Chapter 21

chapter twenty-one

Now

‘Chocolate brownie?’ asked Joy Delaney’s oldest daughter, with such anxious, fervent hope as she held out the plate that Christina and Ethan each took one.

‘They’re straight out of the oven,’ said Amy Delaney.

Christina and Ethan sat side by side on a couch in the front room of Amy’s inner-city terrace, which she apparently shared with three flatmates. Amy sat opposite them, on the very edge of an armchair so ripped it looked like someone had taken to it with a knife. It seemed like a fairly typical share house. The room they were in was filled with mismatched furniture and smelled faintly of cannabis and garlic. Amy was a head taller than both Christina and Ethan, and she wore flowing harem pants that looked like pyjamas and a white singlet top inscribed with the words This is how I roll. She’d tied back her blue-dyed hair for the press conference, but this morning it was dripping wet as if she’d just got out of the shower.

You wouldn’t think she’d grown up in that nice family home with the flowerbeds and garden gnomes, except for the fussy way she hosted them, insisting that she make them cups of tea and bringing out brownies and side plates and napkins.

Christina bit down on the brownie, which was sweet and nutty and gave her an instant sugar rush. She was highly susceptible to sugar highs. Also sugar lows. Nico used it to his advantage. When he proposed he gave her a diamond ring and a Caramello Koala.

The coffee table was too far away to reach the cups of tea that Amy had made them.

‘Oh, sorry!’ said Amy, noticing, and she got on her knees and tried to shove the coffee table closer to them. The tea sloshed onto the table.

Amy swore under her breath, and looked close to tears.

‘It’s okay, I’ve got it,’ said Ethan soothingly, and he got to his feet and tugged the table closer in one smooth move.

‘Thank you!’ Amy fidgeted with the fabric of her pants. ‘This room isn’t very well set up for guests. Anyway. Thank you for coming to me. That was nice of you. I don’t know if I can give you any more information than I already have. I mean, I’m not really that worried. I’m sure Mum is fine. She told us she was going off-grid. When she comes home she’ll be so cross with us for wasting your time like this! She’ll be so embarrassed. I feel kind of embarrassed, to be honest.’

Her words said one thing but her body language said something else entirely.

‘I’m curious. If you’re so sure your mother is fine,’ Christina asked the same question she’d asked Amy’s brother, ‘then why report her missing?’

‘Well, I guess just in case she isn’t fine.’ Amy’s gaze slid all over the place. She clutched her hands together as if to stop them escaping. Christina ran a practised eye over her for signs of drug use and didn’t find any physical signs except for her skittishness and the shadows under her eyes, which could easily be attributed to her concern for her mother.

Amy said, ‘Expect the best but prepare for the worst. I thought you’d check out the hospitals, put out an alert, that sort of thing.’

‘We’re doing all that,’ said Christina. ‘You were obviously there at the press conference.’

‘Yes, I know I was there! That was a great press conference, thank you! It was really . . . professional!’ She looked around wildly for inspiration. ‘But, um, I guess what I’m saying is, I really didn’t expect you guys to treat my parents’ house like an actual crime scene.’

Christina said nothing. She waited.

‘Those scratches on my dad’s face are from the hedge out the back of our house. I can show you the hedge! They’re not from my mother’s fingernails.’

Yes, they are, thought Christina. I’d put a million bucks on it.

Amy shuddered so convulsively at the thought of her mother’s fingernails that for a moment Christina thought she was having an actual seizure.

Ethan glanced uneasily at Christina as Amy closed her eyes, breathed deeply and grimaced like a weightlifter, as though she were physically taking control of her mental state.

She opened her eyes and when she spoke again her voice was steady. ‘Here’s the thing. You don’t know my father. He’s a stranger to you. All you see is a grumpy old man. He suppresses his emotions. That’s what men of his age do. That’s probably why he looks guilty to you.’

Actually, Stan Delaney was not behaving like a guilty person. Guilty people overexplained. They talked too much and gave unnecessary detail. They were too polite and tried too hard to hold eye contact for too long. Stan answered their questions with terse impatience, as if he had somewhere else to be.

Amy said, ‘I mean, you haven’t found anything at the house, have you? Like, you haven’t found any actual . . . evidence?’

There was a tiny flinch on the word ‘evidence’, as if she’d burned her tongue.

Christina ignored the question. Instead she threw out a piece of information like a fishing line.

