by Tina Clough
‘Come away from here,’ I say to Dao and pull her coughing to the other side of the fence. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Not really,’ she says shakily. One of her wrists has a bit of rope around it. She coughs again and tries to undo the knot and I reach out to do it for her. That’s when I notice the cut; a long straight line, precision cut from her wrist to her elbow.
Before I can comment she says, ‘When you lifted me like that and pulled – ouch, that hurt – but it made the rope break. I could feel it go.’
I replay the scene in my head and understand that disaster was a fraction of a second away. The rope breaking could have upset the precarious balance between Stuart’s weight pulling on her from one side and me holding on from the other side. If I had lost my grip on her upper arm she would have gone in with Stuart. A cold shiver runs down my spine; I could have killed her.
‘I bet I’ll be bruised. Your fingers are so hard!’ She bends over and coughs violently.
I take her hand and lead her further away. ‘Let’s get away from this smell. I’m sorry I hurt you, but I had to do something fast. I knew there was water there, just beside him.’
‘What is that filth?’
We turn and look back at the pond and see something pushing against the scum layer, not quite breaking through.
‘God, it isn’t him, is it? Trying to get out?’ Dao takes a step back.
I move a bit closer and she follows slowly. We stare across the fence as the scum moves aside a bit more; the skull of a large animal is partially visible. A few large bubbles are still coming up from whatever lies below, and the smell is overwhelming.
‘It’s awful. Every time something breaks that layer, the stench comes up.’
The skull sinks, and all is still again. I pick up the Glock and as we move further away Dao says, in a conversational tone of voice, as if we are discussing the weather, ‘Do you think you could have pulled him out? I mean, if the smell hadn’t been so bad and we hadn’t been choking.’
I shake my head. ‘No. Do you think I should have tried?’
‘Oh no, I just wondered. But we can’t tell anyone about this, not ever.’
She calmly accepts the situation and not for the first time I wonder what shaped her character. Was it her decade alone with a brutal man with only herself to rely on, or would she have been as ruthlessly pragmatic whatever her upbringing?
‘And another thing,’ she says and raises her cut arm. ‘We have to decide if we are going to tell anyone he found me – and cut me. And if we do tell the police about it, then we must lie about how I got away from him. I’d much rather say nothing at all.’
‘You’re right. We can’t tell anyone, it would make things too complicated. And if someone notices in the future we can say you got caught in a barbed-wire fence.’
‘I’ll say Scruff ran away and I went to look for him while you were on the phone and then I got lost. Which is the truth, actually.’
I can’t believe it. Scruff! I never even thought of him all this time.
‘Where is he? Did he run away when Stuart got hold of you?’
‘Don’t be silly! He would never run away if someone was threatening me. I haven’t told you what happened yet. He took off after some little animal while I was peeing. I don’t know what it was, but he got super excited and chased after it. I called and called, but he didn’t come – I got really worried he’d be lost and not find his way back. So I went after him. I did what you told me before. I turned around now and then and took note of landmarks, so I’d be able to find my way back, but I got lost anyway.’
‘And you found Scruff?’
‘I did, but it took quite a long time. But then, when I did find him, I had no idea where we were.’
‘How long did you spend trying to find him?’
‘Half an hour perhaps, maybe an hour? I didn’t think of the time till after I found him. We started walking back in the direction I had come from, or so I thought, but I found a container – you know, one of those shipping things. I hadn’t seen it while I was chasing Scruff, so I knew I was lost. It’s in the forest and it’s dark brown – I didn’t even notice it till I was right beside it. It seemed really strange. I mean, how did it get there? Who would put one of those things there – no path or anything. The door at the end was open and I was standing there looking at it, when he came up behind me and threw something over my head and pulled it down hard. He had me by one arm, really tight and he said he had a knife. Scruff went crazy. It was very confusing, very noisy. I think Scruff was biting Stuart – he was growling and Stuart was screaming and swearing. I couldn’t see anything, but I think he kicked Scruff because he yelped, and that big door clanged shut. And then he dragged me away.’
‘We’ll say you lost Scruff and eventually found first him and then me. Nothing else at all. Don’t give them any details if they ask. Just say you were lost, and it seemed to take ages. And we must hide that cut. There are no barbed-wire fences here.’
I pull my sweatshirt off and hand it to her. ‘I know this is huge, but we’ll say you felt cold.’
‘And I’ve got my hoodie in the car. Lucky that you had a T-shirt underneath. Now we must find the container and let Scruff out.’
I lift her arm to look at the cut. It was done with something very sharp, but it’s not deep. Blood has run along and across her arm before drying. He started another stick-man outline on Dao, like the one he cut on Hope. What would he have done next?
My grip on her arm must have tightened; she looks at the wound and then at me. ‘When he did this, I was so frightened. He wasn’t normal, he was mad! What’s it called when people are really horrible, in an unnatural kind of way?’
‘Perversion?’
‘Yes! That’s it.’ An expression of revulsion passes over her face, she shivers and leans against me.
