Covet (16 page)

Ed Brown was apprehensive as he approached the house.

For almost five minutes, he sat in the Prison Lady’s car at the end of the street, engine off, still wearing the golfing gear with the cap pulled low over his forehead. He crossed his arms and observed quietly. There was no movement on the street or at the house. To be sure he had the right place, he checked the address on the Prison Lady’s note several times.

It wasn’t what he had expected.

The Prison Lady had directed him to a large modern-looking family house, two levels, in a quiet suburban neighbourhood. It seemed an unusual home for a single woman.
She must be a widow
, he thought. She hadn’t said anything about that. He hoped she didn’t have an ex-husband she hadn’t told him about who might be lurking somewhere and could cause problems. Perhaps her place was a semi, or she shared it with someone. If that were the case, he wouldn’t be able to stick around even long enough to shower and change into some new clothes. He’d have to grab what he could and go.

The lawns on the nature strip were well kept. He saw a tricycle next to one of the driveways. Ed pictured smiling Brady Bunch families, Tupperware parties and golden-haired children playing under sprinklers in the summertime. It looked like the Australia of 1950s’ detergent ads, but it was nothing like the neighbourhood he had grown up in. He had no memories of green lawns and tricycles. He was more familiar with being locked in his room, learning lessons that came by way of a hot iron and a length of rope, and children who liked to break his nose after school and make fun of the way he talked. That was the Australia he knew.

Ed reminded himself that it was Saturday, around midday, so there was an increased chance that some of the families on the street would be at home. Someone might notice him in the Prison Lady’s car if he loitered around too much. He needed to make a decision. Should he go in? Ed started the car and drove past the house for another look. He didn’t spot any movement there. The curtains were drawn and they didn’t twitch as he passed. He circled the block and waited. No one seemed to have followed him from Botany Bay. There wasn’t anyone on the street that he could see. It was time to do it, if ever he was going to.

Tense and alert for every movement, Ed parked in the Prison Lady’s driveway. He was protected from view by a row of tall shrubs. He turned the engine off, left the driver’s door open and the key in the ignition, and stepped out. He hurried to the back door, nervously scanning left and right, still wary of
waiting police. Nothing looked suspicious so far.
I will go in
, he decided. He needed somewhere to shower and change. He needed something to eat. He needed cash, or something he could pawn for fast money. Unlike the ex-cons on TV, Ed had not stashed money away in case he ever needed to flee justice. He’d never considered that his freedom might be taken away. He had no fancy contacts to help him with fake passports or illegal guns. He was starting with nothing. He hoped to find everything he needed to begin his new life waiting for him inside this suburban house. Then he could concentrate on his plans.

Ed found the key to the back door under a straw mat, just as the Prison Lady had promised. WELCOME HOME, the mat said.

Ed picked up the key and slid it into the keyhole. It fitted. He turned it and the door unlocked. No alarms. He stepped inside. The Prison Lady had assured him that no one would be around, and so far she seemed to be telling the truth. He closed the door behind him and listened. Nothing. The lights were off. No moving shadows or reflections. He could hardly believe his luck. Could he actually be in the clear?

Surprisingly, the house was
huge.

Ed spent the next few minutes walking through it, upstairs and down, laughing. It wasn’t a semi. He counted four bedrooms, expensively furnished. There were all kinds of things he could sell. VCRs, television sets, golf clubs, appliances. There was a pool table, though he could never get it out of the
house to pawn. When he reached the large kitchen he found a note propped against some ham and cheese sandwiches wrapped in Glad Wrap. He hungrily ripped the package open and sank his teeth into one of the sandwiches. Then another. And another. He opened the note.

Dearest Sweetheart,

Please enjoy this snack. Make yourself at home. I will be home from work by one. I can’t wait to be together! I love you.

With love from your dearest,

Suzie

A note from the Prison Lady.

Ed had planned to only stay one day, but perhaps he could hang around a bit longer, until he got himself organised. It looked comfortable enough, and it was fairly clean. Ed had debated for the past week about exactly when to kill the woman. She looked like she had money, which was not what he’d expected. Maybe he shouldn’t kill her right away? She wasn’t his type, so it wasn’t like he would enjoy killing her or anything. Perhaps he could get some cash out of her over the next couple of days? Then he could grab some of the valuables from the house, take the car and go. She had been useful so far, much more useful than he had even dared to hope. He would keep her around for a few days and see what else he could get out of her, he decided. If anything went wrong, he could take care of her quickly enough.

