Karen shocked herself by turning the deadlock when she closed it. Must be that closet racism, she thought, forcing herself to open the door again. Her six-year-old scooted past her into the kitchen.
Cutter could smell her.
He moved from the final step of the house onto the concrete that led to the washing line. Not Karen's sweet, ripe tang. No, no. We've had a visitor, he thought. Musky smell. He turned his nose into the light breeze and sniffed again. Why would anyone be down here?
Cutter didn't believe in coincidence. He didn't believe in chance. If something didn't feel right, it was wrong. There was something wrong in Baulkham Hills.
His head whipped around with the sound. There. There she is. Anyone with her? He could see no one. Still, he kept his options open as he moved forward a little to greet the guest.
'Henry?' she said, doubt in her eyes.
Now that was a surprise. No one knew he was here. She didn't look like a cop. Maybe a friend of his landlord – had Karen told people about him already?
'My name is Chloe Farrell,' she said, extending her hand. 'I'm an investigative journalist working on the southwest Sydney home invasion case. I wondered if we could speak for a few moments?'
He took her hand, breathed with her for a few beats. He had to blink to break the spell.
'To me? What about?' He walked closer to his door.
'I don't know whether you're aware, Henry, but the police think you might know something that could help them with the case.'
'Did you get my address from the police?' he asked, putting his key into the lock on his door.
'No,' she smiled. 'I'm pretty sure they don't know you live here. Don't be angry, now,' she said with a big smile. Her teeth are so white, he thought. 'I got your address from the sweet lady at your old house in Cabramatta. Is she your grandmother?'
Cutter grinned and the girl stepped back a little. He lowered the wattage.
'Yes, that's my grandma. Look, I don't think I can help you with any of this, but I wouldn't mind knowing what's going on. You want to come in for a moment and we can talk for a bit?'
28
JILL SAT UP quickly in bed and wished she hadn't. A ribbon of pain that began in her neck and extended down one shoulder pulled her back down to her pillow. After falling quickly into a deep and dreamless sleep within twenty minutes of arriving home from Gabriel's last night, she'd awoken at three a.m. feeling she was drowning. She'd spent the next fifteen minutes blowing her nose, and the hour after that punching her pillow into some kind of shape conducive to sleeping again. She'd ended with the pillow bunched high under her neck, a position that always left her sore the next morning.
Sunday. She could not believe that just a week had passed since she and Scotty had packed her belongings at Maroubra police station. So much had happened. They'd uncovered a lot of important information about the home invasion gang, but they still had no one in custody, and had yet to interview a suspect.
She wondered what Scotty was doing today, and smiled, certain that he would wonder the same thing about her at some stage today. Usually they went for a run or a long bike ride together on Sundays. She thought about the butterfly pendant in her underwear drawer, the jewellery so unlike her. She smiled again, but the back of her throat suddenly ached with sadness. She hoped that the butterfly did not symbolise her relationship with Scotty: a fragile, beautiful, brief life. She considered all of the relationships she'd had. Her habit had been to flit from one to the next, alighting briefly, fluttering away with any minor disturbance or change in the wind. And she'd been so careful with Scotty, never allowing more than a friendship, to try to preserve what they had together as partners at work.
So. She should do something with her day off. She could go out to Camden and see her family – she'd love to see her niece and nephew right now. Even with a red nose and headache, it would be great to have little Lily sitting with her on the bed, prattling on about the most important things in the world to her – frogs, her best friend Tracey Timmons, her Bratz dolls. But Jill could not imagine getting in the car and driving that far.
She could call Scotty. He'd love to see her, and she realised that she missed him a lot. Most weeks for the past couple of years they'd seen each other six or even seven days a week. She convinced herself that she wouldn't call because he'd want to do a bike ride, or a swim, and she didn't feel well enough today. She quickly pushed aside the real reason she wouldn't call: she couldn't bear it if the awkwardness that had ended every past relationship suddenly materialised between them.
