She stared out to sea, her body humming from the exercise, and zoned out. Within a few moments, however, the case again came to mind. Whatever method the gang had used to target their victims, she thought, it was almost certain that most of them had not seen things going the way they had. In the first robberies, the violence, although terrifying, had mostly been used as a threat to compel compliance. Robbery had clearly been the motive. The motive for the leader now, though, was the violence itself, and if Gabriel was right, cracks in the group would be starting to form. She wondered whether there might be any way they could turn the screws a little more. Maybe put the hovering media to good use, to heighten the fear and paranoia among the group members – get them to turn on themselves. She'd put it to the taskforce tomorrow.
Jill felt the Vitamin D doing her good. She leaned her face into the sunshine and closed her eyes.
29
CHLOE FELT SWEAT at her hairline, but her heartbeat was slowing. God, the guy had scared the shit out of her when she came back around to the front of the basement room. And she had nothing against tattoos, but he was kind of scary-looking.
She debated entering the room. Maybe she should suggest they go up to the house? But she hadn't even met the owner. Would it be rude to just go barging into someone else's house? She couldn't suggest another place to interview him. It's not like she could invite him home for a cup of tea at her house in Seven Hills. And no one back at the network would even dream of giving a cadet an office.
She made up her mind. What could happen, she thought. It's a sunny afternoon in the suburbs and Maryana and her mother are just up the stairs.
Chloe followed Cutter into his bedroom.
When he entered the room behind her, she began to feel even more awkward. Wanting him to feel comfortable enough to open up and speak to her, she was acutely aware in the small room that she stood a head taller than him. She looked for somewhere to sit – there was only the bed. She perched on the very edge and got her notebook out of her bag. The door shut, and her head whipped up. The thud had been a heavy metallic sound – like a vault. Her heartbeat gathered pace again.
'We don't want people listening to us,' he said.
Chloe's eyes darted around the room. A thick curtain covered a small window in the whitewashed wall. It smelled funny in here.
'I'm already disturbed that my name would be mentioned in a criminal investigation,' he continued. 'I don't want Mrs Miceh imagining that I'm an unsavoury tenant. Do you know, if it wasn't for my grandma, I don't think she would even have leased this room to me in the first place.'
Chloe relaxed a little. She pictured the bent old woman in the doorway in Cabramatta, smilingly pushing a piece of fruit and this address into her hand.
'She is a sweetie,' said Chloe. 'How long have you been living here?'
'Just a week or so,' said Henry. 'It's all I can afford at the moment. I have a new job in sales, in the Hills district, so this suits me fine.'
'So, nobody from the police department has contacted you regarding this investigation?' Chloe asked, eager to begin the interview.
'No. But I can't say I'm surprised that they're looking at me.'
She gave him a questioning look.
'I got into trouble as a kid,' he explained. 'Break and enters, stealing. A criminal record is the worst thing, Ms Farrell. The police are very lazy. Crimes happen in a certain area – they go through their database and suddenly there's a cop at your door. It's hard to convince people that you've changed.'
Chloe made a few notes.
'And the tattoos don't help matters,' he said.
No kidding, thought Chloe. Ugh.
'When I was young, I lost my father and my grandfather in a very short period of time,' he said. 'I was particularly close to my grandfather. I think that's why I rebelled.'
Chloe jotted his comments, but wished that he would sit down. He seemed to be standing over her.
'But I've grown up now. I don't do silly little things like that anymore,' he said.
'The police are watching your family home in Cabramatta,' she said. 'Now you know that, what do you think you will do about it?' She readied herself to scribble down his response. 'Will you go to them and ask why they're intruding into your life this way?'
He looked down at her and smiled. Chloe decided that when he'd answered this question, she would stand after all. This whole situation creeped her out.
'No, I don't think so,' he answered. 'You might have gathered that I don't like the police, Ms Farrell. And I don't think they're going to find me out here. My grandmother won't be giving this address to anyone else.'
Chloe rubbed at her left eye. The tic always started when she felt anxious. She moved to stand.
