by Emma Viskic
‘OK. Thanks.’ He stood. Time to go before either of them could come up with more ways for him to spend money.
Sammi caught him as he reached Tilda and handed him Maggie’s laptop. ‘Don’t forget your rubbish.’
‘Any chance there’s something you didn’t find?’
An outraged expression, possibly genuine. ‘What do you think I am? A fu– friggen amateur? There’s nothing secret on that.’
Tilda looked up from the chair. ‘You shouldn’t put secrets on computers. They’re not secure.’ Delivered with the solemnity of a public service announcement.
Sammi nodded. ‘You’re smart. Don’t hang around with this guy too long.’
***
It was well after seven by the time they got back to his office, the usually quick drive taking a little longer because of a politely requested toilet stop for Tilda. She hadn’t spoken apart from that, but a lot was obviously going on inside her head.
Caleb parked in a well-lit street and got out, gave the area a good scan before unlocking Tilda’s door. A chill to the air as they headed for the arcade, Tilda dressed only in her school uniform. Damn, something else he hadn’t thought of. Nothing warm to give her except his too-large jacket. She must be getting hungry by now, too, and thirsty. Insight into why parents dragged around such enormous bags – a whole new world of things to learn.
‘You cold?’ he asked. ‘Or hungry?’
Her face lifted to him. ‘No. Do your parents give them to you?’
‘Give what?’
‘Sign names.’
His parents probably hadn’t known what a sign name was. Only his brother, Anton, knew sign. Theirs had been a strictly voice-only household, his father’s concession to him attending a school for the Deaf coming only after Caleb’s abject failure to cope in the local one.
‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘My friends gave me mine. Deaf friends.’
Her eyes were still on him, as if she wanted to ask something, but wasn’t sure she should. A first in their short but interrogative relationship.
‘Would you like a sign name?’ he asked.
Her mouth opened. ‘Yespleasehow?’
‘I’ll give you one. Might take a while, though. They’re pretty special, so I have to make sure it’s –’ He stopped as they reached the arcade. A dim shape. Someone hiding behind the firehose at the end of the walkway.
Imogen.
The killer.
He was turning to grab Tilda when the person moved into the open. Tall and angular, with short grey hair. Frankie. A very odd-looking Frankie; her usual jeans and leather jacket replaced by a floral top and long purple skirt, her spiky hair brushed flat. A rainbow headscarf topped off the Earth Mother look.
He managed to close his mouth but Tilda’s hung open. She made two fists and tapped her thumbs together.
10.
Frankie was looking good. A bit of weight on her bony frame, her fifty-eight years sitting lightly on her face. Being on the run suited her. That, and the steady supply of smack she was probably on. It was only when she couldn’t feed her habit that she started drinking and went off the rails.
She knelt to hug Tilda, an unusual softness to her expression. ‘Hey, Turnip, sorry it took me so long. I’ve booked us into a cute motel. Thought it’d be more fun than the house.’
Cute and fun: words he’d never before seen on Frankie’s lips. If she whipped out a Hello Kitty purse he was going to have to sit down.
She straightened, facing him. ‘Thanks for looking after her. Got her stuff?’ Casual, as though nothing hung between them. No pain or betrayal, no confusion that she’d saved him from self-destruction just months ago.
He kept his face blank. ‘In the office.’
Tilda slipped inside once he’d unlocked the door, but he put a hand out to stop Frankie. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Later.’
No. If Frankie left, it was all over. Even if he managed to tail her, he couldn’t sic Imogen onto her with Tilda around. He had to get the documents.
‘It’s important.’ He glanced at Tilda and changed to sign. Frankie’s Auslan was rudimentary, but she could usually follow him if he did it slowly enough. ‘It’s about Maggie being hurt. About you.’
She hesitated, then said something to Tilda and pulled the office door closed. ‘Make it quick. No one knows I’m in town and I want to keep it that way.’
