Poison City (10 page)

I nod. ‘I don’t know what you’ve got against that place.’

‘It’s so . . .’

‘Down to earth?’

‘. . . 
Disgusting
. The place is a dive.’

I shrug. She’s right, but I know the owner and he lets me run a tab till payday, which is a huge plus in my books. He also makes the best club sandwich in town. Sweet chilli sauce, chicken, bacon . . . my mouth’s watering just thinking about it.

I get to my feet grab my keys. ‘See you tomorrow then. Same time, same place—’

‘Same shit.’

‘You got it.’

Back at the flat and I can feel the stiffness creeping up on me. My joints ache, and my muscles are seizing up. The magical hangover has been with me all day, but this is my body reacting to the battering it took yesterday. Walking around at the kraal staved off the pain, but it’s coming on hard now, armed with heavy bats and crowbars. The wards the dog applied saved my bones from breaking and my insides from spilling inconveniently out my mouth, but the beating still had an effect.

‘Honey, I’m home,’ I call out as I enter the flat.

‘Did you get my sherry?’

I hold up the brown bottle. ‘Is that all you can say? We don’t talk any more. I feel like you don’t even care about me.’

‘Pour the booze and I’ll listen to you whine about your day all you like.’

‘God, it’s like I’m a kid again. You even sound like my ma. Same throaty growl.’

I pour the entire bottle of sherry into the dog’s huge bowl.

‘So how was
your
day?’ I ask.

‘Epic. I watched movies and licked my balls. You?’

‘A ramanga was murdered out in the boondocks. Been out there all day cooking in the heat.’

‘Lovely. Now we’re all caught up, let’s have some silence. I need to drink.’

I leave him to his afternoon tipple, grab a beer from the fridge, and head into the bathroom to run a bath. Steaming hot and filled with all that relaxation shit Becca used to buy. I have no idea if it will help, but it can’t hurt.

I wince as I strip off my clothes and slowly lower myself into the scalding water, sinking down until only my head is exposed.

I close my eyes and drift as the steam and heat attempt to relax my muscles. My thoughts float to Becca, drawn towards her by the scents floating around me.

Maybe I should call her.

Then again, why bother? She’s made it clear on numerous occasions she wants nothing to do with me. I can’t blame her, either.

So, no. No phone calls. The past is in the past. Leave it there. At least until I have something concrete to tell her. Something to put her mind at rest. One way or another.

The best thing for me to do is to give the dog my mobile phone, head down to the Cellar, get drunk, talk crap with anyone who will listen, come home, try (and fail) to get my phone back to drunk text Becca, then fall into bed and wake up tomorrow with a
natural
hangover so bad it will make demons weep.

I soak for another half hour and finish my beer, then heave myself out of the tub. I choose a Dolce & Gabbana suit, leaving the jacket in the closet. (Too hot.) I pick a white Veneta shirt with pink pinstripes, a grey waistcoat and a dark grey tie. I slip my phone into a zip-lock bag and toss it onto the dog’s chair.

‘Going out. Getting drunk.’

He opens one eye. ‘Don’t ask for it back.’

‘That’s the whole point.’

‘What if it rings?’

‘Take a message.’

‘I’m not your secretary.’

‘Ignore it, then.’

I grab my wallet, my keys, and I head out into the summer evening to get spectacularly wasted.

Chapter 5

The dream always starts with the rain.

It pours from the night sky. A torrent. A flood. Sheets of solid water cascading across the pine trees, over the mountains, turning the road into a river of mud. The noise – a thundering roar, a constant, heavy assault on the ears.

His car breaks down a kilometre from the lodge. He can see it, nestled against the craggy backdrop. The windows are just visible, yellow light struggling to lift the darkness.

He gets out the car and is instantly soaked. Like he’s jumped in a pool. He slithers around to the trunk, yanking it open for his torch. He sees his gun case, pulls it towards him and flips the catch to reveal his shotgun. He loads the shells, slips extras into his jacket pocket, then starts to run.

The man with the gun falls over, pushes himself up and keeps moving. The rain is blinding, pushing against him, the wind trying to force him back. He fights against it, struggles on.

The lodge is so far away. He doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. The panic sets in. He thinks he’s stuck in a nightmare. The one where he’s trying to escape something but can’t get anywhere.

The mud flows past his legs. His feet are numb, freezing cold. His bobbing flashlight picks out brief snapshots of his surroundings – leaves, the bark of a tree, the sharp rocks, the flowing mud. His breath sounds harsh in his ears. His chest is on fire, getting worse with every step.

The panic is driving him on. Pushing his feet one in front of the other. He didn’t think he could get any more scared, but he was wrong. The fear keeps rising. A sickening, heart-wrenching darkness that is cresting higher and higher, driving his sanity away.

He realizes he’s uttering words as he forces one leg in front of the other, wading through the mud.

‘Cally.’

Step.

‘Cally.’

Step.

‘I’m coming, honey.’

Step.

‘Hold on.’

Step.

When he finally gets to the lodge, all his training deserts him. He doesn’t do a perimeter search. He doesn’t assess. He doesn’t make a judgement based on observation.

He kicks in the door, the shotgun levelled before him.

Into the lounge. Looks around.

And sees the blood.

So much blood.

It covers the wooden floorboards. A massive puddle. A lake of crimson.

Three figures. First threat, the big one. Hulking, massive. Easily six feet six. Shaved head, with a bushy black beard. He’s standing with his hands resting on the head of a second man. The second man is facing away from the blood, kneeling in a doorway, his eyes closed, head bowed.

