Redemption Point

by Candice Fox

  “Have you decided if you’ll kill me or not?” Amanda asked.

  “You really are one weird little bitch, aren’t you?” Jay shook his head, strode forward and grabbed a handful of Amanda’s hair. She spied the gun hanging by her face as he yanked her toward the living room.

  “Because if you’ve decided to kill me, I’d advise strongly against it.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Ow! That’s attached, you fucker!”

  Jay shoved her onto the floor in the living room. Bran had walked to the glass doors and ripped the curtains closed, his face grave. Amanda sat on the floor, looking up at the man as he prepared to end her life.

  “I know what you’re looking for,” Amanda said. “And I know where to find it.”

  Dear Diary,

  What an insane thing it was, to sit in the middle of something that I created. This must have been what it was like to have a child. I’d never really thought of having one myself—too dangerous. But this overwhelming sense of achievement was something I could probably get used to. Every single person in that room at the Lord Chesterton was there because of me, because of what I had done. I took my place at the back of the room when the journalist arrived, hoping when Ted introduced her to his “associates” she’d misunderstood that label to include me. I didn’t know who the big hairy beasts who had turned up to support Ted were, but his shoulders seemed to have relaxed a little, now that they were here. Fabiana did her important fluttering around, setting up the Facebook Live feed and directing her podcast helpers to check identities as people arrived through the door. I watched Ted retreat to the end of the bar, flanked by his keepers, unable to decide, it seemed, if he should smile with embarrassment at people as they came in or pretend to be distracted by the view out the small window.

  I had the whimsical sense that these people were all actors in my own play, that my hero, Ted, was standing there and breathing and trying to control his nerves simply because I had put him there with my devastating act; I had decided his fate. And no, look—I don’t want to sound like I think that what happened to Claire was justified because it created all this, this activity, this energy. But isn’t everything that is born, born of pain and suffering? It was because I suffered my affliction that I’d acted, and because Claire had suffered my actions that this had all come about. It was almost musical. I felt a real desire to know intimately what Ted had suffered in prison because of me. We could share pain with each other. That’s what people don’t understand. Sometimes pain can be as magical and productive as joy.

  Ted took his place at the head of the room, and Fabiana did her cringingly narcissistic introductions, her shiny dark red bob picking up the lights at all the right angles, liquid ink. And then, before I knew it, Ted was speaking, taking us through that day again. He was agitated. Not a public speaker. Turning his wedding ring around and around.

  When it came to question time, the audience erupted with hands high—the wrinkled arms of middle-aged ladies and the tattooed trunks of huge, muscled men. There was a teenager in the room, a boy in the front row with his mother. Fabiana decided who would get to ask their questions.

  Urgh, what a bunch of sops they were, too! Half driven to prove their own unique emotional investment in the case, half determined to show Ted unparalleled demonstrations of sympathy, they prattled on with their theories about who had attacked Claire. A known rapist living in the area. A South Australian serial killer, inactive since 1975, reemerged somehow back into the killing fields, a row of ghost girls trailing sadly in his wake. When a woman at the back suggested someone from the drug-dealing underworld might have committed the deed to frame Ted, the big lugs in the corner bristled and huffed like disturbed crows, rattling the enormous gold chains at their necks. These people so badly wanted a piece of evidence to suggest that Ted was innocent, a simple answer that would come shining down out of the sky like the beams of an alien ship. There was a heavy lady in the back row waggling her arm back and forth who just about looked like she was going to suggest some X-Files-style solution to the problem. I shifted as far away from her as my seat would allow.

  The scariest thing I heard that day was a question from the first couple of rows, the arm of a young man I couldn’t see.

  “Ted, have you or the police followed up at all on the leads Amanda Pharrell gave you? The ones about the blue ute and the white dog? I think it’s in episode seven of the podcast…”

  I had heard, of course, in episode seven, the mention of Ted passing on some leads to Fabiana Grisham about the ute and the dog. The details were vague, and the two weren’t mentioned again. I hadn’t been worried, as I understood that Amanda Pharrell, the woman who had dug up the leads in the first place, was crazy. There was no license plate mentioned. No witness corroboration, no composite sketch. And in the mixture of hundreds upon hundreds of leads mentioned across the podcast, the blue ute and the white dog were indeed true, but didn’t seem to be given more attention than the rest of them. It helped that the podcast stated that the CCTV of me was blurry and unusable, the RSPCA hadn’t identified me or my car, and that the ute they were looking for was a Ford Falcon XF. That was good.

