Crimson Lake

by Candice Fox

  Amanda’s entire demeanour changed, cracked with open-mouthed laughter. She gave herself a little hug, like she was being cuddled by the very humour itself.

  ‘Bare arses in hotel rooms! Oh lordy!’

  ‘I’m not so sure this is a good idea. This whole thing.’

  A long slurp of coffee. ‘Well, I’m not here to convince you.’

  I looked at my hands. Thought about good ideas, bad ideas, Sean. And money.

  ‘I’m not interested in working for free,’ I said. ‘This is not an apprenticeship, and I’m not fourteen.’

  ‘Well, it was worth a shot, love. You’ve got to admit.’

  ‘What are you working on?’

  ‘Oh, you’re not having my case,’ she laughed. ‘I don’t work well with others.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ I said. ‘So maybe we ought to forget this thing altogether.’

  Vicky the waitress had come and barricaded me into the booth just as I was about to dramatically exit it. She stood with her pad and pen and smiled. I looked at Amanda, and she returned my gaze passively, the choice mine. I ordered coffee with milk and sugar and Vicky went away.

  ‘This is going to be difficult.’ Amanda gave a bored sigh and stared at the windows.

  ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘Most people have almost forgotten who I am in this town,’ she said, ignoring me. ‘What I did. If they haven’t forgotten, they’re at least not as confronted by me as they were when I first got released. They’re used to me, I guess. But you? You’re going to be like a ghoul around here, once the mob finds out you’re in town. I really think you should take the office. The night work and the bare arses in hotel rooms.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  She tore a corner off the newspaper and folded it into a tiny, bulging square. I watched her stick it between her front teeth, pressing it flat, before sucking it onto her molars.

  ‘Look.’ She munched the paper thoughtfully. ‘I feel for you, mate. So I might let you follow me around for a little while. See if you can do more than kick down doors. But you better keep your brim down. You’re going to have to be incognito, you understand? Like a mosquito in a burrito.’

  She seemed pleased with her impromptu rhyme. Slurped her coffee with a smile. I considered whether to thank her.

  ‘You could grow a beard, maybe.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ I said, feeling my stubble.

  ‘So, you want to do it? Are we partners?’ she asked, the long-suffering exhaustion gone and excitement of a girl about her. I rolled my eyes, and she clapped in glee.

  ‘Tell me about your case,’ I said.

  Vicky brought my coffee, and Amanda pulled a couple of silver rings off her left middle finger. The two smaller rings, I realised, were holding a much larger ring on the base of the finger. It was so large that it clunked loudly on the table when she finally got it off. She rolled it towards me and I caught it before it could roll off the table.

  ‘The local celebrity is missing,’ she said.

  ‘It’s the Jake Scully case,’ she said dramatically.

  ‘Is that name supposed to mean something to me?’

  ‘It might if you’re a big reader,’ she said. ‘I got to be a real big reader in the can. I read everything, but the big hit going around Brisbane Women’s Correctional was the Last Light Chronicles.’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ I said.

  ‘They are interesting!’

  ‘What are they about?’

  ‘The series kind of picks and chooses bits of the New and Old Testaments and makes them into popular stories for young people. The books are very controversial. They take place after the Rapture and include plenty of cool pop-culture add-ins that certainly aren’t very biblical. Vampires and werewolves and witches and stuff. It’s all the epic drama of the Bible with all the badass sex and violence young people love.’

  ‘Actually, I think I’ve heard about these. The guy’s sold a million copies or something.’

  ‘Ten million. They’re pretty amazing.’ Amanda smiled. ‘Adam and Eve, the main characters, start out as ordinary schoolkids before the end of the world comes. They finish up as these epic heroes fighting off zombies and consulting with apostles and stuff. It’s total blasphemy. But Christian kids get a kick out of seeing their biblical heroes reinvented as grisly post-apocalyptic warriors. All the cool people are there. Gabriel the archangel, Saint Christopher, some very sexy demons.’