Ed had an hour or so before the Prison Lady returned from work. He would shower and change. It would be awkward to see her outside jail. She would be expecting affection, probably. That might pose a problem. But she would be able to tell him all about how his little escapade had gone down at Long Bay. He looked forward to that. They would know by now that there was no body. There never had been one there, or at the petrol station. The police would be humiliated. They’d been had.

Ed grinned.

I did it
, he thought.
I’m free.

Andy arrived at Makedde’s hotel room, panting. He knocked on the door impatiently. A fingertip strayed to his gun holster, just in case.

Please let her be here. Please let her be alone…

He could hear footsteps as someone approached the door. There was a pause as he was investigated through the eyehole, and then with a series of clicks the door was opened.

It was Makedde.

Her hair was tied back in a wet ponytail that left her neck moist. She wore a black T-shirt and leather pants, and a challenging look that seemed to say, ‘This better be good.’ Her eyebrows were subtly raised and her lips pushed out in a curious pout, wrinkling her chin with tension. The look in her eyes was one of apprehension. Her arms were crossed, as usual. She had bare feet, which made him feel taller.

‘I have to say, your phone call really freaked me out,’ she began.

‘He escaped,’ Andy said, point-blank, and closed the door behind him. He had decided to waste no time in explaining the emergency. No hellos or how are yous.

‘Escaped,’ she repeated. Her voice was flat.

‘Yes.’

‘I, um, I don’t suppose you would joke about such a thing, or…or…I also doubt that you’re talking about someone’s pet dog, or…’

Grasping at straws. He shook his head gently.

She breathed deeply and let off a humourless laugh. ‘Tell me, Detective, how does one escape when one is a convicted serial killer? I presume that’s who you are talking about?’

She uncrossed her arms and then crossed them again. The warm colour had drained from her face, and now her even features were set against a smooth, deathly pallor. There was a slight flicker of nerves around her mouth. She rarely lost her composure, but she looked on the edge of panic now.

‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘A
guilty, convicted serial killer
, who is presumably under
maximum
security? Hmmm. How does one go about escaping then? What, forty-eight hours after his conviction?’ Her anger and disbelief were palpable.

‘I think we should sit down,’ Andy said.

Mak nodded. He knew she would be in a state of shock, the full realisation not yet hitting her. She sat on the edge of the hotel bed. Andy dragged a chair over and sat near her. She watched him silently. He could not read her thoughts, though he knew they would be dark.

‘Makedde, I am very sorry to give you this news, but Ed Brown escaped from custody today.’ He found himself automatically slipping into the role of a
death-knocker, using that gentle, soothing, emotionless tone he had learned with years of practice.
Just the facts. Stick to the clear facts.
‘At this time, we don’t know his whereabouts. My partner, Jimmy Cassimatis, is in bad shape.’ His voice wavered. ‘The other officers who were present are injured, some badly. Ed used some kind of explosive…somehow.’

She did not respond, but tears filled the corners of her eyes at the mention of Jimmy. Mak didn’t even seem aware of them. A tear ran from an eyelash down to the corner of her mouth. Andy wanted to kiss it away. The frustrating fact that he couldn’t, and the truth about Jimmy and his own helplessness with all of it, brought him close to tears again himself. He blinked the feeling away and made himself emotionally distant again.

‘Ed was supposed to lead a group of officers to the body of one of his victims this morning,’ he went on. ‘He’s done some kind of deal with his confession. They went to look for a body yesterday as well, without incident.’ He paused. This part was hard to say. ‘I was not there when it happened. They wouldn’t let me near Ed so I was left out. Now Jimmy is in hospital instead of me.’

He shouldn’t have said that. That wasn’t really true, was it? If Andy had gone, Jimmy would have been there anyway, and he would have still been in danger. But dammit, something could have been done.
I should have been there. How could I have not been there? How could I have allowed that?

‘Oh poor Jimmy. I’m so sorry,’ Mak said softly. ‘Will he be okay?’

‘They don’t know.’

Andy didn’t know what else to say. He rested his chin on his hands and frowned, lost in his own thoughts.

‘So there really was a deal? My dad said something about that, and you know what, I didn’t even believe him.’ She shook her head. ‘How could something like this happen?’

‘We don’t know,’ was all Andy could offer.

‘When?’

‘About an hour or so ago.’

