Heller's Girlfriend (13 page)

It was horrible to be so
helpless, as if we could almost predict the future but weren’t able
to do anything to stop it happening. Corella offered me a lift
home, but I declined, not wanting to spend another second in a car
with her driving. Gerry gave us all a despondent half-hearted wave
goodbye and left, shoulders slumped. The mediator admitted that it
had been the strangest mediation he had presided over, and that he
never wished another like it.

Finally it was just Bick and me
alone in the room. He shook his head with incredulity. “That was
really weird.”

“Sure was.”

“Do you want to go for a drink?”
he asked.

“God, yes!”

Chapter 9

We found a convenient pub nearby
and he bought me a G&T while he had bourbon on the rocks. For
ages we sat silently at a small table across from each other,
sipping our drinks slowly, bereft of conversation. I bought us a
refill.

“I’m positive that something
terrible is going to happen to Patricia,” I said eventually. “I
have such a strong feeling about it. It’s making me sick in my
stomach. That man is going to harm her. You could see it in his
eyes. He wants to punish her for putting him through all that.”

“There’s nothing we can do,
Tilly. He hasn’t abducted her or anything. She went willingly.”

“But didn’t you hear her talk
about destiny? It’s almost as if she’s given up trying to escape
from him. That she believes there is no escape from him.”

Bick shrugged helplessly, not
sure what to say.

“Can’t we pre-warn the cops?” I
thought about what I’d said. “Oh God, that’s so stupid. As if
they’d listen.” I was on the verge of tears and I blinked furiously
to avert any sudden waterfalls. “I just feel so powerless.”

He reached over and grabbed my
hand, concern on his face. “I know what you mean. But I don’t know
what we can do.” He squeezed my hand.

“Tilly?”

I closed my eyes.
Shit!
Will. Again. How did he manage to turn up every time another man
was showing me some affection, no matter how innocent?

“Hi Will,” I said wearily. “What
are you doing here?”

He indicated over to a group of
people at the bar. “Quick drink after work. What about you?” He
gave Bick the once-over with hostile curiosity.

“Same. Will, this is a
colleague, Bick. Bick, this is my boyfriend, Will.”

“Pleased to meet you, Will.
Tilly’s told me a lot about you,” Bick said diplomatically and
stood up, towering over Will, holding out his hand. Will shook it,
eyeing off his uniform.

“You don’t work for Heller?”

“Nah. I work for the
competition. Tilly and I have been looking after opponents in a
divorce case.”

“Who do you work for?” Will
asked, in an even more unfriendly tone.

“Select Security.”

Will glared at me in disbelief.
“Tilly, are you shitting me? After what they did to you?”

Bick glanced at me. “What does
that mean?”

“Nothing. Will, Bick had nothing
to do with that,” I hissed to him fiercely. “Just drop it,
okay?”

Will shot me an angry look and
turned on his heel, stalking back to his teacher friends. I
realised with a sinking heart that I didn’t even know any of them,
had never met them, had never done normal social things with him
like a real girlfriend. I didn’t even know if he called me his
girlfriend. Maybe I was just his occasional fuck. Maybe that’s how
he explained me. I stood up.

“Sorry, Bick. Back in a moment.
Or maybe not,” I said ruefully, and raced after Will, grabbing him
by the arm and pulling him over to a vacant table.

“Talk to me, Will,” I
demanded.

“Tilly,” he started in
exasperation. “I never get to see you and when I do you are always
with some gigantic good-looking man who has his hands all over you.
What the fuck am I supposed to think? Are we together or not?
Because I don’t really know any more.”

I leaned against him and kissed
him lovingly. I looked into his eyes. “Let’s go to your place
now.”

“I thought Heller said –”

“I don’t care what Heller said!
My assignment finished suddenly today. I was just having a drink
with Bick because it didn’t end well and we’re all concerned, but I
can ditch him. Let’s spend some time together.” I paused and gave
him the full force of my big eyes. “Unless you’d rather party with
your teacher friends?” And I kissed him again for good measure.

He groaned softly and kissed me
back. “God, Tilly. Let’s go to my place. Now.”

