Her father stopped her working at the store after the second armed robbery. The man, armed with a syringe, had made off with the day's takings half an hour before Chloe got there for the afternoon. Her dad hated his wife being there too, and had tried to sell the shop, but there were no genuine buyers. Everyone knew that Coles and Woollies made all the money in the industry. Everyone except the junkies, that is: they saw the corner store as a cash register. Her parents had been robbed five times since then.
Chloe had to get them out, and she would. She was going to find a way to get an on-screen position and a six-figure salary. She'd pay off their mortgage and get them out of the shop. And there was something about this story that felt like destiny. She peered overhead at the news chopper, one of theirs, returning after a midday break. Sydney wanted to know what was going on out here.
Chloe surreptitiously pulled at her tights again and made some more notes. Hell, the whole country wanted answers. And she was going to get them.
9
GABRIEL SAT OPEN-mouthed, staring at the enormous television in the corner of the room. Narelle Rice had muted the sound when she'd shown Jill and Gabriel into the living room, explaining that Justine and Ryan were expected home from work at two-thirty. Jill tried to catch Delahunt's eye, but he sat absorbed in the silent TV. On the screen, American soap actors made exaggerated facial expressions.
Mrs Rice returned from the kitchen carrying soft drinks in glasses and a plate of biscuits. She put the biscuits on a low coffee table in front of Gabriel and sat next to Jill on the couch. Gabriel reached unseeingly for the plate and munched while he watched the soap.
'You want me to put the sound on?' asked Mrs Rice.
'No. That's fine,' answered Jill, scowling at Gabriel, who'd turned to nod a yes.
'So, Mrs Rice,' began Jill, 'do Ryan and Justine work together?'
'They do everything together now. Could you just call me Narelle?'
Jill smiled.
'We've only just been able to get Justine to go back to work,' Mrs Rice continued. 'They work over at Orange Grove – you know the Krispy Kreme over there? Ryan's a manager,' she said with pride, 'and Justine was well on her way to management too. Before this happened.' She looked at her lap.
'It must have been terrible for you all,' said Jill.
'Oh you've no idea.' Narelle pulled a tissue from her cardigan pocket. 'We'll just never get over it. Justine…' She broke off, smothering a sob with her tissue. 'We've had to let Ryan move in. She wouldn't sleep alone. She said she'd move in with him if we didn't let him stay over.'
Jill nodded.
'He's a good boy, really,' Narelle continued, 'but he's been drinking far too much since this happened.' She shook her head. 'And the arguments! You've no idea. They used to be so close, so kind to one another.'
Jill noted that Gabriel's attention now seemed to be split between Narelle and the soap.
'I'll just get some more biscuits.' Narelle stood. 'Everyone loves them.'
Jill looked down at the empty plate in front of her partner. Are you serious, she asked him with her eyes.
He smiled at her with delight, his thick eyebrows raised high. Crumbs covered his dark tee-shirt. She stared at him disparagingly.
'What?' he said.
She pointed at his clothes.
'Oh.'
Still smiling, he brushed at his flat stomach, then stood and dumped the crumbs on the floor. He stared at the little pile around his chair, and then scraped at them with his feet, spreading them into the carpet. She watched, transfixed, as he stopped, then began again, his head down, scraping at the ground with his toe, like a cartoon bull about to charge. Laughter caught in her throat; she wiped the smile from her face when Mrs Rice walked back in, the plate refilled. Gabriel settled back into his chair and took another biscuit.
A scrabbling sound at the front door drew their attention.
'Mum, let us in.'
'Excuse me please. They must have lost their keys again. We haven't left a door unlocked anywhere in this house since the robbery.'
Jill heard a whispered conversation at the front entrance, a disgruntled young female voice louder than the others. Footsteps stamped upstairs and then Mrs Rice re-entered the living room, accompanied by an ungainly youth in a work uniform, baseball cap pulled low, a few pimples scattered across his cheeks.
'Detectives, this is Ryan.' Her hand rested protectively across his shoulders. 'I'll just get you a glass, Ryan,' she told him.
