With no umbrella, no coat, and only a light jacket between her and the elements, Jess cursed Auckland’s weather. Four seasons in one day — the song was right. It had been a nice day when she walked up the slight rise to the station on College Hill. No longer. She stopped in front of the station doors and peered out into the street. Rain was pelting down and getting heavier with each passing minute.
‘You can wait over there, miss,’ a friendly voice said. ‘You know what Auckland’s like. This’ll be gone in ten minutes.’ An elderly man was sitting at a desk where neat piles of Neighbourhood Watch pamphlets were displayed. He was wearing a name badge identifying him as Paul Manford — community volunteer. He pointed to a line of plastic chairs set back in an alcove. ‘Better than getting wet,’ he added seeing her reluctance.
‘Thank you,’ she said. With nothing else to do, and nowhere to be, it made sense to sit down while she waited. Curious to see what was in the envelope she peeled it open. One page, grimy and frayed at the fold-lines; it looked as if it’d been torn from an exercise book. It was the type used by school students which would have had a soft cover and the paper stapled at the centre to hold it together. At the bottom of the page were three signatures. Bryan Randall and Henry Turner and a name she couldn’t decipher. The date — 15th December 2018. With shaking hands, Jess stumbled through the bad grammar and Bryan’s awful spelling, and forced herself to read each word slowly. She didn’t want to miss anything.
Marguerite said, she wanted it. Before she couldn’t speak, “Don’t let me suffer. Promise. Jess can’t see me like that.” After that I stayed away. I couldn’t look. She was disgusting. Do you know what it’s like to kill someone? Even if they beg you to do it? It’s hard. I stayed at garage. The nurses were with her and Jess. What could I do? I’d only get in the way. Marguerite didn’t care. What would happen if I got caught. Her precious daughter was more important. I don’t know why she married me. One morning I needed clothes. The nurse had left and the new one was late. Jess was asleep in a chair beside her mother. Marguerite opened her eyes. Stared at me. Really stared. Then gurgling, choking and crying. Too much crap. So I did it. The sound, I couldn’t hear that. I put the pillow over her face. I pushed harder and harder and it stopped. Jess woke up and pushed me, she pushed me across the room. Strong, so hard I hit the door. She rushed back, and was lifting the pillow off her face. The nurse arrived. I said, “I caught her, I’ll call 911.” I left. Marguerite was gone. Left her with her precious Jess. Didn’t see her. Didn’t want to. I deserved that money. Payment for what I went through. Jess didn’t say a word. Fuck knows why. Got out as quick as. Came here, to work with the Holden team for free at Bathurst. Did a few days. They said not to come back. Not my fault, they didn’t give me a fair go. Met Chelsea. We got on. Bought her a car. She pissed off so I hooked up with Lisa. Bought her a car too. A Ford not a fucking Holden. Lisa was into coke. Got me on it. Better than the brown. That’s all. Here I am. Not proud of myself, but that’s how it goes.
‘Are you all right miss?’ The old man asked. White-haired, he was wearing a cardigan with pockets over a checked shirt buttoned up to the neck and baggy pants. He had left his desk and was bending over her, offering his handkerchief. ‘Here, take this. Come on, don’t cry. It all works out in the end. Usually for the better.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Jess said grateful for the kindness as well as the handkerchief. Lately …’.
‘You’ve got your whole life in front of you, a pretty young girl like you. Whatever this is, it won’t last. It never does.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ she said, blowing her nose. She held out the handkerchief, but Paul shook his head.
‘Keep it. I’ve got a stack in the drawer. My wife thinks real ones are better for mopping up tears.’
Jess smiled. ‘You must have a nice wife.’
‘I do, but like all good things, I had to wait to find her.’ When he sensed she had recovered, he patted her on one shoulder and walked back to his desk and sat down.
