The First Cut

by Sisters in Crime Australia

  He regarded me suspiciously and then Sabrina began to really bawl, loud and ugly. If she'd been my kid and cried like that I would have drowned her at birth.

  'Okay, okay,' he muttered ungraciously. 'But no funny business.'

  'Honey,' I said and Sabrina, still bawling, regarded me with dry-eyed calculation. Was it that obvious I wouldn't call anybody Honey? 'Remember those dance moves I showed you?'

  She frowned and hiccoughed on a false sob. She was good.

  'You know, the hand jiving and can-can kicks?'

  She nodded slowly and then a smile spread across her face.

  'Let's do it to 'If I were a butterfly', okay?' I knew learning that song would come in handy.

  We began humming and singing and jiving and then I lifted my leg, spun around and landed a bruiser kick on the thug's hand which sent the gun spinning and then another on the side of his head, breaking his jaw. I dived for the gun while Sabrina thumped the man neatly in the groin with her heel and then smacked him on the ear with her fist. I never thought I'd be glad about taking that assembly.

  I thwacked him another couple of times, crunching his nose, and then we trussed him to the chair like an oven-ready chook.

  'Good girl,' I said. 'Now let's get ready for the others.'

  I hiked up my skirt to liberate my gun and knife.

  'Cool,' said Sabrina.

  'Keep out of the way while I deal with them,' I said. 'I don't want you getting hit by stray bullets.' She hid behind the toilet hut and I waited in the bushes near the front of the house.

  The car rumbled along the track a few minutes later. The three men got out, carrying takeaway pizzas and bottles of soft drink. I took aim and tried to ignore the tightening chest and dancing spots.

  'Breathe,' whispered a little voice in my ear.

  I did - in, out, in, out - and then hissed, 'What the hell are you doing here? I told you to scarper.'

  'I was scared.'

  Poor kid, but I couldn't shoot with her so close. I'd have to use the knife.

  The men were laughing at some joke as I sent the knife spinning through the air. It hit the end man deep in the throat. He silently crumpled to the ground. The others didn't notice.

  I trained the gun on the other two. 'Hold it,' I yelled. 'I have a gun aimed at you.'

  The leader cursed and then said: 'Nannies shouldn't play with guns.'

  He raised his own and I shot him in the arm before he could fire. The other man went for his gun but I pumped a couple of shots inside of him too.

  'Wicked,' said Sabrina. 'Can you teach me to do that?'

  'No! Stay here. And this time I mean it.' I approached with caution and, gun still trained, began to search their pockets for the ignition keys. The leader lunged for my leg and I stamped down on his hand hard, hearing a satisfying crack.

  Suddenly the sweet sound of sirens pierced the night air, harmonising with the mossies and frog song. In a few moments, police were swarming all over the place.

  Danny, looking hot and flustered and mopping up copious amounts of sweat, got out of one of the cars.

  'Jeepers, Morgan, you had me going there for a while,' he said. 'Is the kid okay?'

  'She's fine, aren't you, Honey?' She grinned and I gave her a hug.

  'You looked very impressive holding those men at gunpoint, Morgan. Completely in control. Back to the old Morgan I know and love. Excellent.'

  'How did you find us, Pickles?' demanded Sabrina.

  'I had a tracking device put in your Gameboy,' Danny said, beaming at her. 'I didn't think you'd leave that behind.'

  'Smart,' she said.

  'You bet.'

  They did a high five.

  'What about Ashe?' I said.

  'Two holes and a river of blood, but he's tough. He'll live.'

  I decided to pay Ashe a visit. He was semi-naked and lying on a hospital bed. His arm and chest were bandaged. In spite of his natural olive skin, he was pale around the gills and his eyes were fever-pitch bright.

  'I owe you an apology, Morgan,' he said with effort. 'You saved the kid.'

  I stared at him, surprised, and dare I say it, pleased. 'That must've cost you.'

  'It did. But hey, I doubted you could do it. Thought Danny had made a mistake taking you on board. You're one helluva woman.'

  My chest suddenly went into spasm. The damned spots jiggled across my vision. Tremendous heat infused my brain, making it fuzz up.

  'Breathe, Morgan. Breathe.'

  'I've got a better idea,' I gasped. 'I learnt it somewhere.'

