Blood Secret

by Jaye Ford

  ‘I don’t know. You left on your own around ten o’clock. Someone said you went to check the car in the car park. No one saw you again. Is that where you went?’

  Was it? He focused on the torch beam illuminating the arched ceiling of the tunnel, the rough-cut rock, the hardened track down the centre of the floor, the nothingness beyond it. He remembered standing on the footpath and typing a text to Rennie, getting another one before he’d finished. And the glow of street lamps on the black tar of the car park, his shoes as he stepped in and out of the light. Vehicles were scattered about the wide-open space. A bunch near the dark centre, a few more spread out over by the pub, lights from its neon signs mirrored in their duco, music rocking behind its doors. ‘I didn’t go to check the car. I got a text message.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘I don’t . . .’ We need to talk. ‘I went to meet someone.’

  ‘In the car park?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Who?’

  He slowed as a damp trail on the wall passed under his palm. The place he’d grazed his tongue on the rock. ‘It was . . . Over by the pub.’

  ‘Who did you talk to?’

  They were boxed in by cars, a bunch of them parked side by side and nose to nose. Who the fuck do you think you are? The voice slipped into his memory as though it’d fallen through a crack. Deep and agitated. ‘It was all turning to shit. He wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t let me explain. I told him . . . I said . . .’ What?

  ‘It was a man you talked to?’

  ‘Yeah. It was a man.’

  She didn’t ask anything more. Maybe she knew something he didn’t. Maybe it had turned to shit since he’d been down here. He wasn’t unhappy to stop thinking about it. His head hurt and his neck throbbed and he thought he might puke the juice back up if he didn’t concentrate on keeping it down.

  When she stopped again, there was an edge to her voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘You should drink some more.’ She held out the juice.

  ‘Water this time.’ He watched as she opened the backpack again, saw packets of food and a first-aid kit as she shuffled things around. ‘How did you know I was in here?’

  ‘I didn’t. Hayden told me about the tunnels.’

  ‘Hayden’s here?’

  ‘He’s waiting up top for us.’

  Hayden and Rennie together? Why was Hayden even in Haven Bay? ‘How long have I been down here?’

  ‘I don’t know when you got here but you’ve been gone two days.’

  Christ, it felt like longer. Like a lifetime. ‘Why didn’t you bring someone to help?’

  She didn’t answer right away, just took the water bottle from him, wiped the top and poured some into her own mouth. ‘I don’t know who we can trust, Max. We should get moving again. Hayden’s on his own up there.’

  The way she said it made fear spark inside him – for his son, for his friends, for what might have happened while he was in his hole. ‘Tell me, what’s going on, Rennie?’

  She wrapped a supporting arm around him and hauled him on as she talked. ‘I’m not sure. Bits and pieces don’t add up. This afternoon, Hayden told me James was up here yesterday. In his car. He drove it up the walking trail. He said he was looking for Hayden but Hayden reckoned he was already here.’

  Max stumbled on for a few seconds in silence. Why was James looking for Hayden? And if he was up here, why didn’t he check the tunnels? ‘So . . . you thought James didn’t search the point properly?’

  ‘I’m not sure what James has been doing. He told the police you’d taken money. The cops asked all the wrong questions – about you, about me, about my family – and decided you’d left of your own accord.’

  She watched him as they hobbled along, as though she was waiting for a reaction. He didn’t have one, he couldn’t put it all together.

  ‘Hayden broke the password on your computer,’ she finally said. ‘The one at home. We found the WTF files.’

  WTF. He remembered that. By the time he started the file, the scrawled notes and bank statements were piling up and he was mad as hell. It should’ve been WTFJ. What the fuck, James? He decided not to confront his cousin until he’d collated all the figures and he could argue them inside out. He wasn’t going to give James a chance to mount another patronising, you-don’t-understand-the-accounting argument. Maybe the mafia-style shit Pav was dealing with had infected him but when he discovered James in his office one morning, Max got a little paranoid that he’d try to cover it up before he could confront him. He stored it all on a USB, deleted the documents on his office computer and put a password on everything.

