I glanced to the left, thinking maybe I could dive out of the way, but she saw me looking.
‘Just try it,’ she said. ‘I’m not only smarter than you, I’m quicker, more coordinated.’
I glared at her and didn’t think I’d ever hated anybody more, which was really saying something. Everything that had happened was her fault and she had absolutely no remorse.
She was actually congratulating herself. I thought of a way to bring her down a peg and get her to finally swing the axe.
I couldn’t wait anymore. I wanted this over with, either way, and maybe if I made her angry enough her famous reflexes might desert her.
‘It’s funny that you hate your stepmother so much,’ I said sweetly, ‘because the two of you are so similar.’
‘No we’re not!’
‘Well, maybe not looks-wise, but your expressions and mannerisms and the way you justify your actions. You’re so alike it’s uncanny. Nurture over nature, huh?’
‘Liar!’
‘No, no, I’m serious. You’re practically twins!’
She screamed with rage and swung and as the axe reached its zenith I chucked the stump at her. I was just preparing to dive sideways, realising with a sinking feeling that her aim was still accurate, when the insulation paper rustled and Andi’s corpse sat bolt upright, grabbed Holly’s ankle and said, ‘Boo.’
Holly shrieked and automatically whipped her head around and I rushed forward, slamming into her chest. She fell backwards over Andi and the axe slipped from her grip but it was too late, the weapon continued on its downward trajectory and slammed into my back, just inside my left shoulderblade.
The blow made me arch and I felt only pressure, relieved the edge was too blunt to pierce my skin, until a warm wetness gushed down to my waistband and the throbbing and burning kicked in. My legs gave way and I sank to my knees, the axe dislodging from the wound and clattering to the floor. I fell forward onto my stomach, sweating despite the cold, a wave of nausea swamping my guts. Andi had lain back down and I wondered if the whole thing had been some bizarre hallucination.
Holly had crawled halfway across the room to get away from Andi and when she got over the shock she laughed nervously, stood up and brushed herself off.
‘Why won’t you bitches stay dead? Do I have to chop your fucking heads off?’
The thought must have worked for her because she came toward me, reaching for the bloody axe. I grabbed it first, ignoring the pain and the fact I was probably dying, pulled myself to my knees and swung it at her shins. She yelped and jumped back. Now she wasn’t so brave.
I dragged myself to my feet and lurched towards her like something out of
Night of the Living Dead
, the room spinning around me. She turned and bolted out the door onto the landing and half a second later I heard a crack and a scream. I snatched the torch off the chest of drawers and when I got to the corridor saw her trying to yank her leg out of a hole in the floor. I swung the axe, too far away to strike but scaring the living shit out of her.
She wrenched free, scuttled to the top of the stairs and started to propel herself down, but her long scarf tangled in the banister knob at the top. The material tightened and she jerked back and swayed sideways into the railing. It shattered, gave way and she plummeted over the side of the staircase and dangled in the air, legs kicking uselessly.
I sank to my knees on the landing, shone the torch at her and watched as she writhed like a worm on a fishhook. Her face was turning purple and her eyes and tongue bulged like a character from some grotesque cartoon. She was lucky, I thought, practically delirious, the wound in my back pulsing and bleeding. It would all be over for her soon and was a much more pleasant death than being stuck down a dank, dark pit or hacked apart with an axe.
Suddenly incredibly tired, I rested my head against the railing and that’s when I heard it, the faint, faraway squawking of her baby, crying in the back seat of the car. A part of me wanted her to die, knew she deserved to, but another part …
I put down the torch, lifted the axe, swung it at the banister and sheared through the scarf. The house shuddered as her body slumped to the floor. I didn’t know if she was conscious or not, but by that stage I really didn’t care.
I crawled all the way back to the room, dragging the axe behind me, and collapsed next to Andi. My shoulder throbbed and my limbs ached and a brown kaleidoscope edged my vision. I needed to sleep, a little nap, just for a few seconds, but before I did I forced myself up on one elbow to look at Andi and at the same time she turned her head to me. In the half light I could just make out a pale, skeletal face.
She tried to laugh, but all that came out was a hacking rasp. ‘Scared the shit out of that bitch, huh?’
