In the Clearing

by J. P. Pomare

  ‘The Blue Devils.’

  ‘Yes, the police hurt you. But you cut my colleague with a knife. You didn’t mean to hurt him, I’m sure, but you did.’ He sniffs, runs his fingers through his dark hair. ‘Can you tell me more about the Clearing? Can you tell me about your mum?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Adrienne.’

  I look at the black box; it’s about the size of a fist with a red light flashing on its side. She wouldn’t want me to talk about her, I know.

  ‘So your mum’s name is Adrienne?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘I haven’t told you my name have I? I’m Dominic.’ He smiles, creating a fan of creases on either side of his dark eyes. ‘But most people call me Corazzo.’

  FREYA

  Twenty-four hours missing

  ‘WHERE IS HE, Wayne?’ I say, my voice urgent as I step away from the volunteers.

  ‘Freya, I’ve got nothing to do with this. I think I’m being set up.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, just tell me where he is. You took Aspen and now you’ve taken Billy.’

  ‘Freya, I didn’t take Aspen. I was protecting him. You almost killed him. You could have denounced Adrienne and walked away, but you didn’t, so stop blaming me.’

  My heart is sinking. ‘Aspen,’ I say. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The police don’t care as much when a seventeen-year-old boy goes missing, so I’m trying to find him myself.’

  ‘You’re lying, Wayne. You’ve taken Billy, haven’t you? That’s why you came back.’

  ‘I came for Aspen and now I’ve been roped into this mess. I’m heading to the city now to see the police and clear this all up. My phone battery died, that’s all.’

  I’m silent for a moment, thinking. What if Wayne inadvertently led the kidnappers to us? ‘It feels like this all started when you turned up.’

  ‘What all started?’

  ‘Just everything. What about Henrik? He was released this morning.’

  Wayne interrupts me. ‘I don’t think it’s him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I googled him,’ he says. ‘A lawyer applied for early release on the grounds of his health two times last year. He’s been in and out of hospital.’

  My stomach is in freefall now. ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s not who he was. He’s got bowel cancer.’

  I pinch a handful of skin on my forehead. ‘Wayne …’ I say, focusing on controlling my voice. The scar at my waist throbs as though something is growing inside of me. ‘Don’t ever come near me or Billy again. Do you understand? I don’t want your help, I don’t want to hear from you. You may not have taken him, but you brought this on when you showed up here.’

  ‘He’s my kid too, Freya. If someone has taken Billy, I’m worried it’s the same person who has Aspen.’

  I hang up the phone and stride back towards my own house, leaving Corazzo in the gazebo. I find McVeigh’s number in my recent calls. I need to know if Wayne has been cleared; I need to know if they’re watching Henrik.

  The midday news is still running on the TV.

  ‘McVeigh.’

  ‘Hi, it’s me – Freya Heywood.’

  ‘Freya.’

  ‘Is it true? Wayne’s coming in to the station?’

  ‘I can’t comment on that. He is a person of interest, that’s all I will say.’

  ‘What about Henrik Masters?’

  ‘He’s under surveillance at his property. He was still in prison when Billy went missing.’

  On the news I see an aerial shot of the national park, then a photo of Billy’s face flashes onto the screen – the one Corbett and Trioli took.

  ‘He might have people helping him,’ I point out, thinking about the van that was parked on my street. The TV is now showing a map of the area with potential routes Billy or a kidnapper may have taken highlighted in red. Billy has already risen to the top of the news agenda, climbing over all those other stories about fuel prices going up, abuse in an aged-care facility, a helicopter crash. Billy Heywood is number one now.

  ‘We are looking closely at everyone.’

  ‘It’s been twenty-four hours,’ I say. ‘I read that the chances of finding a missing person drop after twenty-four hours.’

  A Breaking News banner flashes on the TV screen.

  ‘That’s a skewed statistic. Try not to rely on what you read online.’

  The screen splits in two. On one side is a photo of Billy, and on the other is a police photograph. My breath stops. The police photograph is of a small pearl of white sitting in mud, beside a yellow tab. What has this tooth got to do with Billy?

