A Certain Malice Read online

  “She got sick of waiting for you to wake up and went downstairs to the gift shop. The doctors unhooked you from the machine a couple of hours ago, gave you an injection of something to wake you up. They had to sedate you; you were fighting the respirator. You’ve been in a medically induced coma for almost a week.” She laughed. “Let’s just hope a tiger snake doesn’t bite Mrs Bucket’s precious poodle. I think they must have used up the anti-venom from all the vets in the district.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with poodles,” he heard himself say. He drew a breath and felt some of the weight lift from his limbs. He gingerly re-adjusted his position in the bed. “I’m in hospital? It’s over?” He glanced around the single room, the bank of flowers on the table, the Get Well cards trembling on the windowsill like butterflies. The white noise of the hospital buzzed in his head, making it hard to concentrate on what Cecelia was saying.

  “The bad part’s over. It was touch and go for a while. They lost you for a moment in the ambulance, then you were flown down to the city from Toorrup by Flying Doctor,” she said.

  Cam became aware of a dull throbbing pain in his bandaged left arm. In contrast to the white of the bandages, his fingers were a grey-blue colour, like water-immersed slugs.

  He licked his dry lips. “Ruth?”

  Cecelia looked away, biting at her bottom lip. “She’s dead.”

  Cam could feel her pain as sharply as his own. “She killed my family, Cecelia.”

  She nodded and took a deep breath. Her grip on his good hand tightened.

  “Dad! You’re awake!” It was his daughter’s voice, as airy and vital as the wind. Cecelia moved away and he clasped Ruby to him, felt soft hair on his face. He felt the prick of tears at the back of his eyes, his body shuddered; he lost control.

  “You can cry, Dad, it’s all right,” she whispered raising her hand to stroke his forehead.

  “Thank you,” was all he could say as the cleansing tears streamed down and he slipped once more into a swirling fog of sleep.

  Cam cast a worried glance at his daughter. She was sitting on the end of his bed, biting at her thumbnail. God, hasn’t she been through enough, he thought as he listened to Rod.

  “Angelo’s been transferred to the city nick, no bail,” Rod said. He sat on one side of Cam and Cecelia on the other. As the saline drip flushed the drugs from his system, Cam was regaining control of his body. He could move the fingers of his good hand now and caressed his thumb in soft circles on the top of Cecelia’s hand.

  “He was a nom,” Rod continued, “a nominee bikie. Seemed he was co-operating with Ruth and Chainsaw as part of an initiation plan to get his colours. I think there was more to it than that, though. He seemed quite infatuated with her, doing just about anything she asked. She controlled him in pretty much the way Chainsaw controlled her. I tell you, the forensic quacks are having a field day.”

  Cecelia said, “I always knew Ruth’s behaviour could be over the top, but I had no inkling she was unhinged.” Her hand went to her throat. “She always said I was a lousy judge of…” Her voice tapered off.

  Cam gave her hand a squeeze.

  “Same psychosis as celebrity stalkers have, one of the shrinks told me,” said Rod. He chuckled. “Cam was one of the few males who had any kind of contact with the girls of a very isolated school. That was enough to raise him to celebrity status as far as Ruth was concerned.”

  “But she hated me,” Cam said.

  “Because you spurned her, by her twisted logic. What’s that saying, Cecelia?”

  “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,” Cecelia said.

  Rod continued, “But then she transferred her attentions to Chainsaw and became just as obsessed with him. So when you stepped back into the picture, she had to get rid of you.”

  Cam saw Cecelia glance at Ruby. His daughter’s stiffening posture indicated she did not wish to hear any more.

  “I’m just going downstairs for a coffee. Do you want anything, Dad?” Ruby asked.

  Cam shook his head. “Off you go then, love.”

  Cam waited for the door to close behind her.“Is she… is she all right with this?”

  “She’s getting there.” Cecelia hesitated. “I think it’s something you need to talk about further down the track.”

  Cam swallowed, nodded his head.

  Rod said, “Angelo and Ruth murdered Bell when they discovered him spying on them at the dam —”

  “They used the fire truck to dump the body?” Cam asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “She must have stayed in the truck. The footprints were his,” Cam mused.

