Twenty-Six
Not long after Gemma had left, Kit’s doorbell rang. She patted her hair and tucked the blue skirt in neatly around her waist. She wondered who it might be. Gemma always yelled. Gerald always rang. Puzzled, she opened it and stood there. It was a thin, sick-looking boy in a black shirt and black jeans and an earring in his right eyebrow.
‘Mum?’
Kit stood, transfixed. She couldn’t speak for a few seconds. The shock sent her mind spinning. So many emotions flooded her. Disbelief, fear, love, anger, helplessness. Her heart started pounding as she searched the lined face in front of her for signs of the son she loved. He was still there somewhere, she saw, although three more years of heroin had ravaged his eyes, skin and hair. He looked like an old man, and he was stooped, his body drained of energy, collapsing into defeat and death. She swallowed. The moment she’d longed for. Then came the dread. More heroin-driven demands, more hatred, more insanity. More conversations that got crazier until someone smashed the phone down or slammed the door shut. ‘Will,’ she said. ‘My dear, dear son.’
He couldn’t talk for a moment, but stood, compressing his lips, controlling himself. ‘I wanted to tell you I’m in Rehab, Mum,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t really be here. I got permission to leave to do some business.’
Kit’s heart and mind took that in. ‘Permission?’ she repeated. Will was asking permission? Subjecting himself to some other authority than the drive for more heroin? Automatically, she examined the energy level of his breath as it appeared in his voice, hearing the exhaustion; the tremor of fear, of sickness close to death. But there was an aliveness in his eyes that she couldn’t remember having seen since he was a boy.
She stood aside. ‘Come in. Please come in?’
He shook his head. His hair was clean and in need of a good cut. She thought of Hunca and Munca, the two bad mice. But they weren’t bad at all. They were frustrated by deception. Just as Will had been, living in the lie of a marriage without love or mutual respect, living with his parents’ words about love while manipulation and control were the actuality.
‘I can’t stay. I got a lift with my counsellor. I just wanted to say thank you for your letter.’
‘My letter,’ Kit repeated.
‘It made me look at everything,’ he said. ‘As I was reading it, I felt something happen deep down in me. Like I really knew that I didn’t want to live the life of an addict any more and I realised I was the only person in the world who could bring that about. I couldn’t blame you and Dad any more for how I was living my life. You took responsibility for your part and that made me see that I had to take responsibility for my part too. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I feel so helpless. So smashed up. I don’t know the first thing about living.’ The first thing about living, he said. The professional part of her mind marked it.
‘Did you detox properly?’
‘Yes. At Basement 82. Then I got referred on to Riverside House. I said I needed help to stay clean.’
They looked at each other. Kit put her arms out and Will moved into them. Kit felt the tears running down her face as she held her son’s thin, shaking body; shoulder blades felt like sharp knives under her fingers. She could feel the fine tremor that ran through his every cell. He had almost died, she sensed. ‘Will,’ she said. ‘You’ve made the choice to live.’
He laughed his old laugh; a quick, short exhalation and pulled away from her, looking for something to blow his nose on, taking the proffered tissue from her. ‘You were just about to say something then, weren’t you. Like “It’s not going to be easy”?’ She smiled. He was right. His instincts had always been good until the drugs had numbed them. He paused. ‘It hasn’t been real easy the last few years. It’s been a fucking nightmare.’
‘Can I come and see you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, then, ‘No. Leave it a bit longer. Visitors are discouraged in the first weeks.’
Kit nodded. ‘Okay, darling. I’ll ring in a day or so. See how you’re going. If that’s okay with you.’
He nodded. ‘How’s Dad?’
‘He’s okay. He’s seeing someone professionally for his depression.’ She decided not to mention the divorce just now. So many changes to deal with. So many changes to tell him about. He wasn’t the grandson of a murderer, his mother and father had divorced. But not now. ‘I notice a change for the better in him already.’
