'Twenty dollars.' Jamaal had it in his hand, ready. 'It's just some tins and a ladder. It will take us five minutes, maybe less. Please, I am late for work already.'
Jerome had received fifty dollars for his last birthday and needed fifteen dollars more to buy the new PlayStation 2 game. Not even Logan's smart-arse brother had it. And Nathan would shit if Jerome got it first. He could pick it up at Westfield tomorrow. Excellent.
'Yeah. Okay, then,' said Jerome, eyes on the twenty. He made his way over to the van. The back door was open, but it was shaded on that side of the road, and he couldn't see much inside.
Jamaal put his hand back into his pocket. He removed a wet cloth from a sandwich bag he'd positioned carefully. Within the five steps it had taken the boy to close the gap between them, he'd palmed the chloroform-soaked rag and was ready.
'It'll take two people to get this ladder out,' he said, as Jerome stepped into the shadows.
When he walked between the man and the open van door, Jerome smelt something real strong – fumes, like petrol, or paint. Must be a tradie, he thought, before everything went black.
28
Jerome's mouth felt all dry and tasted funny. And shit, his head hurt bad. I'm not going to school today, he thought. Why is it so hot?
Eyes still closed. His head hurt too much to open them. 'M-Mum?' It came out a croak. 'Ma?' He tried again.
I feel so sick, he thought. It feels like I'm moving. He slept again. The next time Jerome awoke, his heart was hammering, and he knew before he even opened his eyes that something was very wrong. He couldn't move his arms. He was lying face down on a carpet that smelled like petrol and something worse. Why can't I move? His heart thudded against the floor underneath him. That smell – chemical. Where am I?
It was then that Jerome remembered the man and the van and he knew where he was. He began crying straight away, sobbing into the carpet. The realisation that he'd been kidnapped crashed down on him like a huge wave, smashing into him like a physical blow. No-one knew he was in here. Would he ever see his mum again? What would happen to him? Horror stories he'd heard at camp of kids being abducted and chopped to pieces flashed through his mind before being whited-out by pure terror that robbed him of all thought. He lay in the van and cried until he was sick.
Jerome gradually became aware of a low keening sound. He stopped when he realised that he was making the noise. He must've been crying for half an hour, and no-one had come. Should he call out? But what if the man with the big nose came back? He felt scorching hot and so thirsty that his tongue had swollen and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He couldn't even moisten his lips. His throat rasped raw from crying, and his eyes felt scratchy and swollen shut. His hands were numb, and his shoulders gave off searing flares of pain where his bunched muscles pulled backwards. Dried vomit stuck to his cheek; he smelled hot urine and knew he'd pissed himself.
He decided to risk calling out. At first no sound would come from his dry throat. He tried again.
'Help. Help me. Is anyone there?'
No-one came. Jerome cried a bit more, his throat convulsing. He needed to sit up so badly that he tried to scream; the sound was feeble, even to his own ears. He lay there in complete misery.
Suddenly, noise. Outside the van. Someone was coming.
Jerome's heart beat so quickly he thought he'd probably die before the kidnapper even opened the door. But maybe it wasn't the kidnapper. Maybe it was someone else and they would rescue him. His mum and dad would be looking for him. It could be the police. He strained his neck and could just see one section of a steel rod that he knew was connected to the van's door handle. It was moving. The door was opening.
'Oh my God! Look at the poor thing!'
The voice was not that of the man who'd taken him! Jerome moaned – a sob of relief.
'Help me,' he croaked in little more than a whisper.
'Get him out of there. Quickly.'
Jerome felt someone kneeling in the van and hands gently lifting him to his knees.
'Are you all right?'
'My arms hurt,' Jerome managed.
'Look at his hands. They're white! He's been tied like an animal.'
'Be quiet, you're scaring him more, poor thing.'
Jerome let himself be lifted from the van. He tried to stand, to see his rescuers, but his eyes couldn't focus right, and his knees buckled.
'Let him sit! Get him water.'
Jerome sat at the edge of the van with his head between his knees. Sounds seemed muffled and he felt himself sliding sideways, unable to stay awake. He felt someone freeing his hands and a bottle was pressed to his lips. He drank, and his vision slowly cleared. He was in a huge room. It must be a garage, he thought, though he'd never seen one so large. Two men stood near him: one, a blond man, was smiling at him, friendly. He held the bottle of water out to him, and Jerome tried to take it, but it slipped through his fingers, still numb from being tied.
Dully, he watched the bottle roll towards a pair of feet. A hand reached down and picked it up. Another smiling man. Huge. In a suit.
'You must be very frightened, young man,' said the tall man, handing Jerome another bottle of water. 'I imagine you'd like to get home as soon as possible. We've called your parents and they're on their way.'
Jerome began again to cry again. Tears of relief. Thoughts of seeing his mum and dad again. Abby. Even Nathan.
'Th-thank you for helping me,' he said, sniffling.
The blond man ruffled Jerome's hair and smiled again. 'You're a brave boy. You'll have a story to tell at school later, won't you?'
Jerome needed more water. He was weakly lifting the bottle when a door at the side of the garage opened and the driver of the van walked into the room. Jerome froze with the bottle halfway to his mouth.
He wanted to shriek to his rescuers, to let them know that this was the man who'd kidnapped him, but he didn't know how the man would react if he did so. He stared wild-eyed at his rescuers, silently trying to alert them.
'Good, isn't he, Mr Sebastian?' he heard the hook-nosed man ask.
'Oh you've done very well, Jamaal,' said the big man in the suit. 'Very well indeed.' He put his arm around the skinnier man's shoulders and smiled broadly, looking down at Jerome as a starving man might view a feast.
Jerome didn't even notice the blond man placing his hand on his thigh. His brain struggled to register the sudden certainty that his mum and dad had not been called at all.
29
Scotty insisted that Jill stay out with her parents at Camden for a couple of days, and she was not up to objecting. She found it difficult to believe that two men had physically attacked her in forty-eight hours. Since she'd started investigating David Carter's murder, her carefully ordered life seemed to be unravelling.
At the moment, however, this thought was suppressed. Reclining on a sun lounge by the side of her parents' pool, her knees bent up – this position eased the pressure on her ribs – her hand shielded her eyes, blocking some of the late afternoon sun from her face. The cicadas chiming in the semi-rural neighbourhood nearly drowned out the sounds of her niece and nephew chortling in the pool.
'Girls, you should have a hit of tennis before dinner.' Robert Jackson stood at the barbecue, poking at the smouldering coals, beer in hand.
'Or, you could get me another white wine, Dad.' Cassie was on a lounge next to Jill, painting her nails. Their sister-in-law, Robyn, was in the shallows with Lily, Jill's niece and Robyn's three-year-old daughter. Avery, Jill's six-year-old nephew, was calling for his father's attention every minute or so. Tim, the children's father – Jill and Cassie's older brother – was touring the rose garden behind the pool with their mother, Frances. 'Robert, don't be silly,' called Frances, secateurs in hand, 'How is Jill supposed to play tennis with broken ribs?' 'And since when haveI played tennis?' Cassie wanted to know.