Ruined

by Fen Wilde

  34

  Catelyn wasn’t allowed to drive the ute. Brian considered it a farm car, and insisted he might need it at any moment. On that day, though, she had eased into the shed, her shoulders hunched, her head lowered deferentially.

  Instinctively, she knew that looking small and weak was safer for her.

  “I need to take Brody to the doctor before school,” she’d said quietly, eyes downcast.

  “You hear that?” Brian had said to the boy, nudging him, all buddy-buddy. “That’s the sound of whining that you’ll have to get used to if you ever want to get yourself a wife.”

  The boy had nodded, latching on to the bond that Brian was offering him, believing, of course, at eight years old, that if he was on his father’s team, he’d be protected.

  “I’m taking the ute. I’ll be back within an hour.”

  Brian had only grunted in response.

  “Darling?” She had addressed the boy, pleading with her eyes. “You’ve missed a lot of school recently. Will you come?”

  He had shaken his head at her. He thinks he remembers that day more clearly than any other day in his life.

  “I’m helping Dad,” he’d said. “He needs me.” He remembers not looking at her. He still doesn’t understand that it was easier to not care about her that way.

  He doesn’t know how Catelyn felt that day, because he never asked her.

  He didn’t know that his brother was waiting in the ute, holding a handkerchief to his broken nose. Though taking the ute was an unusual enough request that he must have understood that he was hurt.

  Probably, though, he was focused on winning his father’s favour, not on the well-being of the brother stupid enough to provoke him.

  He doesn’t remember that she tried again, though. Softly. Pleadingly. Willing him to understand.

  “He shouldn’t miss too much school?” she asked, turning back to Brian. Trying. Wanting to take him with her so badly.

  The boy had never noticed that she always made her statements questions when his father was in a violent mood; that she had found questions less likely to provoke him.

  “You heard him, he’s helping me!” his father had shouted, nevertheless. “Pay attention to what he wants, woman!” He’d thrown a bolt at her, not hard, but enough to make her flinch. “Silly bitch,” he’d muttered, to no one in particular.

  He does remember that she didn’t take anything with her, anything that would have alerted them to the fact that she was going farther than the doctor.

  He doesn’t know that her plan—one she’d thought about and dreamed of a million times before—always featured three children with her. Never two.

  He doesn’t know how she hesitated with the key in the ignition, the battle that raged within her.

  Is it okay to leave one child behind, to save the other two?

  He doesn’t know that she cried all the way to Sydney, the ute left outside the doctor’s clinic, where they don’t stop. She doesn’t have much time, and there’ll be doctors at the other end.

  He doesn’t know that he is in her thoughts, every day, for the next three years.

  He doesn’t know that she is consumed with plans of how to go back for him, or send for him, or send someone to just take him.

  He doesn’t know how terrified she is every night, images scrolling behind her eyes, of all the worst things she imagines happening to him. How she tortures herself, every single day they are apart.

  All the man remembers is that she left him.

  She took the others, and left him behind.

  35

  Back in her apartment, Natalie feels uneasy. The intensity of the toilet sex is making her squirm, and she can’t quite figure out why.

  At the same time, she feels horny as all fuck.

  Griffin has insisted on coming home with her, saying, “You haven’t replied to me in a month. Now that I’ve got you, I’m keeping you nearby for as long as possible.”

  They’d had dinner out, and sex again as soon as they were inside the door. Panting, frantic, fast sex. None of the slow, commanding, alpha sex Griffin had favoured the first few times.

  Again, panting in tangled sheets, Natalie tries talking.

  “That was really hot in the toilets today,” she starts, and he opens his eyes and rolls toward her.

  “You have no idea how many times I’ve jerked off to images of taking you against a door like that over the last month,” Griffin replies, smiling lazily. “There’s something so hot about being somewhere illicit.” He pauses for a bit, then adds: “There’s something so hot about you. I’ve been pining for you. You have no idea. In fact,” he reaches over and grabs her hips, pulling her flush against him, “I’m going to fuck you again in about ten minutes. I hope you weren’t planning on leaving this bed any time in the next twenty-four hours.”

  Natalie laughs, despite herself.

  “So is it just sex you want? Because we don’t know anything about each other. But the sex is working for me, as it happens. I just felt pretty terrible after Letitia died.” Even as she says the words, she can feel something inside her shutting down. Her face closes off, the sensation of feeling present and connected in the moment with Griffin, suddenly obsolete.

  “Let’s get to know each other, then,” Griffin says, solemn. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about your family.” Natalie snuggles into his chest, mainly so she doesn’t have to look into his eyes. She feels guilty for trying to do some detective work, and tells herself it’s just to help clear him so things can go back to normal. Whatever normal is for her.

  She feels Griffin stiffen ever so slightly against her, but she just snuggles deeper into him. Though whether she’s trying to reassure him or herself is unclear even to her.

  “What do you want to know?” he asks lightly, his tone betrayed by the subtle shift in his body.

  “About your parents. Where are they now? Do you still see them? Do you like them? I don’t even know your birthday! Do you celebrate it with them?”