  Amanda looked beyond me, out the windows, and seemed to sigh with pleasure.

  ‘In Brisbane Women’s we got real obsessed with those books,’ she said. ‘We made sure no one gave away spoilers. Sometimes we’d sit in the dorms and read aloud to each other.’

  ‘And now the author of these books is missing,’ I said.

  ‘Dead, I reckon.’

  ‘And the ring?’

  ‘Totally biblical,’ Amanda said. ‘They found it inside a salt-water croc the size of a mini-van.’

  ‘Jeez.’ I held the wedding ring up to the light. She took the ring back and slipped it onto her finger.

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘Who’s commissioned you?’

  ‘Jake’s wife. She’s sick of the Queensland Police. It’s been three weeks, no progress. Nada. They’re not keeping her updated. She’s got the money, so why not bring in extra help?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So where do we start?’

  ‘Well, don’t get too excited. We have to establish the ground rules, if you’re going to be on this with me.’

  ‘There are ground rules?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘All right. Lay ’em on me.’

  ‘Number one is the most important. You don’t touch me. Ever.’

  ‘How did I know that was going to be the most important one?’ I said.

  Amanda’s face went hard for a moment, like freckled stone.

  ‘Don’t feel so special. No one touches me. If I touch you, that’s fine, but no one touches me. Or my stuff.’ She drew the newspaper a little nearer to her.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We don’t talk about Kissing Point.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable. I expect the same courtesy about my case.’

  ‘What? Oh no. Come on, Ted,’ she scoffed. ‘Let’s be real. I’m going to want to talk about Claire. That’s half the reason I came here today.’

  Claire burst into my mind in an agonising flash. Her lean white frame by the side of the road. The rain misting all around her. When I came back to myself I found my teeth were gritted, my hands gripping the sides of my head.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ I breathed. ‘Why would you say that? Why the hell would you bring that up?’

  ‘Because I want to talk about it. Are you kidding? I’ve wanted to talk about it since my old mate Sean called me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re claiming your innocence, right?’ She leaned in.

  ‘What? Yes! I’m not claiming I’m innocent. I am innocent.’

  ‘Then wow!’ She threw her hands up. ‘How fascinating! Right?’

  ‘No! It’s not fascinating. It’s terrible.’

  ‘It is fascinating! If you didn’t do it, then who did? And if you’re lying, then how did you get the charges dropped?’

  ‘You need to stop now.’

  ‘Don’t you want to get the guy who did it? We could do the case together. Your case. In our spare time. Like a hobby.’

  ‘No,’ I seethed. I tried to shake off the fury slowly lighting all my bones on fire. ‘No, Amanda. I don’t want to do the case with you in my spare time. I don’t want to go anywhere near my fucking case with you or anyone. Can we please –’

  ‘Urgh. All right.’ She slumped back in her chair. ‘So boring. Such lack of vision.’

  ‘Can we please just –’

  ‘Okay, okay! I get it,’ she said. She slurped the rest of her coffee, slammed the cup into the saucer and got up. ‘We can leave it for now. You go home and work
on that beard, and I’ll go home and try to get my head around what I’m going to do with you. High-five, brother.’

  She put a hand up, and I did the same, still numb from the sudden intrusion of my case into the meeting. She gave my palm a slap and wandered away into the hot wilds of the Crimson Lake morning, leaving me to pay for her coffee.

  I spent the night wrestling dreams and sheets.

  Kelly on the other side of prison glass, her face appearing pocked and scratched by the indentations on my side of the barrier. Every muscle in my body ached. Adrenaline shot through me at every sound. What now? What next? I kept hoping the people who came to my cell were there to release me. Crushing disappointment every time. Guards bringing me trays of food, shoving paperwork from my lawyer through the slot. I was a man of solid stone, walking like I might crumble.

  Kelly hadn’t brought the baby. I was grateful for that. It was scary here.

  ‘Sean’s going to get some analysis of the CCTV happening. See if we can get me on camera at the petrol station,’ I said into the warm handset. My teeth were chattering. ‘He seems like a good guy. Seems like he knows what he’s doing, you know?’

