Bryson Finn hadn’t been sentimental at all. That battered bear stashed in the bottom of the carton of files and papers wasn’t a memento of his son. That bear was evidence.
Five minutes later, she was on the phone to Angie. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘You’ve changed your mind? You’re not having the termination? You’ve decided to break the family curse?’
‘Angie, please. Be serious.’
‘I am serious. I’ve given it a lot of thought.’
Curiosity drove Gemma to ask, ‘What curse?’
‘You know. Your sad mother. Your sad childhood. You and the baby can change all that. Change the family curse into a family blessing.’
‘Angie, have you flipped? What sort of blessing is it to bring a baby into my muddle? I’m going in first thing Thursday to Family Planning.’
‘I picked a friend up from there once, afterwards. You should talk to her sometime.’
‘I didn’t call to talk about this. I’ve got some information that’ll change your mind about the arrest of Jaki Hunter.’
‘Not this again! I haven’t got time to listen to your theories.’
‘I’m an informant with information, for God’s sake. I’ve discovered something
huge
about Natalie Finn. You’ve got to listen to me!’
‘I’m going. Bye.’
‘Just give me one hour. You, me, Natalie. That’s all I’m asking.
Please!
’
The next day the three of them – Gemma, Angie and Natalie – stood in the hallway of the late Bryson Finn’s family home.
‘You’d better come through, I suppose,’ said Natalie, anxiously frowning at Angie. ‘I can’t imagine why you’d want to talk to me again. I thought this whole terrible business had been concluded – at least until the trial. And that I could start getting on with my life – such as it is.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Gemma said.
Angie stood near one of the grilled windows of the living room, her eyes alert, her notebook at the ready. ‘Gemma has a few more questions – or rather answers, Natalie,’ she said, ‘that she needs to check with you.’
Gemma made herself comfortable on the edge of one of the plump armchairs, while Natalie sat in her favoured spot, the angle where the two large lounges met in an L-shape.
‘I wondered why Donovan’s bear was missing an ear,’ said Gemma. ‘And I realised why the ear had been cut off.’
‘It was so chewed,’ said Natalie shortly, ‘it probably fell off. But why on earth are you going on about a decrepit toy bear? Angie, what is this? Jaki Hunter’s been arrested. Why are you here?’
‘We believe the ear was deliberately cut off because it was chewed so badly, but not for aesthetic reasons, Natalie,’ said Angie. ‘Can you tell us why your husband might have taken that soft toy and cut one of its ears off?’
Natalie glared at Gemma then Angie in turn. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I think you should both leave.’
‘You want to tell us the truth now, Natalie?’ asked Gemma. ‘Or should I tell you what I think happened? And why it happened.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ said Natalie. ‘You’re just fishing! I used to be in the job. I know how you go. If you had anything real, I’d be sitting in a formal interview room with the clock and the video running. You are completely out of order! So don’t try this amateur bullshit on me. Setting up a trap with no information whatsoever, so that some poor unfortunate idiot gives himself away!’
‘I wouldn’t describe you that way,’ said Gemma.
Natalie made an explosive sound of frustration and anger.
‘Okay,’ Gemma continued, ‘I’ll tell you then, seeing as you’re unwilling to talk.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Natalie with palpable derision. ‘This should be very interesting.’
‘Your husband cut the ear off that bear because it would be saturated with saliva and epithelial cells from Donny’s mouth. He sent the chewed-up ear to a private lab called Genoservices that specialises in – guess what?’
Natalie’s eyes widened. Her expression of ironic superiority drained away, like the blood from her face.
‘Yes?’ Gemma prompted, aware of a movement. ‘You were about to say something?’
Natalie looked away, her hands fidgeting with a tissue she’d pulled from a nearby box.
‘I’ll make it easy for you,’ Gemma said. ‘We found a receipt in your late husband’s papers. For Genoservices. It’s a private laboratory that advertises a reasonably priced DNA test – not the full procedure necessary for the courts, but a smaller niche-market test called “peace of mind” paternity test.’
Natalie’s intake of breath was audible. For a moment she sat motionless, her expression of shocked disbelief frozen on her face.
‘Oh God,’ she said finally. ‘Oh hell. I need a drink.’
‘No problem,’ said Gemma, rising from her perch and pulling out the brandy from the liquor supplies in the glass-fronted cabinet above the small drinks refrigerator.
‘Make it strong,’ said Natalie.
Gemma did so, adding a little soda and ice, watching Natalie’s demeanour all the time. ‘Will I keep going?’ Gemma asked, bringing her the drink, ‘or do you want to take over?’
‘Why don’t you tell us the whole story, Natalie?’ Angie said, coming away from the window and sitting with her notebook on her lap.
