The sound of gulls calling blew back on the salty seaweed breeze; the sound left her feeling inexplicably sad. She pictured them, endlessly wheeling over the ocean, crying. She'd never understood people's aversion to seagulls. Beady-eyed greedy devils, scavengers, some called them, pelting them with rocks, tossing cigarette butts at them, pretending to offer chips or bread. Jill could feed them by the hour, ignoring the baleful stares of others who didn't want to share the beach with the birds. She'd grown skilled at aiming the bread so that the crippled gulls got there first – those hopping on one leg, the fishing line that had strangled their other limb still trailing; those with one eye, or a hook gleaming through their cheek or their beak. The fatter birds stared at her, indignant: these rejects were the walking dead. Feeding them is pointless; life is for living. But she saw gratitude in the shiny black eyes of the wounded birds, or she imagined she did.
She scratched compulsively at her ankles with her toes, then stood, walked back into her apartment. Her thoughts turned to the story Gabriel had told her at lunchtime, but she deflected them. They'd spent every day together for the past week. She could spend a night without thinking about him. As usually happened when she thought about Gabriel, Scotty popped into her mind; she imagined him now, laughing eyes smiling down at her. She picked up the phone.
Maybe he feels like a run or something, she thought, dialling.
Idiot. Idiot. The word was now a mantra. Jill mentally repeated it over and over as she smiled self-consciously from her corner of the backyard.
You've gotta come, Scotty had told her. You're not doing anything else. You know my parents. It's just them and my sister. It's nothing, just a barbecue in the backyard.
She clutched a wine glass to her chest, trying to use it as a shield to cover herself in her flimsy new dress. Idiot. What the hell had she put this on for? At least she'd removed the butterfly pendant at the last minute before getting out of the car.
'This is new.' Scotty now stood at her side, barefoot in boardshorts and a white windcheater that highlighted his almost permanent suntan. Her bare arms left her feeling naked.
'Don't start,' she warned.
'Oh. I didn't mean the dress,' he said, 'although now you mention it . . .' He grinned and lightly fingered one of the flimsy straps. She shrugged away, half-smiling, tempted to spin and snap-kick as she usually did when he teased in this manner. That probably would not go down so well at this backyard barbie, nor in this dress.
'I mean the wine,' he said.
'Yeah, well,' she said. 'So?' She took another sip.
'Nothing. I'm glad you're here. So you've almost caught this crazy fucker, huh?'
'Well, we know who a couple of them are. The one we want is Henry Nguyen.'
'Yeah, I heard. Maroubra got updated this morning. The whole city's looking for him.'
Scotty's stepfather, Rob, stood at the barbecue turning the steaks over and over, beer in hand. Scotty's sister's fiancé stood with him, talking and laughing. She could see Scotty's mother and sister, Rhiannon, illuminated behind a flyscreen, spotlit by the kitchen lights. Earlier, standing with them there, trying to help with the salads, she'd felt compelled to pull the blinds, knowing she could be seen but could not see out. Rhiannon, perhaps sensing her discomfort, had pressed a white wine into her hands and shooed her out the door. The wine was ice-cold, and she'd not noticed the first glass going down. She tried to sip more slowly at this second one.
'So, do you like it out there?' Scotty wanted to know.
'I don't know.' Suddenly tired of standing so stiffly, she dropped into the suspended swing seat next to her. Scotty sat down beside her. 'It's not so bad,' she continued. 'Better than I thought it would be.'
'I heard your new partner's a Fed.'
'Been checking up on me, Hutchinson?'
'What was his name again – Gloria? Gabrielle? I heard he's a bit, ah, eccentric.'
'Funny. That's the New South Wales Police Force for you, isn't it? Someone doesn't act exactly the same as everyone else and they've got to be a weirdo.' She pushed her feet against the pavers, stopping the movement of the chair. The slight swing of the seat was making her dizzy.
'You're pretty protective of him already,' he said.
'Yeah, well you're being pretty predictable.'
'What does that mean?'