  ‘It’s the money missing from the business, isn’t it?’ Rennie asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know where the money is?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  She stopped, swore quietly as she pressed him into an elbow in the tunnel. ‘I think someone who knows where it is put you down here and hoped you’d die and it would all go away.’

  His pulse thumped in his ears, pounded on the back of his skull. Pav said desperate people did desperate things. You’re going to ruin everything, you arsehole. The voice again. Close range, spat in his face through gritted teeth. The lights over the car park, the music from the pub, the salty tang of the lake in the night air.

  ‘Is that what happened, Max?’ Her eyes were huge and burning with something he didn’t understand. ‘Who was in the car park with you?’

  He pushed thumbs into his eyes, tried to see it again. ‘The text said we had to talk. I met him in the car park. I said, Right, I’m here. So talk. He . . . he shoved a finger in my chest. He wouldn’t listen. I told him . . . fuck, I don’t know what I told him.’

  She pressed her lips together, aimed the torch up ahead. A rectangle of lighter gloom appeared like a ghost. The exit. He wanted to run to it like he had that day with James, push through the bunker, throw himself into the light and breathe clean air. All he managed was a grunt of extra effort.

  ‘There’s something you need to know before we head down there.’ Rennie spoke fast, didn’t look at him. ‘Someone broke into the house and took my gun.’

  He had a hundred questions but only one that mattered right now. ‘Where’s Hayden?’

  She wedged a shoulder under his armpit. ‘He’s hiding in the bush. He’ll be okay if he stays there.’

  Christ, a gun. The bush wasn’t bulletproof. As though she sensed his urgency, she lifted their pace, adjusting the throw of the torch so it didn’t shine directly into the bunker, her words staccatoed as she hustled him onwards. ‘Listen, Max. I’m going up top first to scout around, make sure we’re still alone. I’ve only got one torch so I’ll have to leave you in the dark again.’

  ‘No. Just get me up there and call the police.’

  ‘The cops will take too long. We need to get off the point.’

  ‘Don’t leave me here.’

  ‘You can barely walk. If someone’s up there, I can’t get you anywhere in a hurry.’

  ‘But . . .’ He held onto her, thinking, not thinking, trying not to scare away the memory that was pushing at the edges of his mind.

  A group of cars, a figure standing in their shadow, hunched and taut. Max had folded his arms over his chest. So talk.

  Who the fuck do you think you are? A finger in his chest.

  A push back. I’m trying to do the right thing.

  Rennie stopped him a few metres from the doorway, pressed him close to the wall. ‘Who was in the car park with you, Max?’

  I’ll give you half.

  ‘He shoved me against the car.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘He had something in his hand.’

  ‘Max.’ She shook his arms. ‘Was it James or Pav?’

  It wasn’t a guess, not like she had a list of his mates and was going to wo
rk her way down from the top until a name clicked. It was a choice: James or Pav. One or the other. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘James came late to the party. Pav could’ve left and come back. Both had time to break into the house today.’

  ‘No, Rennie . . .’

  ‘Trust me, Max. The most dangerous people are the ones who say they love you.’ She pulled a mallet from her bag. ‘Wait here.’

  She didn’t give him a chance to protest, just ran the final reaches of the tunnel, the tool firm in her hand. He wanted to follow, to beg her to take him, to be careful. Could only lurch a few steps forwards as she stood with a shoulder to the opening and flicked the torch beam around the small chamber on the other side. She then moved quickly to the opposite wall and disappeared from sight.

  44

  His eyes clung to her torchlight until the darkness returned, sudden and complete. After the frantic, breathless urgency since she’d found him, the silent, solid black felt like a shroud. He gritted his teeth, forced the air to move slowly through his nostrils. And the crack in his memory opened like a crevasse.

  Walking through the car park, the music from the pub, surrounded by cars. The cussing, the finger jammed in his chest, a scuffle, the shock as Max hit the chassis.

