Catch Us the Foxes

by Nicola West

  I was sickened by the way the journalists crossing live from the front of the hospital reported Steve’s prognosis. The glee in their eyes as they told the world that the monster who had murdered the beautiful showgirl was unlikely to ever wake up. And, perhaps more importantly, was unlikely to ever be able to defend himself against the allegations.

  I thought of the last words Steve had said to me.

  ‘Maybe you should write about it. No one else is going to get my side out there.’

  CHAPTER 37

  I awoke in my bed and the onslaught of images contained in my dreams blossomed in my mind. The hunger in Owen’s eyes. The carnies’ caravans burning. The jeers of the mob. And Steve’s slowly swelling skull.

  Only they weren’t dreams – they’d actually happened. For the first time since Lily had died, I’d slept a dreamless sleep and was instead recalling the previous night’s memories. It was as if the evening’s events had overwhelmed my mind and it had shut down somewhere at the showground. I struggled to piece the rest together. Fragments – their sharp edges dulled by an overwhelming sense of apathy.

  The cottage was creaking and groaning, the hot water system protesting my father’s morning shower. It had obviously been what had woken me up, and I cursed him under my breath. I just wanted to sleep – a few more hours, a few more days – at least until the funeral. We’d had countless fights about the noise of his showers over the years. So many that he’d actually become pretty good at finishing up before the thudding started.

  Today was the exception though. Maybe he needed more time to scrub away his guilt.

  I suddenly remembered that we’d spoken the night before. Or, at least, that he had spoken to me. To my surprise, I’d woken up in his arms as he was gently carrying me to bed. He’d found me on the lounge and, after prying the remote out of my fingers and turning off the television, had taken me to my room. I’d squirmed and fought, but he’d hushed me and gently stroked my hair.

  It had felt so familiar – so comforting. I tried to remember the last time he’d carried me like that. It had been in the rainforest. When he’d found me hiding among the buttress roots. Wait, no. That wasn’t me. That was Lily. And it wasn’t my father, it was Michael. Or was it? I couldn’t remember. Everything had felt like a dream.

  ‘Shh,’ he whispered. ‘It’s okay. It’s all over now.’

  ‘Huh?’ I groaned.

  ‘We got him, Lo,’ he said, pulling the covers over my shoulders. ‘He can’t hurt anyone else.’

  ‘Michael?’ I asked sleepily.

  ‘No, Steve. Her killer,’ he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. ‘It’s all over, Lo. You don’t have to worry any more.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Shhh,’ he hushed again, patting my shoulder. ‘Get some sleep. Everything’s going to be okay now. You’re safe.’

  I’d tried to fight my fatigue, but it was impossible. I had fallen into a deep slumber, the remnants of which still clouded my mind. Curled up in my bed now, I considered returning to sleep but knew it was impossible. I wasn’t like my father. I couldn’t just fall asleep at the drop of a hat, no matter how exhausted I felt.

  I rubbed my eyes a little too vigorously, the pressure simultaneously bringing both pain and relief. They still stung from the smoke at the showground the night before and were no doubt bloodshot. I began digging through my bedside drawers for eye drops but remembered they were in the bathroom cabinet. I sighed to myself. My father was finally out of the shower but I could hear him shaving at the basin. That telltale clink of the razor as he tapped it against the sink.

  My phone was sitting on top of the drawers next to me. I tried to wake it but it was dead. My dad must have placed it there but clearly hadn’t had the foresight to charge it. I plugged it in and reached for my laptop instead.

  I squinted through my stinging eyes at the top news articles on my homepage. Steve was still in a coma. I knew his chances of waking would be nothing short of miraculous, but that wasn’t what shocked me. I was surprised he was still alive.

  But I suppose it didn’t matter. Either way, he’d been silenced. Which meant, as horrifying as it may have seemed, that they’d managed to get away with it. The thought made me sick to my stomach. Why hadn’t I gone back to talk to the Masters? Could I have done something to prevent it?

