by Jaye Ford
Her crease deepened. ‘So there’s more to it?’
‘There is now.’
‘The police are involved, right?’
‘Carmel, it’s fine.’ His tone was placating but still held a hint of the earlier caution.
She looked at Liv. ‘Sometimes he doesn’t know when to let it go. You should . . .’
‘Carmel!’
‘Okay.’
Liv watched as they spent a second or two glaring at each other in some kind of silent sibling argument. She wondered whether Carmel was upset that Daniel had helped or that Liv had taken advantage of his generosity. He finally broke contact, aiming a less heated look at Liv. ‘Are you coming or going?’
‘Going.’
‘Where’s your son?’
‘He’s with his . . . I just came to watch.’ She pressed her lips together to hold back the lump of pain still lodged in her throat.
‘Did you get another note?’
‘No. It’s . . .’ The rest of her life. ‘Nothing. I should go.’
‘Can you wait two seconds? I’ll walk with you.’
She wanted to say no, that he should stay with his family but figured it was an excuse to avoid another, more vocal conversation with his sister. He passed Jess to her mother, turned his cheek so she could plant a noisy kiss on it.
‘I’ll ring you,’ Carmel called as Liv and Daniel joined the mass of spectators and players leaving and arriving. Liv kept an eye on faces as they weaved a path through them. Looking for bruises. Watching for Thomas.
‘You didn’t call last night,’ Daniel said. ‘I assumed you had no problems at the townhouse.’
Had he hoped to hear from her? ‘I wasn’t there to find out. Sheridan was in a car accident. I spent most of the night at the hospital waiting for her to come out of surgery.’
‘God, I’m sorry. Is she okay?’
Liv counted off the list of injuries as they made their way towards the traffic jam of bodies closer to the clubhouse. The nerves on the back of her neck flickered to life again when they slowed in the throng. She moved a little closer to him, glad of his height and the size of his biceps.
‘Let’s get out of this.’ He cocked his head towards the field beside them, where a team of older kids was spread out doing warm-up drills.
She followed him out of the crowd, jogging past the players, happy to have open space and the chance to work some of the anxiety out of her legs, even if it was brief.
‘You okay to jump the fence?’ he asked when they were off the field.
The fence was a single, metal rail that ran around the perimeter of the grounds. ‘You suggesting I can’t make it?’
‘I wouldn’t dare.’
They walked past the tide of incoming and outgoing vehicles that formed a queue on the roadway. It felt safer away from Park Street and the townhouse, knowing she was only here on impulse, that no one but the man beside her knew where she was. Then she saw it. Small and white and tucked under the driver’s side windscreen wiper. She stopped, her hands in fists, adrenaline pouring through her. ‘He’s here.’
Daniel didn’t ask, just looked left and right along the road, then turned and faced the fields.
Suddenly it wasn’t so safe. Cars were bumper to bumper at the kerb, bumper to bumper in the centre of the road. Two lanes of slow-moving traffic crawling in opposite directions. And there were people. Lots of people. Pedestrians, drivers, passengers. She looked at faces, for eyes aimed at her or ones averted and furtive.
‘Liv, come on.’
She took two steps then broke into a run that pulled her up at the driver’s door. It was an envelope. No writing on the front. It didn’t matter. She knew who it was for. She wanted to toss it in the gutter, leave it there, unopened and unread. But it wouldn’t change the fact that bastard had found her car in a sea of cars. That he knew where she was this morning.
‘Liv.’ Daniel’s voice was calm but firm on the other side of the hood.
‘I’m meant to wear gloves when I handle them.’
Still calm, a little firmer. ‘Fuck the gloves.’
Yeah, fuck the gloves. She yanked the envelope, hit the unlock button on her key, slid under the wheel as Daniel took the passenger seat, the doors slamming with a bang-bang.
‘Read or drive?’ she asked.
‘Read then decide what comes next.’
Made sense. She ripped open the top, frowned. It wasn’t a sheet of paper or a card. It was a photo. Maybe it wasn’t what she thought, maybe a friend had left it for her. She slipped it out, took a second to understand what she was looking at. It was dark, there was bush, a red car. The front end of it was crumpled around the trunk of a tree. And bile burned at the back of her throat.
Daniel pushed his sunglasses up to his head, leaned over the centre console. ‘What is it?’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
‘Liv?’
‘It’s Sheridan’s car.’ She turned it to show him, saw the reverse side of the picture and felt the air in her lungs evaporate. Daniel glanced at the picture, at Liv’s face, took the photo from her and flipped it over. The words were scrawled in large, black, angry letters.
‘How could he have that picture?’ she gasped. ‘There’s no one there. There’s no police tape or . . . or . . . He must’ve taken it before they got there. How could he do that?’
‘Tell me about the accident.’
‘Oh, Jesus. Did he have something to do with it? How do you make someone drive into a tree?’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘She’s in a coma. Because of me.’
‘Livia.’ His voice was sharp. It made her open her eyes again. ‘What happened last night?’
‘She hit a tree. That’s all Andy told me.’
