Rudie came out of the kitchen then carrying a tea tray and stopped short, perhaps sensing this wasn’t like all the other visits.
‘I’m very sorry to bring bad news,’ the plain-clothes man said, looking up at Rudie, then back at Dulcie. ‘But a young woman was found dead this morning on the Gold Coast, and we think it is your sister.’
Dulcie just stared blankly at him. She took in his red and black striped tie, the way the starched collar of his shirt appeared to be digging into his thick neck, even that he had very pale blue eyes and a sun-blistered face, but she couldn’t take his words in.
Rudie put the tray down on the coffee table with a clatter and took Noël from her arms. ‘You only
think
it’s May?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you know for certain?’
‘These things can never be exactly certain until the body has been identified,’ the man said. ‘But her description, what we know of her, all fits May Taylor. I’m so sorry to be the one to bear such sad news. I wish there was a gentler way.’
‘She’s dead?’ Dulcie said in a hoarse whisper. ‘How did she die?’
Rudie put Noël in his pram and wheeled him out through the kitchen to the garden. It was only then that Dulcie realized this wasn’t some quirk of her imagination but real. Rudie was wheeling Noël away because his sensibility wouldn’t allow anyone to speak of something so awful in his son’s presence.
‘She was drowned,’ the policeman said, wiping sweat away from his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘Her body was found at daybreak today on the beach by a man walking his dog. The local police hadn’t established her time of death when they contacted us, but it seems likely she went in for a swim the previous evening when the surf was high.’
The uniformed man began pouring the tea, aware Rudie and Dulcie were too shocked to do it. He put two sugars in Dulcie’s, stirred it and took it over to her. ‘Drink it up,’ he urged her.
It was Rudie who asked all the questions, all Dulcie could do was just sit and let it wash over her head.
‘But you centred your search for her on the Gold Coast,’ he said. In a previous visit the police had reported that a guard on a train to Brisbane had recognized May as having been on his train from a photograph he was shown, and later a taxi driver had said he drove her to the Gold Coast. ‘Why couldn’t you find her?’
‘It’s a big area to cover,’ the plain-clothes man said. ‘The police concentrated their search amongst –’ He broke off, clearly embarrassed.
‘Amongst prostitutes?’ Rudie finished it for him.
He nodded. ‘I really can’t tell you much more,’ he said. ‘All I know is they haven’t found out what she was doing or where she was living yet. My job was just to break the news to you and ask that you go up to Brisbane to identify the body. Maybe by the time you get there, there’ll be more information.’
It was then that Dulcie began to cry, remembering how May had said in that last letter to her she expected she’d come to a sticky end.
The police left soon after, asking that Rudie ring them later to make the arrangements. Dulcie vaguely heard them speaking of a small plane, and the need for urgency.
Rudie sat down next to her after they’d gone, and took her into his arms. ‘There’s nothing I can say,’ he said mournfully, smoothing her hair. ‘She was your sister and you loved her, it’s so, so sad.’
Dulcie sobbed into his chest. She knew he was right, there was nothing he could say. After the initial hope that May would return penitent and wanting to take care of Noël herself, they had begun to want her to stay away for ever. Had she drowned by accident? Or had she committed suicide because of what she’d done? Dulcie couldn’t bear to think it might be that.
By noon the following day, Dulcie and Rudie were at the mortuary. They had left Noël with Mrs Curston and flown up to Brisbane on the plane the police had recommended and would return at six in the evening. Both of them were still in a state of shock – on the journey here they’d barely spoken, both locked into their own private thoughts.
They were met at the mortuary by a local police inspector who introduced himself as Mike Haggetty He said little other than offering his condolences and suggested they got it over with straight away and talked later.
The white tiled room he took them into was as cold as a refrigerator after the heat outside and smelled strongly of chemicals. The body was laid out on a marble table covered in a sheet. Haggetty waited only a second or two to make sure they were ready, then folded back the sheet to expose just her face and neck.
Dulcie gave a little cry and covered her mouth with her hands. She had spent the whole journey here trying to tell herself it wouldn’t, couldn’t be May, but of course it was. Her skin looked so pale and waxy, someone must have brushed her hair carefully for it gleamed under the bright light, the only colour in the white room, but in every other way she looked little different to how she’d been the last time Dulcie saw her over seven weeks earlier.
