Thrill City (7 page)
He was wearing a tuxedo and a shit-eating grin and he leaned one arm on the roof of the vehicle. In the other hand he held a bouquet of orchids, filched from the wedding party by the look of things. I’d been so caught up being angst-ridden about Alex that I’d forgotten how goddamned gorgeous Sean was. He was a couple of inches taller than me, a young-looking thirty-five with a boyish face, and his perfectly formed lips had a pronounced rim that always caught the light. His short red-gold hair ruffled in the breeze, setting off his perpetually glinting, slate-blue eyes, and beneath the monkey suit I knew his body was lean and tightly muscled. My heart was beating fast and I couldn’t remember how to breathe. Act casual, I told myself.
He tilted his head, inverted his eyebrows and put on his best Connery-inspired Bond drawl. He already had a Scottish accent, but he did have to lower the register a tad.
‘Shields.’ He smirked. ‘Sean Shields.’
I put one hand on my hip and smirked back, trying for sultry although I probably resembled Forrest Gump after his trans-national marathon. ‘Guess that makes me Pussy Galore.’
‘Damn right it does.’ He was trying hard to keep the suave expression, but his mouth kept lifting at one side. The smile was infectious. I’d also failed to remember how much fun he was, and his remarkable enthusiasm, and facility, for oral sex. I couldn’t believe that just a few moments before I’d actually been disappointed he wasn’t Alex.
I switched from Pussy G to Dr No. Or maybe it was Dr Evil. Either way, the German accent I spouted sounded pretty hammy. ‘So, Mr Shields, we meet again. From where did you appropriate the limousine?’
‘Commandeered it for my mission.’
‘Which is?’
‘Get in the back seat and you’ll find out.’ He clicked open the door.
M
onday morning I was stuck in traffic on Punt Road, heading north to Nick’s place in Abbotsford. I’d tried to call him to make sure he was still up for the ride-along, but he hadn’t answered his phone that morning or the day before. I was pretty annoyed and could have just gone about my business without him, but he’d advanced me quite a large sum which I really didn’t want to give back. I figured if I fronted up regardless, I’d have fulfilled my part of the bargain and the money was mine to keep.
To tell the truth I was hoping he wouldn’t want to come. It would be awkward after witnessing his scene at the writers’ festival, and I didn’t want to dick around. My plan was to finish the job in record time, type the report, attach the photos, then hurry back to Sean. I kept remembering the day before and getting little aftershocks when I thought about his tongue on my clit and his cock in my pussy, the two of us tussling in the back of the limo among plastic-wrapped hire suits and boxed corsages. At first I’d protested—I hadn’t had time to preen myself and I was too sweaty and hairy to fool around—but Sean had insisted he’d take me any which way, and after a few seconds I wouldn’t have cared if I had ten centimetres of regrowth and a bush down to my knees.
Later, after the wedding, he’d staggered back to my place and we’d done it all over again, my carefully blow-dried hair turning into a bird’s nest once more. Being pissed, he spilled his guts, confessed how much he’d missed me and how bad he felt about not being there when all the hideous shit with my mum went down in Sydney. I’d told him to shut up, it wasn’t his fault and he had nothing to feel guilty about. Then he’d asked if he could stay a few days. Curtis was still subletting his place and couldn’t find anywhere else to rent, so I said sure. It was only for a little while, and he promised to cook and clean and provide sex on tap.
I’d also managed to get some goss on the wedding. Sean knew I’d unintentionally shown up at the bachelor party, but not about Alex following me into the toilets. I’d been worried Alex’s scumbag cousin would spill the beans, but Sean’s face hadn’t betrayed any trace of suspicion as he told me about the day.
Apparently the ceremony had gone ahead without a hitch, but Alex had gotten really smashed at the reception, and Sean and some other groomsmen had to hustle him out of there and put him to bed. He couldn’t have had much of a wedding night. The strange sense of disappointment I’d felt on hearing the ceremony had gone ahead turned into an evil kind of satisfaction. It was sick, but I couldn’t help myself.
