The Devil's Staircase (18 page)

I signed some bail conditions. Basically, I wasn’t to leave the country till the court case was over. As I scribbled my name, I noticed Pete sitting at a table in an interview room. He was crying. His hands were holding his cheeks and tears were streaming down his face. He caught my eye and shook his head as if to say, ‘Not me.’ I shook my head: ‘Bastard.’

He gestured for me to come over. I saw him ask the officer in his room something. The officer opened the door.

‘Miss Kelly?’

‘Yes?’

‘Two minutes. ’

Did I want to go in? Could I sit opposite him, knowing what he’d been accused of, when I could still feel his body on mine, still feel my heart flutter as it had when he’d lain beside me in the park?

My head had decided not to go in, but my body had not obeyed.

We were silent for a long time before Pete spoke.

‘I used to steal cars and they deported me. All I’ve done in this country is try and get home. I’ve never hurt anyone. I’m not a monster.’

‘They say you hid in a coffin at Heathrow.’

‘That’s not true. Don’t listen to them. I’m not what they say I am.’

‘Then who are you?’

‘I’m Peter McGuire, I’m twenty-four and I’m from a town outside of Adelaide. My mother’s a drunk. My father’s English. I’m in love with you.’

I think my chair may have fallen on the ground when I stood up to leave, but I didn’t look back to check.

Bugger. It was very annoying. In fact, it made him short-tempered. If only they’d all gone to bed sooner, not taken that second pill, he’d have sorted it and moved on.

He’d wanted to move on for some time. With the girl in the netball skirt perhaps. But instead of moving on with her, he had found himself standing beside her, looking down at the woman he was
so
over. My God, it was a disgrace, for a girl to get in that state.

He’d felt short tempered as the others gagged at the girl while trying to hold spurting wounds and calling the ambulance and the police and the people across the road. All right, all right, so she seemed to have chopped herself into pieces to get out; so she was naked and brown and red all over. Just get over it already.

He’d felt even more short-tempered at their reaction to the other room. It wasn’t anything to faint over, two naked girls wrapped in cling film from head to toe, their eyes looking out like crisp lettuce. It was their own fault. He’d never intended to kill them, but the state they’d gotten themselves into . . . unbelievable. He’d done them a favour, wrapping them. Better that than soggy and stinking, and all right, so it did smell a bit, but not as much as it should have, considering how long they’d been there.

He thought back to when he’d been ill as a boy, and his mother had not come home, had not even phoned to say she’d met someone and would be away for a while. He’d felt really down back then, like taking the pills she’d left in the bathroom cabinet, but then the girl had run by his 1 2-year-old self’s bedroom window. Where was she now? What could he do to make himself feel better? Like he didn’t have a brick in his stomach?

He felt as though he could sleep forever.

Pete sat on his concrete bed thinking about the last time he’d been arrested. It was on the Eyre Highway. A police car had been chasing his stolen Jag along the straight flat road for four hours. In the end Pete ran out of petrol just before Ceduna. By the time the police car had caught up and parked beside him, he’d smoked two cigarettes and eaten one apple, core and all.

‘G’day,’ Pete said to the young cop.

The young cop had not replied.

It was several weeks before Pete had taken his usual seat at court.

‘Peter McGuire, you’ve been found guilty of eighteen charges of car theft, three counts of dangerous driving, thirteen counts of resisting arrest, and four counts of police assault. I have the background report before me and would like to proceed to sentencing without further delay.’

The judge had leafed through the report.

‘“Hardly knew real father . . . Mother a drunk . . . Moved from foster home to foster home . . .” A sad tale for the sympathetic reader . . . But then, I’m not a sympathetic reader.’

The judge had looked up at Pete. ‘I always found it funny that two hundred years ago they sent people like you over here. Break the law and they put you in paradise. Well, I’m sending
you
back.’

‘What are you on about?’ Pete asked.

‘Your father is English.’

‘He left when I was a kid.’

‘That’s right. To go back to Cambridge . . . Ever apply for a passport? Ever go to one of those ceremonies where you get all weepy over the anthem?’

‘I’ve lived here all my life,’ Pete had said.

‘And what a shame that’s been for all of us.’ He’d smiled. ‘I’d buy a raincoat if I were you.’

When they’d dragged Pete down to the cell, he was crying like a baby.

