by Kaye Dobbie
She knew Avery would want to know what she’d found out and all she had to tell him was Kitty’s revelation. Would that be enough for him? And once he’d learned about the secret book, what would he want her to do?
Faith was tired—it had been a long and busy night at work—but when she tried to sleep she found herself tossing and turning in her bed. By the time she eventually dozed off it was morning, and moments later she was awoken abruptly by one of the other girls slamming the front door.
Bleary-eyed, aching with weariness, she pushed aside the covers and went to the window. The sun was trying to shine, making her eyes water as it reflected off the wet street outside. Ray would be returning from Sydney later today, and he’d promised to call in on her tonight, when she was doing her shift at the Angel. The thought cheered her up, and all at once she noticed that the clouds seemed to have dispersed. Perhaps today wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Faith dressed in a new frock she’d bought at Circe—black velvet with short sleeves and a white collar. She thought she looked a bit like Lulu in To Sir, With Love, although she didn’t say that to Leanne, in case she got the lecture about the importance of being yourself. Maybe, she thought, feeling petulant, she was tired of being herself. Lately, being herself just seemed to get her into trouble.
To her surprise, Kitty was up too and scrubbing furiously at the stove. Her hair was tied back in a scarf, out of the way, and she was wearing some old jeans and a baggy sweater.
‘Rent’s going up,’ her cousin sent her a frown over her shoulder. ‘It’ll go up even more if they see how filthy the place is.’
Maybe that explained the slamming door earlier on.
‘It wasn’t my turn to clean,’ Faith protested. She would have liked to make herself some toast, but she didn’t fancy it with Kitty in this mood.
‘Not mine either.’ Kitty straightened her back and glared at her. ‘Where are you off to this early?’
Faith was ready for her. ‘We need milk. It’s my turn to buy it.’
Kitty opened the fridge and looked in, then grunted. Faith waited a moment, and when she didn’t say anything more, she went out and closed the door.
The cafe was empty, and the girl behind the counter was half-heartedly drying some glasses. She looked up hopefully as Faith came in, and then scowled when she recognised her. ‘He’s out the back,’ she said.
Avery was standing by the fireplace, although there were no cheery flames today. He had a small cylinder in his hand, the sort of clear container you get from a doctor or a chemist. He popped some pills into his mouth and tucked the cylinder back into his trouser pocket.
Since she’d last seen him he’d deteriorated. His face was very drawn and he’d lost weight—so much so that his suit looked too big for him. Avery was obviously ill and getting worse. He came over to the table, where there were two coffee mugs waiting, and picked one up.
‘Am I late?’ she asked, knowing she was.
‘You’re fine,’ Avery said, taking a gulp of his coffee. He swallowed with difficulty, it seemed.
Faith told herself she wasn’t worried about him. She barely knew him.
‘You wanted to see me?’ she asked, trying to keep the disquiet out of her voice.
He watched her as she sat down opposite him, drawing the other mug towards her. ‘Wondered how you were getting on.’
‘Jared doesn’t like me. It’s difficult to ask him things without him getting suspicious.’ The truth was she couldn’t ask him anything and hadn’t even tried.
Avery sighed and admitted what she’d long suspected. ‘It’s Dalzell I’m interested in, Faith. He’s the organ grinder, Jared is just the monkey.’
The room was cold and Faith wrapped her hands around the mug, feeling its warmth seep into her flesh.
‘Ray says Dalzell doesn’t touch the women in the Penthouse,’ she said. ‘He likes to watch.’
‘Ray Bartel?’ he asked sharply, and when she nodded, his mouth quirked into a smile. ‘Young love,’ he muttered, and shook his head.
‘Ray’s not involved. I haven’t told him anything.’
Avery’s face hardened. ‘Best not to. He and Jared are good mates. He’d feel obliged to tell him about me. And you.’
She wanted to protest but stopped herself. She’d already decided not to tell Ray for similar reasons. At least if Jared was arrested now it wouldn’t affect Ray’s career. She’d had one phone call from him, just after he’d arrived, and he’d said it was all great and he had high hopes. He didn’t leave a number so she couldn’t ring him back, and anyway she told herself he could tell her all about it tonight.
