He looked directly at me and I tried to look back, but I could feel my eyes sliding away from him.
‘Have you seen it? The movie? Have you seen what Bonnie and I did?’
I managed to shake my head. No, I hadn’t seen what he’d done to my sister. I’d seen the still photo of Niki dressed up in a kid’s clothes sucking a lolly pop in a twisted, distorted version of what a child is. That had been more than enough for me. I didn’t ever want to see the film of him fucking my little sister dressed like that. I remembered her too vividly as a child to want to see a sick, perverted version of that. She’d been such a lovely kid. I remembered the soft down on her shoulders when she was really little. The fragile little shoulder blades like the promise of wings.
As if reading my thoughts, Ross leaned forward. ‘I didn’t have sex with her, you know. We didn’t have sex. It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t sexual. It was just dress-ups. We both dressed up as …’ His voice broke with the difficulty of confession, but he picked it up again. ‘We dressed up as kids and played at having a … a tea party. That’s it. That’s all we did. That’s all I … had a need for. That’s what she threatened to put on the internet. That’s what I had to tell my wife.’
I heard part of what he was saying, all broken up and fragmented, but that gorgeous bottle of water he’d given me had been miraculous. I was alive. I was pain-searingly, ecstatically, I am going to survive this even if it kills me, alive.
Ross was sitting about four metres away from me. He’d picked up the gun again, and it was now cradled in his lap, his hand held loosely around the stock. Maybe at any other time I’d have felt sympathy for Ross. Okay, dressing up as a little girl and having a tea party isn’t my idea of normal, but if he was telling the truth and there was no sex, then really it was more sad than bad.
But if I was ever going to feel sorry for him, it wasn’t now. I didn’t feel sorry for anyone or anything, not even me. I didn’t feel anything really. Feeling could come if I ever survived this.
I wondered if I was strong and quick enough to run at him and wrestle the gun from his grasp. I knew I wasn’t, but was about to make my move anyway, when suddenly he stood, gun hanging at his side, index finger resting on the trigger. I’d left it too late.
‘I didn’t kill Bonnie,’ he said. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. Not even that big freak who was threatening me. Though they both deserved it for what they did to my life.’
Given my history with Ross, I admit I probably wasn’t the best judge of his character, but I had a strong hunch he was telling the truth. I didn’t know how I felt about that, but now seemed as good a time as any to ask for another truth from him.
‘Did you rape me?’ I asked, lifting my head to watch him answer. ‘I need you to tell me that.’
He was silent for a long time — long enough for me to know the answer.
‘I used to come out here fishing with my brother when we were kids,’ he said, squinting into the dull, flat light of the horizon as if the memory was out there somewhere.
Casually he hefted the gun, barrel pointed towards me. I wanted to look away, but was transfixed by that little round black hole. I wondered if I’d see the bullet coming towards me like in a cartoon, and then was amazed at how well I was taking this — my final moments. Maybe it’s only possible to look death in the face for so long before it becomes just like any other face. Maybe you just give up. ‘Learned helplessness’ I think it’s called.
Remembering the term made me angry. I hadn’t been helpless since I was a baby, and I wasn’t prepared to accept dying in such a pathetic way, sitting in the middle of a dirt track on a lonely windswept coast. I wasn’t going to be slaughtered without a fight. Even that stupid goat would have charged him, and surely I had more fight in me than a bovid!
I’d just made up my mind to rush at Ross and tackle him, when he suddenly strode towards me. I hunkered down, waiting for the blow. He paused in front of my crouched body for a full ten seconds — I know because I was counting them — and then he walked on past me.
I just sat there, pulling the air into my lungs and then releasing it. Breathing. Feeling my big, fat, red, alive heart beat. I didn’t turn my head to watch him go, but I listened to the sound of his feet on the gravel, heard the sound become fainter until eventually it was completely gone. The baa-ing of the goats on the hill started up again, and the seagulls picked up their argument exactly where they’d left off. I sat on the gravel track, listening to them squabble, and I waited. I was waiting to die or to be found. The choice wasn’t mine. I was a disinterested bystander. It seemed to me that some time later I heard a shot in the distance, but maybe I dreamed it.