No point trying to hide his agenda. Frankie’s sense for bullshit had been refined by thirty years on the force; more than that, she’d trained him. He gave her a quick rundown on the past two days. She listened without comment, but her breathing quickened at the news of Amon’s murder.
‘And?’ she said when he’d finished.
‘And I need the docs, or Imogen’s going to arrest me.’
‘On what grounds? Gullibility?’
‘Murder. She’s got a witness who can tie me to Petronin’s death.’
‘She’s lying. If the cops could pin it on you they would have done it by now.’
‘I’m not willing to take that risk.’
Her pale eyes met his. ‘I am.’
And there it was, the fulcrum in their balance of power.
‘Don’t give me that kicked-puppy look,’ she said. ‘Do you think I enjoy living with ferals who knit their own pubes? Someone tried to kill me for the damn things, and now you’re telling me a fed’s been murdered. The last thing I need is some renegade cop getting her hands on them.’ She yanked down the neck of her blouse to reveal puckered scar under her shoulder. A quick turn showed the larger exit wound, her skin livid white and badly healed. Jesus. Amon’s ruined face slid into his mind. If it’d been the same gun, Frankie was lucky to be alive.
‘Who shot you?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Which is why I’ve organised an armed guard for Maggie and I’m not hanging around here with Tilda.’
‘Then let me come to the motel. Tell me what you can. An hour – half an hour.’
‘No.’ She was reaching for the doorhandle.
‘Think of it as absolution for past sins,’ he said quietly.
She spun back. ‘I nearly died dragging your sorry arse out of a bushfire a few months back. Any sins are fully fucking absolved.’
Yes, she’d saved his life, but she’d had an ulterior motive. He stayed silent, giving her guilt room to expand, a technique that had never come close to working on her.
‘Christ.’ She pulled something silver from her pocket and shoved it at him.
He stared at the wad of foil.
‘Wrap your damn phone in it,’ she said. ‘The cop might be tracking you.’
***
Frankie was right, the motel was cute. Pink stucco with a large fishpond and three pink lawn flamingos. More pink inside: paint, carpet, lampshades, cushions. Plump golden cherubs clung smugly to the walls. There were two bedrooms and a kitchen/dining area that opened onto a sitting room, but it had the feeling of a much smaller space; a womb, maybe.
Frankie mouthed ‘fuck me’ and dumped takeaway pizza on a glitter-specked table. She set Tilda up in front of the TV, the girl chatting animatedly as Frankie fetched her pizza and glasses of water. A feeling he was an intruder on rare bonding time.
He got started on the pizza. More pink: ham and pineapple, the fruit stained a dull rose by the meat. Why hadn’t he tuned in to the discussion about what to order?
Frankie turned the TV up, loud enough for him to catch its muffled blare, and joined him at the table. She grabbed a slice of pizza and began picking off the pineapple. ‘I didn’t thank you properly before. For Tilda, the ambulance.’
He shook his head. ‘How’s Maggie?’
A shadow crossed her face. ‘Induced coma. There’s swelling on her brain.’
He looked at Tilda. She was watching a cartoon but casting littl
e glances their way, as though not wanting to be taken by surprise again. ‘Shouldn’t you tell her what’s happening?’
‘Why?’
‘To, you know, prepare her for the worst.’
Frankie flicked a chunk of pineapple into the box. ‘You’re an expert at preparing for the worst. You find it adds much to your quality of life?’
‘The length of it, maybe.’
‘You’re thirty-two, jury’s still out.’ She sat back. ‘I’m stuffed and I have to take Tilda to her great-aunt in woop woop tomorrow. Explain what’s happened before I flake out.’
He went through everything he knew so far: the anonymous hacker and Transis, Maggie’s text about Rhys Delaney.
Frankie was shaking her head before he’d finished. ‘Don’t know any of them. Why are you so freaked out about this? You said the other feds aren’t interested in you. Just ignore Imogen Blain and get on with your life.’
Once, he would have told her. Laid his heart open and celebrated with her, mourned with her.
