Vodka Doesn't Freeze (25 page)

When the grass gave way to soft sand, Jamaal slowed. To his left sat the boatshed. He could hear nothing but the soft harbour waves and the hulls of the luxury boats gently slapping the water. He knew his footsteps made less sound than these noises. He moved around the shed.

Jerome could not believe they would do this to him.

He was wearing slacks, for God's sake. And a belt! Shiny shoes. Oh my God, he thought, if Nathan ever saw me dressed like this . . . Nathan. Jerome sighed, and put his head in his hands. He sat on the edge of the bath in the bathroom off the basement. He felt really tired. And hungry.

The door opened and Tadpole walked in. Jerome cringed under his gaze.

'Oh, come on, Jerome. You don't look that bad!' Tadpole gave him a half-smile. 'I guess you've never worn anything like that before.'

A tear slid down Jerome's cheek.

'Look, I know you're hungry,' he said kindly. 'Mr Sebastian has just called down. It's time to go up to the party. You should see what they've got to eat up there. Chicken, chips, pies, everything. I could sneak you some beer. Let's go eat!'

'Couldn't you just bring me some food down here?'

'Jerome, everyone wants to meet you. It's time to go up.'

'I'm not going anywhere dressed like this. Let me put my other stuff back on.'

Tadpole sighed, and sat next to Jerome on the bath. A little too close. Jerome scrooched away a bit.

'Jerome, I'm gonna tell you like this. You get to go upstairs with me now, dressed like that, or Jamaal's going to come down here and make you come up.' He gave him a compassionate look. 'I'm not going to bullshit you, Jerome. Even I'm scared of Jamaal. I know you are, and you should be. I'm telling you as a friend – let's get out of here before he comes back.'

Jerome studiously avoided the mirror as he left the bathroom. At least there would be other people at a party. Maybe he could find a way to tell one of them he needed help. He'd already thought about writing a message on a paper napkin and passing it to an adult. He knew he had to be safer around a big group of adults than he was down here. Someone at the party would help him.

He followed Tadpole to the door.

You see, that's another sign.

Walking carefully through the sand, Jamaal had kicked against a rocky outcropping at the base of the boatshed. Of course! He needed a weapon – a rock would do nicely. He bent and felt around in the sand. There were several large pieces buried, but he could not dislodge them. He felt the next one give a little, and prised with his fingers until it came free suddenly. He nearly fell. He steadied himself, carrying the baseball-sized rock, and continued on his way along to the far edge of the back of the boatshed.

Jamaal's mother had tried to teach him religion, but he'd never really taken to it. Tonight, however, had taught him to believe. A tiny glance around the corner of the shed at who waited there showed him that God had brought her here as a gift. He took a very deep breath and raised his eyes towards heaven.

With one stride and a silent lunge, Jamaal crossed the sand between himself and Jill and smashed the rock down on her head.

A
PAIR OF BLINDING
headlights bore down upon Jill, filling her with a sense of urgency. Got to get out of here! The lights came closer, but she stood paralysed, pinned to the spot, frozen in the knowledge that she was about to be annihilated. The twin lights filled her vision; her brain burned with the heat of them. Any moment now they would smash her down, crush her completely. She moaned in pain, and the white-eyed girl woke her up.

The lights. Just her eyes – the white-eyed girl. Another nightmare was all. Jill tried to reassure herself, slow her breathing, open her own eyes.

What the fuck? thought Jill. It was pitch black. Eyes open or closed. Inside her head, the white-eyed girl nodded solemnly. You're blind too, she told Jill without speaking.

Jill sat up fast, shuffled backwards, trying to get away from the little girl in her head, from wherever she was, from the knowledge, deep down, that she was once again captive somewhere and that she couldn't see. She whimpered when her head struck an object, pain sending a rolling wave of nausea through her stomach. Head between her knees, a hard surface beneath her, Jill tried to take stock. What had she last been doing? It all came back, still-shots in her mind of the last hours that she could remember. The phone call from Mercy; the drive to Hunters Hill; creeping down to the water's edge; Mercy, on the floor, her chest blown out. Then blackness. It was completely and utterly black.

She raised a hand to the back of her head, the movement bringing back the seasick feeling. Her hand came away wet. Did she slip and fall, hit her head? Maybe she was in hospital? Scotty found her injured and brought her here. That's it, she lied to herself, knowing that she was sitting on a hard, cold floor, probably concrete, not a bed; aware that nothing in here smelled or sounded like a hospital. Mentally, she pushed hard at the doors in her mind, holding back with all her might the horror of knowledge that bulged behind them.

