by Jaye Ford
She tiptoed to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Did you hear something?’ she whispered.
His feet were bare, his trousers crumpled, his shirt untucked. ‘No,’ he said quietly.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. I don’t sleep well. You’ve got good tea.’ He raised the mug in his hand.
‘Thanks.’
‘Why are you up?’
She cocked her head. ‘Bad dreams.’
‘You want tea?’
‘What time is it?’
He lifted his wrist. ‘Two-eleven.’
‘I’ll pass on the tea.’ She stood for a moment, unsure of the protocol for a whispered conversation in the middle of the night across a darkened room.
‘I wouldn’t have picked you for hearts and flowers,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘Your . . . duds.’
She looked down at her pyjama pants. Pink hearts, white daisies. ‘What did you expect? They’re PJs. They only come with hearts and flowers.’
‘I figured a tracksuit or negligee.’
It made her pause. He’d thought about it? Talk about either end of the sleepwear scale. ‘Sorry to disappoint.’
‘Nothing disappointing that I can see.’
Another pause. And a brief flurry in her pulse. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
‘Uh-huh.’
*
Liv could hear the TV the next time she woke. It was six-thirty and Cameron wasn’t in his bed. She found him sitting at the kitchen bar, eating toast and drinking Milo.
‘Daniel made me breakfast,’ he called when she was still on the stairs.
‘That was nice.’ Except she wished Daniel had left before Cameron got up. She’d told Cam they were working – there was no appropriate explanation for why the man at the door last night was still here.
‘Thanks for the loan of your sofa,’ Daniel said as he came out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll make sure that hole in my roof gets fixed today.’
She sent him a grateful smile as she pulled her dressing-gown tighter. Hole in the roof, bed on the sofa – that worked. ‘No problem.’
The blanket on the sofa was folded, his shoes were back on and he was heading for the front door but stopped when he reached her. ‘No more nightmares?’
‘Not anything worth wandering the house for. Did you get some sleep?’
‘Enough. I’ll see you at work.’
Cameron gushed with enthusiasm as she cut a sandwich for his school lunch.
‘Daniel is one hundred and ninety-four centimetres.’
‘Is he?’
‘Yup. And he’s got a scar on his head from when his car was all smashed up.’ He held his hands wide then crashed them together to show her.
‘Has he?’
‘Yup. He said the firemen came and used great big, um, teeth thingies to get him out.’ He held tight fists in the air, scrunched his face up as though bringing them together would take superhuman strength.
‘Oh, you mean the jaws of life.’
‘Yup. The jaws of life. Then the firemen said he could go to work with them and he got to ride in a fire engine every day. Can I give Benny my crusts?’
Liv flicked her eyes to the back door. ‘Why don’t we do it together?’
Cameron climbed into the raised garden bed, hooked his chin over the top of the fence. ‘Benny! Here, boy!’
The screen on the house next door swung out and Trevor, her neighbour, stepped into the yard.
‘Where’s Benny?’ Cam called.
Liv watched Trevor stride towards them, the usual shine on his bald head dulled by the overcast sky. He didn’t answer until he was looking at them over the fence. ‘He’s not here, mate.’ There was something about the way he said it that made Liv take hold of the back of Cameron’s pyjama shirt.
‘Where is he?’ Cam asked.
Trevor looked pointedly at Liv. ‘I thought your mum might know about that.’
She had no idea what he meant but it felt threatening and that was enough. ‘Go inside, honey. Time to get ready for school.’
‘But what about Benny?’
‘Let me talk to Trevor for a minute. Go get dressed. Go on.’
He groaned but got down. Liv didn’t look back at Trevor until Cameron was inside. When she turned, his eyes were narrowed with anger.
‘You knew I had a dog when you bought your place, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know dogs bark, right?’
‘Yes.’ Where was this going?
‘But you just decided you didn’t like it, right?’
Liv paused. ‘No. Benny’s a good watchdog.’
‘I saw your lights coming on at night, you know. I would’ve kept him inside if you’d asked.’
His volume was increasing. He was accusing her of something. She wanted to bite back but forced a measure of calmness into her voice, tightened her dressing-gown around her waist. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Bullshit. I know it came from your place.’
Trepidation made her take a step back. ‘What did?’
‘Benny was baited. Someone threw baited meat over the fence.’
‘Oh my God. Is he all right?’
‘No, he’s not. He’s dead.’
34
‘Where’s Benny, Mum? You promised you’d tell me in the car,’ Cameron said from the passenger seat.
They were too early for school but after Trevor’s accusations, she couldn’t get out of the townhouse fast enough. She’d pulled on trousers and lace-up shoes – ready to run – and clipped Cameron into his seatbelt before his hair was brushed.
Trevor thought she’d done it. On Sunday, when Benny was in the animal hospital fighting for his life, Trevor had found an uneaten bait in his garden on the other side of her fence and Benny’s vomit in the grass nearby.
What the hell was she going to tell Cameron? That someone had killed the cute dog next door to shut it up. That some freak had sat in their courtyard and tossed chunks of poisoned meat over the fence so Benny wouldn’t sound an alarm.
