Leah Giarratano
Vodka doesn't freeze
Prologue
The razorblade just felt cold and clean as always; her blood warm and soothing. Carly Kaplan had expected something more dramatic this time, the last time, but like always, she simply felt calm and still.
The bathwater darkened around her, and she sighed; everything was finally going to be all right. The blood always reassured Carly that she was real, alive. Today would be the last day she needed to check.
As usually happened at this point, Carly's perspective suddenly shifted and she now watched herself from somewhere up near the ceiling. She felt quietly sorry for the girl in the bath; her face wet with soap bubbles, tears and blood. She studied the scars and shadows that marred her once innocent skin. She watched the whites of her own heavy-lidded eyes emerge. She saw her breathing grow ragged, her mouth and nose slipping under the water.
Her essence now part of the steam near the ceiling, Carly saw her mother burst through the door and struggle with the body in the bath. It was kind of sad, but her vision was sepia now, the colours in the scene below her transparent. Her mother's hold on the body slipped once, twice. The scars on Carly's arms and legs seemed faded; maybe the blood bath had finally cleaned her.
Carly's mother lifted her face to the ceiling, her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes beseeching. Carly gazed down at her, somewhere faintly troubled by her mother's pain, but there was nothing she could do.
It was finally time to leave.
1
Jill loved this bit. Her legs burned as she drove them mercilessly on the pedals, halfway up the hill of Arden Street, Coogee. She liked this part best because she knew how much Scotty hated it. If she could get enough of a lead on this hill, she could beat him this time.
She could only hear her own regular gasps now – she was pulling away from Scotty, and the thought of him cursing behind her drove her harder. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail beneath her bike helmet and the heat of the Sydney morning burned the back of her neck. The humidity was almost complete; it felt nearly as though she was swimming. As her body undulated with the movement of the bike, the scales-of-justice tattoo on her deltoid slipped in and out of her T-shirt, which was slicked with sweat to her flat stomach.
Each breath tasted like metal now as Jill pulled air through her raw lungs. Her thighs were screaming. And then, when the pain got too bad, she stopped feeling it, just as she always had.
Thoughts about work replaced the street scene. Despite their cutthroat competitiveness when were they working out together, on the job Jill knew Scott Hutchinson had her back. She couldn't have wished for a better partner, especially at a time when half the unit wanted her out. It was like being back in high school, for God's sake: if you weren't part of the in-crowd you were nothing. And Jill was definitely not in. Being single, attractive and not-interested-thanks didn't automatically count her out, but it didn't help.
But it was Jill's last case that had simultaneously seen her promoted to sergeant and dumped to schoolyard-reject in the popularity stakes. Her bust of an amphetamine ring in Wollongong had sent five bikies to gaol, one of whom was the brother of a cop in her unit – Eddie Calabrese. He was supposed to have been all over the drug trade in the area, and had never forgiven her. When she sent his brother to gaol, Calabrese looked like a fool, and worse: suddenly he was all wrong in the eyes of the powers that be. Nicknamed Elvis, because he thought he was king, he'd sent word everywhere that Jill was a man-hating bull-dyke who couldn't be trusted.
When she flew into Maroubra Road, Jill became aware of a breeze on her neck, cooler each time she glided into the deep shadows cast by the unit blocks that lined the street. The light changes became hypnotic, shadows and brightness, the rhythmic pumping of the pedals and her heart all she could hear. Suddenly Jill was back in the basement. She smelled her flesh burning as the big one pressed the cigarette into her nipple; saw her twelve- year-old self open-mouthed and screaming.
Jill's foot slipped off the pedal. She almost veered into an alarmed postie and caught her balance just in time to see Scotty's bulk, hunched over his handlebars, streaking past her right shoulder.
'Oh shit,' she breathed, pushing her foot back through the pedal. She saw Scotty's familiar smirk over his shoulder as he accelerated ahead, and she realised she was safe and alive in the present. It was David Carter's favourite spot: warm, safe and up high, out of harm's way. He unrolled his colourful beach towel and unpacked his backpack, placed his lunch, hand moisturiser and can of Coke on the rock to his right, and put his new digital camera in his lap. He liked the computerised whirring sound the camera made as he scrolled through the images he'd already taken. He always left his favourites on the camera after he'd downloaded all the pictures to his laptop.
He settled down expectantly, hoping that Red Girl and Stumpy would be here today. He was a little early, as usual, but he liked the wait.
Cross-legged and comfortable on his towel, he peered through the overhanging branches of the shrub that partially surrounded him; he noted that there were only two older teenage girls swimming laps of the 50-metre pool. No-one at the wading pool yet. He opened his fly and used the waiting time to caress himself as he studied the pictures. It was going to be a hot one today; there'd be plenty of kids.
He wondered about the meeting The Owner had called tonight. Usually they met just once a month for the game, swapping photos, police statements, movies; hell, sometimes someone even brought a kid to trade for an hour or so. Calling a meeting mid-month had never happened as far as he could remember. He felt a lick of anxiety: what if someone knew about the meetings? What if his wife found out? He knew she already suspected, but not even she would put up with hard evidence of his favourite games.
Worrying was killing the moment, he decided. The meeting was probably just about some new delights on offer, maybe an organised tour to Malaysia. Just the thought of it chased the fear away, and he concentrated on his erection.
A noise alerted him to someone making their way through the undergrowth behind him. Probably surfies or dole-bludgers, up here to smoke pot or fuck in the bushes. Animals. He wasn't concerned. He'd never been discovered here before. Plenty of bushes to go around.
When the first blow struck the base of David Carter's neck, he was temporarily paralysed. There was no sound and no pain for a moment, and he watched, troubled, as his camera tumbled from his lap, disconcertingly leaving his penis completely exposed against his white thighs. The pain smashed in with the second blow; he felt his left eye socket shatter, shards of bone ripping through his eyeball, and he saw one of his teeth fly from his mouth, landing near his sandwich. He didn't feel the third blow, which cracked his skull open and spattered globs of brain matter into the bushes and onto his towel. 'Is your arse getting fat?' Scotty asked, as Jill towelled off after their swim in the waves at Maroubra. 'It was all I could see when I was letting you lead up Arden hill. I hung back for a while so it could shade my eyes from the sun.'
Jill hid her smile with her wet hair. Casually, she swung her towel into a rope, then spun fast in the sand and cracked the towel across Scotty's tanned ribs.
'Ow! Truth hurts, huh, Jackson?'
Scotty caught the towel when she whipped him a second time. He used her momentum to wind it back around her wrist and swing her arm up behind her back. Jill tucked her head and rolled forward across the sand, easily getting out of his hold. As she tumbled, she kicked the side of her foot into the back of his knee and rolled out of the way, leaping to her feet before his two-metre-tall body crashed down into the sand.
'Poor Scotty,' she said, as he squinted up at her, grinning. 'Can't get any, so you have to get off checking out your partner's arse. Bet you did the same when you were working with Elvis.'
