Jack risked a look under the car. His view was like looking through widescreen. It was now almost nine. The sun had packed it in. Blue cuffs bisected the slit of Jack’s vision. Of course, Ted had been wearing his fanciest suit. His shoes were scuffed; Jack could see one sole lifting away from the heel. That was okay, for TV, under the rim of the camera’s view. Like a tuxedo with the arse cut out of it. Ted walked without urgency. He hadn’t noticed anything wrong, that Jack had him.
Had him? Had who? Jack was cowering behind the car door, without a weapon. And he was on the driver’s side. So, while it might have bought him a moment or two of shelter, Ted was eventually going to walk straight into him. If anything, although Ted didn’t know it, Ted had him.
The shoes disappeared behind the back wheel. Ted was probably only twenty metres away. But he was diagonally opposite Jack now. As soon as he got around the car, he’d see Jack. Jack shuffled towards the bonnet. Precious extra seconds.
Ted had parked nose-in to the edge of the level, but he’d left a small gap between the bonnet and the hip-height barrier. Jack could squeeze through it. If he kept pace with Ted’s walking, Jack could circle the car in tandem, shielded from view the entire way. He took slow, steady steps – still crouched, knees sawing under his chin – then stood, he wouldn’t fit while crouched. He turned his back to the drop and tried not to think about how he was seven storeys up. He needled his way into the gap. The corner of the numberplate caught on his jeans. He wrestled it free and hurried through the other side, looked up and saw Ted. Shit. He’d gone too fast. Luckily, Ted kept walking. He hadn’t noticed. Jack waited until Ted disappeared behind the car again and then he was around it. He crouched again. Unseen, he could get back to his car now.
He figured he’d wait until Ted got in, and then make a dash. Once he reached his own car, he’d lock the doors and call the police. He’d seen the proof, and that was all he needed. This was real life, not a TV show – things like car chases rarely happened. Jack sent up silent thanks that the car had made a noise when Ted unlocked it, giving him a few extra seconds of warning.
Unlocked.
The word ricocheted in his head like a basketball rattling on the rim. He paused.
The basketball flicked the net. From where he was now, there was only a single unlocked door between him and the axe. Did he really want to give Ted the chance to get rid of it?
He moved, poked his nose up, just enough of a sightline over the window. Ted, by the driver door, was looking at his phone. Jack’s missed call, maybe. Jack wondered if his name had shown up on Ted’s screen – if Ted had kept the number Jack had given him at the very beginning, when they’d met in the coffee shop for the podcast. Ted hadn’t reciprocated. Maybe that’s why Hush hadn’t picked up, back in Curtis’s house. He’d seen it was Jack calling.
Ted was still on his phone, tapping out a text. Jack took his chance, squeezed the handle and gently opened the car door. A small click that sounded like a gunshot in Jack’s heightened senses. Ted didn’t move. Jack reached into the car and wrapped his fingers around the axe handle. Fuck – fingerprints. He couldn’t reach the towel the head was swathed in. Screw it. He pulled, trying not to make a scraping sound as he levered the handle up and drew the axe head out of the towel and across the seat. There was the chipped silver head. Just as it was in the photographs. Red paint, fading to silver, rubbed off after years of work. Was there a little extra red there, though? Or was he putting that there with his imagination? Jack swallowed hard. Pulled it the final inch and hefted it into both hands. One throttled around the neck, the other at the base. He spun around, ready to run.
And crashed chest to chest with Ted Piper.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ said Ted, taking a step forward.
Jack rocked backwards. Clutched the axe to his chest. Realised it was a weapon. So he thrust it forward, brandishing it diagonally from the groin. More like a fishing rod. Not much of a threat.
‘No. What the fuck are you doing?’ Good plan, Jack thought to himself. Primary school arguments with a murderer. No, you shut up.
‘I thought you’d be impressed.’ Ted spread his arms, laughed, took another step towards him. ‘I’m doing what you do.’
‘Jesus.’ Jack breathed. Lauren’s words rattled: you made your villain after all. He shook the guilt off. Tightened his grip on the axe. He realised Ted was pacing him backwards. Another half-step. Slowly backing him up, the drop yawning behind them. The barrier was hip-high, but a good shove . . . Whump. ‘This is not what I do.’
