Eye for an Eye

by Bev Robitai

  Suddenly in the darkness there was a clattering splash and shrieking cry as a startled bird took off in fright. Robyn gasped, and looked back over her shoulder. The circle of torchlight wavered on its path away from the lake, and turned back. She took more deep breaths and lay still in the water while the beam swept around, hoping they would assume that a current had moved her from where she’d been before.

  At last the light left her, and she was able to breathe again. Next time she looked back she saw headlights driving away leaving the cottage dark and still.

  She was alone.

  She broke into a powerful overarm stroke that sent her surging through the water like a torpedo, aiming for the tip of the headland that she had seen earlier in the day. It would be a good place to take a rest before she tackled crossing the lake to the far shore, where Colwyn had said there was a group of houses nestled in a small bay. The distance was within her capabilities, but cold and darkness added to the difficulty. At least, she thought, there was plenty of adrenaline in her system to keep her going. Being shot at was an excellent motivator.

  Her foot kicked a rock painfully, and she realised she had reached the headland. She stumbled ashore and sat down on the beach, shivering as her clothes dripped onto the pebbles. Eyes closed, she visualised the view from the cottage for the direction that should lead to the houses, and peered into the darkness. Yes, there were lights! She had a beacon to aim for, and possible sanctuary at the end of the trip.

  Just in case, she noted the stars above the lights as a secondary indicator. If there happened to be a power cut, she didn’t want to end her days swimming in circles in a dark cold lake. She did a few jumps to get her blood moving and her muscles warmed up, then waded back into the lake. It felt almost warm after being out in the night air, and she set off with a strong steady stroke towards the lights.

  Colwyn, heading back to Toronto, was far from steady. Things had suddenly got way out of control, and he didn’t know what to do. He’d thought he’d got Robyn where he wanted her, but she’d wriggled out of his grasp like an eel. Just when he’d expected her to give up, she’d made a break for it and now Harry had shot her right in the middle of the lake. This wasn’t in the plan. How were they supposed to tie the bodies together and sink them when one was floating about loose for all the world to see? Suppose she had left something at the cottage that might identify her and he’d failed to spot it? He had her passport and papers, her purse and clothes, but she might have left something at the beach, or in the shed. Sweat ran down his face, gleaming in the headlights of oncoming cars.

  Harry was driving calmly, seemingly unaware of the enormity of what he’d done.

  In the back seat, there was a muffled groan. Mike was regaining consciousness.

  ‘Didn’t you give him another dose?’ hissed Colwyn.

  ‘No Mr. Symons - you’d said you wanted to talk to him when I brought him up here. If I’d given him another dose he’d have been out to it for hours.’

  ‘Well didn’t you think of it when we left the cottage? Obviously the plan has changed after your piece of target practice.’

  ‘Sorry. I can do it now if you want.’

  ‘Yes of course do it now! Can’t you get anything right? Give him a half dose or something, just to keep him quiet.’

  Harry shot him a hurt look and pulled over to the side of the road. He opened the rear door, pulled out a small black case, and extracted a syringe. With a chuckle, he jabbed it into Mike’s thigh and administered the dose, then replaced the case and got back into the driver’s seat.

  ‘All taken care of Mr. Symons. He’ll sleep like a baby till you’re ready.’

  ‘That’s if you haven’t overdone it and killed him as well.’

  ‘Hey, I know what I’m doing.’

  Harry settled back into driving, his mouth an ugly pout.

  Robyn swam, stroke after stroke, breathing regularly, covering the distance. Her mind buzzed with ideas. If she didn’t make it and her body was found, was there a ‘Made in NZ’ tag on any of her clothes that would help to identify her? Pete would eventually report her as missing and the authorities might make the connection. Could she leave any clues herself? She toyed with the idea of scratching ‘Symons’ on her skin with a fingernail, but decided it wouldn’t work on wet arms. Besides, if it left a scar, she’d be reminded of him forever.

  She swam on, forcing tired muscles to keep performing.