She pulled her knees up to her chin, unwilling yet to get out of bed and face the day. She should be able to call a girlfriend, catch up for lunch, she thought. That's what other people did with their weekends. The fact that she didn't have close friends had never bothered her until the last six months or so. In the past, there'd only been time for training and work, but even with her obsessive dedication, they had been mere hobbies compared to her fulltime occupation: keeping herself safe. Safety entailed distance from others. The fewer people you let into your heart, the less likely that one of them would rip and shred and tear it to pieces.
She sighed. Although she'd killed Alejandro Sebastian – the man who'd kidnapped and raped her as a child – his legacy lived on. She'd hoped that his death would burst the bubble that had simultaneously protected and alienated her from the world. Over the past few months she'd thought the bubble was becoming a little more permeable, but she could still feel its barricades at the periphery of her psyche.
The thought of the schnapps at Gabriel's last night suddenly rose like a spectre in front of her. Changing routines meant losing control. She thought about a story the therapist, Mercy Merris, had told her when she had been forced to have counselling several years ago. Mercy had spoken of a Vietnam veteran who'd been an inpatient at the hospital where she worked. The man had seemed to be fitting in well, participating in group sessions and joining in the 'veranda therapy' with the other vets, who swapped jokes and cigarettes, life lessons and sometimes their meds.
One day Mercy had seen the man sitting alone by the rose garden with his head in his hands. She'd approached and asked him what was wrong. The look in his eyes had been wretched.
'What are you people fucking doing to me?' the man had demanded. 'Don't you know I've killed people?'
Mercy had told Jill that the question had surprised her. She'd been working with this man so he knew very well that she was aware he had killed people.
He'd continued, 'I've been fucking laughing over there!', pointing to the veranda behind them. 'If I let my guard down like that, who knows what the fuck I'll do next? I've killed people – if you try to get me to start feeling again, what if I can't control that part of me?'
Although Jill had understood the man's dilemma when Mercy had first related the story, its meaning was deeper for her now. Her life had so long been lived in absolutes that she was not sure she could tolerate the shades of grey that other people seemed to accept. The one glass of liquor last night would be just that to anyone else, but for Jill it could mean that she'd just taken her first step into the alcoholic spiral she had lived through for a year in her adolescence. It had always been all or nothing for her.
She got out of bed, the cramp in her neck finally demanding a stretch. She picked her tissue box up from the nightstand and walked with it to her loungeroom, slipping between the blinds and sliding the balcony door open a crack. She couldn't smell the surf through her blocked nose, but the sea breeze slapped her in the face. She took a few deep gulps of the cool morning air.
It wasn't just the alcohol. Other rituals were blurring, too. The exercise, for one. It was now every second day. Was that enough? Could she still fight for her life? Did she still need to? And then there was Gabriel. A week, she'd known him, and last night she had been drinking at his house. If someone had told her a week ago the way she would spend last night, she'd have laughed in their face.
She made up her mind. Despite th
is head cold, she couldn't spend the whole day inside feeling miserable. She needed some groceries and she wasn't going to let the day go by without some form of exercise. She quickly showered and dressed in leggings and a long-sleeved tee-shirt.
The Maroubra shopping centre was an easy three-kilometre walk. Jill wasn't going to do easy. No way she'd allow herself to get weak, she decided. She'd go to Eastgardens at Pagewood, and she'd take the long route, via Matraville.
When her feet hit the pavement outside her unit block, she started to run. Habit. At first, her lungs burned with the effort, and her feet felt heavy, but by the time she got to Beauchamp Road, she had found her rhythm and zoned out the pain.
Her thoughts turned again to the case. She considered the answers she wanted to get out of Joss Preston-Jones and Isobel Rymill tomorrow. The time had come for them to stop screwing around. In full flight at the Anzac Parade intersection at South Maroubra, she didn't bother to stop at the lights. Dodging through the traffic, it suddenly occurred to her that Joss and his wife could be in danger. She hit the pavement on the other side of the intersection. If Joss had recognised Cutter wearing a balaclava, surely it was possible, even probable, that Cutter had recognised him.
