Vodka Doesn't Freeze (29 page)

'Go on.' He seemed amused.

'But you couldn't let it go at that. Who knows why – maybe you're trying to deny or repress your own sexual deviancies? There was a claw hammer used in the killing of David Manzi. Was that your work?'

'Yep. He was a cockroach, but your amateur psychiatry is beneath you, and regarding my motives you are completely wrong.' His loose-handed grip on the hammer had tightened. 'And you are only half-correct about the way those men died.'

He paused. Jill remained silent.

'Think it through, detective. Do I look big enough to you to have alone inflicted those kinds of wounds upon four men? As I said before, Mercy and I have worked very well together.'

Her mind raced. Had Mercy and this man killed these men together? If so, she must have completely broken under the pressure of all of the horror she'd worked with over the years. Jill couldn't imagine it. He must be lying, but why?

'Oh come on, why would Mercy help kill those men?' she said, taking small steps backwards. 'She sent me evidence. She called me and saved a child.'

'Indeed. She became much harder to control towards the end. But that's another reason you can't take the files. She often recorded our supervision sessions and there may be evidence of the hypnosis I used with her to help her to unleash her primal needs. She wanted those men dead. Most people in society do. She needed only a little assistance to see that society would be best served by her helping me take them out.'

As they spoke, Jill became aware that they were playing a physical game of chess. With the light behind her, he had a visual advantage, and he took slow, careful steps towards her. She countered each step with one of her own, aware that he was trying to herd her, to corner her at the back of the room. She did not need to look at the hammer to know he held it ready. Once more she listened in the dark for movements that could save her life.

'What about Sebastian?' She had to know. 'Was he involved in the killing?'

'He was next on the list.'

'And Jamaal Mahmoud?' she asked calmly, as though they were having a normal conversation. She'd seen offenders like this before. His ego was so inflated that he wanted her to know the genius of his actions. Of course, she was not stupid enough to think that he wouldn't end all discussion as soon as he was within striking distance.

'Another scumbag. Nothing to do with us.'

Us. So Mercy really had been a killer. Griffen lunged forward suddenly, but Jill had heard him tensing and, anticipating the move, she sidestepped quickly. From her peripheral vision she knew she had little room left. Her heart skidded along madly, her body steeling itself to fight for her life again.

'So you killed Mercy too?' She did not care what he answered. She had to keep him talking while she figured out a way out of here.

'Of course not. You are being deliberately obtuse, I fear. Mercy had become much too unstable, and Sebastian saved me the trouble of putting her out of her misery. A pity she could not keep it together. We had much work to do. Work you could, and should, have been doing, Jill.'

He stopped moving. She could sense him calculating his final approach. She had to do something.

'Have you had much to do with forensic psychiatry, Dr Griffen?' asked Jill, relieved to note his head tilting in interest. She could now see only his silhouette.

'A little, yes, Jill. And you're asking because . . .?'

'Well, while investigating this case I got to speak to a specialist in mass murder. A psychiatrist. Very interesting man.' She took silent, deep breaths between words, deliberately hyperventilating, pumping herself full of oxygen to increase her body's defensive mechanisms.

'Do you know, I think you'd count as a serial killer,' she continued, watching his body posture tense. 'And I learned that serial killings are always sexually motivated,' she lied. 'Do you think I didn't know that Manzi had his pants down when he was killed? Did you service him before or after you bashed his brains in? You have to admit, that's a fucked up way to get off.'

Rage made him rigid; she could feel it. She took another deep gulp of air, ignored the spots in front of her eyes caused by the imbalance in her blood between oxygen and carbon dioxide. She kept talking.

'Or maybe you're a closet rockspider. That's it, isn't it – you can't deal with your own feelings, so you kill the people who do what you really want to be doing. What's that called again – a defence mechanism? When you try to deal with your own unacceptable impulses by doing something you think is the opposite.'

With his bellow of fury Jill threw herself forwards and to the left. The move left her closer to a wall, but she was further from the hammer, the motion of which she felt just missing her shoulder as he lunged.

