by Anne Buist
Natalie tightened her grip on the beer, aware from the churn of her stomach that instinct hadn’t been subdued by her self-talk. She took a deep breath and cautiously went up the stairs to the deck. Stopped on the top step and looked ahead. More of the neighbour’s tiles had landed on her patio. Because he had come in by the roof again? Would he have known that there was a second security unit, one in her bedroom? She felt a surge of hope. Maybe he’d missed it and she’d have captured him on it, and would finally get a good look at him.
She turned to go in and check.
He grabbed her from behind and pulled hard. Must have been hiding behind the outside door from the kitchen and followed her up the stairs. Spinning out of his grip, she slammed hard into the wall, the stubbie in her hand flying and spewing beer across the patio. He stepped towards her, stooping down to her level. A thought flashed through her mind almost as fast as the pain. In the end, all her intelligence and fitness were worth nothing. Brawn was going to win without her ever having a chance.
‘Bitch,’ he whispered through the balaclava that covered his head. His full weight was against her, the brickwork rough against her face as she turned away from him. ‘I warned you.’
Natalie steeled herself. He was going to have to move; she just needed to be ready. He did move, but too quickly. He bunched up the front of her leather jacket and sent her sprawling across the patio again, into the other sidewall. She barely noticed the pain that shot through her right shoulder, her mind racing, trying to push down the rising panic. She staggered up, letting him think she was as weak as she felt, while she focused on her strength. She might only have one chance and every blow would weaken her further. As he stepped towards her she spun around on her left leg, lifted her right foot to knee height, and with all the power she could muster, lashed out in the groin kick she had practised a thousand times.
She missed. She connected with his upper thigh, but he was too slow to catch her leg and pull her over. It told her an important bit of information. He was relying on size, not skill. She felt a small ray of hope, and concentrated on the first and most important lesson of self-defence: getting out whatever way she could.
She made it to the second stair but he was right behind her. He grasped a full handful of hair and pulled and her scream echoed across the rooftops. She fell and the man pulled her backwards, dragging her across the patio, through the door into her bedroom, the pain in her head so intense she wondered whether her scalp was being ripped off. She kept screaming. The patio door was open and maybe someone would hear. Breathing heavily, he kicked her hard and she heard a rib crack before the pain caught up and tore through her.
‘You took a copy, didn’t you? Did you really think I wouldn’t know?’ Did she know the voice? Maybe. Not Paul Latimer, not Travis Hardy. Full set of teeth, not Celeste’s brother. He lashed out again, and Natalie had just enough time to move to protect her injured side, his foot connecting this time with her pelvis. Painful, but the bone, reinforced with metal from her bike accident, was solid enough to take it. She rolled over groaning, playing for time. He had no intention of leaving her alive after this encounter. If she survived it would only be because she saved herself.
‘It’s in my bag,’ she managed to say. ‘Downstairs.’ She lay still, hoping he wouldn’t notice her right arm edging below the bed where she’d stashed the cricket bat.
‘You thought you’d take her away from me didn’t you? The girls are mine.’ They. Jessie and all the others he had filmed and abused. Or Jessie and the video he needed to get back.
‘You’re right,’ said Natalie. ‘She’s never given you up.’ Her fingers were only millimetres from the bat when he leaned down and pulled her up, throwing her on the bed as if she were a doll. She saw his eyes glistening behind the mask and knew he was evaluating her. A wave of fear rippled through her; she willed herself to glare back angrily as she thought furiously about her next move.
‘I like them younger than you,’ he said coldly. ‘But at least you’re small. I might just pretend. I rather like the idea of fucking her shrink.’
The predatory stalker, the psychopath that had no regard for anyone other than himself. Intellectually she had always known this was the most likely.
‘The feeling, dickhead,’ said Natalie, as her foot aimed again at his weakest point, ‘is not mutual.’
Again she didn’t connect, but in pulling back to protect himself he gave her the split second she needed to roll over, off the bed, and grab the bat. He stepped towards her then stopped, grinning.
‘I’ll make you regret that.’
‘You? You’re not good enough.’
She’d practised the manoeuvre in one form or another countless times against her bag in the garage. This opponent was bigger, heavier and intent on causing injury. It took every ounce of her mental energy to sound calm. ‘You never were good enough were you? It must have been a disappointment for your mother.’
His hesitation was all she needed. He caught the bat as she swung it, but this time her foot smashed hard into his balls. She didn’t wait to see how much pain it caused. She was already running before he’d let out a groan.
Straight down the stairs, into the kitchen, grabbing a knife out of the block as she went past. Still running, she took the passage that crossed over the road, hoping her assailant would keep heading down to the garage. He was right behind and would have grabbed her if it hadn’t been for Bob, swooping from above. As Natalie raced to the electronic door and turned to push the button to close it behind her, she saw a flurry of feathers as Bob channelled his inner eagle and took on her assailant with beak and claws.