She shook her head back and forth as she spoke. ‘I just don’t believe it. I mean, there are precautions, right? Surely there are precautions so things like this can’t ever happen? He’s a convicted killer.
Convicted
, Andy! How the hell do you guys operate over here?’

Andy didn’t know what to say. She was absolutely right. After eighteen months in remand, after eighteen months of investigation and hard work putting their case together, they had finally got him. He confessed. He was convicted in a court of law. Then someone had fucked up. It was unthinkable.

‘Was Karen Mahoney there? Is she okay?’

‘She wasn’t there.’

Mak put her head in her hands, clearly distraught.

‘I’ve gotta go, Andy,’ she said.

Her words snapped him out of his thoughts. ‘Pardon?’

She stood up. ‘I’m not going to stay here like a sitting duck. I’m leaving on the next damn flight out of here.’

Andy stood and grabbed her arm. ‘I don’t think you can do that.’

‘Really?’ Her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘And why is that? Are you saying that he can roam around freely, and
I
can’t? Ha!’ She shook his hand off. ‘And get your hand off me. You don’t have any right.’

‘Makedde, I’m sorry. Just calm down. I’ll have to check with—’

‘No,’ she said, her voice steady. ‘You tell whoever your boss is these days that I’m getting on a plane out of here. I have a job in Hong Kong and I’m taking it.’ She walked over to the chest of drawers and one by one pulled them open, throwing her clothes onto the bed. ‘That was my mistake last time. I should have left. I should have just left when I had the chance.’

‘What’s this about Hong Kong?’ he asked, stunned.

‘Work, Andy. I have to work for a living like everyone else. I can’t just fly around the world spilling my guts at useless multiple-murder trials. And I am not spending the next week here while you guys sit around with your thumbs up your arses hoping for Ed Brown to turn up.’

‘Mak, I understand that you are angry,’ Andy pleaded, watching her helplessly. ‘I understand how you must feel, but we must coordinate things to make sure you are safe. We don’t know what he might be up to, or where he is.’

‘You
understand how I feel
? Oh, I doubt that very much Andy. I doubt that very much indeed.’ She
spat the words, and they stung. ‘You couldn’t coordinate yourselves out of a wet paper bag.’

If Ed was dreaming of any one thing, it would be to abduct Makedde again, as he had shortly before his capture. He was still obsessed with her. Andy knew that. One theory was that Ed saw in Makedde a reincarnation of his mother in her youth. More than any of the innocent young women Ed had murdered, Mak personified for Ed a chance to resolve the abuse he’d received in his traumatic childhood. He was driven to destroy her. She looked passingly like the woman his mother had once been, and that was enough for Ed to target her, just as their choice of high-heeled shoes like his mother’s had been enough to make Ed target the others. The police had already turned over Ed’s cell and found the newspaper image of Makedde taped to the back of a photo of his mother. If there had been any belief that his obsession had waned, that find proved otherwise.

It was no surprise that Mak wanted to flee the country.

‘Mak, you can’t just leave.’

She put her hands on her hips, and gave him what he would describe as a ‘fuck-you look’. Her eyes flashed large and then narrowed again. Her sensuous lips were lost in a tight grimace. If she were the violent type, her hands would probably be around his throat. She was right to be disappointed. Perhaps she was even right to want to shoot the messenger.

‘Mak, you don’t understand—’

‘You’re right. I don’t. And I don’t care any more. You can call your superior and tell him, or her, that I have work in Hong Kong, and that’s where I will be as of the next flight out of here. And I won’t be coming back to Australia except to transfer to that flight home. If they can connect me out of Asia, all the better. You guys had your trial and that’s it now. I’ve done enough. Last time, I stuck around to see that Catherine’s killer was caught. Maybe I did the right thing by Catherine, or maybe it was nothing but childish naiveté to think that I could make some difference to the outcome. But this time I have no reason to stick around. None at all.’

He knew what she meant—her words included him.

Angry tears sprang from her eyes. ‘
We had him.
He was convicted, Andy!’ She shoved the chair and it fell on its side. ‘Dammit! This can’t be real! How could you people let something like this happen?’ He put a hand on her shoulder and she relaxed for a brief moment. He moved in to hold her, just wanting to comfort her, but she pulled away.

‘I’m really sorry about Jimmy,’ she said. ‘I know how close you two are.’ She pulled her suitcase open, and flung wide the doors of the wardrobe. She grabbed her clothes off the hangers and tossed them into the case.

‘Please go,’ she said.

He didn’t move.

She turned.

‘Get out, Andy.
Now.
’