Blood Secret

by Jaye Ford

  Rennie heard the soft purr of a car in the driveway and let herself out.

  ‘You ready for this?’ Joanne asked as Rennie buckled herself in.

  ‘No, but let’s do it anyway.’

  Joanne had arrived in Haven Bay while the police floodlights were still blazing over Garrigurrang Point. When she’d heard the locals babbling about the gunshots, she’d put two and two together and gone looking for her sister. It took another hour to track them all down at the hospital.

  ‘I thought you were staying out of it,’ Rennie had said when she finally found her nursing a freshly stitched shin.

  ‘You thought wrong.’

  ‘I told you it wasn’t Anthony.’

  ‘I told you it didn’t matter who the hell it was.’

  ‘I didn’t get that text.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have needed a text.’

  In the days that followed, Jo’s tough, familiar support felt like a brick wall. Rennie had spent so long being envious of what other families had that she’d forgotten what her sister’s presence was like. Now she understood that nice people with nice lives didn’t always make nice families and that the unrelenting, unbending bond she had with Joanne was strong enough for anything she’d ever need.

  They’d talked only briefly about Anthony. Short, curt phrases from daughters who’d wished their father dead. Disbelief, cynicism, resentment. And now, as Joanne drove, Rennie wondered if relief would come when they saw for themselves.

  They stopped for breakfast ten minutes from the hospice. Jo ate like she had something to prove. Rennie drank two cups of strong coffee and worried she wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

  She didn’t know what to expect. She hadn’t seen her father in eleven years, barely knew him before that, remembered little more of his face than the rage-fuelled figure from the night she shot him and his angry, unrepentant expression in court.

  He was in bed with a clean, white sheet tucked neatly across his chest. The arms folded over the top looked like candy canes in red-and-white pyjamas.

  Rennie stood beside Jo just inside the doorway, the dread that’d been gathering pounding loud and clear in her ears. She stared at his face, trying to find something of the brutality that’d existed behind it for so many years. His eyes were closed, his mouth ajar and the lines etched into the pale, slack skin could have been carved by hammer and chisel.

  Joanne broke the silence with a harsh voice. ‘Anthony Hendelsen.’

  His lids fluttered and as his eyes tracked slowly around the room towards them, his lips moving as though warming up for speech, Rennie’s stomach clenched with irrational, involuntary fear. There was no need. His pupils were unfocused, his voice when it eventually made its way from his throat was a gurgling rasp of cough.

  Jo shifted beside her. It was just a transfer of weight from one foot to another but it seemed to mirror what Rennie felt inside. No cascade of emotion. No wrath, no sense of just deserts. No pity, either. Just an internal nod of realisation – that he wasn’t going anywhere. That he was all but dead.

  Maybe it would hit harder later, maybe when he was finally gone she’d shout with rage. For now, though, there were no words she needed to say or hear. Nothing would explain it, nothing could excuse it, nothing would change it. All she needed to know was that it was over.

  ‘Bastard.’ Joanne’s voice was quieter this time, tight with rancour and disgust.

  ‘We’ve got what we came for. Let’s go,’ Rennie said.

  They were halfway back to Haven Bay before either of them could string whole sentences together. Then they talked about futures they’d never planned: choosing somewhere to live, taking out a six-month lease, buying furniture.

  ‘I’m going to get myself an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner,’ Joanne declared as though it’d been a life­long ambition.

  ‘I’m going to buy books,’ Rennie told her.

  They laughed, too, the sound of it like cool, fresh air after stepping from a sauna. In the end, a whole life was too long for Joanne to work with. She said she’d keep working Rennie’s shifts at Skiffs through the New Year . . . and then see.

  Rennie wasn’t ready to make a decision, either. Until the moment she’d stepped from the hospice, every choice she’d ever made had been based on survival. She’d never allowed herself to imagine ‘forever’ in Haven Bay. She’d never decided to stay – she just hadn’t left. Now she was on the first page of a new story and she wasn’t sure what it was about yet.

  As Jo turned off the expressway for the last twenty-minute stretch to Haven Bay, Rennie let the final chapter of her last story filter through her mind with new eyes.

  Naomi went into early labour three days after she discovered her husband was a monster. On the night of the confrontation at the point, she heard about the gunfire and when two uniformed police knocked on her door, she thought James must have somehow been caught in the crossfire. The reality buckled her at the knees and prompted the cops to call a doctor to the house.

  Rennie went to see her two days later. Not to discuss the how and why of it all but because Naomi had been her friend when she’d needed one. She figured a cup of tea and toast was the least she could offer.

  Naomi’s parents and a younger sister were with her, as shocked and exhausted as Naomi. Rennie made tea and toast for all of them then took Naomi to the nursery and helped her assemble the cot that’d been in the back of James’s car just hours before he tried to kill three people. They put sheets on the mattress, hung mobiles and organised nappies, laughing at how small they were and crying for Naomi’s loss.

  She’d had no idea of James’s plans or the money he’d taken or the year-long affair and Rennie wondered if Naomi’s need to find the good in every story had only deceived her – or whether it would protect her when the whole truth came out.