  Griffin runs a finger lightly up and down the curve of her waist. His touch is gentle, reassuring.

  “They’re both dead,” he says softly.

  Natalie pulls away, leans up on one elbow so she can look at him, despite her guilt. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You sound sad. You miss them.”

  “I miss my mum,” he agrees, a troubled look in his eyes. Then they lock onto hers. “What about you? Tell me about your parents.”

  “Oh, God.” Natalie collapses back against Griffin, despite herself. “I don’t even know where to start. They’re impossible.”

  “Yeah? How so?”

  Natalie rolls over onto her back, her arm lying alongside Griffin’s, lightly touching. She stares at the ceiling, wondering how on earth she can explain them.

  “They fled civil war in Sri Lanka. They suffered there. Horrible things, that no one should ever have to suffer, I think. They’re still suffering, but they pretend they’re not. They’ve never spoken about it—to me, or a therapist, or anything. As far as I know. They just want to fit in to Australia. I call them coconuts. They’ve assimilated everything they can except their skin. They really believe that they are white. They raised me and my brother to believe that we were white, too.”

  Natalie pauses, remembering.

  “I have this memory of complaining to my mother about being bullied at school. When she asked what happened, I told her, ‘Nothing happened. It’s just because I’m brown.’ And she said, ‘No. You’re not.’ And wouldn’t hear another word about it. I’m still not sure if she was denying that I was brown, or denying that I was being bullied because of it.”

  Natalie is silent for a while, thinking how impossible it is to capture the essence of families to those outside them. Her family might be particularly troubled, but does anyone escape this? Can a nice white man from a loving family understand hers, even without the layer of race muddying the waters?

  So to speak.

  She
cackles to herself involuntarily, and Griffin raises an eyebrow.

  “Tell me,” he says, but Natalie just shakes her head.

  “It makes it very hard to develop a bond with someone, and trust them, when they refuse to see who you truly are,” is all she says.

  It feels easy to talk like this to Griffin. He is attentive and interested. But she wants to hear his stories, not share hers.

  “Tell me about your mum. What do you miss? When did she pass?”

  Griffin pulls her back in tighter, dropping a kiss on her shoulder.

  “She was maybe the opposite,” he says softly. “She made me feel like she could see me inside out, and loved me always anyway.” He’s quiet for a moment, then adds, “She was always baking. She was sunlight. Her smile lit up the entire world.”

  36

  Despite his proclamations, Griffin doesn’t even stay the night, claiming he had work to catch up on and that he’d call her later.

  Natalie is grateful for the thinking space. And even further grateful when Detective Casey calls.

  “Look, from our end, a Griffin Edwards of around that age and description doesn’t exist. The guy in Brisbane is six foot six, not your guy. And the third one is visibly of ethnic descent, which doesn’t match your description. Now, there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation about his nonexistence. Maybe he goes by his middle name, or maybe he has to be careful with his business and goes by a pseudonym socially, but hasn’t legally changed his name.

  “But—the phone number you gave us is a burner SIM, which isn’t a good sign. People usually get those when they don’t want to be found. It was purchased at a 7-Eleven in Melbourne CBD years ago. They’ve been phased out; you can’t buy them without ID these days. What we can do is run it through our system to see if it was in the vicinity of the murder scenes. In the meantime, I would suggest exercising caution. If you must see him, do so in public places. Maybe—”

  “He’s had plenty of opportunities to kill me if he wanted to,” Natalie interjects. “The killer seems to target the women when they’re on their way to meet someone else. I guess it keeps him out of the picture. Maybe he…” Her voice trails off again. She can’t picture Griffin intercepting someone with ill-intent. Not Letitia, not her.

  She shakes herself. She needs to think about an unknown man intercepting Letitia. Did she catch the bus that day? Her Opal Card account didn’t show her as catching public transport that day, according to the police. And Letitia was not the sort of person to fare evade. But then, Natalie knows that she herself has forgotten to tap on, on occasion. She catches public transport so rarely. But Letitia catches it all the time. It should be habit for her, routine.

  “We don’t know if Letitia caught the bus,” Natalie tells the detective, and explains her thoughts about it. “She might have been intercepted between the bus and my parents’ house. Or she might have gotten a lift with someone she trusted, who knew where she was going. No one has come forward, which could mean that person is the….” Natalie chokes on the word killer. She coughs. Continues. “Which means they planned it. Or maybe it was opportunistic. So if Griffin is…the guy…” If she can’t bring herself to say killer in a general sense, there is absolutely no chance she can say it alongside Griffin’s name. This whole conversation, as far as being related to Griffin, feels completely ridiculous. She wishes she had never mentioned the weird coincidence about the “morphing” sentence to Casey.

  “So the killer was likely someone known to the victim. Maybe he was driving her to your parents’ place, or intercepted her on the way. So if Griffin does pose a danger to you”—Natalie catches and is grateful for the less brutal turn of phrase, but it is still jarring—“he’ll likely be taking you somewhere or intercepting you on your way somewhere else.”

  Casey considers this for a minute.

