Fall

by Candice Fox

  ‘It sounds as though if you’re wanting the thing to survive, you’ve almost got to have the level of knowledge of an anesthetist,’ Frank said.

  ‘Even if you don’t want the animal to survive, using the right tranquilliser is fairly standard practice.’ Bood leaned back in his chair. ‘Despite what you might think, most professional hunters aren’t very big on animals suffering unnecessarily. Or on wasting expensive chemicals with overkill.’

  ‘Can you speculate about a weapon?’

  ‘Probably something gun-fired. If your victim was on the move, a jab stick or a blow pipe would have been out of the question. Particularly for a beginner. With the gun, you’ve got the scope and with some models the possibility of a quick re-fire. Have you got the toxicology report?’

  Eden handed over a wad of papers she’d wrestled from the depths of her laptop bag. Bood sat back and read them quietly. In time he stood up and went over to one of the pillars of books beside the fireplace. He pulled the shelf towards him to reveal a small neat cabinet of handguns. Frank and Eden followed. Frank nestled in beside the bigger man, looked at the lit shelves of tiny colourful syringes, the bottles and the screw-on feather stabilisers attached to each individual dart.

  With both men blocking the cabinet, Eden looked at her hands. She had time to think about that night in Tasmania, the moment she rose from the water for what was certainly the last time and saw Bood’s hand reaching, the cold resolution on his face. For a long time afterwards she thought about why he’d saved her, and decided, in the end, it was because there was no sport in watching her die that way. Most psychopaths Eden had known were forever considering how best to maximise their own entertainment, their own pleasure. Bood had watched her until he failed to be entertained, and then drew her out from her predicament, seduced by the idea of a future playmate perhaps. Maybe even a lover. The big man had to know now that Frank admired him. The thoughtful hand to his chin and theatrical snap of his fingers as decisions were made were all part of the show. He turned and in his hands he had a number of tiny capped syringes. Frank watched him select a gun from the upper shelves, a narrow long-nosed pistol with a wooden handle.

  ‘So,’ Bood said, ‘I know what it isn’t. It isn’t anything else I’ve got here, and I’ve got a fair sample of the Australian market in this cabinet. There’s a chance, a good chance, that the dart you’re looking for is one of these.’

  The trio returned to the chairs by the laptop, Frank and Bood beside each other this time. Bood laid the syringes out neatly, twelve in all. They were all various shades of pink or yellow.

  ‘These are all paralysers,’ Bood said. ‘They’re low calibre and they’re low dose. From the levels in the report and the wounds in the photos, I think we’re getting close to the mark here.’

  ‘Great,’ Frank said, picking up the syringe closest to him and examining it in the light of the windows. ‘Can we get any closer?’

  ‘You said you had footage of the strike?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Eden said, going back to her email. ‘We’ve got this.’

  She opened the file from the Domain security team and selected the video of Minerva Hall stumbling, almost falling, righting herself, and running on across the scope of the camera focused on a path that led to the back of the Art Gallery. Bood reached over and ran the video again, then twice more, intent on the screen. Eden brushed his fingers as she took back the laptop keyboard. She accessed the settings to slow the video down. Bood watched the woman on the screen running, seeming to trip, stumbling, pushing herself off the wet asphalt with her right hand, her fingertips, settling back into her run. At the very edge of the frame, Eden saw the same hand that had righted the runner reach down towards the back of her right thigh. Then she was gone.

  ‘We don’t even know if this is the moment.’

  ‘Oh, it’s the moment,’ Bood said. He sat quietly for a few seconds considering the syringes before him. Then he selected one of the fainter pink vials, uncapped it, and stuck it into the side of Frank’s neck.

  ‘Morris.’ Eden grabbed at the big man as he and Frank rose together, but it was too late. Frank stumbled backwards, grabbed at the dart in his neck, his eyes moving frantically from Bood to Eden.

  ‘Shit!’ Frank pulled out the dart. Looked at the thing in his fingers. He swayed. ‘Shiiiit.’

  Then he fell.

