Shadows Over Wongan Creek

by Juanita Kees

  ‘That’s good to hear.’ She was glad he’d repeated the news, because her mind had blocked out all white noise as the ugly purple painted exterior of La Paloma Negra had come into view.

  He turned off the engine and placed his hand on the SUV’s door handle. ‘You ready?’

  Fen let out a steadying breath. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Whatever happens, I’ll be right there, okay?’

  She nodded, her belly clenching into knots. ‘Let’s go.’

  Together they approached the charcoal-coloured door set in a windowless brick wall beside an inconspicuous, faded signboard. People walked by on their way to life as if the door didn’t exist. Those who knew its purpose ignoring it, those who didn’t, not intrigued enough by the name to enquire. Exactly the way the owner, past and present, wanted it.

  Kieran rang the bell and Fen tightened her grip on his hand as they waited for a response. Under the wristbands, her skin tingled against opening old wounds and unleashing bad memories that would cause anguish far worse than physical pain.

  Her mind had churned over the possibilities all night over what today would bring. Beside her, Kieran had been just as restless until they’d given up on sleep and sat at the kitchen table to find comfort in conversation and hot chocolate instead until a dull, grey dawn broke over the vines.

  The hollow echo of heels clicking across a wooden floor preceded the twist of the brass knob. The door opened to a tired looking woman, her face void of make-up, ravaged by a profession that paid well but destroyed the soul. She wasted no time on pleasantries.

  ‘You must be Fenella. I don’t normally work with cops, but I’ve made an exception for you. Antoinette was a good friend. Hurry up and come inside. I don’t need sticky-beakers peering in.’ She waved them in and closed the door, snapping on locks and tapping in a code on the alarm panel on the wall. ‘In case someone tampers with the door. Sets off an alarm upstairs.’

  ‘I hope we’re not interrupting anything.’ Fen shivered at the thought of what lay ahead up the dingy narrow staircase. She remembered being carried down them, clinging to Martha Wallace, terrified.

  ‘We’re closed today. Even hookers need a day off, you know. Head on up, I’ll be in the office if you need me. Take your time. All the rooms are unattended. The girls have been sent out as per the cops’ instructions. If this results in a raid, I’m sending you the bill for damages.’

  ‘I’m not here to cause harm to your business, Cherish. All I want is answers.’

  The woman’s eyes flickered away from hers, the tug to her lips not unkind but sad. ‘It’s what happens when you know the answers I’m afraid of. Business hasn’t been good since Diablo gave the club to me. It needs a makeover and I can’t afford one. Messing around in the past won’t encourage new business. And now Diablo’s gone … Those bastards should pay for that. It’s the only reason I agreed to letting you in here. I hope you realise the danger you’ve put me in if they find out I’m helping you.’

  Anger slipped in over apprehension. ‘I appreciate the help. I’m not exactly happy about the harm they’re doing to my people and property either. If I ever recover the money Spider stole from me, recoup the loss of income from the vines he ploughed over to grow his cannabis crop, finish paying for the funeral of an innocent woman who didn’t deserve to die, or the vet bills for a dog hurt in such a cruel way, I’ll make sure you’re compensated for your efforts.’

  ‘You think I want compensation?’ She laughed, the sound harsh from smoking and abused throat muscles. ‘I don’t want your money, I want justice. For myself. For Antoinette. For all the girls up there who take the kind of shit we have to take to make a living. It’s a vicious circle, honey. The more we take, the more we need. You were lucky to escape that. You were lucky Diablo made sure of it the night your mother died.’

  Fen narrowed her eyes. ‘You know what happened.’

  ‘I know nothing.’ An answer without conviction, eyes that couldn’t meet hers and a chilling feeling that Cherish was lying her tired arse off. ‘I’ve given my statement to the cops and that’s all you’ll get from me. I won’t help you with anything more. When Diablo died so did my protection.’

  ‘Who is this Diablo?’

  ‘Luciano Romano. He had you taken away. There were a few children here he arranged homes for. He was a good man, and they killed him.’