  ‘I’m looking at a tooth on television, Jennifer. Why am I looking at a child’s tooth?’ I grip the phone hard.

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything. It may not even be Billy’s. I’m heading out your way now; we just need to run a couple more things by you.’

  It may not even be Billy’s. I turn to see Corazzo filling the doorframe. His brow drops when he sees me. I touch my cheek with my finger and realise I’m crying. Losing Aspen was an amputation. Losing Billy could kill me.

  AMY

  I TRY HIS name out in my mouth how he said it. Cor-art-so.

  ‘I’m going to look after you in the outside world,’ he says. ‘That’s my job. To look after you, to make sure you are safe and happy. If you have any questions for me, I will always answer them honestly, okay? And I expect the same from you.’

  A Blue Devil enters the room and the scream comes out of me as if it were waiting to escape. I twist and turn, yanking at the steel cuffs chaining me to the bed.

  Corazzo turns to the woman in the doorway. ‘Get the fuck out of here!’ he orders. She rushes from the room. ‘Jesus, Amy. It’s okay. See? I will protect you; I will keep them away.’

  The fishhook in my gut pierces my insides and my breathing grows laboured. A beeping starts up above me, getting faster and faster, and a man in a white coat rushes in.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Corazzo says. ‘She’s fine. She just had a scare. Leave her be.’

  I turn and twist, and the pain tears through me.

  Corazzo keeps talking. I squeeze my eyes closed, and when I open them again I see he’s standing in front of me, shielding me from the man in the white coat.

  ‘Get out of here!’ Corazzo yells.

  ‘We have a duty of care,’ the white-coated man insists.

  ‘Please let me go,’ I beg Corazzo. ‘Please let me go. Please let me go. I will be good, I promise. I will.’

  ‘Soon, Amy. I will get you out of here as soon as I can.’

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re in the psychiatric ward of the Sacred Heart Hospital in Carlton.’ He turns back to the doctor in the doorway. ‘She’s fine. She doesn’t need sedating. It’s best if she’s clear-headed.’

  The doctor gives a small grimace of concern then retreats, just as Mike walks in.

  ‘I’ve got Maccas,’ he says.

  Corazzo turns to me. ‘He’s got you some food. Can he bring it over?’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘Better than hospital food.’ He smiles and sits back on his seat.

  Mike sets a paper bag down on the table beside the bed. When I smell the food my stomach flips.

  ‘If you promise not to scream and not to try to hurt anyone, I’ll loosen your hands. Deal?’

  I nod.

  ‘Mike, open one of the cuffs.’

  Mike moves closer. My breath comes on fast as he leans forwards and reaches across me. There’s a click, and then my wrist is loose. I hold it against my chest.

  Mike backs away to his seat by the foot of the bed.

  ‘See, Mike?’ Corazzo says, more to me than to his colleague. ‘She’s not going to hurt anyone. I told you she was a good girl.

  ‘Amy is such a lovely name; I have a cousin Amy who lives up in Toowoomba,’ Mike says, shaping his mouth into a smile. These people smile when they talk, they don’t stare at me too long; they are diffe
rent to everyone I met at the Clearing. ‘Did you have any other names, Amy?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ Corazzo says. He leans over and tears open the paper bag. He pulls out two red boxes and two cartons. I reach for a box, opening it in my lap with my free hand. It’s more food than I’ve ever seen. I look up at Corazzo, who grins and nods at me.

  I take the top layer, fold it and shove it into my mouth. It’s bread – or like bread, but softer. I chew it and swallow. Next there is meat. We almost never have meat in the Clearing and never this much. I shove that into my mouth too. I feel their eyes on me as I chew quickly then scoop up some lettuce.

  ‘Jesus Christ, she’s hungry, that’s for sure,’ says Mike. ‘I’m betting she’s not this thin by choice.’

  I wince with pain as I reach for the second box and demolish its contents. The food is a fist, squeezing my stomach.

  ‘Jesus,’ Mike says again. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Are you sure she can eat all that?’ Corazzo asks. ‘What did the doctor say?’

  ‘Forgot to ask. Too late now.’

  I lick my fingers, wishing there was another box of food.

