Fin was numb, but it wasn’t from the cold or from the wind tugging at her jacket. It could be snowing and she wouldn’t have noticed. A raindrop landed on her face, made its way gently down her cheek until it reached the point of her chin. Two drops, three, heavier now. Fin leaned a shoulder against a wall of an abandoned building and looked through the trees towards the imposing grey stone of the clock tower - the one place where she felt safe. In some twisted way the tower connected her to her childhood. Was it the story Gracie had told of Mad Annie Calloway, who’d hanged herself from the tower with a makeshift rope made from bed sheets, or was it the forked boughs of the Jacaranda tree in Gracie’s backyard that Fin and Robbie climbed to escape Patrick’s reach. She supposed there had been a life before Uncle Patrick but she had no memory of it. There were only scraps left, something familiar like a tune in your head that you couldn’t get rid of.
Fin reached into the pocket of her rain jacket and pulled out a crumpled passport-sized photograph of Robbie. She studied it, remembered the day it was taken. She and Robbie had gone into the city and stopped at one of those photo kiosks. Robbie’s eyes stared back at her like saucers. His mouth was oval-shaped — Robbie playing the clown, doing impressions of the horror movie, Scream.
Fin’s eyes teared up from the wind. She wiped them with the back of her hand. When had she decided living wasn’t worth the effort? Had it been before or after Robbie died?
Rimis reached for his mobile phone on his desk. It was Brennan talking so fast he couldn’t even decipher the words.
‘Take a breath, Jill. You’re not making sense.’
‘It’s Fin. She phoned me.’ Jill’s voice was slower, but still edged with panic. ‘She’s at Callan Park, in the tower. She wants to talk to me, only me; said she’d jump at the first sight of police.’
‘Christ, how the hell did she get up there?’ Rimis asked.
‘Got no idea but I’m on my way there now.’
‘What do you mean you’re on your way there? You’re in hospital.’
‘I checked myself out.’
‘Shit, Brennan. Do you know what you’re doing?’
‘No, but I don’t have a choice. There’s nobody else.’
‘We’ll be on standby. You’ve got twenty minutes to talk her down, after that, we come up, you understand me?’
But Jill had already hung up.
There were no spaces available when Jill drove into the car park behind the Kirkbride Complex, so she double-parked. She ran as fast as her body would allow, biting down on her lip to distract herself from the shooting pain across her ribs. She looked up at the tower but there was no sign of Fin. Three burly men from the security company were directing students away from the courtyard. Barriers had been set up.
The colour of the sky had changed. Cumulonimbus gathered on the horizon, tinted purple clouds were stirring and moving eastwards towards them.
‘Hang on, love, not so fast,’ said a man in a security uniform. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Jill stopped and turned. ‘Is she still up there?’
The security guard’s face was firm. And who could blame him? She must look a sight with her tangled hair and battered and bruised face.
Jill flashed her ID. ‘I’m Detective Jill Brennan, Chatswood Police.’
‘Right, sorry, love. Yeah, she’s still there.’
‘How did she get into the tower?’ Jill asked.
‘She broke the lock. I guess she had a hammer. Whoever installed that lock should be shot. The lock’s as flimsy as all shit.’
‘How long has she been up there?’
‘No more than an hour. I’d just started my shift when I thought I saw someone up there so I went to have a look see. When I saw the broken lock I went up. I thought it might have been some of the students skylarking. I was almost at the top when this woman pulled a gun on me.’ He ran his hand roughly through his hair. ‘I backed off quick smart. They don’t pay me enough to take that kind of shit.’
‘Have you called an ambulance?’ Jill asked.
‘They’re on their way, should be here any minute. I told them not to use their sirens and stay back. I didn’t call the police; she said she’d jump if I did. She said she only wanted to speak to Detective Brennan so I was waiting for you to turn up.’
Jill gave a nod and asked the guard for his Maglite, remembering how dark it was in the stairwell. She walked over to the tower and made her way up the narrow, stone steps. Jill held her ribs, remembered the doctor’s warning about exerting herself.
When she reached the top, Fin was waiting for her. A packet of potato chips had fallen out from an open backpack and a hammer was lying on the floor at Fin’s feet. Fin had a gun in her hand. Jill guessed it was Robbie’s Glock.
Fin’s eyes were unblinking. ‘What happened to you?’
Jill put her hands in the air and took a step towards her. ‘This is about you, Fin, not me.’
‘Get back. You’re too close. I fuckin’ well mean it. I’ll shoot you, don’t think I won’t.’
‘Come on, Fin, put the gun down.’ Jill took a step back. Let’s try and sort this out. Just you and me, together.’ While Jill waited for Fin to speak, she tried to work out what Fin’s next move was going to be.
Fin seemed to relax a little. ‘We can talk, but I’m not putting the gun down.’
‘Whatever you want. Just stay nice and calm.’ Jill knew there was no point making things any tenser than they already were, so she sat down on the stone floor with her legs out in front of her and leaned up against the damp wall. She took a shallow breath. ‘Sit down, Fin, I don’t like talking at different eye-levels.’ Jill looked into Fin’s eyes, there was clarity there and she seemed more composed than the previous times they’d spoken.
