he had called her at night when he was tired and alone. She hadn’t even told Teddy about it, even though there was nothing she didn’t tell Teddy.

‘Alice,’ he had said, and she recognised his voice. ‘Can you drive me somewhere tonight?’

Jun was staying with a friend that night, trying to catch some exceptional waves early the next morning. Cherry had just fallen asleep in the other room. ‘I’m busy,’ she told him. ‘I’m sorry.’

There was a longer pause than she expected. His voice was very deep when he asked, ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

He didn’t hang up. He said, ‘There wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. I just wanted – I thought you could drive me someplace. You could decide where.’

She realised, all at once, that he was asking for more than a ride. ‘I’m sure I couldn’t decide on the right place for you.’

‘It’s not like I know where to be right now.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t mean to pressure you, but I could pay, if that’s why you can’t come now, if you need the money for whatever you’re busy for. I could pay what you were going to make and then more. Ten thousand dollars?’

Alice caught her breath.

‘Not for – you don’t have to do anything. That’s not for anything more than a ride. A drive.’

She believed him, but it was still a request for more. Ten thousand dollars, and what that could get her. It could pay off the rest of her car. It could pay for the things they weren’t fixing in her house. It could pay for the childcare centre closer to their home, the one they couldn’t afford. Alice closed her eyes and thought of Jun and Cherry and who they were and that they were everything.

‘I’m too busy even for that,’ she said softly. ‘But if I wasn’t, I would have driven you to Collingwood, so we could walk the path near the children’s farm and listen to the animals snuffling in the dark.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you are ever going there one night, you should call me.’

She couldn’t tell Teddy. If she had, she would have had to tell her that she wished she could have said yes.

~

The next morning, as Alice and Jun fixed Cherry’s lunchbox – Alice was better at spreading sandwich toppings all the way to the edge, but only Jun was allowed to cut Cherry’s kiwifruit – Jun said to Alice, ‘Is Teddy all right today?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alice said. ‘I haven’t called.’

‘You said she was tired yesterday.’

‘She was.’

He watched her, quietly. Jun considered Teddy’s rank as sister-in-law, since Alice’s actual estranged sister, Pick, did not fulfil any family duties at all, whereas Teddy would regularly surprise him with imported tea or whisky. She actually only did that when she was about to ask Alice to do something illegal, but Jun had never made the connection, and Alice was both impressed and incensed that Teddy had learned how to manipulate her household into being in a good mood when she was about to do something bad.

Alice called Teddy now, while Jun watched.

‘What a nice day,’ Teddy said cheerfully, when she picked up. ‘The wind’s stopped, the sun’s out. I think we should have a day off work.’

Alice mouthed she’s fine at Jun, who smiled and wandered away to help Cherry finish getting ready. Once he was out of earshot, Alice said, ‘Uh, what?’

‘I’m beat,’ Teddy said. ‘We’ve done a lot of work. I’m taking today off.’

Alice went outside, into the courtyard. ‘You’re taking today off?’

‘You worry about my health, and you’re right to do so. I need to have some time to recuperate. So I can be strong for the fight.’

Alice pulled a dry leaf from a branch. ‘Well, all right. If that’s what you need.’

‘You should take it off too. Steal Cherry away from kinder. I’ll see you on Thursday.’

Alice wandered back into the house. Cherry and Jun were on the carpet, putting train tracks around the armchair. Jun, neat and pressed in his work suit, was trying to work out the mechanics of making flat tracks go up and over it.

‘You hear about that rich guy?’ Jun asked, not looking.

‘What rich guy?’ Cherry asked.

‘I wasn’t talking to you, bub. There’s this very rich guy. His name’s Darwin.’

‘Darwin’s not a person, it’s a place,’ Cherry pointed out with disdain.

‘And Cherry’s a fruit,’ he said, smiling back at her. ‘But this guy has gone real quiet. The guys in my group chat think he’s dead.’ He looked up at Alice. ‘You hear about it?’

Alice said, ‘No. Huh.’

‘You met him for work, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah. He was nice enough. That’s a shame, if he’s dead. I think he was a surfer for a bit.’

‘Like you!’ Cherry said to her father.

‘I’m better,’ Jun said, probably accurately. ‘He has a little bit more money than me, though.’

Alice watched them in silence. After a moment, Jun asked, ‘Everything okay?’