Daniel took a last look at the picture, put it on the centre console and scanned the road through the windscreen. ‘Who knew you were coming here?’
‘No one. It was a spur of the moment thing.’
‘Do you go to all of your son’s matches?’
‘Oh my God. Cameron.’ She grabbed the doorhandle, was about to throw herself into the line of traffic when Daniel grabbed her forearm in a taut grip and held her in place.
‘Wait. Did he come with you? In your car?’
‘No. He was with his father.’
‘How much time did you spend with him?’
‘None. He didn’t know I was here.’ She saw the question in his eyes, felt shame hot on her face. What kind of mother goes to the soccer and doesn’t talk to her child? ‘I wasn’t supposed to be here. It’s part of the custody arrangement. But after this week, after . . . everything, I just wanted to see him.’
‘Then you probably kept him safe.’ Daniel’s grasp softened and the pad of his thumb did a gentle back and forth on her forearm. ‘You wouldn’t keep me away, either.’
It was kind and intimate and she wanted more, wanted him to wrap her up in a tight clinch and tell her it was okay. But he sat back in his seat, turned away, his head moving by increments through a semicircle. Checking the fields, she guessed. For what? Someone holding a fresh supply of envelopes? What the hell was she meant to look for?
He twisted around, watched through the back window. Liv eyed it through the rear-view mirror. Parked cars, slow-moving traffic, pedestrians.
‘I think we should go. Can you drive?’ Daniel asked.
She put her hands on the wheel, gripping it hard to stop the trembling. ‘Yes.’
‘Okay. Start the car.’
It was an order. Not barked, no hint of panic or anger or alarm. None of the emotions that were rattling around inside her. He sounded calm and up to speed, as though he’d made a decision and was onto it. It was great, exactly what she needed. She revved the engine to life.
Liv kept with the flow of traffic past t
he soccer grounds, the netball courts, the rugby fields, the tennis enclosure, keeping an eye on her mirror, looking left and right. She stopped at lights, rubbed trembling, damp hands along her thighs.
‘Head down the main road for a few blocks,’ Daniel told her. ‘Then we’ll take some side streets, see what comes up behind us.’
She flicked on her blinker.
‘Don’t rush it. Just drive normally.’
‘You mean not like I’m worried the arsehole who beat me up could be on my tail any second?’
‘Yeah. Not like that.’
‘Oh, fine, no problem.’
She turned left, drove several blocks then followed his directions off the busy road and on a zigzagging path through a well-to-do housing development. She hadn’t driven through there before but he seemed to know where he was going. No one followed for more than a few blocks at a time.
‘How are you holding up, Slugger?’
She’d had little more than three hours’ sleep but the anxiety and adrenaline coursing through her felt like it’d keep her awake for days. ‘I’ll need petrol soon but I’m okay.’ And driving felt a whole lot more assertive than being locked up in the townhouse wondering who the hell was outside.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel’s focus moving from her hands on the wheel, to her body in the seat, to her legs working the pedals, going through some sort of stress indicator checklist, she guessed. When it came back to her face, she said, ‘What?’
‘How do you feel about making like a target?’
23
Liv drove to the shopping strip beside the park, the same stretch where she’d waited at the pedestrian lights a couple of hours ago and changed her mind about going to the police station. Had he been following her then? She checked her rear-view mirror for the hundredth time, saw cars and pushbikes and pedestrians. Didn’t recognise any of them from three minutes ago.
It was almost lunchtime and the road was busy. People eating out or playing in the park, others making quick stops for bread or newspapers or weekend spending money from the holes in the wall. She drove slowly past the row of stores that faced the park, went around the block twice more before Daniel found the spot he wanted – rear-to-kerb in a long line of side-by-side vehicles in front of a cafe.
He gave her a second to check her mirrors again. ‘You ready?’
Her stomach was churning but she wanted to see the man who attacked her. ‘Yes.’
Daniel’s theory was that, for the moment at least, the assailant wasn’t after a confrontation – he just wanted to let her know he was there and threatening. He’d found her car at the soccer, either by chance or design, and there was a possibility he hadn’t finished making his point today. That if he saw her car parked on another busy street, he might make contact again.
And they’d try to catch him at it.
The cafe was at the corner of a covered arcade that gave access to parking at the rear. They walked to the next passageway, through the car park and doubled back to the restaurant out of sight from the street. They found a table where they could watch her car and while Daniel set the camera app on his phone, Liv found Rachel’s number then stopped herself before making the call.
She was fed up with the detective’s endless, directionless questions without getting any answers of her own. She didn’t know how her assailant had found her car or when he’d followed her, she just wanted Rachel to do something about it. So she tapped out a message: Its not about the office! He left photo on my car ths morn of Sheridan Marr accident last nite. Did he hurt my friend? Tell me something Rachel!
As she tested the small digital camera she kept in her bag to see if it’d survived her assault in the car park, Rachel replied: Get back to you.
It wasn’t an answer but it wasn’t a question, either.
‘Rachel?’ Daniel asked.
