by Candice Fox
The man who had been Courtney Russell’s protector, her mentor, her family, burst into tears, nodding as he did. Eden got up and brushed her pants off as though trying to remove scum and mold she had picked up from the room. Derek’s face was crimson and bloated as I banged on the door to announce our departure.
“Please.” Derek sniffed, “I just want one thing. Can you just help me with one thing?”
“What?”
Derek cried into his hands. I stood watching him as the guard opened the door, Eden sliding through the gap and walking down the hall.
“They whisper to me at night,” Derek sobbed. “The people out there in the hall. They give me the blades and they whisper for me to do it, do it, end it now. Make them stop, please. Just make them stop.”
I stepped through the door and watched the guard lock it behind me. He was a thickly built Indian man with bright pearly teeth. When our eyes met I knew it was him and his friends who were taunting Derek Turner. He grinned and nodded up the hall.
“This way, Detective,” he said. “If you please.”
The older he got, the harder the waking became. Hades thought that one of these nights the coma sleeps he fell into would consume him utterly, swallow up his life like glossy black mud. When he dreamed, he dreamed of the children, and they were always black and white and sharp against the backs of his eyelids. They were never within his grasp. They were always laughing and he was helpless to know what spurred this evil noise.
When he woke under Eden’s hands he did so with a yelp, her fingers spread over his bare chest, thumping down as though trying to resuscitate him.
“Wake up!”
“What? What?”
“He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone after Travis!”
Nothing made sense. Hades lolled out of the bed like a heavy fish and began drawing on his jeans, the girl frantic, scrambling over the bed, throwing clothes at him.
“Hurry, hurry, please, Hades!”
Hades picked up the book lying beside the bed, shook his head like a dog, set it down again and picked up his car keys. His heart was thumping in his cheeks and neck. This was what a heart attack felt like. He thought about all the bacon he had consumed over the last month, the cigarettes and iced coffees the workers brought him. The scotch, God, the scotch. Eden was pushing at him. He was at the car. Only in the light of the sodium lamps did he wake fully, notice that she was crying. He gripped her face.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Eric’s gonna kill him,” she moaned. “Eric’s gonna kill Travis.”
On the road leading through the forest the car skidded in the gravel, the engine thrumming under his bare foot. It was early morning he guessed. Rabbits hurtled across the path of the car, zipping into the bush like furry rockets. Eden’s crying was unfamiliar, a frightening sound. She cried like a girl, softly and brokenhearted, into her hands. In time it subsided to sniffing and he gained the courage to look at her.
“He caught us,” she said, feeling his glance. “A week ago. Travis and I. Near the creek.”
“Doing what?”
“Aw Jesus, Hades,” she whined. He nodded, focusing on the road. He knew she had been going with the Savage boy. He’d known it that day, two years before, when he had seen them together on the tree stump in front of the hill. He knew it from the quiet tension that rippled through Eric’s body whenever she talked about the boy, always minimally, always playing down her relationship with him. The boy went away for months at a time with his father on trawler jobs in the Top End and Eden carried on like he’d never existed at all. Hades had kept an eye on the situation, dropped a few quiet threats to the boy of grievous bodily harm should he decide to touch his daughter. After a while, the old man lost interest. Who was he to interfere in these things? Eden was clever, mature, deeply assured of herself. If the boy messed with her, she would eat him alive. She seemed like a cat to Hades, curious and amused by a creature she barely understood but who she knew instinctually was no threat to her. The boy was dreaming, every minute a bonus, borrowed time.
The old man hadn’t considered Eric’s stance on the situation.
“We were supposed to meet,” she sniffed, “at the wattle tree on the west fence. Just for a walk, you know? He never came. When I got back Eric was gone. He’d left a note.”
“What did it say?”
“It said he was sorry.”
