Vodka Doesn't Freeze (6 page)

'Ah.'

'I thought maybe if we talked about your patients a bit,' Jill continued, 'you might think of something that could help us find some sort of connection between the deaths of these men.'

Mercy walked to the glass doors and opened them. Scented warmth wafted into the room, soon obliterated by acrid smoke when Mercy lit a slim dark-brown cigarette. Gitanes. Jill remembered her smoking the French cigarettes in the courtyard during one of their sessions.

'Jill, I did tell you on the phone that I won't be talking about my patients. In fact, I can't. Unless I believe they, or someone else, is in direct danger because of something they have told me, I am obliged to maintain confidentiality about everything we might have discussed.' She blew a long stream of smoke into the courtyard. 'I'm sure you can understand my position. I can assure you, however, that I don't know anything about the deaths of those men.

'I can say though, Jill,' she continued after a pause, turning and looking Jill in the eye, 'that I'm not particularly perturbed about them having been killed. And to be honest, I don't know why anyone else would or should be.'

Jill leaned back in the armchair and studied her hands. She looked up at Mercy, framed in the doorway, arms held close to her body, her posture reflecting both anger and anxiety. This wasn't at all the way she'd thought this interview would go.

On the drive home from the hospital, Jill was quiet. She told Scotty she had a headache, and while this was true, the main reason she wasn't speaking was because of the confusing thoughts chasing each other through her mind.

She couldn't shake the ridiculous notion that Mercy Merris might have actually killed these men. But this didn't seem to make sense. First of all, female killers did not typically bash men to death. And Mercy was a wealthy professional woman. Why would she do it? It had to be something else. Maybe she knew the killer, or suspected one of her patients and was covering for them. Maybe Mercy was just burnt out, and Jill was reading culpability into her exhausted anxiety. She could relate to that feeling. She chewed on skin around a fingernail.

Mercy had articulated the question Jill had not been able to rid from her mind all week – why was she investigating these deaths at all? Why was anyone? Before the interview had ended Mercy had said that someone had done the world a big favour, and it was pretty difficult to argue with her. Wasn't someone out there doing what Jill had signed up to do as a cop? Stopping child molesters?

She shifted in her seat, faced the window.

Was the killer planning more deaths? If another paedophile were killed, how many children would that save from being raped? She'd read once that one paedophile might molest up to seventy children in their lifetime. What was the right thing to do here? Jill didn't know any more.

I
T'S UNUSUAL FOR SO
many to be here, thought Wayne Crabbe, darting glances around the room. He used a mirror beside him to surreptitiously observe his peers; he knew well that people here did not like to be stared at. An eclectic mix of men were scattered in heavy leather armchairs around what had been built as the ballroom of a sprawling harbourside mansion.

A clutch of three over-fed banker types laughed conspiratorially over their clinking drinks. They sat near massive glass doors that in daylight revealed a twelve-million-dollar view. Two men in running shoes hunched together in chairs by the unlit fireplace, whispering over a book placed on the low coffee table in front of them. The rest of the guests – six or seven men – like Wayne, sat or stood alone, heads down, occasionally shooting quick looks at the huge entryway to the low-lit room, obviously waiting for The Owner. Two uniformed waiters moved quietly through the room, delivering drinks and collecting glasses.

Wayne sucked in his gut when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Gotta do something about that, he thought, the ladies don't like it. He smiled, remembering Rose Deloso's flattered embarrassment when he'd shown up at her house alone. He'd counted on her assuming that he was interested in her for more than just the job. Lonely ladies are your forte, he told himself in the mirror, straightening his shoulders. And the job offer is genius.

Behind his reflection, he noticed a new arrival to the festivities. Wayne was always amused when 'The Judge' showed up; he loved watching the famous Sydney QC slide from loud and pompous to slurred stupor, having to use the wall to hold himself up. Eventually his driver would half-carry him from the room, semi-conscious and drooling. Just last month, Wayne had found him on the bathroom floor lying in his own piss. The country's finest. He'd lifted The Judge's wallet before he left the room.

Wayne sipped his strawberry milkshake. The waiters here were used to unusual requests and were hired for their discretion. He knew he too was being watched. He was relatively new here and The Owner kept a close eye on everyone who showed up. Not that Wayne had yet spoken one-to-one with The Owner, but they'd all seen some of his best work. His rape movies, in which he was always masked, were the hottest trade and hardest to get. Wayne had one prized copy, and to get it he'd had to trade 150 points, two of his Asian films, and ten mobile phone shots.

He moved over when he saw Tadpole making his way to his table. Fit, fair and forty-one, Tadpole looked more like he was thirty. With hardly any facial hair and a permanent smile, Tadpole was the most popular teacher at Carrindon College, a $4000-a-term school for boys in years five through twelve. Tadpole had got him in here. He was everyone's friend.

