by Tara Moss
“Yeah, for the bears. Perfectly legal. You are a smart woman, Makedde. I try telling women to watch themselves, but some just won’t listen.”
Mak had a lot of reasons to listen.
“Why was that professor hanging around waiting for you to come out, anyway?” Roy asked. “I assume that’s what he was doing?” He bit into his Inari. He choked for a moment and his face started to go red.
“Are you okay?”
He fanned his face and then reached for the water. “Wow, that’s hot.”
Did he think it was avocado instead of wasabi? It occurred to her that he may have copied her sushi order without having eaten it before. She thought everyone in Vancouver ate sushi these days.
“It’s a long story. He seems to find me a little too interesting for some reason,” she said.
“Now, I can understand that,” he said and smiled, his cheeks flushed.
Lunchbreak flew past and their conversation became deeper and more relaxed as the minutes ticked by. Mak noticed that he kept the rest of the wasabi far from his food. Afterwards, she excused herself to sit alone through the afternoon sessions. She wanted her space, and she didn’t want to seem too eager. But she was certainly aware of his presence on the other side of the conference room. She had been pleasantly surprised to find that she was still interested in Roy Blake after he opened his mouth.
Karen Hughen, with her dreadlocks and her pale smiling face, came quietly over and sat in an empty chair beside Makedde midway through the first lecture. She was a former study partner, and the two were friends.
“He was cute,” Karen said under her breath.
“Oh, you were watching all that, were you?”
Neither girl turned their head to look at each other. They both kept their eyes on the speaker, whispering like a couple of naughty conspirators.
“Did he get your number?”
Mak smiled to herself, still not turning her head.
“This is the new millennium, Karen,” Mak said. “I gave him my email address.”
CHAPTER 14
It was 8.02 pm when the Air Canada Boeing 747 began its slow descent into Vancouver International Airport. The trip from Quantico had been rough, particularly leaving the rainy Los Angeles Airport a few hours earlier, and Detective Andy Flynn felt like he had travelled much more than the mere width of the North American continent that day. He felt like he had circumnavigated the globe.
The plane banked left and moved in a tight arc through the dark sky, the massive wing outside Andy’s window tipping down to reveal the top of Grouse Mountain, lit up and floating magically above the city like Lando Calrissian’s Cloud City in Star Wars.
Thrilled with the view, Andy looked to Dr Harris across the aisle from him, only to find his mentor asleep, eyes closed and head hanging to one side. Bob’s tie was loosened and crooked and his slack jaw gave the impression that he might be trying to eat the knot. Andy resisted the urge to gently nudge him back into the waking world. He knew that Bob was overworked and could use every minute of rest.
They sped above the city heading south-west to the airport, the engines roared on their descent, and within minutes they touched down, bumping along the runway, the flaps on the wing outside Andy’s window jutting upwards and straining in the air current. The aircraft shuddered and complained as it slowed to taxi towards the gate, and finally it was still.
Andy exercised a touch of definance by standing up and stretching before the seatbelt sign was switched off. The rest of the passengers followed suit, and Dr Harris came back to life as well, as if some mysterious force had flicked his “On” switch. He stood up and grabbed his things out of the overhead compartment as if he were fresh out of a ten-hour sleep on a plush Sealy, not snoozing for half an hour crammed into a rigid airplane seat. This was not the first occasion when Andy had noticed the Profiler’s uncanny ability to bounce back from all kinds of physical and mental unpleasantness. He felt sure that Bob could sleep on a hard wooden floor and not get a crick in his neck, despite his age.
The two didn’t need to talk; they simply nodded at each other and followed the other passengers up the aisle and off the plane. Dr Harris lugged his briefcase and laptop along with him, containing the all-important Powerpoint presentation for the next day. Andy carried only his simple overnight bag and a crinkled newspaper. He was glad he hadn’t brought a lot of work to do on the plane. He probably wouldn’t have touched it anyway. His mind was not particularly focused on work. He was tired, but more than that, he was distracted by his close proximity to Mak.
