Inconsolable (25 page)

“Your homeless man. He's been arrested for assault.”

Hugh said, “What happened?”

All Foley heard was buzzing in her ears. It simply wasn't possible.

“He attacked a woman in Marks Park, the last day of the sculpture walk, during that time Foley was supposed to have moved him on. It's a dreadful thing. I feel like the council has a moral resp—”

Foley stood. “Stop talking, Gabriella. Stop.” She needed to think. Her phone chimed again. Nat. That would be why she wanted a call back. “
The Courier
already have this.”

“How would you know that?” Gabrielle said, then appealing to Hugh. “She can't possibly know that? I just told her.”

Hugh balled up the paper bag his sandwich came in. “Yes she can. What do you know, and forget the editorial, just the facts.”

Gabriella huffed. “Police community relations called. They thought we might want a heads-up, given how famous the cliff clinger—”

“Don't call him that.” Every hair on Foley's body bristled. They couldn't possibly have arrested him. They wouldn't know where to find him. “His name is Patrick Drum.”

“Oh, he has a name to go with his arrest record. I'll phone that through.”

Shit
. She should've kept that to herself because there was no way Drum would hurt someone. “What does assault mean?”

“It's not a trick charge. He beat a woman, sexually assaulted her, probably raped her. I don't have the exact details.”

But Nat would. “I need to make a call.”

Gabriella held her place in the doorway. “Who are you calling?”

“Gab,” said Hugh, a warning. “Is that all we know?”

“That's quite enough, isn't it? I need to brief Roger. You can expect Walter Lam to be right on this.”

Hugh grunted. “You do know I remember there'd be no Walter Lam if it wasn't for you, so you're not doing yourself any favours by pretending he's an immaculate conception. There's no need to go anywhere near Roger yet. Foley, go do what you need to do.”

She stepped around a red-faced Gabriella and out into the corridor, dialling Nat's number as she made for the street front, somewhere she could have a private conversation.

Nat answered and Foley said. “What's he charged with?”

“Hey, what? How do you know? What do you know?”

“Cop PR called Gabriella with a heads-up.”

Nat sighed, a blast of static on the call. “It's bad.”

“Oh fuck.”

“Where is he, Foley?”

“You mean they don't have him?”

“No. It's an arrest warrant. They've been to the cave but he's not there. I'm at the station now waiting for them to bring him in.”

They didn't have him. They wouldn't find him if he stayed where he was. “Right.”

“No, Foley. Nothing is right about this. Where were you last night?” When she didn't answer, Nat barked, “Foley, answer me. Where you with him last night?”

She closed her eyes. Her stomach was rioting, her head thumping. Drum wouldn't hurt anyone. He wouldn't—though that's what he insisted he had done. Over and over, he'd told her he hurt people. She could barely get the word out. “Yes.”

“Then you know where he is now.”

“No, I don't.” It'd stopped raining, though the clouds hung heavy, and the wind was bitter, technically he could be anywhere. She could keep him safe if he stayed put.

Nat swore. “If you know where he is and you're protecting him, you're protecting a violent man who brutally attacked a woman.”

“He would never do that.”

“Oh, Foley. You can't know that. You can't know what a person is capable of just because you've slept with them.”

She gasped a breath and choked out. “I haven't.” But she would have. Had Drum's compromised reluctance not been so present, had there been more time this morning.

“Thank God for that. Tell me where he is. I can keep you out of this. Tell me where we should look.”

“No.” She wouldn't be complicit in this. She wouldn't help anyone corner Drum.

“What?”

“No, I won't.”

“Listen to yourself. You can't shelter him. You can't. Are you crying? Oh God. Where's Hugh, does he know? I'm calling him.”

“No. No. He doesn't know.” She wiped her face. “I'm not crying,” another lie, “but it's a shock.”

“Okay, good. We can keep you out of this as long as possible.”

“I don't want to be kept out of it. Maybe I can alibi him.”

