‘Mrs Harris?’
Annabel looks up from her magazine. Takes a moment to focus. It’s a woman. Short hair, freckles. Late twenties or early thirties, perhaps? Her clothes look more suited to an office than a hospital: fitted black trouser suit, white shirt with a frill down the front, flat stylish shoes.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbles, quickly putting down the magazine. ‘I didn’t hear the door. Must have been half asleep.’
It’s been a week now. A haze of sleep deprivation and too much time spent in this room.
‘Detective Sergeant Brien,’ the woman says, holding out her hand. ‘I was wondering if I could have a word?’
‘Of course.’ Annabel stands up to make the handshake. ‘Actually, I could do with a change of scene ... Should we try the café downstairs?’
While they’re in the lift together, the detective makes enquiries about Jarrod’s condition and Annabel wearily relays what Dr Chan has said: it’s a matter of waiting, being patient, taking each day on its own merits.
The café is full, so they order take-away coffees and sit on one of the garden benches.
‘Mrs Harris, I’m here today to give you an update on our investigation,’ the detective begins. ‘We assumed that your husband received what he thought was a call-out to the warehouse. We’ve checked his phone history for the days prior, focusing on incoming calls. Next we looked at location data to see which of those numbers were in the vicinity of the warehouse at the approximate time of the assault.’
Annabel listens carefully. The coffee has made her feel less sluggish. ‘You mean you’ve used GPS?’
‘Not all phones have GPS enabled, but we can usually establish an approximate location by looking at signals from the handset to the local base station.’
‘And did you find any suspicious calls?’
‘We believe we’ve identified the relevant phone number, yes. A ten-dollar prepaid sim that looks like it was used for one single phone call. We’re currently tracking down the paperwork at time of purchase.’ She anticipates Annabel’s next question and expands, ‘Evidence of identity is required, unless paying by credit or debit card.’
‘So you’re saying we should be able to find out who did this? We just need to find out who bought the sim?’
The detective smiles ruefully. ‘It’s rarely that straightforward. There are ways of getting around the identification process: false IDs, et cetera. But the fact that the call was made from a prepaid is a warning bell. It implies the assault wasn’t something that happened in the heat of the moment ...’
Annabel’s stomach lurches. ‘You’re saying someone planned to hurt Jarrod?’
‘What I need to know from you, Mrs Harris, is who Jarrod’s enemies are. Does he have any clients who’re engaged in illegal activities? Has he recently fallen out with any circumspect friends? Has there been anything unusual about the past few weeks?’ The detective’s eyes are earnest. ‘I need total honesty here. If you know something, or even have a slight suspicion, I want to hear about it.’
Annabel leaves the hospital shortly afterwards. Her head is spinning. Someone planned to do this to Jarrod.
The traffic is relatively light and she is home in less than ten minutes. The house is quiet; Jemma must have gone out. Mia and Daniel aren’t due home from school for another hour. Annabel should have a shower, a decent meal, even a nap ... but the same urgency that drove her out of the hospital propels her to the study, where Jarrod keeps his business paperwork.
‘Did someone owe you money?’ she mutters, opening the drawers of the filing cabinet. ‘Or was it you who owed them?’
She scans each file, paying particular attention to recent correspondence, finding nothing. Some overdue amounts, yes, but nothing significant enough to warrant this kind of action.
If this wasn’t about the business, then what was it about? Annabel moves to the bedroom. She checks the pockets of Jarrod’s jeans and jackets, then his bedside drawer, where he tends to throw loose change and receipts.
The detective made blunt enquiries about Jarrod’s – and Annabel’s own – fidelity.
‘Is it possible this is a love affair gone wrong?’
‘No!’ Annabel cried. ‘I know he works long hours, but I’m pretty sure that’s all he’s been doing.’
She didn’t mention the message from Melissa. It was a photograph of a puppy, for God’s sake, hardly evidence of a raging love affair.
Then she remembered Zach, dishevelled and shaken, convinced that Jarrod’s accident was related in some way to the reunion.
‘There is something. A twenty-year school reunion. It’s been getting rather nasty ...’
The detective asked a torrent of questions: who was organising the reunion, had Jarrod been acting strangely about it, and the names and phone numbers of everyone who’d received messages.
But if this is really about the reunion, why didn’t Jarrod get an email or a note? He’d been the epicentre of all the boys at school, just like Annabel had been the epicentre of the girls. It sounds vain to say that everything revolved around both of them, but it’s true.
Annabel shuts the bedside drawer. She’s drawn to the window. The sky is blue and cloudless, yet something about the lighting makes the day seem overcast. Lack of sleep is tinting everything, even the sunlight. Jarrod’s van is parked on the grass verge, the front wheels turned slightly out, as though waiting for its owner to jump on board. Tom was kind enough to drive it back from the warehouse after the accident. Annabel wonders if the police will want to have a closer look at it, given their recent suspicions. Then she remembers: sometimes Jarrod leaves paperwork in the van.
