There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Nineteen

Wednesday July 13

Detective Sergeant McCoy sat at his desk once Rose had fallen asleep and Chloe was in the shower. He sipped at his beer as he offered his routine appraisal of his mother's photo.

It was a long time ago now that she'd commandeered his time and energy just after she was diagnosed. He was knee deep in his second year of a law degree – the first of his family to get past high school let alone go on to university. The second of two boys, his brother Paul was, then as he was now, 4000 miles away working in the mines around Port Hedland and not a chance to come back and look after his mum. He sent a regular bunch of money to help pay for what she needed and he wrote every couple of weeks but as far as being there to take her to her appointments and treatments went, he may as well have been on the moon.

And so Dean McCoy found himself less at a lecture and more often holding a bag of saline for a nurse or his mums hair back when she'd vomit again and the McCoy tradition of finding a way to make it work bounced around his way.

He tried not to begrudge her, I mean how could he? But he'd been close to dux at St. Bernard's in his final year and even though it hurt some of the big wigs at the school to see a McCoy show this type of talent, he knew he had them covered. That he'd have his time in the future to really make sure they knew someone was watching them – that someone could get to them. Through the sheer gift of DNA-derived intelligence and street smarts. And the fact that he was on a scholarship made it worse, for him and for them. He hated the fact that he couldn't compete with the rest of his classmates when it came to cars, or weekends, or skiing trips; and the school hated the fact that a kid from Frankston could show up the kids whose families had mostly paid for the gym and pool and theatre that they all loved talking about.

Everything from the uniform to the plastic coated ways in which the principal and school leader would address the students hung McCoy's tolerance out to dry. But it drove him; the very fact he could do well wouldn't have been enough at Frankston High. But here, simply because he knew just how much they'd hate to see him at the top, it was like pouring petrol onto an already raging class-driven inferno.

But with Katherine's illness, the law prodigy was bounced out of a chance at the social strata he had always despised, tumbling a turgid year or so between caregiver, chief mourner and home owner as his mum got smaller and then bloated until her lungs slowly drowned her. Within that year he'd gained 20 kilograms, lost the circle that might have accepted him simply because he was smarter than the rest of them and felt the devastating dislocation that losing a parent to cancer will give to you.

He'd joined the Force the following year because he still had a fire burning somewhere for seeing things could be changed. He'd lost the taste for the intellectual fight but gained the knowledge that you could impact society in different ways.

And now here he was, 24 years later, toasting the woman who had raised him and kept him away from the sort of people his father had chosen to join at the pub, and then in D block at Barwon Prison. There'd been some eyebrows raised and some push and shove in Command when his name came up on the recruitment drive but Constable Dean McCoy had been the perfect cop since day one. Not because he knew they'd be watching him extra closely but because he owed it to his mum to make something of what he had been born with.

And Chloe had saved him from himself when they'd met at the Geelong Show a few years ago. He'd stood in front of her and Rose as a group of munted teenagers - who meant no harm but were harassing everyone who walked past Showbag alley after 9 pm - passed by.

She was a kindergarten teacher – the kids all loved her almost as much as McCoy did.

'But fuck', he said aloud now, 'Everyone's got a story.'

He smiled to himself as he remembered Rose's best couple from tonight, keen to pass on the latest highlights to Chloe when she came down from the bathroom.

'Dad, where do thoughts come from?' He loved the fact she called him Dad. Still made him cry sometimes, for the joy of being able to do something for someone he never knew he could love that much.

And, 'Dad, what does resolution mean?' Resolution? Where the hell had the crazy kid heard that?

Dean McCoy finished his beer as he went through his notes from his meeting with Georgina Prosser that afternoon. He was confused, not for the least that Doug hadn't let her know McCoy would be coming to talk to her. He'd dealt with a lot of families over the years who had been separated when they'd lost a child but there was always some sort of coming together and grieving – Avery was 23 for Christ's sake, they had to have some sort of history that deserved sharing of their sorrow or at least respecting her memory?

She'd been evasive at best, not really offering much in terms of a judgement on Vincent. McCoy had noted how she carried her age well, a terrific sense of a youthfulness about her. Doug had been batting far above his average. She'd cried for her Avery when McCoy had asked her why she thought her daughter might have been in that state of mind. Her crying appeared genuine and it was vast, as if she was making up for what Doug had lacked.

But when he asked about Vincent specifically, she has gone a little red and switched off; her wet eyes shutting down any feeling she had until then shown. It could have been indifference; it could have been something else. But it certainly didn't carry the weight of blame that Doug would have McCoy believe belonged to Vincent.

And again Lewis had noticed that there was something else about Georgina when Vincent's name came up.

As they left her apartment on the south side of the city, amongst the parks and greenery Melbourne was famous for, she paused as she closed the door and said, 'You know Detectives, sometimes these things just happen. We all look for reasons but sometimes there just aren't any.'

Lewis could have slapped Georgina down for all of the emotional effort she seemed to want to put into making sure her daughter's end was indeed the way it appeared to be. But everyone responds differently and maybe this was her way of deflecting or shelving emotion that was still going to come.

Maybe she knew her daughter was struggling more than Doug had.

But there was something about Vincent when it came to her.

But, with Senior Sergeant Frank Young's pressure starting to mount to wrap up the investigation, that might have been that. All that remained was a quick trip to speak to Vincent's father the next day, who they hadn't been able to get on to over the last two days, just to make sure there were no other loose ends to tie up.

And they'd have to talk to Vincent one last time to sign off on it all.

But even if that were to happen, McCoy still couldn't bring himself to wish Vincent a happy life.