The Fourth Season (12 page)

Sam half stood up, grinned and raised two fingers. I followed his line of sight, but didn't recognise the middle-aged man who greeted him in return.

I said quickly, ‘I heard Ben had a local girlfriend.'

‘I wouldn't know about that. Ben's private life was his business.'

I thanked Sam for talking to me and we said goodbye.

Fifteen

The door to the dive shop in Lonsdale Street stood wide open, and through it walked a small man with a goatee beard and pony tail, carrying a rack of sale-priced wetsuits, which he set up on the footpath. As I turned towards the door, he glanced at me and said, ‘Be with you in a minute.'

Security cameras had been fitted both at the front and back of the shop, which sold every kind of diving accessory imaginable. My eye was caught by some fancy weight belts with pockets full of lead shot. PADI certificates on a wall declared that Roger Stanton was qualified to instruct other divers as well as to teach children. Australian certificates declared that he was commercially qualified to level three. A small photograph in the corner of one identified Roger Stanton as the goatee man.

‘Good morning,' I said, as he came up behind me.

When Stanton asked how he could help me, I told him I needed a new face mask.

‘These ones just came in.'

Stanton led me to display shelves where a glossy tag caught my eye, promising that Orion masks would provide a two hundred per cent increase in my field of vision. A useful asset at this point. I noted the price, which would set me back a couple of week's groceries.

‘Perhaps something a little less expensive,' I said.

There were rows and rows of masks. Stanton demonstrated a selection with the carefully controlled expression of someone understanding that he was dealing with a customer who, if she bought anything at all, would buy at the bottom of the range.

I picked a mask at random and rummaged in my wallet, hoping I had enough cash since I didn't want to use a card.

‘Do you find it frustrating living here?' I asked, folding my receipt. ‘I mean, there can't be many diving opportunities in Lake Burley Griffin.'

Stanton inclined his head and bared his teeth a fraction. ‘There's a farm-house and racetrack underneath the lake,' he said.

‘Have you been down there?'

‘A few times. It would make a better dive if the water was clear.'

‘What about the south coast?'

‘The south coast? Great for diving.' Stanton looked me up and down. ‘If you're interested in scuba lessons, I can give you a good price.'

When I asked where he taught, he replied, ‘In a swimming pool to start with. Half of successful diving is confidence, you know. Most people don't know they have it till they try. And they won't develop it unless they can trust their teacher.'

I waited. Now was the moment for Stanton to tell me about losing one of his valued instructors to a homicidal maniac. He didn't.

‘Do you have a brochure—something with prices and dates?'

Stanton produced one and I pretended to look over it.

‘I don't know how I'd go, though I do enjoy snorkelling.'

‘How far can you swim?'

‘Oh, I swim regularly. I love it. It says here concession holders $270. Does that include students? I'm thinking of my son.'

‘Where does he go to school? We have special rates for school groups.'

‘What about university students?'

‘If they have a valid card, they can claim a concession.'

‘Do you get many?'

‘Uni students? No.'

‘When people sign up for the south coast, do they have to make their own way there? I'm not fond of driving.'

‘There's a company Toyota that can seat eight people. It's all in the brochure.'

I thanked Stanton and waved it as I said goodbye.

. . .

I bumped into Brook's girlfriend Sophie as I was walking to the bus stop. Her relaxed holiday air reminded me that there were places to go, states of mind to aim for, another way of life than this hunkering down to a bitter year in Canberra.

Sophie's greeting was friendly. She asked if I had time for a coffee. My face must have shown my anxiety, because she smiled and told me calmly, ‘Whatever it is can wait.' I imagined her saying the same thing to Brook.

We sat at an outside table opposite Glebe Park. As I watched Sophie reaching for the sugar I wondered how she could spend so much time with Brook and yet retain her calm. But I knew why. I knew it was because she accepted his leukemia, and had from the day they'd met. She accepted that the disease might arrive again, any week or month, knocking on the door like a guest you were sighing with relief to have gotten rid of. She accepted it, not in fits and starts and angry rushes, like I did, and not like Brook himself, but completely.