Travis Savage and his father lived on the flat lands that nestled behind the national park, a good ten minutes from the dump. Sparse modern-day farms that produced nothing more than dry grass, rusted machinery, car bodies, and here and there a dope crop. Hades and Eden fell into silence. The street was wet with newly fallen rain and lit by a thousand orange reflections. A patrol car was sitting on the corner by the intersection at the Utulla city limits. The officer in the front seat waved a handful of McDonald’s fries at Hades as he turned. A girl sat up in the passenger seat, indignant.
Hades stopped the car outside the broken wire fence but didn’t turn it off. It was clear that the boy was not there. The lights in the house were out, the carport empty. Eden dashed from the car before he could stop her and did a circuit of the house, peering helplessly in the window, her hands cupped to the glass.
“He’s not here.”
“No shit. Get in.”
She drew her legs up to her chest as he drove away, spraying gravel. His hands were wet on the steering wheel. This was his fault. All of it. He hadn’t even thought about Eric. It was like forgetting to check an old boot for spiders before slipping your bare foot in. He was there, waiting, a constant figure of watchfulness, of burning hatred.
There was too much on. The dump was prosperous. The old man had simply let the boy slip his mind.
They didn’t speak as the car wound through the empty streets behind the city of Camden, into the industrial area that housed a plastics factory, some importation lots and the local RSPCA. Tall white gum trees lined the road between the huge fenced-off lots. They both knew the only other place that Eric would be. Hades had received plenty of calls from the school and the local law enforcement complaining of the children hanging out in what was once a Singer sewing machine factory, smashing windows and running some of the old machines. It was the one place away from the dump that the children liked to hang out. They weren’t welcome with the other teens at the city mall or cinema because of their disagreeable, confrontational natures and Eric’s exhaustive history of fistfights.
It was clear when they pulled the car into the factory’s loading dock that someone was inside. Hades could see the shadows of machines moving against the ceiling through the high shattered windows, the shadow of skeletal arms and strings and pulleys reminding him of an old black-and-white horror film, the kind he had loved as a child. The machines inside the warehouse were squealing and grunting, unoiled and in protest at this new mission. The old man reached over and grabbed Eden’s arm before she could slide out of the car.
“You stay behind me, girl,” he snapped. His eyes were enough. Eden shrunk in her seat and nodded. Hades got out of the car and left the door open, light-footed in the gravel as he moved towards the door.
The scene inside the factory reminded him of some of the Renaissance paintings he had come across when teaching the children, of the rendering of primitive torture chambers and prisons. There were broken parts and machinery left over from the factory in its prime—sewing-machine bodies, racks of tools, ancient mechanized arms above conveyor belts, their cog-and-wheel insides exposed. There were polished worktables and reams of rotting cloth, spray-painting machines dripping black and bubbling at their rusted seams and washers. Above him, chains and hooks lifted electrical cords above the floor, banding them together like veins and running them down the length of the factory to the power station. One of these chains had been disconnected, spilling wires. A body hung from it by the wrists.
Travis Savage was hooded and gagged. From the edge of the hood blood ran thick like honey down his bon
y chest and rib cage, artistically bright in the light of a single lamp. Over his chest and belly and naked thighs several dozen small teaser wounds had been opened like almond-shaped red eyes, each weeping more blood down his naked figure. Eric was standing nearby, holding the implement that had inflicted all these gaping holes—a short fat blade Hades had often seen him with.
Hades made some sound of anger, a grunt or huff of outrage he did not plan to make, and Eric turned towards him like a dog with a rabbit in its teeth—shocked, defiant, prepared to run to save his catch. Hades felt Eden behind him. She put a hand on his trembling arm and then pulled it away when she felt the fury pulse in him.
Eden tried to run to Eric but she got no farther than the outreach of Hades’ hand. It encircled her and threw her aside. Hades strode forward and knocked the blade from Eric’s fingers, grabbing a fistful of his hair and dragging him through the door. The boy did not resist. Hades slammed his face into the hood of the car and held it where it landed.
