There were more advances in Jed’s shack becoming a family home. I looked at the cloth on the table by the window, the newly painted back wall. The tall man was sitting at the far end of the table, shirtless, a pair of checked pyjama pants on his long legs. The muscles in his upper shoulders twisted and tightened visibly beneath his golden-brown skin as he screwed the lid back on a jar of PVC glue. There was a wooden toy on a sheet of newspaper before him. A painted duck with a newly re-attached wing.
The baby was nowhere to be seen. Too early for him yet. I set the small rock on the table carefully so as not to make too much noise. I knew a sleeping baby was a precious thing.
When Jed spoke, his voice was low.
‘What’s all this, then?’ he asked, looking at the rock.
‘This,’ I said, ‘is a ten-gram nugget of solid gold.’
The outer edge of his left eyebrow twitched briefly. Besides that, he gave no indication of emotion. I picked the rock up again and looked at it, rubbed some of the dirt from its exterior and revealed the mustard-yellow metal beneath.
‘There’s a lot of it,’ I said. ‘Last night, Jace Robit and Damien Ponch were killed in an ambush trying to get the last of it. They found a gold deposit in a cave outside Last Chance Valley, and they’ve spent months there extracting the metal in secret and stockpiling it. Two of their friends survived the ambush. A couple of patrol officers picked them up and the men are now in custody, being questioned. The guys estimate they have pulled about two and a half million dollars’ worth of gold out of the cave over the last few months. They were planning to run off with it all. Start again. A new life overseas.’
Jed considered this. We listened to the baby stirring in the next room. After a few seconds the child fell silent again.
‘What’s it got to do with me?’ Jed asked.
‘The cave is on land the government handed back to your family,’ I said. ‘Rightfully, every ounce of the gold that was extracted belongs to you.’
I put the nugget down in front of him. He stared at it, his lips sealed.
‘Two and a half million dollars?’ he asked eventually.
‘It’s a rare find,’ I said. ‘Almost unheard of. There’s probably more in the area that the men were mining. I don’t know about these things. An officer will come out and see you, tell you what’ll happen next.’
‘What am I supposed to do?’ he said.
‘No idea,’ I answered. I walked towards the door. ‘Sell the land to a goldmine. Keep it and mine it yourself. Get rich, buy Last Chance Valley and reduce everything in it to ashes. Buy your niece her own law firm. Throw all the gold they found back into the cave and continue on exactly as you are.’ I laughed. Shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
Jed had forgotten all about the gold on the table. He was looking at me in the doorway. I was frozen there. Something was telling me that if I just stayed here inside the threshold, in the cool of this man’s house, everything was going to be OK. This was a safe place.
Jed stood, and his expression made the torn feeling in me all the more real. He looked sad to see me go.
‘You don’t look right,’ he said. ‘Come back in and sit down.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go.’
The baby boy in the other room started crying. We ignored it, watching each other, both wanting to speak. But there was nothing more to say. I made a choice. Perhaps the wrong choice.
I turned and left.
Chapter 129
REGAN SHIFTED IN the driver’s seat. His wet clothes were sticking to the seat cover, the heat of his body fogging the windows. He had almost passed out in the darkness behind the service station as he sat binding the gunshot wounds in his shoulder and stomach, shoving wadded fabric he’d ripped from a blanket in the back of the car into the blood-soaked flesh. He’d tied pieces of the thin blanket awkwardly in a loop under his arm and around his neck, rolled it tight around his gut. The dizziness, the pain didn’t matter. He needed to keep ahead of the roadblocks before they came into place. He’d go to ground later and think about getting his wounds treated. One step at a time. He’d survive. He always survived.
Getting away from the officer in the water had been easier than Regan imagined. He’d felt the impact of the bullets and fallen into the waves, and in the confusion, the rushing people and the bouncing lights, he’d simply slipped away. Dived low, come up shallow, dived again. Let the sucking current take him.
The swirling panic he’d felt as he crawled out of the river on the opposite bank to the police had reminded him of that night long ago. The last time he saw Sam.
