Faceless, page 13
But she hadn’t moved.
‘Fuck off.’ Her words were quiet, but defiant.
He felt a tug of apprehension. ‘Sit down on the chair right now.’
‘No.’ She spoke louder, and pulled herself back into the corner as far as her chain would allow.
He lashed out at the wall again, and the crack echoed around the room. She cringed at the sound, but still didn’t move.
‘Move it,’ he shouted.
‘No, I won’t,’ she yelled. He felt his jaw clench and his mouth curl up into a snarl, and he strode forward, pulling his arm back and bringing the riding crop in an arc across her arms, which she was holding up to protect herself. She screamed, the sound ripping the quiet of the room.
‘Do you want me to do that again?’
‘No, please, no.’
‘Well sit the fuck down and hold out your hands.’
After a pause, and much to his relief, she slowly sat down and held out her hands. The resistance had been brief and feeble, but still, the fact she had stood up to him at all had jolted the sense of complacency he had developed. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
‘Closer, put your hands closer, wrist to wrist.’
Quietly sobbing, she complied.
He pulled a cable tie out of the bag containing today’s necessities. He placed the whip on the table, grip end closest, so he could grab it quickly if she flared up again, but he didn’t think she would. She looked defeated, utterly defeated, and it made his heart soar. After he’d tied her hands together he stood back, hands on hips, and looked at her. It was a bit of overkill. One of her hands was already tied by the chain to the wall, so it wasn’t as if she could escape; but it would stop any further resistance.
Time to get to work. He glanced into her eyes and saw the fear and the tiredness. He wondered what she thought of him. Did she think he was going to rape her? Did she think he was that kind of a mongrel animal? He wasn’t that kind of a sick bastard, a man who could debase a woman like that. But there were plenty of other things he’d been thinking about. Things he’d been fantasising about from the small hours of the morning, since he’d reached out to his wife again, and had run his fingers through her long, blonde hair. He’d always wanted Ange to try one of those really short cuts, like Charlize Theron, bobbed and sexy, daring. But she would never do that for him, never in a million years. She saw her hair as a trademark, part of her identity. It was a pity – she would look even sexier cropped.
He pulled the other instrument he’d brought out of the bag, and heard the little inhalation of breath from behind him as the girl saw what was in his hand. With her anxious sound he felt the increasing excitement of his own, the enticing prickle of goosebumps across his skin. He walked slowly around behind her, stood at her back and slid the elastic tie out of her hair, and then he slowly ran his fingers through her long, ringletted tresses, wiggling them free when they snagged on knots.
‘No,’ she whimpered, and she raised her bound hands up, trying to bat him away, but he grabbed a handful of that beautiful dark hair and yanked it back hard, pulling her head back with the force.
‘Sit bloody still or you know what will happen,’ he growled in her ear. Her hands dropped back to her lap, but he could see her shoulders were shaking. He smiled, happy in the knowledge. He ran his fingers through her hair again, drew a section up from her forehead with his left hand, then reached across with the right and snipped the scissors through it, hearing the schlick as metal slid across metal, and watched with deep satisfaction as the dark, curly locks fell to the floor.
Meredith
‘You’ve got to be kidding me? You expect me to launch an investigation, an expensive and time-consuming investigation into a supposed disappearance based on the testimony of that bum?’
She closed her eyes and steadied the fire that was building within her, before reopening them and fixing the detective inspector with a look that she hoped spoke of sincerity and determination, and not what she actually felt, which at the very minimum would get her stood down for insubordination.
DI Williamson was an imposing man, physically and in demeanour. Her superior officer was also one of the very few men in the world who made her feel small, in every respect. He didn’t take any crap, that was for sure, but he was generally fair, and she knew full well it wouldn’t advance anyone’s cause to lose her temper.
He got another salvo in before she could mount her counterprotest: ‘And you above all people should have more sense than to believe anything that man says. Look what happened the last time you trusted him. That was the fuck-up of the century. I’d have thought you’d been burned enough not to believe a single word that came out of his mouth. And Jesus, you saw the state he was in. Max Grimes is a train wreck, a no good, washed-out, pathetic shell of a man. I’m not going to waste police time and resources on chasing a ghost dredged up from the mind of a nutter.’
Each word gouged another track of anger, shame and grief through fresh wounds. Meredith could feel the tide of heat that tracked up her face. She fought back the urge to scream at him. She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and felt the sharp stabs of pain steady her, pull her focus back to the immediate.
‘But surely the fact that he came here, that for the first time in two years he set foot in this building and asked for me, tells you that he is seriously concerned for this girl’s welfare.’ Her voice sounded high to her ears, thin and pleading. She moderated it before she continued; DI Williamson had never been one to be swayed by displays of weakness. There was only one shot at this.
‘Max has stayed below the radar for all of this time, so it would take something extraordinary for him to resurface and bring attention back on himself. I believe he is genuinely concerned about the safety of this girl, and that we should be, too.’
‘But where’s his proof? A street girl? Prostitute? Does she even exist? He can’t even tell us her name, for God’s sake. How can I justify launching an investigation based on crumbs?’