The explosion of movement stunned her more than the blow to her face. Her vision darkened for just a moment, and then returned, orange. Her face was pressed into his bedspread.
'Slut! Stupid slut!'
Chloe bucked with her legs to throw him off, trying to bawl out a scream, but her mouth pressed into the orange fabric, and the scream wouldn't form. All of his weight was on top of her, but Chloe was strong, and she felt his body shifting sideways, sliding off her. Then she felt cold steel pressed into the left side of her neck. She recoiled, jerking her head to the right, and the knife followed, this time biting, deep. She felt warm blood well. She was going to die here. Terror paralysed her.
'That's right, slut. Don't move around, and maybe I won't hurt you.'
He kept the knife to her neck and raised himself off her body. She tried to move a little and he pressed the knife deeper. She stopped moving.
'Stand up now, slut,' he said.
The pressure of the knife forcing her to comply, Chloe stood at the side of the bed, whimpering quietly. She knew that her only hope for seeing her parents again lay in keeping this blade from slicing her throat. She knew now with whom she shared this room. How could she have been so stupid? Details of the murder in Capitol Hill came to her, threatening to unhinge her completely. Stop it, she told herself. She needed to stay sane. Do what he told her. She wasn't ready to die yet.
They stood now between the bed and a wardrobe. He pushed her towards the cupboard and for a moment, she imagined that he was going to try to stuff her inside it. She'd never fit. Instead, he reached in with his left hand, his eyes on her the whole time.
Chloe met his eyes once and her knees buckled. His hand whipped out of the wardrobe and caught her arm. He used his right hand to lift her chin with the knife.
'Open your eyes, now,' he said. 'You're not being any fun.'
She forced herself to open her eyes and stare at the floor. If she looked into his demented face again, she wouldn't be able to help screaming, and he would start stabbing her with that huge knife. She knew it.
His left hand held cable. Plastic ties. She'd seen them before in crime scene photos. The restraint of choice for today's killer: cable ties, unable to be broken by the victim without pulling their own hands off. Her thoughts cantered madly. She couldn't let this man bind her. She had to fight now! On the other hand, if he was going to restrain her, he wasn't going to kill her immediately. She might have time to reason with him.
Chloe found her voice, although to her ears it sounded fractured, hysterical. She forced herself not to focus on it, or she'd lose herself to those impulses.
'My b-boyfriend knows I'm here,' she managed. 'He's a cop.'
'Wrong. No. I don't think so.' Grinning, her captor capered a little on the spot, the machete still pointed at her throat. She froze, terrified of the swishing blade. The wound on her neck throbbed, but she sensed the blood had coagulated and she was not bleeding heavily. 'You said the police don't know I'm here. You said that, slut. Don't lie to me. Now turn around and give me your hands.'
She hesitated, and he jabbed the knife at her neck again. She whimpered and turned. This man had dismembered a person in Capitol Hill.
Pulling her arms behind her back, he wrapped one hand then the oth
er with the unyielding ties, wrenching her shoulders backwards finally to tighten them.
'Now sit. Here. On the floor.'
Chloe squatted and then dropped to her bottom between the bed and the wardrobe. He'd have to put the knife down to bind her ankles. When he bent over her she'd headbutt – no, kick him – then run for the door.
He seemed to have seen her calculating.
'You can't get out,' he said. 'You have to use the key. And I have that. By the time you get to the door, I'll have filleted you. Did you know you can do that to a person? No, I didn't either, but I've found, recently, that the muscles come away quite cleanly.'
Chloe screamed and screamed.
He ripped his bedspread from his bed and shoved a fistful of the fabric into her mouth. Chloe gagged on the material and tried to dislodge the wad from her airway. She couldn't breathe. He jabbed the tip of the knife under her chin.
'I'm not going to hurt you unless you make me,' he said.
She tried desperately to rein in her blind panic. There were only two choices here. Live or die. This man would kill her now, or she could delay her death and possibly survive this.
