Blood River

by Tony Cavanaugh

  He thinks it’s because he would tell Jen about the Blood River. His horrid story. He thinks that’s why she became a killer of unimaginable cruelty. I told him, for years I told him that she was innocent, that she was not a killer, that the police had set her up, that the court had got it wrong, like they did with Lindy Chamberlain, but the entreaties fell away, like ramparts of dust surrounding a fortified town.

  —

  WE’RE IN BALD Hills, a suburb way north of Brisbane, on its edge actually, before you get onto the freeway which will take you to the Sunshine Coast. We have a house next to what used to be an old Golden Fleece petrol station, which was the last fuel before Caloundra, our house over-looking farming flats and bordered by the South Pine River. The Bonnie View Tavern is where we go to eat when we think we should leave the barriers of home in this new life.

  We live in a tiny one-bedroom house made out of fibro, which is really asbestos, but we don’t talk about that. There are weeds in the garden and next door is a Syrian family who sometimes give us home-made lollies. They cannot speak a word of English. They have two daughters and I look, sometimes, at their daughters and think: I hope it works out for you, for all of you.

  Numb, you have to be numb, so I did Xanax with lithium and he did the voddy and then he did weed and now he’s doing meth. ‘I can control it,’ he says to me every morning when I slumber awake at like ten or eleven, thinking: What happened last night?

  We spent eight hundred and sixty-three thousand, two hundred and fifty-eight dollars on her legal fees. Of course, that bankrupted us. As we knew it would.

  But you do that.

  You do that for your child. Even though you know you are about to enter the end of the world as we know it.

  We did not go to the court very often. We were there when we heard ‘guilty’ and when Anthea, love of my life, little Anthea now with her two gorgeous daughters, when she fell to the floor and wept and a medic had to be called in and they carried her out on a stretcher past this very tall, tattooed and rather horrid looking man with a Mohican haircut and he scared me and I followed Anthea. To the hospital. I think Hugh was with me. I can’t remember.

  —

  I HATE HER.

  I tried not to. After all, she is my first-born. I try to remember holding her and feeding her and the first crawl and the first walk and the first word which was ‘chocolate’ (where did that come from?) and that first day at school when she had proudly dressed herself in her new uniform and marched off with her backpack and when she started to become a young lady whom my mother would be so proud of, with her stupendous knowledge of literature, having read Don Quixote at the age of eleven but then the darkness slowly falling, the Goth stuff and I knew that when she became a teen it would be challenging, doors slamming and angry looks and rebellion (I mean, who am I to complain? I ran off with a guy called Buster and fucked him from here to eternity when I was thirteen) and the darkness and how do you reach out to your kid, a hand of love extended, like in that famous painting by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel with the almost-clasp of hands, how can you do that? Love, anger? Is there a rule book?

  I tried to be strong.

  But the hate just grew like a cancer. And like a cancer, despite all that you do to try and halt it, it just keeps on growing.

  At least I have Anthea. At least one of them turned out well.

  Although Hugh’s sense of guilt is silly, I did make Anthea promise me that she would never tell her children the story of the Blood River and she told me she wouldn’t.

  Do It

  I HAVE A DRIVER AT MY DISPOSAL, IF I WANT TO RIDE IN THE back seat of a car while working. My staff tell me I should take advantage of it more often but I love driving and I love driving fast (as fast as the law will allow) and listening to very loud music. It helps me relax and makes me concentrate on whatever is bothering me. Whatever needs resolution, if I can find it.

  Like, this morning, Nils and his illegal stash of very dangerous weapons.

  Billy had made two anonymous calls: one to Southport police to alert them to the arsenal of blades, and another to the parents of a missing sixteen-year-old runaway to disclose their daughter’s current address with a recommendation they advise the local police instead of trying to rescue her themselves.

  Damon wasn’t bothering me so much as perplexing me as I cranked up the volume of the go-to music of the month, The Amity Affliction.

