‘Since when?’

  ‘Since not long after we started working together.’

  ‘But …’ Jackie began, then stopped. Suddenly, a hundred things that hadn’t made sense fell into place. ‘Oh. I didn’t realise.’

  ‘Everyone else does. Bennie, Sharna, they all feel sorry for me. And last year, with the South African, well, I thought that was it.’

  Jackie reached out a hand to touch him. ‘Oh, Kinsella. I don’t know what to say. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He caught the hand, trapped it to his chest with his own. ‘I’m telling you now. Because if there’s a chance we can make a go of things, I’ll stay in Sydney. Maybe transfer to another section, but I’ll stay. But if you don’t, if this –’ he indicated the two of them ‘– is only a friends-with-benefits thing, then I’ll go. I need to know where I stand. Ask me to stay, Jackie, and I’ll stay.’

  Kinsella was putting himself on the line. Jackie knew how hard that was because months ago she’d done the same thing, in almost the same words, with Schalk Lourens. She’d given Schalk an ultimatum: a serious relationship or nothing. And yet, when he’d phoned to say he was staying in Cape Town, she’d felt an underlying relief, a sense of the inevitable betrayal having arrived. Yes, Schalk had asked her to join him there, but that was beside the point.

  Jackie’s hand was still on Kinsella’s chest and under it she could feel his heart beating. Kinsella. Clever, sexy, strong. A loyal friend, a generous lover. Who, without spelling it out, had said he loved her. She believed him in a way she hadn’t believed anyone before, not even Schalk. Kinsella wouldn’t walk out on her. He’d stay, he’d – and suddenly, the full extent of what that meant came down upon her. It felt like being hit with concrete. She pulled her hand away, dropped her head to her knees, hid her face. In twenty-four hours he’d know the woman she really was, and she couldn’t expect anyone to be part of the hell that would follow.

  Her voice muffled by her hair, she said, wailed almost, ‘Oh God, Kinsella. I can’t.’

  Kinsella scrambled to his feet, said, ‘I’m going.’ And then, in another tone, ‘It’s been great being your fuck buddy.’

  ‘No!’ Jackie pleaded. ‘It’s not you –’

  He made a snorting chuckle, moving to recover his clothes from their frenzied undressing before. ‘It’s not you, it’s me. Wow. Thought you’d be more original than that.’

  She scrambled upright and grabbed his arm. ‘Kinsella. Look at me!’

  He turned, narrowed his eyes. He had his jeans on now, was shrugging into a shirt. He said, ‘What, then?’

  Jackie tried to tell him, but the words wouldn’t come. She let go of his arm, turned her head away. What she knew was so far into darkness it was impossible to say out loud.

  Kinsella swung her body around to face him, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Is it something about this case? That jewellery receipt? Your father?’ From the way he looked at her, she could tell he’d made the leap. ‘Jackie,’ he said. ‘Talk to me. I’d do anything for you, you know that.’ When she didn’t reply, he pressed. ‘I can’t help you if you won’t tell me.’

  Problem was, Jackie thought, she believed him. He meant what he said. She’d tell him everything, lift the awful burden from her shoulders and place it on his. He’d be shocked, yes, but he’d get over it. He’d stick with her through the hard times to come, not just for Stanton Rose and his family, but for anyone who chose to stand with them. Death threats, being spat at, the thrill of the fall of a hero. Kinsella being Kinsella, he’d see it through, even as it eroded and then killed whatever relationship he thought they had. She couldn’t let him suffer that. This was something she had to face alone.

  She looked straight back at him, her heart hurting. ‘You’re a good man, Kinsella. But I can’t ask you to stay.’

  Kinsella collected his clothes. He stood, got as far as the door, stopped, turned. ‘Jackie. Remember what I said at the restaurant the other night. Whatever excuse you think you have for pushing me away, the real reason is you can’t handle it. Me, Schalk Lourens, all of us. As soon as we get too close you get shit-scared and you take off. This job I’ve been offered in Perth? I have to let them know by Wednesday. If you change your mind before then, let me know. If I don’t hear from you, well …’

  He opened the door and left, shirt still unbuttoned, holding his boots in his hand.