‘Isn’t it? Collecting your own evidence. Only the bits that you think are relevant. Only the bits that you really believe in. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Not twelve unbiased adjudicators. Not experienced detectives. Not expert’ – this was almost a hiss – ‘testimonies. If you can find fame solving a murder outside the courts, so can I.’
‘It’s not about fame.’
‘Infamy, then. Trust me, when I solve this, we’ll both be infamous.’
‘How could you —’
‘How could I? How could you!’ He was yelling now. Words glancing off the columns and fleeing into the void. Ted took another half-step forward, his loose sole gently lifting from the bottom of his shoe.
Swing the axe, a thought tickled. He hoped Lauren had heard the yelling and started to hurry.
‘We shouldn’t be arguing over this, Jack,’ Ted said. ‘It’s all good. I’m sorry about your face. That was you, right, in the vineyard?’ Ted dragged a finger down from his eye, as if unzipping his cheek. ‘Let’s put that aside. Season Two, hey? I’m sure they’re asking you to sign. It’ll be big for us both, Jack. You and I. Let’s work together for once. The real truth, and everyone will finally get what they deserve.’
‘Back off.’ Jack found the energy to brandish the axe. Loosely. He grimaced as pain lanced his rib.
Ted laughed. ‘Jack, come on. What is this?’ He gestured to the axe. ‘I’m just collecting the evidence. I’m not following the rules. That’s what you do.’
James Harrison, echoing in Jack’s conscience. This is what you do.
‘It’s not right,’ he stammered.
‘It’s not. But we can make the best of a bad situation here.’
A thought Jack had months ago, when deciding what to do with the shoe, resurfaced. The difference between doing a wrong thing and doing a bad thing. He tried to see it from Ted’s perspective. Curtis was dead; bring the axe forward and he’d be found guilty of the murders. Wasn’t that what they both wanted? All in a nice bow for Season Two. And there’d be money, so much money, underneath it all.
Ted seemed to be waiting for an answer, as if he’d offered Jack a deal. And Jack realised what the deal was: Work with me, I’ll let you live.
Because he was right. Ted and James Harrison were both right. This. It was what Jack did.
‘There’s things I can tell you. This axe, it’s not enough. Curtis is guilty, for a start. But the story we can tell is so much better than that.’ Ted was smiling. He actually needed Jack. He needed his storytelling to fill in the gaps. Alexis was already dead. Curtis was a murderer, it didn’t matter the crime. Something good was salvageable here. Closure for the families. A comfortable truth, even if pretend. Framing a guilty man.
It made sense. This was what Jack did.
Did.
Not anymore. That part of him was emptied out and left a shell, in a bathroom in Birravale.
‘Back. The. Fuck. Off.’
Ted looked surprised. Squinted. Thinking. Calculating how hard he had to push Jack to get him over the barrier.
‘Curtis is dead,’ Jack said, ‘and I got him out of jail. And I was wrong. It’s not that I didn’t see it. It’s that I didn’t want to see it.’
Ted nodded cautiously.
‘I know Curtis killed Eliza; I’ve known the whole time but I was too arrogant to accept it,’ Jack continued.
Tension seemed to slide out of Ted’s shoulders and dribble d
own to his fingertips – pleased that Jack had come around.
Then Jack said: ‘But I also know he didn’t kill Alexis.’
For the first time Ted looked like he understood. ‘I kind of hoped you’d figure it out,’ he said, took a breath to say something else. Then a new voice echoed through the concrete forest.
‘Hey!’
Lauren. From the stairwell. And then she was running. Things would happen quickly now. Ted saw her, then whipped back to Jack. His expression went from one of negotiation to one of contempt. His chin drawn up in a snarl. But the words, when he spoke, weren’t barked. They were quiet, accepting. Defeated.
‘You know.’
Jack nodded.
‘I know,’ Jack said, holding the axe out in front of him. Come on, Lauren, he willed. Run faster. Get there. ‘We know everything. And now we have the axe, we’ve got everything we need.’
Jack saw something in Ted’s eyes. That he knew he was trapped. That this was the end of it for him. Fear.