  “And she set the prefab alight,” Rod continued. “After she’d locked you in, she and Angelo murdered Vince, leaving behind the apology note she’d stolen from Cecelia. After that, she went back to the school and Angelo joined Cliff for the fire call. They timed it perfectly.”

  “And Vince was involved with Cliff in the tanker theft?” Cam asked.

  “Yes. He deliberately bungled the investigation in return for a hefty kickback. Cliff only wanted the tanker for parts. Ruth put him in touch with Chainsaw and he sold the fertiliser to the bikies through her. He swears he didn’t know why they wanted it. Ruth was concocting the amphetamines in the school lab for Chainsaw, not Cliff. Cliff was clueless about everything except the tanker. He was never even an official bikie Associate, though I think he was working on it. The relationship Ruth had with him was authorised by Chainsaw to keep Cliff on side. Ruth used him just as she used everyone else.”

  “Cliff was the only witness who told the truth about the colour of the smoke,” Cam mused.

  “True. Ruth’s report of the fire was a diversionary tactic. Why would she report the fire when she was the one who lit it? They’d obviously have preferred the body to be destroyed by the fire, but when it wasn’t, because of Cliff’s interference, it was no big deal. They realised they could easily frame Cliff with it - they wanted him out of the way anyway. They planted his jemmy in the submerged car, laying other false clues like the car seat, to make it look like he murdered Vince.”

  “And it was Angelo who made the attempt on Mrs Wilmot’s life?” Cam asked.

  “They thought she might tell you about Miss Featherstone’s financial predicament.”

  Cam sighed. “I got all that pretty wrong didn’t I? I was sure Cliff was behind all this.”

  “You got it mostly right, just the wrong bloke,” Rod said. “Anyway, Cliff’s been very co-operative. He’s given us Chainsaw on a plate. We arrested him a couple of days ago on his way to Darwin. The money that allegedly came from Jane Featherstone’s will was actually bikie money they’d laundered through the school via Ruth so they could get the science lab done up. If everything had gone as planned they would have doubled their investment within a couple of years. The lab Ruth established was the most sophisticated illegal lab the country has ever had, and because it was under the guise of a school science lab, nothing in it seemed out of place.”

  “They couldn’t have used a whole tank of fertiliser, surely?” Cam asked.

  “No, Ruth took what she needed and the rest was distributed to other SS chapters around the country.”

  Cam’s head sank back into the pillow. He closed his eyes. It was hard to take everything in. He could hear Cecelia and Rod talking as if from the other end of a tunnel. When he heard them mention Leanne, his eyes shot open again.

  “What was that?” he said.

  “I said I’ve put her in for a commendation for bravery – that was a fantastic shot. It looks like the medal’s going to go through. Apparently she was top marksman in her class at the Academy.”

  Cecelia laughed. “She told me she used to shoot rats in the shed with her dad.”

  Cam said, “That’ll give her a boost. But how’s she handling the…” he waved his hand, unable to find the words.

  Rod knew what he was trying to say.“She knows she had to kill R
uth, that she had no choice. I think she was more upset when she heard about Gay Cronin feeding Herb’s ashes to the chooks.”

  “That’s rough,” Cam said, but it was hard not to smile. “Who’s in charge of the station now?”

  “Constable Dowel; I think you’ll find everything in order when you get back.”

  Cam let out a deep breath. If I get back, he thought. His eyes strained to read the card on a bunch of white roses next to his bed. Get well soon, love from Anne and Jeffrey, it said.

  For some reason he misted up again.

  Rod took this as his cue and slipped from the room, leaving Cecelia and Cam alone. Cam closed his eyes, felt her cool fingers on his forehead.

  “It’s all over now,” she whispered.

  The silence stretched. He almost drifted off.

  Finally he opened his eyes again. Grabbing at some loose tendrils of thoughts, he shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

  Cecelia frowned.“What do you mean?”

  “It’s not over. There’s still the matter of a certain dangerous driving charge.”

  She laughed.“Oh, we can fix that,” she said, leaning over to brush her lips against his.

  And because the dreams you have on the brink of waking are the ones that tend to last, he kissed her back.