  “So if that’s the case, the police prioritise talking to the wrong people. Who the victim was visiting. Neighbours who might have seen a car or a stranger or a struggle. Descriptions of who was seen in the area at the time.”

  Natalie feels something like relief, but not quite. She can’t put her finger on it. It’s not just that she’s being taken seriously. Some converging of that, appreciation for Casey’s quick mind, and something else. The possibility of justice for Letitia not seeming completely impossible, perhaps.

  “So if you must see Griffin, take some precautions. Going out anywhere, make sure he has no way of knowing your plans. If you see him in an unexpected location, don’t get in the car with him.”

  Natalie starts shivering, despite the warmth in her apartment.

  The wave of relief she had just experienced evaporates. Hearing it laid out like this, it all sounds very real.

  Very plausible.

  Utterly terrifying.

  Someone is carefully planning and then killing escorts of colour.

  Should she just break it off with Griffin? Just to be sure? That seems like the sensible thing to do. But then, if it is him, he could still intercept her somewhere.

  Or move on to someone else.

  Some other brown escort.

  Her skin prickles again. This time with a familiar rage.

  Eloise comes over after work, which means it is late.

  After Natalie has finished updating her on Detective Casey’s information, Eloise berates her for meeting Griffin. Dismissing Natalie’s proclamations of his innocence, she continues musing about him as though he is definitely the killer, and asks the question that even the detective had managed to avoid.

  “But why? What is his motive? It’s not like he’s been rejected. Or maybe he went on a few dates with these women, and they broke it off with him, and then he killed them. But you think he’s insightful and nice. Rich. Good lover. And he was seeing you long before Letitia died. I just can’t get my head around why he would.”

  Natalie blinks. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have the energy. She can’t explain this to her friend.

  To her credit, it wouldn’t occur to Eloise that skin colour might be enough of a motive. While some well-meaning people might claim they don’t see race, Natalie knows that not seeing race is part of the problem, however much skin colour does not factor into Eloise’s judgements. Because while Eloise would never treat anyone differently based on their sexual orientation, cultural heritage, or even gender, probably—that also means that she doesn’t really see the small ways that other people do. She doesn’t feel the relentlessness of being seen as brown first. Seen as less.

  She’d probably even feel like she understands. She’s banging hot, especially in her office wear—a smart suit and killer heels. She’d have had different, equally unpleasant things yelled at her out of car windows.

  “Nat?”

  Natalie brings her focus back to Eloise. She thinks about all the men who hate women.

  All the people who hate those with a different skin colour to them.

  She doesn’t think Griffin hates either. She’s almost one hundred percent certain that he does not.

  But someone else?

  Skin colour and selling sex? Killer combo.

  37

  Despite all this, by the time she’s slept with him several more times and he’s flown off to China for a week, Natalie is hopelessly in love.

  Her body is, at any rate.

  She convinces herself that an unhinged serial killer would not invest this much time in a potential target. Months of kindness and good humour. It’s almost laughable. She can’t imagine what she was thinking. A word is, after all, just a word. Sticks and stones…

  So when the detective calls her with worrying news—that the burner phone was in the vicinity of where one of the victims was found, in the time around her death—she is inclined to shrug it off as another coincidence.

  “Look, I was wrong,” she tells the detective. “I’ve been seeing Griffin for months. A nutter could simply not keep up a façade so believable for this long. I’d see glimpses of it at some time, I’m sure
. It was just a silly coincidence that seemed important in my anxious state. I really think there’s nothing to look into here,” she continues. “In fact, can I withdraw my request and we just leave it alone, now?”

  Though she thinks something doesn’t quite add up, it’s not this.

  On top of that, the phone hasn’t been linked to Letitia’s whereabouts around her death. It was being used in Sydney, but nowhere near Linfield.

  “It would have to match all five if we’re looking at a serial killer, anyway, right?” she adds.

  “That’s the obvious thing to think. If this is the work of the same person, and they’ve managed to not get caught five times, then they’re probably a little smarter than that,” the detective responds. “I can’t really do any more on what we’ve got. Call me if anything else comes up.”

  Privately, Detective Casey doesn’t buy into Natalie’s certainty that the whole idea was silly. People can hide all sorts of things for decades, with no one close to them suspecting a thing. If these deaths are linked—and it seems likely, with the murder method being the same in all five, on top of the target victims all being escorts of colour—then the killer has worked hard to not leave any obvious tracks. Grooming a victim to set up the perfect crime is not a stretch at all to that end.

  Still, there really isn’t anything concrete to go on. Detective Casey thinks she will dig a little further, and keep in touch with Natalie. But there’s no point alarming her further at this stage. And, if she’s honest, no point in scaring a potential killer into hiding.

  Natalie hangs up the phone, though, oblivious to all of this.

  She doesn’t feel worried.

  She leaves it with the detective, and heads off to family lunch.

  It’s only in the car as she turns into her parents’ street that she remembers Grant, and wonders if Detective Casey has followed up on that lead at all.

  She feels a stab of anger at herself—for confusing the investigation with her paranoia. Looking into Griffin because he used a strange word seems ludicrous compared to Grant’s form. She makes a mental note to call Casey back later.