Voodoo Doll jj-2 Page 12

  Are you up to something? Jill mentally questioned Isobel, as she was tearily finishing her account for the camera.

  By the time the interview was over at two o'clock, Jill was already regretting that she'd agreed to analyse the tape at Gabriel's apartment in Ryde. His suggestion that they use her flat yesterday had caught her by surprise, but in bed last night she had mentally kicked herself for not suggesting they use the police station in Balmain, or even in the city, rather than her unit. And when Gabriel had suggested his house today, she'd agreed immediately. What was going on with her? Breaking her own rules, backtracking on decisions. She was lowering her guard too fast. The thought bunched her shoulders. Still, she told herself, they were achieving a lot together in this case. Just let it go at that.

  20

  CHLOE HAD BEEN extra careful with her makeup this morning. With her first pay cheque as a journalist, she'd been able to buy some serious-looking suits. The dress she chose this morning, however, she had purchased for eveningwear. Perhaps for a date with some fascinating scientist or a doctor she'd have interviewed, she'd thought at the time. Although it wasn't at all low-cut, and dropped to her calves, the caramel jersey clung to her breasts and hips, and she felt more sexy in it than in her skimpiest sundress. It had not even been on sale. This morning, she'd twirled, delighted, around and around in front of the mirror, just as she had in the change rooms of the boutique in which she'd bought it. The snooty salesgirl had actually smiled at her. A woman from the next stall had come out of her cubicle just after her, wearing the same dress. Chloe, four inches taller than her in her bare feet, had given her a big smile, but the other woman had stared briefly at both of them in the communal mirror and ducked back behind her door. Chloe had bought the dress and a pair of knee-high, chocolate brown boots. The boots were the same shade as her eyes and hair.

  She stood now in George Street, Liverpool, regretting her decision this morning. A group of four workmen in the Spotlight carpark behind her had been making comments since nine a.m. and it was now after twelve. She'd seen the same man in a suit walk past her and the cameramen three times. She knew he was working up the courage to come over to her. His smile lingered longer with each trip. Keep walking, she tried to tell him with her eyes.

  Thing is, the guy behind the counter in the copshop had been the reason for this dress this morning. Constable Andrew Montgomery. He'd asked her if she'd be back today, and yep, here she was, but she hadn't yet been in to say hi.

  Yesterday, she'd entered the station full of confidence, given her name and implied that she was an important investigative journalist working on the home invasion cases. The female police liaison officer had tried to blow her off with the standard spiel for the media, but Chloe, undeterred, had said that she'd wait to speak to someone for as long as it took. The dark-eyed girl behind the counter had just smiled sardonically as Chloe settled in for the wait, somewhat dispirited.

  She had spotted him first, sat a little straighter on the rigid plastic bench seat. He was looking for something behind the counter, flustered, in a hurry. Two high spots of colour stood out on the smooth skin of his face. Along with Chloe, the dark-eyed girl tracked every move he made. He seemed to spot what he was searching for and moved to pick it up from under a counter. Chloe caught her breath when his shoulders flexed in the short-sleeved police uniform. She'd never realised until that point how much she liked uniforms. At that moment, when Chloe was midway through a slow, secret smile, he seemed to realise that there was someone else in the room and his eyes cut to hers.

  She dropped her notepad.

  'Here, let me get that for you.'

  He was out from behind the counter and by her side in a heartbeat. He passed her the writing pad and she felt compelled to stand: he was so tall from her vantage point on the bench. Chloe was as good as six foot without the kitten heels she was wearing. He stood a head taller. His dark hair was closely cropped.

  'Thanks,' she said. Then cleared her throat.

  'Is someone looking after you?' he asked.

  'It's okay, Andrew,' the liaison officer called from behind the counter. 'She's with the press. I already told her there are no updates this morning.'

  'Ah, a journalist,' he said to Chloe. 'Here to keep us on our toes?'