‘Just tell me what you know,’ he said. ‘How’s Maggie involved?’
She took a bite of pizza, took her time chewing it. ‘The docs belong to her. She put them in a deposit box and gave me the key for safekeeping – the one you found back in Jan. Long story short, I tried to sell them to pay some debts, but the damn things are incomplete. And, for your safety and mine, that’s all I can tell you.’
The good thing about hanging around Frankie was the positive light it cast on his own failings as a sibling.
Odds were, Frankie was still holding on to the documents in the hopes of selling them. She might have moved them to her own deposit box but she was unlikely to have risked taking them out of the bank. Which meant the key should be nearby – in her backpack or pocket, in the car. Or he was completely wrong, and she’d hidden the docs wherever she’d been living.
‘You got any leads on the guy who shot you?’ he asked. ‘He could be Maggie’s attacker.’
‘I’m betting he is, but no. He’ll just be muscle anyway. Big bloke, like a weightlifter.’ She began de-pineappling another slice, then lowered it. ‘You know, I’ve changed my mind, you’ve got a real problem. That guy’s either connected to Imogen, or following the same leads as her. Either way, he might come after you if he thinks you’re involved.’
He stared at her: she was right. Not just Imogen after him, but an unknown man with a gun. No way to protect yourself from something like that, no way to protect your friends, your family. Breathless, chest tight.
Frankie was still talking, saying something about dirt.
‘Sorry, what?’ he asked.
‘You need to flip it,’ she said slowly. ‘Go after Imogen. There’ll be dirt on her somewhere. Do a deal with the hacker.’
‘I tried. He’s not the sharing type.’
‘Well it’s that, or sit there trying to work out how to get the docs from me.’
Her ability to read his mind would have got her burned at the stake a few centuries ago. A waste of time trying to deny his intentions – just had to be thankful some flicker of remorse had kept her talking. He stood and went fetch Maggie’s laptop from his car.
When he got back, Frankie was watching cartoons with Tilda. An arm around the girl’s shoulders, heads close: a domestic scene he sometimes allowed himself to imagine but had never thought Frankie might. A breaking news banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen: the arrest of a family-values politician for sex crimes. Something involving an octopus? Frankie snatched the remote from Tilda and changed channels. Financial news, and the arrest of a hot young developer, John Jacklin, for dodgy real estate deals. No octopuses involved. Tilda settled in to watch, possibly taking notes.
Caleb found a spot in front of the cherub-free fridge and opened the messageboard Sammi had set up. Not a lot he could offer the hacker, but money might do the trick.
—I’ll pay for info on Transis
Frankie wandered into the kitchen as he pressed send. Apart from her usual Doc Martens, she’d really embraced the new look, right down to the woven friendship bracelets.
‘The mic’s live,’ he told her.
She backed away to the opposite counter and mouthed, ‘What’s the plan?’
He knocked his fist against his neck, the sign for ‘greed’.
‘What?’
He slowly fingerspelled the word: only five letters so there was a chance she’d get it.
‘Grade?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ he said out loud. ‘I’m hoping he responds well to external examination.’
The Guy Fawkes avatar flashed onto the screen, along with a message.
—u really deaf?
That was the question? Not how much or why?
—Yes
—u lipread video?
—Not live, you have to type. How much do you want for the info?
—job not $ got a video with shit sound. tell me what maggies saying and I’ll tell u everything
A link appeared at the bottom of the page.
11.
Caleb shut the laptop. Frankie was looking at him, eyebrows raised.
‘He wants me to lip-read a video,’ he said. ‘Maggie.’
A video of Maggie talking to a colleague, or of an argument that led to a large man smashing her head into the floor? Frankie looked as though she was going through the same thought process: tensed, her eyes on the laptop. Happy to steal from her sister but obviously deeply worried about her.
