The Red Cardigan (16 page)

‘It's freezing here.'

An icy wind whistles. Rubbish blows out of a bin and scuttles along the gutter.

‘Here's a bit of goss. Poppy's back and had a bit of a Gold Coast romance.'

‘Oh my god, that is a bit of goss! Who was it?'

‘Some guy at the wedding called Angus. He's already called her.'

‘Is she happy?'

‘Can't wipe the smile off her face. Of course she's being very secretive about what actually went on between them.'

‘Has anyone noticed I'm not at school?'

‘Just Poppy obviously.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I told her some bullshit about a great-aunt's funeral.'

‘Has she seen Seb?'

‘Actually she made a joke about him being quiet on the bus yesterday. I haven't told her anything. I promise,' adds Alex.

‘I know you won't say anything. I didn't mean it like that. I keep thinking about how weird it's going to be seeing Seb again. Well, I'm thinking about that along with about ten thousand other things.'

‘Are you hanging in there, girlfriend?'

‘Just.'

A newspaper board clatters along the footpath. Evie tries to decipher the headlines as it somersaults in front of her.

‘So what's Adelaide like?'

‘I'm hardly sightseeing.'

‘Sorry. I keep saying the wrong things.'

‘No, you don't. I don't even know why I asked you about school. I honestly don't care.'

‘You don't?'

‘No. I mean, I guess there's stuff – shit!' Evie says, almost tripping over the newspaper board.

‘What?'

‘Nothing. I just nearly broke my neck.' Looping her hand through the wire edge, Evie picks up the board and leans it against a shop window. Like a slap across the face, she suddenly realises what it was about the wire fence in her dream. What she couldn't recall with the narrow-eyed detective in Sydney now jumps up and down in front of her.

‘Al, I've got to go.'

Evie gets out her exercise book. Resting it against a window she begins to write but her hand, in defiance of her head, draws instead. Her wrist has a mind of its own, flicking up, down and in circular sweeps. Quickly she looks around; no one has noticed.

She recognises it immediately. This is the fence from her dream. Running along the top are barbed wire circles interlinked with one another. She holds the drawing on different angles, searching for another clue.

There's a scratch in the curve of her hand where her thumb and index finger meet. It wasn't there before. She turns her hand over. Hundreds of tiny scratch marks cover her palm, climb up her fingers over to the other side. Blood is smudged on the side of the page. She looks at her other hand – it's the same. She drops the book, hiding her hands behind her back. She's gasping. She can't get a breath. Her throat is so tight. There's no air.

The exercise book, her diary, is lying on the footpath. She has to pick it up but everything is moving, swaying. Her fingers fumble for the mobile in her bag but they shake so much it takes five attempts to press the right buttons. There's blood smeared over the numbers, over the back of the phone.

She hears him, ‘Theo Kavlakis,' but her vocal cords are paralysed. She can only mouth at the air.

‘Evie? Evie is that you?' he calls. ‘Nick? Nick, I think it's Evie.'

‘Evie?'

‘D-Daaad? Dad? Come and get me, now!'

‘Evie, tell me where you are!'

‘Um, um I don't know, I don't know, I – I?'

‘Can you see a street sign?'

‘No, no. I'm just, um, just near where … where we said goodbye.'

‘Evie, stay where you are. Don't move. We're coming. Okay?'

‘Dad?' she moans. ‘My hands, my hands.'

Evie stumbles up and down the block. People push past her, giving her strange looks as she gets in their way. She can't help it. It's as though she's lost her sense of balance. Noise is bouncing off the buildings, colliding in her head. Her hands sit in the pockets of her coat. She can't look at them. She doesn't understand.

Wasn't she just chatting to Alex on the phone? She wants to be talking to Alex again. She wants to go home. Somewhere. Anywhere. She wants it to stop – stop right now!

Her father's hand is firm on her back. He is guiding her through the pedestrian traffic and into a taxi. Theo leans over and helps with her seatbelt. He tries to move her arm.

‘No. No. Don't,' Evie screams.

The taxi driver jumps out of his cab shouting, ‘What the bloody hell's going on? Get out of my cab.'