Nat groaned. “This isn't a TV cop drama. They have a statement that implicates him. They have evidence.”

“What evidence?” He'd told her he wasn't a common thief, a murderer, a rapist. He'd used those words and she believed him.

“Something the victim took from the cave, a t-shirt, a book, maybe DNA, I don't know about that. But she named him. They're not looking for anyone else.”

A victim
. Those words, associated with Drum, it couldn't be. Foley put her hand on her stomach. “Anyone could name him. You made him famous.”

“Foley, there is no defending this.”

There had to be a way to defend it, exonerate him. “What book?”

“
Of Mice and Men
. You said he reads classics.” He'd had a lot of second-hand books, but most of them had been destroyed, the timing would be important.

“Who is she?” This accuser, this victim.

Nat was agitated. “Does it matter? What woman deserves to be attacked and assaulted? I can't fucking believe we're having this conversation.”

Now Foley was really crying. Now salt tears burned her face. She'd been a fool. It was Jon all over again. She'd fallen for the obscure romance of Drum and there'd been so many clues he wasn't stable. That he'd caused hurt. She'd ignored them all.

“Foley, are you there?”

“I can't take this in.”

“You can't go near him again. Promise me or I'm calling Hugh. You can't rescue him. He's dangerous. He hit a woman. He hurt her. Maybe raped her. There is no excuse for that. None and you know it.”

Foley pressed her hand on her stomach, swallowed bile. Drum was an unstable man who'd been her job, who'd been her challenge, who'd became her friend.

And she was in insanely, irrevocably in love with him.

22: Accused

When Foley left, Drum dragged the mattress he stored in the garage out to the foyer and lay down. He'd not slept overnight, preferring to watch Foley, from the bed, then when her breathing deepened, from the floor, and as morning came, he moved back to the staircase before going to collect her car and bartering some odd jobs with the local supermarket for food.

Now his head was spinning from tiredness and with a decent breakfast in his gut he was sated. It was raining again, thumping down. There was also no need to go anywhere, there was bread and eggs for lunch, there was coffee and milk. He was warm and undercover, breaking all the rules, not giving a fuck, king for the day.

That was Foley's fault. She did that to him. Made him want things, made him look for loopholes. He lay on the mattress with his coat over his legs and his now dry jeans rolled up for a pillow. He'd been worried her car would be damaged. It was covered in debris but intact, a couple of dents in the bonnet that might be new. He'd break another rule for her if he could find a way not to trigger attention. He wanted her driving something modern, safer.

He lay there thinking about Foley, smiling like an idiot at the dome ceiling. It'd been a risk to bring her here, but he'd been out of smart options and she'd accepted his vague answers, too ill to be bothered fighting with him. That wouldn't last. She was restored this morning so there'd be a fight tonight. She wasn't going to let him get away with evasions and half-truths much longer. Their friendship needed new terms negotiated. Terms that included sweet, hot kisses that made him forget to be cautious, forget what he wasn't allowed to have.

Thinking about her was harmless. It was being in the same room with her that was the problem, because whatever the room, the space, there was too much of it unless she was in his arms and once she was, that power packed body, those hungry lips of hers, made him feel so many things he wasn't entitled to any more.

Turned on, yeah. Dear God, so hard it was difficult to think straight, to remember he wasn't allowed to have her because he'd make her unclean. But different too. Like before almost, as if his internal clock had been wound back and he was still an honest man, trustworthy and reliable, instead of one who used his brain, his skill to manufacture pain and suffering on a global scale.

He was hard now. He rolled over, curled up, the urge to use his hands compelling, but that would be another rule broken and the sickness in him enjoyed the denial. He was a bastard and he knew it and he should get up and leave now before she came back, before he entirely contaminated her with his foulness.

But he was weak and shiftless, incapable of being stoic around her, worse, incapable of sending her away to safety. He thought about her mouth, about the noises she made when they kissed and it was nearly enough without his hand. He was damned and damned again. The opportunity to ruin something pure and good finding him even in his seclusion. The intention to stay and allow it to happen, proof of his depravity.