Because it had to be that, didn’t it?
Benny’s barking had started after she’d found the note on her windscreen. There’d been outbursts in the evenings and the early hours each morning. She remembered it had stopped abruptly on Saturday night, just before she’d found the laminated note on her front door. Was that when the bastard had thrown the bait? The rest of that agitated night came back to her then – the string of nightmares interrupted repeatedly by Benny, a mournful howling injected into his yap-yap repertoire. Guilt made her stomach churn. Had he been suffering while she’d been cursing him? Then the time frame made her suck in a breath.
That was Sunday morning. Two nights ago. Had her stalker come back in the security of silence? Had someone been there last night? When Cameron was there?
‘Mum?’ Cameron said.
‘Benny got sick, honey.’ She wanted to be honest with him but she couldn’t bring herself to upset him, to answer his questions about what kind of person would do such a thing. To ask herself what it said about having him in the house.
She’d think about that later. Not now. Not yet.
She drove around until she knew a teacher would be on duty, walked him all the way into school and left clear, firm instructions that he wasn’t to let him leave the grounds with anyone but her – not even Thomas or Michelle. Then drove to work because she had nowhere else to go. Because Prescott and Weeks was still open for business. Kelly and Teagan wouldn’t be there and the place would be shut down for good in a few weeks but while her name was on the title, Liv was going to keep doing her job. She had to hang onto what she had, while she still had it.
She parked ou
t the front of the building, figured the fine for staying in a two-hour zone for the entire day was worth the price of a quick exit. She cast a wary eye up and down the street before collecting the mail from the lock box without bothering to check it – if the freak was watching, he wasn’t going to see her react.
Mariella must have spotted her from the wigmaker’s and called as Liv stopped outside Prescott and Weeks, ‘Oh, Liv, Liv. Everyone is so upset. Poor, poor Teagan.’
The volume of her concern drew Ally from the orthodontist’s surgery. She crossed the hall, hugged Liv, wiped her eyes. ‘I phoned the hospital last night but no one would tell me anything. How is she?’
‘She was serious but stable last night. I’ll ring the hospital again from the office.’
Two doors away, Scott stuck his head into the corridor then made his way down. Liv watched him with sudden wariness. It could be anyone, Liv. He was tall and thin enough to be called gangly but Liv knew he was fit. He cycled to work a couple of times a week, talked about sixty-k rides at the weekends. That kind of endurance work built strength and speed. Did it also give him time to think about hurting people?
‘Someone said they saw her jump,’ he said.
Liv kept her eyes on his face. ‘Who said that? If someone saw her, you should tell the police.’
His eyes darted to Ally then Mariella, standing next to her now. ‘I don’t remember now. Someone at Lenny’s. Everyone’s been talking about it.’
Was he lying or spreading rumours? Whichever it was, Liv saw the guilty horror on the other women’s faces, knew they were asking themselves if they could have helped. She touched Mariella’s hand as she looked Scott in the eye. ‘She didn’t jump. I know she didn’t.’
She let herself into the office, felt the silence and chill of emptiness as she locked the door behind her. The beginning of the end. She put her handbag in a filing cabinet in the storeroom – see if you can find it in there, freak – and dialled Kelly’s mobile. It was an automatic thing, Kelly wasn’t in so Liv called her. But when her face came up on the screen of her mobile, she hung up before it rang, reality catching in her throat on a gasp.
Of everything she thought she had to lose, she never would have listed Kelly among them. But Kelly had taken Prescott and Weeks away from her and Liv had kissed her husband. She wasn’t sure a friendship, even one as long as theirs, could survive that kind of damage. As much as she wanted to know how Teagan was, she wasn’t sure she could talk to Kelly without the bitterness and anger of the last forty-eight hours spilling into the conversation. Now was not the time for recriminations and accusations and she’d had too much pain to want to cause any more, so she sent a text: Send my love to T. Thinking of you. X
Then she sat at Teagan’s desk, opened Google and typed Scott Saltern.
The surname was unusual enough to make it easy to find him. He was profiled on his firm’s website and – surprise, surprise – it didn’t mention any history of violence or stalking. His name was listed in the results of a Loop the Lake cycle race for the last three years and he was pictured with a group of riders in a newspaper article on last year’s event. She clicked on his Facebook page, found photos of his wife and three daughters – at birthday parties and Christmas and the beach. He had a hundred and fifty-eight friends and his wall posts revealed nothing more than bad spelling and a desire to ride in the Tour de France. Everyone was allowed to dream. It didn’t rule him in or out as a stalker.
Liv clicked on her own Facebook page. She’d never been a convert, had only set up the page on Kelly’s insistence that social networking could help their business connections. She hadn’t opened it since Thomas left, when a ‘friend’ posted a commiserations message on her wall. She’d decided then she didn’t need to share her private life with the other two hundred and five friends on her list. But she wondered now whether the freak who was watching her had been looking for her in other places.
