Thrill City

by Leigh Redhead

  ‘Nick? Nick, it’s Simone. Are you there?’

  There was no reply. The music was very loud and I realised I knew the song, although I hadn’t heard it for years. It was a duet by Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan from The Pogues. ‘Fairytale of New York’.

  The landing at the top of the stairs turned into a large open-plan space. It was gloomy, with just a little ambient light filtering through tightly closed blinds at the other end of the room. I made out a stainless steel kitchen to my left, a red ‘feature wall’ next to it, and a long living area stretching out in front of me. The place looked like someone had just moved in and only made a half-arsed effort to unpack. Boxes littered the floor, some sealed, others splayed open and spewing crumpled newspaper. A bookcase had been assembled sans shelves, the couch was cushion-less, and an enormous rug leaned against the wall, still rolled up and secured with packing tape. The music came from a laptop perched on a tea-chest with a pair of iPod speakers attached. Empty bottles and saucers full of cigarette butts cluttered every available surface, and the place reeked of stale booze, smoke and dirty socks. At least it didn’t smell like blood anymore, and I chalked that up to a sensory hallucination, brought on by fear and post-traumatic stress, most likely.

  As I inched forward, heels clicking on the polished wood, I made out a pair of sock-clad feet sticking out from behind a packing crate over by the windows, soles pointing to the ceiling. Hurrying over, I found Nick. It was too dark to see if he was alive or dead so I grabbed the cord for the blinds, zipped them up and was momentarily blinded by brilliant sunlight. He lay completely still, wearing the same clothes he’d had on at the writers’ festival, just filthier and more rumpled. I couldn’t see him breathing and my heart trilled as I bent down to try to find a pulse. As soon as I touched his throat he jerked, and I jumped back and let out a girly little scream. He produced a shuffling, hog-like snore in return, and I was so relieved I coughed out air and started laughing and shaking my head.

  ‘You arsehole, Nick.’ I nudged his ribs with one pointy toe. He didn’t wake up, just muttered and rolled his head to the other side. On the floor next to him I saw a bunch of photos. I bent and picked one up. Him and Isabella, arms around each other in front of one of those old country pubs with a big wraparound veranda on the first floor. Her hair was longer, he was a few kilos leaner and they looked happy. Nice, but for the fact the photo had been ripped in two, then stuck together again with clear tape. I’d certainly had my weird, obsessive moments, but I’d never done anything like that. Had I? I let the photo flutter from my hand and looked out the window. Hell of a view. Beyond a large sundeck made of sixties-looking crazy-paving, the muddy Yarra wound, trailed by bike paths and lined with oaks and willows. Pretty.

  Nick was going to have one hell of a hangover when he finally woke up, so I went all Florence Nightingale and clip-clopped over to the kitchen, rinsed out a glass, filled it with water, took it back and placed it in his line of sight. I dug around in my handbag for some Nurofen Plus, my hangover cure of choice, and generously left the whole pack propped up on the glass. It was the least I could do since I was keeping his money.

  The song finished, then immediately started again. How long had he been playing it, over and over? I unplugged the speakers from the laptop on my way out.

  It was time for me to get to work, and I wanted to leave before he woke—it would just be embarrassing for both of us. I descended the stairs, feeling like a prize dickhead for freaking out over nothing, until I reached the ground floor and the meaty smell hit me again, even stronger than before. I looked towards the door at the end of the corridor and instinctively knew it was coming from there.

  chapter nine

  I stood very still at the base of the stairs, looking down the polished wood hallway to the matt, dark blue door and feeling as though if I stared hard enough I might be able to figure out what lay behind it. Without music the house was quiet, the only sounds those that filtered in from outside: distant traffic, whirring cicadas and the faint, crunching chime of a bicycle bell.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched, although it was impossible. There were no windows in the entrance foyer, no old-fashioned keyholes, no large gaps underneath the doors.

  Skirting the broken bottle I walked to the blue door, barely breathing, head starting to spin. The odour became stronger the closer I got: coppery and visceral, sweet and slightly musty. I could practically see tendrils of scent winding cartoon-like through the air.

