by Anna Willett
As her mind skipped from one thought to the next, the minutes ticked by. Hiding in the bathroom might buy her some time, but at what cost to Arthur? She could live with taking the coward’s way out, but she couldn’t let a man die so she’d be safe. With no time left to dither, Belle made the decision to keep going and find a way to get help.
Taking another unsteady step, she made it to the rear of Lea’s car. The only light came from the porch, not quite falling as far as the vehicle. But because of the car’s pale colour, Belle could see most of it clearly enough. Belle leaned her body against the boot and let out a shuddering breath. How long had she been outside? It couldn’t have been more than two minutes.
She glanced back at the front door. Any second now it would swing open and Lea would come charging out. Belle’s only option was getting to the road. On crutches and wearing slippers, her chances of success were slim, but what else could she do?
She didn’t need the ache in her leg to tell her painkillers had well and truly worn off. As much as she longed for the hazy tranquillity of her medication, she was grateful for the clear-headedness. If she stood any chance of survival, she needed to be able to think. She let her hand rest on the cold steel of the boot. If only she had Lea’s keys.
The idea came like a thunderclap. The driveway sloped downwards towards the road. If the car was unlocked, she could put it in neutral, disengage the handbrake, and gravity would take care of the rest. Belle’s heart fluttered at the idea, partly out of sheer terror, but mostly with excitement.
Now she was thinking again, using her mind to formulate a plan instead of calming her brain through endless counting. If the car was unlocked, the boot would be open and she could grab a tyre iron. That way if Lea came out of the house, at least Belle could fend her off.
“Yes,” Belle muttered, not really aware she was speaking. “We’ll have a catfight on the driveway.” The idea was so gut-wrenching it made her want to giggle or sob; she wasn’t sure which.
Balancing her weight on the crutches, she slid her fingers into the release and to her surprise the boot sprang open. The smell hit her before she could raise the lid. A sweet odour like raw meat mixed with cheap perfume. Belle gagged and tried to cover her mouth, an involuntary movement to ward off the stench that now filled her lungs. As she moved, the boot flew up and her left crutch slipped forward and out of her grip.
Toppling forward, she put out her left hand but couldn’t stop herself tipping into the boot. Like falling into a bloody nightmare, Belle’s hand landed on something rigid and cold. The boot light was on and close-up the starkness of the dead body was inescapable. She took in the image in snaps that came fast and sharp as her eye blinked in the scene.
Belle let out a sound that sounded animal-like, and then she scrambled back, her fingers digging into hard, dead flesh and slipping into something sticky.
“Oh, Jesus.” She wailed out a cry and steadied herself on the rim of the boot.
Wanting to back away but unable to move, she took in the horror. A girl, dead and folded on her side. Belle’s one eye, although misty and almost closed, stared into the depths of the car at the dead girl’s throat that had a thick piece of tree branch stuck through it. It took Belle a second to understand how a branch could be in the girl’s neck. With that realisation came a gush of bile.
Belle vomited onto the girl’s leg, a thick string of liquid that splashed on the corpse’s navy pants. Groaning, Belle reached up to cover her face and realised her left hand was coated with something dark. Another spasm gripped her gut, twisting her stomach like trying to tear it into two.
“Get away from that.” The voice cut through the immediate horror and Belle spun on her good foot.
Lea jammed her hand into Belle’s armpit and squeezed, using her free hand to slam the boot down. Fighting back, Belle pushed at the girl, leaving a smear of dark blood on the caregiver’s chin.
“You crazy bitch.” Belle couldn’t stop the words even if she wanted to. “You did that. You killed her. You… You. Get your hands off me.” She was breathing hard, struggling to keep her balance and fight the girl off at the same time.
Lea’s teeth were clenched, her lips pulled back with the effort to keep hold of Belle’s armpit. In the near dark, the girl’s eyes looked black. Without warning, she pulled back and slapped Belle with enough force to rock her head to the left. Some of the air went out of Belle’s lungs and with it her strength ebbed.
