Six Minutes

by Petronella McGovern

  Ever since Archie had died, I’d been blaming myself. But all along, it had been Marty. My husband had made a decision to end our son’s suffering and then he’d witnessed my grief, my depression over the past four years and he’d said nothing. When all along it had been his doing: Marty had killed our son.

  ‘But where’s Bella?’ I could barely get the words out.

  The women glanced at each other, a look that was unreadable.

  ‘I think Josh took her,’ Mel said. ‘He was at playgroup that morning.’

  Tara’s husband Josh? I stared at them, uncomprehending. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They need money. They’re going to ask for a ransom. Tara thinks you’re rolling in it with your fancy house and your fancy cars. That was her trashing you on TV last night.’

  I couldn’t process what Mel was saying. This morning, Tara hardly seemed able to make a cup of coffee. Was it all an act?

  ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘I don’t have any proof but yes, I did.’

  ‘You’re saying that Tara and Josh abducted Bella?’

  It seemed unlikely to me but Mel was insistent.

  ‘Yes, and you need to go now and find her,’ Mel urged. ‘Quick, go to Tara’s place. Call the detective on the way. There’s no phone reception here. Get him to search their house and garden. Make sure the police do a thorough search—they’re sure to find some evidence of her.’

  I’d been at Tara’s house a few hours ago. Bella wasn’t there. My brain had gone numb. Marty killed our son. That one thought wiped out everything else in my mind. Legs numb, heart numb, body numb. The women each took one of my arms and started walking me to my car. I staggered but they held me up. Mel opened the car door and they gently pushed me into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Start the car, Lexie. Hurry up, you need to save Bella. Go, go, go!’

  Tears dripping down my face, I swung the car around the circular driveway and accelerated back up the track. I didn’t know what had happened to Marty, why he was on the property, but right now I didn’t care. Marty had killed our son.

  And Tara and Josh had taken my Tinker Bell.

  52

  LEXIE

  THE VIEW THROUGH THE WINDSCREEN WAS DISTORTED BY MY TEARS, I couldn’t see the edges of the track. Marty killed our son. Stopping the car completely, I rested my head on the steering wheel and sobbed. When Archie died, I’d been devastated—and relieved. For Archie’s sake. And for my own. I’d been so aware of his pain, but I hadn’t been able to soothe him like a mother should. Instead, I was constantly worrying I’d do the wrong thing and cause him more discomfort. After his death, my guilt about his pain turned into guilt about feeling relieved. With the counsellor, I spoke about my sadness for my son, my dismay that he would never grow up. She tried to discuss how a mother might have mixed emotions in a situation like mine, but I talked over her, refusing to acknowledge what she was saying. With Marty, I spoke about the deep love I had for Archie, the intense moments when I’d felt we communicated. I was sure Archie knew I was his mother, knew when it was me holding him and massaging him, and not the physio. After a while, Marty stopped talking about him altogether.

  One colleague said, in that cruel, casual way people do when referring to the profoundly disabled: ‘I’m sure you’re upset but you must be relieved it’s all over.’

  Perhaps she was trying to give me permission, but I was horrified. How could I feel such grief and relief at the same time?

  I loved Archie more than I had ever loved anyone.

  That first week in hospital, I’d willed him to survive. Knowing that he wouldn’t live a full life meant every moment with him was special, and I’d wanted as many of those moments as possible. I had expected a decade together at the very least, not mere months. And now, I missed him every day. His soft hair against my chest, his button nose, the rightness of his body cradled into mine, his gurgling noises, our closeness. Archie had made me pause and see what really mattered in this world.

  Another friend told me how wonderful we were: ‘God only gives you what you can handle. You and Marty are special people.’

  No. There was nothing special about us. We were Archie’s mum and dad. We coped. Until he died, and then we didn’t. Or did Marty stop coping before then and I hadn’t realised?

  At the edge of my vision, something flashed through the gum trees. Marty? Bella?

  A line of kangaroos bounding towards higher ground. The wind whipped around them, making the bushes dance and the dirt fly.

