Vodka Doesn't Freeze

by Leah Giarratano

  'I'm not really hungry.'

  Jill felt irritated talking about food; the bitter medicinal paste of the painkillers still coated her tongue.

  Their waitress stood a few paces from their table, smilingly trying to tempt others into the restaurant. Scotty cleared his throat, trying to catch her eye. She ran over to their table when he moved to get up from the tiny outdoor table. He ordered steamed pork dumplings, the duck, and deep-fried ice cream for both of them. Jill asked the waitress to swap her dessert for a ginger ale.

  'I don't think we should talk to him yet,' said Jill broodingly, again bent over the notebook.

  'Huh?' Scotty was chewing his coaster, watching the woman and two kids at the next table enjoying a huge spread of food.

  'It's impossible working with you at lunchtime,' Jill gave a short laugh. 'I hope they hurry up with the food.'

  'Yeah, me too,' said Scotty earnestly.

  Jill smiled, and tried again.

  'Scott.' Maybe using his real name would catch his attention, she thought. 'I reckon we should leave Mr Sebastian for now. He's clever and very guarded. I don't want him closing up shop before we can get anything on him.'

  'Yeah. Okay.' Scotty tore his eyes away from the next table and studied the notebook. 'So what about Bobby Anglia? Known associate of Dennis Rocla. Rocla lived with him when his wife kicked him out. He's doing eighteen months at Long Bay.'

  'Yeah? I'll set it up.' Jill already had her mobile out; if she hurried she could organise a trip to the prison that afternoon.

  18

  MERCY LEANED BACK in the chair and sighed, rubbed her gritty eyes. She looked at the others in the group. They all looked alert and pleased to be there. Most mental health professionals usually had to fight to get supervision; Mercy was forced to attend.

  She used to enjoy these meetings. Conducted by clinical psychologist Dr Noah Griffen, they were attended by two psychiatrists, a psych registrar, another psychologist, and Mercy. Each member of the group discussed their progress in therapy for the week, and one person brought a more detailed case for group discussion. The group members offered suggestions for difficult patients. Also encouraged was insight into personal feelings, and reactions the clinicians might be experiencing in therapy with their clients. Members were expected to bring to the group their feelings of frustration, anger, sadness, even lust, elicited during treatment sessions. Most of the therapists taped their sessions and each week an excerpt of a session was played to the members, who dissected its content. Mercy had learned lessons of great value in past groups.

  Today, she tried to hide. She shifted in her seat, pulling her suit jacket down over her bulging stomach. Under the cover of her jacket, she popped the button on the fly of her pants, and a roll of fat eased out. God, that felt better. Worry about her ever-increasing weight rose from the swamp of her consciousness, but she forced the thoughts back below the surface. Blocking such mundane concerns grew easier every day.

  She became aware of the woman next to her nudging Mercy's foot with her own, trying to attract her attention.

  'Dr Merris. Mercy.' Noah Griffen was staring at her expectantly. 'Do you have your presentation ready?'

  Mercy nodded and handed around the single-page summary of the case she'd brought for discussion today. She presented the case with her head down. She'd deliberately chosen one of her few non sex-abuse cases. She gave intelligible responses to the comments and questions and stood to leave as soon as the session started to wrap up.

  She was first at the door when she heard her name called.

  Noah was waiting for her. She took a step back into his room; he waited until the last of the group members had said their goodbyes.

  'Coffee, Mercy?' he asked.

  'I've got a lot on, Noah.' She talked to the carpet.

  'Are you okay?'

  She looked up into his face and quickly down again. She felt short and frumpy next to her colleague; his hair was slightly greying, but his face nevertheless shone with health, tanned from weekly triathlon training in the sun.

  Mercy now wondered what it was she'd previously found so irresistible about him. When he'd first asked her out some years ago she'd been ecstatic, certain they were destined to be together. But after two of the best evenings out that she could remember, they'd booked a harbourfront room at the Hyatt Hotel in Sydney. Mercy had been lighter then, her curves dangerous. She'd spent the day before the rendezvous in the city, having a massage and splurging three hundred dollars on black La Perla underwear. Squeezing her scented body into the teddy in the change room, she knew she looked hot.

  Dinner in the suite had been exquisite. The harbour was magical; they'd shared a bottle of French champagne. Perfect. Everything. And then he couldn't. Nothing. Not even the hope of an erection. Mercy lied and told him it had happened to lots of guys she'd been with.

  Maybe her feelings for him wouldn't have changed had he not become so strangely silent. He would not speak; his body seemed to almost vibrate with rage. While offering more reassurance to his closed, expressionless form, she had a sudden image of him striking her and she recoiled.

  The affair had died then and there.