  ‘You fucking arsehole, Morris,’ Eden snarled. She pushed Bood out of the way and pulled back the coffee table. Frank had flopped onto a Persian rug in front of the fireplace, his top button popped and ankles crossed from twisting sideways to try to catch the shelves to stop his fall. Eden put her hands on his chest. As she did his left leg gave four sharp twitches, rocking his whole body. Then he was still. Her partner’s eyes were locked on the ceiling.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Bood said. He stood over Frank, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. ‘It’ll be two, three minutes maximum.’

  ‘That was completely inappropriate.’

  ‘Did you want answers, or guesses?’

  ‘Tell me, then, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘You saw those three or four little jolts of the leg there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s what you call a tell,’ Bood said. ‘It’s like a signature. It makes the brand distinct. There are complex chemical reasons why some drugs have signatures, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what they are. Some brands of morphine make people nauseated. Some influenza medicines make people drowsy. Maduline makes your legs twitch.’

  ‘Maduline?’

  ‘I’m almost certain,’ Bood said. He lowered himself back into the chair, pushed the cursor of the video back to its original place. ‘Her heartbeat is elevated because she’s running. So absorption, and therefore side effects, are much faster. You see here? Her right leg. Twitch twitch. She doesn’t reach down to feel what hit her – so the dart probably has an anesthetic tip. She reaches more towards the knee, the top of the thigh, because her leg suddenly twitches against her will. It’s Maduline. I’m sure of it.’

  Eden watched the video. Watched Minerva Hall’s right leg give two tiny kicks as she shifted to her left, pushed off, righted herself. Like she was shaking water from her shoe. Trying to kick off fingers suddenly gripping at her heel. Frank gave a groan beside her. She uncrossed his legs for him.

  ‘Maduline is a fast-acting, fast-absorbing tranquilliser,’ Bood said. ‘It is burned out and gone in mere minutes. Animal handlers use it when they want to subdue an animal instantly, but not have that animal lying around anesthetised for hours afterwards. The occasions for use of this drug are fairly small, so you’ll only find a couple of stockists in Australia. You might use Maduline if you had a deer tangled in a wire fence, for example. You subdue the animal, free it and it moves on. If you were to use something else, the animal might suffer. Might become prey. It’s also good for health checks for migrating stock.’

  Frank rolled onto his side and clawed his way into a sitting position. There was drool on his lip. He wiped it off and shook his head.

  ‘Christ. Fuck me.’

  ‘You’ll feel absolutely fine in a minute, my friend.’ Bood grinned at Frank, who could return only a tired stare. ‘What you’ve had is almost like an oversized jellyfish sting. You’ll be up and moving before I finish this beer.’

  ‘I think I’d have liked a bit of warning,’ Frank slurred, licked his lips. ‘Shit. Jesus. Jee-sus. That was terrifying.’

  Eden watched her partner righting himself uncertainly, gripping the back of the chair nearest to him, unsure about his new friend and his propensity to unexpectedly hit people with paralysing drugs. He gripped his way around the chair and sat down, rubbing the sides of his skull.

  ‘It was like my whole body dropped from underneath me.’

  ‘My sincerest apologies.’ Bood reached over and patted Frank’s hand a couple of times, the way a man might reassure his elderly father. ‘But given the choice, I thought it more gentlemanly to let you take the hit than
to impose such an experience on our dear Eden here.’

  ‘Those girls,’ Frank said. He covered his eyes. Eden and Bood waited in silence. Frank ran his fingers through his short shaggy hair. ‘The killer wanted to stun them. Wanted them mobile in a few moments so they could … so they could experience it.’

  ‘It sounds like you’re after a very nasty kind of hunter,’ Bood said. He glanced at Eden.

  ‘A real prick,’ Frank laughed gently.

