Private Oz (Private 7)

She hears a click from behind. Ignores it. Then comes a shuffling sound. She turns. Nothing. Sidewalk clear. Elspeth spins back again.

The blow comes from behind.

She falls to her knees, confused.

There’s a blur of houses, concrete, darkening sky. She hits the sidewalk hard. The wine bottle smashes – red liquid everywhere. Pain shoots up her neck, streaks across the left side of her face. She tries to turn, makes it halfway and sees a figure in an anorak leaning over her. Elspeth can smell her assailant’s breath.

She has no time to get up. Her attacker is bigger, stronger. She feels herself being dragged into a narrow alleyway between two gardens. She tries to scream, but as soon as she opens her mouth, a gloved hand comes over it, grips her lips, crushes the flesh about her mouth. Elspeth feels a tooth snap inward. More pain. Terrible pain. It spreads out across her face and around her skull.

She’s pushed up against a fence, a cloth comes up against her mouth. The attacker is leaning over her, knotting the material behind her neck. She struggles, but she’s drained and the assailant is too strong. Elspeth feels a wire being wrapped about her wrists pinned behind her back.

She can’t resist anymore. Her vision is bleary. She sees a head appear in front of her. No detail. The face is in shadow, hooded. She sees a match light, a cigarette lit. The flame illuminates part of the hooded face, but only the mouth … pale, thin lips.

Elspeth screams as the cigarette burns her face, but the sound is soaked up in the gag. She can smell her own burned flesh and screeches, helpless, as the cigarette is pushed into her again, just beneath her left eye. She starts to cry, tears streaming down her face. The pain sears her insides. It feels as though her head is going to explode. She vomits into the cloth in her mouth and starts to choke on it.

The attacker grabs her, spins her over onto her front, Elspeth’s disfigured face hits the sandy ground of the lane.

Next comes the knife. Elspeth doesn’t know it’s a knife. She just knows something has pierced her back. She feels a strange dislocation in her spine. In her confused state, submerged in agony, she imagines she’s a puppet and her strings have been cut.

The knife goes in again and Elspeth convulses and gasps. But now the pain has gone. She’s moved beyond it.

Her assailant turns her over. Peers down into her face, pulls back the hood. Elspeth is almost totally blind, but she feels another shock, a new revulsion. Her life is fading away, but she knows the attac

ker is pulling up her skirt, spreading her legs.

Chapter 36

TONY MACKENZIE WAS coming to the end of his five-mile run. He always felt a sense of euphoria build at this point in his circuit. He ran the same route at the same time every weekday, and entering Wentworth Avenue marked the final hundred-yard stretch before the wind down.

This morning, he felt energized. The sun was coming up, casting orange light all over the place. He passed the end of an alleyway leading off the sidewalk and kept running. But then something began to play on his mind. Something was wrong. He couldn’t figure out what it was, but it nagged him. He tried to push it aside, but it kept niggling him.

Forty yards past the alley, Tony Mackenzie finally stopped. He’d seen something. Something wasn’t quite right.

He turned and jogged back toward the entrance to the alley. Looking down the narrow lane, hands on hips, he steadied his breathing. Ten yards ahead, to the side of the alley, lay a dark object, vaguely human in shape. It could have been a bundle of rags. But something in Tony’s brain was telling him it wasn’t.

He walked toward the object, sweat dripping off him. As he drew closer he realized it was a human being. He thought it might be a homeless person. He stepped forward cautiously, walking past the prone form close to the fence alongside the lane, his eyes fixed on the shape. He half expected it to jump up and attack him at any moment.

Three steps past the strange figure, Tony could finally make sense of it and felt a surge of terror in the pit of his stomach. Then nerves all over his body seemed to fire simultaneously. He jolted, stumbling back against the fence.

Chapter 37

I WAS JUST pulling onto the Harbour Bridge. Glanced at the dash clock. It was 6.59 am. I felt like shit – I’d hardly slept at all last night. In my nightmares and half-sleep I kept going over Stacy Friel’s murder. And you know the worst of it? She looked like my dead wife, Becky.

I’d had two strong coffees before leaving the house and had stopped for a Red Bull at my regular gas station in Mosman. The Ferrari is a thirsty bastard, and so was I this morning.

I moved my thumb to switch on the ABC News with the remote control on the steering wheel when my cell rang. I pushed the “Receive” button and heard Justine’s voice. “Craig?”

“That’s me! Hi, Justine.”

“We’ve got a second murder.”

I glanced in the mirror, sped into a gap to my left. “Any details?”

“No. Brett’s there now. It’s a street away from Greta’s.”

“No way!” I changed lanes and accelerated along the Cahill Expressway. The traffic was building, but still okay. “Where’s the body, exactly?”

“Wentworth Avenue. Runs parallel to Greta’s street.”