Surrender

by Malane, Donna

  I tried to wriggle my fingers under a couple of the windows along the southern side of the house but an amateur paint job had stuck the frames to the sills and it would take a putty knife to free them. I didn’t need to check my shoulder bag to know I didn’t have one of those on me.

  Refusing to be daunted, I turned my phone off, slipped the bag strap over my chest commando-style, and tried the windows on the northern side. On the last one I struck gold. The bottom sill was hip height, and with the tips of my fingers I edged the frame up the first tricky couple of inches and then used my shoulder to heft it up far enough to duck my head underneath. Though nearly strangling myself with the bag strap, I finally managed to get some purchase. For one vulnerable moment the weight of the window rested on my neck while I scrabbled for a decent hold with both palms, then shoving it up, I swung one leg over the sill. Once my foot tapped the floorboard inside, I manoeuvred my crotch over the sill.

  As I ducked my head inside, a voice in the room froze me to the spot. Shit! This wasn’t only the most uncomfortable position to be caught in, it was the most vulnerable. Too late to pull out; I had to risk it.

  Leaping in, I let the window fall shut after me; I’d like to add ‘in one smooth movement’, but it was far from smooth. I’d badly scraped my shoulder, and the windowsill had bruised me in a way that would have meant abstaining from sex if I’d been having any sex to abstain from.

  I spun around to confront the speaker, mentally searching for my excuse. That book I’d read about worst case scenarios didn’t cover breaking and entering. I was on the point of blurting something about fire and kittens when I realised there was no one in the room to pitch this implausible excuse to. Other than me that is, and I sure as hell wasn’t buying it.

  The voice was coming from a clock radio by the bed.

  I breathed again in relief, and took a moment to rub my shoulder and ease the seam off my bruised clitoris, while I listened intently for any other sound in the house. The clock was flashing 7.10. I made myself stay completely still and listen for a full three minutes before I was confident that the only sounds were my own heart pounding and someone on the radio whingeing about the latest cricket team selection. When the clock flicked to 7.13, it was time to do what I’d come to do.

  Until that moment I hadn’t figured out exactly what that was — I just knew I needed to look at where Niki’s killer lived. I thought that maybe I’d find something of Niki here, though I rejected the idea of any intimacy between killer and victim. Ever since I’d listened to Gemma’s tape, the one I shouldn’t have listened to, I’d had to fight against the awful fear that Snow might have taken a souvenir from Niki, something to remind him of the killing. If he’d done that, I wanted it back.

  Piles of clothes were scattered on the floor. Possibly someone was sorting them for collection, or they’d been searching for something. The room smelt of dirty socks and another musty, animal smell I didn’t want to try too hard to identify. I took a step towards the centre of the room, breaking into a sweat at the creak of the floorboards.

  On the chest of drawers was an empty bottle of Boss aftershave and a greasy-looking hairbrush riddled with blond hairs. It occurred to me for the first time that Snow was given that nickname because of his hair, probably in childhood. I knew I shouldn’t pick it up, but the brush was in my hand before I could stop myself.

  The thing I find really hard to come to terms with about the sickos who cigarette-burn kids, or torture animals, or stab little sisters in the back with boning knives, is that they also do the same, ordinary things the rest of us do. Things like brushing their teeth or hair. Like enjoying the smell of a flower or laughing at the same jokes. Crying at the same, sad movie as the rest of us, for all I know. I can never get my head around that. I find it hard to believe people like that are the same as me, but here was simple domestic evidence of it. I didn’t like the mix of emotions it produced in me.

  The drawers had all been emptied and left hanging open, and the wardrobe had been cleared out as well. Presumably everything of Snow’s was now on the floor. Keeping my hands in my pockets, I kicked through some of the clothes but there was nothing I could see of any interest. I glanced around for a possible hiding place. Lightshades are good but nothing was stashed in this one, a plain, plastic, concave number. There were no posters on the walls to hide things behind. A pale blue cotton sheet had been tacked up over the front window in place of curtains. I checked the window ledge behind that, but I wasn’t really expecting to find anything.

