Two-Way Cut

chapter 4

Leah needed a refuge, a safe place where she could rest and do something about changing her face again. Somewhere with a radio, so she could monitor the news. Somewhere big enough to hide Tess, too, for the girl was caught up in this awful mess now.

But the country towns shed passed through today had been too small to provide that sort of cover. Nervy, suspicious places, wary of strangers. Would Prospect be any different? Would she encounter a cop like Drew in this town? Had Drew seen her in Tiverton and passed the word on?

She ran with Tess along the edge of the creek and they arrived at Prospect just as the streetlights were coming on. The first indications were favourable: motels, small businesses and flashing neon along the main street, with a sprawl of ugly new houses and flats at either end. There was even a mall. The town hall was as big as any shed seen in the suburbs of Melbourne.

When she saw the Range Rover prowling along the main street she pulled Tess into the shadows and watched until it had gone, and only then did she notice Tess’s condition. The younger woman was listless, unfocused, and Leah felt a pang of guilt and pity. Look, I’m really sorry about your friend, but we couldn’t stick around back there.

Tess made an effort, blinking, throwing off her vagueness. I know.

Those men were

They would have killed us, Tess said vehemently. I’m sorry I got you into this mess.

Got me into it? I got you into it.

Tess shook her head. A teenager skated past, drifting in lazy S shapes along the footpath, trailing the odours of fish and chips after him. I knew they’d catch up to us.

I don’t understand. Those men

It doesn’t matter, Tess said, her face and body shutting down. Lets just get away from here.

Ill take you to the police station if you like, but I wont go in.

Tess shuddered. No. God no.

It seems we both have reasons not to bring in the cops, Leah thought.

I’m sorry about Mitch, she said again.

Tess choked down a couple of sobs, then heaved a sigh. I knew it couldn’t last, but it was exciting while it did, she said, as if putting the very recent past behind her. Leah didn’t pursue it. Tess had maybe seen too many made-for-TV movies and had cast herself in this one, inventing the dialogue as she went along. She was seeing everything that happened as her story, her drama, when Leah knew damn well that the men in the Range Rover were not interested in a couple of drippy teenage lovers. Those men were after revenge.

It was dark before Leah found somewhere for them to spend the night. She didn’t want to stay in a house a house would mean curious neighbours. There are also neighbours in blocks of flats, but they tend to come and go and expect others to come and go. She didn’t expect anyone to ask her what her business was in this row of down-at-heel flats in a back street behind the town mall.

There had been lights showing in most of the flats in the first block, and all had empty letterboxes. Shed hurried Tess along to the next block. Flats 2 and 6 had not claimed their letters yet. She rejected Flat 2 when she heard raised voices behind the door. They climbed the stairs to Flat 6, where she listened for half a minute, knocked on the door and listened again. Silence.

How are we going to get in?

Key, I hope, Leah said.

She ran her hand along the top of the door surround, finding dust. She glanced around. There was a wrought-iron potplant stand nearby. The key was under a white stone at the base of a dying fern. She opened the door and they slipped inside.

There was no one home but the place felt lived in. Then she saw a movement in the corner. It was a cat, stretching awake in a basket on the floor.

They let themselves out quickly and walked down the stairs and along to a single-storey block of four flats in the next street. These Leah rejected immediately. According to a sign by the driveway entrance, the building was let to elderly parishioners of the Uniting Church, who were more likely than not to be at home.

Their luck improved at the next block of flats. The letterbox for Flat 4 was crammed with junk mail. Leah led the way up to the second landing and tried the door. When no one answered her knock, she searched for the key, finding it on top of a fuse box in the hallway. She opened the door and they went in. This time there were no pets or signs that people had been there recently. The place felt as if it had been empty for several days. The rooms were tidy. The refrigerator had been switched off and the door left ajar. The kitchen tidy was empty and clean.

She examined the bedroom and the bathroom. The clothing, jewelery and cosmetics indicated that a youngish man and woman lived there.

Good. My pack was burnt up in the car. All Ive got is my mobile phone and the clothes I’m wearing. She also had her $5000, but wasn’t about to tell Tess that.

Ive got spare undies and T-shirts if you need them, Tess said, dropping her weekender bag to the carpet but continuing to clutch her leather daypack in one hand. Were about the same size.