“Get inside.” Lea bit the words off like angry sparks.
She jerked Belle towards the porch. With only one crutch, Belle had no choice but to be marched back to the house. When they reached the wheelchair, Lea stopped.
“Get in.” She pointed at the chair, but Belle pulled back. “Get in or I’ll kick your knee out from under you.” Lea’s eyes, still black under the shadow of the porch, loomed close to Belle’s face.
She wanted to resist. Every nerve in her body itched to pull away and run, but there was no mistaking the menace in the young woman’s voice. Belle had seen what she was capable of. Running was out of the question. She let her head drop and hopped to the side, then slumped into the chair. Without another word, Lea pushed Belle back into the house as Belle counted the hiss the wheels made with each revolution.
Arthur was still unconscious, the only movement coming from his shallow breathing. The chair jolted as the carer swung around the sofa. Belle fixed her gaze on her hands. One coated in blood and the other with nails bitten past the quick. A few minutes ago she’d been determined to escape and get help. Now that determination had turned into helplessness. It always comes back to helplessness. Was there ever a time in her life when she wasn’t a victim?
“I suppose you think you have me all worked out?”
Lea was speaking, but Belle was trying to reconcile what she’d seen in the boot and what that meant for her and Arthur. Death she supposed. Lea couldn’t let them go now, not after what she’d done to Arthur and to the girl in the boot.
“Hey.” Lea snapped her fingers close to Belle’s injured eye. The sound made Belle jump. “I’m talking to you.”
Belle’s head felt heavy or maybe her neck was weak. Lifting her chin so she could meet the girl’s gaze became an effort. Under the sitting room lights, the carer’s eyes were blue and shining with intensity. She was watching Belle, waiting for something.
“You killed that girl, didn’t you?” Belle didn’t wait for an answer. “She had the same uniform as the one you’re wearing. She’s Lea.” Belle swallowed back a wave of nausea. “So who are you?”
Chapter Fifteen
There was very little to pack, a few T-shirts and some dirty underwear. Most of Guy’s possessions were in the bathroom. After his phone call with Andy, he’d woken the girl in his bed. Her name he learned was Candi with an ‘i’. After some fast talking and a promise to call her when he flew back to New Zealand, he managed to get her out the door. Now alone and with midnight approaching, he scooped up his collection of skin care products, and dumped them in his shaving bag.
The bathroom was spacious with floor to ceiling marble tiles and a triple jet shower. Nice set-up, but probably the last he’ll see of such luxury. His phone shrilled from the bedroom and for the first time in hours, he thought of Belle. She’d asked him to do something, but the headache he’d woken up with that morning had grown from a buzz into a drill and his thoughts were stilted and as bleary as his eyes.
Before zipping up the shaving bag, he rummaged around and found a strip of paracetamol. Popping two, he tossed them back with a handful of tap water. Scrubbing his hand over his mouth, he straightened up and despite his efforts to ignore it, the phone continued to peel out its strident call.
“Now what?” He answered without registering the number on the display.
“Guy?” At the sound of Belle’s voice, relief floated out of the quagmire of misery he’d been wallowing in since lunchtime. He needed her, which was one thing about his life he’d never doubted. He’d leave th
is lonely place and go back to Belle; she knew how to make everything all right. He’d go back to her and find a way to make everything good again.
“Hi, babe. I miss you so–”
“No. No, sorry.” She spoke rapidly now. “It’s Bethany.”
Guy’s legs were unsteady. He let them fold under him and dropped back onto the bed. Belle’s sister wouldn’t be calling unless something was wrong. For a heartbeat, the hotel room vanished and he was back in his agent’s office, back in the moment when he got the call about Belle’s accident. “Bethany, what’s wrong? Has something happened?” He had trouble catching his breath.
“No.” Her voice was so like her sister’s it was eerie. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I know it’s late in New Zealand, but I can’t get hold of Belle and…” He could hear her taking a breath, steadying herself. “I just wondered if you’d spoken to her today.”