‘I’ll tell you now and then I don’t want to talk about it ever again. It makes me feel sick. He pushed me down and made me lie on my front and he said, “Put your arms straight out from your body”. He was kneeling beside me and he put one hand on the back of my head to stop me moving. He pressed down hard and I couldn’t see anything – I still had that thing over my head. I didn’t know what he was going to do. And then he started humming.’
I hold her closer. ‘You don’t have to talk about it right now.’
‘But I want to,’ she says. ‘I need to tell you what happened, just this once. He was humming and stroking my arm up and down, very slowly, for ages. And then suddenly – the pain! I knew he had sliced me with the knife, like he did Hope. He stopped humming and he giggled! Hunter, he cut me with a knife and giggled like a little girl! But something happened, I don’t know what it was, he just stopped. He might have heard something that I didn’t hear because my head was wrapped up in that thing. He dragged me to my feet and hauled me around – I think he was trying to find something to tie my hands. I tried to pull off that cover he had put over my head with one hand, but he just kept hitting my hand away. He tied me up and we started walking. He said he had the knife at my back and he could push it between my ribs any time, he knew how to do it.’
It doesn’t make sense. Why would he walk away from the container when he could have locked her in with Scruff? Did he hear me shouting Dao’s name and whistling for Scruff? Did that make him panic? And the humming and giggling – was he insane or high on something?
‘Come on, Hunter! We have to find the container and get Scruff out,’ she says impatiently. ‘He’ll be so scared. I bet it’s dark in there.’
‘Just wait here for a moment. I must get rid of a couple of things.’
What Stuart had put over Dao’s head was a man’s sweatshirt. I can’t find a big rock and spend some time collecting several small ones. I lay them in the middle of the sweatshirt and hold it as far out as I can reach from the edge of the pond. Crouching I hold it by the sides and lay it on the scum and let go. Very, very slowly it sinks through and into
the water. It takes longer than I expected for it to become saturated and for the weight of the stones to pull it down. As it disappears from view it tilts sideways. I hope the stones will fall off and leave the sweatshirt on the bottom of the pond with nothing to show it was weighed down.
I pick up the piece of rope from where I dropped it and hurl it into the middle of the pond. It will eventually become saturated and sink; a much less identifiable thing than the sweatshirt.
Dao has no idea where the container is. Her eyes were covered, so she has no landmarks from their trek from there to the scum pond. It takes us nearly an hour to find it. All Dao knows is that they walked steeply uphill on rough ground for only a couple of minutes and then on a track.
‘Not for long,’ she says. ‘Maybe ten minutes – or fifteen? But we walked very fast.’
I don’t mention my suspicion that maybe he knew about the pond and was going to throw her in. He must have been heading somewhere specific, else why did he take her away from the container site?
The dense vegetation with thick undergrowth shortens our line of sight to a few metres. The track is going uphill and soon we are on a ridgeline where the ground slopes steeply down on one side. I think of Dao’s description of climbing a slope on rough ground. ‘Could it be this slope? Let’s stop here and have a good look.’
We scan the landscape, back and forth, and see nothing unusual. And then, just as I am about to suggest we carry on to the next high point, I see something you never see in the bush: a horizontal line as straight as a ruler. About half of the upper edge of the container is visible, but only as a line. The brown box shape is camouflaged by vegetation and blends into the background.
Slowly, carefully, we make our way down the slope. There is no sound from the container. Dao wants to run forward to get to Scruff, but I put my hand on her shoulder and hold her back.
‘Let’s be very careful. If this is where he kept Hope, he might have cameras set up and we can’t risk being recorded. It might be best if the cops don’t know we found it. Stay here.’
‘I might already be on video,’ says Dao. ‘I never had time to look around properly before he grabbed me.’
I do a long slow circuit among the trees around the container, looking at it from all angles. In my head various scenarios play like video clips: Dao and Stuart recorded, how to explain how she got away from him, how to avoid discussing the scum pond.
Photovoltaic panels, mounted on the roof, angled north. No sign of a camera on the outside. A plastic supermarket bag on the ground: I crouch to peer into it without touching it. One of those clear triangular sandwich boxes and what looks like the inside tube from a roll of toilet paper.
‘I can’t see a camera,’ I call to Dao and she comes forward.
I take my T-shirt off and wrap it around my hand before I twist the handle up and out.
‘Stand back so the door screens you.’ I wait until she has moved to one side. ‘It just occurred to me that there might be a camera inside aimed at the door. When Scruff comes out, don’t run towards him, just stay where you are and let him find you and keep him there.’
I walk backward pulling the heavy steel door with me and Scruff explodes out, barking like mad, looks briefly at me and heads straight towards Dao. They move further in among the trees and Dao sits down on the ground. Scruff is ecstatic with joy, licking her face and squirming onto her lap. I walk to one side and then to the other, so I can study the interior from all angles before I go in. There is a plywood partition right up to the ceiling a short distance in, with a door in the centre. I can see no camera aimed at the outside. The interior door is half open.
I step into the container, open the inner door wider by using the back of my hand. I look as far in as I can without going right in. It is very dark in there. There is a small square hole in the metal wall halfway down the left side, but very little light comes in. All I can see is a camping lantern in the corner, what could be a bunched-up sleeping bag, and a bucket.