  ‘Okay,’ Corazzo says, ‘time is of the essence. A few more questions and then we’ll get you more food, okay?’

  I look regretfully at the empty box in my lap. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Normally, if someone did what you did, Amy – if they hurt someone with a knife – they would be in big trouble, but I don’t believe it was your fault.’

  I look up now, studying his face while he speaks.

  ‘Some people want to blame you, and they won’t stop blaming you until they have someone else to blame. Do you understand? So I need to know about Adam. Tell me about your dad.’

  I jerk my cuffed wrist so the chain rattles. ‘It hurts,’ I say.

  The two men look at each other. Corazzo nods. Mike rises, fits a key into the steel cuff and turns it. It falls from my hand.

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Now, you were going to tell me about Adam.’

  ‘Will he hurt me if I tell you what he did to Asha?’

  At that, both men’s eyebrows sail up their foreheads. Corazzo’s back straightens. His eyes whip to the recorder then back to me.

  They are both sitting forwards in their chairs now, alert. ‘Who hurt you, Amy? Was it your father? Did Adam hurt you?’

  ‘I don’t know … I don’t know anymore.’

  ‘You don’t know what?’

  ‘If he really is my father.’ I know that this is what Adrienne would want me to say.

  Mike’s eyes flick to Corazzo, who is holding his fist hard against his mouth, thinking, watching me. ‘What makes you think he’s not your father, Amy?’

  ‘Maybe he stole me – like he stole the others.’

  ‘The others?’

  I look down. It’s important that they trust everything I tell them. I’ve got to protect the Queen.

  ‘What do you mean by others?’ Mike persists.

  I stay silent.

  ‘Amy, what do you mean by others? Did Adam steal others? Is that what you mean?’

  I let the tears come, but I don’t speak.

  ‘Mike,’ Corazzo says, ‘outside – now.’

  The two men leave the room. Protect the Queen, keep going, I mouth to myself. I try to rise but my body is stiff and painful.

  Corazzo strides back into the room. ‘Whoa,’ he says. ‘Lie back down, Amy.’

  He has something in his hand: a piece of grey paper. He holds it close to my face; I can make out words and, among them, pictures.

  ‘Amy,’ Corazzo says, his voice rising with urgency, ‘Amy, look at the picture.’ I follow his finger to a photo the size of a matchbox. I stare at it, bewildered.

  ‘Amy?’

  ‘That’s Asha,’ I say.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Mike,’ Corazzo says, glancing back at his colleague.

  Mike comes closer, leaning in. ‘You know this girl, Amy?’ he asks. ‘You’ve seen her?’

  I squint. It looks exactly like Asha, except she is smiling, her cheeks are fuller, her hair is parted at the side with a clip. It’s her. She looks like she did the day we took her. ‘That’s my sister. Asha.’

  Corazzo’s mouth hangs open, his eyes are wide. I can see the sharp grains of hair pricking through the skin of his jaw. For a second it looks like he is going to cry. Then his mouth curves into a smile. What is there to smile about? Nothing is right, nothing is normal about these two men, yet somehow I’m not so scared anymore. Somehow I feel like it is all going to work out.

  FREYA

  Twenty-five hours missing

  I UNMUTE THE news but they have moved on to another story. Where did they find the tooth? I wonder. He had one that was loose; had he pulled it out? That must be what happened.

  ‘What is it?’ Corazzo asks.

  ‘They’ve found a tooth,’ I tell him. ‘It was on the news.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I search the internet on my phone and find only one line in an article updated only a few minutes earlier: A tooth believed to be that of the missing boy was found this morning near his home. There are no stories about my connection to Blackmarsh yet. Do they know about my family?

  There had been a moment of hesitation when the cops asked about my family. Did they mean Mum and Jonas, or the couple that adopted me, Christina and Dave? I’d been placed with them when I was fifteen and I left them when I was eighteen. After we came out of the Clearing I was always suspicious of strangers; even people who seemed kind I couldn’t trust, especially the couple that adopted me. I hated Christina and Dave as a teenager. I hated their rules and customs. I hated their Catholic version of God. Is there someone in your family that might have picked him up? Not senile Mum and not absent Jonas. Not golf-playing Bee Gee-loving Christina, and not Dave, who had his third heart attack five years ago and died shortly after.

