Lapse, page 22
‘No shit, Sherlock. But the closest police station is Safton, right—we’re closer to there than Goorinda from here. They’re probably an hour away yet. Time enough for us to get the job done and out of here. What we need to do, though, is have our princess here call her knight in shining armour—find out how far away he is.’
She could have told Rowan to go back. Instead she’d sat in the cubicle, pleaded with him to follow. It was as if she’d drawn a target on his forehead. She felt sick.
‘Sit up,’ said Brose as he climbed inside the van. ‘No funny business now, princess, otherwise we’ll have to punish you. There’s worse things than dying, you know.’ He gave her a vicious smirk.
He held the phone to the side of her head. ‘Just tell whoever it is that you’re safe and ask him how far away he is. Nothing more.’
He’d put the phone on speaker. She heard it ringing, then Rowan’s voice.
‘Clem?’
She could hear Rowan’s van rattling and roaring in the background, speeding towards her. ‘Rowan, it’s me. I’m okay.’
‘Good on you, Clem. I can see you, you’re about—’
‘No!’ she yelled. ‘Don’t say it!’
Brose snatched the phone away. ‘Listen, mate, I have your bitch here and we’re about to do something very unpleasant to her if you don’t tell me where you are.’
‘No! No, don’t hurt her—just tell me what’s going on.’
‘No stalling, fuckwit. How far away are you?’
‘Tell me what’s going on first.’
‘You tell me where you are now, mate, before my associate here slices off a piece of her.’
‘No, no, wait, man, I’m nowhere, I’m—’
‘Lying fuck! Bozo, cut the top of her ear off,’ he yelled. Hardy moved quickly, grabbing her head, the blindfold slipping off. She screamed as he tugged at her ear, then she felt the burning. A flash of pink passed the corner of her eye to her right. She turned, saw a small semicircle of pink, bloody flesh on the floor. She shrieked.
Rowan’s voice was desperate. ‘Stop! Stop! Please! Stop! I’m about forty minutes away. What do you want me to do?’
Brose looked at his watch. ‘Turn around and go back, and we’ll look after your girlfriend here.’
‘Right, got it. Anything you say. Don’t hurt her. I’m doing a U-turn now.’
Clementine sobbed, warm blood streaming down her neck, the raw flesh throbbing in the chill air. Red and black shapes swam before her eyes, clashing and colliding, bile rising and swirling in her stomach.
The van raced down the narrow dirt track, branches and shrubs crowding in on either side. Hardy yee-hah’d over every bump, like it was some sort of thrill ride, every jolt sending a burst of pain through her head. The blindfold lay around her neck, wet with blood. They hadn’t bothered to retie it. No need, she guessed—they were sure of accomplishing their mission now, and dead women tell no tales.
It was hard to focus, impossible to think, but she had to try. Rowan had said he was forty minutes away, but she knew he must be closer by now—much closer. Maybe less than five minutes, given this latest delay. But he was turning back, and Brose had said the police were an hour away—too late. It would be just her and Clancy. Clancy might even be dead already, and she would die now too. But at least Rowan would be safe.
The bush thickened, ferns and dense undergrowth crowding around enormous trunks, the track darker under a dense rainforest canopy. They bumped and jolted their way down a gentle slope, then Hardy gunned the accelerator, taking them up and over a steep rise and plunging down the other side before pulling up sharply in a sunny clearing next to a small aluminium shed. One side glared in the sun’s reflection, the other walls were shaded by the rainforest looming high above, the roof covered in leaves.
The clearing was wide enough for a broad turning circle, with thigh-high bracken and grass fringing the perimeter. The grass in the centre was shorter, as if worn down by vehicles.
Brose reached forward and sliced through the electrical tape around her feet and opened the side door, shoving her towards it. She felt woozy, stumbled. Hardy was waiting and caught her as she was about to fall down the steps.
‘Fuck’s sake, woman!’ he yelled, stumbling with her weight. ‘You can bloody well stand on your own and carry the shovel, bitch.’ He drew his bloodied knife and sawed through the tape around her wrists.
‘Don’t give her a weapon, you fool!’ Brose shouted as he stepped out of the van.
