The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn

CHAPTER

25

Vera smoothed the wool of her black dress over her knees with fingers that trembled.

Walking into the local court in downtown Queanbeyan had been as frightening as anything she’d ever done. Bored faces. Impassive faces. The couldn’t-give-a-damn faces of security personnel who watched her drop her phone and car keys into a plastic tub as they were scanned for bomb residue or bigotry or whatever the heck these machines were calibrated for. This bland assortment of strangers would listen and judge and make decisions about her … and there was nothing she could do to change that. She was in the grip of a system that she no longer believed in.

She found her name on a list sticky-taped to a wall beside a dull red door and hovered uncertainly. Did she go in? Did she wait outside?

‘Sorry, had to pee.’

A waft of exotic perfume and nicotine draped about her like a cloak as her lawyer materialised beside her.

‘Let’s go in, shall we? The magistrate will be in soon, and we can get ourselves settled. We’re not first on the docket, so there’ll be some other charges to be dealt with before your name is called. It’s better that way, helps settle the nerves.’

It was going to take more than a few minutes in a courtroom to settle her nerves. Her stomach felt like it was being cauterised by hot wire.

‘How’re you feeling?’ Sue said, as she thrust open the door and marched in to the front row of seats.

‘Sick. And like I’ve had about three minutes’ sleep.’

‘That’s the spirit. Vera, work with me here. I’m going to ask you again: how are you feeling?’

She closed her eyes as she sat down. She had this. ‘Okay. I’m appalled by the charges I’ve been called here to face. I have acted as any concerned and caring citizen would have acted, and I confirm my plea is not guilty.’

Sue pursed her lips, then gave a nod of her sleek-haired, impeccably made-up head. ‘You’ll do. Try not to fall apart when you’re called. A tear or two, no problem. But you’re a professional journalist who makes informed decisions, that’s our strategy, and we don’t want to puncture it by having you show them otherwise.’

‘Got it. Two tears total.’

‘Snarky, I like it. Better that than being too emotional. Be pissed off. It’ll keep you strong. Remember that when they ask you to stand.’

Vera shut her eyes. ‘Has Aaron turned up? What about Chris Sykes? I’ve been too chicken to look behind me.’

Sue started sliding notebooks and folders out of her attaché case. ‘Both here. Your ex-boyfriend’s standing up the back with a shiny blue suit and a fresh haircut by the looks. Going for clean-cut.’

‘Clean as the devil’s doormat,’ Vera muttered.

‘Now, where is Sykes?’ Sue twisted in her seat. ‘Oh yeah, nice play, he’s taken a seat in the row right behind us. Mr Confidence. There’s a lawyer sitting beside him with a nose like a fox. I’ve not run up against him before, but he’s got a reputation.’

‘Philanthropist? Ladies’ man? Bingo addict?’

‘Not that sort of reputation, no. Don’t worry, I’ll break him like a twig. Forget him—we’re here to play our game, so let’s not worry about theirs.’

‘I wish I had your confidence.’

‘Girlfriend, everyone wishes they had my confidence.’

The clerk of the court sounded a bell and an older woman with no-nonsense glasses and a forehead that looked well-practised in frowning walked into the court through an inner door.

‘Carmel Grant,’ whispered Sue in her ear. ‘Smart, fair, and doesn’t take any crap.’

‘All rise.’

Vera stood. So she was to look like a professional journalist, was she? She wasn’t one. Not anymore. Not since that rat she’d thought she was in love with fired her. But she could remember what it felt like to be confident and eager, full of questions and the resolve to find answers. She could fake professional journalist if she had to.

She breathed in, slowly, then let out a long breath. Perhaps Sue’s confidence was cloaked about her as surely as her perfume and cigarette smoke was.

As the magistrate dealt with a few other cases, the words just buzzed in Vera’s ears. Aaron was here, in the same room as her, for the first time since … when? Had it really been eleven months since this whole thing began?

