PRAISE FOR THE DARK LAKE

‘The Dark Lake is a thrilling psychological police procedural as well

as a leap into the mind of a woman engulfed with guilt.’ New York
Journal of Books

‘The Dark Lake hooked me from page one! Sarah Bailey combines
the very best elements in this stunning debut thriller—a troubled
detective still trying to find her way as a female investigator, a small
town haunted by secrets both past and present, and a beautiful victim
whose unsettling allure appears to be her biggest asset and largest
downfall. With clever twists and all-too-human characters, this book
will keep you racing toward the end.’ Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times
bestselling author of Right Behind You and Find Her

‘This polished debut is a winner from the first page.’ Daily Telegraph

‘I read The Dark Lake in one sitting, it’s that good. A crime thriller
that seizes you from the first page and slowly draws you into a web
of deception and long buried secrets. Beautifully written, compul-
sively readable, and highly recommended.’ Douglas Preston, #1 New
York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God and
co-author of the bestselling Pendergast series

‘An addictive and thoroughly entertaining read.’ Weekly Review

‘The Dark Lake is a mesmerising thriller full of long buried secrets that
sucked me right in and kept me up late turning pages. Gemma Wood-
stock is a richly flawed and completely authentic character—I loved
going on this journey with her and the way the truth of her past was
revealed in bits and pieces as we went along. Sarah Bailey has crafted
an exquisite debut—I can’t wait to see what she does next!’ Jennifer
McMahon, New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People

‘So many people have compared Sarah Bailey to the likes of Gillian
Flynn and Tana French, and they’re so right. The prose is incredible.

Into the Night_TXT.indd 1 15/3/18 9:52 am

 Poetic and perfectly constructed . . . I recommend this book if you’re
into crime thrillers with a strong female lead and lots of twists and
turns. I can’t wait to see what Sarah [Bailey] does next.’ A Girl and Grey
‘Debut author Sarah Bailey depicts both the landscape and Gemma’s
state of mind vividly, bringing into focus the intensity of Gemma’s
physical and emotional pain and her increasing discontent. The Dark
Lake adds to the trend of haunting, rural Australian crime fiction,
and provides a welcome addition to the genre for those left bereft
after finishing Jane Harper’s The Dry.’ Books + Publishing
‘The Dark Lake is an absolutely stunning debut. This is such a beauti-
fully written and utterly absorbing read, it’s hard to believe that it’s the
author’s first novel. I love to get my hands on a good character-driven
murder mystery—especially one with a complex protagonist and a
plot that keeps me guessing. The Dark Lake delivers all of this and
more. The characters and relationships portrayed are so intricate
and messy and real . . . it was a real struggle for me to put this book
down.’ Sarah McDuling, Booktopia
‘. . . a page-turner that’s both tense and thought provoking.’ Publishers
Weekly
‘The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey is a brooding, suspenseful and explo-
sive debut that will grip you from the first page to the last.’ New Idea
‘A compelling debut.’ Booklist
‘I raced through this deliciously complicated, mesmerising debut
at warp speed. Sarah Bailey’s The Dark Lake is sure to keep readers
awake far too late into the night.’ Karen Dionne, author The Marsh
King’s Daughter
‘Enthralling . . . Bailey uses solid character development and superior
storytelling, rather than violence, to fuel The Dark Lake, and she
is off to an excellent start in this launch of a series.’ Oline Cogdill,
Associated Press

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 Sarah Bailey is a Melbourne-based writer with a background in
advertising and communications. She has two young children
and currently works at creative projects company Mr Smith. Over
the past five years she has written a number of short stories and
opinion pieces. The Dark Lake was her first novel. Into the Night is
her second book featuring Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock.

Into the Night_TXT.indd 3 15/3/18 9:52 am

 This a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First published in 2018

Copyright © Sarah Bailey 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever
is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational
purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has
given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com

A catalogue record for this

book is available from the
National Library of Australia


ISBN 978 1 76029 748 0

Set in 12/17 pt Minion Pro by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper in this book is FSC® certified.

FSC® promotes environmentally responsible,
socially beneficial and economically viable
management of the world’s forests.