  ‘It’s my turn.’

  ‘You don’t get turns. You work hard and do the right thing and be grateful for every day you’re not dead in a hole.’

  ‘I told you I’d give you half.’

  ‘It’s not yours to give. And I don’t want half. I want you to fix it.’ The door thrown open. ‘So get in the damn car and make it happen before I do it for you.’

  Hand fisted around a fat set of keys. ‘You arsehole. You got Gran’s house. You owe me.’

  Max saw the last of it in slow motion. The arm coming from out wide, the brief surprise, the thunder in his head, the crunch of his nose as it tore sideways, the edge of the doorframe in his vision.

  He jerked as though it’d hit him again. ‘Rennie. Wait!’

  *

  Rennie saw James half a second before the gun. It wasn’t aimed at her, it was swinging through the air towards her.

  ‘You bastard!’ she yelled as she dived. She wasn’t fast enough and hard metal clipped her low on the skull with a loud crack. Not as bad as the blow he’d intended but it still made stars explode behind her eyes as she hit the earth, her brain swinging like a pendulum.

  She rolled, hoping it was away from him, and as she rose warily to a crouch, she saw the torch on the ground out of reach and the mallet in the triangle of light that stretched away to the bush beyond. She thought briefly of Hayden, kept her eyes moving upwards for James.

  He was a couple of metres away, hands at his sides, the pistol held loosely in one. A black Glock. Hers. He wasn’t following through and coming at her with more. He seemed startled that she hadn’t dropped at his feet with the first blow.

  ‘You fucking bastard,’ she spat at him.

  He licked his lips and shuffled his feet. ‘Jesus, Renée. Sorry. You scared the shit out of me.’ He said it with an apologetic grin, as though he’d bopped her on the head without realising who it was.

  She didn’t answer, just watched him as she got to her feet, looking for warning signs in his body language.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ He sounded puzzled and concerned, like he had since Max disappeared and, for fraction of a second, the doubt that had descended listening to Max’s fractured memory made her wonder again if she had it wrong – but her gun was in his hand. More than enough reason to hold back the torrent of abuse and accusation that was on her tongue.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she growled back at him.

  ‘Hayden said you were at the point. I thought you might’ve found something.’

  Had Hayden spoken to him after he’d left her? ‘Is that why you brought the gun?’

  He lifted it, loose in his hand. ‘It seemed wise, after all your talk about your father. You never know who might be around.’

  She watched the way he handled it: the grip nestled into his palm, the fingers tentative, as though he’d hefted it before but was nervous about the trigger. More than likely he’d never held a gun before this afternoon but YouTube could teach you to cook and kill. There were plenty of demonstrations on loading and firing. In ten minutes, he’d know the Glock had no safety, that all it needed was a strong, steady finger.

  She glanced quickly around. Running was her first instinct and, if she was fast, chances were the recoil and panic would make him miss but she had no idea where Hayden was and didn’t want him hit by strays. And Max was in the bunker, just a few metres below James.

  ‘Who were you expecting?’ she asked, wondering if Pav was on his way.

  ‘Not Max, that’s for sure. He’s long gone, Renée. He’s taken the money and left with another woman.’ He cocked his head, pity in his smile. ‘Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t tell you before. I thought it was too much for you to take in but it’s true. Max’s been having an affair for months, screwing around behind your back. Now he and his fuck buddy have screwed us both.’

  Fuck buddy? Did he think a cruder picture would make her more inclined to believe it? She was tempted to shout that she’d found Max, that she’d seen the file and knew it was all bullshit. But she wasn’t sure what she knew.

  Max said there’d been an argument, it had turned to shit, there was no way to fix it. Was it Max or James trying to fix it? Was it even James who was in the car park? Did it matter now? He was here with her gun, trying to convince her Max was gone. That in itself said plenty. And however Max got here, whether James dragged him into the tunnel, put on the lock or just left him in there to die, Max didn’t deserve it – whatever he’d done.

