Darkest Place

by Jaye Ford

  There were aching, tender patches on her shins, her forearms, a shoulder, the top of her head. The tips of her fingers felt grazed. She was out of breath, she must have been running. The stairs? Through the apartment?

  Two cops arrived – Dean and his partner. She wiped at tears as she explained: he came back, he was on top of her, she closed her eyes and he left. They did a quick, cursory sweep, and no other officers turned up this time. When they were finished, Dean cocked his head at the front door and waited while his colleague disappeared into the hallway.

  ‘How are you doing, Carly?’ His voice had a harder edge tonight.

  She tucked shaking fists under her arms, her tongue so dry it felt like paper stuck to the roof of her mouth. ‘You found nothing, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘He was on top of me. He …’ She pressed fingers to her lips.

  ‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘I … he … You tell me.’ Please.

  ‘I can see you’re upset. I don’t think it’s an act.’

  Carly stopped, blinked. ‘An act?’

  ‘There’s been no one here, has there, Carly?’

  Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

  ‘I’m not sure what’s going on but you need to know the police aren’t on call for your own personal issues.’

  ‘My issues?’

  A pause, something reticent in it. ‘I don’t know what this is about but I have to warn you that if you continue to call the police, you’ll be facing a charge of public mischief.’

  ‘I’ll be charged? What about the arsehole who keeps breaking in? He’s the one who should be charged.’

  ‘Is that what it’s about, Carly? You want someone charged?’

  She didn’t speak, didn’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s not the right way to go about it,’ he went on. ‘If there’s someone bothering you, an ex, maybe, someone you came here to get away from,’ he raised eyebrows in question, ‘there are ways of dealing with it. But not like this.’

  She came here to get away from herself. ‘It’s not …’ How did she explain that?

  ‘There are laws about harassing people,’ he said. ‘If you need help with that, you can talk to me. Okay?’

  ‘I don’t know who it is.’

  He nodded. ‘If it’s something else, Carly, you need to figure it out another way.’

  ‘Something else?’ Blood thumped in her throat. ‘Like what?’

  His voice softened but his eyes were hard and direct. ‘People call the police for all sorts of reasons. It’s not always about a crime.’

  It took a moment to understand. Incredulousness made her pitch slide up. ‘You think I’m enjoying this?’

  ‘I don’t know, Carly. Some people do.’

  She stepped away from him, heat flaring in her cheeks. He thought she was needy, messed up, nuts. She’d come here to get away from that, too. She lifted her chin. ‘That’s it then?’

  He produced a business card again and set it on the kitchen counter. ‘My number, if it’s something you want to talk about.’

  She ignored it. Tried to sound more composed than she felt. ‘Thank you for checking the apartment. I’d like you to leave now.’

  He followed her down the hall, paused in the doorway. ‘Look after yourself, Carly.’ It sounded like an instruction.

  She watched him to the stairs, angry and frightened and not sure she wanted to go back inside. A movement caught her eye, something passing through a strip of light under Nate’s door.

  He was awake again? How much had he heard? Was he was waiting for the police to leave before he checked on her this time?

  She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to explain what had happened – the man in her loft or the police accusation. Carly shut the door hard, engaged the lock and slid the chain into its slot. Her pulse was racing, her body trembling. She couldn’t stand still.

  Turning, pacing, she cut a path back and forth around the living room. Dean and his partner had lit up the place for their search and she left it that way, hoping the arsehole who’d been in her loft was watching her now. That he got her message: she was awake and alert, don’t bother coming back. Because the police weren’t going to stop him.

  An act? She’d be charged? What the fuck?

  On a pass of the French windows she stopped, looked the doors up and down. Both were locked. They were locked when Dean checked them. She swung her head, stared across the room at the hallway, remembering the security chain at the other end. It had been hooked on when she was waiting for the police.

  Had she done it? Had he got in and she’d locked up after him?