I take a step back and study the area I stand in. At the top corner of the partition is a small white box screwed to the plywood; beside it a cylinder shape in a dip cut out of the top of the plywood wall. A perfect position for a wide-angle camera’s view of most of the inner room. The box will be a hard drive where the recordings are stored, maybe with a battery charged by the solar panels outside.
Draping the T-shirt over my head, I wind it around to leave only my eyes exposed and poke my head through the door. My eyes have adjusted to the low light. I check the camera first. The lens is recessed, so the T-shirt is unnecessary. There is a camp-stretcher along the wall and an apple on the floor beside it. One of those workshop lamps with a metal cage around it hangs from a hook on the plywood wall. The cord exits through the hole in the metal side. I turn my head and look into the corner to my right and my heart misses a beat. Slumped in the corner, legs out in a V-shape, with her chin resting on her chest, sits a woman with long dark hair. I keep my eyes on her, try to focus as hard as I can in the dim room. She is clearly dead, emaciated, but there is something odd about her. I can’t quite decide what it is. I remain there for a couple of minutes and use the bad-light trick of looking just to one side of her to get a sharper focus. She is not only dead, she is air-dried, mummified. There appears to be a thick layer of dust all over her, but it could be mould. I move aside and lean in around the doorframe. With less of my body in the way, slightly more light filters in; she is fully dressed and wearing shoes. I can’t make out what is in her lap, but she might be holding a bunch of very dead flowers.
When I step through the external door the daylight blinds me. I stand there blinking, feeling dazed. Dao sees me from where she and Scruff are playing catch around the trunk of a cabbage tree.
‘Can I come and look? Is it safe?’
‘In a moment.’
My expression sends a message, and she looks closely at me. ‘What’s in there? What’s wrong?’
‘Let me tell you before you go in.’
We sit down in the doorway, on the edge of the container floor. The sun has come out again and the feeling of warmth on my bare chest is comforting. ‘He built a wall in there with a door in it. He probably held Hope in the inner room – there is an apple that looks quite fresh on the floor. There’s a camera mounted in the top left corner of the wall – you can see it from the outer room. There is a dead woman in the inner room.’
Dao sucks in her breath and stares at me. ‘Is she like Hope?’
Is she asking if the corpse looks like Hope or if she has been cut?
‘I couldn’t see. It’s quite dark in there and I couldn’t risk going in and being captured on video. You can have a look if you want to, but you can’t step into the inner room. Just poke your head through far enough to look around.’
I stand close behind her with a hand on her shoulder as she leans forward and looks first one way and then the other. The grey misery of that bare space and the thought of Hope being held there is heart-breaking.
Dao is very still. She stands looking into the right-hand corner for a long time before she steps back.
‘That man was a monster,’ she says with great emphasis when we are outside in the bright light again. ‘I’m glad he’s in that horrible pond. I bet that is the other woman, the one Tama told us about.’
Chapter twenty-two
We debate our options as we clamber back up through the trees. Keeping Stuart’s capture of Dao out of the story is relatively simple; all we need to do is never mention him. We can say that Dao chased Scruff, got lost and then eventually found me – or I found her. If nobody knows about Stuart grabbing her, we have eliminated any trace of direct contact. The container requires more thought.
‘You can’t let the police see the Glock,’ says Dao suddenly. ‘Now that I’m wearing your sweatshirt, they’ll spot it straight away.’
She is right. I take my belt off and remove the holster, but now I have a new problem. I have nowhe
re to put it. I can’t carry it in my pocket and my T-shirt is too tight to conceal a gun.
Dao reaches for it. ‘Give it to me. This sweatshirt is like a tent, I could hide several guns.’
She sticks the gun and its holster inside the front of her T-shirt, tucks the shirt into her jeans an lets the sweatshirt drop.
‘Like this – if it starts to slip I’ll put my arm across my middle. Perhaps I’ll hold my phone in my hand so it looks natural. What do you think? Can you see it?’
It makes me laugh in the middle of this ghastly situation; my sweatshirt reaches nearly to her knees and you could fit three of her inside it. ‘Not a sign – plenty of room to hide a lot more.’
We continue along the track. Scruff is being particularly well-behaved and keeps his position right beside Dao.
‘Dao, we must tell them we found the container,’ I say, after some thought. ‘Not that you found it on your own or that Scruff got locked in – and certainly not that you ever laid eyes on Stuart. We’ll just say we found each other, and on the way back we came across the container. I promised I would call them as soon as I found you. Let’s keep it simple.’
‘I know. If we don’t tell them where it is, they might not find it – or not for ages. It’s so well hidden down there. And the sooner they know what he did, the easier it will be for Tama.’
The policeman I spoke to earlier is relieved to hear that I have found Dao and Scruff. He asks us to go down to where Stuart’s truck is parked and wait; someone will come and talk to us.
Near the bottom of the big track we meet three people heading up, two carrying cases and one with a dog. The humans nod, the dog glances briefly at Scruff and Dao takes a tight grip on his collar.