Things We Cannot See Read online

  EPIGRAPH

  “. . . we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened . . .”

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Ninteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Dianne Maguire

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a mild autumn afternoon when eight-year-old Roger Grenfell looked up from where he was dismantling his Gameboy on the family’s concrete verandah and watched his father drop dead to his knees still grasping the weeding fork. Roger’s mother ran from the house moments later, the screen door slapping closed behind her, the aroma of freshly baked fruitcake floating in her wake. A green checked tea towel pressed to her mouth, she stared down at her prostrate husband before scrambling back inside.

  Roger watched the ambulance scream into their driveway ten minutes later, but that was not soon enough for his father. Although the loss of his parent brought with it a certain type of sadness and great inconvenience, the worst part for Roger was being forced to pack up his Gameboy and go to bed with the sun still mockingly high in the sky.

  When his mother’s death followed ten years later, Roger was left to face the gawping entrance to adulthood alone. But worse was Roger’s despair at a loss that even his exceptional powers of logic could not displace; logic that dictated his mother was gone forever, that she rested in heaven, supposedly a better place to be than on earth, that there was clearly no one to blame for her death. But rationality could not override the crushing sadness so unfamiliar to Roger – like an elephant sitting on his chest.

  The elephant eventually left, yet even at the age of twenty-eight Roger still could not fathom the occasional stab of despair brought on by his mother’s memory. But a few weeks ago Roger consciously and deliberately crossed a line he never thought he would cross. And since then the sadness seemed to have magically disappeared.

  Early morning was Roger’s favourite part of the day, particularly at this time of year when winter gradually slid into spring, when birdsong grew frenetic and jacarandas sprouted green and lilac with the promise of things to come.

  Roger made his bed in the bedroom once belonging to his parents, smoothed the striped cover with meticulous care, and sat facing the window, waiting, as was his habit of late, to gaze through the pale net curtain silently and gently billowing in the breeze. Peering across the same red-painted verandah of years ago, past the garden of gravel and red geraniums that had replaced his father’s lovingly tended petunias and sculptured shrubs, his focus was on the opposite side of the street – and more particularly, the narrow opening of Connor Lane.

  In the garden adjoining the lane, separated by a taller than average galvanised iron fence, Mrs Quarterman raked feverishly at the carpet of liquidambar leaves on her front lawn, her pale thin lips stretching and cursing, her forefinger stabbing at her glasses as though the world was about to come to an end. One eye attending to Connor Lane and the other studying old Mrs Quarterman, Roger wished back to five years ago that he could be rid of his neighbour’s fidgeting annoyance, her cynical stare. Wished for the time when it had been Mr Bunning out there raking his lawn in front of his gentleman’s bungalow, giving a friendly wave, sometimes even tottering over for a chat. Roger often lamented how on Mr Bunning’s fateful day, he had not been sitting on his verandah as usual, had not seen the speeding car, had not been in a position to call out ‘Careful Mr Bunning.’ Because if all these things had happened, Mr Bunning would still be his neighbour today and old Mrs Quarterman would not have become a permanently galling fixture in his life.

  Mrs Quarterman stopped sweeping and cussing, removed the straw hat from her flattened grey hair, wiped her forehead with the back of her gloved hand and peered directly towards him, as though the window and curtain were no barrier to her nosiness. Roger blithely met her stare, confident that the curtain and the shadows at this time of morning provided him with ample camouflage.

  Glancing at the clock on his night stand and catching his reflection in the mirror – his black points of eyes all but hidden in darkish folds of skin, his cap of wiry dark hair giving away his Mediterranean heritage – he rubbed the back of his neck, his agitation stemming from a burning fear she may not show. If that were to happen, he thought, this would turn out to be a very bad day.

  It was her golden Labrador who padded out through the narrow laneway first, his tail slowly brushing his back like a flag as he headed for the power pole and lifted a leg. Roger’s adrenalin surged, his heart pounded as he allowed his eyes and his mind to be filled with the sight of Alex Holt emerging into the morning sun from between the tall sides of Connor Lane. Her glowing skin, her silky blond ponytail mesmerised him as she crossed the road and sprinted towards him, her running shorts emphasising long legs the colour of honey, her white T-shirt hugging her small breasts and firm waist, her confident reliable stance robbing him of breath. Although her abundant smiles whenever he went into her store made it clear to him that she liked him, he pondered now why she had not responded to his notes. Perhaps he needed to be more explicit. Perhaps he would write her another.

  She turned towards the park and left him, the only semblance of her presence being the sound of her voice as she called to her Labrador, ‘Wait, Bruno.’

  Seeing Alex every morning, even for these few brief moments, was the highlight of Roger’s day. Holding the visage of her in his mind and resolving that today he would send her yet another note, Roger Grenfell lay back on the striped cover of his bed, slowly closed his eyes, and with a degree of urgency unzipped the front of his trousers.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The stagnant silence of night did not usually bother Alex Holt. But on this night she sensed a disturbing stillness from the very moment she stepped out through the store’s back door.