  Eden felt grateful for a moment for Frank’s ever-trusting spirit. Frank was like that. Forgiving. Easily led into the darkness, into pacts he never knew were forming around him until it was too late, until he had bad choices to make and only the least worst to choose. It was why, she knew, Imogen would use him. Because he bore the kind of basic good-heartedness that begged to be used. He would have done well to be raised in the country, Eden thought, where people were like him. Trusting and uncomplicated. But he’d migrated from the Western suburbs to the city and taken with him the tragic ill-fit of an honest heart in an evil world. The two men were talking again, the homicide detective and the killer. Frank explaining the horrifying yet thrilling sensation of being tranquillised like it was a skydiving adventure he’d signed up and paid for. A once-in-a-lifetime plunge. Almost proud that he’d survived it.

  They enjoyed a light lunch, then Bood shepherded them to the car, holding an umbrella for Eden as the rain began to fall. Frank shook the hunter’s hand. Again Bood opened his arm and Eden reluctantly let herself be enveloped, submitted to his hairy kiss on her cheek. She thought Frank had slipped into the passenger seat, but as Bood spoke, she turned and saw the words register on her partner’s face.

  ‘So, shall I expect a visit in another fortnight?’

  Eden patted the big man coldly on the shoulder and got into the car, felt her stomach slowly falling as an uncomfortable silence permeated the vehicle. She backed the car around and began driving, glancing once at Frank’s face as he sat frowning at the dashboard.

  ‘You visited Bood two weeks ago,’ he said.

  ‘I did.’

  Frank nodded gently. She knew what had suddenly darkened him. His fingers pressed against the dart wound in his neck, which was slowly becoming a tiny blue bruise. She could almost see the news headlines of the last few days flickering across her partner’s eyes, hidden midway through papers dominated by the park stalker killings.

  FOUR DEAD IN MYSTERY SLAYING SOUTH OF BYRON.

  POLICE LIKELY HUNTING ‘EXPERT ASSASSIN’.

  ‘We need to talk about this one day,’ Frank said suddenly. ‘About you. About your people, your friends. About all of it, Eden. Sometime we’re going to have to do something about us. About what I know.’

  She opened her mouth to give him one of her usual nasty responses, the short and sharp denials that pushed his dark curiosity back into its corner, back and away from the present as it always did. But she said nothing this time.

  She was beginning to wonder if something might have to be done about Frank.

  Unlike her classmates, Tara did not count the days until the Year Twelve formal. Now and then she noticed signs and markings hanging about the school, like the cave paintings of a colourful and violent tribe, explosions of stars and hearts on the chalkboards sighed at and swiped away when teachers arrived. Twenty-eight days. Twenty-six days. Twenty-one. The day was coming, but the numbers meant nothing to her.

  Every night was the same for Tara. Joanie came for her at sunset. Tara was hunted.

  Tara thought of it very much as a hunting. A long, excruciating pursuit, a surrender, a devouring. She would run, her hips and knees immediately springing into pain, and her mother would shuffle behind her, prodding three fingers into the tender flesh beneath her right shoulder blade like a lion’s claw swiping at a zebra. When the prodding stopped, the yelling began. Joanie was never out of breath. She sometimes ran sideways, like a strange, lanky crab, her joggers scraping on the wet asphalt. Come on. Come on. Come on, Tara. Come on.

  Sometimes it was begging. Sometimes it was snarling. But the come on, come on, never stopped. When Tara stopped, as she always did, and submitted to walking, the come ons rose in pitch. You fucking failure. You selfish failure of a girl. You’re not stopping, Tara. Get moving. Get moving. Come on.

  Rocks in Tara’s chest, sharp and heavy, just beneath the lowest of her ribs. The pathetic sounds that came out of her. People stared as they passed, or refused to look at all. Tara stopped and crawled and vomited in the grass, once pissed herself, dissolved into panicked, breathless tears. Nothing worked. The humiliation of one session bled into the next, until the nights flowed together in one long, sunless sentence in hell. She would crawl into her bed at night and unwrap treats she had snuck home from the school canteen, hold the wrappers beside her ear as she pulled them open, listened to the tweak of the plastic. Sucking like an infant on a chocolate breast, her teeth coated. She would gorge until she felt sick and couldn’t breathe, hyperventilated into half-consciousness, fell asleep, the voice of her mother still pounding in her head like a song she couldn’t dismiss, a chanting between her ears.

