Vodka doesn't freeze jj-1

by Leah Giarratano

  Jill gave up trying to keep her eyes half-open and let the waning sunlight soak into her skin. She buried her hand in the silky fur of the cat pressed against her side. Fisher, her mum's blue-point Siamese, stretched full-length, upside down, drunk on the sun and Jill's attention. His purring chest moved against her own.

  As usual when she was at home, she could feel herself healing. Here, in the scented afternoon light, she was suspended above her life, safe from the sharks snapping below. Jill opened her eyes half an hour later to the clink of ice near her ear.

  'Mango juice,' her mum said quietly. 'Sorry to wake you, darling. Dinner's almost ready.'

  Jill stretched, and then winced; she'd caught herself before any real pain bit through her side. She opened and closed her mouth, rubbing her hand over her face. Her skin felt tight from the sun. I should've applied more sunblock, she thought. Cassie was just emerging from the pool in front of her, looking just as glamorous and skinny as she did in the magazines.

  I can't talk, thought Jill, looking down at her own concave stomach. Gotta eat more while I'm here. She felt surprise that she had an appetite as she made her way up the stairs to the deck that surrounded the back of her parents' sprawling house. The cicadas were even louder now, if possible, and the smells of newly mown grass and orange-blossom filled the early evening air.

  Lily wouldn't eat until Aunty Jill was sitting next to her, so Jill took her seat overlooking the pool and the ten acres of her parents' backyard. As the sun set over the horse paddocks, she wolfed down king prawns and lemon-crusted barbecued lamb cutlets, potato salad and roasted beetroot salad. She was certain that she wouldn't be able to fit in any of the tropical fruit salad and ice-cream, but over coffee she even managed a piece of Robyn's famous frozen Mars Bar slice.

  She pushed her seat back from the table. Used to her silence, her family carried on their conversation around her, and she allowed their familiar noise to wash over her as she breathed in the hot, scented air. Funny that she forgot stars even existed when she was in the city – there were too many streetlights to notice them. Here, a billion tiny bubbles of brightness burst and reformed in the endless black sky above her parents' property.

  Robyn lightly tapped her daughter's hand for the tenth time as Lily reached to touch one of the flickering candles that softly illuminated the table. Jill had watched the scenario, smiling each time Lily's face registered surprise when her mother or another family member tapped her hand. She was hypnotised by the dancing tea lights in the glass jars, the tiny flames reflected in her huge blue eyes. Rather than remove the candles and use artificial lighting, the family almost unconsciously attended to Lily's wandering fingertips, and she was beginning to learn to avoid the danger.

  Tonight, the characteristic defensiveness of her brother's conversations did not disturb Jill. The elder by four years, he'd been sixteen when she was kidnapped, and she figured he'd taken on the same guilt as her father for being unable to protect her. She remembered her brother as open and boisterous; his teasing fun-loving and fond prior to her disappearance. Now it seemed he spoke to her as little as possible, with her own inability to initiate conversation compounding the problem. She had never discussed her ordeal with her father or brother, and the incident lay like an impassable swamp between them, the horror of the experience silently revived every time they met. Each of these men was overly sensitive to perceived criticism, quick to make cynical remarks about others' inadequacies, and could often grind family conversations into uncomfortable silences with their disparaging sarcasm or critical wit.

  Tonight, perhaps the laden table, the soporific night air or the several empty bottles had soothed the men in her family. No-one had even told Cassie she'd had too much to drink. Jill watched her brother's hand on the back of his wife's chair, absently curling tendrils of her hair around his fingers. Together they watched their son swapping unopened Christmas crackers with his grandparents, trying to cheat to ensure he won each time.

  She looked up and caught her mother smiling at her. She smiled back sleepily; her face taut from sun and chlorine, her eyes grainy, like she'd been crying for hours. Fisher snaked around her ankles, angling for scraps.

  Scotty's right, she thought. I'll stay another day. Birds, rather than a nightmare, woke her. Nice change, she thought. She padded downstairs to the kitchen.