She hurries downstairs, locates the keys, and almost runs outside, having no idea why she is suddenly in such a rush. She opens the passenger door and finds a considerable amount of paperwork lying on the seat. Invoices payable. Receipts. Electrical plans. Some of Mia’s drawings. Then a sheet of paper typed in an all-too-familiar format.
Name: Jarrod Harris
Highest achievement at school: Sports captain.
What you do now: Electrician. Self-employed.
Highlights of last twenty years: Been a hard slog, hasn’t it? Ever wondered if there would have been more ‘highlights’ with Melissa?
Lowlights: The day your own son punched you in the face? Or maybe it was the night he got wasted and beaten up in Manly?
Deepest fears: That Daniel will be the undoing of everything.
So, Jarrod received a note too and neglected to tell her about it. Annabel’s knees are shaking; she needs to sit down. She pulls herself into the van and curls forward, her head in her hands.
How on earth does this person know about the row in the restaurant? How do they know about Daniel getting beaten up? Everyone in school knew about Jarrod and Melissa, so no mystery there, yet this is where Annabel’s thoughts become snagged. Fucking Melissa. Why did she send Jarrod a photograph of her dog? What has been going on? Is Melissa, or Jarrod, trying to rewrite their story? Jarrod committed himself to Annabel and their unborn baby. He never once, in any argument or disagreement since, implied that he regretted his choice. But Annabel can’t help wondering if he would have been happier with Melissa. And would Annabel herself have been happier with someone else? How can she even ask these questions sitting outside their home, a house they built together, the place where they’ve reared their children?
Annabel wipes away her tears with the heel of her hand. She is overwrought and exhausted to the point of feeling ill. This is why she is sitting in her husband’s van having a breakdown, in full view of the neighbours. She will take a photo of the note and send it to the detective. First, she’ll go inside and at least have a shower before the children get home from school.
She turns to open the door and is startled by the sight of a face pressed against the glass.
‘Mum?’ It’s Jemma. She’s holding some grocery bags.
Annabel opens the door and swings herself down to the ground. She turns her head so Jemma won’t see her tear-streaked face.
‘What are you doing in Dad’s van?’ her daughter asks suspiciously.
Annabel waves the sheet of paper. ‘Finding evidence for the detective ... They suspect that the assault on your father was planned in advance.’
Jemma is visibly taken aback. ‘What? Can I see?’
Annabel hesitates, unsure if she should share this burden with her daughter, and even more unsure if she can cope with Jemma asking questions about Melissa. Jemma is aware that her conception wasn’t planned but has been led to believe it was a pleasant surprise, something her parents were thrilled about – once they’d got over the shock! Jemma may be technically an adult, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be deeply upset by the knowledge that Jarrod had been in a different relationship at the time, and the obvious truth that there had been no ‘pleasant surprise’.
‘Sorry, love. The police will probably want to take fingerprints. Best not to touch.’
‘I can read it without touching,’ she insists.
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Annabel says, more harshly than intended.
She takes a few steps towards the house, in the hope that Jemma will follow and drop the issue. No such luck. The shopping bags are on the ground, her arms are folded; Jemma’s not budging.
‘Why can’t you tell me what’s going on?’
Annabel pauses and reconsiders. Jemma is nineteen going on twenty. She deserves some sort of explanation.
‘It’s to do with the reunion. You know how we were planning on having an updated yearbook?’ Jemma nods. Annabel has mentioned it before on several occasions. ‘Well, some of us had updates written for us, containing quite sensitive information. At the start it seemed like someone was playing a joke, but the messages got nastier and nastier. One of the avenues being investigated by the police is if your father’s assault has anything to do with the person writing the fake yearbook entries ...’
Jemma looks stunned, her mouth agape, and Annabel immediately regrets being so candid. Jemma is at that weird stage of life, an adult by law but still incredibly vulnerable and easily upset. Annabel was mother to a toddler at the age Jemma is now. Her heart breaks a little every time she thinks about her teenage self and how quickly her youth and vulnerability got left behind.
‘What happened to Dad has nothing to do with the yearbook entries ... The police need to look for the real culprit.’
Annabel takes a moment to process what her daughter has said, and another moment to hear – and question – the certainty in her tone.
‘The police are investigating a number of avenues, the reunion being one of them,’ she reiterates. ‘Come on, let’s go inside and have a cup of tea.’
But once again, Jemma isn’t budging. She looks Annabel squarely in the face.
‘It was us, Mum. Me and Daniel.’
‘What?’
‘We were stoned one night and thought it would be funny. You’re always harping on about your school days, how you were school captain and super popular, so we thought we’d send you an “update” on how you’re doing today, bring you down to size ... It was incredibly immature, I’m sorry ...’
Annabel can feel her legs go from under her. Jemma’s words repeat themselves. Stoned. Popular. Immature. She grabs at the porch wall to steady herself.
‘No ... You couldn’t ... It’s not ...’
‘We did.’ Jemma is adamant. ‘It was us. Daniel and me.’