Then he moved, faster than Jack was expecting. He grabbed the head of the axe and twisted it, Jack felt it turn, useless, in his sweaty palms. He pulled back. A tug-of-war over the axe. Ted had a grip on the metal head, fingers curled over the silver blade. Jack gripped the handle tighter. But his palms were sliding over the wood. Splinters bristled into his fingers. Ted was pulling hard. Jack was running out of handle. He jabbed it twice. Pushed Ted’s palms back into his chest. Then he had an idea. He dropped to his knees and jabbed again. The height differential and the unexpected lack of tension combined to jolt Ted forward and, when his elbows folded, Jack pushed upwards and the axe head clocked him under the jaw. Ted stumbled sideways, into the car.
Jack stood. Ted grappled with the flank of the car, holding himself up. Hurry, Lauren. Ted’s scrabbling hands found what he was looking for. He yanked the handle and swung open the door. Then he leaned back and kicked it. The door cleaved the two of them apart, pushing Jack backwards. In surprise, he dropped the axe. Ted was on him. Shouldering him off the weapon like he was over the top of a football. Jack reeled into the car. Took a second. Looked up just in time to see the silver head of the axe soaring towards him. Jack recoiled, forearm on his brow. Ducked. He felt air rush over his head. Heard a loud shattering. Flecks of glass tinkled on his head. He kept moving backwards. He looked up. The axe was swinging again, this time lower. Jack scooted backwards on his bum. Palms flat behind him. The axe wrenched into the door in front of him. Ted set to levering it free, a squeal of metal, a long gash in the panel. Ted straightened, took a step sideways.
Jack realised in horror what was going to happen next.
Ted had repositioned himself so Jack was in between him and the car, on the ground. And Ted had given up swinging sideways. He was swinging downwards. Jack might get his head out of the way, but he couldn’t move his whole body. He had nowhere to go. Ted raised the axe. Jack raised his arms together in a cross above his head, as if his thin wrists offered much defence.
Then Ted was thrown off balance. Lauren, barging into the side of him. She grappled, trying to pin Ted against the car. The axe clattered on the concrete. Jack scrambled to his feet. Grabbed at parts of Ted. Whatever he could. It was a messy fight. Hands. Fists. Hair. Everything a flurry. Then he was pushed, hard, and felt the concrete break his fall. He saw Lauren struggling, also knocked down. Ted was roaring with pain, clutching at his jaw. She must have hit him. Lauren, bent over, facing away from the fight. Ted lunged at her. Then Lauren pulled herself back up, pivoted her whole body, and Jack realised why she’d been stooped over.
She was picking up the axe.
She swung it with all her strength. Like the sword of a warrior, gaining momentum from the pirouette of her swing. There was no grace or aim; she was swinging blindly and hoping.
The axe hit Ted in the stomach with a wet thuck.
Lauren’s hand went straight over her mouth. She let go of the handle, which stayed erect in the air. Ted clutched at his gut with both hands, holding the steel head in place. As if it might help keep his guts inside. For a second, there was no blood. Then it started pulsing through his folded hands. Dripping from his knuckles. Thick red stars on the concrete. Spilt wine. He breathed out heavily through his nose, blinking incessantly, as if trying to capture some final moments, camera-eyes set to speed-shutter. He took two steps backwards.
Then another, slightly wobbling, step backwards.
Jack was up and over to him quickly, to stop what was about to happen, but Ted had backed up too far. He backed into the railing, lost his balance, and started to tip. Jack wasn’t there in time. Ted let go of the axe head just long enough to reach out to Jack’s extended arm, but Jack felt nothing but the feather of his fingertips.
Ted toppled backwards. Into the air. Into nothing. He dropped out of sight.
Jack realised he was crying.
They may as well have been Liam’s fingers, scarred as they were into him. He looked down at the inside of his wrist: a smear of blood, four streaked lines. He’d almost had him.
From below, someone screamed.
Exhibit A:
Size 9 women’s running shoe. ASICS branding. Pink, silver trim. Confirmed to belong to Eliza Dacey, victim in the State of New South Wales vs Curtis Wade murder trial, 2014, and retrial 2018. The defendant is accused of harbouring this evidence which resulted in the miscarriage of justice against Curtis Wade. Indirectly, this resulted in the death of Alexis White.
