The Practice Baby

by LM Ardor

  Dee had to get her breath back. She muttered, ‘Okay, leave it and go,’ and retreated to sit on the side of the bath.

  ‘Sorry,’ the man repeated as he left and closed the door.

  Dee locked the door and put on the chain then opened it again and put her head out. There was a trolley parked opposite and the door three along was open. The same man came out of the room. She closed her door and chained it.

  Nothing was disturbed. Her chocolate was on the bedside table. It was a pretty elaborate charade if someone was after her. She threw the chocolate in the bin. No need to be foolhardy.

  Fried food and alcohol stunned her into a semblance of sleep. She woke at 3 am with her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. There was less than a third of a bottle of wine left. She’d have a hangover in the morning. She drank three glasses of water and cleaned her teeth. She needed to cut down. Once the medical board fuss was over she would do an alcohol-free month.

  Her phone had ten percent battery. She checked her emails and messages: nothing from Marlena. That was as she expected, but there was still nothing from Raj.

  The rest of the night she dozed, anxious, her thoughts tumbling over and over her fear for Leah, doubts about her own sanity, the shame once she was officially deemed crazy, and fear for her life. The lovely bed had become a place of torture.

  Once it was light she got up and dressed. Her phone was flat. Reception charged it for her while she had a breakfast of coffee and fruit. She couldn’t face the buffet.

  The phone pinged as she went back up to the room. It was Raj. She sat on the bed that now looked as if a wildebeest migration had passed through overnight.

  Dee, got your email. This stuff is awful. The police have to do something. Sorry for the delay. Abbi’s improving so we’re at the country house and the internet and phones are unreliable.

  You should stay at my apartment. It’s got secure entry and my security patrol monitor it. I told my PA to get an entry beeper and alarm codes sent over to you today. The security guys will be on alert. I’ve got someone watching the entries, the car park, the lifts and the stairwells 24/7.

  This is dangerous. Be safe. Let me know what the police are doing.

  I miss you.

  Raj

  Someone knew and believed her. She could have kissed the phone.

  Beatrice had her driving test tomorrow. Rob had even agreed to pick up the car and get her there. Their lives went on. It wasn’t fair to ask them to pack up their lives to camp out in Raj’s two-bedroom flat. She might take up his offer herself though.

  59.

  Janelle buzzed. ‘It’s Beatrice. You need to take it,’ she said and hung up.

  It was 3.23. Beatrice wouldn’t normally ask for her to be interrupted. Dee hoped she hadn’t failed the test.

  ‘Mum, did you have Telstra coming today?’ Beatrice sounded tense.

  ‘What do you mean? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m okay. Did you have Telstra coming today—at home?’

  ‘No, why? What’s going on.’

  Beatrice started to cry. ‘Mum, there was a guy in the house when I got home. He said he was from Telstra—I don’t think he was.’

  ‘Where are you? Why did you go home? Has he gone? What did he look like?’

  ‘I’m next door, at Nola’s. He’s gone. Nola wants to ring the police.’

  ‘Do that. I’ll be there soon. Stay with Nola till I get there.’

  The patient Dee was with worked out what was going on and told her he would come back tomorrow. She ran down the stairs to the car. The space was empty. Her car was gone. It took an anxious moment before she remembered Bea had it for the driving test. She hadn’t even asked Beatrice how she went with the test.

  She raced back upstairs out of breath.

  ‘I tried to grab you before you ran out. The taxi will be here in a minute,’ Janelle said.

  ‘Thanks. I thought my car had been stolen. Sorry. Bea’s okay but I should go.’

  Janelle nodded.

  The taxi pulled up and honked its horn. Dee ran out the front door. Janelle knocked on the car window as she buckled herself in.

  ‘You might need this,’ she said and opened the door to give her her handbag.

  *

  Nola made them tea while Bea told her story. She had driven home on her own with red P-plates proudly displayed on the front and back of the car. She didn’t ring Dee in case she told her to go back to school. She was going to the supermarket to get something for dinner, a celebration dinner for her P-plates but she needed money and came home to get Dee’s credit card.

