Hermit

by S. R. White

  Another response that could be given to defence counsel and thus to the world, but she couldn’t avoid making it. Nathan needed the last little shove.

  ‘You’re entirely correct, Mr Whittler.’

  ‘I’ve been considering and, hmm . . .’ Nathan nodded to himself.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I think that, now you understand why I ran and lived in a cave, you can understand why this morning happened. It might make sense now in a way it wouldn’t have, earlier.’

  It jolted her assumptions to learn that Nathan also had a plan. There had been polite inquiries she’d had to parry, there had been questions she’d answered to gain trust and find common ground, but she hadn’t detected a strategy behind them. But apparently Nathan had prioritised and put the crucial information into a preferred sequence, just like she had. It was something she’d semi-comprehended, but hadn’t truly appreciated. Not every reluctant answer, glance to the floor, hesitation or obfuscation was involuntary: some of it was conscious.

  Nathan would confess now, because he was certain Dana could process and contextualise: she had the prerequisite data. Clever, she thought. Clever Nathan.

  ‘I see. Well, I’m happy to talk about this, Mr Whittler. But I really must suggest to you once again to have a lawyer beside you at this time. We’re about to discuss something that has profound legal implications for you. A lawyer would be able to advise you: I cannot. It’s your own free choice, but that would be my advice at this point.’

  ‘Uh, I’ve thought about that, too. No lawyers. I don’t really trust them, to be honest. But more than that, I think what I have to say is fairly self-explanatory. So I don’t really see how a lawyer would help. But thank you, Detective Russo. I appreciate that.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll try to keep my interventions to a minimum. In your own time, and in your own words, please, Mr Whittler.’

  ‘Okay. So. I’d visited Jensen’s plenty of times before. It’s the nearest walkable store. It’ll be in the journal, Detective, of course. But I hadn’t been there for a while. I went recently at dusk – trying to see their process for the alarm. I hide in the undergrowth when I reconnaissance. The tree ferns, the mulberry: you can get within twenty metres of that store and no one has a clue you’re there. It helps to watch them closing up, you see: you can infer what their alarm system is like.

  ‘I was . . . well, surprised at what I saw, in that particular reconnaissance. Rattled. I thought about never returning there – placing it off limits. Perhaps it was too risky, perhaps the stakes had become too high because of those changes. Even though it was handy and I knew the layout, and it was all so convenient, by my standards. But I thought it through later; I believed I’d set it all in context and worked out how I was going to deal with things. At least, I thought I had.

  ‘Since I’d scoped it out last, it seemed they’d added some security. A couple of the lights had changed on the corners, and I thought there might be motion detectors. But other than that I didn’t know there’d been any changes.

  ‘I’ve told you about the trick with the window locks. I’d picked a window right in the middle of that store front. I thought if any windows were going to be opened in daytime and then closed at night it would be the ones next to the coffee corner. They might open those. But the main ones at the front middle? Stores don’t open those up. Flies, dust on the produce – that sort of thing. They usually like to keep them closed and crank up the air conditioning. Besides, this time of year they probably wouldn’t be opening any windows much. So I was fairly happy that no one would have discovered the trick with the lock.

  ‘It was my own fault I hadn’t visited the place the previous week. I got caught in a rainstorm and I had a bit of a cold. I’m not feeble, Detective: I can live with a cold. But when you don’t live in a building, colds go down to your chest. I had a wheezy cough for several days and I couldn’t risk going out like that. Then I had to wait another couple of nights, because there was no cloud cover and it was a full moon. Out there, a full moon is practically daylight.

  ‘So what I’m saying is; I never intended to be there this morning. If I’d gone when I’d intended, I’d never have . . . well, perhaps I wouldn’t be here now. And if I’d known about what the owner . . . well, if I’d fully realised, then of course I would never have gone. I’d spent years being careful, avoiding . . . all that. I should have had more information, ought to have done it all the previous week. Just so you know. I was a little off my game. It was slightly outside my comfort zone. So maybe I wasn’t at, you know, full capacity or something. Not enough, uh, due diligence, on my part.’

