Who Sings for Lu? (14 page)

Funny, isn’t it: scores of cops on the case, they say, and I’m among the suspects they’re looking for and who should be pumping me?

‘Fair dinkum, Lu honey, you are seriously beautiful. I could even fall for someone like you.’

Yeah, if I wasn’t so ugly once he’s finished, closed the zip curtain on tonight’s play, see you at the next performance, eh, love? If ever I was looking for a prick like this.

Right now doing it with him — a police detective, and more demanding and regular than Rick — a way to keep from being eaten alive by guilt. Don’t want to think about it. Silly bitch that night shouldn’t have fought back. Copped Bron and Jay at the wrong time; me too. We’d been running into defeat at every turn. Why shouldn’t you have a turn, Miss Anna Jane Chadwick?

But hell, rape not in the plan. Not as if I look at every beautiful young woman and want her to suffer like I did, do I? And if she’d said she would be happy to talk to me I could have and would have stopped things, called the boys off. Fuckin’ idiot I am, I should’ve seen their different excitement, how easily they agreed with my bullshit story we were just going to have fun and grab her bag and likely cop a nice sum of cash.

Like dogs straining on leashes. I started to realise when we were standing by a tree in the Gardens, waiting for her to come out of that
building same as we’d done three nights last week to get her pattern. Not as if us being there in the Botanic was in itself suspicious, not with Jay coming up with the bright idea to carry wine bottles around with us like we were drunks, and some do start young. Wore baseball caps turned to two o’clock to reflect our age, mainly to hide under the shadow the brim throws at night.

I should’ve heard the sex in their talk. Maybe a part of me wanted that for the girl — for Anna Chadwick — to get a taste of what others suffer? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

So here we go again, same CD playing, should be called ‘Uh-uh’ or ‘Plant my Stiffy’. This is a cop. The last one was my uncle. Who’s next? One of my brothers? Bron, Deano, Jay? And if I get caught on this one, guess it’s the lezzie brigade waiting for me in prison. Some hand got dealt to you, Lu O’Brien.

So Detective Sergeant Kevin Ahern turned her over in his bed in a suburban house out Newtown way. Family photos on the bedside table, three
happy-looking
kids from nine to about thirteen, a boy, a girl, a boy. Wife looked a nice sort, quite good looking, a little on the chubby side, like one of her starter junk-food customers soon to be fattened up.
Doing the business in the same bed he must do it with her. Does he have an erection problem with wifey too? Has to inflict pain to get it up? Calls himself ‘all man’.

Look who’s talking. Where was your conscience with the Chadwick girl?
‘Sodomised!’ the headline read. To go with ‘Raped and …’ With ‘Viciously assaulted Hunter Valley woman …’ and the details of what she’d been doing, how she ended up where she did —
Because you fuckin’ lured her, Lu.

Used false crying, every little trick to bring one Anna Chadwick deeper into the planned garden forest where waited — God, doesn’t bear thinking about.

Hump on, mister police offi cer. Turn me over, do me from behind. Punish this ugly bitch. Then you can shoot me dead when you’ve shot your bolt.

Somewhere Claire had read that when a major event happens it is quite unlike your worst imaginings: you don’t collapse into a heap, plummet into inconsolable misery, break out in primal screaming, no.

You find calmness waiting there for you, inner strength you didn’t think you had. Well, so far, not true.

Eight, or was it nine, unspeakably painful weeks had passed like this and the pain did not let up it got worse, as Anna’s mental, emotional state remained unchanged, this girl — young woman but a mother’s baby, always that — returned abruptly from her studies in Sydney as if of no further use as a human. This wreck of a person Claire knew better than anyone — even herself — in the whole world, her most precious treasure, along with Katie, handed back in pieces.

People could not have been more helpful and well-meaning. Just about everyone shed tears for daughter and mother, for the family; no one she considered a friend proved otherwise, quite the opposite: the closest had not only rallied around Claire, they formed up like a trio of bodyguards there for her at all times. Her parents too; got to the point she had to diplomatically ask her mother and father to give her and Anna space. They understood.