  “We’re looking into a couple of things with that,” Ted said. “I’d rather not go too deep into what’s happening with the investigation right now.”

  Bullshit, in other words. The ute and white dog leads were bullshit. Ted didn’t have a thing on them, and neither did his weirdo friend Amanda.

  The final question from the audience was a real bleeding-heart case, a true eye-roller, but I guess I should have expected something like it to top off the sycophantic display of Ted-love the audience had shown for the entire event. A woman put her hand up and asked, “Whatever happened to the white dog?”

  Ted was taken aback. “Um”—he searched the ground for an answer—“I don’t actually know. We didn’t trace the dog after it was dumped at the RSPCA.”

  “I hope it’s okay.” The woman’s voice was smaller now, sad. I think I threw up in my mouth a little. These people had done a mad scramble to show Ted they cared deeply about him and the case in the hour they’d been given, to demonstrate how incredibly sensitive they all were. As the journalist woman called the event to a close, there were still questions to be answered. Ted looked exhausted. I thought about leaving, joining the slow shambling queue of people heading out the doors.

  But I had to let him know what he had done, I guess. I had to speak to him again. Because what’s coming now is because of him.

  The question-and-answer session with the Innocent Ted people was draining. I’m not the world’s best public speaker. It was worse somehow that the strangers gathered here obviously felt so deeply for me, that they wanted so badly for me to find the answer and fix my life. Give them the happy ending they expect from tales as miserable as this. I’d got used to rooms packed full of hateful stares and whispered insults, the disappointed sigh of people I’d let down. There were older men and women here, more than I’d expected, who looked on me with the parental hurt one feels when their child is being picked on by a bully.

  After the session, those who had not been game enough to raise their hand during the allotted time stood around me at the bar asking their own queries. The owner gave me a consolatory look and put another bourbon on the runner by my hand. I had to be careful I didn’t have too many, start to get loose-lipped. But the people wanted to know personal stuff now. How it was with Kelly. Whether or not I’d had any contact with Lillian since my arrest. Did prison leave me with PTSD? Had I had counseling? A woman put a peach-colored, filigreed business card into my hand. A psychiatrist. I was to call her any time, day or night.

  I noticed, at the back of the crowd, the first one to arrive, Kevin, loitering. As he’d been there in those initial excruciating moments while I prepared for the room to fill with strangers, I guessed we had a kind of camaraderie now. He’d seen me through my ordeal from start to finish. He gave an understanding half smile, a shared
jibe at the people peppering me with questions.

  An old, bent-backed man in a plaid cardigan was the last of the crew to reach me. The others had moved off to Fabiana to tell her how good the event had been, to congratulate her on her work for my cause. The old man was licking his lips, squinting as he meticulously checked through his thoughts before he spoke them.

  “A Ford Falcon XF ute, you were saying?” He pointed a gnarled finger at the chair I’d left abandoned at the front of the room. “See, I haven’t listened to episode seven. I have to have my granddaughter play them for me. She was the one who got me into the whole thing, the radio shows. Radiocasts. Podcasts. Whatever they’re called. You said it was a Falcon you were looking for?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded. “The ute we were searching for was a Falcon XF. Pale blue. We know they never came in blue as standard, so we’re looking into that, checking to see if we can find some that were sprayed commercially.”

  “Well, you know, it’s interesting,” the old man said, nodding, “because, back in the late 1980s, I seem to recall that Ford was engaged in a kind of rebadging arrangement. And it might have included their Falcons.”

  “A what, sorry?” I asked. Kevin was nearing us. “Rebadging? I’m not terribly good with cars.”