Jess folded the pages and put them back in the envelope. Paul was right. She should be laughing not crying. This was the closure she had been searching for. When the Medical Council saw what Bryan had said, they would have to reinstate her practising certificate and she could go back to work. Not with the Prof, not after he had turned his back on her when she needed him most but somewhere new, where she could make a fresh start. This was good news. Good news which reminded her of how much she missed her mother.
At the door she turned and said thank you to Mr Manford. The rain was still bucketing down, muddy water swirled along the gutters of Gudgeon Street and backed up over drains, pooling across the road. At the bottom of the steps she pulled her jacket up and over her head. After looking both ways she turned right towards town and home. As she ran along the pavement, skipping over puddles, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
By the time she reached the corner of Hargreaves and Gudgeon, her jacket was soaked and water streamed down her bare legs into her shoes. As she took shelter in a doorway, her teeth chattering with cold, she tried to figure out the fastest way home. A car drove past sending a fan of water high in the air on to the pavement. It just missed her. No blue Mazda in sight. Where was Ahmed when she needed him?
A silver sedan pulled to a stop at the curb, the passenger window open. Someone called her name and she crouched down to see who it was. The inside of the car was in shadow and she couldn’t make out any faces. Whoever it was, called again, more urgently this time. She had taken a step towards the car to get a better look when she felt a figure move behind her. He pinned her arms against her body and clamped a huge hand over her mouth forcing her head against his chest. She tried to bite him, but his grip was too tight, and she couldn’t open her mouth wide enough. As she screamed through his fingers she was carried the few steps to the car and shoved forward face down on to the back seat. A thick blanket was thrown on top of her, before she could lift her head. Hands held her down and something hard and round was jammed into her skull behind her ear. For a moment all she could think about was how she’d dropped her laptop out of her bag and how the rain would ruin it. A stupid thought; she was about to die and she was worried about a cheap laptop. She had to get out of the car before it started moving. She tried to bring her knees underneath her to get leverage against the seat and kick out behind her, but before she could, she was pushed off the seat and into the foot well. Her face hit the floor, her teeth piercing her bottom lip.
‘Keep fucking still,’ hissed a man.
She screamed and kicked the door, all the while scrabbling forward, reaching up for the door handle. The man whacked her hand away, then punched her on the back of the head so hard bright lights shot across her vision. Still, she struggled to rear up, to get her head to the window where someone might see her and hear her calls for help. The man swore, whacked her again and grabbed her arm through the thick blanket and viciously twisted it up behind her, ramming it between her shoulder blades as high as it would go. As she gasped with pain, Jess felt as if she would never breathe again. His grip on her wrist tightened, each fraction of movement triggering another excruciating surge of agony. Jess stopped resisting. There was nothing she could do. No one was coming to help.
Face down in the back of the car, she had no idea how long the journey took. The man let go of her arm, but only after he positioned his feet which were clad in heavy boots on her body, stomping on her if she moved. If she raised her head, he slapped it down, not once but twice, laughing as he hit her the second time. She lay still then, counting the seconds and the cars driving past, torturing herself with the knowledge their drivers were oblivious to what was happening. No one spoke. The blanket was rank with the smell of animals. Horses? Dogs? Cats? Urine definitely.
When her head tipped forward, it meant they were turning off the motorway, but in which direction, she had no idea. Minutes passed. The car slowed to a stop, its engine running. She heard the driver’s side window go down. Cold air sucked against her bare wet legs. The driver called out. A metal gate rolled back. The car bumped forward. The rain on the car roof stopped, followed by the engine.
The man in the back climbed out, moaning about how stiff his legs were, petulantly stating he was going to drive next time. Someone laughed and called him a girl. Next time? Every part of her body was numb with pain. Her tongue probed the cut on the inside of her bottom lip, tasting the iron in her blood. The door opened behind her. Hands gripped her ankles and pulled her backwards out of the car, her wet skirt riding up underneath the blanket. Manhandled upright she was propped against the side of the car with the blanket over her head.