She sat on the floor and started sorting the tracks into piles by size. Cherry knocked them over with Angry Thomas the Tank Engine, who was the same as her other Thomas the Tank Engine except that Cherry had drawn angry eyebrows on him with a Sharpie.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘Teddy says she’s feeling tired and wants some time to rest.’

‘Poor Aunty Bear,’ Cherry said.

‘So what’s the problem?’ Jun said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re clearly suspicious.’

Alice huffed. ‘Well. It’s just that she never rests.’

‘Maybe she is tired,’ Cherry said. ‘She doesn’t have afternoon naps like I used to.’

Jun said, ‘You should go and check in on her if you have time.’

‘No time,’ Cherry said. ‘We’re playing trains. Honk honk!’ she added, hitting Alice in the nose.

‘We have to leave for kinder in a minute,’ Alice said.

‘No,’ Cherry said. ‘You go see Aunty Bear. I’ll stay.’

Cherry did go, under duress, armed with a single piece of straight train track she refused to release from her grip. Alice asked the teachers to try to retrieve it if they could; they said they would do their best.

Alice wasn’t sure, on her drive to Teddy’s, what had made her wary of Teddy’s words. She stopped at the supermarket and bought some raspberries and Nurofen. Maybe, she thought, as she waited at the lights near the station, she just needed to check on Teddy for herself.

Nobody answered when she buzzed; Alice gave it another minute and tried again, then called her up. Teddy did not answer. Alice rechecked her phone; Teddy was here, for sure. Alice had been polite for long enough; now she got out her keys and let herself in.

Teddy was asleep when Alice found her. Alice watched her for a moment, then realised how unnerving it would seem if Teddy woke up and saw her staring. She went over and sat down next to her on the bed and gently shook her awake.

‘What the fuck?’ Teddy groaned.

‘You were awake and perky on the phone half an hour ago,’ Alice said. ‘Was that all your energy for the day used up to pretend you weren’t hungover?’

‘Shut up,’ Teddy said.

‘I brought you Nurofen. If I’d known, I’d have picked up some tomato juice.’

‘You know that doesn’t work.’

‘Yes, but you deserve to suffer through it. Teddy! You were wrecked yesterday afternoon. You said you would rest.’

Teddy sat up and took the Nurofen and the glass of water Alice was holding. ‘I know.’

‘What were you doing?’

Teddy pulled her quilt up around her neck, tipping Alice over. Alice climbed under the covers of Teddy’s single bed beside her while Teddy grouched, ‘You’re cold.’

‘And you’re a liar. I thought we didn’t do that?’

Teddy lay on her back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘I was going to tell you tomorrow,’ she said. ‘And then you could have thought I’d spoken to her today, and you wouldn’t have told me off.’

‘Spoken to who?’ Alice said.

‘Streets.’

‘What?’

Teddy sighed.

~

Teddy had called Streets right after Alice dropped her off. Streets didn’t pick up, but rang back later, as Teddy sat on her couch, staring at the message on her television screen asking if she wanted to keep watching.

‘What do you want?’ Streets asked.

Teddy said, ‘I just wanted to clarify some things with you about Cole.’

Streets had sighed. ‘He’s my past now, all right? I’m living in the future.’

‘Are you?’ Teddy mused. ‘What’s it like in the future?’

‘If you come to the city, I can tell you all about it.’

They met in a bar off the business end of Little Bourke. It really did feel like a different time in there, a glossy, neon future playing industrial house, with cocktails that shone reflective in the dark. Streets let Teddy buy her one, and the bartender gave her two, then winked. It was hot inside the bar, and Streets had found a table with a single bar stool and was sitting on it with her long legs trailing like a spider.

‘I moved,’ Streets said. ‘Out of that home. Now I live around the corner from here. It’s loud as fuck,’ she said, looking deeply happy.

‘When did you move?’

‘A week ago,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a new job literally just selling backpacks not far from here, a few streets away, and I’ve gone out every night since. I had this plan to try every bar in town, but I like this one too much to go anywhere else.’ She raised her glass at the bartender, who wasn’t looking.

Teddy was tired and her arm hurt and the cocktail she shouldn’t have drunk was divine, smoky and sweet, starring a fruit that became more elusive the more she drank. The colours everywhere were a lot. A handsome man with large ears looked at Teddy in a way that made her forget why she was there for a moment, before she remembered hard, and said to Streets, ‘Was it fun? That night with Art?’