  We’d never taken Archie to a farm but Marty had sung to him every evening. Using stuffed toys as props, hoping that Archie could see the movement, he’d run through endless renditions of ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’. Marty’s favourite was the pink spotted pig—an oink oink here, an oink oink there. In those moments, Marty would forget to be a paediatrician and simply be Archie’s dad. He’d sing and dance and smile, and I could feel the tension in Archie’s body relaxing slightly. That last night, as I was getting ready to go out, Marty had been singing to Archie. He’d been concerned that Archie’s temperature was a touch higher than usual. Yes, Marty had been tired, stressed and worried, but that was the same as every other day. He wouldn’t really have hurt Archie … would he?

  When I’d found Archie cold in his cot and screamed, Marty had been beside me in an instant, starting CPR. Later, after Archie had been pronounced dead, we’d clung to our son, weeping together. And almost every night since, Marty’s sleep had been broken by nightmares.

  Wiping my eyes, I focused on the kangaroos, trying to untangle my thoughts. Why would Marty tell the truth to Mel anyway? Could Mel be lying? But what about the emails to Lorraine?

  Trust yourself. A tiny voice in my head. I imagined it was Archie but then I remembered: Marty had kept repeating it to me after Bella’s birth. Trust yourself. You’re a good mum. I’d failed my son, and now I risked failing my husband and my daughter too. Trust your instincts. Bella isn’t with Tara and Josh. Marty isn’t safe.

  Leaving the car in the middle of the track, jamming the keys into my pocket, I skirted through the trees, around the back of the house. It must have been built in the late 1800s, a few decades before Canberra had been created as the national capital. A rambling property in a secluded valley at the base of the mountains, miles from anywhere. Perfectly hidden.

  Shivering, I sprinted from the trees to the side of the house, ducking into the shade of the wraparound verandah. One, two, three. I’d started counting without realising. The last time I’d counted, Bella had disappeared. Start counting and make her reappear. Four, five, six, seven.

  This time, my wishful thinking didn’t deceive me; it wasn’t the wind whispering in the treetops. This time, I could hear children’s voices. Pressing myself against the wall next to a pot plant, I peered into a window. An empty sitting room with a faded floral couch. The next room, a study with an antique scroll-top desk. Mel and Deirdre were nowhere to be seen. Were they still packing the car? I prayed that Deirdre hadn’t taken the gun out of the ute.

  As I approached the next window, the voices grew louder. Positioning my body flat against the wall, I tipped my head slowly forward and stopped breathing.

  My Tinker Bell.

  Not a photo on the front page of the newspaper.

  Here in the bedroom.

  Alive.

  Sitting on the floor, building a tower of blocks with Sammy.

  Bella must have felt my presence because she looked up from the blocks and grinned at me with delight. I tried to open the window, wrenching it upwards as hard as I could, but it didn’t budge. It must be locked from the inside. Bella started to run towards me, but I waved her backwards. Sammy would be calling for Mel right now. I had to be fast.

  The garden bed had a border made of rocks and I grabbed one, testing its weight. I slammed it against the window; it made a loud thunk but it wasn’t hard enough to smash the glass. The rock reverberated in my hand. Bella and Sammy had skittered acros
s to the far wall. I tried again, throwing the rock this time, praying that it wouldn’t hit the children. The glass cracked into a hole with sharp jagged edges. Using another rock, I pushed the broken bits out of the pane. As I had feared, Sammy was calling for his mother.

  ‘Quick, Bella, come over here.’ My beautiful girl was almost in reaching distance. ‘Be careful of the broken glass.’

  How would I lift her across the window frame without cutting her? Scanning the room, I saw Dora the Explorer propped up on one of the beds.

  ‘Grab Dora and hurry!’

  Bella brought the doll over and I watched the closed door, dreading that it would burst open at any moment to reveal Deirdre and her shotgun. Placing the large doll as a blanket across the broken glass, I pulled Bella towards me, my arms wrapped awkwardly around her, trying to avoid pressure on the cast.

  ‘Why break window, Mummy? What about the door? Naughty Mummy. Deedee will be cross.’

  ‘I know, Tinker Bell. That’s why we need to be quick.’

  She was almost in my arms when the door opened.

  Not Deirdre but Mel.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she screeched, darting towards us. ‘I rescued her. We’re all going on a trip together.’

