Promise (8 page)

‘Okay. Where’s the child now, Anna?’ The woman was trying to calm her down.

‘I have her here in my house. She crawled through the fence into my backyard.’

‘What time did she do that?’

‘Oh. Ten minutes ago, if that.’ Anna checked the time on her phone. ‘Let’s say four thirty.’

‘Where’s the mother?’

‘Not at home, I don’t think.’ She stepped inside the bathroom. ‘Is Mummy at home, Charlie?’

Charlie shook her head.

‘Do you know where she is?’

Charlie shook her head again. She lay the washer neatly over her thighs.

Anna said, ‘She doesn’t know where the mother is. And she has an injured arm. There’s a bruise on it and she told me that it happened because she was naughty.’

‘Do you have a phone number for the mother?’

‘No.’

The woman typed something into a computer. ‘What were the words she used to describe the stepfather putting her head down the toilet?’

‘That . . . he put her head in the toilet and flushed it and wouldn’t let her out and the water went in her nose and she couldn’t breathe.’

‘And what date do you believe that happened?’

‘First of December. I made a report that night about the shouting and banging and crying. I didn’t know about the toilet.’

The woman asked Anna to describe Harlan holding Charlie by the feet and Anna stumbled over the words, her mouth dry. She had really believed that he might drop Charlie on her head.

‘Okay, thank you,’ said the woman. ‘I encourage you to call the police about the threat that your neighbour made to you.’

‘But last time I called them . . . she said she got in trouble.’ Anna took a breath. ‘Look, are you going to come here now? The stepfather is right next door and could turn up any moment. He shoved her head down a toilet! And somebody bit her. I called you about the bite before. What are you going to do?’ She heard her voice getting shrill. ‘Come and get her.
Please
.
Please
.’

‘I understand that this is distressing. And you absolutely did the right thing in calling. Your report will be fed through to the local office straightaway. But if you need an immediate response, you should call the police.’

‘If I do that, will they keep her safe?’

‘I can’t say what the police will do or how soon they’ll attend.’

Anna wanted to throw the phone down the hall. ‘Aren’t you meant to be looking after her?’ She was shouting now. ‘Isn’t that your . . . whole . . .
brief
? What will it take for someone to come and take care of this child? Does she have to
die
for you to do something?’

She hung up and tossed the phone onto the dining table.

In the bath, Charlie sat quietly, watching Anna with big eyes. Oh god, the girl had just heard Anna talk about her dying. Anna knelt on the tiles beside the bath and turned the water off. The bruise on Charlie’s arm looked very sore, it was darker and bigger than last night.

No one out there was taking responsibility for this child. Not a single bloody person. Not those polite women on the end of the phone, not the police officers who left Charlie there last night. Not the neighbours who must have heard the screams too. Everyone just assumed that someone else would take care of it. Everyone looked the other way.

Anna was suddenly exhausted. Perhaps it had been hubris to think she could step in and alter the path Charlie was heading down, perhaps this exhaustion was a sign that she was pushing too hard, trying to push shit uphill. She’d probably just made things much worse for Charlie.

Charlie’s voice was tiny. ‘Do I have to go home now?’

The girl was completely at Anna’s mercy. Anna took a shaky breath and tried to smile. ‘When Mummy gets back, I’ll take you home.’

Anna traced the rough edge of the tiles on the side of the bath. She had to know. ‘Was Mummy there when Harlan put your head in the toilet?’

Charlie didn’t move for a moment, then she gave a small nod.

In that quiet bathroom, Anna was filled with a terrible, helpless dread that she would be sending Charlie next door to her death, and later, when the girl was dead, when she was the subject of a few indignant newspaper articles like the one Anna read about the little Newcastle boy, Anna would look back on this moment when Charlie sat trustingly in her bath, the orange washer on her lap.

Charlie rested her hand on Anna’s arm. Her fingers were cold. ‘I don’t want to go home.’

Someone had to take this girl away from Harlan and Gabby. To take someone else’s child was wrong. But what if the wrong thing – the illegal thing – was also the right thing?

What if taking a child from its mother was the lesser of two evils?

Anna helped the girl out of the bath and dried her. Anna’s mind spun and her cheeks fizzed with heat, with fear. Could she go through with this? She took hold of Charlie’s hands. Such small fingers. ‘You don’t have to go home. You’re
not
going home. You’re coming with me.’