  Chloe figured that she should use this opportunity to try to get some kind of quote from one of the officers working here. Any comment could be useful when her bosses were demanding fresh input for three news programs and eight updates a day.

  'Actually,' she said with a smile, 'have you got a minute?'

  'Is that all you need?'

  Chloe laughed. She couldn't help it.

  'What I need is some information about the progress being made on the home invasion gang. Have you guys interviewed any suspects?'

  He looked uncomfortable.

  'What's your name?' he asked finally.

  Chloe withdrew a card from the top pocket of her shirt and handed it to him. He read it, and then held out his hand. She shook it, briefly. He smiled into her eyes.

  'Well, Chloe Farrell, my name's Constable Andrew Montgomery, and all I can tell you is that we are unable to provide the media with any new information at the present time. We will release further statements as facts become available.' He used a mock-formal tone to deliver the standard line.

  'Thanks a lot. Very helpful,' she said with a pout, gathering up her bag.

  'Hey,' he said. 'Things change every day. You never know what's gonna come up. Are you coming back tomorrow?'

  'You never know, Constable Montgomery,' she said, turning to leave. 'Things change every day.'

  Now, on the pavement opposite the station, Chloe had half made up her mind to cross the road and enter the building again when she spotted an unmarked vehicle leaving the parking area under the police complex. She nudged her colleague with the camera.

  'Another one,' she said. 'Could be one of the taskforce.'

  She was correct. It was Sergeant Jillian Jackson, the woman she'd photographed on Wednesday, driving with the dark-haired man in the trucker's cap that she'd been unable to identify. Even Deborah Davies hadn't been able to get the guy's name. I wonder who he is, Chloe thought.

  When the car was out of shot, Chloe guessed that these detectives leaving the building would be the most exciting thing that would happen in the next couple of hours. She thought it might be time to try to get something from someone behind the desk. She combed her fingers through her hair and strode across George Street.

  Chloe smiled deliberately at the one-way mirror directly behind the liaison officer before stating her request. Constable Andrew Montgomery skidded out from behind the panel before she'd even finished her sentence.

  'Chloe Farrell,' he said. 'It's lunchtime. Hungry?'

  'Starving,' she said.

  21

  'EVA!' KAREN MICEH dropped the platter she was drying, and it smashed into pieces on the tiled kitchen floor. Her two-year-old daughter, Eva, began to cry at the noise and the shock of Mummy yelling at her.

  Within three lurching strides, Karen had reached the child sitting cross-legged under the dining room table and removed the pointed filleting knife from her lap. Eva howled more loudly.

  'Oh my God, Eva! How many times have I told you, you mustn't play… owww!'

  Karen banged her head on the table as she bundled wet-faced Eva up from the floor. She held her close, stroking her back, automatically jiggling her little body up and down. Manoeuvring one hand out from under her daughter's chubby legs, she glanced at her watch. Oh for heaven's sake, she thought. How am I going to get everything done on time?

  For the third time already this morning, she cursed her ratbag husband, Eddie. Ex-husband, she reminded herself, and good riddance. She didn't miss his lazy, bludging friends calling at all hours of the night; she didn't miss his subtle putdowns and the way he leered at other women. She certainly didn't miss the bong under his side of the bed. When she'd found her daughters, Maryana and Eva, giggling and gri
macing over its stink one morning, she knew her fool husband would never grow up, and that her marriage was over.

  Actually, in some ways life had never been so peaceful for Karen as it was now – just her and the girls, homework and shopping, and her part-time work as a sandwich hand at Castle Towers. The one thing she couldn't do without, though, was Eddie's pay cheque.

  She walked the sniffling Eva back to the sink and settled her into the highchair she'd set up so her little girl could 'help' with the dishes. This time, though, she pushed the chair further from the sink. How had she missed Eva grabbing the knife?

  She sighed tiredly and looked into the loungeroom of her Baulkham Hills home. This place is perfect, she told herself again. I can't move the girls now, they're just settling down after the separation. She bent to pick up the shards of the ceramic platter. One of her favourites; her brother, Ken, had bought it for her in Spain. She turned to frown at Eva, but her daughter's self-occupied chortling over her tea-set left her smiling instead.