  In his back room, the ‘beard’ room, was an X-ray. Of a man. Hung from the ceiling, about three metres high and two metres across. Placed upon a pale red background, it reminded Billy of a bad day at an avant-garde art gallery, where ‘them pooftas put on bullshit and make tons of money’. Lucky Billy was out of the Service. These days he’d go down in a heartbeat for some of his language.

  He’d sent me a photo of the X-ray. After he’d sent me a photo of the blood orange and the sharp-bladed knife. I don’t know what unnerved me more: the X-ray of a man on the wall or the knife on the kitchen table.

  The X-ray room didn’t have the look of a room where art was displayed. Instead, it had the look of a room in a disturbed person’s home.

  And the knife wasn’t an ordinary knife. It was striking, with a polished wooden handle and a strange metal surface to the blade. Like it had been burnished in an ancient cauldron. It took me straight back to the Celtic days and all that talk of sacrifices. Damon’s knife also looked incredibly sharp. I did a little research and discovered it was a Nesmuk Jahrhundertmesser knife, made in Solingen, Germany and costing over nine thousand dollars. Made of Damascus steel and based on a design from three and a half thousand years ago. Which, Billy and I agreed, is a lot of knife to cut up a blood orange.

  Nils looked like a killer. He looked as though he could cut open a man’s neck and fold back his head. He was covered literally from head to toe in terrifying tattoos and had his own martial-arts security troupe of tattooed thugs. Damon, on the other hand, was a professor of advanced mathematics at the University of Queensland. He did not look the part. He did not act the part. And I couldn’t bust him for the crime of owning an expensive knife and having creepy art in an otherwise-empty house.

  What do I do with these two? There was no basis to bring them in for questioning; and anyway, I was supposed to fly up to Rockhampton this afternoon for a meeting with the district commander and then dinner with the Mayor, the council and community leaders.

  Billy had suggested that I allow him to reach out to a couple of retired ex-cops and get them to surveil Nils and Damon, being happy to jump at any chance to get back into the scent of the game, under the radar. Just in case.

  I’d said, before I went to bed, after Catherine Howard’s head had come off, that I’d think about it.

  I rang him from the car phone.

  ‘Girlie.’

  ‘Do it,’ I said.

  ‘Copy that,’ he replied.

  Sold Down the River

  I HAD THE HOUSE TO MYSELF. I SAT OUTSIDE, IN THE GARDEN, on the grass, which was dry despite the earlier spot of rain. It was like a walled garden, each side covered by thick bushes and trees. I couldn’t see any of the neighbours and they couldn’t see me. I lay back and stared up at the sky. Dark clouds moved so slowly I had to measure them against the wall of trees to determine if they were moving at all.

  I mean, sure, back then she could be steely-eyed and maybe a little too intense.

  I mean, sure, she used to ride a skateboard and creep out at night, like I did, at different times and going places I didn’t know about.

  I mean, yeah, she was into the Goth world with that really heavy Norwegian black death-metal band.

  I mean, she knew all about the Celtic world because I had that book about the gods, including Taranis and Ogmios.

  Sure, she burned black candles and had a book on Aleister Crowley, the so-called ‘wickedest man in the world’, devil-worshipper and all-round wanker who invoked demons for blood sacrifice.

  She would have had the physicality t
o knock over the three victims, from behind, forcing them to stumble, lose their balance and fall to the ground.

  I mean, yeah, she was on the Year 11 and Year 12 school trip to North Stradbroke Island and could have picked some swamp daisy flowers. She liked flowers, but she liked butterflies more.

  And she was the only one who stayed loyal to me. When the verdict came down, she fell hysterically to the floor of the court and had to be taken out by paramedics, which could have been brought on by seeing her sister go down for Life. Or it might have been the shock of realising that I had actually been convicted for her crimes. It could have all been out of guilt.

  But there’s nothing in the consideration of my little sister that says, I’m going to kill three men, randomly. I’m going to slice open their neck and fold their head back onto their shoulder, then cut their mouth into a grotesque grin, rip out one of their teeth and carve the symbol of Taranis into their chest.