  I clawed at my eyes, which were filling with tears. I scrubbed at them with my fingertips until the stinging became unbearable. I tried to tell myself it was just the smoke, but the sobs choking out of my throat suggested otherwise.

  My father was still in that fucking bathroom.

  I leaped out of bed and threw open my bedroom door, before stomping down the cottage’s cramped hallway. I needed it to stop.

  Tink, tink, tink.

  My father’s razor ricocheted off the cracked porcelain.

  Bang, bang, bang!

  My fist pounded on the peeling bathroom door.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ I shouted. ‘Hurry up!’

  I was prepared for a fight. A screaming match. For him to swing that door open so violently that the entire house shook.

  Instead, I heard him calmly stride to the door and I watched as the handle gently turned. I placed my hand on the knob to open it quicker but stopped when an unfamiliar pair of feet came into view. I stepped back as my eyes swept up the rest of the body and finally rested on his face.

  Those fortune-teller eyes. All-seeing. All-knowing.

  ‘Doctor Williams?’ I asked, shocked.

  Michael was standing in the small bathroom, wearing nothing but a towel slung around his hips. His hair was messy and damp, and remnants of shaving cream still clung to his face. But, even in his state of undress, there was something commanding about his presence.

  I crossed my arms as if to hide my pyjama-clad body. I was wearing far more clothes than he was and yet still felt underdressed. The thought felt absurd when I remembered the things that I had read about him. The things his own daughter had accused him of doing in that rainforest. It took all my willpower not to slam the door in his face and bolt to safety. But nowhere in that town was safe. Not any more.

  ‘My apologies, Miss Robertson. I didn’t mean to impose.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ I replied, caught off guard. ‘I just assumed you were my dad.’

  ‘He did warn me to keep the shower short,’ he said, before leaning towards me. ‘Or face your wrath.’

  I felt my face flush and could sense that he’d noticed it too. The faintest smile flickered on his lips as he pulled away.

  ‘I’m sorry if I woke you. With everything that happened last night, I didn’t get the chance to go home. Your father suggested I freshen up before the final press conference.’

  ‘The fin–’ A large tear fell down my cheek, and I sniffed loudly. Michael reached for one of the towels on the rack next to him and handed it to me. I took it and dabbed at my still stinging eyes.

  ‘Don’t get too excited there, doc,’ I said, looking at the concern on his face. ‘I’m not actually crying – your services won’t be necessary.’

  ‘I may be a shrink, but I still have enough medical training to help treat smoke exposure.’

  I tried to hide my stunned reaction before he noticed.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, smiling wryly. ‘Your father doesn’t know you were there.’

  ‘But you do?’

  He nodded. ‘You and that himbo journalist, right? The pretty boy?’

  I could still feel Owen’s hands on my skin but didn’t answer.

  ‘Were you there?’ I asked. Had he been the one who’d thrown the rock that had hit Steve? It would explain why the town had refused to give him up.

  ‘No. I was at Warilla police station when it all happened. They called me in to tell me about the arrest warrant.’

  ‘Then what makes you so confident I was there?’

  ‘Come on, Marlowe,’ he tutted. ‘You know what this town is like. Eyes and ears everywhere. It wasn’t the first tim
e you paid those caravans a visit, was it?’

  I thought back to the pavilion. To the mayor, Peter Walsh. There was no point in arguing.

  ‘So what if I did?’ I asked, surprised by my boldness.

  He reached for another face towel and began wiping the shaving cream off his jawline. He seemed to be trying to cover up the sneer he’d been fighting ever since he’d opened the door. His arrogance was suffocating. But I suppose if I had just succeeded in framing someone for murder, I’d feel cocky too.

  I turned to leave, pulling the door shut behind me, but then stopped.

  ‘Oh, duh – I forgot,’ I said, pushing it back open. ‘Can you please pass me the eye drops in the cabinet behind you?’

  Unsurprisingly, Michael remained frozen in place. He crossed his arms over his bare chest. The amused smirk slicing his lips suggested that he knew exactly what I was trying to do.

