The Horseman

by Margaret Way

  Now this!

  Of course she had considered this possibility, but rejected it. Dr. Peter Wheeler had been described on all sides as a good caring man and a fine doctor. He had certainly come across that way. Cecile had focused all her analyzing powers on his mannerisms, expressions, body language and his account of his troubled little daughter’s history. Here was a devoted father.

  But my God! The reality could not have been more different! And the mind-blowing arrogance of the man allowing counseling to go ahead! Of course the school had insisted on it and Ellie was fast running out of schools, but there was so much to hide, so much that didn’t bear examination. Yet Peter Wheeler obviously thought he had such control over his child, or Ellie was so much in fear of him—she would have been threatened with punishment should she ever speak the unspeakable—that the whole sordid story would never see the light of day. Her father’s power over her was central to her life.

  Only, Ellie had broken free! Dr. Wheeler hadn’t allowed for Ellie’s intelligence and courage. She was a remarkable child whose range of behavioral problems had not as yet progressed beyond the problems of other children Cecile had treated who were not the victims of sexual abuse. Ellie was truly a fighter. Cecile took a shuddering breath, thinking that because of her, because she’d been away, this brave little girl had been left longer in hell. Drawing had long been used as therapy when dealing with emotionally disturbed children. Ellie’s drawings to date had been a series of wild interlocking circles always in black and charcoal signifying, to Cecile’s mind, that Ellie regarded herself as being in a prison. Some days the strokes suggested barbed wire.

  Now this!

  Ellie had sat quietly while she had been drawing what could only be described as a sexually abused child’s cries for help. Sexual abuse was routinely considered early in therapy, but Ellie had been positively brilliant in hiding what had been happening to her and was probably still happening; So much for the slowness or the stupidity! Tears sprang to Cecile’s eyes as she took the colored drawings in hand. Here was a child with long curly blond hair, big blue eyes and no mouth. Tears splashed from her eyes to the floor. Another showed the same child in bed with a tall figure with huge black wings like a bat looming over her. Another showed the child locked in a forest with a woman—her mother?—running away from her to the extreme edge of the trees.

  “Do you see?” Ellie came around the desk to whisper, a terrible sadness seeping out of her eyes. “Do you see what’s been happening to me?”

  Cecile lifted her head to meet the child’s eyes. “Yes, I see, Ellie. I want to tell you you’re a very brave girl. I’m proud of you.”

  “Are you?” Ellie’s voice showed a tiny burst of pleasure. “I wanted to tell Mummy, but I knew she wouldn’t listen. She’s afraid to say anything to Daddy. We all have to be very careful around him, even Josh. He loves Josh. He doesn’t love me. He tells me he loves me, but he’s killing me. He wants to kill me.”

  Cecile didn’t admonish the child. She didn’t murmur, “That’s a terrible thing to say about your father, Ellie.” She remained silent, listening for what else Ellie would say.

  There was more. A lot more, utterly conclusive as far as Cecile was concerned. And it had to stop today! For a ten-year-old child to so graphically describe tearing, searing physical pain, the things that were done to her body. The landscape of a man’s body. The weight of her abuser. It was all being taped. Cecile’s gentle voice encouraged the child in telling her appalling tale, without ever leading her. This was Ellie’s terrible story. Ellie had to be protected.

  But first there were procedures to be followed. Children’s Services. She was well acquainted with the people there. One woman in particular, a woman of enormous understanding and sensitivity. Cecile picked up the phone, after telling Ellie she needed to talk to her mother.

  “Do I have to stay there?”

  “No, dear.”

  Ellie looked relieved, though there was still profound fear in her eyes. “She won’t believe me. She’ll tell Daddy.”

  “You Want this to stop, don’t you, Ellie?” Cecile asked quietly.”

  “Oh yes! Will you help me? I don’t want to go home. I don’t ever want to go to bed. It’s not my fault.”

  “Never!” Cecile shook her head, taking the trusting hand the child held out to her. “You must never ever blame yourself.”

  “Daddy said he’d kill us all if I told.”

