She exhaled loudly. She was rapidly losing interest in the story altogether. Nothing she’d found so far seemed particularly newsworthy. There were rich arseholes all over the country bending the rules to increase their already obscene fortunes and the Ashworths didn’t seem any different. The only story here seemed to be the one about Jenny and her past.
A pink-haired waitress reached for her cup and saucer. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘No, thanks.’
Meg put her laptop back in her bag. It was time to talk to Chrissy again.
‘She’s not working till later today,’ a bearded man behind the café counter said when Meg asked for Chrissy. ‘What’s your name? I’ll tell her you stopped by.’
‘No worries,’ Meg said. ‘Thanks anyway.’
She got back in the car and checked Facebook, searching for clues to Chrissy’s address. A few minutes later, she found an old photo of Georgie and an older girl posing on bikes in front of a neat, bland, beige-brick house. Meg could see a house number on the front fence behind them. She tapped to enlarge the photo, squinting at the blurry number. Thirty … seven? Yes, thirty-seven. How many streets were there in this town, she wondered, turning the key in the ignition.
She started on the south side of town, where the houses didn’t look like the ones in the glossy real estate magazine in the Saturday papers. Ten minutes and fourteen streets later, there it was in real life. Thirty-seven Barton Drive. It was just as dull and nondescript as it was in the photo, but now the paint was peeling above the front door and the gate hung crooked on its hinges.
It squealed as Meg pushed it open. Her heartbeat picked up as she reached the front door, which was propped open behind a flyscreen door. The lounge room beyond was dark and still, except for a fan whirring overhead. Meg pressed the doorbell, but didn’t hear it ring.
While she waited, she pulled up a photo of Jenny, which she’d taken on her mother’s fiftieth birthday. Jenny hated having her picture taken. She usually managed to turn away or shield herself with a hand, but that day her guard was down and Meg had been able to capture her, long hair flowing over her shoulders, bewitching eyes sparkling behind tortoiseshell frames. It was just over a year ago, but already she looked different. Less like herself than the disease that was gradually taking her.
Meg looked back into the darkness behind the door, straining to hear some sign of life from inside the house. Nothing. She knocked on the screen door, which made a tinny rattle.
‘Chrissy!’ a man’s voice called from somewhere inside. ‘There’s someone at the door!’
There were footsteps, then Chrissy appeared from a back room. She wore a shapeless cotton dress, her dark hair bundled up on her head. She looked at Meg from behind the screen, then she opened it and exhaled loudly.
‘You again.’
‘Sorry.’ Meg swallowed. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming here.’
Chrissy said nothing, so Meg went on.
‘I just wondered if you recognise this woman.’ She held out the phone.
Chrissy glanced at it quickly, then shook her head. ‘No. Why?Should I?’
Meg took a deep breath. ‘Do you have a sister?’
‘I did.’
Meg’s heart raced. ‘Would you mind if I asked … what happened to her?’
Chrissy frowned. Meg could almost see her thinking.
‘Please?’ she said, her voice cracking slightly.
‘She got involved with a cult and cut off all contact with us.’ Chrissy’s voice was sharp. ‘Then she died suddenly, a few years after she left.’
Meg’s mind raced. ‘This is my mother.’ She gestured towards the photo. ‘I think she might be your sister.’
A flash of emotion crossed Chrissy’s face, then her expression hardened. ‘Why?’ Her tone was wary now.
‘Because … Because she’s never told me anything about her past, or her family, until now. She has dementia and she’s started to say things, about Hartwell and about … Tina.’
There was a twitch of recognition in Chrissy’s eyes.
Meg held out the phone. ‘Do you want to have another look?’ she asked, her voice soft, trying not to startle the woman. She sensed that if she made one wrong move, the conversation would be over, like what had happened at the pub.
Chrissy didn’t move to take the phone. Her dark eyes searched Meg’s face as though she was looking for something familiar. She put a hand to her head, pushing her hair back off her glistening forehead, then, exhaling heavily, took the phone and stared at the image for a long time. Meg felt hope fading. If only she had an older photo, one which might more closely resemble Jenny as she was when Chrissy knew her.Ifshe knew her.