  Remembering my training I depressed the door handle with my elbow, nudged it open with my foot, then wished to god I hadn’t. My stomach shrivelled and I had to lean against the frame to stop my legs buckling beneath me.

  I was staring into an office with a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the river. More unpacked boxes were stacked against the walls, and between me and the massive desk sat a high-backed leather swivel chair, facing away.

  And the whole room was covered in blood. Crimson streaks spattered the walls, the floor and the papers strewn across the desk. Directly under the chair the beige rug had turned burgundy and was so saturated it looked like it would squelch.

  Someone sat in the chair, very still, and too short for me to see the top of their head. All I saw was one pale, slender limb hanging over the armrest. A languorous pose, except that the delicate hand at the end of it was missing two fingers. The index and middle fingers were bloody stumps, and the thumb was hanging on by only a slender ribbon of flesh. The ring and pinkie fingers were intact, though, the nails painted that deep claret colour I’d admired two days earlier.

  I don’t know why I acted as I did, because I must have known she was dead: the pool of blood, her stillness, the complete absence of the slightest electrical spark that signified the presence of another living human being. Maybe I desperately wanted to believe she was just wounded, however badly, because I called out, ‘Isabella,’ rushed over, and spun the chair around.

  What happened next seemed more like a series of nightmare flashes than a sequence of real events. Cloudy eyes staring. A head lolling forward. Her silk dress torn open to the waist and instead of the expected white flesh, a jagged gash coloured purple, brown and red. A flash of yellow rib. Glistening organs. Blood in her lap. When the chair stopped, Isabella’s corpse kept moving and she slumped towards me. I jumped back, but not far enough, and her torso landed on my foot with a sloshing, sucking sound. I felt warm wetness seep into my shoe. Horrified, I jerked it out from under her body and a loop of intestine came too, trailing after me like an enormous, misshapen worm.

  The vomit came without warning. No nausea, no surge of saliva, just a sudden heave of scrambled eggs and bile.

  And then I ran, back down the hall, foot sliding about in my shoe.

  ‘Hey!’ Nick had staggered halfway down the stairs, red-eyed, wild-haired, blood staining the front of his white t-shirt.

  I gasped and ran onto the smashed bottle, skidded and went down, broken glass nipping my shins, knees and palms. He stumbled forward as I tried to clamber to my feet.

  ‘Get away from me,’ I yelled, hysterical. He was at the bottom of the stairs reaching out for me like a horror film zombie. I groped at the wall, dragged myself up, lurched for the door and yanked it open, but before I could escape he grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the house and around to face him. His eyes were mad looking, and up close he smelled like an alco, sour spirits and nicotine leaching from his pores.

  ‘Hey,’ he growled, fingers digging into my bicep like claws. ‘Hey!’

  I went crazy, slapping and scratching at him until I felt pain pierce the heel of my hand. At the same time Nick swore and swayed back, and I saw that a shard of broken glass from the bottle had transferred from my palm to his face, narrowly missing his eye. I bolted out the door, ignoring the sting in my legs and hands, straight for my car, but when I got there I realised I’d lost my bag and my keys somewhere inside Nick’s.

  I looked back. He was still coming, bloody, shuff
ling, blinking in the light and shouting something unintelligible. I kicked my shoes off and sprinted, faster than I thought possible, running like hell through the back streets of Abbotsford.

  chapter ten

  It was four pm on Christmas Day, and I was lying on a striped banana lounge on Chloe’s back deck a little away from the party, partly hidden behind a cocos palm. I was kitted up in a denim mini, off-the-shoulder embroidered peasant blouse and a sombrero, and drinking what might have been my sixth margarita—I couldn’t be exactly sure.

  Our ‘orphans’ Christmas’ had a south-of-the-border theme which explained the papier-mâché chilli-peppers, giant inf latable cactus and donkey piñata dangling from the washing line. It was also the reason Ricky Martin was warbling through the speakers. Earlier, Sean had put on a disc of an obscure but highly respected authentic Tijuana mariachi band, but the majority of the party, Chloe and most of her strippers, had booed, rolled their eyes and made gagging sounds, so we were stuck with a vaguely Latino party mix: Ricky, J-Lo and whoever the bastards were who had inf licted ‘The Macarena’ and ‘Mambo Number Five’ upon the world.

