Cherry Pie (38 page)

There was the smallest chance I’d get to the other side and if I didn’t at least I’d die faster in the complete absence of air.

I took a deep, final breath, squeezed my eyes shut tight, moved my hips and plunged face first into the soft moist earth.

I was doomed. The soil compacted as I struggled blindly through, cold dirt cramming into my nostrils, ears and eyes and forcing its way into my clothes. My whole body was encased and my lungs strained as I pulled harder, but it was hopeless, there was no end to the dirt and I had no breath left. My mouth opened involuntarily, my nose and throat filled with grit and as I convulsed, about to pass out, I stretched my arms in front of me as far as they would go and thought I was hallucinating.

I felt empty space, cold air on my fingertips, and with my chest and head about to burst I writhed forward one last time, pushed my head out of the tunnel and sucked in dirt and air in one huge wheezing breath. Somehow I pulled my body out and then I was tumbling and rolling down a steep, rocky slope, until I slammed into a tree and came to a sudden stop.

I coughed and spat until I thought I was vomiting up my lungs. Dirt crunched between my teeth, tore at my sinuses and felt like it had been forced into my brain. I didn’t care. I was out of the tunnel, alive and in the grip of a near-death adrenaline rush more profound than I’d ever experienced before. Despite the fact that I was freezing in my t-shirt, my whole body shivering with cold, I felt invincible. I was alive. Holding on to the tree I pulled myself to my feet then staggered up the slope, clutching at vines, barely registering my injured ankle and the bladey grass slicing my fingers and palms. I was going to save Chloe and I was going to find Andi. And Holly was going to pay.

I reached the crest of the hill, saw the clearing and slowed, trying not to make too much noise. The shed doors were open and the four wheel drive was parked inside, headlamps spilling light. I pulled the phone from my back pocket and wiped dirt from the screen. Still no signal, but if I could get to the top of the house … It was the highest point around and had to be where Andi had called me from. Maybe she was still there.

As I lurked by the trees Holly stomped out of the shed, carrying her torch and the axe and heading for the house.

Change of plan. If I snuck to the car I could drive on out of there, bash through the gates and pick up Chloe on the way.

Holly creaked onto the listing veranda and as soon as she disappeared inside I dashed across the clearing to the shed, hopped in the car and felt for the keys, but they were gone. Shit.

I swivelled in the seat and looked around. Jesus, her baby was asleep in the back. I considered grabbing the infant, threatening to harm him for leverage, but what if she realised I wouldn’t go through with it and called my bluff? Instead I looked for something I could use as a weapon, spied her hockey sticks and decided they were better than nothing. I reached across the back seat, slid one from its cushioned sheath, left the shed and crept toward the house.

I padded onto the veranda and slipped through the open front door, made out a staircase in front of me and glimpsed flickers of torch light in a room to my left. Holly was in there, muttering, swearing and clicking open ancient cupboard doors.

I glanced at the phone. Still nothing, but when I lifted it above my head my heart leapt—one signal bar flashed on the screen.

Soon as I brought it down to my mouth, though, the bar disappeared and I knew I had to get up those stairs. I dashed lightly across the floorboards, which were spongy with rot, climbed the first two steps. On the third the stair disintegrated, my foot smashed through and splintered wood bit my calf.

Holly popped out of the doorway, torch in one hand, axe in the other, and ran toward me. I pushed on the step above with my free hand and as my leg slid out felt ragged wood tear the flesh from the back of my knee right down to my ankle.

Glancing over my shoulder I saw the axe swoop down and I squealed, but she couldn’t control it with only one hand and the weapon went wide, missing me by half a centimetre and lodging in the wood. As she struggled to extricate the blade I ripped my foot out and clambered up the stairs, sticking close to the edge and gripping the wobbly banister, praying it wouldn’t collapse.

At the top I came to a mezzanine level that looked over the ground floor of the house and turned and headed right, still clutching the railing, afraid of plunging through rotting floorboards. I passed through the door at the end of the corridor, closed it and, finding no lock, scanned the room for something to use as a barrier. In the half-light I made out an old bed frame and a chest of drawers. I tipped the drawers over and pushed them in front of the door then backed to the far side of the room where looping reams of insulation material spilled onto the floor from a hole in the wall.

