‘A gang of men kidnapped Thieu when he was walking home from school. I usually walked home with him, but that day I’d been hanging out with some other kids, smoking on the back oval, trying to be cooler than I was, I suppose. We got busted, had detention and I wasn’t there.
‘They beat him up and held him for ransom, but his parents couldn’t come up with the sort of money they wanted. Three days later a property valuer was inspecting a vacated premises in Doveton and found Thieu’s body.’
‘Oh god, Sean.’
‘Those sort of gangs target their own people knowing they won’t go to the police after what they’ve been through with the authorities back home. I suppose what’s always haunted me is that after they kidnapped and beat him up they left him alone in this deserted house. He wasn’t restrained and his injuries weren’t immediately life threatening. He could have walked out of there at any time and got help.’
‘Why didn’t he?’ I think I already knew the answer.
‘The theory is that the gang’s psychological tactics of fear and intimidation were more effective than any rope or chain.
They would have told Thieu that if he escaped they would not only torture and kill him, but his parents and his younger brother and sister.’
‘Were the gang ever caught?’
‘No. Maybe if I’d been with him that day I could have identified them, though.’
‘You can’t feel guilty you weren’t there. You might have been killed.’
‘But I do feel guilty about the rest of the week. Thieu wasn’t at school for the next three days and not once did I go around to his house to see if he was alright. I was relieved he wasn’t there.
After the smoking and detention thing I was hanging out with the cool kids. You know what it’s like when you’re fourteen. If I’d had him trailing around after me it would have been all over. Of course it was all over when they found the body. I went to pieces, left school for a while.’
I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept stroking his hair. He was quiet too.
Eventually I said, ‘You still want to hear my story? It seems pretty shallow and unimportant compared to what you just told me.’
He didn’t reply. Turning my head I realised he was asleep.
I studied his face and his freckled arms coming out of rolled-up sleeves. An expansive feeling welled in my chest. Not lust, exactly, something else. I settled my head on his shoulder. My eyes were just beginning to close when I heard a light tap and saw the door open a crack.
Alex stuck his head in, saw Sean next to me on the bed and started to withdraw, but I waved him in. He wore a black suit and walked softly, carrying a bunch of tiger lilies wrapped in thick brown paper and pink raffia. Definitely not from the hospital gift shop, they filled the antiseptic room with a delicate, tropical scent.
He placed them on the side table and whispered, ‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’ He looked at Sean. ‘Poor guy was sitting up with you all night. You look tired too. I’d better go.’
‘I wanted to ask you a favour,’ I whispered back. ‘My licence hearing’s on Monday at two, in your building. Any chance you can come along for some moral support?’
He nodded. ‘Sure.’
I reached my arm across Sean. Alex stretched his arm too and our fingers touched, briefly. He smiled, looked like he was about to say something, then decided against it and turned and walked out the door.
Chapter Forty-two
Eleven days later it was Sunday and I was hanging around my flat.
I hadn’t done much else since they’d released me from hospital, except get my hair cut into long layers and drive Sean to the airport.
We’d had one perfect day together before he left, just hanging out, goofing off. At the end of it he’d fucked me unbearably slowly and gently on account of my injuries and every time I thought back to it I just about came. Usually I was a hard and fast girl. Maybe I was expanding my repertoire.
The intercom bleated and I ignored it. Journalists. I’d also switched off my mobile and unplugged the phone. They’d forget about me soon as the next big scandal came along. Obviously it hadn’t yet, ’cause the damn thing kept going.
I snatched up the receiver. ‘For fuck’s sake, this is harassment.’
‘Mate!’ It was Chloe. I didn’t particularly feel like seeing anyone, but buzzed her in. A few moments later she was at the front door with Curtis. She carried plastic shopping bags full of deli goods and he held a bottle of cheap champagne. ‘It’s a beautiful day.
We’re taking you on a picnic!’
I made the effort to smile and felt one corner of my mouth lift, slightly. ‘Thanks, guys, but I’m not in the mood for going anywhere.’
