'Let's get this done, Justine. You've held this in too long already. These feelings are poisonous when you keep them inside.' Justine looked up at her. 'You've already told me you've been feeling sick since it happened. You can't get well again until you let it out, until you tell the truth.' It'll take more than that, she thought, but it's a start.
'You said the spider one told you he'd cut your throat,' Jill continued. 'That wasn't in your statement. What happened next?'
Justine pulled away a little from her and turned her head to face the wall. I've lost her, Jill thought, but Justine began to speak in a flat, lifeless voice.
'He'd said he'd cut my throat and fuck the hole in my neck.' Her voice echoed in the small bathroom. 'He said he'd kill Ryan first and then come back and fuck me while I was bleeding. He said I could stop him doing it if I gave the other guy head.' Justine began to cough, then spoke again in a tiny voice. 'So I did.'
'I'm so sorry, Justine,' Jill wanted to reach out to the girl, but she'd moved as far as she could from her.
'Did the other one have any tattoos?' Jill didn't want to press her any more, but this was a race for time now. They had to get these animals.
'No. He didn't.' Justine turned, and faced Jill. 'He made me do it while the spider one watched. But halfway through he pulled away from me and walked out.'
'Okay. I'm so sorry that happened to you, Justine. I'm going to leave you alone soon, honey, but we're going to need you to come in tomorrow.' Jill put her hand on the girl's shoulder. 'You did the right thing telling me.'
'Ryan won't think so. He'll leave me.'
'Deep inside, Justine, I think Ryan already knows what they did to you, and he hasn't left you yet,' Jill said. 'And you know what, Justine? If he did leave you because you got sexually assaulted, then he's not worth it anyway.'
Jill held her while she cried a little, and then said, 'Unless you want to, honey, don't feel you have to tell anyone about this until you come in tomorrow. I'll help you tell your parents and Ryan.'
'Thanks.'
'Before we go, Justine, is there anything else you can think of that they said or did that you haven't told us yet?'
Justine looked up at her. Jill saw her eyes widen with horror; she was remembering, reliving the scene. The girl swallowed, and the dead voice came back.
'Yeah,' she said. 'While he was making me do it to the other one, the spider one started cutting himself on his stomach with a knife, and then he… came.'
Jill couldn't speak for a moment. 'He… what? He did what?' She listened to the girl crying almost inaudibly.
Finally, she asked quietly, 'Justine, was there any blood or semen left in your room afterwards?'
'Yeah,' the girl nodded, and then hung her head, 'on the floor, but I wiped it up.'
'That's okay Justine. That's okay.'
As she left the house, Jill had her mobile out and was already dialling.
10
'JOSS, YOU'VE GOT to talk to me.' Isobel had tucked Charlie into bed, and now sat down next to him on the lounge. 'Who was that?'
'I told you in the car,' Joss's voice was glass. 'I knew him when I was growing up. He's violent. He's been in gaol. You know I don't want anything to do with my past.'
'Yeah, but I've never heard you talk like that. What would be wrong with just acknowledging him and moving on?'
'For fuck's sake, Isobel! Why do you have to question everything I do? I told you, he's fucking dangerous.'
'Do you think you could try any harder to wake Charlie?' Isobel stood. 'Anyway,' she said, turning away, 'the police called. They have to re-interview us about the robbery. They're going to call tomorrow to set up a time.'
She left the room before he could respond.
Great. Just great. What did they want? Joss stared at the blank television screen. He felt hunted, trapped. How had Cutter found him? He knew it was no coincidence. Twenty years and he'd never seen anyone from his past life, and now he'd seen Cutter twice in just over a week. How long had he been watching them? Did he know where they lived? He looked around his loungeroom. How had he let this danger into his life? Why was this happening to him?
An image of Fuzzy, scrabbling at his throat, blood everywhere, flashed into his mind. It seemed to answer his question.
Cursing under his breath, he reached for the remote control, desperate to find something to replace the scenes and sounds in his head. On each station, Fuzzy's fourteen-year-old eyes pleaded with Joss to help him, jets of blood pumping from the gash in his neck. Joss's hands, wet with blood, trying to hold his friend's throat together.
He threw the remote onto the cushion next to him and made his way to the kitchen, unconsciously wiping his hands on his jeans. Reaching into the cupboard, he took out the bottle, a glass. He filled it completely, a wave of the amber liquid sloshing over the side onto his hand. Eyes unfocused, he downed half the glass, relishing the burning. He coughed, swallowed the rest, and poured again, then took the glass and the remainder of the bottle of bourbon back into the loungeroom, noting with relief that he'd seen a new bottle at the back of the cupboard. This was going to be a long night.
Fuzzy's face had left the TV screen, but Joss could still smell his blood. He downed another half glass before the blood of the kids in Rwanda took over. The screaming and hacking of the massacre in Kibeho crowded into his brain and he had to stop midway to the couch; he put his glass down on the dining table so he could hold his head in his hands. Leaning forward, praying the memories would leave him alone, that his brain wouldn't burst, he finally felt his medicine taking effect, the heat of the alcohol in his belly. He fell into the cushions of the lounge, pulled the bottle closer, and turned the volume of the television up a little.
ABC news. He moved to flip the channel, not ready for any more reality, when the top story caught his eye. Another home invasion. Last night. He sat forward in the seat, suddenly very sober. This time someone was dead.
It was as if he'd left the door from hell wide open, and a demon had walked on through. He thought of his girls, upstairs. He had to get them out of here.
Then, he had to find Cutter.
Jill sat at the computer in her loungeroom in her singlet and briefs. She googled 'M5 motorway' to find the site to register for an electronic toll payment tag. The department would reimburse her for the monthly fees. She didn't know how long she'd be out at Liverpool, but she wasn't going to wait in the M5 toll queue with the motorists paying cash every day. She was surprised her department vehicle hadn't been fitted with a tag already. The car was brand new; maybe that explained it.
She sighed and stretched. The trip there and back was a bitch. It took two hours of her day: time she could be training. She looked down at her belly and grimaced. For years, her stomach had been unyielding, creaseless. She poked at a small fold above her knickers and walked into her gym.
Truth is, I kind of like looking like this, Jill thought, looking at her mirrored reflection. She'd had to change out of her push-up bra this morning because her decolletage had rendered her fitted shirt obscene. She smiled at the curve of her usually hard buttocks. The extra five kilos had even changed her face a little – fewer hard angles.
But soft is dead, she told herself.
She scowled at the mirror and increased the angle on her incline bench to forty-five degrees. As she started on six sets of fifty sit-ups, she realised she missed the pain. Her mind drifted back to work.
Following her phone call from the Rice residence, Superintendent Last had arranged for a tech truck to travel to the house. He'd called her at home at eight with the results. Not only had luminol fluoresced all over the floorboards and the rug in Justine's bedroom, revealing the presence of organic matter, but Justine had also presented the techies with a plastic shopping bag.