Hardy scowled, spat on the ground fiercely, then grabbed Clem’s arm and started marching her away. She tried to resist, digging her heels into the ground. If there was a one in a million chance that Rowan or the police might arrive in time, she had to keep stalling.
‘Hold your horses, Hardy. I’m fuckin’ choosing the spot. That’s why I’m in charge, remember?’ said Brose, shaking his head and glaring at Hardy. ‘Farkenhell! You’re just as likely to put ’em somewhere they’ll wash away in the rain!’ He stomped away to the back of the van.
Hardy pulled up, still locked onto her arm, waiting. She heard a noise from inside the shed. ‘Clancy!’ she yelled.
‘Jonesy!’ The cry came from the shed. ‘Jonesy, is that you? I’m in here!’ The relief in his voice was like a song. Just to hear it gave her hope.
Brose was still at the back of the van. She could hear him rummaging around. He made no attempt to quiet them. Nothing mattered now. They would both be dead in minutes. This forest would be their hidden grave, out in the middle of nowhere.
‘Hang tough, Clance. These two fuckers are armed. We have to work together now,’ she yelled.
Clancy moaned; she thought she heard him swear, too, as he realised she wasn’t alone, but when he spoke his voice was loud and steady. ‘No worries. We can take ’em out, Jonesy.’
‘Shut the fuck up, you two,’ said Hardy. He sheathed his knife and pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans.
Another yell from the shed: ‘Has Mel had the baby yet?’
‘No. She’s waiting for you to come back.’ Her whole head throbbed, the pain almost blinding, but she felt a strange elation. She’d found Clancy, still alive—the game wasn’t over yet.
‘Baby’s gunna have no daddy,’ Brose shouted. He shut the van door and strode past towards the shed, his red shirt flapping up behind, revealing the gun shoved down the back of his pants and his knife in a small brown holster at his side. He held a shovel in one hand.
She could hear the clink of chains inside the shed, feet shuffling forward, and then Clancy emerged from the shadows, Brose clutching his elbow, propelling him forward. Clancy was missing a shoe and his leg was covered in blood from his bare foot up to the knee of his jeans. He had a huge swelling above one eye, and his hands were bound together. She choked back a sob at the condition he was in but gave him the most confident smile she could muster.
‘Great to see you, Jonesy. You don’t look too good, but,’ he said in a croaky voice, smiling back.
Before she could respond, she heard a noise in the distance. They all heard it. A vehicle, getting closer. Hardy swivelled to face the track. In that split second Clem saw her chance, shoving Hardy in the chest with all her weight, yelling, ‘RUN!’ at Clancy at the same time. Caught off balance, Hardy stumbled, dropping his gun, and fell heavily to the ground with a loud yelp as his shoulder buckled awkwardly underneath him.
Turning to the shed, she saw Brose had dropped the shovel and had his arms locked around Clancy in a bear hug. Clancy twisted and writhed, trying to escape his grasp.
She ran full pelt, throwing herself at Brose as she heard an engine revving—screaming almost—a vehicle roaring up the steep rise just before the clearing. She hit Brose’s back with a thwack, the impact enough to send all three of them to the ground. Rolling onto the grass, she saw something white from the corner of her eye, turned just in time to see Dempsey’s Handyman Van, front wheels airborne, come crashing down onto the track, hurtling towards them.
It all happened in an instant—Rowan shouting from his open window; Hardy groaning, staggering to his knees, crawling towards his gun, his left arm limp by his side; Brose reaching for the pistol in the back of his pants; her own voice yelling, ‘GUN!’; Clancy slamming his bound arms down on Brose’s hand, pinning it to the ground. Clem was scrambling to her feet as she saw Hardy, side-on to the track, swinging his gun towards the van over his left shoulder. A shot rang out, the van skidded sideways, then a sickening thud as it rammed into Hardy’s flank, sending him flying through the air. He hit the side of the shed with a loud crash and slid to the ground, facedown, motionless.
Brose managed to pull out his knife, Clancy struggling to get out of the way. She lunged for the shovel just as Brose slashed the blade across Clancy’s arm, a burst of crimson appearing on his sleeve. She swung the shovel but Brose ducked and rolled, the shovel slamming into the ground where his head had been. He made for his gun, which had fallen from his trousers a few metres away. Clancy was staggering to his feet, wincing with pain.