  Such sickness of the soul! It seemed almost inconceivable Dr. Peter Wheeler, who presented so well, was the father from hell. Cecile would never have guessed such a depth of depravity in the man. She was stunned he was a doctor. And alarmed. Other children could be under threat. “That’s not going to happen, Ellie,” Cecile said, radiating comfort and quiet authority to the child. “You have me to help you. I have the support of kind people who devote their lives to helping children like you. It will be safe for you to talk to them and I’ll be there. You and your mother and Josh are going to get help. I promise.”

  Only it wasn’t that easy. Ellie’s mother at first called her child “a lying little monster” and refused to believe what Ellie had said. “She’s made it all up. She’s not stupid. She’s cruel and cunning and a shocking little troublemaker. She’s trying to come between me and my husband; Peter’s a doctor! A man who cares! He’s a saint!”.

  “He’ll get the opportunity to prove it, Mrs. Wheeler,” Cecile said, keeping all trace of revulsion out of her voice. “Children do lie. They make certain things up. They can even fool experts, but I’m prepared to believe a medical examination will prove Ellie is telling the truth. No child I’ve ever spoken with, living in the suburbs with a saint for a father, could describe so graphically sexual abuse. Ellie has a great deal of courage. I’m wondering if you knew about it and kept quiet?” Cecile, though sickened, gave the woman a chance. “You were too frightened to get help? I understand how that can happen.”

  Understand but never never condone.

  Cecile played back the tape of Ellie’s story, while her mother cried convulsively, the bitter tears streaming down her face as she listened and stared at the drawings. “Where is she, my little Ellie?” she asked finally, looking beaten into the ground. “Will she ever forgive me? I’m not a mother at all. I’m a gutless coward who has lived at my husband’s mercy, but not anymore! Tell me what to do.”

  CECILE RETURNED to her apartment that evening feeling utterly drained. Damning evidence of sexual abuse had been found during Ellie’s medical examination, conducted by a kindly woman doctor Cecile and her colleagues often called in. Josh had been picked up from school by the police. The family had been taken to a safe house, pending charges being laid. “We’ll never be safe,” Mrs. Wheeler had murmured fearfully to Cecile at the last moment, her shoulders hunched in strain. Her two children stood quietly a little distance away, hand in hand. “There’s no safe place.”

  “You’ll be safe if he’s in jail,” Cecile told her, placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder, feeling the rigidity there. “Your husband can’t get away with this anymore, Mrs. Wheeler. You have to be strong for your family.”

  “He was such a sweet man,” Marcie Wheeler confided in the voice of the lovesick teenager she once had been. “He was hurt badly in a car accident five years ago. Do you think it was that? Something twisted his mind?” she asked hopefully. Eyes as blue as her daughter’s appealed to Cecile. Marcie Wheeler was a very pretty woman.

  “I can’t help with that, Mrs. Wheeler,” Cecile said flatly, shaking her head, “but I can help you.”

  AT HOME Cecile played back her phone messages, which included one from her father confirming their lunch date for the following week. Soon after her disastrous confrontation with her mother, she had conceded to her father’s plea to meet the new woman in his life, Patricia Northam. Patricia had a beach house on a beautiful stretch of the Mornington Peninsula, which Cecile discovered was set in native bushland with a wonderful view of the sea. The two of them were waiting
to greet her at the front of the cottage, their arms entwined. Her father looked ten years younger and an altogether different person. She’d rarely seen him out of his tailored business suits and his expensive smart, casual clothes. But here he wore an ordinary pair of cargo pants, a black cotton T-shirt and canvas trainers on his feet. The woman tucked beneath his arm looked as fragile as a china doll. She had very curly red hair that reached past her shoulders, unlined skin warmly sprinkled with freckles and eyes as blue as the sparkling sea. As casually dressed as Cecile’s father, she wore espadrilles on her feet; even with the wedge heels, she was tiny. She couldn’t have looked more different from Cecile’s mother. Her father had always appeared to admire the “glamour girls,” tall, confident women as well-groomed as racehorses, always dressed in the height of fashion—like Justine. Patricia, or “Patty” as he called her, was a big surprise. She was fresh and natural, quite without artifice.

