Hindsight (9781921997211) Read Online Free Page A

the morgue.
    Phil was standing next to him but they hadn’t spoken much. They’d worked together for more than ten years. Phil was his closest friend and partner and there was no need for words. She’d sent Constable Forsyth off to write his official report instructing him to be back by 9 AM when the local businesses opened, to check whether any of them had CCTV cameras turned on the street outside their shops. It was unlikely in a sleepy town like this, but it was worth a shot.
    Ed felt Phil’s eyes boring into the side of his head for about the tenth time in as many minutes. She’d been shooting him concerned glances on and off all morning. He was doing his best to ignore it. He didn’t have the energy to get into it.
    When she’d picked him up her only comment was, ‘You look like shit.’ It was both a reprimand and a statement of fact. Phil knew about the drinking; she knew about the all-consuming depression that Ed had fallen into after his wife, Susan, disappeared two years ago. Susan had been four months pregnant and they were planning for their new baby, renovating their 100-year-old house and looking forward to a long, happy future together.
    In an instant, that had all vanished. Susan went to work as usual one day and just never came home. Over and over again he’d replayed that final morning in his mind. He was tired and grumpy. A triple fatality on one of the most notorious stretches of the local roads had kept him up until the wee hours of the morning. He was angry at yet another senseless waste of life caused by testosterone mixed with alcohol.
    He and Susan had talked briefly about it. Then she mentioned going shopping for baby things and he upset her by saying he thought it was too soon. She accused him of always being pessimistic. It was true enough, but after two miscarriages he was afraid to get his hopes up. Then she’d disappeared and he’d felt his pessimism was somehow the cause of it.
    In the first two weeks after she’d gone missing, he was frantic. He phoned hospitals, checked with every friend and distant relative he could think of and pestered colleagues from neighbouring towns and Adelaide every few days.
    Once his initial panic abated it was replaced with a burning anger — anger at himself; anger that she was still missing; anger at the people he worked with. Then the whispers started, the sideways looks. Some people were saying she’d left him because of the job. Others were hinting that there was another man. The most malicious gossipers were convinced he was responsible.
    The humiliation of having to be questioned about her disappearance was the final straw. It sent him into a rage so violent that the Chief had been forced to send him home for the day.
    After that he’d walked around in a daze. He couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t cry, couldn’t accept what had happened. He was on autopilot.
    Eventually the storm broke. It happened suddenly, when he was at the supermarket. He caught a glimpse of a woman who looked so much like Susan from behind that he almost called out her name. She turned around, sensing his eyes drilling into her back and it was then that he saw she was holding a baby, not more than a few months old. She returned his intense gaze with a puzzled frown, wondering why this stranger was staring at her.
    He’d dropped what he was holding and ran out of the shop. He ran until the pain in his lungs forced him to stop. He threw himself down on a bench in a park and cried, deep, gut-wrenching sobs. He didn’t give a damn about who might see him. All he cared about was the agony that was ripping his insides apart. He’d cried until he was drained. After he’d sat there for hours, he called Phil.
    She knew he’d gone to pieces as soon as the first word left Ed’s lips. She dropped everything to come and get him and take him home. She put him to bed and he’d fallen instantly