  Or, more specifically, what I was trying to see.

  CHAPTER 38

  I was so sure they were going to be there.

  The marks that had been carved into Lily’s back. The same ones that she had claimed both her mother and father had. But, when Michael turned around, his back was bare. No matter how hard I stared, the markings would not manifest. There was simply nothing there.

  I wanted to reach out. To run my fingers along his flesh. To make sure I wasn’t missing anything. Instead, I remained frozen in place, feeling my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. I suddenly felt very cold and meekly rubbed at my arms. It did nothing. I felt numb. Betrayed.

  She was wrong.

  He was already back facing me. His eyebrow arched; his smile wry. He could sense my shock. My disappointment. He knew he’d won. Yet again.

  He proffered the small white bottle like it was a lost treasure. ‘The solution you seek,’ he said, smiling knowingly.

  I took the bottle from him, and he took the towel I’d been holding.

  ‘One moment, Miss Robertson,’ he said, walking to the basin and dousing the towel in cold water. He wrung it with a fluid twist of his wrists. The veins on his hands bulged with the pressure. I imagined those same powerful hands wrapped around my throat. My skin shuddered.

  ‘Flush your eyes with the solution and then lie down for a few minutes with your eyes closed,’ he said, handing the towel to me. ‘Put this over your eyes and press, very lightly. It should stop the stinging and help with the redness.’

  I draped the damp towel over my hand. It clung to my skin.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, heading back out the door.

  I did what he said. I flushed my eyes with the solution before lying down and draping the damp towel over my face. I gently pressed it against my eyes, fighting the urge to rub them. My entire body was covered with goosebumps, but I couldn’t tell whether it was from the coolness of the towel or Michael’s presence. Through my bedroom wall, I could still hear him pottering away in the bathroom.

  Our encounter had been unsettling. But the most disturbing thing had been the absence of the markings. I began to question the reliability of my eyes. After all, they were damaged by the smoke. Swollen. Watery. Blurry. I’d only been able to look for a few seconds before Michael had turned around again. Had I somehow missed the marks?

  I’d also made the mistake of expecting them to look like Lily’s. But Lily had said that the brandings typically occurred between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three. Which meant Michael’s scars would have been decades old.

  With my face still covered, I ran my fingers along the waffle-shaped scars on my forearms. They’d faded considerably since I’d worked at the ice-creamery and were now a muted, silvery colour that blended into my pale skin. People had long stopped commenting on them. Was it because they could no longer see them?

  Plus, Michael’s skin was far more sun damaged than mine. The dairy farmer’s son – a childhood spent in paddocks. Could his freckles and pigmentation have been enough to camouflage those incriminating marks? Or had he even gone so far as to have them removed? It sounded absurd, but I couldn’t help but think it was a possibility. After all, why would he have risked exposing his back to me unless he was sure I wouldn’t see them?

  It was at that moment that I realised how peculiar the whole situation had been – how convenient it all was. Had I been set up? How long had he been in that bathroom, banging around until I woke up? He’d said that my father had warned him about facing my wrath. He knew I’d confront him if he made enough noise.

  He knew Lily knew. He knew I did, too. And he knew I wouldn’t be able to resist him standing in that towel – the answers to my questions within reach. Hell, he wouldn’t have even had to remove the marks, he could have just covered them with makeup. He certainly made sure I only saw his back for a moment.

  It was the perfect way to gaslight me into being sceptical of her claims. To plant those seeds of doubt deep within my mind. If the marks weren’t there, then what else had she been wrong about?

  An overwhelming sense of lethargy crashed over my body. I was so tired of fighting. I pressed the towel into my face. I just wanted to sleep.

  That is, until I heard my door creak open.

  At first, I thought I’d imagined it. My overtired mind playing tricks on me. But then I heard the footsteps heading towards me. Panic rippled through my body. I felt frozen in place.

  ‘Doctor Williams?’

  ‘Shh, shh, shh,’ he hushed.

