'JOSS, YOU'VE GOT to talk to me.' Isobel had tucked Charlie into bed, and now sat down next to him on the lounge. 'Who was that?'
'I told you in the car,' Joss's voice was glass. 'I knew him when I was growing up. He's violent. He's been in gaol. You know I don't want anything to do with my past.'
'Yeah, but I've never heard you talk like that. What would be wrong with just acknowledging him and moving on?'
'For fuck's sake, Isobel! Why do you have to question everything I do? I told you, he's fucking dangerous.'
'Do you think you could try any harder to wake Charlie?' Isobel stood. 'Anyway,' she said, turning away, 'the police called. They have to re-interview us about the robbery. They're going to call tomorrow to set up a time.'
She left the room before he could respond.
Great. Just great. What did they want? Joss stared at the blank television screen. He felt hunted, trapped. How had Cutter found him? He knew it was no coincidence. Twenty years and he'd never seen anyone from his past life, and now he'd seen Cutter twice in just over a week. How long had he been watching them? Did he know where they lived? He looked around his loungeroom. How had he let this danger into his life? Why was this happening to him?
An image of Fuzzy, scrabbling at his throat, blood everywhere, flashed into his mind. It seemed to answer his question.
Cursing under his breath, he reached for the remote control, desperate to find something to replace the scenes and sounds in his head. On each station, Fuzzy's fourteen-year-old eyes pleaded with Joss to help him, jets of blood pumping from the gash in his neck. Joss's hands, wet with blood, trying to hold his friend's throat together.
He threw the remote onto the cushion next to him and made his way to the kitchen, unconsciously wiping his hands on his jeans. Reaching into the cupboard, he took out the bottle, a glass. He filled it completely, a wave of the amber liquid sloshing over the side onto his hand. Eyes unfocused, he downed half the glass, relishing the burning. He coughed, swallowed the rest, and poured again, then took the glass and the remainder of the bottle of bourbon back into the loungeroom, noting with relief that he'd seen a new bottle at the back of the cupboard. This was going to be a long night.
Fuzzy's face had left the TV screen, but Joss could still smell his blood. He downed another half glass before the blood of the kids in Rwanda took over. The screaming and hacking of the massacre in Kibeho crowded into his brain and he had to stop midway to the couch; he put his glass down on the dining table so he could hold his head in his hands. Leaning forward, praying the memories would leave him alone, that his brain wouldn't burst, he finally felt his medicine taking effect, the heat of the alcohol in his belly. He fell into the cushions of the lounge, pulled the bottle closer, and turned the volume of the television up a little.
ABC news. He moved to flip the channel, not ready for any more reality, when the top story caught his eye. Another home invasion. Last night. He sat forward in the seat, suddenly very sober. This time someone was dead.
It was as if he'd left the door from hell wide open, and a demon had walked on through. He thought of his girls, upstairs. He had to get them out of here.
Then, he had to find Cutter.
Jill sat at the computer in her loungeroom in her singlet and briefs. She googled 'M5 motorway' to find the site to register for an electronic toll payment tag. The department would reimburse her for the monthly fees. She didn't know how long she'd be out at Liverpool, but she wasn't going to wait in the M5 toll queue with the motorists paying cash every day. She was surprised her department vehicle hadn't been fitted with a tag already. The car was brand new; maybe that explained it.
She sighed and stretched. The trip there and back was a bitch. It took two hours of her day: time she could be training. She looked down at her belly and grimaced. For years, her stomach had been unyielding, creaseless. She poked at a small fold above her knickers and walked into her gym.
Truth is, I kind of like looking like this, Jill thought, looking at her mirrored reflection. She'd had to change out of her push-up bra this morning because her decolletage had rendered her fitted shirt obscene. She smiled at the curve of her usually hard buttocks. The extra five kilos had even changed her face a little – fewer hard angles.
But soft is dead, she told herself.
She scowled at the mirror and increased the angle on her incline bench to forty-five degrees. As she started on six sets of fifty sit-ups, she realised she missed the pain. Her mind drifted back to work.
Following her phone call from the Rice residence, Superintendent Last had arranged for a tech truck to travel to the house. He'd called her at home at eight with the results. Not only had luminol fluoresced all over the floorboards and the rug in Justine's bedroom, revealing the presence of organic matter, but Justine had also presented the techies with a plastic shopping bag.
'What was in it?' Jill had asked her new boss. What else did this girl have to tell them?
'A bath towel,' he'd said evenly. 'She kept it after wiping up the blood and semen. Can you believe it?'
'She wanted to tell us what happened. She just couldn't put it into words the first time, and then the lie got too big,' said Jill.
'Great work, Jill.' His voice was exhausted. He sounded old. 'We should get results from the sample tomorrow afternoon. What they get from the other trace you found out at Capitol Hill with Gabriel should follow.'
Jill lost count at one hundred crunches, caught up in her thoughts. Before leaving Justine, she'd helped the girl to tell Ryan and her mother what had happened upstairs. Ryan had taken off, hate and tears in his eyes. She wondered whether he'd returned yet, and what would happen between the young couple.
She'd seen it all before. Sometimes the male ego couldn't take the blow when his partner had been sexually assaulted. All of her tears following a rape were, in some men's eyes, accusations of weakness, reproaches because he hadn't been able to protect her. When the victim also held a corresponding unspoken belief that her partner should have been there, stopped it, the couple rarely made it. When they did, sometimes Jill felt they shouldn't have: the anger would eat them alive.
Jill had ensured that Narelle Rice had all the phone numbers for the community services that could help. She'd follow up and urge Justine and Ryan to have counselling. It had taken a few years and a couple of different therapists for Jill to gain some relief following her own ordeal. Still, killing her rapist years later was what had given her the most release. Now that was something you never got told in therapy. The memory of his death was still a strong, clear image. She tried to tell herself that the healing came from the knowledge that he could never hurt her again. She forced herself not to relive the satisfaction of kicking him to death.
She unhooked her ankles and rolled off the incline bench onto the floor. Nine-thirty. She longed for the shower and her bed. Instead, she walked the well-trodden path to her hand weights and took them back to the bench. Three sets of dumbbell flies first.