Alex Palmer - Blood Redemption

‘I don’t like guns very much.’

‘But you use them in your job, you have to.’

‘When I have to. I avoid them if I can.’

The room was quiet as they looked at each other.

Your father was in the army. But he wasn’t a nobody, was he? Mine ended up a petty crim. ‘You stopped drinking,’ he said, ‘just like that.’

After I woke up in hospital one day, in detox, with cuts all over my legs and couldn’t remember how I’d got there or what my name was, yes, I stopped. ‘I didn’t have much choice,’ she replied.

‘No one would ever know it, Grace, looking at you now.’

She smiled in reply, with that odd, sad smile she had.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘It’s you. You look so different without your make-up.’

‘No mask,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t put it on yet. I can be myself for a little while.’

‘Let me touch your face,’ he said.

‘That’s stepping way over the line, Paul.’

‘Well, let’s do that, then.’

He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers, bringing his hand to rest lightly under her chin, touching her neck before tracing up into her hair and stroking the loose strands at the edge of her plait.

She leaned into his hand and then reached up and took hold of it. He wound his fingers into hers, stroking her skin. They were leaning across the rickety table towards each other when, with the perfect timing he had come to expect in his work, Harrigan’s phone rang, bringing them both back into working hours. They let go, drawing back. He answered his phone and then took hold of her hand again, massaging it slowly.

‘Harrigan. Good morning, Trev. No, mate, I was just waiting for the call. Where? Have you got the patrol on to it? I’ll meet you there, I’m on my way. I’ll see you.’

They separated, he cut the connection. Grace had already stashed away her cigarettes, he reached for his jacket.

‘We’ve got an address. Let’s go,’ he said.

‘How much for the coffee?’

‘Nothing. It’s on the house.’

She looked at him.

‘They don’t charge me, Grace, they never have. They owe it to me for the money I lose here on the cards. Don’t worry about it.

‘Thanks, Con,’ he said as they passed the counter.

‘No worries, Paul,’ said the man, looking after Grace as they went out into the street.

Dawn had begun to light the steep, narrow hill down to Central Station in a pale wash, touching on the litter in the gutters.

‘Can I drive?’ Grace asked.

‘Go for it.’ He threw her the car keys.

‘How’d they get the address?’ she asked as they got in.

‘A Doctor Andrew Matheson from Hornsby rang the hot line. He says he’s sure he saw her at a house in Berowra Heights yesterday afternoon. He’s treating a man there for terminal cancer. The man’s name is Hurst and he used to be a butcher,’ Harrigan said.

‘Berowra Heights. That’s a long way from the city.’

‘We could have her. We could have her in half an hour.’

She glanced at him. He was punching his fist lightly into his other hand. Take it easy, Paul. Don’t let’s assume too much just now.

Meanwhile, she would have to deal with the speculation that would be rife after she was seen arriving at work in Harrigan’s car first thing in the morning.

In the hour before dawn, Lucy was woken by the sound of footsteps and whispered voices in the hallway outside her room. She got out of bed, put on her old dressing gown and opened the door. The door to her father’s room was open and the room was lit by a soft light.

Melanie appeared, hurrying.

‘It’s Dad,’ she said, ‘I think he’s dying. I’m calling the ambulance.’

She had tears in her eyes as she turned to go down the stairs.

‘Can I go in there?’ Lucy called out to her.

‘If you want. But I don’t know if he can hear you. I think it’s too late.’

Gathering courage, Lucy walked towards their father’s room.

Inside, Stephen was sitting beside him, holding his hand. There was almost no sound in the room. Stephen looked up and saw her. He shook his head.

‘He’s dead,’ he said quietly, in disbelief. ‘He’s gone. It’s all over.’

Lucy could hear the sound of rain on the window. The window was open a little, the curtain moving in the cold wind. The pale fire she had seen in her father the day before had gone, his body was just what it was called: remains. His face had no connection to the face she had known as her father’s. It was less than a mask, something completely used up. As she stood there, she shivered. She felt a sense of claustrophobia, a stifling airlessness. She was convinced that he was still here in shadow, caught in this room. She pushed the window open wide and let the strong wind into the enclosed space. It burst in with unexpected force, knocking the bedside lamp to its side. The room seemed to flash from positive into negative and back again within an instant and she felt that now he had gone, it was empty.

Stephen, startled out of his thoughts, let go of their father’s hand.

He stared at his sister.

‘It’s all finished,’ she said to him. She was shocked at the depth and the painfulness of her relief. Her heart was racing, her breathing so deep she could have been intensely frightened by something.

Stevie stood up and shut the window, righted the lamp.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It was like he was still in here, I had to let him out.’

‘It’s okay, Luce. Don’t worry about it. Let me just sit quiet for a moment.’

He went back to their father. Lucy looked out of the window and saw in the distance a few scattered lights on the edge of the park. The reflection in the dark glass superimposed the image of her father’s body over the scene. She turned back to the room to see Stephen pulling the floral bedsheet over the body’s face. As he did so, her father was reduced to an outline.

‘We don’t have to wait in here,’ Stevie said. ‘Let’s go downstairs. We don’t have to look at him.’

He left the light on in the room behind them. Just before he closed the door, Lucy looked at the covered figure one last time.

‘I’ll see you down there, Stevie,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to get dressed. I’m leaving.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yeah. I’m sure.’

Yes, she was cut loose completely. There was nothing here to hold her.

Lucy went back into her room and dressed slowly. She had packed her backpack the night before. Her gun was concealed in an outside pocket, where she could reach it. She sat on her bed for a few moments before standing up and walking out into the hallway again, and then glancing one last time at the closed door to her father’s room.

On her way downstairs she heard the familiar sound of the television set in the lounge room and saw that the light was on. In the kitchen, she found Stephen and Melanie sitting at the table, drinking instant coffee. Melanie was crying softly. Stephen was smoking.

‘Does Mum know?’ Lucy asked.

‘You heard her, did you?’ Stephen blew smoke out. ‘Yeah, she knows. Mel got her out of bed. It doesn’t matter, Luce. Whatever she does now, it doesn’t matter. She can watch TV for the rest of her fucking life.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m going now. You don’t need me. I’ll just be in the way.’

‘Why do you have to go?’ Melanie asked. ‘You don’t have to leave now.’

‘Oh, yes, I do,’ Lucy said.

‘I’ve got this for you. I meant to give it to you last night,’ Stephen said.

Melanie stared as he handed Lucy several hundred dollars and a set of car keys.

‘It’s out the front,’ he said, and she nodded.