  Atypically, Mercy had managed to remain cordial with a former lover, and they'd continued and then developed their professional relationship without ever again mentioning the Hyatt.

  'Yeah, I'm fine, Noah.' She pulled her jacket over her open waistband and tried to keep her voice neutral. 'I just don't want to spend my whole life at work, that's all. I'll see you tomorrow.'

  'Remember that we have an individual session in the afternoon.'

  How could she forget? She avoided eye contact and left the room. She went to the hospital's nearest exit and lit a cigarette as soon as she hit the outside air. It was critical that she keep people out of her head, especially him.

  19

  JILL WAS UNABLE TO arrange a visit to Bobby Anglia until the next afternoon.

  Great, she thought, driving to the correctional facility, he's in the MSPC. The Malabar Special Programs Centre of Long Bay Gaol catered for inmates with problems so severe that they were considered unsafe to themselves or others in the main gaol. A maximum-security facility, the MSPC was broken up into five sections, including a sex-offenders unit, a psych hospital and a unit for inmates considered acutely suicidal or at high risk of self-harm. Inside the walls of the MSPC was also a unit for those offenders requiring twenty-four hour monitoring – the Acute Crisis Management Unit (ACMU) – the most secure unit of its type in New South Wales Corrections. She'd been out there before, and wasn't looking forward to the revisit.

  Jill sighed. Of course Anglia had to be in ACMU.

  She had spent the morning on case notes and Department meetings. Scotty had a compulsory training session all day today, and she'd decided to make the trip to visit Anglia without him.

  She'd had a swim at Clovelly at lunchtime; she was still feeling delicate, and a sheltered section of Clovelly beach ensured she could swim without being buffeted by waves. Problem was, she'd come straight from the beach without thinking to change her clothing for her trip to the gaol. Her first female supervisor had taught her never to wear anything the inmates could see through, down or up. She pulled the neckline of her T-shirt higher as she steered her work Commodore towards Malabar.

  Jill turned the car stereo down as she drove up to the first security gates of Long Bay Gaol. She needn't have bothered – the prison officers saw her badge from their office, waved, and raised the gates. It was an unseasonable 38 degrees in the city today, and the guards would leave their glassed-in office as infrequently as possible. She drove past the main car park and up to the top section of the compound, parking in the area closest to the MSPC.

  The MSPC was a gaol within a gaol; a walled compound located deep inside the already secure outer prison. Jill approached the entrance – a towering wall of stone inset with a blank-faced iron door big enough to admit a semi-trailer. A metal intercom box greeted visitors. She buzzed the
guards, gave her details, and leaned against the wall to wait. She forced herself to slow everything down, adjusted her need to keep moving and get things done. Nothing in gaol was rushed – it was like combat duty: hurry up and wait. Fortunately, her impatience was tempered today by the after-effects of last night's painkillers. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and it felt like cotton wool blocked her dull headache.

  She picked at the skin around her nails, thinking about dinner at her mum's this weekend, pretending her ribs weren't killing her and that she didn't wish she was at home in bed. The sound of footsteps on the gravel path caused her to look up.

  'Hello.' A grey, tired-looking woman smiled at her. 'Bit slow on the gates this afternoon, are they?'

  'So what's new?' Jill smiled back. 'I've buzzed them. Shouldn't be long.'

  'I've brought you luck,' the woman said as the gates were opened by a male guard in mirrored glasses. He glanced at Jill, nodded at her companion.

  Jill followed the woman around to a small alcove on the right. She signed her name in the visitors' book, checked in her firearm and jotted down that she was visiting Bobby Anglia in the Acute Crisis Management Unit.

  'I'm on my way there too,' the woman said, looking over Jill's shoulder. 'Claire Walker, visiting chaplain.' She held her hand out.

  Jill adjusted her shoulder bag and put her pen down. She shook Claire's hand. 'Jill Jackson. I'm a detective over at Maroubra. Got an interview with an inmate.'

  'Yes I saw, Robert Anglia. A very troubled soul.'

  Jill looked down rather than respond, and pinned her temporary visitor's badge to her T-shirt.

  Claire clipped on her chaplain's badge. They walked over to another set of gates and waited again. By then, another couple of people were also waiting to walk across the yard that led to yet another set of gates. A guard accompanied them all across the hot concrete courtyard and let them into the next area. Jill and Claire walked straight ahead, as the others veered left.

  Claire used her own set of keys to open still another gate that led into the small compound that was the ACMU. Jill walked in behind her. Claire had a smile and a word for the two men in prison greens sweeping the path near the gate. Jill kept her face impassive as they surreptitiously checked her out. Blah. She already felt she needed a bath. They walked up the path to the officers' room and into its cool interior.

