‘What? I don’t hate Mum.’ Now I was confused. ‘She’s the reason we’re still here, right? Her dream home, her ashes under the rosebushes . . .’
White roses for loyalty, for a love stronger than death.
Now it was his turn to look confused. ‘What are you talking about? I scattered her ashes under the roses in Edie’s yard. I might have been half-crazy, but I wasn’t completely clueless. Edie would never sell her home. She’s lived her entire life in this suburb. Your mum’s ashes would always be safe with her.’
‘But –’
‘I’ve been working like a dog to keep you close to Edie. If we moved, it would cut you off from her, maybe forever. I couldn’t let that happen, Katty. You’d already lost your mum, I couldn’t let you lose Edie too. I had to stick around in the hope that somehow, someday, the two of you could work things out.’
‘We are, we’re trying, but –’ wings of panic fluttered in my chest ‘– I don’t want to move now. I want to keep living here, next door to Edie.’
He sighed. ‘I know. Me too.’
We stared at each other in silence. I felt terrible. I’d misjudged him. He was a better dad than I’d given him credit for, taking on all the responsibilities and pressures without complaint, just so I could stay connected to someone I’d adored as a child, hated as a teenager, and now wanted to have back in my life. My oldest friend, my most loyal enemy, my genetic mother and the third most important person in my life.
‘I could get a job,’ I said, making up my mind. ‘To help with the house repayments. There’s like a gazillion little kids round here. I could make a fortune babysitting.’
‘You could.’ He ruffled my hair. ‘We’ll work something out. Now, try to get some sleep.’
‘We could take in a boarder, rent the spare room to an international student –’
‘We could. Now shut up and go to sleep.’ He gave Herc a final pat and wandered out humming, channelling some long-dead jazz great, one hand raised in farewell. He was almost through the door when he paused and glanced back.
‘Just so you know, Edie and I don’t talk about your mum that much anymore.’ He flicked off the hallway light, his last words floating back through the darkness.
‘For the last couple of years, all we’ve talked about is you.’
Thirty-Six
I slept late on the first day of the New Year.
Breakfast turned into brunch-slash-lunch – with more starters than a school athletics carnival.
I invited Edie, and discovered when we got there that Jimmy had invited Al and his mum. Which worked out just fine, till he served up his signature breakfast.
Mrs Armitage took one bite, and her eyes rolled up in her head. Then she did a body shiver that made Jimmy drop his tongs into Al’s teetering stack of fritters and bacon, which in turn sent Herc into high slobber-alert at the edge of the table, waiting for something to topple his way.
‘Are you all right?’ Jimmy asked anxiously.
She swallowed and fanned herself with a graceful hand. ‘Lordy me,’ she gasped, eyes opening wide. ‘Where’s my swooning couch? I think I’m in love.’
Personally, I don’t think women who look like that should say those sorts of things around other people’s fathers. But, to his credit, Jimmy just looked relieved and told her there was more in the kitchen if she wanted.
‘Your dad will have to take out a restraining order to keep us away,’ Al whispered. ‘Mum’s cooking tastes like butthole, even Herc wouldn’t eat it.’
‘But Herc likes butthole,’ I reminded him.
‘Not if my mum cooked it,’ he said, donating a bit of bacon rind to a good cause under the table.
‘Alexander.’ His mother had recovered and was tucking into her breakfast enthusiastically. ‘Please don’t slander my culinary skills. And, James –’ she smiled apologetically at Jimmy ‘– please don’t judge me, but it’s true, I can’t cook at all.’
Jimmy opened his mouth to launch into his If-You-Can-Read-You-Can-Cook rant, but we were saved by the squawk of the front gate and a frenzied eruption from Herc. He paused long enough to cast his eyes across the floor, checking for fallen goods, before bolting for the front door.
Jimmy must have left it unlocked, because moments later Bill walked in carrying a cardboard tray of takeaway drinks. Herc stopped mid-woof, and danced happily around Bill’s legs as he escorted him out to join us on the back deck.
Edie leapt up, all smiles. ‘You’ve brought coffee.’
‘And chocolate frappés and good news,’ Bill said, placing the tray on the table and pulling out a chair. ‘Which would you like first?’
‘Coffee!’ chorused Edie and Mrs Armitage.
‘Chocolate frappés!’ protested Al.
‘The news!’ Jimmy and I cried over the top of the rest of them.
I grabbed Bill’s arm. ‘Did you catch him?’
He patted my hand. ‘We did.’
Apparently the prowler hadn’t been smart enough to call it a night after he’d been caught on camera, creeping around our place.
He’d taken off when he heard the sirens, then moved on to what he assumed would be easier pickings round the corner – at Nance’s, no doubt lured by all that bling, and undeterred by the presence of tiny Miss Cocoapuff.
Unbeknownst to any of us, Nance’s house had been retrofitted with a formidable new home security system.
Poetic justice, Jimmy called it. But Nance just called it Shah.
Only hours before the party, her grandson, Connor, had dropped off his dog for the holidays. The Doberman. Just like the one that had bitten me as a child.
Shah, an inky shadow, watching, head cocked, as the prowler parted Nance’s lace curtains and hefted his shoulders through the spare bedroom window . . . Shah, as silent and deadly as a switch-blade that springs open at the touch of a button, and snaps shut, like the razored jaws of a trap.