  At last she was near enough to the shore to make out individual houses.

  There seemed to be a party going on at one of them, so she headed in that direction. It would give her a better opportunity of finding somebody who could help her get back to Toronto in a hurry. She hadn’t really figured out what she was going to do, but she’d need to talk to the police first and foremost. Once she’d got Colwyn locked up she could happily go home to New Zealand. All she’d have to arrange was a replacement passport if he’d destroyed her real one.

  She dragged herself up the beach, feeling the full force of gravity weighing her down after so long in the water. Noisy music from the party reached towards her, and she squinted up at the crowd on the balcony to make sure they weren’t low-lives or gang members that she’d be better off avoiding. They looked like normal people, so she squelched up to the front door and rang the bell.

  ‘Whoa, did you swim over to complain about the noise?’

  A tall, dark man was laughing at her, until he realised she was near exhaustion and wasn’t laughing back.

  ‘Come on in. You want to tell me what’s wrong?’

  He sat her on a chair, despite her feeble protests that her wet clothes would ruin it. A stunning dark-haired woman he introduced as Jessie came to see who had arrived, and hurried off to make Robyn a hot coffee.

  As she sipped it, she outlined what had happened to her. They reacted with outrage on her behalf.

  ‘You have to tell the police - Jessie, call the O.P.P.’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be the Mounties for a Federal case? Attempted murder of an alien would be Federal, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Hell, I don’t know. The O.P.P would be quicker, that’s for sure.’

  ‘What’s the O.P.P.?’ asked Robyn, bewildered by the conversation.

  ‘Ontario Provincial Police. They handle the local stuff.’

  ‘I’m not sure this counts as local - the guy that shot at me comes from Toronto. Does that make a difference?’

  ‘Oh, honey, that might make it Metro’s problem - maybe we should call them instead.’ Jessie hovered uncertainly over the phone.

  ‘It happened here, that makes it O.P.P.,’ her husband said firmly. ‘Go on, call them. This young lady needs to get some sleep sometime tonight after all this malarkey.’

  Robyn smiled at him gratefully, close to the end of her endurance.

  She held it together, nursing a second hot cup of coffee until a couple of local policemen arrived to interview her, but they asked endless questions with what seemed to her to be increasing scepticism. After they drove her all the way round the lake to where she thought Colwyn’s cottage was and she wasn’t able to find it in the dark, they lost all interest and didn’t appear to take her claim of being shot at seriously. With no physical evidence to back up her story, she finally gave up trying to persuade them and simply pleaded for a ride back to Toronto. They agreed to take her, but told her that investigating Colwyn’s apartment and boat would be a matter for the Toronto Metro Police and advised her to call them if she wished to pursue the case any further.

  After a silent journey they dropped her outside Mike’s place and drove off without even bothering to see if he was home. Robyn was too tired to argue. She was left standing in front of Mike’s apartment, knocking quietly so as not to disturb the neighbours. Her door key was in her abandoned purse along with a bunch of other stuff that would have been really useful about now, like credit cards. There was no answer, so she knocked again, harder this time. Finally, when insistent pounding had achieved nothing except a sh
out of “Go away!” from a window above, she gave up.

  It was 1am and he clearly wasn’t there.

  She was alone in the city once more with no money, and just a bagful of wet clothes. She wished she had accepted Jessie’s offer of a bed for the night as well as the loaned dry clothes, but it was too late now. Wherever Mike was, he wasn’t going to let her in to his apartment so she might as well find somewhere else to bed down for the night.

  She started walking in the general direction of the studio. If she was really in luck, Tony would be still there working late on the Christmas scene and would let her in. If not, she could probably find a way to break in somehow. It was a long trek, but better than sitting on a cold concrete doorstep, so she set out as briskly as she could manage.

  She plodded her way through the quiet streets where sleeping houses presented dark faces to the night. To save her feet she tried walking on the grass strip that ran between the trees, but she stumbled over too many tree roots and stepped back onto the smooth sidewalk.

  The miles passed.