  Hugging her arms across her chest Alex peered through the darkness to the furthermost corner of the car park, the shadowy outline of cartons brimming over the dumpster, some teased by the mild breeze as they lay on the asphalt. Everyone would leave it for her to tidy this mess because such things did not bother the others who worked in the store with her. She scanned the car park quadrangle, mops and brooms standing sentry-like under buttery lights at the rear doors of the stores facing onto it, as though waiting for life to begin all over again tomorrow. But still she could not put her finger on what unsettled her.


  ‘It’s a creepy night – so quiet,’ Alex murmured with a shiver, taking the few steps from the door down to the asphalt and glancing up at the CTV camera, brushing past Isaac’s chest, his muscles clearly visible beneath his T-shirt. But Isaac was like a brother, a niggling stone in her shoe rather than someone who made her heart sing. Nevertheless she enjoyed working with him, and on this particular night she wished he would offer to walk her home.

  ‘Goddamn, Isaac. There’s something really creepy about tonight,’ she repeated, watching him release his bike-chain from the trunk of the nearest elm, one of several skirting the quadrangle throwing shadows like giant blankets across the asphalt.

  ‘Yeah, it’s quiet alright. When are you working again?’ Isaac asked, finally releasing the bike chain and casting her a brief glimpse over his shoulder.

  ‘Not till Wednesday,’ Alex said, watching him shove his arms into his backpack, his desire to be out of there clearly evident. She didn’t want to talk about shifts. She wanted to talk about him walking her home. But she knew he would never offer, even in the face of her pointed hints. And she knew she would never ask because that would make her seem needy.

  ‘I’m not back here again till Wednesday either,’ he said. ‘I have exams this week. I’ll see you then.’ His knees bowed as he rode away on the too-small bike. Alex watched his flickering tail-light grow dimmer; the metronomic squeak of his rear wheel fade gradually with distance.

  Her sneakers thudded along the narrow driveway between the side of the store and the family clinic to reach the uncharacteristically deserted silence of Davis Avenue. She jogged across the road to the pavement, into the jacaranda’s shadows. Charged past gaping driveways that faded to darkness, glanced back at the occasional approaching car the motor’s hum and headlights’ glow reminding her she was not alone.

  With the muffled thump of her joggers along the pavement and the rhythmic whooshing of her breath, came a distraction – thoughts of home and dinner, which she knew her mother would have put in the oven before leaving for her own job at the nursing home; perhaps sausages and mash, or lamb with gravy and piles of roasted vegetables. By the time she arrived home Greg would have changed out of his suit and into his track pants. They would chat about their day while he washed the dishes and she ate dinner at the table in the family room, the drapes pulled against the dark. And Bruno’s soft brown eyes would stare up at her from where he sat at her feet, silver threads of drool hanging from his black lips at the prospect of receiving even the tiniest morsel.

  The houses either side of this road were substantial. Most loomed behind tall fences, others had minimal or no fencing and displayed all manner of manicured or artistically shambolic gardens combining to create the leafy ambience of the neighbourhood.

  Since Alex’s father died when she was only four months old, she and her mother had lived somewhere along the continuum of merely surviving to modestly existing. Alex and her mother were no strangers to walking beside stretches of corrugated iron riddled with graffiti, houses with no gardens, or through arid parks dotted with used syringes, even turning a blind ear to echoes of rabid shouting, slapping and punching from behind the closed doors of neighbours. But eighteen months ago all that faded into distant memory when her mother met Greg and they both gained entry into life in the eastern suburbs.

  Her street now visible only metres ahead, Alex took a deep cleansing breath, berated herself for being twitchy, silently smiled at the sight of the corner ahead where she would turn into her street and after a few steps cross the road to home. Then would come the comforting crunch of her runners along the gravel driveway. The thought spurred her on. Her shoulders relaxed. Her pace steadied.

  Until moments later a tall figure emerged from the shadowed corner, hesitating for just a moment before turning and walking towards her. She could have convinced herself this was just a shadow. But within seconds she was forced to acknowledge that this tall stranger and his trajectory were real. Not a manifestation of her imagination. Not an optical illusion.

  She moved onto the grass verge to allow ample space for him to pass. Searched the road ahead and behind, anxious for any sign of a car or another human being. His pace was slow but long-legged. In one instant the shadows of the jacarandas would swallow him, but seconds later he would emerge again into the murky light, the distance between them closing with frightening speed.

  Only metres away from her now, his gloved hands reached up and unfurled a dark mask that covered his featureless face.

  Her involuntary gasp came deep and sudden. But for some reason she could not turn and run. She could not scream. She could not show him an iota of the paralysing terror that made her feet seem like steel girders wading through sludge.

