They stood now between the bed and a wardrobe. He pushed her towards the cupboard and for a moment, she imagined that he was going to try to stuff her inside it. She'd never fit. Instead, he reached in with his left hand, his eyes on her the whole time.
Chloe met his eyes once and her knees buckled. His hand whipped out of the wardrobe and caught her arm. He used his right hand to lift her chin with the knife.
'Open your eyes, now,' he said. 'You're not being any fun.'
She forced herself to open her eyes and stare at the floor. If she looked into his demented face again, she wouldn't be able to help screaming, and he would start stabbing her with that huge knife. She knew it.
His left hand held cable. Plastic ties. She'd seen them before in crime scene photos. The restraint of choice for today's killer: cable ties, unable to be broken by the victim without pulling their own hands off. Her thoughts cantered madly. She couldn't let this man bind her. She had to fight now! On the other hand, if he was going to restrain her, he wasn't going to kill her immediately. She might have time to reason with him.
Chloe found her voice, although to her ears it sounded fractured, hysterical. She forced herself not to focus on it, or she'd lose herself to those impulses.
'My b-boyfriend knows I'm here,' she managed. 'He's a cop.'
'Wrong. No. I don't think so.' Grinning, her captor capered a little on the spot, the machete still pointed at her throat. She froze, terrified of the swishing blade. The wound on her neck throbbed, but she sensed the blood had coagulated and she was not bleeding heavily. 'You said the police don't know I'm here. You said that, slut. Don't lie to me. Now turn around and give me your hands.'
She hesitated, and he jabbed the knife at her neck again. She whimpered and turned. This man had dismembered a person in Capitol Hill.
Pulling her arms behind her back, he wrapped one hand then the other with the unyielding ties, wrenching her shoulders backwards finally to tighten them.
'Now sit. Here. On the floor.'
Chloe squatted and then dropped to her bottom between the bed and the wardrobe. He'd have to put the knife down to bind her ankles. When he bent over her she'd headbutt – no, kick him – then run for the door.
He seemed to have seen her calculating.
'You can't get out,' he said. 'You have to use the key. And I have that. By the time you get to the door, I'll have filleted you. Did you know you can do that to a person? No, I didn't either, but I've found, recently, that the muscles come away quite cleanly.'
Chloe screamed and screamed.
He ripped his bedspread from his bed and shoved a fistful of the fabric into her mouth. Chloe gagged on the material and tried to dislodge the wad from her airway. She couldn't breathe. He jabbed the tip of the knife under her chin.
'I'm not going to hurt you unless you make me,' he said.
She tried desperately to rein in her blind panic. There were only two choices here. Live or die. This man would kill her now, or she could delay her death and possibly survive this.
'Good,' he said. 'No one can hear you anyway. There's a foot of concrete above us, and these double-brick walls are half buried into the earth. I love it here, don't you?'
He motioned her to lie on her side and he squatted to tie each ankle, and then cable-tied them together.
'Now,' he said. 'I promise not to hurt you, but you need to cooperate. This bit's tricky.'
He stood and reached back into the wardrobe. Chloe panted into the fabric, terrified with each move he made that he would bring forth some object of horror. His hands emerged and he now held a thick wire with a lock, a device resembling something used to secure a bike. He squatted again. He looped the cord through the restraints around her ankles and used it to pull her legs backwards. He then yanked her hands downwards, pulling at the restraints, handling her as though she were an inanimate object. Her shoulders burned and she moaned around the fabric. She heard him click the lock into place. She was shackled into a U-shape, the top half of her body facing the bed.
Immediately, Chloe was engulfed by waves of claustrophobic terror. She was completely immobilised. She tried to roll, but the movement wrenched at her shoulders and thighs. Her neck strained and she struggled to breathe.
'Hogtied,' he said, standing with his hands on his hips, beaming down at her. 'You look good. I've fastened the cable to a bolt in the wall. You'll be staying here for a while.'
