AC05 - Death Mask (3 page)

This woman was pretty convincing. And there was little point sustaining an act without her husband present. Anya leant forward in her seat.

‘What you tell me now is completely confidential. Nothing you say will go further than this room. Not to your GP, Brett, family. Anyone.’

‘I just don’t understand.’ The tears flowed faster. ‘This whole thing has been a nightmare. I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘I’m not suggesting you have.’ Anya locked her gaze. Figures showed that up to one in three women had been sexually assaulted but most incidents went unreported. The question had to be asked. ‘Did someone have sex with you without your permission?’

The woman wiped her eyes with a tissue. ‘You mean like rape? No! I’d think I’d know if that had happened.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Anya offered. There was a chance she could have been drugged and not remembered an assault. ‘Did you have a hen’s night, for example? Out somewhere?’

‘Just dinner with my sister and a few girlfriends at a local pizza place. And no one got drunk, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Have there been any times in the last couple of months when something could have happened? Someone who gave you a drink? Maybe being unable to remember aspects of the night before, even though you hadn’t drunk much?’

Hannah stared at the carpet, rolling the tissue in her hand. ‘I went to the gym every day before the wedding. I lost sixteen kilos to get into my dress. We paid for everything; we didn’t go out for about six months so we could save the money. Brett went down to the pub with his friends some nights, but I stayed home. I’m the one who budgets anyway – Brett would spend everything he earns if I left it to him.’

‘What about work functions?’

‘I don’t mix much with people from the office. Most of them think a good night means getting blind drunk and sleeping with someone they’ll never see again.’

Anya could appreciate why Hannah might prefer to stay at home.

‘Tell me about your wedding.’

Hannah leant back in the lounge and her shoulders relaxed. ‘It was everything I ever dreamt it would be, if you don’t count the rain. My bouquet had deep purple irises and Brett looked so handsome. The only downside was that we didn’t have time to eat much, by the time we’d got around to everyone and made sure they were all having a good time.’

‘Did you at least get to have a glass of champagne?’ Anya remembered her own, less than formal wedding, without family or friends present.

‘Come to think of it, I did have one glass of wine at the reception, but because I hadn’t eaten, it went right to my head.’

Anya glanced at the door. Brett wouldn’t be much longer.

‘What happened then?’

‘I don’t remember much, to be honest. I started out nervous, but Brett undressed me. I know we made love because the next morning there was blood on the sheets and I was sore,’ she lowered her voice, ‘down there.’

The comment alarmed Anya.

‘Do you remember making love?’

‘Brett told me I fell asleep with exhaustion from all the dieting and stress. But I feel a bit silly – what sort of bride can’t remember her wedding night?’

Anya wondered the same thing. Tears refilled Hannah’s eyes.

‘We had breakfast in bed, and he didn’t even try to make love again. I must have been disappointing. My mother always said that a marriage is made or ruined on the wedding night. Maybe that’s why my mind blanked it out.’ Her voice trailed off. ‘But once Brett commits himself to something, there’s no going back.’

It seemed an odd statement for a new bride to make.

‘What else is Brett committed to?’

‘The local football club. He’s been playing with them since high school, and the team are all really close. I didn’t understand it at first, but they have a real sense of belonging and he’s never missed a practice or a game. Women get used to that closeness with girlfriends or sisters, but it’s important for men to have it too.’

‘What about the honeymoon. Noumea, wasn’t it?’

‘We were inseparable, and Brett wanted to make up for lost time. That’s why I thought I’d become so sore again.’

Anya still believed Hannah. Nothing in her mannerisms or voice suggested she was lying at any stage of her story.

There was a rap on the door and Brett appeared. ‘Are you OK in here? I was beginning to worry.’

‘I’m fine,’ Hannah answered. ‘Doctor Crichton’s exploring possibilities.’

‘Is that so?’ Brett answered, barely entering the room. ‘Haven’t got too much time on the meter, how much longer do you think you’ll be?’

He transferred his weight from one foot to the other. It was evident he didn’t want to be there and was keen to leave as soon as possible. For such an understanding and forgiving man, he seemed surprisingly anxious.

