Peepshow (21 page)

‘We’ll get you stoned and your hair fixed up soon as you get out,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait to see you. You wouldn’t believe the shit that’s been going on.’

Sal cut the connection and opened the door for me.

We were outside my flat.

‘Stay home tomorrow,’ he said, ‘no visitors, no phone calls. You’ve come this far, don’t fuck it up on the final stretch.’

Inside my flat I pulled on my trackie daks and singlet and went into the bathroom to examine the damage to my face. A red mark ran from my cheek to my eye, coupled with a jagged scratch from Mick’s ring. I took a deep, shaky breath but I refused to cry. Why did he have to do it? He’d ruined everything.

I’d had girlfriends who’d been in abusive relationships and I’d always told them: first time he hits you—leave. And then when they didn’t leave I’d thought they were fucking idiots. So there was no way I could see Mick Halliday ever again. I just couldn’t. And the thought of it tore me up. What I felt for him didn’t come from any rational area of my brain. It was like some primal urge dwelling in every cell, especially concentrated in my stomach and my pussy and my skin. A constant, urgent need. I rubbed my upper arm. Bruises shaped like fingertips had started to appear.

I poured a glass of cask wine and took it onto the verandah with my pack of cigarettes. It was ten o’clock and had finally gotten dark. The phone rang and the answering machine clicked on. Mick said: ‘Simone,’ and hung up. I looked up at the indigo sky. The stars were cancelled out by the city lights. The leaves rustled and a warm breeze brought the smell of the ocean off the bay. My mobile beeped announcing a text message: ‘I’m sorry, please call me. Mick.’

Wasn’t that what they all did? Said sorry, promised it would never happen again, and one day you were admitted to hospital with bruises round your throat and your front teeth smashed in. It was like my mother and Russell. Good god, was history repeating itself ?

A psychologist could have had a field day with me.

I tried not to but I wanted Mick there. Wanted to feel his hair with my fingertips, put my face into his neck and smell his skin. Push my hips against his and feel him hard.

‘I am seriously fucked up,’ I said out loud, the wine obviously working. They say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. I wondered about the second sign.

I had another drink and thought of calling my mother but she would associate Mick hitting me with stripping.

Like most people she thought the stripping world was like some B-grade movie, all drugs and violence and hoes getting slapped around. Hey, maybe it was. I’d been so busy trying to convince her and everyone else it was a perfectly legitimate career choice, maybe I’d been convincing myself too. Overlooking the negatives.

Now I was drunk again. I played the Cowboy Junkies, ‘Black Eyed Man’. The song had been on when Mick and I first had sex and it reminded me of him. I lay on my back on the floor seeing him on stage tuning his guitar, golden lights washing over his face. And that’s where I fell asleep.

I was having the weirdest dream. A doctor in a white coat who looked exactly like Sigmund Freud was holding a needle, about to test me for STDs.

‘Sexual relations with a guitar player,’ he tutted, ‘you’re probably riddled with disease.’ He roughly grabbed my arm and spiked the needle into the crook of my elbow. It hurt so much I flinched and woke up.

It was pitch black and I was on the lounge-room rug.

I tried to sit up but something pinned me to the floor.

Someone. Mick? A huge dark shape bore down on me, I felt a crushing weight and all the air was pushed from my lungs. The room smelled sour and I heard breathing, heavy and rasping. A hand gripped my bicep, a torch clicked on and a narrow beam of light focused on my arm.

Dick Farquhar was sitting on me, a mini mag-light in his mouth and a syringe in his hand. My heart constricted in panic. This couldn’t be. He was in jail. Signed, sealed, delivered.

I started to struggle and tried to scream but he pushed his elbow into my neck and no sound came out. I couldn’t breathe. Farquhar grunted, sweating with effort, and a drop of filthy perspiration fell from his face to mine. The needle pricked my arm. A hot shot. Just like that prostitute. Farquhar’s knee was on my hand, keeping my arm still. I wriggled and pain shot through my vein.

The needle slid out. More pressure, more of his sweat on my face and then I felt it go back in. My head swam and spots floated in front of my eyes. I didn’t know if it was the drugs or the lack of oxygen. I felt like going back to sleep and then I realised my other arm was free. I hit at Farquhar’s shoulder. Stupid. I tried to think of some jujitsu moves. Nothing came to me.

