by L. A. Larkin
‘I’m not feeling too good. Must be the shock. Can we stop at a service station?’
‘I’d rather we keep going.’
‘I think I’m going to be sick. Look, there’s one now. Please, I have to stop.’
‘Righteo,’ he sighed and pulled in. ‘Let’s make it quick, okay?’
The service station consisted of ethanol and petrol pumps, a diner and a shop. It was clearly popular with truck drivers: semitrailers dominated the expansive parking area. Behind the service station was thick green bush that had escaped the blaze. He pulled into an empty spot right in front of the diner. She registered disappointedly that he could see through the windows of the diner to the door of the Ladies.
She hopped out, clutching her bag, and ran into the diner, breathing in the sickening smell of animal fat. The Ladies was cramped and the windows too tiny to crawl through. What was she going to do now? If she ran for it, he would catch her. Opening her bag, she used her lipliner to write a message on a torn-off piece of paper towel:
Help me. Call police. Don’t say a word, he’s watching.
At least with the police, she stood a chance. They might take the DVD, but she would survive. With Ben, she had no chance.
She left the bathroom and, weighing up which was the shortest queue, she stood in line. She itched to barge to the front and hand over her desperate plea for help, but Ben would realise she was up to something. There was one person in front of her: a woman ordering a long list of food for her husband and three boisterous boys. Serena clutched the piece of paper towel in her trembling hand, hidden underneath a fifty-dollar note.
‘What are you doing?’ said Ben, his shades still on, hat tipped over his face. Serena noticed the surveillance camera facing them and guessed why he wanted to keep his features hidden.
‘I need something to calm my stomach. Something to eat.’
‘We’re running out of time. We have to go.’
At that moment, the woman ahead of her moved off.
‘Fries and a water, please, to take away,’ she said to a teenage girl with braces on her teeth. Serena looked at Ben. ‘I won’t be a second. There’s no need to babysit me.’
‘I’ll wait.’
The teenager returned with a brown paper bag. Serena handed her the fifty-dollar note, the piece of paper towel hidden underneath it.
With one hand, Ben grabbed her wrist; with the other, he tore away the money and scrawled note. He placed both in his pocket.
‘I’ll get this.’
Ben had seen the note. It was over for her. Serena stepped back and yelled as loudly as she could, ‘Police! Call the police. This man’s kidnapped me. Help me!’
The diner went silent, the girl behind the counter staring at Serena in stunned silence, her hands hovering over the till. The family devouring their burgers stopped chewing and gawped. A couple of truck drivers with tattooed arms looked over. Ben grabbed her arm, snapping at her ‘Stop it!’ as she tried to pull away from his grip.
‘Someone help me!’
The girl behind the counter ran into the kitchen and one of the truck drivers with a drooping moustache, shouted:
‘Hey, mate. Let go of the lady.’
A man with a name badge saying ‘Gary’ scuttled towards them from the kitchen.
‘What seems to be the problem?’
‘There’s no problem,’ said Ben, releasing her arm.
‘Please call the police and don’t let him touch me. He’s going to hurt me.’
‘I’m sorry, folks. My wife is very ill and I’m taking her back to hospital.’
‘He’s lying. I’m perfectly well. Just call the police.’ Her eyes pleaded with the diners.
‘If she’s your wife, mate, why’s she so afraid of ya?’ said the big truck driver with the moustache as he lumbered up to them.
Ben was calm. ‘She’s not well, mate. Schizo. One minute she’s fine and the next, she thinks everyone is trying to kill her, including me. She’s been in and out of hospitals for years. She hasn’t taken her pills and so she’s gone off. I’m trying to get her to her doctor.’
‘That’s not true. I know what I’m doing and this man is going to kill me because he wants to keep me quiet. Now, just call the police, will you?’ She was angry at their inaction. She moved towards the kitchen to increase the distance between her and Ben, and could feel the heat on her back from the deep fryers.
The manager looked at Serena’s grubby dirty blouse and torn pants, and hesitated. His face said it all.
The truck driver looked sympathetically at Serena. ‘Mate, call the cops. Where’s the harm? Then you’ve done the right thing.’
