‘If not for the hot-water bottle.’
The kettle boiled but Heather ignored it. ‘The hot-water bottle?’
‘Didn’t Dad tell you? I found a hot-water bottle stuffed with cash in with Mum’s things. Nearly a hundred grand! No one knows where she got it. If she had been putting it away, she must have saved for ages.’
‘She stashed a hundred thousand dollars in a hot-water bottle?’
‘I know, right? I’ve been scratching my head over it. But then, after Miles’s party, I wondered . . .’ Rachel trailed off again.
‘Wondered what?’
Rachel closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know. I’m probably way off. But she said Dad made her life hell. Maybe she was going to use the money to leave him?’
‘You think?’
Rachel shrugged. ‘It seems bizarre to Tully and me, as we’ve never seen any evidence of him being cruel to her. But I guess things can happen in private? Behind closed doors?’
Heather had paled a shade or two. Her hand touched her stomach again and Rachel started to worry she might be sick.
‘Anyway, I’m not worried,’ Rachel continued. ‘If Dad was cruel to Mum, it’s not the kind of thing that’s a one-off. So, if Dad happened to be some kind of abusive monster, you’d definitely know about it, right?’
‘Right,’ Heather said softly.
‘And Dad has never . . . hurt you, right?’
Heather paused. She placed her hands on the counter then dropped them back to her sides.
‘Heather?’
But it was too late. Rachel had wanted a firm, decisive no. A quick no. She hadn’t realised how much she had wanted it until that very second. ‘No,’ Heather said finally. ‘Of course he hasn’t.’
Rachel wanted to be reassured by the answer. The problem was, the pause had said it all.
42
HEATHER
Heather had gone back and forth on what she was doing. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. The proverbial pendulum. She was fairly certain this was a bad idea. She’d been working so hard to keep herself together, and a meeting like this could definitely push her over the edge. At the same time, since her visit from Rachel, she had become increasingly desperate to get to the bottom of things. And she knew of only one person who could help her do that.
The drive took over an hour, and after that she underwent the extensive process of being scanned, searched and directed to leave valuables in a locker. By the time she moved into the visiting area, she was already exhausted. There were about a dozen men in the room, which was about the same size as a high school classroom. Also like a high school classroom, each man sat at a small desk, and the desks were spaced about a metre or so apart.
It took Heather a moment to locate him in the room, and when she did, she did a double take. He looked so much older. Smaller too. Admittedly it had been nearly a decade since she’d last laid eyes on her dad, and he’d spent the entirety of that time in prison, which she imagined would age a person. He was almost completely bald now. His liver-spotted head was misshapen and ugly. Wiry grey hairs grew out of the V of flesh that was exposed at the collar of his shirt. It helped her nerves a little, seeing him look so pathetic. Had he always looked like this? Or was it just his freedom that had made him look so terrifying?
He whistled when he saw her. ‘La-di-da . . . look at you.’
She wondered what he meant. Heather had dressed down, in jeans, a black turtleneck jumper and sneakers. It was astonishing to her that he could think she looked fancy. Maybe it was just his trademark way of insulting her without actually insulting her.
‘Look at you,’ she replied neutrally, sitting down.
She hadn’t contacted her father since the night he killed her mother. She’d been living in Melbourne for a few years by then, and hadn’t seen either of them for months. In fact, the last time she’d seen her mum, she’d been drinking on the floor of the bathroom. Not wine anymore; she’d moved on to gin. Her dad had been the same. Heather （and her mother, clearly） had given up hoping that things would ever be different. ‘It’s just your father,’ she would say, when Heather asked her about it. ‘He just gets funny sometimes.’ So when Heather received the 3 am phone call to tell her that her mother had died by strangulation, she didn’t feel shock. Why should she? Her father had been promising he’d do it for years.
For a while, she thought she might have to go to court to give evidence, but in the end she didn’t have to. So, she hadn’t gone to court, she hadn’t gone to the prison, hadn’t even picked up the phone. As far as she was concerned, it was convenient that her father was locked up – she wanted to leave that part of her life behind. If only that had been possible.