Then I remembered a self-defence class I’d done years ago. Get angry, the teacher had told us. Put all your energy into it. If you think you’re going to kill your attacker then you’ll probably maim him. Eyes, balls, throat. I didn’t have enough room to pull back and lay in a punch so I grabbed in the general direction of Farquhar’s sweaty, hideous crotch, and squeezed hard until something gristly crunched between my fingers.

The torch fell out of his mouth and bounced off my forehead and he bellowed and wrenched free, falling backwards.

I stood up gasping for air and clicked on the lamp.

The needle hung out of my arm and I gingerly pulled it out and flung it across the room. Blood welled from the puncture wounds and ran down to my wrist. Farquhar was slumped near my front door, hunched over, retching and spitting. I was backing out onto the balcony when my phone rang. It stopped and my mobile went off but it was on the coffee table, too close to Farquhar. He got to his knees and reached into his jacket. I saw a glint of metal. A gun.

I clambered over the balcony railing, hung for a second then dropped the last two metres. My right ankle rolled under and I fell on my arse. Pain radiated through my foot but I got up, hobbled down the path through the front gate and stood there stupidly, looking up and down the street. I looked back. Farquhar stood on the balcony, pointing his gun at me, and I ducked behind the brick wall by the gate, heard him mutter, ‘Fuck.’ Then a door slammed and footsteps ran down the interior stairs.

Adrenaline coursed through me but also a drowsy, sleepy feeling like I’d just taken ten Panadeine Fortes. It was a toss-up between running for my life and curling up on the footpath and having a little nap.

The security door snapped shut and adrenaline won out. I turned left and did a limping run in the direction of the canal. The Seven Eleven was down that way, it would be open, it was always open. As I ran I looked for a doorway to knock on but the buildings were all unit blocks or townhouses with locked gates out front.

I’d just crossed the bridge when I heard a whip crack and bark exploded off a tree next to my head.

I ducked left down the path that ran by the canal, trying to get out of the line of fire, zigzagging, limping. A row of fat palms provided shadows and cover and I slipped behind one. In the distance a siren wailed, faint at first then growing louder. I wanted to look around the trunk to see where Farquhar was but thought I’d get my head blown off. Had he seen which tree I’d jumped behind? I slumped down into a sitting position and rested my head against the rough bark. It felt really nice, relaxing. I started to nod off.

I came to suddenly. Jesus, how long had I been out?

I tried to think. I needed a weapon. A stick, anything. I felt around the base of the tree and my hand came to rest on a small sign staked into the earth. They were all along the canal, giving the common and Latin names of the plants.

The stake end was sharp, not much use against a gun but at least I was protected from vampires. God help me, I was going to die. The siren got really loud then cut off abruptly. I heard a shout.

‘Simone! Farquhar!’ It was Alex. I snuck a look.

Farquhar was hiding two trees away, looking back at Alex. An old guy in a dressing gown was telling Alex he’d heard a gunshot and he yelled at him to get back inside his house.

Sodium orange lamps lit the path and the palms cast deep shadows. I slipped from my hiding spot and crawled slowly along the darkness to the water’s edge.

My plan was to wade to the other side and hide in one of the many drain holes. Like I said, I was feeling pretty out of it. I glanced back. Farquhar was still watching Alex, who moved slowly down the path, gun drawn to his chest, doing a creeping sideways walk.

I lowered myself noiselessly into the black, oily canal, bare feet touching rocks and slime. The water came up to my waist and I ducked down so only my head poked out and slowly backed over to the other side, shivering, holding the stake to my chest and keeping an eye on Farquhar and Alex.

I was almost at the tunnel-like drain when Farquhar lifted his gun and lined up a shot at Alex.

‘No!’ Just as I yelled Farquhar pulled the trigger.

Another crack ripped through the still night air and Alex twisted and flew backwards, hitting the concrete path with a thud. The gun skittered out of his hand and he lay still. Fuck. I ducked into the drain and Farquhar turned and shot at the water where I’d just been. He took off past Alex’s body and crossed the bridge, out of my line of sight.

More sirens wailed in the distance and I thought Farquhar had run off when I heard footsteps above me and saw torchlight shining in the water. When he got to my hiding spot he lowered the hand clutching the mag-light and I didn’t think, just grabbed his wrist and pulled.