  When they were finally within touching distance she turned sharply towards the darkly dressed stranger in the black balaclava. Gave him her most menacing glare. Wordlessly warned him she would not succumb to his size and strength. That she was ready to fight him off. Eyes that could have been any colour glowered back at her through slits in the balaclava’s dark fabric. The pounding of her heart echoed in her ears. Seemed to fill the night air. The scream she now so desperately wanted to release refused to leave her throat.

  Then the stranger turned his eyes away and without breaking his stride walked straight past.

  Alex took flight, not daring to glance back, not daring to listen for footfall behind. Lurching for her street corner she scrambled for balance as she turned . . . scuttling to regain her footing on the ball-bearing carpet of jacaranda berries. Her white stucco house glowed like a beacon in the weak moonlight as she pounded across the road. Her breath burned like needles as the light spilling from the windows and under her porch beckoned in a way they never had before.

  Mere seconds from home a gloved hand clapped onto her mouth, wrenched her neck from behind. His gravelly voice rasped damp and warm against her ear, ‘Don’t scream.’ Although paralysed by terror, she could smell him . . . alcohol and something else. Something putrid. Her mind lurched for solutions, his rigidity pressing into her back, his smothering hand depriving her of both breath and voice.

  Alex’s eyes widened with unblinking terror as he half-dragged, half-carried her past the safety of home, past the familiar front yards of neighbours and across the road into Connor Lane. In the narrowness of the lane she walked every morning, the lane as familiar to her as her own driveway, she sensed the sweep of his arm, heard his savage grunt, felt searing pain in her thigh. Her legs sagged to the ground and urine flooded her jeans, warm in the chilling dark as every nerve ending shouted to her that something unimaginable was about to happen, before she sank into a pillow of darkness.

  Minutes, or was it hours later, she slowly became aware of the jabbing broken asphalt beneath her, the throbbing in her legs and pelvis, the icy shroud of night air enveloping her. Immediately sensing another presence she forced her eyes up to see a tall dark shape standing over her, a shadowy flash of facial features, the balaclava now hanging limp in his hand. Then in an instant he turned and ran, his lumbering footfall gradually fading towards the opposite end of the lane. And with her beloved Bruno’s frantic barking growing closer, she lapsed again into merciful nothingness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Laura Nesci was about to do something she had never done before. Casting a guilty eye over her shoulder she grabbed up the binoculars and held them to unblinking eyes, aiming not at a yacht on the horizon or a kayak in the shallows, or at dolphins fracturing the sunlight sprinkled across the ocean’s surface, but at a human figure striding through the dunes in front of her house.

  Regardless that Laura found the habit of studying unsuspecting people at close range an abhorrent breach of privacy, she allowed herself the sight of the faded blue T-shirt over broad shoulders, the unruly steel-grey hair, the muscled calves below khaki board shorts. He turned towards her then, bending to pick up a stick from the sand, his brown terrier instantly alert at his feet. Laura watched his arm
draw back to send the stick pirouetting across the marbled sky, the dog scampering through the dunes like a rabbit. His smile crept across his face, reminding her of that day not so long ago when after several occasions of exchanging nods and tentative smiles as they passed each other on the beach, he had finally stopped and struck up a benign, somewhat reserved conversation about something she had already forgotten, and introduced himself as Flynn O’Connor.

  Clearing her throat, Laura set the binoculars down again on the coffee table.

  Turning her thoughts to the more mundane, she straightened the cushions on the white leather couches facing each other over the coffee table and surveyed the panorama of Ackland Bay before her. She stepped into the kitchen doorway, glancing at her watch and calling down the passage towards the bedrooms, ‘Seth. Come on, dude. We’ll be late.’ She waited, throwing her leather bag over her shoulder, straightening her black jacket and brushing a scattering of fluff from her black pants.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, mate.’ She smiled as Seth stumbled towards her from his room, struggling to get his small shoulder under the strap of his disproportionate backpack. ‘You’ll only have to take it off again in the car.’ Catching his fringe between gentle fingers she swept it back from his forehead, deriving a jolt of pleasure from his neatness, his freshly laundered shorts and pressed school shirt, the dark sheen of his shoes.

  An off-sea breeze met them outside the back door, but not even the tangy salt air could calm her frustration as she pulled and jiggled the key. ‘This goddamned lock is getting stickier by the day,’ she mumbled before it finally relented, and her wedged heels clicked along the concrete path to follow Seth’s gambolling progress towards the carport. Pushing aside melancholic, even angry thoughts of her husband Simon, which in his absence seemed to invade more frequently now, she concentrated instead on Seth’s humming, sounds of unfettered joy that only a six year old can produce out of nowhere so early in the day. Pointing the remote at her car, she glanced at the sea sparkling like crushed glass under the sun, knowing that when she returned it would be to the moon’s silver path across the water.