Prohibited Zone (20 page)

I was making myself comfortable on Luke's ratty sofa in a t-shirt and boxer shorts when Kara emerged from her room. She was wearing a pink t-shirt and a pair of light cotton shorts.

She said, ‘Lie with me tonight.' It was more an invitation than an order.

‘Why?'

She looked at me for a long moment, not promising anything with her eyes. ‘It would be nice to be held.'

‘And I'm conveniently at hand?'

She flared. ‘Are you coming or not? Or should I ask your brother?'

‘He's probably too pissed. You wouldn't be able to wake him.'

I went with her into the spare room and we lay down together on an uncomfortable double bed. The lights were out but the glow of the moon diffused through the thin curtains, a nightlight for grown-ups. She nestled into my arms; she seemed thin and fragile and felt very cold.

‘Hold me tight,' she whispered. More an order than an invitation.

‘Sure.' I held her tight.

She started trembling, just a little at first, but the magnitude of the trembles increased and soon she was going at about nine on the Richter scale. I just held her and stroked her hair. It was still damp from the shower. The trembling lasted five minutes.

‘Thank you,' she said, when it was over. ‘I was scared.'

‘It didn't show. You're tough.'

‘You think I'm tough?'

‘That's how you come across.'

She made a soft sound that was almost a giggle. ‘It's a facade. Don't tell anyone that!'

There was a long silence; I thought she'd gone to sleep. Then she stirred and reached up to kiss me on the cheek. I flinched, not wanting my wounds touched. She switched on the bedlamp, studied my face, grabbed a handkerchief and started dabbing me. In that light, at that moment, she didn't look so tough.

‘Your face is bleeding,' she said. ‘These butterfly strips aren't enough.' She got out of bed and returned with the first-aid kit. She was wearing a stronger face now, as if she had composed it in front of a mirror. She selected some dressings, which she applied to my wounds. ‘That should do until morning. Don't have AIDS, do you?'

‘Not that I know of. No. What about you?'

‘No.' She kissed my forehead, which was mostly undamaged, looked into my eyes for a few seconds, and switched off the light again.

‘Where did you learn your nursing skills?' I asked as she lay down again.

‘I worked overseas for a medical NGO.'

‘I didn't know that.' We were trying to arrange ourselves together in a mutually comfortable way. It wasn't easy.

‘What country?'

‘What?'

‘What country did you work in?'

‘East Timor.'

‘Same as Janeway. He served there. Australian Army.'

‘I didn't know that. Was that him tonight, do you think?'

‘No, I don't think so. Neither of those guys walked like him, in that oily way of his.'

A car drove past outside and I could hear Luke snoring in the room next to us. My head was throbbing and I was as weary as I had ever been.

‘West?'

‘Yes?' I was almost asleep.

‘You're more human than I thought.'

‘Really? I don't feel very human at the moment.' There was a pause. ‘Where would you rank me now? Above garden slug, below rat?'

‘No, higher. Chimpanzee, perhaps.'

‘Shut your face. And go get me a goddamned banana.'

She laughed, quietly, in the dimness. I could make out the main features of her face.

‘Are you a bastard, West?' Her voice was the faintest of whispers now.

‘Technically, no. Why?'

‘You know the saying, “All men are bastards”?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is it true?'

‘No. It's an over-generalisation.'

‘I could make a case for it. Especially after this afternoon. And tonight.'

‘Sample size too small. Not statistically valid.' I was shutting down. But I had to ask. ‘Are you a bitch?'

She gouged me in the ribs. It hurt. ‘That's for you to find out. Sleep well, West.'

‘You too.'

We held hands as we went to sleep.

I woke an hour or two later with my headache still going gang busters. It seemed that every muscle ached and my head was stuck to the pillow. We were still holding hands. I opened my eyes and looked straight into hers; I wondered how long she had been staring. Her face was only a few centimetres from mine. I could smell her breath. She smiled at me in the dimness and I tried to smile back. It hurt. After a while she started kissing me, tenderly, first on the undamaged portions of my face, which were few, and then, lifting my shirt, on my chest. She brushed my skin with her fingertips, gently. I took off my shirt, groaning in pain. She helped me.

