After Ariel: It started as a game (7 page)

He flipped the lid and checked out her Sent Box, reading her text messages to her friends – and her parents. They’d rung the previous evening as planned, but he knew they’d be calling again that day. A desperate plan materialised. Copying Ariel’s mode of phrasing, he sent a text message to her mother’s mobile phone purporting to be from Ariel, saying that she was going into the city for the day with friends, would stay with one of them and wouldn’t be home until – what would be believable – Tuesday? His fingers sped across the tiny keyboard. How could he finish it? Ah, yes. He scrolled until he found a name he thought he could use, then finished:  ‘Gone 2 Heathers, c u tues luv Ariel xxxx’
That should do it.

Dingo closed the phone with shaking hands, polished it thoroughly on the soft lining of his parka, and then walked down the short slope to the water. After checking there were no rowers in sight, he hurled it as far out into the river as he could, and then took the key out and threw it after the phone. Satisfied that neither would be found, he turned to leave. With one last glance at the pile of foliage up the bank under the trees, he headed back the way they had come, counting his steps as he went, trying not to draw attention to himself by hurrying.  He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and down so that it obscured most of his face.

His vision blurred with tears which he dashed away, trying to clear the lump of grief in his throat.
Stupid, stupid
...he shouldn’t have allowed himself to feel for her that fast. He knew better than that, but what red-blooded male wouldn’t take what was offered so willingly and sweetly? But after all they’d been to each other she hadn’t wanted to play again...tears continued to trickle down his cheeks. He swiped them away angrily with the back of his hand. It was her own fault this had happened...one minute they were laughing and kidding, the next she’d gone limp like a tiny, double-barred finch with her chains around her neck.
How had it happened? Mother, save me...

 Dingo could hardly see the lines on the pedestrian crossing. He stopped and turned back to count them...twenty three. Why not twenty-four? It wasn’t
right
. A pale streak of morning light peeped through the trees, throwing a line across the road at his feet. Twenty four! Nothing could happen now that the numbers were even. He took a deep breath, pulled the hood of his parka down to obscure his face and hitched his pack higher onto his back. He couldn’t return to Ariel’s home. They’d cleaned the house up, washed the dishes, cleaned the bath where they’d spent a very happy time and changed the sheets on her bed. ‘Like, mum’s got eyes like a hawk, Doobs. She’ll know straight away I’ve had someone here.’ So he’d left nothing there which would link him to Ariel...the hotel! All his things were at the hotel, but he couldn’t remember in which direction it was.

Instinct led him toward the West End CBD, striding along, just a man out for an early morning walk, perhaps going to work or off to university, but then his stride got faster as the memories came battling into his mind.

 ‘She disengaged her feet from his persuasive hands, and hoisted herself onto her knees. Laughing into his face, she leaned over the back of the sofa and hauled up cushions which she pitched onto the floor, then slithered down into the nest, pulling him down beside her.

 ‘Seven cushions, why seven? What are they there for?’ He had to make sure the numbers were even before he could concentrate on her. ‘Don’t you have another one?’

‘What do you mean, another one? We’re gunna play of course!’ She laughed, noticing his expression, leaped to her feet and plucked another one from a nearby chair. ‘There you are then, if you insist!’ Laughing, she threw herself over his body, pressing her breasts against his chest, seeking his mouth.

A deep shudder went through him, as he remembered how he’d ripped her shirt open and slipped his hands inside to cup her soft, firm breasts and brought her down to his mouth, and how they’d laughed, naked in the half-light, gazing at each in wonder. He’d cupped her cheek in his hand and softly stroked down her throat, following the track of his hand with kisses.

Even now, he was getting hard, striding along the pavement, avoiding the cracks – one pace per paver – trying to look as though he knew where he was going, but his mind refused to co-operate. He couldn’t remember the name of the hotel. Then he realised it would be on the receipt in the pocket of his parka. He paused to drag it out, squinting to read it: The Commercial on Grey. He looked around. A dog barked in a yard nearby, startling him and then he realised he was standing at the alleyway leading to the car park belonging to the place, and the sun was coming up. Early morning Saturday workers trundled past toward the city. The sound of a dump truck collecting garbage bins came from just around the corner.