His mouth and jaw were so tight that words barely escaped them. He had to lean close to the boy in the night wind and force himself to speak.
“He hear you? See you?”
“No.”
“He have any idea who you are?”
“No.”
Hades held the boy’s head against the car a little longer, panted as the anger coursed through him. Now was not the time to let it consume him. Now was the time to be controlled, not furious. He let Eric’s head go and grabbed ahold of the back of his shirt, opening the car door and shoving him inside. Eden stood, wrapped in her own arms, in the doorway. Hades thumped past her, went to the Savage boy hanging from the chain and cut him down, letting him fall into a sobbing heap on the factory floor. He picked up the knife and pocketed it, wiped all nearby surfaces with the edge of his shirt. The old man left the boy there, saying nothing.
It was only in the kitchen of the little shack, the door closed and the curtains drawn, that Hades let the rage take over. Eric let him beat him. In some ways, it was a lack of resistance that made Hades angrier. The boy simply accepted his punishment, taking the punches with humble silence, raising his hand only to wipe the blood from his mouth when Hades had finished. Eden also did nothing. She stood in the door to the hall and watched, her hands pressed together as though in prayer and resting on her closed lips. When it was done, Hades rinsed his bloody knuckles in the sink, his back teeth still locked, aching. Eric sat on the floor in the corner, wheezing with what was probably broken ribs, a red tongue probing, exploring, at a missing tooth.
Long minutes passed. Hades leaned on the sink and looked at the patterns in the curtain in front of him, letting his body cool. His shirt stuck to his chest with sweat. The scrapes on his knuckles reddened again in time, weeping blood.
“You leave here tomorrow morning,” he said eventually, pushing the curtain open before him and staring into the night. “I want you packed and ready to go by six. I’ll call a cab. I don’t want to see you.”
For a long time, there was no response. The boy lay slumped in the corner, one hand covering his already swollen eye.
“Where will I go?”
It was not a helpless question. Hades knew it was genuine. Eric would go wherever he told him to go. He was his slave. His sick and violent dog, obedient despite his nature.
“I’ve got a friend in the city who will take you. When you’re fixed up you’re joining the police force. Goulburn, like we planned. It’ll be the last place someone would look for a monster like you. You’ll be pulled into line there. You’ll learn more about the game.”
“Eden?”
“No.” Hades looked at the boy for the first time, feeling his jaw clench once again, an involuntary muscular tightening. “She’ll follow you when I say it’s all right. For now, you need to be on your own.”
Eric’s eyes wandered across the kitchen to those of the girl, rested there a moment or two before dropping to his hands. Hades’ breathing gradually returned to normal. The beating had done him some good, burned some of the energy out of his throbbing veins. He rinsed his hand again and wrapped it in a clean dish towel. In time Eric dragged himself to his feet and went into the bedroom to pack.
21
I didn’t like sitting at Doyle’s desk. It was like lying in his grave. Even though it was bare and the drawers were filled with my meager belongings, there was the presence of a man I didn’t know, his fingermarks on the chrome frame, his thoughtful scratching at the cheap paintwork. Around me, the men and women of the station were going through their third briefing about the operation at the Turner house. It seemed a fairly simple operation on the face of it, but hours of planning, sketching, calculation, argument and barely contained panic went into it in a boxy room at the back of the station that could comfortably hold three people but had been crammed with thirteen. With the help of logistics men, operations specialists, computer geniuses, criminal lawyers and negotiators, we’d managed to get Derek released into our custody for the night so he could be taken back to his house in Maroubra and held there in anticipation of the killer’s call. We had carefully scripted a scenario for Derek to read, asking the killer to come and visit Monica to treat what seemed to be a cold but that could well threaten her fragile post-op state. We’d have the place surrounded and would jump on him when he arrived.
I saw a million things wrong with it. Everybody did. But media pressure was forcing our hand, and we needed to get a shot happening, even if it was a long one.