I drove my boring, sensible Ford Laser past Nick’s place. The entrance wasn’t much to look at, just a high wall with a garage and a door, but I guessed the rest would be pretty posh. The street was in an upmarket part of Abbotsford, and one side was crammed with renovated terraces and converted warehouses. The other, Nick’s side, featured expensive homes perched on a slope overlooking the river. Unlike his fictional character Zack, I didn’t get a park out front. A BMW, Toorak Tractor and rubbish skip were in my way, so I pulled in half a block up and doubled back.
The sun beat off the asphalt and I was hot in my Portman’s skirt suit. If Nick was actually home, I was sure he’d get a kick out of my corporate look: court shoes, black-rimmed glasses and sleek ponytail. Four years of stripping costumes and characters had made me not only a master of disguise but a halfway decent actor. I wasn’t going to be performing Shakespeare at the Globe in a hurry, but was pretty confident I could nail
Neighbours
or
Home and Away
if I had to.
I rapped on the steel door, bruising my knuckles, and waited. No answer. I found a bell to the side of the doorframe and pressed. Nothing. I tried again. Sweat was beading on my forehead and beneath my pantyhose, causing the gusset to sag. I tried to tug up the nylon through my skirt, thinking that although gusset was probably the most disgusting word in the English language, it’d make a good name for a female punk band.
With my ear to the metal I pushed the button again, heard the bell chime and something else—music, turned up pretty damn loud. At least that meant he was home. I tried the door, assuming it would be locked, but the handle depressed, the mechanism clicked, and it swung open a couple of inches. Not a good sign. No one left their doors unlocked in the big city, especially not in a fancy house a couple of k’s from the housing commission towers.
A small kernel of fear cracked open in my stomach, my mouth dried up and very bad thoughts swirled around my mind. Nick on a bender since Saturday afternoon, falling over and hitting his head on the side of the coffee table. Nick pissed and choking on his own vomit; or worse, drunk and despondent over Isabella, he’d slit his wrists in the bath, hung himself or got hold of a gun . . . I knew from personal experience what a couple of those options looked and smelled like, and graphic images danced in front of my eyes. I thought of calling the cops so I wouldn’t have to go in, but what the hell would I tell them? For all I knew he could be in there relaxing on a Jason recliner, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, drinking a piña colada and getting a blow job from a fan. Nick would be pissed off, the cops would have the shits and I’d be a laughing stock.
I glanced down at my hand on the door handle. It was trembling. You’d think the things I’d seen would have made me hard-edged but it was the opposite. I was turning into a sissy, a nancy, a goddamn girl. Toughen the fuck up, I told myself. Get your arse in there. Go.
I pushed on the heavy steel door, took a couple of steps and found myself in an entrance hall. Down the other end was a door, to my left the garage access, and in front of me, a little to the right, a suspended staircase made of polished blond wood. A shattered gin bottle lay on the floor, and as well as the solvent stench of cheap booze I smelled something underneath it, organic and nasty. Something like blood? My stomach spasmed and the bones in my ankles felt brittle all of a sudden. The music was coming from the top of the stairs so I took a deep, ragged breath, crunched through the broken glass and climbed, calling out all the way.
‘Nick? Nick, it’s Simone. Are you there?’
There was no reply. The music was very loud and I realised I knew the song, although I hadn’t heard it for years. It was a duet by Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan from The Pogues. ‘Fairytale of New York’.
The landing at the top of the stairs turned into a large open-plan space. It was gloomy, with just a little ambient light filtering through tightly closed blinds at the other end of the room. I made out a stainless steel kitchen to my left, a red ‘feature wall’ next to it, and a long living area stretching out in front of me. The place looked like someone had just moved in and only made a half-arsed effort to unpack. Boxes littered the floor, some sealed, others splayed open and spewing crumpled newspaper. A bookcase had been assembled sans shelves, the couch was cushion-less, and an enormous rug leaned against the wall, still rolled up and secured with packing tape. The music came from a laptop perched on a tea-chest with a pair of iPod speakers attached. Empty bottles and saucers full of cigarette butts cluttered every available surface, and the place reeked of stale booze, smoke and dirty socks. At least it didn’t smell like blood anymore, and I chalked that up to a sensory hallucination, brought on by fear and post-traumatic stress, most likely.