Into the Night_TXT.indd 6 15/3/18 9:52 am

 Melbourne, this one is for you

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 ‘The eternal stars shine out again,
so soon as it is dark enough.’
Thomas Carlyle

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 Tuesday, 14 August
12.14 am

Freezing air slices my lungs every time I breathe. I walk to the

other side of the tunnel in an attempt to shift blood into my numb
feet. I peer into its black depths. I assume it’s just a long stretch of
concrete and rubbish, shelter for rats and mice, that eventually
merges with other concrete passages running underneath unsus-
pecting roads and buildings. Faded graffiti hugs the curved wall,
the colourful scrawls harshly exposed by a mobile spotlight and
fresh police tape across the entrance is taut, barely shaking in the
breeze. The nearby asphalt path is slick with recent rain. High
above, a plump moon peers down at the blunt edges of the city. As
the white puffs exit my mouth, I think about how much grittier the
crime scenes always seem here than they did in Smithson. So much
more sinister somehow.
I was drifting into my second hour of sleep when the call
came through. A fatal attack in Carlton. Putting the phone down,
I threw a glance at the lightly snoring man in the giant bed beside
me. I slipped out of the warm cocoon, stumbled into the small
lounge, then quietly pulled on the clothes I’d stripped off only an
hour earlier. After easing the door shut, I made my way to the lift

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 SARAH BAILEY

and rushed through the gleaming lobby, eyes on the floor, before
jumping into a cab. The city is smaller at night, and less than fifteen
minutes later I’m staring into the face of a dead man, the wind
biting at my nose and ears.
My body aches for rest. I taste wine on my breath. Sex is still
fresh on my skin. I pull my wool coat tighter around me and shake
my head, forcing my brain to accept that for the next few hours at
least, sleep is out of the question.
The forensics officers are silent as they go about their business,
glowing in their puffy white uniforms. Their jaws are set as they
pluck items from the ground with gloved hands and tweezers,
dropping them carefully into evidence bags, their experienced eyes
taking in the story of the scene.
All I can hear is the endless buzz of the sprawling night.
I jump slightly as a camera flash lights up the dingy surrounds—
once, twice, again—and it reminds me of a music video. But in
place of curvy dancing silhouettes, there is only the profile of
the victim, his head hanging forward into his lap, his back hard
against the wall. In death, the old man’s gnarled fingers curl gently
into each palm. His bald head is partly shielded from the cold;
a woollen beanie dotted with holes grips his head. His tracksuit
pants are down around his knees but his oversized shirt grants him
some dignity. His hands are slick with drying blood, indicating that
he tried to keep the life inside his body. He didn’t want to die despite
living like this. The dark red mingles with the rubbish on the
ground, creating a murky, smelly puddle. I wonder if anyone is left
alive who remembers him as a child. I wonder about his mother.
The glowing tip of a cigarette bobs into my vision.
‘What a place to go,’ says Detective Sergeant Nick Fleet, extin-
guishing the smoke and placing it in a plastic bag before shoving it
into his pocket.

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 INTO THE NIGHT

The familiar smell finds my nostrils and instantly triggers a

craving.
‘It’s pretty isolated,’ I observe. ‘And badly lit. You’d be fairly safe to
assume that you could get away with pretty much anything out here.’
Fleet snorts. ‘Well, if it wasn’t for the witness I’d guess it was
a gay hook-up gone wrong, seeing as our guy’s half naked.’ Fleet
squints into the tunnel at the body, wrinkling his nose. ‘But it was
probably drug payback. Usually is.’
‘Maybe,’ I reply, ‘but I don’t think so. Everything here suggests
that he was taken by surprise. I think he was urinating against the
wall when someone attacked him.’ I point to the rancid wet circle
not far from the body.
Fleet clears his throat loudly and the rattle of loose phlegm
nauseates me. ‘My money is still on drugs.’
‘It’s possible,’ I say, ‘but there’s no suggestion that he was using or
selling. No track marks, no drug paraphernalia.’
‘Maybe he pissed someone off.’
‘Maybe,’ I say curtly.
Fleet clicks his tongue. ‘We must keep an open mind, Gemma,’
he says in a faux-wise voice. ‘It’s early days after all.’
A familiar surge of frustration flares just as headlights swing
across the darkness nearby. The bark of a dog explodes behind us.
Moments later, our boss, Chief Inspector Toby Isaacs, ducks under
the tape and into the mouth of the tunnel. He nods at me, then
Fleet, before surveying the scene with wide grey eyes. His features
don’t move but his gaze lingers on the dead man’s worn boots; the
sole of the left one gapes open at the toes like a howling mouth.
‘What do we know?’ asks Isaacs.
‘He was stabbed,’ I say, straightening my shoulders and forcing
strength into my voice. ‘Looks like a single wound, though we
haven’t moved him yet. No sign of a weapon. I’ll arrange for a field