Handwritten Note: Don’t see accessory in the White murder playing out here without intent. Obstruction to a murder investigation is sufficient for prosecution’s aims. GH.
FEBRUARY
The meals come on a schedule, here. Can’t unscrew these doors.
The prosecution had taken it fairly easy. It had been a challenge to find someone willing to represent him, given the lawyers he knew had both ended up dead, after all. The man who’d come on board, Greg Hanson, had been thorough if unremarkable. He had proposed that Jack’s intent, while criminal in nature, couldn’t be tied to the new murder, and the court had accepted this. Perhaps it was just too embarrassing to drag it out. Ted’s death was ruled self-defence, muttered deservedly, as Lauren had taken the stand and admitted to swinging the blow that killed him. Ted’s guilt in Alexis’s death helped both their cases. The evidence against him mostly in the back of his car. Not only the axe, but files not unlike Jack’s own, all on Alexis: building his own narrative. He’d also told Vanessa he had something big – he’d promised her an exclusive next week. He would have been planning on unveiling the axe on her show, Jack realised in retrospect. That was why he’d brought it to the station. But he’d realised at the last minute, maybe when he’d heard Curtis had been killed, as he’d said to Jack: The axe, it’s not enough. He was waiting on the final pieces to frame Curtis, which was why he’d tried to talk Jack into helping him. So justice was served for Alexis, in a way. Case closed. It’s easy to try the dead.
Jack took it on the nose. Two years. Obstruction of justice. Interference with a murder investigation.
He didn’t mind it. The other prisoners looked up to him. Minimum security, so not in with the James Harrisons of the world. In fact, James had to be taken to a different prison entirely; he’d been moved to Goulburn. But the inmates still looked at Jack as the ear they needed.
The food wasn’t so bad inside, either. It was on a schedule, so that helped, just like the hospital. And food was like a gift in here, to spurn it made you look ungrateful. It could get you offside. Besides, keeping people up at night was frowned upon. The echo of vomiting in his single silver toilet, the smell – nothing there to ingratiate himself with his fellow inmates. He wasn’t better – you’re never better – but the regime had unexpected positives. He’d even put on a little bit of weight, the green tracksuit hanging off him less than when he came in.
The acrobat was still inside him. He always would be. But some days – often the days Peter visited, his Skype set up through to a correspondin
g iPad in Liam’s room – the tightrope became a plank. The jester still wobbled, arms out, occasionally. But everyone wobbles.
Jack was sitting at a steel table. It was a private room. Unlike James Harrison, he didn’t have cuffs threaded through an eye-ring in the centre. Small privileges from the guards – nothing said, and not enough favour to piss off other inmates – but they nudged him with just enough kindness, in case he went on to make another TV show. The network had done Season Two without him. They’d got a lot of the facts wrong. Implied he and Lauren had slept together. That didn’t matter: it had been a blockbuster smash.
These days, Jack produced a small underground podcast through the prison’s media facilities. Someone had arranged for him to have a handheld recorder. The premise was simple: he talked to the inmates. He only asked questions, though. He didn’t edit it either; his interference limited to hitting play and upload. He let them tell their own story, didn’t tell it for them. The podcast was doing okay, he’d heard. But he didn’t check the download charts. He refused sponsorship, advertising money, though he’d had plenty of offers. Jack enjoyed making it, just for him. If people listened, that was a bonus.
The door opened. His visitor was here.
Lauren had come to see him a few times. She’d coped with all the death and pain admirably, rarely letting the trauma show in her. The whole of her adolescence had been bundled up in murder, and with those final two deaths, she was able to start afresh. It had been a few months since her last visit, though. She sat across from him, tepid coffee in front of her. Non-scalding. He might get some favours, but he was still a criminal.
‘Andrew’s trial is next week,’ she said.
Andrew’s trial had taken longer than Jack’s because, in the end, none of the lawyers could agree on where the criminal charges lay for maybe seeing a murderer not exactly commit a crime. And Andrew’s confession to Jack was all they had, and Jack wasn’t seen as the most reliable witness this time around. Andrew’s version of events was much different, veering away from self-incrimination: the words out of his mouth were as built as his wine.
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