by Nicole Trope
There was silence on the other end of the phone. It was a humiliating question to have to answer.
‘If you are serious about your concern, Mrs Harrow, you are going to have to give me some more information.’
‘About five months ago,’ said the woman.
‘And what happened then?’
‘He gave me a black eye.’
‘He punched you in the eye?’
‘Yes, he said the chicken was overdone.’ The woman’s voice was flat.
There was no official reason to do anything. But the woman needed help. Lisa knew that she needed help.
‘Fine,’ said Lisa. ‘Give me your address. I’m going to send over someone to talk to you.’
‘Okay,’ said Liz. ‘Okay, thanks very much. Thanks.’
Lisa could hear the woman’s tears down the line.
‘Fuck,’ she thought as she put down the phone. The woman should have told her the real situation before. She would have done something. They could have begun actively searching. What was it with these women? Why, even after they had to walk around with a black eye and get themselves an AVO, did they still try to protect the bastard who hurt them? The woman should have come to the police before she separated from him. She should have got a lawyer involved and the system and then there would be no way the guy would be allowed to see the kid alone. Now look where they were. Legally Lisa didn’t have to do anything until the woman filed a report but something in her voice told Lisa this was the time to follow her instinct. This woman knew something was wrong. Lisa would bet she was still holding back some information.
She typed Alex Harrow into the computer but nothing came up.
It could mean one of two things: either the woman was bullshitting and her ex had never laid a hand on her, or she had never reported him at all. A lot of stuff got said when people split up, so she couldn’t discount the bullshitting option was probably the truth but just in case she would ask Rob to go by.
Rob would be happy to go.
It had been a slow day so far.
So far.
Senior Constable Robert Williams was in the back picking his teeth with a mangled paper clip. He hated days when there was nothing to do but wait for some crazy person to call. He was glad he hadn’t been the one to drive out to the dispute over Aunty Thelma’s necklace.
He had just put down the phone on Natalie, claiming an emergency.
‘I believe you do that whenever you don’t want to finish our discussions,’ she said.
‘Natalie, I’m a police officer. I have work to do. I’m telling you that I can’t afford to pay for soccer for Mark this month.’
‘He’s only six, Robert, and all his friends are doing it.’
‘Well maybe all his friends’ fathers aren’t cops trying to support two households. Why don’t you get you super boyfriend to pay for it?’
‘Oh fuck off, Robert—Mark isn’t his kid.’
‘Well then I guess Mark isn’t going to play soccer this year— and, may I add, fuck off to you too.’
The phone had clicked in his ear and he had sighed. The arguments between him and Natalie seemed to be getting more infantile with each passing month. He could quite possibly see a time when they would just stick their tongues out at each other instead of exchanging actual words. Divorce was supposed to get easier when all the papers were signed and everyone knew how things worked but it just seemed to be getting harder. He knew that Natalie would make sure that Mark was aware his father was the reason he couldn’t play soccer this season, but there was nothing he could do. Between the uniform and the boots and registration he was up for close to five hundred dollars and this month he needed to get the credit card sorted. Mark would understand. He would look at him with his big brown eyes and say, ‘It’s okay, Dad. I can wait.’
Fuck, the kid was only six years old. Sometimes he sounded older than his father. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with their parents’ bullshit but there was no way for them to avoid it. It was hard to believe that Natalie once thought he was the greatest man in the world. Now she just thought he was a waste of space who couldn’t afford to pay for soccer. He knew she was hurting as well when she couldn’t give the kids everything they wanted. He knew she was just as upset as he was, but somehow that understanding disappeared when they spoke to each other. After ten years of marriage and three kids all they seemed to have left was ‘fuck you’ and ‘fuck you too’. It was pretty pathetic and goddamn sad.
The door opened and Lisa peered in. ‘I think you need to take a run out to this house,’ she said.
‘What is it?’
‘A woman on the phone, Elizabeth Harrow, says her husband is late bringing back the kid.’
‘How late?’
‘It’s only an hour now but she seems pretty concerned.’
‘Why didn’t you tell her to come in?’
‘I did; she doesn’t want to leave the house. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Something’s wrong, Rob. I think you need to get over there.’
Robert rubbed his face and looked at Lisa. Right now their relationship was uncomplicated, both of them filling a physical need, but whenever they talked he was aware that Lisa had good police instincts. They had her on the desk a lot because she could hear changes in tone and fear in the voices of the people who called. She knew when to prioritise a case. If she said something was wrong he was inclined to believe her.
‘There a history of violence?’
‘She says so.’
‘Shit,’ said Robert. A history of violence couldn’t be ignored. ‘Do you think she’s telling the truth?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lisa. She rubbed her head and then she took the clip that was holding her hair in place out and tidied it before clipping it up again. Robert knew it was what she did when she was thinking something through.
‘She must be worried,’ he thought as his eyes roamed over her heart-shaped face and rested on her breasts for a moment.
