by Chris Smith
They travelled that night across Sydney Harbour, to a seafood restaurant at Brighton-le-Sands—out of the way and well clear of trouble. Libby’s mind wandered all evening. The events of Sunday night still shook her deeply, her feelings resurfacing as she told the story to her best friend. She was back in the Mosman house, back under the tyranny of Hopkins.
As their dinner wound up and the waiter delivered the bill to their table, Libby’s attention was distracted by a flash of light from the side window of the establishment, the side that faced Botany Bay, onto the dark expanse of water off the beach. It must be a boat on the way to a mooring, she thought. Seconds later his face appeared, there at the window, smiling broadly, directly at Libby. His expression seemed pleased by Libby’s shock, but at the same time angry. Sarah followed Libby’s gaze, catching only a glimpse of a man walking past the window, but she could see from Libby’s face who he was.
A glass of mineral water slipped from Libby’s frozen hand, crashing onto the table. She ran immediately to the bathroom. How could she leave now? He would follow her again, hunting her way beyond her usual geographical boundaries.
Eventually she returned to the table. Now Sarah was living Libby’s hell and could more than merely sympathise with what she was going through. After paying the bill, they left, moving cautiously towards Sarah’s vehicle. It wasn’t parked too far away, but each step was taken with trepidation. They drove away without saying a word and kept looking around, in all the rear mirrors, to see if Hopkins was tailing them. As they made their way through the city and eventually over the Harbour Bridge, Libby sighted his car, three behind theirs. He hadn’t given up. But as they emerged onto Falcon Street, a Random Breath Test unit pulled him over and ended the chase. The women were greatly relieved.
Anything I do now, Sarah, is only going to piss him off more and add to his anger. He’ll just hound me until I crack,’ said Libby in a resigned tone.
Sarah didn’t reply. She didn’t have the conviction to argue otherwise. Her sighting of Hopkins wasn’t concrete enough to help Libby prove that he’d breached his bail conditions again. Sarah was pragmatic about Libby’s options. ‘You have to get help, real help—an investigator, or have the police put surveillance on him, or find something else that he’s done.’
‘If I don’t do something, I’m afraid he’ll hurt me again. If I do take more serious action, it may make it all worse. I don’t know what to do …’ Libby turned towards the car window to conceal her emotion.
He didn’t return that night, but still Libby spent those hours sick with fear. There was no way he could have followed her; there was no sign of him, but if he was prepared to tail her best friend, he was capable of anything.
The following night, she arrived at Balgowlah around ten o’clock, tired and ready for bed. It was an abnormally warm night and she felt clammy and in need of a cool shower. The spare room had its own tiny ensuite, the extension designed by the previous owners as a kind of granny flat for visitors. The window was frosted but had no curtains nor blinds. She was aching to wash and put her head on the pillow. She stood under the shower without even bothering to soap herself. Resting her head against the wall tiles, she let the water pound her shoulders and back. Her eyes were shut tight, her arms hung down by her sides like lead weights and she was in mental limbo, vacant in a cloud of exhaustion.
Suddenly she heard what she thought sounded like a strange thud in the small passage outside her window between the house and the adjoining fence—like a large cat jumping from a ledge. She turned 180 degrees towards the window. It was impossible to see anything; the light inside blinded her. She froze, wondering whether the noise was her newly acquired paranoia or truly something to be worried about. If it was more than a cat out there, the outline of her naked body was on show for anyone to see. Instinctively, Libby wrapped her arms around her breasts. Her heart pounded as it had done on Sunday night. She did not dare move, waiting for another sound—a cat or a possum.
My parents are in the same house, for God’s sake, she thought.
She quickly turned off the taps. The only sound now was the tapping of water droplets falling from her wet body onto the tiles below. Her parents were in bed and she wasn’t prepared to wake them for what might only be a neighbour’s tomcat on the prowl.
She stepped out of the shower, taking small breaths, so as to keep her focus on any further noises outside. She wiped the water off her chest, stomach, thighs, legs and then her back, placing the towel slowly over the steel hook behind the door. She walked out into the darkened bedroom naked and peered up to the small windows to her left.
‘Oh God!’ she yelled.
High up, like an animal in the fork of a tree, directly outside the windows, she spotted two shiny eyes staring down at her through the terrifying mask of what looked like a black balaclava. The eyes were so shiny, so watery … they looked straight through her like a laser beam.
She threw herself to the ground, hiding behind the bed. Another thud followed, then a series of footsteps in the grass several metres away. They tailed off until she couldn’t hear them anymore. She stayed down, in a foetal position tucked close to the base of the bed.
The door of her bedroom flew open and she yelped in terror again, crawling backwards against the bedside drawers, knocking the digital clock and lamp to the ground in one action.
It was her father, hair ruffled, wearing only his underwear and a worn dressing gown.
‘What’s wrong?’ He’d clearly run from his bedroom to this end of the house.
‘He was here. That bastard was perving at me—he knows where I am,’ Libby said, bursting into tears.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes!’