Thanks.

Excuse me, Tess said, pushing past Leah to the bathroom. She looked weepy, agitated, her face streaked with misery, her jeans grimy.

Leah made a second sweep of the flat, concentrating on the kitchen. There was a calendar pinned to a cabinet door above the sink. Notes had been scribbled in the blank spaces under some of the dates. Leave for Noosa had been written under a date at the beginning of the month and a bold red line cancelled the next two weeks. At the end were the words arrive home.

Tess reappeared, calmer now, visibly making an effort. She was faintly water-splashed and had combed her hair. How long are we staying?

Leah showed her the calendar. We’ve got the place for a week if we want it. She hoped that a spare key hadn’t been given to friends or relatives. She hoped the weather was fine in Queensland. But we have to be super quiet and unobtrusive, and ready to quit the place at a moments notice. We don’t want curious neighbours knocking on the door. If they do, we act as if we belong here; were friends looking after the place for a few days. Okay?

You’re the boss.

Leah wanted Tess to be more alert than that, but let it go. You can have the bed. Ill sleep on the sofa.

Can we eat? I’m starving.

This is weird, Leah thought. Mitch has just been murdered, killers are after us, and Tess is starving. I feel as if I could jump out of my skin, and this girl has made a remarkable recovery. Clearly her bond with Mitch hadn’t been that strong, but still…

First things first, Leah said.

There was a radio next to the toaster on the kitchen bench. She tuned it to a regional station of the ABC, the volume low, and they listened to the news. Mitch was on last, just before sport and weather, and the item took less than ten seconds: a young man killed in a single-vehicle accident when his car had run off the road near Prospect and caught fire. Police were appealing for witnesses.

Leah glanced keenly at Tess, who stared at the floor. You okay?

Tess nodded.

Its none of my business but

Youre right, its not.

Fair enough, Leah said, searching the cupboards for something to eat.

She opened a tin of spaghetti, spooned it onto two plates and ate hers cold with a spoon. It had the consistency of glue. Tess gave her an appalled look and wrinkled her nose. If we heat anything, Leah explained, well release cooking smells that might alert the neighbours, and we don’t want that.

Yeah, well Ill just have toast.

Toast smells. Theres no bread, anyway.

Okay, how about fruit.

No fruit, either.

Tess yanked open the cupboard. God.

She brought out an open packet of sultanas and tipped some into the palm of her hand. I don’t know if I can put up with much of this.

Go, then. Its me they’re after.

No its not.

Okay, what have you done?

Its not me, its Mitch, but I was with him, right? I’m a witness.

Go to the police.

I cant.

You mean that you and Mitch were in it together, whatever it was. What was it? Did you rip off somebody?

Tess glanced away. Not really.

So, what did you do?

Stole a car. What about you?

Leah thought about it as she placed her empty tin in a plastic bag, which she would dispose of later, in a public bin. I’m stuck with a person I hardly know, she told herself. What does it matter if I tell her? It might even forge a bit of a bond between us, and God knows we need to help each other out now. She took a deep breath. It would be a relief to talk to someone. Suddenly Leah was overwhelmed by her own loneliness.

Three years ago shed been a police officer, a rookie, just graduated and top of her class. An only child, her elderly parents had retired to the Gold Coast and so this was all she had, a new career, one she could be proud of. After a year in a divisional van shed been fast-tracked into some specialist short courses and plainclothes detective work, posing once as a sex worker and once as a junkie. And then, at the end of an extensive undercover sting operation involving fifteen uniformed police and CIB detectives, shed been sexually assaulted.

Theyd all gone to a guesthouse in the hills to celebrate, reserving the dining-room and all of the bedrooms and cabins, the whole place, for an overnight stay. That evening Leah had got drunk—they’d all got drunk. Well, that was the point, to celebrate, have fun, let off steam, wash some of the grime away.

Except that at two o’clock in the morning she and two other women had been unwinding in the communal spa bath when someone stole every stitch of fabric from the room: towels, bathrobes, floor mats, their clothing. Leah had crept to the door, poked her steamy head out and seen ten of her male colleagues lined along the corridor.

Hey, girlie, said the one closest to the door.