  “See,” he said, eyeing Kevin warily as he encroached on us. “At the time, back then, Australian car companies were trying to ward off sales of foreign-designed vehicles. So they would—”

  “Sorry to break in here.” Kevin put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Would I be able to borrow you for a second, Ted?”

  The elderly man took the cut-in kindly, wandering off with his squinting look, his theories obviously still bubbling. I didn’t like the interruption, watched the man go, thinking I’d catch him and hear whatever he was talking about before he left the pub. He’d come a long way to see me. Put in a lot of effort. The guy didn’t even know how to play a podcast by himself. He deserved to be heard. But I didn’t want to offend anyone, so I gave Kevin his time.

  “Thought I’d save you.” He smiled. “Old kook might have tied you up for the rest of the day.”

  I gave a halfhearted laugh.

  “What did you think of the gig?” he asked. “Some crazy theories, right? That South Australian serial killer—how funny. Guy’s first murder was in 1965. Even if he’d started as a teenager, he’d have to be a billion years old by now.”

  “Well, I’ll hear any theory,” I said, sipping the bourbon. The room had steadily emptied. I felt again that weird rush of sensitivity over my arms and neck, a chill, like a cold breeze through an open window. I shrugged it off, turned and leaned on the bar. I got the sense that this guy was trying a little too hard to be my friend. This was a sick kind of celebrity I was experiencing.

  “You seem down,” he said, mirroring me, his arms on the bar.

  “I’m all right.”

  “Don’t let them get you all emotional, man. That woman about the dog.”

  “Well. She’s right,” I admitted. “I never found out what happened to the dog.”

  “It’s just a dog,” Kevin snorted. “It would have been fine. RSPCA would have taken it in, fixed it up, sent it on to someone else. They’re good like that.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, chewed my lip in what I hoped was a distant, disinterested way. “Anyway, I guess I’ll go thank Fabiana. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

  “Look, Ted,” Kevin said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s been really good to meet you. You’re a true inspiration.”

  “An inspiration?” I frowned.

  “I know. It’s weird. But, like, having met you I feel kind of … free.”

  “Free to do what?”

  He dropped his eyes, shrugged, didn’t seem to be able to explain.

  “Look,” he said instead. “I want to show you something.”

  He pulled out his phone. Linda and Sharon were in the small doorway to the hall, making eyes at me, wanting us to get rolling. I guessed they were going to be my ride to the airport, whether I liked it or not. Kevin took out his phone and flipped through it, showed me a picture of a young girl. I winced, thinking it was Claire. But it was another pale blond creature on the edge of teenage-hood, one of the ghostly beings who flittered through my nightmares on the roadside at the bus stop, the dust rising from my car tires. She was wearing a maroon and blue school uniform. The picture was embellished at the bottom with a school crest.

  “This is my Penny,” he said.

  “Your daughter?” I frowned.

  “No, no. My, uh … my sister.”

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, taking a step back toward the door. I was experiencing a strong urge to retreat. “Nice to meet you. I’ve gotta go.”

  I turned and left him there in the empty room with the empty chairs, clutching his phone and looking down at the screen, the picture of his Penny. Afternoon sun was catching dust motes swirling all around him, microscopic fairies dancing off his shoulders, tumbling down his arms.

  * * *

  In the car on the way to the airport, I realized I was sweating only when it dripped off the edge of my jaw. Through the CBD, up William Street, into the Eastern Distributor, nothing. Then it hit. Fever heavy. Sharon was frowning at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Bro, you all right back there?”

  “I don’t know.” I wiped my face. I felt cold, shaken.

  “Don’t throw up in the fucking car.” Linda turned in his seat, glared at me. “It’s just been detailed.”

  “Pull over,” I said.

  Sharon turned the enormous black vehicle onto the grassy strip of land before the Sydney Airport sign, causing a row of cars behind us to grind to a halt, honking. I got out and bent over at the waist, my hands on my knees, struggling to breathe. Linda came around and stood watching me, hands on hips.

  “What did you eat?”

  My mind was spinning. Frantic, electric thoughts zapping and zinging. Linda stood beside me, his face twisted, terrified that I might be sick on or near him.