'Good,' he said. 'No one can hear you anyway. There's a foot of concrete above us, and these double-brick walls are half buried into the earth. I love it here, don't you?'
He motioned her to lie on her side and he squatted to tie each ankle, and then cable-tied them together.
'Now,' he said. 'I promise not to hurt you, but you need to cooperate. This bit's tricky.'
He stood and reached back into the wardrobe. Chloe panted into the fabric, terrified with each move he made that he would bring forth some object of horror. His hands emerged and he now held a thick wire with a lock, a device resembling something used to secure a bike. He squatted again. He looped the cord through the restraints around her ankles and used it to pull her legs backwards. He then yanked her hands downwards, pulling at the restraints, handling her as though she were an inanimate object. Her shoulders burned and she moaned around the fabric. She heard him click the lock into place. She was shackled into a U-shape, the top half of her body facing the bed.
Immediately, Chloe was engulfed by waves of claustrophobic terror. She was completely immobilised. She tried to roll, but the movement wrenched at her shoulders and thighs. Her neck strained and she struggled to breathe.
'Hogtied,' he said, standing with his hands on his hips, beaming down at her. 'You look good. I've fastened the cable to a bolt in the wall. You'll be staying here for a while.'
He picked up his knife from the bed. 'Shut up,' he said, when Chloe made choking sounds through the fabric in her mouth. 'I'm going to fix a proper gag so you can breathe properly.' He took a scarf from the wardrobe and squatted next to her again. 'Don't scream, slut, or I'll cut you.'
He pulled the bedspread from her jaws, and Chloe spat out the taste, then screamed through sobs. He wrapped the scarf around her mouth. She could at least breathe around the fabric, but the pressure he applied compressed her tongue and chafed at the soft corners of her lips; the knot at the back of her neck cut her circulation.
He sat down on the side of the bed; took a deep breath.
'Now I'm going to show you how I relax,' he said.
Cutter reclined on the bed and lifted his shirt, tended to his wound. The smell filled the room.
Chloe gave into the hysteria that bulged behind her eyes.
30
JILL WAS AWAKE before the alarm sounded at five, but her eyelashes were glued shut. She prised them open carefully, groaned and rolled over. A sea of used tissues littered the ground; one was still crushed in her fist.
She pointed her face into the hot stream of water in the shower and thought again about what she'd ask Joss and Isobel. She figured these were good people caught up in some sort of bad situation, but this was no time for them to be stuffing around. It had been six days since the murder at Capitol Hill, and the taskforce had yet to bring in a person of interest. The media were slamming them on every news update. She knew that Last would want Henry Nguyen brought in today or tomorrow at the latest. They'd had constant covert surveillance on his last known address, and the superintendent had given orders to bring the other suspect, Dang Huynh, in on sight. Joss and his wife might have information that could close the net on these guys.
She pulled on knee-high socks and zipped skinny black jeans into calf-length boots. She tucked a long-sleeved black tee-shirt into her jeans and added a belt and a black jacket. The detectives dressed more casually out in Liverpool than they did at Maroubra and, sunshine or not, there was no way she was going to freeze her arse off out there today. She blow-dried her hair carefully and left it long, warm around her neck, dropped Visine into her red eyes and smeared Vaseline over her lips. She thought she was beginning to feel better.
She stuffed an apple, some industrial-strength cough lollies and a few more tissues into her bag and left.
Gabriel's car was there already, and he crossed the road when Jill parked, smiling at her. He's always so bloody cheerful, she thought, wiping her nose and checking her face in the rearview mirror before getting out of the car.
Joss opened the door before they knocked, his face a mask.
'Morning, Joss,' said Jill. 'Isobel here? We've got to have a talk.'
He stepped aside wordlessly and led them into the terrace house. Isobel stood by the glass doors next to the kitchen. She wore a terry dressing gown and her hair was still wet. She had an arm across her stomach and worry creased her brow. She glanced at Charlie, seated at the kitchen table, her little hand holding a spoon above a bowl of cornflakes.