That’s where the two hunters found me, slumped in the middle of the road. They saved my life, so it’s a pity the subsequent Armed Offenders’ Squad search for Ross put an end to their day’s hunting, but at least it meant the stupid goats got to live another day too.
One of the hunters must have called it in while the other was helping me into their four-wheel, because Sean was already waiting for me as we drove up to the Eastbourne gate entrance to the track. There were half a dozen plain-clothed detectives milling around self-consciously. I recognised a couple of the big guys from Central wearing duffel coats and with beanies pulled down over their ears, and appreciated that they discreetly kept their distance as Sean wrapped a silver survival blanket around my shoulders and shepherded me towards the ambulance parked with its back door open to receive me.
I baulked and refused to get in. There was something about the smell of it, the white sheets and chrome coldness. I just couldn’t do it. The paramedic wasn’t too happy, insisting I needed immediate attention, but I was having none of it. I just wanted to go home and crawl into bed. When it looked like the medic was about to forcibly sedate me, I agreed to the compromise of having Sean drive me directly to the hospital.
He turned the car heater up to full and handed me a bottle of Lucozade to sip on the way. I burrowed down into the scratchy woollen blanket Sean had nicked from the ambulance, and fought the urge to sob my heart out. Sean knew better than to say anything. Well, he knew me, full stop. He drove the car fast and smooth and kept silent, giving me time. At Days Bay he leaned over and switched the car’s radio on. The Phoenix Foundation were singing ‘This Charming Van’ — sweet, easy, and oddly comforting.
It was good of Sean to give me the time I needed, but I knew the guys back at Eastbourne would be twitching, pacing, waiting for any word about who had kidnapped me and where the perp was now. I realised with a guilty jolt that they needed to know Ross was armed.
‘It was Chris Ross,’ I said, and was amazed that my voice sounded so normal. A bit scratchy, but a lot stronger than I felt. Sean slowly leaned over to pick up the R/T, turning the radio down in the same movement.
‘That was his Holden on the track where they found me. He’s carrying a Browning A5 semi-auto.’
I stared out the passenger window while Sean relayed the information to the guys back at Eastbourne, keeping his voice relaxed-sounding, conversational, talking in police-speak code, partly for my sake, but more to keep the prying, police short-wave radio listeners off the scent. My feet were starting to thaw out, and the pain was already excruciating. I hoped I could get some painkillers into my system before I was forced to start screaming — never a good look in a police car.
Sean casually flicked the emergency flashing lights on, reached his arm out the window, and stuck a blue cherry on the roof. I didn’t tell him not to. Without turning my head to look, I could sense him glancing in my direction, keeping an eye on me. For one unworthy moment I liked that, but it was fleeting and it wasn’t fair.
‘Quit worrying. I’m fine,’ I said, and then realised it was true. I was hurt, damaged but not broken.
I saw Sean’s shoulders relax. ‘We’ve got men all over the hills and the coastline. We’ll find him, buddy.’
The pet name. It was so tempting to bask in it, the salve of old love. I should have
gone in the ambulance. I sipped the Lucozade. Sweet and salty. When I finally relinquished it there was blood on the rim of the bottle.
‘You went after him, didn’t you,’ Sean said, making it a statement only this side of an accusation.
‘Not exactly. I was checking out where he lived. I fucked up. Ross saw me, knew who I was, and got it into his head I was going to blackmail him like Niki did. So he came after me.’
I had a sudden flashback of Ross coming towards me, felt the punch. My body flushed hot then cold, and pinpricks of sweat broke out on my forehead. Shit. How long was this going to go on for?
‘I told you I’d checked him out,’ Sean said as he slowed, then sped through a red light. ‘What set you off on him, anyway?’
I pictured Vex telling me how much Niki loathed Ross — what a sicko she thought he was.
