Times of Trouble (21 page)

I never felt very
maternal myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t want babies. Some day I
probably would like one, but I have never got clucky about other
people’s children. Sophie was the opposite when she was a teenager.
She loved children so much she used to baby-sit whenever she could,
even if it was for a measly few dollars. The children she looked
after adored her. She would come home with handmade presents,
finger paintings covered in love hearts, jewellery made out of
pasta. And she always told mum she wanted to bring the children
home with her too. Mum would laugh and say it wasn’t as easy when
you had them full time. Maybe Sophie was learning this now. I just
hoped we hadn’t flushed Sophie and Charlie from a safe, comfortable
hiding spot, to somewhere the murderers would find them.

We drove back to
Newtown, barely speaking to each other, each lost in our own
hostile thoughts about how badly the day had turned out. Liam
mentioned he would like to spend tomorrow in the streets around
where Sophie had been living, hoping to find someone who she spoke
to, or even someone who she might have run to. I thought it sounded
like a long shot, and didn’t commit to coming along. I wanted to
get home, and have a good look at the notebook. Maybe that would
give me some idea of what my next move could be.

I hoped my mood
showed Liam how disappointed I was, but he didn’t seem at all
worried about how I felt. He was too preoccupied with working out
where Sophie might have gone. I wanted to know this too, but I
still worried that finding Sophie wasn’t going to solve everything.
Even if she was in the car with us right now, these people would
still be after her. I hadn’t wanted to say this to Liam on the way
from the hospital. He had said that once we found Sophie, we could
go to the police. But somewhere between the Harbour Bridge and
getting back to Newtown, I decided I had to speak to the police,
with or without Sophie. It was time to discuss this situation with
someone who might be able to help. And if Liam didn’t want to do
this, I would do it without him.

Chapter 19

When we got back to
Newtown, despite the intense disappointment I was feeling, I was
absolutely starving.

‘
Should we stop
somewhere and get something to eat?’ I suggested as we drove down
King St. ‘There seems to be plenty of different options. We could
do Indian, Chinese, Italian or a pub meal. I could do with a
beer.’

Liam looked relieved
that I had broken the ice, and he pulled the car over as soon as he
saw a spot. He hesitated before he opened the door, and turning to
me he said: ‘Sorry about before. I really stuffed up, not waiting
for you. I was just so keen to see if she was there. I really
thought we’d made it, you know. I never expected her to run.’ He
looked really ashamed.

‘
I know you didn’t
mean to. We just need to discuss things more. We’re meant to be
working together.’

As I said this, I
felt the notebook shift in my pocket and guilt spread through my
chest. I would tell him about it if there was something useful in
it. No point raising his hopes unnecessarily.

Our car was sitting
in front of a pub advertising bistro prices on a blackboard at the
door. They were surprisingly cheap.

‘
What about six
dollar steaks?’ Liam pointed at the specials.

‘
Sounds good to me,
I’ll get them. Do you want a beer?’

I noticed Liam was
quite happy for me to pay for dinner. He didn’t even offer to buy
the beers. If he was living off his parents’ loan, it must have
made our failure today even harder to take.

As we drank our beer,
waiting for our meals to arrive, I tried to start another
conversation about the people hunting Sophie.

‘
Do you think these
people who are after Sophie had something to do with prostitution?
Or maybe drugs?’ I asked.

‘
Why would it be
about drugs?' he asked.

'I read the article
on your pin up board....'

'Cocaine. Yeah, I
forgot about that. I have no idea. Like I said, I think it’s best
if we find Sophie, and then see what she knows… otherwise we’re
just guessing. It’s a waste of time’.

Liam didn’t look at
all interested in this topic.

‘
But when we do find
her, she’s going to need help to get away from them. So if we could
have some idea of who we’re dealing with…’

‘
Can you just drop
it?’ Liam snapped. ‘I don’t feel like speculating about this all
evening. We just need to keep looking for Sophie.’

What was his problem?
The lucky break we had today, the information that got us this far,
had come from my Facebook idea. Did he now want me to just fall in
line, and do what I was told? I was tired of being bossed
around.

‘
Why do you get so
prickly? I’m just trying to talk things through, come up with some
ideas maybe. I don’t want to fight with you.’

‘
I know. I’m just
really over this at the moment. Missing her today has really pissed
me off,’ he explained, not sounding any less prickly than
before.

‘
I’m pissed off too.
But we just have to keep going. What other choice have we got?’ I
asked, hoping Liam wasn’t looking for a reason to give
up.

‘
Of course we have to
keep going. And we will find her. I promise you we’ll find her
Ellen. We’ve got so close now, there’s no way we’re giving
up.’

By the time our
steaks arrived, Liam was more friendly, the tension and resentment
mostly wiped out by cold beers and the thought of a good meal. When
Liam was in a good mood, he seemed like the sort of guy who could
talk to anyone; even a total stranger wouldn’t make him nervous.
But no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to have to search
for something interesting to say. To make things worse, it also
wasn’t often that I hung out with someone as good looking as Liam.
I couldn’t help but take in how many girls were checking him out
across the room. Liam, like Sophie, didn’t notice the attention he
got. His mind was, as usual, completely occupied by our search for
her.

‘
So were you and
Sophie close when you were young?’ he asked, staring me straight in
my eyes as he always did when asking a personal
question.

I thought about
explaining what had happened to my relationship with Sophie, but
wanted to avoid talking about the fight I feared had caused her to
move to London. Maybe she would have gone anyway, but we might have
stayed in touch if she hadn’t lost faith in me… maybe?