I smiled at him. “I gotta ditch
Bick first, okay? Meet you outside in five minutes.”

I went back to Bick. I was just
about to explain to him that I had to leave when my phone rang. I
answered, collapsing on my chair in shock. Later, Bick told me that
my face went so pale that he was sure I was going to faint. It was
Patricia’s lawyer on the phone. As soon as I heard her voice, I
braced myself for bad news about Patricia. Corella was hysterical.
I don’t know how she found my mobile number. I must have given it
to her at some point. I couldn’t remember.

“She’s killed him. She stabbed
him fourteen times. Right through the heart. The police are here.
There’s blood everywhere. He’s dead. You have to come over right
now. His hotel.” And she started sobbing in earnest. I couldn’t get
another sensible word out of her and then the phone disconnected. I
looked over at Bick in shock. It hadn’t been the news I’d
expected.

“She said Patricia’s killed
Warburton. Let’s go.”

I admit that I didn’t even think
of Will or what I’d just promised him a minute ago. My whole
thoughts were on that poor woman and whatever insane form of
justice had permeated her brain. As we walked out the front door of
the pub, I spied Will waiting to one side. He came over straight
away when he saw how distressed I was.

“Tilly, what’s the matter?” he
asked anxiously.

“It’s my client. We think she’s
killed her husband. I have to see her.” Then I focussed on him.
“I’m sorry, Will. I have to go.”

I gave him a peck on his cheek
and walked off with Bick, not looking back. Neither of us had a
work car, so we legged it the few blocks to Warburton’s hotel,
which was virtually next to the mediation centre. We turned the
corner to the last block and I was on the verge of tears again
thinking about the whole situation, when Bick put his arm
comfortingly around my shoulders.

Suddenly a black 4WD travelling
in the opposite direction to us screeched in an illegal u-turn and
pulled up at a strange angle at the curb near us. Two men jumped
out of the front seats, walking threateningly towards us. They were
Heller’s
men and they weren’t happy. They stood in front of
us, arms folded aggressively, causing us to stop in our tracks. I
looked up at them, eyes wide with distress.

“Get away from her now,
scumbag!” ordered one, pushing Bick in the chest with force.

The other man grabbed me by the
waist and pulled me to one side, away from Bick, sheltering me with
his huge body. “Are you okay, Miss? Did he hurt you? Did anything
happen?”

“What were you planning on doing
to her this time? As if she hasn’t suffered enough from you
fuckers. Thank God we were driving past and saw you taking her
away. You won’t get away with it this time!” the first man shouted
in Bick’s face.

To his credit, Bick didn’t flare
up, but held his hands up peacefully first and tried to reason with
them.

“I think there’s been a
misunderstanding here, gentlemen. I’m not trying to hurt Tilly. I’m
just escorting her to her client.”

Fortunately, I found my voice
soon after. “Guys, settle down. He’s right. He’s not harming me.
He’s looking after me. We’re working on the same job. We’ve just
heard that my client has killed his client and we’re going to check
it out.”

The
Heller’s
men
continued to look at Bick suspiciously, but backed away.

“Does the Boss know?” asked one
gruffly, and I finished his sentence mentally,
that you’re
associating with the enemy?

“He knows about Bick, but he
doesn’t know about what’s just happened. I don’t know much myself.
I’ll ring him as soon as I find out more details.”

The men pulled me to one side.
“Sorry, Miss. It looked as though he was forcing you to walk with
him, and you seemed pretty upset.”

“I
am
upset. My client’s
just killed her husband. We only saw them this morning. It was an
ugly divorce case. Bick was on the other side.” They looked over at
him with distrust. “I really appreciate you keeping an eye out for
me, guys. Thanks heaps. I’ll make sure that Heller knows what you
did for me.”

They nodded in appreciation.
Everyone wanted to be noticed by their boss for the right
reasons.

“Do you need a lift?”

“Thanks anyway, but the hotel’s
just around the corner.”

“I guess that would explain the
cop cars everywhere.”

“God, it must be true then. We
gotta go. See you guys later and thanks again.”

I slapped their palms in the
traditional
Heller’s
way and took off in a hurry. Bick
scrambled after me, watched guardedly by the two men until we were
out of sight.

