Ghost Girls

by Cath Ferla

  ‘Maybe I should go after him? Make sure he’s okay?’

  Jin Tao shook his head. ‘He said he was in the neigh­bourhood,’ he said. ‘Does he drop by often?’

  Sophie watched the orange anorak reach the corner and disappear around it. ‘Never,’ she said, the question reverberating in her mind. Brad never popped around, and on the one time he had, it had nearly killed him. ‘Pity we missed him,’ was all she could mumble.

  Jin Tao laughed, the tension from the afternoon rolling through his shoulders as he finally loosened up. ‘Oh, so you wanted me to drive into him?’ he asked, amusement in his eyes. ‘Next time I’ll aim better.’

  ‘Not funny,’ said Sophie as she slapped the car’s boot with her palm. ‘Open sesame.’

  ‘I’ve got to park it.’

  The accusatory tone in Jin Tao’s voice made Sophie even more eager to get away. He didn’t want to be on his own, she knew that. There were never any parking spots around their place unless you got one at six-thirty in the morning. He could be half an hour circling the block, and that would be on a good day. But after the close call with Brad, Sophie needed to be alone for a bit. Something was off and she had a need for her own defensive shield.

  ‘You nearly ran into my friend and I just want to go home,’ she said, keeping her voice steady. ‘Pop the boot now and park the car on your own.’

  Jin Tao held her stare for a beat. Sophie tried to imagine he looked bewildered. In fact, she decided, he looked pissed off. She couldn’t really blame him. But at the same time she was pleased to have a reason to grab her baggage and head over to her balcony and out of the rain.

  She took her rucksack from the boot and watched Jin Tao hoon to the end of the street and turn left. The tyre screech told her he’d made it without crashing into the terrace at the intersection. She slung the rucksack over her shoulder and sloshed her way through the rain.

  At number 36 she lifted her head. She’d expected the iron fencing and the trimmed-back roses that marked her home, but not the man waiting for her on the doorstep. Damian.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Thought we could check out the butcher shop together. Fancy a trip down to Chinatown?’

  女孩

  They found the butcher shop easily enough. Closed.

  ‘At least I know where to come back in the morning,’ Damian said. ‘How about we get a coffee and go over what we know?’

  ‘Sure.’ Sophie tried to hide her unease. Of course the butcher would be shut. It was a Sunday afternoon. She should have known it and Damian should have known it too.

  They chose a place on Sussex Street. Sophie’s bottom jammed against the outside rims of a too-small leather stool, her elbows resting on a bench only wide enough for her coffee cup and its saucer. For a cafe in Chinatown, the place was unusual in that it sold tea by the bag. Sophie sipped on a long black that had arrived at a temperature close to boiling and which had ripped the skin from the roof of her mouth.

  ‘You eating?’ Damian pulled a stool across and sat down on the other side of the skinny bench. ‘I’ve ordered raisin toasts. It’s spelled in plural on the menu, so I guess that means there’ll be enough to share.’

  Sophie grinned and glanced at the blackboard menu positioned high on the wall behind her. The items were chalked neatly in colourful pastels and nearly every item listed contained a mistake.

  ‘“Please take care of the grass with your gentle loving heart”,’ she said, fingering the jade necklace hanging at her throat.

  Damian stared at her, bewildered. ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘An English sign I saw on a lawn at a park in Beijing,’ she said. ‘The Chinese version said, “Please don’t walk on the grass”.’

  Damian laughed. ‘Can you imagine the mess we’d make if we had to translate all our signs into Chinese?’ The waitress arrived with toast and coffee. ‘If this bench were any narrower, I think my food would be on the floor right now,’ he muttered as he arranged the plate of toast and the coffee cups around his elbows. He took a sip of his coffee and watched Sophie over the rim of his cup. ‘I looked into your story,’ he said finally.

  She leaned towards him. Bruises from the other night still tingled when she brought her fingers to her skin. The memories of what had happened had pierced her dreams ever since.

