Black Ice Part 1

Black Ice.

Leah Giarratano.

For Joshua George. Semper Fidelis.

This book is dedicated to Aunty Nancy.

And Beetle.

In vino veritas.

Prologue.

Monday 1 April, 4 pm.

Seren ignored the sting of the fly sucking blood from her ankle. She pushed her lips into the salty skin of her knees, pressing the sobs back behind her teeth. This is the last night, she told herself. The last night with her back to the wall, shrunk into the corner, praying for morning. Whatever happened tonight, it would be the last time she slept with the lice scrabbling for purchase on her near-shaved scalp, and nesting in her pubic hair.

She'd walk out or they'd carry her out. And if they carried her, it would be to an outside hospital or to the morgue. No way would she spend even a single night in the prison hospital. She had a six am release and she was going to keep it, one way or another.

In the meantime, she waited for Crash and Little Kim.

One of the screws had told her that Crash got her nickname at age four when her father threw her through a plate gla.s.s door. Apparently her little brother had mimicked the noise it made, and her family had thought it cute. Broke the tension while they waited for the ambulance.

Seren couldn't figure how Little Kim got her name. The only little thing about Little Kim was her eyes, her facial features blurred and contracted by Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Hek probably the most respected screw in the Silverwater Women's Complex had tried to help Seren understand why they disliked her so much. He told her she shouldn't have made such a big thing out of the letters she got from her son.

'Their kids don't write to them,' he had explained a couple of months ago while she had been sweeping the yard.

'Their kids can't write,' Seren had retorted.

She'd felt like a b.i.t.c.h as soon as she said it, but since the smacking she'd copped from Little Kim the day before, her top lip split every time she smiled. Not that she did that a lot in here.

'What's even worse is that Crash and Kim can't read. You make them look stupid,' he'd told her.

'I make them look stupid?' Seren had snorted, and her lip had split again. The whole left side of her face throbbed. 'Don't make me laugh, Hek.'

'Besides,' he'd said, 'they don't really hate you. Little Kim seriously hated her last cellmate.'

'I heard,' Seren had said, eyes on the broom.

'We know everyone knows what happened,' Hek had said, 'but no one will make a statement.'

'Would you?' Seren had asked.

Rhonda Whiteman, Little Kim's previous cellmate, had died in the shower block, stabbed thirteen times in the back. When she was found, the shiv was still protruding from her right kidney, jammed in up to the handle. So Seren knew she could've had it much worse. Angel, who got to sweep in the nurse's office, told her that Little Kim's weight was listed in her med file as 128 kilograms. She could've snapped Seren's neck her first night there. Seren suspected that Angel was the reason the girls hadn't hurt her too bad. Everyone loved Angel.

But she knew they were really mad now. She was going home. Six months early, because her appeal had come through.

'And how is that f.u.c.king fair, b.i.t.c.h?' Crash had asked her at breakfast this morning. 'We don't get to go home. You get everything you want, don't you, you pretty little s.l.u.t?'

Yeah, Crash, Seren thought now, crouched on the filthy mattress. Life has been real good to me so far. She pulled her knees closer to protect her stomach. Hek had warned her at lunchtime that she was going to get a goodbye flogging. Maybe that was true. But no one was going to hurt her badly enough to keep her from seeing her son tomorrow. She reached behind her back and pulled the broken broom handle a little closer.

One filament in the ceiling light above her popped and fizzed, dying. She stared at the door, her eyes seared with the waiting. Suddenly she slapped hard at her leg. The fly dropped, broken, onto the mattress.

Seren pushed her back further into the corner and waited for Crash and Little Kim.

1.

Monday 1 April, 4 pm.

Madame Truelove gripped her cigarette between her lips, pushed a greying lock of hair back from her forehead. Her other hand cupped Sergeant Jillian Jackson's fingers, palm up. She squinted through the smoke trickling from her mouth and removed the cigarette. She turned her head away and exhaled hard.

'I'm sorry, sweetie,' said Madame Truelove, turning back to face Jill, 'I've forgotten your name again. Was it Kristen?'

'Krystal,' said Jill, momentarily taking her eyes from the fire twirler performing in the middle of the Fairfield street mall in front of her. From this angle, despite the crowds surrounding the other three sides, she had a perfect view of the young woman wearing multicoloured tights, dreadlocks and a lime-green tutu.

'That's right. Krystal. Beautiful name, how could I forget? Krystal: a seer's name. Do you ever receive messages yourself?'