Avery was leaning towards her, claiming her attention, and she forced her tired brain to concentrate.
‘Maybe Ray’s right and Dalzell does like to watch, but that’s just at first. He watches until he’s ready to participate, and then he likes to hurt. He puts his hands around the woman’s neck and squeezes slowly, and all the while he’s—’
Listening intently, Faith hadn’t taken a breath, and she was glad when he stopped. Her imagination could finish what he’d started. ‘Did Melanie tell you that?’
‘He did it to her twice, maybe three times that I know of. It gives him a kick, and I can’t see it being something his wife lets him do at home. She’s a lady in every sense of the word and Dalzell likes young girls like Melanie, with the bloom of innocence not quite worn off. So, he asks his friend Jared to find them for him. Trouble is, this time, he squeezed too hard. Then he called on Jared to help get rid of the evidence. I reckon he promised it wouldn’t ever happen again, and maybe he meant it when he said it, but I think he will do it again, Faith.’
Shocked, Faith gawped at him. ‘Jared wouldn’t let him hurt Kitty!’
‘Jared might be a crook and a thug, but he doesn’t believe in killing young girls for the sake of it. And maybe you’re right, and he’d protect Kitty while he can. But even if he can hang on to his job and his girl, that won’t stop Dalzell. If he can’t have Kitty, he’ll only set his sights on someone else.’
She didn’t want to believe it was true, but she knew in her heart it was. Faith remembered the last time the politician had come into the Angel, and the way he’d watched her. The way Jared had encouraged him. Being Dalzell’s ‘type’ made Faith’s situation all the more dangerous.
In a moment of total clarity, Faith knew she had only one choice, and being the girl she was, she made it.
‘Jared has a book, a special book. He doesn’t trust anyone, apart from Kitty, so he writes down names and dates, and amounts paid. In case he ever needs to use it to save his own skin. Kitty told me about it. She says the book isn’t at the Angel, but she knows where it is.’
She felt an immediate sense of euphoria. She’d burned her bridges and there was no going back.
Opposite her Avery set down his coffee with a thump. ‘A book?’ he said softly. ‘Oh, you’re a good girl, Faith. I knew it the first time I saw you. You’re worth your weight in gold.’
Faith’s throat was sore from talking, and she felt queasy. The anxiety seemed to have gone to her stomach. She just wanted him to stop, but now that she’d told him about the book he went on and on. It was as if he could see his goal in sight and he was running at it full tilt.
‘Right, I need to get my hands on that book, Faith. Can you think of a way to do that?’
‘No. I don’t know where it is. If it was in the house I would have seen it. Kitty and I share a bedroom and there’s barely enough room to swing a cat. It must be somewhere else.’
‘Would she be willing to bring the book to me if it meant saving Jared? He’ll go to jail, I can’t prevent that, but I might be able to see he gets an easier ride. Cut his jail time in half. If the book helps me to get Dalzell I’d be happy to kick Jared out of Pentridge after five years.’
‘But Kitty will know it’s me who told you!’
He held her gaze, and it was as if there was a flame in his eyes. ‘I promise I’ll do my best
to keep you out of it, Faith, but there’s a decision to be made. Yours as well as mine. If I don’t get that book then Jared will keep running the Angel, and Kitty will stay with him, and even if you leave, she’ll still be there. And even if Jared manages to hang on in his current position, one day he will owe Dalzell a big favour, and the payment for that favour will be Kitty.’
‘Stop it,’ she whispered. He was manipulating her, and yet what he was saying was very close to what she herself had feared might happen.
‘Where’s Kitty now?’ he asked.
‘At the house. She’s cleaning the stove.’
‘I’ll send someone to pick Jared up, take him in for questioning, and then I’ll go and have a bit of a chat with Kitty. Impress upon her the seriousness of the situation. I think you underestimate her, Faith. Your cousin is a clever girl. She’ll come round to my way of thinking.’
‘What about me?’
‘You keep your head down. No one is going to know it was you. I’ll look after you.’
She wanted to believe him, but a little voice in her head said, Like you looked after Melanie?