‘I hoped we could have a quick chat,’ Anya said. ‘Is that all right with you, Hannah? There’s a water cooler outside, if you’d like to help yourself.’

Hannah stood up, but her husband hesitated and checked his watch. ‘I guess I can stay a few minutes, but I’m not the one who gave her the infections.’

‘This situation must be pretty difficult for you,’ Anya began when Hannah had left the room and Brett was sitting down again.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked distractedly towards the window. ‘Hospitals creep me out.’

Anya watched him for a moment longer before speaking. ‘Do you think Hannah is lying?’

‘No way, she blames herself for things she didn’t even do.’

‘What happened on the wedding night?’

His eyes flicked back. ‘What did she say about it?’

The hairs on the back of Anya’s neck stood up. ‘She told me she had a drink at the reception, went back to the room with you but she couldn’t remember much after that.’

His jaw tensed and he wiped his mouth with his hand. ‘Look, she’s a one-pot screamer, always has been. With all that starving herself, it just went to her head quicker than usual. She looked pretty good, by the way; you should have seen her in the dress and veil.’

Anya decided to ask about his memory. ‘Are you absolutely positive that was all she had to drink? Sometimes in the excitement it’s possible to drink more than you realise.’

He twisted his mouth as if straining to remember. ‘No, the hotel gave us a bottle of champers but she didn’t like it.’

Anya felt uneasy. That night – the wedding night – was the only time Hannah couldn’t remember. For someone who had waited so long to make love to her husband, one drink shouldn’t have been enough for her to lose her memory. Yet Brett seemed to remember all about that night.

‘What happened then?’

‘After we had sex, she fell into a deep sleep. Guess it had been pretty stressful organising the wedding and all that. I went out on the motel verandah, off our room, drank some beer, had a few smokes and turned in. She hadn’t even moved on the bed.’

Anya noted that Brett hadn’t once raised the possibility that his wife had been unfaithful.

‘Does Hannah use any recreational drugs?’

He laughed. ‘No way. She’s way too straight for that.’

That ruled out another reason for the amnesia. Anya tried another tack. ‘Do you?’

He looked defiant.

‘You wanna do a drug test on me now?’

Anya persisted with the questions. ‘Did anyone visit your room after the reception?’

He ran his hand across his mouth again. ‘What do you mean, anyone else? I just told you it was our wedding night, for chrissakes.’ Tiny beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead.

Anya pushed further. ‘Maybe someone wanted to wish you both luck for the honeymoon? It’s not uncommon.’

He nodded. ‘Now you mention it, some blokes from the footy team dropped by to give us their present, but then they left again when they saw Hannah was asleep.’

The hairs on the back of Anya’s neck stiffened again.

‘Brett, I’m sure you want to get to the bottom of this as much as Hannah does.’

He nodded slowly.

‘Hannah has no memory of the wedding night. A spiked drink would explain that. If someone did add a drug to her glass that night, we can test a sample of her hair, and even pinpoint the period of time in which that substance was ingested. If you didn’t give her the infections, someone else did. I think you know more than you’re telling, and I’m wondering if the police need to be involved.’

‘You’re fucking kidding, right? You can’t call the police!’

The colour drained from his face and he slumped back into the lounge.

Anya waited, silence closing in like a vice.

Brett Dengate’s eyes darted from the door to the window as if seeking an escape route. A few moments later he buried his face in his hands.

‘Shit! None of this was ever meant to happen. They were supposed to use condoms.’

‘Y
ou can’t repeat any of this ’cause of doctor confidentiality.’ Brett Dengate chewed on a fingernail. ‘I know my rights.’

Anya could barely believe what she was hearing. Brett Dengate had been a member of the local football team for over ten years and felt his mates were like family. They trained together, socialised, raised money for local charities. Only problem was, these men also shared the things they should have held most dear – their partners. It seemed ‘the boys’ had an initiation ritual whenever one got a new girlfriend.

The first time had been five or six years earlier.

‘Lurch, he’s like a brother, he got me out of a speeding fine that would have cost me my licence. He’s that good a mate.’