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 SARAH BAILEY

team to do a search at first light and see what CCTV we can pull
from the area, but I think we’ll hit a dead end on that front. I can’t
see any cameras.’
Isaacs nods briskly. ‘And we’re sure he was homeless?’
‘It certainly looks that way,’ I confirm.
‘And smells that way,’ says Fleet. He points past the forensics
team to a blanket and a tatty backpack. ‘That looks like his bedroom
over there.’
‘We can’t find any ID,’ I add.
‘Where’s the witness now?’ asks Isaacs, looking around.
‘She’s at the station,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll head back there and take
her statement once we’re done here. Apparently she’s elderly and
homeless herself. On my way here I spoke to the constable who’s
with her, and he says she’s in a bad way.’
‘She definitely doesn’t have anything to do with it?’
‘It doesn’t sound like it. He said she’s terrified.’
Isaacs purses his lips. ‘Do we have a description to work with?’
‘A man in a hoodie,’ I reply. ‘We’ll push for more details but it’s so
dark out here I doubt she saw much.’
‘Men in hoodies really are the root of all evil, aren’t they?’
quips Fleet.
I watch as he scratches his elbow and pushes a hand roughly
through his wiry hair. Isaacs seems to tolerate rather than favour
him, which he never seems too fussed about—but, then, Nick Fleet
never seems particularly ruffled by anything.
In the three months I’ve been in Melbourne, I’ve worked more
closely with him than anyone else on the squad. He’s a detective
sergeant like me but at least a couple of years older—I’d be sur­
prised if he’s forty. I get the feeling he had another life altogether
before entering the force. I also quickly learned he has a massive
reputation with the ladies, though I’m yet to see the charm.

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 INTO THE NIGHT

He’s unappealingly hairy and frequently rude, and he has a rough,

primal quality: a harshness.
The forensics officers begin to trawl through the pile of bedding.
The camera strobes again before a jumper and a faded picnic
blanket are swiftly bagged.
Isaacs rubs his hands together and breathes into them. ‘­Hopefully
it was someone he knew. A random attack on the homeless is the
last thing we need.’
‘I’m going to have another smoke,’ announces Fleet. ‘I’ll have a
bit of a look around while I’m at it.’
Isaacs just clasps his arms and rocks back slightly on his heels.
He turns his head to look out across the parkland, his angular
profile sharp. The moonlight paints his hair silver. As always, I can’t
tell what he’s thinking.
I shift my gaze past Isaacs to take in the maze of lights and
uneven rooftops. I feel uneasy, not knowing who might be watching
from the darkness.
‘Detective Woodstock?’ says Brenton Cardona, one of the senior
techs. ‘We’re going to move him in a minute. That okay with you?’
Aware that Isaacs’ eyes are on me, I give Cardona a firm yes
before squatting next to the nameless victim one last time. Careful
to avoid the blood and debris, I look into his face. His bottom lip
hangs open slightly and shines with saliva. His unseeing eyes are
fixed on his broken shoes. I would place him around sixty-five but
the layers of grime on his leathery, pockmarked skin make it hard
to tell. He might be much younger. My back teeth grind together as
I play out his macabre demise in my mind: the split-second register
of a presence, his surprise at being grabbed from behind and spun
around. The blinding pain as a knife is pushed into his chest, eyes
widening as his blood flowed straight from his heart and onto the
ground. His panic as he realised he was dying. His terror.

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 SARAH BAILEY

It’s impossible for me to know if he was good, bad or any of the

shades in between. But no matter what happened at the end, right
now—punctured, slumped forward and drained of life—this dead
old man looks like an abandoned little boy.