He picked up his knife from the bed. 'Shut up,' he said, when Chloe made choking sounds through the fabric in her mouth. 'I'm going to fix a proper gag so you can breathe properly.' He took a scarf from the wardrobe and squatted next to her again. 'Don't scream, slut, or I'll cut you.'
He pulled the bedspread from her jaws, and Chloe spat out the taste, then screamed through sobs. He wrapped the scarf around her mouth. She could at least breathe around the fabric, but the pressure he applied compressed her tongue and chafed at the soft corners of her lips; the knot at the back of her neck cut her circulation.
He sat down on the side of the bed; took a deep breath.
'Now I'm going to show you how I relax,' he said.
Cutter reclined on the bed and lifted his shirt, tended to his wound. The smell filled the room.
Chloe gave into the hysteria that bulged behind her eyes.
30
JILL WAS AWAKE before the alarm sounded at five, but her eyelashes were glued shut. She prised them open carefully, groaned and rolled over. A sea of used tissues littered the ground; one was still crushed in her fist.
She pointed her face into the hot stream of water in the shower and thought again about what she'd ask Joss and Isobel. She figured these were good people caught up in some sort of bad situation, but this was no time for them to be stuffing around. It had been six days since the murder at Capitol Hill, and the taskforce had yet to bring in a person of interest. The media were slamming them on every news update. She knew that Last would want Henry Nguyen brought in today or tomorrow at the latest. They'd had constant covert surveillance on his last known address, and the superintendent had given orders to bring the other suspect, Dang Huynh, in on sight. Joss and his wife might have information that could close the net on these guys.
She pulled on knee-high socks and zipped skinny black jeans into calf-length boots. She tucked a long-sleeved black tee-shirt into her jeans and added a belt and a black jacket. The detectives dressed more casually out in Liverpool than they did at Maroubra and, sunshine or not, there was no way she was going to freeze her arse off out there today. She blow-dried her hair carefully and left it long, warm around her neck, dropped Visine into her red eyes and smeared Vaseline over her lips. She thought she was beginning to feel better.
She stuffed an apple, some industrial-strength cough lollies and a few more tissues into her bag and left.
Gabriel's car was there already, and he crossed the road when Jill parked, smiling at her. He's always so bloody cheerful, she thought, wiping her nose and checking her face in the rearview mirror before getting out of the car.
Joss opened the door before they knocked, his face a mask.
'Morning, Joss,' said Jill. 'Isobel here? We've got to have a talk.'
He stepped aside wordlessly and led them into the terrace house. Isobel stood by the glass doors next to the kitchen. She wore a terry dressing gown and her hair was still wet. She had an arm across her stomach and worry creased her brow. She glanced at Charlie, seated at the kitchen table, her little hand holding a spoon above a bowl of cornflakes.
'Hello,' said the little girl, scraping her chair away from the table. She walked over to Jill and held out her hand. 'I'm Charlie Rymill. What's your name?'
Oh how gorgeous! Jill's eyes said to Isobel, who smiled back tremulously.
'Hi, Charlie, I'm Jillian. This is Gabriel. We're friends of your mum and dad.'
'Do you want some cornflakes?'
'Finish your breakfast, honey,' said Isobel, walking over and guiding Charlie back to the table, at the same time
that Gabriel said: 'Do you have any Coco Pops?'
'No, we're not allowed,' said the little girl sadly, shaking her head. 'Too much sugar.' Her big blue eyes were multifaceted marbles.
'Can I put some toast in for you?' asked Isobel tightly, walking into the kitchen. 'I'm making some for us anyway.'
'That would be great, Isobel, thanks,' said Jill, and Gabriel nodded. Jill followed her into the kitchen, and spoke quietly, away from the little ears at the table. 'We know you're on your way to work, but we really need you and Joss to call in late this morning. We have to have your help with this case, and it can't wait.'
Isobel nodded and slotted four thick slices of bread into the toaster.
'Could you put some more in for me when they're done?' she said to Jill. 'I'll just go and make some calls.'
Jill toasted more than half the seeded loaf and took it with a few jars of spreads over to the table. Joss stood staring out into his backyard, immobile, apparently uninterested in the near stranger poking around in his kitchen. He seemed preoccupied but somewhat less tense than the last time she'd been here.