  18.

  Stanton phoned Belle the next morning, Saturday, and they met late that afternoon. It was cold. Winter had always been Belle’s favourite season, but today it was raining and the city looked as if it was crying. The streets seemed stretched and gloomy; the sandstone ridges leached trails of dark green.

  As Belle let herself into the entrance hall of Forbes Street she realised how much the house unsettled her. There was something impersonal about it, inauthentic, like a hotel trying to be homely. She’d be happy not to have to come here again. Upstairs, she stood at the bedroom window, looking at rain dripping off the bare branches of the plane tree outside and planning the coming meeting, reeling it out like a film. She’d accuse Stanton coldly. He’d bluster. She’d make him feel sorry for what he’d done, and then he’d capitulate. She’d walk out with head held high.

  In the event it was nothing like that. He came into the room carrying a ragged bunch of poppies wrapped in butcher’s paper, their heads bowing in every direction. Belle loved poppies and seeing them disconcerted her. She stood silent, scenarios flown.

  He saw immediately something was wrong, stopped, cocked his head. ‘What?’ He laid the flowers on the bed and then, as water began to leak through the paper, picked them up again and placed them on a chair. She watched him without speaking. Still at the chair, he said, ‘I couldn’t get away earlier, I – Belle, what is it?’

  She said, ‘This has got to stop.’

  He tried for a chuckle, but his eyes were wary. He moved towards her.

  She held up a hand like a traffic cop. ‘Stay where you are. This is the last time we’ll be together. I don’t want to see you again.’

  ‘That’s a bit dramatic. What’s got into you?’ The tone, a father chiding a recalcitrant child, shattered Belle’s reticence.

  ‘What’s got into me?’ Her turn to chuckle falsely. ‘Well, let’s see. Let’s start with your wife ringing me and threatening to make my life a misery for –’ she used air quotes ‘– “destroying your family”? That dramatic enough for you?’

  ‘Whoa, whoa. Frankie rang you?’

  ‘Frankie? Is that her pet name? What does she call you? Hubby? Yes. Frances, your wife, rang me. Been ringing me a lot lately. Knows my name, knows my phone number. How do you think she got hold of that?’

  ‘I told her your name,’ Stanton said, mildly. ‘I told her about us.’

  ‘And I told you not to.’

  ‘You didn’t. You said you needed time to think. I said I wanted to be with you, that my marriage had been in trouble for a while. You said as long as you wore my ring, we were together.’

  Belle looked at her hand. The ring had become so much part of her she’d forgotten what it meant. She wrenched it off her finger, held it out to him. He made a gesture of denial and she was left holding it.

  Stanton continued, ‘Also, I felt bad about Frankie, about having the affair behind her back. I owed it to her to be honest about what was going on.’

  ‘The affair?’ Belle was incandescent now. ‘You mean this affair? The one where Russell Monroe pays you to fuck me? I asked you before if you were doing this for Monroe and you told me to trust you. But now I know what’s really going on, that you’re here because they run you. You’re in their pockets, Monroe and Bensimon. I know about them lending money, to Richter, to Foley. I heard all about it.’

  Stanton came forward, close enough to threaten. His face had taken on the hardness she’d seen before. He caught her wrist in his big hand. ‘You heard all about it? Who’ve you been talking to?’

  Belle was suddenly, viscerally grateful she’d kept her ongoing friendship with Nelson secret. If she hadn’t, she was certain he’d be dead by now. She tried to wrench her arm out of Stanton’s grip. ‘Let me go! Or are you going to hurt me? Monroe tell you to do that?’

  Stanton released her wrist as if it was burning hot. He raised his hands, backed off. ‘Belle, be reasonable,’ he said. ‘You’ve known for months that Monroe put me onto you – wait, let me finish. You know what my real job is, my undercover job. I had to – have to – keep him on side. Yes, initially I came to you because of him, but pretty soon I fell in love with you. How many times do you want me to say it? Think for a moment, Belle. Would I have told Frankie about you if I was working for Monroe?’

  ‘Does Monroe own this house?’

  The non sequitur threw him. He looked around the room. ‘I don’t know who owns it.’