  At 5.30, she thought there'd be no-one about yet, but through the kitchen windows she could see her mother standing barefoot on the deck outside, sipping a coffee. Jill poured some water from a jug in the fridge and joined her. Fisher was up on the table, sniffing the morning.

  'Sleep okay, sweetheart?'

  'Mmm, great. What'd you put in my food?'

  'You just needed the sleep.' Her mum put an arm around her. 'So what have you planned for the day?'

  'Thought I might hang around here actually. I'm still too sore to go back to work. What about you?'

  'I've promised to help your Aunt Ro with food for Alyssa's engagement party. I'm going to do some cooking here.'

  Alyssa was Jill's nineteen-year-old cousin; Aunt Rosalie her mother's sister. Jill's mother's side of the family was Italian – the wedding was to be a Big Thing.

  'I know you don't usually come to these gatherings, Jill,' her mother began cautiously, 'but since you're down here, maybe you could stay for the engagement party tomorrow night. It's not going to be too big.'

  'Yeah, right,' Jill laughed and gave her mother a careful hug. 'There'll be doves and smoke machines and shit, won't there?'

  'I don't know, Jill, but you might enjoy a family get-together now. It's been a long time.'

  After the kidnapping, large family parties had caused Jill to suffer panic attacks. Crowds of people who knew what had happened to her and stared at her with sympathy or curiosity was her idea of a nightmare. Still, it had been a few years since she'd seen her cousins. And what other plans did she have for this weekend?

  'Well, we'll see, Ma, but in the meantime I wouldn't mind helping with the cooking.'

  A big smile on her face, Frances Jackson began bustling around the deck, picking up the remnants of last night's gathering – mostly Avery's and Lily's toys.

  'Great! Shall we have some breakfast now?' she said. 'Then I've got to go out to the fruit market. They're open at seven.'

  Jill and her mum went back into the kitchen and plundered the fridge, bringing back to the deck bits and pieces of whatever they felt like. The morning was already hot, and Jill decided she'd make iced coffee for everyone. She poured a few shots of espresso, thick with sugar syrup, into a tall glass jug, splashed in a litre of cold milk, and added chunks of crushed ice and a slurp of vanilla extract at the end. When she carried it and some glasses out to the deck, she found her mother had arranged a platter of prosciutto and melon, ricotta and strawberries, and half a wheel of brie, already beginning to ooze as the sun rose behind the house. The toaster was set up in the middle of the circular jarrah table and thick slabs of homemade bread waited in a basket under a tea towel. Her parents had stocked up big time on food, knowing the family was coming down for the weekend.

  Jill made some toast and slathered it with honey and ricotta. She poured the iced coffee, tucked her legs under her, and started munching.

  'Jill, I know you said you didn't want to talk about it,' her mum began cautiously, 'but I'm worried about you.'

  Jill brushed crumbs off her singlet.

  'You've lost some weight, hon,' her mother tried again, 'and that usually happens when you're not coping.'

  Jill sighed. Opening up about her feelings felt like trying to pry open an oyster shell barehanded, but she'd learned over the years that she usually felt better after she'd spoken to someone.

  'It's a case, Mum,' Jill said, putting the toast down onto her plate and picking up her glass of iced coffee. She became aware of her body posture – she had squashed her knees up against her chest and she held the glass like a shield between herself and her mother. She forced herself to uncoil a little. 'It
's brought the memories up a bit.'

  Her mother took a sip of her drink, waited.

  'The case itself is pretty rough,' Jill continued, 'but I don't know… it feels like more than that. I feel like something bad's going to happen.'

  'Like getting your ribs broken,' said her mother dryly.

  'My ribs are okay, Mum. Just a training accident. I told you.' Jill lied again. She stretched her neck from side to side, and looked at the marmalade sky ahead of her. The birds were a concert-hall choir. 'It's just that there are kids involved in the case. You know those jobs are harder for me, but they're also why I joined up.'

  'I'm very proud of what you do, Jill, but it's hard on you getting these reminders all the time.'