‘Will both of you sit down quietly over there if I call the cops?’ asked the manager, indicating a quiet corner of the diner.
‘This is fucking ridiculous. Can’t you see she’s ill?’ shouted Ben, losing his cool.
‘I’ll sit. But please hurry,’ said Serena.
She sat on the squeaky plastic seat, her eyes fixed on Gary as he used the phone, refusing to make eye contact with Ben. She must not let him intimidate her. But he leaned on the table between them and, keeping his voice low, said, ‘If you want to see John alive again, you’ll tell the manager not to call the cops.’
‘It’s too late. We’ll miss the deadline and John will die because of you,’ she spat back.
‘Not yet. One call from me and he’s a free man. But if the cops arrive here, your pretty boy is dead. Which is it going to be?’
Conflicting emotions fought for control: joy that John was still alive and fear for her own life.
‘Why are you here? I was going to hand over the disc. What more do you want?’
‘Never trust your enemy is my golden rule. It’s my job to make sure nothing goes wrong, and we get the disc back nice and quiet. Now, if you want to see lover boy again, stand up and hold my hand. I want you to tell them not to call the cops. Do you understand?’
She nodded again and stood up. He took her hand and crushed it in his, so tightly she winced. The low hum in the diner subsided again. They walked to the counter, Ben saying loudly, ‘It’s all right, my love. Everything’ll be fine.’
‘Please don’t call the police. I’m sorry to have caused trouble,’ she called to Gary, who stopped mid sentence.
‘You sure?’ Gary asked.
Serena nodded.
‘Sorry about this, mate. We’re going now,’ said Ben.
Gary continued with his phone conversation. ‘Sorry, cancel that. The situation’s under control. No, really, we don’t need you anymore.’
Ben silently led her out. She knew too much and she was going to die. But there was a chance she could save her life-long friend, the man she had come to realise she loved.
Chapter 59
Ben unhurriedly reversed out of the parking spot, aware the diner’s guests were watching, and then drove off to the freeway. With a click, he centrally locked her door so there was no escape.
‘You fucking bitch!’ he yelled.
‘Ben … you’ve got me. Just let John go.’
His hand swung out from the steering wheel so fast she barely had time to blink. He hit her across the right side of her face and she yelped in shock.
‘You’ll do what I fucking say. Now, hand me the disc, nice and slow.’
She gave it to him and then rubbed her burning cheek. He placed the prize in the tray between them and then dialled his hands-free, putting it on speaker.
‘I’ve got the girl and the disc. Make it look like a kidnapping gone wrong.’
‘No,’ she screamed, grabbing the steering wheel as the man on the other end of the line replied. The ute swerved across the road and rammed into the central barrier. But Ben was strong. He forced the steering wheel back towards him and the car moved away from the median strip. He elbowed her hard in the upper chest, digging deeply into the soft tissue between the shoulder socket and the collar bone. The force pushed her away, which gave him time to draw his gun.
> ‘Try that again and I’ll blow your brains out!’ he shouted.
‘Hey, boss, everything okay?’ said the man on the line.
‘Just get on with it,’ roared Ben, ending the call.
‘John doesn’t know anything. Please let him go,’ she begged.
‘He knows too much.’
Ben turned on the radio and blasted Triple M through the speakers, drowning out her protests. He steered with one hand, the other keeping the gun pointed at her. Serena looked at Ben’s finger on the trigger and then glanced at the lock on the passenger door. She was trapped. He turned onto Highway 3, heading towards St Ives and Garigal National Park. He was going to kill her and bury her there; and she realized, with numbing clarity, that if John weren’t already dead, he would be soon. Her only chance was to talk Ben out of it.
‘Ben, let us go. We’ll disappear. Everyone will think we’re dead. I can pay you,’ she shouted above the loud music.
‘Shut up,’ he snapped. Then, as an afterthought, he turned down the volume. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you? But you’re nothing but a dumb bitch. You thought you could spy on Gene-Asis, right under Mr Bukwoski’s nose, and he wouldn’t notice! That’s fucking dumb. But me, on the other hand, I got brains. I know never to cross Mr B.’
