Feeding the Demons

‘One of the country’s best crime writers.’

Matt Condon,
Sun Herald

‘
Feeding the Demons
is a psychological thriller with a New-Age bent. Information about police technique and alternative therapies sit side by side, and the plot fulfilment is both a confirmation of spiritual and psychic life, and the solving of several murders. This combination of soft and hard edge is part of Lord’s unique appeal .
 
.
 
.
Feeding the Demons
is certainly a page-turner and an absorbing read. Lord is very good at menace.’

Margaret Simons,
Australian’s Review of Books

‘Lord deserved a wide, discerning audience.’

Peter Pierce,
Bulletin

‘
Feeding the Demons
is a nasty, nasty story, and one of the most effective, harrowing and intense Australian crime fiction novels of the past decade.

‘Anyone who’s read Lord’s previous novels such as
Whipping Boy
and
The Sharp End
will be aware of the praise inherent in the statement that is the Sydney-based writer’s finest novel .
 
.
 
. Lord weaves a complex, masterfully paced story peppered with memorable characters and superb dialogue .
 
.
 
. astonishingly powerful and crafted.’

Stuart Coupe,
Sydney Morning Herald

‘Lord is unputdownable.’

Graeme Blundell,
Weekend Australian

‘She writes with compulsive power.’

Penny Hueston,
The Age

‘Adroitness distinguishes Gabrielle Lord’s ninth novel,
Feeding the Demons,
a racy page-turner exploring the nastier side of human nature. Intricate plot, ratcheting tension and intrepid heroines plus psychopaths, psychotherapy and police profiling equal an engrossing read.’

Murray Waldren,
Australian

‘The many strands of her plot are neatly woven into a coherent and suspenseful whole, complete with the double climax beloved of crime writers.’

Katherine England,
Adelaide Advertiser

‘The narrative is rivetting .
 
.
 
. Apart from powerfully conveying high and low life in a beautifully evoked Sydney, Lord writes with authority and elegance about troubled and threatened lives. Her novel never misses a beat.’

Veronica Sen,
Canberra Times

‘
Feeding the Demons
is trim, taut and terrifying and involves the reader until the last page .
 
.
 
. Lord is a skillful writer who avoids cliches and cheap thrills without diverting attention from the action.’

Jan Dwyer,
Burnie Advocate

Gabrielle Lord
is widely acknowledged as one of Australia’s foremost writers. Her psychological thrillers are informed by a detailed knowledge of forensic procedures, combined with an unrivalled gift for story-telling.

Her first novel,
Fortress
, was published in 1980 and has been translated into six languages, as well as being made into a successful film starring Rachel Ward. Since
Fortress
, Gabrielle has published many other best-selling novels, including
The Sharp End
,
Tooth and Claw
,
Jumbo
,
Salt
and
Whipping Boy
. Her stories and articles have appeared widely in the national press and been published in anthologies. She has written for film and TV and is currently working on a new novel.

Other Gemma Lincoln novels

Baby did a Bad Bad Thing

Shattered

Spiking the Girl

First published in Australia and New Zealand
in 1999 by Hodder Headline Australia Pty Limited
(An imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)
Level 17/207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000
www.hachette.com.au

This edition published in 2000

Copyright © 1999 by Gabrielle Lord

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for
the purposes of private study, research, criticism or
review as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part
may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior
written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Lord, Gabrielle, 1946- .
Feeding the demons.

ISBN 978 0 7336
 
1240 4
ISBN 978 0 7336
 
2559 6 (ebook edition)

I. Title.

A823.3

Cover design by Luke Causby/Blue Cork
eBook by
Bookhouse, Sydney

With grateful thanks to Nicole, Bruce and the others for the work experience, and to Chris for the SCAN.

For Sabina.

‘Mum? It’s me.’

Kit felt her heart contract, melt then shrink. ‘What is it, Will?’ she asked, her voice sharper than she’d intended. She leaned against the counter for support, feeling the clench in her guts, her neck.

‘I’ve got to have money. You’ve
got
to give it to me.
Please
.’