‘Vex picked him out,’ I said. At that moment we hit the Petone foreshore stretch, and I saw a woman in an emerald-green coat throwing a stick for her dog, a Golden Labrador. Every time the dog leapt in the air it twisted its body, and the drops of water flew off its coat in an arc. It was beautiful. It was all beautiful — the green of the woman’s coat, the joy of the dog as it threw its body in the air, the far-flung arc of the droplets.
I felt the lump in my throat swell again, and I knew that if I started to cry now I’d never stop. I forced down a painful swallow of Lucozade and waited for the lump to go away. Sean knew I was struggling, and pulled back from his questions. He wove the car expertly across the lanes, going well over the 100 km an hour limit, but I felt safe. I’d always felt safe with Sean.
‘Is Wolf okay?’
‘He’s fine.’ I saw Sean glance sideways at me and make a decision to add, ‘Trust you to take up with an ex-dog handler.’
I let that sink it. Let it wrap itself gently around me. Robbie must have been the one to realise something was wrong and set the alarm bells ringing. He must have contacted Sean … a wave of exhaustion washed over me. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to piece together what had happened in the real world. I felt as if I’d been away in a foreign land, a place where I didn’t understand the people, the land or the language. The last few days were already taking on the feeling of a dream, a nightmare I was still in the process of waking from.
‘I thought I had it figured,’ I explained. ‘I thought Ross paid Snow to kill Niki.’
Sean grunted, but kept his eyes on the road. I didn’t know how much he knew of all this, but didn’t see any harm in telling him what I’d learnt. ‘And then when Ross heard that Snow was mouthing off about killing her, maybe even heard about the recording Gemma made, he realised that eventually Snow would lead you guys to him, so he had to kill him.’ Sean was still giving nothing away. ‘But now I’m not so sure,’ I admitted.
Finally he said, ‘I am working this case, Di. I wish you’d trust that.’
‘You’re “pursuing active lines of enquiry”, eh?’ I said, but kept it light.
‘Yeah, I am actually,’ he replied, keeping it just as light right back at me.
‘I know.’ I offered this as a kind of ‘I’m sorry’, and he took it and smiled grimly to himself.
‘What happened back there, Diane?’ Sean’s voice was still relaxed and normal, but I saw his Adam’s apple go up and down and knew he was struggling to hold himself together. It dawned on me that he felt guilty for not finding me sooner. Sean knew me, but I sure as hell knew him too. I shrugged and looked out the window. The ferry was coming in, packed full of laughing, happy, carefree holiday-makers no doubt. My shrug fooled neither of us.
‘Did he rape you?’ Sean asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
I counted to ten before answering. ‘No,’ I lied. ‘He didn’t rape me.’ I didn’t bother to cross my fingers behind my back, and I didn’t expect Sean to believe me, but I knew it would be unfair to tell him the truth. He was my ex-husband and he was a cop. The ex-husband would feel he had to play the role of comforter. The cop would have to report it as a crime. I didn’t want either.
‘Diane. You know …’ He took a breath — but I cut him off.
‘Leave it, Sean. I know what I’m doing. If you catch him, the kidnapping’s enough to put him away for a long, long time.’ I looked at Sean — saw the sweat on his palms, a dribble of it running down his hairline. The temperature in the car was probably really high, but I was still shivering. ‘I’ll testify to him kidnapping me and everything else he did … but not to that.’
He was probably going to argue with me, but we were pulling into the emergency drive-in area of A & E and medics were already waiting. I saw a couple of uniformed cops talking to reporters, pushing them back away from the entrance. My car door was opened, and an orderly leaned in to help me out. There was a flurry as the stretcher was clattered towards the car and I was lifted on to it. At the last minute I turned my head to thank Sean. He was still in the driver’s seat, his body slumped against the door, his head thrown back, cheek against the cool glass, eyes shut. He looked like a man who’d just come last in a marathon.