'The whole testosterone thing – mine's bigger than his.' She drained her glass and put it down on the cushion next to her. Scotty picked it up again.
She stood, needing firm ground beneath her. 'I don't want to argue tonight, Scotty. Do you want to go down to the beach before dinner?'
'I'll just get my thongs.'
Scotty unlocked the gate at the rear of the garden and led Jill down the steep, sandy stairway behind the property. Jutting roots from wind-blasted shrubs twisted up through the sand, and she hooked a hand into the waistband of his boardies for balance as they negotiated the shadowy steps.
When they reached the bottom, the bushes gave way onto a sheltered cove. Jill hadn't been down here at night before. The glow from a pale, fat moon washed with every wavelet onto the quiet beach. A couple of anglers, highlighted by moonlight, sat on the rocks to their right. A fragment of their discussion reached Jill as she stepped into the cool sand, carrying her sandals; the distance between them scattered their words in the wind.
The sea air was deliciously cool on her hot cheeks and Jill breathed deeply, padding down to the shoreline. Whipped around by the breeze, she had to keep pushing tendrils of hair from her eyes and mouth. She walked, head down, watching her footprints melt back into the liquid sand at the edge of the ocean. She didn't realise she was smiling.
A shout from the fishermen caused Jill to look up, and she saw Scotty standing there, staring at her. He held her shoes. Huh. She must've dropped them.
'What're you looking at?' She smiled up at him.
With one long stride, he stood immediately before her.
'You're beautiful.'
So quietly. Did he really say that?
He dropped her sandals by his feet. Jill stood immobile in the sand, acutely aware of every sound and movement. Scotty reached out and caught a wayward strand of hair from her face, wrapped it around a finger.
Jill stopped breathing. Suddenly she knew exactly what she wanted. Scott Hutchinson. Now.
'Scotty.' She reached up and wrapped her hands around his neck, pulled his face down to hers. She closed her eyes, her lips parted.
Nothing happened.
Her eyes snapped open. Scotty's mouth was a whisper from hers, his lips curved in a small smile.
'What are you doing?' he said.
'I would've thought that was obvious,' she answered, trying to pull him still closer.
'You know, Jackson,' his mouth almost touched her own, 'we could've been doing this every night for the past year.'
'So, we're doing it now. Shh. Too much talking.'
'Except tonight you've been drinking.'
She dropped her hands, stepped backwards. Suddenly freezing, she wrapped her arms around her body.
'You think I'm drunk?' she said.
'Look, Jill, not drunk, but . . . wait!'
She snatched up her sandals and strode through the sand.
'I don't want it to be an excuse,' he called after her, 'a mistake. I don't want you to regret this tomorrow and freeze me out. Would you frigging wait a second – you're going the wrong way!'
What was the right way? Humiliated tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt ridiculous and so exposed in this dress. She would never get stuff like this right.
31
EXTRA POLITE. SHE hated it when they were especially civil to one another.
For her part, Isobel had to be courteous in order to censor the screaming shrew who wanted to tear strips from her husband. How could he go to Cabramatta to look for that psychopath? What else, she wondered, have you been doing that I don't know about? Why did you ever hang around that freak in the first place? Why didn't you kill him
when we were at Andy's? Instead, she asked, 'Can I get you a drink of something, hon?' She'd just tucked Charlie in for the night.
'No, that's okay, babe,' he said, mid-lift on a shoulder press using his hand weights. She knew he hated to talk when he was in the middle of a set. Hence her question right now.
'I'll get something later,' he added, his deltoids distended, a vein bulging in his neck.
I'm sure you will, she thought. It usually took three reminders to get Joss to take out the recycling. He'd taken the bottles out four nights in a row now. The hundred-litre recycling bin was full of his empties.
At the mirror in their bathroom, she carefully cleansed her face, pretending not to notice the new creases of worry around her eyes. She toned and moisturised, then brushed her teeth. Please God let them catch him, please God let them catch him. A mental hymn in tune with the rhythm of the electric toothbrush. She gargled the same song.