Kit practised several deep breaths. She could see Gerald standing near the kitchen doorway frozen into attention, staring at her, knowing it was their son on the phone, his thick eyebrows contracted.

‘We’ve discussed this, Will,’ she said, keeping her voice as neutral as she could. ‘You know that I can’t do that. I can’t give you any more money. You are a heroin addict’—she said the words as purposefully and as far as possible without anger—‘and you need to seek treatment.’

‘
Fuck that!
’ His voice was a scream. ‘I’m not one of your fucking clients. I need money and you won’t give it to me. A measly hundred bucks is all I’m asking. You want to see me sell myself? Is that what you want?
Is it?
’ Kit imagined her son’s once handsome, open face now contorted with the pain of thwarted need.

‘Will,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘You know I don’t want that. But people who choose to continue to use heroin end up having to do things like that.’

‘You don’t care. You never cared about me.’ He was almost in tears now, raw and strung out.

‘Will,’ she said as the tears overflowed her own eyes and ran down her face, ‘I’m your mother and I love you. You must take responsibility for your own life. No one else in the world can do that. I can no longer support your addiction. I’m going to hang up this phone now. There is no point to this conversation.’ And she did, cutting off his wailing abuse. She was shaking and as she turned to her husband, the phone started ringing again. ‘Don’t pick it up,’ said Gerald, leaving the room, shoulders hunched, head down, leaving her to face everything alone as he always did when the going got tough. Kit hesitated. It might be one of her clients. She didn’t pick up the receiver, letting the answering machine click in, listening to herself saying: ‘Hullo, you’ve rung Kit Westlake. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’ Will’s voice sobbed over the recorded words. ‘Talk to me! Pick up the damn phone. I know you’re there, Mum. Mum,
please
.’

Kit snatched up the phone. ‘Will, I’ll talk to you when you start going to NA and get serious about recovering from your addiction to heroin. Otherwise, I can’t have any contact with you.’ Then she hung up and snatched the phone off the hook with hands that were shaking so much that she nearly sent the whole thing flying. She stood at the sink, staring sightlessly out the window, bringing her breathing slowly under control, pushing tears away with her fingers.

Will’s phone campaign had started some days before, when she’d told him she would no longer supply him with money or a place to live. Intellectually, she knew that what she was doing gave him the best chance of recovery, and that the other way would do nothing but hasten his death. But her mother’s heart broke every time she thought about him and the filthy squat he was living in, the anguish he was experiencing right now, in withdrawal, with its accompanying nausea, pain in head and joints, despair and sickness. She couldn’t help remembering the small, brave boy who had sung his special elephant song for her to cheer her up when she’d been so sad in those days of Gerald’s first deep depression when he couldn’t teach, only sit around or sleep. She understood too well some of the bitter foundations of her son’s later addiction, set up in part by the very nature of that early relationship with her and her depressed husband, where the child had assumed responsibility for the comforting of both parents. Knowing these things too late was very hard for her to bear. But you can’t know what you don’t know, as her therapist Alexander used to say to her in those days, you simply did the only thing you could. No blame, no shame. That’s how it was.

Kit drank a glass of water and walked down to the front of the house, past Gerald’s closed bedroom, and outside. On the right was the therapy room, with its separate entrance.

Kit glanced at the clock. Her usually punctual two pm client had not arrived yet and she was grateful for this extra time. I’ll have to put the phone back on, Kit thought, going back to the kitchen where Gerald now stood with a brandy. She saw he’d already replaced the handset.

‘I’m going to change the phone number,’ he said, ‘to a silent unlisted. I’ve had enough of this.’

‘But, Gerald, that wouldn’t work for me, for my practice. My clients must be able to ring me.’

‘I don’t care. I can’t stand this.’

‘We have to stand it. It’s our son.’

The phone suddenly rang, causing Kit to jump. ‘Don’t answer that!’ Gerald said.

‘I must,’ she said. ‘Merrina might be trying to ring me. She’s late.’

‘Kit, don’t. Let it ring. He’ll keep tormenting you if you keep picking up.’

But she’d already picked it up, bracing herself.

‘Kit. It’s Angie McDonald. Remember me? Gemma’s friend?’