  ‘No known illegal brothels operating in the Ashfield region,’ Damian said. ‘I did a satellite search of the homes in the area you described and found three with substantial backyard sheds, similar to what you outlined.’

  ‘You checked them out?’

  Damian nodded. ‘I invented warrants, faked like a cop. I told the owner-occupiers we were investigating suspected hydroponic labs in the area and informed them I had permis­sion to inspect the sheds. The first two contained gardening equipment. The third a pool table, a beer fridge, a flat screen TV and a bunch of uni students hanging out on bean bags.’ He stared at Sophie, unblinking. ‘No disco balls.’

  Sophie sat back on her stool, turning Damian’s story over in her mind. ‘And you haven’t had a chance to check out the butcher shop.’

  ‘You said that the night you went out there, Tae Hun had been drinking?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Damian pushed a crumb around his plate with his finger. When he looked up he pierced Sophie with his gaze. ‘Had you yourself consumed alcohol or drugs?’

  A wave of indignation surged through Sophie’s system. ‘What happened to me was real, you saw the bruises.’

  Damian nodded. ‘I see them still,’ he said quietly.

  They sat in silence for a moment. Damian licked a finger and used it to collect the crumbs on his plate. When he’d picked it clean, he spoke again.

  ‘I ran a search on your friend Tae Hun.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Sophie felt that wherever the conversation went now, it wouldn’t go anywhere good. Her feathers had been irreversibly ruffled; a malaise had settled in.

  ‘It seems he was one of several witnesses to a stabbing at World Square last March. You probably heard of that one. It was all over the news.’

  ‘The fight that started in Hungry Jack’s?’ she asked, curiosity piqued.

  Damian nodded. It had indeed saturated the news for the best part of a week. Two Korean students, one the son of a famous pop star in that country, had begun a dispute in a hamburger restaurant on George Street. On being told to take their noise outside, they did. And with them went a trail of onlookers, all yelling support and abuse and encouraging a fight. On the footpath, a knife was drawn and the pop star’s son took off, pursued by the boy with the knife and the curious pack. He managed to cross Liverpool Street before he was overwhelmed by his attacker on the corner outside the World Square shopping and residential complex.

  The boy was stabbed seven times, and when it was finished the attacker ran away and so did the mob, leaving the student alone on the street, choking to death as the blood flooded his lungs and drowned him.

  Tae Hun had been there.

  ‘I never knew he was involved in that,’ Sophie said, exhaling a slow breath.

  ‘He wasn’t charged with anything,’ Damian said quickly. ‘In his statement he said he was already on the street when the fight started in the restaurant. He said he didn’t know either of the students and he claimed he simply got caught up in the crowd. He saw the victim fall to the ground but he didn’t see any blood and he didn’t realise he’d been stabbed. He said that if he’d known, he would have done something to help.’

  Damian brought his lips together. His face suggested he doubted Tae Hun’s story. Sophie’s own instinct was to believe it. But why hadn’t Tae Hun mentioned it? The guy witnessed a murder and said nothing. He visited strip clubs and under­ground parties featuring sex and bondage and violence. What sort of man was he? Did he really want to help Han Hong or did he have another agenda? Had he been telling the truth?

  ‘It seems your friend has a knack for locating violent situations,’ said Damian, echoing Sophie’s thoughts. ‘You know him – do y
ou feel you can trust him?’

  Sophie twisted a sugar sachet between her fingers. ‘I don’t know him well,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose it’s fair enough that he didn’t tell me about the murder. That’s pretty heavy shit to disclose.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘But I felt he was genuine in his concern for Han Hong. She was his classmate. Tae Hun spoke of a camaraderie between foreign students, a sense of needing to band together and look out for one another. I think that was genuine and I don’t know why he’d make it up.’

  ‘This is just an idea that I’m going to put out there,’ Damian said. ‘Perhaps Tae Hun was using you.’

  ‘Using me how?’