Gabriel had already finished one piece of toast and was speaking to Charlie with his mouth full when Isobel reentered the room.
'Done,' Isobel said. 'Joss, I left a message for Eric that you might not be in at all today. I did the same with my boss,' she said to Jill.
'Thanks, Isobel.' Jill felt awkward sitting at their table with her piece of toast, interrupting these people's lives. She knew from experience, though, that refusing hospitality on a home visit added to the tension.
Isobel had dried her hair and with that seemed to have collected herself. She brought milk, sugar and mugs to the table. A few minutes later, a big pot of brewed coffee followed and she played gracious host for the next fifteen minutes, but took only a few bites of toast herself. Joss sat with them, but didn't eat a thing.
When Charlie had finished her breakfast, Isobel took her into the loungeroom and switched on the television.
'The Wiggles,' she said when she came back to the kitchen. 'Her favourite DVD. We'll be right for a while.'
'Great,' said Jill, eager now to get to the point. Gabriel sat back in his chair, relaxed, but she knew he was observing everything. 'There's no polite way to say this, Isobel. So I'm just going to say it straight because we really need your help right now. We know you two are holding something back about the night at Andy Wu's.'
Isobel's mouth opened; she looked hunted and guilty. Joss stared straight ahead, his palms flat on the table.
'Thing is,' Jill continued, 'we know the identities of at least two of the people committing these home invasions and we don't have to tell you how terribly dangerous they are. We want one of these men, especially, locked up right now, before he kills someone else. He's not in custody yet, though, and we urgently need to speak with anyone who knows anything about him.'
Jill paused. Music tinkled from the loungeroom, and she could hear what sounded like Charlie dancing. The kitchen was otherwise silent.
'Isobel, you and Joss know a lot about him,' she continued, 'and it's time you told us everything you know about Cutter – Henry Nguyen.'
Isobel jerked a hand to her mouth, her eyes darting to her husband. For a second his posture stiffened, as though he was preparing for sudden movement. Jill did the same. Suddenly, Joss's shoulders dropped and his eyes met her own.
'What do you know?' he asked.
'Well, we know that Isobel called the hotline and told us to investigate Nguyen,' she said. 'It's okay,' Jill glanced at Isobel, who looked as though she was about to cry. 'That tells us you do want to help. We have hard evidence – DNA – connecting Nguyen to one of the crime scenes, and we believe that he has participated in at least six home invasions. We also know, Joss,' she said, turning to him, 'that you knew him well when you were a kid, and we're pretty sure that you recognised him at Andy Wu's home.'
He was watching her closely.
'What we don't know,' said Jill, 'is why you haven't told us that. We don't want to believe that you're trying to protect this guy. Did you know that your wife called the hotline?'
'Of course I knew,' Joss said.
'Then why didn't you tell us everything the other day, Joss? We get it that you're worried for your safety. But why wouldn't you tell us everything you know to help us lock him up faster?'
Joss sighed deeply and raised his eyes to the ceiling. He then lowered his forehead to his hands. Isobel stood and walked to her husband; she touched his neck, tears running now. Jill wondered whether to speak, but Gabriel shook his head silently at her.
When he raised his face, Joss's eyes stared directly into Jill's.
'Look around you, Jill,' he said. 'Everything in this house is my world. I don't want this world to change.' He rubbed at his chin. 'I know that not coming forward was not very honourable, but I fooled myself into thinking that if I just tried to ignore the past, it would stay there. Stupid, really. I've always known that was never going to happen.'
Isobel, still standing at his side, rubbed his shoulder. He placed his own hand over hers and stood. He talked as he paced.
'It seems you know a bit about my life as a kid,' said Joss. 'What you probably don't know is that for the past twenty years I've considered that kid dead. It's like he was never a part of me. I can't relate to anything I did or believed back then. When I got the chance to change my life, I took it and fucking ran.'
Isobel flinched a little and watched her husband closely.