‘Yes.’ She waited while he ordered coffee, suppressing a smile as the size-eight waitress registered his build. When she’d left, Liv asked, ‘What’s the story with you and Rachel?’
‘There’s no story.’
‘There’s something.’
He shifted a little in his chair. ‘We had a difference of opinion a while back and she likes making a point of it.’
‘How often do you see her?’
‘Before this week, not in a year.’
‘What details did she want to check about your statement the other day?’
Maybe it was her barrage of questions that made him hesitate. ‘Time frame, background, how well I know you.’
‘Was it personal?’
‘It was standard cop stuff, I suppose.’
‘I meant the difference of opinion.’
He met her eyes. ‘It wasn’t a relationship, if that’s what you’re asking. I did something and she didn’t like it. We shared a few heated words and that made it more personal than it should’ve been.’
Liv had seen work issues spill over into nasty clashes. Some people took longer than others to close the file. Maybe cops and firemen were as bad as staff trapped behind desks. She tensed, put a hand on her camera. ‘Look.’
A man was approaching her car. She’d watched him cross the road, not at the pedestrian lights but jogging between gaps in the traffic. Now he was two cars from hers, heading towards it, still on the street, walking in front of the parked vehicles, looking back and forth along the length of them.
Daniel picked up his phone. Liv switched her camera on, heard the whirr as the lens wound out.
The man was wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses, a long-sleeved T-shirt. That was all she could see above the cars. He passed in front of Liv’s grille, turned and started down the driver’s side. She took a photo, then was blinded as the display screen showed the picture she’d taken, instead of the view. She lowered the camera, expecting to see him leaning over her windscreen, inserting a note. But he kept walking, hands in the pockets of his jeans, face angled along the footpath. There was no bruising and he wasn’t stopping. Just taking a path between the cars.
As the coffee was delivered to their table, she checked the picture on the camera. It was clear enough, even over the distance and through the window. If it’d been him, would she have recognised him? And what if she hadn’t? What if she took it to Rachel and the police couldn’t identify him, either?
‘Maybe we should go outside if we see him. Be obvious about taking photos. Let him know we’re onto him. Threaten him back.’
She assumed Daniel would go for a confrontation. He was a big man, aggression, she figured, would be his next move. But he shook his head. ‘This guy waited in the dark for you and he wasn’t afraid of hurting you. Walking up to him and saying, “Gotcha,” isn’t going to scare him off and it might make him more determined and harder to find. Take a photo, give it to the cops, let someone else do a job on him.’
She flung out her hands in frustration. ‘I want to yell at him but there’s no one to yell at. I’m so sick of not being able to do anything. It feels so damn passive.’
He grabbed hold of her nearest wrist, held onto it until she looked at him. ‘You’re not being passive, Liv. You’re dealing with what you’ve got to work with, not taking unnecessary risks, collecting information and evidence. You’re thinking and alert and you have a baseball bat.’
She smiled a little. ‘Maybe I should keep it in my handbag?’
‘Half a brick might be easier to carry.’
Okay, she was doing what she needed to do. She took back her hand, sipped her coffee. ‘We’ve wasted enough breath on him. Let’s keep our cameras out and change the subject.’
His nod was more approval than agreement. ‘The warm weather’s still going strong for April.’
‘Oh, come on. Is that the best you can do?’
‘What have you got for an opener?’
<
br /> ‘Ever been married?’
‘No easy small talk first?’
‘You know everything about me. It’s time the information was spread around.’
He laughed. ‘Fair enough. No, never married. I lived with someone for five years. We were engaged for the last two of them. She backed out before it was too late.’
‘I’m sorry. Was it recent?’
‘About four years ago. And don’t be sorry. She wasn’t cut out to be a fireman’s wife. Got tired of waiting for me to turn into a regular guy.’
Liv raised her eyebrows. ‘Regular guys don’t become firemen. I’m guessing regular firemen don’t go into Rescue.’
‘It’s not for everyone.’
‘Why did you leave?’
He took his time stirring a sachet of sugar into his coffee before he answered. ‘I thought I’d try saving people before they got hurt. Make sure they don’t get injured if their offices fall down.’
‘Like the one on the Central Coast?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I read about your bravery award.’
His eyes dropped away from her. ‘Awards don’t bring people back to life.’
‘No, you’re right. I’m sorry.’
‘Funny really, that I ended up like a regular guy in a suit after all.’
‘A suit, maybe. Not regular. Not from what I’ve seen.’
They waited an hour or so then Daniel ordered sandwiches and they ate as they watched. He asked her about her father and as she told him about the cancer and the hospice, she noticed the Y-shaped scar etched into his short hair behind one ear, a small, puckered burn on the inside of his forearm and the way the muscle underneath it flexed and contracted as he rolled a teaspoon between his fingers. They ordered another coffee after a while and she asked about his family as they drank. He had another sister who lived in Newcastle and an older brother in Sydney – all four of them were tall and dark.
‘Do you see each other much?’
‘We keep in touch,’ he said. ‘I see Carmel the most. She went through a messy divorce a while ago so I try to give her a hand.’