His voice changed. ‘I’ve gotta go. Group’s on this evening. We’re not allowed to miss it.’ This was very different, Kit knew, from the old defiance; the addict’s bravado of ‘I’ll do what I want and fuck the consequences.’
‘Oh, Will,’ she said, her heart full.
There was a silence.
‘I’ll ring you,’ he said, and he was gone.
She stood in the doorway a while, unable to move. Then she walked inside in a daze like a young girl in love, turning into the therapy room where her son’s photograph stood on the mantelpiece. She lit the candle beside it. The beautiful youth in the photograph was no longer discernible in the face of her son. The conflict with Angie and the concern for Clive Mindell, the murders of two women, all now were pushed to a faraway position in the field of her mind. The phrase ‘the first thing about living’ kept repeating itself like a mantra. What is the first thing about living, she asked herself? For me? For Will? She sat in meditation and asked the question again. Gradually, her heart rate slowed and returned to normal. The trembling in her body, which she knew would also be occurring in every cell, also came to stillness. What is the first thing about living? The question became a mantra as she breathed with it.
Twenty-Seven
The girl staggered up the embankment, blackberry hoops tearing at her naked thighs. She didn’t care, any more than she cared that she was only wearing a filthy shirt. Almost blind from twenty-four hours in the dark, she squinted towards where she could hear the roar of the freeway. She had no idea how far she’d struggled. All she knew was that she must put as much distance between herself and that place and the men as quickly as possible. It had been a miracle that she’d been able to get away at all and only because her unconsciousness had lightened just enough for her to realise he’d gone. When she was certain he’d left the house, she’d fumbled until she’d torn the bandage from her eyes. This was the only chance she had. She’d been able to rouse herself from the stupor and, still with her wrists bound in front of her, had managed to climb out of the window and half fall, half jump from the upper storey through the tree which had both cut her badly and broken her fall. Winded and sobbing, she’d crawled away. But she was free. Away from the horror and the nightmare. Through the swirling instability of her mind, the thought of his return fuelled her with preternatural strength, so that now she was clawing her way up the steep rise where she could just see the tops of big rigs whooshing past through the slits of her swollen eyes. Someone would stop for her, she prayed. Someone would take her home.
•
Kevin Jansen, chatting on his CB to his mate, Mad Dog, noticed something small and pale a couple of hundred metres down the Liverpool highway.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I think it’s a girl. On the road. In the fucken road.’
‘What’s she doing?’
‘She’s waving. In the middle of the road. Mate, I’m doing a hundred and ten!’ The huge brakes smacked onto the eighteen wheeler. The scream of metal on metal drowned Kevin’s curses and the rig swerved as he fought to control it. ‘Get off the road! Get off the road you stupid fucken kid!’ It seemed to Kevin that the half-naked girl was rushing towards him, as if on a conveyor belt, ever closer to the rig’s massive front end. He leaned on the horn, and the sound of it deafened him.
‘Please get off the road!’ Kevin screamed as the girl’s terrified eyes rushed towards him. The girl fell back and the rig screeched past her, sliding to a halt fifty metres away, just off the roa
d. Kevin put his hazard lights on and jumped out of the cabin. He could hardly see through the thick dust cloud churning around him. Coughing and blinking, he ran back to where the girl lay. As he came closer, he started tearing off his jacket to cover her. ‘Jesus Christ, girlie,’ he said. ‘What’s happened to you?’
In a few minutes, with the fainting girl beside him, now wrapped in a blanket, Kevin radioed to base. ‘Call the police,’ he said. ‘Tell them I’m bringing a girl with me to Campbelltown police station. She’s in a terrible state. She says her name’s Amy Perrault.’
•
Angie waited impatiently while outside Mr and Mrs Perrault stayed in the room with Amy and the doctor. She hated the stench of hospitals; blood and disinfectant mixed with an air freshener that smelled of plastic peaches and fake vanilla. She turned away into a corner and rang Gemma.