‘
Yeah, we were good
friends. Until dad left, anyway. I mean, we were four years apart,
but she was very protective of me. She was always the popular one.
I pretty much hung out with my piano teachers, my piano and my
parents. Sad as it is to admit.’

‘
So your mum and dad
divorced when you were young?’

‘
Not exactly
divorced… he would have had to speak to my mum to arrange that. He
left, and we never saw him again. It was a pretty tough time. Mum
was devastated, and she never really got over it. Sophie was
shattered too, and she took it out on me and mum.’

‘
Oh.’ He poked at his
food for a few seconds and then resumed his attentive
stare.

‘
So you never had
time for boyfriends, with all the practising and stuff? You must
have had at least some sort of affair …’

There was no way I
was going to admit how limited my relationship history really
was.

‘
Sure, there were
some men, nothing special though,’ I lied, talking quickly to get
it over with. ‘What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?’ I asked,
successfully avoiding eye contact.

‘
I haven’t exactly
had time over the last few months…’

I felt stupid. Of
course he hadn’t. He saved me by continuing to explain.

‘
Before I left my law
firm, I did have a serious girlfriend. I thought she was the one.
But it all got pretty screwed up. I wasn’t really meant to be
having a relationship with her, and we didn’t survive the
controversy.’

‘
Was she your
colleague?’

‘
Something like that.
How good is this steak! Only six dollars too!’

Nice change of
subject.

With a full stomach,
I started to feel weary, and suggested we go home. We were only a
couple of streets away so Liam drove slowly, searching for a park
near the house. Just when we almost there, he suddenly looked
really agitated, and sped around the corner, taking us past parks
that were quite close to where we wanted to go.

‘
Where are you going?
You’ve missed the house.’

Liam was scrambling out of the car.
‘Wait here. Lock the doors. I’ll be back in five minutes.’

His tone scared me.
He sounded determined, but his voice was shaky, as if he was
frightened by something. I did as I was told. Sitting in the dark,
I twisted in my seat, trying to work out what Liam had seen. But
the street was mostly in shadow, and I could only make out dark
shapes under the glow of the street lights. I watched the car clock
ticking away, each second stretching out into minutes. After he had
been gone four minutes, I started to wonder if he was playing a
trick. Was he about to call me from the house, and ask me what I
was doing sitting in the car?

As I heard the door
unlock, my hands instinctively flew to cover my face, but then I
saw it was Liam. He opened the back door and threw something in
with a thud. I thought I recognised my bag - but what was he doing
with that? Then he quietly opened his door, and slipped back into
the driver’s seat, puffing from the effort of carrying the luggage.
He pulled away from the curb, barely looking at the road, and
giving too much attention to the rear view mirror.

It dawned on me what
was going on, just before Liam opened his mouth to
explain.

‘
Did you see the car
parked outside the house?’ he asked.

‘
Was there someone
there you recognised?’ I suddenly felt jumpy, desperate to get out
of this place. So much for being brave like Sophie.

‘
When we drove past,
I'm sure it was the same car I saw behind us earlier. The guy in
the front seat looked like he was asleep, and the driver was
reading a newspaper. They looked like they were staking out the
house.’ He exhaled, the stress in his voice seeming to catch in his
throat.

I felt terrified. The
danger was suddenly real.

‘
How could they have
found us?’

‘
I don’t know,’ he
said.

He turned left far to
fast, exiting the side street, but immediately landing in the
middle of a traffic jam on King St. If he had been able to turn
right, we could have got out of the Newtown gridlock quicker, but I
could understand why he hadn't waited for a gap in the traffic. He
was as petrified as I was.

‘
Are they following
us?’ I asked, instantly wishing I hadn’t, as Liam looked for so
long in the rear view mirror that we almost swerved into oncoming
traffic.

‘
They will be. I
tried to look calm going into the house, but they must have seen
the luggage when I left. Hopefully it took them a little while to
work out what we were doing.’

‘
What are we
doing?’

‘
Running!’ he almost
screamed.

Liam's driving was
more than usually erratic, especially considering we were only
driving at the pace of the slow moving traffic jam. Our car was
inches away from nudging the bumper of the car in front. And every
few seconds, Liam swerved to the right as if to pass. But the
oncoming traffic didn't leave space for overtaking. The cars parked
along the left hand side of the road cut off any chance of
overtaking there. So we were stuck. I felt like a caged
animal.

'Can you see them
behind us?’ he asked. ‘It was a blue Magna.'

I turned round in my
seat, wondering what a Magna looked like. But then I remembered,
when I saw the model three cars behind us. We were separated from
it by a ute and a little hatchback. They were definitely behind us.
This was not Liam being paranoid.

'They're not far
behind Liam. I can see them. They're going to catch up!' I
shrieked.

'How can they? We
can't go any faster, so they can't either!' he snapped.

'We need to turn off!
What if they get out and try to catch up on foot?' I reached into
the back, slapping the lock down hard. Liam did the same on his
side. We were still moving slowly forward, but had only travelled
about 150m since we entered the main road.

'There's no way
they'll get out of the car.'

'Maybe we should get
out? And make a run for it?'

'Where on earth would
we go?' As Liam said this, he had to slam on the breaks to avoid
colliding with the car in front, which had just stopped for a red
light at a pedestrian crossing. I spun round in my seat, staring at
the Magna, waiting for them to make a move towards us. I felt like
I was in a nightmare. A car chase where we couldn't accelerate
away, and no chance to turn out of the slow moving procession. The
car made me feel claustrophobic, but Liam was right. It wasn't a
good idea to get out now. They would just get out of their car too,
and then what would I do?