Tidying the bathroom a little, Isobel thought about the night ahead. She knew she'd find it difficult to sleep – replaying their interview at the police station, Joss's answers, the warnings of the detectives. She wondered whether she should take Charlie up to north Queensland. Probably. But what about Joss? Despite the fact that he'd managed to open up to the police, could she trust him to behave rationally down here alone? And she knew he wouldn't come with her. The inner tussle already tightening her stomach, she reached for the yellow pills at the back of the medicine drawer. Left over from minor surgery, the opiates would get her at least a few hours of dead sleep. She swallowed two with a handful of water from the tap, grimacing when one stuck on the way down.
She pulled on shortie pyjamas and climbed into bed. Twenty minutes later, she was snoring through a magazine on her face.
A hand over her mouth. The blood blasted from her toes to her crown in the split-second before she recognised Joss's face above her own. His eyes hard, unrelenting. Telling her: they are here. No fucking around. It's fight or die.
All without words.
Our baby, his eyes said next. I'm going to get her.
He took his hand from her mouth. Gave her the bat. Remember the lessons.
With the thought of her baby in that man's hands, the strength that ran through Isobel's body left her wanting to bite, tear flesh with her teeth. She positioned herself behind the door. The bat felt spongy in her hands; she felt she could snap it in two. Already furious with the fuckers for taking so long to get to her, she practised seeing the blood spray from a head, wiping it quickly from her eyes to swing again.
When the massacre had first started, Joss had been careful to step around the bodies. Even when the mounds at Kibeho had grown so wide that there was nowhere else to walk than over the dead and dying, he would try to avoid treading on a hand or a leg on his way to pull another breathing person out of the pile. By the end of the third day, however, he marched over dead faces, strode through brains, stepped straight onto balls. There was no other way to get around.
Now, Joss moved silently through the darkness of his home, ignoring the hands grappling at his ankles, moving through the body parts. His own hand was finally whole again, holding his knife. He heard it laughing and he smiled back at it, his teeth flashing in the dark.
I'm coming, Cutter.
Leaning against a counter in Joss's kitchen, Cutter stared at his diluted reflection in the glass of a cabinet. While he listened to the quiet movements above him, he allowed himself some time to think about what he was going to do to Mouse. He couldn't believe the fucker wouldn't come tonight, that he didn't know his fate for turning Cutter down.
He selected a toothpick from a tiny bowl on the counter next to him, and worked at some food caught in his teeth. As usual, when using a toothpick, he couldn't resist the urge to press the sharp thing deep into the softest crevice of the gum, the agony mushrooming a feeling he equated to what love must feel like. He sucked happily at the metallic tang of his blood.
Studying the now slimy wooden splinter in his hand, it occurred to him that he should use the needles on Mouse. Perfect. He sucked the toothpick dry before placing it on the bench. Lately, he couldn't get enough of that taste.
He needed to hurry now. He walked into the loungeroom carrying the twelve-litre container in one hand and the machete in the other. He slashed a few times at the couch in the centre of the room and began sloshing the accelerant over the furniture.
Esterhase could see no way out of it. He felt sick, his limbs rubbery. He'd been pissing his shit out for over a week. Everything he ate turned to water. And his gut ached. He rubbed it unconsciously as he stood silently in the upstairs hallway of the house in Balmain.
Cutter had explained about Joss. Esterhase still felt disbelief. He hadn't even recognised him when they'd done over that house in Green Valley. But Joss was only part of the problem. Man, the whole thing was so fucked up. If he killed Cutter, this prick Joss still knew too much. And if he didn't do this job with Cutter, the cunt would completely schiz and he'd be next. Mouse had better be packing for Vietnam right now, he thought. Cutter had just smiled when he told him Huynh wouldn't be coming. Esterhase had nearly shit his pants just looking at him.
He breathed in the dark, his heart hammering. Too many things could go wrong. Who knew when Mouse would break, or when Cutter would get them all caught. He had to do this job tonight, and then he was getting the fuck out of the state. Shit, maybe he'd even go to New Zealand.
