He looked around. It was always quiet around Logan's house, he thought. No-one was ever in the street. Logan had told him his dad didn't even know their next-door neigh-bours' names. The idea was bizarre to Jerome, who'd lived in the same house all his life and knew every person in every house in his street. And they all knew him. Sometimes it was cool living there. Every few months or something, they'd have a street party at the bottom of the cul-de-sac, and he'd be allowed to stay up till whenever. At those parties, he could get away with practically anything, because his mum and dad didn't like to yell in front of the neighbours. And at Christmas everyone tried to have better lights and shit decorating their houses. In Christmas week, it was like there were street parties every night. Last Christmas they'd even closed half the street off at the top of the cul-de-sac, and his dad and Mr Robotham had built a massive barbecue right in the middle of the road. Jerome had copped a hiding for nearly knocking it over when he'd come down the street on his belly on his skateboard. He laughed out loud now, thinking about it.
But at least Logan didn't have everyone knowing what he was doing all the time, he thought, staring at the neat houses. No-one was even mowing their lawn, or watering. Logan had told him his dad said everyone was too busy trying to pay their mortgage to talk to anyone else.
Jerome kicked a rock along as he walked, imagining he was Harry Kewell and the crowd was cheering his name.
Making a massive save from losing the rock down the drain, Jerome failed to notice the van stopped near the park.
27
JAMAAL HAD REACHED THE park at seven o'clock. The sun's rays had not yet reached this side of the quiet street. A seagull landed on his rear-vision mirror, hoping for leftover takeaway, begging for scraps. Disgusted by the creature's bright eyes, Jamaal smacked his hand on the glass and the bird flapped away.
There was no way of knowing whether the boy was still in the house. He knew he did not live there – the boy had rung the doorbell last night. Would he walk home alone? Had he left already? Would he leave with the owners of the house in a car? Jamaal knew the chances of seeing the boy alone again would be slim, but the feeling that had awoken when he had first seen him would not leave. Sometimes destiny provides.
So, when Jamaal saw the same blond hair and red T-shirt crossing the road straight towards him, he was not even surprised. The child had not seen him; he was busy playing with a stone on the road.
Jamaal felt the erotic throb of adrenalin that always surged through him before violence. He cracked open the door of his van.
'Excuse me, boy. Could you help me for a moment, please?'
Still no-one was around. Jamaal scanned the street and spotted nothing but the blond boy and the seagull.
Jerome looked up, a little startled. Shit, you scared me, he thought, but aloud he said, 'Huh?'
'I need some help for just a moment.' Jamaal smiled what he hoped was a friendly grin. 'My friend is not here yet, and I need someone to help me get some things out of my van.'
Jerome stood where he was in the middle of the road, his head on an angle. Was that the van from last night?
'They're not heavy,' tried Jamaal, sensing the boy's hesitation. 'I hurt myself.' He turned to the side, showed the still-wet bandage at the back of his head.
'Sorry, mister. I gotta go. I'm late already.'
Many of his friends would not have even answered this man, but Jerome's parents had taught him to answer adults when he was spoken to. But screw this, he thought. No way am I going to risk missing out on the beach to help this goose.
'Twenty dollars.' Jamaal had it in his hand, ready. 'It's just some tins and a ladder. It will take us five minutes, maybe less. Please, I am late for work already.'
Jerome had received fifty dollars for his last birthday and needed fifteen dollars more to buy the new PlayStation 2 game. Not even Logan's smart-arse brother had it. And Nathan would shit if Jerome got it first. He could pick it up at Westfield tomorrow. Excellent.
'Yeah. Okay, then,' said Jerome, eyes on the twenty. He made his way over to the van. The back door was open, but it was shaded on that side of the road, and he couldn't see much inside.
Jamaal put his hand back into his pocket. He removed a wet cloth from a sandwich bag he'd positioned carefully. Within the five steps it had taken the boy to close the gap between them, he'd palmed the chloroform-soaked rag and was ready.
'It'll take two people to get this ladder out,' he said, as Jerome stepped into the shadows.
When he walked between the man and the open van door, Jerome smelt something real strong – fumes, like petrol, or paint. Must be a tradie, he thought, before everything went black.
28
JEROME'S MOUTH FELT ALL DRY and tasted funny. And shit, his head hurt bad. I'm not going to school today, he thought. Why is it so hot?
Eyes still closed. His head hurt too much to open them. 'M-Mum?' It came out a croak. 'Ma?' He tried again.
I feel so sick, he thought. It feels like I'm moving. He slept again.
The next time Jerome awoke, his heart was hammering, and he knew before he even opened his eyes that something was very wrong. He couldn't move his arms. He was lying face down on a carpet that smelled like petrol and something worse. Why can't I move? His heart thudded against the floor underneath him. That smell – chemical. Where am I?