‘Amy, were you aware that your father had his car washed and detailed the day after your mother went missing?’ she asked. ‘He took it to a car wash café he’d never visited before and he got the most expensive service they had to offer. Their “premium” treatment. Normally only people with luxury cars choose that option. It cost him four hundred dollars.’

‘Four hundred dollars?’ The colour left Amy’s face. ‘You’re saying my dad spent four hundred dollars getting his car washed? Are you sure?’

Christina said jovially, ‘Would you say that was out of character?’

She didn’t need to hear the answer.

From a forensics point of view the car told Christina nothing. The car detailers had done an excellent job. No-one at the car café remembered anything unusual about the car. They did proudly confirm the use of oxidising cleaners, which would have removed all evidence of blood stains.

But a man who gets his car cleaned the day after his wife goes missing has something to hide.

‘Do you know a Dr Henry Edgeworth?’ she asked Amy.

‘Doctor who?’ said Amy.

‘Edgeworth,’ said Christina. ‘Henry Edgeworth. Your mother had a long telephone conversation with him on the day she disappeared.’

‘Really?’ said Amy. She brightened. ‘We should call him!’

It was like she honestly thought they hadn’t considered this idea.

‘We’ve been trying to contact him,’ said Christina. ‘But he’s out of the country. At a conference.’

‘Wait, do you think my mother could be with him?’

‘We can’t find any record of your mother having left the country,’ said Christina. ‘We also know she hasn’t got her passport with her.’

‘Unless she travelled with a fake passport?’ said Amy.

Christina couldn’t tell if she was serious.

‘Does that seem likely?’ Ethan spoke up. ‘That your mother would have a fake passport?’

‘No,’ admitted Amy. ‘But I guess it’s possible she could have a secret life that I know nothing about, right? I mean, your parents can surprise you, can’t they?’

‘Is it possible your mother was having an affair?’ asked Christina.

Amy’s mouth dropped. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘You did just say it was possible that she had a secret life.’ Christina finished the brownie and licked her fingers.

Amy scratched an insect bite on her arm so hard she drew blood. She pressed her thumb against the spot of blood and said, ‘I did just say that, didn’t I? Do you really think that’s possible? That’s she’s having an affair with this doctor? I guess stranger things have happened, right? You probably see lots of strange things in your line of work. It’s just that my parents, my parents –’ She dropped her thumb from her arm and looked back at them, her face open and earnest. ‘My parents were the only parents holding hands at school events. They kiss, in public, all the time! They worked together, they played doubles together. Their marriage isn’t perfect, I’m not saying that, but it’s a good marriage, I know that for a fact. Their marriage is my benchmark.’

There was something almost childlike about her view of her parents’ marriage. Christina thought of her mother’s Google search: How does a divorce affect adult children? No wonder Joy Delaney was worried.

‘When you first reported your mother missing you mentioned that things had been “a little tumultuous” lately between your parents,’ Christina reminded her.

‘Did I?’ said Amy vaguely, and, it seemed to Christina, regretfully. ‘Well, you know that Mum and Dad argued before she left. Dad isn’t hiding that from us. He told us that straight away.’

‘Right,’ said Christina. ‘But what did you mean when you said things had been a little tumultuous lately?’

There was a pause. Amy fidgeted. ‘Just that they’d been kind of snappy.’

‘So no hand-holding then,’ said Christina dryly, and she saw Amy flinch again, as if she’d hurt her feelings.

‘Not so much recently,’ admitted Amy, and she avoided eye contact.

‘Well, obviously we’ll keep trying to get in touch with this Dr Edgeworth. We’re also trying to track down the woman who stayed with your parents last year,’ said Christina. ‘She seems to be a woman of mystery.’

‘Savannah,’ said Amy heavily. ‘I had a number for her but it’s disconnected.’

‘I’m trying to understand what went on with her.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Amy evasively.

‘Your brother said she caused some dramas in the family.’

‘Did he?’ said Amy. ‘Is that all he said?’ She looked at Christina warily.

‘Is there more to say?’

‘No. I don’t know.’ She curled a long strand of blue-dyed hair around her finger as she considered her next words. ‘I don’t think it’s relevant, though. To you. I mean to . . . this.’

It was relevant alright. Christina could taste the relevance, as sweet as sugar.

She waited. Ethan quietly cleared his throat.

‘Do you remember when you first met her?’ asked Christina.

‘It was Father’s Day last year,’ said Amy. ‘I made brownies.’ She paused. ‘So did she.’