Faint with hunger and exhaustion, Dingo stumbled up the back steps of the building, hoping no one would see him coming in. He couldn’t collapse.  He had to be at the Concert Hall early; there was so much to do before the evening performance.

Voices and the sound of clattering dishes came from the kitchen nearby, alerting him to the fact that breakfast would be served early for the business types who were in the bar the previous evening – well, if any of them stayed. He recalled noises coming from behind nearby doors as he had gone out to meet Ariel.
Okay, so just go upstairs to the room, have a shower and get dressed and come back down with no fuss, no fear.

One, two, three, four...he walked lightly up to the top landing and along the hallway to his room. Quietly sliding his key in the lock, he had the door open and whisked inside just as the door opposite started to open. It was vital that no one knew he had been out. He quietly closed his door.
Thank God...thank God...I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.

It was then Dingo remembered the photographer.

CHAPTER 6

Into Darkness

Susan

Saturday, 8AM.

David always marvels when my internal clock awakens me when I need to, but that time there was no pleasure in my life-long skill. David had left, goodness knows for how long and doing God knew what. I had made coffee and toast at midnight, as he stashed the final bits and pieces he was taking with him into a battered gym bag which reeked like the proverbial footballer’s jock strap. Probably the whole department had used it at some stage.

We stood just inside the back door leading to the garage, invisible from the street; he pulled me against his hard body and we kissed as though for the last time. I could feel tension in his muscular frame. I
knew –
not just
suspected –
my husband was going into a place of darkness, where men brutalised each other, a world where an undercover agent, or an informer, could be found shot or worse. Undercover means you immerse yourself into the part and think like your opponents – your prey.

David, as always, had picked up my thoughts. ‘Susan, you’re not to worry. Nothing’s going to happen to me. It’s just a secondment, nothing more – the usual murder, mayhem and drug dealers.’ He drew back and cupped his hands around my face. ‘I’ll keep in touch. Just hang in there and I’ll be home before you know it.’

Even though I’m a cop, David couldn’t tell me where he was going or what he was doing, but he knew that the less I knew the better and safer for me. Behind us, our dogs had whined, sensing my distress. He turned to fondle their silky ears and then opened the door. ‘I promise you that the moment I’m on the way home, I’ll call you. No matter what time it is.’

‘Three in the morning?’

‘Yes, whatever time. Now, go back to bed and think about me!’ His eyes crinkled with mischief. Fear licked at my heart. I hung onto him, savouring the last seconds we would have together for heaven only knew how long – or forever.

Someone coughed. We broke apart and turned to see the tall, burly form of DSS Moffatt of the Drug Squad standing on the steps leading up to the verandah. ‘Nice to see you, Susan. Sorry to interrupt, folks. Dave, it’s time to go.’

Grinning, these responsible husbands and fathers glowed with the excitement of leaving on a ‘Boy’s Own Adventure.’ I couldn’t keep my feelings from showing. Peter Moffatt eyed me warily, as though I might bite him and he was right.

Fighting the urge to cling, I relinquished my hold as David gently put me aside, picked up his bag and stepped through the door. The dogs tried to follow, but I restrained them and watched as the two men slipped across the back lawn, ducked under the hydrangea bushes along the side fence and vanished without a backward glance.

Fat Albert brushed against my ankles. I sprinkled some cat nibble into his bowl, made a hot drink and trailed into the lounge room unable to face the bedroom, now empty of David’s life-force. I switched on the table lamp, placed my cup on the coffee table and slotted a Bach cantata into the stereo. As I listened to the glorious music, my sister, Melanie’s voice crept into my head: ‘You’ve been a cop since you were twenty, you are now forty-one years old, raised your kids and gotten them off your hands, so what’s next? Are you going to remain in CIB? Stay in the police force until you’re sixty?’

‘What else can I do?
Security
?’ Even though occasional lassitude sets in, I couldn’t imagine being anything other than a police officer. My career has been good to me. Satisfying completions of cases and some not, had propelled me to Detective Inspector, a rank which doesn’t have quite as much physical activity attached to it. However, in spite of jogging most nights of the week and lifting weights, I find it harder to keep fit and leave leaping fences to my young troops and their dogs.