  She frowned, remembered staggering on the stairs and huddling at the front door and … nothing in between. Walking to the steps, she stared at the nightlight she’d plugged into the power point at the bottom. It had been under the vanity in the half bath when she moved in, she’d forgotten about it until leaving lights on at night had caused more nightmares than sleep. Now, under the downlights, its glow was a tiny, rosy dot. Was it on when she stumbled down? She closed her eyes, couldn’t see it. Felt instead her harsh breath at the front door.

  Fear, yes, but more than that. Her lungs had been dragging for air like she’d been for a hard, fast walk. What had she done? How long could it have been from gasping out of bed to reaching the door? Twenty seconds?

  Five minutes? An hour?

  Carly lifted a hand to her pyjama top, something cold winding its way up her spine. The fabric was still damp with sweat – she’d done more than just run down the hall. There were bruises and bumps coming up and her fingertips were tender. Had she searched the apartment? Swept around the locks and barricaded herself in before she called the police? If she’d done that, which door had been unlocked?

  She glanced around, thinking it through. Had the man on her bed got through the security chain and she’d relatched it? Or had he used both the front door and the balcony, in one and out the other?

  She rubbed at a tender spot on her hip and another on the tip of an ear. Maybe she’d done more than lock doors. Maybe she’d seen him and tried to hide. Or run away. Or fought him. Had he hit her and knocked her out?

  Dean’s business card was on the kitchen counter. She wanted to call him, shout What about the bruises? Tell him to come back and take a look at her shins and arms, explain how they fitted his theory. Except she couldn’t explain them either.

  15

  ‘Hey, there.’ It was Reuben at her side, a hand by her elbow as though she might need help to reach a seat. ‘You look … pale.’

  Carly was here most mornings windblown and without make-up. She must look as bad as she felt today – headachy and lethargic and freaked out. ‘Had a big night. Just need a coffee.’

  ‘Like that, is it? You want a quiet table and a double shot?’

  She gave a grateful smile. ‘Just coffee. I need to walk it off.’

  ‘Each to their own when it comes to a hangover, I say. Two minutes, special circumstances get you to the head of the queue.’

  Instead of hyping her up, the coffee calmed her, easing the anxiety, making her feel more coordinated. She’d been aiming for the breakwater but didn’t make it, needing to stop a couple of times to catch her breath and stretch the tightness in her legs. She paused again on the kerb opposite the warehouse, ran her eyes over its railings and windows, imagining a man in black climbing quietly, slipping over the edge of her balcony, lying on her and laughing.

  Nate’s door opened as she unlocked her apartment. ‘Carly,’ he called softly, half in and half out of the corridor. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ she lied.

  ‘I heard the police at your place again and you were gone early. I wondered …’

  ‘I’m fine.’ There was no way she was going to tell him. Not now.

  ‘Was it another break-in?’

  ‘Just a routine check. You know, after the last one.’

  He stepped a little further
into the corridor. ‘At 3 am?’

  She hadn’t thought that through. ‘They saw my lights on and rang ahead. Being diligent, I suppose.’

  ‘You were awake?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry if they disturbed you.’

  ‘They didn’t. I just …’ he cocked his head, a little reluctance in it ‘… wanted to make sure you were okay.’

  She watched him a moment, wondering about that – awake at night, listening at his door, asking when she didn’t want to tell. Grim moods and short on conversation. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Don’t you look nice today?’ Dakota grinned as she slid into the seat next to Carly’s. The teacher hadn’t arrived and the classroom was noisy with early-morning greetings.

  Carly had thought about skipping another day, curling up on the sofa and sleeping off the aches, but the apartment felt tainted and she needed to remind herself of what she was doing here. Now she raised a doubtful eyebrow at Dakota’s compliment – she’d had four hours’ sleep and fatigue felt like soup in her veins.

  ‘Ye-ah. You’ve got the make-up going and the hair piled up and you’re rocking that scarf.’

  Carly lifted her fingers to the soft green fabric at her throat. Rocking it? ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So who are you trying to impress?’