  ‘Ted, the papers are saying you’re going to trial.’

  Kelly’s tone was pleading. She was makeup-less, drawn, like she hadn’t slept in days. I hadn’t slept in days, either. I was absurdly reminded of those blissful few weeks when Lillian was born, when we were both obsessed with checking her breathing in the dark, silent hours. We’d sit at the kitchen table in a daze together.

  ‘We’re not going to trial, Kel.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘It’s a big fuck-up, yes, but it’s not going to go on for much longer. It’s been three weeks. It’s ridiculous. But it’ll be over by the weekend. Sean says when we get hold of something that puts me at the petrol station at the time of the abduction, I’ll be out of here. Maybe I’ll try for some wrongful arrest compensation. We’ll go on a holiday. I’m so fucking tired, Kelly. I want to hug you so bad.’

  ‘The little girl chose your picture out of a photo line-up,’ Kelly said. She was gripping the handset, her knuckles white. She was begging me to turn it around. I was trying. But the weight of it all was advancing towards me, and I could hardly breathe.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That happens sometimes.’

  ‘That happens sometimes?’ Kelly looked horrified.

  ‘She’s confused,’ I stammered. My mouth was bone dry. ‘Sean says she’s confused and traumatised. She’s a child. She probably does remember me from the bus stop, and she’s getting me mixed up with the guy who did this.’

  ‘But how could she –’

  ‘See, you’re not even supposed to show kids photo line-ups like that.’ I shifted closer to the glass. ‘When you show a kid a photo line-up, what you’re basically saying is “We think the guy who did this is one of these men.” So she thinks she’s got to pick the guy out of the line-up. The girl would remember me from the bus stop. And she sees me in the line-up. And her traumatised mind just puts the two pieces together, even if they don’t fit. Sean thinks we can have the photo line-up evidence thrown out if it ever gets to trial. But it won’t, Kelly. We’re not going to trial.’

  ‘Tell me again what you said to her,’ Kelly insisted. Someone in the next cubicle was yelling at their visitor, thumping the glass. The guards were snapping like dogs. I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t keep my thoughts in order.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The girl. What did you say to her? At the bus stop.’

  I squinted, rested my forehead against my palm, tried to visualise my statement. I’d recalled what I’d said over and over, for hours, in interrogation. Now I couldn’t remember any of it. My mind was dark, slippery. Nothing took hold.

  ‘Oh, god, Kel. I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘I said … I said the rain was coming. That’s it. I said there was big rain coming, and she said “Yeah.” I asked if her bus was coming soon, I think. I think she said it was. And that was it.’

  ‘Why did you ask her that?’

  I stared at my wife through the glass, said nothing.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said to the girl, “Hey, there’s a big storm coming. Is your bus on its way?”’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘I wasn’t really thinking. I guess I thought I should say something. We were both just standing there. Maybe I was wondering if she was going to get stuck in the rain.’

  ‘What if she was?’ Kelly said. ‘What if her answer was no? That she was going to get stuck in the rain. Would you have given her a ride? Were you offering her a ride by asking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ – I shrugged again, helpless – ‘because I’m a middle-aged man, Kelly. I don’t give rides to little girls I don’t know.’

  ‘So why did you ask her in the first place?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Why did you talk to her at all?’

  I had no answer. Kelly chewed her lip, seemed to wince as something broke, or threatened to break, inside her.

  ‘Ted, please,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please just tell me you didn’t do this.’

  I stopped shaking. Just like that. A heat rushed over me, from the back of my neck down my arms. My eyes stung.

  ‘What?’

  Kelly cried into her fist. I flattened my hand against the glass.

  ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘You didn’t do it. Did you?’

  ‘How could you ask me that? You’ve never asked me that. In three weeks. Not once. Why are you asking me that?’

  ‘Ted.’

  ‘I didn’t do this!’