It was then that Jerome remembered the man and the van and he knew where he was. He began crying straight away, sobbing into the carpet. The realisation that he'd been kidnapped crashed down on him like a huge wave, smashing into him like a physical blow. No-one knew he was in here. Would he ever see his mum again? What would happen to him? Horror stories he'd heard at camp of kids being abducted and chopped to pieces flashed through his mind before being whited-out by pure terror that robbed him of all thought. He lay in the van and cried until he was sick.
Jerome gradually became aware of a low keening sound. He stopped when he realised that he was making the noise. He must've been crying for half an hour, and no-one had come. Should he call out? But what if the man with the big nose came back? He felt scorching hot and so thirsty that his tongue had swollen and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He couldn't even moisten his lips. His throat rasped raw from crying, and his eyes felt scratchy and swollen shut. His hands were numb, and his shoulders gave off searing flares of pain where his bunched muscles pulled backwards. Dried vomit stuck to his cheek; he smelled hot urine and knew he'd pissed himself.
He decided to risk calling out. At first no sound would come from his dry throat. He tried again.
'Help. Help me. Is anyone there?'
No-one came. Jerome cried a bit more, his throat convulsing. He needed to sit up so badly that he tried to scream; the sound was feeble, even to his own ears. He lay there in complete misery.
Suddenly, noise. Outside the van. Someone was coming.
Jerome's heart beat so quickly he thought he'd probably die before the kidnapper even opened the door. But maybe it wasn't the kidnapper. Maybe it was someone else and they would rescue him. His mum and dad would be looking for him. It could be the police. He strained his neck and could just see one section of a steel rod that he knew was connected to the van's door handle. It was moving. The door was opening.
'Oh my God! Look at the poor thing!'
The voice was not that of the man who'd taken him! Jerome moaned – a sob of relief.
'Help me,' he croaked in little more than a whisper.
'Get him out of there. Quickly.'
Jerome felt someone kneeling in the van and hands gently lifting him to his knees.
'Are you all right?'
'My arms hurt,' Jerome managed.
'Look at his hands. They're white! He's been tied like an animal.'
'Be quiet, you're scaring him more, poor thing.'
Jerome let himself be lifted from the van. He tried to stand, to see his rescuers, but his eyes couldn't focus right, and his knees buckled.
'Let him sit! Get him water.'
Jerome sat at the edge of the van with his head between his knees. Sounds seemed muffled and he felt himself sliding sideways, unable to stay awake. He felt someone freeing his hands and a bottle was pressed to his lips. He drank, and his vision slowly cleared. He was in a huge room. It must be a garage, he thought, though he'd never seen one so large. Two men stood near him: one, a blond man, was smiling at him, friendly. He held the bottle of water out to him, and Jerome tried to take it, but it slipped through his fingers, still numb from being tied.
Dully, he watched the bottle roll towards a pair of feet. A hand reached down and picked it up. Another smiling man. Huge. In a suit.
'You must be very frightened, young man,' said the tall man, handing Jerome another bottle of water. 'I imagine you'd like to get home as soon as possible. We've called your parents and they're on their way.'
Jerome began again to cry again. Tears of relief. Thoughts of seeing his mum and dad again. Abby. Even Nathan.
'Th-thank you for helping me,' he said, sniffling.
The blond man ruffled Jerome's hair and smiled again. 'You're a brave boy. You'll have a story to tell at school later, won't you?'
Jerome needed more water. He was weakly lifting the bottle when a door at the side of the garage opened and the driver of the van walked into the room. Jerome froze with the bottle halfway to his mouth.
He wanted to shriek to his rescuers, to let them know that this was the man who'd kidnapped him, but he didn't know how the man would react if he did so. He stared wild-eyed at his rescuers, silently trying to alert them.
'Good, isn't he, Mr Sebastian?' he heard the hook-nosed man ask.
'Oh you've done very well, Jamaal,' said the big man in the suit. 'Very well indeed.' He put his arm around the skinnier man's shoulders and smiled broadly, looking down at Jerome as a starving man might view a feast.
Jerome didn't even notice the blond man placing his hand on his thigh. His brain struggled to register the sudden certainty that his mum and dad had not been called at all.
29
SCOTTY INSISTED THAT JILL stay out with her parents at Camden for a couple of days, and she was not up to objecting. She found it difficult to believe that two men had physically attacked her in forty-eight hours. Since she'd started investigating David Carter's murder, her carefully ordered life seemed to be unravelling.
At the moment, however, this thought was suppressed. Reclining on a sun lounge by the side of her parents' pool, her knees bent up – this position eased the pressure on her ribs – her hand shielded her eyes, blocking some of the late afternoon sun from her face. The cicadas chiming in the semi-rural neighbourhood nearly drowned out the sounds of her niece and nephew chortling in the pool.
'Girls, you should have a hit of tennis before dinner.' Robert Jackson stood at the barbecue, poking at the smouldering coals, beer in hand.