‘Then the picnic will come to you,’ she said, marching into the kitchen before I could stop her. Curtis smiled and shrugged.
I pressed play on the CD Sean had burned for me before he left, then flopped onto the couch.
Curtis took the armchair. ‘Thanks for putting me onto Sean’s place. It’s going great.’
I grunted noncommittally.
Chloe returned from the kitchen with a platter. Brie, smoked salmon and salami surrounded a central pile of water crackers. ‘I’ll just get some glasses.’
‘None for me, thanks,’ I said. ‘Antibiotics.’
‘What? How long’s it been?’
‘Twelve days. Two to go.’
‘Shit.’ She went to the kitchen and returned with two glasses and the travel bong and dope tin she stashed since I was such an inadequate hostess. She sat cross-legged on the floor and Curtis poured them both a glass while she packed herself a cone. ‘Twelve days. Are you alright … mentally?’ The water bubbled as she took a huge pull.
‘Not really.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ she said in the strangled tones of someone attempting to speak and hold in smoke. ‘This fucking music’s making me want to slit my wrists. Can I change it?’
‘No!’ I shouted. ‘This is a classic. This is “Every Time We Say Goodbye”. It was playing at the airport … the last time I saw Sean.’ Tears burned my eyes. Not good.
‘You’re depressed.’
‘My life is shit, I’m not depressed. There’s a difference.’
She crawled over to the couch and gave me a shake. ‘Your life’s not shit. Sean’s coming back and you’ll keep your licence. I’m psychic. I know these things.’
‘And what about Emery Wade? He been charged with anything?’ I looked at Curtis.
‘Not yet. Although I have heard some very interesting rumours about him.’
‘Really?’ I propped myself up on one elbow and Chloe crawled back to her bong.
He sat forward in his seat, animated now. ‘I’ve been having talks with a major publishing house about a book on the case, getting together a bit of background material. Juicy stuff—pity I can’t use it.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
‘You know how Emery wrecked his knee?’
‘Playing football?’
‘Nuh. Car crash when he was eighteen. Friend driving was fine, but Wade had to be cut out of the car. Shattered kneecap and head injury. In a coma for a week.’
‘So?’
‘A year later to the day the driver had another smash. Died.’
‘Spooky.’ I did ‘The Twilight Zone’ theme.
‘Then there’s the car crash that killed his dad and left his mum a vegetable.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Hey,’ He shrugged. ‘It came at a good time for Wade. He’d overextended himself in the property market and buying flash cars. You know the whole eighties ‘greed is good’ thing? Well, he was fucked, on the verge of bankruptcy. He wanted to take over the firm but Perry, his dad, refused to retire. His mother Elizabeth didn’t approve of him marrying Susan, an ex-model, divorced with a young child. Very “Days of our Lives”. They weren’t going to help him financially unless he broke up with her. After the crash all his problems disappeared.’<
br />
‘Any proof he was involved in either accident?’
‘Nuh. Still, funny how anyone who fucks with Wade ends up dead.’
I’d been dwelling on that myself. ‘It’s a laugh a minute, Curtis, take it from me. Is Elizabeth still alive?’
‘Yeah, I visited her in this nursing home.’
‘She have anything to say?’
‘Man, I didn’t talk to her. One look and I could tell she was non compos mentis, all dribbling and shit. Nursing homes freak me, got out of there as soon as I could.’ He grabbed a cracker, piled it high with salami and cheese and started crunching. All of a sudden he coughed and his eyes bugged out.
Chloe leapt off the floor and whacked him on the back. ‘What is it, baby? Oh my god, are you alright?’ She smacked so hard the remaining biscuit flew out and landed on the rug. He just sat there with his mouth open and eyes wide, staring straight ahead.
‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Give me your hand?’ He said.
‘What?’
‘Just do it! Give me your hand.’
She stuck her palm out and he held her wrist and lowered it to the crotch of his trendy flat front pants.
‘Oh. My. God,’ she said.
