Cold Justice (37 page)

Georgie checked his blood pressure again. One thirty-five on ninety.

‘I think we’re fine to keep him home,’ Callum said.

Georgie nodded. ‘You can always call us back.’

‘I can’t wait till Dad gets home and I can tell him what happened,’ Josh said.

‘I’ll just need you to sign our paperwork,’ Georgie said to Callum.

‘No worries.’

‘I’ll bring the folder up,’ Jim said, disconnecting the monitor leads and taking the machine with him.

Georgie packed away the BP cuff and zipped up the Oxy-Viva. She picked up the medication and read the box. ‘Haven’t heard of this one.’

Callum looked too. ‘Neither have I. Though I must admit I’m a bit out of the loop.’

Georgie put the Viva and drug box at the door. Callum helped Josh up.

‘Want to play Star Wars?’ Josh asked.

‘How about you take it easy for a while instead?’ Mrs Pieters said.

Georgie looked into the hall. Jim should’ve been back by now. She saw another framed family photo on the wall, and wondered whether she should say anything. She couldn’t think of a decent reason to do so, however. What would the knowledge bring them? Nothing. She was there to do a job, that was all. And she’d done it well. She smiled at Josh and he smiled back, and out of nowhere she felt all her lost confidence return in a rush, all her doubts since the accident weaken and die, all her worries about whether she’d pass or fail just fade away.
I am good at this job!
Despite Freya’s promising text, if things remained bad and she failed her, Georgie would fight it with everything she had. She would take them to court, make them give her another assessor. It wasn’t her fault that Freya had problems. She was going to do this, and get back to Woolford, and show them she was made of seriously tough stuff.

She looked down the hall again. Where the hell was Jim?

There was a noise outside and Mrs Pieters glanced out the window. ‘Oh my God! Your ambulance is on fire.’

Georgie flew down the stairs. The back doors of the ambulance were open and the fire was inside. Flames licked the edge of the roof and spewed acrid smoke into the twilight. Jim lay motionless on the roadway and she ran to him.

The brightness of the fire showed the dark blood from the laceration on his head. She put her hand to his neck and felt his pulse, then felt his chest to check his breathing. It wasn’t safe there for either of them. She couldn’t see beyond the light of the fire and didn’t know who was out there watching. But he was unconscious and could have a spinal injury. The heat from the fire was making her skin hot already, the smoke was black and choking, full of fumes from the melting plastic, and there were oxygen cylinders and a full fuel tank to worry about as well.

‘I’ve rung the fire brigade,’ Callum called as he hurried out of the house.

Before she could answer she was knocked flat. A man was on top of her, grasping for her throat. She fought him and he banged her head against the road. ‘Fucking bitch.’

She saw stars. He seized her belt with one hand and the back of her neck with the other and started dragging her.

Georgie struggled to clear her head and regain her wits and her strength. The fire was hot and bright somewhere close by. Callum was shouting, ‘Hey! Hey!’ A car raced up close, then somebody else grabbed hold of her leg.

They’re taking me away.

Nothing good could come of that.

She twisted her head and saw Barnaby’s face above hers in the glow from the fire, saw that Ross Oakes had hold of her leg. Callum grabbed Ross’s arm. Ross flung his elbow back, hard and sharp, and Callum dropped.

Georgie scratched at Barnaby’s face, catching the corner of his eye with her nail.

He turned his head away but didn’t let go. ‘Bitch!’

‘Let her go!’ Mrs Pieters screamed. ‘I’ve called the police!’

Georgie punched at Barnaby’s stomach and groin. She kicked out at Ross, still holding her other leg, managed to plant her boot in his chest and made him stagger, then slammed one into his face. She felt her heel sink into his cheekbone and heard him yowl. He dropped her leg and, now on the ground, she rammed her fist into Barnaby’s groin. He doubled over. Something exploded inside the ambulance.

Barnaby staggered towards the car. Georgie struggled to her feet, her head spinning, and kicked him in the side of the thigh with the toe of her boot. He lurched but didn’t go down. Ross fell into the car, one hand to his face, blood trickling between his fingers. ‘Barn!’ he yelled.