  Chloe, despite her advanced state of gestation, was shaking her bon-bon in a hot pink bikini and heels, and Curtis, assisted by a few of the dancers’ boyfriends, manned the barbecue, beer in hand. Sean was over by the makeshift bar in faded jeans, Converse sneakers and a Speedy Gonzales t-shirt, simultaneously mixing margaritas and sharing a joint with my journalist friend Andi.

  Andi was part Maori, small, dark and punky looking with a pixie crop, a wide, white-toothed grin and big brown eyes. Her cut-off shorts showed off her new prosthetic leg that attached at the knee. She’d got us all to scrawl lewd graffiti on it while telling us all about amputee-love websites she’d discovered on the internet.

  A few other people I knew had drifted in and out during the day, on their way to and from family do’s, including Tony Torcasio, my old boss and trainer from the Australian Security Academy, and Hannah, the hippy massage-parlour owner I’d helped out. Reg, a sixty-year-old sailing instructor who’d lent a hand taking down some bad guys what seemed an aeon ago, had turned up with shortbread in a tartan tin and a bewildered look on his face. We’d even had a visit from Trip Sibley, who looked and acted like a rock star but in reality was a celebrity chef. I couldn’t actually recall Trip leaving and, knowing him, it was a fair bet he was holed up in Chloe’s bedroom with a couple of strippers and a selection of Class A narcotics.

  I lifted the paper plate up from the ground next to me and bit into a soft taco filled with barbecued prawns, coriander and spiced black beans. I’d been trying to resist pigging out but damn, it was just too good. If Sean and I hadn’t been able to save the music at least we’d rescued the food. Chloe’s idea of party catering was a couple of boxes of Mexican-f lavoured Shapes, corn chips and dip, and an economy pack of supermarket sausages spiked with paprika and labelled Hot ’n’ Spicy. Not to mention a bottle of cheap mescal with one of those worms that always put me in mind of a tiny severed penis bobbing around in formalin.

  Sean and I had spent the previous day scouring The Essential Ingredient and the Prahran and South Melbourne markets for ripe avocados and obscure chillies, Monterey Jack cheddar, tins of tomatillos, bright green, hot as hell picante sauces, and overpriced limes. We’d spent the morning side by side in my little pink and grey kitchen, mashing, juicing and chopping, marinating chicken and beef strips for fajitas, and cutting up red, green and yellow capsicums. Necking Coronas wedged with lime, we’d performed abbreviated salsa moves, bumping hips and occasionally stopping to snog against the bench.

  Seeing as how the couple of days he’d wanted to stay had somehow extended into six weeks, Sean knew his way around the kitchen better than I did. Curtis reckoned he was having trouble finding a place, although I doubted he was trying too hard and suspected that Sean was not exactly pushing him out. It had been years since I’d lived with a guy and normally I’d never have jumped in so quick, but it had been a godsend having him around. If he hadn’t been there, the previous six weeks would have gone down as the worst of my life.

  Since I’d stumbled upon Isabella’s body, things had really turned to shit.

  Several blocks from Nick’s house, I’d finally stopped running, burst into a pub and screamed for the barmaid to call the police. I knew they’d take me in to interview me, but hadn’t expected to be kept for over eight hours and questioned like they thought I’d killed her, either alone or in cahoots with Nick. It didn’t help that by the time the cops got to his place he’d disappeared without a trace. I’d been worried that I might have had to deal with Detective Inspector Duval, the head honcho of Homicide who’d threatened to arrest me or take away my PI licence if I got involved in any more crap. Instead I was confronted with his offsider, Talbot, a whippet-thin forty-something broad with a straight brown bob, who smelled like instant coffee and strong cigarettes and had gone for me like a terrier, probably following Duval’s orders to arrest me for whatever she could. She’d drilled me on my relationship with Nick, what I was doing at the house and even why I’d been at the writers’ festival that weekend.