Andy watched his feet move over the carpet beneath him as they exited the ramp and emerged from the gate. It was only when he heard Dr Harris’s name being called that he looked up. To Andy’s surprise, he found that two stocky men dressed in business suits were waiting for them.
“Dr Harris?” the shorter of the two repeated in the same melodious Canadian accent.
The man stepped forward and his eyes flickered back and forth between them, searching for recognition. He appeared to be in his mid-forties and he looked to be quite strong. He had a thick knotted neck and a wide, faded scar visible across his nose that brought to mind a teenage bar brawl, or perhaps a school hockey game gone awry. This was Canada, after all. His partner was slightly taller and a fair few years younger, but shared his muscular build.
“I’m Dr Harris,” Bob said, raising a hand and stopping a few feet from the man. Andy noted his hesitation. He didn’t seem to be expecting the welcome wagon either.
“I’m Sergeant Wilson. This is Corporal Rose.” The man with the scar extended his hand and Bob shook it. “We’re with the local RCMP. Can we speak?”
At that point they both turned and looked at Andy. It wasn’t a friendly look.
“He’s alright,” Bob assured them.
“I’m Detective Andrew Flynn of the New South Wales Police Force,” Andy cut in, moving forward to join them. “In Australia.”
“You’re sure a long way from home,” Corporal Rose, the taller, younger one said. Andy didn’t like his tone.
“Detective Flynn has been studying with me at the Behavioural Sciences Unit at Quantico,” Bob said.
The men looked Andy up and down one more time, and then focused their attention on Dr Harris.
“So, how can I help you, gentlemen?” Bob asked.
The four men walked slowly along the long concourse towards the baggage claim, past the Coast Salish Spindle Whorl carved of red cedar, and down the steps suspended over a beautiful waterfall, where the soothing sounds of water cascading over smooth round stones calmed the busy minds of weary passengers.
The RCMP had come with a favour to ask of Dr Harris, and as they walked past the cool flowing waters, the carved welcome figures and the slowly spinning baggage carousel, words were exchanged in an urgent hush. Sergeant Wilson painted a dark picture. The dead bodies of two missing UBC students, Susan Walker and Petra Wallace, had been discovered, and the unidentified skeletal remains of another victim had been found near their shallow graves.
When Wilson had spoken to Dr Hare, a consultant with the RCMP, he had recommended that they approach the visiting Profiler.
Wilson believed that this was the work of a serial killer.
CHAPTER 15
Dead animal eyes stared down at Debbie Melmeth.
She sat vulnerable and exposed in the middle of a strange room, secured to a chair and surrounded by a plethora of unfriendly heads. Apart from the animals, Debbie was alone. She was hungry and afraid, and she prayed that someone would help her. She knew her captor would not. She’d begged and pleaded with him, but he gave nothing away, just stared at her with a half-smile.
Hunger and the dull ache of her body distracted her. She ran her tongue along her lips in an attempt to wet them, but her tongue had no moisture to offer. Time seemed to have stopped.
Since she had been confined to this horrible place—over a period of a couple of days was her best guess—the man had fed her some potato
chips and occasionally made her drink beer. That was it. She hated beer, really hated it. Especially now. But it seemed that her captor lived on the stuff. He had taken to periodically walking around the room, pacing with an open bottle in his hand, staring at her. Very occasionally he would talk nonsense at her, but wouldn’t respond to her attempts at conversation. He did not acknowledge her pleas. He would just pace and drink and pace some more, and sometimes even walk up to her unexpectedly, open her mouth with his brutish hands and pour the beer down her throat, ignoring her feeble protests. When he did this, he just stared at her blankly while she gagged and spluttered and tried to swallow. And then he would disappear again.
Debbie tried to figure out what was going on. She couldn’t remember how she got there. She was calling Brian from the bar, and then what? She could not recall what happened after that. She only remembered the strange comings and goings of her captor.
