Black Ice Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for backlist titles

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Quote

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise for Voodoo Doll

  'Clinical psychologist turned thriller writer Leah Giarratano brings a wealth of professional experience to her art . . . a page-turner, note-worthy for its expert characterisation and often chilling psychological veracity.' The Age

  'Voodoo Doll is more chiller than thriller. It's cleverly plotted and crackles along at an electric pace. I'm sure Giarratano has a growing fan base and it's great to see local talent getting an outing.' Good Reading

  'This is a seriously good read. Giarratano is taking on the big guns, and winning.' MX Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney

  'I suspect a series. Bring it on.' Sue Turnbull, Sydney Morning Herald

  'Plumbing the depths of her experience . . . Giarratano's writing has an air of authenticity missing from the work of her peers. Creepy, nasty and oddly compelling, it's definitely not light reading.' GQ Australia

  Praise for Vodka Doesn't Freeze

  'There's a true-crime relentlessness about Vodka Doesn't Freeze that suggests it's been written from the heart by someone who really cares deeply about child abuse.' Sue Turnbull, Sydney Morning Herald

  'Giarratano writes with a style that immediately grabs and holds your attention, diving unerringly to the heart of each scene and describing it in full, no-nonsense detail. Her characters are filled with flaws that beg to be examined more closely and she satisfies this need, laying bare the good and the bad in equal measure.' www.crimedownunder.com

  'Particularly nasty crime fiction that threatens to keep you awake at night can always be dismissed with that hoary old chestnut "It's only make-believe" . . . No such comfort with a debut book by Leah Giarratano.' Lucy Clark, Sunday Telegraph

  Also by Leah Giarratano

  Vodka Doesn't Freeze

  Voodoo Doll

  leah

  giarratano

  black

  Ice

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Black Ice

  ePub ISBN 9781864714289

  Kindle ISBN 9781864716627

  Black Ice is a work of fiction. All the characters and scenes in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, or to any current or past event, is purely coincidental.

  A Bantam book

  Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney, NSW 2060

  www.randomhouse.com.au

  First published by Bantam in 2009

  Copyright © Leah Giarratano 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

  Giarratano, Leah.

  Black ice.

  ISBN: 9781741668094

  Policewomen – New South Wales – Sydney – Fiction.

  A823.4

  Cover illustration by Super Stock

  Cover design by blacksheep-uk.com

  Internal design by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Printed and bound by Griffin Press, South Australia

  For Joshua George. Semper Fidelis.

  This book is dedicated to Aunty Nancy.

  And Beetle.

  In vino veritas.

  Prologue

  Monday 1 April, 4 pm

  Seren ignored the sting of the fly sucking blood from her ankle. She pushed her lips into the salty skin of her knees, pressing the sobs back behind her teeth. This is the last night, she told herself. The last night with her back to the wall, shrunk into the corner, praying for morning. Whatever happened tonight, it would be the last time she slept with the lice scrabbling for purchase on her near-shaved scalp, and nesting in her pubic hair.

  She'd walk out or they'd carry her out. And if they carried her, it would be to an outside hospital or to the morgue. No way would she spend even a single night in the prison hospital. She had a six am release and she was going to keep it, one way or another.

  In the meantime, she waited for Crash and Little Kim.

  One of the screws had told her that Crash got her nickname at age four when her father threw her through a plate glass door. Apparently her little brother had mimicked the noise it made, and her family had thought it cute. Broke the tension while they waited for the ambulance.

  Seren couldn't figure how Little Kim got her name. The only little thing about Little Kim was her eyes, her facial features blurred and contracted by Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.

 
Hek – probably the most respected screw in the Silverwater Women's Complex – had tried to help Seren understand why they disliked her so much. He told her she shouldn't have made such a big thing out of the letters she got from her son.

  'Their kids don't write to them,' he had explained a couple of months ago while she had been sweeping the yard.

  'Their kids can't write,' Seren had retorted.

  She'd felt like a bitch as soon as she said it, but since the smacking she'd copped from Little Kim the day before, her top lip split every time she smiled. Not that she did that a lot in here.

  'What's even worse is that Crash and Kim can't read. You make them look stupid,' he'd told her.

  'I make them look stupid?' Seren had snorted, and her lip had split again. The whole left side of her face throbbed. 'Don't make me laugh, Hek.'

  'Besides,' he'd said, 'they don't really hate you. Little Kim seriously hated her last cellmate.'

  'I heard,' Seren had said, eyes on the broom.

  'We know everyone knows what happened,' Hek had said, 'but no one will make a statement.'

  'Would you?' Seren had asked.

  Rhonda Whiteman, Little Kim's previous cellmate, had died in the shower block, stabbed thirteen times in the back. When she was found, the shiv was still protruding from her right kidney, jammed in up to the handle. So Seren knew she could've had it much worse. Angel, who got to sweep in the nurse's office, told her that Little Kim's weight was listed in her med file as 128 kilograms. She could've snapped Seren's neck her first night there. Seren suspected that Angel was the reason the girls hadn't hurt her too bad. Everyone loved Angel.

  But she knew they were really mad now. She was going home. Six months early, because her appeal had come through.

  'And how is that fucking fair, bitch?' Crash had asked her at breakfast this morning. 'We don't get to go home. You get everything you want, don't you, you pretty little slut?'