  “I think I just…” I said. I couldn’t catch my breath. I straightened, thumped my chest. “I was just … The dog … He said…”

  “Talk straight, you fucking idiot!” Sharon yelled from the front of the car.

  “He said the dog would be ‘fixed up,’” I explained. “The guy at the bar, Kevin. He said the dog would be fine, the RSPCA would take it in, fix it up, and adopt it out. What did he mean, fix it up? How did he know the dog needed fixing?”

  I’d never told anyone that the white dog, the one surrendered to the RSPCA at Yagoona by a man in a blue ute, the one used, perhaps, to lure Claire Bingley from the roadside, had been surrendered with a broken paw. Amanda had taken the report from the RSPCA. She’d passed that report on to me. I’d passed some of it on to Dale Bingley. So only Amanda’s contact at the RSPCA, Amanda, Dale, and I should have known the dog needed “fixing up.” Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he meant wash the dog. De-flea the dog. Put a new collar on it. “Fix it up,” the way you might “fix up” an old house.

  But maybe he meant actually fix it. Fix it because it was broken.

  I tried to call Amanda. Her phone went straight to voicemail. In my desperation, I tried to explain the situation to the two goons watching over me.

  “He probably just meant fixing up, like … like…” Linda held a big hand out, glanced at Sharon for help. “Like a good wash and uh, clean…” He fell into Arabic. They shouted a stream of it at each other, Linda wanting to reason with me, Sharon needing him to get me in the car.

  “No.” I sucked air in through my nostrils, tried to stop the shaking in my limbs. “He meant fix. I know it. He meant fix. I got a creepy vibe from the guy as soon as I laid eyes on him. He showed me a photo. I … I can’t…”

  I staggered to the car, put a hand on the warm black side panel. A plane roared overhead, making my ears pulse.

  “It was him,” I said. “It was him.”

  “She don’t know shit.” Ja
y turned to his partner. “Go outside and fix the fence before one of the coppers sees it. I’ll finish this off.”

  “I know where to find what you’re searching for,” Amanda said. “Just the way I know what it is. The signs are all around you. I can’t believe you’ve spent days tearing this house to shreds when it’s so close.”

  The two men looked at each other, looked at the woman on the floor before them, the blood running down her neck, between her breasts.

  “Let me spell it out for you.” Amanda took the lead when they wouldn’t come along with her. “You’re here for his money. Tom Songly. His buried treasure.”

  Jay gave a barely convincing snort of derision.

  “It isn’t hard to work out.” Amanda licked blood off her lip. “Not looking at the two of you. You’re definitely not brothers. Different eyes, different skin tones. Different hands. But you both stand the same. You got the same length stubble, meaning you shave at the same time. And you wipe your noses on the back of your wrists the same way. Not because you’ve got runny noses, not in this heat. But because you’ve developed a nervous tic. How do two guys develop the same nervous tic?”

  Bran opened his mouth to answer.

  “In prison,” Amanda said. Bran’s eyes widened.

  “You spend every second of the day together for a couple of years, you pick up each other’s habits. You met in prison. That’s how you knew to put them on their stomachs to incapacitate them, fingers interlocked. You’ve done it plenty of times yourselves under the order of guards. You, you’re the weak one.” Amanda tried to point with her shoulder toward Bran. “You were probably in for identity fraud. Burglary. Possession of stolen items. Nothing face-to-face. You don’t have the gumption for face-to-face crime. You were going to be dead meat in the can and you knew it. You needed someone strong. Experienced. You were lucky you got him for a cellmate.” She looked at Jay. “You were in longer. You’ve got more shitty tatts. And that ugly collection of scars in the crook of your elbow—that’s from heroin. Not neat little track-mark scars. That buckshot look is the kind you get from using on the inside where you can’t get needles, so you use a shaved-down bike pump spike. I’ve seen it before. You came in a heroin user. Which probably means you were a thief. You’ve got to steal to feed that habit. That’s how you knew to wipe your prints from the safe. And the extra time, that means it wasn’t just burglary. It means you were probably in for a violent cri—”