  ‘Not that good a man when he’s the president of an outlaw motorcycle club, funding prostitution and manufacturing and selling drugs, killing people who don’t follow club rules.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about him, so don’t think you do.’ Cherish spat the words between them. ‘You had a lucky escape, people looking out for you. Don’t let these bastards take that away from you. Don’t let them steal your life the way they stole mine. I was a girl with dreams once too. Soliciting the streets of Perth wasn’t it. But then dying wasn’t on my agenda either. The likelihood of that happening if Roach finds out I let you in here is pretty high, Rosa. And unlike you, I don’t have anyone left who cares what happens to me anymore.’ She held out an old-fashioned brass key in keeping with the age of the rotting building and Fen took it. ‘This is the key to your mother’s rooms. Make it count for something.’

  Beside Fen, Kieran’s muscles tensed. ‘We can arrange for protection for you.’

  A sneer twisted Cherish’s lips. ‘With who? The cops? I’m more likely to need protection against them. Who do you think covered this mess up?’ She wrapped her worn cardigan around her, covering the daggy track pants, the nail polish on her toes in the heeled slippers chipped and peeling. ‘I’m done talking. Go do what it is you have to do. I’ve got to plan the entertainment for tonight. Assuming the place won’t be crawling with cops by sundown.’

  She opened a door to the left and disappeared into what looked like an office, closing it behind her. Fen shivered, eyeing the shadowy staircase ahead.

  ‘Well, that was pleasant. Ready?’ Beside her, Kieran’s warmth and solid strength gave her comfort. ‘Let’s get this over with so we can go home.’

  ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘Do you remember her?’

  Fen shook her head. ‘No. I thought I might, but I don’t remember leaving the room much or seeing anyone other than the men who came inside.’

  ‘Let’s see if anything upstairs is familiar.’

  His hand at her waist, he squeezed lightly, and they moved to climb the old wooden staircase with the worn carpet that had seen years of traffic. If the walls could talk, she could only imagine their description of the characters who’d climbed these stairs. A shiver climbed her spine in sync with each footfall until she stepped onto the first-floor landing.

  Sometimes the answers to our questions are where we least expect to find them. Riggs’ words echoed in her ears. Apprehension clawed at her throat chased by determination. She’d hidden from the root of her problems for long enough.

  The years hadn’t been kind to the place, as Cherish had pointed out. Since banning Beyond Hell’s Reach, business had taken a downturn and a toll on upkeep. The dark, dingy place of horrors stood exactly as the seven-year-old inside her mind remembered, only worse.

  Peeling paint on the walls, once a classy shade of vintage rose, now a grimy shade of something unidentifiable. The carpet, threadbare in shades of red and gold exposing scuffed jarrah floorboards, stretched the length of the corridor. Nameplates in tarnished brass on scuffed and splintered doors identified fetishes of choice. The Naughty Room. The Play Room. Mummy’s Room.

  Fen shivered. ‘Bloody hell.’

  Beside her Kieran chuckled. ‘Interesting choices. God knows what other rooms lie in wait further down. Do you think they have a librarian’s room?’

  Fen slipped her hand back into his, her fingers cold as memories crept in from the shadows. The Jungle Room? Oh, dear God. She stopped opposite it at a door marked “Private. DO NOT ENTER” shouted in the child-like scrawl of someone who hadn’t attended school for long. The shiver clinging t
o her spine crawled along her skin, releasing a churn in her belly.

  ‘This is it. The rooms I grew up in.’

  ‘Looks like they were never used again after you left.’ Kieran studied the door, the yellowed warning sign, then pushed the old-fashioned key into the lock. ‘You sure you want to do this, Fen?’

  She nodded. ‘I want this to stop. The nightmares, the threats, the harming. Whatever happened here that night, my memory of Antoinette deserves closure too.’

  Kieran turned her to face him, taking her free hand in his too. ‘Any time you want to stop, leave, run, you tell me.’

  She swallowed and nodded. ‘Just hold my hand and don’t let go, okay?’

  ‘I can do that. Ready?’

  Fen chewed her lip, her hand shaking as she reached for the key, turned it and prayed that the sea of memories behind the door wouldn’t drown her. She pushed open the door and with Kieran close, stepped over the threshold into the dim, musty smell of the past.