Georgie tried to focus her double vision on Barnaby. He was almost at the car, a white Camry. She was furious, vengeful, wanting to hurt him. Mrs Pieters ran up behind him and hit him with a broom, and as he wrenched it out of her hands Georgie lashed out again with her boot, catching him in the side of the knee, and he screeched and dropped like a stone.

Suddenly Callum was there, tackling Barnaby flat to the road. Georgie got a glimpse of other people approaching in a group, safety in numbers. Somebody else was yelling about having called the cops, and Ross hit the accelerator and almost sideswiped the burning ambulance as he took off.

‘I’ve got him,’ Callum panted, his forearm across the moaning Barnaby’s ear. Somebody else jumped on his feet.

Georgie stumbled to Jim. Mrs Pieters knelt beside her, trying to shield him from the heat of the fire. Sirens wailed in the distance.

‘All of you,’ Georgie pointed to the watchers, ‘kneel here, please. We have to move him.’

Her head was still spinning. The evening was the strangest mixture of bright orange light and darkness. The smoke and stink of burning plastics added to the nightmarish quality. She ached and sweated and felt sick.
Focus!

‘Help me roll him onto his back. On one, two, three.’ She supported his head and neck. ‘Slide your hands under him. We’ll lift as one. Everybody take some weight. We’re going to the lawn there. Ready?’

People nodded. Something else exploded in the ambulance.

‘One, two, three.’ They stood slowly, and walked.

The lawn was cool under her hands when they put him down.

‘Now gently, gently, on his side.’ She kept his head in alignment. ‘You three,’ she made eye contact with them, ‘stay and keep him on his side, please.’

They nodded. Flashing lights bounced off the house. Josh waved from the step.

On her knees, she sagged close to Jim.
Be okay, please be okay.
She touched her head to his.
Please.

Sometime later a hand squeezed her shoulder. ‘Georgie? You okay?’

She looked up into Ella’s face.

‘Let me help you.’ Ella’s hands slid under her own. ‘I’ve got him.’

‘Keep his neck straight.’

‘I will.’

Somebody tried to help Georgie up but she shook them off. She had to stay and look after Jim. She rested her face on the grass for just a moment.

‘Georgie?’ A different female voice. Two paramedics were looking after Jim now, and he was coming around. The woman supported her as she tried to sit up. ‘Where are you hurt?’

‘I’m okay,’ she croaked. ‘It was Ross.’

The woman was nodding. ‘He drove into a tree around the corner. The cops have him.’

Georgie saw the supervisor’s epaulettes in the firelight and the name Lilian on her paramedic badge. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’ Lilian laughed, a throaty sound. ‘You did good.’

‘Jim got hurt and the ambulance is melted onto the road.’

‘You did good,’ she said again. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’

Ella sat on the step next to Josh and watched the news crews filming the fire officers as they hosed down the smouldering mess on the street. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Georgie, but had seen her helped away to a supervisor’s car, so knew she wasn’t too bad. Her mate had been moving and talking at least by the time the ambulance took him away, and the bad guys had been cuffed and taken in another one.

‘Smells,’ Josh said.

She nodded. The chemical-smelling smoke lingered in the air. She could even see it in the glow of the lights down the street.

Callum sat on the other side of Josh, a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a checked tea towel against his jaw. She’d heard him telling the paramedics he’d just been stunned by the blow, not knocked out, and nothing was broken. As she looked across he gingerly worked his jaw from side to side, then saw her watching and smiled.

Tamara stood drinking coffee inside the doorway. Ella had heard what she’d done to help Georgie, and told her how brave she’d been to do it. She’d seemed shy, soft, and didn’t seem to mind for once that Ella was there.

‘I fainted,’ Josh told her. ‘The ambulance lady looked after me.’

‘I’m glad you’re okay.’

He smiled. ‘You look nice.’

‘Thanks.’

She’d been at dinner at her parents’ when the duty officer in Comms rang to tell her there was an attempted abduction and a fire at the Pieterses’ house. She’d leapt up from the table and invited Wayne along, but he’d shaken his head and pointed at her open-mouthed mother and father. ‘Bye then,’ she’d said, and run.

There’d be fallout of course, but driving over here, worrying about who was involved and why, things all of a sudden got clear, like they had after she’d been shot. She knew again for certain what was important.
The case.

‘Did you find the bad guy yet?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but we found the fairy princess.’

‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘I think she misses Tim a lot.’