  ‘Then why did you come?’ she asked him.

  ‘It’s not safe at the point in the dark, Renée. With Max out of the picture, someone needs to look out for you now.’

  She was torn between laughing at him and smashing a fist into his face, then she saw it from James’s perspective. He must have watched her climb from the bunker on her own. He didn’t know she’d found Max, didn’t know she’d got past the padlock. Maybe he thought Max was dead and rotting, instead of living, breathing proof. He’d brought the gun in case he needed to shut her up, probably had the key to the gate in his pocket so he could lock her in the tunnel with Max. But maybe he figured he didn’t have to. He wasn’t her father – murder wasn’t his sport. Perhaps it was only a last resort.

  She decided to follow his lead. ‘If you want to look out for me, you can put the damn gun away and help me search up here.’ She pointed towards the path and the emplacement on the other side of it. ‘You take the one over there and I’ll try that one.’ She swung her arm, aiming at Number Five, the bunker closest to the road.

  ‘Sure.’ He didn’t move.

  Almost behind him, at the edge of the torch’s triangle of light, there was a movement. If it was Pav, she didn’t want to let on she’d seen him. Making a show of looking around the clearing, she skimmed her eyes across the beam on the ground and a pulse of fear shot through her. It was Hayden. Out of the bush – still, silent and watching them.

  She’d told him to hide, she’d told him to trust no one. But she was the bitch who slept with his father, James was the uncle he loved and Hayden didn’t know about the blood already spilt.

  ‘I’ve already looked here,’ she prompted James. ‘We need to check the others.’ And get him the hell away from Max.

  He still didn’t move. ‘What exactly are we looking for, Renée? I searched up here yesterday. All the gates are locked. Max isn’t here.’

  Hayden’s shadow shifted in the light and from the corner of her eye she saw his head lift. Did he think she’d got it wrong? That she was on her own because she hadn’t found Max? She needed to remind him of the facts.

  ‘You searc
hed a lot of places, didn’t you? You didn’t find him at the house, either. You got the USB thumb drive, though. And my pistol.’

  A brief, lopsided sneer passed over James’s mouth, as though now that she’d mentioned the gun, he may as well give up the concerned-cousin act. ‘The gun was a bonus, I’ll admit. Certainly gave me a new perspective on you.’ He took a second to glance at the weapon in his hand, huffing a short, nasty laugh. Rennie wanted to let him know his perspective was a complete screw-up but hesitated as the shape in the torchlight moved.

  ‘And all this time, I thought you were some worn-out, hard-luck case Max felt sorry for.’ As James continued, Hayden slipped quietly back into the bushes. ‘You got that silent, wary thing down pat. I figured you were a fragile rape victim or beaten down by some abusive husband. Figured you must’ve been a good fuck for Max to keep you around for so long. Then today I find out you’re a criminal. Phil Duncan said you shot your own father. Now that was a surprise. Is it any wonder I took your gun? Didn’t want you getting pissed off and pointing it at me.’

  Rennie let the insults ride – she didn’t give a shit what James thought of her. She was more interested in where this new version of him had come from. His standard poker-faced arrogance was still in place but there was something edgy and spiteful in it. She didn’t think it was a performance, not like the feigned innocence – and it seemed closer to real emotion than anything she’d ever seen from him. Had it always been there, hidden behind his mask of impassiveness, emerging in the stress of the moment? Or had he found it when he left his cousin to die?

  And was that deed his worst or just the lid coming off?

  Whatever the answer, she wasn’t taking any chances. She wanted to get Max out of the bunker, out of the bush and to medical help – and James sure as hell wasn’t going to step aside and let her do it. ‘Yeah, well, you don’t need to point a gun at me. I just want to look for Max. Are you helping or not?’

  ‘Sure. You go over there, I’ll check here.’

  ‘I told you, I’ve been down there.’

  ‘I’ll check again. Have you got a problem with that?’