Chasing Innocence (45 page)

A small shadow rose from the far corner amid the haze and then a sound like a wounded animal, demented and woeful. A wail and a battle cry and utter sorrow. The shadow climbed across the bed and descended on Simon, fists pummelling an oblivious torso. As Adam’s eyes failed, Simon slumped to the floor. And then as Adam’s heart stopped beating he contented himself that he had saved Sarah. The sorrow in her cry was for him. And then his love and loyalty for Sarah, along with all the things he ever hoped for them both, died with him.

Sarah had no strength with which to do anything but lay prone on Simon, staring at Adam’s body. She knew it was Adam but her mind struggled to place him there.
He should not be here!
Everything had been about him safe at home. She kept blinking and expecting to see someone else. Each time she opened her eyes it was still him. He was bruised and bloodied but there was a peace in his face that she envied.
Why was he here?
It consumed her thoughts, running on repeat with time and urgency suspended.

Then a sound outside swiped her back to reality. Andrea! She pushed herself off Simon and tried stepping over the wide swathes of blood on the floor, but it was everywhere. She caught her reflection in a mirror, a naked red devil. She pulled her jeans and shirt from a drawer, trying to avoid looking at the door and Adam. She heard another loud sound, like a door banging somewhere near.

NINETY

It took Andrea several minutes to find the perfect hiding place because at first she did not notice it for that very reason. There had been lots of possibilities but they were too obvious. She even briefly contemplated the narrow spaces beneath the engines but could only imagine what would happen if they fell on her.

So she wandered to the cabinet attached to the wall and idly opened it, finding inside a space she was not expecting. She was not sure what was meant to be inside, maybe something big with flashing lights. Instead it was empty save for a coil of tubing protruding from the back. She would be able to sit sideways inside with her knees pulled up. So that is what she did.

At first the metal protested as she got comfortable, or as comfortable as she could. When she pulled the doors closed they made a click that made her think she might be locked in. Realising, as she repeatedly pushed it open and pulled it closed, the click was what kept it closed, although it was difficult to really know because when she did it all went very dark.

When she thought about it, it was amazing she could even get in the cabinet. She never would have a few days before, not even with wild promises. Now she was getting used to the unusual. And then her mind started to wander. How long would she have to wait? How would her dad know where to look? He might not look in the right place, or she might not hear him and would never be found. The thought of that almost had her climbing back out. But she stopped herself. Her dad would call out. He wouldn’t just look.

Her thoughts drifted and settled on the persistent niggling question. That face in the picture in Simon’s house. She was now very sure it belonged to a man who sometimes came to church. He had a voice like a movie star and talked to them all and sang. She remembered him because he made her mum laugh, and that was not an easy thing to do.

Then she heard the scream. It was the most frightening noise Andrea had ever heard. It felt to her like it came from somewhere close but distant at the same time. It cut through her resolve like a sharp knife, a sound demented and sorrowful, all her fears at night and of the day in one horrifying second that propelled her out of the hiding place with a sob, tumbling onto the floor, wild with fear, scrabbling through the workshop, feet and hands sliding, aware only that she needed to get away.

She tripped up the large steps on to the main deck, looking for an exit, seeing the steps down to the platform. She almost jumped straight down, scraping her arms as she stumbled. Then she despaired at the stacks of plastic-wrapped boxes and the impossible height of the quay. Panic pushed her to climb from stack to stack, to the top of the highest stack and to consider she might be able to jump to the quay.

She almost made it, landing hard on her knees on the rough concrete. She bounced into the boxes that closely lined the edge and with no hold slowly lost ground, desperately scrabbling with her hands for something to hold on to. She slipped over the edge with a desperate whimper, hitting the platform shoulder first, the momentum rolling her over the edge and into the water with hardly a splash.