  ‘Sometimes people who’ve been involved in a crime get actively involved in the hunt for a solution. They feel as though this makes them look innocent, and sometimes it assists in resolving a guilty conscience. There was a case a couple of years back, of a man who killed his wife and two-year-old son with a hammer. He disposed of their bodies at the rubbish tip and constructed a series of fake emails from the wife, so that it looked as though she’d run off on him and taken the kid with her. He went on the news to appeal for their whereabouts and to beg her to come home. He played the distraught husband trying to find his wife so well that the public were fooled, when he was the killer all along.’

  ‘Are you saying that Tae Hun had something to do with Han Hong’s disappearance?’

  Damian levelled his gaze at her. ‘I’m saying this club the two of you visited doesn’t appear to exist any more. I’m saying Tae Hun is a guy with some dark things on his résumé. I’m saying it’s ironic that he took you to a club where he claimed he was known, and yet you wound up getting beaten to a pulp.’

  ‘As did he,’ Sophie said.

  ‘I’m saying if the police start to question your mate about the disappearance of his classmate, he very conveniently has the backing of a respected English teacher, who will say he expressed fears for the girl’s safety and that he worried she was in danger.’

  ‘I don’t buy it.’

  ‘Very often,’ said Damian, ‘the last person to see a disappeared victim is the first person police will interview. Do you know why?’

  ‘Because statistically they are most likely to have had something to do with the disappearance.’

  ‘That photo that Tae Hun gave you, is it dated?’

  Sophie took her mobile from her leather satchel. She pulled up the picture of Han Hong.

  Damian stared at the picture, as though for the first time. ‘Your friend said he took this picture?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘What, just snapped it with his phone?’ He looked at her, satisfaction softening his features. ‘You might want to talk again to Tae Hun,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Why, what is it?’

  Damian pointed to the phone’s screen. ‘I’ve only studied a little bit of photography but I know enough to see that this girl’s backlit.’

  Sophie examined the photo again before looking back to Damian. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning this is a professional photograph.’

  ‘She’s gone and turned model?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened to her. But whatever Tae Hun told you about how he obtained this image, it wasn’t the truth.’

  Sophie returned to squinting at the image. Damned if she would have picked up the backlighting. She suppressed the surge of irritation that rippled through her and threatened to spill into her voice. ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘About the truth bit, yes. About whether that image is a photograph… nope.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘There’s another possibility, too.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Sophie asked, trying hard not to let her frustration play on her face.

  ‘That image could be a photograph or it could be a still from a film.’

  Sophie stared at the eyes peering out from the face on the mobile phone screen.

  A still from a film.

  The girl in the market had said some women made sex films for a living.

  鬼

  Sophie pulled her mobile from the back pocket of her jeans as soon as Damian stopped outside her house.

  ‘I’ll check out your butcher shop first thing in the morning,’ he said, as she got out of the car. ‘If your butcher’s there he might be able to shed some light on Han Hong’s whereabouts. A police badge can sometimes make even hardened crims talk.’

  ‘But you don’t have a police badge.’

  He flashed another grin. ‘Like I said, I’m a good fake.’

  ‘Call me if you find anything interesting.’

  Damian saluted with mock seriousness. ‘Same goes for you,’ he said, shooting two fingers in her direction.

  Sophie watched as he pulled out from the kerb. She ignored the rain that spattered over her head; it slipped in sneaky streams down her neck and back. She brought up Tae Hun’s number.

  He answered on the first ring. ‘I don’t think you should talk to me any more,’ he said simply. That was it, no greeting, no small talk, no inquiry. His voice sounded flat, rehearsed, as though he’d been waiting for her. He’d been shaken by the other night’s events. Or maybe Damian was right. Maybe Tae Hun was more involved in this than he’d let on and maybe he simply wanted to shake her.

  ‘Hello to you too,’ she said, working to sound casual.

  ‘Please don’t call me any more,’ said the voice at the end of the phone.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, searching for the right tone and words that would keep him on the line. ‘Tae Hun, I have a question.’