Charlie gazed back at her and gave a small nod. Her face seemed stripped of emotion but her eyes were busy, flicking from Anna’s face and then around the bathroom.

In her bedroom, Anna found a pair of her shorts that Charlie could wear, with a ribbon for a belt. Then she heard the rumble of the ute as it pulled into the driveway.

Gabby.

Through the kitchen window, Anna watched Gabby walk up the front steps. Anna ran to the bathroom, where Charlie stood on the mat.

‘Quick,’ said Anna, holding out the shorts. ‘Into these.’

Her hands shook as she tied the ribbon and dragged the girl’s singlet over her head.

‘Come on.’

As she guided Charlie to the front door, she picked up her phone and handbag, and the toy rabbit.

Her car was parked on the street right out the front, in a direct line of sight from Gabby and Harlan’s house. Their front yard was empty but how long would it take for Gabby to guess where Charlie was?

‘Let’s run to my car. It’s the silver one just there.’

Charlie didn’t respond, so Anna gripped the girl’s hand and hustled her down the path and over the nature strip. Hot fear shot through her as she helped the girl slide onto the back seat.

‘Quick, quick,’ she said. ‘I’ll fix the seatbelt later.’

It seemed to take ages to open the driver’s door and slide the key into the ignition. There was still no sign of Gabby or Harlan. She started the car, her foot shaking on the accelerator, and pulled out. She drove straight ahead, towards Wentworth Avenue.

At the corner, she glanced in the rear-view mirror, half-expecting to see Harlan’s ute behind her, but the street was empty. Charlie sat up on the back seat in Anna’s too-big shorts, Bunny on her lap.

‘Why don’t you lie down on the seat and have a snooze?’ said Anna. The girl would be less visible that way. Charlie obediently lay down as Anna turned left onto Wentworth.

‘What’s your name again?’ the girl asked.

Oh god. Charlie didn’t even remember her name. The girl was letting a stranger drive away with her.

‘Anna. My name’s Anna.’

She was driving too fast. She slowed and followed a delivery truck up to the lights. Every second that passed landed her in deeper shit. She had just kidnapped someone’s child, for god’s sake. She should turn around now. But that would mean delivering Charlie back to that man. Even now, with a few kilometres between them, Anna could feel him at her back. How must it have been for Charlie to live in that house with him, knowing that her mother would not protect her? She glanced back at the girl.

‘I’m sleepy,’ said Charlie.

‘Just close your eyes and have a little nap, then.’

She followed the truck through the traffic lights. She may well look back on these moments and regret not turning around, but this was the only way she knew to make sure Charlie didn’t end up like that little boy in Newcastle. If she thought about that little boy, it wasn’t so hard to keep driving. She just had to find somewhere safe for her and Charlie to be for a few days, just long enough to draw attention to Charlie’s case. Anna would be in the shit, but Charlie would be alive.

O
nce she got onto the M5, she’d have a straight shot west out of the city. She pulled up at another set of lights, and glanced in the mirror for Harlan’s black ute.

Her phone rang. It was Dave. She let it ring. She shouldn’t talk to him. But she wanted to hear his voice.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘Hey, darling. How are things over there?’ He’d only just started calling her darling. He had jazz on in the background.

The light turned green and she accelerated. If she told him what she was doing, he’d have to report it, surely. She should hang up.

‘Are you driving?’ he asked.

‘Yeah . . . I’m leaving town for a while.’

‘What do you mean?’

She turned to check on Charlie, who was fast asleep on her side, her mouth open and slack.

‘Well, I have the little girl from next door in my car. This afternoon the stepfather was hanging her upside-down and shaking her really hard. And she told me that he put her head down the toilet and flushed it, that night we went over.’

‘He did that the night we went over?’

‘Yeah. That’s why she had a towel on her head. And he threatened me today. He threatened you too, for calling the cops. And FACS are
bloody
useless.’

Tears filled her eyes. ‘I was so scared, Dave. I thought he was going to hurt me. And I called FACS just now, and I called them last night as well, and
nothing happens
.’