  That made Carly smile a little. Another man to screw up her life was the last thing she wanted. ‘No one.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’

  ‘No, really. I had a late night, the make-up is to cover the black rings.’

  ‘Good job then.’ Dakota dropped her bag on the floor, picked up one end of Carly’s scarf. ‘And this is really pretty. New?’

  ‘Yes and no. Two bucks second-hand.’ A cheap, celebratory gift to herself the day after she arrived.

  ‘Bargain. I love vintage. We should have a scrounge together sometime.’

  Carly checked Dakota’s face to see if she was serious. ‘Sure.’

  ‘We could grab a coffee somewhere nice then do a few of the second-hand places. I know some good ones.’

  Dakota’s enthusiasm made Carly feel jaded today – and reminded her that she’d been like that once too. That version of her hadn’t always been reckless. ‘Sounds like fun.’

  Carly held herself together with coffee and paracetamol, dragging herself into the apartment in the mid-afternoon, not caring now that it felt infected by the night before, only wanting to sleep. On the sofa, nowhere near the loft.

  Sleep came in surges of black slumber and half-conscious hazes, oblivion and meandering thoughts. She jerked awake feeling like she was suffocating, her body remembering the weight of him, her limbs too heavy to push him off. Then she slipped back under to the beat of the blood pulsing in her ears.

  The last time her eyes flew open, the ache in her body had gone and she lay there, the dream still filtering through her. Feeling its substance, feeling him. Arms and legs, sharp bones and the pressure on her chest from another rib cage. Remembering him. Lean and muscular. Wide across the shoulders, thick through the thighs, feet reaching beyond hers.

  A sound made the memory snap off as though the power had been cut. She sat up, nerve endings prickling, eyes towards the front door. Another, a dull thud, and she was padding across the apartment, standing at the deadlock, adrenaline tingling at the roots of her hair.

  She heard footsteps, the brief rumble of a male voice, the tone suggesting swearing. Not right outside but close. She pressed her ear to the jamb. A clatter of keys. To her door? She straightened, fingers tingling, rechecking the security chain.

  A vibration through the plaster as a door opened. Nate’s. It slammed, the echo in the atrium humming for long seconds. Carly watched the wall that separated their living spaces, wondering if he was drunk or just mightily ticked off. His balcony door rattled in its frame, a clatter as one side banged open, then two solid thumps she couldn’t identify. Whatever was going on for him, it wasn’t getting better.

  Join the club, she thought in a sudden pang of empathy.

  Maybe she should invite him over. Knock on his door and say Shitty day? Me too. Feel like a drink?

  To what end, Carly?

  Because shitty could be lonely. Because she had experience in that. Because the apartment didn’t feel inspirational now and being here on her own wasn’t so great.

  Or was it something else? she asked herself. Was it that thing she did when it got bad? Turning to someone, anyone, when the loneliness was unbearable. Making more poor choices and living with them to hurt herself.

  Outside, the afternoon was fading fast. Inside, darkness was creeping at the edges of the room. Carly switched on a light and poured a glass of red wine, her hand trembling a little. Adrenaline rush, she told herself. She took a sip. Her psychologist would be impressed – Carly had recognised her failing and made a decision to keep it in check.

  She held the glass up. ‘Cheers, Carly.’

  Locked inside with her own company, in the dark, scared of her bedroom.

  ‘Yeah, well done, Carly.’

  She stood to one side of the French windows, watching the street out of sight. Someone knew how to get into her apartment without waking her. Someone was amused by her fear. Someone might be thinking it would be funnier to hurt her next time.

  Was fate playing with her now? Did it want to take this away from her too? She’d lived in fear for thirteen years of the retribution that would come for her.

  And she’d paid her price, she reminded herself. Three lives given for the three she’d taken. That score had been levelled five months ago. She’d suffered enough. She didn’t have to accept this too.

  ‘I’d like to add to my previous description of the man breaking into my apartment,’ Carly told Anne Long the next morning.