The van had spun around, Rowan was shouting, ‘RUN!’ as he veered away from the shed and headed straight for Brose.
She pulled Clancy up and away, stumbled towards the bush, looking over her shoulder to see Brose, with the gun now, swinging it around towards the van. Through the front windscreen she saw Rowan fling himself flat across the front seats. A shot rang out, just as the driver-side door flung open, slamming into Brose.
She screamed, started running back to the clearing, back to Rowan. She saw him leap out of the van towards Brose into the long grass at the perimeter of the clearing. She couldn’t see, just the top of the grass moving, a loud grunt, then another shot.
‘ROWAN!’ she screamed, and then, as if in slow motion, she saw a bald head emerging from the grass, alone.
Clancy finally had his chance, drew his bound hands high over his head, pulled them down sharply against his abdomen, snapping the cable tie. He grabbed hold of her and ran, dragging her into the bush. Brose was on his feet, running towards them, limping, blood streaming from his nose.
She ran, deeper and deeper into the bush, Clancy a few steps ahead of her, crashing through the forest. The arm of his shirt was wet with blood. Her mind was racing, and her breath came in heavy sobs. What if Rowan’s dead? I killed him. I lured him here. What if he’s still alive and we’ve left him there bleeding?
‘Clancy, we have to go back,’ she cried.
‘We can’t help him if we’re dead.’ He didn’t stop, kept running.
They were weaving between tree trunks, ducking around fern fronds, pushing through bushy shrubs. She swiped wildly at branches, trying to clear a path, vines flicking into her face, scratching and tearing. She tripped, stumbled onto the spongy leaves and debris on the forest floor. Clancy hauled her up and they kept running.
It was dark and damp and shadowy under the canopy, a shaft of sunlight speared through a gap, spotlighting a pocket of undergrowth. They were cutting across a steep slope on a mountain. She struggled to keep up. Clancy slowed, beckoned—‘Come on! Come on!’—then he turned and kept running.
A vine whipped across her face, thorns tearing tiny plugs of flesh, scraping the raw and bleeding nothingness on her ear. Breathing hard, she turned to look over her shoulder. In the distance, between the ferns and leaves and giant trunks she saw a flash of red, then a metallic glint. Brose, fifty metres or so behind them.
They pressed on. She felt the ground becoming harder under her feet; there was more light; the ferns were thinning. They must have come around to the northern side of the mountain—different terrain, more sun, less forest.
‘Clancy, he’ll see us, get a shot in,’ she said, puffing.
‘There’s rocks up ahead. We’ll split up there. You run down the slope, make a noise, distract him—I’ll take him from behind the rocks.’
They ran on. She could see a rocky outcrop looming ahead, took another look back over her shoulder, caught the glint of Brose’s bald head reflecting a shaft of light.
Clancy pulled ahead, weaving through the trees, sparse and scattered now, the land sloping away sharply to his left. He had just reached the edge of a rocky plateau when she saw him stumble and go down. Terror sent a fresh burst of adrenaline pumping through her, and she sprinted towards him, squatted by his side.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, keeping her voice low.
‘Yes,’ he said, but his face contorted in pain, his ankle twisted beneath him, trapped in a crevice in the rock.
He tried to get up, couldn’t, held out his hand and she pulled him up. He started hobbling towards the wall of rock up ahead. A steep ravine fell away to their left, almost vertical. She couldn’t see how far it dropped from where she was standing. ‘Go now,’ he whispered fiercely, nodding his head towards the bush, back where they’d come from. ‘Run down the slope, make sure he hears you.’
‘You can’t take him on your own, not like this,’ she protested.
Clancy turned back to look at her, one hand against the craggy rock behind him, eyes flashing. ‘Jonesy—you gotta run. It’s our only chance.’
‘Oh God, Clancy.’ She swallowed, hesitated, Clancy nodded, then she took off down towards the denser bush behind, plunging back into the forest and hurtling down the slope, making as much noise as she could, crying out whenever a branch scratched her arms or slashed her face.