Andrea did not panic straight away because she was a good swimmer. She was proud of that because her dad had taught her, managing to pull herself to the surface several times despite her shoulder being really painful. The water though pulled at her from all directions as it slapped backwards and forwards between the boat and pilings, and mostly it pulled her down. Already she was exhausted beyond anything she had ever known, splashing towards the boat and pulled back under, struggling to the surface a little further away. Not sure each time whether she would ever breathe again. With no strength left in her body she desperately gulped for air too early and slipped for the last time beneath the surface.

NINETY-ONE

The constable pulled a chair around between the mother and stepfather, the mother now on the far right of the table pouring loathing across the room at her husband. He remained much the same. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were animated, but otherwise the same.

Ferreira was angry with herself. Not from the drama being played opposite, but from only now realising what Boer had seen in pictures of Andrea, the similarity to Sarah. Ferreira’s realisation came from the girl upstairs and a child’s lack of comprehension. Andrea’s eyes carried something more. An awareness beyond her age, as if she already knew some of life’s burden. The burden of trying to support her father with only a browbeaten stepfather to help. The anger Ferreira felt took the edge off the guilt, for what she was about to say. She had calculated the odds though and was fairly certain she would be close to the truth, despite it being entirely speculative.

‘So can you tell me, Mr Smith, about your affair?’

She sensed the mother go still to her right and the constable set herself again. Kevin’s head snapped up and his eyes flared and then immediately back to passive, staring back at the table. ‘I don’t see…how did? How has that got anything to do with this?’

‘Tell me, Kevin. It might be important.’

‘There’s not much to tell. I met an old friend by chance and we got to talking and didn’t stop. It was an antidote for the way Beth and I have become. It wasn’t even an affair really. We met a few times for coffee, had a few phone conversations and then one afternoon we ended up in a hotel. It was a real wake-up call for me. The act of being unfaithful really brought home how much I had to lose, how Beth and I were caught in the endless cycle of getting more for ourselves and not enjoying what we had. Our children were growing up right in front of us and we were missing it.’

He swallowed hard and started again. ‘It was only then I found out Beth was already seeing someone, a…’ He pulled his gaze from Ferreira and looked across at his wife. What he saw froze him. Ferreira did not turn at first but the shock on his face told her something was wrong, and then she turned and looked at the mother.

She had expected her to be convulsed with anger at the confession but instead she was pushing back into her chair, had backed herself against the wall with a wide-eyed fear pulling at the muscles of her face. As if her Satan was climbing from the table and crawling towards her.

The stepfather finished the sentence, eyes still fixed on the mother. ‘It was only then that I found out Beth was already having an affair, with an American evangelist at her church.’

Ferreira only really heard
American,
one word that branched out through everything she had lived and experienced through the last three days. Every conversation with Boer and restless hours in bed working through the details. A mental rolodex of recollections and images, puzzling and random facts all suddenly sliding into place, each now connected and illuminated in her mind like lights across every limb of a giant tree.

‘An American, a tall blond American?’ she said, breathlessly to herself, repeating it out loud. ‘A tall blond American?’

‘Yes,’ Kevin answered. ‘Hair like snow and a voice like he’s from the movies. Really knows how to thump out a sermon.’ He was still unaware of the context, looking from his wife to Ferreira. ‘How do you know all this stuff?’

Ferreira was too shocked to say anything. She just stared stunned at the mother who looked like she might topple sideways or dissolve into the wall at any moment.

NINETY-TWO

Andrea gulped more water, reaching for the lights and the surface, drifting away and down. Her hair snagged on something painful that jerked her sideways, then the material of her top was pulled and she felt herself lifted, coughing and spluttering into the air and then from the water. She heard a shocked male voice and then felt herself carried up steps and carefully laid on the quay. A concerned face peered down at her as she retched onto the concrete, gasping for breath and retching more. After a few minutes she could breathe more easily. Her shoulder really hurt now and her lungs felt like the rest of her body, raw and all used up. She sat up, pushing wet hair from her face, looking at her rescuer. She had never seen the man before.