'Or, you could get me another white wine, Dad.' Cassie was on a lounge next to Jill, painting her nails. Their sister-in-law, Robyn, was in the shallows with Lily, Jill's niece and Robyn's three-year-old daughter. Avery, Jill's six-year-old nephew, was calling for his father's attention every minute or so. Tim, the children's father – Jill and Cassie's older brother – was touring the rose garden behind the pool with their mother, Frances. 'Robert, don't be silly,' called Frances, secateurs in hand, 'How is Jill supposed to play tennis with broken ribs?' 'And since when haveI played tennis?' Cassie wanted to know.
Jill gave up trying to keep her eyes half-open and let the waning sunlight soak into her skin. She buried her hand in the silky fur of the cat pressed against her side. Fisher, her mum's blue-point Siamese, stretched full-length, upside down, drunk on the sun and Jill's attention. His purring chest moved against her own.
As usual when she was at home, she could feel herself healing. Here, in the scented afternoon light, she was suspended above her life, safe from the sharks snapping below.
Jill opened her eyes half an hour later to the clink of ice near her ear.
'Mango juice,' her mum said quietly. 'Sorry to wake you, darling. Dinner's almost ready.'
Jill stretched, and then winced; she'd caught herself before any real pain bit through her side. She opened and closed her mouth, rubbing her hand over her face. Her skin felt tight from the sun. I should've applied more sunblock, she thought. Cassie was just emerging from the pool in front of her, looking just as glamorous and skinny as she did in the magazines.
I can't talk, thought Jill, looking down at her own concave stomach. Gotta eat more while I'm here. She felt surprise that she had an appetite as she made her way up the stairs to the deck that surrounded the back of her parents' sprawling house. The cicadas were even louder now, if possible, and the smells of newly mown grass and orange-blossom filled the early evening air.
Lily wouldn't eat until Aunty Jill was sitting next to her, so Jill took her seat overlooking the pool and the ten acres of her parents' backyard. As the sun set over the horse paddocks, she wolfed down king prawns and lemon-crusted barbecued lamb cutlets, potato salad and roasted beetroot salad. She was certain that she wouldn't be able to fit in any of the tropical fruit salad and ice-cream, but over coffee she even managed a piece of Robyn's famous frozen Mars Bar slice.
She pushed her seat back from the table. Used to her silence, her family carried on their conversation around her, and she allowed their familiar noise to wash over her as she breathed in the hot, scented air. Funny that she forgot stars even existed when she was in the city – there were too many streetlights to notice them. Here, a billion tiny bubbles of brightness burst and reformed in the endless black sky above her parents' property.
Robyn lightly tapped her daughter's hand for the tenth time as Lily reached to touch one of the flickering candles that softly illuminated the table. Jill had watched the scenario, smiling each time Lily's face registered surprise when her mother or another family member tapped her hand. She was hypnotised by the dancing tea lights in the glass jars, the tiny flames reflected in her huge blue eyes. Rather than remove the candles and use artificial lighting, the family almost unconsciously attended to Lily's wandering fingertips, and she was beginning to learn to avoid the danger.
Tonight, the characteristic defensiveness of her brother's conversations did not disturb Jill. The elder by four years, he'd been sixteen when she was kidnapped, and she figured he'd taken on the same guilt as her father for being unable to protect her. She remembered her brother as open and boisterous; his teasing fun-loving and fond prior to her disappearance. Now it seemed he spoke to her as little as possible, with her own inability to initiate conversation compounding the problem. She had never discussed her ordeal with her father or brother, and the incident lay like an impassable swamp between them, the horror of the experience silently revived every time they met. Each of these men was overly sensitive to perceived criticism, quick to make cynical remarks about others' inadequacies, and could often grind family conversations into uncomfortable silences with their disparaging sarcasm or critical wit.
Tonight, perhaps the laden table, the soporific night air or the several empty bottles had soothed the men in her family. No-one had even told Cassie she'd had too much to drink. Jill watched her brother's hand on the back of his wife's chair, absently curling tendrils of her hair around his fingers. Together they watched their son swapping unopened Christmas crackers with his grandparents, trying to cheat to ensure he won each time.
She looked up and caught her mother smiling at her. She smiled back sleepily; her face taut from sun and chlorine, her eyes grainy, like she'd been crying for hours. Fisher snaked around her ankles, angling for scraps.
Scotty's right, she thought. I'll stay another day.
Birds, rather than a nightmare, woke her. Nice change, she thought. She padded downstairs to the kitchen.
At 5.30, she thought there'd be no-one about yet, but through the kitchen windows she could see her mother standing barefoot on the deck outside, sipping a coffee. Jill poured some water from a jug in the
fridge and joined her. Fisher was up on the table, sniffing the morning.
Vodka Doesn't Freeze Page 14