It took Kit a second or two to remember this policewoman, a friend of her sister’s. ‘We’ve got a nasty situation involving one of your clients,’ Angie hurried on to say. ‘That’s why I’m ringing you.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Adrian Adams.’

‘He’s no longer a client. I had to refer him on.’

‘He’s
insisting
that you come. It’s very tense. He’s locked himself in a bathroom with his girlfriend’s eighteen-month-old son. He says if you don’t come he’s going to kill himself and the kid. He refuses to speak to anyone else. I’m sending someone around to pick you up.’

Kit felt agitated so she took a deep breath. ‘Angie, I didn’t have the skill or the experience to deal with him. That’s why I had to refer him on. My presence could make the whole thing worse.’

‘You’ve got to come. You’re the only person in the world he says he’ll talk to. Just come and talk, for Chrissake.’

Kit was aware of someone banging on the door. ‘There’s someone at the door,’ she said.

‘That’ll be Brian Hepplethwaite,’ said Angie. ‘I sent him to collect you. Hurry up.’

It was, and as they sped in a white Commodore along Parramatta Road to the house at Ashfield, Detective Sergeant Brian Hepplethwaite filled her in. ‘The girlfriend rang us earlier,’ he told Kit, occasionally turning his worried face towards her. ‘There’d been a terrible blue last night when she’d tried to break it off with him. Asked him to move out. Now he’s grabbed the little fellow and they’re both in the bathroom. In the bath. Bloody lunatic.’

‘Why don’t you just break the door down,’ Kit asked, ‘and grab him?’

He braked suddenly as someone cut in too close ahead. ‘Stupid prick, sorry ma’am,’ he said in one rush. ‘We can’t. He’s got a bloody radiator in there, perched right on the edge of the bath. Says he’ll drop it in the water if anyone does anything. Said you’re the only person he trusts.’

Kit recalled Adrian Adams, withdrawn, inarticulate and boiling with rage, the thin young man who had asked for her help over his inability to get along with workmates or maintain relationships with women.

‘What about the little boy? Is he all right?’

‘So far. He’s splashing away. But sooner or later he’s going to want to get out.’

‘And then he’ll start crying,’ said Kit. ‘Why can’t you just cut the power to the house?’

The Commodore sped along Parramatta Road, with every set of lights favouring it as if providence was on their side. ‘The Council’s stuffing around trying to find someone who knows the street,’ said Brian. ‘The usual electrician is on leave. It’s an old house that’s been made over into flatettes. The downstairs bathroom is a closed-in verandah. The bloody powerboard is in there, would you believe, on the wall opposite the bath. We’ve got an electrician tracing the wiring plan but the electricals have been done illegally and it’s old and dangerous as hell.’

The car was slowing in front of an old house that would have been a gentleman’s residence at the turn of the century, a formerly fine old Victorian with bay windows and balconies, now stripped of its wrought iron, with enclosed verandahs and the once graceful triple windows at the front of the house punched out and squared to allow aluminium sliding frames.

As they pulled up, Kit saw the unmarked police cars and a huddle of men and women, both in and out of uniform, who stood well back outside the line of vision of anyone in the house.

Brian parked the vehicle and Angie, easily identifiable by her gleaming red hair, detatched herself from a conversation and hurried over to join them. She put her hand through the window.

‘Kit, thanks for coming. He’s in there. Down the side and round the back. Come and I’ll take you.’ Kit got out of the car and followed Angie across the footpath into the front yard of the old house. Angie turned to her without stopping. ‘Tell me about Adrian Adams,’ she said.

Kit followed her around the house, past some police personnel and down an overgrown side path. A long enclosure, fibro and glass and badly in need of painting, ran half the length of the verandah. Two officers from the State Protection Group in blue fatigues and GP boots stood half-hidden in oleander and newly sprouting hydrangea bushes near the fence to the next-door property.

‘He’s intelligent, but that’s not obvious because almost all his energy goes into rage control,’ Kit finally said. ‘He’s capable of great violence.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ hissed Angie as they came closer to the back of the building.