  She’d called ahead to ask if they could meet before Carly’s class. ‘No problem,’ Anne had told her, then kept her waiting in the foyer for half an hour. The detective had skipped ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you’, going straight to ‘Carly, come through.’ Carly took it as a good sign that she was getting straight down to business.

  ‘Do you know about the last break-in?’ Carly asked. ‘The one two days ago?’

  ‘I’ve read the report from the officers who attended the scene.’

  Carly eyed the folder on the table in front of the detective. She didn’t know how police reports worked – whether it was just the facts or if Dean Quentin had added his own opinion. ‘I’ve had time to think a little more clearly about the intruder. The last time, he was on top of me. Lying on me. It was still dark, I couldn’t see, but I remember some details now.’

  More had come back as she’d thought it through again in the loft last night. She paused, expecting the detective to find a pen or open the file in front of her. She didn’t do either.

  Carly licked her lips, uncertainty creeping into resolve. ‘He’s a bit taller than me, I’d say between one-eighty-two and one-ninety-two. He’s broader than me but not by much. Lean and strong but not super muscly. I felt his top or jacket on my face. It was some kind of smooth nylon, I think. Cool to the touch. Not like a baggy, sweatshirt kind of hoodie. I think his trousers were a tight fit and I could feel the shape of his legs.’

  Anne gave a nod. Not approval, just acknowledgement that Carly had come to the end. ‘This was the third break-in you’ve reported?’

  ‘Yes. So it’s got to help, right?’

  ‘I spoke to Constable Quentin yesterday.’ It was a statement, as though there was nothing more to add.

  Dean Quentin had called Carly a liar. ‘He thought I was … He thought I might’ve known who was breaking in but I don’t.’

  ‘Carly, we ran a check on you following that call-out,’ Anne said. ‘Police records show you were scheduled in a mental health facility after an attempted suicide five months ago.’

  Something hot and hard lodged in Carly’s throat. She dropped her eyes.

  ‘Is that right, Carly?’ The tone was softer but insistent. Some kind of We get it now and you need to fess u
p.

  Carly’s hands turned to fists under the table. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I understand you’ve only recently moved here. It can be difficult establishing new medical arrangements, but I think you need to make an effort to sort that out now.’

  ‘I’m not sick and I’m not making it up!’ She lifted her chin. ‘A man is breaking into my apartment. He’s done it three times.’

  ‘Without damaging locks or leaving fingerprints.’

  Carly paused, frowned. ‘No fingerprints?’

  Anne opened the folder, pulled out a page and laid it on top. ‘That’s right. No fingerprints were found on either occasion your apartment was dusted.’

  ‘But you said …’ Carly stopped.

  ‘Said what?’

  Their last conversation as she’d sat in the campus car park ran through her mind: I’m going to get back to you on those, Carly. When there’s something to talk about. ‘Why didn’t you tell me last week you didn’t find prints?’

  ‘I’m wondering why you thought I would, Carly.’

  ‘What do you mean why? There was someone in my apartment.’ She pushed a hand into her hair, held it there as she tried to figure it out. ‘He must’ve worn gloves.’

  ‘No, Carly. Gloves leave distinctive marks. Forensics didn’t find any of those either. The only prints were from the officers who answered your call.’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘And you.’

  The last two words, the pointed expression on the detective’s face, made Carly’s heart pound. Anne Long thought Carly had invented the whole thing. That she’d called triple-O in the middle of the night, made up a story for a bunch of cops in uniforms and followed it through for forensics officers and detectives. That she’d done it three times. Possibly she thought Carly needed medication or another trip to hospital, but right now the detective looked like she didn’t care what it was about just so long as Carly understood she’d been caught out.

  Carly pressed her lips together, wanting to defend herself, realising there was no good place to start.

  ‘I believe Constable Quentin has explained to you that any more unnecessary calls to the police could result in charges.’ Anne slipped the page back into her folder as though its presence had been enough to prove her point.