  Yanking my daughter up and over the window frame, I held her to my chest, feeling her heart beating against mine. All I could see, all I could feel was the solidness of her body, her smile, her dark hair, her jeans, the hardness of the cast on her arm under a blue jumper that I didn’t recognise.

  I stepped away from the window and Mel’s face filled the empty space. Her hands were extended towards Bella, her eyes wild.

  ‘You can’t trust Marty. He killed our children. Don’t let him near the girl. He’ll kill her too. Come back, Sarah.’

  Sarah? I didn’t have time to think. Those hands were snatching at my daughter.

  ‘Hold on tight, Tinker Bell,’ I instructed. ‘We need to fly.’

  Deirdre appeared around the side of the house from where I’d come, so I ran in the opposite direction, through the gardens, towards the chapel. Maybe we could double back to the car from there.

  ‘COME HERE!’ Mel’s scream echoed through the valley.

  Bella’s soft breath was on my face. She wriggled against me.

  ‘Mummy, you squishing me.’

  And then she giggled. A sound that I’d know anywhere. A giggle into my neck when I tickled her tummy. Giggling at one of Marty’s lame jokes; giggling at Swiper when she watched Dora the Explorer on TV.

  I could hear the pounding of feet somewhere behind us. Oh God, I wasn’t fit enough to outrun them. We’d have to hide and then sneak up to the car.

  ‘We had a party, Mummy,’ Bella told me. ‘Lollies and choc ice cream. It was my early birfday. You should have come.’

  ‘I wanted to, darling, but I couldn’t find the address.’

  ‘Mel said you sent Lulu and Dora for the party.’

  Was that why she came to our house last night? Not to sit with me but to steal Lulu and Dora from the bedroom. My daughter must have been asking for Lulu to get to sleep.

  Puffing, with a stitch stabbing my ribcage, I scanned the property. Should we head into the forest? The chapel had disappeared from view momentarily but, as I ran, it reappeared. We could slip inside the chapel without Mel or Deirdre seeing.

  I ducked into the portico and tried the door. Locked.

  ‘Mummy, key up there.’ Bella pointed to a hook. ‘Our cubbyhouse.’

  Mel might guess that we were in here but what other choice did we have? I turned the key in the lock, stepped inside and bolted the door behind us.

  Squatting down on the floor, I stared into Bella’s face and checked her arms and legs. Tears dripped down my cheeks and into her hair. Only now that she was with me did I realise that, deep down, I thought I’d never see her again.

  Suddenly she was squeezing out of my grasp and rushing past me. I spun around to see Marty lying on the stone floor, his leg propped up on a pew. He hugged Bella with one arm, holding the other against his thigh.

  ‘You found our little girl.’ Marty leant forward to kiss me. ‘Thank you.’

  My instinct had been right—the crazy women had injured him.

  ‘Can you tie this tourniquet tighter for me?’ Blood stained his hand and his jeans. ‘I need to get to hospital …’

  Kneeling next to him, I pulled on the ends of the tourniquet, wrapping it tighter around the top of his leg; the wound was hidden under his jeans. It seemed unlikely that he’d be able to walk up the track to my car. Would Mel and Deirdre flee from here with Sammy alone, or were they still determined to ‘rescue’ Bella? How long could we afford to wait before checking to see if they’d gone? How long did Marty have? He rested his body against me.

  ‘Bella, why was she calling you Sarah?’

  ‘Mel said it was my new name. But it’s not. I’m Bella. Tinker Bell. Bella Ball-er-ina. I’m NOT Sarah.’

  ‘Sarah Hayden,’ Marty explained. ‘She blames me for her death.’

  I recognised the name from the hospital inquiry, but what did Mel Wainwright have to do with Sarah Hayden? Even though I knew better now than to believe Mel’s accusations, a hard ball of doubt was still lodged inside me.

  ‘She said you killed Archie. Did you?’

  Marty’s body jerked. Pain lined his face. He took my hands in his.

  ‘No, Lexie. No.’ His answer was so soft that I could barely hear it.

  ‘Then why wouldn’t you talk about him? Why wouldn’t you go to the grave?’