‘Is it May Taylor?’ the policeman asked formally.
‘Yes, it’s May,’ she whispered, reaching out to touch her hair, remembering how she used to plait it for her at the Sacred Heart. It was as long now as it had been then, and just as silky, tumbling down over the end of the table. She leaned over and kissed her sister’s cheek, but her skin was cold and unyielding. She turned away, overcome by emotion, and felt Haggetty catch her arm to steady her.
‘She was a very beautiful girl.’ he said softly. ‘You are very like her, Mrs Rawlings, and I’m so sorry she met her death so very young.’
Dulcie sensed Rudie was looking at May, but she didn’t turn to watch him, just walked blindly to the door, tears streaming down her face, suddenly chilled to the bone, for she’d promised her father and granny to look after May, and she’d failed.
Rudie stayed for just a moment or two longer, then Haggetty took them both to a small office up a flight of stairs. ‘I’ll get you both a cup of coffee,’ he said. ‘I expect you’d like to be alone for a little while.’
Dulcie walked over to the window. It had frosted glass on the lower half, but the top part, at eye level, was clear. It overlooked a small side street, and as she looked out, a young woman in a pink sundress and sun-glasses walked by pushing a pram. She could hear the rumble of traffic in the distance too.
‘Everything’s ordinary out there,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘People going about their daily lives. I want everything to stop, if only for a minute. It doesn’t seem right that it’s only you and I mourning her.’
Rudie came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and leaned his head against hers. ‘I wanted to paint her,’ he whispered. ‘She never let me. I don’t know why.’
‘Maybe she thought you would make her keep still for hours,’ Dulcie whispered back. ‘She could never stand that.’
‘I wish I’d known the real May,’ he said, his voice strangled as if fighting back tears. ‘Like you did.’
Dulcie turned round and took his face in her two hands, his eyes were brimming now. ‘I think you knew her far better than me, Rudie. I’ve got the image of the little May stuck in my head. But does it matter if we’ve got false images? Let’s just try and keep the good ones, and forget the rest.’
Dulcie was suddenly aware how close they were, their bodies almost touching. He was gazing down at her, and she couldn’t draw back or even look away from him, for his eyes held her.
All at once she wanted him to kiss her, for his eyes told her that’s what he wanted to do, but just as his lips came down to meet hers, the door opened and Haggetty came in with their coffee.
‘I put sugar in, I thought you’d need it,’ he said.
It was Dulcie who moved, drawing back from Rudie as if she’d been stung.
‘Thank you, inspector,’ she said, blushing furiously. ‘Can we ask if you have any more information about May’s death now?’
‘If you’re sure you’re ready for it,’ he said, looking from one to the other, perhaps sensing an unusual atmosphere. ‘I could go away and come back later.’
‘We’re as ready as we’ll ever be,’ Rudie said with a sigh, and sat down at the small table where Haggetty had placed their coffee.
Haggetty waited until Dulcie had sat down, then he followed suit and offered them each a cigarette. When they refused, he lit one up himself.
‘May was last seen at about six-thirty in the evening walking along the beach, alone. We believe she went into the sea soon after, despite the warning flag flying.’
‘Are you saying it was suicide?’ Rudie asked quietly.
‘We can’t say that,’ Haggetty said. ‘People often swim when it isn’t safe, especially the young. But it
is
very unusual for girls to go in alone, especially when it’s getting dark.’
Rudie and Dulcie looked at each other helplessly.
‘Did you find where she was living?’ Rudie asked.
Haggetty nodded. ‘She’d taken a room in a boarding house under the name of Belinda Smith. We checked that out, but there was nothing there other than her clothes.’
Dulcie gulped at May’s assumed name. It was so very poignant that she’d used the one of her old doll.
‘There was no note then?’ Rudie said. ‘Doesn’t that confirm it was an accident?’
Haggetty dropped his eyes. ‘Maybe. But we didn’t find a towel, bag or even shoes on the beach. Only a cotton dress.’
‘What about her landlady? Did she tell you anything about May?’
‘Not much,’ Haggetty said. ‘Just that May had turned up one morning about six weeks ago with a suitcase and asked for a room. She thought she must work in a bar somewhere because she spent her days on the beach and came home late at night.’