Now that I had a secret, which for the moment I’ve kept from David, even more so.

*

Endless hours passed divided into times where I read and wandered throughout the house, I fell asleep, as you do, just before dawn and awoke shivering, with a crick in my neck. Trying not look at the empty side of the bed, I heaved the cats off my legs. Genevieve – foisted onto me by Lady Ferna Robinson, now triumphantly widowed, Sir Arthur having fled to whatever Just Reward had been allotted him – hefted a fat paw, claws extended and missed my leg by a centimetre. Restraining myself from buffeting the fat furball with the pillow, I staggered to the en suite, showered and dressed, slapped on some make-up, bundled my hair into a scrunchy and headed for the kitchen

Sometime during the night, I made a decision to push David’s “secondment” to the back of my mind, this being the only way I could cope. I would imagine him where he was
supposed
to be, in Toowoomba doing routine Major Crime jobs, filling in for someone or other, instead of being ‘sussed out’ by criminals. That didn’t bear thinking about.

The overcast morning lured me to the window to watch the native shrubs in our garden and a line of gums along the south fence bending in the wind, leaves fluttering in distant supplication. The grass was longer than it should have been, because for my teenage lawn-mowing contractor who was sitting exams, tending to business was the furthest thing from his mind.

Overnight temperatures of 13 deg and 37 during the day – and ‘they’ say global warming is a myth? I slid the glass pane back and sniffed the air; rain coming, with any luck. The tinder dry bush was irresistible to the twisted arsonists who delighted in the misery of others. I went to the laundry, carefully avoiding the pile of washing lurking in the clothes basket, let the dogs out and headed for the kitchen.

Both cats wreathed themselves gracefully between my ankles, swatting each other spitefully from time to time. Marli’s pet rats rustled in their cage in the family room. Kids leave home for university, but their pets don’t! I paid a neighbour’s fifteen-year old daughter to clean the cage and feed the occupants. She spent far more time playing with them, which meant I had to check the cage every night in case she had forgotten to empty the litter tray. I didn’t begrudge the chore. The more animals I have around me at night, the safer I feel, especially with David gone.
A tangle of limbs and whispered love seared through my memory
...
he promised he’d ring as soon as the job was finished.

Breakfast, as always, was yoghurt and pears, followed by toast and coffee taken out on the side verandah. Time stretched endlessly ahead of me, with little prospect of respite from paperwork. Pitiful crime scenes – those of women and children horrendous – the misery caused by uncaring scum crowded my day. My aunt Beryl once said, ‘Susan, believe me, life can be hardest when there is nothing to look forward to. When a crisis occurs, we rise to the occasion, no matter how drastic or exciting it can be. It’s when the future stretches ahead of you without any chance of change, that’s when you need your strength, girl.’ Well, she was right.

I pulled the back door closed, flicked the cat flap to make sure it was swinging freely and checked the water bowls on the back verandah. Heaven only knew what time I would be home that night. The weather, reflecting my mood, had turned cold and rainy, the trees doing their level best to throw their branches around the surrounding paddocks. The ones by the house dipped and swayed. I envied the cats who had retired to my bed to curl up in the doona. The dogs, quivering with joy, leaped into the back seat of the car, fussing over who was going to sit which side, until I roared at them.

We reached the Valleys of the Scenic Rim in just over an hour and as I turned up the driveway to the house, my spirits lifted. No matter what my friend had to tell me, the sight of our country house always made me feel better. The main through-road was almost buried under the jacaranda petals stripped from the trees by heavy rain. I saw a few cars I recognised, but hoped their occupants wouldn’t see
me
. I didn’t want to talk.

Our large, strawbale house was five kilometres out of town, nestling on ten hectares in a fold of the pastures under a massive mountain, one much beloved of climbers who swan-dived off its craggy rock face and had to be rescued on a regular basis. Ros Miller – now Glenwood – moved in with her daughter Pamela’s spoilt marmalade cat, Fudge and their border collies. She and her new husband, John, rent from us and look after the Scottish Highland cows and the chooks which Eloise bequeathed to David and me. It was a few minutes before the house came into view bringing with a feeling of ambivalence foreign to me.