Curtis was laughing ecstatically, practically weeping.
She turned to me. ‘Simone, I swear I will never ask you for anything again if you just let us—’
‘Go on.’ I waved toward my bedroom door. She whooped and dragged him down the hall.
‘Just one thing,’ I yelled.
‘What? Anything!’
‘The name of the nursing home Wade’s mother’s in?’
‘Bayside Aged Care,’ Curtis shouted from the bedroom. ‘Why?’
‘Who the fuck cares why?’ Chloe slammed the door.
Chapter Forty-three
The home was more Bentleigh than bayside, a sprawling single storey building off Centre Road constructed of pale brick and surrounded by privet hedges. I walked up the concrete ramp and entered a lobby with sickly green walls and a speckled vinyl floor.
I explained I was there to visit Elizabeth Wade, my long lost great-aunt, and a nurse with short grey hair, white shoes and a blue cardigan led me to her ward.
On the way down the corridor we passed old folks sitting in wheelchairs and the further we travelled into the facility the stronger the smell of urine and decay became. I glanced at a woman with sparse white hair, gnarled hands, and wrinkles like fissures. She looked back with hard blue eyes. A young woman’s eyes. I had an awful feeling that maybe, trapped inside the collapsing body, was a twenty-five year old, wondering how it could have come to this.
I imagined myself in the same situation, my pulse skyrocketed, and I quickly looked away. Straight into a tiled room on the other side of the corridor where a naked man with wasted legs and arms was strapped to a plastic chair, an orderly hosing him down. The orderly talked to him kindly, in tones you’d use with a child.
I’d thought Curtis was being harsh, but now I knew what he meant. I resolved to live fast and die young. Entirely possible the way things were going.
Elizabeth Wade’s ward had four beds, two on each side of the room. Hers was by a window overlooking the car park. The nurse drew the curtain and asked if I’d like a cup of tea. I said yes and sat on an orange plastic chair studying Emery’s mother. She was nearly bald, and through the few strands of grey plastered to her scalp I saw a jagged scar that ran from her crown to the corner of her left eye. One cheekbone was depressed and her toothless mouth gaped, exposing red gums. Her eyes, the same sea-grey as her son’s, were blank and dull.
The nurse came back with a plastic mug of sweet, milky tea, a Scotch Finger biscuit propped on the saucer. I took a sip and nearly gagged. The urine smell was so far up my nose the tea tasted like piss. I didn’t dare try the biscuit.
I kept breathing shallow and took Elizabeth Wade’s hand. The skin was loose and cool and the hand weighed nothing, like a dead bird. I cleared my throat then spoke softly.
‘Mrs. Wade. Elizabeth. My name’s Simone Kirsch and I’m having a bit of trouble with Emery, your son. He knocked off his stepdaughter, tried to have me killed and I’ve heard he’s responsible for your husband’s death and your current, um, condition. Thing is, no one can prove it, which is where you come in.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘Do you remember anything about the accident? Anything at all?’ I looked into the cloudy eyes. Her pupils did not waver. I kept my hand still in case she pressed back, gave some sign. Nothing.
Of course there was nothing. What the hell had I been thinking? Talk about clutching at straws. I’d obviously seen one too many movies where the catatonic patient is jolted out of their coma by a word, a phrase, the voice of the killer and sits up, wide eyed and gasping. Either that or I was completely losing it. Maybe the alcohol withdrawal was messing with my mind.
I had to face the fact that I was going to lose my licence, have to change my name and move to a caravan park in Bumfuck New South Wales where Wade couldn’t find me. I’d be able to get a job in the local supermarket and if I really applied myself and worked hard maybe, just maybe, I could work my way up to a managerial position in ten years. For some reason I couldn’t visualise a husband, but imagined having an affair with the guy who owned the local car dealership. Receding hair, big belly and gold chains.