  I leaned over the bed and kissed him full and hot on the mouth.

  And again, it worked.

  But now it wasn't me having breathing problems.

  'Breathe, Ashe,' I said. 'Breathe.'

  MRS WILCOX'S MILK SAUCEPAN

  Roxxy Bent

  Five days after her mother's body was taken from next door, there she was, Alice MacKensie-Wilcox, on my doorstep with a form for me to sign. The hoo-ha hadn't yet died down. After all, her mother 'Anita' (yes, the famous artist, but always 'Mrs WilcoxNext Door' to me) had been found dead of a sleeping pill overdose. I was having difficulty coming to terms with Mrs Wilcox's suicide, but as the doctor attending said to the TV cameras outside on our street, 'It's becoming more common amongst the elderly.'

  It must have been 20 years since I'd seen Mrs Wilcox's Alice. But in that second, after I'd opened the door wide and wiped my hands on my apron, I flashed back to more than double those years and saw Alice, a bespectacled four-year-old the week the Wilcoxes moved in.

  She'd come to introduce herself and her memorably precocious speech was oft quoted in our house: 'I'm Alice Mackensie-Wilcox, I'm four years old and I've come to see if you've a child I can play with?'

  We had, but none so articulate. My youngest, Anne, and Alice became fast friends and were inseparable until their early teens. It was then that Alice's passion for insects got between them.

  That Alice has inherited her father's looks was more evident now that she was approaching 50. She had his short-sightedness, his stoop and, poor thing, a hefty dose of his awkwardness. There she stood, pen and paper in hand, writhing with embarrassment.

  Mrs Wilcox's racy circle had been appalled that her daughter had inherited none of her mother's legendary beauty. I'd heard this said many a time and often in Alice's hearing. I thought her life a rotten one and did what I could to bolster her ego.

  Alice wouldn't accept tea or coffee. Isn't it the devil when people won't? The paper turned out to be a form for her mother's superannuation. She needed someone who knew her mother, but wasn't related, to witness her signature. We signed and she got up to leave. I could tell she had something more to say but had no idea how start. I offered every possible opening but it wasn't until we were at the front door that she broke down. I made out the odd word while steering her back to the lounge, again offering tea, but she threw me off in a fit of frustration, said I must come next door, she had something to show me. She was distraught, eyes full of panic.

  Walking up Mrs Wilcox's garden path I was aware of a strange mixture of excitement, sadness and dread. It was years since I'd been inside the house.

  I hadn't been estranged from Mrs Wilcox but after our children were grown there wasn't much reason for us to have regular contact. After all, you couldn't get two people more different. I've never worked, I was married to the same man for 53 years until his death three years ago and, really, all I've done is be a mum and these days a keen gran. For her part, Mrs Wilcox was the hugely successful painter, 'Anita', she'd had countless affairs, and was completely disinterested in being a wife, mother or homemaker. I live a quiet life; she was notoriously outspoken. Last year she caused a furore in the press over the plight of refugees. The only thing we had in common was age. We would both have turned 80 this year.

  Over the years we'd developed our neighbourly habits. There's no way Mrs Wilcox would be twitching her curtains on neighbourhood watch duty, but even so I let her know whe
n I'd be away and she did the same for me. Her trips abroad accompanying her work to exhibitions in Paris, New York, Milan, were exotic. Mine were to family. I still visit Anne and the children for a week twice a year and, up until last year, I was going to America every other year to visit Sarah, until my doctor ruled out international flights because of blood pressure. My youngest Simon visits regularly but seeing as he doesn't have children I don't bother with Brisbane (that awful humidity!)

  For both of us, the trips had all but ceased. I can't remember the last time Mrs Wilcox was on my doorstep telling me where she was going and for how long. Even though for the last few years we'd rarely had occasion to see each other, we'd lived in gentle awareness of each other for fifty-one years.

  As Alice and I headed along the hallway past the bedrooms, the house seemed smaller than I remembered. Memory plays strange tricks. It's still bigger than ours, of course, and much more grand. When we arrived at the back living area my heart did a sort of leap and I had to steady myself against the back of a chair and catch my breath. I was glad I'd tucked a hankie up my sleeve when I'd dressed that morning. The room was so full of her. I expected to see her lying on one of the sofas, sketchbook upon her knees, charcoal flying.