Alex left the room, opened the glass doors to the veranda, switched on the backyard lights and jogged to the rear fence some twenty metres away. In the meantime Libby had pulled on her dressing gown and walked out into the television room, standing at the door to wait for her father. After several minutes he walked back onto the veranda, his eyes focused on his feet. And then he walked right past Libby and through to the television room. ‘Did the sensor light go on?’ he asked angrily.
‘I don’t think so, no. But I’m not sure.’
‘Well, how could he be there then?’ he said loudly before walking off down the corridor.
‘Dad! He was here; you don’t believe me, do you?’ Libby called after him.
‘Not really, no,’ came his reply. ‘Think about it Libby: no sensor light, no bloody boyfriend in the backyard. You’re stressed. I know that.’
Libby slammed the glass doors closed, locking the clasp tight and leaving the outside light on. She stormed back into her bedroom, slamming the door. She fell onto her bed and began sobbing, her face firmly buried in the pillow. She cried herself to sleep.
2
PREDATOR
It was eight o’clock in the morning and Libby was standing at the counter of the North Sydney Police Station, in pursuit of Senior Constable Haddock. After talking to her friend Shane, who, like Sarah, had also witnessed Hopkins’ behaviour first-hand, Libby had decided to use the tools she had at her disposal; she would take up the offer of investigating the possibility of finding a magistrate who would be tough on Hopkins’ constant breach of his Apprehended Violence Order.
He’d become unstoppable. Libby’s work was suffering, the hours after work were a nightmare and the more she ran away, the more ardently he chased her down. Officer Haddock drew up the paperwork, gathering the material, such as it was, into a statement, and organised the court date. It was routine stuff for Haddock, but a serious step for Libby, a stranger to the world of law and order.
‘What if he ignores this again?’ Libby asked politely from her seat in the interview room.
‘Well, with Shane Bailey’s word, you’ve been able to prove he’s turned up within 100 metres of you. There’s ambiguity over whether he just happened to be in the same area coincidentally, but his arrival at your home, that’s
a breach and a half; it’s a more significant breach of orders and privacy to some magistrates,’ said Haddock. ‘Don’t worry Libby, once the order is out, they’ll bail him up and it’ll scare the daylights out of him. This is serious. These are orders of the court.’
Libby remained unconvinced.
Her appearance at North Sydney Court was held a few days later and Libby found herself in a sausage factory system. She met the prosecutor for no more than a few minutes; the case itself was a matter of handing up a small file of forms to the magistrate, who barely peered over his spectacles to witness the victim in the proceedings.
‘AVO breached at her home—get him in here,’ mumbled the magistrate, after glancing quickly over one of the pages. ‘Sheriff!’
The case was over before Libby even had a chance to sit down and take in the Victorian decor of the courtroom. ‘That’s it,’ Haddock whispered, taking her by the arm.
‘That’s it?’ Libby asked, baffled. ‘He didn’t give a damn!’
According to Rowan Haddock, there would be a warrant for Hopkins’ arrest. He’d be brought to the nearest police station and made to appear before the magistrate. Libby was also encouraged to call the police as soon as she saw him again. They had his home address at Cremorne and knew where he worked, so his apprehension was just a matter of time.
Libby’s entry into the Australian justice system seemed simultaneously bland and bizarre. In spite of the warrant for his arrest, she couldn’t help but think that she was the only one taking Hopkins’ stalking seriously—that she was the only one watching her back. That realisation steeled her for what might lie ahead …
Libby could only imagine Phillip’s surprise when the police came knocking at his door.
Libby’s mother insisted she remain at Balgowlah at least until the weekend. She had endured so much. The police interview and court case were reigniting the embers of Libby’s fear and Jan Masters was concerned for her daughter’s health. She needed to rest before she returned to Mosman. For her part, Libby wasn’t looking forward to returning home. The memories were still fresh in her mind, her house a reminder of his knocking, yelling and stalking. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d been cruelly coaxed into having sex with him … It was Libby’s turning point.
On Friday, Libby’s last day before moving back into her Mosman semi, she’d turned down an invitation to join the girls at the Oaks Hotel. Partying–especially having to contend with strange men—was the last thing on her to–do list. Her parents had gone out to see friends—a regular outing that her mother would have cancelled if not for Libby’s insistence that they not fuss over her.
Libby was prepared to go one extra yard in her efforts to defend herself. She went to the kitchen and grabbed her mother’s largest kitchen knife from the block, then took it into her room and laid it down next to the bedside lamp. It shone under the ceiling light, as threateningly as she intended.
At around ten she turned off the lounge room light, checked all the windows and doors and went to her room. She felt a little apprehensive, as she did as a child when her mother and father retired for the night. She was never fond of complete darkness and her childhood fear returned now.
Libby decided to take a shower—she was determined to carry on as usual and not to allow Hopkins to dictate her life by remote control. She glanced up at the row of slat-windows near the ceiling. The oak tree outside was swaying in the evening breeze. There was the odd rattle and scraping noise coming from the bushes outside but nothing to worry herself about.