As for Straw Mathews, not just Riley’s right-hand man — you’d think it was his own daughter the way he popped over from work at
every opportunity, just to sit there. Often Claire would come into the room to find the man, like Riley’s older brother except he missed out on the good looks, on the chair by Anna talking quietly like some family doctor to a patient who could not or would not hear. Sweet man. Part of the family, and if he was not a bachelor with no one else the family would still have adored him. Straw just had them and his beloved horses, every single one of the three hundred and seventy-two known to him by name.

Straw’s presence she minded less than her well-meaning friends, whom she sometimes found cloying. Claire wanted her own space, just her and her girl — no matter that Anna slept so many hours of the day. Maybe that sleep was the healing process? God, let it be that and not final disconnection from the world.

Moved herself into the girls’ living room the first few weeks to stay close, even though Anna acted as if her mother did not exist. She functioned as if back to child basics, except a child didn’t menstruate and have the mother clean up — a relief though that she was at least not pregnant to the rapists. Something which would have sorely tested Claire for she did not believe in abortion, while Riley would not have considered for one moment his daughter having a child in such circumstances. They would have argued over that, and Claire would have felt guilty and high-minded defending a principle and yet would have acted according to her conscience, which did not agree with abortion.

Anna Chadwick with the bright, limitless future: in one fell swoop the black crow had snatched away a mother’s child.

Claire had a memory of years ago that time could never bury: a friend, Laura Cunningham — a young mother of just twenty-three — had lost her husband and two little children in a boating tragedy. Well, she proved the wisdom that adversity brings out the best in people for she was all steel. So much so that a twenty-two-year-old Claire Jennings noticed that often it was Laura who gave others comfort, gave of her greater strength. A young woman whose world had been completely shattered and yet she had something left to give of herself.

Claire, being courted then by Riley, nonetheless spent a lot of time with Laura; they talked about the different qualities the deceased
children had, pored over family photographs, Claire doing the weeping it seemed on her stoic friend’s behalf. Laura even got Claire talking of the excitement of her budding relationship with Riley, their wedding plans, building a new house — a new life. Of having children, and Claire mindful of the reminder in having a chuckle about the mundane lifestyle in the ’burbs and the two-point-two children syndrome.

Then Laura said, ‘I would have settled for the point-two. Now I would.’ And gave a most chilling laugh. She took her own life five years later.

When Anna was brought home in Sandy Tulloch’s helicopter after nine days in a private hospital, her father had naturally gone to put his arms round his daughter — only to be rejected in an outburst of
blood-chilling
screaming. In her bedroom when he tried again, she threw a glass that just missed him and shattered on the wall. It was as if it were he who had committed the gross act against her.

Eventually Claire started noticing Riley’s absences in Sydney were getting longer, and he came home each time even more changed; he grew more distant, took no interest in his appearance or the business. Just sat in his office and brooded, rejecting Claire when she wanted to talk, share the pain since it was equally theirs. Seemed this had broken him.

A transformed house, Anna evidently catatonic, a husband how he was, and Katie? Well, she had always been a problem, and communicating with her parents in the last couple of years had not been her strong suit. What happened to Anna had made it worse. It was like a nightmare, watching her family receding further and further into the distance and nothing she could do to stop it.

A line from the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins coming to her: ‘Why do sinners’ ways prosper? … Oh, the sots and thralls of lust do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend, sir, life upon thy cause.’

The world had come to an end.

Deano thinking seriously about jumping — off a fuckin’ bridge, a tall building, from a tree with a rope attached — life not worth living. I hate myself for what happened.
Had no intention of it turning into rape, just wanted to cop a feel, let the others get her on the ground, helped hold her down, but when they set into her I didn’t hang around. I’m no rapist, I didn’t do it. Didn’t save her either. Hate myself, hate them.

Stinking hot day. Flies in a feeding frenzy on everyone’s sweat — probably smelled impending death on him too.