‘So do I.’ His eyes were wide and dark in the gloom. ‘He looked after me.’

‘How did he look after you?’

‘He said he was like Superman,’ Josh said. ‘He said he’d save me from the bad man no matter what.’

She thought for a moment. ‘Has anybody ever hurt you?’

‘Kids at school used to tease me,’ he said.

‘Anyone else?’

‘Nope. Everybody looks after me. There’s Mum and Dad, Haydee, Callum, Uncle Alistair, Aunty Gen, and Tim used to too. He always told me that, that he would look after me.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘That he loved me,’ Josh said. ‘And I am his little brother.’

‘Did he talk to you a lot about the bad man?’

‘Sometimes. He just kept saying that he would save me.’

‘That was all?’

‘Yep.’

‘Did he know who the bad man was?’

‘Yep.’

Ella heard Tamara gasp. She said, ‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Yep,’ Josh said. ‘I asked him the bad man’s name and he said I didn’t need to know and that he knew and he would tell people and stop him so he didn’t hurt me.’

Ella looked out at the fire trucks, trying to think. ‘They were bad men, those ones,’ Josh said helpfully. ‘Those ones who hurt the nice ambulance lady.’

‘They were,’ Ella said. ‘Lucky we caught them.’

He patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll catch this one too.’

The stink of the burnt ambulance was hard to get out of her hair, Ella found later in the shower. She washed it three times, then used a leave-in conditioner and walked through the house wrapped in a towel. She pressed the message button on her answering machine.

‘Hi, it’s Pam from Gladesville Physiotherapy. You missed your appointment this afternoon. If you need to reschedule could you call me back, please? Thanks.’

Oops.

‘Hi, it’s me.’ Wayne sounded flat. ‘You’re obviously not home yet. I’ll try your mobile.’

There’d been five missed calls on her mobile from him, none with messages.

She cleared the machine and sat on her bed to call Murray.

‘I heard already,’ he said.

‘What you didn’t hear about is the conversation I just had with Josh.’

‘More fairies?’

‘Quite the opposite.’ She told him what Josh had said.

‘Still,’ he said.

‘Still what? Tim told Josh he knew who the bad man was and would stop him so he couldn’t hurt Josh.’

‘He might’ve been talking about anything! Last story we heard involved an evil wizard –’

‘Which was Dion, when Freya started seeing him instead of Tim.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Murray said, ‘this really could be anything, and unlike when we could talk to Freya, now we have nobody to check the story with.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I still think there’s something there.’

‘Tomorrow,’ he said.

When he’d hung up, Ella got comfortable on her bed and thought about bad men, black plastic tubing, and how to get the truth from somebody who didn’t even know he held it.

FIFTEEN

T
he next morning on her way to work, Ella put her mobile on loudspeaker and called Callum. ‘How was Josh? Did he say anything more after I left?’

‘Not really. Just about the fire.’ He sounded distracted.

‘Is this a bad time?’

‘I’m about to head to the surgery,’ he said. ‘Dad started Josh on some new medication, and I checked with a drug rep friend and it’s contraindicated for people with heart murmurs like Josh’s.’

‘What?’

‘I just called Aunty Tar to say don’t give Josh any more and take him to hospital as a precaution, then I rang Dad and he was really upset so I’m going across to make sure he’s okay.’

‘That’s why Josh fainted?’

‘We’re lucky that’s all he did,’ Callum said. ‘It could easily have killed him.’

‘Why would your father have prescribed it then?’

‘I guess he’s getting old and forgetful, and probably didn’t look up the details.’

Ella thought back to when she’d met Alistair McLennan at the surgery. He’d walked in tall and strong, stethoscope swinging, and his hand had gripped hers firmly. She couldn’t imagine him doing something so clumsy and dangerous because he forgot to look up a drug, especially not when it came to his own family.

Unless . . .

. . . he hadn’t forgotten.

She screeched to a halt on the side of the road. ‘How did your dad respond when you told him?’

‘He asked about the details of the collapse last night, what Josh’s pulse and blood pressure were and what the paramedics did,’ Callum said. ‘He’d seen the fire on the news, and asked why you were there, and I told him how it seemed like maybe Josh has an idea who the bad man is and hopefully the case would be solved soon. Then he said he had to go. He didn’t sound good, which is why I’m heading over there.’