  I’d been completely honest and told her everything I’d seen and heard, but she still insinuated I was guilty, that Nick and I had cooked up some sort of plan together. I couldn’t wait for them to bring him in and was hoping he’d confess so I’d be off the hook, but they couldn’t find him. Despite news bulletins, wanted posters, and Rod Thurlow going on TV, begging for information, Nick remained at large. Albeit with that many false sightings he could’ve been Elvis.

  Of course, it was a huge story in the press. Famous writers, a love triangle, and me, the stripping detective. Once again I refused to talk to them—even Andi and Curtis, who attempted to guilt-trip me into it.

  The media had always pissed me off in the past, but I hadn’t realised they’d actually been giving me a fair trot until they turned. Articles appeared posing questions about why I’d been involved in so many deaths, stopping just short of actually accusing me of murder. Opinion pieces popped up questioning if I was morally capable of holding a PI licence, having worked as a stripper. I couldn’t quite understand how taking off my clothes made me unethical, but it didn’t stop the current affairs and radio talkback programs running pieces with such titles as ‘Melbourne’s Dodgiest Detective?’ I’d kept my head down, waiting for it to blow over, but there was worse to come. The cops bowed to public pressure and suspended my licence, pending investigation. I wasn’t the villain, I was the victim, but nobody else saw it that way, not even my mum. After weeks without contact she finally called to tell me I was seeking out violence and darkness, attracting negative energy into my life, and she didn’t want anything to do with me until I saw the error of my ways and sought out some vigorous spiritual cleansing, preferably with a rebirthing component. Hippies.

  I would have been completely screwed up if it hadn’t been for Sean. He’d cooked and cleaned and made love to me, and for the first couple of weeks he was still off work so he took me down to a cottage on the Great Ocean Road where he dosed me up on sex and sauvignon blanc and kept me away from newspapers and TV.

  When he was back at work he continued to keep me occupied whenever he had time off: movies, plays, art galleries, picnics in the park. Normal shit, like a normal couple. And on days when I couldn’t face leaving the house he hunted and gathered, bringing me food and books and DVDs, and assuring me it would all blow over. He even paid my rent. I didn’t deserve it. When I accidentally let slip that Sean was the sort of guy who would go down on you not only before sex but also after, Chloe, who was generally dirty on men, agreed that he was some kind of saint.

  Sean was right, though: the frenzy did eventually wane. With no new information it ran out of steam: and there were new murders, politicians fooling around with showgirls, buildings collapsing, bikie shootouts, football drug scandals and terrorist bomb threats. My name gradually disappeared from the papers and the airwaves, and Sean said
it was only a matter of time before I got my licence reinstated.

  So as I lay there on the banana lounge I felt better than I had in weeks. It was Christmas, I was surrounded by a dysfunctional family of my own making, I wasn’t in jail, dead or maimed, and I had the most perfect boyfriend in the world, not to be too smug about it. And even though my mum had told me I was evil, at least she’d called: that was something. Everything was going to be okay. And what with the margaritas and the positive thoughts I began to doze, warmed by the sun.

  Until I heard the clanging footsteps of someone coming up the metal stairs just below me. I hoped it was a friend of Chloe’s and not someone else from my past, and decided to keep my eyes closed until they passed by.

  ‘Hola, señorita.’

  I recognised the deep, slightly gravelly voice and the hint of aftershave at the same time. The cologne was mellow and woody and smelled like a combination of aged cognac and exotic bark; it must have contained some sort of pheromone because my afternoon drowsiness disappeared as effectively as if I’d just blasted a quarter gram of speed into my main vein. Blood pumped through my chest, and heat spread out from my cheeks and climbed my scalp, prickling like tiny needles. Why did I always have to react like that? I couldn’t let him see the effect he had on me so I yawned, tipped the brim of my hat back a fraction and lazily opened one eye.

  ‘Oh, hey, Alex,’ I said.

  chapter eleven

  Alex stood a couple of stairs down from the landing and I noticed there was something different about him. He was thinner, for a start, and the dark brown hair he usually wore slicked back now hung over his forehead and curled slightly at the nape of his neck, as though it had been a long time between trims. His sideburns had grown unruly and roamed halfway to his jaw. The hair and the weight loss suited him and made him seem younger than his thirty-six years.