‘I could be wrong, Rob, but there’s something about this. It feels . . . it feels a little familiar.’
Robert didn’t need to ask what she meant. She had been down in Melbourne when some dickhead had stabbed his toddler and then put it up on Facebook. The mother had called the police but by the time they found the kid she was already dead. Lisa wasn’t directly involved in the case but they’d had to roll out the counsellors for months afterwards.
‘Okay,’ said Rob, standing up. ‘I’ll get over there now. Call Dave for me and let him know we need to go. I think he’s gone to get some lunch.’
‘Will do,’ said Lisa.
Robert slipped his hand to his side and felt for the gun which he knew would be there. Twenty years on and he still automatically checked it before he did anything else.
This was probably just going to be some woman pissed off at her husband for keeping the kid out a little later than she said he could. He would bet there was no history of violence either, but you never knew and everything had to be checked out.
Parents ran off with their kids all the time and then the whole thing became a manhunt and the kid involved always suffered more that the parents, who were just trying to find a way to hurt someone else as much as they felt they’d been hurt.
Sometimes they did worse than run away. That guy who threw his kid off the bridge didn’t give anyone any warning, but the one who stabbed his toddler to death let the kid call home and tell her mother she loved her. A true fucking gentleman.
People were truly fucked in the head. Every year Robert thought that he’d seen it all and every year people lowered the bar a little further. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how angry you could get with your ex-wife. Natalie made him want to spit fire sometimes, but the kids were more important than they were. He knew that and Natalie knew it. They argued quietly over the phone, mostly about money, and let the kids think the divorce had been amiable. He didn’t understand these guys who killed their kids to get back at their wive
s. He loved his kids as much as Natalie did. If he hurt them he would be hurting himself.
What pushed someone over the edge and into that dark place where their desire to hurt someone clouded every other rational thought?
They had been told last month to take these cases seriously. Even if the person on the phone seemed to be a fruit loop looking for entertainment they had to look into it.
No one wanted to be the one who’d missed it when some guy left the country with his kids in tow or worse.
Dave came into the station as Robert was putting his mobile into his pocket.
‘Lisa filled me in. You ready?’
‘Ready,’ said Robert. Dave smelled like he’d had Indian food for lunch. The man never worried about what he put in his mouth. Robert’s sushi was meant to keep his weight under control but he would much rather have had Indian, especially when he had to share a car with Dave.
They made their way out to their car.
‘Seems like we get one of these every second day,’ said Dave, filling the car with the smell of chicken korma.
‘Yep,’ agreed Robert.
‘I’m never getting married,’ he said as he keyed the address into the GPS.
‘You think that,’ said Robert, ‘and then along comes a woman who seems like she was just made to slot perfectly into your life. She’s the yin to your yang and all that other crap and before you know it you’re picking out matching towels for the guest bathroom.’
‘Fuck that,’ said Dave. ‘Every time one of them gets too close I let them know it’s time for me to move on.’
Robert laughed. ‘When you fall, Dave, you’re going to fall hard.’
7
Alex put the phone in his pants pocket, pushing it down hard. Burying her and her bullshit.
How many times had he said sorry? Twenty, maybe thirty times? He apologised with flowers and with chocolates and he’d even sent her a bracelet through the mail. What more did she want from him? He was sick of all this crap. If she didn’t want to come home then she shouldn’t have flashed her pussy at him. What was last night about?
God, his father had been so right. Women didn’t know how to forgive you.
They held on to your past mistakes and twisted them over the phone to their mothers and their friends and then all of a sudden one innocent little shove became abuse. He knew how it happened. He saw it all the time. Men were always thrown in the shit and blamed for every fucking thing that went wrong. At work his friend Greg had been kicked out by his wife for sleeping with one of the secretaries. Greg was sorry he’d screwed up and he seemed to be on the phone every other day begging his wife to take him back. Alex told him he needed to let his wife know that he’d only had sex with someone else because she had a permanent headache. Greg just shook his head when Alex talked to him. The man was so completely whipped it was embarrassing to watch him. Was that what Liz wanted from him?
He could feel her pulling further and further away. In the last few months they hadn’t spent more than five minutes on the phone when he called. She was trying to turn raising their son into some sort of business. She sent him emails and then when he came to get Luke she had always just stepped out for a minute or just got into the shower and he was left looking at Ellen, who didn’t even try to pretend she liked him.
And then there had been last night, when he had seen it all fall back into place again. He knew she couldn’t resist him in daddy mode and he had wanted to see Luke. He had been reading him the last story and he had looked up and seen her standing in the doorway watching them. His heart had soared then because he knew that she was seeing what a good dad he was. He knew she was missing that as much as he missed his time with Luke.
Now she was trying to back away, to make last night a mistake. She was trying to break his heart again. Well, he’d told her now. Time was up. He was sick of waiting for her to make a decision. He was tired of walking around with this black dog sitting on his chest. That’s what they called it these days—a black dog. Alex could picture the creature. He was a giant slobbering beast with razor-sharp teeth and foul breath and he wouldn’t budge. He had taken up residence the day Liz left, the day his world—the world he had created—had ended.
