Des stood up, focused on Ryan. He didn’t want him zoning out on him. ‘Did you call for an ambulance before you left?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay.’ Des looked at his watch. How long would it take? Another twenty minutes? ‘Call Doctor Fry. Now.’
Ryan scurried back down the drive while Des surveyed what he could of the back of the house. A light from the kitchen window illuminated the deck, but the garden beyond was in deep shadow, the trees in the far back corner completely obscured by a vine-covered fence. There wasn’t time to secure it, but he doubted very much that there’d be anyone lurking there. If there had been, he’d probably already have taken a shot at Des. What Des feared more than being shot at was what he was going to see inside. If anyone had been left alive, there wouldn’t be this kind of silence. He stepped up onto the deck and pushed open the slightly ajar kitchen door. Pam Green was sitting oddly upright against the far wall, near the door that led to the dining room. She was looking at him, her eyes wide and staring, her mouth a little open as though she were mid-sentence, a bloom of bloody slush across her chest at the level of her heart. Des gave the surrounding area a quick scan and strode over to her, kneeling down and searching for a pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find one. ‘Oh Pam,’ he said. He wanted to close her eyes, but he knew he had to leave everything as intact as possible for the investigators, and he was already contaminating the house with his shoes. He got up, stepped past Pam, head and heart thumping in sickening unison, and walked through the dining room and into the living room. His hands shook as he clutched the gun in front of him, in a way he’d only ever done in police training drills, trying to remember how many people should or might be in the house, how many bedrooms there were. He turned left at the hall, crossed into the office and flicked on the light. Nothing. Hearing the back door again, he turned and called out sharply, ‘Ryan?’
‘Yes, sir,’ came the response. ‘Kytie and Paul are here now. Kytie’s attending to Mr Green.’ He was talking about the other two cops from their station.
Des was standing by the door to the kitchen. He found the light switch and turned on the hall light. ‘We need to check these rooms. I don’t know if anyone else was here.’ He took the left side, Ryan the right.
The door to the first room was open, as were the curtains, providing just enough light to see inside. It had the stark, tidy look of a space that was no longer inhabited. A few old music posters featuring posturing young men in black pinned to the walls. Twin beds neatly made up, an unopened travel bag on one. He bent down and looked underneath, already knowing the bases were too close to the floor to afford a grown man a hiding place. Flicking on the light he checked the wardrobe, saw mostly coathangers, a few old shirts.
The door to the next bedroom was also open, but the curtains were pulled across. He entered gingerly, groping for the light switch as he again called out, ‘Police.’ This was clearly Loren’s room, half bedroom, half studio, with large windows that looked out onto the front garden. The furniture here was different from the previous room, feminine but sparse. The wardrobe an open rail, the drawers a high tallboy. Her bed was Edwardian-style with a plain wooden slatted headboard. A thick red rug on the floor. Opposite, closer to the light, an easel, a small table with paints and papers. A chair.
He was about to crouch to look under the bed when he noticed a rivulet of liquid on the polished wooden floorboards. He took a step back, saw that it was clear, or near enough to.
‘Loren?’ he said quietly.
He could hear Ryan in the hallway, opening and closing a door.
‘Loren? It’s Des Robinson, Loren.’
A small whimper came in reply.
‘Loren, I’m going to get down on the floor and help you out. All right?’
Outside he heard the strains of a distant siren. The ambulance finally arriving. He put his gun on the bed, knelt down and flicked back the cover that hung over the side. He knelt down and leaned forward, his jacket skimming the cold urine, a whiff of ammonia hitting his nose. He reached a hand towards Loren’s indistinct form and after a moment’s hesitation felt her grip on his wrist.
‘Come,’ he said simply.
She eased her way out, wriggling, sobbing, grunting; sounding more animal than human at that moment. He had a flash of her that morning months ago in the hospital with her parents and thought that no one should have to go through something like this once, let alone twice, especially not a kid. What would that do to you? She collapsed back against the bed as though she was unable to support herself and looked at him, her lips pressed together, glossy red-rimmed eyes. Her hair was matted and her left side was wet with piss and encrusted with dust from the floor.
