The Mak Collection (65 page)

‘You don’t know what it’s like being married,’ he said with a bitter, humourless laugh, leaning back on the counter. ‘Hell, you don’t even know what it’s like having a boyfriend! You never got over your bloody teenage sweetheart and it’s been two decades, so don’t talk to me about my marriage.’

Her eyes narrowed to slits.

She hoped the cantharidin would hurry up and work.
Soon.
It had been perhaps fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. How long would this take?

‘Look Ben, I’m not the one with the failed marriage, drinking all day and living on the dole. Don’t try to make this about me,’ she said, and started to walk away, hoping to lead him back into the living room.

He grabbed her by the elbow.

A thousand violent reflexes flickered through her mind. Moves she had learned and mastered, and would use on instinct. But Suzie held fast.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are? Like you’re so great! Some ugly goddamn spinster working with psychos all day. You can’t even get a boyfriend. What makes you so high and mighty?’

She spat on him.

Ben raised his hand to strike her. He probably would have hit her if she were a bloke. Instead, after a moment, he deflated and wiped the spittle from his cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Suz. I didn’t mean that. You know I’d never hurt you. It’s just that…Fuck, why don’t you ever see anyone? Mum and Dad used to wonder all the time. Your damn job doesn’t help. It makes people hard. Just don’t go criticising my marriage. If you were married you’d know it isn’t easy.’

Maybe I didn’t use enough? What if that slippery bastard Barton lied and it’s something else? If that stuff is just some crystal meth or E in a bloody capsule, I’ll nail his arse
…

Then Suzie heard a strange sound that started in the depths of her brother’s belly and grumbled loud until it came out in a terrible burp.

‘Uh…’ Ben covered his mouth and stumbled back.

Suzie took a step away. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I feel a bit…’

Another rumble, this one louder.

‘Maybe you drank too fast?’ She took another step.

The colour had drained from Ben’s face, and Suzie could hear his stomach rumble again. This time he moaned in agony and held himself around the waist. Before long he was doubled over, clutching the kitchen counter.

‘I…’

A spray of vomit burst from his mouth, covering the countertop in splatters of pie and blood.

‘Oh my God!’ Suzie covered her mouth, backing towards the living room. It was disgusting.

Another spray, this one more solid.

‘Ben?’

Her brother fell to the kitchen floor and convulsed, holding his guts. He lay on his side, blood trickling out of his nose onto the linoleum. In moments he threw up again, coating the floor in a fleshy, red substance and remnants of pie. Blood was everywhere, filling the room in a swamp of repulsive sick.

‘I’ll call triple O! Just hang on!’ Suzie ran into the living room and picked up the phone. ‘Hello? Hello, this is an emergency! My brother is sick! We need an ambulance right away!’

The dial tone rang steadily in her ear.

Suzie calmly put the phone down and made her way to her brother’s favourite armchair. Breathing slowly in and out, she put her feet up on the coffee table and tried to relax. She pushed the dark fringe back from her face. Her eyes wandered to the empty plate on the coffee table where Ben’s apple pie had been. She blocked from her mind the horrific sounds of sickness coming from the kitchen. She imagined that she could not hear her brother’s cries for help, that she could not detect the ever-growing stench of blood and poison filling the house.

Suzie thought about her future. She thought about love.

Looking at her watch and finding it was already 4.32 in the afternoon, she picked up the television remote control and flicked to Channel Ten. Brooke
and Ridge were playing out a scene in
The Bold And The Beautiful
, holding each other passionately as Brooke’s eyes misted over. Suzie turned the volume up high, drowning out the unpleasant sounds in the next room.

There was nothing anyone could do for him now, and she knew it. His time was over, but hers had just begun.

Damn.

Makedde Vanderwall braced herself against a relentless wind, her curses blown away by its force.

Dammit!

Wind whipped across the open expanse of cemetery to the crest of the hill, blowing her blonde mane forward across her face, tangling it with each gust so it caught in the corners of her mouth. Bent forward by the gale, she flipped up the collar on her black trench coat in retaliation, but it did little to ease her gooseflesh or tame her thick, wind-mangled hair.