He somersaulted into the water with a giant splash and came up quickly but without his gun. Droplets ran down his bald pate and he grabbed me by the singlet, pulled me out of the drain and wrapped his meaty hands around my throat. I dropped the stake and clawed at his hands but he wouldn’t let go. I tried to kick him but the water gave too much resistance. The world went dark, blood rushed in my ears and my head was a balloon about to pop. I lost strength and my hands dropped down into the water.

This was it, I was too tired, I was giving up.

Wet wood bumped against my hand. The stake. My fingers closed around it and with one last burst of energy I lifted it out of the water and drove it into Farquhar’s armpit. The skin stretched and popped and Farquhar yelped like a dog, letting go of my throat. I drew in a raw scratchy breath and pulled out the stake, stabbed it into his chest then thrust it in his neck and left it there.

He waded back, clutching at it, and I turned and hoisted myself up the concrete bank. He grabbed my foot but I kicked out and he splashed back into the water.

I ran up the path towards Broadway, pain spearing my ankle. The sirens had gotten louder and stopped and blue and red flashing lights pierced the shadows.

A spotlight blinded my eyes and someone yelled at me to stop but I kept running, not daring to look back. A figure rushed me from the side, knocking me to the ground, and my face scraped gravel. Someone wrenched my arms behind my back and it should have hurt but now that I was lying down I closed my eyes, stopped fighting the drugs and felt the pain drift away. I thought I heard a helicopter, but maybe it was just the smack, and then I didn’t hear or feel anything at all.

Eyes closed. Throat sore. Aching all over. The flu? I couldn’t afford to get sick. Try dancing and being sexy with a dripping nose and head full of cotton wool.

I reluctantly opened my eyes. Off-white ceiling.

Curtain hanging from a railing. Hospital smell. I turned my head to the left, more pain, and a face came into view. She looked familiar, a little like Lisa McCune, but I couldn’t quite place her.

‘Simone? I’m Detective Suzy McCullers. I took your statement after the Farquhar bust? You’re at the Alfred Hospital. How are you feeling?’

I tried to speak but my mouth was so dry the words stuck in my throat. Detective McCullers poured water from a plastic jug into a frosted white tumbler and I took a sip. It was like swallowing razor blades.

Suddenly I remembered.

‘Farquhar!’ I sat up, looking wildly around the room as though he might appear from behind the curtain.

Suzy patted my arm. ‘It’s OK. He’s dead.’

‘I killed him?’ I rasped.

She chuckled softly. ‘Not exactly. Your Buffy the Vampire Slayer act resulted in superficial wounding but it did cause a heart attack. Don’t feel bad, his arteries were clogged, it was on the cards.’

Feel bad? The scumbag had set me up, blackmailed me and tried to kill me. I didn’t feel bad at all.

‘Ambulance officers pulled him out of the canal and tried to revive him but he flatlined in the ambulance and never recovered.’

‘Alex? Is he . . . ?’

Detective McCullers lowered her eyes and her bottom lip trembled slightly. ‘He’s still in surgery, it’s too early to tell.’ She composed herself and managed a small smile. ‘I’ve got to take another statement. Do you feel up to it?’ I told her what had happened up until I hit the concrete. I didn’t remember much after that except for waking up suddenly in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

By the end my voice was just about gone. She handwrote my statement and I signed it.

‘How did Farquhar get out?’

‘He made bail, must have had something over the magistrate.’

‘Well,’ I said, pulling back the bedcovers, ‘I’d better get home.’

‘Oh no you don’t. Your ankle’s badly sprained, you have severe bruising, were drugged with heroin then given Narcan by ambulance officers. Not to mention the trauma you went through. The doctors want to keep you under observation for forty-eight hours and we’ve arranged for a counsellor.’

I groaned inwardly. God no.

‘Do you want us to contact anyone for you? Family?

Friends?’

I wanted my mum but I couldn’t tell her what had happened. I’d never hear the end of it.

‘No, no one. Is it going to be in the papers?’

‘Front page, I’d say. A cop gets shot by another cop he busted on corruption charges, who then dies of a heart attack after being stabbed by a stripper who is also a private investigator who he tried to murder with a needle full of heroin? I’m glad I’m not the media liaison officer.’