Heller’s Decision (22 page)

He laughed.

“
I
will
shoot you,” I promised in my tough chick voice.

His face crinkled with amusement. His
jolliness was really starting to irritate me.

“Go on. Do it. You haven’t got the balls.” He
took a few steps towards me.

“
Don’t
tempt me.” I took a step backwards. “I probably have bigger
balls than you do.”

“
The safety’s on,” he s
aid, grinning again, advancing.

“
Don’t bullshit me, sunshine,” I blustered,
not having a clue if it was or not or whether the gun even had
one.

I decided if he took one more step towards
me I was going to shoot him. Somewhere
that wouldn’t kill him, like his shoulder or his
leg.

He took another step closer. I pulled the
trigger, aiming at his shoulder. The gun didn’t work. I couldn’t
depress the trigger.

He laughed. “I told you the safety was on,
you dumb bitch.”

I threw the gun at him, hitting him on the
forehead. He staggered backwards with the impact and I rushed him,
shoulder first. My momentum was too strong and I knocked him
flying, going down with him, in a tangle of arms and legs. We
struggled for a while, Benjy hovering, wanting to help, but not
sure what to do. I reached into the other pocket of my jeans and
pulled out his switchblade. I flicked the blade out and held it to
his throat.

“I do know how to use this, fucker, so keep
squirming and you’ll be soon be a kebab.”

He stopped struggling once he felt the
sharp prick of the blade against his neck. I watched, almost
mesmerized, as a few drops of blood squeezed from his neck against
the blade.

“
Benjy, find more twine. And fetch me the
frying pan again. This guy obviously hasn’t learned his lesson
yet.”

He thrash
ed about then, bucking me off him, making me drop
the knife. We wrestled each other on the floor, trying to prevent
each from grabbing it. With his hand in my face, he reached out and
was just about to close his fingers around it when a boot-clad foot
stood on his wrist. He shrieked in pain.

A cold, calm voice spoke from the inner
door. “Go outside now, Matilda. And take that boy with you. Go wait
in my car.”

I looked up from the ground. Heller stood
at the door, his gun aimed at the PRON man, his face cold and hard,
Clive and Farrell not far behind him. They were all filthy, bruised
and a little bloodied.

Heller forcefully hauled the man upwards
to his feet. I suspected it would be a long time before he felt
like grinning again.

“
Matilda, I said to leave, please. I meant
now,” Heller ordered, the expression on his face not encouraging me
to argue with him. I took Benjy by the hand and we exited, jogging
around the side of the building to where Barb and Roger still
huddled. Not a sound could be heard from inside the building when
we passed the front door.

We waited
at the side until Heller, Clive and Farrell found
us, Heller kneeling down to examine Bick. He looked up at
Clive.

“
You know what to do.” Clive nodded, his
face a stony mask. “And do it properly. I don’t want any questions
being asked. I’m taking Barnes to the hospital. Farrell, take the
clients back to their hotel. Matilda, you and the boy come with
me.”

Farrell scooped up a shaky, weeping Barb
and woozy Roger. Heller flung Bick over his shoulder, though not
without some effort. Benjy and I followed Heller to his 4WD. He
propped a still unconscious Bick in the front seat. Benjy and I sat
in the back seat, not saying a word to each other. And from the way
which Benjy continually cast fearful glances at Heller, it didn’t
take a genius to work out the young boy was afraid of
him.

“
Where do you live?” Heller barked at
Benjy. He managed to stammer out his address after a few attempts.
The 4WD spun off into the night and it was a quiet trip to Benjy’s
suburb.

“
Thank you for everything you did to help
me,” I said softly, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. Silent,
he nodded and scrambled from the vehicle as soon as it stopped,
almost running into his parents’ house. He didn’t look back at
us.

Heller drove to the hospital, bullying the
emergency staff into prioritising the unconscious Bick. We sat in
the waiting room for hours
and though Heller was probably oblivious, I noticed the
curious glances thrown our way. And sure, we both looked a little
roughed up.

I
used some of the time to ring Dixie to give her a heavily
edited version of what had happened to Bick. She wanted to rush to
the hospital straight away but I discouraged her. It was a long
trip for her and she currently didn’t own a car. By the time she
arrived she would have missed visiting hours. I promised to let her
know as soon as we heard anything from the doctors, and she was
happy to leave it at that.

I
grew increasingly weary after the whole awful day, but
Heller remained alert and awake, responding to emails on his phone.
I leaned against the solid comfort of his shoulder as he worked, my
eyes feeling heavy. On a post-adrenaline slump, I was physically,
mentally and emotionally exhausted.

“
I told you to stay in the vehicle,” he
said softly, rearranging himself so his arm was around me and I was
able to nestle more comfortably on his chest.

“
I wanted to stay there too,” I protested
weakly, eyes closing. “The gun insisted otherwise.”

He kissed my forehead. “You were very
brave today
, my
sweet.”

“I didn’t feel very brave.”

“Nonetheless, you were. I’m sure the clients
and Barnes will be very grateful for what you did.”

“What happened to those PRON men?” I mumbled,
half-asleep.

He kissed my forehead again. “Get some
sleep. We might be here a while.”

Too tired to even care he’d avoided
answering yet another of my questions,
I soon fell asleep against his chest, my dreams
jumbled and disturbed, full of smoke and guns. I jerked and
twitched in my sleep in response. What seemed like a second later,
someone was trying to wake me. Reluctant to return to the conscious
world, I shrugged off the hand on my arm.

“
Go away,” I gr
umbled, trying to turn over in bed, only to
discover I wasn’t in bed at all. I blearily forced opened my eyes,
still red and raw from the smoke grenades. I didn’t see anything in
the near vicinity I liked, so I shut my eyes again, leaning against
my hard, but somehow comforting, pillow.