'Stupid! Stupid! You know nothing about the mind.' He breathed heavily; the hammer still raised.

Jill knew she was in trouble. Her back was now to a wall. There were two ways out of here – to the right, into the path of the hammer, and straight ahead. She'd have to throw herself into him and knock him over. There was no room to take a run-up. She sensed she would not have the weight behind her to push him backwards. She heard him breathing. He tensed to lunge. She sprang.

A voice calling her name from the front of the room overbalanced them both. Noah's head swung to the sound, causing him to stumble over a low table behind him. Jill, in mid-lunge, fell into nothing, and landed awkwardly. A hiss of breath next to her warned her to roll. The hammer struck the carpet next to her head. She moved from the roll to her feet in a single lithe motion.

'Hit the lights!' she yelled, as she threw herself to where she knew his body would be. She closed her eyes before the room flooded with light, and dropped with all her body weight onto her knee in the centre of his chest. She opened her eyes with his woof of pain and, one knee still in his gut, she scraped with her other foot down the arm that held the hammer, digging deep. His hand opened reflexively, the skin from his forearm now on the sole of her heavy, cop-issue boot. She pushed harder when she reached his hand, and felt his wrist break. She stood, stamped down hard again, and kicked the hammer away, ignoring his cries of pain.

Jill looked up at the stifled scream behind her, and saw Kim, white-faced, staring at her in horror.

'Take my phone, please, Kim,' she said steadily, reaching out with her mobile, giving the nurse something to do. 'The last number dialled is my partner. Press the send button now for me and get him on the line.'

In the moments it took for Kim to open the mobile, almost drop it, and fumble for the correct button, Jill had unplugged a computer cable from the desk nearby and rolled the moaning Dr Griffen onto his stomach, putting slight pressure on his broken arm to force him into easy compliance. Using noose knots, she tied one end of the cord around his unbroken wrist and the other to his opposing ankle, leaving him immobilised without further injuring him. She'd yet to face Internal Affairs over the death of Sebastian. She wasn't going down for excessive force on this one.

She slumped against a chair and waited for Scotty. I need a holiday, she thought.

C
LAUS
Z
IEL AND
B
ELINDA
B
EHM
had been walking for two hours, but Claus was insistent that they not stop and rest yet. Belinda moaned and hooked her fingers into his belt, forcing him to drag her up another slight incline.

'Not long, baby, it's not far to go,' he said, looking at his map, putting on an extra spurt to help Belinda up the hill.

Claus and Belinda had travelled halfway around the world together, backpacking, and today, at a waterfall he had read about two years ago in his dorm room in Germany, Claus intended to ask Belinda to be his wife. He looked back over his shoulder at her, red-faced and trudging gamely up the hill. So beautiful. She'd fallen behind a couple of steps, and he decided they should stop for just a moment. He could hear the falls close by. They'd stop for a drink and arrive refreshed. The moment should be perfect. He'd waited two years.

As Claus and Belinda shared a water bottle on a rock, deep in the bush in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, a fat blue-tongue lizard skittered off the path ahead to avoid the noise they made. It waddled into its favourite hiding place and looked back at the path, blinking. It flicked its cobalt-coloured tongue across one of its eyeballs and sat back to wait for the humans to walk by.

Many more years would pass before anyone discovered the lizard's hiding spot, the eye socket inside Jamaal Mahmoud's skull. Around the time Claus Zeil had been sit-ting on his bed in Germany two years before, planning this day, Jamaal Mahmoud's brother-in-law had thrown Jamaal's badly beaten body off the ravine fifty metres above.

The blue-tongue lizard shifted a little and went to sleep.

Dr Leah Giarratano has had a long career as a psychologist. An expert in psychological trauma, sex offences and psychopathology, she has had many years' experience working with victims and psychopaths. She has worked in psychiatric hospitals, with the Australian Defence Force, and in corrective services with offenders who suffer severe personality disorders. She has assessed and treated survivors of just about every imaginable psychological trauma, including hostages; war veterans; rape, assault, and accident victims; and has worked with police, fire and ambulance officers.

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