by J. P. Pomare
Well, look at what she has done since. She tried to kill her first son and now, after she tortured her second child, he has disappeared. At what stage do we as a society ask ourselves, why do we let people like Freya Heywood, with Freya Heywood’s track record, raise this country’s most vulnerable? It’s absurd. And some Neanderthals still believe she might be innocent. Despite the tooth, the pliers, the blood beside Billy’s bed?
Blood beside his bed, this is news to me.
And now a blood-stained pyjama top has been recovered from her fire bunker. We need to find this woman and get her behind bars as quickly as possible.
I turn to Corazzo.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘You said you never saw a body; you said it was Adam alone.’ He turns away, squeezes his eyes closed as if in pain. ‘Looks like that was a lie. What else did you lie about?’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘You can say that again.’
Once more, we urge anyone who has any information regarding the whereabouts of Billy Heywood or Freya Heywood to contact Victoria Police.
The only way the media got those photos was from Adrienne – or, if not her, someone close to her. The truth is back at Eucalyptus Acres. I’ve got to go back.
Corazzo is watching me through narrowed eyes. ‘What are you thinking?’
I’m thinking the entire Australian public has turned against me. I’m thinking if this has made international news even my brother would know about it. I’m thinking I’m going to get the truth out of my mother even if I have to squeeze it from her throat. ‘I’ve got to go to Adrienne’s,’ I say.
He’s silent for a moment. Then: ‘Not now,’ he says. ‘Wait till tonight. And take my car.’
He’s right but I don’t think I can wait much longer. Every second away from Billy, wondering what he is going through, wondering if he is alive, is agony. Almost forty-eight hours have ticked by and my son is still missing.
Fifty-five hours missing
We plan the route, the timing, everything. Corazzo takes the car out to fill it with petrol for me before I leave. While I wait, I study the printed map of my route. The idea is to avoid toll roads and any high traffic areas.
I have spent the whole day watching the news for updates, checking stories online with anxiety flipping my gut. But there have been no further developments. Every time I see those old photos of me – dunking Asha, burying her – I am overcome with anger. The situation is now irreversible. I’ll never escape, I’ll never have a normal life. Someone will pay for this.
The car, a thirteen-year-old Holden Commodore, handles well. It’s probably the exact model Corazzo had when he was a cop. Probably the exact car, now that I think about it. I cruise along the straights, staying under the speed limit, wearing Corazzo’s wraparound glasses with the driver’s seat back. I guess I look a little suspicious, but that’s okay so long as I don’t look like Freya Heywood.
I’ve been in the same clothes for twenty-four hours but there’s no chance of me going near my house to get changed. It will be crawling with cops. The caravan of reporters has likely moved on to the next story but the searchers would still be scouring the bush, combing the undergrowth with eyes down, insect repellent and drink bottles at hand.
The car warns me with a beep whenever I drift over a hundred. I smile at that; Corazzo will never stop being a cop. When we hit a gravel back road, the Commodore digs in, leaning into corners as the wheels slide a little. The gravel rattles against the bottom of the car.
As the farmland gives way to trees and the roads wind through the thick bush, a news bulletin runs. A factory fire is burning in the west. A package of heroin with a street value of four million dollars was found in the possession of someone passing through customs at Tullamarine Airport. And one last item.
Henrik Masters, who served a nineteen year prison sentence for his role in the kidnap and murder of Sara McFetridge, was found dead this evening near the location of the abduction. Masters had left his flat in breach of parole conditions yesterday afternoon, Police are not deeming the death suspicious at this stage.
My heart beats his name.
Ad-am. Ad-am. Ad-am.
Adam is dead.