‘He’s the son of professional people and was completely brutalised as a child. By both parents, but especially the father. I worked with him for a few months a couple of years ago, but I wasn’t sure that I had the experience to handle his level of damage and I told him this. He didn’t like it. He’d learned no containment. He was a powder keg—a walking rage bomb. But the good thing was that he knew it and this was the place we started with the work. After a few months, though, I felt he needed a bigger therapist and I mean that in a lot of different ways. So I referred him on to someone much more experienced. Later I heard he didn’t go on with the therapy.’

Ahead of them was the back door to the house, while on the left was the door to the enclosed bathroom where the man and the child were. The two women stepped quietly up onto the back steps. Kit could hear a man singing and the chattering sounds of a very young child. Angie went to the door and knocked.

‘Adrian? It’s me, Angie McDonald. I’ve done what you wanted. I’ve brought Mrs Westlake with me. We want to do everything your way, Adrian, so that no one gets hurt.’

‘Are you really there, Kit? Is she telling the truth?’ His voice was strained, strangled by the tension in his throat.

‘I’m really here, Adrian,’ Kit called back, repeating his words. ‘She’s telling the truth. What do you want me to do for you?’ She tried to keep her voice level and ordinary. ‘Is the little boy all right? And are you all right?’

‘We’re both fine,’ he said. ‘At the moment.’ Kit shivered at the warning. ‘Tell those fucking police to go away. I want to talk privately with you.’

‘I will, Adrian, but they may not take any notice of me.’

‘They’d better,’ he said. ‘This radiator is getting pretty hot.’

Kit turned to Angie, eyebrows raised in question.

‘We can’t go away,’ Angie whispered. ‘That’s not negotiable. We can’t leave that little kid with him.’

‘Could you drive the vehicles away?’ Kit said. ‘He’d hear the sounds of cars leaving at least. It might take some of the pressure off him.’ Angie nodded and ran down the steps. Kit turned her attention back to the locked door.

‘Could you unlock the door?’ she asked. ‘I could come in and talk with you in private.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘If I get out of the bath, Jed might knock the radiator in. It’s too dangerous.’

‘Could you turn the radiator off, Adrian? It’s hard for me to talk with you, knowing that you’re both in danger like this.’

There was a silence. ‘Now that,’ he said finally, ‘is something that I cannot do, not even for you.’

Kit’s mind was working furiously. She was trying to find a way to defuse this, take the pressure down a few notches. She pressed up against the frosted glass louvres on the left-hand side of the locked door, feeling hopeless. From the front of the house came the sounds of vehicles starting up.

‘Can you hear that, Adrian? The police cars are leaving from the front of the house. They’re moving away. I know you’re doing this for a reason. Just tell me what it is. Let’s work out a way that gets you what you want without all this muddle.’

Kit was aware of Angie tiptoeing back up the steps and remaining silent and close behind her. Kit had found a tiny peephole, a space between the housing for the old louvres and the ancient timber of the window frames. She squinted to see, then motioned Angie to come up and take a look. Angie looked through a moment, then withdrew, scribbling something on her notebook. Kit automatically read it upside down: ‘Powerboard on wall on left’, she read, ‘between side and back louvres at about one and a half metres’. Angie ripped the page out and passed it to one of the SPG officers.

Through the tiny gap, Kit could see the bath set into a long bench that ran the length of the right-hand wall. Behind the man’s head, bottles of shampoo and cleaning fluids had been knocked aside to make room for the old-fashioned one-bar radiator that glowed red. Adrian Adams was sitting up in the bath, rocking back and forth, and in front of him, with his back to Kit, was the small boy. Kit drew back, alerted by a sudden stealthy movement from the two State Protection officers near the bottom of the steps.

They were speaking with a third who was indicating something inside the bathroom, probably the position of the powerboard, thought Kit, and pointing to the external wall.

‘Let’s make a contract, Adrian,’ Kit said. ‘Let’s find a way together to make this situation turn out well. You tell me why you’re doing this—what you want—and we’ll sort it out.’ Adrian had stopped rocking while she spoke, and was staring straight at her without seeing her, his eyes black with demons.