  Now I was just moving around the room to keep myself from freezing in panic. The bed base was a double with a single foam mattress, stained, mouldy and damp, marooned in the middle. All class was Snow. At least it was light enough to lift with two fingers which was a real bonus. So too, I guess, was the big fat joint beneath it, but I wasn’t in the least bit tempted. Obviously the cops who’d searched the room hadn’t been either.

  On the floor beside the bed a pair of blue jeans with leather belt had been dropped as if their owner had just stepped out of them. They reminded me of ‘the pale green pants with nobody inside them’ from a story that I used to read to Niki when she was little. The pockets were gaping open in what I swore, and knew I might have to in court, was an inviting way. ‘Those pockets said, “Yes”, your Honour.’

  I squatted beside the jeans, my knees clicking in a way the cricket selector on the radio, presently defending his choice of wicket keeper, would have cringed at. Tentatively, I inserted my fingers into the first pocket. The lining felt clammy, and as I moved my fingers around, the stink of Snow hit my nostrils. My stomach clenched. The pocket was empty. Turning my face aside, I inserted my fingers into the other pocket, pulling the lining as far away from the crotch as possible. I think I’d just decided there was nothing in there either when my head exploded.

  If you’ve ever been knocked unconscious you’ll know that while you’re out there in never-never land you have no sense of time passing, and so, ‘coming to’ as it’s quaintly called is nothing like waking up from a sleep. What it’s like is, one second you’re innocently going through someone’s pockets, and a split second later you’re — well, in this particular scenario I’m lying on the floor of a different room with two scowling women glaring at me. There’s no waking, yawning, stretching, no ‘Oh my gosh, I just had the most amazing dream’ kind of feeling when you regain consciousness. Even if half an hour has passed by, you have no sense of it passing. I guess being knocked unconscious is the closest you could get to time travelling, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

  For one paranoid moment I thought that someone had used my eyeballs to nail my head to the floor, but then I realised I could see just fine. That was the good news. The bad news was what I was seeing: Snow’s twin sisters, Peaches and Cream, the former casually swinging a Kookaburra cricket bat like a cheerleader’s baton.

  ‘She’s awake,’ Cream said, which was useful to know, given my befuddled state and pain level.

  Feeling at a distinct disadvantage lying down, I dragged myself to a sitting position. The movement induced an eerie feeling that I’d left my body on the floor — so convincing was it that I looked back to see if this was true. It was such a genuinely cool out-of-body experience that I opened my mouth to share it with the twins, but had to clench my jaw shut to hold back the vomit that threatened to spill. My head felt three times its normal size and was going to fall off completely if waggled or moved at all.

  The white-out effect created by the searing pain in my head was accompanied by a high-pitched whistle, but when Peaches crossed to the stove and turned off the gas under a kettle the sound stopped, so chances are it wasn’t in my head. I eased myself into a wooden kitchen chair.

  ‘Jesus, Peaches, why did you hit me with a cricket bat?’

  Peaches leaned the bat against the stove and poured boiling water into an old railways’ teapot.

  ‘There’s something else you’d rather I whacked you with?’

  She grinne
d at me, but I was having trouble seeing any humour in the situation. I tentatively fingered the back of my head. If it wasn’t for the pain, feeling separated from my body was a sensation I might have found vaguely enjoyable. A very tender bump was already forming at the base of my hairline.

  ‘Fuck …’ I managed, but the rest of the sentence whistled off into the white space called oblivion. Time passed.

  Peaches swaggered across the room and planted a mug of tea in front of me. She was the only woman I’ve ever seen pull off a swagger in high heels. It was a relief she’d left the Kookaburra leaning against the stove. I’m no fashion Nazi but it wasn’t an accessory that worked with the black cocktail dress and heels. The dress was the one she’d been wearing at her brother’s funeral earlier in the day. Perhaps in an attempt to remove the funereal association of the outfit, she’d piled her hair up and clasped on big purple glass-drop earrings that rattled against her neck as she leaned towards me. She’d gone with a high-gloss lipstick the colour of raw liver, presumably to match the earrings. It wasn’t the first mistake Peaches had made in her life.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ she sneered. ‘I gave you a light tap and you went out like a light.’ She sounded aggrieved, as if unconsciousness had been an unreasonable reaction on my part.