‘Are you all right?’ he said, for want of anything more sensible to say, casting a quick eye over her, looking for injury but not seeing anything obvious. She didn’t reply for a while but stared away from him to a point past his shoulder. He could see her lips quivering now. She was in shock. He glanced up from where they sat on the floor, looking for a blanket or something to wrap around her. There was a throw at the end of her bed and he raised himself on his haunches to get it.
‘He killed them, didn’t he?’ she said quietly.
He lowered himself back down to her eye level. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even. ‘So, so sorry.’
‘Are they all dead?’
‘Your father is still alive.’
Her eyes became suddenly alert. ‘Dad! I have to see him.’ She tried to push herself up, but Des leaned forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘He’s not conscious,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to wait. There’s nothing you can do.’
‘I just want to see him.’
‘Not right now, Loren. Not yet. It’s not … It wouldn’t be good for you to see anything out there. The ambos are here now. Doctor Fry. They’ll look after him.’
She slumped back against the bed and made small jagged sounds, crying without tears. He got up, grabbed the throw and draped it over her shoulders, then crouched down again, put his hand on her arm. He wasn’t sure she even noticed what he was doing; she didn’t seem conscious of him, the external world. But he needed to bring her back, talk her into it.
‘Loren, you said he killed them. Did you see or hear anything? Do you know who it was?’
For a moment she was completely still, as if all her energy was concentrating on one point. ‘It was Troy’s dad. I heard him in the house. His voice. Him and Mum. There was the shot and then he turned off the music and walked down here and opened all the doors. It was so quiet. I could hear him breathing.’ Her whole body began to shake then, her eyes were wide.
‘Did he say anything?’
‘No. He just stood there. He didn’t come in. I don’t know what he did. Just breathing. I was under the bed by then. I heard him walk away. I should have done something and I hid.’ She looked at him, eyes shining. ‘I hid.’
‘There was nothing you could do. You did the exact right thing.’
‘No,’ she sobbed. ‘I haven’t done the right thing.’
‘Shh,’ said Des. ‘You don’t need to say anything else right now.’
After a moment she said in a flat voice, ‘Is he out there too?’
‘No,’ said Des. ‘He’s gone. It’s okay.’
‘I don’t want him to die in our house. I don’t want him here.’
‘No, it’s okay. Really, it is.’
The ambulance and another police car had pulled up outside. Des could see their lights flashing muted red and blue through the curtains and he stared at them, thinking about how he could get her out of the house without her seeing any of the carnage.
Ryan came in from his search of the other rooms and gaped when he saw them on the floor. ‘Nothing here, sir,’ he said, indicating the rest of the house with a flick of his head.
‘Good. Listen, can you close the kitchen door for me, please?’ He saw a frown, then a look of comprehension cross the constable’s
face.
When Ryan had disappeared, Des eased himself to standing, then gave Loren his hand and pulled her shakily to her feet.
‘Constable?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Secured, sir.’
‘We’re coming out now.’
‘I don’t want to leave,’ Loren said quietly. ‘I don’t …’
‘I know,’ Des replied.
Their eyes met for second and she nodded, defeated. The safest place in the world no longer a refuge.
Des half walked, half carried Loren along the hall, past the closed kitchen door and around towards the front of the house. At the front door, which was now wide open to the night, he stopped momentarily, surprised by the light and movement in front of him. Police cars, ambulances, another car he assumed belonged to Doctor Fry. No suits yet, but they’d be making their way here soon, along the highway from Wangaratta, ahead of the big guns who’d come up later from Melbourne. Ryan appeared from the living room beside them and helped him guide Loren down the front steps and across the lawn. Two medics came forward and bundled her into an ambulance. Des followed them around and then stood and watched her as they laid her down on the gurney.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ he called to her, not really knowing what he meant or what she’d expect from the words. He shut his eyes for a moment and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. His head felt like a pinball machine, a million thoughts swirling and colliding, discordant sounds assaulting his brain. The welfare of Mick Green, the whereabouts of Ray Druitt. He walked back up the gravel driveway ready to bark orders and found one young man, a constable from Belandra, sitting huddled under a tree by the carport, clearly overcome. In the garage just ahead of him, Doctor Fry and another ambo were huddled over Mick Green, Kytie watching on.