Streets laughed. ‘We had one drink in a bar and then he left. I was with him maybe fifteen minutes longer than you were. So, maybe? Depends what he did.’ She saw Teddy’s face and said, ‘I’m sorry. I heard what happened to him online. It’s not funny. I didn’t want him to die or anything. He was fun, and I thought it might have been a longer night, but it wasn’t.’

‘You weren’t with him all night?’

‘Did he say we were?’

Teddy thought back. ‘I guess I just assumed.’

‘And he just let you think that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Teddy said. ‘Maybe he didn’t say anything.’ She was sure he had, but not sure enough.

Streets looked unperturbed. ‘He said he wasn’t feeling great,’ she added. ‘It wasn’t a me thing.’

‘Of course not,’ Teddy said. ‘I mean, look at you.’

Now, in the bed, Alice looked at her long and hard. ‘Did you sleep with her?’

‘No! Of course not.’

Teddy did not make eye contact. Alice tucked herself in further and put her hands behind her head, then yawned. ‘Gosh, this is comfortable. I’m never getting up from here.’

‘It’s the truth,’ Teddy said. ‘Well. She did kiss me after a few more drinks, but I had to end things, obviously.’

‘Obviously,’ said Alice, who still did not believe her.

‘I was conflicted, all right? But I had three very good reasons: one is that she is too involved in the case, even though I don’t really believe she had anything to do with Cole dying; the second is that she’s nineteen years old, and I’m not a predator; the third is that Choker banned me from sleeping with witnesses. Also, I found out how she moved out – it wasn’t the job, though that helps. Cole, apparently, sent her a lot of money recently. The reason in the bank transfer was just “thanks, Cole”.’

‘Well, that’s a bit fucking interesting,’ Alice said. ‘What do we think about that?’

‘I wish I knew. Maybe whoever killed him did it.’

‘Or,’ Alice said, ‘she stole the money from Cole’s dad’s house, and is lying now, since Cole is too dead to send her money, but she doesn’t know that.’

‘No,’ Teddy said, shocked. ‘She wouldn’t.’ She furrowed her eyebrows and remembered Adrian’s insistence on the same, and added, ‘I mean, there’s a chance she didn’t.’

‘So,’ Alice said. ‘How does alcohol affect your medication?’

‘Poorly, I think it’s clear to see,’ Teddy said.

‘Well, you’re a fucking dumbass,’ Alice said. ‘We’ve got shit to do today, and now you’re going to feel like ass the whole time. Go have a long shower, look at yourself in the mirror, and tell yourself off. I’m not good at it.’

‘You’re pretty good at it,’ Teddy said, chastened. ‘I’m sorry. I was trying to help.’

‘By getting drunk with a teenager?’

‘She was drunk, but I only had one drink,’ Teddy pouted. ‘I drove home.’

Alice got out of the bed and smoothed down the sheets behind her. ‘That makes me genuinely angry. What if you’d crashed? You can’t be on your pain meds and drinking and driving. If you went to jail, that would fuck everything up.’

‘The case?’

‘Everything.’ Alice stared down at her. ‘All of my days, all right? Now pull yourself together. I want to talk about Nick.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I went to visit him, and then I got Rusty to see what he did after I left his house. Nick called an unknown number. This number is no longer available.’

‘Interesting,’ Teddy said.

‘And then later Rusty told me he messaged his boss, and said that I had gone to see him. His boss replied that he should just ignore me.’

‘How dare they,’ Teddy said indignantly.

‘Then he booked himself into a city hotel that evening. For three nights.’ Alice said. ‘A fucking luxe one too.’

‘So,’ Teddy said, ‘he’s running. From who?’

‘Us, I guess.’

They paused, considering.

Teddy asked, ‘Is the Chronicle paying for the hotel?

‘Are you kidding?’ Alice said. ‘Papers are tight as fuck. They don’t pay for anything anymore, let alone five-star hotels. If he didn’t clear it with his boss, then they won’t pay for it.’

‘Goddamn,’ Teddy said. She got up out of bed, wound open the window, and winced, rolling her shoulder. ‘So someone with money paid him off.’

‘And paid off Streets, too,’ Alice said. ‘So, who’s the richest person around?’

‘That,’ Teddy said, ‘would be Darwin.’

Alice said, quietly, ‘I’m going to get us both a coffee, and then we’re going to look at that list of who to talk to again. And, today, we’re going to start figuring this the fuck out properly.’