“
Barnes briefly woke up,” someone said in
my ear, and my neurons fired up immediately. I sat up, rubbing my
eyes, which refused to focus properly.

“Is he okay?” I asked.

“He’ll live.”

“What time is it?”

“Quarter past three in the morning.”

“Is he really going to be okay?”

“Yes. All the tests are good. He was just
knocked out. A bit of blood loss, some bruising. He’ll feel sorry
for himself tomorrow, but he’ll live.”

“Can I see him?”

“
I’ll ask, but he’s gone to
sleep.”

I suspected he forced the hospital staff
to let me visit Bick, but however it happened, I soon looked down
at his appealing face, relaxed and vacant in sleep, massive
bruising already visible on one side of his forehead. After I’d
assured myself of his safety, I sent Dixie a text message,
promising to take her to visit him tomorrow.

I turned
to Heller. “I need to sleep.”

“
I know. Let’s go.” And
holding my hand, he led me to the vehicle,
to his flat, and to his shower. I apathetically undressed and
washed myself, slipping into some clean pyjamas afterwards. While
he showered, I turned his TV to the news channel, sipping a glass
of milk, equally hoping and dreading to see some report on the
night’s activities. He joined me on the lounge, smelling good, his
skin still slightly damp. An item about a major fire at a building
in an industrial estate led the broadcast. Accompanying footage
showed a number of fire engines at the site and firefighters
battling a fiercely burning inferno. The newsreader told us
solemnly that it took four hours to extinguish the
blaze.

“
I hope no firefighters were injured
putting that out,” I commented neutrally, eyes fixed on the screen,
not wanting to look into his. I was afraid of what I’d see
there.

“So do I, Matilda,” he replied, equally
neutral.

“What happened to those men? Were they inside
the building when it burnt?”

“
You don’t need to worry about them.
Whatever happened at that building is my business, not yours. I
don’t want you to think about it.”

“
That’s not going to make me stop me
thinking about it.”

“
It should.”

My phone rang. I frowned, puzzled. It was
4:30 AM. Who would be ringing me at this time? I padded over to
where I had left it and answered.

“
Tilly, it’s Brian.”

“
Hello, Brian,” I said in cautious answer
to my oldest brother.

“I’m at the scene of a fire in an industrial
estate at the back of town. The fireys eventually managed to put it
out, but they’ve discovered something very interesting in the
ruins.”

“
Really?” My eyes shot over to Heller. He
didn’t bother to hide the fact that he was listening in to my
conversation.

“Yes. Some bodies. Quite a number of them
actually.”

“
Why are you telling me
this
?”

“
For one thing, these people didn’t burn to
death. They were already dead when the place was torched. The
inspector has assured us that from his preliminary investigation,
it appears this was a deliberately lit fire. There are traces of
accelerant everywhere. Obviously we don’t have any autopsy results
yet, but the forensics team is pretty confident we’re going to find
that the men were all shot dead before the fire
started.”

“
Again, why are you telling me this? Why
would you think I’d want to know about terrible things like
that?”

“
We have a witness. Not a good witness. Not
a reliable witness. A homeless drunk, actually. But he swears on
his mother’s grave that he saw a flotilla of black 4WDs driving
away from that building just before the fire flared up. He doesn’t
know the make or model, of course, but I thought that was
interesting. Don’t you, Tilly?”

“
Heller’s
isn’t the only business with a fleet of
black vehicles, if that’s what you’re implying. I think you’re
scratching around here.”

“
Yes, but everything was done so
professionally, that my thoughts naturally turned to
him.”

“
Well, I’m not sure what to say, Brian. I
don’t know anything about it. In fact I was just watching the news
about that fire and hoping that no firefighters were injured
putting it out.”

“Why are you up so late?”

“
I’m not up late, I’m up early,” I lied.
“I’m an early riser now. I have to fit a workout into my day now.”
Lie upon lie. And all to a cop. I should have been ashamed of
myself.

His job had deeply ingrained scepticism
into
his psyche and I
supposed he’d heard a lot of untruths from various people over the
years. Add that there was no love lost between Heller and him and
he didn’t approve of me working for him, it was clear he didn’t
believe me.

“If you hear anything, you’d better come and
tell me. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you it’s a criminal
offence to be an accessory to a crime, even after the fact.”

“I told you, I don’t know anything about
it.”

He rang off without saying goodbye. He
didn’t trust Heller at all and was very suspicious of his
activities. In that respect, Brian was a top-notch
detective.

Heller raised his eyebrows in query, so I
told him abo
ut the
witness. And the bodies.

He shrugged. “There were some unavoidable
casualties, Matilda. Some gunfire was exchanged.”

“
How many are ‘some’ casualties? And did
they include any of your men?”

“
None of mine.” It was only a half-answer.
His face was bland and emotionless, impossible to read. But he
didn’t seem worried about Brian’s witness in the slightest,
standing and pulling me up by my hands.

“
Y
ou need to sleep,” he insisted and I couldn’t disagree,
gratefully falling into his bed.

As if sensing my inner turmoil about
everything that had happened tonight,
especially his involvement in it, his lovemaking
was tender and considerate. And though it troubled me that I agreed
to sex with him after such an experience, perhaps losing myself in
the sheer sensuousness of him moving inside me, his warm lips and
hands on my body, was the best comfort of all.

Chapter 15

I
’d worried I would have nightmares, but I didn’t, though I
did have a very vivid dream. I woke up late in the morning to find
Heller still asleep next to me – a rare event. I lay in bed
pondering my dream for a while, leaving him to sleep. I couldn’t
make up my mind if it had any significance or not.