‘If she was there all along, why didn’t you find her before?’ Rudie asked. ‘After all, she’s not the kind of girl not to be noticed.’
‘We weren’t looking in the right places,’ Haggetty said. ‘I don’t want to offend you at such a time, but we were told to look for her amongst the working girls. I wish to God we had asked around more generally, maybe we could’ve prevented this.’
‘Do you mean she hadn’t worked up here as a prostitute?’ Dulcie whispered.
‘Not so far as we know,’ Haggetty said. ‘An elderly man who lives across the road from the boarding house said he met her on her second day on the Gold Coast, she had fallen asleep on a bench, her suitcase beside her. He felt sorry for her, guessed she hadn’t got anywhere to stay, and so he woke her up and spoke to her. He sent her to the boarding house.’
‘Sounds familiar,’ Rudie said, with a trace of harshness in his voice.
Haggetty raised one bushy blond eyebrow inquiringly.
‘She’d done that before,’ Rudie said by way of explanation. ‘But go on, did this man know what she’d been doing in Sydney?’
Haggetty shook his head. ‘She told him she’d run away from a violent boyfriend.’
‘Maybe it was true,’ Rudie said. ‘We always assumed she only ran away because of the baby, but there could have been a man behind it.’
‘I daresay there was,’ the policeman said. ‘She certainly kept herself to herself. We asked questions in all the bars, she hadn’t made any friends that we can find.’
‘Was she working in one of them?’ Dulcie asked.
Haggetty shook his head.
‘Then how was she paying for her room?’ Rudie asked. Haggetty shrugged. ‘We don’t know, maybe she had savings.’
Dulcie knew this was unlikely, but she wasn’t going to voice that or even consider how May might have supported herself in her time at the Gold Coast. May was dead now, whether it was accidental or intentional didn’t really matter. Nothing could bring her back.
‘What about the funeral?’ Rudie asked. ‘Should we arrange it now?’
‘We won’t be able to release her body for a few days,’ Haggetty said. ‘We’ll let you know as soon as possible.’
‘May’s dead, Ross.’ Dulcie said when she reached him on the telephone later that night.
‘Speak up,’ he said. ‘I can’t hear you.’
Dulcie repeated it, louder this time, and her voice seemed to echo around Rudie’s living-room. ‘I’ve just got back from Brisbane identifying her body.’
‘Oh no,’ he gasped. ‘What happened to her? Are you okay?’
It wasn’t much, but it sounded to Dulcie as if he was receptive for once, and trying to control her tears, she told him about it.
‘Strewth, Dulc,’ he exclaimed as she finished. ‘You’ve fairly laid me out! I don’t know what to say. I’m so bloody sorry, you know I liked May, we all did here. She might have gone wrong, but she didn’t deserve that.’
It wasn’t the most tender of condolences, but there was real sincerity in what he said, and it made Dulcie cry.
‘D’you want me to come up there for the funeral?’ he said. ‘I could jump on the train.’
Later she was to see the bitter irony that he was prepared to jump on a train for a funeral, but not to help an abandoned baby, yet right then she was touched that he had found his heart again. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in that,’ she said. ‘We don’t know when the body will be released yet, it could be as early as tomorrow or the day after, and we’ll have to have the funeral immediately. You stay there, I can manage.’
‘You’ll be right home afterwards then?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Ross,’ she sighed, knowing she really had no excuse to delay it any longer. ‘Rudie’s blood tests have proved he is Noël’s father, so he’s safe now.’
‘I can’t wait to have you home again,’ he said with real warmth. ‘I’ve made a few surprises for you while you’ve been away. We’ve all missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you too,’ she sobbed, suddenly wanting to be back in her own little house, seeing the animals, cooking for everyone, tending her garden and away from all this heartache. ‘I’ll ring again and tell you when I’m coming back.’
‘I love you,’ he said, then put the phone down.
Rudie came over to her as she stood there sobbing, the receiver still in her hand. He took it from her and replaced it, then put his arms around her and held her.
‘Was he nasty again?’ he whispered.
‘No, not at all,’ she said through her tears, leaning into his big chest. ‘I don’t know why I’m crying.’
‘You have every reason to cry,’ he said soothingly. ‘Your sister’s dead. You’ve got the funeral to go through, and you’ve got to leave Noël. I think that would make even the most tough person crack.’