You’re almost certain your daughter didn’t kill the neighbour. But what if she did?
Richard Wellington is one of the country’s most recognised doctors. A morning TV regular, surgeon to the elite, and scandal-proof despite a malpractice case that should have ruined him.
But when his body is found sprawled in a harborside park on a sweltering Sydney morning, the facade shatters. His murder dominates the headlines, and the normally quiet cul-de-sac he called home becomes a media circus, seething with speculation and unease.
For Liv Elliot, none of that matters – except for one detail: her daughter, Gracie, was at the park that morning. As the investigation heats up and dark secrets about Richard begin to surface, Liv takes steps to shield her daughter from the storm – steps that could destroy them both if the truth comes out.
How far would a mother go to protect her daughter?
Liv watches the immovable dog. Sophie is doing her usual trick of lying diagonally, almost splayed out in the open doorway, so half her body’s inside the house, the rest on the veranda. Liv gives her belly a gentle nudge with her bare foot, but the Labrador’s head sinks to the ground and her eyes slowly close. It is time for her morning walk, but Sophie is old and tired and it seems she has already done her business so now has no impetus to rouse herself and go out into the already scalding hot day.
‘Come on. Time for a walk,’ Liv says, but she doesn’t sound convincing to even her own ears. And the dog appears to be asleep and, really, Liv can’t blame her.
It is one of those unbearably muggy Sydney summer mornings when the air feels heavier with moisture than oxygen. Tropical downpours on and off during the night have done nothing to lower the heat, and Liv’s work clothes – shorts and a synthetic T-shirt, suitable for the physio clinic – already feel hot and scratchy and are sticking to her damp skin.
A door creaks at the end of the long, dimly lit corridor of the single-storey terrace and Liv turns to see Gracie emerge from her room, wrestling with her tote bag, pushing her laptop inside and not looking up as she heads towards Liv and the door.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I took her out for a pee earlier.’
Liv wants to remind Gracie that they’d all agreed not to do that unless they had time to take the dog for a proper walk but something about her daughter’s stiff body language stops her.
‘Did you go for a run?’ Liv asks, although she knows her daughter did thanks to her still-pink cheeks. Gracie may be tall and dark-haired like Andy but she has inherited Liv’s fair skin tone which means it takes ages to calm down after exertion.
‘Yeah,’ Gracie says as she pulls on her Converse.
‘Wasn’t too wet?’ The rain had woken Liv at 1 a.m. and her first thought had been: I hope Gracie doesn’t go for a run in the morning, she could slip. ‘I don’t know how you run in this heat.’
‘It’s fine.’ Gracie ties her laces, her bag slipping briefly to the ground and it’s not until she straightens up, readjusting herself, that Liv gets a full view of her daughter’s face and sees eyes that are puffy and bloodshot.
‘You okay? Bad night’s sleep?’
But Gracie has already climbed over the dog, has her AirPods in and is almost gone.
‘I’m fine,’ she repeats and is down the front steps before Liv can tell her to wait. ‘See you later.’
She moves swiftly down the path and then in a metaphorical puff of smoke, Gracie is gone and Liv is left with that familiar feeling of unresolved concern that will remain in place until she next sees her daughter or, as is more likely, Liv texts to check the nineteen-year-old is okay and gets, at the very most, a ‘heart’ reaction in response.
Liv stands in place for a few moments, then, before she can think better of it, slips into her Birkenstocks and climbs over Sophie. She picks her way down the path until she is standing on the pavement, squinting against the sun to see her daughter’s retreating figure as it rounds the corner. But she is too late.
Liv is turning to go back inside when she sees the police car. Two police cars, in fact, parked up opposite, outside her neigh-bours Sandra and Richard Wellington’s house. A uniformed officer stands by their gate.