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 Tuesday, 14 August
7.43 pm

The heavy door thuds shut behind me and I stand in the dark boxy
entrance for a moment. I just want to be perfectly still as the day
fades away. The brutality of the homeless man’s death has pulled
me down, his crumpled corpse heavy in my thoughts. I walk over
to the lounge-room window and take in the sprawl of activity
below. Cars creep along the ruler-straight roads, the angry glow of
red tail-lights evidencing the collective frustration of their drivers.
Everyone here is so impatient to be somewhere.
My apartment is at the top end of Melbourne, near the corner
of Little Collins and Exhibition streets. It’s eight floors up and the
view gives the city such a sense of grandeur. Smithson, my home
town in regional New South Wales, is definitely growing, but its
25,000-odd people has nothing on the crazy melting pot of lives
that Melbourne homes.
Dropping my keys onto the kitchen bench, I shake off my jacket
and flick on the ancient wall heater. It chokes into life, half-­heartedly
filling the room with warm stale air.
I ended up leaving the station just before 3 am, wired on
caffeine, my eyes like two hot discs in my face after interviewing

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 SARAH BAILEY

Lara Maxwell, the terrified witness. Lara couldn’t tell us much and
knew the victim only as Walt. Both homeless, they’d spoken occa-
sionally but she said he’d mainly kept to himself. She described him
as simple but harmless; she often saw him talking to the pigeons
and whistling show tunes. The perfect sitting duck.
Fleet and I calmed Lara down and arranged some temporary
accommodation for her before heading home.
By the time I returned to the station at midday, Isaacs had
appointed Ralph Myers as case lead and we’d confirmed an ID.
Swallowing my disappointment at being overlooked again, I sat
through the formal briefing.
Our victim, Walter Miller, a 62-year-old perennially homeless
man with a staccato history of mental illness, had been living
rough for over two decades. He last had a fixed address in the
early nineties. Tammy Miller, his 33-year-old daughter, hadn’t
seen her father for almost twenty years, after her mother, Walter’s
ex-wife, decided she wanted nothing to do with him. Tammy,
now an event planner with two young children, is clearly bewil-
dered about what to do with the news of her estranged father’s
murder. She’s suddenly grieving for a man who in many ways was
dead to her years ago. Her mother died in 2013, and the shock
of her orphan status and the horrific circumstances of Walter’s
death were written on her pretty face as Ralph led her to an
interview room.
At around 3 pm I was sent back to the crime scene to interview
workers in nearby factories. Had they seen anything the previous
evening? They hadn’t. They were all long gone and tucked up safely
in bed by the time Walter met his grim fate.
So far, our investigation has revealed a life as lonely as his death.
There’s no sign of chronic drug use and no criminal record. There
is no apparent motive for the attack at all, unless the objective

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 INTO THE NIGHT

was a cold-blooded kill. We’ll continue to pull his world apart,

analyse his recent interactions and track his movements, because
someone is better than no one to blame, even if it’s the victim
himself. I’m already getting the feeling that Walter’s death will
remain an inexplicable cruelty. A nasty statistic. Sometimes you
can just tell.
Walking past my tiny bedroom, I consider collapsing straight
into my unmade bed. But not yet. It’s a Ben night and it’s almost time
for our call. I should eat now so that I can put all my focus into his
face and voice. The slow turn of my stomach is familiar, my pre-Ben
conversation physiology always the same. I’ve come to recognise
it before I’m consciously aware of it. It’s similar to the feeling of
having a crush but with a ribbon of melancholy tied tightly around
it. I love talking to him but it is somehow also very unsatisfying,
the pain so acute when he hangs up that I’m still not convinced the
high is worth the crashing comedown. But, of course, none of it is
supposed to be about me.
In the end, my relationship with Ben’s dad Scott simply
faded away. After working a major murder case a few years ago,
where the victim was an old classmate of mine, I was empty.
Rosalind Ryan’s murder had completely broken me. It forced so
much of my past into the present that eventually I collapsed under
the weight.
In the immediate aftermath of Rosalind’s case Scott and I came
together, but ultimately we ended up even further apart. Scott
tried, I know he did. He is a solid person, inside and out: broad-
shouldered and stocky with a thick crop of dark hair and a sense
of reliability that always sees him called upon for favours. His kind
eyes, full of hope and effort, followed me around the house. He
wanted to be close to me, to connect with me, but I’m ashamed to
say, that after a few months of hypervigilance in regard to taking