  Dana had a picture: she thought it was accurate because it fitted everything she knew – felt – about Nathan. He would sit among dripping ferns for hours, peering through the fronds at Jensen’s. Knowing that one mistake – one worker staying late, one missed camera – could bring his time in the cave to an end. And that would be crushing.

  ‘I like Jensen’s because they have so many things in wire baskets and bins. When it’s displayed haphazardly like that, it’s easier to acquire stock without anyone noticing. And they have a lot of batteries. Always well supplied with batteries.

  ‘I like that store as well because I don’t have to canoe down the lake to start the trip. Everything’s more complicated with the canoe. At night, you can hit tree roots, and so on. You have to moor it some place you’ll find it, but others won’t. And going from the mooring through the woods takes you nearer to people, for longer. So Jensen’s was a good store to go to generally, but not . . . then. Not recently. But I got there without a problem, about 4 a.m. or so. Dead of night. And I waited for an hour and nothing moved.

  ‘Everything went okay at first. I threw a couple of small branches at the corner of the store. It was to test the lights: they might be motion-sensitive themselves, or they might have motion sensors for an alarm on them. If they’re alarm sensors, you often get a tiny red-light flash for half a second. Alarm companies sometimes think that’s not a problem but in total darkness you can see that quite easily. Nothing. The branches, if anyone found them, would look like debris from the wind. Which they were – I picked them up off the forest floor, so they had the right kind of natural break at the base, and so on. No one would know the security had been tested.

  ‘Because I’d checked in my journal, I knew where the electrics box was – under the eaves by the side door. It has one of those Allen-key locks: I had the right tool and in a few seconds I’d switched off the electrics. Alarms have back-up batteries, but often people don’t replace dud ones. I intended to switch the electric back on when I left: everyone’s used to minor outages these days and I’m sure it never feels suspicious. I waited another minute in the shadows to be sure the coast was clear.

  ‘I opened the window and went back to the bushes and watched. But I couldn’t see any movement inside. I gave it a few minutes and then climbed in. So far, so easy, Detective: plastic bags on my boots, and the windowsill. I started filling the rucksack. They’d moved some things since my last visit and I started going up and down aisles, trying to find what I wanted. It was a bit of a pain, so I set the rucksack down near the window and walked along the aisles. I knew the cameras were on the main checkout, and the storage room; the aisles weren’t on film.

  ‘As I put some toothpaste in my pocket I thought I heard a noise. The window was still open, and sound carries in the forest. It might have been something out in the woods. I stood and waited. I’d about convinced myself I was imagining it, when I heard it again. A little squeak, like someone’s shoe on the flooring.’

  Nathan was staring at the middle distance: a spot in the air between his knee and the wall. Dana couldn’t have sworn that Nathan even knew she was there at that moment. He was back in the darkness of the store, gathering for winter and about to make the decisions that would change his life for ever.

  ‘My first mistake, as I’ve said, was not enough reconnaissance. I should have known more about, wel
l, the changes at the store. I should have been better prepared. My fault, my responsibility, I know. But my second mistake was right then. The moment I heard the squeak I should have grabbed my rucksack and run. I might have done it. If I’d made it into the undergrowth, I’d be difficult to find at night. I move quite well in that terrain. I should have gone through the window and away.

  ‘But I didn’t, Detective. Fool that I was, I stood in the darkness and waited to hear it again. Strange how we do that – con ourselves that we haven’t heard or seen something. Then we expect to see or hear the exact same thing again, for verification. When we know, in our instinctive selves, that we don’t need to. We don’t trust ourselves and our capabilities – we keep looking for something else as a double-check.

  ‘So I stood and waited. It was very dark, Detective. There was a glimmer of orange light from the main road but it was several hundred metres away. All it gave was the vague outline of silhouettes: it didn’t actually illuminate anything. I had a torch, but of course now I couldn’t use it again without giving my position away. I heard the squeak again. It might have been a rodent outside. Or the refrigerator – they make quite a lot of noise, the older ones. But something told me it was a person.