He slept and didn't dream, no ghosts, no meaningless shocks that would sit him upright with chest pain from his heart trying to carve a way out of his body, and no better solution when he woke to where he found himself; in a different kind of prison, where he had to decide to stay and take the compromise of Foley's corrupting caresses, her killing kisses, or break out and disappear again, find a new cliff, a new place he could scour himself clean.

She came long before he expected her, in the middle of the afternoon, before he'd decided; pressing the intercom on the front gate. He used the system to open the gate and met her at the front door, self-recrimination, notions of abandoning her, blown all to hell by the first sight of her coming up the path.

He would find a way to have her and not make her dirty. He believed that until she lifted her head and he saw the expression on her face. She was burning up like an angry meteor.

“Foley, what's wrong?”

She went past him into the foyer, careful to shy away from touching him, deliberately keeping her distance but emitting such trembling fury he was immediately on guard. She went to the stairs and held onto the banister as if she needed it for support. “Leave the door open and stay where you are.”

He faced her, cosmic forces he wasn't ready for about to pelt down on him, but whatever wrath she was bringing he deserved it tenfold.

“What did you do?” Her voice shook and she couldn't look at him.

Finally the right question.

“I hurt a lot of people.”

“You told me you weren't a murderer, a rapist.”

He closed his eyes. Not directly, but the result was the same. She'd found him out.

She put her other hand over her forehead as if her head pained. “You spun me lies. You painted the air with insinuations of some great wrongdoing I couldn't possibly understand.” She dropped her hand and glared at him. “You talk about penance as if you know you've done something terrible, and you cling to that cave because you're scared you'll do it again.”

Most of that true. He'd lied by omission, but what hit hardest was her expression. She finally understood him and feared him because of it.

She let go the banister and wrapped her arms around her middle. “Right now you tell me what you did and who you hurt.”

He'd played at being God and become the devil. “It's not that simple.” There was a rollcall of names, families. “There's no—”

“It is exactly that simple. You lied about everything and it stops now.” She looked away, but when he said nothing she faced him again and her eyes were frozen amber, prehistoric in their hatred. “I can help you if you tell me what you did.”

Now she lied. “No one can help me.”

“It's over, Drum. All of this, the cave, your freedom, it's finished. You can't hide anymore. I know what you've done.”

He leaned back on the wall, the strength in his legs drained. He'd used the house too often, someone had discovered him. Or she'd worked it out from his name. He'd told her too much, and now it was too late to walk away again. He folded his knees and let himself slide to the floor.

Foley turned her face away and sat on the stairs. “I can't protect you anymore.”

“You shouldn't. I'm sorry I let you get so close.”

“I trusted you. Last night we.” Her breath was ragged. “Last night … you. Why didn't you…?”

“Because I'm foul and unclean. I wanted you.” God help him he still did. “You make me want so many things I thought I'd left behind. But I know I'm not good for you. I'd split myself in half before I'd hurt you.”

She stood up suddenly. “Too late. You did it anyway.” She brushed at her face, annoyed gestures, her eyes were glossy.

She was leaving. He'd be alone again. They way it should be. He wasn't sure his legs would hold him, but he pushed against the wall to stand. “Why did you come?”

“I needed to see you.” She fixed on him. “See you acknowledge your guilt. I needed an end to this.”

“What do you want from me?” He asked, knowing he'd lost the right to want anything from her, the opportunity to give anything to her.

“What I always wanted. I want you to get help.” There were tears on her face, but she wasn't crying, she was angry and that was better. “They'll come for you.”

His father. New ghosts. He'd been so careless since he'd let himself want her.

She let herself out. He stood on the veranda and watched her get in her old car and drive away. He was numb. He gathered his warmer clothes and dressed. He'd go to the cave. He needed the cliff. He needed to curl his toes over the edge and remember.