  My eyes sprang open, but my sight was still obscured by the towel draped over my face. I went to raise my arm to remove it but discovered I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, my limbs remained firmly locked in place. My entire body was paralysed.

  I was suffocated by dread. My breath began to choke out of me in frenzied gasps. I could feel my torso rising and falling erratically. My heart was pounding against the wall of my chest so violently that I felt certain it would burst through.

  Had this been how Lily had felt before she died?

  ‘What the fuck did you do to me?’ I managed to spit.

  ‘There’s no point in fighting it, Miss Robertson.’

  I could hear he was closer to me now. Standing over my bed. I tried to lash out at him. I focused all my energy on propelling myself forward – thrashing my appendages towards him – but it was pointless. I had zero control over my body.

  ‘The eye drops…’

  He didn’t answer me. Instead, I felt the mattress depress as he kneeled beside me. With one fluid motion, he swung his other leg over my hips. He was straddling me, pinning me in place.

  ‘Get off!’

  His body pressed against mine as he leaned his head down towards me. His breath sliced my throat. Tears streamed from my eyes.

  ‘You’re mine now,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘You’ll never escape.’

  ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘Please don’t do this.’

  ‘Come on,’ he growled, ‘I know you want me.’

  I screamed. I screamed louder than I’d ever screamed before. I had no idea if my father was at the station – if anyone was – but I had to try. My voice was the only weapon I had.

  He slammed his hands down over my face, pressing the towel into my mouth and nostrils. I had been mid-scream, and the air from my lungs was almost fully expelled. I stopped, but he didn’t.

  ‘Shh,’ he whispered.

  He pressed down – harder and harder. Even if I hadn’t been paralysed, I would have struggled against his strength. He had rendered me completely and utterly powerless.

  I was going to die. Just like her.

  ‘Not much of a fighter now, are you?’

  As the last remnants of air choked out of my lungs, and my consciousness slipped away, I could hear someone pounding on my bedroom door.

  ‘Marlowe!’ they screamed.

  But they were too late.

  CHAPTER 39

  Just when I thought I’d exhaled my last breath, a surge of adrenaline took over my body. I inhaled deeply, feeling the towel suck into my mouth from the force of my lun
gs. I coughed and spluttered, and ripped it off my face, shocked that I’d somehow regained the use of my limbs.

  Michael was gone.

  ‘Marlowe! Marlowe, are you okay?’ his panicked voice called from behind my bedroom door.

  My body shuddered as I tried to control my breathing. Tears still streamed from my eyes. I watched as the doorknob frantically turned. It dawned on me that I’d locked it before I’d even lain down.

  He’d never even stepped foot in the room.

  I’d dreamed it.

  I’d dreamed the whole fucking thing.

  My mouth felt dry and coarse like it had been scrubbed by the towel. The pressure in my head was nauseating. I began coughing violently. My throat was red raw.

  ‘Marlowe, please. Can you hear me? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m ’kay,’ I managed to choke out.

  ‘Are you up to opening the door? I just want to make sure you’re okay.’

  ‘I –’ my coughing fit returned, ‘am!’

  ‘Please, Marlowe. You were screaming.’

  Fucking great.

  ‘Hang on,’ I shouted, still trying to catch my breath.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my bare feet hitting the cool floorboards below. My breathing was still erratic and my head was spinning from the lack of oxygen. I noticed that my phone’s screen was lit up. I unplugged it from the charger.

  There was a message on the screen all in caps:

  FOR FUCK’S SAKE

  ANSWER YOUR BLOODY PHONE!!!

  ‘Marlowe?’ Michael called again.

  ‘Fuck. Hang on!’

  I put my phone down before walking to the door and unlocking it. As my fingers pulled at the latch, I noticed how much I was still trembling. I shook my hands, trying to stop them jittering, and slowly turned the doorknob.

  ‘Marlowe…’ Michael began, his face etched with concern.

  ‘Look, I’m fine,’ I interrupted. ‘It’s not what…’ Seeing him after my dream made my skin crawl. ‘I – I was…’

  ‘Asleep. I know.’