Tears welled up as I felt sorry for myself again. Jesus. And I’d always thought I was such a tough chick. I tipped my head back and opened my eyes wide to stop the tears spilling. And that’s when I saw it, hanging from the curtain frame. An octagonal red feng shui mirror like I’d seen nailed above the doorway at Fong Chan Travel.
The nurse poked her head around the curtain. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, dear, but we’re about to serve lunch. You can come back when afternoon visiting starts.’
I rose from the chair, still eyeing the mirror. ‘Who put that there?’
‘Oh, the good luck charm? We’re really not supposed to have things hanging from the beds or railings but I couldn’t see the harm. It was Mrs. Wade’s only regular visitor. Comes in every Sunday at two on the dot. Lovely Chinese lady. Mrs. Chan.
Chapter Forty-four
I drove back to my place and when I got out of the Futura I could hear them going for it from the street. Chloe made love like other people got stabbed to death and I knew the body corporate was going to be bringing some grief my way in the next few days.
Inside the flat I grabbed some items I thought might come in handy, slipped them into a manila envelope then headed back to the nursing home to wait out of sight, across the road from the car park.
A couple of minutes to two a silver Holden Astra pulled up and Wu got out, dressed in a hot pink, shot silk suit. I took a couple of photos of her entering the building and when she emerged twenty minutes later I was leaning against her driver’s side door. I was shit scared but knew I had to suppress it and conjure ‘tough broad’. Hell, I could act. I used to work in the sex industry, for god’s sake.
‘Hey,Wu.’
She stopped, looked shocked for a second, then closed down her face and crossed her arms over her chest. Her nails were long and false, the same colour as the suit.
‘Simone Kirsch,’ I said. ‘You may remember me from such unmitigated disasters as the Tullamarine shootout.’
‘Get away from my car.’ Her voice was clipped. Up close her skin was flawless and although she must have been mid-forties she didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
‘Not until you tell me why you’ve visited Elizabeth Wade nearly every Sunday for the last two decades. I’ve been racking my brain and the only thing I can come up with is Emery must have hired you and Neville to do the hit on his folks and you’ve had a bad case of the guilts since then. Am I right?’
Her mouth was a hard line. Her eyes were hidden behind Gucci sunnies. ‘You’re crazy. Get away from my car or I’ll call the police.’
‘I’ve already spoken to them,’ I lied. ‘They’re after Wad
e and were very interested in my theory. They want to speak to you and are prepared to offer immunity from prosecution, and witness protection if you testify against Neville and Wade.’
Watching all those episodes of ‘Law and Order’ had served me well. I saw her hand start trembling and she licked her lips and looked around like a SWAT team was about to leap out from the shrubbery.
She said, ‘I wouldn’t speak out against the father of my child.’
‘That’s romantic and beautiful, Wu. Obviously you don’t know what he’s up to.’
I threw her the folder. ‘Go on, have a look. It’s Neville and your right hand woman, Ling Sun. I’ve also got transcripts of their conversation—he’s taking up with her. And that nest egg of cash you’ve got in your safe? They’re pissing off with it.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Take a look at the pictures.’
She flipped through and her nostrils flared. Her hands shook violently. ‘If Wade finds out I’m talking about him he’ll kill me and my son. I can’t.’
‘Well, you’re going to have to because if you don’t, I’ll tell him you have. You’re fucked either way.’
She stepped forward and slapped me once, very hard, on the face. I didn’t react. I was getting used to pain and, besides, I knew I deserved it.
‘Neville’s still in hospital, yeah? Think it over for a couple of hours then call me. My card’s with the photos.’ I moved away from the car and she got in and threw the folder on the passenger seat before gunning the engine and squealing off.
When I got home Curtis and Chloe had left. They’d changed my sheets and Chloe had left a thank you note in her customary loopy writing with hearts dotting the i’s. She’d even cracked a few windows to get the smell of sex out of the air. Considerate to a fault.
I called Alex for some advice but when his message bank clicked in decided not to leave one. He’d just scold me for going out on my own. Tony too. But if I had something concrete, well, they’d forgive my methods.
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