She thought about what she told most victims who were worried about offenders coming back to find them after they'd been robbed or attacked. The adrenalin rush the criminal experienced during the act of crime typically diminished their memory for incidental details of the crime scene. These incidental details included the features of their victims. She'd seen survivors sell their homes within weeks, quit their jobs, leave the state, even their families, afraid that the offenders would return and attack again, certain they were still on a hit list. When she spoke to the perps, however, Jill noticed that most of them wouldn't have a clue that their targets were still petrified that they'd be back. Most of the time, Jill's words didn't comfort the victims. Hell, her behaviour over the last twenty years indicated that she didn't believe them herself.
And the stakes were higher in this case. Cutter and his crew had committed murder. There were witnesses. If they believed that those witnesses could send them to gaol, they might try to return and take them out.
Heading downhill now, Jill ramped up the pace and felt her drug of choice – endorphins – kick in. She considered whether telling the couple about this risk might convince them to open up to her. She had no real evidence of a threat to their safety – in fact, she decided, the events so far would indicate otherwise. The offenders had done nothing to harm Joss at the time of the home invasion. Surely if he'd recognised Joss, Henry Nguyen would have taken him out that night? Jill knew that during robberies, mass murder would sometimes take place when the armed robber had gone too far and accidentally killed someone at the scene. Realising that the consequences of being caught were now far worse, sometimes the perps went postal and took out all of the witnesses.
After the five-kilometre run, she automatically took her pulse out the front of the sprawling Eastgardens shopping complex. A little higher than usual. She waited outside the huge glass doors for a moment, letting her heartbeat slow. She detested crowds, and she knew that she didn't need any extra stimulation when she entered the centre.
It seemed as though the spring weather had created a nesting frenzy. It looked like people had come from all over Sydney today to purchase their summer fashions, new cushions or a barbecue. She knew from her mother that around this time of year people started to think about a new lounge suite or plasma TV to impress their Christmas visitors. Hell, Jill thought, as she looked around her, some of these people would probably have their Christmas present lists on them. In October! Jill usually bought her presents on the twenty-third of December. She had promised herself she would use the internet to do her Christmas shopping this year, but she guessed she probably wouldn't get around to it.
Breathing normally again, she followed a twenty-something couple in through the doors. They held hands, but the woman was a step ahead of her man, her face shining, entering her Sunday house of worship.
Jill just needed some fresh vegies. She'd get fish, milk and coffee locally, but the vegetables were better in the larger centres. Music poured out of a huge boutique to her left and she paused. She really liked this song. The mannequins in the window angled bony hips and arrogant eyes down at her. Summer dresses. Full, floaty fabrics held onto bare shoulders by impossibly thin shoestring straps. Jill couldn't imagine herself wearing something that offered so little protection from the outside world. The jewelled colours conjured images of cocktails by the pool, tropical birds, sunsets and balmy evening Christmas parties. A world Jill wasn't part of. She knew there were others in the community also barred entry to this world, who malevolently resented its inhabitants. Isolated, violent males, who took this rejection personally, plotted revenge against girls who wore dresses like these. 'Paint it Black', the Rolling Stones song, came to her mind – for some people the bright summer clothes brought forward their darkest fantasies.
The opening notes of another track that Jill liked came from the boutique's sound system. She stepped inside and immediately regretted it. She usually purchased her clothing from Myer or David Jones a couple of times a year, shopping in the middle of the week to avoid the crowds. She felt safe in the spacious, quiet department stores. A salesgirl buzzed straight over to her, shining and glossy, almost fizzing with energy. Jill felt snotty and dull in comparison.
'Good morning! Are you having a good day so far?'
The girl was a riot of belts and bangles, piercings and hair fudge. She probably wouldn't sit her Higher School Certificate until next year or the year afterwards. Jill was awed by such confidence in someone so new.