SAMANTHA
16 January 2000, Golden Gully
The evening still had plenty of heat in it as I drove to the hospital. Dad would be there by now—I was late—but by the time I’d showered and daydreamed about Jason and Derek’s garden, I’d barely had time to dress and feed the animals. The donkeys were giving me mournful looks, and the horses needed a good gallop rather than just frisking about in their paddock. Even my poor old chooks and Gobble ran after me as I securely closed their pens. I felt guilty I’d been neglecting them, and promised myself that after Gran was out of hospital, and Hope had left our shores, and Mum was home … Well, I would try to do better.
Mitch gave me worried looks while Pompom slept on, but I explained to him that the hospital wasn’t the place for dogs, and I’d be back soon. He was sitting at the gate, watching me, as I drove away.
The hospital was busy, and it took me a while to find a place in the small carpark. Walking towards the entrance, I noticed some clouds on the horizon, playing peekaboo with the glare of the dying evening sun. Maybe we were going to get another storm, but one with a bit more rain to it. I really hoped so. I might be able to pick up some more business if people actually thought there was a chance of their gardens thriving instead of crumbling to dust.
As I entered Gran’s room, both she and Dad looked up at me with sparkly eyes, as if they had a secret they were bursting to tell me. Dad gave me a hug. He definitely had a spring to his step that had been missing earlier.
‘Here she is,’ he said, as if they’d been wondering when I would turn up. Which meant I had to apologise and make excuses.
My grandmother was looking alert despite her pallor.
‘I’m trying to persuade your father to sign my cast,’ she said to me, as I bent to kiss her cheek. ‘There’s an old chap in the next room whose cast is covered in jokes and smiley faces.’
‘And you want to do better than him?’ I teased her. ‘Perhaps you should wait until you get home. What about all your friends in the units?’
‘Your friend was here just now,’ Dad said, a teasing note in his voice that caught my attention. Was this the surprise they had been bursting to tell me?
‘My friend?’
‘He means Lincoln,’ Gran explained with a knowing smile. ‘He’s come to visit me.’
‘I’m sure that must be it.’ Dad’s mouth kinked up into a half-smile. ‘It wouldn’t be to impress Sam now, would it?’
I ignored him, for the simple reason that I wasn’t sure what to say. It was too soon to talk about this, far too soon.
‘He’s just gone out to get us some jelly babies,’ Lily went on, sounding cheerier than I’d heard her for ages. ‘Much nicer than grapes, I always think.’
I couldn’t help laughing. The thought popped into my head: I’m glad I changed into my new blouse and skirt. But why should it matter whether I turned up in this outfit or my daggy work clothes? And in fact, I had the distinct impression that Lincoln liked my daggy work clothes.
‘Hadn’t you better tell her?’ Gran was looking at Dad expectantly, and I could see that, just like Mitch when he smelled lasagne, she was quivering with excitement. ‘Go on then, tell her, Joe!’
I laughed. ‘Tell me what?’
I could see by Dad’s face that he was trying to hold in a variety of emotions and not doing a very good job of it.
‘Your mother’s coming home. She rang me this afternoon and I told her about Lily, and Hope, and … She’s coming home.’
I felt a huge sense of relief, followed by anger, and concern, and then a mixture of all three. I waited for my father to say more, to explain to me what was going on, but he didn’t.
‘And?’ I prompted him, hands on my hips.
His gaze slid to Gran and back, as if he was implying that he wasn’t going to tell me in front of her, but I knew it was an excuse. He just didn’t want to tell me full stop. I accepted that possibly he didn’t know the whole story, but he knew some of it.
Apologetically he reached out to touch my hand with his. ‘Sam, she’ll explain it to you when she gets home. I keep telling you it’s not my story. She did say she was held up, that it hadn’t turned out the way she’d thought it would, and that’s why she couldn’t leave in time to meet Hope at the cottage. But it’s all okay now.’
Couldn’t leave? Did that mean Dalzell had begged her to stay, or had she wanted to stay? And if that was the case then why was she coming home?
‘Dear me, all of this mystery,’ Lily spoke tartly, and I could see she was as annoyed as I was, but maybe not for the same reasons. ‘Makes me hungry. Ah, just in time!’