'Hello,' said the little girl, scraping her chair away from the table. She walked over to Jill and held out her hand. 'I'm Charlie Rymill. What's your name?'
Oh how gorgeous! Jill's eyes said to Isobel, who smiled back tremulously.
'Hi, Charlie, I'm Jillian. This is Gabriel. We're friends of your mum and dad.'
'Do you want some cornflakes?'
'Finish your breakfast, honey,' said Isobel, walking over and guiding Charlie back to the table, at the same time that Gabriel said: 'Do you have any Coco Pops?'
'No, we're not allowed,' said the little girl sadly, shaking her head. 'Too much sugar.' Her big blue eyes were multifaceted marbles.
'Can I put some toast in for you?' asked Isobel tightly, walking into the kitchen. 'I'm making some for us anyway.'
'That would be great, Isobel, thanks,' said Jill, and Gabriel nodded. Jill followed her into the kitchen, and spoke quietly, away from the little ears at the table. 'We know you're on your way to work, but we really need you and Joss to call in late this morning. We have to have your help with this case, and it can't wait.'
Isobel nodded and slotted four thick slices of bread into the toaster.
'Could you put some more in for me when they're done?' she said to Jill. 'I'll just go and make some calls.'
Jill toasted more than half the seeded loaf and took it with a few jars of spreads over to the table. Joss stood staring out into his backyard, immobile, apparently uninterested in the near stranger poking around in his kitchen. He seemed preoccupied but somewhat less tense than the last time she'd been here.
Gabriel had already finished one piece of toast and was speaking to Charlie with his mouth full when Isobel reentered the room.
'Done,' Isobel said. 'Joss, I left a message for Eric that you might not be in at all today. I did the same with my boss,' she said to Jill.
'Thanks, Isobel.' Jill felt awkward sitting at their table with her piece of toast, interrupting these people's lives. She knew from experience, though, that refusing hospitality on a home visit added to the tension.
Isobel had dried her hair and with that seemed to have collected herself. She brought milk, sugar and mugs to the table. A few minutes later, a big pot of brewed coffee followed and she played gracious host for the next fifteen minutes, but took only a few bites of toast herself. Joss sat with them, but didn't eat a thing.
<
br /> When Charlie had finished her breakfast, Isobel took her into the loungeroom and switched on the television.
'The Wiggles,' she said when she came back to the kitchen. 'Her favourite DVD. We'll be right for a while.'
'Great,' said Jill, eager now to get to the point. Gabriel sat back in his chair, relaxed, but she knew he was observing everything. 'There's no polite way to say this, Isobel. So I'm just going to say it straight because we really need your help right now. We know you two are holding something back about the night at Andy Wu's.'
Isobel's mouth opened; she looked hunted and guilty. Joss stared straight ahead, his palms flat on the table.
'Thing is,' Jill continued, 'we know the identities of at least two of the people committing these home invasions and we don't have to tell you how terribly dangerous they are. We want one of these men, especially, locked up right now, before he kills someone else. He's not in custody yet, though, and we urgently need to speak with anyone who knows anything about him.'
Jill paused. Music tinkled from the loungeroom, and she could hear what sounded like Charlie dancing. The kitchen was otherwise silent.
'Isobel, you and Joss know a lot about him,' she continued, 'and it's time you told us everything you know about Cutter – Henry Nguyen.'
Isobel jerked a hand to her mouth, her eyes darting to her husband. For a second his posture stiffened, as though he was preparing for sudden movement. Jill did the same. Suddenly, Joss's shoulders dropped and his eyes met her own.
'What do you know?' he asked.
'Well, we know that Isobel called the hotline and told us to investigate Nguyen,' she said. 'It's okay,' Jill glanced at Isobel, who looked as though she was about to cry. 'That tells us you do want to help. We have hard evidence – DNA – connecting Nguyen to one of the crime scenes, and we believe that he has participated in at least six home invasions. We also know, Joss,' she said, turning to him, 'that you knew him well when you were a kid, and we're pretty sure that you recognised him at Andy Wu's home.'
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