  Cream clearly didn’t do polite chatter. She came right to the point.

  ‘What the fuck were you doing going through our brother’s pockets?’

  There was no point trying to bullshit these two even if my brain had been up to it.

  ‘I was looking for anything of Niki’s. I thought he might have kept a souvenir, and now seemed a good time to look. Him being dead and all.’

  My voice sounded odd, a bit robotic and echoey, but I wasn’t sure if it was my speech or my hearing that was affected. A look passed between the women, and unless my faculties were even more damaged than I realised, it told me they’d already found something. Something of Niki’s.

  Knowing I needed to concentrate, I forced myself to take a sip of the scalding tea. I asked for my bag and Peaches picked it up off the floor and passed it to me without comment. As soon as I clicked open the flap it was obvious they’d gone through it. Cream held up two twenty dollar notes which presumably she’d lifted from my wallet. Ignoring her, I took it slow, scrabbling around in my bag for aspirin, buying time for my brain to reboot. I swore at myself for having turned my phone off instead of flicking it to silent.

  I was considering the odds of being able to switch it on surreptitiously and push the emergency dial number which would ring directly to the police station, when Cream banged her elbows on the table and leaned towards me.

  ‘You’re still trying to get Snow for killing your sister, aren’t you? You always wanted him for it.’

  I moved my shoulders in a non-committal way. It seemed pointless to deny the obvious truth. Peaches leaned against the wall and studied me.

  ‘Were you trying to plant something? We couldn’t find anything in the bag, so maybe you’ve already done it.’

  ‘What? No!’ I said, genuinely affronted. ‘I didn’t come here to plant anything.’ I was going to add something about always staying on the right side of the law but given how I gained access to the house I decided not to go there. The aspirin retrieved, I hung the bag over the back of the chair.

  ‘I thought maybe he’d kept something of Niki’s as a kind of trophy. If so, I wanted to get it back. And I wanted to see where he lived. See if I could figure out why he did it,’ I added, going again for the honest approach.

  It seemed to pay off. Both women visibly relaxed. I punched two aspirin from the foil and knocked them back, using the tea as lubricant.

  Peaches joined us at the table. ‘Yeah, Snow was a prime arsehole all right,’ she admitted without rancour. ‘I don’t know if he killed your sister, but I wouldn’t put it past him.’ She stared into the sugar bowl. Maybe she was remembering the time her brother broke a bottle over her head. She would have been about twelve when Snow was charged. He was fifteen and it being his first offence, he’d walked away with the judicial equivalent of a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket. Sean told me that after Peaches was stitched up, she was dealt a beating from her mother for getting Snow into trouble.

  Cream glanced at her sister, then stared directly at me. Though she kept going in and out of focus, I did my best to respond with an equally direct look.

  ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘arsehole or not — he’s our brother. Just like your sister is your sister. And he’s been murdered, just like your sister was murdered. In fact exactly like your sister was murdered. We want to know who did it, just like you do. I used to think you were right, that Snow did your sister, but now I’m thinking the same bastard that killed her, killed him. Is that what that cop husband of yours thinks?’

  ‘Ex,’ I clarified. ‘My cop ex-husband.’

  ‘Same thing,’ Peaches added morosely. ‘You might hate it, but the truth is we’re on the same side. Your sister was murdered and our brother was murdered. You and us — we’re both victims.’

  My mouth was open to refute this but luckily the words were forming too slowly and there was time for me to clamp it shut. I wanted to say that the Wilson twins and I had nothing in common — that we were worlds apart. I wanted to say that where Niki’s death should have slowed the world on its axis, their brother’s murder deserved a week-long raging celebration, and I would be the first to jump up on the table and rock on with my glass raised. But looking at these two, I knew I was wrong. They loved that arsehole brother of theirs, and who was I to say they hadn’t loved him as much as I loved Niki?