  As she approached the studio, her heart sank. Tony’s big gold Chevy wasn’t in the parking lot. She walked round the outside of the building looking for an open window, and checked all the doors, but came to the conclusion that she was firmly locked out.

  She pressed her nose against the office window, and in the dim light from the street, saw the coffee machine sitting there. It was all the incentive she needed. She pried up a brick from the paving below the window, took her wet sweatshirt out of the plastic bag, and held it against the glass while she hit it hard. Shards and splinters fell about her feet as she scraped a clear edge to climb in over, but she was past caring. All she wanted was a hot drink and a place to lie down. In the morning she’d deal with finding Mike and getting a new passport and making a travel insurance claim on lost belongings and all the other drama.

  She hauled herself painfully over the sill, dusted off the bits of glass, and made herself a coffee. There was no fresh milk so she had to make do with non-dairy creamer, but the mixture tasted like nectar of the gods. She pirated a packet of biscuits that was supposed to be used as a prop, and ate the lot. Finally, with the last of her energy, she found a fur coat in the props room to pull over her, lay down on the couch, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

  CHAPTER 12

  Colwyn stirred as Harry made a sharp turn off the expressway and drove down into the city. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Your apartment, Mr Symons. Isn’t that where you want to go?’

  ‘With him?’ Colwyn jerked a thumb towards the back seat. ‘That would look good, wouldn’t it, carrying an unconscious body around in my building? Not suspicious at all. Try to be smart, Harry. Take us to the boat, we’ll deal with him there.’

  They drove to the marina, and quietly unloaded their cargo onto the dock. Harry took Mike’s weight and stood him up, then they half dragged, half carried him to the Angel Lady.

  ‘Hey, Mr. Symons - did you ever see that movie Weekend at Bernie’s?’

  ‘Yes. Shut up.’

  ‘This is just like when they took the corpse to the party, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Shut UP.’

  They wrestled Mike’s unconscious body into the cabin and dumped him onto a bunk. Harry tied his hands.

  ‘Won’t give you no trouble now, Mr. Symons.’

  ‘When’s he due to come round?’

  ‘What is it now - two o’clock? He’ll be out another coupla hours. We’ll be able to get a bit of shut-eye ourselves.’

  ‘Not just yet, Harry. There’s another job to do first.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Because you went and shot the girl, Harry, there will be an investigation. Missing women will be talked about. She won’t turn up for work, and they may report that to the police. Suppose she has things in her locker there that connect her to me? It wouldn’t take the authorities long to come sniffing round here and interviewing the pair of us, Harry. We have to go to the studio and make sure there’s no evidence. Obviously I can’t trust you to do it alone.’

  ‘Couldn’t we do it tomorrow? I’m real tired now after all that driving. I could go there in the morning and say she’s had an accident and won’t be coming back, and ask to pick up her things.’

  ‘Oh yes, Einstein strikes again. Wrong! Why would you show your face to a whole bunch of witnesses and link us to the missing girl when we could just go in there tonight, see no-one, and get what we need? Think, Harry, think.’

  ‘I guess you’re better at that than me, Mr. Symons.’

  ‘Just get on with it Harry. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can get to sleep, all right?’

  Harry and Colwyn trudged back along the dock and started up the car.

  Robyn heard the car stop.

  Deeply asleep as she was, her subconscious was alert enough to nudge her on hearing a car pull up outside the studio in the middle of the night. She struggled back to the surface of wakefulness, and lay there listening. Nothing sounded wrong. She closed her eyes and let herself drift off again.

  Harry walked round the building checking for a way in, and found the broken window. He heaved his substantial bulk over the windowsill and eased down to the floor inside. Using a thin beam of light from his pencil torch, he checked the room, frowning when he found the warm coffee machine. He moved on into the studio itself, looking for some kind of staff room or locker area, moving quietly but missing nothing. The narrow beam of his torch flickered over cables, light stands, tripods. It shone into each area, then moved on. He opened doors soundlessly, checking each room he found.