  ‘It was only the second time I’d been caught with someone else in the store I’m visiting. The other time, I’d hidden until I could leave unseen. I’m very careful, Detective. I didn’t want any trouble. I wanted to be in and out, unhindered. But since I was sure no one knew I was even in these places, it had never occurred to me that someone might be hiding in the store for precisely this moment. I mean, why would they? Why hide in a store when you have no idea you’ve been burgled, in case you get burgled again?

  ‘If only I’d known more about Jensen’s Store, of course. If I’d done more surveillance I would have understood more about what was going on in that store. I’d never have gone near it if I’d known.’

  The self-recrimination brought him to a halt. At first, Dana assumed he was simply collecting himself, gathering. But he sat back with his eyes closed and she began to worry that he might clam up just as he reached the decisive moment.

  ‘Mr Whittler, are you okay?’

  He shook his head slowly, as if he had a migraine and couldn’t bear to move. He kept his eyes shut.

  ‘This is very difficult, Detective. I was . . . I was ashamed of the stealing, as you know. It was humiliating. But this . . . this is on a different level. This is . . . just awful. What played out.’

  She thought about what might get him over the line.

  ‘Mr Whittler, what took place in the store this morning has happened. It’s done. Neither you nor I can do anything to change what has occurred. It will not magically get worse – or better – for you telling about it. Your words can’t change anything inside that store. But they can change your future.’

  She glanced at him for her own reassurance. He gave her nothing.

  ‘Your words, Mr Whittler: they can change what life you lead and how you feel about it. Your life is about to swing away from the cave, from your solitude. I’m sorry about that. But it’s vital for you – for your wellbeing – that you make some effort to control your new direction.’

  Dana thought she’d blown it. She thought it was too pompous, too portentous. He seemed to sit and hum to himself for a minute, while the tape spooled on. His eyes danced behind his eyelids and it came to her that he might be running through the memory of those events. Perhaps he was, even now at this late stage, picking and choosing: charting an explanation that would fit the evidence, yet exonerate him. Or perhaps, he was summoning courage.

  ‘So I was there, Detective. In Jensen’s, with a man who shouldn’t have been there at all. Shouldn’t have been anywhere near. I was in it, and I had a problem. I had no idea where he was, but if he’d been hiding and watching he’d know from my earlier torchlight where I’d been. I couldn’t be far from the last spot before I turned off the torch. He knew for sure: I knew nothing for certain. He had the drop on me.

  ‘What I wanted was to get back to the window. My eyes started to adjust and I could see – down the aisle – the vague outline of the window. There seemed nothing between me and it. But I thought he’d realise that: that the window was my only way out, and that if he stayed near it I was trapped. I figured he’d be smart enough to get that. I tried circling around the back of the store so I could check which aisle he was hiding in.

  ‘Twice, I bumped into something. It really was that dark. I didn’t make much noise, but enough to tell him I was well away from the window. I couldn’t see where I was going, and he had me pinned. He didn’t have to go anywhere, or make a sound, or bump into anything. The day would only get lighter. If he had to stay like that for three hours, he could. I needed to get out now, or I was caught.

  ‘So I was surprised when he did move. Just a little, from the end of one aisle to the end of another. I suppose he wanted to be as close as possible to the window, but still hidden. I happened to be crossing another aisle and caught his outline for a second.’

  Nathan paused, swallowed.

  ‘His silhouette against dark grey. It sent a shudder, Detective. As you can imagine, a hot shudder. My insides did the same nauseous flip they always did.

  ‘I waited. He waited. I don’t know how long. But the light was beginning to change. Still darkness, but behind me and towards him it was starting to look dark purple instead of jet black. He clearly wasn’t moving. It was up to me.

