Mum and Dad arrive around 9 am, with colouring books and games for the girls. Dad does a coffee run for the police, and returns with raspberry and white chocolate muffins. Kat arrives mid-morning with Mei, and they set up their computers side by side at our dining room table and work from there, as if it’s the obvious, most normal thing to do. There’s something about the morning that feels sacred and jarring – like someone has died. Which, of course, is true.
Gabe potters around the place, doing laundry, playing with the girls, and everyone watches him closely while pretending they’re not. Mum is the only one upfront about her concern, approaching him every half-hour or so and hugging him tight, before carrying on with whatever she was doing.
During a brief gap in the rain, Gabe and Dad help the girls into their raincoats and gumboots and take them to the playground at the end of the road.
Mei and I are in the kitchen, making yet more tea. Kat is filling up her water bottle. Mum is folding laundry on the kitchen counter.
It’s soothing being here with the three of them. Mei, as usual, is a particularly calming presence. There’s something about her intelligence, her slow movements, that always puts me at ease. She is an ex-colleague of Gabe’s; funnily enough, it was Gabe who introduced her to Kat. He said he just knew they would hit it off – and, as usual, Gabe was right. As if my family needed another reason to adore him.
‘How’s Gabe doing?’ Mei asks, flicking the kettle off and pouring water into her cup.
‘Oh, I think he’s . . . all right.’
‘I can’t imagine what it must be like.’ Mei dunks her teabag thoughtfully. ‘I’ve seen a few animals die. Both my dogs, when they were put down, and a bird that I ran over accidentally. Never a human being.’
‘I saw a man get hit by a car once,’ Kat says. She perches herself on the counter and takes a slug from her water bottle. ‘A pedestrian. He was cutting between cars, and someone clipped him. He didn’t die, I don’t think. But I was spooked for weeks.’
‘I’ve seen plenty of people die.’ Mum was an ER nurse, so this isn’t surprising to us. When we were young, she’d come home and tell us stories about kids who’d died of drug overdoses – an effective warning, as neither of us has ever touched so much as a joint. ‘But I never saw one who didn’t want to live. Seeing a healthy person take their own life . . . that’s something else entirely.’
‘Maybe they’re not healthy,’ Kat says. ‘Mentally, at least.’
‘Good point,’ Mum says.
‘I’ve never seen anyone die.’ I pour milk into my tea. ‘Thank goodness. I’m not sure I could handle that sort of trauma.’
There’s a short silence. I look up and find Mum and Mei and Kat exchanging a look.
‘Actually,’ Kat says, ‘I’d say if anyone could cope with it, it’s you.’
I’m not sure what Kat’s getting at, but the three of them are all staring at me now. It gives me a weird feeling, so instead of replying, I lift my cup to my mouth and take a big slurp.
Mid-morning, shortly after Gabe, Dad and the girls have returned from the playground, a police officer appears at the glass sliding door and waves. I recognise her as one of those who’d introduced herself earlier. She is dressed in a white shirt and navy trousers and a pair of gumboots covered in mud.
Our reaction, as a family, is comical. Everyone freezes, even the girls. Then we blink at the poor woman, standing in the rain, as if her presence is bizarre and unexpected, as if the police haven’t been there all morning, as if Mum hasn’t been out looking for them several times with offers of tea. The difference, I suppose, is that this is the first time they have come looking for us.
‘Sorry to intrude,’ she says, sliding open the door. ‘I’m Detective Senior Constable Tamil. Thank you for your patience as we’ve tramped around your garden. And, of course, thanks for the tea and coffee.’ She holds up three empty mugs, and Mum rushes over to retrieve them.
The police officer turns to Gabe, who is on all fours giving Freya a horsey ride. ‘Before we head off,’ she says, ‘I wonder if you’d be able to spare a minute, Mr Gerard? Outside?’
‘Of course.’ Gabe rises onto his knees so Freya slides to the floor. When she protests, Dad jumps in as a substitute horse and saves the day.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ I say suddenly. I feel the gaze of the others on me and wonder if I shouldn’t have asked. ‘Just for moral support?’ I add.
Tamil looks a little surprised but hesitates only a moment before she says, ‘Sure thing. The more the merrier.’
The Drop is cordoned off with police tape, a crime scene now. I’ve always found The Drop eerie, but surrounded by police tape in the rain and wind the energy of it is almost repellent. For the millionth time, I wonder why I agreed to move here. Gabe and Tamil also appear to eye it with distaste.
‘All right,’ Tamil says, ‘it’s cold and wet out here, so let’s get straight to it. I know this is going to feel repetitive, but I need you to tell me what happened, from start to finish.’
‘Okay,’ Gabe says. ‘Well, we were doing the dishes when Pip spotted her through the window. I came outside right away, and Pip called the police.’
‘Can you show me where she was standing when you first got here?’ Tamil asks.
Gabe points to a spot very close to the edge of the cliff. ‘Over there.’
‘And where were you?’
He points to the ground where he currently stands, several metres back from the edge. ‘Here.’
As Tamil photographs each of the places, I consider them. They seem a little different from what I saw. Then again, I was watching from the window. Perhaps my perspective was off.
‘What happened next?’ Tamil asks.
‘I approached her,’ Gabe says. ‘And I asked if she needed help with anything.’
‘Did she reply?’
‘She turned around. She was clearly upset. She might have been crying.’
A powerful gust of wind cuts through us. One of the legs of the police tent comes free and a couple of officers quickly pin it down. We all look at it for a moment, then Tamil says: ‘And then?’
‘I asked her if she was all right. She said her husband had been unfaithful and that she didn’t want to live anymore.’
‘Did she mention her husband by name?’
‘No.’
‘And she didn’t give her own name?’
‘No.’
She makes a note on her notepad. ‘What happened next?’
‘She kept talking, but the wind was so loud. I was only getting every second or third word. I moved closer, but the wind was wild, and I didn’t want either of us to get too close to the edge.’
Detective Tamil keeps writing, then flips a page on her notebook and looks up. ‘And then?’
‘And then it happened very quickly. One minute she was facing me, and the next she was facing the edge. I lunged forward to try to grab her but . . .’ He’s overtaken by a wave of emotion that I recognise as real. ‘It was too late.’
Detective Tamil’s gaze jumps to her notebook. ‘Sorry – you said you lunged forward? I didn’t see that in your statement. Did you touch her at any point?’