Fifty-eight hours missing
I’m still reeling when I see the sign for Eucalyptus Acres. My heart is thumping. My hands are damp on the wheel. I drive a little further along and pull off the road, sitting there as the sweat cools on my spine. Adam, Henrik, who spent twenty-one years in jail, is dead. I think about what he did for Adrienne, what he gave to the cult. Suicide? Unlikely. My mind is whirring. I think about Adrienne’s travel records. They could never pin anything on her because, according to her paperwork, she was always out of the country. She was overseas when Asha was kidnapped. Except she wasn’t. Adrienne’s influence extended beyond the Clearing – police, academia, and even immigration.
I think about what Adrienne made me do at the Clearing. Everything she did to protect herself. Maybe she hasn’t changed at all.
The car is on the shoulder of the road, out of sight of the entrance, when I open the car door. The air is unsettled, clouds obscure the stars. Dry grass crackles beneath my runners. The truth is here – I’m sure of it. Only Mum can help me find Billy before the net closes.
I lock Corazzo’s car and walk, hugging the tree line, down towards the entrance. I can approach the unit through the bush without having to enter the village at all. When I draw near, I see a light burning. She’s awake. I creep closer, close enough to see through her window.
She’s sitting on the couch again, her head tilted back. I watch her. Even if she were to wake it’s unlikely she would see me here.
Adrienne took the photos that appeared on television; they were her insurance plan for if I turned my back on her. All these years she has kept those photos safe, but perhaps in her old age she’s become careless. Perhaps someone else found them. Or, of course, there’s the other possibility: that she has been pulling the strings all along. That she is much more lucid than she would have me believe.
I’ve made it this far – now I need to get inside to find what I am searching for. Some evidence that Adrienne is involved, or someone else close to her is. Something that might lead me to Billy.
I step closer to the window. Her eyes snap open. Can she see me? Her mouth is moving. But no, she has turned her head. She is speaking to someone inside with her. Who?
At that moment he walks into view. The familiar shape, the lumbering gait, thick brow, scraggly hair. He hasn’t changed much since he was sixteen. He still loves his mother. He walks to the external door, opens it and steps into the night. Jonas.
PART SIX
PROTECT THE QUEEN
AMY
‘YES, MOTHER?’ I say, entering the room at the back of the Great Hall.
Adrienne is sitting at the teacher’s desk with my journal open in front of her. ‘Bring a seat over.’
It’s late. The last of the day’s light streams through the high windows and Adrienne’s brow is creased, her lips bunched, her eyes crinkled. She usually wears an open and loving smile, but not now. Sweat prickles my skin.
I pull a chair from the stack in the corner and set it near her. My heart is racing. Adrienne wanted me to write this journal, she wanted me to write it as though it were a secret, as though I was keeping it even from her.
Tension has been high, and the children have been spending more and more time in the Hole. We’ve gone days without food. Anton says the Blue Devils are close, that they are conspiring to get Adrienne, and someone within Blackmarsh has been sharing our secrets with them.
Adrienne plants her elbows on the desk, links her fingers, and rests her chin on her knuckles.
‘It’s good,’ she says of the latest draft of the journal.
Jonathan had helped me to rewrite it, to make sure it was ‘convincing’. Adam is mentioned much more frequently now. No matter who among the adults had hurt us, who hurt me, I only referred to
Adam. That’s what Adrienne wanted. The world outside will need someone to blame. They need a villain. And Adam was the most loyal, the one that outsiders knew as Adrienne’s right hand man, the one who had severed all ties to the outside world, the one who could be sacrificed.
‘I think it’s almost ready,’ she said now. ‘I need you to write it all once more, but we will have to make one or two more changes.’
When it is ready I am going out into the world. Part of me doesn’t want it to be ready, part of me never wants to leave, but it needs to happen before the Blue Devils swoop down. Adrienne has a plan, she always has a plan. ‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Your brother Anton is eighteen, he is an adult in the eyes of the world outside. So we need to protect him. When you go out into the world, always stick to what I’ve told you. They’re going to ask you questions, they are going to try to trick you, but if you repeat the story often enough it will become true and we can all stay together on the outside. Do you understand? You must never talk about how Anton hurt the children.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Everyone has their role to play.’ She pins me with her blue gaze. ‘This journal will tell them everything they need to know, and you will barely have to speak at all.’