  Silence screamed out of the interior, abandonment riding on the backs of dust particles drifting in the air, disturbed by the draft creeping in from the hallway. Kieran reached for the light switch, but Fen stopped him.

  ‘No. This is how it was. Always dark. No sun in through the windows because the blinds were always closed.’

  She edged further into the cramped room, her grip tightening on his hand. In the corner, to her left, the battered fridge, almost always empty, stood silent. On top of it, a small television, so old it had never worked. Beside it, a table and two chairs, covered in dust and a gaudy orange vinyl tablecloth.

  ‘I used to hide under that table when the men came. Right up in the corner against the wall, next to the rat catcher. It wasn’t much comfort with the noise from the room next door. The walls were incredibly thin. Even thinner at night.’ Her words drifted into the silence as she faced the only refuge she’d had. ‘I used to clamp my hands over my ears, squeeze my eyes shut and sing songs in my head until the noises stopped.’

  In the corner next to the table, a mattress lay on the floor, the dirty sheets crumpled, a tattered blanket bundled in a heap against the wall. ‘That was my bed.’ Her hands began to shake, and she reached for her wrists, twisting the leather bands against the itch.

  ‘You’re doing fine, Fen. It’s okay. I’m here.’ Kieran’s fingers were warm around hers, taking her hand back in his, his touch almost unbearably hot against the icy chill.

  She took a deep breath and turned to face the door in the wall opposite. The door she couldn’t open in her dreams. It stood innocently ajar, the way it had that night when she’d approached it, except now there was no light burning inside, no sounds from behind it.

  Pleading screams began echoing in her mind. Stop. Answered by ugly words tossed out in a deep voice. Vicious shouts that swelled and grew like angry waves in a storm. Her grip on Kieran’s hand fell away, her footsteps slow and heavy as she crept closer, the way she had before. ‘They were shouting. I thought they were fighting.’

  Fear clutched at her throat, the pressure on her windpipe squeezing in a grip around her throat. She reached out her hand to the door and drew it back again quickly, her fingers clutching at the wristbands, trying to tear them off and stop the itch.

  ‘Fen.’ Kieran’s hands stilled the movement. ‘We can do this together, open that door, or we can leave and find another way to fix this mess. You don’t have to do this to yourself.’

  She shook her head and peered through the opening in the door. ‘They wouldn’t stop.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t stop?’

  ‘Not who. The screams. He hurt her. Did terrible things to her.’

  Shadows morphed into silhouettes on the wall, the soft lamplight that had once shone against it, a stark contrast to the harshness it backlit. She pushed the door open with her fingertips and the demons crouching in the shadows raced in to claim the room.

  Memories came crashing in, a tangle of terror that rolled over her and pushed her back into the wall of Kieran’s chest. Antoinette on the bed, a man over her with a knife in his hand—slashing, stabbing—blood all over the walls and Antoinette’s lifeless eyes staring at her where she stood in the doorway.

  She’d run. Silently, the way she’d been taught. Under the table. Into the corner. Tried to make herself smaller than the rat caught in the trap. Listening. Waiting for the man with the teardrop tattoo to find her hiding place and cut her too.

  ‘He didn’t know I was there. Another man came running into the room. They shouted at each other.’ I told you to stay away from her. Fuck, man, you killed her! For what? ‘I heard more noises, swearing, like they were punching each other, having a fight. Then the man with the knife ran away.’

  ‘Did you see his face? The man with the knife.’

  Fen nodded. ‘Yes. It was Ray Sampson. He’s older now, lankier, more weathered, but it was him.’ Ice crept into her veins, making her shiver.

  Kieran closed his arms around her. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘The police came. They talked about making the problem go away. No need for a crime scene investigation. She was a prostitute, no-one would care. They’d be taking out the trash. They laughed, like someone had made a joke. Then an ambulance arrived. I was still hiding under the table. When everyone had gone, I was alone. Someone came in and took all the bedding away, cleaned the room. The chemicals made me sneeze. That’s when he found me.’