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 SARAH BAILEY

it easy, and giving our relationship the attention it deserved,

I regressed to my old ways and funnelled my scant energy into
work. I was an exceptional detective but a shitty partner and
a barely passable mother. Rosalind haunted my dreams and I
was grieving badly for Felix, my colleague who had transferred
to a Sydney squad. Our affair, and the resulting miscarriage I’d
endured, paired with the emotions Rosalind’s murder unearthed,
left me badly bruised. Over time the pain faded to apathy, and
I found myself directing that toward Scott. It was as if I’d decided
that if I couldn’t be with Felix, there was no point in trying to
make it work with anyone else. I was high-functioning but deeply
broken and eventually something had to give. When the oppor­
tunity to transfer to Melbourne arose, I needed to take it. Living in
Smithson was slowly killing me.
I lean against the bench, looking at my poky kitchen. I can’t be
bothered to cook but I know I should eat, especially after my coffee
lunch and afternoon snack of crackers and chewing gum. I’ve lost
over five kilos since arriving here. I fire up the gas. Grate some
bright yellow cheese and pour the dregs of some fading chardon-
nay into a wineglass. As the water begins to boil I dump half a cup
of pasta into the saucepan.
I close my eyes as I tip the wine down my throat. Next door
a man’s voice yells through the thin common wall and a woman’s
sharp voice retorts loudly, sparking a ping-pong argument; it
­penetrates the soothing shield that alcohol is gallantly trying to
form around my brain. I picture the cold grey tunnel that Walter
Miller called home and shiver, turning the heater up higher. I open
a new bottle of wine and pour another glass. It seems that the TV
options on Tuesday night are no better than those on Monday.
I flick from an episode of The Street to the news, and my boss’s
face fills the screen. I sit up a little straighter and note how Isaacs’

10

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 INTO THE NIGHT

grey stare holds the reporter’s as he calmly answers her questions

about Walter Miller’s death.
As I shovel my unappetising dinner into my mouth, I have to
admit my boss is compelling on TV. His thick grey hair obedi-
ently falls into place every time he shifts his head. His nose hooks
slightly, set above full lips. His movements are slow and deliberate,
like those of a lizard whose blood needs warming in the sun. His
low voice is steady, an authoritative baritone.
Isaacs is polite to me, polite to everyone, but everything about
him feels distant. I sense it’s intentional: he seems determined to
keep everyone at arm’s-length. Our relationship is formal, forced,
and so far I feel like I’ve struggled to transcend the job interview
phase, which is unsettling as I’m still technically on probation. Nan,
Ralph and Calvin are his clear favourites but even with them he is
frosty. He’s so unlike Ken Jones, my old station chief who wore his
heart—and every thought that ran through his head—prominently
on his sleeve.
Rumour has it that everyone thought Isaacs was a shoo-in for the
commissioner role a few months back, but instead Joe Charleston,
a well-regarded inspector from Tasmania, got the gig. Allegedly
Isaacs has been even more aloof since then.
The news shifts a gear and a reporter is now talking excitedly
about the Hollywood movie Death Is Alive, which will begin filming
in Melbourne tomorrow. I’m vaguely aware of the production—
a bunch of our guys have been working with the film’s security
team and the council for the past few months, and Candy keeps
mentioning it because she has a crush on the lead actor.
Candy Fyfe is a reporter back in Smithson and probably my
closest friend. She is a force of nature, the first indigenous jour-
nalist Smithson has seen and probably the most dedicated. We
weren’t friends initially, in fact we were openly hostile, but I’ve

11

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 SARAH BAILEY

grown to love her relentless energy. She is single-handedly trying

to keep our friendship alive via various forms of electronic corre-
spondence. With a stab of guilt, I realise I never got back to her
most recent message, which she sent over a week ago. I pull it up
on my phone, laughing as I reread her updates about our home
town. She’s heard a rumour that the local Presbyterian minister is
having an affair with the funeral director, so she’s been fronting
up to church every Sunday to investigate. I can just imagine
Candy, her athletic brown body poured into one of her trademark
tight-­fitting outfits, lurking around the church trying to catch the
unlikely couple out.
Famous faces flash onto the screen as the reporter chatters on.
Having zero interest in celebrities, I barely recognise any of them.
I yawn and get up to pour another wine. My hips creak as I rise and
stagger the few steps to the kitchen. I might be losing weight but
my fitness is at an all-time low. I’ve stopped running. I do enough
at the squad gym to pass for trying, but I’m only going through the
motions. I need to get into a better routine.
I need to do a lot of things.
Checking the time, I head onto the tiny balcony for my daily
cigarette, eyes on the twinkling dots in the sky as smoke fills my
lungs. I begin to picture Ben’s face. His pale green eyes, identical
to mine. His smattering of freckles. The sweet curve of his mouth.
8.28 pm. He will ring any second now. He is punctual, a trait inher-
ited from his father.
Scott sometimes says a quick hello to me but we spoke on Sunday
so it’s unlikely that we will this time. The finances are agreed for
now, Ben is fine, so there’s nothing for us to talk about.
Shoving the cigarette into the growing graveyard of yellow butts
in an empty flowerpot, I go back inside and pull the door closed.
I drink more wine, wrestling with the memory of the hotel room

