Whispering Death

42

On Saturday Ian Galt drove out through Gippsland to Lakes Entrance and the Autumn Years Retirement Village.

The little town and the coastal waters were vivid in the sunlight, and another man might have drawn an appreciative breath after his long drive and admired the gumtree leaves, variously dun-coloured, olive toned and silvery, the municipal flowerbeds splashed yellow, red and blue. Another man might have stopped for coffee, sat at a sidewalk cafe to sip and watch the locals buying the Saturday papers, the women in their springtime dresses, but Galt had no interest at all in the beauty of his surroundings.

He found the retirement village along a leafy side road behind the main street. The lakeside charm was absent here, away from the tourist beat. The houses were pale brick scabs from the 1970s, mute and disappointed, as if ashamed of the men who’d designed them. The admin building and cottages of the retirement village were in keeping with the neighbouring houses. Everything was pink and grey inside the foyer and the air was stale, redolent of industrial solvents and urine.

This time he kept his Andrew Towne ID in his pocket, unable to think of a good reason for a federal policeman to pay a formal visit to a retirement home in a small coastal town. During the long drive from Melbourne, he’d settled on an honest-citizen story, and with his teeth bared in a smile, eyes crinkled, explained to the receptionist that he’d been overseas for twenty years, returning recently because his last surviving relative, his aunt, had died. ‘The thing is, among her effects there was this photo.’

An elderly couple standing with a young woman outside Autumn Years. ‘That’s my half sister,’ he said, tapping the image. ‘We lost contact a long time ago, and I don’t know how to find her, and thought maybe the old people standing with her could help me, whoever they are.’

The receptionist was delighted to help, but had bad news: Mr Ingles had died. ‘But Mrs Ingles is still here, bless her.’

Galt glanced down the corridor, at the rows of doors, old men and women inside them, pissing their beds. ‘Well, that is good news.’

‘Mind sharp as a tack, too.’

To Galt’s relief, he was shown to a cottage in the grounds. The receptionist knocked on a glossy red door. The woman who answered was frail, stooped over a walking stick, but recognisably the woman in the photograph. Her gaze spent very little time on the receptionist and even less on the spring sunshine, but fixed hard on Galt.

What are you staring at, you old bag? he thought.

The receptionist said, ‘Eileen, this young man has come a long way to see you, isn’t that exciting? He needs help finding his sister.’

Eileen’s face seemed to say, I’m not a child. ‘Is that so?’

Sensing that the ruse was going to unravel, Galt said, very quickly, ‘Thank you, I can take it from here,’ and when the receptionist was gone, said, ‘I’m trying to get hold of your daughter, Mrs Ingles. This is Susan, I believe?’

Eileen Ingles regarded him for so long that Galt wanted to snatch away her walking stick and beat her with it. ‘Mrs Ingles?’

‘I don’t have a daughter.’

Galt shook the photograph under the old bag’s face. ‘Explain this.’

‘That is certainly me, and that is my late husband, but who the young woman is I couldn’t tell you.’

‘So why the hell is she in the photo with you?’

‘Don’t you get narky with me. As I recall, she simply materialised one day, claiming she was writing an article on regional facilities for the aged, and wanted her photograph taken with us. If I remember correctly, she said her name was Grace.’

Galt curled his lip. ‘If you remember correctly.’

Mrs Ingles cocked her head. ‘There’s grace,’ she said, ‘and there is the absence of grace.’

Galt didn’t say, ‘Break a hip’, but he thought it.