Nance said later that she’d slept through the whole thing; her hearing aids switched off and tucked inside her bedside-table drawer.
A neighbour had heard the screams and phoned the police.
Bill said that the fingerprints they took at the hospital matched those lifted from our house and Baden’s – and from half a dozen others that had been broken into in recent months. They also found a box of snail poison in the man’s garage, along with an open pack of kibble for the dog he’d never owned.
‘But why did he do it? Why target me and Herc?’
Bill reached for a croissant. ‘Hard to say what motivates these types. Maybe prowling wasn’t enough of an adrenalin hit. You were alone and vulnerable, and the dog was an obstacle.’ He shrugged. ‘He was escalating; it’s lucky we caught him when we did.’
‘Will he go to jail?’
‘He’ll be held in custody pending a hearing. Given your age and the attack on your dog, he probably won’t make bail. The evidence is pretty overwhelming. If he pleads guilty to burglary and aggravated cruelty, it will spare us all a trial.’
‘Is that likely?’ asked Edie.
He smiled. ‘We live in hope.’
‘We do,’ she agreed, her eyes drifting towards me.
Al’s hand squeezed mine under the table.
We certainly do.
Epilogue
I’m in full uniform at 7 am. Lunch and bag packed. Getting my final Herc-hit before school drags us apart.
Edie appears at our kitchen door, hands on hips, wearing her bossy boots. ‘School doesn’t start for more than an hour. Come on, your front garden’s a disgrace. It needs a smarten-up.’
‘Talk to Jimmy,’ I say, edging out of her way. ‘He’s got the day off. I need to walk Herc.’
‘Herc’s got it nailed,’ says Jimmy, not looking up from his newspaper. ‘A yard’s just for doing crap in – who cares what it looks like?’
> Half an hour later she’s whipping it – and us – into shape.
Jimmy’s clipping wild tentacles of mock orange into some sort of hedge. Edie and I keep him in line with a length of cord strung taut between us. Herc’s clearing ants out of a crack in the front path, exploring it with his tongue and hacking delicately to one side.
‘Hey, Jimmy,’ yells Al, loping across the street, his schoolbag thumping against his hip. ‘I thought straight lines were for squares.’
Jimmy smiles pleasantly, snips a neat flat top into a wild explosion of foliage and gives him the finger.
‘Can I go now – please?’ I tug on Edie’s string. ‘If I take Herc for a quick walk, he’ll sleep all day and won’t miss me so much.’
‘Sure, but why don’t you just walk him to school?’ she suggests, tying her end to the corner fence post and relieving me of mine. ‘I can meet you there in half an hour and give him a ride home.’
It’s a sweet deal. I run off and grab my bag while Al snaps on Herc’s lead.
‘Which way are we walking?’ he asks as I push open the front gate.
‘This way,’ I tell him, and turn left towards Edie’s house.
Jimmy winks at me over the top of the hedge. Edie cocks her thumb and forefinger and lines me up in her sights. ‘Pity you’re too old for Show and Tell,’ she calls out. ‘Herc’s Bang trick’s a killer.’
Al laughs and slips his hand into mine as we head for the rosebushes and the invisible line that I once swore I’d never cross.
I smile up at him, and trail my free hand against the steel palings of the fence, increasing the pressure and speed as we cross that old boundary. Drumming an upbeat tempo as we move on. Marking my territory, where I belong.
Acknowledgements
Love always to my beautiful family – without you, the real world could never compete with what goes on in my head. And thanks for making me get a dog. Without Huggy, life would be less joyful, the extraordinary Bancroft Park dog community would have remained undiscovered, and this book would never have been written.
A special thanks to my incomparable first readers: my literary agent Leonie Tyle, who has been with me since the beginning, and uber-librarian ‘Miss Trish’ Buckley, who feeds me the books that shape my world.
I also owe a great debt to my editor Cristina Briones and publisher Zoe Walton, for the incisive and thought-provoking questions and comments that forced me to dig deep and make this book all it could and should be – thank you.
Bouquets to my favourite café, One on La Balsa at Point Cartwright, for the culinary inspiration. Your corncakes and coffee are worth the drive to the Sunshine Coast every time.
And brickbats to the arsehat who broke into my house five years ago. Finally, I have my revenge.
About the Author
Christine Bongers has worked as a television journalist, documentary writer and media consultant, but is now happier writing fiction. She has a Master of Arts in Youth Writing. Her critically acclaimed first novel, Dust, is a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book for Older Readers. Her second novel, Henry Hoey Hobson, was shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards.
Christine lives in Brisbane with her husband and kids and her beaglier, Huggy. He’s an excellent guard dog, but she makes a point of locking up at night anyway.
More at www.christinebongers.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Intruder
Copyright © Christine Bongers 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Woolshed Press book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at http://www.randomhouse.com.au/about/contacts.aspx
First published by Woolshed Press in 2014
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Author: Bongers, Christine
Title: Intruder [electronic resource]
ISBN: 978 0 85798 377 0 (ebook)
Target Audience: For young adults
Subjects: Stalking victims – Fiction
Family secrets – Fiction
Suspense fiction
Dewey Number: A823.3
Cover photo by Julia Trotti, www.juliatrotti.com
Cover design by Astred Hicks, designcherry
Typesetting and eBook production by Midland Typesetters, Australia
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