My heel hit the lip of some sort of metal bowl and I almost tripped as it upended, clanging and splashing water on my jeans. I checked the phone, hand shaking. Yes! The bar was back and I pressed triple 0 and held the phone to my ear. Come on, come on, I thought, the whole house shuddering as Holly thundered up the stairs. I became aware of a rotting smell as I waited for the phone to connect, not musty like the cave but sickly sweet and acute, and I remembered the odour from our old house in the bush when marsupial mice got trapped in the walls and died.

Holly bashed on the door and I edged to the window, looking for an escape route. The glass was already broken and I used the hockey stick to smash out the few remaining shards.

The window sashes remained intact though, and I was just wondering if I could squeeze through when my call was answered.

‘Triple 0. Police, fire or ambulance?’

‘All of ’em,’ I yelled as the chest of drawers started scraping across the floor.

‘You can only pick one.’

‘Police.’

‘What’s your address?’

‘Um. Shit. Lot 444, View Glen Road, Kangaroo Ground.’

‘Nearest cross street?’

‘How the fuck should I know?’

‘No need to be rude, putting you through now.’

As I listened to the ringing tone Holly slipped through the gap in the door and I backed up further until I trod on something squishy. I looked down and gasped. In the thin moonlight I saw Andi’s body wrapped in the insulation, her head and an arm poking out. I’d stepped on the hand. Her face was drawn, bone white and the smell was terrible. I was too late to save her and if I didn’t get out of this then Chloe and I were dead as well.

‘Police. What’s the nature of your emergency?’

I looked up. Holly had put the torch down on the chest of drawers so she could hold the axe with both hands. She stalked towards me, grinning.

‘One dead, one injured and a crazy bitch is coming at me with an axe.’

‘Tying up emergency services with hoax calls is a very serious offence if—’

‘It’s not a hoax! Talk to Duval, Homicide. My name’s Simone Kirsch and—shit!’ I dropped the phone and clutched the hockey stick like a baseball bat. Holly was getting close.

‘Police are coming,’ I tried.

‘If they can find the fucking place. Nearest cop shop is Eltham. I’ve got plenty of time. What’s that hideous smell?’

She wrinkled her nose.

‘That smell? It’s what happens when you kill someone in cold blood, you crazy murdering bitch!’

‘I don’t think of it as murder so much as protecting my husband from sluts like you and Andi and your big-titted friend. I was just looking after what’s mine. Anyone would have done the same.’

‘Protecting Saint Dillon?’ I laughed. ‘Are you totally fucking deluded? Can’t you see he’s a vain, self absorbed actor who’s only with you for your money?’

‘Shut your mouth!’ She raised the axe higher. ‘He’s the father of my child, and a beautiful man, inside and out. He wants to be faithful but your type’s always trying to lead him astray. Throwing yourselves at him, flaunting your wares.’

Flaunting my what?

‘Babe,’ I said, trying to keep her talking so she wasn’t chopping at me with the axe, ‘I so don’t fancy him.’

‘Of course you do. I’ve seen the way you look at him, how every woman looks at him.’

‘Just because you like him doesn’t mean everyone else does. I can’t stand him.’

‘You’re lying. He’s the most wonderful—’

‘Like your dad?’

‘You don’t know anything about my dad.’

I tried for the sympathy vote. ‘I know Rochelle killed him.

Gave him an overdose, left you an orphan and stole your inheritance. That’s harsh. I don’t blame you for being pissed off.’

‘She ruined my life. Me and Daddy had the best time together until she came along. He didn’t need to work, so just painted, and I hardly ever went to school. We’d hang out in our secret garden out the back of the Villa—you know, where they put up that ugly hotel? It was overgrown and had big stone walls and we’d draw pictures and tell stories and sometimes just lie on our backs and stare at the clouds. And we’d have picnics, with custard tarts and vanilla slices and—’

‘Junkies do have sweet tooth’s.’ I couldn’t help myself, she was making me sick.

‘He wasn’t a junkie! That was his medicine. He had a bad back and the doctors wouldn’t prescribe anything strong enough. Anyway, no one’s going to take Dillon away from me.

I’ve made sure of that. Enough talking, I know you’re trying to stall me. I’m not dumb.’ She raised the axe.

‘Wait! Before you kill me I just wanna know one thing. How’d Melody end up down the mine shaft?’

