A Time to Run (6 page)

‘I'm staying till I hear something,' Gavin said.

Tom nodded. ‘Just don't get yourself wasted,' he said. ‘Sammi will probably get in a bit of trouble when she does turn up. The last thing she needs is for you to be sitting here pissed.'

‘I'm just not good at waiting,' Gavin said. ‘I need to take the edge off so I don't go nuts.'

‘It'll be alright. She'll turn up.' Tom sounded less convincing this time.

They sat in silence, each staring at different spots on the ground, the unspoken fear sucking the oxygen from the air, making it heavy and hard to breathe. It was a couple of minutes before either of them spoke again.

‘So did you see the game on the weekend?' Tom asked.

Saturday 10:01 am

Janine and Jake pulled up outside Michelle Lewis's home. It was small and scruffy, the requisite unregistered car with a wheel missing parked on the front lawn. They'd already decided that Jake would lead off and do the talking.

Michelle was home, and clearly unhappy about having to get out of bed to answer the door. She eyed them, in their business clothes, waiting for the worst. As soon as they identified themselves with a flip of their badges, she groaned and rolled her eyes.

‘Is Teddy in trouble again?' she asked, pulling her dressing gown tighter.

‘No, it's nothing like that,' said Jake, and flashed a friendly smile. ‘We're hoping you might be able to help us. It's to do with a woman who was at the pub last night. May we come in and have a chat please?'

Michelle's expression didn't change. ‘So you reckon you're not here for Teddy?' she asked.

‘No, we –'

‘Just a minute then,' Michelle cut Jake off before he could further clarify.

She didn't wait for a reply. She simply shut the door in their faces. Seconds later a motorbike sped out from the backyard, under full acceleration. A young man wearing a tank top, shorts and thongs in a helmet was riding it. He zoomed down the driveway, straight across the road and between two houses, quickly disappearing from view.

Janine gave an exaggerated wave in the direction of the disappearing motorbike. ‘See ya, Teddy!'

‘Do you know him?' asked Jake.

‘No,' she said, ‘but who else is it going to be?'

The front door swung open and Michelle had a smug look on her face. ‘If you want to see Teddy, it's a shame, he's not home. You've just missed him.'

Jake gave her a half-smile, just enough to activate his dimples. He tilted his head a little. ‘We're really not here about Teddy. We want to find out if you saw a woman at the pub. You might have served her. Your boss said you were working till close this morning.'

‘Yeah. OK,' she said. She stepped aside abruptly, gesturing them in. ‘Come in then. I'm sure it will get the neighbours talking again.'

She ushered them into the kitchen and they all took a seat around the table. Housework clearly wasn't high on Michelle's list of priorities. There were sticky jam clumps and coffee rings staining the grey laminex.

Jake explained what Sammi and her friend looked like and then gave a brief version of Candy's story about when she had last seen Sammi.

Michelle shook her head slightly. ‘I don't pay too much attention to them unless I'm serving them. If I wasn't pouring them drinks, I wouldn't have noticed them. I couldn't say for sure I had seen those girls exactly. I've been working in dark smoky bars for too long. Unless they're ripping their tops off and giving blow-jobs on the dance floor, I don't give them a second thought. Sorry.'

‘What about the other barman, Don Black? That's his name, right? Might he have been serving them?'

Janine saw Michelle's expression visibly alter at the mention of Don's name.

‘Actually, now that you mention it, that was a bit strange last night. Don left early,' she began, and Janine could almost see her brain working as the thought processes started.

‘I should first say that I don't like the bloke. He gives me the creeps. He's got a way of looking at you that just makes the hair rise on the back of your neck. Anyway, it would have been about 4:15 this morning, he comes up to me and tells me he needs to leave straightaway. He said there was a family emergency of some sort. Now, he's no family man, but that's probably beside the point. And he must have got the information telepathically because I didn't see him take any phone calls.'

Janine leant in a fraction and she nodded to encourage the woman.