  Yeah, Crash, Seren thought now, crouched on the filthy mattress. Life has been real good to me so far. She pulled her knees closer to protect her stomach. Hek had warned her at lunchtime that she was going to get a goodbye flogging. Maybe that was true. But no one was going to hurt her badly enough to keep her from seeing her son tomorrow. She reached behind her back and pulled the broken broom handle a little closer.

  One filament in the ceiling light above her popped and fizzed, dying. She stared at the door, her eyes seared with the waiting. Suddenly she slapped hard at her leg. The fly dropped, broken, onto the mattress.

  Seren pushed her back further into the corner and waited for Crash and Little Kim.

  1

  Monday 1 April, 4 pm

  Madame Truelove gripped her cigarette between her lips, pushed a greying lock of hair back from her forehead. Her other hand cupped Sergeant Jillian Jackson's fingers, palm up. She squinted through the smoke trickling from her mouth and removed the cigarette. She turned her head away and exhaled hard.

  'I'm sorry, sweetie,' said Madame Truelove, turning back to face Jill, 'I've forgotten your name again. Was it Kristen?'

  'Krystal,' said Jill, momentarily taking her eyes from the fire twirler performing in the middle of the Fairfield street mall in front of her. From this angle, despite the crowds surrounding the other three sides, she had a perfect view of the young woman wearing multicoloured tights, dreadlocks and a lime-green tutu.

  'That's right. Krystal. Beautiful name, how could I forget? Krystal: a seer's name. Do you ever receive messages yourself?'

  'I don't know, I guess I am pretty intuitive,' said Jill, happy to extend the conversation so that she could hold this position for as long as possible.

  'Yes, yes, I can see that here in your hands. And you're after some more adventure in your life, aren't you, dear?'

  'I guess my life has been a little dull,' said Jill. Yeah, right.

  'With the exception of your love life, Krystal.'

  Jill gave the palm-reader another quick glance. 'You see that there?'

  'Yes, yes. You're torn. You don't know which way to go. Do you go backwards to find true love with a man from the past, or should you move forward into uncertainty, perhaps danger?'

  A group of laughing kids surrounded the fire-twirler. Hyped up on fairy floss, snow cones and the carnival atmosphere of the street festival, they were torn between tearing around madly to see everything and standing still, transfixed by the woman spitting fire from her mouth. They settled for jumping from foot to foot, squealing.

  'Actually, do me a favour and give me the answer to the love life question, will you?' said Jill.

  'Ah, Krystal, that is not my role, my love. It is for you to determine your own destiny. And you know the answer, deep in your heart.'

  Yeah, sure I do, thought Jill. Well, what did you expect, Jackson, that this woman could give you serious advice?

  She noticed that the small, dishevelled huddle of adults watching the performance had grown, and she recognised some of the regulars from the streets. Given the press for space, a generous perimeter surrounded the group, as parents, office workers and children instinctively steered clear of them. She tracked a hand gesture from one of the group to a man and woman approaching from the other side of the mall – Skye and CK. So this was definitely going down soon.

  Jill watched the couple approach. CK, in a grotty white tracksuit and runners, coughed, raising a hand to his mouth. Skye, much taller at five foot ten, flinched, her hand flying up to protect her face. With the movement, her lank, auburn hair fell back and Jill noted the angry scabs pocking her cheeks. Jill had seen too many kids around here with faces like that – gouges they'd tear themselves when gripped by ice psychosis, convinced worms had burrowed into their flesh, gnawing muscle, hatching eggs just under their skin.

  As the fire artist sprayed a final jet of flames into the sky above her, the punk rock band on the stage to her left screeched into sound, and the kids shrieked their way over to them. A crowd of teen Goths had already claimed the area in front of the podium and they thrashed around industriously, all wearing the anarchist's uniform: eyeliner, piercings and frowns.

  Madame Truelove raised her voice without commenting on the din. 'You are worried about someone in your life, Krystal, and you have good reason for your concern.' She flicked at a long cylinder of ash that had crumbled from her cigarette onto the back of her hand. 'The matter will soon come to a head and you will find that you are needed.'

  'It's nice to be needed.' Jill kept her eyes on the mall outside the tent.

  The fire artist was packing her belongings slowly. The assembly in front of her had now swollen to around twenty or so people. CK and Skye formed part of the cluster. The group spoke among themselves, but seemed otherwise uninterested in the carnival. From inside Madame Truelove's marquee, Jill could see but not be seen.

  'You must be more vigilant, Krystal.' Madame Truelove's words were intoned mechanically. Jill wondered fleetingly what the woman was actually thinking about – perhaps shopping for dinner tonight? 'Betrayal and danger await you if you do not take care. Fortify your defences and gather close your friends. You will have need of both in days to come.'

  'That sounds ominous,' said Jill, trying to peer around the backside of a man standing in front of the tent. Just when she thought she'd have to relinquish this position, the man moved on, tomato sauce on his chin, oozed from the hamburger clutched in his sausage-like fingers. She figured he was off to find a seat – you didn't get a body like that by walking around too much.

  Jill saw that the fire artist had packed all of her equipment into a huge silver carry box. Her dreadlocks whipped around as though alive as she hefted it up and headed for a tent that had been set up for the performance artists. With Jill, the people in the group watched her every move.

  'You don't need to be too alarmed, Krystal, but I would recommend that you consider some angel-work,' said Madame Truelove. 'We need to summon your guardians and ask them for their guidance and beneficence at this time.'

 
'That sounds like a plan,' said Jill. Skye had separated from her friends and was following the performer.