The Plot – Chapter 7
Dilemmas and Discoveries
There are few things he likes less than being the object of a young woman’s anger.
You immediately feel you’re in the wrong, an Annoying Man. A Dirty Old Perv. Even though you aren’t. You’re just trying to use the communal facilities, as you’re perfectly entitled to do.
‘Sorry, Jorja. I didn’t know you were here. I, … uh …’
She glares at him. A cross young face peeping out from a puffy sleeping bag. Just like an angry caterpillar.
In other circumstances, it would be funny.
Anyway, what is she doing here?
Perhaps it’s a research project for uni. She’s some kind of student, he seems to remember. She’ll probably get up at two in the morning and count insects by torchlight. Maybe those tomato bugs. The evil little bastards that are destroying his precious Amish Glory.
The ones he intends to blast illicitly with a spray which although the label states ‘SUITABLE FOR ORGANIC GARDENS’ surely isn’t allowed under …
‘Are you going to stand there all night … ?’
‘Vince,’ he says, stepping forward in reflex, extending a hand. ‘Vince Russo. I, ah, the garden next to …’
‘I know who you are, and I don’t want to shake your hand. Look, could you go, please?’
The voice has a note of fear now, pleading. It tugs at his heart.
‘Yes, of course. I’ll just go now.’
‘Thank you.’
He retreats to the door as if she’s a cornered tiger. Nearly falls backwards over the fallen chair.
Feeling foolish he starts to pick it up, then realises that of course he can’t wedge it back under the handle for her if he’s outside the door. Stands it fussily in the corner. He’s half-way out when a thought occurs to him.
‘Jorja … you’re not in some kind of trouble, are you?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘Sorry. I’ll just, ah, lock the door. You’ve got a key?’
‘Yes.’
Of course she has a key. The door was locked. It can only be locked with a key.
‘Okay, good night.’
‘Night,’ she mutters as he turns off the light.
Standing outside the cabin, he regards the sprayer at his feet. What to do next? Take it home and fix it, then come back? It’s a good twenty minutes each way, and it must be past eleven now.
Or give up? He’s practically been busted already and not a single bug has died. He swears that he can hear their munching on the night breeze.
That’s not all, though. It’s not even the important thing.
The Jorja Situation is insufficiently resolved. He should do something. But what?
Clearly this is no kind of nocturnal research project. There was no torch, no notebook, no collecting jar or net. Just underthings that he tried not to notice, hung over a chairback. A toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste on the table.
She’s scared and in trouble. Sleeping rough. On the run from a violent boyfriend?
It all reminds him of his own daughter. How he let her down when it counted. The empty room that accuses him. So appallingly empty for twenty-three years, though full of her toys, her clothes, her photographs, her presence.
What to do? He stands for a long while, ponders. The night air grows chill.
Then footsteps, coming from the direction of the Big Tree. A beam of light that sweeps, searches, finds him. The bright light dazzles his eyes and he holds up his arm.
‘Mr Russo?’
A familiar voice: Pravesh Patel.
He’s really busted now, caught red-handed. This is not turning out to be one of his better ideas.
‘Please come and help.’
Pravesh sounds anxious, plaintive.
Jesus.
She hears his key turn, locking the door. Shuffling, then silence.
Her heart feels like it will leap out of her chest, go flopping around the sleeping bag like a fish in a net.
He’s gone now.
Should she wedge the chair again? Much good that it did, last time.
She must try to get some sleep.
Can she trust him not to come back, though? Now he knows she’s here. Vulnerable. Maybe she should move to the tool container?
Uncomfortable and dirty in there. And the risk of getting locked inside.
Anyway, Vince Russo didn’t seem like someone who would be a threat.
Actually, he looked terrified, as if he were going to burst into tears. A harmless, confused old man.
Though you never can tell.
What the fuck now?!
Voices.
Russo and another man. A moving light behind the thin, sun-rotten blind.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She scrambles out of the sleeping bag and into her underwear. Tugs on her jeans. She’s just fighting with her T-shirt when there’s a tapping at the door. Hesitant, apologetic.
‘Miss Smith? Jorja?’
‘What now?’
‘Terribly sorry, but we need to come in.’
‘No, go away.’
Silence. Then the other voice.
‘Miss Smith. This is Pravesh Patel. I regret to tell you there is a medical emergency. A police emergency.’
‘What?!’
‘Miss Smith, a body has been found. I have found a body.’
Next week in The Plot:
Chapter 8: Graveyard Shift
Detective Sergeant Mel Hanrahan begins her investigation.
Disclaimer: The people, organisations and events described in this story are entirely the product of the author’s imagination; they bear no intentional resemblance to real-life people, organisations and events. Some locations are based on real places, however the City of Corymbia and its localities are inventions of the author.
Very engaging chapter. Always a pleasure to find the latest episode in my mailbox.