Authors: Ainslie Paton
“Nat.”
“I've got to go.” She pointed at a bench outside the station. “If you have to be here, sit there and don't talk to anyone. Pretend you're a blind, deaf mute.”
Foley sat, she nurtured her hunger and her anxiety and watched Nat work, making and taking phone calls. Neither of them had lunch, though Nat probably could've eaten. She phoned an update to Gabriella's voicemail, left another message for Hugh, kept up with work email on her phone.
People with everyday business in the station went in and out the sliding glass doors with curious over the shoulder glances at the waiting media. Foley didn't leave the bench seat. She didn't talk to anyone. She especially avoided Toby. And she prepared herself for the worst by hoping for the best.
Checking Toshber's teeth was a reflex. A useful distraction from the doubt and horror Drum had seen in Foley's eyes during that frantic, loud moment when they brought him inside the station. Coming to watch his downfall was fitting, but that didn't match the expression on her face. She didn't look triumphant. He'd felt her fear and shock as if they were a physical force, a king hit. It almost stuck him to the spot. He knew he had to keep a lid on how it distressed him, so he checked Toshber's rabbit teeth for lipstick and was oddly disappointed not to find any coloured stains.
It was useful to note her ankles were still thick and Pagonis's jaw was still stubble dark, though it was relatively early in the day.
“Did you sleep well, Drum? We have a big day ahead of us.”
He'd barely closed his eyes. He'd dared not return to the cave and the floor of the foyer was intolerably hard, his dreams more than unusually unsettling. He watched Toshber arrange a bunch of files on the desk. Her grey roots were showing down her centre part. It was hard to imagine what she hadn't seen on the streets, in interview rooms like this, in courts and jails. She was a reasonable person; everything about her suggested she expected to have a shitty day.
“Here's what's going to happen. We're going to talk again like we did yesterday. It might be that you remember things differently after a good sleep. You might want to share what you remember with us and we'll take it from there. Do you understand?”
He understood he'd taken Foley's trust and compassion and made a funeral pyre of them. “I understand, but I'm not aware of any repressed memories surfacing overnight.”
She laughed. “For an unemployed homeless guy, you sure have a mouth on you.” She slid a photograph across the table. “Do you know this woman?”
And now the flame was lit. A lie would make this go easier. It was the woman from the park, the one he'd seen wandering through the sculptures, same as he'd been doing. If he wasn't careful the vultures would have all of him. “I've seen that woman. That's the extent of my knowing her.”
Toshber tapped a blunt fingernail on the photo. “Where?”
“In Marks Park.”
“You met her there?”
“Met implies something organised.” He looked from Toshber to Pagonis, trying to read their moods. “We were there at the same time. But so were thousands of other people, looking at sculpture.”
“How many times have you seen this woman?”
He shrugged, it wasn't like he'd counted. “A couple of times while the sculpture walk was on, then once on the day it was being packed up and trucked away.”
“Did the two of you talk?”
“No.”
“You didn't exchange remarks about the sculptures or the weather?”
“No.”
“Yet you remember seeing this woman there. What made you notice her?”
“She wore bright clothing, flyaway fabrics. Most people come to the park in workout gear or shorts and t's or directly from the beach.”
“You noticed she looked different.”
“Yes.”
“Did you like the way she looked?”
Drum folded his arms, sitting back further into the chair. Toshber's questions were designed to trip him up. “I wasn't thinking anything about the way she looked.”
“But you remembered her.”
“Yes.” More's the pity.
“How many times would you say you ran into each other during the event?”
“We didn't run into each other.”
“How would you characterise it?”
“As unimportant, irrelevant.” And now an enormous nuisance, or an opportunity.
Pagonis leaned forward and opened his mouth for the first time. “You think this is funny?”
Drum thought it was a form of torture, because outside the woman he loved was waiting to have his culpability for a hateful crime confirmed. “No.”
