by Natasha Molt
Randy had a wife. Amelia is their daughter. Find Amelia’s mother and take care of them. I love you.
Always.
K.
She looks for a nearby pen. There isn’t one. He must have written the words before he even came into the room. She folds the message and puts it in her pocket.
His body is ever so still, lifeless: surrendered.
She stands, picks up the gun, and checks the rounds. Only one missing. The room spins around her. Placing the piece under her jacket, she finds the electronic card in the kitchen and walks out into the hallway to see what awaits her in the other room. Finding people can mean losing them.
Standing in front of 1035, she swipes the electronic card, the door clicks, and she presses down on the door handle. The room, a replica of the one where her brother lies, is filled with muffled moans and panting, and Amelia is crying. Her baby sister is alone on the carpeted floor in the living area. Amira gathers her in her arms and keeps moving. In the first room, Minette is tied to the bed and gagged. Mother is in the bathroom and Jack in the other bedroom. They are all writhing.
Alive.
Of course they are.
She unties Mother first. Her face is red from tears and fear. She gasps as Amira hands Amelia to her. Then she unties Minette and Jack. They all look at her, rubbing the skin where Kolya had tied them.
‘My son?’ Mother asks.
‘He’s gone,’ she says. ‘Killed himself.’
Mother’s legs buckle. Amira catches her and Amelia, and guides them gently to the floor.
Minette stares at her with wide blue eyes of horror that she will never be able to calm. A sob of pain breaks from her lips. ‘Take me to him!’ she says.
She rushes out of the room, down the corridor to Kolya. Demands the key. Swipes the card, Jack and Amira running after her. She drops to the floor in shock. After several minutes she rises and crawls towards him. She traces a finger over his beautiful colourless face. Then the screams come.
The screams of the animals.
The screams of Britta.
The helpless screams of a mother as she clutches Kolya, her lost son, in her arms.
Her screams become a raw wailing.
Amira closes her eyes.
An egg falls from a tree. It cracks on a footpath and inside I am twisted with my dead twin brother. Kolya.
‘Go.’
The voice is an urgent whisper, the voice of a ghost.
Minette’s weepy eyes clamp on hers and Amira sees death in life.
‘Go,’ she says. ‘Now.’
Amira steps towards her. She stands, raises a hand.
‘Leave. Take what you need.’
Need? What is that? Amelia. Kolya’s note.
Jack is in the room holding his wife. Minette, when Amira sees her last, is bent down to Kolya.
EPILOGUE
Amira wakes in the middle of the night, pricked by a dream she can’t remember. An animal, most likely a possum, scratches on the galvanised iron roof. The noises of the rainforest. Amelia sleeps on the mattress beside her. It is so dark she can’t see her, only hear her breathing, slow and full, between Mother’s snores.
Amira thinks about Kolya and where he is now, replaying conversations in her mind. Then Lukas, what is he doing now?
Then, thinking about the hippies who built this hexagonal house sometime in the 1970s and the years of neglect that have left the external walls and floorboards in disrepair. The lack of internal dividers, bedrooms. The walls that need mending, those yet to be built. The moisture in the air feeding mould that grows on the blankets, the pillows. Some might suppose the house should be pulled down, a new one built. Why can’t people be like that? Be overhauled? All the cracked and rotting planks of a wood shed replaced afresh? Is death, as Kolya wanted to believe and as Father taught, the only final cleansing solution for the lost?
Amira recalls when she was a teenager and how she helped Mother lay some pavers in the backyard. They were red bricks, cobbled around the edges. She spent hours sweeping the sand into the gaps, so the pavers wouldn’t wobble. Just when she thought she had plugged a hole, a few minutes later it would open up again. It felt like a never-ending process. She’s a bit like that herself. Hollows that always need filling.
Amelia stirs and cries.
‘Could be hungry,’ Mother croaks. ‘Or dirty nappy. Want me to get up?’
‘No, you go back to sleep.’
She gropes for her torch and picks Amelia up: even through the flannelette pyjamas she is warm.