  'I keep getting the nightmare of the girl with the white eyes. It's like she's calling me, or warning me, or something.'

  'Have you thought about having a bit more counselling? Who was that woman you saw through work a couple of years ago? You said that really helped.'

  Jill gave a wry smile; her mother was suggesting that Mercy Merris help her deal with this case. Jill felt Mercy's help with the case would not be through providing counselling for her.

  'You wouldn't believe it, Mum. I've seen that doctor recently, and she looks like she could use more help than me.'

  'Oh dear. That's another difficult job,' her mother sighed. 'Good morning, darling,' she called, as little Lily came through the kitchen doorway, rubbing her eyes. 'Looks like the troops are going to start arriving,' she said to Jill. 'We can talk more while we're cooking. I'm so glad you're staying.'

  30

  Wayne Crabbeleft the club about 1 a.m. and let himself into his half of the townhouse in Leichhardt. He couldn't wait to spend some time with the files he'd just traded. The boy in the last one looked about six. He slid his hand up the wall to flick on the light switch.

  'Fuck.' A frenetic blur in the doorway near him. A punch slammed into his gut. He felt slow, strangely disconnected from everything.

  Wayne's hand missed the light switch again as he slipped on something wet on the floor. What the fuck was going on here? Suddenly he was looking up. Someone's shoe filled the right of his peripheral vision. He felt, rather than saw, a person standing over him, everything blurry.

  'Let me get up. I'll get money for you,' he said.

  Wayne Crabbe screamed for the first time since he was ten when a boot kicked in most of his front teeth. Punches rained down into his body and he curled, like a slug doused in lemon juice.

  Fuck, he thought, trying to stand, slipping again in the wet stuff.

  'Stop,' he managed around broken teeth, and heard his attacker laughing, or maybe crying.

  The blows continued onto his back, neck. He felt the weight behind them, but little pain. He raised a hand limply to try to defend himself, and felt a knife slice through the web of his thumb. When blood rushed up from his stomach and filled his lungs, mouth and nose, it occurred to him that he was being stabbed, not punched.

  This wasn't how tonight was supposed to go, he thought, as he drowned in his own blood in the front hall.

  31

  On the train back to the city, Jill felt a growing sense of gloom with every station that flashed by. The weekend had been great, but already the peaceful feeling of the past two days was calcifying in her chest. She'd never felt so conflicted about a case before. Each time she applied her mind to discovering the identity of the killer, she felt guilty. Such an outcome could mean more child molesters left alive. Of course, she had no way of knowing that the murderer would kill again. Maybe all the scores had been settled.

  Her eyes roamed the carriage. A huddle of high school kids, speaking in a language all their own, laughed intimately, secure in the belief that they knew more about the real world than the boring adults around them. The girls saw her staring and bent their heads together, whispering. Their giggles split the air. Jill turned her face to the window and thought about what Honey and Mia would have been like at their age. Maybe there'd have been no discernible difference – even kids living in hell could seem confident and happy when with their friends.

  She hadn't talked to Honey since the club, and she realised that she kind of missed her. When had that happened? Mixed in with mistrust and wariness was respect for the girl who'd brought herself up through more adversity than most. Jill had also been experiencing a strange perceptual illusion with many people lately, and this had happened with Honey – she found that when she stared into some faces she could see through their adult features as though seeing the face of the child they had once been. It immediately endeared them to her, and it was hard to stay angry with someone after she'd imagined them this way.

  What's happening to me? she wondered. Am I getting clucky? She'd been told about the maternal urge that could belt a woman over the head at about her age, and she'd been on the lookout for it for a couple of years. She'd once had a hard-arsed trainer at the police academy who'd been happily married for three years – until she turned thirty-four, and suddenly needed to be pregnant. The trainer had told her husband she wanted to have a baby, and had learned that he'd been growing increasingly disinclined to have children at all. Within twelve months, the woman had divorced and remarried, the intervening year spent like a heat-seeking missile, searching for a mate with whom she could procreate. Jill still saw the woman from time to time when she attended a training course. She had three children now, and was working part-time, fitting her job in around canteen duty.