'That's okay,' he muttered. 'I'll get a beer.'
'I'll bring you one,' she said tightly. 'You speak to the detectives.' Turning to Jill, she said, 'Justine's just getting changed.'
'You're not the ones we talked to last time.' Ryan dropped into a chair.
'I'm Sergeant Jill Jackson, Ryan. This is Federal Agent Gabriel Delahunt. We wanted to ask you a few more questions.'
'Yeah, I know. Justine said you called. Is it true those arseholes killed someone this time? We heard it on the news.' His eyes were just visible under the rim of the cap, his voice flat.
'We're not sure if it's the same people at this point, Ryan, but we need to reinterview everyone who's been through a home invasion lately so we can try to find out.'
Ryan took his beer from Mrs Rice with a mumbled thank you, and drained half of it in one go. Justine's mother gave Jill a resigned look and left the room, worry creasing her forehead.
'They'd better not come here again,' Ryan spoke into his bottle. 'I'll be ready for them next time.'
'Ryan,' Jill had his statement in her hand, 'this is the police report you made. Could you have a look at the section I've highlighted, and tell me if there's anything else you can remember about the offenders? Anything at all could be a great help. The way they moved, talked, anything they said. Sometimes after a couple of weeks bits and pieces come back.'
Ryan swallowed the rest of the beer in two long draughts and stood up.
'I'll look at it, but I'm not the one you should be talking to.' He stood rigid, the statement clenched in his fist. 'Half the time I had my face shoved into that chair you're sitting on.' He indicated to Gabriel. 'The rest of the time I was getting the shit kicked out of me. Justine was upstairs with two of them, and it was pretty quiet up there.' He turned at the sound of feet on the stairs. 'Here she is now. I reckon she got a good look at everything.' His voice was acid. 'I'm going to get another beer.'
Justine Rice froze in the doorway, staring after her boyfriend as he left the room, her eyes panicked. Jill was surprised to see she'd changed into flannelette pyjamas. It wasn't yet three p.m. Her hair had been scraped into a messy ponytail and her clear skin was free of makeup. If Ryan had not just indicated otherwise, Jill would have been certain that this was Justine's little sister, a much younger teen.
Justine seemed to register Jill's eyes on her clothing, and hugged her arms around her slender body.
'I've got a stomach ache,' she said, 'so can we do this quickly? I'm sick all the time now, since it happened.' She crawled into the chair furthest from Gabriel and tucked her legs under her. She spoke to Jill only, angling her body so that she could not even see Gabriel.
He stood. 'Jill, I'm just going to see if I can help Ryan with his statement.'
She nodded, grateful Gabriel had picked up the girl's obvious discomfort with him.
'Justine, I'm Jill. Thank you so much for talking with us. I know this is the very last thing you wanted to do today.' Jill leaned forward in her seat and smiled; Justine seemed to uncurl herself a little.
'Are you going to catch these guys soon?' she asked, her voice small.
'Yes.' Jill hoped it was true. 'We've got a lot of people looking for them, and we need your help, Justine.'
'Hah. I can't even help myself.'
'Maybe, Justine, but you saw these guys. You got a better look at them than some of the other witnesses, and that could help us a lot.'
Justine said nothing.
'Justine,' Jill began carefully, 'you were
taken upstairs by two of these guys, is that right?'
A small nod.
'And you could hear the others hurting Ryan down here?'
'I could hear everything. He was screaming.' Her mouth was now on her knees, her voice muffled in her pyjamas. 'They said they'd kill him.'
'It must have been horrible, honey. I can't even imagine it.' Jill wished that were true. 'You were very brave to get them what they needed so they wouldn't hurt Ryan anymore.'
'I wasn't brave.'
Jill could barely hear her now.
'Justine, you did exactly what you had to do to get them to stop hurting Ryan and get them out of the house.'
Justine was a portrait of misery, her face buried in her knees, her arms wrapped around them. Her small body shook silently.