‘Well, if it isn’t young Deano,’ the voice said from behind him. ‘AKA Pat.’ Had to be him, cunning old bastard with his impeccable timing.

Deano turned and said, ‘Owen. Be past your drink start-time, old man. You’ll be shaking all over any minute.’

‘Thought it’d be you doing the shaking, kid. My only fear is lacking the price of a drink. More’n I can say for you.’

‘Oh? Is that right? What would I have to fear other than a stupid old prick who stuck his nose in my business and I made the mistake of buying him beers for two weeks solid?’

But a cold chill swept through him on even this stinker of a day.

‘You’ve been at it again, son. Told you I should’ve been a detective. Just couldn’t have kept the hours cops work, not with my born need for a drink.’

‘Not born with it, mate. You made the choice.’
Mistake, Deano,
he knew the instant it left his mouth.

‘We all make those. Don’t we, son?’ Owen said, but hadn’t rushed in with the retort. Took his time in adding, ‘This is the second biggie you’ve made.’

Went through the denial process a bit longer — a ping-pong game, between the sixty-plus drinker with the pock-marked nose and sunken lips like stone steps worn down, and the troubled young man of twenty-two.

‘They’re looking for three young men,’ Owen said. ‘And a woman accomplice same age, early twenties.’

‘For what — the next Olympics?’

‘Life’s turned on you, hasn’t it, son?’

‘Has it?’

‘Like it does to our breed, our class. Why you did what you did, I figure —’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘Because it felt like the life you were running away from had grabbed you back.’

‘Drunks sure talk a load of shit.’

‘Castrated a man. Raped and beat a young woman. According to the papers, did the anal on her too. Disgusting. Surprised you’d be a part of that.’

‘I wasn’t. Let me smell if you’re drunk already.’

‘Had a wee hair of the dog. But not drunk, young man. Far from it.’

‘So go tell your theory to the cops, see if they listen to an old soak.’

Owen just stared, the look of the man who felt he had the upper hand. ‘I might. You never know.’

‘If you get there.’

‘Not in you, Deano.’

‘Try me.’

‘I can just up and leave and you’ll never know if I went to the cops or not.’

‘They wouldn’t arrest me first up. Just swoop, bang me around, read me my rights, ask questions, then release me. Lay charges second time round. Time to find you, old man. You hear?’

‘No. You be hearing me now. You have a problem. So have I. We can meet in the middle and solve both. Hear me out.’

Not as if Deano was off walking away.

‘I worked for the pub bookie for years, till they died out like the other Aussie dinosaurs. Like our cops, once among the most corrupt in the Western world. Our own home-grown gangsters, now consigned to history. Like my earning capacity, despite my huge capacity for the demon drink. You getting me?’

‘Nah. Don’t think so, mate.’

‘I think you are. In return for holding my tongue on your crimes —’

‘I took no part in the actual.’

‘And I believe you.’ Though he looked long and hard at Deano. ‘In return, I’ll show you how to make a decent sum of money the easy way, not the criminal mug’s way. Care to walk with me? My thirst is coming on something terrible.’

‘Nope. Got other stuff to do,’ said Deano.

‘Well you might. But I don’t think you have a choice. You see, I wrote down all the details of what you called my theory, so if I give the nod my lawyer, a very capable bloke despite the same drinking problem, he has the sealed envelope. Right out of a spy plot, yes?’

The old fellow chuckling and so far Deano still following him.

‘I’ll show you a world where pain, shame and defeat reside. But in among that pain and haunting are spare dollars, multiplied by
thousands
every week.’

He stopped. He did smell of booze, so it was more a leg of the dog he’d had.

‘Give me enough to feed my addiction and the rest is yours, young man.’ Pushed the odour of his boozer’s breath closer as people and traffic went by in a constant throb, like the sun beating down. ‘Your life will change.’ He stepped closer, oblivious to a city going by. ‘I can give you back your life.’

The one I’ve been seriously thinking about ending?
Deano could easily have said to him. Aloud he said, ‘You’re full of shit, you know that?’ Knowing he’d be in this man’s company for some while.