Esterhase stood in the dark thinking about what he had to do tonight. He bent forward slightly as the fist in his gut squeezed at his innards.
Isobel had thought it impossible for her heart rate to increase further until she heard the furtive footsteps stop outside the room. She'd spent a few moments agonising over the possibility that Joss could return quietly to the bedroom and she might hit him by mistake, but she knew now as certainly as if there were no door between them that the person standing out there was not her husband.
The corridor outside the double doors was black; the light in the bedroom with her, slightly brighter. She stared so hard at the rind of darkness that she thought she was imagining it when the door finally began to move. Terror wrestled with rage; her senses focused, and she squeezed the bat harder. Ready.
The scream of a siren split the air and Isobel recognised their fire alarm a heartbeat before the door flew open and her nightmare barged in. While the siren shrieked, the dance between her and the masked man seemed silent, slow.
I'm sorry Joss, she said internally. I let him get closer than a metre.
Somehow, the man had got hold of the end of the bat. He raised the knife above his head. Isobel could almost feel the pain in her shoulder where she imagined it would slice into her. Her daughter's blue eyes danced in her vision and she sobbed goodbye. Then, with the strength of a grief beyond anything she had ever experienced, she drove the bat forward into the chest of the man in front of her, propelling him three feet across the room. She felt the movement of his weapon as it fell past her ear. She considered picking it up, but, bent double, he was already preparing to move forward again.
Instead, she went to meet him.
Isobel lifted the bat above her shoulder and kept her eye on the ball, just as her brothers had taught her. She swung, the bat slamming into his temple, the thud shuddering up her arms and into her neck, causing her to bite her tongue.
With the fire alarm sobbing in her ears and blood from her tongue on her lips, Isobel spoke quietly to the man unconscious in her bedroom. She ignored the smoke swirling around her feet and his body.
'You leave my family alone,' she told him. 'You leave us alone.'
He didn't move, but she kept the bat close, and bent down to him. The fire alarms bawled for attention: it seemed as though there had never been silence. She was aware of a heat somewhere behind the doors, but she had to know. Carefully at first, and then scratching, clawing, she ripped at the balaclava covering the face in front of her.
The skin at his temple was already beginning to b
ulge. Somehow, she knew that his brains were leaking out of a fracture in his skull. The long dark hair curled into the hollows of his neck, like snakes nesting comfortably with the spider tattoos.
He had carried the other children through the carnage, crying, just like this, crooked in his right arm. Joss couldn't hear his daughter's sobs over the sirens, but he felt them, wet, against his shoulder. The alarms deafened him, just as the mortars had, but he was well practised at relying on his other senses. He stayed close to the wall, moving slowly, ignoring the bodies at his feet – back from Charlie's room to the bedroom, to Isobel.
The balaclava walked out of the smoke.
And they faced each other.
He manoeuvred Charlie a little higher. Her legs clung to him, terrified. Inconsolable at being woken from her sleep by this noise, she buried her face deeper into his neck. She didn't see the shock in the masked man's eyes when he saw that his opponent carried a little girl.
Joss smiled at him. The sight seemed to confound the man further. The enemy shifted his machete in his hand.
Joss knew somehow, with certainty, that this was not Cutter. This fact heightened his impatience. He willed the man to act.
The enemy signalled to Joss to raise his hands. Joss walked forward, quickly, still grinning, watching the other's eyes widen with anger, disbelief, watching him raise the machete, wave it, a warning.
Joss kept his left hand pressed tight against his leg until they stood eye to eye. He watched the other's internal dialogue – this guy's crazy! Should I do something? He's holding a kid! The fucking house is on fire!
Joss studied the eyes even more closely when he plunged his knife into the masked man's diaphragm. As awareness dilated the enemy's pupils, Joss angled his body sideways a little, turning Charlie's body towards the wall. The blade of his knife buried in the other man's gut, Joss felt his opponent's heart beat in his hand. He stared intimately into the other man's eyes and pulled the knife upwards.
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