She hated being called girlie.

What? she demanded.

Hows tricks?

Come on, give us back our clothes, or at least our towels.

He glanced comically at his mates, then back at her, and said with mock regret, No can do, sorry.

Its late, we want to go to bed.

So do we, sweetheart, so do we.

And they all looked hot, oily and porcine to her, open-mouthed, their faces distorted with an ugly kind of hunger.

Come on, guys, give us a break, Leah said, hoping to remind them that they worked together, were colleagues, even friends.

A little fun first, one man said. All you have to do is run the gauntlet.

And?

And nothing.

Nothing.

Thats right. Cross my heart and hope to die.

You wont touch us?

Thats right.

Then one of the two women huddled in the doorway with Leah said, Come on, Leah, be a sport. They’re just having a laugh.

Yeah, come on, said the second woman. They’re all too drunk to do anything.

Leah said, No, its not right, this is harassment. They could lose their jobs for this.

The atmosphere turned then. Leah felt the force of their suspicion and anger, as if shed betrayed the team.

Don’t be a tight-arse, the first woman said, shoving past Leah and into the corridor and beginning to run. The men clapped and cheered and one or two smacked her on the rump. She reached the end of the corridor and pranced about with both fists raised in victory. Then the other woman ran, also playing to her audience.

That left Leah.

Come on, love, show us what you’ve got, the first man said.

Be a sport.

So she ran. The moment she stepped into the corridor she knew that shed made a bad mistake. The first man gave her a shove. She stumbled against the man opposite him, who also shoved her, placing both hands on her breasts. In this way she was passed jerkily from man to man until she reached the end of the corridor. Her body bore the marks of their hands for hours afterwards.

The next day she resigned from the force. She brought charges against all of them, including the women, who reluctantly gave evidence supporting her case. Of the ten men, four were sacked, five transferred or demoted, one committed suicide. So, justice had been served, but shed let the side down, and now she was a target.

Its the fact that one of the guys committed suicide, she told Tess in conclusion. They want to get even.

Tess was watching her, eyes wide. What, like, kill you?

I doubt it, but then again, I wouldn’t put it past some of them.

Wow. Bummer, Tess said. She shook her head in disgust. Cops.

Leah’s attitude was more complicated. She missed her job, her vocation. She had loved police work, was good at it, and praised for it by her superiors. And even though the police had ultimately let her down, her belief in them was undiminished. In her view, the police were mostly dedicated, but underpaid, unappreciated and apparently despised by a high percentage of the public, so it was no wonder that they tended to be inward-looking, clannish, a culture apart from the mainstream. They sought each other out when off-duty, and were sustained by a sense of moral superiority despite existing on the fringes of polite society.

And they hated anyone who broke ranks, anyone who revealed the rotten apples in the barrel. They felt that whistleblowers tainted the force, did more harm than good, and should be stopped.

But Leah said none of this to Tess. So I hit the road.

What about your friends, your parents? Tess said.

I wasn’t going to drag them into my mess, said Leah harshly. Anyway, my parents are in Queensland, I lost friends when I joined the force, and lost police friends when I left it. Now, whats your story?

They had returned to the sitting-room. Tess flopped back in her corner of the sofa and began checking her hair for split ends. A moment later she pulled one bare foot into her lap and picked at the hoary skin on the edge of her big toe. She looked bored, sulky and apathetic, a dangerous combination to Leah’s mind. To shock her out of it she said, Tess, someone close to you was murdered a couple of hours ago. You could be next.

Tess shifted about restlessly. Leah wondered if she was coming down from something, amphetamines maybe. Tess? Lets start at the beginning. Whats your full name?

Tessa Quant.

How did you meet Mitch?

He did maintenance at my school.

God, how old was she? Your school?

Penleigh Hall. I’m a boarder there.

How old are you?

Tess’s eyes shifted. Eighteen.

Leah knew she was lying. Sixteen? Seventeen? She certainly could pass for eighteen. She could pass for twenty-five. So, Mitch was a handyman at your school.

Tess leaned forward and smirked. Very handy.

Leah stared at her neutrally, unimpressed by the sexual bravado. And you got involved with him.

Tess shrugged her bare shoulders and sat back in a sulk. Yeah.