‘Be gentle,' I whispered.

‘You too,' she whispered back.

‘Always.'

She took off her own shirt and I moved the back of my hand over her body so that only the hairs were in contact with her skin. She sighed and started moving. I liked the way she moved.

It was like a dream; perhaps it was a dream.

‘Sweetie.'

I think it was she who whispered it, but it sounded far off, a few galaxies away. Perhaps the word wasn't even meant for me. Perhaps it belonged to another time, someone else. But it didn't matter. We were drifting through the great dark again, but this time together, taking comfort in the presence of each other, forgetting the fear that the night had brought, would always bring. Finding, for a while at least, something peaceful and perfect. Something with which to fill an empty universe.

It still felt perfect when it was over. It almost cured my headache. She held my hand again and kissed my shoulder.

‘I'm beginning to like you, you bastard,' she whispered.

‘I might be beginning to like you, too, you bitch.' I had glimpsed behind her facade. Somehow that seemed even more intimate than sex.

17

I
COULD HAVE SLEPT UNTIL AFTERNOON
but was wakened by a rough hand on my shoulder. It was Luke.

‘The cops are here,' he said. He had his eyes on Kara. She was turned away from him, apparently asleep, and was reasonably well covered by a sheet, but she showed enough flesh that he could identify her. ‘Found a way in past the razor wire, then, I see.' Then he looked more closely at me.

‘Jesus, she plays rough, eh? You're black and blue. And there's blood everywhere. She must be a fucking animal.'

‘What time is it?'

‘About nine.'

‘What do the cops want?'

‘You.'

I pulled some clothes on and looked at myself in the mirror. At least I think it was me. There was a vague resemblance, but most of the skin was swollen and/or caked in dry blood, and the bruising underneath was already black. The bandage around my head had fallen off. I stumbled to the kitchen, my feet so sore it felt as if I was walking on needles. Tarrant and another cop I hadn't met were standing by the sink, their backs to the morning sun. Tarrant was wearing the same suit he'd had on in Port Augusta. It had been tired then; now it looked exhausted. He had changed his shirt, though, and donned a bright red power tie with little gold golfing motifs. Looking at it kickstarted my headache. He raised his pale eyebrows when he saw my face.

‘Been in a car crash?'

‘No.' I opened the fridge and took out a plastic bottle of milk. It was only out of date by a couple of days. I looked for a clean glass but couldn't find one so I drank straight from the bottle. Prising my lips that wide apart took a bit of doing and not much milk seemed to make it down my throat. I grabbed a tea towel and dabbed at the spillage.

‘What are you doing here so early in the morning?'

Tarrant spread his hands, palms out.

‘It isn't so early. Most people are at work by now, including me.'

‘Well, I'm on holiday so why don't you come back this afternoon? I've got a shocker of a hangover.' With the condition of my lips it was hard to speak clearly. I sounded drunk.

Tarrant extracted a pack of chewing gum from his pocket and popped a dragee into his mouth. He offered the pack to his fellow cop, who took one, and then to me. I shook my head and he grinned.

‘Don't suppose you feel much like chewing today,' he said.

‘Don't feel much like talking to cops, either.'

He devoted a few seconds to his gum, looking at me without expression.

‘What do you want?'

He waved vaguely at his colleague. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Pinchbeck. Show him your badge, Detective.' Pinchbeck obediently flashed his badge at me.

‘Good boy,' I said.

‘Shove it,' he said.

Tarrant sighed. ‘You really don't have good people skills, do you, West?'

He pulled a kitchen chair out from under the table, brushed away a lump of organic matter, and sat down. Pinchbeck did the same, but I stayed standing. Luke had gone to his room and shut the door.

‘Why don't you sit down,' said Tarrant. ‘You look like you need to.'

He was right; it took a big effort just to stand still. I needed five hours' more sleep and a month in a convalescence home. My shoulders ached and my feet still hurt. I sat down.

‘Tell us what happened to you,' said Tarrant.

I told him about my unusual evening in which I was kidnapped, taken to a remote location and tortured by masked men. I think he believed me, mainly because of the evidence that had been beaten into my face. I didn't tell him that Kara had been with me or about the earlier confrontation with Janeway and his mates.