Toshber took over. “Okay, tell us about how you met on the day the removal was happening?”
“What is it that you want to know?”
“Oh, don't be like that,” she shook her head and gave a noisy sigh. “We were getting along so well there. I want you to tell me how you met.”
“There was no handshake, no exchange of names.”
“So, she didn't ask if you were Drum, the man from the cave?”
He was caught on that technicality. “Yes.”
“Are you changing your story? You're saying you did meet after all?” said Pagonis.
Drum eyeballed Pagonis. “I haven't told you any stories. And I don't intend to. I don't consider what happened to be the definition of a meeting. I was watching a group of protestors.”
Toshber jumped in. “Protestors. What were they protesting?”
He smiled. “Me.”
“Sorry, I'm lost. You were watching a group of people protest against you.”
“Yes. Specifically a guy called Walter Lam being interviewed by the paper while his group stood about in front of a protest sign.”
Toshber and Pagonis exchanged a look that wasn't from any cop playbook, it was pure amusement.
“And you weren't worried they'd know you were there?” Toshber said, struggling to keep a smile off her face.
“I was careful. They were busy being important and for all the fuss about me, there've only been snatched, blurry photos on phone cameras. I believe the paper made a decision not to make things worse by printing my picture.”
“What happened?”
“I watched Walter give an interview. When I'd had enough of that I turned to leave the park. The woman in the photo was standing behind me. She spoke to me. I don't recall answering her.”
“Why wouldn't you answer her?” said Pagonis.
“Because I'm a scary guy who lives in a cave. I'm not out there to make friends. I'm not exactly sociable.”
“You referred to yourself as scary. Did you scare her, Drum?”
He couldn't possibly have scared her and he knew how to do that. He'd scared Foley in a dozen different ways. “I walked past her. I barely glanced at her.”
Toshber consulted her file. “You didn't ask her to buy you coffee?”
“No.”
“You didn't ask her to meet you at the cave?”
“No.”
From out of the file came a book. It had a torn cover, it was scuffed but it was also still clean enough to be relatively new, as though it had been deliberately roughed up. “Is this your book?”
Of Mice and Men
. “My copy was a hardcover. It had pencil notes written in the margins.”
“Where is your copy?”
“I burned it. It was torn apart and there was no point keeping it.”
“Convenient,” said Pagonis. “You said your cave got ransacked. When did this happen? Is that when your books got wrecked?”
He told them about finding the cave torn up, remembering how that was the night Foley stayed to watch the sunrise, to lean on his shoulder and fall asleep.
“Did you tell anyone about this?” Same question as yesterday.
“No.” Same lie on a technicality.
Toshber pulled a folded shirt from the folder. “Is this yours?” She shook it out and it brought a rank smell of sweat and sourness into the room.
It was a nondescript grey t-shirt, not far different from the one he was wearing but stained and filthy, as if it'd been dragged through mud, sprayed with liquid garbage and never washed. It was about four sizes too small. He didn't need to tell them it wouldn't fit.
Pagonis stood up and made a show of stretching. “Here's what we think happened. You met Alison, the woman in the photo, at Marks Park several times. You struck up a conversation, you drank coffee together, had a laugh. On the day the sculptures were shipped out you invited her back to your cave. You're two consenting adults. You make out, but when she says no to something more, you force yourself on her, you strike her. You threaten her with further violence and you tell her you'll throw her over the cliff if she screams.”
It could've occurred like that, so easily, a plausible story. “That never happened.”
“We think you attacked and assaulted Alison.”
From tiny truths the construction of a huge lie, but it wasn't his book, or his shirt, and Foley had been with him that night. It was the first night he'd fed her. “I barely acknowledged this woman. I never invited her to the cave. To my knowledge she never went there. That's not my book or my shirt. She's not telling the truth.”
Toshber snapped her fingers to make him look at her. “Why would she lie?”
“Why does anyone?”