Debbie was a smart girl. Surely there was some way she could get herself out of there? If she paid close enough attention and used her head there must be a way. If only she could figure out what he wanted and why. What made this man come and go? What were the times of the day? That part was almost impossible to know. There was no clock in the room, nor was any visible when the door opened into the rest of the house. There were no windows she could see to gauge the light outside.
A noise snapped her out of her ruminations. She heard movement, and footsteps on the hardwood floor. The man emerged through the darkened doorway, and although he had made countless such entrances in the past couple of days, her heart still froze at the sight of him.
He walked right up to her, stopping only a foot away. Debbie waited. She could smell him. He loomed over her and stared at her. The naked globe that hung from the ceiling threw light across him as he stood, leaving her in his shadow, her eye line positioned at hip level. She continued to wait for his cue. It was a game and she didn’t know how to play. She didn’t know the rules…or the aim.
Debbie couldn’t move away, couldn’t fight. She had been through it over and over in her head. Should she spit on him, just for the brief satisfaction of rebellion? Even if she wanted to her mouth was probably too dry. Was there something she could say? Something she could try? In Hollywood movies the main characters always came up with the most ingenious means of escape. But for some reason those means escaped her now.
As if in answer to her unspoken pleas his hands moved towards her. For a fleeting moment she thought she might be freed. But instead those hands moved from their position hanging at the man’s sides to the front of his pants, less than a foot from her face.
He unzipped his fly.
A rush of panic swept through her. She screamed as loudly as she could. “No!” she yelled. “No! No! No!” she shouted again and again. She wanted to kick out, but her restraints would not allow it. The chair shuddered and jumped, guided by her frenzied movements. She tried to hop her way backwards, away from the man and his open fly, but she could not.
Through all of this, the man seemed not to hear her.
He reached into his open fly, and exposed his penis.
She reacted to the display with a physical revulsion that began at her toes and crept up through her body to the top of her head and back down again. Knowing that she could not hop her way backwards, she did all she could to turn her head. When she strained her eyes upwards to look into his face, she saw that he was smiling—not a real smile, not the kind she was used to, but some cheap imitation of a smile.
After standing exposed for what seemed an eternity, her captor zipped his pants up again. Then he laughed. He laughed at her, making the most horrible, humourless sound she had ever heard any human being utter. Then he just walked away.
He hadn’t forced himself on her. Yet. It would only be a matter of time, she feared. She needed to do something. She needed a plan, some semblance of control. Debbie even considered an attempt at seduction. She considered what she might achieve if she convinced him that she would cooperate, that she could love him. If he would just release her for a moment, to move her to a better position perhaps, then she might stand a chance.
What is this game? What does he want?
Debbie didn’t know the answers, and she was afraid to find out.
CHAPTER 16
Les Vanderwall came home with a headache, having left some of his old mates downing beers at the Waddling Dog Pub. It was a bit early for him to pack it in, but for some reason he didn’t feel well. Whenever that happened, he made a mental note of whether there was any link to his wife’s death. He’d noticed that he became ill every month on the anniversary of the day she died. Sometimes it wasn’t the right day of the month, but even just the time of day, or a reminder of some kind—a whiff of some special smell, a bit of her handwriting found unexpectedly in a cookbook, a memorable place, a phrase. The family doctor said this was not unusual, and that these reactions would ease in time.
Les was worried that he might become antisocial. His mates couldn’t truly understand the impact of the loss of his wife. None of them had been through anything similar, except John and his divorce but that was hardly the same as he’d instigated it. Now that Jane was gone, Les had no one to relate to emotionally, the way married couples did. He was alone in his grief. He didn’t want to burden his daughters. They had their own lives.
Les Vanderwall felt like half a man. It was gradually forming a wedge between him and his friends. That could be a terrible problem. He had to make an effort to stay in touch socially. Les knew that if he became a hermit he wouldn’t last much longer.
Wearily, he dragged himself up the steps and into the kitchen. The answering machine was flashing.