'You're right,' he continued. 'I did know Cutter. I suppose I would have called the group I hung out with at that time my best friends. My mother was out of it and my dad wasn't around. My friends were my family. There was nothing else worth caring about. I just didn't know any different. I know what a real friend is now, and the only one I have in this world is my wife.' He looked at her, his face serious. She smiled encouragingly at him.
'Back then, until I was twelve or thirteen, I didn't really care about my life or whether I was alive or dead. There's not much I can admit to being proud of. Everything was opportunistic. We'd steal anything we could get our hands on. Sometimes so we could eat, sometimes just for the fuck of it. Back then – when you've got nothing else to live for – it was fun. Stealing cars, smash and grabs, police chases…'
Joss stood now by the sliding doors, staring into the yard. Jill noticed Gabriel also rising from the table quietly, moving closer to him, wanting to catch every word, but unwilling to break the flow.
'Then something really bad happened,' said Joss, 'just before I went to live with my grandparents.' He looked up and seemed surprised to see Gabriel standing closer to him. 'Me, Cutter, Simon Esterhase and Carl Waterman decided we'd do over Carl's dad's bike shop. We used to call Carl "Fuzzy". He said his dad would get everything back on insurance, and we were dying to get our hands on these new trick bikes in the shop. Mr Waterman wouldn't even let us touch them. I don't know how it happened…' Joss paused and started to cough. The cough caught and his face turned red as he struggled to catch his breath. He stared wildly around the kitchen. Isobel was by his side in a moment with a glass of water. He downed it in two swallows, and handed the glass back. Jill felt slightly envious of the silent synchronicity between the pair.
Joss took a couple of deep breaths. 'Sorry,' he said, his voice devoid of emotion. 'Anyway, Fuzzy let us into the shop while his dad was asleep and we took the bikes. We came back after hiding them and knew we had to smash the window so it would look like someone broke in.' He cleared his throat again. 'One of the panels must've speared inwards. Somehow it stabbed Fuzzy in the neck.' Joss was unconsciously holding his own throat, his voice threadlike.
'You didn't actually see the wound being inflicted, then?' Gabriel asked.
Joss shook his head. 'I tried to hold his throat together.' Isobel was at his side, almost touching. 'But, he just, kind of like, drowned.' Tears stood in his eyes. 'He was looking at me, his eyes just…' He trailed off.
After a
pause, he continued. Emotionless. 'Anyway, he died there while I watched, and then I pissed off. I got taken to my grandmother's after that because my mum got hit by a car. I heard a few months later that Cutter got arrested, but he didn't report me and Esterhase. I thought it was a miracle that I got away with it, a sign that I had to change my life.' He looked up at them, defensive, as though challenging them to doubt him, or to laugh.
He took a seat and began to tear a piece of toast into a pile of crumbs.
Finally, Joss continued. 'You see, where I am today, I don't want people like that anywhere near me. I don't even want to know they exist. When the shit happened at Andy's, I just wanted all of us to get out of there alive. I would've done something to stop them if I could, but there was just no way.'
Isobel nodded.
'And then, just before they left, he looked at me, and I knew it was Cutter. I don't know how, but I knew it was him. I know now that he recognised me too. He followed us a couple of days ago to the movies,' he glanced at his wife. Isobel's hand was at her throat. 'He said some smartarse things. I knew then that we weren't safe and that it was definitely him that night. I told Is I wanted her to move away with Charlie for a while, but she wouldn't go. I knew we had to tell the cops, so she rang you guys.'
'Joss thought that if we did it anonymously,' said Isobel in a quiet, pleading voice, 'that the stuff about Fuzzy would never have to come up. I mainly agreed to do it though because I thought that Joss was mistaken and you guys would look into Nguyen and figure out he wasn't involved.' She looked at her husband apologetically. He laid a hand on her arm and sighed.
'Anyway, I might as well tell you everything now,' he said. His wife looked at him, surprised. 'I've been back to where we used to hang out,' he continued, as Isobel drew in a sharp breath, 'and tried to find out more about him, like where he lives now, so I could pass that on to you.'
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