A sibling relationship even more complex than his with Anton. Ant, his little brother. The worry never went away, an ache like an abscess. Ant was in email contact these days, slow to answer Caleb’s messages, quicker to answer Kat’s. His bank withdrawals showed he was travelling up the east coast, but that was it. No phone number, no visits, no video calls – which meant he was either getting clean or diving to the depths of his heroin addiction. One day Caleb might forgive himself for dragging Ant into a case and fucking up his life. He hoped not.
Frankie straightened from the bench. ‘I’ll put Tilda to bed.’ She stopped halfway across the kitchen. ‘Make sure the sound’s off. The speaker icon.’
Good tip. He waited until she’d taken Tilda into one of the bedrooms, then moved to the glittery table. The video was webcam footage, Maggie dressed for a party, hair up, silver glinting at her ears, typing one-handed as she spoke on the phone. Steady speech but nothing instantly readable except for a clear ‘No’. Or maybe it was ‘know’. Fucking homonyms, should be banned.
A few seconds in, she stiffened, mouth opening. An impenetrable tangle of words spilled from her lips, then she lowered the phone, eyes wide. The screen went blank.
He started as the table vibrated beneath his hand, Frankie tapping to get his attention. He closed the laptop.
‘Tilda wants to say goodnight,’ she said.
Not entirely sure how to take that. ‘Why?’
‘What am I, Dr Spock?’ She nodded at the computer. ‘What is it?’
‘Maggie on the phone. Have a listen, see if you can get anything.’ He stood and went to the bedroom.
The bedside light was on, casting a gentle glow across the room. Tilda was lying with the puce bedspread pulled to her chin, her home-cut fringe sticking up in tufts. The price tag was still on the collar of her pyjamas. She sat up, hands clasped neatly in her lap. ‘Thank you for looking after me today.’
‘It was a pleasure.’
There was a stiffness to her, as though the worries of the day had wrapped steel bands around her. Handed from person to person and picking up on everyone’s tension, no idea where her mother was. If she was his child he’d tell her a story, then lie beside her so she could drift easily to sleep.
‘Would you like a bedtime story?’
She considered it, then shook her head.
‘OK
.’ An oddly deflated feeling. ‘Goodnight.’ He signed his favourite version of the word, the double-handed thumbs-up that turned into the setting sun, and was rewarded with one of her blossoming smiles. A glimpse of the child from the photo at Maggie’s, laughing with her father. She signed ‘goodnight’ and lay down, still smiling.
Frankie looked up from the screen as he came in. ‘She OK?’
‘Worried, but stoic.’ He hesitated. ‘Was she close to Petronin?’ Instant regret: stupid to have revealed his underbelly to Frankie.
She gave him a long look. ‘You did Tilda and the universe a favour by killing Petronin. She might have a few fond memories of the guy, but he was a violent piece of shit. Even Maggie was celebrating.’ She stood. ‘Can’t hear a thing on this, there’s a party going on. Doof-doof music.’ She flopped onto the couch and went to kick off her boots, then gave up and lay back with them on, seemed to go straight to sleep.
He sat and played the tape at half-speed. It took a few repeats but the first section unfolded as he got a feel for Maggie’s speech patterns, remarkably similar to Frankie’s.
‘It’s safe. I’m the only one who knows.’
A good start, but the next part was harder. Much harder. Words tumbling and skidding, with no gaps to shape them. He slowed the tape to quarter speed, then eighth, gradually untangling the threads.
‘No! Don’t tell anyone about —— Please.’
A missing two-syllable word that had to be a name. Start with the obvious ones – not Martin or Amon or Tilda or Frankie. Damn it, names were the worst: infinite combinations of vowels and consonants, half of them looking like something else. Hard enough in real life, but almost impossible with no depth to the image. There was a strong chance he wasn’t going to get it.
A memory surfaced: his father repeating a sentence over and over, waiting for him to understand. The daily drills. He’d forgotten about them. The meaningless shapes of what had once been sound, the disappointment in his father’s face, the gut-twisting tension. They’d started when he was five, soon after the meningitis, gone on for years. Funny not to have remembered something that had loomed so large at the time.