Just looking, thanks, was her automatic response to salespeople, but for some reason she decided to try something on. Maybe it was the music. Or the braces on the girl's teeth, worn like jewellery. Jill admired her self-confidence. And maybe she needed some new clothes.
Forty minutes later, Jill finally made her way to the greengrocers.
She took a different route home, down Maroubra Road and past the police station. She wondered who was in there today and what she would have been working on over the past week had she stayed there. The thought made her think about the movie Sliding Doors. If she'd worked at Maroubra as usual over the past six days, she would never have met Gabriel. She had already learned so much from him, and the thought gratified her. Despite her discomfort around him – the ridiculous discomfort of being comfortable – she looked forward to working the rest of the case with him. She resolved again to ask him more about assignments he'd worked in the past and how he'd come to be seconded to the taskforce.
The case had become all about Cutter, she realised, as she ran downhill towards the sea. The brutality of the crimes had led them naturally to focus upon the one man depicted by all the witnesses as the gang leader and the most violent. Trying to find him was their main priority. She wondered whether that was limiting their scope. She knew that the detectives who'd worked the cases before the establishment of the taskforce had looked pretty hard at trying to identify other members of the crew. They had one other name at least, Mouse. In the interview with Joss and Isobel tomorrow, she would focus at least some questions on trying to learn more about these other people.
She rifled mentally through other cases, trying to glean something from them that could help with this one. In her experience, home invasions were usually one-off events committed by somebody who knew the occupants of the house and that something of value was kept at that residence. Sometimes, it was a member of the victim's community who'd learned that the homeowner had a safe in which they kept cash from their business, or jewellery they'd inherited. At other times, a punter who'd come good and shouted the wrong person at the local would find their winnings gone by daybreak, often while they slept the night off. And plenty of Harley-Davidson riders had woken to a gun to their head and a demand for their keys in the middle of the night. Jill remembered one incident
where the owner had refused, and had been gutshot by a bikie in his living room in front of his wife and kids.
These robberies were different. They appeared to be organised along some other lines. The stolen items of value were typical of any burglary, but there didn't seem to be any other obvious link between the hits. She knew that the previous detectives had investigated any tradies that the victims might have had in common – a plumber or an electrician who might have visited all of the residences and used the chance to scope the house for security and valuables. They hadn't come up with a link. She wondered whether other professions had been considered – even an accountant, a kid's tutor or a gardener could have had a son or a boyfriend, a cousin or a brother who was a criminal and had used their connections to get to the next victim. She added another task to her list: ensuring that all service providers had been meticulously looked at for connections between the victims.
The final stretch home was uphill. Good. Jill imagined the sweat cleaning out the germs in her system. When she reached Maroubra Junction, she decided to stop for the last few items on her shopping list. She bought a chicken from a butcher's shop on Maroubra Road, and a sourdough loaf from the bakery. Walking the rest of the way home, carrying her latest purchases, she thought about the chicken soup she'd decided to make for lunch. Her mum would be proud.
Back in her unit, Jill piled the food onto the benchtop and then went into her bedroom to put her new clothes away. Her brow creased while hanging up the filmy tops and the sundress she had purchased. They looked nothing like the rest of her outfits. She scowled at them, and shut the wardrobe door. Maybe she would be wearing Scotty's pretty pendant soon! She stripped off her running gear and took a quick shower. Her nose had cleared a little, but she still felt stuffy; the scented steaminess of the warm water helped a lot.
In a soft tee-shirt, boxer shorts, and squashy socks, Jill returned to her kitchen to cook. She diced carrots, onion and celery, and sweated them in a little olive oil and salt in her biggest stockpot. She added boiling water, a couple of bay leaves and the chicken, looking forward to having the soup with a squeeze of lemon juice in a couple of hours. In the meantime, she cut a hunk of the bread and toasted it, then slathered it with strawberry jam. She took the toast and a pot of green tea out to the balcony.
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