  Silence. But he hadn’t hung up, and that meant he was willing to listen. Whatever he may be involved in, whatever had happened in his past, Tae Hun had come to her genuinely for help, she felt sure of it.

  ‘The image you showed me of Han Hong, you said you took the photo of her at an illegal club.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I think you lied to me about the photo.’

  Silence again. Then, ‘What do you mean I lied?’

  ‘You didn’t take that picture. Or if you did, you didn’t take it in the club like you said you did. I need to know where you got it and why you didn’t tell me the truth.’

  He was silent on the end of the line. Then, quietly, ‘It’s too dangerous.’ He sounded scared.

  ‘Are you involved in this somehow?’ Sophie asked. ‘Is that why you didn’t want to go to the police?’

  He sighed. ‘I can’t talk about this now,’ he said. ‘Not on a mobile.’

  ‘Can you meet me one more time?’

  Another sigh, more silence. Then, ‘One more time. Tomorrow outside Central English at one.’

  女孩

  All Sophie wanted to do when she finally fell in the front door was strip her wet clothes from her body and crumple into the shower. In the hallway she kicked off her sneakers and peeled away her wet socks. She went into the living room, where Jin Tao’s duffel bag rested against the couch. He would have dumped it there before hoofing it to the kitchen to sort out something for a late lunch. Sophie listened for sounds of movement in the kitchen, hating the knot of tension forming in her stomach. Should she attempt to make peace with her friend and join him there? Or should she skulk off to the bathroom and give them both some more time to cool off? She’d decided to bite the bullet on the former when she realised that, except for the sound of the rain on the roof, the house was quiet. Jin Tao had gone out. Relief coursing through her, Sophie made for the staircase, pulling her raincoat from her body. The carpet felt warm beneath the damp skin of her feet and she dug her toes deep into its pile.

  At the top of the stairs she threw her raincoat over the banister before pushing open the door to her room. She stopped.

  A thin rope of twine lay delicately in the centre of her bed. It had been knotted into the distinctive shape of a noose.

  She was beside the bed in two steps. In one movement she pulled the noose off the bed and flicke
d it away, like a poisonous snake. She sat down on the bed, her heart hammering. The wet fabric clinging to her hips and shoulders clasped her body like a vice. She had to get it off. She clawed at her top with cold hands, her nails scratching at the damp skin of her back as she peeled the material up and over her shoulders.

  A list of possible suspects flipped its way through Sophie’s head. There had been the unusual encounter with Brad in the street and then there’d been Damian waiting for her on the doorstop. Sophie shivered as she unhooked her damp bra and let it fall to the floor.

  But there was only one person she knew for sure had been in the house.

  ‘You’re here.’ He was in the room before she had a chance to bring her hands to her breasts.

  ‘Shit.’ Jin Tao turned his head away, one arm raised to shield his eyes.

  Sophie grabbed her pillow and brought it to her chest. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Your door was open,’ he said softly. ‘I didn’t think to knock.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were home.’

  ‘Yeah. In my room. Attending to some business.’

  ‘So you just come into my room whenever my door’s open?’

  Jin Tao shrugged, still looking away. ‘It usually means you’re available to chat.’

  ‘And what about when I’m not here?’

  ‘Then you close your door.’

  Sophie pulled on the T-shirt that she wore to bed and pushed the pillow against the wall. ‘Do you often come into my room when I’m not here?’

  Jin Tao turned around to face her. ‘What exactly are you getting at?’

  ‘That.’ She pointed to the twine curled around the waste­paper basket.

  Jin Tao bent down and picked it up by one end. The noose dangled in the air.

  ‘I found it on my bed when I got home.’

  Jin Tao’s hurt showed on his face. ‘And you think I put it there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But who else has access to my room?’

  He threw the twine onto the bed. ‘I’m not sure what’s going on here, Sophie, but it’s starting to look pretty serious.’

  ‘So you have no idea how it got here?’