It had been a starless night. Low clouds slithering across the sky above the tops of the black pines, reflecting the dull orange glow of the power station. It was almost as though no time had passed at all. He’d been seventeen years old. Sam about the same. Two idiot teens walking in the dark together, talking over each other, trying to get through it all, everything that had passed in the time they’d been separated. There had been so much to say.
Regan had been careful about his words. He didn’t want to let slip words he’d never dare say in real life. I love you, Sam. I’ve needed you here.
Hours ago they had come down to the river, to their favourite spot. They’d gone to the hanging tree and swung off the old rotting rope there. Regan was so glad Sam was back, even if it was only for this night. Sam was being bounced through overnight care for stealing his last foster father’s car and joyriding through the city. He’d be put in a group home down in Nowra for a few weeks until they could see him through a rehabilitation program and rehome him.
Though Sam would be swiftly out of Regan’s life again, it wasn’t going to be like last time. They were going to keep in touch. Sam had a mobile phone now. They were going to be together. A year, and they’d be eighteen years old. Legally eligible to be released from state care. They could do what they wanted. Completely and utterly free. Regan had already started counting down the days.
It was Sam who spotted the light that evening. They’d been strolling back along Henry Lawson Drive, about to cut through a park into Revesby Heights. Back to Regan’s foster house, before his carers noticed he was gone. The light was at the back door of a small fibro house off the edge of a children’s park. The two boys sank onto the rubber seats of a pair of chain swings, twisting this way and that, letting the momentum spin them around.
‘Bit late for the vet to be open,’ Sam had commented, exhaling cigarette smoke.
‘Maybe it’s a rabbit with a stomach ache.’ Regan lit his own cigarette, squinting at the door. ‘A kangaroo with its pouch stuck shut.’
‘You’re weird,’ Sam had said, pushing off and swinging hard.
Regan snorted. ‘Lots of money, being a vet.’
The two boys swung back and forth, the iron frame squeaking above them. Regan put his feet down eventually and dragged himself to a stop.
‘Maybe we should go in,’ he grinned, watching Sam swing. He took a knife from his back pocket and slipped the blade open with a snap. ‘Gimme all your cash or the puppy gets it!’
Sam laughed.
‘I’m serious.’ Regan slapped his friend. ‘Come on. Let’s go have a look.’
‘No way.’ Sam dragged himself to a stop. ‘We’d get caught.’ ‘As if!’
‘They’ve probably got cameras. Security guards.’
‘Security guards?’ Regan laughed hard. ‘It’s a fucking vet! Who robs a vet?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Exaaaactly.’ Regan grabbed Sam’s arm, felt his bicep beneath the shirt. He squeezed. ‘The dude won’t be expecting it. Let’s get what we can and go into the city. This is a great idea!’
‘This is a shitty, shitty idea.’ Sam got off the swing. ‘I’m not interested. I’ve got weed at home and it’s not gonna smoke itself.’
‘Come on. Don’t be a pussy.’
‘I’m not a pussy,’ Sam spat. His fury was surprisingly quick, rising from nowhere. ‘You’re the fucking p
ussy. Talkin’ about sticking up places like a fucking gangster. Who the hell do you think you are?’
‘I’ve stuck up places.’
‘No you haven’t.’
‘Yes, I have.’ Regan stood. Something inside him was stirring, turning in his chest. It felt like fingers creeping around his heart, threatening to squeeze. He’d said the wrong thing. He needed to fix it. But the words kept coming. The anger kept rising. He couldn’t lose Sam. Not now. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me, man.’
‘Whatever.’ Sam started walking off. Regan was beginning to tremble. He squeezed the knife so hard his knuckles cracked.
‘Come back here!’ he cried. ‘Sam!’
Sam walked. Regan shook. He could almost feel something uncurling in his stomach, petal by petal or wing by leathery wing. Sam disappeared around the corner and into the night. The sound of his footsteps faded. Regan tried to swallow but found his throat was blocked.
Pussy.