Natalie took the drink without a word and tossed most of it back in one hit, grimacing. Then she finished what was left and handed the glass back to Gemma.
‘You’re doing so well, Gemma,’ she said bitterly. ‘You might as well keep going.’
‘I’ll get you another drink,’ said Gemma. ‘Looks like that one hardly touched the sides.’
She poured another brandy, feeling for the woman who’d lost the love of her daughter, whose frightened son still lay in hospital, and whose husband – with or without her connivance – had been murdered.
‘I wish I’d never got you involved in this in the first place,’ Natalie said, throwing a hard look Gemma’s way. ‘It was a family matter. No place for outsiders.’
‘It gives me no joy to be telling you what I’ve discovered,’ said Gemma. ‘And as to family matters, what else are these murders but a family matter? Which then becomes public. That’s how it goes in most murder cases.’
‘I didn’t know what I was saying that morning at the hospital!’ Natalie said. ‘I was distressed. I didn’t mean that you should go poking your nose into such intimate matters. The police in charge of this investigation wouldn’t have wasted any time on a toy bear with a missing ear, for Chrissake! They wouldn’t even have noticed it.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ said Angie.
‘Well, let’s hear what the private investigator has privately investigated,’ said Natalie. ‘She seems to have a gift for sniffing out sad family secrets.’
‘Only when they’re present,’ said Gemma. ‘I speak from experience.’
‘Okay, you two,’ said Angie. ‘Take it easy. I think you should tell us, Natalie. After all, it’s your story.’
Natalie briefly covered her face with her hands before taking them away and running her fingers through her hair in a gesture that was becoming familiar. ‘I always knew, somehow, that this would come out,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what it’s been like, living with this.’
The terrible, terrible thing, thought Gemma, that Natalie had so deeply regretted. A life of deception.
‘Who’s Donovan’s father, Natalie?’ Angie asked.
‘None of your business!’
‘It’s a tired old line,’ said Angie, putting her notebook aside and standing up, ‘but in a murder inquiry, everything’s my business.’
‘I know who the father is,’ said Gemma.
Both women stared at her.
‘Come on, Angie,’ said Gemma. ‘I’m sure you’ve worked it out by now too.’
‘I haven’t worked anything out just yet,’ snapped Angie. ‘I’m still not convinced that this discovery of yours has any bearing on the case.’
Natalie’s eyes turned towards Gemma in an appeal.
‘Your two families used to be thick as thieves,’ Gemma said. ‘You used to go away on holidays together. Until the row over that lottery ticket.’
Natalie sighed, the fight draining out of her. ‘It was a crazy night ten years ago. Everyone had too much to drink. And I became really jealous about the way Bryson was carrying on with Susie Galleone.’
Jealousy again, Gemma thought.
‘I ended up having sex with Dan,’ Natalie continued, her voice almost a whisper. ‘On the beach, like a pair of kids.’ She turned away, looking over her shoulder as if recalling a fleeting dream. ‘Next morning, I regretted it so badly.’
Gemma recalled her behaviour in the front seat of Mike’s car and was happy when Natalie’s voice continued.
‘So I was actually relieved when the dispute over the lottery ticket happened shortly after. It gave me a legitimate reason for not seeing the Galleones any more. I felt so ashamed of myself.’
Natalie placed her glass decisively on the coffee table. ‘Better not have any more to drink. It’s already affecting my brain.’
She curled up again in her corner, hugging one of the large silk cushions. ‘I never thought I’d end up getting pregnant! Jade was already nearly eight. Bryson certainly didn’t want any more children. Neither did I. So when I found myself pregnant a few weeks later, I didn’t know what to do. I thought of having a termination.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ asked Gemma, intensely interested.
‘Not sure now. Like I said, neither of us wanted another child. Bryson already had those other two from his first marriage and I was starting my career in law. But somehow, when it came to it .
.
.’ Natalie shrugged. ‘I just couldn’t do it. Must have been the hormones or something. Even Bryson came round too. He never knew about the incident on the beach.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘He doted on Donny. And then to find out that .
.
.’ Her voice faded away. ‘He’d been brooding over something for a while. I’d catch him staring at me or Donny in a really odd way. Donny’s like me; there’s nothing of the Finns in his face.’
‘That’s what the fight was about at the Police Association dinner,’ said Gemma. ‘Galleone probably threw it in his face. That he’d had sex with you. Because Bryson had stuffed up Galleone’s chances of that promotion, good and proper, with the sexual harassment claim put in by Leanne Morrison. This was his revenge.’