I sat slumped in my oversized flak jacket and bulletproof vest like a bored kid at a wedding, moving things about on the desk in front of me. More unsettling than the feeling of Doyle’s ghost and the impending crazy plan to snare the killer in a trap were the images Cameron Miller, Martina Ducote, Derek Turner and Eliza Turner had put together with the help of a sketch artist. I had them laid out on the desk before me.
The Body Snatcher, as some of the press was calling him, cut an imposing figure at close to two hundred centimeters tall, with chiselled features and large brown eyes. He had a lion’s pride and audacity about him. No discerning marks, scars or tattoos. Thick muscled frame. Short-cropped chocolate hair. Not the desperate, hunchbacked ghoul everybody had been expecting. This guy was downright handsome. Something made me wonder whether the image of his soulful eyes would increase the public hatred or lull it. All the attention would put extra strain on the possibility that he would call Derek, that he would dare to turn up at the house in Maroubra when called. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years in this job it’s that the kind of narcissism and self-grandiosity required to kill and maim and torture other human beings over a long period of time meant that you couldn’t count our psychopathic friends in on the normal rules of behavior. I’m no psychologist. I’ve just known a lot of bad people in my time. Bad people don’t like to be told they can’t or shouldn’t do something that they want to do because it mightn’t be “good” for them. Even if the killer sensed that something was up he might come for a look at the fanfare he had created. It was all about ego with these people.
Eden was off helping other cops suit up, but her brother sat watching me with little interest from across the room, perched on the edge of his desk by the window. I glanced at him occasionally, hating myself every time that I did. Eric rolled a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, licking his canine teeth. I wrenched open the top drawer of Doyle’s desk and shuffled things around in it, trying to alleviate the burning sensation between my eyes as I squirmed under Eric’s gaze.
It was then that I saw the piece of Masonite. Doyle had cut the thin sheet of wood so close to the dimensions of the bottom of the drawer that it sat almost flush against all sides. When I wrenched open the drawer it shuffled the few millimeters’ distance, alerting my eyes to the inconsistency. I cocked my head as a tingle began to grow at the nape of my neck. I pushed my pens, pencils and pages back from where the sheet of wood met the front of the drawer, picking at the tiny crack with my finger
tips.
I took one of my pens and jammed it into the crack, my heartbeat increasing. The board was so closely cut to size that it wouldn’t lift. I picked up a ruler and carefully inserted the corner into the gap. Eric was frowning at me. I ignored him. In moments I had jimmied the false bottom of Doyle’s top drawer up, revealing the photographs underneath.
The first thing that struck me was the blood. So many of the images contained blood. It spilled from noses and dribbled over eyes, smeared reddish-brown on wrists and thighs. The first layer of photographs depicted three different women, bound and beaten, crying. In some of them I recognized Doyle from his “In memory of” photograph in the foyer. His hand was woven viciously in strands of a woman’s black hair. His fist, knuckles scraped, clenched as he looked over a woman cowering in a corner of an empty room.
I had stood up sharply without realizing it. The sheet of Masonite fell closed over the photographs as though they had never been there. I stood in the middle of the bull pen staring at a perfectly normal-looking desk for a long moment, my breath frozen, unsure about what I was supposed to do.
Halfway to Captain James’s office I realized I hadn’t brought the photographs with me. I swivelled on my feet, took two steps back towards the bull pen, then realized what I had seen was potentially evidence. The drawer, the false bottom, the photographs probably contained Doyle’s prints and perhaps the prints of others. I swivelled back around and jogged to Captain James’s office. He was on the phone, probably calling in sky support for the sting, writing on a notepad as he listened.
“Barker Street,” he repeated to the caller. “That’s what I said.”
“Captain James?”
He scowled at me before continuing to write. I nodded apologetically and dawdled in the doorway until he put the phone down.
“Phone, Bennett,” he said.