Michelle continued. ‘So he wanted me to cover for him. We were finishing at five anyway. I figured that was OK, we weren't busy. He had probably just seen some chick who was drunk enough to take him home. So I said, yeah, but that I needed to have a pee first, and he'd have to wait till I got back from the loo. So I duck out to the toilets. While I'm out there, I hear his truck start up. The carpark's just behind the toilets. Don drives this old ute, with a big canopy on the back that looks like he built it himself. It's diesel and really loud, like a truck. I thought, surely he wouldn't be going without waiting for me to come back. I couldn't believe he'd just walk out and leave the bar unattended. That his fake family emergency couldn't wait two minutes till I'd finished peeing. So if you stand up on the toilet seat, there's a little window you can see out, straight down the street. Sure enough, it was Don's ute driving out of the carpark and I see him stop next to some chick on the street. She talked to him through the window for a moment. Then she got in the car and they drove off.'

Michelle paused for a moment and rubbed her eyes.

‘It was a fair way away, but I think it might have been a blonde girl.'

Janine's heart sank. There was definitely a case building.

Saturday 10:09 am

It was such an everyday item. A camera. To capture memories, freeze moments. To help remember special events. But the barman's idea of special events made Sammi's stomach churn. First he made her stand up and took photos of her. Three of them – a full-length shot, one from the side and finally, a close-up of her face.

She tried to stand tall as he moved towards her with the camera.

‘Here, check this out,' he said, a look of ghoulish glee on his face.

She could have simply closed her eyes and dipped her head. But she didn't. It was like driving past a car crash – something in human nature compelled people to slow down and take interest.

He held the camera in front of her so she could watch as he clicked back through the pictures. The photos showed three different women against the backdrop of the bush she was in now. She recognised Tahlia Corbett's face immediately. She had seen a smiling Tahlia staring out from news bulletins for months, with her parents begging for public assistance. From the police response, Sammi guessed they had no suspects. The young woman had gone out for a night on the town, just like Sammi. And Sammi had now disappeared just like Tahlia had. Was there anything to link Tahlia to Sammi and ultimately the barman? Or would Sammi also become an unsolved missing persons case?

Three women in three shots, just like he'd taken of her. And after each trio were multiple photos of each girl's lifeless corpse in various stages of dismemberment. Then there was a single photo of a fourth woman taken at night, clearly the first of the series. Don gave a graphic and brutal commentary about each woman, seeming to revel in the details. It was like he was giving Sammi a preview of her own death.

Sammi had seen a lot in her years as a police officer. She had attended a suicide by train, where the clean-up had to be done with a bucket rather than a body bag. She had been first on the scene where a grandpa had accidentally reversed his car over his two-year-old granddaughter.

So it wasn't the pictures that made the blood rush to Sammi's head and had her battling to stay upright. It was the reality that it was now her turn to produce the shots after the first three. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to quell the rising panic. She knew the barman was scrutinising her reaction as she looked at his photos. He made a harsh guttural sound that may have been a laugh, and walked back to his car. That had been his aim. To inspire terror.

The barman was once again out of view in the cab of his ute. Sammi had no idea what he was doing, but guessed it was part of his MO. None of the other women had successfully come up with a way of avoiding him, of escaping from his murderous plans. It was like he was baiting her, turning his back on her and seeing what she might try. There was no way she could escape from him right now. There was nowhere to go. She couldn't outrun the dog and he would have her in his rifle sights before she could disappear out of view. Escape was futile.

Sammi concentrated on the things around her. The back tray of the ute was still open and a bag was sitting on the ground. It was possible he could make a mistake and leave a weapon in the open. She tried to look without making it obvious. But when she shifted her weight to lift onto her knees, he was out of the cab. He stood with his legs apart, the rifle resting in his hands. She pretended she was trying to make herself more comfortable, but didn't fool either of them.

He slung the rifle across his shoulder and reached into his pocket to retrieve a packet of cigarettes. Without taking his eyes from Sammi, he tapped a smoke from the pack and lit it. He continued to stare at her as he took a long slow drag on the cigarette, making the tip burn red hot. Sammi kept her head dipped, watching him out of her peripheral vision, unwilling to lock eyes with him.