She looked back. Brose emerged into the rocky clearing, just in front of the outcrop where Clancy lay in wait. He looked down in her direction. He saw her, saw her scramble for cover, and immediately took a shot, the bullet hitting the huge tree behind her with a thud, just above her head, as the crack of the gunshot echoed through the valley. She dived behind the tree, sheltering behind its girth, peered out cautiously, her heart pounding in her chest. Then she saw Brose turn away, as if responding to something behind him, sweeping his gun before him in an arc. Clancy appeared above, on top of the rocky outcrop. He took an almighty leap high into the air, arms spread like a sugar glider. He hit Brose hard and they both fell out of sight. She heard grunting, a thud, imagined them wrestling on the ground, started running back up the slope, grabbing at trees and vines to pull herself up.
Looking up, she could see them now, wrestling on the rocky ledge, locked together, Brose’s hand on Clancy’s throat, Clancy struggling to pull it away, his other hand on Brose’s wrist, forcing the gun to the side and away. She saw them lunge and stagger, dangerously close to the edge of the ravine. She called out—‘CLANCY, THE CLIFF!’ Clancy had his back to the ravine. He was forcing Brose’s gun hand down, twisting it, bringing the muzzle towards Brose’s body. Brose resisted, thrusting back, they shuffled another step closer to the ravine. Clancy let out a loud grunt, wrenching at Brose’s gun hand. A shot rang out. She screamed. There was a blur of movement, and Brose fell back out of sight, as Clancy tipped backwards, arms circling in windmills in vacant air, tumbling over the edge with a bloodcurdling scream.
CHAPTER 33
She didn’t hear him land. Oh God. She didn’t hear him land.
She started moving, pushing across towards the ravine to her left, stumbling in her haste, desperate. The slope was getting steeper as she got closer to the ravine. She lost her footing, started crabbing sideways, grabbing on to tree roots and branches. She took another tentative step, clutching at a sapling, the dirt crumbling around it, the roots lifting and sending her sliding down the slope, snatching at ferns and roots until her shoe lodged against a rock a couple of metres below.
She stood there, gasping, looked down. After a second or two, she tried another couple of steps, crab-like to her left, but it was no good—the slope was too steep, she could go no further. She leaned into the face of the slope, a tree root in each hand, her right foot balancing on a rock, her left scraping uselessly at the slope.
She looked down again, following the length of the slope until it disappeared into the thick foliage below. Her leg began to shake. Across to her left, through the forest, she could see the ravine—a cleft in the rock, maybe ten metres wide, falling away vertically.
Clancy could be at the base of the precipice. She didn’t know how far down—it was a drop beyond seeing. There were no jutting ledges, no shelves, just a sheer, relentless cliff. She tried to slow her breathing, straining her ears, listening for a cry, a groan. Nothing. A parrot squawked overhead. Silence again.
Could anyone survive such a fall? And what if Clancy had been shot? He may even have been dead before he landed. Tears fogged her vision.
What if he isn’t dead, though? He could be lying at the bottom of the ravine, injured, bleeding. Until he could be found, the possibility remained, however remote. She could yell out, find out where he was. Then what? She’d need paramedics, a helicopter maybe. And it would give her position away to Brose.
She heard movement, looked up and saw a pebble bouncing down from above and to her left, watched it clatter down the ravine. It had come from the rocky ledge where the struggle had taken place, from where Clancy had fallen.
She couldn’t move, numb with fear.
Brose was alive.
She forced herself to go through her choices. She couldn’t get across to the ravine, couldn’t get to Clancy if he was lying on a shelf somewhere halfway down. She could go down the slope and search at the bottom. She could go across to the right, where the slope was gentler, and then up to try to deal with Brose. If she was lucky, he’d be injured, might even have lost his gun. Or she could hide. Or simply try to find her way back to the shed in the clearing, praying that the police had turned up. She thought of Rowan, lying in the long grass, wondered again if he was alive or dead, and for a moment let fear and grief overwhelm her.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Whichever option she took, she couldn’t remain where she was, stuck on this steep slope, barely able to move, a sitting duck if Brose were to find her. She started easing her way back to her right, where the slope was less severe, stopping along the way behind a tree to check above, towards the ledge from where the pebble had come. Nothing moved, not that she could see, but Brose might have retreated to the forest and be making his way towards her now through the trees.