Other than the handcuffs, his journey was much the same as Bronny’s, even down to the free booze, which – to his surprise – the air-hostess gave him after the police escort fell asleep. His arrival wasn’t much different either. He had no one to meet him, not even a probation officer. He ended up sitting in a small room at the airport with a friendly Scottish Celtic supporter from customs and a not so friendly immigration officer.

‘Don’t go back,’ the immigration officer said when he unlocked Pete’s handcuffs. ‘Don’t even
think
about going back.’

Pete walked out of the Heathrow terminal and stood still in the rain. He was there for a long time, staring at the grey car park and grey sky and getting very, very wet.

That was six months ago. He’d done a lot since then. Ever resourceful, he’d found the Bayswater underworld almost immediately, and had accumulated all the paperwork he needed to get back home, because getting back home was the only thing on his mind.

His first attempt was mainstream. He got a false Aussie passport, and bought a Qantas ticket with the parts of sixty-three stolen cars.

After that he
did
have a probation officer.

Second time round he was more inventive. False Aussie passport, job-hopping on several cruise liners, then three months in HMP Belmarsh, London for the new offences and the breach of probation.

After his release, he contacted the compliant Celtic-supporting customs official he’d met on his arrival.

‘Go cargo,’ the official advised. ‘I’ll arrange it.’

‘In a suitcase?’

‘Coffin. Big one. I’ll drill holes, wrap the corpse clean and tight. Get your supplies in . . . You’ll be there in twenty-one hours.’

Pete didn’t have two grand, or the stomach, so he decided to take time out. He acquired some references, got a job using the only skill he had – muscle – and thought long and hard about other ways to get back home.

Funny – Pete thought after Bronny had looked at him with sad, betrayed eyes and then run from the room as fast as she could – getting home seemed completely irrelevant now.

After a while, Pete heard the voices of several officers talking outside his cell. He stood up and pressed his ear against the metal door. They were saying they were worried. They didn’t have quite enough. If she woke, one officer said, then they would, but it looked like they might have to let him go. Time was running out.

Pete sat up in bed.

They might have to let him go.

‘Bronwyn?’

I was about to leave the police station, but Vera Oh was calling me. ‘Your friends left a note.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, walking outside onto the pavement and reading it.

Bronny,

We’re going to the Royal to get our heads together, then we want to find somewhere else to stay. We’ll wait for you there.

Fliss and Cheryl-Anne.

Fliss and Cheryl-Anne. The Royal. Did I have the stomach to return there? If I didn’t, would I miss them, I wondered, as I walked along a London road in a London suburb filled with Londoners. Would I miss Cheryl-Anne’s over-straightened hair? Fliss’s flippant approach to life and her regular sexual lessons? Zach’s Lenny Kravitz renditions? Hamish’s solid advice? Francesco’s love of food? Could I go and see them now or would I only ever see them again in a courtroom?

And Pete? My first instincts about him had been right. I should have listened to them. Pete was always there when the noises came, always jumping out at me, scaring me to death. He had tattoos all over and an eerie quietness. His past was a mystery not to be delved into and he had all sorts of tools in his room. The police hadn’t told me much, except that he had a list of previous convictions the length of my arm. How could I have been so foolish? To have thought he was kind and gentle and the love of my life when he was a . . . Bloody hell, I’d lost my virginity to a serial killer.

I thought about the days I’d spent in the squat. Celia had been there all along, yelling and banging to get my attention, and I hadn’t done anything. If she died, it would be my fault. When I thought about what she’d been through, what the others had been through . . . Oh Jesus. Why hadn’t I looked harder in the hall cupboard? Why had I blocked my ears with my fingers and hummed instead of listening properly? Why hadn’t I wondered about the shoe, the bloodstain, the jumping record, the smoke, the meowing – then disappearing – cat? If only.

Wandering aimlessly, I found myself standing in front of the squat. The building was covered in plastic and the street was littered with police cars. The occasional onlooker stopped. Inside the Royal next door, I spotted two female backpackers at reception, paying Francesco for a couple of rooms and giggling. I could tell that he was checking them out. I saw Hamish sitting at one of his computers in the Internet café next to reception. I looked down through the basement window of the hostel – ten unfamiliar travellers were drinking and watching MTV.

A new wave had come and flattened the sand.

I had almost decided to go inside, to touch base with Fliss and Cheryl-Anne, and maybe go somewhere safe with them.

‘Your passport was in there.’ I jumped, scared out of my wits, then turned around to see Zach.

‘And your shoulder bag, pinned to the wall. Did you see it?’