The Shadow Girl

by John Larkin

  Of course. I’m satisfied. No more questions on that front.

  Thank you.

  I suppose this is it. Thank you for trusting me with your story.

  Far better than therapy. Cheaper too.

  If there’s anything else you think of between now and the publication date, give me a call.

  Can I say it? Into the tape, I mean.

  Sure. Go ahead.

  THE END.

  [End of Transcript]

  I THOUGHT I’D FIND YOU HERE.

  I’m just going over our transcripts for the last few meetings. I’ve got a fair bit of catching up to do.

  I see you’ve still got your Dictaphone. Is it recording?

  Yeah. I switched it on when I saw you come in. If that’s okay? In case you have anything to add?

  Who’s typing up the transcripts?

  I’m using a service.

  Not for this one.

  What do you mean?

  I mean you can record it but you have to type it up yourself.

  Why?

  Because I don’t want to go to jail.

  Okay. I’ll do it myself.

  Pinkie promise?

  Pinkie promise.

  You were right. There is more.

  Go on.

  The stuff at the hotel didn’t happen like that. Like I said yesterday. Not quite, anyway. Cinderella did tell me to write a letter but, like I said, I never got around to it. Then when Creepo found me I never threatened him with it, at least not the way I said yesterday. I didn’t even think of it until . . . well, kind of after, when he was messed up.

  I figured it would be an okay way to end the story but I thought about it last night and I want to come clean. I need to tell you what really happened that night. Maybe it’s the Catholic girl inside me, but I need to confess.

  Tired of life on the desert plains, a young scorpion set out to see the world. After a while it came to a wide river and with nothing to float across on and not being able to swim very well the scorpion realised that its journey had come to an end. Unless. Unless . . .

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the scorpion to a frog that was sunning itself on a rock.

  ‘Yes?’ replied the frog, wary of this dangerous creature and ready to make a leap for the water if it reared up at him with its stinger.

  ‘I’m on a great adventure,’ replied the scorpion. ‘Alas, however, I cannot cross this river because I am not a very competent swimmer and will surely be swept away.’

  The frog was suspicious. ‘And what has that to do with me?’

  ‘If you could see it in your heart to ferry me across to the other side I would be eternally grateful.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ chuckled the frog. ‘As soon as I come near you, you will surely sting me.’

  ‘To do such a thing would display the greatest ingratitude, for you would have helped me continue with my journey.’

  The frog could see that the scorpion had a valid point, so he gathered himself up and hopped down to the water and stood before the scorpion.

  ‘No stinging,’ reminded the frog.

  ‘Of course not,’ said the scorpion. And with that the scorpion climbed upon the frog’s back.

  The scorpion’s claws made the frog wince when they dug into his soft skin, but eventually they were both comfortable enough and set off on their odyssey across the river.

  The current was strong, making the going diffic- ult, but the frog, with its muscular hind legs, was able to make good progress.

  When they were about halfway across, the frog suddenly felt a searing pain in its back. He turned his head just in time to witness the scorpion removing its stinger from its tender skin. He could already feel the creeping paralysis spreading out across his body.

  ‘You fool!’ gurgled the frog, struggling to keep his head above water. ‘Now we will both drown.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the scorpion. ‘I couldn’t help myself. It’s in my nature.’

  And with that they both slipped silently beneath the swirling current.

  The light from the passing cars steals in through the curtains (my curtains. I paid for them myself) and briefly illuminates the ceiling. I love the sound of cars as they pass. The Doppler effect, I think it’s called. An incomplete Doppler means that someone has pulled up outside. Potential trouble. Like tonight. But a full Doppler means I’m safe. The car has gone on its way. I love full Dopplers.

  You’d think that the ghosts in the walls would visit me tonight. To say goodbye. But they leave me alone. There’s just the sound of the dying gum tree scratching on the tin roof to get in. The coming and goings of the possums in the ceiling. A storm brewing to the south.

  Sleep creeps up on me slowly, like hypothermia at sea, and I’m happy to be carried away. This will probably be the last good night’s sleep I’ll have for a while, so I better make it count. Tomorrow I’ll be back. Back on the trains.

  By the time I’ve packed up my stuff and lugged it to Miss Taylor’s, she’s already left for school. I’m relieved she’s not in. Although Cinderella is tucked safely away in her shoebox, I’m not sure how Miss Taylor would feel about having her as a housemate.

  School’s a blur and I keep getting in trouble for not paying attention. Our English teacher wants us to discuss that stupid frog and scorpion fable about human nature. I’ve never understood that story to be honest. There was absolutely no reason for the frog to help the scorpion. He had nothing to gain from it.

  Some people could say there was nothing in it for Cinderella when she saved my butt on the train that day, but that’s not strictly true. By intervening when she did she was making the world a better place for me, for her, for girls, for women, for everyone in fact. Everyone except little perverts who insist on hassling people and flashing their dicks in public.

  At lunch my group tries to comfort me, to reach me because they can see that I’m somewhere else. But most of them live in homes covered with ivy. With swimming pools and atriums and vestibules and generally a full complement of parents; how could they possibly get what’s going on with me?

