Two-Way Cut

chapter 22

It was evening now and they were sitting in the kitchen, a costly room fitted with granite benchtops, teak panelling, copper and stainless steel saucepans hanging from hooks. The table and chairs were the only welcoming objects in the entire room, Leah thought, as she sat hunched over a mug of tea, staring at the wooden table top and years of scars and scratches. She glanced across at Tess, who was chewing at her thumbnail, her face tense. But Tess had also matured in the past few hours. Leah could see resolve in her face, and signs of a furious internal accounting. An old expression popped into Leah’s head: Wake up to yourself. Well, thats what Tess seemed to be doing.

Tess caught Leah’s glance and sat upright, shoving both hands into her lap and arranging a grin. Bad habit, chewing your nails.

It seemed to be a way of saying that shed identified another flaw in herself and would deal with it. A thumping sound came from the study along the hallway. The crime-scene technicians were still in there, taking photographs, videotaping, dusting for fingerprints, diagramming blood spatters and gunshot trajectories. Allynson was in hospital. He was expected to live.

Summers was in custody.

So was Carl Stannage. He’d been questioned in relation to the arrest of the men in the Range Rover, and when he’d denied knowing them or owning the vehicle, and called in his lawyer, the police had placed him under surveillance. Instead of staying put, he’d come gunning for Tess, and walked in on the scene in the study. He’d thought Leah was Tess, fired at her, and hit Allynson instead. But by then the police were pouring into the house after him.

I’m sorry I got you into all this, Tess said.

Leah nodded. She wasn’t about to absolve Tess. The younger woman had a long period of questioning and adjustment ahead of her. She had to take responsibility for her actions and their consequences. After that she could start to feel better about herself.

Am I in trouble?

With the police?

Yes.

Leah shrugged. You should be. You were selling drugs.

The old Tess would have brought an armoury of responses to that accusation: indignation, buck-passing, denial, putting a favourable gloss on it. The new Tess nodded and said, I know.

Leah went on: But you were under the sway of Mitch, and people were trying to kill youa notorious drug dealer and his crew, and your own half-brother. I don’t think the police will charge you with anything, but youll probably have to give evidence in court.

Tess nodded again. She rubbed her wrists, which were red and raw.

Are you okay?

A bit sore.

Shed been bound hand and foot by her brother and stuffed into the boot of his car. Police had intercepted the Saab on the South Gippsland Highway. He’d been heading for an area of swampland and drainage channels near Koo Wee Rup.

You were lucky.

Don’t know how he thought he’d get away with it, Tess said.

Your brother was panicking, not thinking clearly, Leah said. You were the last person he expected to see this afternoon, and when you told him that wed caught his hired killer, he just lost control.

Tess nodded. When he was tying me up he said it wasn’t personal but he needed my share of the inheritance. He said he’d gambled away his entire share and owed a lot of money to bookmakers and loan sharks, who were threatening to break his legs and burn him alive. Five hundred thousand dollars, gone poof!

Leah brooded on that, a young guy desperate and afraid enough to murder his half-sister. If he hadn’t lost all of his money, if he hadn’t been afraid, then he’d have led a blameless life. But life was one big if-only. If only I hadn’t joined the police force. If only I hadn’t reported Allynson and his crew.

She drank her coffee. There was an answering machine connected to the kitchen phone and it was blinking madly. Every now and then the phone would ring and the machine would take the message. Leah had turned the volume down, but not off, so they could screen the calls. The media, mainly, and George Abbott, and Dr Heyward, briskly apologetic and asking Tess to consider coming back.

No way am I going back to that school, Tess said.

What will you do?

My gran in Adelaides coming to get me, my mothers mother, Tess said, and described a kind, strong, principled woman. Shes taken me in before.

How long will you stay?

In a low, fierce voice, Tess said, I don’t want to go back to Penleigh, I don’t want to go to another boarding-school. When Mum comes back from India, I don’t want to live with her. I’m going to live with Gran and go to school in Adelaide. Maybe go to university. Thats what I want.

I think thats great, Leah said, then paused. You should probably ring your mother.

No. The police can do that. What about you?

What about me?

Tess grasped Leah’s wrist, suddenly needy. Will you stay here with me tonight?

Of course.

There was a pause. Leah?

Yes?

Can we, you know…

Stay in touch?

Yeah. Can we? Would that be okay?

Of course, Leah said, and realised that she meant it.

Tess relaxed. They told me you saved someones life. Someone who wanted to hurt you. I mean, God.

Leah shrugged. Saving Allynsons life had been instinctive. But it had earned her some grudging respect from the police who had swarmed through the house afterwards. In other circumstances they might have harassed her or arrested her on some trumped-up charge. They were wary around her, but it was coloured by respect, not hatred.

At least, thats how things stood here, now. Leah knew enough not to go back to her house. She certainly wasn’t about to rejoin the police force. There were still those who hated her and wanted to do her harm. Some men had long memories.

The only standing offer had come from Abbott, the private detective, not ten minutes ago. Would Leah consider joining his firm?

Leah had said shed think about it, but what she saw, in her minds eye, was not a Leah Flood shadowing some philandering husband, drinking stale coffee in a stakeout vehicle and pissing in a plastic container, but a Leah Flood standing with her thumb out, somewhere along a beckoning highway in the vast emptiness, waiting to see what might happen next.