'I don't know, I guess I am pretty intuitive,' said Jill, happy to extend the conversation so that she could hold this position for as long as possible.

'Yes, yes, I can see that here in your hands. And you're after some more adventure in your life, aren't you, dear?'

'I guess my life has been a little dull,' said Jill. Yeah, right.

'With the exception of your love life, Krystal.'

Jill gave the palm-reader another quick glance. 'You see that there?'

'Yes, yes. You're torn. You don't know which way to go. Do you go backwards to find true love with a man from the past, or should you move forward into uncertainty, perhaps danger?'

A group of laughing kids surrounded the fire-twirler. Hyped up on fairy floss, snow cones and the carnival atmosphere of the street festival, they were torn between tearing around madly to see everything and standing still, transfixed by the woman spitting fire from her mouth. They settled for jumping from foot to foot, squealing.

'Actually, do me a favour and give me the answer to the love life question, will you?' said Jill.

'Ah, Krystal, that is not my role, my love. It is for you to determine your own destiny. And you know the answer, deep in your heart.'

Yeah, sure I do, thought Jill. Well, what did you expect, Jackson, that this woman could give you serious advice?

She noticed that the small, dishevelled huddle of adults watching the performance had grown, and she recognised some of the regulars from the streets. Given the press for s.p.a.ce, a generous perimeter surrounded the group, as parents, office workers and children instinctively steered clear of them. She tracked a hand gesture from one of the group to a man and woman approaching from the other side of the mall Skye and CK. So this was definitely going down soon.

Jill watched the couple approach. CK, in a grotty white tracksuit and runners, coughed, raising a hand to his mouth. Skye, much taller at five foot ten, flinched, her hand flying up to protect her face. With the movement, her lank, auburn hair fell back and Jill noted the angry scabs pocking her cheeks. Jill had seen too many kids around here with faces like that gouges they'd tear themselves when gripped by ice psychosis, convinced worms had burrowed into their flesh, gnawing muscle, hatching eggs just under their skin.

As the fire artist sprayed a final jet of flames into the sky above her, the punk rock band on the stage to her left screeched into sound, and the kids shrieked their way over to them. A crowd of teen Goths had already claimed the area in front of the podium and they thrashed around industriously, all wearing the anarchist's uniform: eyeliner, piercings and frowns.

Madame Truelove raised her voice without commenting on the din. 'You are worried about someone in your life, Krystal, and you have good reason for your concern.' She flicked at a long cylinder of ash that had crumbled from her cigarette onto the back of her hand. 'The matter will soon come to a head and you will find that you are needed.'

'It's nice to be needed.' Jill kept her eyes on the mall outside the tent.

The fire artist was packing her belongings slowly. The a.s.sembly in front of her had now swollen to around twenty or so people. CK and Skye formed part of the cl.u.s.ter. The group spoke among themselves, but seemed otherwise uninterested in the carnival. From inside Madame Truelove's marquee, Jill could see but not be seen.

'You must be more vigilant, Krystal.' Madame Truelove's words were intoned mechanically. Jill wondered fleetingly what the woman was actually thinking about perhaps shopping for dinner tonight? 'Betrayal and danger await you if you do not take care. Fortify your defences and gather close your friends. You will have need of both in days to come.'

'That sounds ominous,' said Jill, trying to peer around the backside of a man standing in front of the tent. Just when she thought she'd have to relinquish this position, the man moved on, tomato sauce on his chin, oozed from the hamburger clutched in his sausage-like fingers. She figured he was off to find a seat you didn't get a body like that by walking around too much.

Jill saw that the fire artist had packed all of her equipment into a huge silver carry box. Her dreadlocks whipped around as though alive as she hefted it up and headed for a tent that had been set up for the performance artists. With Jill, the people in the group watched her every move.

'You don't need to be too alarmed, Krystal, but I would recommend that you consider some angel-work,' said Madame Truelove. 'We need to summon your guardians and ask them for their guidance and beneficence at this time.'

'That sounds like a plan,' said Jill. Skye had separated from her friends and was following the performer.

Jill stood to leave.

'Wait!' admonished Madame Truelove. 'I haven't finished your reading, Krystal. And I need to let you know about the angel-therapy I can perform for you. I'm usually booked out months in advance, but '

'Twenty, wasn't it?' Jill dropped the cash onto the table.

'Twenty-five.'