The Canadian West Coast had endured a long winter and spring had not yet dared to raise its head. The hard earth at Makedde’s feet would be dying for sunlight and warmth, but there was none to be found here. Not today.

In her right hand she clutched a card and a small spray of pale yellow baby roses, gripped tight so they wouldn’t blow away. They were gifts for a friend. She had braved the weather to pay her respects to Catherine Gerber, and although she felt a gnawing loneliness at that moment, she was not
alone. Her father, Les, and his girlfriend, Ann Morgan, sat in a minivan a few metres away, waiting for her patiently and giving her space to do what she had to. But she didn’t have long. In a few minutes they would need to drive her to the airport, where she would board a long flight to Australia.

Dammit, Catherine. This is no birthday party, is it?

She forced a smile, but it faded with the next gust of wind.

The hilltop memorial held a small wall of marble plaques marking the final resting places of cremated loved ones. On her many visits, Makedde, or Mak as her friends called her, had developed a morbid habit of perusing the names and dates on the plaques, and adding up the varying years of life. Henry Lee Thompson 1898–1984. Eighty-six years old. Josephine Patrick 1932–2001. Sixty-nine. Her friend’s marker was on the bottom row, right-hand side, and she was one of the younger ones in this block of memorials. She had been only nineteen when she was murdered, practically a child. In fact, south of the nearby Canadian–American border, Catherine would have been legal to drink as of today, her twenty-first birthday. This day should have been a coming of age for her.
It should have been a big party
, Mak thought.

She reached down and pulled some dry, blackened roses from the metal holder by Catherine’s plaque and let them blow out of her hand in a gust of wind. She watched them for a
moment as they took flight and disappeared in the valley of gravestones below. She recognised the white ribbon holding them together. It was her previous bouquet.

Am I the only one who visits her?

She couldn’t help but feel a flash of anger directed at Catherine’s neglectful foster parents.

Don’t waste your thoughts on them. You have much bigger fish to fry.

Mak placed her flowers in the holder and felt some minuscule and short-lived sense of satisfaction. At least Catherine had fresh flowers now, bright and cheerful, as she would have liked them. The yellow petals seemed to be the only colour for miles: the sky, the cemetery, the wall of plaques—it all seemed so grey and depressing.

Don’t cry, dammit. Don’t.

She had one more thing she needed to do. Makedde knelt on the hard stone tiles in front of the memorial, the numbing cold seeping through the knees of her jeans. She bowed her head for a moment to get up her courage, and with a deep breath she ripped open Catherine’s card.

HAPPY 21
^ST
BIRTHDAY!

I miss you, Cat. Your friend always, M.

Mak pushed her hand flat against the marble square and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she slid the opened birthday card into one of the ridges around Catherine’s plaque so it stuck in place. The wind would take it soon, but it was the best she could do. She crumpled the envelope into a ball and put it in her pocket.

I’ve gotta go now.

Mak stood up and brushed off the knees of her jeans. It was time for her to fly across the globe to Sydney, Australia—a beautiful destination for most people, but this would be no holiday. Makedde was the prosecution’s key witness in the trial of the sadistic Ed Brown, the man who had abducted nine young women and murdered them senselessly; slaughtered and defiled them, and in the process had captured the public’s imagination as the epitome of evil, his acts making gruesome news headlines across the world. He had savagely ended Catherine’s life, and Makedde herself had been terrifyingly close to being his next victim. She had promised her dead friend justice for the wrongs that had been done to her, and although she could never truly make things right, taking the witness stand to help convict Ed Brown was one thing she
could
do. After a long and troubled eighteen months, the time had finally come for her to testify in court.

We’ll lock him away forever, Cat. I promise. And he won’t be able to hurt anyone else ever again.

What lay ahead would be no easier if she dwelled on her loss. It was too much to bear thinking about.

‘I love you, Catherine,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll get him for you. Wish me luck.’

She turned away from the bank of memorials and walked towards her father’s minivan, prompting Les and Ann to look up from their conversation in the front seat. Her father offered a
solemn nod through the foggy windscreen and Ann started the engine.