Theo gets out, too. He's saying something to the driver,
trying to calm him down. ‘We have to get to the police headquarters, Angas Street. Please, mate.'

Evie is just aware of someone touching her arm, steering her through double glass doors. She watches her shoes walk down a thick carpeted corridor, one foot in front of the other, the sponginess bouncing off her soles. It's like walking on the moon.

She is guided into a chair. Vic and Rory are standing there. Her father and Theo, too.

‘Take it slowly,' Vic is saying to her. ‘Take some deep breaths. You're safe here.'

‘The fence,' she hears her voice echo. ‘The fence.'

Slowly she lifts her hands out of the pockets and sits them on the table palms facing up.

‘Shit!' her dad yells.

Shaking her head she hides them back in her coat.

 

The men huddle around whispering. A phone rings, muffled voices, the smell of coffee, doors opening and closing but Evie sits aloof, detached from the physical world.

Instead she sits there aware of a strange calmness entering her body. Evie feels it break through her skin and settle in the deepest layer. It quietens her mind, taking the edge off her fear. She knows why. Fear will only be in the way now. She must be close.

‘Do you know a fence with wire circles running across the top?' she whispers. ‘I cut my hands on it.'

‘Where were you?' Rory asks.

‘Shh,' Vic gestures. ‘Go on.'

‘It's the fence from my dream.' She tells them about the newspaper stand. ‘All these scratches appeared when I was drawing. Look how many there are.' Evie can't stop turning her hands over and over. ‘We have to find the fence.'

Vic nods and Rory leaves the room.

‘Does Rory know where it is?'

‘He's just checking something, Evie,' replies Vic. ‘He'll be back in a minute. Hopefully with the first aid kit, too.'

Evie looks at her dad. He is covering his mouth. She can see his lips trembling even though he presses his hand hard against them.

She uncurls her fingers and puts her hand in his. ‘They don't hurt,' she says to him.

‘I'm so sorry,' he chokes. ‘Tell me if you've had enough. I'll take you home tonight if you want. You don't have to –'

‘It won't stop this,' Evie says. ‘I know that now.'

‘I wish … I just don't understand.'

‘My hands are a sign, Dad. It's not meant to frighten us. Okay? She's leading me to where I'm meant to go.'

‘Jesus Christ,' he moans.

Rory comes back in with a folder and some bandages. He shows something to Vic, who nods in agreement.

‘Evie, have a look at this.' Rory passes her a photo. ‘It's taken near the Keswick terminal.'

Evie studies a photo of a corrugated iron warehouse. At the back of the picture is a fence with barbed wire circles running across the top.

‘Here's a better one,' Rory says.

The photo is passed around the room. Theo and Nick shrug; it means nothing to them.

‘What do you think, Evie?' asks Vic.

‘It could be it. It certainly looks like it.' Evie passes the pictures back. ‘I think we should go there.'

‘I'll organise a car,' says Vic.

The detectives leave the room.

‘You're quiet, Theo.'

He looks up at her, trying to smile.

‘I'm okay,' Evie says.

Silence.

‘I'm getting closer.'

 

They drive towards West Terrace back out to the Mile End area.

‘Okay, Evie, let's retrace Athena's steps,' Vic says from the front seat. ‘We're pretty sure she went to the festival, which is situated here.' He gestures out the window.

Rory turns off the main road into an adjoining street.

‘Presuming they went by either car or foot,' continues Vic, ‘this is most likely the way they would've come.'

They turn into an industrial eyesore. Warehouse after warehouse, kilometres of wire fencing and the lack of trees make it hard to differentiate one street from the next.

‘Around this corner is where the picture was taken,' says Rory, stopping the car.

‘No,' Evie says with complete confidence. ‘This isn't right.'

‘What?' the detectives chime.

‘This isn't the place,' she repeats.

‘Why don't you get out of the car and look?' says Rory.

‘We're here now,' encourages Vic.

‘I'd be wasting your time,' Evie tells them. ‘Look, there are fences everywhere. None of them are the right one though, not here. I don't mean to sound rude, Vic, but surely there are other fences like this in the area?'