‘You all right there, nipper?’ He crouched down beside her.

Andrea nodded, coughing some more and now very cold. ‘Thank you.’

‘Where the hell did you come from? One minute I’m loading boxes, the next I hear a kid crying for help.’ The man’s concern was genuine. ‘I only checked to make sure I wasn’t going mad. Where’s your mum? Did you fall in or something?’

Andrea was slowly coming to her senses. The man was tall and a little like Simon, although he was not so big and smelt of cigarettes. Now wary, she pulled in her legs. ‘I was on that boat, a man took me. Why’re you here?’

He puzzled and turned to look at the
Passing Dream
and then back at her. ‘You were on the yacht?’ He never got an answer.

Andrea decided as he looked away that even if he had saved her he must be working for
them
. So she jumped to her feet, her body protesting at every movement and started running. She immediately sensed he was not chasing, risking a look over her shoulder. He was watching, caught between a step and a stride with his hands on his head.

Her wet clothes were making running difficult, as if being exhausted and cold was not enough of a problem. She forced herself to keep going because she knew the scary scream and Sarah were part of the same thing. She did not know how it could be Sarah, but she knew help was needed and intended getting it. There were lots of very big buildings ahead. Initially she headed towards the warehouses because they looked safe but diverted back to the road when she heard the loud noise of the generators, determined to get as far from the boat as possible and find someone who could help. She followed the road around and realised too late the brighter light was from headlights as a car emerged and passed her. Three surprised faces stared at her as she ran in the opposite direction.

Then she heard screeching tyres and doors opening, footsteps chasing after her. She tried to run faster, to reach the main road ahead and the distant people. A hand clamped around her waist, another covered her mouth, lifting her off the ground with her legs still running.

She bit a convenient finger as hard as she could. Frustration and anger bunched the small muscles around her jaw as she made a real effort at biting it off. It earned her a shouted
Fuck!
And she was dropped to the floor. She knew she was caught though. There was nowhere to run to as two more figures rounded on her, one of them the short horrid man. She gathered all the air into her lungs and screamed as loud as she ever had. A brief shrill sound that was cut off as Hakan’s hand cut across her face and she slumped unconscious to the ground.

NINETY-THREE

It was enough.

Brian stopped mid-stride, his attention fixed on the direction of the scream. Any other child and he might have missed it, faint amid the cacophony of industry. Except he would know Andrea’s scream anywhere, it reminded him of her mother’s laugh.

Brian held the small radio in the palm of his hand, pressing the call button twice and then once again as he ran towards the scream. He passed a long line of cranes poised over a large container vessel, protected by concrete bollards and a high chain fence, then the natural deterrent of water and the dock. Against the far quay he could see a darkly sleek pleasure boat, large in context to its surroundings, although from where he was it looked no bigger than a fingernail.

As he ran he watched a small car chase its headlights towards the distant boat and then disappear behind it. He ran harder. The cold air on his skin was no relief from the sharp needling pains across his back, the biting throb of broken teeth and a broken hand almost inconsequential.

He came to a junction in the road that fed the quay. Buildings on the left blocked his view so he moved slowly around until he could see the car, pressing himself into the shadows as he clicked the call button four times, two sets of two separated by a short pause. Two clicks were returned. Direction and status confirmed.

He watched and calculated. Save for Andrea getting loose to rip a scream, he had no reason to believe Hakan’s world was anything but ordered and rosy. A scenario that forced Hakan to abandon the boat was a long way down Brian’s list. At the top was the assumption they were getting ready to leave. Judging by the stacks of boxes on the quay, leaving was at least an hour away. He had time.

He could make out two shapes in the car but nothing else. He thought about moving around to see if Andrea was in the back, but that would involve traversing a wide open expanse or the narrow gap behind a row of shuttered workshops. He stayed where he was, waiting and constantly working through the scenarios.