  I stood, gripped the iron grill above the glass with one hand. I was screaming. I’d never heard myself screaming.

  ‘I didn’t do this, Kelly! I didn’t do this!’

  They were dragging at me. My arms, my neck. The guards. I was losing myself. Losing all sense of where I was. I turned and grabbed the nearest guard, because he was real, because he was human, because he was near. I got hold of his shirt and held on. The cuffs came around my wrist.

  ‘I didn’t do this!’

  I twisted out of the dream and grasped at the cramp in my calf. Weird things were snapping me out of sleep lately. Cramps, twitches, stabbing pains. Noises and voices that I knew weren’t real. It had been the same when I first entered prison. I didn’t know what my body was telling me, but I was grateful that it kept flipping these switches and cutting off the nightmares.

  I went out onto the porch, into the orchestra of croaking green frogs who had invaded the small space. They perched, lumpy and wet, on the roof rafters, three lined on the rail like slick fat lumps of green clay. Only the moonlight gave them shape. I went to the box at the side of the porch and lifted back the towel, felt an immediate exhalation of warmth from within, the damp, earthy smell of birds.

  Woman slept with her head tucked beneath her good wing, and the snake-like neck rose as I greeted her, the black eyes searching mine. I eased down beside her and slid my hand beneath her wing, gripped one of the fluffy bundles nestled against her side, pulled the sleeping chick out into my palms. She didn’t protest. The night hours brought on a truce between us.

  ‘I’ll give it back,’ I promised.

  I sat in the moonlight and held the sleeping infant bird in my big palms, smoothed back the downy feathers around its small beak. The tiny creature hardly stirred.

  I remembered the weight of my own child in my hands.

  Dear Jake,

  I’m writing to tell you how much I loved Burn. I know I’m late to the Last Light Chronicles; I hope you don’t mind, but my mum wouldn’t let me read them when they first came out and I forgot all about them in between. I loved Burn so much I’ve gone out and bought the rest of the series – I’ve got them all in the gold box set with the picture of
Eve on the back. It’s hard to know whether I should go on before I’ve read book one again – I read it so fast I’m sure I missed things. It’s kind of sad when you find a writer you love as much as I love you, because you know some day you’ll run out of books.

  I’m an aspiring author myself, so when I find a great writer, I try to emulate their style. I’m unpublished, but I’m trying, and I’m up to about my thirtieth rejection letter. I know you’re supposed to find your own style, your own stories, but I think if I take bits and pieces from the greats, one day I’ll be great myself. I’ve included a short piece I wrote about Eve and Adam – I hope that’s okay. I know some writers don’t like that, but I am just so obsessed with you. Your two protagonists have been rattling around my mind since the first page. I had to let them out! The piece is a little bit sexy, but I’m passionate about these characters, and I hope you can experience that passion.

  Maybe if you think my work has promise, you could show it to your agent. I sent some of my work to Cary myself, but he just sent me a standard rejection letter. I bet you’ve got plenty of those yourself! I’m not sure he even read my manuscript – I’ve heard they don’t sometimes, particularly if they’ve got a heavy workload, or they’re looking for something that’s on trend. I think it’s zombies right now. That’s all anyone seems to be publishing. But I’ve never been someone who’s ‘on trend’. I’m different. Maybe if Cary knew that I knew you, he’d take my stuff more seriously.

  Anyway, I’ve got to go and get stuck in to the books. Write back if you have the time. I really think that as fellow writers we’ve got a lot to offer each other.

  Amanda looked like a junkie, but from what I could tell so far, she wasn’t one. I sat in the car with an arm hanging out the window and a hand on the wheel, watching her, the vehicle crawling along the dirt road to South Crimson Lake at a snail’s pace while she navigated her bike between rocks in the clay, just out of my reach. An emaciated spider-woman wrangling a steel horse. Now and then I let the car swerve closer to her as our words became strained by distance. Rain clouds haunted the mountains on the horizon, but there were heatwaves shimmering on the crest of the hill ahead between the cane fields.