‘Scared the shit out of me,’ I croaked. ‘You’re dead, right?’
‘Not quite. Would be if it hadn’t rained. I collected water in that old bedpan you knocked over. Roof leaks like a bastard.’
‘You smell dead.’
‘That’s just fucking rude. It’s my leg. Gangrene, I reckon.’
‘Fuck.’
I rolled onto my back and my eyelids fluttered. So heavy.
I forced them open and coughed and rough grit jumped from my lungs to my mouth and crunched between my teeth.
‘Thanks for saving me,’ she whispered. ‘I knew you would.’
I would have laughed except it would have taken too much effort. I was dying, Andi was dying and Chloe too, out on the road. No matter. We’d all meet up in heaven. I had a vision of the afterlife as a tacky, tropical 18–35s resort and the three of us sitting at some thatched cocktail bar drinking margaritas and checking out the barman’s butt.
Just before my eyelids sank down for the last time the moon slipped out from behind the clouds and washed the frosty night silver. I looked out the window and saw that it was raining. No, not rain—snow. Soft, sparkling flakes, spiralling in slow motion.
Everything went silent, the baby, the night birds, the crickets and the frogs. All was hushed beneath the still, soundless snow.
It was my twenty-ninth birthday and I was sitting in my new office, a narrow shopfront that had once been a shoe store on Carlisle Street, Balaclava. Music and the smell of frying sausages wafted down from upstairs. It had been Chloe’s idea to have a combined birthday party and grand opening for both of our businesses.
I’d painted over the plate glass window for privacy and had partitioned the front of the office into a waiting room furnished with a cheap IKEA couch, rubber plant and a low rectangular table fanned with magazines. The room I sat in, directly behind it, contained the minimum requirements for a fledgling PI: desk, high backed fake leather chair and the two blue armchairs that had come with the couch. A TV and DVD player perched on a unit in the corner, the combined fax, printer and copier sat on the shelf behind me, and a couple of squat filing cabinets were holed up under the shelf.
I’d stashed my new cameras, high powered binoculars and listening devices in a safe bolted to the floor and my new computer sat to one side of the L-shaped desk.
Out the back there was a tiny kitchenette with a kettle, microwave and bar fridge and a small, square bathroom containing a toilet, sink and tiny shower. Best of all was the innocuous white secondhand Ford Laser in the parking lot. She had cloth upholstery, air conditioning and power steering, and I was keeping her secret from the Futura. Who knew what sort of expensive repairs the Beast would demand if she found out about my prissy new mistress? The rest of my savings had gone on advertising and a website, and I’d managed to completely max out my credit card. I was four grand in the red and tried not to think about it too much because every time I did I felt like throwing up.
Things had worked out okay in the end, after the showdown with Holly. Well, as good as could be expected. The cavalry had arrived at first light and Holly had been hospitalised then arrested. Chloe had a broken leg and concussion, I’d needed stitches and staples and had ended up with a nasty scar but that was nothing compared to Andi, who’d had her left leg amputated just below the knee. She’d cried nonstop for a week, then suddenly snapped out of it and started making off-colour amputee jokes and bad
Are You Being Served?
style puns about stumps. She was an amazing chick. I’d have been a total basket case if it had happened to me.
Andi told me how she’d got onto the case in the first place.
She’d been staying with Joy in the June holidays and one day, bored, she’d started going through boxes of old photos. In amongst pictures of demonstrations and women’s lib meetings and even the famous Tonka Truck Christmas, she’d found a photograph of Melody talking to Peta. Andi had studied the national missing persons website for her uni assignment and she recognised Melody straight away, but when she asked Joy, and later Peta, they both said they couldn’t remember who Melody was. Andi hadn’t believed them and knew she was on to something big.
I did get a major shock at the hospital, though, when I came to and grabbed the nearest nurse’s arm.
‘My friend Chloe, did she make it?’
She’d smiled down on me and patted my hand. ‘Your friend’s fine, dear. And so is the baby.’