All Jess could see were her feet and a stained dusty concrete floor. A door opened near to her. Another hand, another push. Her feet caught and she pitched forward into space. Gravity took over and she landed heavily on the floor. The door slammed shut. A key turned in a lock. She tugged off the blanket desperate to see. Nothing except intense eye clogging darkness. She waited for her eyes to adjust. It made no difference, there was no light.
She was lying next to someone — warm and breathing. She reached over, her fingers feeling the body for clues. A suit, shirt, trousers. Cologne mixed with sweat. She whisked her hand away and stared into the darkness. The smell — it could only be Henry. She shook him and he groaned. As she shook him harder, he groaned again, but otherwise he didn’t stir.
On her knees she reached out her arms trying to get a feel for where they were. One hand hit a wall, the other nothing. Still on her knees she inched forward, then sideways and backwards and finally having determined they were in a small room, she got to her feet and as she straightened up, she hit her head on the ceiling with a bump. It was a cupboard, not a room.
As she groped in the dark she leant over Henry, this time shaking him impatiently and whispered furiously. ‘Henry, it’s Jess.’ No response. Employing an old doctor’s trick, she knuckled the bone behind his ear. Henry moaned, flinched at the pain, his breathing changed to grunting as he finally came to.
‘What the fuck?’ he croaked his breath foul. ‘Jess?’
‘Yes, now listen. I’m moving this way.’ She took his hand and pointed it. ‘You move that way, away from me, then we can sit sideways and not have to touch.’ He didn’t object. Groggy, and holding his breath he struggled to follow her instructions, wriggling on to one side and moving his bulk away from her. Now side by side in the darkness, their knees were jammed under their chins. Uncomfortably warm after being so cold in the car, Jess felt steam rising from her clothes on to her face.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck …’, Henry yelled, drawing out the last syllable.
‘What?’
‘My arm’s broken. It hurts like fuck when I move.’
‘How did that happen?’
‘Pearl hit me. With a bat. Long story. Any professional advice?’
‘Don’t move.’
‘Call that professional.’
‘I’ll look at it in a minute, okay. How long have you been here?’
‘Not long. As you can tell by the pristine environment, I haven’t had to ablute.’
‘Who’s outside?’
He moved, his foot thudding against the wall. ‘Murray Chambers or the gang who employed him. Take your pick. There’s no reason anyone else would want us. They think we know the passwords.’
Jess gripped her wrists in front of her ankles hugging her knees even more tightly into her chest and rocked back against the wall. ‘You know what they are. Tell him.’
‘I don’t know them.’
‘I don’t believe you. You’re a liar. Tell him.’
‘I. Don’t. Know. Them. I keep trying to tell you, Andrew changed the passwords before he left.’
‘It’s over Henry. Stop now. You’ve hurt too many people. Give up and tell them what they want to know.’
‘Did you get hit in the head when they grabbed you? Listen to me Jess. Andrew changed the passwords before he left.’
‘Is money that important to you? I don’t get it. I really don’t. I also don’t get why you had to involve his mother.’
‘His mother?’
‘You saw her. Last week. You pretended to be Andrew. She thinks he’s alive.’
‘She’s got dementia.’
‘She’s better.’
Henry groaned. ‘People with dementia don’t get better. You’re a doctor, you of all people should know that.’
He was right. Damn it. She should have asked to see her mother-in-law’s medical records instead of taking Mindy at her word. People with dementia don’t get better. But, then if she hadn’t had dementia in the first place, as Mindy implied, then she would get better.
‘Park the dementia for now okay. I’ll check it later.’
Henry snorted. ‘You’re serious aren’t you?’
‘Someone visited her Henry, because they gave her a diamond brooch to pass on to me. It couldn’t be anyone else but you. Admit it.’
‘Why the hell would I ask her to give you a diamond brooch? You know me, or you think you do. Would I give away something valuable or would I keep it myself?’