  The contractions started the next day and Naomi rang Rennie to ask if she’d sit with her at the hospital. She didn’t just sit. She held her hand through the sweating and pushing, stunned by the process, honoured to be included. Rennie had no idea what it took to care for a newborn baby, she just knew Naomi’s little girl was coming into a tough new world and she’d need her mother to be strong and capable.

  Pav had nothing to do with Max’s disappearance and chastised himself for asking for the loan, figuring he was the catalyst for the violence. Rennie had felt guilty about suspecting him after the full story was out – now she hoped it was a sign she was learning how to be a friend.

  At Max’s urging, Pav and Trish took steps to come out from the shadow of their own past. Rennie introduced them to Evan Delaney, who introduced them to someone in Immigration. Pav hadn’t done anything wrong in Australia but the Department was interested in his information. So were the Serbian police.

  Evan had turned up like a surrogate parent and, as he’d done before, filled in some of the missing detail. Notification of Anthony’s release had been sent to their solicitor just days before Nathan Bruce-Allen died of a heart attack, leaving his partner in the throes of a major extradition case and his practice in disarray. The letter was presumed to be a duplicate for his files, got listed as non-urgent and five months later was still waiting for attention when Evan started asking questions. Rennie wondered what would have happened if she’d received the details five months earlier. Would she have searched for Max when he went missing or just believed the weight of evidence? Would she have told him about Anthony or kept the secret and hoped Max never had a chance to see her father’s DNA at work?

  Then yesterday, she caught up with Eliza for the first time since the shooting. She’d given Rennie a business card, told her the man who’d rung the cafe while Max was missing had come in. He owned a small art gallery in Newcastle. He wanted to talk to Rennie, said there was no hurry in light of what had happened but to give him a call if she was interested in meeting him. Nothing like the call from her father
she’d imagined.

  ‘I’ll be a couple of hours,’ she told Joanne as she pulled into the driveway.

  ‘Will it take that long?’

  Rennie glanced up at the house, the dark grey of the timber looking cool under the midday sun. ‘There are things that need to be said. It’ll take as long as it takes.’

  It was cool in the hallway after the heat outside. Brenda and Mike’s car was gone and the silence gave her hope that they’d taken Hayden with them. She didn’t want to do this with an audience.

  She went to the bedroom first, pulled the backpack from the wardrobe, carried it through the house and propped it by the wall inside the back door. The smell of gardenias reached her on the light breeze as she watched Max in his veggie patch, holding his injured side as he stretched to reach the tomato stakes.

  His weight loss was obvious even at this distance: five and a half kilos in two days then another as he recovered from surgery. Rennie had worried that James’s deceit and violence would damage him more than the physical injuries, crush the optimism that the mine accident had almost destroyed. But while James was still an open, stinging wound, Max knew he’d come between his son and a gun and that somehow made it okay for him.

  As she stepped onto the deck, he turned and smiled.

  ‘Should you be doing that?’ she asked, nodding at the vegetables.

  ‘Gardening therapy.’

  ‘For you or the veggies?’

  He shrugged, wincing at the movement. ‘Both. The lettuces aren’t looking too good but check this out.’ He pulled two plump Lebanese cucumbers from the back pocket of his shorts and grinned. ‘We’re eating from the garden tonight!’

  She laughed a little. Last week she thought he wouldn’t stay for cucumbers, but maybe he would.

  ‘You just missed Phil Duncan,’ he told her, taking the steps up to the deck cautiously. He had broken ribs on one side, with a shoe-shaped bruise where James had stomped him, and stitches front and back on the other where the bullet had passed right through him.

  ‘What did he have to say for himself?’

  ‘Some of the forensics are back. They confirmed the blood in the back cab of James’s ute. Mine.’

  She nodded. James had attempted to clean it in the days Max was missing, picking up the cot and storing it there to keep the stain out of sight. Rennie figured the thud on the back gate was him too, trying to get at the computer and destroy Max’s files when she went out to pick up Hayden. Not that James was talking about any of it. He’d been charged with attempted murder, fraud and a bunch of other crimes but he wasn’t admitting to anything. Rennie wondered how his patronising, arrogant smirk was going down with the cops.

  ‘And he said you won’t be charged,’ Max told her as she helped to lower him to a sun lounge. ‘Phil still thinks the gun was yours but he can’t prove you ever had it.’

  ‘I wonder how hard he tried.’ After being so cate­gorically wrong about Max, the detective didn’t seem too interested in her previous crimes now.

  ‘Maybe you don’t need that solicitor in Sydney after all.’ He patted the cushion, an invitation to snuggle in beside him.

  She faced him instead, perching on the edge of the sun lounge. ‘We didn’t see a solicitor, Max. We saw my father.’

  After all the secrets, Rennie had wanted to tell him everything but he’d been drugged and hooked up to fluids, trying to remember and forget. And there’d been a stream of visitors and worried parents and Naomi’s baby being born on the floor above. Now they were here and she needed to put her secrets to rest.

  ‘Phil Duncan asked me about your dad,’ Max said. ‘He said he was in hospital. How is he?’

  ‘He’s dying. He didn’t recognise us.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No. Don’t be.’

