Vodka Doesn't Freeze

by Leah Giarratano

  'Rose, I've spoken to Cath and she'd like to meet you. It's busy at work, though, and it'd be easiest for her if we stopped in at your house for a coffee after work tomorrow. Do you think that's okay? She knocks off at six. We could drop 'round at 6.30, and be gone by seven. What do you think?'

  Rose seemed hesitant, somewhat puzzled, but was eventually won over. She wanted the job, and when Wayne arrived, alone and apologetic, bearing chocolate mud cake with Rohypnol-laced icing, she let him in.

  Wayne made sure she had the biggest slice, and fifteen minutes later, with Mummy sound asleep with her face in the cake, he went to play birthday parties with the five-year-old.

  8

  CAROLE DEAN HAD FINALLY HUNG UP. Standing at the base of her winding gravel driveway, still in her pyjamas, Mercy dropped the phone handset into her dressing-gown pocket. She should've let the call go to the answering machine. When she'd realised it was Carole on the line, she'd resignedly taken the phone and her cigarettes out the front door. At least she could distract herself with the sky and trees as she reassured Carole that she was fine.

  Mercy had been proud of her saccharine chatter throughout the call. She'd worked with this woman for years, and knew that Carole would never back off if Mercy couldn't convince her that yesterday had been an anomaly, that she just needed a good rest.

  Wrapping her gown closer around her body, Mercy went back inside and looked around guardedly, almost as though she expected to see something unusual there. As it happened, this was not an ordinary house. Perched on the precipice of a cliff dropping to a deep ravine in the Blue Mountains, almost the entire back wall of the split-level house was glass. The effect was of living in the sky above a vast bush canyon; indeed, at the moment, clouds on the balcony whorled insistently as though indignant at being denied entry. Two galahs scratched at the jarrah decking, calling occasionally for more seed to be scattered.

  It was always at least ten degrees cooler at Mercy's home than anywhere else in Sydney, and she shivered slightly as she stepped down to her sunken lounge, reaching automatically for the remote to play some music. She nudged the volume lower and the Japanese harps soothed her somewhat.

  What the hell was happening to her? She stared down at her bandaged hand, fascinated by the white gauze marked by the bloom of red blood.

  Her clinical supervisor, Dr Noah Griffen, had been warning her for months that she was taking on too many abuse cases, that she was at risk of burning out. She'd listened impatiently, resentful at having to spend more time at the hospital to attend these sessions. Regular clinical supervision was a requirement of her employment, though, and if she missed more than six of the weekly sessions in a year she had to answer to the Clinical Director.

  She had been attending supervision with Griffen for ten years now, and had, in fact, decided to consult at the Sisters of Charity Hospital because of her mentor's practice there, but she'd grown increasingly intolerant of his admonitions to reduce her caseload. It wasn't like he wasn't doing the same kind of work.

  Mercy's expertise with survivors of childhood sexual abuse had led to a lengthy waiting list for her services, and she felt unable to turn down the individuals who sought her help. But as the years had passed working with this population, she found herself in tears more often than not as they told their stories. She was increasingly unable to stop her imagination from conjuring images of the abuse they had endured, which would vie for space with memories of the beatings from her own childhood. A flame of hatred for the offenders was stoked with each new tale of suffering.

  One sleepless night, after speaking with an eighteen-yearold girl slowly dying of anorexia nervosa, she had realised that this patient's file was still in her bag. Snapping on her bedside light, she had pulled the thick hospital folder onto her bed, hoping to find something within its contents that could help her with this young woman.

  The girl had been repeatedly hospitalised since she was twelve, when she had tried to kill herself by taking every tablet in her home, washed down with disinfectant from the laundry cupboard. It wasn't until the year before, however, that she'd disclosed that her father had been selling her to his mates for beer for as long as she could remember. Although she'd now made a police statement against him, the DPP was still struggling to gather sufficient evidence to bring him to trial. In the meantime, this man was at home while his daughter fought for her life in hospital.

  Impotent rage engulfed Mercy as she flicked through the file. Suddenly something snagged at her consciousness, and she stopped. She turned back a page, then another. There. An address. The father's address. The place where he was probably even now sleeping drunkenly while his daughter was nourished through a nasogastric tube.

  It wasn't far from here, actually. Windsor. She felt a thrill of surprise that she could drive to the house of a monster right now and knock on his door. She could see what such a man would look like, could speak to him; throw a brick through his window if she wanted to. She could tell this man what he had done to his child. Make him listen. Sit him down and force-feed him tales of the horror that she listened to every day. He wouldn't care; she knew that. He'd rationalise his way through what she was saying; he'd call the police, make her out to be the crazy one. He'd get away with it. They always did.

  Windsor. She had his address.

  It had not been difficult to access the identities of her victims' attackers once she'd started looking. In the past, Mercy had skipped these people's names when she came across them. They had no meaning for her; they did not help her to assist her patients.