‘I was so worried that Bryson suspected. I do remember that he came home from that dinner pissed and in a foul mood,’ she said. ‘But then he’d been that way for some time. I kept asking him what was wrong but he wouldn’t tell me. We ended up having a fight. I thought it had something to do with the other woman. We hadn’t been getting on at all well the last year or so. Then not long after that I walked in on him and Jade having a terrible row. They both shut up when they saw me. After that, Bryson moved out of the house.’
‘You told us you’d thrown him out,’ Angie reminded her.
‘No one likes to admit to being left,’ she said. ‘At any rate, I don’t. But I was very relieved he was going. The tension had been unbearable. I was going through a very difficult time at work and I’d come home to him .
.
.’ her lip trembled and her voice wobbled, ‘.
.
. prowling around, smouldering through the place.’
‘Jade had seen the photograph of her father and Jaki Hunter in the
Police Service Weekly
,’ Gemma said. ‘She’s a smart kid and she worked out what was going on. She accused her father in that fight. She’d noticed the Venetian glass heart Jaki was wearing; it was identical in colouring to the beads he’d bought for her and you. And Bettina.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Natalie exploded. ‘His fucking harem! We all get practically the same little trophy from the sultan!’ She jumped up in pain and rage. ‘And to think I was in the shop with him, helping him choose different pieces in that gold leaf range!’
Natalie picked up her glass and poured herself another brandy. ‘I remember pointing out those glass hearts. I probably chose the damn thing his bloody girlfriend was wearing!’ Her face crinkled and she sobbed. It took her some time to regain some poise, but even with the new brandy, it didn’t last long. ‘That’s so typical of Bryson! He just wouldn’t know how much something like that would hurt me. He never did.’
‘It would have hurt Jade too,’ said Gemma. ‘I believe she forced him to admit the affair with Jaki. Remember you used the word “cowering” about his behaviour when you came in on the tail end of the fight?’
‘But why does she hate me so much? What have I done?’ asked Natalie.
‘You’ll have to ask her,’ said Gemma. ‘But it’s pretty clear she’s sensed the deceit and intrigue in the atmosphere.’
She’d promised to bring Jade home to Natalie, Gemma thought, but instead she’d facilitated the girl’s flight north and it was time for her to come clean.
‘I can tell you that Jade’s gone to stay with some friends in Byron Bay,’ she said.
‘Byron?’ Natalie frowned. ‘The Lawrences? Why would she go up there?’
In the ensuing silence, Gemma drew out her copy of the
I think he knows
letter.
‘And you wrote this?’ she asked, holding it up. ‘We found this in Bryson’s papers too.’
Natalie glared at the note and tossed the remains of the third drink down. ‘He must have intercepted it. I wrote that to Dan Galleone. I wanted to talk to him, tell him that I thought Bryson had found out about our little indiscretion of a decade ago. I thought I’d left it in the stationery box. When I went to post it, I couldn’t find it and thought I must have done it already.’
‘Does Galleone know Donovan is his son?’
Natalie fixed Gemma with a hard stare. ‘Donny is
my
son,’ she said. ‘That’s all that matters to me. And it doesn’t matter to me very much which of those two men fathered Donny. It’s three minutes’ work.’
‘Three minutes’ work that could matter a great deal to both men,’ said Gemma. ‘Your husband loved and supported Donny for nine years.’
Again, Natalie’s face crinkled. ‘I know,’ she cried. ‘And then it was all taken away from him. He obviously found out, and then before we could even talk about it, before I could even –’
She broke off and threw a hard look at Gemma. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ she said. ‘I’m not hanging round here any more answering your questions. Send me your bill and I’ll pay it as soon as I can.’
‘You want me off the case?’
‘You should never have been on it. None of this would have come out.’
Gemma supposed that in a back-handed way this was a compliment.
‘I’d better not drive,’ Natalie stated. ‘Angie, can I get a lift with you to the hospital?’
Angie raised an inquiring eyebrow at Gemma. ‘I’m not going in that direction, but perhaps Gemma could drop you on her way home.’
And so once more Gemma found herself taking the now almost familiar road from Lane Cove to the hospital. During the drive, she felt the atmosphere change as Natalie’s bristling defensiveness evaporated.
‘I’m sorry I abused you,’ said Natalie. ‘I was out of order. It was the shock.’
Gemma merely nodded.
•
A few moments later, she’d dropped Natalie off and was just pulling away when she saw Findlay Finn, head down, walking quickly out of the hospital entrance.
‘Findlay!’ she called, stopping her car in a highly illegal bay. He came over to stand near the window, hands in his pockets, his face wary.
‘You didn’t call,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it polite to ring a man and say thanks for a lovely evening?’
‘How’s Donny?’ Gemma asked.
‘He’s a lot better. He’s not a bad kid, actually. I never could see why Bettina doted on him before. But he likes painting, he told me.’