  ‘I couldn’t forgive myself,’ he groaned.

  Oh my God, he had killed our son. I jumped up and moved away from him, scooping up Bella. I couldn’t be near this man.

  ‘Christ, Lexie, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t. I promise you.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I …’ He hesitated, unable to look at me. Instead, he focused on our daughter, who was wriggling in my arms. ‘You know I made a pledge when I became a doctor. I pledged to maintain the utmost respect for human life.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ten or fifteen years ago, Archie would have died shortly after birth but now, with medical technology …’

  I said nothing, waiting for his confession.

  ‘At work, between patients, I’d research other cases to try to find new treatments. I connected with an Englishwoman, Lorraine—she had a brain-injured thirty-year-old. The cycle of care was never-ending.’

  Marty started weeping silently.

  ‘I’d treated so many other children, I’d made them better and I couldn’t help my own son. His future was so bleak, a world full of pain. One night, after I’d had some wine, I started to consider … providing a compassionate release for Archie.’

  I couldn’t stand to look at him.

  ‘But it went against everything I believed in. The fundamental reasons that I’d become a doctor. It tore me apart—the fact that I could even consider it. And then it confounded me that the only real answer to solving his pain was his death. So when Archie died unexpectedly, it felt like I’d somehow made it happen by thinking about it. That my son knew I’d given up on him.’

  The chapel was so silent that I could hear the wind moaning through the eaves. So Marty had thought about it but he hadn’t done it. Poor Archie had been so exhausted—fighting infection, fighting pain, fighting to survive—that his tiny body had simply stopped battling against it.

  I could feel Bella’s soft, steady breath on my neck—nothing like Archie’s laboured breathing. My own secret sat heavily in my chest. Could Marty hear my thoughts? They felt so loud and confused.

  ‘Lexie, please say something.’

  I forced the words out. ‘I understand. In the first days, I was scared to love him because they said he’d die. When he didn’t, I loved him more and more. And then, he went so suddenly, and I was devastated but I was also relieved. What kind of mother feels relief when her baby dies?’

  Watching his face, I wa
ited for the look of disgust that would surely follow my admission. Instead, Marty held his hands out to me again.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, didn’t you talk to your counsellor about this? It’s normal to feel relief, to have all those emotions at the same time.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Lexie, you did everything possible for Archie. You’re a wonderful mother.’

  He wasn’t horrified by my terrible secret. Searching his face, I could see that he meant what he said: he truly believed I’d been a good mother to Archie.

  ‘I’m sorry I doubted you.’ I kissed his cheek. ‘You’re a wonderful father to both of our children.’

  Pulling Marty against me on one side and Bella on the other, I sighed deeply. Thank God it wasn’t true. But why had Mel taken Bella away from us?

  ‘Tinker Bell, I’ve missed you so much. How did you leave playgroup on Thursday?’

  ‘Mel said we were playing hide-and-seek. She lifted me up high over the fence.’

  ‘And where did you hide?’

  ‘Over the fence to Deedee. She put me in the truck.’

  Not hide-and-seek. Hide-and-gone.

  ‘But, Mummy—’ Bella tugged at my hand ‘—I left my wizard hat as a clue for you.’

  ‘You’re a clever girl!’

  Leaning forward, I planted tiny kisses all over Bella’s cheeks and nose and forehead. She smiled then wriggled out of my hug. With her arms outstretched, she began twirling around in a circle, chanting: ‘Chopper. Chopper. Chopper.’

  ‘Ssshhh,’ I said and listened.

  She was right. The buzz of a helicopter was cutting across the sound of the wind. The noise grew louder and louder.

  53

  CARUSO

  THE PILOT HAD BROUGHT THEM DOWN SMOOTHLY DESPITE THE LOW cloud and the gusting winds. Caruso was first out of the helicopter, moving fast in his ballistics vest. From the air, they’d spotted three people near a white ute: two adults and a child. Intel had checked on the firearms registered here—a shotgun and two rifles. The response group was en route by road and should be ready to block off the track at the top of the valley. It seemed that the Parkers’ gardener, Deirdre, who owned this property, was in fact Mel Wainwright’s aunt. They’d both kept that very quiet—no-one appeared to have known.