I insisted on a shower before I’d let them do anything to me. They put up a bit of a fight and I heard murmurs of ‘DNA evidence’ and ‘rape kit’, but after I’d told them emphatically that I had not been raped they finally agreed to the shower, on condition a nurse accompanied me. I agreed to it only because I knew I couldn’t do it on my own.
Marcia was professional and matter-of-fact, and I was grateful for that. I sat on a pink plastic chair in the cubicle holding the shower nozzle while she used a flannel to gently wash away the filth. I was still in love with water and luxuriated at the abundance of it, holding the nozzle above my upturned face and letting the water run over my eyelids into my mouth.
Marcie handed me the soapy flannel, and suggested I might like to wash myself. She meant my vulva. From the way she avoided my eyes I was sure she knew.
She found what must have been the only thick, soft towel in the hospital to pat me dry. I’d avoided looking directly at my body, but what I’d glimpsed was diminished, and mottled with colours predominantly in the purple to yellow range.
I tried not to be stroppy with the doctors and nurses who prodded, poked and pricked me. I knew they were just doing their job, but hospitals are no place to be when you’re sick. I even took pity on the young constable who’d been given the job of photographing my injuries for evidential purposes. She was quick about it, probably keen to make her getaway as soon as she could. Marcia stayed with me as I was wheeled to various parts of the hospital where I was X-rayed, had my wrist patched up, and my nose ‘readjusted’.
They smothered my feet in what looked and smelled like engine grease, and then coddled them in thick bandages. I was suspicious they’d done that just to stop me from walking out the door, which I’d threatened to do every fifteen minutes — but the fight was going out of me. Marcia had most likely added a sedative to the saline drip in my arm. By the time the orderly wheeled me up to the ward all I wanted to do was sleep. Marcia murmured there was a policeman wanting to see me, but I’d had enough. I closed my eyes.
I heard the click of claws on linoleum and the stifled whine of yearning, and by the time I’d opened my eyes his huge paws landing on the bed threatened to capsize it, and his massive bony head thumped down on my chest. It hurt but it was a good hurt. I cupped my palm over his intelligence bump and told him I was okay. Told him I was fine. I felt his warm dry fingers brush the hair from my face, felt his lips on my forehead. He smelled divine. He was warm. Warm and alive. My hand stroked the silky warmth of him. I felt the tears come. There was no crying sound, no hiccup or groan, just the steady run of tears. They pooled in the hollow of my throat. It was as if, now that I had some water in me, it was all going to leak out again. He licked the tears up, whimpering. He told me to sleep now. Said they’d both be here when I woke. That I was safe and they wouldn’t leave. And with that I breathed in the warm, sweet, biscuit aroma of him, and slept.
When I woke they were bo
th still there, Robbie slumped in the chair pulled up close against the bed, his hand holding mine; Wolf lying across his feet, alert, watching me. Wolf saw me wake and leapt to his feet, dancing from paw to paw and whining in excitement. He lifted his huge front feet on to the bed again, and gave in to the temptation to give me a good licking. The smell of the graze on my face worried him, and I had to do a fair bit of reassuring before he agreed to drop back on his four paws. Robbie’s greeting was a little more restrained but just as heartfelt.
He leaned in and kissed my forehead. ‘Welcome home.’
I hummed something, not able to speak yet. The curtain had been pulled around the bed, and I had no idea of the time of day or night. It was good being in this little enclosed world with just the three of us. Robbie poured me a drink of water, helped me into a half-sitting position, and held it to my lips, all the time chatting quietly to me and giving the occasional instruction to Wolf.
Although he never changed his tone, I was amazed at how Wolf knew when the words were for him, and even more amazed that he immediately did as he was told. Then I realised I had too. Done what I was told, that is. I’d done exactly as Robbie had asked — sipped my drink, leaned forward so he could put a pillow at my back, even responded to his questions about pain level without biting his head off. What was it about this guy that made both Wolf and me acquiesce so readily? I warned myself to look out for that.
There was a pause, a silence, and I realised Robbie was giving me time to speak if I wanted to.
‘I don’t want to talk about it yet.’
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