The door opened and she flung herself out at me. I almost raised a fist as she leapt from the doorway, throwing her arms around my neck as she always did. When she finally pulled away a little, I saw her trademark Cheshire grin, her eyes beaming with happiness.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, taking my hand and pulling me inside. Those words were the last words I ever heard my beautiful Tami say. It was also the last time that I saw her alive, her beautiful smile extinguished from this world forever.
“Tami,” was all I had time to say as I heard the click of the gate behind me. “Too late,” was the only thought I had as I saw Tami turn her head back towards me, our eyes meeting for the final time, then looking past me, her face contorting in terror. The scream that followed sounded a thousand miles away as something hard exploded to the side of my head and I fell, not only to the ground, but also into darkness.
Chapter 9: Remembering
1.
The events that immediately preceded and then followed that terrible night are still mostly flashbacks as well as information given to me by the people that were there. I need you to understand that I am writing this book many years in the future and have the passage of time to help me. But at the time, things were much more difficult. For one, Tami’s final moments didn’t come to me again until a good week afterwards. The head-wound I suffered put me into a coma for three days and I woke up at Daylesford Hospital on the Wednesday night. Whoever decided to thump me, also very nearly broke my left leg as well as actually breaking 2 ribs on my left side. It was believed to have been a metal pipe that took me out and the doctors told me that I was extremely lucky. Any harder and I would have been eating my food through a straw, or worse, not at all.
When I finally regained consciousness, Steph had been sleeping in a chair beside my bed. The table next to me was covered in flowers and get-well cards. A jug of water was also there and that was what I needed first. The dryness in my throat was painful, the scratching unbearable. I reached for it with my right hand, almost managed to grab it, then pushed it off the table, the explosion of glass sending shards in all directions. Steph leapt from the chair, a pistol in her hand ready to fire. I flinched a little and a bolt of pain went shooting down my left side from my shoulder all the way to my toes.
When she realised it was me, she holstered her pistol and bent over me.
“Jim, oh my God, you’re awake.” She hugged me as the door suddenly opened and another officer as well as a nurse came rushing into the room. When they saw that I had awakened, the officer left while the nurse went to fetch a broom. She returned a minute later, carrying a fresh jug of water. Steph stepped back a little as a doctor came in and began doing some tests on me, torch in the eyes, listening to my chest, stuff like that. He asked me my name, James Lawson, whether I knew what day it was, Monday, and who the lady standing in front of me was, Stephanie Connor. When he was satisfied that I was OK, he waved Steph forward and after informing me that it was actually Wednesday, left the room.
“Jim,” she repeated. I looked at her, my heart in my mouth.
“Where’s Tami?” was all I could ask, the only question that was burning into me. She looked away, hesitated. “Steph, where is Tami?” I repeated.
“Jim, we can talk about that later. For now-”
“NO,” I cried out, “NOW. WHERE IS SHE?” She still didn’t answer me and I began to sit up, trying to get myself out of bed. Steph lunged forward and pushed me back down, trying to keep me down. I did as she wanted, then took hold of her hand until she looked into my eyes. “Steph, please. I need to know.” My voice sounded so quiet; I wasn’t sure whether she heard me. But when she began to nod and sit on the edge of my bed, never letting my hand go, I knew to expect the worse.
“She’s,” she began, then paused and looked away as a tear spilled down her cheek. ”She’s dead, Jim. I’m so sorry.” The words punched a hole through my heart, my own tears then coming in streams. I don’t remember screaming, but she later told me that I did.
2.
They didn’t find Tami for two whole days. After the killer had taken care of me, he had hidden her. By the time Steph found me, she was gone. She had known to look for me at Tami’s because she knew I was going to pop in to make sure she was OK. When I didn’t show up out the front of the pub, she had driven down the lane and found me crumpled up at Tami’s front door, bleeding profusely from a wound to the back of my head. An ambulance had taken me straight here, to Daylesford Hospital, while Steph remained in town, partnering up with Alec Rawlins, another young constable from Daylesford.
They had gone to Clancy’s house but only found his brother and mother at the house. He still hadn’t been found by the time I woke up. They spent almost 36 hours straight following up any lead that the police were able to get hold of. One person thought