She began removing her clothes. It was no longer an ordinary, thoughtless process. She was a wary woman now, protective of her space and, in particular, her body. She pulled her T-shirt up over her shoulders and dropped it on the floor beside her. She undid the fly on her shorts and slid them down over her hips and past her knees. She grabbed at the rear of her bra and undid the clasp, quickly pulling the straps down over her arms, and tossed it onto the bed. She removed her underpants just as quickly. How could something so automatic, so natural, be so deliberate now—so nerve wracking?
Libby began the process of thinking her way through her fear. She knew she had good reason to be proud of the courage she had shown by prosecuting the AVO order. What it meant in reality was yet to be determined. Libby found an FM music station on the old portable stereo player above her chest of drawers and some familiar classics put her instantly into a more relaxed state. She jumped confidently into the shower and soaped herself until her body was covered in a thick lather. The warm water was a welcome tonic and she felt more relaxed than at any time in recent memory. After washing herself and turning the taps off, Libby stepped from the shower and dried her body all over. She felt better. There was a sense of calm in the room, solitude without fear.
Back in her room, towel in hand, she stood in front of the mirror and squeezed her hair dry.
Libby watched herself standing in the soft light of the moon. She looked down at her body and was determined she’d never allow another man to see her this way so easily again. She had a naturally beautiful figure but hadn’t had the time or inclination of late to remind herself of the fact, to dwell on anything that might help boost her self-esteem.
She slowly dropped the towel to her feet and lay on the bed. She was a little drowsy from her busy day and she started thinking of the last time she had lain like this, naked and relaxed, back at Mosman. It had been a long while since she’d stopped and unwound. It had been with Phillip—a very different Phillip, the one who had made her feel so very good. He’d seemed so caring, so complimentary of who she was and how she appeared. She closed her eyes and drifted.
In her semi-consciousness, she could picture them together. His strong upper body engulfed her slender frame. His large hands held her shoulders. Her breath and heartbeat intensified. She could smell him, his aftershave, imagine his lips, his hair. She felt no love or attachment, only lust. For a moment, the memories of their time together were not so harrowing. She could recall his breathing almost precisely. His smell was palpable. It felt real. It was as if he was there.
Her eyes flew open and Hopkins was indeed there, two metres away, outside the large window to the backyard, smiling broadly through that horrifying black balaclava. She’d forgotten to draw the curtain on that window when she first walked in; it had been too dark to notice. She screamed and struggled to get up off the bed. He banged on the widow and yelled. ‘You were thinking about me weren’t you? How good is that? You were, weren’t you? Don’t fight it.’
‘Get away! Go away!’ Libby screamed as she ran into the bathroom to find another towel. ‘You’re sick! This is against the law, you bastard.’
She was desperate to close the curtains, but in that terrifying split second, she couldn’t bring herself to correct her mistake. It would have meant flinging herself closer to him, although a pane of glass stood between them. She reached for the towel and wrapped it around her shaking body, retreating to the bathroom. Hopkins remained at the window, bashing the pane and yelling profanities, interspersed by declarations of love. She slid to the floor, pressing her hands against her ears. Still he bashed, then knocked, in a constant, infuriating fashion. At times the bashing was so hard it sounded as if it would shatter the window in its frame. After perhaps twenty seconds, she regained her composure and ran from the room, past his glaring eyes and into the lounge room where she reached for the telephone. Dialling triple-0, she turned her face away from the glass doors, to where he’d repositioned himself to watch her.
‘Please come! Please come!’ she yelled at the operator.
That familiar frustration followed, as the detached voice at the other end of the line coolly asked for details.
‘Who’s coming, Libby? I’m here—you don’t need anyone else!’ Phillip yelled. ‘You’re mine and always will be. You know that. You know that, you bloody bitch. I will hound you until you realise what you’ve lost. And you will.’
‘The police are on their way, Libby,’ the opera
tor said. ‘Just remain calm.’
She ran to the front of the house, standing in the corridor away from exterior windows. Suddenly she remembered the knife—she swore at herself for having forgotten it earlier. It was too late now. She shook in the cold like a freezing animal.
Then, the yelling, the banging, the abuse ended. The house was deathly silent. She looked around the corner and Hopkins’ silhouette was no longer on the patio. But where was he? He didn’t leave in peace when he stalked her at Mosman and there was no reason to think he would now. She could feel him close, glanced from window to window in search of his face.
Libby eventually shuffled through the lounge room into the bedroom, where she grabbed her T-shirt and jeans swiftly before running back to her hiding place at the front of the house. He might have been peering through one of her windows, but she couldn’t bring herself to check. Libby stepped into her jeans and pulled her T-shirt on. She had nowhere to move, nowhere to go.
Small, far-off footsteps were heard at the front of the house and they grew louder as they approached the front door. Surely this was the police. She was standing only a metre away from the door and was tempted to walk away. But it had to be the police, the footsteps were too clear; there’d been no attempt to hide them. So she waited, her teeth chattering. But there was no knock at the door. She heard a key being inserted into the keyhole and watched in horror as the door handle twisted clockwise.
A male voice came through the door: ‘Libby, why are the police here?’
She sighed with relief. It was her father with two burly officers trailing after him into the hallway.
‘Ma’am,’ said the first, his cap under his arm.
Libby managed a small smile and nodded.
‘Well, what’s going on? Not the mystery man again?’ her father said.