She scrolled through her messages. It was obvious her friends had given up on her months ago – there was nothing since Christmas and what there was bore no resemblance to the notes she’d got in the last week. It didn’t mean the freak hadn’t looked, just that he hadn’t tried to contact her that way. She deleted everything – posts, messages, photos, all her personal information. She knew nothing was ever truly erased from the internet; someone could find it if they knew what they were doing but at least she wouldn’t be saying, ‘Hey, look at me!’
Kelly messaged back: Wont be in. Tee hving surgery on eye today. Can u cancel my Tues & Wed apptmnts. Sheridan awake – can talk on phone. X
It was a text, not a well-crafted note, Liv knew that, told herself Kelly was probably tired and stressed. But its terseness made Liv feel worse than she already did. Cut off, as well as fearful and anxious. She should make a start on Kelly’s appointments but she needed a friend so she picked up the phone.
‘Sheridan, it’s Liv. How are you feeling?’
The groggy croakiness of Sheridan’s voice reminded Liv of her father and she pressed her lips together as she listened to her friend struggle to form sentences, feeling bad that she’d rung for her own need of support.
‘They shaved my hair. A big patch on the side. I’m half bald, Liv.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ She wished there was something better to say.
‘I don’t remember what happened. The police asked about you. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ And glad Sheridan didn’t remember the rock through the windscreen.
‘Andy won’t tell me anything. He’s really mad at you. Were you in the car with me? Did we go somewhere?’
Sheridan hated not knowing, her career was based on drawing stories out of people and she loved the details, the gory ones especially. Liv was tempted to tell her, at least the basics – she had a right to know what happened to her. But for whatever reason, Andy had decided not to tell her and she didn’t want to be the wedge between another couple. ‘No, you were leaving work.’
‘Kelly came by when I was asleep. She told Andy Teagan’s in here, too. Something wrong with her eyes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Too many people going to hospital lately. We should eat more fish.’
It was Sheridan trying to make light of her situation. Liv should have joined in, cheering her courage but she just wanted to beg forgiveness for the real and lasting wounds that her fucking disastrous life was inflicting on others. ‘I’ll cook you a seafood feast when you get out of there.’ She hung up the phone and swore loudly and soundly at the cruel, faceless crazy who was getting a thrill out of hurting her friends. Why didn’t he come and get her?
Between manning the switch and cancelling Kelly’s meetings, Liv started a search on everyone in the suite of offices. Her internet skills were way too basic to find deleted information but she could google, access newspaper archives and get into a handful of social and business networks. It felt invasive and deceptive – assertive, too. She didn’t know what she was looking for. A connection, maybe, or a crossing of paths. Something that might twig a memory or provide an ‘aha’ moment. Flashing lights and a drum roll would be better.
What she found was that there was a lot she hadn’t known about the people she rented office space with.
Mandy, the travel agent, had once danced at the Moulin Rouge and had a nasty break-up with a boyfriend last month. Chad, the dietician, wrote for an international nutrition magazine and was into heavy metal. Ahmed, the orthodontist, volunteered for Dentists Without Borders and was flirting online with single ladies interested in movies and travelling. Anthony, the solicitor, had defended a man charged with defrauding his employer of eight hundred thousand dollars. Gino and Mariella made wigs for chemotherapy patients and had a grandson in drug rehab.
Then there was Daniel. No social networking, no listing of his name on his company website, no recent mentions in online arti
cles. But his name and face were all over the newspaper archives on the building disaster on the Central Coast and the inquest that followed. The first one Liv found was two years old, reporting the outcome of the inquiry into the deaths of the nine victims. It found that a construction company called Mackey & Mackey was responsible for the collapse of the structure and therefore the deaths. It also declared fireman Daniel Beck had done nothing to cause the death of Leanne Petronio during the seven hours he spent trying to rescue her.
An article written a month before, when the hearing was in session, reported an altercation between two witnesses outside the court – Daniel and a Roger Mackey, co-owner of the construction company. The story from the previous day included details of Daniel’s lengthy testimony of the seven hours he spent in the ruins of the building trying to keep Leanne Petronio alive. The lower half of her body was crushed between sheets of concrete but she remained conscious the entire time. They spoke about her three children and husband and a long-dreamed-of holiday to Spain. Daniel described her as clearly frightened but courageous beyond belief. In the afternoon, the solicitor for Mackey & Mackey questioned Daniel’s handling of the rescue, suggesting Leanne Petronio had died because he hadn’t followed procedure.
Six months earlier, an article reported bravery medals being awarded to Daniel and two other firemen who’d put their own lives at risk to rescue victims of the disaster.
The tragedy itself occurred seven months before that and was covered extensively in the media for a week. Liv already knew the story and skimmed the details but got stuck on a photo taken moments after Daniel had been hauled from under the wreckage. He was filthy, his face crusted from hours of sweat and dirt. In one hand he held a bottle of water, the other was on his head as though he was halfway through rubbing his palm across the short stubble of his hair, the way she’d seen him do it. Maybe someone had called his name or maybe the photographer had just got lucky but the camera had caught him in the process of looking up, his eyes aimed straight down the barrel of the lens. Haggard, haunted. The same as they’d been last night on her doorstep.