‘Sara likes these occasions, does she?’ she said. ‘Gets a kick out of them?’
That same look of distaste appeared on his face.
‘Say anything else about Sara and I’ll break your jaw. What she does is up to her. At times like this, she can do anything she wants. It’s almost the one time she can. I let her go and then I take over. And then everything’s sweet.’
After this, they drove in silence. He was so matter-of-fact. Could this be real? They were out of Duffys Forest and back to Mona Vale Road by now, turning north again and then into the park. They passed the park’s gatehouse, closed and dark. Not far in he turned off the road onto a fire trail usually closed to public access by a low boom gate. The gate was open. He drove downhill. Occasional kangaroos leaped along the side of the trail, none into their path. She wished one of them would; it would stop the car.
He drove down the narrow track, then turned off his car lights and made a sharp turn onto another trail. They drove along it for some time, going deeper into the forest. He turned off the engine and coasted the car downhill. No one could know whose death they were driving to.
23
Harrigan came back to consciousness, unable to see. The noisy, then fading sound of a vehicle driving away had woken him. He didn’t move immediately but instead tried to work out whether he could think, what he could hear, if he felt any pain. Whether anyone was here with him, watching.
At first there was only silence, and then, distantly, the harsh bark of a wattlebird calling. He was trussed up and blindfolded, the elastic of the blindfold pulled tight about the back of his head. His hands were behind his back, numbed and at the same time made painful by the bite of whatever they had used to tie them. Don’t straighten your legs, his mind told him, but there was no rope around his neck. Very slowly and carefully he stretched out and found he was able to move his feet a short distance away from each other. It felt like he’d been hobbled. He realised he was barefoot.
He was lying on his side on what seemed to be a thin and rank mattress. He swung his legs to the ground and managed to lever himself to his feet. In the blackness, he got his balance and took a few deep breaths. He swayed with nausea from whatever drug they had administered, taking some minutes to let his head clear. Wherever he was, it wasn’t in a house. The floor beneath his feet was packed dirt and the place had the feel of some kind of shed. The air smelled of piss and rubbish, like a place where derelicts might sleep. It was too quiet to be in the city; the sound of the bird calls was too close. There was no sound of there being anyone else here with him.
Harrigan took a small step forward. He had been hobbled, but he was able to move with very short and awkward steps. Probably he was supposed to be able to walk, barefoot and blinded, into whatever had been lined up for him. His bonds made him lean forward, as if he was being forced to bow his head to his captors. Carefully he moved, one step at a time, occasionally finding sharp rocks on the floor. Then his foot hit a wall. He turned side on, leaned on it, and followed it around. Soon enough he came to a door. He pushed at it with his foot. It was metal, rattled on its hinges, and sounded like it was secured from the outside by a chain.
As best he could, he tried to trace out its width. It seemed to have a metal strut across the middle and a lip where it met the door frame. He encountered the hinges on the inside, standing out from the metal frame like dog’s balls. He leaned his cheek against the set closest to him. They were large and felt rough-edged around the pin. Old, bulky, possibly steel hinges, probably poor craftsmanship. He touched the door’s lip. It hard a thick, hard edge, rough enough probably to have torn the skin on his cheek.
His legs had been tied at the knee as well as the ankle. He sat down on the dirt and drew his knees up as close as he could to his chin. He leaned his head forward to find out by feel what kind of rope they had used to tie him up with, brushing his cheeks against it. It felt like plastic and had been tied to allow the circulation to flow in his legs. He was definitely meant to be able to walk. It was too uncomfortable to stay in that position any longer than was necessary and he leaned back. He tried to feel what was tying his hands. Not plastic rope, more like electrical wire. Malleable plastic coating, soft copper wire inside, pulled tight enough to bite into his wrists and break into the flesh.
He stood up and manoeuvred himself into an awkward position that allowed him to press the bonds tying his hands together against the door’s lip. Then he began to saw, pressing hard. You rub something softer against something harder and rougher for long enough and attrition will work; it has to, even on a bluntish edge. The question was whether or not he had enough time. Stamina wasn’t an issue. The certainty that he would die if he didn’t free himself was all the motivation he’d ever need.
His hands were both numb and aching blocks of ice hanging uselessly at the ends of his arms. They hadn’t stinted in the amount of wire they’d wound around his wrists. He stopped thinking about what he was doing and concentrated on something more pleasant: Grace; how they made love. Then he realised he was afraid for her and changed his thoughts. Where was Ellie right now? With his oldest sister, who was first on the list of emergency contacts? Kidz Corner would raise the alarm if neither he nor Grace turned up to collect her; they would ring the contact number at police headquarters he’d given them. But no one would ever find him here. He put that thought to the side and remembered days fishing at Green Cape. Watching the whales swim past in the distance. Stay there. It’ll keep you going.
Once he slipped sideways and grazed his arm badly against the hinges. Later, he slid down to a crouch, to give relief to his back. His legs began to ache instead. As he stood up, he felt the wires around his right wrist begin to loosen. He pulled the bonds apart but the wire hadn’t quite given way. He went back to it and kept going, losing track of time. Then, at last, the wire slipped away from his right hand altogether.
Blood flowed painfully back into his hand and he had to wait until he could use it. Then he slid to the dirt floor and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. It was a black mask. Being able to see felt like liberation in itself, even if he was still in a dark place. Turning his head to the side, he saw thin cracks of daylight marking the outline of the closed door, the thickest band of light being at the foot. Otherwise there was no source of light in this place at all.
The door was old and battered and, while there was a lock, there was no handle on the inside. As he’d thought, it had been chained on the outside; there was no way he could open it. He peered out through a crack at the fading daylight. They had picked him up mid-afternoon and he’d heard them driving away. He had spent a lot of time freeing his hand. They couldn’t have taken him far. Judging by what he could see, he was in some kind of hut in the national park, with a bare space between the door and the surrounding trees.
He looked at his left hand, bringing it close to his face. The wire was knotted too tightly for him to unpick it with his right hand. He went back to rubbing the wire against the door lip, this time facing the door. I look like I’m jerking myself off, he thought. Strangely, freeing this hand seemed just as uncomfortable, almost harder than when both hands had been behind his back. Between rubbing it and pulling at it, the wire finally gave way and he pulled the last of it off. It had cut deeply into both his wrists, bruising them and making him bleed. He had cut himself further while sawing through the wire, and his arm was raw where he’d torn his skin away against the hinges earlier. But his hands were free and he could use them. Again he waited while his left hand stung itself back into life.
He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the shadows. The light from the doorway was too weak to give him anything other than an indistinct view of the hut he was locked in. It was circular and seemed to have been built on the slope of a hill. A few feet away he saw a lumpy mattress, stinking of rot. He checked himself. His belt was gone as well as his shoes. His watch and wallet too. He had been left with nothing except the clothes he stood up in.
He checked the rope that hobbled him. It had been threaded through a loop around his knees and then tied at his feet. With his back against the wall and his knees pulled up as close to his chest as possible, he could still barely reach the knot. He sat on his side, with his feet side on against the door, and reached for it that way. It was probably the best stretching exercise he’d had all year. He worked at it, took breaks, and finally pulled the rope away. By the time he had got himself free, it was so dark he was working by feel.
Despite the blackness, he began to explore by touch the small cell he was locked in. The roof was low, barely more than a few inches above his head. Lifting up his hands, he could reach it easily. It seemed to be made of