That's not what they expected him to say.
Toshber packed away the shirt, book and photo. Pagonis opened the door and they both left without a word.
He was in deep trouble. But they hadn't charged him. So far it was just talk. He stood and walked around the interview room, circling the table. Had he brought this down on himself, was this part of what he deserved for his other crimes? Was it wrong to fight it?
There was something unstable about a woman who'd accuse a stranger of attacking her, hurting her, and fabricating evidence. She needed help. He had to trust the cops were smart enough to work that out; that they didn't intend to make an example out of him. He needed to keep his head on straight.
They left him for a long time. He might've worn a groove in the floor. They came back with coffee and a sandwich. Then they put him in a line-up. Six other guys, his height and build, dressed down to match. He could've said no. Could've asked for a lawyer. But a positive identification barely mattered. Anyone could've worked out he was the caveman.
He had a decision to make. He could fight this with the kind of force that would tear the life of his accuser apart, expose her secrets and motives and reveal his innocence in this. Or he could let things take their course. Offer himself up.
Back in the small interview room, he paced again, and considered his alternatives. Before he'd found the cave, he'd argued culpability and been denied it, he'd asked for punishment and was given absolution instead. Did it matter if retribution came finally from the wrong source?
It wasn't even a coin toss. If they charged him he'd let it stand. He was guilty of so much worse, it hardly mattered that the details weren't correct. After all this time delivering his own handmade justice, the idea of handing himself over to professionals should've been a relief. And it was in so many ways. He felt the rightness of it, but still regret like heartburn twisted in his chest because he'd lost the chance to explain himself to the one person who'd looked at him and instead of seeing foulness, saw something worth her time and care.
Midafternoon Nat stood over Foley. “How many homeless guys do you reckon have access to a multimillion dollar beachside home?”
Foley kept her eyes down. “You want me to play twenty questions?”
“I want you to tell me what you know.”
Nat might've rescued her from Toby, but Foley wasn't interrogation free. “I did. Drum said someone he knew owned it and let him stay there.”
Nat made a noise of disgust and sat beside her.
“What was that for?”
“You let that stand. You didn't think to ask about it.”
Foley sighed. “I was sick. The hail apocalypse arrived. It occurred to me we'd broken in, but I trusted him when he said we hadn't.” Nat repeated her annoyed snort. “I'm sorry if that doesn't get me my junior scoop badge.”
“You went to an empty mansion with a homeless guy you hardly know. I never thought you'd be so stupid. It could be you in there trying to prove you were assaulted.”
Foley looked away, out towards the road where traffic moved. People going about their day like normal. Sitting here, waiting to see if the man she loved was a violent criminal, wasn't any kind of less ordinary she'd imagined.
“That house is owned by a trust, like your bloody Beeton house. Can't tell who's behind it, but I'm working on it.” Nat's phone rang and she stepped away to answer it, and Foley tried to distract herself with email, pretending to work, but she had the concentration span of a hangnail.
She turned her face up to the sun and tried to find a way to fault Drum's behaviour towards her. After that one scary incident he'd been nothing but gallant, and even though she'd needled him by prodding at his silence, by testing his limits, she'd felt nothing but cared for, cherished and respected, yet he was inside that station being questioned about a shocking crime.
When Nat came back, Foley tensed for another reprimand, avoiding eye contact. Nat kicked off a shoe and picked it up. Its sole was cracked, the heel loose. It was a skinned knee, a headfirst roll down stairs, a broken foot waiting to happen. Nat poked at the heel, prodding it back in line. “I liked these shoes.” She put the shoe back on.
There was no saving the shoe. “Time to move on,” Foley said, her voice fracturing.
Nat bumped her shoulder. “It's just a shoe, Scoop.”
Foley nodded, not trusting herself to speak without blubbering. They both knew she wasn't talking about footwear.
Nat leaned in. “Don't get too excited, but there's something not right about Alison.”