The Wellingtons’ house is the largest, smartest and, even in a suburb where there is almost constant building and redevel-oping and landscaping, the most frequently renovated property on their street. Its paint-fresh creamy-white facade gleams in the sun. Two blooming potted frangipani trees sit on either side of the front stone steps like sentries, as if greeting the suited man who has just exited the front door. The man is grave-faced as he talks briefly with the uniformed officer and then turns to go back inside. Alarmed at what might be going on, Liv keeps watching as the uniformed officer slides a phone from his pocket and turns away from the road with it clamped to his ear.
‘What’s going on?’
The words echo her own internal dialogue as Liv realises her husband’s standing next to her. Andy is finally dressed, in shorts and T-shirt, but still bleary-eyed and unshaven, a slice of half-eaten toast in hand and a reluctant Sophie trailing behind him.
‘Was there a break-in?’
‘Don’t know,’ she replies. ‘Looks more serious than that.’ The uniformed officer is back to his position at their neighbours’ gate, his face giving nothing away.
‘Shall I ask him?’ Andy says, taking a step towards the road, where steam is rising as the heat burns off the rain from earlier.
‘God, no. Anyway, they won’t tell you.’
Undeterred, Andy looks along the street for someone else who might be able to explain what’s going on. A neighbour three doors down, whose name Liv doesn’t know because he and his wife moved in only before Christmas, is corralling his young children into an enormous black car. Andy walks over to him before Liv can tell him not to.
She watches as the man’s arm drops and the small yellow backpack he’s holding is quickly snatched by a girl of about four or five who scampers into the backseat, lower lip set in triumph. It’s clear the man doesn’t know and probably hasn’t even registered whatever is happening on the other side of the road and Andy quickly moves on.
Bill Anderson is next and Liv knows he’ll have an opinion. Their older neighbour is busy tending to his front garden, watering his beloved plants before the real heat of the day sets in. He and Andy speak for a few moments, there is a bit of nodding and back and forth then Andy returns to Liv, visibly shaken.
‘They found a body,’ he says, his voice low. ‘At the park. Down at the Gully.’
Liv inhales sharply. ‘Who?’
‘No idea, but there’s a massive operation going on down there, Bill says. Forensics, crime scene investigators, the lot. He reckons it’s got something to do with this.’
They look back at Sandra and Richard’s house and Liv feels a flutter of panic in the pit of her stomach and her mind begins to race with possibilities. Has something happened to their neigh-bours? Gracie runs at the park. Was she there this morning? Is that why she is upset? Did she see something?
Liv is reaching for her phone when Sandra and Richard’s front door opens again and this time a uniformed policewoman steps onto the veranda, followed by the same man as before, another uniformed policeman and then, Sandra, her tiny form dressed in loose linen trousers and a white shirt.
Their neighbour’s expression is a blank mask but Liv can see something is very wrong.
Sandra walks stiffly, almost robotically down the stairs and through the front garden and then at the gate she appears to hesitate a moment, glancing back towards the house. She says something to the female officer who nods and then in turn speaks to her uniformed colleague. There is a bit of back and forth but Sandra doesn’t move. There appears to be some kind of impasse that’s stopping her from leaving the boundary of her house and then Liv realises what’s going on and automatically takes a step into the road.
‘Sandra,’ she calls out. Her neighbour looks over, momentarily confused as her gaze searches for the voice and finally looks at Liv. ‘I’ll check on the animals,’ Liv says, her voice ringing out across the narrow residential road. ‘I’ve still got your keys.’
Sandra gives a tight nod then lets herself be guided into the black unmarked police car. She settles into the back seat and it is only then Liv sees the woman’s expression change, clear, brittle grief flooding her features. Sandra’s bony hand reaches to her brow and her shoulders hunch slightly as she dips her head and begins to sob.
‘Oh Sandra,’ Liv mutters, her own eyes welling up at the sight of her neighbour’s pain.
Bill has travelled down the pavement and is now standing a few metres away from Liv and Andy. He rocks on his heels as he waits for the police cars to drive away.
‘It’s being reported,’ he begins when the vehicles have rounded the corner, ‘that the body found in the Gully is a man in his late fifties. It’s being treated as a suspicious death.’