The detectives look at each other. Vic nods and Rory turns the car around just a bit too fast. Gravel sprays up, hitting the window. Evie hears his perfect teeth grind.

‘Just tell us when to stop,' he mutters.

Rory drives over the railway track to the western side of the road. Evie hears the tyres –
click
,
bump
,
click
,
bump
. She holds her hands tightly. They're so close now.

‘Stop!'

Evie spots the trees before the fence. To her they're simply four triangles, standing tall. Unmistakable. She's opening the door before the car has even stopped and running towards the fence.

‘What are these?' she calls, treading on silver lines wedged into the road.

‘Old railway lines.' Rory jogs behind her. ‘There used to be a terminal here for the mills.'

‘So simple,' she laughs.

The wire fence borders a carpark lined with trucks and vans.

Evie looks around, sniffing the air.

‘What?' says Rory.

‘There's that smell.'

Rory leans against the fence and sniffs. ‘What smell?'

‘That smell.'

‘I can't smell anything except fumes from one of the factories.'

‘No, it's like grass that's been mowed, something like that.' She inhales deeply. ‘It reminds me of a farm. Yeah, it's a farmy smell.'

‘You couldn't be further from a farm,' replies Rory.

‘But that's where she is.'

‘A farm?'

‘I don't know. I just know the smell and I know it's connected to her.' Evie gestures around them. ‘It's all connected to her,' she adds.

Rory sighs and walks back to the car.

‘It's not my fault,' she shrugs, following him.

The others stand around. Vic stubs out his cigarette. ‘Anything?'

‘She thinks Athena's at a farm.'

‘What?'

‘I didn't say she was at a farm, Rory,' Evie corrects. ‘I said the farm smell is connected to her.'

Rory gets back into the driver's seat and slams the door.

‘What are you two going on about?' Vic mutters.

‘Vic, I need to – to just be here for a while by myself.'

Vic stares at her.

‘Moo,' she says to him.

‘Huh?'

‘Look, Vic, take Dad and Theo and go for a drive. Just go away for a while. I need some space. Every time I turn around one of you's there.'

Rory starts the engine as the men get in the car.

Nick winds down the window. ‘Are you sure you're okay? We won't go far.'

‘Dad, I'm fine.'

 

At last the car disappears down the road. Linking her fingers around the curve of her grandmother's bangles Evie stands by the four trees.

‘Ok,' she says, calmly brushing her hand along the pine needles. ‘Follow the signs.'

No one is around. It's so quiet, so desolate. Carefully Evie walks further up the road, hearing her shoes crunch along the gravel. Above, a lone crow calls ‘caw, caw' and inside her head a gentle humming starts.

At the end of the road stands a narrow bridge. As Evie gets closer she sees it's not an actual bridge but rather a network of overhead pipes that run along and connect with something on the other side. Her eyes follow their convoluted journey and there she discovers the missing part of the puzzle. Three cylindrical towers, taller than anything else around. She lifts her hand to her throat. ‘What a place to be,' she murmurs.

Crouching down on the footpath, Evie buries her head in her lap. She can hear her heart pounding and her breath loud in her throat. She can hear Victoria's words, soothing, guiding, but what she feels is like nothing before. It suffocates her soul, leaving an emptiness void of any care or love, and a fear so deep, so black, it crushes any chance of hope. Every cell in her body feels it – Athena is here, waiting, all alone. Evie wraps
her arms around her chest and gently rocks herself.

‘I'm sorry it took me so long,' she cries.

The three towers stand alone, stark against the wasteland. The wind begins to moan and the four pines bend and shiver. In the air a whisper floats, ‘So, so, so.' Gradually the sound becomes louder, crisper. ‘So cold,' it cries. ‘So cold. So cold. So alone.'

 

Evie is back by the fence when the car returns. Her dad goes to her, anxiety pasted all over his face.

‘I know where she is.' Evie points to the towers.

‘Up there?' says Nick.

Evie nods. ‘She's inside.'

‘Are you –?'

‘Yes. You tell them.'