He had a point. ‘Forget it,’ she muttered. ‘It’s the passwords which matter. Tell these creeps what they are so we can get out of here.’
Henry heaved a sigh. ‘Andrew changed the passwords. I don’t know what they are.’ He paused. ‘And if you think Murray is going to let us go, you’re dumber than I thought.’
Neither spoke. Jess shivered and hugged her knees more tightly than before making herself as small as she possibly could. When that didn’t work, she focused on the sound of the rain on the roof outside.
‘Another thing,’ she said.
‘Of course, there is.’
‘Bryan killed Mum. You knew that and you didn’t tell Andrew. You let him read that awful report and believe what it said about me.’
‘Who told you?’
‘DS Parker gave me that pathetic statement you made him sign. Remember. Before you put him on the plane to Murray.’
‘I knew she’d search my apartment. So predictable.’
Jess swivelled around and kicked the dark where she estimated he might be. Her foot connected because he yelled and told her to fuck off back to her half of the cupboard.
‘Where’s Bryan?’
‘What do you care?’
‘I don’t. Where is he?’
‘How the fuck should I know? Ask Murray. He’ll be delighted to tell you the gory details.’
‘Don’t you feel anything for what you do to people? You stole from your best friend. From clients you knew. You set me up to take the blame and you’ve made an old lady think her son is still alive.’
‘You’re wrong on all counts. I did not steal from Andrew. He stole from me.’
Jess wanted to punch him she was so angry. Instead, she hammered on the door, beating it over and over until her fist hurt, puffing when she’d finished. ‘You can’t seriously expect me to believe you.’
‘I tried to steal from him. True. Did I steal from him? Not true.’
‘What about the properties? Ross said you bought them.’
‘So?’
‘They’re fakes.’
‘They can’t be. I saw the photos, the deeds. I went through an agent.’
‘Liar. You faked the documents, the deeds, probably even the agent to launder Murray’s dirty money.’
‘Andrew found the properties. He supplied the documentation. He told me to buy them.’
‘Fuck you!’
Henry shifted position, sucking air between his teeth as he did so. She could tell by the bitter smell of his breath that he had turned to face her. She buried her nose between her knees and breathed through her mouth. His hand groped for her shoulder and gripped it, forcing her to look up.
‘It was my idea, sure. He said he wanted out of the company, he wanted to cash up. He’d met you. He wanted a different life. Your fault, like everything else that happened. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe he would do that. Leave me, for you. Sure, I was furious. Sure, I hated you. I still do. You’ve ruined everything. I asked him to wait until the market improved, but he said he didn’t want to wait.’ Henry sniffed, then let out a sob. ‘He would have discovered what I was doing with Murray if he’d opened the books. I couldn’t let him do that. You’re right, I suggested the properties. To stall him, until I could put things right. He agreed so quickly I was surprised. But it was Andrew who provided the documentation. He practically ordered me to buy those particular ones and to pay a premium to secure the deals. It was Andrew who arranged payment from Vaultange — not me.’
‘You’re a liar. A liar who blames his dead friend instead of manning up and admitting what you’ve done. You’re despicable. You know that.’ Huddling into the corner, Jess turned away, preferring the company of the wall.
‘Andrew changed the passwords.’
‘I’m trying to sleep.’
‘I reckon he did it at the airport.’
Jess sighed. ‘If he did and it’s a big if, he had a reason. He didn’t trust you. And he was right as it turned out.’
‘But why then? I’ve been trying to figure that out. There are two possibilities. Either he knew about Murray and me, or he had a scheme of his own going. Have you thought about that?’
‘If he had a scheme of his own, why would he change the passwords? Andrew could access the wallets any time he liked.’
‘Any time? Are you sure? He couldn’t do it anytime, no. Not if he wanted to gut the Vaultange wallets and get away with it. Think it through Jess. Maybe—'
Jess kicked him again, harder and this time she connected with his broken arm. Henry howled in pain. Jess leaned closer. ‘Now will you be quiet!