When I finally figured out she wasn’t talking about Holly’s kid, I’d almost fallen out of my hospital bed. Turned out Chloe had been more than four months along and hadn’t even known. She’d always had irregular periods and thought she could never get knocked up after a number of abortions as a teenager. Curtis had been delighted, until she’d dumped him and said that although she wanted him to be part of the baby’s life, she was raising it on her own. On her own was right. Much as I loved her, babysitting wasn’t in my repertoire.
Alex had eventually come out of his coma, but he still wasn’t a hundred percent and was on indefinite leave while he continued with tests and rehabilitation. I found out from Sean that he had lesions on the frontal lobe, the part of the brain that kept aggression and impulse control in check, and the police service didn’t want him back until they were sure he was normal. The injury had also led to problems moving his left arm. He was still getting married to Suzy, with Sean as best man, but not surprisingly the bridesmaid offer had been withdrawn. I’d obeyed Suzy and stayed well away and although Alex had rung me a couple of times, I hadn’t returned the calls.
Once … okay, more than once, I’d driven down to his place, parked out of sight and spied on him, telling myself I was just testing my new, high powered binoculars. I’d seen him sitting on his balcony in a bathrobe, patting Graham, and another time I’d watched as he and Suzy walked slowly on the beach. It had looked like he wasn’t real steady on his feet and it broke my heart.
And Sean, well, Sean was coming back within the week.
I’d actually managed to stay faithful to him, which was a first, and was looking forward to a guilt free reunion. I was excited but nervous as well. Our time together had been so brief and I hadn’t seen him for six months. Would we get on? I could barely remember what he looked like apart from the fact that he had reddish hair and looked a little like Ewan McGregor, which was fine by me.
Mum still wasn’t speaking to me and I supposed I couldn’t blame her. Saving Andi had assuaged the guilt somewhat but Steve’s death still ate away at me. I was actually getting counselling for it, but wasn’t telling anyone. Didn’t want to ruin my image as a tough PI. My brother Jasper was staying with Mum and picking up Sydney based modelling jobs. He’d threatened to come to Melbourne and visit in the not too distant future.
Joy’s mum passed on, but Andi saw her one last time before she died and Joy reckoned it was almost like she was hanging on just to see her granddaughter, and after she had she was able to let go.
Jouissance had shut down and another restaurant was about to open up at the same site. Patsy had a job at a three-hat place in the city and was moonlighting for Chloe while he tried to save for his business. Trip, along with Rochelle and a raft of others, had been charged with money laundering, but was free on bail and had started filming his extreme lifestyle show.
Rochelle had also been charged with Melody’s murder, but the case wouldn’t come to court for a while. Yasmin wasn’t working in hospitality anymore, and had actually picked up a lucrative gig as the ‘face’ of a major brand of panty-liners. With Holly in jail Dillon had been forced to abandon his dreams of making it in LA to become a stay at home dad.
I put my feet up on my desk and leaned back in my leather chair, just like PIs were supposed to, and opened the bottom drawer to grab the bottle of top shelf whiskey that was rolling around in there, courtesy of Sam Doyle. He kept trying to get in contact with me but I didn’t think it was right, considering I was still trying to get onside with Mum. Of course, I didn’t have a problem drinking his expensive booze.
I heard the front door swing in and glanced up. Bloody Trip Sibley swaggered in, carrying a bunch of flowers in one hand and a six pack of beer under his arm. He’d bounced back pretty quick after losing the restaurant, being arrested and having his precious Ducati destroyed.
He perched on the edge of the desk and put on a forties detective voice. ‘A brunette entered the office, eyes like fire and a body for sin …’
‘Oh shut up,’ I said. He snatched the bottle out of my hand, took a swig then leaned on his elbow, lying sideways across the desk.
‘You know, I still can’t believe we never got it on,’ he mused. ‘I think we’d be good together.’
I sighed. ‘I’m not gonna fuck you, Trip, we’ve been through this.’
‘Not sex, a relationship.’
The laugh spluttered out of my mouth so fast I think I actually spat on him. He looked hurt, or a facsimile thereof.
‘I’m serious. It’s time for me to find a good woman and settle down. I mean, I’m going to be twenty-six in April.’
The phone rang and I snatched it up. Saved by the bell. It was Chloe calling from upstairs, wondering why I wasn’t at my own party.