She felt she was in a large room; it sounded echoey, kind of empty. It smelled earthy, like underground. Like a basement.

The white-eyed girl was back, nodding wisely. We've got to face it now.

Jill scrambled for something to think about, anything. Not in the basement. Not for real. Wake up! She reached up to her eyes, put her fingers on her eyeballs, pressed. A flare of orange inside her head, then nothing. Her eyes were wide open, and there was no light. It was not just the darkness of a room, she was sure of it. She could see nothing at all.

The little girl was right. She was alone, blind, and in the basement.

Jill ignored the silent admonishment of the white-eyed girl and, curled into a foetal ball, gave in to terrified sobs. The last two decades were an illusion. This was real. She'd never been safe. She had no control. Nothing could be worse than this.

And then she heard footsteps just outside the room.

Jerome had only seen houses like this on TV. When they got out of the cupboard, he stuck close to Tadpole, feeling minus-cule under the cavernous space of the three-metre-high ceilings. Through huge windows, Jerome could see it was very dark outside. His footsteps echoed on the shiny floors.

Where was the party? Was this another trick? When his parents had people over, every chair was taken and there were people in each room, talking and laughing, ruffling his hair when he passed by. Kids running through hallways, slowing to a giggling walk when they passed a group of adults, whooping and running again when they turned a corner. He couldn't even hear anyone talking. He looked up at Tadpole, and the man smiled down at him, his eyes glittery and weird. Jerome looked back down at his shoes, wishing his dad would come get him.

They walked past several open archways, and he glimpsed gleaming surfaces and empty furniture. And then Jerome heard music. Quiet, tinkly music. By this time of night at a party in his neighbourhood, they'd be playing Cold Chisel or Midnight Oil, or something like that. He and his friends would be pissing themselves, watching the oldies jerk around like they thought they were dancing. It was the best bit, but you had to force yourself to stay awake long enough for them to have had enough to drink. Even though it was really embarrassing, he also kind of liked it when his mum and dad would start kissing in the middle of the dancing.

They walked through a hallway, approaching a corner on the left. He could hear people speaking in soft voices. He couldn't hear any other kids. Thank God, he thought, looking down at his shiny shoes, pulling at the belt. At least they wouldn't see him dressed like this. A belt, for godsakes.

When they rounded the corner, no-one really paid any attention at first. No-one dressed like this at any party he'd ever been to either. Jerome was pretty sure his dad didn't even own a suit. He looked around, and couldn't help but feel a little awed by the beautiful room, the fireplace, the long white table covered in platters of food that looked great, and the important-looking men, standing and sitting around. All men. He took another look around. Not one dress or skirt in here. These people were just freakin' weird.

Jerome stepped onto a thick, round rug he thought his mum would probably like. She was always trying to stop his dad to look at stuff like this as he marched through department stores ahead of her. Thinking of his mum and dad so much made his throat hurt again.

A man sitting in a chair to Jerome's left looked straight at him and gasped. The man stood up and several others near him looked up. Everyone started talking and then suddenly the whole room stared at him and Tadpole. He turned around to see if maybe someone else had come in behind them, but there was no-one else there. They all just gawped at him. This was absolutely the worst. The men had all stopped whatever they were doing and stood full-on staring. Jerome wished there was one of those trapdoors underneath him right now, and he could just bolt back down to the underground room. He knew he looked like a dork, but what the fuck were they all staring at, really?

And then they started to clap.

Jamaal knew that he was indispensable to Sebastian now. He had brought him the boy, and when he'd told him he had the cop bitch in the basement, he'd seen his boss was pleased. He told Sebastian that he'd dropped some of Carter's optometrist solution into her eyes, to keep her from seeing anything if she woke up before they got back down there.

'That was very quick thinking, Jamaal. And you're certain there was no-one else on the grounds?'

'She must have come alone. It's all quiet everywhere else. I looked carefully.'

'Oh, I'm quite certain that you did. Was the boy in there when you brought her in?'

'No. Tadpole had just taken him out. They'll be out there by now.' He indicated with his chin to the rooms outside the study.

'I see.' A wrinkle of annoyance creased Sebastian's forehead. 'Well, I really should be out there too, you know, Jamaal. We can't have people helping themselves before I've established the pecking order.' He stood to leave.

'Would you mind very much going back down there,' he continued, 'and checking to see that our new guest has everything she needs and that she is not getting herself into any trouble?'