‘What would you like me to change?’ I ask, eyeing the journal on the desk.
‘It’s good that you’ve removed your brother and me from the realignments. But now I want you to write it so that Adam is the one who kills Asha.’
‘Adam?’ I say. I’m thinking of how Adam adores Adrienne, how he tried his best to fix Jermaine Boethe’s fingers and tried for so long to bring Asha back to life. Breathing oxygen into her lungs, pumping her heart, cutting her open, shocking her. Adam, who is softly spoken, quiet as a mouse. Adam, who had given up everything to be here.
‘Yes,’ Adrienne says. She wears an open, kind expression once more, has that beatific look in her eye. ‘It has to be Adam.’
FREYA
Fifty-eight hours missing
JONAS. ANTON. MY brother. You’re supposed to be overseas. I feel winded. He never stopped believing. Even when he moved up to that farm in the country, even when he stopped visiting her so often. He was still always doing her bidding and now it’s clear to me that he knows what happened to Billy. He has been lying to me. He wanted me to believe he was away overseas but he was here all along. No doubt his travel records will confirm his story, proving that he was not in the country, just as Adrienne had appeared to be overseas when she was really at the Clearing all along.
A woman with dementia and a man on another continent – no wonder the police never considered them as suspects. No wonder they focused on me, Henrik and Wayne. Oh God, Wayne. I was distracted by him, I put him in the sights of the police. He was here looking for Aspen and I made him a suspect of Billy’s disappearance.
I’m stepping back slowly, away from the house. Jonas is out here somewhere. I can’t let him see me. I rush up through the trees towards the road.
Henrik was found dead. Could Jonas be involved with that too?
I’m running now. Leaves and twigs catch in my hair. I need my phone; the lack of it is a painful, physical sensation, as if I’m missing a limb. I will have to drive somewhere or wave someone down. I could call the police, or Corazzo and tell them everything.
I reach the road and see the car still parked up at the shoulder. I’m almost there. I sprint the last stretch, chest heaving from the exertion, and slam the key in the lock. I yank the door open and get in. My hands are shaking so much I can barely get the key into the ignition, but at last I manage it. I turn the key.
Nothing.
I turn it again.
Still nothing. No lights, no sound, no roar of the engine.
There’s a tap on the window. I turn.
I see his eyes first. Sunken, dark. Then his long thick hair, his crooked smile. He motions with his finger for me to lower the window. I’m trapped. There is nothing I can do now. He motions with his finger again. I steady my breath, then wind the window down.
I paste on a smile, look up into his eyes. ‘Jonas, you’re … you’re back.’
‘Sister,’ he says. ‘We weren’t expecting you. You’re leaving already?’
‘It’s late,’ I say. I understand how ridiculous this pantomime is, but what else can I say? ‘My car won’t start though.’ Because you did something to it.
He tilts his head to one side. ‘Your car? It looks a lot like a cop car to me.’
I swallow. ‘I borrowed it from a friend.’
‘A friend,’ he says impassively. He opens my door. ‘You’d better come say hi to Mum, since you’re here – she’s still awake.’
I watch his face in the darkness, my heart slamming against my ribcage. I need my phone, or a weapon. I need something. I know what he is capable of.
‘I thought you were away,’ I say casually.
‘I just got back. Heard the news and booked the next flight out. Don’t worry, Billy will turn up.’
‘What’s happening up at your farm? Is someone looking after it?’
‘I’ve got people helping.’
He walks behind me, down the road leading into the retirement village, giant eucalypts lining our path. There are no lights other than the security lights around the reception area. Just me and Jonas. When Adrienne dies will the spell be broken? The idea was to collect the twelve for her, surely he knows that Blackmarsh is running out of time. She won’t live forever.
‘This way,’ he says, pointing down a path that skirts the perimeter of the village. I’m unlikely to be seen by anyone from the other units here, I realise.