  There was a white van in front of the house, in their unofficial parking space. Everyone in the cul-de-sac was terribly polite about parking in front of their own place. The van obviously belonged to a tradie. Beatrice parked carefully in front of it. Etiquette said the van should be parked in front of the house he was working at.

  Inside, Bea noticed the lounge room door was open. It was hot but they never left doors open. Dee was obsessive about closing doors and windows. She thought Eleanor or Ollie must have opened it before they left to go to Rob’s. Beatrice walked across the lounge, slid the door closed and turned towards the study.

  As she turned, a movement caught her eye. A figure in black came out of the study. Her body jumped several inches into the air as she gasped involuntarily.

  ‘Who—?’ she started to say.

  ‘Telstra. Just fixing the wi-fi,’ the man interrupted. Beatrice said nothing but kept her eyes fixed on him as she stepped backwards towards the door. The man came towards her. Her first thought was to duck, to headbutt him in the balls but he pushed past her to the front door. He was gone before she had her breath back. Her memory was of dark overalls with a black cap pulled down to his eyes. His white hands were the only light thing about him—gloves, the white vinyl type.

  In the seconds it took her to get to the front door, the van had turned around. The tyres screeched as it sped away. She could just make out the numberplate. It might have started with WX and ended in a 5?

  Her hands were shaking but the man was gone. After tea and Nola’s fruitcake, Dee and Beatrice inspected the house together. Nothing in the lounge was disturbed. In the study Dee’s laptop was on and an external disc was connected to it via a USB port. Otherwise it looked as though no one had been there. The only thing Dee noticed was the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet was out by a few millimetres. It was prone to stick and she’d cut her shin on its sharp edge more than once. Now she always gave it an extra push in. Someone had looked through it.

  She didn’t touch anything. When the police came they would be able to find out what was going on with the computer. She switched off the wi-fi in case it was transmitting remotely.

  ‘Mum, what’s going on?’

  60.

  The police arrived at 8 pm: two plain clothes officers, a woman and a lumpen man. They flashed their badges at the door as they mumbled unintelligible names and ranks. As Dee showed them around, they scoffed at the locks on the veranda doors and told her she needed to install an alarm system.

  Beatrice gave her statement. The woman took notes.

  In the study, the man looked at the computer with the external hard drive attached, put on gloves and was about to pull it out.

  ‘Hang on. The disc needs to be ejected first. There could be evidence lost if you do that,’ Dee said as she reached towards his arm.

  ‘Look, love.’ Dee felt her hackles rise as he spoke. ‘The only reason we’re here is because it’s a quiet night. No one is going to investigate a burglary in this area. The rate of solved B&Es is close to nil. If your daughter was injured it might be a different matter but she’s okay. Don’t get too excited. Be thankful nothing’s gone and the place isn’t wrecked.’

  ‘Officer, thank you.’ Dee made an effort to control her voice; to sound calm and reasonable. ‘But this isn’t a simple break-in. It’s part of a bigger case; part of a murder being investigated by Glebe detectives. Y
ou can ring them. I have the number of one of the detectives on the case.’

  He hesitated, confused about his next move.

  Dee got out her phone and wrote down Marlena’s number and put it into his hand.

  ‘Okay, wait.’ He went into the lounge and whispered into the ear of his mate. She stood up, went onto the veranda and made a call. The big lump still had Marlena’s number in his hand. The woman spoke for a couple of minutes and then came back inside.

  ‘Yes, Dr Flanary, Glebe Police confirm there was a case involving one of your patients but that is now closed.’ The woman spoke slowly and deliberately as though to someone with little English or to a small child. ‘We have your daughter’s statement and fortunately she’s unharmed.’

  She probably spoke to Craig. Dee bit her tongue. Anything she said would only reinforce their view of her as crazy.

  A little later, she walked the pair to the door. It was all over. There was no hope that they would investigate. The external drive was still in her computer. Raj would be able to tell what was on it and if anything had been transmitted. That was better than the police taking it and doing nothing.