He reached back into the front seat. Something red and something white were in his hands as he walked across to her.

‘Take your pants off,' he said coldly.

She stared at him. Of course it had occurred to her that he might want to rape her, but his threats and photos had pushed these thoughts aside. But why else could he want her to remove her pants?

He threw the red item to the ground in front of her. Sammi saw it was a pair of elastic-waisted shorts. A pair of running shoes joined the shorts on the ground.

‘I want this to be a challenge,' he said. ‘You won't get so far in long pants and heels.'

Sammi shook her head dumbly. She was not accepting any favours from this psychopath.

‘I'm not going to rape you,' he said. ‘At least not now. I'll wait till you're dead. Won't have to put up with crying and twitching. I'm going to do it straightaway while you're still warm.'

A twisted smile contorted his face. ‘But right now, put on these shorts and shoes, so you can run faster.'

Sammi still shook her head, no words coming out.

The barman took another slow drag on his smoke, tipped his head back and blew out a cloud above his head. He looked down at her and their eyes met briefly before Sammi dropped her head.

‘For every minute you waste here, I'll take ten minutes off your head start.'

Sammi hesitated.

‘I have other ways of punishing disobedience,' he said softly.

She had no choice.

Sammi stood up and peeled off her black pants. He watched intently as they slid down her legs and into the dirt. She reached for the red shorts.

‘Better give me your undies,' he said, as she grabbed the shorts. ‘The dog will need them to sniff you out.'

Sammi kept her eyes to the ground. She slipped down her underpants and kicked them towards the barman. Then she quickly stepped into the shorts and pulled them up.

‘You'll need the shoes too,' he instructed. She was barefoot, her heels still in the back of the ute. She jerkily put the runners on, trying to tie the laces with shaky hands and numb fingers. They were old and dirty, the shoelaces grey and frayed between her fingers. There were splashes of dark brown on the top of the left shoe. With a sharp intake of breath, Sammi realised they were blood stains. These shoes had been used by the other women.

The barman picked up her underwear and surveyed them with a smug smile. She had been wearing beige briefs, sensible nanna undies. The intimacy of him looking at them disturbed Sammi more than it should. She kept her head dipped, watching him furtively. She could feel the sweat dripping down her back, though her skin felt cold and clammy. She gripped her forearms and pulled them against her body. She could still smell her vomit, sick and sour.

She focused on every small detail – the way his boots were laced up, the tread pattern of the 4WD tyres on the ute. Minor unimportant things that kept her mind occupied and helped support the black block of doom suspended above her. If she was going to have any chance of getting out of this alive, it was imperative that she remained calm. If she let the hot red blanket of panic settle over her, blocking out sense and reason, all would be lost.

He was crouched next to his dog, talking to it in a low voice. Her underpants were balled up in his fist, close to the dog's muzzle. He stood up suddenly and swung the rifle off his shoulder and into his hands. He strode toward Sammi in such a decisive manner that she instinctively threw her weight backwards and slid a half-metre on the dirt away from him. He stopped in front of her, looming over her menacingly.

‘The fun begins now,' he said. He was breathing harder than normal and Sammi could sense the pleasure he was deriving from this.

‘You will run and try and get away from me. I will hunt you down and kill you. I will grant you one hour's head start.'

He checked his watch. ‘It's 10:20 am.'

Sammi pushed herself away from him so she could get up with a bit of space between them.

‘That's it. Clock's ticking. Go!' he said.

Sammi clambered to her feet and took a couple of wobbly steps backwards. She shook her head slightly in disbelief. A small part of her still hoped this was part of a bad joke.

‘Go!' he shouted again.

She turned and broke into a jerky jog away from him, her body only just obeying her brain. She felt compelled to keep watching him over her shoulder. He stood there impassively, the dog next to him, rifle in his hands, watching. Watching her stumble. Watching her fear. Watching her run.