Leah Giarratano: Vodka doesn't freeze

He steered Jill, who was standing rigid, out of the office.

'Just keep walking, Jill,' said Scotty tightly. 'You're gonna get a bullet in the head in some laneway one day, I swear.'

Mentally exhausted,Jill was tired of fighting the nightmare that started rolling as soon as she slipped into sleep. She gave up trying and walked, eyes closed, down the hall towards her gym. She was used to nightmares, but they were so real lately; last night she'd woken screaming twice, her pillow sour with sweat.

Jill had spent two years after the kidnapping waking every night from these dreams. She'd stayed hidden in her home, her mother by her side day and night. She wouldn't sleep alone and stopped eating. She was racked by paralysing panic that left her hyperventilating and sure she was going to die. As a way of blocking the pain, she took to scratching deep welts in her arms using her fingernails, and progressed to a Stanley knife on her thighs. She hated the burn scars left by the rapists, but revelled in the blood-red warrior marks she made herself.

After three days in the basement, Jill had learned how to turn the physical pain off, mentally leaving her body when the two men were in the room. Sensory deprivation had heightened this ability to disconnect from reality – in the dark she could not see her attackers and they never spoke. After the police had brought her home, she'd found this capacity to become numb would take over involuntarily, and would smudge its way over everything, leaving her feeling empty, like a puppet.

At fifteen, Jill had given in to her mother's tears and agreed to see a counsellor. To her surprise, this time something clicked, and she began clawing her way back into her life. She returned to school, swapped cutting for tattoos, and starving for exercise. She swapped crying for control and order, and set about harnessing her ability to numb any pain. She found that ignoring fatigue meant that studying all night was nothing for her. She quickly caught up with her peers in her schoolwork, and soon overtook them.

She then set about finding a method to defend herself, vowing that if anyone ever again tried to hurt her, she'd make them bleed too. She took up kickboxing, and found a gym that taught the sport using full-contact, gutter fighting. At first her instructors were bemused when Jill insisted on fighting others blindfolded. She was beaten constantly, and soon most at the gym refused to fight her blind and defenceless. She would inwardly curse as those who did get in the ring with her tapped her lightly, instead of connecting properly, or told her verbally where they would strike next.

One afternoon, blindfolded in the ring, Jill was sparring with one of the trainers. The woman was walking through her moves, easily dodging most of Jill's strikes and, every now and then, half-heartedly throwing a light kick. When the trainer began a conversation with an apparent bystander, Jill swallowed her frustration. She wanted a focused, determined enemy. She remembered the helplessness of being blindfolded in the basement, and she was determined to conquer her fear of the dark. The grunting and panting of her speechless abductors also taught her a lesson; by the time she'd been released, after three days, she was excruciatingly aware that sound and movement could predict future agony.

The male voice at the side of the ring was scornful. 'If she wants to get flogged, Kaylene, you should give it to her.'

'Yeah, righto, Price, there's nothing to see here. Just use the other ring will you,' Jill's sparring partner responded.

'She's the one with nothing to see. What a friggin' waste of time.' Jill heard the man moving closer to the ring. 'Use the force, kid,' he called derisively.

Jill didn't respond; she continued to try to make contact with her blows, trying to anticipate where Kaylene would move next.

'Give us a go, Kaylene. I'll partner her for a while.'

'Just forget it, Price,' Kaylene began.

Jill stopped. 'Yeah, all right,' she said, removed her blindfold, and faced the man outside the ring. 'Thanks, Kaylene. I want to get some practice with different people.'

'This is not a good idea,' responded the trainer. 'Jill, it's dangerous trying to fight like this.' In a quieter voice, just to Jill, she said, 'Not this guy. You're not training with him.'

Jill reached a hand down to the man standing by the ring. 'I'm Jillian. Two-minute rounds okay with you?'

Kaylene shrugged in disgust and got out of the ring. The man took her place. He was about 170 centimetres tall – a little taller than Jill – with thinning brown hair and a slight beer gut.

'Ron Price,' he ignored her hand. 'So what's with the blindfold? Kinky?' he asked.

'So are you okay with two-minute rounds?' Jill repeated.

'Yeah, whatever. This should be fun.'

He threw his towel over the ropes in his corner and Jill went to her own, her heart pounding. Although she'd wanted a serious opponent, she knew she wasn't ready for this. She took a deep breath and pulled her blindfold down, put her mouthguard back in. I'll never be ready unless I find someone to fight me, she thought.

Over the next two minutes, Jill hit the ground five times. When she sat back in her corner, her head was ringing and each breath felt like a stab wound to her ribs. She could hear Price sniggering in his corner. Five more rounds, she thought, this is gonna kill me. The blindfold felt suddenly stifling and she raised her hand to rip it off, a wave of fear and disorientation rising up to swamp her. She swallowed, pushed the fear back down and felt the numbness kick in. She heard Price breathing in his corner, eager to go again.

About fucking time, she told herself. I'm finally gonna learn something.

Over the next eight months, Jill sparred regularly with Ron Price, and soon found there were others happy to partner her in the ring. She learned to tune out the background noise of the gym and to concentrate solely upon the sounds of her foe – their footsteps, subtle movements, even their breathing, taught her where they were and the moves they would make next. These sounds began to replace the need to see, painting for Jill a mental image of her opponent's position, and she began striking accurately, pre-empting their next blow. She learned to use their punches and kicks to set up her own, increasingly accurate with her judgment of the time it would take for their balance to be regained, and striking before they could reposition.

She practised daily, at the gym at six when it opened, and fitting in two hours after school every day. However, when the number of people watching outside her ring increased, and their taunts became cheers, she left the gym and took to training at home. Jill walked into her home gym and filled a cup from the water dispenser near the door. She glanced at the clock. 4.20 a.m. The alarm would've gone off in forty minutes anyway. She started her routine again, her headache forgotten as she punished her body for the weakness of the day before.

Late the next morning, at her desk in the squad room, Jill tried to apply herself to paperwork on the Carter case. She and Scotty had decided to split some of their work to try to progress things faster. Neither of them wanted this to go on any longer than it had to.

Scotty was out interviewing the father of an eleven-year-old girl who'd been molested by David Carter five years previously. The case had only gone to court last year, and Carter had been found not guilty because of insufficient evidence. Although two children had testified that Carter had sexually abused them, his highly paid barrister had torn their evidence to shreds, arguing that if they had been mistaken about exact dates and times, they could have been mistaken about being abused at all. It was an outcome the police and DPP saw all the time, with crushed victims and devastated families walking away from the process feeling that the justice system was a sick joke. Little Madison Lee's father had been particularly vocal in his threats to castrate Carter. Scotty would be sympathetic interviewing him.