He caught Kytie’s eye. ‘How’s he going?’
Kytie, otherwise known as Sergeant Geoff Kyte, stepped away from the group. ‘Touch and go, I reckon.’ He looked around. ‘What a fucking mess.’
‘We have to find Ray Druitt,’ said Des.
‘You know it was him?’
‘Yep, according to Loren Green.’
‘Ryan said you’d found her. Christ. Poor kid.’
‘Poor kid indeed. Listen, we need someone up at his house, pronto. Send Paul and Ryan. We need a lookout for his car. Get these Belandra bodies onto a doorknock around the neighbourhood. Backup should be here soon. Has anyone checked the garden?’
Kytie’s eyebrow went up.
‘Almighty god!’ Des stormed down to the patrol car and got a torch from the back seat and ran back up the drive and past the garage. He shone the torch’s wide beam over the veggie patch, then along by the clothesline and across to the fruit trees in the far corner. They were partially obscured there by a trellis planted with passionfruit, so he had to step around that to get a good look through the trees. Kytie had materialised now next to him with a torch of his own. ‘Fuck,’ he said as his beam intersected with Des’s close to the back fence. ‘Fuck. Fuck.’
Ray hadn’t chosen to end it with a gun but a short piece of green nylon rope. A stepladder lay on its side below his feet. Des pointed his torch to the ground. Kytie followed suit. The sight of the man in the eerie light was too much to take in, made him feel like puking. In the darkness he became aware of the isolated sounds in the silence again. His and Kytie’s slow and laboured dissonant breathing. The ambos organising Mick’s transfer onto a stretcher. More cars pulling up out the front. That dog barking again in the distance. Raised voices nearby, perhaps at the front of the house. Was anyone else taking charge, he wondered, or was it all still up to him?
‘Do we take him down?’ asked Kytie.
Des sighed, thinking Kytie should know better. ‘This is a crime scene, Geoff. We don’t touch a bloody thing now until the dees get here.’
‘Just thought seeing as he’s killed himself. And it’s so bloody grim.’
‘No. No.’
‘Sir?’ Ryan called from down near the shed.
‘Yeah?’
‘Scott Green is here. The Belandra boys are trying to restrain him.’
Des could hear him then, the raised voices now screams of rage. He ran back down to the front of the house to see that one of the Belandra officers had handcuffed Scott to the front fence. Scott looked to Des as he emerged, his face tear-stained. He started yelling so loudly that it took Des a moment to realise that his grandfather, Jim, was standing behind him, small and diminished in the strange glow of the emergency service lights.
Des approached Scott as if he was a wild animal. Hand outstretched, voice calm, soothing. He cast a sideways glance at one of the officers and hissed, ‘Where are the keys?’ As he glanced over at Jim he realised that the other ambulance had gone, that Loren had already been taken away.
‘This is a crime scene, we can’t let you in. Scott, can you promise me to stay here?’
Scott made a terrible guttural sound that Des took as a ‘yes’ but was more probably a sign of being overcome, overwhelmed.
Jim, his usual confidence absent, his voice wavering with shock, said, ‘What happened, Des? Are they gone?’
Des wasn’t sure what kind of gone Jim was talking about, not dealing in euphemisms himself. He shook his head and waited until Scott’s handcuffs were unlocked. He didn’t know how he was going to say this except bluntly. ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that Pam and another person, a young male who I believe is your brother, Simon, are both deceased.’
Scott, who was staring at the ground, murmured, ‘No, no, that’s not possible. No. This is my fault. Oh god.’
‘And the others?’ ventured Jim.