The door slammed behind her and she kept running.
From the safety of the Halfpenny bar she called Liam and then the police. Vince watched grimly as the police interviewed her. He insisted on returning to the warehouse with them. The assailant was gone. So was her bag, and Bob, who had escaped either through the open door to the balcony or the garage door her attacker had left open. There were feathers all over the floor. She hoped he wasn’t seriously injured and that he would enjoy his freedom. She’d miss him.
‘You still have no idea who it was?’ asked Senior Constable Hudson, clearly frustrated.
‘No,’ lied Natalie.
Liam looked at her hard. She shook her head and looked away. She wouldn’t spend a night alone until her stalker was caught, but she was going to do it her way, and this at least ought to keep Declan happy. She would protect her patient.
Chapter 33
Liam rang her the next morning.
‘The charges were dropped against Tiphanie, and Travis was taken into custody an hour ago.’
‘Will they get a conviction? Given there’s no body?’
‘It’s a bloody brilliant bit of police work. Damian went back to Rick and Allison and asked if they’d removed anything from the car. He figured that Travis would have wanted to wrap the child or body in something. There was a rug. The lab confirmed it was Chloe’s blood on it, or at least a child of her parents. It was his mate’s blanket, from his car. Rick and Allison have made a statement that Chloe had never been in their car. At least not until Travis borrowed it that night.
‘There was only a trace of blood on the blanket. Chloe was probably dead and w
rapped up in something either on the backseat of Travis’s car or in the boot. Afterwards Travis transferred her to the seat where Rick’s blanket was. The crime scene analysts went over the car again, and they’re pretty sure they’ve found more. They weren’t looking hard enough the first time. I think we have a good case. I am well aware that Travis was threatening and physically violent towards Amber and Bella-Kaye. We’ll use it to support Tiphanie if we have to.’
‘I wasn’t allowed to use it with Amber.’
‘This time Travis’s violence is what the case is about. Directly.’
Travis might finally have got his dues. Amber hadn’t wanted to revisit Bella-Kaye’s murder but she might be prepared to give evidence about the abuse. Tiphanie’s family wouldn’t get Chloe back, but they would at least have final closure.
‘What about the neighbours?’
‘They saw Tiphanie taking Chloe to the car which Travis then drove off in. They just got the timing wrong. Happens all the time with statements.’
‘What about the mate and his girlfriend? Didn’t they say he couldn’t have moved her?’
‘They said they saw him off, that he didn’t have time to move Chloe. But they were all drinking. We have him on camera driving past the service station at 11.01 p.m., which is later than he should have been. He left his mates, then came back, got her body and put it into Rick’s car; we’re thinking he might have put it in a dumpster. They’re searching the tip but who knows? We may never find her.’
Jessie arrived twenty minutes late. Natalie was surprised she had turned up at all.
‘He said you copied the videos.’ She was angry, but it was a cool, controlled anger.
Did Jessie know he had attacked her as well? ‘Jay?’
‘He just wanted the videos. They’re ours.’
‘Who wanted the video Jessie? Jay? Or Kyle?’
Jessie looked at her furtively. Natalie was antagonising her and could ill afford to. Jessie had the answer to her stalker’s identity but in order to protect her, Natalie needed to be sure it was Jay’s voice she had heard. She took a different tack.
‘Why did you give me the computer, Jessie?’
Jessie’s façade had held up for less than a minute. ‘I got… mixed up. I didn’t want you to know…but…’
‘Got mixed up or wanted to be free?’ Natalie forced her voice to be softer, inviting of the confidence and building on the rapport they had already developed. ‘Jay’s been in contact a lot more since your father got sick, hasn’t he?’
‘He always rings to wish me happy birthday.’
Jay. Their very first appointment. Her birthday. And the first note, hand delivered after he hadn’t been able to convince her not to see a psychiatrist, enraged that he was losing power over a possession. Once the appointments became regular he’d got smarter.
‘He couldn’t believe I was going to some bullshit head shrinker. Told me I didn’t need it.’ That would explain why Jessie hadn’t come when she was referred a year ago. He was afraid of what she might reveal. So he’d played with Natalie, wanting to put her on edge, hoping if she did suspect anything she’d keep it to herself rather than risk incurring his wrath. But when Jessie gave her the computer the stakes had changed.
Jessie continued. ‘Hannah was the one that wanted me to come. She was the one who got your name.’
From Amber.
‘What he is doing is wrong, Jessie,’ said Natalie. ‘You know that.’
‘No!’ Jessie leapt out of her seat. ‘He loves me. He’s all I have left.’