Riley took a ferry from Circular Quay to Milsons Point, still numb but of mind enough to think of his wife reacting to the apostrophe needed in Milsons. But not of the woman herself, his wife.

Had shut down every feeling to do with matrimony, marriage vows, what he owed the relationship and had let down. In a way it felt like a horse race: his blinkers were on, he couldn’t see anything but the track in front of him. Only difference was, this was a race to the death, that was how darkly significant it felt.

Straight across parallel to the harbour bridge, past the Opera House — from every angle and every eye demanding attention, even those of a man in turmoil. Vista of North Sydney spread out ahead — if he had eyes for any of it.

Out on the open deck, a fresh breeze, a sports bag filled with bundles of $50 notes slung over his teeshirted shoulder. His actions instinctive, not thought out as with the normal Riley Chadwick, every detail triple-checked and then some. This was reckless punter stuff, of the kind he ordinarily had no respect for. In past life he would consult with Straw, and between them they would always come up with a solution, an answer to even the biggest problem. But this was not an ordinary time. And Straw seemed far away.

Every imaginable type is attracted to racing by the money, the
glamour and excitement. From business tycoons to brilliant low-odds gamblers on a mega scale, to the biggest egotists and narcissists, the shades graded all the way down to darkest, deepest black. He’d gone through the parade of people he knew on that darker side and chosen a couple whom he contacted and asked could they suggest someone ‘to help with a problem that has been well publicised’. Both had said he should stop fucking around and get to the point, of course they knew people, what kind did he want, head hunters, leg breakers, assassins, torturers, ‘they do live in our midst you know’.

Both offered to screw down the price: ‘No one likes this kind of shit,’ one said, ‘not to a beautiful young woman.’ ‘I’d consider it an honour to find the exact person or persons you want,’ said the other, ‘and go to the grave with what I know.’

Outside a café waiting for his Blackberry to ring so he could get the next arrangement, it felt like amateur day at the secret service to a man on fire with wanting revenge. He’d already sat at another café in The Rocks area, to be called by a man giving him the next rendezvous. Urge for a stiff drink — not the strong espresso he had hardly touched. The world going by, seemingly without woes like he had.

I failed her. Her father: supposed to protect her and it happened right there, under my nose, and what was I doing?

The guilt and shame of such magnitude it came down like endless sledgehammer blows. He wanted to throw up. For the ground to open so he could crawl in and die. Ran a hand through his hair, it felt dirty, like he felt all over and especially inside.
You failed her
.

Thank Christ for the Blackberry ringing; a man could go mad on his thoughts. ‘Are you Riley Chadwick?’

‘Yes,’ he snapped, irritated at the pause.

Even more when the man said, ‘I’m at the next café up, looking right at you.’ Riley tempted to say,
That’s so clever, you’re just the type I want to do business with.
Furious. Why not just meet at his hotel? Save all this melodrama bullshit.

He ended the call, stood up and a heavily built man, in a white teeshirt with gold medallion shining in the sun, lifted his sunglasses up and back down, nodded at him.

Could be the gold medallion put him off, the silly carry-on,
whatever. Riley turned away and headed back to the ferry wharf.

His phone went again. ‘Yes?’

‘The fuck you doing, mate?’

‘I’m walking. You’re sitting. Stay there, finish your coffee, drop dead for all I fucking care. I don’t do melodrama.’ Call ended.

Blackberry went again. ‘What now?’

‘Listen, you fuck, I want something for going to the trouble of coming here. The fuck’s wrong with you?’

‘You’re what’s wrong with me. This is amateur night.’

‘What? Turn around and let’s have this chat. We can help you. If not …’

‘How much you wanting for showing up and playing this dumb game of spies?’

‘A grand. And I should charge two.’

‘Well you listen back, you fuck. I don’t want anything to do with one-grand players. This is a bigger stage. And if you have a threat to follow then I’ll pay ten times that to get you hurt. Understand?’