He ran a hand through his hair, trying to remember the exact time he’d last spoken to his wife. “I talked to her at lunchtime.” It was now close to midnight, so almost twelve hours ago. Why hadn’t he thought to call her and check-in? “What time is it there?”
There was a pause before Bethany spoke. He could imagine her face, so like Belle’s, only without the softness. Bethany would be judging him, counting the hours since he’d last spoken to his wife. His wife who was recovering from a serious accident.
“It’s almost eight o’clock. I’ve been trying to get hold of her for a few hours, but she’s not answering. I’m in Bali.” There was an edge to her voice, not anger or judgement, but worry. The tightly contained panic in her words acted like a virus, jumping from her to him in lightning speed.
“Look, she’s probably having a nap. She’s on some heavy painkillers.” He was careful to keep his tone calm for Bethany and himself. “She’s got a caregiver with her, so if there was a problem she’d have called me.” Everything he was saying made perfect sense, yet rationalising the situation didn’t dispel the snake of fear that had curled itself around his lungs, making it difficult to keep the tremor out of his voice. “I’ll hang up and call Belle. If I don’t get hold of her, I’ll ring our neighbour and send him over.” He waited, but when his sister-in-law didn’t answer, he pushed on. “Okay?”
Bethany sniffed, making him wonder if she’d been crying. “Okay, but ring me straight back.” She sounded calmer now, but still upset.
There was a torn condom wrapper on the nightstand. Guy closed his eyes before he spoke. Your wife’s the one who’s going to suffer and it will be your fault. That’s what Katrina had said. He still had the message on his phone. “I will.” It was an effort to get the words out.
For a second he thought she’d hung up, but then she said something he knew she’d been holding back. “I never would have left the country if I thought you’d go off and leave her.”
He opened his mouth to protest, to explain he’d had no choice and that he hadn’t left her alone, but Bethany had hung up.
Before calling Belle, he went back over his messages, reading and deleting Katrina’s texts.
* * *
Joan noticed the lights were out at Arthur’s place. Even with a steep driveway, the glow from her neighbour’s windows usually reached the road. It was odd for him to be asleep this early or out this late. But thoughts of Arthur and his comings and goings were fleeting, hardly registering as she grappled with something more pressing.
Leaving Belle’s house, Joan had been reeling, at first with indignation before the emotions settled into something more painful. Her feelings were hurt. It was childish really, almost embarrassing. Not one for emotional displays, Joan sniffed back tears grateful that the road was dark and there was no one to witness her humiliation.
At the end of Arthur’s driveway, she paused and stowed the torch under her arm, using her hands to push back her hair and drag a finger under each eye. She would have never believed grief would bring her this low, but the daily anguish was like a relentless master that directed her thoughts and emotions. Sorrow had become an almost tangible entity, sucking the joy and purpose out of life. Eighteen months ago, she’d gone to bed with the man she loved. No, Joan corrected herself. I adored him. Her lower lip trembled; the memory refused to be ignored.
Standing alone on the darkened road, Joan was no longer aware of the wind shifting through the trees or the cold air on her cheeks. She saw not the dark stretch of road, but sunlight spilling across a yellow bedspread. The sound of magpies yodelling out their morning song and Roger…
She closed her eyes and pulled the collar of her husband’s jacket up around her throat. It was his jacket. It would always be his. Try as she did, she couldn’t erase the image of him flat on his back with blank eyes staring upwards. The details of that last morning were so clear, the picture was jarring in its clarity. Small things: the way his pyjama top had ridden up on one side, revealing a patch of soft flesh on his belly; the stubble on his chin, grey with only a lingering fleck of black.
The cold worked its way under her clothes, touching her skin like phantom hands. Joan shivered and straightened her shoulders. These days it took so little to upset her.
“I’m all right, darling.” She imagined Roger on the road ahead, his broad shoulders turned at an angle as the misty night surrounded him. “Just a wobble.” She pulled the torch out from under her arms and walked on. “An old chook like me is allowed a little wobble.”