She was talking too loudly, and glanced back to make sure she hadn’t woken Charlie. ‘I’m afraid she’ll be killed. I really am. You saw the guy.’ She tried not to let Dave hear that she was crying.

He exhaled slowly and she felt him measuring his words.

‘Yeah. I saw him. And you’re right, he’s . . . a mad fuck. But Anna.
Anna
. You
cannot
just abduct someone else’s child. So is she in the car with you now?’

‘Yes.’ She wanted him to say that she’d done the right thing.

He sighed. ‘Oh, shit. Abducting a child is a serious offence. Darling, pull over. Just pull over for a few minutes so we can talk about it. There will be another way for us to sort this out.’

‘I know it’s big. I know it’s serious, but I’m not pulling over. We’ve already called all the right people and they’re not doing anything.’

‘Well, maybe they haven’t had a chance to do anything yet.’

‘You’re the one who said that some kids weren’t visited after seventeen phone calls.’

‘Come here. Bring her to my place. We’ll handle it together.’

The idea of having Dave at her side was so appealing.

He said, ‘We’ll go down to Bondi cop station and we’ll do what we can to get her into care. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To get her away from the father.’

‘
Step
father.’

She stopped behind a line of traffic and peered ahead to read the sign. Foreshore Rd. She pulled into the right lane.

‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Just heading out of the city.’

‘So how long are you planning to abscond with her for?’ he said. ‘What’s your plan?’

‘Just long enough to get attention to her case. I just want to keep her safe from him.’

‘And if the girl is the actual evidence of the abuse . . .’ he spoke slowly, ‘then you are removing the evidence. What you’re doing’s brave and honourable but it’s also going to fuck up your life. Trust me, you do not want to end up in jail. Bring her here and we’ll take care of it together.’

Jail. That really was the consequence of what she was doing, wasn’t it? She felt sick.

‘Anna? Are you there?’

‘So if I bring her to your place, can you guarantee that we’ll be able to get her into care tonight? Can you guarantee she won’t go back to those two next door?’

The traffic started moving and she turned right.

‘No . . .’ He paused. ‘No, of course I can’t. But I guarantee you’ll end up charged with a serious crime unless you stop right now.’

‘But I’d still get charged, wouldn’t I? Even if I handed her to the cops now?’

He was silent. ‘Maybe you would. But . . . I doubt you’d end up in jail. Why don’t you just take her home and say you took her out for an ice-cream or something?’

She sighed and shook her head. ‘But can’t you see? I’d be giving her back to that man. Charlie’s terrified of him. She pissed her pants when she was hiding from him in my garden. What you can do is tell the cops why I’ve taken her.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ll have every opportunity to do that, don’t worry. But, you know, their primary focus will be the fact that she’s been
abducted
.’ He spoke urgently. ‘Anna, for god’s sake, don’t do this!’

‘Someone has to take care of this girl.’ She wanted to hang up now. The conversation was going in circles.

‘You realise I have to call the police and tell them what you’ve told me?’

‘Don’t do it straightaway, Dave. Wait a bit.’

He sounded pained. ‘I have to call straightaway. Otherwise I’m aiding you – not a good look for a lawyer.’

‘Right.’
Shit
. She gripped the steering wheel. She shouldn’t have answered the phone.

‘They’ll look at your phone records and see when you called me. I have to call when we hang up.’

She exhaled shakily. ‘Okay.’

‘Sure you don’t want to bring her here?’

‘I’m sure.’

He sighed. ‘Oh, Anna. Please think about what you are doing.’

‘Bye, Dave.’

‘Take care.’

She threw the phone onto the passenger seat. Every cop car in Sydney would be looking for her in about five minutes, and she had no idea where she was heading. She couldn’t go to her dad’s. Could she and Charlie just camp in the bush? She imagined sleeping in the car, with no bedding to speak of, no clothes for Charlie, no food. She had friends near Grafton and Bathurst, but the police would surely check those places after looking at her phone and email records. Her laptop was open on the kitchen table, waiting for them.

The road merged onto the motorway and she pulled into the left lane and dialled her dad’s number. The call flicked through to his answering machine. He still had the ancient machine that her mum bought when they were new and fancy. His voice was thin and wobbly on the old cassette. ‘Hello. Neville Pierce is not home. Please leave a message after the beep.’