Skeletal (20 page)

For Pete’s sake. First he gives me a crap gift. Next, he scares me half to death with hints and implications of the trouble that’s following me. And now he buggers off altogether leaving me alone in the middle of the night to make my own way home.

Man really knows how to treat a lady.

My mind flashed back to the night in the park and I pulled my sweatshirt closer around me.

I was miles from anywhere where people would congregate. What if someone had followed? I couldn’t even run the length of a mall without passing out, how would I run twenty minutes back to a main road?

‘Get it sorted, did you?’ came a voice behind me, and I cried out. My body flooded with relief, and then flushed hotter.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, creeping up on me like that? You scared the shit out of me.’

‘Where did you think I’d be? Hardly creeping.’

‘Well you’re certainly a creep!’

I sounded like a small child, and I stamped my foot in frustration, adding to the image. ‘Why did you give me that card? There was nothing on it. It was embarrassing.’

And damn if he didn’t back further into the shadows. I couldn’t see his face. Couldn’t make out his expression. If he had any expression at all. The guy had a blank look at the best of times.

‘Well?’

He stepped back toward me. ‘This isn’t the time.’

I took a step closer as well. ‘It is if I say it is. I’ve done everything you asked. There was no need to do that to me, it didn’t matter. I don’t understand and I want you to explain it.’

‘We need to get you back home. It’s late, and you need to get some sleep. You’ve got school tomorrow.’

‘Explain it quickly then. Explain it as we go.’

‘Daina, I…’ He trailed off and shrugged again. ‘I just didn’t have time to get it set up. I thought it would be nice, and then I forgot.’

‘You went to the shop to pick up the card, but you didn’t have time to top it up? What does that take, a minute, two? Stop bullshitting me.’

He pulled me forward by my upper arm, and force marched me to the footpath. ‘I’ll explain it someday, but right now we need to go. We need to get out of here.’

‘Why? What’s the rush? We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

‘There were two men tailing us until we got across the Main North Road. When we cut through the alleyway we lost them, but they’re not going to stay lost for ever. The longer we stay here the more chance we’ll be found.’

I followed along behind him feeling muddled more than fearful.

‘Why are there people after us? Why are you so scared? I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t need to understand.’

‘I do. I can’t stand this. Tell me!’ My voice had risen steadily and the last was a shout in the darkness. If there really were people on our tail then they’d have a pretty good idea of which direction to try next.

‘Daina, there are forces at work here that are outside of your control. You’re not going to be able to know everything, or even part of some things. Every piece of information places you in more danger, and I don’t want the murder of a teenage girl on my head.’

He walked a few paces in front of me, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Then he span on his heel. ‘I only agreed to get into this as long as you were kept as safe as possible. I’m not going to be the one to break that promise now. We need to go. We need to go now. And I’m sorry but I can’t tell you why or how or what or who. Just trust me and come with me.’

‘Why on earth would I trust you?’ I called back to him, my vision starting to wobble. ‘You turn up out of the blue and make me do things that I hate myself for doing, and then you won’t even tell me why. I don’t know you from Adam and you expect me to trust you?’

‘I told you I’d come back for you Daina. Here I am. I kept my word. Trust me just on that.’

I shook my head to clear it. Nothing he said made sense.

‘I’ve never met you before. What are you talking about?’

He came back, pulled me by the elbow, and this time I trotted next to him to keep pace. ‘You remember me Daina, I know you do. But just keep quiet for a while. We need to make sure we get clear of this area.’

We walked at a quick pace until we reached the inner-suburban housing again. And then the Grey Man made a series of weird roading choices until we were back outside my house.

‘I won’t see you for a while. It’s best we stay clear of each other until I’m sure that no one’s looking.’

He took a step and I called him back.

‘If I’m in danger, does that mean Vila’s Dad is in danger too?’ It had been bad enough stealing from him, I didn’t want to get him in trouble too.

‘Don’t worry about him, Daina. He’s old enough and knowledgeable enough to get himself out of anything he’s landed himself in.’

‘What about what
I’ve
landed him in.’

He patted me on the shoulder. ‘You haven’t landed anybody in anything. He’s taking risks for himself.’ He moved away again, his hands swinging softly against his coat.

I wanted to call after him again. I wanted to find out more. But he wouldn’t tell me. My arms were shaking, though whether from the cold night air, or a holdover from my earlier collapse, I couldn’t be sure.