‘He’s not infallible. He can be fooled. I fooled him and we can fool him again. I can pay you lots of money to disappear. We have a large farm …’
‘Yeah, nice property. Worth a few mill.’
Serena winced. ‘You’ve been there?’ she breathed.
The car jolted as it ran over some roadkill. Probably a possum. Ben kept the gun barrel pointed firmly at her.
‘Not me.’
‘You leave my family out of it,’ she demanded, aware she was in no position to demand anything.
He looked over the top of his sunnies. ‘With you and John gone, they’ll be left alone.’
Relieved, she persevered with her bribe. ‘We can sell the farm; it’s worth two, three million. It’s yours, Ben, if you leave us alone and free John.’
Ben was getting irritated. ‘Shut it. Mr B’s been good to me and I won’t ever forget it.’
With a jerk of the steering wheel, Ben turned down a rough track. The ute and its contents bounced from side to side but the gun still resolutely stayed pointing at her. Stones flew up and clanked against the metal bodywork. She broke out in a cold sweat. This, literally, was the end of the road.
‘How long have you known about me?’
‘We’ve been watching you from when you tried the Gibson file. I think you saw me once, in the car.’ Serena remembered the silhouetted man parked outside the Coogee apartment. ‘Mr B took a real shine to you but on Friday, when he worked out who you really were, and that you were playing him for a fool, he was mad. Fucking furious. He always gets his way with women, see. And there he was finding himself drawn to you and you not only rejected him, you betrayed him.’ Ben waved the gun at her, like a wagging finger. ‘Come to think of it, never seen him let his emotions overrule his mind. But that night at the party, he wanted revenge on you. I offered to beat it out of ya. I called him that night, when you were already drugged up to your eyeballs. He said he had his own way of finding out the truth, and he was going to enjoy it. I bet he did too.’
‘Go to hell!’
‘No, bitch, that’s where you’re going.’
In desperation, Serena yanked at the door handle. It was a futile exercise and Ben laughed.
‘You brought this on yourself. Mr. Bukowski was going to let you off the hook. And that’s unusual. He musta liked ya. But you had to keep digging, didn’t ya? You had to go and steal his fucking property.’
He glanced at her. ‘Stealing that disc made me and him look like dicks, and I’m gonna enjoy killing you. I like the look in people’s eyes when they realise they’re going to die. There’s nothing like that look.’
Serena turned away. She didn’t want to betray her fear.
‘In my line of work, you get to see some weird shit. Not every day you see a CEO hang himself.’
Her head jerked round in surprise. ‘You watched Tony Mancini hang himself?’
‘Yeah, saved me the trouble. That Munroe was stirring things up, getting Mancini all upset. Mancini even tried to tell Mr B it had to stop. How fucking dare he? Seems the man had a conscience after all, but, as Mr B says, there’s no room for a conscience in business. Mr B couldn’t risk them talking to the wrong people.’
‘And Munroe?’
‘He’ll never be found. Swallowing sand in the desert.’
Serena couldn’t prevent a moan escaping her lips. He shot her a satisfied grin. ‘Yeah, and Mancini’s suicide note was a real doozy. Could have placed Mr B in a difficult position. He was happy I took the letter. Yeah, real happy.’
Serena didn’t want to hear anymore. As they rolled into a pothole, there was a loud thud. Something in the back had fallen over. On either side of the track, thick dry bush formed an impenetrable wall. Dust flew up behind them. Ben slowed right down, peering into a tributary track even narrower than the one they were on, and drove down it, branches scratching the sides and roof of the vehicle. At a clearing, he stopped.
A desperate desire to survive had her tugging at the door handle again. She screamed, knowing in her heart that no one would hear her. Then she felt the cold steel against her head. She could smell the gun metal and clenched her jaw tight.
‘Keep very still,’ he breathed.
She shut her eyes. He moved the barrel of the gun from her temple and ran it along her lower lip. It felt ice cold.
‘Stay exactly where you are.’
She didn’t move, hearing his door open and then slam shut. Then her door creaked open and she opened her eyes. The gun was pointing straight at her.