Lincoln had arrived with his hands full of bags of lollies. He caught my stare as he dumped them on the table over Lily’s bed, and his face was a bit flushed. Overkill, I thought, not sure whether to laugh or frown. What was he trying to do, send Gran into a sugar coma?
‘Couldn’t find jelly babies,’ he said, ‘but there must be something here you like, Lily.’
Lily was already using her free hand to work through the stash. ‘Snakes, strawberries and cream … liquorice allsorts!’
‘I didn’t realise you’d be here,’ I said to Lincoln, and then thought I sounded suspicious and ungrateful. I was neither, just floundering. ‘I mean, I thought you’d be busy. Not that I didn’t want to … Uh, how did that meeting go anyway?’
My father made a sound suspiciously like a snort. Or was it a laugh? I ignored him.
‘Good. And when I got back to the cottage I finished two of my new songs,’ Lincoln said, with another quick glance in my direction. ‘Amazing. Really amazing. Must have been … the change of scene. So, I thought I’d try it again, see what happens, and here I am.’
‘Two songs,’ I repeated, and found myself grinning back at him. ‘Wow. Do we get to hear them?’
He shuffled a bit. ‘Maybe. Not yet. I have more work to do on them.’
Gran was soon tired, her eyes fluttering as she tried to keep them open, and we left her to sleep. Dad took most of the sweets with him for safekeeping—‘I’ll give them back to her when she gets home,’ he said.
Together we walked to our cars.
‘I’m so glad Mum’s coming home,’ I said, smiling at Dad, and meaning it. ‘I’ll probably give her a hard time when I see her, but she deserves it.’
Dad laughed. He looked years younger suddenly, as if a tremendous strain had been lifted from him. ‘Don’t worry, she won’t be getting an easy time from me either,’ he joked.
I thought, Oh yeah. Dad was a big softy and he’d soon be completely under Mum’s spell again. And actually, that would be nice, too. Everything back to normal.
‘Okay, I’d better go,’ he said, and I caught his glance at Lincoln. ‘You all right to get home?’
‘I drove,’ I informed him a little stiffly. ‘I’m fine.’
As he turned away I was su
re he was grinning to himself, but I didn’t want to know. And the fact that he tooted his horn as he drove off was annoying, yet it was also rather endearing. My father hadn’t been this childishly exuberant in a while.
‘Good news. That your mother is coming home.’ Lincoln had walked me to my ute—not that I’d asked him to—and seemed in no hurry to leave.
‘Yes, very good news. I should ring Hope.’
And yet I made no move either. I told myself I was waiting for Lincoln to leave first, but the truth was I didn’t want to go anywhere. I’d forgotten how nice it was to be in his company.
‘Do you want to stop somewhere for a coffee?’ he said, leaning his hand on the roof of the cabin as if he had all the time in the world. And then, with his eyes narrowing, ‘Have you had dinner, Sam?’
I smiled. ‘Can you hear my stomach rumbling again? No, I haven’t. I was running late. I decided at the last minute to go out to see Jason, and it turned out Derek was there, too, so we had a talk about the garden. He’s very enthusiastic. Time got away from me.’
Lincoln was smiling as I spoke, as if he could imagine the scenario all too well. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘why don’t I take you to the hotel and we can have a counter meal?’
‘Are they still serving?’ I glanced at my watch.
‘They’ll serve me,’ Lincoln replied with a certain arrogance, and I found myself laughing.
‘Listen to you,’ I teased him. ‘Do you always get what you want, Mr Nash?’
He reached out and took my hand in his, and I was too surprised to do anything about it, and then I didn’t want to.
‘Not always,’ he said, examining my fingers, ‘but that doesn’t stop me trying.’
Lincoln was right, they did serve us despite the kitchen being on the verge of closing. Although it turned out our star status wasn’t all to do with him. The manager came into the empty dining room to confirm that I was Hope Taylor’s niece, and then to tell me in a slightly boastful voice about being on camera with her.
‘I’ll be on Looking Back,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Good publicity,’ he added quickly, in case we thought it was all about him.