  ‘Well, did he tell you about it?’

  His hesitation told her he was preparing a lie. ‘Someone else told me about it. Anyway, what does it matter who owns this place?’

  ‘If you won’t be honest with me then it’s no use trying to talk to you, Stanton – or should I call you Rosie like your crooked mates do? – I don’t want to see you again. Don’t phone me, don’t come round, just leave me alone!’ She gathered her handbag and coat and made to go.

  He blocked her way. ‘Belle, c’mon. We were going to be together. Haven’t the past months meant anything to you? You were having my baby, for Christ’s sake. I told Frankie about you, I burned bridges because of you. You can’t leave me now.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I can. And you shouldn’t have told your wife. So get out of my way.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  He spoke mildly, but there was steel beneath the words and it frightened her. She lashed out. ‘If you don’t? If you don’t I … I’ll tell the world you’re really working for the Feds. I’ll tell Trevor Curran and he can get it out there. He’d love that. It’ll be big news.’

  Stanton went completely still, an immobility that carried weight. He said, very softly, stating a fact, ‘You do that and we’re dead meat, you and me both. Unless you’ve already told him about me. Have you?’

  ‘Not yet, but think about it. You try anything and Trevor will hear about it. Or maybe I’ll go tell your mates at the station.’

  ‘Reckon you’ll get that far?’

  Belle was about to say something, but when she looked at Stanton it was as if the man she knew had disappeared under a carapace, something hard, scaly. She didn’t want to face it so, dry-mouthed, she darted around him, ran down the steep staircase and out into the street, where she found she was still clutching the ring. She dropped it into her handbag and walked home in the rain.

  19.

  When at last the sky lightened, Jackie could give up pretending to sleep. She put on her swimsuit, track pants and a sweatshirt, shoved her feet into sneakers, packed underwear. Drove through early morning streets to Sydney Uni pool and swam laps. Tried not to think, to keep her mind on the black line unspooling beneath her. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. Turn. And again. She knew the drill: repeat, repeat, repeat, until you think you can’t go on. Then go on.

  Eventually she climbed out of the pool, showered and changed. Her fridge was empty so she picked up a croissant on the way back. The condemned woman ate a hearty breakfast, said the voice in her head. She told it to stop being so theatrical. Then she drove home, found a magic park right outside her front door. Someone was waiting on her doorstep, a woman. Who didn’t look like a reporter. Probably a weirdo who’d seen Belle Fitzgerald in the IGA.

  Jackie slung her swim kit over her shoulder and picked up the bag with her croissant. She opened the gate. And stopped. It had been nearly forty years, but she instantly recognised her mother.

  ***

  ‘I was hiking,’ Frankie said. ‘We were off the grid. I got your email last night. Caught the 6 a.m. out of Hobart this morning.’

  They’d begun by sitting at Jackie’s kitchen counter, the forgotten croissant between them. Frankie had made the move because Jackie was paralysed, blinking at this person who was at once a stranger and at the same time completely familiar. Frankie, in her turn, was staring at Jackie as if trying to consume her just by looking.

  Finally Jackie came to her senses and offered coffee. Frankie didn’t drink coffee, she said, did Jackie have any herbal tea? Jackie, grateful to be doing something, rooted through out-of-date boxes until she came to one that proclaimed itself peppermint. She looked dubiously at the surviving teabag.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Frankie said, ‘why don’t we go for a walk? It’s just – it’s better than sitting here.’

  They set off into the sparkling Sunday morning, by unspoken agreement not in the direction of Stanton’s house, but turning instead down St John’s Road, heading for Wentworth Park. They didn’t speak. Jackie had spent most of her life fantasising about how it would be to meet her mother again. Over the years the scenarios became more elaborate. In these, she contemptuously forced her sobbing mother to explain why she’d cast aside her husband and seven-year-old child as if they didn’t matter. Yet now, when it was actually happening, she found herself empty. The tirade she’d rehearsed for so long evaporated. It was as if the enemy had melted away, paradoxically become a ghost by appearing in the flesh.

