‘I don’t know that for sure,’ she said. ‘What’s going to happen this morning is that I’m going to bring you and Lola to school. And you can just have an ordinary day. While you’re at school I’m going to go and see your dad, wherever he is.’
‘Even if he’s still arrested?’
‘Even if. Nathan has a very good friend who’s an excellent lawyer, and Nate’s going to call him first thing this morning. He’ll go and talk to your dad and to the police and see if he can sort all of this out.’
Cam felt a tiny, tiny bit better. Like everything that had felt weird and not real had become a little more solid.
‘When they arrested him, they said that he’d mu... murdered someone.’
She nodded. He’d told her that the night before. ‘But you and I know that that’s not true.’ Her eyes were very blue, very steady and very calm. ‘Your dad would never, ever do that.’
Another tiny part of Cam steadied and settled. He nodded.
‘That’s right. So someone has made a mistake, somewhere, and now we have to fix it.’
‘But sometimes those mistakes get really bad,’ Cam said. ‘Sometimes people go to prison even when they didn’t do anything wrong.’ Everyone knew that.
‘That’s true, and that’s a terrible thing. But that is not going to happen to your dad, because he has friends who won’t allow it. He’s going to have a very, very good lawyer, and that lawyer will help your dad to show the police the truth, and then they’re going to let him go.’
Cam tried really hard to figure out if she was lying or telling the truth. Her eyes were still calm, still steady.
‘I want to see my dad.’
‘I know, Cam. And it might take some time before I can make that happen, but I promise you, you’ll see your dad soon, and everything’s going to be fine.’
* * *
At five o’clock on Tuesday, Elsa and Nathan drove into the city through rush-hour traffic. They parked on Bourke Street, on the second floor of a multistorey car park, and made their way quickly down through the grubby concrete stairwell to the street below. Nathan reached out and took Elsa’s hand.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ he said.
‘Are we late?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘I think we’re going to be okay. It’s just across the street.’
But he picked up his pace, and Elsa was briefly glad that she’d gone with her boots instead of the heels she’d originally laid out for the day. Nathan led the way into a small office building and through a lobby to an elevator, where he hit the button for the sixth floor.
‘You’ve been here before?’ she asked.
‘Met Badger for lunch here a couple of years back. It was a few months after they moved in. I think he wanted to show the place off.’
The elevator doors opened onto a short corridor that led to a set of glass double doors. Nathan held a door open for Elsa, and they entered an open plan space with a reception desk, and a waiting area with large windows that offered a view of the city skyline. There was a young man sitting behind the reception desk. He was wearing a suit, complete with jacket and tie, and Elsa tried to remember the last time she’d seen someone wear a full suit to work.
‘Can I help you?’
‘We’re here to see Andrew Cheslyn,’ Nathan said. ‘He’s expecting us.’
‘Of course. If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll let Mr Cheslyn know you’re here.’
They weren’t waiting long. Andrew arrived moments later. He grasped Nathan’s hand and kissed Elsa on the cheek.
‘Come in, come in. Do you want coffee? Are you hungry? Not sure why I’m asking. Can’t offer you anything to eat at this time of day. Café around the corner does sandwiches, but they close at three.’
He led them into his office. There was a large desk to the right of the door, and to the left a round table, meant, presumably, for meetings. Desk and table were both covered in small stacks of papers and files.
‘Place is a mess. Sorry about that. Bloody paperwork seems to multiply. You’d think we’d be past all this, right? We should have gone entirely electronic, but the law seems to operate about fifty years behind everyone else.’ He lifted a couple of bundles of files off the table and set them on the floor by the wall. ‘Sit. Please.’
‘Thanks for doing this, Badger,’ Nathan said.