I wished for a moment that I’d kept the files from the backpack with me. Maybe I could have deciphered something in them, worked out how much trouble I’d just stolen for myself.

Then again, I was tired and my brain didn’t seem to be sorting information in the right order. I slipped in through the back door to a house that didn’t even notice that I’d been gone. All I craved was sleep.

As my eyes closed and I started to drift off I felt a shot of anger.
It’s not fair,
my mind thought as though it were independent of me,
I didn’t tell anyone about the secret.

***

Coroner’s case file number 46782

Council Complaints Report 4
th
November 2004

Type of Service: Property

Body of Complaint: Caller identified as Mr Wilbur Burton called to complain of unlawful activities taking place in a sub-division site, lot 47, land parcel 6674. Remains of an unlicensed fire, items of clothing, empty drink bottles and cans were located in the property. He and nearby residents would like the property secured so that it can’t continue to be used for squatting and/or parties. Caller expressed concern that underage drinking and/or drug use may be happening at the property. Recommended to caller that police be called if an urgent response is required.

Response: Council site inspection ordered

Status: Non-urgent – expected date 6 weeks

***

Coroner’s case file number 46782

Council Complaints Report 24
th
November 2004

Type of Service: Property

Body of Complaint: Caller identified as Mr Wilbur Burton called to complain of unlawful activities taking place in a sub-division site, lot 47, land parcel 6674. Further to a previous complaint he has noticed youths in the area camping out at the property. He is concerned that the underfloor area is being used as a site for unlicensed fires, and sleeping area. He would like the property secured. Recommended to caller that police be called if an urgent response is required.

Response: Council site inspection ordered

Status: Non-urgent – expected date 6 weeks

***

Coroner’s case file number 46782

Council Complaints Report 16
th
December 2004

Type of Service: Property

Body of Complaint: Caller identified as Mr Wilbur Burton called to complain of unlawful activities taking place in a sub-division site, lot 47, land parcel 6674. Further to previous complaints he has once again noticed youths in the area using the house as a base for parties and people sleeping rough. He suspects there is drinking and/or drug use at the property. Caller revealed that his son had been involved in a party at the property in which he was hurt falling through the manhole cover. He would like the property secured. Caller said that if no action was taken on his request he would take matters into his own hands. Recommended to caller that police be called if an urgent response is required.

Response: Council Site Inspection Ordered

Status: Non-urgent – expected date 6 weeks

Daina 1994

They stood hand in hand staring out at the lake. Daina could see what the thing was: the distinctive shape of a wing, the curve of a tail. It was a plane which flew in the sky. Or it had been. As she watched it settle lower into the water Daina didn’t think it would fly again.

There was a gurgle from behind them, and Daina was pushed behind her mother as they turned to look at the man. With the blood and the bat, and the way his body had collapsed on the ground she thought he must be dead, but he groaned. After a moment, his eyes popped open.

They were no longer staring in different directions. They were both focused straight ahead. They were both focused on her.

‘Get to the car,’ her mother whispered. She stood with her feet planted apart, wider than her hips, steady like she wanted to stand strong for a fight.

Daina looked over to the car. It was so far away. The man was right there.

‘Get to the car,’ her mother said again. Loud this time. She gave her arm and shake and pulled her forward. ‘Daina, go to the car now!’

That was her mother’s last voice. The last voice before the next thing. And the next thing wouldn’t be the soft-option time-out, or the quick hurt-but-then-it’s-over spank. No. This was the last voice before the bad punishment.

Daina started to run. Her feet forgot how to, and she tripped over them and fell. Her face landed a foot away from the man. His eyes were still fixed on her. They glared. They burned. He reached out his hand – straight to her – and Daina forgot how to breathe.

Where was the gun? He’d had a gun?

The hand reaching out was empty. Daina sprang to her feet, and jumped back a step. Her eyes flicked from side to side. Looking. Searching.

There it was!

On the other side of his body. It had fallen wide of where he’d landed. A metre away. Half a metre away. Daina looked him in the face so he couldn’t tell she’d seen it. He was trying to get up on his elbows. Trying to move so he’d be able to reach for her again.

There were six steps between her and the gun. She had to run around the top of his head. Far enough away that he couldn’t seize her. Close enough that she didn’t waste time.

Six steps.

At one, he got to his elbows. At three he stretched his arm and brushed her ankle. At five he was on his knees, his body turned to keep track of her. At six she stretched out her hands and grabbed hold of the gun. Its body was greasy. Her hands were slippery with sweat. Her body was off-balance. Daina fell.