“That could have become ugly for
me. Everyone is very protective of you, aren’t they?”

“With good reason,” I replied
grimly.

“I hope you’ll tell me what
happened one day. I’ve heard some rumours at work, but I didn’t
know it involved you. But I can see that anyone connected with you
despises Select staff.”

“They sure do.” I didn’t want to
discuss it any further as we arrived at the hotel.

There were a couple of cop cars
and an ambulance in the hotel’s drop-off zone. We asked the
uniformed cop left at the door on crowd control to contact the lead
detective to speak to us. While we were waiting, I went to the
ladies and scrubbed off the concealer I’d applied to my bruising. I
wanted the cops to see the violence that Warburton had been capable
of inflicting on a woman.

We sat in the foyer for quite a
while waiting for someone to come and see us. I shouldn’t have been
surprised, but I was, when it was my brother Brian, a homicide
detective, who came down to interview us.

“Tilly? How the fuck are you
involved in this?” he asked with impatient gruffness. Our
relationship had been somewhat strained for a few months because of
Heller.

I introduced Bick to Brian and
explained our assignment. He was immediately interested in
interviewing us and took us upstairs to an empty suite that the
cops were using as a temporary interview room.

“Can I see Patricia first,
please? I want to make sure she’s okay,” I asked him nicely.

“For a few minutes. She’s in
that bedroom, waiting for her lawyer to arrive.”

I left Bick behind with Brian
and cautiously opened the door. Patricia was sitting on a chair,
dressed in a bathrobe, looking unruffled and serene. She had
scratches on her face, the start of a black eye and incipient
bruising around her neck. I nodded to the policewoman who was
watching over her and entered the room, moving over to
Patricia.

Corella was nearby, in a state
of shock, talking in a very subdued voice into her mobile. Patricia
turned to me and smiled.

“He won’t hurt anyone again now,
Tilly.”

I sat down heavily on the bed.
“Oh God, Patricia. I’ve let you down so badly.”

“Don’t be silly. It was meant to
be. He rang me last night and proposed a reunion. Then it just hit
me that I’d never escape from him; that he was going to kill me one
day. So I agreed to reunite. Then as soon as we were alone here in
the room, he attacked me and raped me again. He was so angry with
me for initiating the divorce, yelling at me that I’d humiliated
him and that this time I was really going to pay. He had both hands
around my neck, choking me while he raped me. I knew what I had to
do. I couldn’t go through it all again with him. It’s better this
way.”

“Don’t say any more Patricia,
please. Are you waiting for a criminal lawyer?” She nodded. “Are
you okay? Can I get you anything? Do you want me to fetch some of
your clothes so you can get dressed?”

“I’m fine, thanks. The police
are collecting my things from my hotel room.”

“I’m going to make sure they
know about what he did to me and what kind of animal he really was.
We’ll all be giving statements about what happened over the last
few days.”

“Thanks, Tilly. I appreciate
that.” She smiled her creepy, otherworldly smile. Perhaps she
needed to disconnect for the moment to cope with what had happened
to her and what she’d done. I took her hand and squeezed it, then
went back to the living area where Brian took a brief initial
statement from Bick and me. I showed him the bruising on my jaw and
the faint finger marks on my neck.

“Jesus, Tilly! Does Mum know
what you get up to in your job?”

“No! And I’d appreciate it if
she never found out. She would freak. And anyway, I had it all
under control. Mostly.”

Brian nodded his head in Bick’s
direction. “And what was Mr Muscles here doing while you were going
two rounds with the victim?”

Bick flashed that gorgeous sunny
smile. “I was placing my bets on Tilly, of course.”

Brian smiled grudgingly. “She’s
tougher than she looks.” That pleased me, not receiving praise from
my oldest brother very often.

He advised us that we would have
to go to the station to make a proper statement and warned us that
we would probably be called to court eventually when Patricia’s
trial took place. We left the suite and I was surprised to see when
we stepped out of the hotel that it was dark.

“What a day. I really need to
get totally smashed tonight,” I commented matter-of-factly.

“Me too. Let’s find a pub.”