  One more glance between sisters, then Peaches scraped her chair back and indicated for me to follow. We walked in single file down the hallway, Peaches leading and Cream close at my back. I glanced into Snow’s bedroom as we passed. The radio clock was still on and I glimpsed the time: 7.58. Subtracting the time spent having a pleasant chat with the twins, I figured I must have been out cold for at least ten minutes. The idea that these two had dragged me down the hall unconscious and left me lying on the kitchen floor while they rummaged through my bag was seriously unsettling. Realising that Peaches had left the Kookaburra in the kitchen, I thought of shoving her into the wall and making a run for the front door, but even if I could have outrun Peaches’ high heels, I didn’t have a hope against Cream, dressed and ready for action as she was in sweats and sneakers. The pain in my head had been replaced with a numb, icy sensation. When Peaches pushed open a door and flicked on the fluorescent light, the brightness pierced me with a pain so severe I bent over dry-retching. The sisters waited patiently until I steadied myself.

  This room, too, showed signs of sorting. Cardboard boxes were stacked against one wall, and two floral-patterned armchairs sat expectantly in front of a television screen the size of Australia. The floor was littered with hundreds of DVDs, some inside their plastic covers, the rest scattered over the floorboards. The light made them shimmer like some wild cosmic display, though the effect might have been enhanced by the blow to my head.

  Peaches stepped her clicking heels through the discs, careful not to stand on them. I suspected it was so she wouldn’t go sliding arse over kite, rather than care not to damage the merchandise. Cream, hands on ample hips, surveyed the floor.

  ‘You know she was a whore, your sister, don’t you?’

  There was no derision in her voice; it was simply a question, naming Niki’s occupation, not her personality type. Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

  ‘Well,’ Peaches said, ‘she was in Snow’s stable.’ She scrabbled inside a plastic shopping bag next to the screen and pulled out a disc already labelled and dated. The word ‘stable’ evoked images of warm hay, the baby Jesus, and three kings bearing gifts, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t what Peaches was referring to.

  ‘You mean Snow was her pimp,’ I said, needing to hear myself say it. I realised something else. ‘So, he took a cut of her earnings then.’

&nbs
p; ‘Yeah, whatever,’ Cream responded, a little unhelpfully I thought.

  Peaches pushed the eject button on the DVD player sitting on top of the screen, and when the drive slid out placed her disc into it.

  ‘Snow told us he had a good thing going with your sister. She brought the guys here to fuck and he had some high-tech hidden camera set up to film them.’

  Cream indicated one of the armchairs. It was definitely time to sit, and I carefully lowered myself into it. Peaches was acting as techno expert, turning the big screen on and hunting down the remotes, while Cream, warming to her role as narrator, dropped into the other armchair.

  ‘The deal was, your sister would engage the trick in as kinky a scenario as she could get him to agree to. Most of the guys just wanted straight sex, and, according to Snow, quite a few of them would have been happy just to sit and talk. Creepy,’ she added with a shudder. ‘Anyway, that kind of thing wasn’t going to cut it, so she’d have to convince them they wanted other stuff. Wacko-type stuff. According to Snow, they nearly always agreed — eventually. And then while they were going at it Snow would be busy filming the whole thing. A couple of days later he’d send a copy to the trick and suggest he might like to pay up or have the little number of him in a nappy or whatever broadcast on YouTube, or sent to his wife or daughter. According to Snow, most of them paid up real quick and quiet and in full.’

  Cream pulled a lever at the side of her chair which flew back to accommodate a half-lying, legs-in-the-air position with feet cushioned by a padded foot rest. She looked like she was settling in for an evening’s entertainment. Peaches, too, having found the right disc and the right channel, was looking more animated than I’d seen her yet. I almost expected her to bring out the popcorn. She pointed the remote at the screen and an image sprang to life.

  Niki.

  ‘Hang on,’ I yelled.

  Peaches jabbed the remote and the image froze.

  I held my hand up to block it. ‘You’re telling me Snow took a cut of whatever Niki earned for having sex and … and stuff … with these guys?’