  When she decided to pay attention, however, Mercy found it surprisingly easy to gather facts about the offenders. They were identified in police statements, court documents, Apprehended Violence Orders – many of these documents were in her patients' files. Often the perpetrators' addresses were right there, their pseudonyms, sometimes even the names of other accusers. Sometimes officials had gone through and blacked out such details, but this would most often happen with one document and not another. Mercy soon had profiles on several men.

  She began to work on these files late at night, also incorporating information she'd gleaned from her patients during therapy. She'd found herself specifically asking questions during the sessions that would fill holes in her knowledge about the offenders. She'd jot the missing details in her work notes, and then transfer them to her offender files when she got home.

  Mercy began to notice patterns. Carly Kaplan had said that her abuser had made her dress as a fairy and a princess. He'd made Carly and her friend Brianna touch each other, and had taken photographs. Kathy Lin, another patient, had been abused by her father, but one evening he'd entertained a friend who'd also had Kathy and her sister dress as princesses while he photographed them. Kathy's description of this man – when Mercy had asked during their last session – had been very similar to the one given of the offender in Carly's police statement.

  Then there was John Jacobs. One of Mercy's most damaged patients, he was able to work on memories of his abuse maybe only once or twice a year. Otherwise he spent months on the acute psychosis ward of the hospital while doctors tried to stabilise his medication. Both of his arms, from fingertips to shoulders, were a mutilated mess. He would carve and burn them, trying to release the demons he believed lived inside his body. He'd also mutilated his genitals, sure that the devil had control of his sex organs, and once, after stabbing himself in the stomach to punish himself for becoming sexually aroused, emergency surgery had been necessary to save him from dying.

  John's file told a harrowing story. Removed from his parents as a mute and unresponsive toddler, bruises covering his body, he'd been placed in a group home. Made a ward of the state because of his parents' neglect, he was eligible to be adopted, but staff waited until they could determine whether he would improve and what legacies he might have been left with. His DoCS case notes indicated he'd rapidly responded to care and attention, learning to talk and walk, and endearing himself to staff. He'd bee
n adopted by a family who already had two sons, and no significant entries were made in the file for several years. At age ten, he'd been temporarily returned to the care of the state. His adoptive parents had complained that he was aggressive, wouldn't shower, and was non-compliant. One caseworker had labelled the adoptive father as 'controlling' and 'aggressive'. Another had said that John was 'attention-seeking' and had 'deliberately sabotaged his placement' because of 'an inferiority complex'. The same writer had noted and dismissed John's claims that his adoptive father had molested him.

  Although repeatedly exposed to it, Mercy never ceased to be horrified by the ineptitude of some of the departmental carers these children were entrusted to. The department claimed to have lost the remainder of John Jacobs' file, but he'd told Mercy that he'd been repeatedly sent back to the same family until he ran away at the age of fourteen and lived on the streets.

  John's account of his time with the family was disjointed and blurred by delusional thinking, but one theme predominated. He claimed he'd been a prize in a game played by a group of men. His adoptive father played the game and John had been a 'party favour', swapped around amongst members of the group. Because he also spoke of the Secret Service using his brain to create a supercomputer that would one day control the world, Mercy had always only half-listened to him, aware that his words were distorted by mental illness.

  Now, however, she scavenged through his account, foraging for potential truths amongst the chaos that was this patient's reality.

  Her files were growing daily.

  9

  'I DON'T SEE WHY we had to come out here this arvo,' grumbled Scotty, steering the car with one hand, nursing a Pepsi with the other. To accommodate his long legs, he had adjusted the seat back as far as it would go; he was practically sitting in the back seat.

  Beside him, an open street directory lay on Jill's lap. Her feet were up on the dashboard.

  'Are you serious?' she asked. 'Don't you think it's kind of significant that Mercy Merris has counselled victims of all three dead men? We've got to talk to her – she could be a link.'

  'Yeah, but it's boiling. And we're going to Richmond, for God's sake. We could've just called her.'

  Jill had called Mercy, and she knew they were coming.

  They'd been driving west for just over an hour. The builtup shopping strips and unit-blocks had given way to huge, blank-faced factory estates as they made their way through the afternoon traffic. It seemed like half of Sydney was heading home to the western suburbs.

  Reading the map while travelling left Jill feeling queasy. She pressed her forehead against the window. Parched bushland bordered the two-lane road. The scrub was broken every now and then by a ranch-style house, or a service station.

  'Another friggin' speed camera! Can you believe this shit?' Scotty backed off the pedal a little. The car's dashboard display still registered 41 degrees outside, even though it was now after 3 p.m. Scotty had been bitching for the past thirty minutes.