‘Loren is unharmed but has been taken to hospital for observation, and your son-in-law, Mick, is, well, he’s badly wounded. The ambos have spent some time stabilising him.’
Voices came then from the direction of the house and they turned to see the ambos making their way down the driveway, balancing a stretcher.
‘Dad!’ called Scott, shrugging Jim off and staggering towards the group.
‘Hold on. He can’t respond, son,’ said one of the carriers gently as Scott approached.’ You need to stop right there. We need you to give us a bit of space. Orrighty?’
Scott did as he was told, stepping back, standing numbly while they loaded Mick into the ambulance and watched as they drove off. As the red light receded down the street he turned to Des, his face unreadable in the shadow. ‘Where’s Mum?’
Des put a hand on Scott’s arm. ‘I can’t let you up there, Scott. And you don’t want to go. You don’t want to see her like this.’
Scott leaned forward, resting his hands on the front of his thighs, and let out a sob. ‘What do we do now?’ The question seemed as open-ended as his life. He tilted his head up to look at Des. ‘What?’
Jim took Scott’s arm. ‘We’ll go to the hospital. See your sister and Mick.’ Then he looked at Des. ‘It was that Druitt who did this, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah. I’m afraid so.’
‘Has he been caught?’
‘Mr Druitt is now deceased.’
Jim opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. He looked up towards the house and then back at Des, who nodded. He saw the defeated look on Jim’s face and wondered how he’d survive this. This nuggetty, indefatigable man, who’d seemed to him when they’d first met to be someone who would never give up, overcome any obstacle. But there were obstacles that provided challenges and obstacles that could crush your very soul, and this was one of the latter.
In the clean-up that ensued, it took Des a long time to check back in on Jim and Scott, but they had left by then, gone to the hospital, he assumed. It was close to midnight when the detectives arrived from Melbourne and Des found himself standing in the same spot on the front lawn, briefing them on what had happened. They had brought equipment with them, floodlights, technicians. They were in the process of examining the place with a fine-tooth comb. Not that it mattered, he thought. There was nothing e
ssential that they would discover. They were here simply to verify, document. All that could be known was already known. Only the fallout remained.
April 2016
Melbourne
It felt strange to make the trip to the hospital with Jason. As though two distinct parts of the world had collided, overlaying two disparate realities together, like a double-printed negative. Jason sitting next to her in the car, while she drove that newly familiar route, seemed wrong on so many counts. The fact she was driving, the fact he wasn’t at work, the fact he now knew that for the past six days she’d been living a double life centred around not telling him about Scott.
They had woken late. Jason, who was good at pulling on old clothes and rushing out the door, did just that and got the kids off to school in quick-smart time. Lori lay dozing until he returned, stupefied from the night before, the sleeplessness, the upheaval, didn’t believe she could do anything with alacrity. Only the coffee he made on his return helped in some way to wake her up. He sat on the edge of the bed with her, his face expectant, and she didn’t know what to say. She’d thought the night before that the morning would bring clarity, but it hadn’t. Instead she felt exhausted, not up to conversation. Not up to the detail that had been glossed over thus far.
‘What time do you want to leave?’ he asked.
‘Are you sure you want to come?’
‘Are you sure you want me to?’
She sucked in her lower lip. What was the point in putting this off? Uncomfortable now or uncomfortable later, those were the choices. ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’
When they got to intensive care it was Lori who stepped into the room first. Rebecca, at the monitor, turned and greeted her. ‘Improving in leaps and bounds,’ she said cheerfully, tilting her head towards Scott who lay on his bed, eyes closed.
‘Asleep?’ asked Lori quietly.
‘Perhaps. He was talking a few minutes ago, but he might have nodded off.’
Jason had walked in behind her and Lori was aware that he had stopped suddenly and was looking over at the bed. There was a strange stillness about him, perhaps the astonishment of seeing her brother for the first time, a family resemblance that she couldn’t imagine herself, the idea of a relationship that he’d never thought he would have. Brother-in-law. She turned to see him step around to the other side of the bed and bend down towards Scott.
Life Before Page 28