Mak got in. ‘Alright, let’s go.’

They pulled away in silence as she stared out the window, disturbed by the way a string of letters carved into cold marble could slowly take over the once vivid memories of her late best friend. Time blurred memories of the dead, even when the pain of their leaving remained fresh. Her mother and Catherine were slowly fading, like a dream upon waking, fragmenting and growing indefinite. She could no longer keep hold of them as they slipped away into the shadows.

Makedde’s carry-on bag was at her feet, her boarding pass in hand. She had her warm turtleneck pulled up to her chin and the trench coat wrapped tightly around her. She could still feel the chill of the icy wind that buffeted Catherine’s memorial. She was vaguely aware that some of the passers-by in the airport terminal were looking at her. Her father and Ann were also looking, their faces etched with concern rather than curiosity.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ she said, wondering if any of them would really buy her false confidence, herself included.

Standing tall in her heeled boots, Mak’s gaze was level with her father’s deep blue eyes. Les Vanderwall was still handsome in his early sixties,
even though the past two years seemed to have aged him ten. At present he suffered from an uncharacteristic pallor thanks to a serious peptic ulcer that had recently taken a turn for the worse, unsurprisingly perhaps, considering his daughter’s involvement in the upcoming murder trial. It had been an unfortunate two years for both of them. None of it was her fault, of course, but Mak felt somehow responsible. Losing Jane would have been more than enough. But then there was all
this.

That worried look.
Dammit, Dad, don’t look at me like that.

‘You will do fine, Mak. In fact, you’ll do better than fine. You are one of the strongest young women I know.’

It was Ann Morgan who spoke. The clinical psychologist wore a brave smile and her admirable armour of calm was contagious. She was petite and rounded, with short, stylish auburn hair and warm brown eyes—a deceptively gentle exterior housing a sharp intellect and strong spirit. One of her hands rested comfortingly on Les’s arm as he stood tense and silent. The relationship between Les and Ann had blossomed in the past several months. He had regained most of the weight he’d dropped after Mak’s mother, Jane, lost her battle with cancer. The occasional smile had even returned to his face, despite the considerable challenges of late.

Thank God he is no longer alone in that big house, his wife dead, his world empty. Thank God Ann has brought some life back to his private world
…

‘Thanks,’ Makedde replied.
You’re pretty strong yourself
, she thought.

‘Just think of the weight your testimony adds to the prosecution’s case. He’ll be locked away forever.’

With every ounce of her being, Mak hoped that was true.

‘And then you can get on with your life, Mak. You’ll have that PhD under your belt and all this behind you in no time.’ Ann stepped forward to squeeze Mak’s hand gently. Mak gave her a quick, heartfelt hug in return.

‘That would be nice,’ Mak replied. Her thesis was not on track. Her life was nowhere near on track either. With any luck this trip truly would put that regrettable chapter of her life to rest, and she could finally move on.

Oh Dad.
She turned to embrace her father. His face was so pale.

The retired detective inspector was stoic as usual, one of that old school of strong, silent men. His pallor worried her, as did his tense look. He had to take it easy. Mak hated it when his brow was furrowed like that. She couldn’t help but notice it was always herself who caused it. Theresa, her younger sister, never once made that brow furrow. And it sure wasn’t Theresa who had given him that damned ulcer…Theresa with the benign hubby and the happy bouncing baby girl. Theresa who had never done anything wrong, or risky, in her whole life. Sometimes Mak wondered if they were even related.

It’s okay, Dad. Just a little longer and this nightmare will be over.

Her father had wanted desperately to go to Sydney with her, had fought every step of the way to come along, but Dr Olenski would not allow him to travel. If he had followed all of Dr Olenski’s advice a year ago, he might have been practically cured on a course of antibiotics already. But no. This was Les Vanderwall, formerly Vancouver Island’s most formidable detective inspector, and he didn’t take orders from anyone. Stress had aggravated his condition until he was now touch-and-go for surgery in the next few weeks.