  She told him the story of her life then, starting from the brutal beating that prompted her mother’s flight and finishing the day she arrived in Haven Bay with a gun in her backpack. It took a long time and when it was done, they sat in the hush of the summer afternoon without speaking.

  ‘I didn’t want to be that person anymore when I came here,’ she finally said. ‘I thought I could remake myself, paint over the ugliness with brighter colours. I thought I had but Katrina Hendelsen is still in here.’ She held a hand to her chest. ‘And you need to know that.’

  ‘You’re Renée Carter, too,’ Max said.

  ‘I’m more like a hybrid now. An artist with violent tendencies.’

  ‘Van Gogh cut off an ear.’

  ‘It was his own ear.’

  He smiled. She smiled back.

  ‘I know who you are, Rennie. You found me and dragged me out of a tunnel and stopped James from . . .’ He glanced away.

  ‘I wanted to kill him, Max.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘I almost did. I thought hard about pulling that trigger.’

  ‘You protected my son and kept him safe.’

  She nodded. She felt good about that. Maybe a little like Max and the bullet in his gut. ‘You asked me to marry you last weekend. Is that what you want?’

  He hesitated, maybe wondering what she wanted to hear. Whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would be the deal-breaker. ‘I thought I was going to lose everything. I thought James was going to leave a bloody mess. I thought it would make you go and I wanted you to stay.’

  It wasn’t the answer to her question but she understood. When he’d seen it was all about to go to hell, he didn’t

  want to be there without her. She understood what that meant now. ‘Is that what you need, to be married?’

  He reached for her hand. ‘I’ve got everything I need right here.’

  She wanted to smile but there was more before she could get to that. ‘I’ve never put down roots, Max. I told you from the start I wouldn’t stay. Until today, I thought I had no choice. Until the last two hours, I haven’t let myself think about it.’

  ‘Rennie . . .’

  ‘Please, let me finish.’ She took a breath. ‘All I thought I’d find here was a place to sketch. I didn’t expect to find you. I didn’t know what it was like to be happy. I won’t marry you, Max. I don’t want a signature on a piece of paper to be a reason to stay. But I want to stay. I want to be here with you for as long as you’ll have me.’

  His fingers tightened around hers as something sweet and moist filled his eyes. ‘Just to let you know, babe, that’ll be for a long time.’

  She smiled then, cupped her hands around his bruised face and pressed her lips to his dry, cracked ones. Let them linger there for a while, telling herself this was what it felt like to belong.

  He winced as they parted, his fingers clutching at a twinge in his ribs.

  ‘You should rest,’ she said.

  ‘I was hoping we could seal the deal with more than just a kiss.’

  ‘Not in your condition, buddy,’ she grinned as she stood and started for the door. ‘But don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Jo’s at the cafe on her own this afternoon. I told her I’d help close up.’

  ‘What’s with the backpack?’

  She glanced at the worn black strap she’d picked up, looked back at him from the house. ‘I’m throwing it out.’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean you’ve had it a long time. It’s taken you a lots of places.’

  ‘No point keeping it. I can’t fit my life in it anymore.’

  Acknowledgements

  There are people without whom this book couldn’t have been completed. Many thanks to:

  Random House for giving me the opportunity to write what I want. Especially Bev Cousins, for her enthusiasm and her input – even if some of it nearly sent me insane! To Virginia Grant and Elena Gomez, for not letting me take short cuts, and to the rest of the team at Rand
om House that made this project come together.

  My agent, Clare Forster, and Kate Cooper in London, for making sure I get to keep writing.

  Cath Every-Burns, who walked me around Wangi Wangi and even braved the spider-webs at the gun emplacements to show me the creepy places underneath.

  Grant Every-Burns, for his engineering and under­ground advice.

  For research: Sam Findley, once again, for his police exper­tise, Lachlan Jarvis, Dean Grant and Dr Shaunagh Foy.

  Chris, Isolde, Elizabeth, Kandy, Carla, Carol, Simone and Melinda – couldn’t do it without you!

  Wendy James, for being a terrific fellow crime writer to chew over ideas with.

  Dayle White, for sharing her story and being happy to be inspiration.

  Nikki, for her die-hard support – and for wanting to be Rennie!

  Mum and Les, Joan and Brian – my cheer squad.

  And to my family – Paul, Mark and Claire. You keep me sane, make me laugh and understand what it takes. You are my safe haven – even on the other side of the world.

  For those of you who have read this far, the World War II gun emplacements exist, although I’ve renamed the point where they sit, added to their number and moved their position to suit the story. There are bunkers underneath (and lots of spider-webs) but as far as I know, that’s all.

  Blood Secret is Jaye Ford’s third novel. Her first, Beyond Fear, won Best Debut and Reader’s Choice at the 2012 Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards and her second, Scared Yet?, was also published to critical acclaim. Jaye is a former news and sport journalist, with the unusual claim to fame of being the first female presenter of a live national sport show in Australia, hosting Sport Report on SBS in 1988–89. She also worked in public relations before turning to crime fiction. She lives at Lake Macquarie in the NSW Hunter Valley.

  www.jayefordauthor.com