‘You know that isn’t true. Hannah cares for you. So do I.’
‘You? You want to show that video to the world. How’s that going to help me? No one understands except us, can’t you see?’
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ said Natalie, feeling Jessie slipping away from her. ‘But he has to be stopped. Do you think he hasn’t kept abusing little girls?’
‘No!’ Jessie screamed. ‘He loves me. I’m the special one. It’s my rabbit drawing.’ She started walking towards the door then turned. ‘He took me home after my father’s funeral, cared for me,’ she added, tears streaming down her face.
‘Jessie,’ said Natalie, standing and walking towards her. ‘Let me help you. I can refer you to someone else if you want. Or you could come into hospital for a little while.’
‘I don’t need anyone to help me. I have all the help I need.’ Jessie took a red USB stick out of her bag and tossed it at Natalie. ‘Watch this, you’ll see he loves me.’
Natalie let Jessie leave then put the USB into her computer. The video started at the funeral; she recognised Jessie as well as Kyle, who had his arm around her, then the two of them talking to the camera, or rather the camera operator. A woman who had to be the evil stepmother made a brief appearance with her son and the precocious stepsister, and then the shot moved to Kyle and Jay talking to each other. Jay, smiling, pulled Jessie into shot, intimacy and certainty in the action. Jessie’s expression was difficult to interpret: in his thrall, intimidated but telling herself she was safe because he loved her.
Natalie rewound, paused in one spot. This was the man who had abused Jessie, a man who was still trying to control her. And inadvertently, Jessie had provided what she needed to answer the critical question. Jay had a signature move. She had seen in her office when he had accompanied Jessie to her appointment. A gesture of support she had thought at the time, but it had heralded Jessie’s deterioration. A message that said he was in control.
Liam was waiting for her at her warehouse. She took him upstairs to her bed and they made love. And it was making love, not just sex, a gentle prolonged enjoyment of each other’s bodies into the early hours of the morning. Lauren was away again. Natalie intended to talk before they slept, so she could benefit from his mellow post-coital state of mind and the alcohol that had preceded it.
To enhance the effect she went downstairs, naked, letting him watch her breasts move as she returned with a bottle of cognac that someone had given to her once. The two large glasses weren’t quite brandy balloons.
‘I have something for you.’
‘Mmm…just what did you have in mind?’
‘It’s work, I’m afraid. I thought you wouldn’t be up for any more, you being an old man.’
‘Now that’s fighting talk.’ Liam reached out lazily for her breast.
‘I know who assaulted me.’
He sat up, immediately serious.
Natalie handed him a USB stick. ‘I don’t want to bring charges for the assault if you can get him for your paedophile ring. He’s very computer savvy and the company he works for has done work for the health department, which I imagine is how he accessed my hospital files.’
It was an educated guess but it had been easy to find out; the company listed their clients on their website, including the hospital where she had spent four weeks in the psychiatric ward during her intern year. ‘Watch how he interlinks his little finger with the underage girl he’s abusing on the first clip and the young woman on the second. It’s the same as the masked man in the video you showed me with that little blonde girl.’
‘Who are the
girls?’
‘Can’t tell you. You can’t see the young girl’s face.’ Thanks to some judicious editing. ‘And the older one is just there to show you the gesture. But that’s not what you really want to know is it?’ She smiled.
‘Who is he?’
‘Jay—Jesse—Cadek.’ The edge of Liam’s mouth twitched. Bullseye. Liam knew the name. He was clearly Liam’s original suspect.
There was one last thing she had to be sure of.
In the morning, after Liam had left, she got on her bike. The Princes Highway was becoming increasingly familiar. This time she took a turnoff a few kilometres past Welbury, and had to stop several times to get her bearings. At the end of a long dirt road she found the farm she was looking for.
The house was a large rambling weatherboard that hadn’t seen paint in a long time. Behind it, a river wove between thickets of gum trees and scrub. Dairy cows on either side of the driveway looked up, curious, then put their heads back in the grass. Natalie turned off the bike, took out the camera she had brought and walked down the side of the driveway, among the trees. She was hoping not to be seen, afraid for them, not for herself. She heard voices and slipped behind a bushy tree.
She recognised the woman who came out onto the balcony, older than her forty-four years, but without the tension in her shoulders that Natalie associated with her. She called to a younger woman who was walking towards the house holding the hand of a small child. An older boy was running ahead. Natalie was too far away to make out what was being said, but her attention was focused on the smaller of the two children, a dark short-haired child of about twelve months who held a pink soft toy in her free hand. Natalie attached the long lens to Tom’s camera and took a couple of photos. The toddler was walking, but only with recently acquired confidence. As the child fell, Kay Long walked down the steps and hoisted her upright and Natalie captured the moment when she was facing the camera.