And the pair of you stole a car.

Yeah.

This was like getting blood from a stone. And ran away together.

Not immediately.

I’m trying to understand. Were you running away from something, or running to something?

Stop interrogating me. Stop sounding like a cop. Or a teacher.

I want to know.

I was failing, all right? Satisfied?

At that moment, Tess sounded exactly like a sixteen-year-old schoolkid. Did you and Mitch hit the road immediately?

Tess laughed. We shacked up together, only my father sent my brothers to get me back. Hes such a control freak.

Leah cocked her head in frank disbelief, hoping to unsettle Tess. When Tess wouldn’t meet her gaze she said in a low, hard voice, Tess, those men had a shotgun, they killed Mitch, they could have killed you. Are you saying they were your brothers?

No. I mean, I don’t think they meant anyone to get killed. Maybe its really you they’re after.

Leah shook her head. This was like interrogating a child who lies automatically, the lies a complicated, unconvincing artifice when a simple lieor the truth would be best. When did you and Mitch hit the road together?

About five days ago.

Leah let the silence build in the stuffy little room, knowing that someone as impatient and impulsive as Tess could not stand much silence. Finally she said, So you don’t want to go to the police because it would mean getting your father and brothers into trouble?

Exactly.

But Mitch is dead now, Leah said, thinking: Not that you’re exactly grief-stricken.

So?

So you can go home, or back to school. If you’re a boarder, the school must be worried about you. They’ll be looking for you.

You must be joking, Tess said. They were going to expel me anyway.

Leah felt immensely weary. I don’t understand: if you’re a boarder, does that mean your parents live interstate or on a remote property somewhere?

Melbourne.

So why are you a boarder?

Don’t get on with my parents.

They must have pots of money, sending you to boarding-school when they don’t have to, Leah said, feeling resentful.

Tess shrugged.

I’m not exactly in a position to look after you.

You don’t have to. I can look after myself.

Yeah, right, Leah thought. The police will be involved now, she said, because of the car crash. They’ll identify Mitch, and someone will tell them that you were traveling with him. People will wonder where you are. The school, your mother.

Want to know about my mother? When I was fourteen I got asthma so bad I had to go to hospital, so the school called her, and you know what, they didn’t find her for two weeks. She was off overseas with her boyfriend, who’s now my stepfather. When they finally did get hold of her, you know what she told them? You deal with it, like she didn’t care if I died or not. So excuse me if I don’t care what my mother thinks. Tess seemed on the verge of tears again.

Leah cocked her head. It was your father, not your stepfather, who sent your brothers after you?

Tess looked hunted. Yeah.

Tess, look at me. Were those guys in the Range Rover your brothers?

Tess avoided her gaze. I couldn’t tell. Maybe they got their friends involved, or hired somebody.

Leah wanted to give Tess a good shake. She believed that Tess and Mitch had stolen a car, but that was all she believed, and a stolen car wasn’t enough to galvanise two killers in a Range Rover. No, she thought, I’m the target, not Tess.

We need to stay here for at least a couple of days, she said. When they don’t find us tonight and tomorrow, they’ll assume we’ve moved on.

Stay in this dump for two days? No way.

All right then, go home. Go back to school. Simple.

Tess moved about agitatedly on the sofa. She was a poor little rich girl with no conscience and hooked on cheap thrills. Life was a movie, and Leah was making her see what was real. She took a mobile phone from her pocket and switched it on.

What are you doing?

I have got some friends, you know, Tess flounced. Not that its any of your business.

It is my business. Mobile phones can be tracked. Calls can be monitored.

Giving Leah a hunted look, Tess put the mobile away. Leah wanted to say more, but fear was clearly apparent in the younger woman, breaking through the shallow cuteness and bravado. I don’t blame her, Leah thought. But I have to put on a brave front.

Tomorrow we alter our appearance, she said. If we have to go out to the shops, then we don’t leave a trail. We use cash, not credit cards, okay? And no calls from public phones.

Boring.

I’ll sleep on the sofa, Leah said.

Can I watch TV?

Only the news, if you keep the volume down.

God! What about e-mail?

There was a computer on a card table in one corner of the sitting-room. No, Leah said, glancing at it. We don’t do anything that signals where we are.

God.