eight

Fact: The police want to question Amanda’s friends again.

That was a truth, and around it there hovered a whole host of ugly possibilities. Did they think one of her friends knew what had happened to her and hadn’t said? Worse still, did they think one of them had killed her?

Dee said they were simply treating her death as suspicious. Suspicious meant she was either murdered or had killed herself. At least that was how Dee explained it to us. And the police had to investigate both options thoroughly.

Two detectives had visited us the night after I had my first skateboarding lesson. They had called Tom during the day to arrange a time. ‘They promised it will be informal,’ he had assured Dee. ‘They’re talking to all of her friends, and thought it would be best if they had a chat to Joe at home.’

Dee didn’t respond at first. She was leaning against the kitchen bench, arms folded, a fine sheen of sweat across her face from the heat of the dishwashing water. Her hair, which is curly, had gone even frizzier in the humidity, the long reddish ringlets escaping from the scarf she had used to tie it up.

Tom was still in his tennis clothes. He always played on Fridays after work. Dee used to join him, but in the last six months she had stopped. She was a terrible player and it bored her. ‘Besides,’ she explained. ‘I have too much to do.’

She put the tea towel down. She had seen Roxie at the greengrocer’s that afternoon. ‘Poor woman.’ Dee shook her head. ‘I didn’t know what to say to her.’ She unplugged the water from the sink. ‘And that stupid cow who’s taken over the grocer’s wouldn’t let Roxie pay with a cheque. She said the last one bounced. Even if it did, which I find hard to believe, she could have been a bit more tactful, or let it go considering the circumstances. I just told her to put it on our account and that Roxie could fix us up when she wanted.’

Joe was sitting at the kitchen table, his back to the window, the night sky soft and dark behind him, listening to Tom and Dee’s conversation. I looked at my brother, and noticed, not for the first time that week, how tired he seemed. There were dark bruises under his eyes and a fine line of acne across his jawbone. I had heard him wake two nights ago, his voice cracked and broken as he called out in his sleep. It was Tom who went to him, sitting with him in his room for what had seemed like a while but probably wasn’t that long. The night always plays strange tricks when it comes to measuring time.

‘Is he all right?’ I asked as Tom crept back past my room.

I was sitting upright, worried.

Tom stayed with me, running his hand through my hair until I lay down again, eventually able to sleep.

The police arrived only moments after I had said I was going to do my homework. The knock on the door was sharp and brief, and I crept out onto the landing. There were two men; they were both tall and appeared to take up all the space in the hallway, their voices loud and booming.

I knew I should go back to my room and not stay, listening to every word. But, holding Sammy close to my chest, I sat perfectly still, pressed against the banister, hidden by the darkness of the upstairs landing, able to hear the conversation in the kitchen clearly as their voices carried up through the night-time quiet of the rest of the house.

They asked Joe how long he’d known Amanda and what his relationship with her had been. He stumbled slightly on that question, wanting to be honest but embarrassed to admit he had always had a crush on her. He didn’t confess in the end, and I was glad. It seemed to me that it wasn’t what they were angling at. They just wanted to know which of the two they had been – friends or boyfriend and girlfriend. The never-never land of hopeless love had no place in the notes they were no doubt taking.

Joe told them about Stevie and how he and Amanda had been together for almost a year, and how she ended the relationship. ‘But I don’t think Amanda was that upset. Well, not about Stevie anyway. They hadn’t been arguing. He was kind of too young. Too nice for her.’

‘What do you mean?’ The policeman’s voice was softer now, coaxing. He was probably leaning forward, trying to appear kind, although the reason for his visit was always going to stand in the way of any attempt to be human.

‘I don’t know. Amanda was just more edgy than him. Older. Not in years. Just in the way she was. She was into trying stuff.’

Joe told them the little he knew, even describing how she’d been on the afternoon she’d come back here, a couple of days before she died.

‘What about her girlfriends?’ It was the other policeman talking now. ‘Had she had any arguments with them?’

In the silence that followed, I could only presume Joe was shaking his head or thinking. Eventually he explained that Kate was her best friend, and they never seemed to argue. ‘Then there’s Cherry, I guess,’ he added.

‘Tell us about Cherry.’

‘Cherry just hangs with us.’ There was the sound of a chair shifting, the wooden legs clattering against the slate floor. ‘But she’s no one’s friend. I mean we go to her house and she comes to our places, but it’s not like she’s really close to any of us. Although in the last few weeks, Amanda had been hanging with her a bit more.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘I guess she was at more of a loose end when she broke up with Stevie. Maybe she felt sorry for Cherry. It was kind of weird. I guess we just all felt she was filling time and that she’d soon get sick of her.’

One of the policemen wanted to know why.

‘Because Cherry tries so hard. And the more you try, the less people are interested.’

From across the hall, I heard the lounge-room door open. Dee was coming out. I moved back, closer to the wall.

She went into the kitchen to ask Joe if he was all right, and to remind him that she was happy to sit with him while he was interviewed, if that was what he wanted.

He was fine, he told her, doing little to hide the impatience in his voice. The door shut gently and the other policeman spoke: ‘Can you tell us a bit about Lyndon?’

Joe was silent.

From the hallway outside the kitchen, I heard Dee cough slightly, and I knew she too was listening in.

‘Why?’ Joe eventually asked.

‘We just want to know more about Amanda. It helps to understand how she died and why. And obviously her friends are a big part of that picture.’

‘They weren’t really close.’

Neither of the policemen said anything for a moment. Up in the darkness of the landing, Sammy squirmed in my arms. I put her down on the floor and watched as she nosed open Dee and Tom’s door with small insistent pushes.

‘But he is part of the group?’

Joe must have nodded.

‘And so they obviously had some contact with each other.’

Again, there was no verbal response from Joe.

‘Did they like each other? Dislike each other? Do you think Lyndon had–’ and the policeman paused here, searching for the right phrase – ‘the hots for her?’

I squirmed slightly, knowing Joe would have as well. There was nothing worse than adults trying to convince you that they speak your language.

‘Not that I know of. But then he doesn’t tell me much any more.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Don’t know. He’s gone kind of distant with all of us. Has been for a while. His life is...’ Joe paused for a moment. ‘But you’d know about his dad and his brother.’

I thought back to the afternoon, only a few days ago, when I had seen them all down at the waterfront, and the way they had seemed uncomfortable with Lyndon. He had been angry. And they had been wary.

‘We’ve been told there was something going on between Lyndon and Amanda.’

Joe’s response was immediate. ‘No way.’ And then: ‘Who told you that?’

Neither of the policemen answered.

‘What makes you so certain there wasn’t anything between them?’ It was the younger policeman asking the questions now.

‘We just would have known. I mean we all hung out together. There would have been no reason to hide it. And they never seemed – you know–’ now it was Joe searching for the appropriate word – ‘affectionate with each other.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Unless she started seeing him when she was with Stevie and she didn’t want him to know.’ His voice trailed off as he considered the possibility. ‘I mean, you just don’t know. You don’t ever really know anyone, I guess. She was Amanda, but who knows what she really thought or felt.’

I stood up slowly as the policemen thanked Joe for his time. My legs were stiff from having kept them crossed, the pins and needles in the soles of my feet making me walk with a heavy lumbering stride that Dee heard.

She called out from the bottom of the stairs: ‘I thought you had homework.’

‘I thought you did too.’

She wasn’t amused.

My desk light was still on and my diary open at the entry I had begun before the police arrived. On the floor near the end of my bed was the skateboard Nicky had lent me. I nudged it out with my toe, letting it roll beneath my left foot as I opened my maths book and began the long list of equations set for us to complete over the weekend.