  McVeigh and I had spoken about Henrik. Henrik, who Adrienne had baptised as Adam. Adam was always there when we needed medical attention. Adam could easily reset a dislocated finger or drain pus from an infection.

  When Alex’s fingers were snapped by a slammed door, even I was surprised by the physical damage one human could inflict on another and how some people were able to almost fully repair such damage. Alex’s fingers were red-black with blood. In the following days his fingers swelled like overstuffed sausages. Adam drained them, tapping the pus like tree sap. First he lay the boy down in the Shed and put him into a deep sleep, then he opened the skin, sliding the scalpel as quick and smooth as a zip. He plucked the shards of shattered knucklebone out of his fingers then stitched them back up and put them in splints. That wasn’t the only home surgery I witnessed. Someone needed to fix Jermaine Boethe’s hand after I destroyed it with the back of the axe head. Then there was the home surgery of Asha. Adam was always trying to fix what I had done. What Blackmarsh had demanded of me. I was wholly committed to Blackmarsh but still there are people out there who don’t understand the sacrifices I made.

  Neo-Blackmarshers. There is nothing I can do about them. I’ve read the forums on which people talk about my ‘betrayal’ and the terrible punishment they would like to inflict on me. I’ve read posts in which they speculate on my whereabouts but thankfully only a few locals know my history, Paul the grocer, one of the other yoga instructors. They’re not in a hurry to hand me over to the psychopaths loitering in those forums: the new members, or wannabe members, who have no idea what happened when I was still Amy or the truth about why I walked away that night. They couldn’t begin to imagine what Adam was really like.

  ‘I’ve got to head home,’ Corazzo says. ‘Pills to take.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine.’

  ‘I’ll come back out later. Give me a call if there’s any news, okay?’

  ‘The detective is driving out now,’ I say. ‘I’m worried, C
orazzo. I’m scared that if they clear Wayne they’re going to start blaming me.’

  He sighs. ‘You’ve got every reason to be suspicious of them. The Blackmarsh investigation was corrupt from the beginning. So if Henrik is involved, it means they could still have sway with the police. All you can do is keep them onside and don’t give them any reason to come after you.’

  Mum had sway with the police, not Henrik.

  •

  Corazzo has been gone for an hour or so when McVeigh turns up. She eyes Rocky, who sits at attention near the door.

  ‘Can I grab a seat?’

  ‘Um, sure. Is this about the tooth?’

  ‘I just want to ask you a few more questions,’ McVeigh says, turning her dark gaze on me. ‘I won’t keep you long.’

  ‘What happened with the tooth?’

  ‘It’s the media. We have found a tooth, but we have no idea if it’s Billy’s,’ she says.

  But I know. I am certain it is his.

  ‘Where was it found?’

  ‘Not far from here – in the bush near the river. Nine News got the photo at the same time as us. We’ve taken a statement from the searcher who found it.’

  Someone has hurt him. Someone has pulled his tooth out. I imagine Billy’s tiny body, pale and bloated, out there in the bush. I drop my face into my palms.

  McVeigh proffers a tissue. I take it and wipe my cheeks.

  ‘I want you to hear this from me before you see it somewhere else,’ she says, her voice even, sympathy in her eyes. ‘The tooth was found near a considerable amount of blood.’

  My heart stops. ‘What?’ I open another news story on my phone, look at the tooth. There’s no blood in the image. I notice a tiny chip in the corner of the tooth. My mind races. This is the tooth he lost this week. This is the tooth that should be in the top drawer of my dresser.

  ‘There was something else. A pair of red pliers.’ I look up from my phone. She’s watching my face. ‘We’re running it for prints now.’

  Red pliers. I get up and go to the kitchen. I open the cupboard beneath the sink and surreptitiously open the toolbox.

  ‘What is it?’ McVeigh says.

  My pliers are missing. The tooth and the pliers, both taken from my home and planted outside. I keep my face neutral as I go back to my seat.