  Sudden light on her eyelids roused Robyn, who sat up with a startled cry.

  Harry leapt back from the door, then did a double-take and shone the light in her face again.

  ‘Holy crap, how the hell did you get here?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ demanded Robyn, dazzled and confused.

  ‘You can call me a friend of a friend,’ sneered Harry, ‘just no friend of yours. You’d better come with me and we’ll see what the boss wants to do with you.’

  He moved the torch off her, so Robyn was able to recognise his squat shape outlined in the doorway. She gathered her strength for a flying leap across the room, pushed him aside, and ran for her life through the studio. At least, that was what her mind said she was doing. In reality, her over-used muscles let her down and she fell in a heap on the floor at Harry’s feet. He picked her up roughly and pushed her back on the couch.

  ‘Sit still and don’t move till I tell you, you stupid bitch.’

  He pulled out his cell-phone. ‘Mr. Symons, Harry here. I’m inside the studio, and I’ve got company. No, the girl’s here. The one we thought was in the lake. Yes I’m sure! I’ve seen her plenty before, using the gym and going up to your apartment, it’s the same girl. Yeah, I guess I missed, OK.’

  He advanced on Robyn with the phone. She closed her nose to the sour smell of sweat and unwashed clothing. There was a dark stain of grease around the edge of his collar where it rubbed against his neck.

  ‘He wants to talk to you. Better be nice now, because it’s him that gets to decide what happens to you.’

  Robyn took the phone and tried her best infuriated Canadian accent.

  ‘Hey, who the hell is this? What are you, some kind of lunatic? This guy bursts in where he has no right and starts threatening me - you tell him he’s in the wrong damn place and to get the hell out of here right now!’

  She handed the phone back to Harry, who took it and listened. A nasty smile spread across his face. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, you didn’t fool him for a minute. Now you get to take a little ride with us. Don’t make a fuss now - I’d hate to have to hurt you.’

  His voice told her otherwise, and she was chilled to see him pull a chair over and sit down, positioning himself between her and the door.

  ‘I thought we were taking a ride, Harry? Didn’t Colwyn tell you to take me somewhere?’

  ‘What’s your
hurry, sweetheart? Don’t you want to make the most of the little time you’ve got left?’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, do both of you have to talk like gangsters in a B movie? Be original Harry, dazzle me with your spontaneous repartee.’

  ‘Shut up, you snotty little tramp!’

  ‘Come on Harry, you can do better than that.’

  ‘Sure I can, but I’m not wasting words on you.’ He stood and unbuckled his belt.

  ‘Oh Lordy Master Harry, yo’ ain’t gonna give me a whippin’, are you?’

  He sneered.

  ‘Why would I waste my time with that? I can think of much better things to do with your hot little body, especially if it’s struggling.’

  ‘What’s the matter Harry, not getting enough at home? Doesn’t the wife let you do it any more?’

  ‘You leave my wife out of this! She’s worth ten of you, you little slut. At least she treats me with respect. She knows how to behave, and when to keep her mouth shut.’

  ‘So no oral sex for you then? How sad.’

  ‘Hey, I said shut up, bitch!’ He looked at his watch. ‘Shit, you talk too much. I’m out of time here. Now we have to go for that ride, and if you want it to be a comfortable one, you’d better keep quiet, you got it?’

  She nodded mutely, keeping her eyes downcast. Her muscles were recovered now, and adrenalin was coursing through her system.

  When he was standing in front of her about to pull her to her feet, she struck upwards with full force at his crotch with both hands joined. He doubled over with a long whooshing groan, and she shoved him sideways as hard as she could while he was off balance. He crashed to the floor leaving her way clear. This time her flying leap took her past him and halfway across the room.

  She sprinted for the door and slammed it behind her, then sped through the dark studio to seek cover, a weapon, or a means of escape. She was hoping to gain enough time to find a phone and call the police, but Harry recovered quicker than she expected. She heard him fling open the props room door and bellow into the huge room. ‘Fucking bitch! You’re dead meat.’