Fin sat down and crossed her legs as if she was preparing for a yoga class. She balanced the gun in her lap and pointed it at Jill. ‘It was a mistake,’ she said. ‘It was all one big fucking mistake.’ A shadow crossed Fin’s face. ‘I thought Adam was a friend. He gave me drugs sometimes when I was feeling lousy. One day when we were hanging out at the Interchange, he told me what his uncle’s friends were doing to these kids they were picking up off the streets. The way he told me it was like he was a big man, like I’d be impressed or something. It made me sick.’ A beat of silence. ‘I told him about Uncle Patrick, how he abused me when I was a kid. What it felt like to be treated that way, how you never get over it. I told Adam what his Uncle was doing wasn’t right and I was going to tell Robbie about it if he didn’t get his uncle to stop. I still remember the look on Adam’s face. I should have known what it meant. By the time I found out what was really going on, it was too late. Robbie was dead.’
‘Tell me about Patrick,’ Jill said.
Fin’s fingers tightened around the trigger. ‘Robbie told me he was going to give Uncle Patrick a good hiding for what he’d done to me and to our family, get him to pay us compensation, then he was going to make sure he went to prison.’
‘Is that why Robbie moved to Glover Street? To be closer to Patrick.’
Fin nodded.
‘When did Robbie find out about what Patrick had done to you?’
‘We were still kids. I told him after Patrick left Katoomba and moved away. With him gone, I thought it was safe to tell Robbie. While Patrick was still living with us I was always worried what Robbie would do if he ever found out. Robbie would have started something, but Patrick was an adult…he would have finished it.’
‘So what did happen when Robbie found out?’
‘He went crazy.’ Fin started breathing faster; she couldn’t get enough air. ‘He…he thought he’d let me down. I think that’s why he joined the police; it was too late to save me, but he thought he could save others like me.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the police about Patrick when Robbie found him? All we needed was a statement. We would have investigated him, got a confession. He would have gone to prison for a very long time.’
‘What? A statement from me? Who was going to believe me?’ Fin looked down at the gun in her hand. ‘I was only eight years old when Patrick started abusing me. At first he just cuddled me like I remembered my dad used to. I liked being close to him. I liked the smell of him and the way he told me he loved me. Then things changed, cuddles turned to other things. I used to think there was something wrong with me, that it was my fault that he did ‘it’ to me, like I needed to be punished.’
A stretch of silence.
‘What about Patrick? Did you shoot him?’ Jill’s voice was quiet and low.
‘I don’t know, I don’t remember.’ Fin raised herself onto the ledge. ‘When Gracie got sick, Robbie went to the Mountains to see her. Gracie told Robbie she’d promised not to report Patrick to the police if he moved away and never showed his face again. It was the only way she could get him out of the house and away from Robbie and me.’
‘Did you know he’d changed his family name?’
Fin nodded. ‘Robbie told me. Robbie found out he’d changed it from Reilly to Hill. I still can’t believe Gracie made a deal with Uncle Patrick.’
‘It might have had something to do with the family’s reputation,’ Jill said. ‘It was a different time when you were growing up, people didn’t like to talk about paedophilia, especially when a family member was involved.’
‘Remember when I told you, you knew nothing about families?’ Fin twisted her lips into a half-smile. ‘Well, you don’t know the half of it.’
Silence.
‘What do you remember about the night Robbie died?’ Jill asked.
The hurt and grief on Fin’s face was palpable. She closed her eyes.
Jill held her ribs and tried to stand.
Fin’s eyes flashed open. ‘Sit down,’ she screamed and waved the gun at Jill.
Jill sat.
‘I can’t remember much of what happened that night, okay? But I swear if I did push him, I didn’t mean to, I was pissed, confused.’ The wind whistled through the tower. Fin drew a deep breath, wiped her eyes. ‘I phoned Robbie, told him I was in the tower and he had to come up and get me, or else I’d jump. I taunted him, made him climb the stairs even though I knew he was scared of heights. I was surprised he did it. He was standing where you are now. He told me it was time I learnt to take responsibility for my life. When I climbed up onto this ledge here, I told him I was going to jump; he tried to get me down.’ Fin reached into the pocket of her jeans with her free hand and wrapped her fingers around the feathers she’d brought with her. ‘I’ve been having these dreams. I think there was somebody else here but I don’t know who it was. Thought it was Adam but it couldn’t have been him because he was in hospital.’
‘According to Adam it was one of Wan’s men. And Robbie fell…you didn’t push him.’ Jill tried to reach out to Fin, but Fin raised the gun again.
‘I must have blacked out, ‘cause I can’t remember any of that. One minute Robbie was standing there and…when I woke up I thought Robbie had gone home and left me here on my own, so I walked back down the steps and left. I had no idea he was lying down there on the ground.’ Fin turned to look at the ground over her shoulder. She rubbed her temple with the gun barrel. ‘I’m so tired.’ Fin heard the words but couldn’t work out how they were coming out of her mouth. Her lips felt like they were covered in something heavy and sticky, like bubble gum. Where was she? Who was the woman sitting by the stairs? Robbie’s friend? The detective?
Fin heard footsteps, voices. She ran the palm of her hand along the gun barrel. What was she saying, the woman with the bruised face? Her lips were moving but Fin couldn’t make out the words. The woman was walking towards her, getting closer. So close. Just take one step, Fin. It will be over in a second. Fin watched the angel’s feathers catch flight, taken up by the wind.
A scuttle of feet, strong arms reaching out.
‘No! Fin! No!’
Fin Calloway fell into the sky.
Was it seconds? Minutes? Rimis was beside her, holding her, talking quietly to her, reassuring her.
Jill sobbed. Shook her head. ‘I was talking to her…I thought I could bring her down. I tried to save her, but I couldn’t.’ Jill looked up into Rimis’s eyes.
Rimis wrapped his arms around her. Jill leaned against him and punched her closed fists against his chest.
‘She’s gone, Jill. They’re both gone. There’s nothing you could have done for either of them.’