  I mean, a person like that wants something. I know; I became that person. I wanted the thrill because the adrenalin rush was impossible to deny and impossible not to embrace. I wanted people to be in awe of me as they would be of thunder and Taranis. I wanted them to fear me and I wanted that fear to spread across the city, like a spill of ink, black and indelible. I wanted to feel the warm rush of their blood, bathe in it. I wanted to be immortal.

  Did she?

  Have I misread the person closest to me?

  —

  I WENT BACK inside and sat on the wooden floor and stared at the string of teeth. I could have called dad and asked him if they were from his collection, but that wasn’t a possibility, not after last night and the past twenty years. I could have waited until Anthea got home and asked her, but that wasn’t a possibility. I took a photo of them. I could have sent it to Lara, but I wasn’t going to drop my sister into a well of suspicion like I had been dropped twenty years earlier; I knew there was no turning back once the shadow of doubt crossed over you, especially if you were innocent. As she must be. Because there had to be a very simple, obvious, explanation; I just had to find it.

  I went downstairs and into her bedroom. It was theirs, but it was hers. The scent of lavender and the soft pastel floral cushions and doona cover were hers. The thick white carpet and impeccable order were hers. Same in the bathroom, all gleaming white with expensive toiletries. It was like an advert for L’Occitane. Sprigs of dried lavender. Reproduction Matisse on the walls. A Balinese garden outside, through French doors, with a fountain and bougainvillea in earthenware pots. Her wardrobe was full of clothes, and none of the boxes hid anything that might reveal the world of a serial killer. Only expensive shoes. Her chest of drawers full of clothes and jewellery. There were three strings of pearls and two antique diamond-and-ruby rings. Earrings were in a special box.

  It was a large downstairs area. Four bedrooms, two on either side of the hallway, which led to a large family room with couches and bean bags.

  There was a bar fridge containing a lot of white wine. DVDs and games and remotes were scattered on the floor. This was the messy room.

  I walked back upstairs. Off to the side of the large open lounge and dining room with the kitchen and breakfast bar was her study and Robbie’s office. Both were small and intimate. His looked like what you’d expect from a boring guy who worked in finance. Hers had the appearance of a university professor’s: a desk full of student papers and a wall of books and journals. Her degree, her Masters and her PhD were all framed on the wall. On her desk was a vase of dead yellow tulips, their stems had flopped over and the petals scattered across the pages of an open book from something called the Annapurna Natural History Museum about the six hundred and sixty species of butterflies in Nepal, alongside a laptop. I tried to log in but couldn’t guess the password. I went through all the desk drawers, carefully checked the titles of all her books. I looked for the killer’s toolkit, a backpack of blades, knives and a pair of pliers.

  Not there.

  This is what it is, Jen, I said to myself. This is an office in the house of a geeky zoology professor who specialises in lepidoptery. Who has, by chance, some teeth in a wall mounting, next to feathers and butterflies; is that so odd? It’s just a coincidence. Go make some bacon and eggs, brew up some real coffee, the breakfast you’ve been dreaming of for years, with that sourdough bread she told you about, and then sit on the couch and binge-watch Netflix, if you can understand how the remote works. Spend the whole day in your pyjamas and don’t have a shower. Do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it, without anyone telling you otherwise.

  As I began to walk out of the office, a curtain of darkness lifting off me, I paused. Something had caught my eye.

  Dad had given me the purple Qantas bag, with a zip along its side, small enough for a twenty-year trip to jail. He had given Anthea a blue Ansett bag, which I liked a lot more than mine. Her flight bag had a picture of a red and white jet flying upwards on its side and I thought it was better than the little white jet picture on my bag. I used to try and steal it from her. This was when we were really little, like when I was ten and she was nine. When we fought all the time.

  And there it was, after all these years, sitting on top of her bookshelves, perched at the back.

  After almost thirty years, there it sat.