In the kitchen, Amira lights two candles. Amelia continues to cry. Her nappy is clean. She turns the gas bottle on, gets the stovetop going, pours bottled water into a saucepan. Already she is sick of this place. While she waits for the water to boil, and Amelia wails, she knows they won’t be able to stay here long. They need running water and electricity. At least a generator. Paints, brushes, and canvases.
Pale moonlight shafts through the wooden blinds. She turns to set a candle on the dining table, and notices a shadow on the couch. Large and thick, not a bush turkey or a goanna. She stops dead in the middle of the room, clutching Amelia to her chest. She becomes quiet. Lifts the candle and the light flickers on his blond hair.
He looks tired, exhausted, although his eyes are still lambent.
She moves to reach for the Beretta underneath the dining table.
Lukas raises a bouquet of red roses. ‘I’ve come to make you an offer.’
She’s not about to show him her surprise. The way her heart seizes.
‘My mobile. You tracked the number when I used it in Sydney.’
‘Yes. An unexpected gift.’
‘I needed it for my mother to contact me. But I burnt the SIM card, smashed and dumped the phone before I left Sydney. Doesn’t explain how you found me here.’
‘The last location on your phone was the hotel in Sydney. Using fake ID, I claimed to be an Interpol officer investigating an international case relating to sex trafficking and questioned hotel staff. A cleaner saw you leave the hotel with a baby and a middle-aged woman. I knew from there you had to get off the grid, and fast. That meant in all likelihood you would want to get out of Sydney. You needed to avoid showing identification. Pay cash for transport. You’d want a bus or train. I went to Central Station in Sydney. It would have been easier if we had access to the station’s CCTV footage, but we don’t, and I didn’t want to bring Australian authorities into the mix.’
‘You went to the station and played the same Interpol card with witnesses.’
‘Yes. I found out that you caught a bus to Byron Bay, then to Lismore and then to Nimbin. It wasn’t easy. The track went cold from there, so I hoped you were close. Kept checking with my contacts to see if there were any flags online, but there weren’t. I waited for you to come into town for food and baby supplies; almost missed you when a woman approached me trying to sell me some fancy mushrooms. Guess you felt safe living in a community that frowns upon the authorities.’
She can’t help but smile. ‘Why not involve the Australian secret service? It would have saved you some effort.’
‘Do you want the version I told my bosses or the real reason?’
‘Both.’
‘The Australians might not hand you over to us despite your crimes in Germany and Europe. You are an Australian citizen. There would be a lot of red tape. Time we couldn’t lose. Plus you have valuable information relating to our investigation. As sick as it sounds, we want credit for bringing the Movement undone. Germany would gain further international respect. That’s the official reason. The real one is that I’m personally involved. Australian authorities could just lock you away. I needed to make sure you were safe.’
‘How romantic, and completely illegal.’
‘If I found you, so can your father. You need our backing. Work with me.’
Amelia arches her back. Begins to cry.
‘My sister needs feeding.’
Once the bottle is filled with for
mula, Amira sits on the beanbag that Edith and she had bought the day before. In the glow of the candlelight, Amelia grunts, kicks her legs rapidly, as she sees milk coming her way. When the teat is in her mouth she guzzles with gusto, and Lukas chuckles.
‘She’s a fighter,’ he says. ‘Like you.’
Kolya would have been equally amused. He’d have seen in this moment something to hold on to when all other belief yielded. Amira stares down at her sister, into her chocolate brown eyes inherited from another, one she will return her to. A chance of rebuilding a new house. Her gaze holds Amira’s, and as formula clots in the corners of her mouth, Amira is unexpectedly reminded of the little boy who turned to her on the sled – little James – with his eyes so bright.
‘Looking!’ he shouted. ‘Looking!’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr Natasha Molt is a criminal policy lawyer and thriller writer. She is currently the Director of Policy at the Law Council of Australia, specialising in Criminal and National Security Law. Prior to this she worked as a legal officer for the Australian Government. She has published crime fiction reviews for The Canberra Times and her short stories have been shortlisted twice for the Annual Scarlet Stiletto Award. In 2007 she was awarded a Varuna Longlines Mentorship for her first unpublished thriller manuscript. Recently, Natasha completed her PhD in creative writing, which forms the basis of her debut novel, Cutting the Cord.