She fell and she rolled, and she held onto the gun. It squeezed and it squirmed, but she used both hands and it stayed close to her.

She rolled again. Away from him. Then she dug in her elbows, levered herself to her knees, stepped to her feet, and ran to the car.

There was the crack of the bat. Once. Twice.

When Daina reached the car she looked back. The man was grunting. His arms were at strange angles. Her mother held the bat, but it was useless. The splinter had fallen. The tape was flapping loose. The handle was more substantial than what was left of the bat.

Her mother knelt down, and Daina felt her heart beat too loud. Her throat pulsed. She clutched the gun to her chest with both hands and pressed her back against the door of the car. What was her mother doing?

She said something to him. Daina couldn’t hear. She was too far away. Her mother was whispering something that only the man was meant to hear.

He shook his head. He was saying something back. The sounds carried on the wind, but the words were distorted, lost.

Her mother thrust the handle of the bat into the dirt next to the man’s face. Daina gasped. The man did too. For a moment she’d thought it was going to go straight into him.

She leaned in close; too close.

Daina knew how that felt. When her mother had something to say and she wanted to say it so it wasn’t misunderstood she would place herself so her nose was almost touching Daina’s and then say it through gritted teeth. Daina could see the bunching at the side of her mum’s jaw which meant her teeth were clenched.

She’d feel sorry for the man if he hadn’t deserved it.

Daina turned and opened up the passenger door of the car. She put the gun on the seat, and then used both hands on the glove compartment. She had to press her thumbs really hard into the metal button, otherwise it wouldn’t open. Her mother could do it with one hand, leaning across from the driver’s side, but Daina couldn’t.

The latch clicked and Daina could pull it open. She held it with one hand, and picked up the gun with the other. It was enormous in her hand.

On the television they always talked about a safety catch. It would be on when they wanted to fire and it would stop them. Or, it would be off when it shouldn’t be, and the gun would fire accidentally.

Daina couldn’t see anything like a catch. There was the smooth curved length of the barrel, and the pebbly grip of the handle. There was a quarter-circle metal curve with a button that Daina knew would fire the gun. There was another trigger on the top corner of the handle that was pulled back.

There wasn’t anything about it that looked safe.

Daina placed it carefully into the compartment. She had to turn it a few times until she was sure it would fit. When it was positioned correctly she pushed the door closed until she heard the latch click into place. Only then did she take a deep breath in and feel safe.

She turned around to look back at her mum. She was walking back to the car. She opened the door and Daina scrambled up onto the passenger seat. She pulled her own door closed just as her mother inserted the key and turned it to start the engine.

The man was lying on his back. He was awkwardly cradling his arms together. They looked askew. They looked painful.

Daina smiled.
You don’t mess with me,
she thought.
You don’t mess with me or my mum’ll get you!

When they were home and it was dark outside and Daina was being tucked into bed, the bedclothes pulled all the way up to her chin just the way she liked it, she asked her mother what the man had said.

At first she didn’t answer, and Daina started to think she wouldn’t. Often she asked her mother things and the only response she got was ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older.’

No matter how old she got!

But after a few minutes her mother smoothed the top of the blankets and bent to kiss Daina on the forehead. ‘He said that as long as we keep today a secret, we don’t need to worry about a thing.’

Daina smiled at her mother. She wasn’t worried. She hadn’t been worried since her mother drove her away from the park. What an exciting day out it had been. She hoped the next one would be uneventful.

‘And what if we don’t keep it a secret?’

Her mother looked her straight in the eye. She wasn’t smiling. ‘If you don’t keep it a secret, then one day that man will come back. He’ll come back when you least expect it. He’ll come back,’ she poked her finger at the tip of Daina’s nose so she screwed it up. ‘He’ll come back and he’ll make you sorry.’

***

Daina 2004

When I woke the next day the phone was ringing downstairs, and the sun was high in the sky.

It took a few minutes for me to click, and when I did I sat immediately upright in bed. Scared that I would fall asleep again and sleep in even later.

I scrambled on the side table for my clock and looked at it with disbelief. The alarm had gone off. The alarm that was set to ring at 7.30am and would continue for ten solid minutes so there was no chance you could sleep through it. That alarm. It had gone off five hours ago.

The ring of the phone ceased. Not through being answered. The caller had just given up.