  The heavens open up in the afternoon so I catch a train to the mega-mall and have an early dinner with Alistair McAlister and then later, during a break in the storm, I slosh up to the Shangrila Pines Resort and check in with my absent barrister mum. I just couldn’t handle the thought of the rail yards tonight, not the day after my birthday. I decide to stay for a few days and try to figure out my next move. If I can’t find another empty house in the ivy belt, I might have to move into Cinderella’s old squat for a while. I know it will be a long commute to school each day, but her friends have always said that I would be very welcome to stay with them. Be better than the rail yards, I suppose.

  At ten o’clock there’s a gentle tap on my door followed by a cheery ‘Room Service’.

  The latch is off and I’ve turned the handle before I remember that I haven’t ordered any.

  ‘Inside, you little bitch!’ Suddenly I’m lying on the ground with a hand mark burning my face. While I’m lying there he lays into me with his foot. I take cover as best I can, curling up into a tight ball. There’s a sharp pain deep in my wrist where he broke it before and has probably broken it again.

  He pulls a chair up in front of me and sits down like he means business. Everything’s happened so quickly, I haven’t even had time to be scared. Yet.

  ‘What? You didn’t think I’d work it out?’ He’s calm now, which scares me even more. ‘I was going through the accounts, ready for tax time, noticed the charges from the hotel. Thought she was messing around behind my back. I didn’t confront her. Started staking out the hotel. Catch ’em in the act. Then they’d both see what happens when you mess with Tony Sanchez.’

  ‘Only megalomaniacs refer to themselves in the
third person.’

  ‘What did you say?’ he raises his hand to hit me again. ‘I’d watch that smart mouth of yours if I was you.’ He lowers his hand. ‘Bribed one of the desk clerks instead. Saves waiting around. Five hundred bucks for tipping me off when she checked in again. He called me about half an hour ago, said that, according to the computer, my wife had checked in with her daughter around four. I thought, what the fuck? There must be some mistake because she was sitting right next to me watching TV and we’d both been home all afternoon. Then it twigged. It had nothing to do with her. You’d taken the silly cow’s credit card and she hadn’t even noticed.’

  I stare at him. He’s won. He’s got me. Unless. Unless . . . I’m sitting on the floor leaning against the bed and Creepo is right in front of me. If I can just get him away from me for a moment I should be able to reach it. Luckily I put it on this side of the bed.

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ he says, almost pleading with me. ‘Hardly a wink since you shot through.’

  Guilt? Is he finally admitting that he messed up my life? That doesn’t seem like him.

  ‘I keep imagining you creeping up the stairs with a butcher’s knife. Coming to stab me in the neck while I’m asleep. Stick me like a pig. Do you know what that’s like?’

  I know what it’s like to be lying in bed with the covers pulled up to your eyes waiting for your uncle to come creeping into your room for some special time.

  I need to keep him talking. Need to find a moment so that I can grab it.

  ‘But how could you kill my mum? Bury my parents’ bodies? How could you do what you did to me?’

  ‘Do what? What are you talking about?’

  The amazing thing is he seems genuinely mystified as to what I’m going on about.

  ‘Coming into the bathroom while I was having a shower. Creeping into my room at night?’

  He leans forward, grabs me by my pyjama lapels and throws me back against the side of the bed.

  ‘That was you. Trying to tempt me. Just like your mother.’

  ‘What’s my mother got to do with anything?’ I reach behind me and feel beneath the mattress. Maybe I can grab it anyway.

  ‘Like mother, like daughter. She was everyone’s and anyone’s. All you needed was a souped-up engine and a wallet full of cash.’

  ‘But how could you even look at me like that? I’m your brother’s daughter!’

  He bursts out laughing. It’s a cold, heartless laugh that chills my blood.

  ‘Do you really believe that? Why do you think he had next to nothing to do with you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She was screwing some mall rat at the time she started seeing your father. That’s why her old man pulled her out of school. Reckoned he had to get her married off quick, while she was still worth something and not damaged goods. My brother was the first poor sucker to come along. He figured out you probably weren’t his but he didn’t care if she came with a bit of baggage. Reckoned she’d be a nice docile little wife, give him lots of handsome sons. Of course, you screwed all that up for him. You and that big, fat head of yours, causing problems in your mother’s plumbing.’

  I put my head in my hands and am soon bawling like a baby, shedding a few crocodile tears of my own, convulsing my body in grief. But I’m only stalling for time.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, it’ll be over soon.’

  Now. Now that he’s won. Now that he thinks he’s hurt me, I might be able to catch him off guard. ‘Can’t you just let me go?’ I plead through my tears. ‘I won’t say anything. Promise.’

  ‘Too risky. You’ll tell the cops sooner or later.’

  ‘No. I’ll go away. You’ll never hear from me again. Ever.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say that now, but what about when you get older. You know what I did to your mum. You’ll want revenge. It’s in your nature.’

  ‘I’ll go away. To Africa. Never come back.’

  ‘Africa. You wouldn’t last a week in Africa. Even Africans have trouble staying alive there.’

  That’s because Africa has been raped by just about every other continent.