  ‘Who found you?’

  ‘Luciano Romano.’ His face as she’d seen it had looked nothing like the one in the police file. His expression had been softer, kinder, changing instantly from angry to concerned when he’d found her curled tightly in the dark corner. A bruise had started to bloom on his cheek and he’d wiped blood away from his split lip with the back of his hand.

  Cherish walked into the room. ‘Diablo knew you were there, hiding somewhere, but he didn’t know if you’d understood what you saw and heard. If Roach had found out you were in the room, he’d have killed you too. That’s why Diablo told the social worker to make you disappear.’

  Fen shivered, leaning into Kieran’s warmth, the walls of the room creeping in closer. ‘Why would Diablo do that if he knew I’d seen something? One of his men murdered his property, surely he wouldn’t want witnesses?’

  ‘Antoinette had been off the table since she fell pregnant with you. She ran the reception, bookings, events.’

  Fen shook her head. ‘No, I remember men coming in, going to her room.’

  ‘Only two men. Her dealer and Diablo. She was Diablo’s property. It’s why she had the only one-bedroomed apartment in the building. All the others are studio rooms. Roach was lucky Diablo let him live after what he did to Antoinette. He should have eliminated that arsehole while he had the chance, but Diablo lived by the code and club brothers don’t rat on each other. Fat lot of good that did him. Now he’s dead too.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why he would let me go. Surely he knew there’d always be a risk that Roach would find out I was there that night?’

  Cherish smiled, a movement of her mouth that could have been interpreted as kindness or sadness were it not for the emotionless void in her eyes, destroyed by her work, by the need to make a living and a life that required drug abuse to be tolerable.

  ‘Risk is a challenge we live with every time we open that door downstairs.’ Cherish pulled the door to Antoinette’s bedroom closed. ‘Diablo didn’t want that life for you, not when it killed Antoinette. It touched her even though she was his property, under his protection. He made you disappear, made sure you stayed hidden for as long as he could.’

  ‘Why would he care about a skinny kid when Antoinette had never cared about her own child?’ Fen shivered, Cherish’s words tumbling over each other in her mind in the effort to find sense in it all.

  ‘Because he was your father.’

  Fen’s stomach bottomed out. If Romano had been more like Roach, she wouldn’t have made it out alive, whether she was blood or not. And now th
ere was more blood on her hands, another death resulting from the search for the witness to a murder.

  Cherish wrapped her worn cardigan tighter around her. ‘You have what you came for. You need to leave now. The longer you stay here the worse the consequences. Make it end today, Rosa.’

  ‘My name is Fenella, and I intend to.’ Fen forced down the nausea that curdled her stomach, walked out into the hallway and away from the horror that tore at her mind.

  Chapter 16

  Kieran turned fertiliser into the soil around the base of the new vine and watched as Liam copied his movements. He’d worried himself sick all night, waiting to hear if Fen was okay. Leaving her in the city with the detectives working her mother’s case hadn’t been something he wanted to do. He’d wanted to stay with her, but he had Liam to think about too, and his son had never spent a night away from him in the four years of his life.

  Fen faced a battery of psych interviews, long hours of questioning about her mother’s murder, reliving the past over and over. New memories that would taunt her with their darkness, but she’d promised she’d be okay. He trusted she would. He had to have confidence in her. He had to believe that she wouldn’t pick up a knife and take it to her scars, that she wouldn’t take her life the way Diane had when things had got too confronting. Fen was tough, a survivor, a different person to Diane.

  In his shirt pocket, his phone pinged the arrival of a text message. He dug out the phone and checked the screen.

  On my way home.

  Smiling, he pulled off his glove and texted back.

  See you soon.

  Stopping for coffee on the way. Perks of a police escort.

  Be safe. He hesitated before sending: We missed you.

  Too much too soon? His heart stuck in his throat waiting for her response. Damn it, he did miss her. He wanted her home where he could take her in his arms and hold her against him, protect her from everything she faced. And, just for once, the guilty shimmer of Diane’s ghost didn’t rise to call him out on his thoughts. His phone pinged twice.