  The back of the house had been modernised 10 or so years ago. I know because of builders' noise. I'd not been invited in to a viewing because Mrs Wilcox would never have thought to suggest something as mundane as coming in to look at renovations, even though there was nothing I'd have liked more.

  Despite its newness - the modern glass doors that replaced the wall and looked out to the lawn and her studio beyond - there was evidence of her everywhere in just the way it had always been. Her paintings, of course, friends' works on the walls, sculptures taking up every available space. Piles of books, magazines. Familiar, lively, rich mess.

  I found myself way back in time, having popped over to collect Anne because she'd refused to respond to my 'Dinner's ready!' calls over the fence. Forced away from my organised, apron-wearing existence to confront whatever was happening at the Wilcoxes. Butterflies and dry mouth notwithstanding, I'd head through the always-open front door, run the gauntlet of the hallway, into the den of iniquity, which was how I always thought of this back area.

  You'd never know what to expect. It could be as mild as a poetry reading; but more often than not there'd be a nude person - fruit in their lap with any luck - modelling for a charcoal drawing, and always people, people.

  Once or twice I'd stayed, my protests waived. I'd find myself halfway through a glass of red wine, the afternoon softened, melting into evening.

  Late on one such afternoon, Mrs Wilcox whispered to me, 'Stay', during a general leave taking. My, 'But, the children's dinner...' was brushed aside and a surprisingly healthy feast of fruit and cheeses assembled for Alice and Anne. It was Clive's night at the Masons and the other two were out, so it didn't matter. She took me to her studio. I wouldn't take all my clothes off, but she said I was perfect in my underwear and made masses of drawings. She gave me the finished work a couple of weeks later. The oil paint was still so fresh it was intoxicating. Clive was appalled. What on Earth was I thinking? Was I drunk? (She'd painted me with the glass of red wine.) I put the painting away in the back of the wardrobe, where it's been ever since.

  Surprisingly, Mrs Wilcox didn't drink, despite the fact that she was often in the midst of a party. She said it didn't mix with painting; she didn't have the discipline to work through a hangover. Like anything that got in the way of her work, husband included, alcohol got short shrift.

  Alice hadn't stood a chance in the face of her mother's single mindedness. But, she'd survived and by all accounts had become an extremely successful entomologist. On the form that I signed, she was a 'Dr' but the scars were evident; her lack of social ease and the fact that she'd not formed a relationship (I won't add 'never had children', for two of my own, the childless ones, tell me that this is no longer a criteria for success or happiness).

  I got my breath back and took in the fact that Alice was standing staring at the kitchen sink. I followed her over there and was struck, immediately.

  'Is this how they found it, or has someone…?'

  'No!' Alice interrupted, 'This is how it was.'

  'But,' I stopped myself, not wanting to embarrass Alice.

  'Go on,' she implored.

  'It's never ever been like this. Look!' I picked up the gleaming milk saucepan then dropped it back immediately.

  'There are no finger prints, I made them check,' said Alice.

  'I wonder,' I began, 'If I could be perfectly and completely honest and you not take offence?'

  'If you're going to say that my mother kept a filthy, shambolic kitchen and her disgusting sticky, never washed milk saucepan was the talk of the street, then don't worry, I knew.'

  I really didn't know what to say. Mrs Wilcox's housekeeping, or rather lack of it, had been legendary in our suburb. A view of her milk saucepan was regarded as a coup and would be the talk of the street. As a rule I didn't join in gossip, but I have to confess to being fascinated by her complete disregard for, or any attempt to, keep up appearances. There was something delicious about living next door to a woman who didn't give a hoot about convention generally, and housekeeping in particular.

  Mrs Wilcox's milk saucepan became the symbol for this. It was unbelievably filthy. Thickly encrusted with ring after ring of stale milk, I never saw it clean. While her friends would often be imbibing large quantities of alcohol, she'd be heating up more milk for yet another of her rich, dark, hot chocolates. She said the chocolate stimulated her creativity and, if she wanted to stay up all night to keep going on a piece of work, that was what she used. She offered me one once and ridges of aged, yellowy milk popped into my mind and I almost gagged.

  Alice and I sat on either end of the sofa where Mrs Wilcox had done so many of her drawings. We put the gleaming milk saucepan on the coffee table in front of us.