There had been plenty of investigations launched on less, and Meredith couldn’t help but think they wouldn’t be having this conversation if it had been some rich white girl from Remuera who had gone AWOL. She could feel the corner of her left eye beginning to tic and tried unsuccessfully to blink it away.
‘Isn’t it our job to find the proof?’ she said. This time the anger showed in her voice. ‘That’s what we are supposed to do. I’ve already had confirmation of a girl fitting that description having been into the City Mission in the recent past. She isn’t some ghost – this is a real person.’
Williamson’s arms crossed over his chest. ‘So, you’ve already started an investigation behind my back, have you?’ The anger in his voice reflected her own, and Meredith could see the muscles tightening in his jaw. She cursed herself for the slip.
‘No, I just made a few preliminary phone calls before I came to you, to make sure I wasn’t wasting your time.’ She knew how to suck up as well as the next person. The scowl that crossed his face said he recognised back-pedalling when he heard it. This was never going to be an easy sell, but it was going worse than expected.
‘So, you don’t trust him either?’ It was a statement more than a question.
Jesus, it was far more complicated than a matter of trusting him, but for the sake of simplicity she shook her head.
‘Good, and so you shouldn’t, because at the moment I can’t see how you could possibly be objective about anything to do with Max Grimes. You were far too close to him before, and made some extremely bad decisions that too many people paid the price for. We’re still cleaning up the bloody fallout. No, your judgement is clouded.’
Again the pulse of blood at her temple began to thrum harder. Was she always going to carry the stain of that awful day? She wasn’t the only one to blame. The circumstances had been extreme – beyond extreme – and how many bloody years had she worked her arse off to try and atone for that one decision? To prove that she was as good as any of her male counterparts; hell, that she was better, the best – and here she was being fobbed off, still in the shadow of her past. After a shit of a day, it tipped her over the edge of her self-control. When she next spoke, her voice quaked with her shock, rage and hurt. Her hand drifted up, her finger beating accusation towards him with her words.
‘No, I’m not going to wear that. For God’s sake. I thought you would give me far more credit than to think I’d be swayed by past events. I’m a professional, this is my job. And you’re forgetting one big, almighty great thing. This isn’t about Max or me or the shit that happened in the past; this is about the girl. There is a young woman missing out there,’ her arm swung around in a big arc, ‘and it is our duty, our sworn duty, to find her. Don’t you forget it.’
‘You watch your tone, Detective Sergeant Peters.’ His voice was low and dangerously calm. ‘You do not talk to me in that manner, ever. And don’t you dare remind me what my duty is or isn’t. I have been in this game a lot longer than you have and I know far better than you do exactly what my duty is. Your behaviour just confirms my suspicions: you are not being objective, and your feelings towards Max Grimes have overshadowed any modicum of judgement you may have had. So you listen, and you listen very carefully. We are not going to launch an investigation into the disappearance of some prostitute street kid who may not even exist, based on the word of Max Grimes. Period. If someone else happens to report her missing, then sure, it will be corroboration, but until that moment we are not wasting police time and resources on it, understood?’
Oh yes, she understood alright, but she wasn’t about to give up that easily. Meredith would almost guarantee that the girl had had a life full of people giving up on her and letting her down, and she wasn’t about to become one of them. She wouldn’t give up on the girl, and she wouldn’t give up on Max, not this time.
She turned and stormed towards the door, before coming to a halt and swinging back around to face her boss with what she hoped was perfect theatrical timing.
Then Meredith pulled out the trump card. It was manipulative, but fuck it, there was no other way. Public perception was everything, and her superior understood full well the politics of appearance. ‘And what if he’s right? What if Max Grimes is right and something sinister has happened to this young Pasifika woman? Imagine the field day the media will have if this girl turns up dead in a ditch somewhere and it gets out that the police chose to ignore a chance to find her alive because the victim was only a brown, prostitute street kid and the information had come from a bum?’
Meredith saw the flicker of hesitation furrow DI Williamson’s brow and felt a stab of bittersweet victory as her barb struck home. She had him. She’d get her investigation.
Max
The park bench felt hard and cold against his bony arse. Max picked at the date scone he’d bought to eat, and gazed across at the station. Despite promising himself he wouldn’t, he became fixated by each person exiting the building, hoping it would be her. The wind was a relentless sou’wester that bit through his new clothing. He had fond thoughts about his old coat, probably on its way to the landfill by now. ‘No regrets,’ he said to himself. To kill time earlier, he’d walked back down to the K Road Red Cross shop. On this occasion, when he’d entered the store there hadn’t been a mass exodus of other customers; there were none of the conspiratorial whispers of staff members. He’d enjoyed the look on the young woman’s face when he’d said thank you, and it finally dawned on her who he was. Then he’d felt moved once more when she’d looked at his shorn head and said, ‘Well, you’ll be needing one of these then,’ and had handed him a beanie. His hand ran up to his head, fingering the fine knit, and the bumpiness of the embroidered logo for some kind of sheep dip. He whispered her name, ‘Jess,’ testing himself to see if he had the strength to shape the word with his lips, to form the sound, to picture the face. Pain shattered his heart and he begged for the darkness to descend.