‘Get out and walk ahead of me.’
‘Huh?’ she cried, looking over his shoulder. It only took a few seconds but he looked behind him. She took the disc and hid it in her bag.
‘Get out.’
Clutching her bag, she did as he instructed and stood trembling in front of him. All around her, bark cracked and popped from the heat of the day as the cicadas screamed deafeningly. But there was no human voice, no sound of a car, not even a dog. She was totally isolated.
Ben’s mobile rang in his pocket. ‘Yup. Good.’ The call ended.
‘I guess you’ll be digging two graves. Go round the back and take the shovel.’
‘No, please God, not John.’ The words died in her throat. She felt tears welling in her eyes.
‘Move!’
Shakily, blindly, she moved to the back, and stopped by the exhaust pipe.
‘You won’t be needing that,’ he said, yanking her bag away and dropping it at his feet. The bag burst open, spewing some of its contents into the dirt. The disc remained hidden.
‘Get the shovel.’
She blinked away the tears, seething with rage. The shovel was furthest away, lying across a fertiliser bag near the cabin. She smelled petrol. The red canister had fallen over and its stopper was half off. Petrol was leaking, spreading out in a puddle towards the fertiliser bags. Serena knew she had one last chance of survival.
‘No,’ she said.
He thumped the small of her back so hard that her knees cracked into the car bumper. Bent double, her head hit the tailgate. ‘Get it,’ he yelled.
‘Get it yourself,’ she breathed through clenched teeth as she dragged herself back to a standing position and turned to face him. ‘You’re going to kill me anyway, so get it over with. I’m not going to help you.’
Did she say that? Did she feel the cold barrel of the gun forced into her mouth cutting her lip and hitting her teeth? She shut her eyes tightly, but the gun was just as quickly pulled out of her mouth. Forcing her to her knees, he was livid with anger.
‘Move an inch and you’ll die so painfully, you’ll beg me to get it over with.’
Unlocking the tailgate, he swore, finally noticing the
overturned petrol canister. He righted it, then got into the ute and leaned down to pick up the shovel. Serena reached for her handbag, clawing at its contents, frantically searching for the matches John had given her. She found them and lit one. In a single fluid motion, she stood and, taking three steps forward, dropped the flame in the petrol pool. Igniting instantly, flames shot into the sky.
‘What the …’ she heard Ben say as she ran. She heard a gunshot and then a boom, which threw her onto the track, face down. Then another boom, like a cannon going off. It felt like her skin was being blowtorched. An arm’s length away, she saw the DVD winking in the firelight. She scooped it up, coughing at the toxic fumes. She ran into the trees, not daring to look behind her. Her childhood on a farm had saved her life; many times she’d watched her father blow up tree stumps using an ammonium nitrate and petrol mix.
But had it been enough to kill Ben?
Chapter 60
Boom, and then another boom, the second one even louder. The fertiliser bags were exploding. Even at ten metres away, it was as if a hand had shoved her forward, the force nearly toppling her over. But, righting herself, she ran on through the thick bush, dodging trees and their branches, the dry undergrowth snapping beneath her feet.
Was he dead or was he following her? She daren’t look back. She had to keep running. Every branch cracking in the thick bush made her shudder. Every shriek of an animal made her sob aloud. Someone from the road must have seen the flames or heard the bang. Perhaps a park ranger? Surely someone would come to her aid?
There was a rustling behind her. She ran faster. Above the deafening hum of the cicadas, she detected a low traffic roar. She stumbled on, following the sound, and burst from the undergrowth onto a six-lane freeway. Behind her, black smoke billowed above the treetops. Serena ran alongside the busy freeway, cars speeding by and, when she saw a gap, crossed to the central reservation. She needed to go back in the direction she had come. A car honked its horn at her as she waited in the centre. Another gap in the traffic and she crossed to the other side. Serena saw a Holden Statesman driving towards her in the slowest lane. She raised her arms and waved them, shouting, ‘Help!’ The car drove by, and, in a second, was gone. Another car, this time a four-wheel drive. She threw herself out into the freeway and waved at it desperately. The driver swerved around her and sped off.