  'I know it looks like suicide. An empty bottle of sleeping pills was on the draining board.' Alice swallowed tears. 'But… the kitchen, the milk saucepan, was as you see it.'

  'You don't think, if she had decided to take her life, that she may have had one final clean up?'

  As soon as I said it, I knew it was absurd. Mrs Wilcox had that rare talent, among women anyway, of not noticing mess. When I think of how many hours I've put into keeping house, cleaning, wiping, tidying for visitors! It probably adds up to years. Scratch the surface of every housewife and you may well find a talented painter, sculptor or writer, if only she had the time!

  'The delivery girl who found her called the police. They were here when I arrived. When I explained to the detective how a clean up was totally out of character, he laughed. 'Foul play suspected on account of a clean milk saucepan? Sorry love. The doctor had no hesitation in signing the death certificate.'

  'But Alice, the alternative - it's just too awful to contemplate. It means…'

  'Someone killed her,' Alice finished the sentence.

  We were both absolutely stunned. Although I'd found the idea of Mrs Wilcox's taking her own life hard to swallow, I hadn't let myself think about what it meant if it wasn't suicide. I certainly hadn't let the word 'murder' enter my consciousness. A prickle of fear crept up my neck.

  'Can we be absolutely sure it wasn't suicide?' I asked.

  'She didn't leave a note. She abhorred drugs. She wouldn't even take an Aspirin,' Alice continued. 'Where would she have got prescription sleeping pills? She didn't see doctors.'

  'Alice, she did get some sleeping pills. She went to the doctor about two weeks ago.'

  Alice's face was stricken.

  'Two weeks ago,' I said gently, 'your mother told me she was having trouble sleeping. She asked if I had noticed any unusual noises at night? I wondered if it could it be a prowler and offered to call the police. She refused and, when I telephoned next day, although she was edgy, she said everything was alright. She told me she'd been to the doctor wh
o prescribed sleeping tablets.'

  This timing struck a chord with Alice.

  'Two weeks ago mother called my work, said she needed help. This was totally unprecedented. She never called me, nor asked for help. We had hardly any contact. We met so rarely, all we had were brief conversations about our work. Anyway, I was in South America picking up a colony of ants when I got the message. I called immediately and she said "You're no use to me on the phone". I tried to cut my trip short but there were no planes. As soon as we landed here, I settled the ants and dashed to her side. She said, "Problem solved". I pressed her, she refused to tell me, and we had a blazing row. That was the last time we spoke.'

  Alice took off her glasses and sobbed. Deep, throaty moaning sobs. I found tissues, fetched a glass of water and patted her until she calmed down.

  'You're not feeling responsible, are you Alice? When the police came next door and questioned me about her mental state,' I hesitated then said, 'I told them she'd been pretty fed up about her eyesight fading.'

  'She wasn't depressed,' countered Alice. 'Worried, yes. The last time we spoke about her work she said, 'I'm in my Monet phase'. He struggled with blindness, you know. I know she didn't do it. I want an autopsy. I'm not having a funeral until I'm convinced that there was no foul play. I'm sorry to burden you, Mrs T. I couldn't think of anyone else to tell.'

  'You're not to worry on my account,' I chastened Alice. 'I'm honoured to be in your confidence. But, what can be done? If the police accept it's suicide?'

  Alice looked defeated.

  'Alice, I don't want you to worry anymore,' I said in my most positive voice. 'If the police won't do anything, we'll investigate it ourselves.'

  Alice's smile broke through her tears.

  'I knew I could rely on you.'

  I must confess, lying in the dark, hours later, wound up like a clock and unable to keep still let alone sleep, I wondered if, given my high blood pressure and the fact that I'll be 80 next month, I hadn't taken on rather too much.

  Alice and I speculated about Mrs Wilcox's worries and our case for the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps Mrs Wilcox had been worried about security? A few years ago Alice insisted her Mother upgrade all her locks. She'd refused an alarm system, but security screens had been fitted over all windows. Given that there's a great deal of valuable art in the house, this was an excellent idea. Many of Mrs Wilcox's paintings are in art galleries and private collections, but she'd held onto favourites. Add friends' work, many well known, and you have a valuable stash. Maybe the 'unusual noises' Mrs Wilcox heard were from someone trying to get in?