‘Listen, I want to get —’

Riley stopped on the downhill footpath, turned and faced the man he was talking to, on his feet now and pointing. ‘Know you are dealing with a man in deep pain,’ he said. ‘A man with money. That’s all.’

On the ferry he ordered a double whisky on the rocks. Took the drink outside as the harbour city loomed closer, the lucky city in the lucky country, sun glaring off the cream ceramic tiles of the Opera House, a thing of beauty that had come to define Sydney.

Beauty, the word stuck in his head.
My baby, my child, my girl — all of hers now lost.
Slumping into his arms for no comfort waiting.

Not tears, exhortation, constant presence, quietly spoken words, not loving stroking hands, none of it worked. None of it. So Claire had to make a decision. Or go down with her daughter.

In the two weeks Riley had been in Sydney he’d made irregular contact and even then was terse, evading her questions as to what exactly he was doing while Rome burned, and her reminders that Anna was going to perish in the flames if he didn’t return home.

‘Please, Riley. You have to get your life — our lives — back under
control.’ She meant not just the family but the business as well. For all the crucial decisions were Riley’s. There was the knowledge he carried in his head, the meticulous breeding records and pedigree files he knew intimately. The hundreds of people he dealt with too. And their existing clients.

Plunging herself into work Riley should be doing after another of his one-minute calls from his atypically cheap hotel in Chinatown — on the internet it was $70 a night, cheaper for longer-term stays — Claire came across Anna’s mobile phone, battery completely flat, and left it charging. She did various farm duties and caught up with Straw to prioritise the tasks Riley normally did. Good old Straw said, ‘Leave the rest to me.’ She knew he was working incredibly long hours to make up for Riley’s absence.

Returning tired but at least feeling she was managing, she found Anna’s phone with red light glowing to say there were messages. Emptied the full message box: most of the calls from Anna’s university buddies, a couple from her cello teacher quoting Raymond Carver and of course wishing her speedy recovery, love, and that he would visit her soon.

Over a pot of green tea, Claire checked the messages sent and discovered the phone had a deletion default for messages older than a month, wiping all those frantic texts she and Riley had read in horror after Anna was found. Not that Claire wished to relive them. And doubtless she could retrieve them through a technician if ever required for a future court case, should they catch those animals.

That morning receiving Riley’s frantic call. Chartering a small plane to go to Sydney. The taxi from the airport to the private hospital where Riley had moved Anna, to the appalling sight of her poor baby, her battered face — being informed by the doctor what she had suffered. All day with her, never mind that her physical injuries were not dire, and the psychological damage was impossible to assess: Anna had the strangest look, which her mother now knew to foreshadow how she was now. Severely traumatised, a state she would emerge from, eventually, so the medical people promised.

Claire and Riley stayed overnight at the hospital, a paid room for family members of patients, though Riley’s presence aggravated Anna,
for reasons neither he nor Claire understood, so he kept himself out of her room.

The police had not mentioned Anna’s cell phone. And their interview with her at the hospital bedside proved near fruitless, other than her saying there was a girl, about twenty. Three men. No, she did not know them. Then she clammed up. Had barely spoken since.

The detective in charge of the case —
case, for God’s sake. My daughter’s life is now reduced to being another police case
— told Claire it happened occasionally that the victim of a sex crime was so traumatised she was catatonic.

Claire now flicked through a few familiar photos on her daughter’s mobile, such as several shots of Raimona caught in his magnificence, one of him in the act of mating, God forbid. Shots of Katie, several of their father, just one of Claire herself, one of the filly, Anna-Katie, yet to race but developing well. Shots of Madison, whom Claire had met on one of her rare trips to Sydney — the time Riley wanted papers signed for the new family trust with its fifteen million deposit. Maddy, as she insisted Claire call her, telephoned daily for a report on Anna. They’d just moved into the new apartment Riley had purchased; were looking for a third flatmate when this all blew up.

Claire didn’t say so to Madison, but she had more and more thoughts that the Anna of old might never return. And maybe her father too, as something in Riley’s mind seemed to have snapped. A juggernaut had hit the Chadwick family head-on.