‘Max.’ He started, as if awaking from sleep, felt the shift from the ethereal to the grounded, of reality to the vertical. He resented it. ‘Max, are you alright?’
After the intensity of his earlier vigil, he’d completely missed her exit from the police station, her passage across the road, and then her approach across the funny little island marooned in the lanes of traffic.
‘Yeah, I’m fine, must have dozed off.’ It was far easier to lie.
Meredith stood before him, her green eyes holding both concern and a guardedness. He had to hold his hand up to shade his eyes from the brightness. The late-afternoon sun shone from behind her, creating an auburn halo through her flyaway hair, turning her into a ginger angel. The thought nearly made him giggle, and that kind of inappropriate response towards her, of all people, made him question his sanity. This emotional yo-yoing was exhausting. He had to look down at her feet to avoid losing it altogether.
‘Do you have any news?’ he asked.
‘We do, but none of it is especially helpful.’ She was always direct, which he found a good thing, although he knew many didn’t appreciate her candour. She came around and sat on the bench, but as far removed from him as was possible. He didn’t blame her. He didn’t stink anymore, but even cleaned up he wasn’t the most respectable-looking creature out there. Then there was that whole other thing. She didn’t trust him, pure and simple. She probably didn’t like him, either.
‘What can you tell me?’
‘Basically your girl doesn’t exist. There’s no immigration record that would fit with what you’ve described of her and her possible first name. From that we’d have to surmise her entire family are here illegally, which will make them harder to trace. Did she ever mention going to school? If she did we will canvas the high schools next to see if she was enrolled anywhere.’
‘Sorry, I can’t help with that. She never mentioned school at all.’ Max thought about some of the complex discussions they’d had. A number had been rather philosophical – although she could twist his brain in ways that gave him a headache at times. He’d enjoyed those discussions immensely. He’d never talked with such depth and had such a diverse range of conversation with anyone, not his parents, not even … well … those who had been close, the people whose memory he’d managed to bury in the recesses of his mind for such a long time. The bilious swirl of anxiety sloshed around his stomach. He steered his thoughts away from that minefield and steered his attention back to Billy. ‘She’s a bright girl. She was often reading books.’ He felt a small jolt of realisation at what he’d said. ‘And I’m pretty sure they were library books, so she must have a library card, and they require proof of address and contact details, so that could be an avenue to follow up.’
‘Yep, we’ll do that.’
Max took note of the reference to ‘we’, and the fact there had been no acknowledgement that it was a good idea. It was a them-and-us situation. It felt strange and sad to know he was now classed as one of ‘them’, when he had once been ‘us’. The divide felt immense.
Meredith hadn’t looked at him in this time. They both stared out at the cityscape, and he was glad that it negated the need for eye contact – especially hers, which felt so accusatory.
‘From what you described, her family are very religious, so we’ll visit some of the local churches. We’ll start with the Pasifika churches first before spreading out further. A lot of Fijians are Methodists, from memory.’
A number of those discussions he’d had with Billy had been about religion, and he was no believer in God; he’d seen too much crap meted out by man to man to ever believe there was anything God-like involved: animal, yes; God, no. Billy was firmly in the God camp, even if she sprinkled the conversation with words like hypocrisy, materialism and unforgiveness. She’d often called him to examine his belief systems, and in some ways she’d made him feel ashamed that he didn’t truly have any, other than a moral sense of what was right and what was wrong, and the mantra drilled into his head by his mother: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ He thought that was a perfectly good set of values to get by on. It had served him well enough. He pulled his thoughts back to the car, and the man in that car, and what he’d do to him if he found him.
‘What about the plate?’
‘We ran the numbers we have through the motor-vehicle database. As you can appreciate there are hundreds of vehicles that could potentially carry those numbers. When we narrowed the parameters to Auckland district, there were eighty-seven. When we filtered it by colour to darker-coloured vehicles, eliminating white, silver, yellow and gold, that left fifty-six vehicles. We didn’t filter it by sex of the owner – that would be one assumption too many.’
‘And someone will be calling on all those owners?’
‘Yes, that will start tomorrow.’ Too long, it was far too long.
‘Why wait till tomorrow? Can’t they start tonight? You know as well as I do that every hour, every minute counts.’ He could hear his voice rising and tried to pull it back, but his anxiety couldn’t be contained.
‘Look, Max, I know how much this means to you.’ She glanced at him then, and her look said she was aware exactly how much this counted. ‘But we’re chasing a ghost. We’re chasing someone who isn’t on our records, who is homeless, who could be anywhere. Let’s be honest here: we only have your word that something is amiss, and although I believe you are genuinely concerned, there are many others in the station who won’t; I’m sure you wouldn’t be surprised I’ve had to be very careful who I mention your name to. You know the politics involved in these kinds of cases. I have to justify every investigation, every expense. So it has to wait for tomorrow. That’s just the way it is.’
Max flopped forward, his elbows on his knees, head in hands, trying to rub away some of the fear, some of the frustration from his temples.