'Justine, sometimes it's easier if you keep your eyes open,' Jill told her. 'It makes the images not so clear.'
Justine rocked slightly, her sobbing just audible, and Jill wondered whether she'd told them all there was to know about her time upstairs.
'What happened up there, Justine? Tell me what happened when it all went quiet.'
'They said they'd kill him,' she said. 'The spider one said he'd cut my throat -'
Suddenly she gagged and ran from the room. Mrs Rice hurried after her from the kitchen. Jill sighed resignedly and stood. She followed the sounds of Justine dry-retching and found her sitting on the edge of the bath, her face wet with tears. Her mother bent to comfort her.
'It'll be easier if you just tell me, honey,' Jill said.
'Tell you what?' Mrs Rice straightened. 'Really! She's sick. I think it's best we leave this for another time. I can bring her in to see you tomorrow.'
'Narelle, you've been great letting us come over here, and I know this is horrible for everyone. And I am going to have to get Justine and Ryan to come in and make another statement tomorrow. But right now, Justine has something that she needs to tell me.'
Mrs Rice clasped a hand over her mouth.
Jill continued. 'Narelle, I'm going to have to ask you to just leave us both in here for around ten minutes. Maybe you could duck down to the shop and buy Justine a lemonade? It'll help settle her stomach.'
She spoke firmly. If Justine didn't get this off her chest now, it would consume her from the inside out. Narelle Rice seemed suddenly to know this too, and with an imploring glance at Jill, left the room.
Jill took her place on the side of the bath.
'Let's get this done, Justine. You've held this in too long already. These feelings are poisonous when you keep them inside.' Justine looked up at her. 'You've already told me you've been feeling sick since it happened. You can't get well again until you let it out, until you tell the truth.' It'll take more than that, she thought, but it's a start.
'You said the spider one told you he'd cut your throat,' Jill continued. 'That wasn't in your statement. What happened next?'
Justine pulled away a little from her and turned her head to face the wall. I've lost her, Jill thought, but Justine began to speak in a flat, lifeless voice.
'He'd said he'd cut my throat and fuck the hole in my neck.' Her voice echoed in the small bathroom. 'He said he'd kill Ryan first and then come back and fuck me while I was bleeding. He said I could stop him doing it if I gave the other guy head.' Justine began to cough, then spoke again in a tiny voice. 'So I did.'
'I'm so sorry, Justine,' Jill wanted to reach out to the girl, but she'd moved as far as she could from her.
'Did the other one have any tattoos?' Jill didn't want to press her any more, but this was a race for time now. They had to get these animals.
'No. He didn't.' Justine turned, and faced Jill. 'He made me do it while the spider one watched. But halfway through he pulled away from me and walked out.'
'Okay. I'm so sorry that happened to you, Justine. I'm going to leave you alone soon, honey, but we're going to need you to come in tomorrow.' Jill put her hand on the girl's shoulder. 'You did the right thing telling me.'
'Ryan won't think so. He'll leave me.'
'Deep inside, Justine, I think Ryan already knows what they did to you, and he hasn't left you yet,' Jill said. 'And you know what, Justine? If he did leave you because you got sexually assaulted, then he's not worth it anyway.'
Jill held her while she cried a little, and then said, 'Unless you want to, honey, don't feel you have to tell anyone about this until you come in tomorrow. I'll help you tell your parents and Ryan.'
'Thanks.'
'Before we go, Justine, is there anything else you can think of that they said or did that you haven't told us yet?'
Justine looked up at her. Jill saw her eyes widen with horror; she was remembering, reliving the scene. The girl swallowed, and the dead voice came back.
'Yeah,' she said. 'While he was making me do it to the other one, the spider one started cutting himself on his stomach with a knife, and then he… came.'
Jill couldn't speak for a moment. 'He… what? He did what?' She listened to the girl crying almost inaudibly.
Finally, she asked quietly, 'Justine, was there any blood or semen left in your room afterwards?'
'Yeah,' the girl nodded, and then hung her head, 'on the floor, but I wiped it up.'