‘Any idea who it was?' he asked.

‘No. Someone who owns a Beretta pistol made in Italy.'

Pinchbeck let out a little derisive snort. ‘They're all made in Italy, dickhead. It's an Italian fucking gun.'

I looked at Tarrant. He seemed peeved with his partner.

‘Do you know where you were taken?' asked Pinchbeck, oblivious. He had produced a notebook and was scribbling into it.

‘No. Like I told you, I was blindfolded and gagged and jammed inside a car boot. It was somewhere in the Hills. But there are a lot of hills up there.'

‘How many assailants were there?'

‘Two. But they were wearing balaclavas.'

Tarrant leant back and drummed his fingers on the table. He watched his fingers moving.

‘It sounds Mickey Mouse to me,' he said after we'd all listened to the percussion section for a while. ‘They tried to scare you but there were plenty of worse things they could've done to you. The fact that you're still walking and talking shows they weren't serious. And that bullshit with the gun – they were just trying it on.'

‘Mickey Mouse alright,' said Pinchbeck, who was turning out to be an irritating kiss-arse.

‘I had no idea that Mickey Mouse was such a prick,' I said. ‘Since when has he been packing a gun?'

That didn't raise a smile from either Tarrant or Pinchbeck.

‘They weren't serious,' repeated Pinchbeck. ‘I can tell you one thing, though.'

‘What's that?'

‘Stringing you up by your hands, making you lean forward. It's a bondage technique. It's called strappado. You were lucky you weren't spanked on the arse.'

‘Now
that
I would have enjoyed.'

‘How do you know about strappado, or whatever it is?' asked Tarrant, looking at his colleague.

Pinchbeck shrugged. ‘From when I worked in sex crimes.'

‘Ah, that's right. When you had to look at all those porno movies in the name of justice.'

Pinchbeck laughed. ‘Yeah, that's right. They do some weird things, man. Strappado is a form of medieval torture, but pretty tame by today's high standards. It all was, if you ask me. No angle grinders, no drills, no electrodes, no waterboarding. Shit, they didn't even break your nose. Bunch of pansies, they were.'

‘That tells me something about you, Pinchbeck,' I said. ‘It tells me you've never had anyone hold a gun to your head and pull the trigger. How about you give me your gun and I try it on you?'

‘How about I break your nose? Since they forgot to do that last night?'

‘How about letting me do the talking,' said Tarrant to Pinchbeck. ‘Chew your gum and shut up.'

Pinchbeck coloured and shut up. And chewed. I looked at Tarrant.

‘So what was the point of it, if it wasn't serious?'

Tarrant shrugged, his face still bland. ‘Who knows?' He drummed some more. ‘Who knows?' He sat up and looked around the room. It had a seventies décor, if it deserved to be called décor; it certainly didn't deserve an accent over the ‘e'. The sink was cluttered with dead things and the orange bench was about as clean as the linoleum floor, which I doubt had seen a mop in a year.

‘What does your brother do?'

‘He's a student.'

‘Ah.' He surveyed the room again, but nothing in particular seemed to take his eye. Luke had fortuitously put away his bong.

He turned abruptly to look at me. ‘Where is Saira Abdiani?'

‘I don't know.'

Pinchbeck made a sound intended to convey disbelief.

‘We know you helped her in Woomera,' he said.

‘I'd say you know bugger-all.'

Tarrant sighed again and gave his gum the once-over. ‘We've spoken to your friend, Colin Paddick.'

‘Oh.'

‘Yes, oh. He didn't want to talk but the problem with guys like that is they always like to do the right thing. In the end he realised the right thing was to own up to his part in the debacle. He tried to make us believe he did it all off his own bat, but he's not much of a liar. What I think happened is that you and Kara Peake-Jones conspired to help the girl escape. When you realised there would be a roadblock, you roped Paddick into smuggling the girl to Adelaide in his trailer. When they got there, you and Ms Peake-Jones picked up the girl from his place. Then you took her somewhere else, where she's now hiding. Am I warm?'