  She stole a glance at her mother. Frankie must be around seventy. She was shorter than Jackie, but her straight back gave the impression of height. She was girlishly lean and fit-looking, her wavy, greying hair tied back in a short plait. She wore blue jeans, belted low, a thin, navy V-necked sweater over a T-shirt, and a pair of tan hiking boots. No watch, but her left wrist sported four bracelets of gemstones in shades of brown and blue. Her clothes, the way she held her body, spoke of someone with a strong sense of themselves, and Jackie felt a stab of pain at having missed out on this example of how to be someone in the world. She reminded herself how much she’d lost, that she hated her mother.

  They reached the park and paused across the road. Frankie looked up at the monolithic pillar that marked the entrance to the racetrack. ‘Stanton and I met here, you know. Not at the greyhound racing, but in the park.’

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ Jackie said shortly, hearing the sarcasm but unable to stop herself. How could she know?

  ‘He never told you?’

  ‘We never talked about you. I wasn’t allowed to mention your name.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Frankie, keeping her eyes averted. Then, ‘Let’s find a bench, shall we?’

  Jackie let herself be led past the complex and into the expanse of greenery behind. At one end, a scruff of boys kicked a football. A couple with a pram had spread out a blanket, another couple were entwined on the grass, ignoring the lingering dew. They walked to the end and found a bench in front of one of the old viaduct arches, a relic of Sydney’s railway past.

  Frankie lifted her face to the sun. It was a perfect spring day, warm, but without the punishing heat of summer. ‘I loved this park,’ she said. ‘I loved living in Glebe. The mixture of history and industry, the people …’ She fell into silence.

  Jackie’s instinct was to ask So why did you leave? But she remembered she had to be vigilant. Yes, Frankie had responded to her email, but why? What did she want?

  Frankie sighed, deeply. She looked at Jackie’s hand, lying on the bench, as if thinking about taking it. Jackie edged it away. Frankie didn’t comment, said, ‘So much to say. Let’s start with now. Why did you contact me?’

  Too much, too soon. Jackie said, ‘Tell me about you and Stanton, how you met.’

  If Frankie heard the reluctance, she didn’t show it. ‘I was seventeen,’ she said. ‘Still at school. Must’ve been year eleven, I can’t remember now. A couple of girlfriends and I used to come down here to watch the local boys train. League, just kickaround matches. We didn’t care about the game. We came to giggle, flirt, have the odd ciggie, maybe a beer.’ She squinted at Jackie. ‘Pauline was with me that day. You know? Pauline Wardle now, but she was Pauline Carter then. After practice a couple of the blokes came to talk to us. Your father was one of them. He was eighteen at the time. He’d only just joined the police. The other one was Dickie Wardle, thinking of doing the same thing. The rest, as they say, is history.’ Again she put out a hand as if to touch Jackie; again Jackie shifted.

  Frankie began to speak, but was interrupted by a chugging, whooshing sound, and the bench under them vibrated. They looked up to see the light rail pass over the viaduct. ‘This is new,’ she said. ‘After my time.’

  Jackie didn’t answer. Frankie turned back to her.

  ‘Okay. Enough small talk. Tell me why you emailed me. It’s about Belle Fitzgerald, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought you were off the grid,’ Jackie said.

  Frankie raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re definitely a cop,’ she said. ‘I left Hobart to do the walk on Tuesday. By then it was all over the news, Facebook, everything.’ She shrugged, added, ‘And on the TV this morning, at the airport, they were talking about Bensimon’s death and about a TV show tonight. Apparently your father’s going to be front and centre. Ironic, really. So, why did you contact me?’

  Jackie looked down at her track pants, noting inconse­quentially how old they were. She needed a new pair. She steeled herself for what she had to say. ‘Yes, it’s about Belle Fitzgerald. And yes, it’s ironic. Given my father killed her.’

  Frankie recoiled, blinked, in a comical double take. ‘What? Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘He told me himself,’ Jackie said, simply. ‘They were having an affair. I’ve seen the photos. He told me he killed her. Maybe even on Bensimon’s orders. He wouldn’t say.’

  ‘No!’ Frankie turned to Jackie, grabbed her arms. Her eyes were open wide. ‘That can’t be. He was lying to you.’