Regan walked towards the door of the veterinary clinic. The light fell over him, glowed on his fingers as he wrenched the handle down.
Chapter 130
THE WOMAN INSIDE the veterinary clinic had been Doctor Rachel Howes, twenty-three years old. A newly registered practitioner in the medical treatment of animals. Beautiful chocolate hair, long and heavy. So much potential. Regan had entered the clinic in what the prosecutors later called a ‘psychotic state’. He’d taken mere seconds to kill her. A dozen dogs and cats watched. He’d retreated to the sound of their howling and barking, $62.75 retrieved from the cash register. Regan’s defence lawyer had told him that had it not been for an anonymous call to Crime Stoppers, police would have had little chance of solving the case.
The call had come in only fifteen minutes after Regan entered the clinic.
Sam. Gentle, big-hearted Sam. Of course he had called the police. Sam acted tough, but he didn’t want to see an innocent vet robbed of their day’s takings any more than the average person did. Sam couldn’t possibly have known what viciousness Regan would unleash on the poor, unsuspecting Doctor Howes. Sam had never seen the thing that lived in Regan, growing there behind his eyes, the darkness spreading, waiting for something to finally bring it to life.
Sam hadn’t known that Doctor Howes had died. Sam hadn’t known that his phone call had got Regan arrested. He hadn’t known that Regan went to jail just three months later. That year after year he’d thought of nothing but Sam.
He’d thought only of coming back and finding Sam there in his perfect life. Oh, his beautiful plans, spinning around and around like a fine spider’s web, surrounding Sam long before the man knew the invisible strands were there. Regan followed and waited until Sam breezed by one of his pretty-picture girls, and then he snatched them up. Sometimes he was so close, he was sure Sam would turn and see him. Hear the girl scream. The last one, Rosetta. He’d grabbed her out of the mouth of a side street just seconds after Sam passed. He’d been able to smell Sam’s cologne as the man moved behind him.
Linny was supposed to have been the last one. He’d decided to make this one different. Take her and set her up at the hotel, splay her out, ready for Sam. Ready for him to see her, so glorious in herself, and yet so incredible as a part of his plan. This is what I did for you, Regan had wanted to tell Sam as they stood there before the dying girl. This is what you made me.
But Linny had slipped away from him. He’d got Caitlyn instead. No matter. She’d do. And then the terrible news that Sam had escaped him, too.
It was OK. If Regan was anything, he was adaptive. He kind of liked it when things became chaotic, went awry. The little jerk of his heart as the rug slipped out from beneath him.
Now he’d discovered Harry. And his plans for her would put his former work to shame.
Regan was shaken out of his daydreams by the pain. He hugged an arm into his side and re-gripped the wheel, waiting for the spasms to pass. He needed to get off the road soon. It wasn’t finished yet. He turned onto the highway heading west and followed the ramp down to the deserted road, picking up speed.
Chapter 131
I DRAGGED MY suitcase along the walkway between the plane and the airport terminal, listening to it clunk over the rubber seams in the grey carpet. I knew people were staring. I hadn’t showered, changed, fixed my hair or so much as washed my face since the previous morning. There was grey duct-tape glue adhered to the burned skin of my neck. Blood spatter on my shirt. I’d ignored the number on my ticket and gone straight to the back row of the plane, sat there staring out the window and saying nothing until we landed. The flight attendants did not approach me, nor did anyone sit near me. They might have known who I was. Or they might simply have been terrified by my appearance. I didn’t know. I was counting the seconds until I got home, and that was all I had the mental strength for.
My phone bleeped as I turned the corner. My mother. I opened the text as I walked.
They just told me about Sam. I’m sorry but I have to keep the money.
I stared at the text, trying to understand what it meant. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have time for her. My Day Zero was mere minutes away.
As I walked into the terminal, a hand reached out and touched me. I turned and saw Edward Whittacker standing there.