‘We’ve got Amy Perrault. Somehow, she got away.’
‘Who took her?’
‘Can’t say yet. We’ve hardly spoken. She’s still in shock. The doctor says we can talk to her soon, if she stays stable. She’s been vomiting and they’re worried about dehydration. Especially after what she’s gone through the last twenty-four hours.’
‘Thank God,’ said Gemma. ‘It’s really good of you to let me know.’
‘There’s another thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You were right. There are two offenders involved.’
‘Who?’
‘That’s the problem. She only saw one face. Ken will go through the FACE system with her as soon as possible. She was blindfolded and out of it a lot of the time. Doctor says an opiate’s been used. Possibly codeine.’
It was nearly six o’clock before Angie played the videoed record of interview for the members of the Strike Force. Gemma, Colin, Bruno and several other divisional detectives watched the image on the monitor of Amy Perrault sitting up in bed, her parents on each side, giving an account of her abduction and the murder of her boyfriend. Mrs Perrault held her daughter’s hand. With her hair pulled back from her face and her pale blue nightie, Amy looked about twelve, thought Gemma.
‘Amy,’ Angie was saying on the monitor, ‘we want to let you rest as soon as possible. You’ve been through a terrific ordeal. I just want to say on behalf of the investigation team how impressed we are with your courage and endurance.’ The girl closed her eyes. ‘I just want to read you this statement that you’ve given us, and if any little extra thing comes to your mind, tell me. The more you can tell us, the quicker we can get the men responsible for what happened to you.’
The girl nodded. Both the swelling on one side of her face and the sedative slowed her responses. ‘I will,’ she whispered.
Angie stood up and walked over to the monitor. ‘Okay, everyone,’ she said. ‘You’ve heard what happened. How Amy and her boyfriend were pulled over by two men posing as plainclothes police officers in a vehicle using a flashing blue light. Those lights can be obtained fairly easily through security outlets. Then Amy was forced into the back seat of the other car with a blanket over her head, her boyfriend was shot, and the offenders took her to a house somewhere south of Sydney that we’re desperately trying to locate.’ She looked around at the group. ‘Amy thinks they drove for about an hour, but her perception could be way out. At that house, Amy was blindfolded and raped by one offender. We’re working on the fact that Killer Two has got to have a record somewhere. He’s aware of forensic law. He hasn’t revealed his face and he hardly speaks. When he does, it’s in this rasping whisper. All these factors indicate a history of criminality. He’s aware of police procedures. The Liverpool cops are pulling in all their known sexual criminals. Amy is an amazing young woman,’ she added. ‘She had no doubts about what her fate was going to be, and asked if she could write a last letter to her family. The offender agreed to this.’
•
‘Yes,’ said Kit when Gemma relayed the details to her shortly after in Kit’s kitchen. ‘It would play into his sense of the family connection. He would like that. From his position of domination and power, he is granting her a request concerning the family that he feels some connection with. He feels in a very powerful position.’
‘So,’ said Gemma, ‘she was given a notepad and a pencil and the blindfold was taken off. She wrote the letter. It is absolutely beautiful. So innocent. It is the last will and testament of a courageous young woman who demanded some sort of dignity from her tormentor. She’s given a good description of one of the offenders. Garry Copeland calls him “the subordinate personality”. But he’s the one we know as Killer One. She didn’t see the other man, Killer Two.’ Kit waited for her sister to continue. ‘She’s been shown pictures of Clive Mindell, but she says that the offender she saw definitely wasn’t him.’
‘He’s not involved, Gemma. He rang. He’s terrified, not homicidal.’
‘Angie still thinks he could be the one Amy didn’t see,’ said Gemma, ‘because of the physical evidence linking him to Bianca. They’ve extended the statewide search. Mindell had a friend from Melbourne.’
‘That’s right,’ said Kit. ‘He told me about an outing with him. They went to the Blue Mountains.’