She closed her eyes and was right there, back in his bed, reliving the moment when her world was ripped out from under her …

It had been early morning, on a fine spring Sunday with the hint of summer in the breeze.

‘I’m popping in to see Jill this morning, Aaron,’ she’d said as they lay in bed. He was lying against a pillow, his chest bare, but his funky reading glasses perched on his nose while he scrolled through his phone.

‘I was wondering if you fancied having lunch later? Maybe a picnic down at Googong?’ She pulled his glasses away from his nose so he wouldn’t miss the saucy look she was giving him. ‘I’ve bought myself a new bikini that I am pretty sure you are going to want to see.’

‘Um-hmm,’ he said.

His phone was more interesting than the promise of a bikini? She must be losing her mojo. Perhaps an update on her investigation would spark his interest?

‘Hopefully there’ll be someone who doesn’t hate me on duty. Some of the staff were pretty cheesed off after my first opinion piece was published. I don’t think they understood it wasn’t them I was angry with. It was the system. A casual workforce, no continuity of care … I mean, it’s just so poorly managed.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Be interesting to see if they’ve read today’s article yet.’

‘Yeah, er … Vera, look, I didn’t want to get into this now, but I’d better tell you—’

She’d cut him off, too wrapped up in her own thoughts and agenda. ‘Speaking of, what time does your Sunday paper come?’

Aaron was pulling on his jeans. ‘You know, this is all you talk about now, Vera.’

She’d paused then. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Your aunt, old people, staff-to-patient ratios. It’s starting to give me the shits, if I’m honest.’

‘My worry for my aunt, who is potentially being neglected by the people who are being paid to mind her, is giving you the shits?’

He’d shrugged.

‘And my investigation? My exposé on the aged care industry that you were all supportive and gung-ho about, is that giving you the shits too, now?’

‘Vera, honey, let’s not overreact.’

‘This is not me overreacting, Aaron. This is me getting angry. Getting upset. Getting let down.’

‘I just think we’ve all had enough of drama and bad news stories. I think the South Coast Morning Herald needs some levity at the moment.’

‘Fluff pieces.’

‘Hey, I don’t answer to you, Vera, I answer to the shareholders. If they want levity in the Sunday issue, they get levity, all right?’

‘But Aaron … I thought you were with me on this.’

The look on his face made it clear he wasn’t with her at all. A horrid thought struck her. ‘Wait a minute. Did you even print my story this week?’

He came around to her side of the bed, where she was flinging back pillows and doonas and twisted damn sheets and trying to get the hell up. ‘Vera, listen—’

She ignored him. She hauled on her jeans and t-shirt and took off for the front door of his house. There, safely wrapped in plastic against the dew of dawn, was the Sunday paper. She ripped through the layers of plastic and flicked through the pages. Sports, furniture advertisements, the national stories they printed on syndication from the big city papers … but on her page, where the article she’d laboured over for days should have been, was an advertisement.

For Acacia View Aged Care.

Where care and respect,she read wrathfully through the tears in her eyes, comes first.

She could feel him standing behind her on his front step, and she looked up. ‘What the actual heck, Aaron?’

‘I had to make a choice, Vera. The newspaper needs the advertising revenue, and when Chris Sykes contacted me—’

‘You’ve been cosying up with the general manager of Acacia View and you didn’t even tell me?’

‘I haven’t been cosying, as you put it. I’ve been running a newspaper. Which means earning money through advertisements so we can pay your wages, and not pissing off the businesses in town who are keen to advertise with us.’

‘So you threw my article under the bus for financial gain, is that it?’

‘It was a good business decision.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Wait … how did Chris even know I was running a second article? The one that should be in this newspaper, today, where I discussed my aunt’s care at Acacia View?’

Aaron raised his hands as though he was placating a wild beast. ‘Come on back inside, Vera. We need to talk about this.’

‘Correction. I need to talk about this. I need to talk to whichever newspaper in this country still gives a damn about reporting facts fearlessly. Which was it, Aaron? Did you squeeze an advert out of them in return for not running my article? Or did they squeeze you? I bet that was it, wasn’t it? Where’s your damn spine?’