  ‘I’m sorry. I really am, but it has to be this way.’

  I smack my lips together, resigned to my fate.

  ‘Could you get me a drink before we go? From the minibar.’

  He looks at me like he can’t believe what I’m asking.

  ‘Please. I’m really thirsty.’

  ‘Sure,’ says Creepo. He gets up. ‘Why not? As the Mafioso bosses used to say, “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.” We can still be civil.’

  As he’s walking over to the minibar, I reach further beneath the mattress and pull out my baseball bat. He’s always underestimated me.

  I stand up and slip across the room.

  ‘What do you want? Coke, lemonade or –’ That’s as far as he gets. As he turns towards me to finish the question, I slam the bat into his face with everything I’ve got, obliterating his nose and shattering his jaw. He goes into immediate shock and just stands there with his hands covering his face and his mouth hanging open because he can no longer breathe properly. He doesn’t fall down. Not at first, anyway. So I give him a hand. I draw back the bat and drive it into his kneecap. His leg snaps back at a sickening angle and he collapses onto the floor.

  ‘Like mother, like daughter, hey, you arsehole!’

  All he can do is groan and spit blood, along with a couple of teeth.

  ‘It’s nothing personal,’ I mimic. ‘It’s just business.’

  With his last ounce of energy he holds up his hand. ‘Wait,’ he pleads. ‘I’ve got to tell you something.’

  I raise the bat over his head. One swing and it will all be over. I’ll be off the streets. I’ll be out of the rail yards. No more squats, church pews, airport lounges or door number 4 up north. I grip the bat. Twirl it. Stare down at this man, this thing, who murdered my mother in cold blood and would have been happy to live out his sick fantasies on me.

  But I can’t do it. I’m not like him. It’s not in my nature. I lower my weapon.

  ‘Good girl,’ he splutters. ‘You always were a smart one.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Creepo, and listen to me! I could kill you right now, you know that, right? Groan once for yes. Twice for no.’ I press the bat into him.

  He lets out a groan.

  ‘Do you know what that means?’

  A single groan.

  ‘That’s right. I’m letting you go. I’m saving your life. So now you can’t hurt me.’

  Groan.

  ‘But because I can’t trust you, I’m going to write a letter which will detail everything you’ve done in your grubby little life. About Mum, about me, about all your dodgy deals. And do you know what I’m going to do when I’ve finished writing my letter?’

  Eventually, with a little further encouragement from my baseball bat, he emits a double-barrel groan.

  ‘I’m going to give it to a lawyer with certain instructions. And do you know what one of these instructions will be?’

  Baseball bat. Poke. Groan. Groan.

  ‘I will call the lawyer once a week to let her know that I’m okay. That I’m alive. And if at any time she doesn’t hear from me then the letter and all the shit you’ve ever done goes public. And you’ll wind up in some paedo cell with a hairy biker who’ll do to you what you were planning to do to me. Do you understand?’

  Groan.

  I wipe his blood off my baseball bat and start packing my stuff. Though I haven’t got a clue where I’m going. No idea where I’ll be sleeping tonight. And I hate him for this more than anything.

  ‘Oh and by the way. You were right about Serena having an affair.’

  Although Creepo
seems close to death, he opens his eyes at this.

  ‘You know your lawyer, Marco Rossini? They get together a couple of times a week and bonk each other’s brains out.’

  He closes his eyes, unable to take any more.

  I pull on my backpack and sheath my samurai baseball bat. Then I pull out the key card from the slot and toss it at him, leaving Creepo alone and broken in a rapidly cooling room.

  I can hardly believe where I find myself heading, but I have to put things right.

  She’s not exactly my favourite person on the planet. In fact, when I go to call her I realise that I don’t have the number. It’s not exactly one I’d put on speed dial. But there was that night when Mum and my father went away and she took care of me. She packed up my stuff and looked after me. My head was resting in her lap as she stroked my face and told me that everything was going to be all right, even though we both knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

  I don’t know if Creepo will go to hospital or just curl up and die. What I do know is that I need to get to Serena before he does. I need to get her out of there and over to Marco Rossini where she’ll be safe. Where she’ll be loved.

  By the time I arrive panting at the end of the alleyway almost an hour has passed since I left Creepo in a heap on my hotel room floor. It’s taken me two trains and a long run to get here.

  It’s quiet in the house. Too quiet despite the hour. I peer in through the garage window and notice the blue metallic glow of the beast. I don’t know what this means. Either he took Serena’s car to the Shangrila Pines and it’s still there, or he took the beast and somehow managed to drive it back.

  I scamper up and over the side fence and around to the garden gnome. I lift it up but the fake stone has gone. I shake the gnome in case they put it inside it but it’s empty.

  Although it’ll be noisy, I have to risk it. I remove my baseball bat and tap it against the window until the glass shatters. Then I reach in and turn the lock and slip inside.

  ‘Serena,’ I hiss. ‘Aunt Serena.’

  I notice the glow of light from the kitchen and hear a noise that isn’t human. It sounds more like an animal in pain. I grip the bat tighter and raise it over my shoulder.