As I inched forward, heels clicking on the polished wood, I made out a pair of sock-clad feet sticking out from behind a packing crate over by the windows, soles pointing to the ceiling. Hurrying over, I found Nick. It was too dark to see if he was alive or dead so I grabbed the cord for the blinds, zipped them up and was momentarily blinded by brilliant sunlight. He lay completely still, wearing the same clothes he’d had on at the writers’ festival, just filthier and more rumpled. I couldn’t see him breathing and my heart trilled as I bent down to try to find a pulse. As soon as I touched his throat he jerked, and I jumped back and let out a girly little scream. He produced a shuffling, hog-like snore in return, and I was so relieved I coughed out air and started laughing and shaking my head.
‘You arsehole, Nick.’ I nudged his ribs with one pointy toe. He didn’t wake up, just muttered and rolled his head to the other side. On the floor next to him I saw a bunch of photos. I bent and picked one up. Him and Isabella, arms around each other in front of one of those old country pubs with a big wraparound veranda on the first floor. Her hair was longer, he was a few kilos leaner and they looked happy. Nice, but for the fact the photo had been ripped in two, then stuck together again with clear tape. I’d certainly had my weird, obsessive moments, but I’d never done anything like that. Had I? I let the photo flutter from my hand and looked out the window. Hell of a view. Beyond a large sundeck made of sixties-looking crazy-paving, the muddy Yarra wound, trailed by bike paths and lined with oaks and willows. Pretty.
Nick was going to have one hell of a hangover when he finally woke up, so I went all Florence Nightingale and clip-clopped over to the kitchen, rinsed out a glass, filled it with water, took it back and placed it in his line of sight. I dug around in my handbag for some Nurofen Plus, my hangover cure of choice, and generously left the whole pack propped up on the glass. It was the least I could do since I was keeping his money.
The song finished, then immediately started again. How long had he been playing it, over and over? I unplugged the speakers from the laptop on my way out.
It was time for me to get to work, and I wanted to leave before he woke—it would just be embarrassing for both of us. I descended the stairs, feeling like a prize dickhead for freaking out over nothing, until I reached the ground floor and the meaty smell hit me again, even stronger than before. I looked towards the door at the end of the corridor and instinctively knew it was coming from there.
I
stood very still at the base of the stairs, looking down the polished wood hallway to the matt, dark blue door and feeling as though if I stared hard enough I might be able to figure out what lay behind it. Without music the house was quiet, the only sounds those that filtered in from outside: distant traffic, whirring cicadas and the faint, crunching chime of a bicycle bell.
I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched, although it was impossible. There were no windows in the entrance foyer, no old-fashioned keyholes, no large gaps underneath the doors.
Skirting the broken bottle I walked to the blue door, barely breathing, head starting to spin. The odour became stronger the closer I got: coppery and visceral, sweet and slightly musty. I could practically see tendrils of scent winding cartoon-like through the air.
Remembering my training I depressed the door handle with my elbow, nudged it open with my foot, then wished to god I hadn’t. My stomach shrivelled and I had to lean against the frame to stop my legs buckling beneath me.
I was staring into an office with a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the river. More unpacked boxes were stacked against the walls, and between me and the massive desk sat a high-backed leather swivel chair, facing away.
And the whole room was covered in blood. Crimson streaks spattered the walls, the floor and the papers strewn across the desk. Directly under the chair the beige rug had turned burgundy and was so saturated it looked like it would squelch.
Someone sat in the chair, very still, and too short for me to see the top of their head. All I saw was one pale, slender limb hanging over the armrest. A languorous pose, except that the delicate hand at the end of it was missing two fingers. The index and middle fingers were bloody stumps, and the thumb was hanging on by only a slender ribbon of flesh. The ring and pinkie fingers were intact, though, the nails painted that deep claret colour I’d admired two days earlier.
I don’t know why I acted as I did, because I must have known she was dead: the pool of blood, her stillness, the complete absence of the slightest electrical spark that signified the presence of another living human being. Maybe I desperately wanted to believe she was just wounded, however badly, because I called out, ‘Isabella,’ rushed over, and spun the chair around.