  Those photos, Tara. Embarrass me in those photos and I’ll fucking kill you.

  Why didn’t Tara think of her mother? Think of those final-year photographs framed and sitting on the mantelpieces of governors and their wives, sitting in the yearbook in the family library of the Prices and the Bucklands and the Lancasters. Jesus Christ, the Lancasters. They’d put it in the paper. St Ellis High Class of 2003 and their charming killer whale mascot Tara. Save the Whales, Harpoon a Harper! She brought a dress home for Tara, slimming black silk, sparkling, heavy with jewels. It reminded Tara of the bats that squabbled and squeaked above them in the park as they hobbled along. The dress was a twelve. Tara lifted the long skirt, watched it drip from her white fingers like ink sliding through water.

  You’ll fit into this or you’ll go naked. I will drop you there myself, in front of everyone. You stupid thing.

  Tara sat in the chair in the hairdresser on the windy, rainy afternoon of the formal and looked at the thing that she was as the old Greek woman crimped and curled her hair above the black silken smock jutting beneath her double chin, velcro pulled tight at the top of her curved spine. It was the first time her mother had called her a ‘thing’. Before that, for a long time, there had been human tones to the words. Idiot. Bitch. But Tara was more struck with ‘thing’, with what it did to the way she saw her own face. If Tara was a ‘thing’ she was not like the others. Never had been, never had the potential of being. She watched the old hairdresser circling her, brutally stripping foils from pins holding rolls of curls, dumping them in a canister. Knowing that whatever was done, Tara wouldn’t look good. Wouldn’t look human. Like a frustrated painter, dabbing and stabbing at lifeless eyes. Tara would never be alive. She had been born a thing.

  But ‘things’ had purpose. Every thing. She reached out beneath the smock and pulled a brush from the shelf beside her, turned it in her fingers. Things were created to serve. To perform.

  What kind of thing was she? Her natural desire seemed to be to destroy, to consume, to stifle. Was she born a killing thing?

  It was kind of a relief, realising herself as an object. She felt almost free. Free of the guilt of all her little ill-fitting parts, all the missed inferences, all the invitations refused and withheld and all the sideways glances. She felt free of the hatred of the other boys and girls. They were only doing what was natural to them. Recognising the imposter in their midst. The cuckoo in the nest. Tara had never been a girl. She’d never been a student, a friend, a teammate.

  At the hall, she stood in the corner at the back as the teachers gave their speeches and awards were handed out. She listened, her slippered feet just beyond the reach of the gold downlights, as Rachael Jennings gave an acoustic rendition of Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’ and a group of boys that included Peter Anderson howled a joyful ‘Graduation (Friends Forever)’ by Vitamin C. The bo
ys had all come in suit jackets and bow ties over colourful board shorts and thongs, a strange defiant mismatch that caused the teachers some concern as the first drinks began and the first glass was shattered on the floorboards. Awkward dancing, and an interlude for a PowerPoint montage, showing the same five or six popular boys and girls between group shots of the goths and the nerds and the ugly girls, popular girls in primary school, high school, at the cinema, mouths full of partly digested popcorn, boys sneaking arms along backs. Tara did not appear in the montage. She thought she saw herself once in the background of one of the goth shots, sitting at the top of the stairs by the C Block science labs, but it could easily have been anyone else. Shadows fell over her figure. But she didn’t mind the omission. Didn’t know how to mind anymore.

  As she stood by the toilet doors, Mrs Foy came and spoke to her in the colourful light. Tara liked Mrs Foy and the devoted biology teacher liked her. Biology was the only class Tara thrived in, the only time she was allowed to work alone no matter the task – the class was split on day one into five ‘research teams’, each a pair, with one left over, Tara. If a member of a research team was ever absent, Tara was not forced to make up the pair, because their workbooks would not match. Entering the sticky, sterile biology classroom was one of the only times in every day that Tara felt invisible. Safe from those unexpected and devastating words: ‘Alright everyone, form a group.’