When he had come home from work to find them gone he had driven straight over to her mother’s house and pounded on the door until Liz opened it. She had lied to him when she told him she understood and that she forgave him. She had lied when she said she wouldn’t leave the house and she had lied when she said she wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened.
On the day she left he had called her from work to apologise even though he wasn’t exactly sure it was all his fault. He hated dry chicken. He told her that again and again and she just didn’t listen. It wasn’t even just dry, it was practically inedible, and she’d just whined at him about Luke catching his finger in the door. The kid was fine. Rushing him to the doctor like some neurotic woman was just a waste of time. How hard could it be to get it right? All she had to do all day was take care of Luke and make a fucking edible dinner. He knew he had hurt her, that he shouldn’t have gotten so angry, so he’d called to apologise.
In his defence it had been a shitty time at work. His new boss was a complete arsehole and Tim, who was supposed to be checking everything, had failed to find a whole lot of mistakes in their latest project. He had tried to explain to the man that it was all Tim’s fault but the dickhead hadn’t wanted to listen and then Tim was spreading all this shit around the office about how he lied and hadn’t finished the work he was supposed to get done. So it had been a bad day and then he had to come home to a rubbish meal and he’d just lost it.
So of course he knew that she needed an apology. He had called home, as he arrived at work the next day, to say that he was sorry. In fact he had called every hour that morning, just to check that she was okay. He had gone out when he was supposed to be in a lunch meeting and ordered a huge bunch of flowers to be delivered to the house as soon as possible. He ordered yellow roses because she loved yellow roses and then the girl behind the counter told him she could include a box of handmade chocolates for only ten dollars more and he had told her to go ahead and do that.
‘Your wife is a very lucky woman,’ the girl had said, giving him one of those sexy smiles that told him she was into him and Alex had nodded, knowing that it was the truth.
He had felt better after that and he even managed to sort out some problems with the project so the wanker boss had to admit that he knew what he was doing.
He had been feeling really good, like he was back in control, when he called Liz for the fifth time that day.
She hadn’t answered the phone at home so he had called her mobile and she told him she was at the park with Luke.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said before he could say anything. ‘No one is here. It’s just me and Luke today and I’m wearing glasses and a hat.’
‘Good,’ he said and he felt proud of how she had kept their secret. It was a private matter and he’d hate for other people to get the wrong impression of who he was.
As they talked he could hear something in the background, something that sounded like a television, but at the time he hadn’t thought much about that. He had been concentrating on apologising to Liz one more time, promising her that it would never happen again. Each time it happened he felt sure it was the last time. This time he was absolutely certain that he would never hurt her again.
She said she accepted his apology. She understood that he loved her and that sometimes he just got a little angry. She said she would see him for dinner and she asked him what he wanted her to cook. She had said she would see him for dinner but she had lied.
He had come home to find the flowers wilting on the front step. The chocolates had melted.
The wilted flowers had pissed him right off. They had been really expensive and she had just left them on the step to die. He had opened the door and kicked them inside the house, scattering petals and water all over the floor.
>
‘Liz?’ he had called, trying to keep the fury out of his voice. There was no reply and it was only then that he sensed the emptiness in the house. It was still light so he hadn’t expected any lights to be on but Luke was usually stuck in front of the television when he came home at night.
He had walked through the house calling to the two of them but only stale air greeted him. He hadn’t even had to check the closets to know that they were gone. He knew what a house felt like when someone moved out.
Liz had opened the door at her mother’s house and just stared at him like he was some sort of monster. He could see her heart beating in her neck and he knew she was afraid but that just pissed him off more.
She didn’t say anything to him. She just stood there looking pathetic and he could see that she hadn’t even put ice on her eye. She didn’t want it to get better. She finally had something she could parade around the neighbourhood so everyone would think he was a complete waste of space.
She was the one who started it but he was the one who had ended up apologising. How the fuck did that happen? That mother of hers had come to the door and stood with her hand on Liz’s shoulder and she hadn’t even said anything. All she’d done was shake her head like he was a piece of shit not worth talking to.
He had felt the rage start to build then. ‘I could kill them both right now,’ he’d thought, but he had swallowed his pride and left instead.
He had to go home and clean up the mess he’d made with the flowers and then he had to cook himself dinner and clean up the broken plates after he’d thrown them against the wall.
He hadn’t seen Luke that night. It was the first time he hadn’t put the boy to bed since he’d been born and that was just wrong. He knew he had lashed out. He understood his mistake, but he had assured her that it wouldn’t happen again. He had shocked himself and that was the truth. He’d just been so angry about the chicken. He couldn’t seem to control the anger. One moment he was just a little annoyed and the next moment he was in a freight train going through a tunnel and he could only stop after he had hit something.