One that would lie in court, or on a statutory declaration, Anya thought. Obviously laws were things to be bent or broken.

‘And I guess you’d do the same for him.’

Brett paused but either missed the point of the comment or chose to ignore it.

‘Anyway, after we won the grand final – it was our fourth time – we went back to his place for a boys’ night. He had a couple of kegs, heaps of food and it was a great night. His new girlfriend turned up and drank and danced with some of us.
We’d all had a few and were celebrating when Lurch disappeared into the bedroom with …’

He struggled to recall the woman’s name.

‘A few minutes later, the bedroom door’s open and she’s lying on the bed naked, and they’re going for it. He saw me and waved me to come in. It was pretty obvious she was up for it, so I had sex with her too.’

Anya wondered what ‘obvious’ meant. ‘Did she ask you to have sex with her?’

‘Well, not in so many words, but I could tell she was into me watching. So when Lurch moved off and I climbed on, she didn’t exactly refuse. After that, the other boys took turns.’

Anya could imagine the scene: alcohol, testosterone and one woman. It was possible that the woman was too intimidated or drunk to refuse the string of men. Inability to refuse sex never equalled consent. She made a mental note to check back on reports of assaults by groups of men against women in the region.

‘Did you see her again?’

He shook his head. ‘He moved on to someone else pretty quickly. Women go mad for our Lurch. And you’ve got to understand, I hadn’t even met Hannah back then.’

‘So after that, how many times would you all have … shared girlfriends?’ She tried to remain impartial.

‘Only eight or nine times. We all started to settle down.’

He talked as if it were a harmless adolescent phase.

‘Did those other women all consent to having sex with the team?’

‘Yeah, although a couple needed something to loosen them up.’

Brett spoke as if this were the most natural thing in the world. As perfunctory as eating breakfast or driving a car. Anya felt her jaw tighten.

‘What loosened them up?’

‘I had some Roeze from when I did my back in a game.’

‘You mean Rohypnol?’ The benzodiazepine was used in date-rape, with an amnesic effect. It was commonly used for
sedation in medical procedures like colonoscopies, where patients could still be compliant with instructions but later have no memory of the procedure. She didn’t expect to find many reports of assaults, if the women couldn’t actually remember what had happened to them.

‘Sure, they relax your muscles and make you chill. Hey, partner swapping isn’t against the law.’

He was right. But partner swapping was not what he and his friends had done.

‘It’s called bunning and everybody does it.’ Brett hastened to explain that they only ever ‘initiated’ each woman once. He vacillated between bravado and qualifying his actions.

Anya took a deep breath. ‘Bunning’ was a term bandied by elite athletes who participated in group sex. Except in these groups, there was only ever one woman.

She had no idea how to break the news to the poor woman outside; her world was about to be completely shattered. First, Anya needed to establish the facts. Hannah deserved the truth, but needed as much information as possible if she chose to make a police statement.

‘What happened after you met Hannah?’

‘Well,’ he blew out through his mouth, ‘she wanted to save herself for marriage, but men have needs, you know.’

‘What happened when it was Hannah’s turn for the initiation?’

‘I copped a lot of shit for that. She doesn’t drink much, and because of her purity pledge she was never going to be up for it on her own. Lurch kept telling me we were still a team. Hell, I knew that, we came runners-up the week before the wedding. It’s why we waited till the season was over to get married.’ He sat forward. ‘Listen, Hannah knew the deal and never complained. It’s who I am in that team, and she knew that when we started going out.’

Anya had to remind herself that this was club sport – no salary, no sponsorships, no written contracts – and yet Brett spoke as if his life revolved around the game.

‘Lurch came up to me before the wedding and said it was payback. We’d all scratched each other’s backs and now it was my turn.

‘I told him she wasn’t like that and wouldn’t agree to sleeping with the team. Only he said I’d slammed the ham with everyone else’s women, so I owed them. He had a point.’ He wiped the end of his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Lurch was right. It was my turn.’

Anya took a couple of slow breaths, trying not to show how angry she was.