  It was her brother who'd given her the rental idea.

  'This is really a great room,' Ken had said to her the previous month, when he'd come to install the above-ground pool he'd bought for his nieces – getting it ready for Christmas, he'd said. He always spoiled them.

  'Yeah, the girls love to play in there,' she'd said around a peg, as she hung out the washing on the hoist next to the lemon tree.

  'You could rent that out to another family,' he'd laughed.

  Karen didn't know anyone who'd ever taken in a boarder, but actually it was the perfect solution for her. With the extra income, there'd be no need for her and the girls to find a cheaper place to rent. Of course, the self-contained space under the large balcony couldn't actually house a family, but a single person would have plenty of room.

  The problem, the real-estate people had warned her, was that her house was some distance from public transport, and the sort of people wishing to rent a single room typically didn't have their own car. This would reduce the number of applicants, they told her. Karen was not daunted. She knew she might be idealising it, but she had an image of herself selecting from a few young people first moving away from home, preferably a girl – Karen would be her mentor, a friend; she'd really enjoy the company. Maybe her tenant would be from the country – here for her first year at university. She could imagine how the girl's family would appreciate the family home away from home that Karen would provide. Macquarie Uni was not too far from here, she reasoned.

  Six months had passed with just a single application submitted. The couple had been young, but that's where her fantasy tenants ended. They'd pulled up to Karen's house in a car she was certain was their home at the time. Even had there not been boxes and clothes piled high, the driver would have been hard pressed to see through the grime that covered the windows. The occupants didn't alight for a good five minutes, and from behind the curtain in her loungeroom Karen watched them screaming at one another. At least their windscreen was relatively clear. From this vantage, she could also see the drapes moving surreptitiously at number nineteen. Mrs Robotham. What would she have made of Jackie and Troy as new neighbours? Jackie picked at sores on her arms while Troy did the talking. Neither of them really made eye contact with Karen. As soon as they crossed the threshold, she was planning their exit. Troy smelled like Eddie's bong water and Jackie couldn't negotiate around the furniture. Karen couldn't be certain, but it seemed Troy's interest lay more in her electrical goods than the room for rent. His eyes lingered on the microwave, the DVD, the clunky laptop she used to play Solitaire.

  Karen had resignedly begun searching for less expensive properties for herself when someone else had answered her ad.

  Now, she threw the last of the scatter cushions onto the couch and kicked one of Maryana's rollerskates back under a chair. Maryana, her six-year-old, was at school. Karen bustled back to the kitchen to grab Eva – couldn't leave her near the knives again – and hurried over to respond to the doorbell.

  I hope he likes the room, she thought, opening the door with a smile.

  If it hadn't been for the old woman, Karen's first reaction would have been to shut the door again immediately. As it was, however, the tiny, bent lady looked as though she could not stand up for much longer, despite the fact that the man was holding her arm so solicitously.

  She showed them in and asked the old woman if she'd like a drink.

  'Just some water, please,' he answered for her.

  'My grandmother has lived through war and famine,' he said when Karen returned with the water. 'She has arthritis and she turned ninety last year, but she still insisted that she come and inspect the room before I take it.' He smiled fondly at his grandmother as he helped her accept the glass.

  Karen smiled uncertainly. She did not like his long hair, but he seemed a much nicer person than her first glimpse of him had indicated. Anyone who was this close to his grandmother must be a good person. She had a sense about these things. Just goes to show, she reminded herself, you can't judge a book by its cover – her own grandmother had taught her that.

  'I'm afraid there are a few stairs,' she said, shifting a shy Eva to the other hip. 'But when you're both ready, I'll take you down to see the room, Henry.'

  'That'd be great. Thanks.'

  Karen smiled more brightly and led Cutter and his grandmother from the room.