'That's okay Justine. That's okay.'
As she left the house, Jill had her mobile out and was already dialling.
10
'JOSS, YOU'VE GOT to talk to me.' Isobel had tucked Charlie into bed, and now sat down next to him on the lounge. 'Who was that?'
'I told you in the car,' Joss's voice was glass. 'I knew him when I was growing up. He's violent. He's been in gaol. You know I don't want anything to do with my past.'
'Yeah, but I've never heard you talk like that. What would be wrong with just acknowledging him and moving on?'
'For fuck's sake, Isobel! Why do you have to question everything I do? I told you, he's fucking dangerous.'
'Do you think you could try any harder to wake Charlie?' Isobel stood. 'Anyway,' she said, turning away, 'the police called. They have to re-interview us about the robbery. They're going to call tomorrow to set up a time.'
She left the room before he could respond.
Great. Just great. What did they want? Joss stared at the blank television screen. He felt hunted, trapped. How had Cutter found him? He knew it was no coincidence. Twenty years and he'd never seen anyone from his past life, and now he'd seen Cutter twice in just over a week. How long had he been watching them? Did he know where they lived? He looked around his loungeroom. How had he let this danger into his life? Why was this happening to him?
An image of Fuzzy, scrabbling at his throat, blood everywhere, flashed into his mind. It seemed to answer his question.
Cursing under his breath, he reached for the remote control, desperate to find something to replace the scenes and sounds in his head. On each station, Fuzzy's fourteen-year-old eyes pleaded with Joss to help him, jets of blood pumping from the gash in his neck. Joss's hands, wet with blood, trying to hold his friend's throat together.
He threw the remote onto the cushion next to him and made his way to the kitchen, unconsciously wiping his hands on his jeans. Reaching into the cupboard, he took out the bottle, a glass. He filled it completely, a wave of the amber liquid sloshing over the side onto his hand. Eyes unfocused, he downed half the glass, relishing the burning. He coughed, swallowed the rest, and poured again, then took the glass and the remainder of the bottle of bourbon back into the loungeroom, noting with relief that he'd seen a new bottle at the back of the cupboard. This was going to be a long night.
Fuzzy's face had left the TV screen, but Joss could still smell his blood. He downed another half glass before the blood of the kids in Rwanda took over. The screaming and hacking of the massacre in Kibeho crowded into his brain and he had to stop midway to the couch; he put his glass down on the dining table so he could hold his head in his hands. Leaning forward, praying the memories would leave him alone, that his brain wouldn't burst, he finall
y felt his medicine taking effect, the heat of the alcohol in his belly. He fell into the cushions of the lounge, pulled the bottle closer, and turned the volume of the television up a little.
ABC news. He moved to flip the channel, not ready for any more reality, when the top story caught his eye. Another home invasion. Last night. He sat forward in the seat, suddenly very sober. This time someone was dead.
It was as if he'd left the door from hell wide open, and a demon had walked on through. He thought of his girls, upstairs. He had to get them out of here.
Then, he had to find Cutter.
Jill sat at the computer in her loungeroom in her singlet and briefs. She googled 'M5 motorway' to find the site to register for an electronic toll payment tag. The department would reimburse her for the monthly fees. She didn't know how long she'd be out at Liverpool, but she wasn't going to wait in the M5 toll queue with the motorists paying cash every day. She was surprised her department vehicle hadn't been fitted with a tag already. The car was brand new; maybe that explained it.
She sighed and stretched. The trip there and back was a bitch. It took two hours of her day: time she could be training. She looked down at her belly and grimaced. For years, her stomach had been unyielding, creaseless. She poked at a small fold above her knickers and walked into her gym.
Truth is, I kind of like looking like this, Jill thought, looking at her mirrored reflection. She'd had to change out of her push-up bra this morning because her decolletage had rendered her fitted shirt obscene. She smiled at the curve of her usually hard buttocks. The extra five kilos had even changed her face a little – fewer hard angles.
But soft is dead, she told herself.
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