Wayne pasted on a smile for the smarmy bastard. Wayne had no friends.

'Hey, Crabbe. Staying alive?' asked Tadpole, sliding onto the couch, invading Wayne's space, smiling of course. 'Someone doesn't like us. Hear about Dennis the Menace?'

'Is that Rocla? I've heard people talking, but I don't know what happened,' said Wayne.

'His wife found him last week with his head caved in. The Owner's pissed. Word is Dennis had a copy of one of The Owner's rape movies on his hard drive. Yuck. Who'd want to watch that stuff, anyway? All my boys love playing with me. You just have to use a little sugar. The world needs more love.'

Wayne tuned out from Tadpole's theories, and thought about these deaths. That was three in a month or something. Everyone was talking about Carter, Rocla and Manzi getting killed. Apparently they'd been members here for years, and Dennis Rocla was a playmate of The Owner. There were rumours that the killer was a cop, but Wayne knew their biggest threat was always the discards. Kids who grew up and didn't like the games they'd played. That's why Wayne stayed away from relationships. By the time a kid talked, he was long gone. He didn't have the money a lot of these guys had to travel to Asia whenever they liked, or to pay their way out of anything. He'd waited ages to join this little club and now it looked as though the members could be targets. Screw this, he thought. I've been doing this long enough on my own. He decided this would be his last meet.

Pity, he thought, I never got a chance to bid for a live trade. Still, I'd never have the money to outbid some of these old farts anyway. Back to being alone. In and out. No harm done. He could just as easily score Rowies, his date-rape drug of choice, off the internet.

J
ILL HADN'T EVEN
reached her desk the next morning when she was told to see Inspector Andreessen.

'There's a rape case asking for you,' he grunted, gesturing out his office door to a very tall, dark-skinned girl who was drawing a lot of stares from the males in the squad room. She wore thigh-high, black PVC boots, white micro-shorts and a lime-green cropped jacket. She perched on one of the government-issue chairs in the waiting area, all legs, her back to the wall.

Jill wasn't surprised this girl had asked for her. Most of the working girls told one another to ask for her if they needed help. She didn't know whether it was because she didn't judge them, or because hers was the only name they knew. She suspected that some asked for her because she was partnered with Scotty.

'Name's Honey Delaney,' said Andreessen, head down now, looking at papers on his desk. 'She's had a rape kit done, and the hospital sent her over. Like I said, she asked for you.' He turned a page and started writing. It was clear she was dismissed.

Jill made her way over to the waiting area. As she drew nearer it became clear that Honey had not been given that name at birth. She was stop-traffic gorgeous, but her hands and jaw gave away the fact that she'd been born a boy.

When the woman looked up, Jill masked the shock she felt at seeing her eyes. They were a plastic, lolly-green colour, shining too brightly. The effect was momentarily frightening, until Jill realised that Honey was wearing cosmetic contact lenses. There was no attempt to make her eyes appear natural – the lenses were like something shock-rocker Marilyn Manson might wear. Well, we all have masks, thought Jill. She sat down with a chair between them to give the girl space.

'Honey, I'm Jill Jackson. I understand you've been attacked. I'm sorry to hear that,' she paused, and when Honey said nothing, continued. 'Do you want to come with me to a more private room and you can tell me what happened?'

In a voice devoid of all emotion, her shark eyes staring ahead disconcertingly, Honey told Jill that the night before she'd been anally raped by two football players at Moore Park. The attack had taken place near the cricket grounds, in a particularly isolated region of the vast parklands that traversed several inner city suburbs.

Jill led Honey to another room and formally took her statement. Before she ended the interview she offered to get her some help. When describing the attack, Honey's voice had been so flat, lifeless.

'Did the hospital arrange for some counselling for you, Honey?' asked Jill.

'I'm not interested,' Honey replied, staring unnaturally from the synthetic eyes. She looked around the dingy room with a look of distaste and then down at her acid-orange talon-like fingernails, flicking her thumbnail against her pinkie.

'Tell you the truth,' she continued in a raspy voice, 'I'm only here because I can't claim Victims Compensation unless I've made a statement. We all know you guys aren't exactly gonna bust your arses trying to catch the guys who raped the trannie.'

Jill inwardly winced. Honey's cynical resignation that her treatment would be unfair probably reflected the truth. She took a deep breath.

'Anyway,' Jill said, 'I really think you're going to need some help. You've been through a terrible experience. I'm going to check that someone comes to see you within the next couple of days.' She leaned forward, concerned.

'You only want to make yourself feel better, Sergeant. I said I'm not interested.'

Honey paused, and Jill reached her hand forward, to comfort, reassure.

'Don't fuckin' touch me.' The tall woman suddenly stood, towering over Jill, screaming down at her. Her eyes looked crazy now.