  Jill knew that it was the children involved in this case who kept her compelled to solve it. It was more like two cases really – the dead men could open a door that led to other men like them. She imagined that door opening and spiders teeming out, a roiling black mass of scrabbling predators. She shuddered, the feeling of gloom settling closer around her shoulders, wrapping her head in a blank fog. She consciously slowed her breathing, and deliberately changed her thought patterns, considering her next moves.

  There was a lot more she could learn from Honey. It was time to get back in touch. Jill flipped open the cover of her mobile phone and reached into her bag for her palm pilot, containing the names and addresses of all of her contacts.

  She felt him before she saw him, and didn't look up. Eight o'clock, or to her left and slightly behind her – she was being watched. The watcher was getting ready to move, and Jill felt a cold thread of adrenalin dart through her veins. She was on her feet before he'd moved. She sized him up. Twenty or so. Thin. Her eyes locked with his and she saw his face register surprise at her movement, and his conviction crumble. He looked down, and she knew he wasn't going to be a problem. She kept her eyes on him a few beats longer to make sure, but he knew she was not the easy road to a mobile phone. He kept his eyes on his shoes; probably made her for a cop. As she stared, his features morphed into those of a five-year-old, and she shook her head. Whatwas that?

  Although she no longer thought he was a threat, Jill got up and moved anyway. She made her way towards the guard's carriage. They were drawing close to Strathfield now and they'd soon be at Central. She thought about telling the guard about the guy back there, but what could she say? He hadn't done anything. Yet. She was sure someone else would be rolled for their phone before long.

  Instead, she stood at the door intending to make a couple of calls. The first to Scotty. She smiled and moved into a corner as his voice boomed out of the speaker.

  'J!' he yelled enthusiastically. 'Coming back?'

  'Yeah. Hi, Scotty. You at work yet?'

  'On my way.'

  'Could you pick me up from Central in about ten, fifteen?'

  'On my way. Meet you at the House,' he said, using cop speak for the police station. 'Had breakfast?'

  'No,' she smiled. It was always about food with Scotty. 'I'll shout you to thank you for picking me up. See you then.'

  Jill disconnected and then accessed Honey's number on her palm pilot, but reconsidered calling right now. It's nine o'clock on a Monday morning, she reminded
herself. Honey would be asleep and not happy, although it'd serve her right for some of the games she'd played with Jill. Anyway, the train was at Redfern and would be pulling into Central any moment. She worked her way through a smoothie for breakfast while

  Scotty downed two bacon and egg rolls and a chocolate milk.

  'How's your mum?' he wanted to know.

  'Great. It was good to get away. She says hi.'

  'What about your ribs?'

  'Fine. I'm all right. How was your weekend?'

  They made small talk back to Maroubra, and as they pulled into the station, Jill told Scotty about her plan to contact Honey later that morning to set up another meeting.

  'We going after Sebastian?' he asked.

  'Soon.'

  They entered the squad room and Emma Gibson caught them at the door. She slinked around a desk and moved to stand under Scotty's chin.

  'Andreessen's looking for you.' She blinked up at him. 'You're always late.'

  'Thanks Emma,' he said, turning towards the inspector's office.

  'And you're always rushing away,' she pouted.

  'But I always take my time when it counts,' he smiled down at her.

  'Hmm, something to think about.' Emma gave him a half-smile and sashayed away, throwing Jill a satisfied smirk as she passed.

  Jill and Scotty exchanged a look. Without saying a word, her eyes exclaimed, Oh for heaven's sake!; his returned innocently, What?

  Inspector Andreessen looked tired, as usual. His shirt was already food-stained, and a button was missing. Other buttons threatened to pop at the waistline. There wasn't a cop in the squad who'd say a word about his shirt to his face.

  'Jackson. Hutchinson. I want you over at St Vincent's. Davis is going with you. Davis has the case. I only want you there because there seems to be a tie-in with the case you're working.'