  Her father had come forward to give her a hug and kiss her cheek, thanking her a little awkwardly for coming before introducing Patricia. This was accompanied by a loving look Cecile had never seen when he looked at her mother. Cecile had expected the meeting wouldn’t be all that easy for any of them, but she found herself warming to Patricia despite her loyalty to her mother.

  Cecile learned Patty’s-invalid mother had died several months back. Patty had been devoted to her, never marrying. Her mother had left her the cottage and their Melbourne apartment.

  “She’s led a life of service,” Howard had told Cecile quietly. “Now I want to look after her. Your mother never needed looking after. She never needed me except as the obligatory husband. She actively discouraged me from playing a larger role with you. But that’s all over. I want us to be close, Cecile. You’re my daughter, my only child. I never wanted to hurt Justine, but I think you’ll find it’s mostly her pride that’s been stung.”

  Cecile hadn’t had the heart to comment on the hatchet job her mother had done on his clothes and he didn’t mention it, either. Her father looked and acted a different man, more real than she had ever seen him. He had resigned his position as Moreland Minerals’ CEO. “Joel never asked for my resignation,” he told her. “Your grandfather knows how long and hard I’ve worked for the company, but we both agreed that my staying on would be nigh on impossible with your mother on the board. So, I’m taking early retirement. I intend to enjoy what’s left of my life, Ceci!”

  Cecile had found it hard to blame him.

  She moved to her bedroom and quickly changed out of her elegant gray suit, hung it in the closet, then deciding to take a quick shower, walked into the ensuite bathroom. She brushed her teeth first in an effort to get the taste of evil out of her mouth. She wasn’t surprised to see her hands were shaking. The whole Ellie episode had upset her tremendously, although Ellie was far from being the only sexually abused child she had treated. Ellie, however, had been very much better at keeping her dark secret padlocked.

  Beneath the shower she allowed herself to weep for all the abused children of the world. The tears streamed down her face. Jets of water washed them away. This was her private place for crying. No one had to know about it. Sometimes her job made her very emotional. She knew she had to guard against it or go to pieces, but children like Ellie made that very difficult.

  Afterward she rubbed a deliciously scented moisturizer over her face and body, as though the aroma and the massage would help her relax. There was no way she could banish her sadness, but she was feeling a little better. She had done as much as she could do. The authorities had to do the rest. Lack of faith in Marcie Wheeler had crept over her slowly. She had confided this lack of faith to her good friend Susan Bryant at Children’s Services. Susan, ten years older and very experienced, wasn’t particularly surprised. “Usually the mothers know about the abuse,” Susan said, “but they’re so emotionally battered themselves they can’t bring themselves to do a thing about it. For all we know the good Dr. Wheeler could have been abusing her; too. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised.”

  The fact Susan had picked up on Marcie Wheeler’s vulnerability made Cecile feel easier. It would be dreadful if Ellie had to be taken from the only parent that was left to look after her.

  Dressed in a cool ankle-length caftan, she poured herself a glass of white wine from her refrigerator. She felt incredibly lonely. Something she had never really experienced until she banished Rolfe from her life. He’d opened a door onto a rapturous world for her. He had been everything to her, so his deception had left her shaken to her core and accusing herself of every kind of weakness, so much so that when she had first arrived back, she doubted her ability to pick up and go on with her stressful job. She’d refused to take his calls, though she’d played his messages over and over just to hear his voice. He’d begged her to allow him to see her, but her underlying fear was he was still using her and would continue to. He had seen himself as an avenger on her family since his childhood. Powerful obsessions didn’t disappear overnight.

  If ever!

  She had spoken to her grandfather many times. On one occasion he confided he bought back the old Lockhart cattle station, which was very run-down, and deeded it over to Rolfe.

  Could that have been one of Rolfe’s goals? The loss of his own inheritance had plagued him. He’d told her so.

  “Not that it could possibly compensate him for what he and his family suffered,” her grandfather had offered as a reason for his generosity.