  ‘Love, you’ll save yourself a lot of worry with an alarm system. Make sure the kids are safe, hey? I’ve got a couple of contacts who’ll look after you if you mention my name,’ the man said.

  He was about to pat her on the shoulder. She scowled and moved out of reach. He handed Dee his card.

  No one had been hurt. The break-in would have gone unnoticed if Bea hadn’t come home unexpectedly.

  With a chill Dee knew: Adam was still looking for something. They were all in danger—especially Leah.

  If only the girl wasn’t so hard to contact. What sort of a life could she have in the bush? Still, she was right about Adam being dangerous. It was wise to disappear. It was 9 pm. Dee looked up the number of Majors Creek pub. If she was lucky there would be customers and Misty would still be open.

  ‘Eldrich Pub.’ It was Joe.

  ‘Joe, it’s Dee. You remember, I’m a friend of Leah’s.’

  ‘How could I forget!’ He sounded as though he’d had a few. There was the buzz of intoxicated chatter in the background.

  ‘Do you know how she is?’

  She heard footsteps. The background noises faded. Joe’s voice came back.

  ‘Funny you should ask. There’s been an old couple here asking if we knew her. I didn’t say anything but Misty might have given the game away when she told them to talk to me.’

  Dee’s stomach clenched. ‘Who was it? What did they look like?’

  ‘I told them she used to be here but she’d gone away. I said I’d let her know they were asking if she came back. Did I do the right thing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sounds like they knew she was somewhere in the area already. Where are they now?’

  ‘Don’t know. They had a campervan. Probably camped in the bush somewhere.’

  ‘Was it an old VW? Did the man have a limp?’

  ‘Gee, sorry. I didn’t take much notice. Could have been a VW, I suppose—don’t know about a limp. One thing though, the bloke had these funny fingers, knobbly on the ends, like drumsticks.’

  It had to be the couple who had followed her down the mountain. Could Adam have employed them to track Leah down?

  ‘Leah could be in danger. Can you get word to her?’

  Someone called out ‘Joe’ in the background.

  ‘Okay, give me a minute, mate,’ Joe said. ‘Sorry, there’s a biker booze-up on here. I’m glad you rang; I don’t feel good about Leah all alone out there.’

  ‘I thought she was staying with Jimmy?’

  ‘Yeah, she was—’

  He was interrupted by a chant of ‘Beer, beer, beer!’

  ‘Okay, I’m coming,’ he shouted. ‘Can I call you back after eleven when I’ve got rid of this rabble?’

  There was no benign explanation for anyone enquiring for Leah. If Adam found her in the bush she could disappear without a trace, another missing person. An old couple didn’t sound like Adam but Joe was young. Who knew what he considered old? Could the campervan couple be the ones who’d followed her?

  She had to get to Leah before Adam did. The decision was made before she called Joe back. She would drive down tonight. Leah could stay at Raj’s till they sorted something out. Beyond that, she didn’t have a plan but if Adam got to Leah first any plan would be too late.

  Her children had to be out of the way first though. They deserved an explanation of why their mother was so erratic lately. And they needed to understand the situation was dangerous. Adam wasn’t going to give up. Dee sat the three of them down on the lounge.

  ‘The break-in today wasn’t a random burglary. One of my patients, Tom Harris, was murdered a while back and I think the killer is looking for information. Tom uncovered incriminating stuff about him.’ Oliver waved his arms to interrupt but Dee shushed him. ‘Let me tell you the rest first. I want you to concentrate, then questions.

  ‘This killer is a man, slim, tall, around six foot two, dark hair and well dressed. He’s in his early fifties. There’s no reason for him to have any interest in you but he thinks I might have information. There’s someone else in danger too—a young woman who is on her own down the coast. I’m going to warn her the killer is active again and find her somewhere safe to stay.’

  Beatrice looked pale. ‘So that bloke today could have been him?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But he had no reason to do anything to you and he didn’t.’