‘How was your holiday?’ I ask, my voice tight.
‘It was nice.’
He’s almost translucent in the moonlight, no colour, no tan. He looks like he’s been inside for the past month.
‘But that’s not important at the moment. We need to find that boy of yours, don’t we?’
He is walking beside me now, a great presence, hands like slabs and that thick neck. He moves in front to open the side gate of Adrienne’s unit. I walk through and climb up the back steps. It’s darker in the moon shadow of the house. Through the window I see Adrienne sitting on the couch, a corona of white hair floating about her skull.
‘She’s never lost control, Amy. Not once. You’ve been in her web your entire life and you didn’t know it. The more you struggled to free yourself, the more you turned your back on her, the tighter the binds became.’
‘Did you take him?’
Jonas sighs, then slides the door open. ‘Come on, get inside.’
‘Hello?’ Adrienne says, turning towards the door.
‘Mum, it’s Amy.’ Jonas’s voice is light and buoyant, as if he’s speaking to a child.
‘Amy?’ she says. ‘Oh my.’ She looks up into my face. ‘You’re back.’
‘Grab a seat,’ he says to me, gesturing towards the small table.
I sit down. Jonas puts the kettle on.
‘I’m actually okay for tea,’ I say, my eyes casting about for a weapon. Something solid. Something that could break a bone.
‘Water? Juice?’
‘No, thanks. I’m fine.’
‘Fair enough,’ he says. ‘We need to be focusing on Billy. I think the Clearing is the first place to look. You know what the fanatics are like, Amy. They’re not the real Blackmarshers; they don’t know what you sacrificed.’
‘No they don’t,’ Adrienne agrees. ‘You sacrificed a lot for me, didn’t you?’
I ignore her. It’s clear to me that Jonas’s the threat. I wonder what kind of game he’s playing.
‘What do you say, sister? Should we head out to the Clearing and take a look?’
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘After our tea.’
I see him setting two cups down. He takes the kettle off the burner. I know it would be suicide to drink anything he prepares for me. What are you planning, Jonas?
He carries the cups through
and sits across from me at the table. He sips his tea and gestures for me to do the same. I know now that he drugged me with the kombucha. I’m not stupid enough to fall for it again. I take the cup and raise it to my mouth. He’s watching me closely. I let the liquid touch my lip. It’s hot. Perfect.
In one swift motion I stand and hurl the scalding liquid into his face.
Then I run. If he’s here, if they have him, I will find him. I sprint up the hall. ‘Billy!’ I scream. ‘Billy!’
I fling open the first door to reveal a bedroom, Adrienne’s. There’s no sign of Billy.
‘You bitch!’ Jonas screams behind me. ‘You don’t know what you are doing. You have no idea!’
I rush to the next room and throw the door open.
‘Billy?’ I call. I find the light switch. The room is empty but for a few boxes.
Where is he?
Footsteps, then something hits me hard in the throat. It tightens and tightens. I throw all my weight backwards. We hit the wall. My eyes bulge.
‘He is part of her plan, Amy,’ he says, his voice breathy in my ear. ‘Billy belongs to a higher cause now.’
He is choking the air from me. I think back to my self-defence training. Twisting and turning, I fight to break the chokehold, but he is too big, too strong. I get my jaw into the kink of his elbow and pull at his hand, releasing his hold just enough to allow me to take a quick breath.
I feel something press against my face. A hand gripping me. Cotton rubbing against my nose and mouth. I know the smell. Don’t breathe. I hold my breath, but make my chest rise and fall.
I make the movement slow, let my eyelids droop. I slump in his arms. He keeps the cloth there for a minute at least. I imagine myself underwater, floating in the river, blocking out the world. I know I can make it to ninety seconds before coming up for air. We must almost be there now as my brain is starting to ache and my limbs are tingling. I close my eyes and make my body go completely limp, completely still. It’s the trick Asha tried to pull when she was dunked in the Cooler. This time it works.