The uniform I’d laid out the night before so I wouldn’t have any excuse to run late mocked me as I walked past it to get out my jeans and sweatshirt. There was no use turning up at school now. Better to just forge a letter and turn up tomorrow looking pale and giving an occasional cough.

The phone started ringing again. This time there was the clear sound of motion from downstairs, and I ran down the stairs quickly to listen at the door. Was it the school? Is that why they kept trying?

That, or the world’s most persistent telephone marketer.

Mum’s sweet lilt was rendered into a croak by the booze and H. She used to be so good at hiding it, her lack of sobriety. It showed how many rungs down the ladder she’d slipped recently. Only someone with a complete lack of imagination could possibly believe she was in a fit state now.

There was an outburst of swearing, and then the phone was slammed down. And slammed again. And again. Seemed there’d been upsetting news on the other end.

‘Daina!’ my mother yelled. There was the sound of a stumble, some more swearing, and then the yell again. ‘Daina!’

I slipped out the back door. There was no need to add to Mum’s misery by confirming her suspicions. If I was going to be called out for wagging, it could at least score me more than a morning’s sleep in.

There was brilliant sunshine outdoors. Within a few minutes the top of my head was warmed through, the hairs hot as fire, and I felt good for the first time in a long time.

I pushed the sleeves of my top up so my arms could feel the heat of the sun. They immediately plumped into goose pimples, but I waited them out, and after a minute they relaxed back into place. It was funny, but my arm hair seemed longer and in better supply than ever before. I stroked it gently with my finger. It felt like the belly of my old teddy bear.

Even with the sunshine and the walking my body didn’t seem to heat completely through. I gave the school a wide berth, but otherwise retraced the same steps I’d taken last night. In the back of my head was the thought that this was nothing if not dangerous, but it seemed such a silly proposition in the middle of the day.

Was that why the Grey Man had chosen to arrive at night? It made it so much easier to sell fear when you couldn’t even make out the everyday objects around you.

The journey didn’t seem to take half the time it had before. Part of that was daylight, part of it the good sleep I’d finally managed, part of it familiarity.

Once again the housing gave way to sections which gave way to fields. As I approached the section of the half-completed house with its tarpaulin top hat I wondered why someone would have got so far with a structure and then abandoned it. There were always tales on the news of property developers, a phrase that seemed to be spat out rather than said, going bankrupt and taking everyone’s fortune with them.

Who would buy a half-complete structure anyway? Would it cost the same as half a house, or the same as a section, or priced at a discount as you’d probably need to clear it away before you built your own dream home?

I walked past the property to see what was on the other side. The empty section was starting to overgrow, although someone must have cut the grass back recently. It was no more than two inches high. The daisy faces were struggling for sunlight amid the long grass-stems, but the dandelions had no such worries. Not the most exotic of wildflowers, but they were pretty in their own way.

There was the scuff of footsteps. For a moment I couldn’t work out where they were coming from, the street was empty, then I saw the movement near the wall.

Someone was in the house. Two someones. Now that I was alert for the sound I could also hear the low hum of conversation. Two different voices. And they were standing right by the wall. One more step and they’d be outside.

I looked around but there was nothing but field. No cars. No trees. No fences.

There was a rumble of laughter. I saw the tip of a shoe. The flash of a sleeve.

I ran across the road. The grass on this side was longer. The mower must only do one side each month. I lay down flat. My arms outstretched. My chin on the ground.

When the men emerged I tried to flatten myself out even more. I pressed my body into the earth, and tipped my head to one side so the top of my hair wouldn’t be so obvious. If they walked over this side of the road it would be patently obvious there was a tall teenage girl lying on the ground. But if they stayed where they were…

There was another burst of laughter. I could barely see from the angle I was in, but I didn’t dare to raise my head. Even if my hair didn’t make me more visible the motion surely would.

Up to now I’d thought that the Grey Man was overstating the problem. I thought he was making stuff up. Maybe for kicks. Maybe for control.

But instead he was right. There was no way these guys were out here on a house inspection. You don’t dress in a dark suit so you can trek around a half-finished building site that’s been left empty for months, if not years.

No. You only come out here dressed like that if you’ve got a tip-off. If you’re in a hurry. If it’s something that’s more important than your tailored suit. If it’s something you’re desperate to shut down.

And you didn’t do that because a teenage girl stole a file. You only did that if the file was something that a lot of people a lot more important than you wanted.