As the memory slithered back to some jagged corner of her mind, something else surfaced and Joan frowned. Hurtful as the little scene at the Hammers’ place had been, there were things that didn’t sit right. All the emotions, the ups and downs of anguish, had almost washed away the disquiet that started when Joan looked at Belle Hammer.
Something was off. What that something was, Joan couldn’t say. Her memory was still as strong as it had been twenty years ago, but what it was that bothered her was maddeningly beyond her grasp.
Still heading towards home, she decided to let the thought go. Experience had taught her that if something was worth remembering, she usually would remember it. “No use agonising over it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lea or the girl pretending to be Lea, propped Belle’s crutch against the wall on the right of the front door. Then, moving with casual ease, she perched on the arm of the sofa. She wasn’t quite smiling, but her face had taken on a countenance that suggested amusement. She’s enjoying this, Belle thought, still waiting for the girl to speak.
“When I lost my foot, I thought my life was over.” She shrugged. “And I was right, sort of. My old life, the one I cared about – that was gone.” She reached down and pulled up the leg of her pants, revealing her prosthetic. “This is my life now.”
For a moment the girl gazed at her artificial limb and appeared to be seeing it for the first time. “I remember every second of the accident.” She looked back at Belle and the amusement vanished. “You know how people block out that sort of thing?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Not me. I’ll never forget a second of what it felt like. I was leaving a party. The street was dark, only one light pole. I’d had a few drinks and something to take the edge off. I wasn’t drunk, just a bit…” She lifted her hand and made an either way gesture. “I remember there was a footpath with a steep curb. It reminded me of that scene from “Singing in the Rain.” You know when the guy’s dancing on the sidewalk?”
Belle nodded, but didn’t think the girl noticed. “I’d only flown back to Perth the day before and I was still on a high because I’d landed a part in an Off-Broadway show. A supporting role with a twenty-second dance solo.” She wasn’t looking at Belle anymore. Her eyes were fixed on something in the distance. Maybe she was seeing the memory play out in her mind. Belle wanted to interrupt, but decided to let the girl tell her story. Maybe talking through what brought her to do the unspeakable to the girl in the car would help her see she had to let Belle go.
“I was so excited that I started dancing.” She smiled, an expression
with such sadness that Belle could only watch and listen, a flicker of sympathy pulling her into the girl’s story. “I was hopping on and off the curb, just like that guy in the movie.” She started to hum, murmuring out a few notes and then stopped. “A car came around the bend. I heard it before I saw it. An old thing with one of those rumbling engines. I didn’t take much notice because I was on the other side of the road, so I was safe, right?” She started humming again only this time with an intensity that bordered on anger. “I heard the car rev and then it was on top of me.”
Lea closed her eyes. When she opened them she was staring at Belle. “It clipped me here.” She tapped the artificial ankle.” The driver would have barely felt it, but the wheel caught my bone and shattered it. That’s what they told me later.” Her voice was tight, as though holding back emotion. “At the same time, the rest of my foot spun around and was crushed against the curb. I felt every second, even the part when my flesh ripped off like an old sock.”
Belle’s hand went to her throat. “Jesus, Lea…” She didn’t know what to say. Just imagining the pain was enough to make Belle’s already fragile stomach churn.
“My name’s Georgia,” she said in an off-hand way before continuing. “I didn’t pass out.” She nodded. “Dancers are pretty tough. We have to be. We push through the pain.” She pointed a finger in Belle’s direction. “This is the funny part. The driver stopped. I was on the pavement by then, screaming for help. I saw the brake lights come on so I know the driver knew they’d hit me.” She shook her head. “I had my hand like this.” She wrapped her fingers around her prosthetic ankle. “Only instead of skin and bone, I felt mush and blood. That’s when I really started to howl. The car drove away.” Her voice dropped to little more than a whisper. “They drove away and left me screaming for help.” She let go of her artificial limb and levelled Belle with an accusing stare. “You drove away.”