It was all I could do not to cry. He looked as bad as I did. Strangely damp. Blood-soaked. He was steadily working on two black eyes, a blow to the head, it seemed. This was not how I was used to him looking. His shirt was torn. He grabbed my arms before I could throw myself at his chest and held me achingly away from him. His eyes were filled with tears. I didn’t get to ask him how he knew what flight I was coming in on. Why he was there. Why he wouldn’t let me touch him.
‘I need to talk to you before you hear it somewhere else,’ Whitt said. He glanced at the people around us, many of whom were staring, pretending to stop and adjust their bags. ‘Tox … Tox found the killer. He fought him. He got injured. He’s stable at the moment but it’s … it’s complicated. He’s … not well. He’s on the edge. Last night I cornered the killer. Regan Banks. He told me that he set your brother up. He told me Sam is innocent.’
I grabbed onto Whitt’s shirt. I held on, partly so I didn’t fall. Partly so that I could shake him if I needed to. My whole body was afire. He wiped at the tears running down his cheeks.
‘He got away,’ he said. ‘I let him get away.’
‘We’ve got to find him,’ I said. ‘We … Where was he last seen? Have there been sightings since? Where’s Tox? What hospital is he in?’
‘Harry.’ Whitt held on as I tried to twist away. His grip was hard. Painful. ‘Word came through from the prison a couple of hours ago. There was an incident early this morning. A fight broke out in Sam’s cell block. Harry, your brother’s dead.’
Chapter 132
I STARED UP at Whitt’s eyes. The airport around me had been reduced to nothing. No light. No sound. Just a hollow in which this man and I stood. The words tumbled out of him, even as I willed them to stop. Whitt ran a hand through his filthy hair.
‘Sam’s dead,’ he said again.
The words rang in my mind, vibrating, the echo of a bell struck hard. I held onto Whitt’s shirt. He pulled me into his chest, wrapped an arm around my head, trying to shield me from the onlookers I could still see over his shoulder. Whitt didn’t know what to do. He rubbed my back hard, tried to squeeze the pain out of me even as it began to creep into my blood. I shook my head against his chest. My eyes were wide. I was terrified of closing them, of losing my fragile grip on the room around me. If I could just stay here in this moment, in the airport terminal, if I could just hold on, maybe it wouldn’t be real.
No, a voice inside me said. Please don’t take my brother. Please. I don’t want to be left here alone. Don’t leave me here alone.
As the tears formed and I closed my eyes, I recognised what I’d been feeling since I left Last Chance. The sickness, the heat, the giddiness. It was Sam.
He was
gone.
Chapter 133
I FELT THE fabric of Whitt’s shirt pull tight as someone tapped him on the arm. ‘Sir, ma’am? Is everything alright? Can I offer you some assistance?’
Whitt pulled away from me, took in the sight of the flight attendant before him like she was an alien creature, her spotless red blazer and unreal make-up a puzzlement. He spoke to her. Gestured. I didn’t listen. I turned and looked at the faces of the men and women who’d gathered around us. I looked from face to face. An elderly lady and her husband clutching their matching suitcase set. A pair of pierced young women lugging backpacks. A family. A group of businessmen. I looked at them, and I didn’t recognise them.
Once, I would have thought of these strangers as ‘civilians’. Non-police. Members of the public whose protection was my duty. They were what I woke for. What I breathed for. These strangers standing around me, those walking back and forth beyond them, getting on planes, getting in taxis.
Now they were just faceless people standing in my way.
I felt a rush of warmth over my limbs, an inner surrender. I was no longer a good Harry struggling to control her bad half. A battle had been lost. I felt dark inside. Hollow, dark and empty of goodness.
Because somewhere out there, beyond them all, beyond the terminal and the airport, Regan Banks was waiting. He was my purpose now. He would be what I continued breathing for. There would be time to grieve properly for Sam later, once I had Regan in my hands. I needed to find him, make him confess what he had done, force him to exonerate my brother. I couldn’t let the tears fall yet. There wasn’t time for that.
Second by second, he was getting away from me. And I was not going to let him escape.
Fifty Fifty: (Harriet Blue 2) (Detective Harriet Blue Series) Page 25