Grievous Harm. Sandy Curtis
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created by the afternoon sun. Traffic noise reverberated from the asphalt and vibrated through the little bus.
She still felt groggy from the sleeping tablets she'd taken to cope with the long flight from LA. Getting enough money to fly to Australia had meant selling her father's guitars, her last tangible link to the man who'd called her the apple of his eye and whose death had left her mother a frightened shell, barely coping with a world that she suddenly had to deal with on her own. Well, not really alone. Kate felt the familiar sadness well up. There was her and Paul - until he'd been killed in an accident so like their father's that her mother believed it was a sign that she was now meant to live alone.
If Paul and Melanie and Cindy hadn't come back to the States after Dad died…and if Paul hadn't ridden his friend's motorbike…and if Melanie hadn't taken Cindy and returned to Sydney to live with her mother…
Tears filmed her eyes. She blinked them away, willing the memories to go and take with them her choking sense of loss. She shook her head against the thoughts tormenting her. So many 'ifs' and so useless to think them. She hadn't told her mother the real reason for her trip to Australia. She'd simply said she was going to visit Melanie and Cindy. Self-absorbed as always, her mother had only expressed concern that Kate wouldn't be on hand if she needed her. The truth had knotted Kate's stomach. At least twice a month she phoned Melanie, determined to keep contact with her sister-in-law and the niece she loved like a daughter. Recently Melanie had seemed more cheerful than she had been since Paul's death, rambling on about a new church she'd been visiting and how she and Cindy had been made to feel so welcome; although six-year-old Cindy hadn't shared her mother's enthusiasm. Kate had bought Melanie a computer so they could stay in touch through emails and Skype, but two months ago Melanie had told her that the church didn't believe in that kind of technology and had cancelled her internet account.
Six weeks ago Kate had discovered Melanie's phone had been disconnected, and she'd wondered if her erratic sister-in-law had once again run out of money to pay her bills. Letters had proved useless, and Kate did what she'd been forced to do once before in the year since Melanie's mother had died - she'd asked for a week's vacation and booked a flight to Sydney, dreading a repeat of having to bail Melanie out of yet another financial mess.
The taxi was an extravagance. The shuttle bus wouldn't go as far as Melanie's suburb and Kate was too exhausted to battle public transport.
She paid the driver, hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders, and turned towards Melanie's terrace house. Unlike some of the terrace houses the taxi had passed, the ones in this street hadn't seen any attempt at restoration. A century of grime covered the sandstone blocks, and the wrought iron fences were brown with rust.
The street was deserted. Narrow, and only two blocks long, with no breeze moving the shrubbery in the tiny front yards, it was as still as an old painting. Kate felt she was suspended in time. She shook her head to fight off her lingering sleepiness.
Melanie's small front yard was unkempt, the grass long, the gerberas in the garden bordering the tiny patio choked with weeds. Kate frowned. Although Melanie loved flowers, she wasn't much of a gardener, but gerberas had been her mother's favourite flowers, and she'd always looked after them.
A creak that would have done justice to a horror movie tightened Kate's already tense nerves as she pushed the gate open. An envelope lay on the cracked concrete path, its whiteness stained with dirt and rain spatters.
An envelope with a United States stamp.
Stomach clenching, Kate lifted the lid on the letterbox attached to the gatepost. Mail. Lots of mail. She grabbed it and flicked through the envelopes. Five window-face. Four with printed labels. Three plain with US stamps. The letters she'd written in the hope Melanie would read them and contact her.
Crushing the mail to her chest, she hurried up the path. The old brass knocker on the front door had lost its shine, and Kate's apprehension grew. Keeping it polished had been another way in which Melanie had tried to keep her mother's presence alive.
She grasped the smooth metal and banged it hard. She heard its 'thunk' echo inside. Seconds ticked by. She knocked again and waited, dread seeping into her bones quicker than the encroaching evening chill.
The thick lace curtains on the front window had been drawn, but hadn't met completely in the middle. She pressed against the glass and peered inside. The living room looked as it always had, heavy old tapestry lounge scattered with cross-stitch cushions, coffee table, bookcase, television in the corner. Kate had always thought the room looked gloomy, but now it made her shiver. It looked so disused, as though-
Flowers. On the coffee table.
Not bright splashes of colour that Melanie would have placed in the old crystal vase. The blackened, drooping stalks and decayed petals sent panic soaring through Kate's veins. Melanie might be erratic, but there was no way she would leave flowers like that. What had happened? Had they been in an accident? Surely the police or hospital would see her contact details in Melanie's purse? Suicide? No, no, Melanie wasn't like that. Or was she? She'd been depressed after Paul had died, but that was only natural. But there was no way Kate could see Melanie hurting Cindy. Murder? Surely the neighbours…
She pushed the mail into the side pocket of her backpack and rushed down the path. Within seconds she was knocking on the door of the next terrace house where Melanie had said an elderly friend of her mother's lived, but no-one answered.
Ten minutes and six houses later she'd managed to speak to only two neighbours, and they lived three doors down and only knew Melanie and Cindy as someone to nod to as they passed by.
'Do you have a photo of your sister-in-law and niece I can put in the Missing Persons Unit database and our database?' the police sergeant asked, long thin fingers tapping his computer keyboard.
Kate took her iPad from her backpack. 'It's digital, but I can send it to you.'
The sergeant smiled. 'Even better. Save me scanning it. From what you've told me,' he said as Kate accessed the photo and transferred it to the location he gave her, 'your sister-in-law seems to make a habit of getting herself into financial difficulties. Could it be that she couldn't cope and saw leaving town as a way of dealing with a problem that seemed insurmountable?'
Kate found that scenario hard to accept, but had to admit that Melanie didn't have a great track record for reliability or clear thinking. 'It's possible,' she conceded, 'but highly unlikely. She's always contacted me when she's realised she can't fix things on her own. And I can't see her leaving like that, not without letting me know. She knows how upset Cindy would be.'
'We'll access those bank account details you've given me and see if there's been any recent activity. You don't have a key to her house so we can check inside?'
'Sorry, no,' Kate sighed. Melanie had meant to get a spare cut for her during her last visit but, like a lot of Melanie's plans, it had never eventuated.
'Can you recommend some inexpensive accommodation where I can stay? Something not too far away?'
The sympathy on the sergeant's face said he understood 'inexpensive' really meant cheap, and he wrote down the details of a backpackers' hostel in Kings Cross. 'It's clean and the price is reasonable. We'll contact you if we find out anything, but please let us know if you find out anything helpful.'
The hostel was located towards the lower end of Kings Cross. Originally a hotel, its three-storey Edwardian façade hid a modernised interior with light-coloured walls and polished timber floors. Palms growing in white iron-lace planters gave a cheery feel to the high-ceilinged foyer.
Although a single room cost more than a bed in a dormitory, it was still a lot cheaper than a hotel, and the bonus free nights for longer stays would come in handy if her search for Melanie and Cindy took as long as she feared.
The desk clerk, young, tall, and more bone than flesh beneath his multi-coloured sweatshirt, greeted her with a smile straight from a dental ad. 'Hi. I'm Glen. Sorry, darls, but I have to see your passport. It's the law.' Gleaming white teeth flashed again as she showed him. He noted the details and thrust the register and biro at her.