12

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 INTO THE NIGHT

from last night. The abstract art on the walls, the strong eager
hands on my body. I cringe slightly, my head pounding. I realise
the bottle of wine is already half empty.
My phone buzzes and I scramble to mute the TV. Wipe my
mouth. Pull my legs underneath me and curl into a ball to Skype
with my son.
‘Hi, Mum.’ His face fills the screen and he waves at me.
‘Hey, Ben!’ I summon my best smile and push my guilt firmly
aside. ‘How are you, darling?’
‘Good.’
My chest tightens at his little boy nonchalance. He’s not obtuse;
he just doesn’t go into detail. Our conversations are a blissful jumble
of simple words and sweet silences. They are everything. They are
not nearly enough.
‘Did you have sport today?’
‘Yep.’
I smile, just taking him in. He always sits up straight when he
talks on Skype. It’s still a task that requires his full concentration,
like he’s worried he’ll get the next answer wrong if he relaxes. Ben
has just turned five and I often struggle with the thought that he’s
not that many years from being the same age as so many of the
kids I deal with at work. The kids who are tangled up in the bad
situations I’m trying to figure out. Kids who’ve been around evil
for so long that it has seeped into their souls and erupts in all the
worst ways. I swallow past an image of a future Ben, broken by his
mother’s rejection.
‘Soccer, right?’ I say.
‘Yep. And my team won again!’ He beams at me.
‘That’s great, sweetheart! And do you have footy on the weekend?’
‘Yeah, this Saturday, and then we have a week off. That’s what
Dad said.’

13

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 SARAH BAILEY

We chat about his friend’s mini-golf party, and he asks about

my goldfish.
‘Frodo is fine,’ I tell him, shifting the phone so he can see the
fishbowl. ‘He told me to tell you he says hi.’
Ben giggles and I smile again before sadness bubbles inside me.
Oblivious, he chatters on about school, his teacher and what he ate
for lunch.
‘Do you want to look at the stars now?’ he asks, already knowing
the answer.
‘Of course,’ I say, careful to hide the crack in my voice. ‘I bet
I know which one you’re going to talk about first.’
‘Well . . .’ He moves toward the window in the lounge. ‘There’s
that big one right in the middle of the sky. And like, three little ones
in a little line next to it. Can you see the one I mean?’ He turns the
phone around and I get a sweeping glimpse of the familiar room
before hazy sky fills the screen.
‘Sure can,’ I tell him. ‘That’s a good one. Can you see the sneaky
sparkly one on the right? I think it’s right near my apartment.’
‘Oh yeah,’ he says, eyebrows shooting up, ‘it’s kind of yellow.
Cool.’
He stifles a yawn and his eyes drop away from the heavens. ‘Time
for bed,’ I say firmly—still able, occasionally, to be his mother.
‘Okay,’ he agrees, yawning again. ‘Speak to you on Thursday,
Mum?’
‘You bet. Have a great day tomorrow. I’ll give Frodo an under-
water kiss for you.’
We blow a kiss to each other and, as I hang up, I realise that
my hand is flat across my heart.
I brush my teeth, use the toilet and undress, sliding into my
freezing bedding. My head spins and my stomach cramps uncom-
fortably. In the lounge, the heater makes an unhealthy ticking

14

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 INTO THE NIGHT

sound. The TV next door mumbles. Rock music thuds through the
ceiling. Glass smashes on the street. A cat meows. I toss and turn,
picturing first Ben sleeping peacefully in his bed and then Walter
Miller slumped forward in his cold bloody puddle. Until finally,
I am asleep.

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Into the Night_TXT.indd 15 15/3/18 9:53 am