  Jill tuned out and thought about the last time she'd met Dr Mercy Merris. A psychodynamic psychotherapist in private practice, Dr Merris used to do some work for the New South Wales Police Service. She'd counselled cops who had problems at home, with the boss, or who, like Jill, had attended a fatal, or a shooting incident, and had been sent to a shrink for a mandatory debrief.

  Like most cops, Jill hadn't wanted to go to counselling. In fact, having spent a year in therapy at fifteen, she was even more reluctant than most. So she'd been surprised when she found the obligatory three meetings helpful. She'd gone to the sessions determined to say as little as she could and get out as soon as possible, but had found it easy to talk to Mercy. Dr Merris had recommended more treatment; but hey, she didn't like itthat much.

  An approaching intersection snapped her from her thoughts. 'Turn left here, Scotty.'

  'Finally,' he grumbled five minutes later, steering the car into the drive of the private psychiatric hospital.

  The wheels of the Subaru crunched gravel as they rolled down the two-kilometre, palm-lined private road. Hills of waving grass poured down to meet a river and in the distance were the mountains. In the foreground to their right, a few cattle grazed stupidly, sun-addled, tails swishing at flies; on the left four bored horses ambled. Jill wound the window down and took a long sip of the hot, clean air. A bellbird whistle-cracked.

  'Worth going nuts for, this is,' said Scotty, taking in the peaceful surrounds. He turned completely in his seat to watch a young woman in pyjamas, clutching a teddy bear, walking with a young man in suit pants and a shirt.

  The car rolled to a stop in front of a long, low, sandstone building. The bulk of the hospital sprawled behind this building, across beautifully manicured grounds. A sprinkler thwacked water across an emerald lawn, and Jill did a double-take when a peacock on the grass angled to catch the overspray. She noted a sign near the sprinkler commenting that it was run from a rainwater tank – drought-stricken Sydneysiders hadn't been permitted to use sprinklers for a couple of years now.

  Before she had time to remind Scotty of their agenda for this meeting, a beaming woman was at her door, welcoming them to the Sisters of Charity Hospital.

  Carole Dean, well-groomed in skirt-suit and heels, had come to greet them while Dr Merris was with a client. Would they like a late lunch while waiting? It was seafood day. Could she show them the grounds, or to the library to collect themselves after the drive? She smiled as she ushered them into a plush, cool foyer more resembling a five-star hotel than a psychiatric hospital.

  'Lunch sounds great,' boomed Scotty at the same time as Jill stated, 'Actually, Carole, we'd like to have a look around while we're waiting.'

  Jill wanted to see the hospital. It could be a possible link to a serial killer; hell, the killer could be here right now.

  She ignored Scotty's disgusted look and his mumbled 'Don't see why we can't do both' as she led the trio from the foyer in the direction that looked like it could lead to patient wards.

  Carole caught up quickly and, gracefully overtaking Jill, her smile glued on, she guided the group across the deep carpeting.

  Jill noticed Carole's smile slip as they turned into the hallway ahead.

  Scotty had managed to convince Jill that a tour of the hospital grounds would be helpful, and he had slipped away well before they reached Mercy's rooms. She was certain that this would first lead him past the hospital restaurant. She looked around the room and recalled the sense of refined warmth she had experienced the last time she was in this office. The squashy armchairs squatted around a low table bearing a water jug and platter of fruit. On three walls, framed photography depicted single flowers in exquisite, almost erotic close-up. Along the fourth wall, full-length glass bi-fold doors opened onto a terracotta-paved courtyard framed by flowering shrubs and trees. Birds foraged familiarly across the lawn.

  Today the room was less carefully arranged than she remembered. A pile of books had spilled from the desk and lay splayed across the thick carpet. An ashtray near the computer overflowed with lipstick-rimmed cigarette butts, and a pile of unopened mail and magazines threatened to join the books on the floor. The afternoon sun speared in through the glass doors and cast parts of the room in a garish glow, while shadows waited in corners.

  'Jill, it's so lovely to see you,' smiled Mercy, walking towards her from the glass doors. She took both of Jill's hands in her own and brushed her cheek with a kiss.

  'You too, Mercy. It's been a while. I hope you're well?'

  'Fine, fine, always busy, of course, but aren't we all? And you, Jill? Are you taking care of yourself?' Mercy's brown eyes scanned Jill's face as she guided her to one of the armchairs.

  Jill felt herself drawn into the cocoon of caring she had experienced when she had consulted Mercy two years before.

  'I'm well. I'm trying.'

  She felt suddenly defensive under Mercy's searching gaze. She didn't need anyone probing her feelings right now. Besides, this is my investigation, she thou
ght. She straightened her back in the chair. Mercy might be a skilled psychologist, but Jill knew a bit about interviewing too.

  'Mercy, as I mentioned on the phone, I want to speak with you about some of your clients.'

  'Of course, of course, darling, but first we must have a coffee, a glass of wine? How is your sister?' she said over her shoulder as she walked towards a sideboard.