  ‘I made a decision. I would need a weapon of some kind. I never carried anything like that, Detective. The very idea – repulsive. So I had nothing on me. I was finger-searching the shelves, trying to find something without tipping everything over. Not that it would have mattered, now that I think about it. I’d have been better off using the torch. But I didn’t: not at that point.

  ‘The inevitable happened and I knocked some packets of something on to the floor. They landed with a dull kind of thud. Sugar or flour, or something like that. And he laughed. He actually laughed. My plight was funny. He found my distress funny. I shuddered again. And something in me switched. Old, familiar feelings; a fear I’d hidden away was resurfacing. I’d thought I was past it, but instead it started to cloud my judgement.

  ‘Now, I was going to use the torch. It was stupid to fumble around in the darkness. He knew I was here, knew where I was and where I needed to go. Suddenly, I wasn’t prepared to take it any more. I wasn’t going to have my life torn off me again, Detective. It wasn’t fair the first time, and it wouldn’t be fair now. I wanted to be left alone, and now I wouldn’t be. It would be like it was before; like the thing I’d run from; like the thing I couldn’t take.

  ‘I flicked on the torch and found a set of kitchen knives. I could open the packet with my gloves on; it wasn’t too fiddly. I tore open the packaging and got a knife in my grip. The middle one, naturally. I felt a bit more in control, then; proactive. Then, torch off.

  ‘I don’t know that I felt any braver, Detective, but I felt a little more decisive. Adrenaline, probably. I imagined that I could actually come out even from the encounter. He might back off if he knew I was waving this thing around. He might think me a danger, especially if I was behaving as wildly and desperately as I felt. He could, I hoped, step back and consider I wasn’t worth the hassle. Part of me knew that would never happen, but all the same. Sometimes, you hope, don’t you?

  ‘I didn’t think it was worth delaying. It would start getting light, and I felt this adrenaline might be the only advantage I had. I wasn’t going to win a fair fight, Detective, I already knew that. I never could. But I had the knife, and maybe he had nothing. Perhaps he thought he could swat me away, deal with me through fear and surprise. So I called out. Said I only wanted to get out through the window and I’d never come back. And I had a knife.

  ‘He chuckled. A low, back-of-the-throat chuckle. Like he’d seen something quirky at the end of the news – something like that. He wasn’t scared: I wasn’t int
imidating him. Of course I wasn’t. In my heart of hearts, I already knew that. In fact, it probably made him come and get me.

  ‘Suddenly I could hear steps. Tentative at first, then stronger. I was fumbling for the torch – I thought I might blind him with the beam and be able to get past. I saw his silhouette flash past the window. It terrified me. I thought, this is it – this is my chance, now he’s moved. I knew roughly where the window was: I could make out the edges of the glass now. Dawn was coming.

  ‘I don’t know how he did it, Detective. How he knew where I was. If he did. Maybe he was as shocked as me. But we collided. I felt our chests hit. I felt a flicker of his hand, or his finger, brush my face. He was that close: he was in front. Now he knew where I was, I had no chance of escaping. It was over. Everything was over. Fifteen years, and my life was falling away again. All the life I built; it went to pieces in three seconds – the time it took for him to bump me, reach out for me. And for the knife to go in.

  ‘I had no idea, Detective. No real idea. I knew he was near and in front, but he might’ve backed off and been two metres away. I held the knife tight and shoved it into the darkness. Just wanted him to go away, or maybe get hurt enough to back off. I didn’t know I’d struck anything until I felt my knuckle against his clothing. Maybe the gloves . . . it’d gone in so clean, so fast, so sharp. I never would have believed it. The knife was jammed into him, and it went through like I was stabbing water.

  ‘He tipped towards me and we sort of tumbled over. I got him to the ground, on his back, I think. Something fell on the floor. So I groped around his chest, trying for the knife. He didn’t make a sound. Nothing . . . then there was a light on my face.’

  Nathan stopped. Red-faced, sweating, his hands cupped, and shivering in the warmth of the room. He shook his head while Dana sat silently.