When Brook and Sophie were together—the few times I'd watched them together—this calm lay over Brook's restless, striving surface like soft, raked sand.

Sophie stirred her coffee gracefully. I hoped she wasn't going to offer me sympathy, and felt that, if she did, I'd gulp my drink and go.

But Sophie had something to tell me. She'd seen me with Don Fletcher. ‘I was just passing by, and I saw the two of you through Tossollini's window.'

I waited, surprised, wondering what was coming.

‘I know Don, you see. Or at least I used to know him. We worked together in PM&C. Of course that's going back a long while. Don knew about global warming way back then. He used to talk about it. He was practically a lone voice. Well, in that department he definitely was.'

I listened, thinking, she's told Brook—well, why wouldn't she? Sophie's told Brook and he's put two and two together. That's why he's so pissed off about the car.

Sophie's expression was reflective, slightly puzzled.

‘Don moved across to Environment and I left to get married. We lost touch, but I remember him as dedicated and sincere. I was shocked when I heard that he'd been sacked.'

Canberra was a small town for gossip. A small town for bumping into people, spotting them through the glass fronts of coffee shops. I realised it was a bad idea to have met Don in public, and wondered why he'd been so keen; he'd practically insisted on it.

Under her politeness and reluctance to push, Sophie was warning me. She wasn't used to subterfuge, and I watched her battling with it. Sophie had always been friendly to me and had seemed to like me. I'd never been sure if this was genuine, or a front. Now I thought I knew. Sophie was a sincere person, who did not want to see me getting into trouble. I might have told her I was already in practically over my head.

When I asked what else she knew of Don, Sophie shook her head, but then said she'd heard he'd been suffering from depression.

‘Depression?'

‘Some sort of mental instability.'

‘Did you ever meet Don's brother, Cameron?'

Sophie frowned at the change of tack, then her expression cleared. ‘Now you mention it, he did used to talk about an older brother. The impression I got was that he—Don, I mean—was rather in awe of him.'

I wondered whether Sophie believed Ivan capable of murder, if she was keeping an open mind about this. Sophie didn't know Ivan. She'd only met him twice. She might assume he was innocent until proven guilty. On the other hand, she might assume the worst.

With Brook, Sophie was playing for keeps. I reminded myself that she had every right to do this, that Brook and I had had our chance at the end of the summer before last, and that both of us, for different reasons, had walked away from it.

. . .

Back home, I made coffee the way I like it, with milk heated in the microwave and cinnamon sprinkled on the top. I listened to the house creaking and settling as it warmed towards the middle of the day, to not so great a temperature now. I was glad to be alone, glad to sit in my office with the windows open, to think of my children underneath their teachers' watchful eyes.

I sipped my coffee and typed in the Lonsdale Street shop's web address from the bottom of the brochure.

The site was extensive, with lots of good quality photographs, and a whole section on dive trips. Wreck dives seemed to be a speciality. The
Northern Firth
, off Bawley Point on the south coast, was described as a great beginners' dive and ‘an unforgettable experience'. But it was two scuttled tugs off Merimbula, further south near the Victorian border, that caught and held my eye; the barnacle-covered hull of the
Tasman Hawler
; followed by impressively athletic divers gathered round the
Henry Bolte
, hobnobbing with the fish before lunch on the deck of the dive boat.

Sun shone on white wood fresh from a painter's brush. The sea and sky were blue. Smiling faces and a table covered with food had a thanksgiving air. But one face was rotting as I studied it. How many others had seen what I was seeing, and drawn their own conclusions from it? Was it a mistake, an oversight, that the photo was still up there?

I counted the people round the table. Nine altogether, plus whoever had been behind the camera. Ben Sanderson was not among them. There weren't any names, but I had no doubt that the most attractive of the young women was Laila Fanshaw.

I printed out the page and underlined the date. Then I continued moving slowly through the site, without coming across any more shots that included Laila. Roger Stanton's pointed teeth and goatee seemed to advance towards me from the home page. He was referred to as the manager; Cameron Fletcher was the owner.

