Free Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans Page A

‘Look, son. They said she just ran out in front of the car. It’s a terrible thing, but how can you blame yourself for that? Let me get Stephen to advise you. He deals with cases like this all the time.’
    Looking back now, Finn could see that his parents had always adroitly handled any problems that arose in his life. He was the long-awaited only child of older parents, and, grateful for their late blessing, they sheltered and indulged him. While another child might have become spoiled and selfish, Michael was loving, funny, popular and clever. Things rarely went wrong for him, but when they did, he relied on his parents to deal with them and secured their support by the deployment of tears, anger, charm—whatever he could see might work at the time. He’d carried this approach over to adulthood, when the generally smooth progress of his life had ensured that he needed it only rarely. So it was that when, at the age of thirty-eight, he was faced with something fundamental, he had no resources with which to deal with it. By the time Moss heard his story, he had carried his guilt for so long that it was grafted to his skin. It was part of who he was.
    Is that why he chose to reveal his secret to Moss? he wondered. She was claiming him as a father and he felt he owed her the truth. If she chose to reject him, he would accept this rejection as delayed justice. He had always regretted allowing his mother to dissuade him from confessing. If he’d been punished at the time, maybe his life would be different now. He would have done his penance and been absolved. He shook his head wearily. Who knows? He had acted as he did, and there were consequences, one of which might be the loss of his newly found daughter. That would be no more than he deserved. Of course, on another level, one he preferred not to acknowledge, he was resisting entanglement. He had never wanted a child. He had made that quite clear to her mothers from the outset. It was too late to change now. He simply didn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with the needs of an adult daughter.
    He heard Moss return from her shopping expedition, but stayed in his room. At five to six, he left the house, telling her that he’d return at eight. He left the folder on the table and wrote her name on the cover with the ubiquitous magic marker. She watched him from the window and didn’t pick up the folder until he was out of sight.
    Moss didn’t read everything. Some of the details were technical so she skipped to those sections that dealt with the story, the everyday tragedy of the girl they called Amber-Lee. She didn’t even rate a newspaper headline. Two column inches in the Age reported that a prostitute known only as AmberLee was hit by a car and run over by a truck in Pryor St, Churchill. Police are still trying to identify her. It is believed that Amber-Lee was not her real name. Anyone with information et cetera, et cetera . . .
    Moss tried to imagine what would lead a young girl to leave home for such a brutal life. Who was she? What was her real name? she wondered, in a manner uncharacteristic of either the casual Amy or the impatient Linsey. Her habit of introspection and the quality of empathy had stolen in with her father’s genes.
    The brief was prepared by Senior Constable Graham Patterson of Fitzroy police station. It began with a detailed report of the accident and witness statements and recorded that Michael’s blood alcohol level was within the legal limit. What engrossed her, however, was the effort the senior constable had made to identify the girl. She didn’t match any missing person’s report, although there was some fruitless investigation regarding an Adelaide schoolgirl who’d disappeared earlier that year. Furthermore, Amber-Lee’s head injuries precluded the use of dental records. Very little was gleaned from the interview with the prostitute Brenda. It was noted that she shared a flat with the deceased, knew her only as AmberLee, and