‘Are you threatening me, Vera?’

‘I’m promising you, Aaron, the way I promised my aunt I would campaign for change. And unlike you, I keep my word.’

Of course that was when he sacked her. She’d been barefoot on the front step of his house and he’d pulled her job out from under her feet.

The prosecution charge came later, after Aaron ratted her out to his new best buddy Chris Sykes by telling him she’d hidden a camera in her aunt’s room at Acacia View.

That had been when her belief in herself disintegrated.

Sue dug a lacquered talon into her leg and it snapped her back into the present. ‘You’re up,’ she hissed.

‘We’ll now hear the matter of Vera De Rossi,’ said the magistrate. ‘Is Vera in the courtroom?’

She stood up. ‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘The charge against you is brought about by private prosecution; do you understand what that means?’

‘Yes. The police haven’t charged me with an offence, instead a private citizen has done so.’

‘Do you understand that the Department of Public Prosecutions can step in at any stage and take over prosecuting these charges?’

‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘And you have legal representation, I see.’

She was beginning to feel like a parrot—an anxious parrot in a black wool dress slightly moth-eaten on one sleeve. ‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘You have been charged with a crime under the Surveillance Devices Act of 2007, namely installing a listening device to record a private conversation. How do you plead?’

She swallowed. This was it, the crossing of the line. ‘I plead not guilty, Your Honour.’

The magistrate nodded. ‘Trial date will be set in due course. Dismissed. The court will take a short recess and be back in session at ten am.’

‘Okay, that’s done, let’s go,’ said Sue.

‘That’s it? So quick?’

‘That’s court for you. Wait six hours for a two-second appearance. Come on, you can buy me a coffee and we can begin our two-day strategy blitz.’

‘Can we wait a moment? Just until Aaron and Sykes get clear of the building. I can’t face them.’

‘Vera, my pet, my love, my girl. A word of advice.’

Oh heck. Sue was going to make her be brave.

‘You’ve got to look at that dickhead ex-boyfriend of yours, and look hard, Vera. Get used to it. The more you face him, the easier it will be for you, and guess what?’

‘What?’ She whispered it, because the court clerk was frowning at them.

‘Here’s the icing on the cake bit … the more you look at him, really look, the harder it’s going to be for him. That’s the thing about being a scumbag. Deep down inside, below that reptilian part of his brain where his advertising revenue means more to him than his self-respect, he knows he’s just a scumbag now. And you looking at him is going to remind him of that every time. Use that power, Vera.’

Crap. Okay, she could do this. She stood up, turned, and her eyes looked straight into his dark brown ones.

His hair was short, almost soldier short, and his suit snappy, as though he’d ditched journalism to sell upscale real estate. The other thing that struck her was how … weak he seemed. As though the outer slickness was a showy cover to stop people seeing the lack of substance beneath. She tried to imagine him running into a burning building to bundle baby animals into his pockets and snorted. He’d never do it. Not for an animal, not for a person. Never for her.

Their relationship had sparked into existence shortly after Aaron moved to the newspaper. Flowers, drinks, a crazy Sunday date laughing their way through food trucks and music gigs at a local brewery open day. Promises hadn’t been spoken, vows hadn’t been said … but promises could be made in other ways, and she’d made them; thought he’d made them in return. When she made breakfast for a guy in her sun-filled apartment, wearing nothing but his shirt, she was promising ‘I care for you’. She thought she was being promised ‘you can trust me’ in return. Why else give her flowers? Hold her hand on afternoon walks through Tallaganda National Park? Plait her hair, cook her risotto, bring her almond croissants from a bakery all the way over in Canberra?

He’d not meant any of it.

Vera wiped her damp palms on her skirt. ‘Okay, eye contact made, but I think that’s my bravery just about worn through, Sue. Let’s get out of here.’

‘You got it.’