Jamaal stared as the big man smoothed his suit and left the study. Our new guest. Why did he speak like that? In the dining room down the hall from this very room, Jamaal had once seen Sebastian pull out a chair for a whore, offer her a glass of wine, and drink with her, before reaching forwards and strangling her with his hands.

One sick motherfucker, he thought to himself as he left the room to go back downstairs.

I am not ready for whoever that is, thought Jill when she heard the movement outside the room. Then she remembered, and reached quickly into her pocket. Nothing. Her gun was gone.

Pretend you're still unconscious, then. The white-eyed girl could put the thoughts in Jill's mind without moving her mouth.

Jill moved forwards a little, quickly and silently, until she figured she was back in the spot where she had been lying when she'd regained consciousness. She lay down just before she heard a door open at the end of the room.

'You awake yet, bitch?'

The male voice, slightly accented, came from about ten metres away from her head. That's where the door is, she recorded for later. The room is big. She counted his footfalls, listened for the way he moved, began to picture objects he was manoeuvring around as he walked through the room. Good girl, the white-eyed girl whispered in her head. Jill lay still.

'Hey, Sergeant Jackson.' A singsong voice, close to her ear. He was leaning right down, his mouth close to her head.

Eyes closed, she could see him now, from where his voice had issued, from where she could feel and smell him breathing. She could swing, now, pivot her legs up from her hips, wrap his head in her thighs and snap his neck. She chose not to move, but she felt power seep back into her body with the knowledge that she could. She enforced stillness, body and mind.

'You know, you fucking whore, that I almost killed my wife because of you. You come to my house?' His voice sounded soft but outraged, hissing into her ear. 'Can you hear me? Does your head hurt, cunt? I'm going to make you hurt much more than that.'

She lay in the basement with Jamaal Mahmoud. She knew that now.

Because she heard him breathe in, and felt him move to take the shot, she knew the blow was coming and could block her reaction, but she couldn't block the pain. She let her head loll limply from the force of his open-handed slap to her face. The slap was nothing. It was the fist-sized mush of tenderness at the back of her head that made her want to vomit; the force from the blow caused it to roll on the hard floor beneath her. She focused her senses on the hand he had used to strike, his location now, mentally picturing his positioning. She thought of an alternate strategy to strike back if she had to, absorbing the energy of the pain to use later.

'Hmm,' she heard him say. And she waited. Waiting was important now, she felt. His movements were her eyes. She had to learn more about where she was in order to be able to get around in the dark; to find her way out. She felt him crouching there by her head, breathing with her, a bond between them, united by their hate for one another, and the desire to make the other one hurt; an intimacy in their silent understanding.

She heard him shift and undo his zipper. Oh no, no, no.

Be still, the white-eyed girl warned. Don't be silly now.

Jill smelled the sweet sweat of male genitalia that had never failed to flood her with distress and with images of being raped as a child. She retreated further into herself as she heard the man beside her stand; he took two steps from her head towards the middle of her body.

When she heard his derisive laughter and felt the warm stream of his urine splashing down onto her stomach and face, Jill knew that a feeling of relief was at odds with the situation. Anything but rape, she told herself. She stayed motionless, allowing nothing in her features to indicate that she was conscious.

Beside her, the white-eyed girl's mouth set in a hard, straight line.

Sebastian entered the ballroom at the tail end of the applause; it briefly swelled again when the men noticed his presence. He smiled warmly at his guests, but was worried about the wild-eyed look of the boy on the other side of the room. He needed to handle the situation quickly – the child looked ready to break down. While some present were quite partial to a bit of crying, others, particularly his overseas guests, considered it distasteful to be confronted by high emotionality.

He raised his hands slightly, palms down, indicating the men should calm themselves, be seated.

'Friends,' his voice reached all corners of the room, 'I hope you are comfortable. Tonight's games will be underway soon. For those of you who have had enough to eat and drink, a movie is showing in the room on the right behind me, and I believe these gentlemen to my left are engaged in a swap meet. You might wish to join them. I would like to ensure that our youngest guest has something to eat and drink. Please excuse me.'

He cut across the room, and was with Tadpole and Jerome in a few long strides.

'My boy, you must be starving,' he smiled down, speaking in a soothing tone. 'Please let me help you choose some nice things to eat.' He steered the dazed little boy to the food table, and fetched for him a heavy white dinner plate, some silver cutlery and a linen napkin. He put them on the table in front of Jerome.