‘May I ask some questions about the practicalities of your living arrangements, Mr Whittler?’
She was offering him firmer, more neutral ground. He took it.
‘Yes, you may, Detective.’
‘Thank you. We’re unaware of any movements in your bank account. What did you use for money?’
Nathan’s face reddened. For a moment she thought it was anger. But then she recognised the emotion and felt the irony that she, of all people, hadn’t picked up on it straight away. It was shame.
‘I… I had no need of money, Detective. I wasn’t paying rent, or things like that, you see.’
Dana considered backing away, coming at it later. But no, this was a legitimate line to take. ‘I can see that it would be possible to live frugally, if you so wished, Mr Whittler. But you would still need to buy food. Wouldn’t you?’
Nathan stared icily at the edge of the table. There was a quick glance at the mirror, as though his conscience were glaring at him from beyond it. The shame brought forth a flash of anger.
‘Why are you asking me that, Detective? Why? What business can it be of the police what I eat? In what way is that relevant?’ He raised his voice but studiously avoided eye contact. ‘You’re the police, not doctors, isn’t that so?’
She shuddered, grateful that in his fuming belligerence he didn’t see her reaction. She’d anticipated frustration, but this was raw anger, and she hadn’t expected that. She and Mike had discussed whether Nathan had the high emotion in him to commit a crime as potentially passion-led as stabbing. She considered the possibility as she listened to Nathan’s breathing. But this was, surely, an opportunity.
Dana dug into her training. He’d lost his temper – albeit for a few seconds. She knew – simply knew – that he would now be contrite and embarrassed. She held the moral high ground for the first time and he would feel obliged to repay her. She could make use of his need to atone, if she held her nerve.
He scratched his head and rubbed his face sharply with his palms. His breathing slowed. ‘I’m sorry, Detective. I apologise.’
‘That’s quite all right, Mr Whittler. Police interviews are always stressful.’ She moved some papers around needlessly and turned to a fresh page in her notebook, simply to show him there was a break with what had gone before.
‘I wonder how you managed in this cold weather, Mr Whittler. In your camp.’
He inclined his head once, to acknowledge her good grace, before replying. ‘Many layers, Detective, many layers. You have to understand the importance of insulation. And you have to develop a system – of when you’ll be awake and when you sleep.’
‘How so, Mr Whittler?’
He steepled his fingers, like an aged teacher imparting wisdom. ‘Most people sleep at night, but that’s when it’s coldest. The coldest time is just before dawn, and that’s when most people have been asleep for many hours. Their metabolism is slowest; they’re at their most vulnerable. The trick is to do it the other way around: wake up hours before it’s coldest and move about. Then you can sleep in the afternoon, when it’s safer to do so. You see.’
Never in her life would Dana sleep outdoors, so in that sense the information was utterly irrelevant. But it was the first freely given insight he’d offered.
‘Ingenious. I can see how that would work. Did you have this kind of survival knowledge before you went into camp, Mr Whittler?’
‘No, no. Trial and error, really. You need to think it through, is all.’
‘And this week – with the very low temperatures – was that especially hard for you?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I haven’t felt that cold in quite a while. But you get through it. You get through it. Everything can be survived, if you go about it right.’
This new silence felt different. Nathan had pulled inside himself again – his speech tailed off to a whisper near the end, and Dana sensed he was tired. She wanted to push but knew she shouldn’t.
‘Perhaps we should give you some rest, Mr Whittler? And some food?’
‘Thank you, Detective. And an aspirin, please, if you can find one.’
As she closed the door Dana saw Bill approaching. She made a T-sign with her hands, indicating she needed to recalibrate. He nodded and turned his attention to Lucy as she passed in the corridor.
Chapter 9
The foot bridge over the train lines passed about twenty metres above the track. These days, the freight was largely imported foreign goods headed to the city, which in reply exported only garbage, washed-up politicians and patronising day-trippers. The rails went through a natural gorge at this point: the bridge had wire fencing up and over, making it feel like an elongated aviary. It was to stop suicides, she reminded herself with a shudder.
Like most mining areas, the region’s progress – and the location of the two main towns – was dictated largely by geology and wind direction. The geology meant that development in Earlville cascaded down three snug river valleys, clutching the coat tails of coal and tin, spilling and tumbling along whatever was near-horizontal. The valleys trapped the foul air, the people and their ambitions. Tight communities with narrow horizons and fierce loyalty; they still clung to a notion of duty to each other. Some early philanthropic money-throwing produced the requisite library, school and church, but little else after that. Now, with the coal gone and religion’s bindings loosened, the town festered and grumbled – disappointed to be left behind but secretly wallowing in it.
The wind direction chose the location of Carlton. Ten kilometres from Earlville on a shallow slope, upwind from the industrial belching in the valleys, Carlton was a place of clean air, strong limbs and the spoils of others’ labour. It was initially built in a grid pattern around a central square, before a trend for crescents began to hold sway. All the municipal buildings for the region were located there, along with a proprietorial air that said Carlton knew what was best for Earlville. The result was broad, tree-lined streets, with most houses stemming from a golden pre-war era: verandas, widows’ walks, hanging baskets and a studied but aloof and time-frozen affluence. The poorer districts were merely scrunched and hunched versions of the same. Too far from the city to be commutable, Carlton grasped its heritage tight and left economic development to others. Dana liked it.
Some schoolchildren were being ferried from their classes to the nearby swimming pool. They crocodiled in bashfully linked pairs, then stopped to point excitedly down an alleyway between a carpet store and an office block. The buildings sandwiched a large water butt: the water’s silky dark surface held three bright yellow rubber ducks, grinning in the shadows.
When Dana was taken for compulsory school swimming lessons there had been a craze for ‘mushroom floating’. It involved cramping into a tight, foetus-like ball and surrendering to buoyancy. After a while, the coiled form would softly roll on to its back, allowing it to unravel in the light like an emerging bloom. Except Dana didn’t. Her ferocious knee-hugging would not be weakened. She would not rotate gently, nor even float serenely; instead, she remained face down, slowly subsiding to the floor of the pool until she ran out of breath. Then she had to fight her way to the surface, thrashing through the bubbles. No one could explain why she didn’t float; no one comprehended her body’s wish to fall to the depths and remain there.
She walked down a recently resurfaced lane: New Walk was four hundred metres of dry-stone walls, punctuated by large metal gates bracketed by columns. Carlton always looked after those who had shaped its past, rather than those who might lead the future. Old school, old money: the homes were impressive yet strangely unemotional. People had hired other people with exquisite taste.