  In one of the Department of Community Service's many attempts to 'help' him, at thirteen Cutter had been sent to a small group home for troubled children. The house was in leafy Baulkham Hills, and he was pretty sure that most of the neighbours didn't know the purpose of the home. A couple, Debbie and Ian, chosen and paid by the Department for their extraordinary progress with even the most difficult kids, ran the home.

  Cutter had loved Baulkham Hills. Sure, everyone was racist there, but that was the case pretty much everywhere when he was a kid. The Australian families fascinated him, and after twilight, he would sit in the bushes for hours watching the mums preparing dinner, the kids doing their homework, their dads arriving home from work. He'd laugh quietly at the funny way they ate, the way the kids were disciplined and ran crying to their rooms. Better than any TV show he'd ever seen, however, were the backhanders he saw some of the perfect dads give the perfect mums. He'd found at least four of these households, and he would sit in their azalea bushes, the camellia shrubs, and stuff his hand in his mouth to stop his laughter being heard. The suburb was so quiet in the evenings that he'd even taken to bringing a towel to muffle the chortles while he watched his special TV screens – their well-lit loungeroom windows.

  Debbie, his group home 'mum', had told him he should be coming home earlier. She would sit with him at night and quietly ask him where he went, why he never ate with them. He couldn't tell Debbie that he skipped school and went home most days to eat rice balls and fish soup. Debbie would be furious that the school had not told her he was seldom there. Things were going just fine for him at that school – he didn't want to be there, and they couldn't have been more delighted with his decision.

  Debbie just wouldn't give up on him. She'd bring Ian into his room at night and they'd play good cop/bad cop; she'd read the Bible with him; she learned about Vietnam, and even tried learning some of the words to encourage him to speak to her. One night, when he'd broken into a face-splitting smile, she'd thought it was working. She was winning him over. Cutter couldn't bear that her efforts would now redouble and he'd have to sit here for hours more, listening to her shit. Instead, he spoke his first full sentence ever to Debbie.

  'You know why I smiled, Debbie?' He looked up at her through straight, black eyelashes, shadowing bottomless black eyes.

  He really is a striking boy, she thought, reaching out with her foot to touch just the tip of his shoe, the first time she had ever touched him. Finally, she was getting through. All they need is a little love, she told herself.

  'Why Henry? Why were you smiling?' She leaned in close.

  'Because I can smel
l your cunt, you slut. You fucked Ian just before you came in here, didn't you?' He spoke quietly, concentrating on every feature as the horror flared her nostrils and dilated her pupils. Before she could physically recoil, he grabbed at her crotch under her pretty, yellow skirt, and managed to push his finger through her panties and hard into her hole.

  'Or maybe,' he continued, holding her arm now as she screamed, 'you were waiting for me, with your finger going round and round in there. I've seen the way you look at me.'

  He could no longer hold her and she fell off the bed, screaming and screaming, scuttling backwards on the floor. He jumped out the window before Ian could grab him, but not before slowly sucking his finger on the window ledge.

  Debbie could tell Ian all about what that gesture meant later, when she was feeling better.

  Cutter checked out the basement underneath Karen's huge back patio. He showed his grandmother carefully to a chair by a desk. She'd been wonderful. He knew he would never have got this place in Baulkham Hills if he'd come alone. And he knew his grandmother would always do whatever her number-one grandson asked.

  He smiled at the two women, walked to the small window looking out onto the backyard and breathed in the lemony air.

  'Perfect,' he said.

  22

  'YOU WANT SOMETHING to drink?'

  Jill looked at Gabriel standing in his kitchen. Yeah, white wine, she thought. Where did that urge come from, she wondered. She hadn't had a drink in ten years. 'Um, some water would be great,' she said.

  'Help yourself.' He pointed his chin at the fridge, his hands expertly paring the skin from two fat, brilliant-orange salmon steaks.

  She opened the refrigerator and looked around, almost disappointed to find there was no wine in there anyway. A tall bottle of water stood in the door. She pulled it out and put it on the bench, then stuck her head back in the fridge.