‘Angie’s mob is asking around trying to locate him.’ Gemma sat at the kitchen table and picked at a dish of nuts. Kit faced her, leaning her back against the oven, warm from breadmaking.
‘The truck driver who picked her up,’ said Gemma, ‘told the cops Amy just appeared on the road out of nowhere. Some local uniforms checked that spot and not far away is a smaller road that used to feed onto the freeway. Amy thinks she crossed that road at some stage while she was getting away. She wasn’t sure how long she was on foot. We’ve got Liverpool police looking for a half-built boat.’
Kit’s eyebrow went up. ‘I’ll explain in a minute,’ said Gemma. ‘Fortunately, Amy tripped on the pathway on the way up to the house she was held at. The blindfold came off her face for a second. The house the cops are looking for is set back off the road and has a pathway with a gate leading from the road to the front of the house. We got Devlin the forensic hypnotist to work with Amy and he turned up a lot of very helpful detail about the house. Angie didn’t play the hypnosis video because it’s too slow.’ Kit nodded, understanding. It could take hours to elicit information from a witness. ‘Amy noticed a wire gate with some wrought-iron curls in the middle and a part of a letterbox. It’s dark red. Shaped like a little house. There’s a number on it that looks like sixty-two. Or sixty-five.’
‘I wonder,’ said Kit, moving away from the stove, ‘how many houses there are numbered sixty-two or sixty-five in the Liverpool area?’
‘There are two steps going up onto a verandah of very weathered wood. There is a door mat with “welcome” written on it. And there’s another step at the front door that is dark blue, with paint coming away in little strips. There’s a long, narrow opening for mail with brass around it. Very tarnished. However,’ Gemma continued, ‘the best thing is that there’s a partly built boat just visible over the fence on the right-hand side of the house we’re looking for.’ She stood up. ‘So there’s a good chance we can find this place. But now, I’ve got to get home. I’m feeding a kestrel.’
Gemma looked more closely at her sister. In her excitement about the new break in the investigation, she hadn’t really looked at Kit. ‘You’ve been crying,’ she said, noticing the red-rimmed eyes.
‘Will’s come back,’ Kit said. ‘He got my letter and he’s gone into Rehab.’
‘Oh Kittycat.’ Gemma held her sister close. ‘I’m so pleased. I’m so happy for you.’
‘I still can’t quite believe it,’ Kit said. She pulled out a hankie and blew her nose. ‘He’s not out of the woods by any means,’ she said. ‘I must remember that the figures for recovery from heroin addiction aren’t the best. But at least he’s in with a chance.’
‘F
unny thing,’ said Gemma. ‘I was only remembering the other day how he used to come round to my place and just hang around. I never knew why he did that. We didn’t have much in common. Not that I minded him being there,’ she added. ‘I just never understood why he’d want to spend time with me.’
Kit looked at her with eyes bright with tears. ‘Because you didn’t judge him.’ She looked away. ‘Like I did. Like his father did,’ she said. ‘You loved him as he was. He had nowhere else to go.’
•
A large police search ended when the State Protection Group busted 62 Overland Street, Kimberly Vale, Liverpool early the following morning. Next door to the large, unfinished boat in the driveway, they found a completely vacant house. Investigations into the owners of the house proved fruitless. They were a Hong Kong couple who lived overseas and the real estate agents who handled the letting said that the rent was paid monthly by postal orders from a Mr Smith.
The place was sealed off and searched from top to bottom. Boxloads of items were taken out for examination, including a notepad and pencil. But the letter written by Amy to her parents was gone.
Twenty-eight
Angie’s phone rang late in the afternoon at the police centre. She was checking the progress of the investigation on the computer, noting whatever was still outstanding when Jason, one of the young detectives with Crime Scene, popped in. ‘Just went to an autoerotic out at Liverpool. All done up in suspenders and girdle. Still not a pretty sight. Especially with a knife sticking out of his chest.’
Feeding the Demons Page 28