Her voice cracked, saliva frothed in the corners of her mouth; she was standing between Jill and the door. 'Do you think some fucking social worker is going to take away all the shit that's happened to me in my life?' she screeched.

Jill knew that to avoid escalating the situation she needed to be calm, but authoritative.

'You need to SIT DOWN,' she ordered in her police voice. 'I said, sit down, Honey,' she repeated, waving away a uniformed colleague who'd obviously heard the shouting, his face questioning through the clear panel in the door.

She watched Honey register where she was and crumple back into the chair.

'Just don't fucking touch me,' she said quietly now, her voice almost dead again, but with a tear sliding through the make-up on her face. 'I have to be wasted before anyone can touch me. Speaking of which,' Honey wiped her manicured finger down the trail made by the solitary tear, 'are we done here? I've got to go score.'

Jill couldn't get Honey out of her mind for the rest of the day. She followed up with the hospital and collected all the information she could, but there was little to go on, and she doubted they were going to get these guys. They'd worn condoms, according to Honey, and had pocketed them before they left. It sounded to Jill like they'd done it before, and that the crime had been planned, rather than opportunistic.

She didn't feel she could send the mental health team around to Honey's home after she'd been so insistent she be left alone, but she also didn't want to just leave her like that, without any help. She decided to go to Honey's house and make sure she was okay. Leaving Scotty to do some paper-work for a South Maroubra break-and-enter, she made her way over to the address Honey had given her that morning.

Honey had a bed-sit in a large housing commission block at Malabar. This beachside suburb, home of Long Bay Gaol, also housed an uncomfortable mix of long-term public housing tenants, pensioners and retirees. A handful of new millionaires had built self-conscious mansions on blocks left to them by their parents. Waterfront was waterfront in Sydney, even when the suburb had one of the highest break-and-enter rates in the state.

Jill jogged up three flights of graffitied stairs, her hand over her mouth to block the piss-stench that permeated everything. A woman cursed in a singsong heroin whine. She heard a door slam, and a child crying. From behind a screenless window, a radio played J.J. Cale's 'Cocaine'. She'd be using that too if she had to live here.

She reached Honey's door and knocked. Nothing. She tried again. There was no-one home. Jill felt guiltily relieved. She had turned to leave when the door opened on a chain.

'Yeah?' the flat voice was also slurred now. This was a bad idea.

'Honey. It's Jillian Jackson. I just came to make sure you're all right.' The room beyond the crack in the door was dark and smoky.

The door shut and then reopened. Honey stepped back and stood there. Jill was supposed to go in.

The two rooms that made up the entire unit were visible from the entry. The kitchen, laundry and sitting area were all part of one room, and Jill could see the tiny bedroom, with a double bed draped in a purple spread. Dark curtains covered the only window in the sitting room. The place smelled of stale smoke, but the surfaces looked pretty clean.

She swallowed and walked past Honey into the flat and waited for her eyes to adjust so she could look around.

'I'm not going to pretend I'm here with good news, Honey,' she started, watching the tall woman walk towards a Formica dining setting that took up most of the room. She perched on a chair at the table opposite Honey. 'It's going to be hard to catch these guys unless we get lucky or you remember something else.'

'Oh I never get lucky, Jill,' Honey took a drag of her cigarette, 'and they never get caught.'

Her hair in a ponytail, and the lolly-green contacts removed, Honey looked more like a fourteen-year-old school-girl than the pimped-out prostitute who'd come to the station today. Jill could see she was stoned, but she seemed calmer than that morning, and her speech was slow.

'It sounds like you've had it pretty hard,' said Jill cautiously, wondering what she was doing here, why she was inviting this woman to tell her a story she wasn't going to want to hear. She didn't need this right now.

God, it's hot in here, she thought.

Honey laughed flatly and leaned back in her chair, an appraising look on her face.

'You know I never asked you to come here, Sergeant Jackson,' she said, 'and I don't need your help.' She took another drag of her cigarette. 'So what do you want from me? Last cop in here got a blow job. The two before him wanted me to rat out the speed dealers in 31A. So what's your thing?'

Jill felt stupid. Her head had started to thump again and the smoke was making her throat dry. She realised she hadn't eaten anything since a banana at breakfast.

'Look, I'm sorry, Honey. You just looked really bad this morning and I wanted to make sure you hadn't done something silly. I knew if I sent mental health over here, you'd freak out, so I came myself. I'll get out of your way now. I'm glad you're okay.' She stood to go, hoping Honey would stand too and let her out.

Instead, Honey stayed seated. Her head on a slight angle, her eyes showed she was still obviously weighing Jill up. 'Can I get you a coffee?' she asked, finally.

'Water. Water would be great,' said Jill, sitting again, 'and do you have any Panadol?'