Jill threw the old woman a hard look and flung a ten-dollar note down next to the twenty. She moved out into the cacophony of music and shouting. Wearing sneakers and a denim mini-skirt over black, footless tights, she blended in fairly well, but she pulled the hood of her white sleeveless sweatshirt up over her blonde ponytail and angled her face to the pavement anyway. She kept her eyes on the fire-eater's tent. When she lifted her hand to her face to cover a feigned coughing fit, the scales-of-justice tattoo on her deltoid stood out on her pale skin; a young mother almost steered her pram into a bin to avoid her.

Three other members of the group had joined Skye at the performer's shack CK, a hand-rolled cigarette stuck to his lip; a young Aboriginal male Jill hadn't seen him around here before; and Abigail. Ah, Abi. Aged fifty-five, with a thirty-year heroin habit still going strong, she was known as 'Mum' to half of Fairfield, and legitimately so for a good eight to ten of them.

Jill found a doorway. A beautician's, closed early for the festival. She drew into the recess and leaned back to watch.

The fire-eater, a black tee-shirt now covering the top of her tutu, emerged from the tent. Around her waist sat a utility belt a large, pocketed 'b.u.m-bag' from which she pulled a bundle of flyers. From a pocket in her jacket, Jill withdrew a still-shot camera the size of a matchbox.

Individually, or in groups of two or three, the small crowd Jill had been watching came to collect a flyer from the performer. She observed each of them carefully inspect the leaflet, front and back, and then hand something back to the woman, which went into her utility belt.

Jill spoke into the phone hidden in her hand, and then took some more photos with the camera. Squinting down at the tiny device, she searched for the b.u.t.ton to forward the photos.

'Haven't got fifty cents for a phonecall, have you, love?'

She snapped her head around to face the speaker, a skinny girl of Asian appearance. Jill hadn't noticed her around here before. What had she seen? She palmed the camera.

'Nah, I can't help you, sis,' said Jill. 'I need to get some more money myself before I can get something to eat.'

'No worries. Take it easy.' The girl shuffled towards the next pedestrian.

Jill dropped the camera back into her pocket and made her way towards the temporary stage where the crowd frothed and writhed. The four boys on stage still screeched unintelligibly; the lead singer had not let go of his b.a.l.l.s once as far as she could tell. Please G.o.d, let him need to take a p.i.s.s, she thought. Maybe then they can take a break for ten minutes.

You're getting old, Jackson, she told herself.

When she reached the edges of the throng, she stopped and glanced back towards the performers' tent. A commotion of a different kind had erupted. Cops swarmed out from behind the structure. The fire-eater swung her legs wildly, suspended in mid-air by Grojan, the probationary constable who'd made the Olympic weightlifting team. She saw Clarkson and a young uniformed female officer take CK down to the concrete; Skye screamed and tried to bite another cop, who had her in cuffs.

Clarkson caught Jill's eye, and she inclined her head slightly.

As a few people around her became aware of what was going on behind them, Jill turned her back on the scene. She couldn't risk one of the cops making too much eye contact with her; she didn't want any of the crowd guessing that she had had anything to do with the police making the bust.

Jill pushed through the crowd and went in search of something to eat.

2.

Monday 1 April, 5 pm.

After securing the deadlock and dropping the iron bar into place, Jill took a final peek through the spyhole on the door of the unit. What did CK call this lock the other day? She tried to remember: pig stick, pig lock, something like that. Gives a p.r.i.c.k a bit more time to flush the stash when the pigs come to call, he'd said.

Huh.

She dropped the takeaway containers onto the linoleum of the kitchen bench and tried hard not to think about the number of germs that would be living in those cracks.

At least the food was delicious in Fairfield. She pulled from the plastic bag a fragrant tom yum soup, a container of garlicky fried tofu and one of steamed spinach in thick oyster sauce. The smells left her salivating. She could dine in a different part of the world every night. With the immigration detention centre close by, pretty much every nationality was represented in this suburb.

She reached into a cabinet for a big bowl and her mobile sounded. Work phone. Hmm.

'Jackson,' she said.

'Jill, this is Lawrence Last. Are you clear to talk right now?'

'Yep, good to go, sir.' What's this about, she wondered.

'Are you well, Jill?'

'Yes, sir. I'm fine.'

'I'm sorry to call you today, Jill. I know we weren't supposed to touch base again until later in the month, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come in for a meeting.'