  Quite simply Raul Montalvan or Rolfe Chandler, whatever he in his heart called himself, had won over the Man with the Midas Touch. No mean feat! It had been a coup on Rolfe’s part to go to her grandfather with a full confession. Her grandfather was a decent, highly principled man. He had wanted desperately to make amends for the sins of her grandmother.

  And as for her, she had fallen madly in love with him, or at the very least been engulfed by powerful emotions, at their first meeting. Whether it was possible to trust him again she was a long way from deciding.

  She was drawn to the kitchen to make herself something to eat—a light pasta with ricotta and prosciutto? She had fresh herbs growing on her balcony—chives, basil, coriander, mint, dill and fiery little chillies—but she couldn’t be bothered cooking a sauce. The loud buzz of her security monitor startled her. Who could it be at this hour? She Wasn’t expecting anyone. Her friends always rang before they called. Maybe it was a mistake, a visitor wanting someone else. It happened.

  She checked what she was wearing. Perfectly presentable to go to the door if she had to, in fact, very pretty if a bit on the sheer side.

  She walked the few steps to the wall-mounted monitor and saw a messenger wearing a cap with a logo on it. She couldn’t read what it was. He was holding a bouquet of flowers so big they obscured his face.

  Well, well, life was indeed surprising! “Yes?”

  “Delivery for Ms. Moreland.”

  “Thank you. I’ll let you in.” She pressed the button to release the security door. Was it possible the flowers were from Rolfe? She couldn’t help the involuntary rush of hope, then chided herself not only for the feeling, which clearly betrayed her ambivalence, but for being stupid. He didn’t even know where she lived. What an exercise in futility it was trying to clear all thoughts of him from her head. It was becoming more and more difficult, not easier, with the passing of the days and weeks. The flowers could be from a longtime admirer of hers, Adam Dahl, who’d begun ringing her since her breakup with Stuart had become common knowledge. The bouquet looked enormous. Adam always had been one for going over the top. She had already accepted one of his invitations to dinner. No reason why she couldn’t. She was a free woman.

  No, that was far from true. In her present mood and state she felt she would never be free of Rolfe.

  A faint sigh on her lips, Cecile opened the door, startled to see the messenger already there. He must have stepped straight into the lift. She felt a momentary pang of anxiety.

  Wasn’t it too late for a delivery? Alt
hough it was Friday, late night shopping.

  She put out her hand to take the bouquet, but before she had time to think what was happening, the messenger shoved her back forcibly into the entrance hall of her apartment, shutting the door behind him. She gave a tiny shriek of alarm.

  “Afraid, are you?” Peter Wheeler snarled, pitching the bouquet violently across the living room where it fell in a scatter of tall, blood red gladioli and silver wrapping paper.

  Through her fear, Cecile managed to think hard. “What are you doing here, Dr. Wheeler?” she demanded, succeeding in her effort to keep her voice from sounding too panicked. “I’m expecting a friend to drop by any minute now.”

  “Dressed like that?” He ran his eyes over the contours of her body, revealed by the sheer fabric. He showed not the slightest interest in her. Oh, no, this was a man who liked little girls ! He wasn’t wearing his glasses. She suspected now they were mostly for effect. His eyes were cold and hard like dull gray pebbles that gave back no light.

  “I assure you he will be here,” Cecile said with a show of confidence. “If you have any sense at all, you’ll go.”

  “Go? Where do I go?” he asked in furious frustration. “Thanks to you, the police are out looking for me.”

  “Then shouldn’t you be giving yourself up,” Cecile retorted. “They will find you.”

  “They’ll find you, too,” he said, with a peculiar sliver of a smile.

  Cecile felt a sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach.

  “You’re threatening me, are you?” Her voice was absolutely steady. “It’s not a good time for you to do it. My friend is a lawyer.”

  “Then the one thing you must not do is warn him,” Wheeler said, not taking his eyes off her. “I don’t want to punish him. Just you. You’ve ruined my life. I face jail. I face the loss of Ellie. You wouldn’t know, you sanctimonious bitch, but I love her.” His face twisted in genuine anguish.