  I reached up to get it. I don’t know why. I couldn’t reach it. I grabbed her desk chair, moved it to the shelves, stood on it and reached up to the bag. I don’t know why. Still standing on the chair, I unzipped the bag.

  There were three knives or, I should say blades, inside. Rolled up in oilskin and then in very thin leather. There was a cleaver, like the ones Chinese chefs use to chop up ducks. There was a very long bladed stiletto and a small machete. They were all gleaming clean and very, very sharp. I traced one of my fingers along the edge of the cleaver, no more than a centimetre and it drew blood.

  They were razor sharp.

  I stared at them.

  What happens now? I asked myself.

  I have no fucking idea, I answered. Your sister is not only a monster, but she betrayed you. Life-and-Death betrayed you. The sister you loved who must, actually, hate you.

  What happens now, Jen?

  Because you told Lara that the killer was going to strike again because he – but he’s not a he anymore – can; her last chance to kill again.

  Hey, little sis, are you planning to kill again? To set me up? To set me up for the big fall, whereby old sis would go down the river to prison for the rest of her life? Like those slaves, sold down the wicked Mississippi river to a death sentence.

  Is that me, Anth? Your beloved sister, is that what you’re planning to do with me?

  A Delicate Balance

  ‘HI,’ SAID ANTHEA.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘How was your day?’

  ‘Good. Yours?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Get everything done at uni?’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks. Happy students.’

  ‘That’s what we like. Happy and content. Satisfied they’re getting their money’s worth. University’s so expensive these days. And those student loans. Do your students have those terrible loans, the ones that they have to carry until they’re middle-aged? Talk about a burden. A dreadful burden. Why the government doesn’t just go back to the old days and make tertiary education a right, I don’t know. I guess their hands are tied. Once you make a decision, it’s almost impossible to shift it.’

  —

  SHE KNEW.

  I saw it the moment I stepped into the lounge room, seeing her with the girls, the three of them on the couch, watching TV. Maxi and little Jen ran to me, as they do every time I come home and hugged me and asked if I’d let them have ice-cream after dinner. Jen just stayed on the couch, staring ahead at the TV screen. Ignoring me. Only for about five seconds, but that was ample time for me to figure it out and, when she did turn to me, her smile was forced and tight and she was play-acting. And now she’s rambling. And look at her hand
s: they’re trembling. Poor Jen.

  I should have noticed it this morning. I thought she was a bit off but just put it down to the anxieties of the previous day.

  And of course, there were the three knives. A childish display, which I noticed after I registered Jen on the couch.

  ‘Did you go out?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Stayed inside all day. It rained a little bit,’ said Jen.

  ‘Did it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. This morning and then about four this afternoon. I gave the girls some heated-up spag bol like you said.’

  ‘Oh, great. Thanks for that.’

  —

  FOR THE FIRST time in my life I actually did want to commit murder. A blood-rush of anger swept through me and, without thinking, I thought I had to kill her. She took twenty years away from me. She killed me, so I had to kill her.

  I had gone past the questioning. The doubt. The disbelief. It was her. I knew it. It all fitted into perfect, twisted, fucked-up, ridiculous logic. But for the why. I couldn’t get that, but I knew it was her. She did it and led the trail to me. And because at school I was the dark bitch who made threats and lashed out after years of being bullied, the trail made sense. Anthea, on the other hand, had a loyal group. Her friends from then are still her friends now. If I close my eyes I can see her, standing at the edge of the kitchen door, the first time the police came. I can see her, standing at the front door stoop as Lara gripped my arm and led me down to the waiting police car. I can see her, standing in the rain, on the same door stoop, as the other police officers came back to arrest me and take me to the Valley to be charged.

  She can’t have meant for it to happen. Me going down for the crimes she committed. But I did.

  And you couldn’t speak up, could you? The Slayer had been caught. If it wasn’t me, they would have had to keep looking. Everyone agreed that it was me, even Lara, even she testified to the knife. Everyone said it was me.