  Oliver was the most vocal. ‘What about you though? Is he going to do something to you?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Dee said, determined not to lie to them. ‘If anything happened to me it would make the police look at him again and he doesn’t want that.’

  She couldn’t tell them that he had her under control by other means. To add that their mother was about to be deemed officially crazy was too much for one night.

  It was hard to explain why the police were no use and how she knew all this but eventually her kids agreed to accept what she said. The example of the police inaction on the intruder backed up her argument.

  ‘So you all need to pack enough for a few days at Dad’s and Beatrice will drive you there after she’s dropped me at the airport to pick up a hire car. You’ll have the car if you need it for the weekend but you have to promise me not to come back here without Dad.

  ‘Now, hippity hop, let’s get moving. I want to leave in ten minutes.’

  Everyone rallied for the emergency, no complaints from the children and even Rob, when she told him, was cooperative; probably too stunned to ask questions.

  Part 3

  61.

  Joe kept driving down the mountain. Dee could smell salt on the breeze; they must be nearly at Moruya. If only she’d known, she could have started in Moruya instead of driving to the highlands and all the way down the mountain.

  Soon after the road flattened out and the first cleared paddock appeared, he turned the bike into a narrow track off to the right and ascended again to a badlands of small rocky hills, a mini mountain range where the valley petered out.

  The shed was on a rise so it was safe from flooding in the summer downpours. It was constructed of double-storey corrugated iron on three sides. The northern side was open. The iron roof looked sound and the concrete slab floor solid. Leah had assembled a partial wall of hay bales across the open area to protect the makeshift bed and table she’d made from wooden pallets. A cloud of eucalypt-scented smoke from a rough stone fireplace filled the rafters. It looked cosy and romantic but the nights would be long, cold and lonely.

  Joe had dropped Dee at a creek about a kilometre away. The water was too deep for the bike. She’d followed instructions to keep the marshy low-lying ground to her right then follow the twisting track to a second creek crossing where she saw the smoke from the shed. It was difficult to walk and her city sandals were wrecked in the water. At least they stopped her slipping on the mossy rocks.
r />   As she walked up to the shed, Leah ran down the open paddock in front to greet her. She grabbed Dee. Leah’s ribs were sharp as Dee put her arms around her chest. How much weight could she lose without getting sick? The normally reserved girl clung to Dee as though to life itself. She pulled herself together and offered Dee tea.

  The kitchen was made of milk crates stacked on top of each other and a board with a heavy rock on top of that.

  ‘Possums,’ Leah said as she moved the rock. Half-a-dozen glass storage jars sat along a horizontal section of the shed’s wooden frame. One had rolled oats, there were a few lentils and the rest were empty—no fridge or running water. Leah tipped water from a plastic can balanced on the edge of the slab and balanced a saucepan of it in the fire. Two plates, two knives and forks and two mugs sat in an enamel bowl on the floor.

  She pulled up a milk crate for Dee to sit on. The tea jar had one teabag, peppermint. Leah made tea for both of them from it.

  ‘Sorry, no sugar. Joe’ll get more provisions soon.’

  ‘Leah, you can’t live here. What happened to the other place?’

  ‘Jimmy’s on a bender. He found some gold-tops, you know, magic mushrooms,’ she explained as though Dee hadn’t been around in the seventies. ‘It’ll be all right in a couple of days. Anyway, Joe’s been staying with me.’

  Leah’s voice was carefully neutral when she mentioned Joe.

  ‘How’s Joe been?’

  ‘He’s lonely, I think. Wants a girlfriend.’

  ‘And you don’t want a boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’ Leah’s bottom lip trembled. ‘It’s okay when Jimmy’s around. Joe’s a good bloke and he’s done a lot for me. I couldn’t survive here without him. It’s hard to make him understand that I don’t want him … or anyone, except Tom.’ Leah looked down into the fire.

  ‘You can’t stay down here forever. This isn’t a life. Look how much weight you’ve lost.’ Dee took Leah’s arm. It was bony, pale and as thin as a ten-year-old’s.