There'd been a piece in the paper a few days ago, about how the steps to Jindabyne's old Catholic church had been exposed by the drought, by the receding water. Cameron's name jumped out from the website just like those church steps. I stared at it, unable to shake the feeling that the website might lead me to a secret place, a room within a room which held the clue to Laila's murder, and possibly Ben Sanderson's as well.

. . .

Ivan came in looking dishevelled and noticeably thinner. Ivan never though about his weight. He ate or didn't eat, according to whether food was placed in front of him, and whether he felt hungry. Forced to cook, he would produce either a three course meal or toasted sandwiches, depending on his mood. Unlike many people with a tendency to fat, he didn't diet, plan diets, break them, then feel guilty and make another plan. This whole cycle was so foreign to him that any suggestion that he ought to cut down, or get more exercise, was met with incomprehension.

But now he'd lost weight, and, as each day passed, he was losing more. I put more effort than I usually did into preparing dinner. Kat and Peter helped me.

The evening newsreader declared that there'd been no breakthrough in either murder investigation. The search for weapons had been extended. The police weren't talking about what exactly they were looking for, but I thought I could make a reasonable guess. Hard sunlight on the lake seemed to penetrate to an unlikely depth, but the searchers came up, time after time, empty-handed. A close-up of a face through a diving mask looked grim.

I wondered again whether Ben Sanderson's killer had got rid of the weapon in the nearest stretch of water, or taken it with him. I realised I was thinking of one killer, not two: that was the way I'd been thinking since first hearing the news about Dickson Pool. I considered how the murderer had planned this second death, observing and learning Sanderson's jogging route, working out each step. He would expect the police to search the immediate area and then along the most direct route to the pool. He could have stopped off along Mundaring, or Bowen Drive, to dispose of the weapon, which would have taken him very close to where Laila's body had been found.

Perhaps the spot had drawn him. But he might have gone the other way, a few hundred metres in a direction the police
wouldn't
expect him to take.

Peter went off to his room to do his home work, and Ivan ran Katya a bath. Ivan had always bathed his daughter when she was a baby, and something of the ritual hung on, though it had been in abeyance lately. Though Kat showered in the morning like her brother, she sometimes asked her father to run a bath for her when she was tired, or felt like being babied. He filled it up with bubbles and she sat there, running more hot water every now and then while he sang to her in Russian.

After twenty minutes or so, Ivan joined me in the kitchen, his shirt front soaking wet. I wanted to touch him, place my hand on those damp, living patches, but I was afraid, knowing that he was hanging onto ordinary actions by a thread.

Once Katya was in bed, I told Ivan about the photo on the website and asked him if Laila had said anything about a dive trip to the coast.

Ivan stared at me. ‘I only knew her for six months. When you think about it, that's no time at all.'

I made myself focus on the question. ‘Did Laila talk about her diving?'

‘I remember once when I called in she was talking to Tim about water depth and pressures.'

Katya called out, and Ivan turned to go. It was just as well our conversation had been cut short. It wouldn't do, I told myself, to become impatient or to lose my temper when he was at last making an effort.

When I rang Tim Delaney from my office phone, Tim said morosely, ‘I told the police I could barely swim. Ivan and I compared notes on our poor performance in that area.'

‘And you haven't got the excuse that you were born in the middle of Russia.'

I was keeping my voice low and fighting the irritation that Tim immediately produced in me.

‘Whatever,' he said. ‘Point is, my parents never paid for swimming lessons. My school neglected its duty in that department too.'

Tim made me hold while he checked the dive shop's website, then subjected me to a lecture on disrespect. Laila's photo should not have been allowed to remain up there like that, without any message of sympathy, or even an indication that she'd died.

After listening politely, I said, recalling Roger Stanton's assurances, ‘Anyone can learn to scuba dive.'

‘Not true. You have to be a reasonably competent swimmer, for a start.'

‘What about Phoebe?'

‘Phoebes? I doubt if she could swim a stroke.'