‘Rochelle found out she was in Melbourne, promised her a payoff if she didn’t say anything about what they’d done to my dad. We met up with her in that park near the St Kilda pier and had a picnic. Rochelle brought me along to put Melody at ease. I mean, who brings along a four year old to murder someone? She drugged her, drove her up here, ran her over and shoved her down the hole. I was actually in the car, pretending to be asleep. It’s where I got the idea for getting rid of Andi. Sins of the parents, huh?’

‘If you hate Rochelle so much why didn’t you just dob her in? Why leave it up to me to get dirt on her?’

‘Are you kidding? After she did it she pinched me awake and said if I ever told anyone she’d know and she’d come and kill me. And she would have. Look what happened to your family after you messed with her! But it worked, she’s going to jail now and I finally get what’s mine.’

‘So the possum head?’ If I kept her talking maybe I could get her off guard, swing the hockey stick before she was ready for it. ‘Taking the handbag to Sydney? Using Andi’s card at the karaoke bar?’ Suddenly I remembered the figure in the photos I had thought was Andi. ‘You were following me!’

‘It was so easy to play you,’ she gloated. ‘All of you. I’d known about Andi’s article for ages. You know how I found out? Gordon. He wanted Trip’s job and I told him I’d help him get it if he kept an eye on Dillon for me. Yasmin was about to start and I was worried she might go after my man, but Gordon told me it was this little bitch instead.’ She pointed to the body.

‘I followed her, knew where she lived and even where she hid her spare key. I’d been inside her house before that night, you know, gone through that filthy room of hers and found her notes about Melody and Sam and seen all the photos she had of my husband. There were four in her photo album and a big one, an enlargement, stuck in the middle of her noticeboard. Can you believe that?

‘Then, when I came to pick up Dillon on the night of the staff party, I saw her kiss him and let me tell you that was the last straw. I took him home, put a couple of sleeping tablets in his nightcap and texted her from a public phone pretending to be him, saying I had to see her at her place, that I wanted her. Like a bitch in heat, she fell for it. I got to her place before she did. I already knew her flatmate was away, and I waited for her in her room. Got the shock of her life when she flicked on the light and saw me waiting there with my hockey stick. Do you know when I confronted her I wasn’t planning to kill her, but she actually admitted she was in love with him, and suggested I let him decide who he wanted.

Well, you can see where that got her.’ She laughed and shook her head and her eyes went hard and crazy again.

‘I hit her in the head but it didn’t knock her out and she tried to run so I swung my stick and cracked her shin, broke it.

That stopped the slut. Then I bashed her on the head again, hard. I thought she was dead. I collected up all the pictures of Dillon, and her computer and all her notes. I had a plan. Shift the blame to Rochelle and Sam and kill two birds with one stone.

‘I put her in the boot of the Datsun then drove her up here to dump the body. She started to make noises as I was coming up the driveway so I stopped the car and dragged her out and decided to run over her, like Rochelle did with Melody. She jumped out of the way, though, fell down a goddamned hillside and by the time I dragged her up and dumped her in the hole I was sure she was dead. I even checked for a pulse. It was almost light by the time I drove the Datsun to Wattle Glen and caught the train to Flinders Street, then another to Ormond so I could pick up my car. I got home exhausted but Dillon was still crashed out and so was Eddie. He’s such a good baby. Sleeps right through.’

‘It was you behind the wheelie bin,’ I said, torn between swinging the stick and finding out everything that had happened. My fingers had started to twitch.

‘I thought the cops would have been onto Rochelle and Sam from the start, but Andi was so secretive she hadn’t told anyone about her article! I put the newspaper clipping and the card in the bin to direct them, but you got there first. Thought you were so clever, didn’t you, and that I was just a stupid suburban mum? But you fell for it all—the handbag, the credit card at the karaoke bar. I’ve always been smarter than you. I wasn’t just captain of the hockey team at St Gertrudes, I was dux of my—’

I swiped the hockey stick, hoping to hit the axe handle and bounce it out of her hands. It didn’t work. She was too quick, sporting reflexes probably, and when the blade hit the wood one half ricocheted across the room and only a splintered stump remained in my hand. She raised the axe again and I backed into the window, reached behind me and shook the frame, willing it to give way so I could tumble out onto the veranda roof. No dice. Everything else in the house was collapsing but the sashes remained firm.