Detective Brookes is waiting for us outside, as planned. She doesn’t appear to be upset about our tardiness. ‘Follow me. I’ve reserved a visitor’s parking spot for you so you don’t have to walk far. And I’ve found us a quiet room on the first floor.’
It was Wally who suggested I tell her about my sensory issues in advance. As it turns out, her son has similar issues and she is happy to make accommodations so I can be more comfortable. I’ve found that a lot of people have been happy to accommodate me, actually, once they realise my challenges. All this time, I’d thought that Rose was the only person who understood how to care for me. How wrong I was.
We park the van and follow Detective Brookes into a small interview room with three chairs, a table and a potted plant. Cream floor-to-ceiling horizontal blinds obscure the view of a fire extinguisher outside.
‘Take a seat,’ she says, and I do. Wally declines, instead standing in the corner. Willow is expertly strapped to his chest by a long piece of cloth and he is bouncing even though she is fast asleep. We have both bounced a lot this past week. Sometimes I find myself standing in the shower, bouncing, even though Willow is asleep in the next room.
‘The reason I asked you to come in today,’ Detective Brookes says, sitting down in the chair opposite me, ‘is that I wanted to show you something.’
She places a notebook in front of me. It’s pale pink, embossed with gold flowers and the words A penny for your thoughts in gold leaf.
‘Have you seen this before?’
I reach out and touch the hard cover. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘It’s Rose’s diary.’
I frown. ‘Rose doesn’t keep a diary.’
Detective Brookes shrugs. Clearly, it’s one more thing I didn’t know about my sister.
‘Would you like to read it?’
I hesitate. ‘But . . . you’re not supposed to read other people’s diaries.’
‘Rose gave me the diary,’ Detective Brookes says. ‘Trust me. She wants us to read it.’
I don’t get it. ‘Why?’
Again, she shrugs. But there is something about her expression that makes me think she has her suspicions. ‘Open it,’ she says, and I do, flicking it open in the middle and then leafing the pages backward.
‘Have a read. Let me know if you have any comments about anything in there.’
There’s a lot in there. Page after page of Rose’s handwriting. I scan the page in front of me. It’s about the time I drew on the coffee table when I was little. It surprises me that Rose would write about this. She was always so reluctant to talk about anything in our past. I’m about to turn the page when something catches my eye.
‘Wait,’ I say.
Detective Brookes leans in. ‘What is it?’
I scan the page again. I remember that day very clearly, because of the drama that followed. I didn’t know Mum meant that I should do my homework in the book on top of the coffee table and I’d been embarrassed when I realised my mistake. But Mum wasn’t mad with me. ‘Thank god the coffee table was cheap,’ she’d said with a laugh.
I think it was the laugh that set Rose off. She said Mum would never have laughed if she did something like that. She got so mad she stormed into the bedroom and broke every single one of my toys. It was one of the biggest meltdowns I’d ever seen her have.
But Rose’s diary tells a different story.
I flick to the next page. It’s about our ninth birthday, when Mum made us that amazing unicorn cake. Rose had been in such a strange mood that day. I’d stayed away from her when she was like that, but this time we had to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. Mum got out the ‘good plates’ because it was a special occasion. I’m not sure why, but this seemed to be the wrong decision and Rose stormed out of the house. Mum looked everywhere but couldn’t find her. Rose was gone all night long. I remember Mum and me waiting in the hallway through the night for her to come home.
But Rose’s version of this is different too.
‘This isn’t right,’ I say. ‘This diary it’s . . . not how things happened.’
I flick the page. Another story. I don’t understand. Why has Rose done this?
There’s only one entry that causes me to pause. It’s the one entry about Mum’s boyfriend Gary. I read that one twice.
‘There are two particular entries that we are interested in,’ Detective Brookes says. ‘I’ve earmarked them. Both are to do with a boy called Billy . . .’
I look up, stunned. Rose wrote about Billy in a diary? She’d always been so insistent that we never even talk about Billy. Unless . . . unless she’s created a fictional story for it too.
I flick to the pages that Detective Brookes has dog-eared and read the entries, once, and then again. Then a third time. I can’t believe it.
My eyes find Wally and Willow.
‘This isn’t what happened,’ I say. ‘Rose made this up! I swear, this is not–’
‘It’s all right, Fern,’ Detective Brookes says. ‘We know.’
I stare at her. ‘You know?’
‘Of course we know. Your sister isn’t the first master manipulator we’ve come across.’
‘But I don’t understand. Why did she write a diary? What is the point of it?’
Detective Brookes sits back in her chair. ‘It seems to me she was laying the groundwork to claim that you couldn’t care for a baby, in case anyone questioned her adoption of your daughter. And, the way she portrays you here, you’d make a prime suspect in your mother’s murder, taking the heat off her.’
I shake my head. It’s too crazy to contemplate. I look down at the diary. Entry upon entry about our childhood. It couldn’t have been a spur-of-the-moment plan. This would have taken her months to compile. All to