He looks like he’s praying.

The third figure is seated in the centre of the pool of blood. Smiling. Running his hands over the blood in wide circles.

He lifts the shotgun. The big man spots him, lunges through the door, trying to escape, shoving the kneeling man ahead of him. The shotgun goes off, tearing a huge hole in the doorframe.

He runs forward, but the corridor beyond is empty. He hears a door slamming on the other side of the house. He hesitates, glances over his shoulder.

The man sitting in the blood is getting to his feet, blinking and looking around in confusion. The man with the shotgun turns back to him, knowing his priority is to find the kids, find his daughter. The sitting man has . . . he has blood around his mouth, caked beneath his nails.

He lunges forward and hits the figure with the butt of the shotgun.

‘Where is she?’ he screams. ‘Where’s my daughter?’

The man slips, falls back into the blood. ‘Wh-who?’ he says. ‘I don’t . . .’ He shakes his head, looks around in confusion.

‘Where is she?’ the man screams.

‘
Who
?’

He needs to search the house. She could be dying. Locked away somewhere. But he has to make sure this man doesn’t get away. Not till he’s told him everything he knows. He pulls the man’s leg out, angles the foot to the side, and then hits his ankle as hard as he can with the gun.

The crack of snapping bone. The man starts to scream.

He leaves, frantically searches every room in the house. But there are no kids. No Cally.

He comes back to the lounge. The man is still lying on the floor, his face clenched with pain. The man with the gun doesn’t care about that. All he cares about is finding his daughter.

‘Where is she?’

The man blinks at him. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t . . . don’t remember—’

‘
Liar
!’ He hits the man in the face with the gun. ‘Where is my daughter?’ he screams. His daughter is supposed to be here. All five kids are supposed to be here. This is where the informant said the kidnappers took them.

‘I have no idea!’ the man wails. ‘I don’t even know where I am!’

The man with the gun doesn’t understand. It’s as if he really doesn’t know. The look on his face is too genuine to be faked.

He looks around at the blood, despair washing over him.

He’s too late. He knows it. The blood is hers. And those other kids. And later DNA tests will prove him correct.

An inhuman howl erupts from him, a scream of loss and pain. A primitive shout of emptiness and loss. He turns and unloads the last barrel into the man on the floor.

The dream might start with the rain.

But it always ends in blood.

Chapter 6

Your mind breaks when you lose a child. You have to go a bit insane, because there’s no actual logical way for the human mind to deal with something like that.

It’s like your limbs have been torn off, like some demon has injected an empty void into every waking moment of your life and you know you’ll never be able to fill it again. Memories are torture. Reminders of your failure. A lead ball forms in your stomach and weighs down every single moment of your life. Guilt is no longer a simple emotion, something you feel then eventually get over. It becomes the dominant presence in your life. A new companion to everything you do. A treacherous whisper in your ear.
Why are you smiling? Why have you woken up without tears? Why aren’t you thinking about Cally? Who are you to think about the future? How dare you contemplate a life that might some day involve happiness.

Anything that gives pleasure becomes a catalyst for the guilt, until your whole life, every waking moment, revolves around the pain and loss.

And then you give in to the guilt. You have to. There’s no other way. Like an abused spouse you realise it’s right, even as it’s hurting you. You let it destroy your life, your marriage. You let the pain win. Because the pain is right.

And then three years have passed and you realise you’re still no closer to finding the people responsible.

It’s always worse in the mornings. When I wake up covered in sweat, the facade built up the day before hanging in bloody tatters, my soul exposed to the harsh reality of life without the daily filters in place.

On bad days, like today, when the nightmares last all night, I just want to make the world burn. For
everyone
to suffer, for everyone to feel exactly what I’m feeling. I’m utterly . . . 
enraged
that other people have normal lives. How dare they? Who the fuck do they think they are? Nothing is normal anymore. Everyone should know that. The whole world should know that.

Other times, when I’m not so angry, when the dreams fade into dull grey images that hover just out of reach, I want to warn everyone that the world is bad. That the world is a horrible place and they need to take their kids and hug them and never let them go. To play with them. Read to them. To take those moments and hold them tight. To remember them now, because the bad days are coming, and these little moments will be all you have left. You have to stack them up inside your soul. They’re what keep you alive when nothing else seems worth it.

And you have to fight for them. Because your mind will forget, it will just let them drift away like ash from a fire.

And other times, when I wake up remembering Cally from before that night in the mountains, when the memories aren’t of blood and horror, but of us playing with her Star Wars toys, or us goofing around in the pool, I want to protect everyone. I want to go out and catch every bad guy alive, round them up and drop them into the ocean. I want to show the world that there’s still someone out there who wants to help. That no matter how it looks, not everyone is corrupt.

Those days are few and far between.

I crawl out of bed and into a scalding shower, trying to burn away the dreams. I only partially succeed. I blink, realising the water has turned freezing cold while the images from the nightmares play over and over in my head.

I get dressed and retrieve my mobile phone from beneath a snoring and snorting dog. I take it out the zip lock bag and check it. There are five missed calls from Armitage, all from last night. No text messages or voicemail, though.

I’m about to call her back when there’s a knock at the door.

I open it to find Anders from OCRU and a young woman waiting for me.

The woman is wearing the pale blue shirt/dark blue pants of the police. Anders is in a neat suit, cheap, looks like he bought it from Woolworths.