  Ordinarily when cops had to interview a prisoner, the inmate would be brought over to an interview room in another section of the gaol. Jill knew the senior officer at ACMU, however, and he'd told her just to come over to the unit. The gaol was often short-staffed, and Jill knew having even one officer off the unit to transport an inmate could mean the entire unit had to be locked down. Jill had been there during lockdown several times. The inmates were sent to their single cells, each monitored on CCTV. Their every move was on camera. The first thing that one noted in the small strongbox that was the officers' quarters was the bank of CCTV screens on the left when you walked in. The second thing you saw was the riot gear lining the walls. Jill knew there was another locker full of the vests, helmets, restraints and stun guns just outside the unit.

  There wasn't much for the inmates to do in their rooms during lockdown. Since her first visit, when she'd caught a man masturbating for the camera, Jill tried not to look at the screens.

  Claire greeted the two taciturn guards on duty and Jill introduced herself; she hadn't met these officers before.

  'Anglia's in the yard.' The female officer nodded at the bank of video screens on the wall. 'Closest to the wall there. You ready to go now? Boss said to use his office.'

  'Yeah. Thanks.' Jill followed the heavy-set woman from the room, giving Claire a nod on the way out.

  ACMU housed a maximum of fourteen inmates. As usual, the unit was full, and the majority of its occupants were out in the small, dusty courtyard of the compound. Four men kicked a tennis ball against a wall, while others watched the game from the partial shade of a covered walkway. Two or three men talked to themselves, making listless hand gestures to the air. Although obviously heavily medicated, their hallucinations were evidently breaking though. This unit wasn't designed to house the mentally ill, but with the majority of the gaol's population suffering some form of mental illness, all units had to share. These men would be especially vulnerable, unable to survive in the main gaol.

  'Did ya hear Finker's in here?'

  The officer spoke without looking at Jill, nodding towards a heavily bearded man sitting alone near one of the guards.

  Jill thought a moment before the name registered.

  'You're kidding,' she said, unable to keep the disgust from her voice and face as she stared at the man.

  Larry Finker was one of the state's most hated. When his wife had left him, he'd kidnapped their two children; a boy aged four, and a girl, six. He'd strangled his son the first day, but kept the little girl alive for 24 hours, raping her repeatedly before strangling her as well. Jill had heard he was trying for forensic status, appealing to the court on the grounds that he was mentally ill in an effort to keep himself out of gaol. Although there was no evidence that he was insane, it looked like his attempt would be successful – he'd be murdered within a week if not afforded protection.

  'He's been here since Monday. We fought to keep him out for three weeks, but in the end we had to take him.' The officer's voice was flat.

  'Looks like someone's got to him already,' said Jill, noticing the man's left eye was blackened.

  'Yeah. We broke up the fight as soon as we could,' the officer said, sounding unconvincing. 'What're you gonna do?'

  Jill laughed, and the officer half-smiled for the first time.

  'I'll unlock the office for you and bring Anglia over,' she said.

  'Thanks, Kellie,' Jill responded, reading the woman's name from her badge.

  Kellie unlocked a door just inside the covered walkway, and began to walk back towards the yard. She stopped, and turned back to Jill.

  'You know who that is, don't you?' Kellie pointed her chin at a relatively small, dark-skinned man pacing near the wall in the hot sun.

  'Um . . .'

  'That's Teddy, serial rapist. Attacked a female officer at Goulburn.'

  'Nice place you got here, Kellie.'

  The officer gave another small smile and left.

  Jill put her shoulder bag on the desk in the tiny office, and stretched the kinks in her neck. She looked up at the camera staring down at her. Every room, every corner of this compound was monitored by a camera. While this should have been reassuring, Jill couldn't shift the heavy blanket of dread that settled over her shoulders every time she visited this place.

  Sensing movement, Jill looked up to see Kellie approaching the doorway. A pair of thin legs in green shorts was visible behind her.

  'Robert Anglia,' announced the officer, stepping aside. 'Buzz when you're done.' She pointed to a button at the door.

  'Thanks, boss,' Anglia said, as Jill motioned the small, thin man to the only other seat in the room. She sat in the seat nearest the door. First rule in these places. The windowless room was painted the same dirty green as the inmates' uniforms. A bench secured to one concrete wall served as a desk. The phone and PC were both outdated and box-like. Only the omnipresent security camera in the corner seemed to have been made this century.

  'My name is Sergeant Jackson,' said Jill, taking control of the interview. 'I'm investigating the death of a couple of mates of yours – David Carter and George Manzi or Marks.' She held her pen ready and looked at him expectantly.

  Jill already knew that Anglia knew Rocla. She wanted to know whether he also knew Carter and Manzi. The small man shifted in his seat.

  'It's not like they were mates of mine. I hardly knew them,' Anglia said, scratching unconsciously at a bandage taped across his forehead.