“Les, it’s Christopher Patrick here…” His lawyer. “It’s about five-thirty, perhaps you can call me back tomorrow morning? There are a few issues with the estate.”
There were always a few issues with his late wife’s estate. Eighteen months on, and there were still issues. How could there still be issues? The real issue was that she was gone. Nothing could reverse that.
The machine beeped and played the second message.
“Hello, Les, it’s Ann calling from Vancouver. How are you? I, um…I was wondering when you are in town next. Perhaps we could grab a coffee? I was wondering if you had passed my details on to Makedde? It’d be a pleasure if I could help in some way. Anyway, talk to you soon. Bye.”
His heart lifted at the sound of her voice.
I like that woman, he thought. She’s a good woman. Tony never deserved her.
As soon as the thoughts came into his head, he felt a stab of guilt, but not for Tony Morgan. His life partner, Jane, was gone now, but he couldn’t help but think of her watching over him. A partnership like that came along once in a lifetime, he believed, so was he doomed to be a lonely widower now that she was gone?
What would she want for him?
A second chance?
CHAPTER 17
Makedde woke with her heart pounding in her chest and the sound of an alarm drilling loudly in her brain.
Okay, okay, I’m awake already! I’m awake!
She sat up straight in bed, grabbed her tin alarm clock off the bedside table and fumbled for the “Off” switch on the back. The small retro-style clock, which was round and stood on two legs, decided to protest by leaping out of her hands and falling onto the floor with a crash, increasing the dent on its right side while continuing to buzz with annoying insistence.
Oh, will you just shut up!
Irritably, she snatched the dented clock up off the floor and managed to flick the switch. Through bleary eyes, she read the silver hands. It was already 7.00 am. That depressing fact confirmed Makedde’s suspicions that somehow not all sixty-minute time frames were of the same duration. The hours between midnight and 4.00 am had crept past at an excruciatingly slow pace, whereas the last three hours could only have slipped by in a heartbeat or two—three heartbeats at the most. She felt like she had blinked rather than slept.
Makedde distantly remembered her life as “a morning person”—day after day of waking up fresh, all sweetness and light after another pleasant and effortless sleep. Where had those days gone? Where had that Makedde Vanderwall disappeared to? Luckily, there was no one around to see her in the morning these days, as she’d be quite a sight. But then again, perhaps she’d be in a better mood if she had company?
To o long. It’s been too long without someone to hold me while I dream…
Such thoughts should really have been far from her mind. There was no one on the horizon, but still, her mind drifted back to the times in her life when she did not sleep alone. She thought of all the lovers in the world, and how she was not one of them.
Mak crushed the saccharine sentimentality as soon as it surfaced.
Foolishness.
Automatically, she reached beside her and pulled open the drawer of her bedside table. She took out a small arty-looking notebook she had bought at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art gift shop, and flipped it open to September 22. She slid the miniature pencil out of the side, and wrote:
Three hours sleep. 4.00 am until 7.00 am. I had a nightmare about Andy chasing me through the woods. (Damn him for coming back into my dreams!) He was wielding a scalpel and I was wearing my father’s police uniform again. I couldn’t run fast enough. I woke up before he caught me. No devil this time.
She went to close the book and then opened it again and scribbled one last comment:
I feel like hell.
She flipped it closed and rubbed her eyes.
Damn. I really do feel like hell. How much longer can this go on?
In Makedde’s research on sleep disorders she had discovered that one common recommendation was to keep a diary of sleeping patterns, and so each morning for the past week, Mak had dutifully scribbled down details of her sleep, or lack of it. Looking at it now, it made depressing reading. As she sat in bed contemplating her nightmares, she wondered sceptically whether a psychiatrist could really shed any new light on her problems. How? What would Ann make of her diary? Mak was well aware that her nightmares were the abstract manifestations of the trauma she had experienced in her recent past. But so what? It seemed unlikely that there would be any benefit in having a qualified expert point out the obvious.