Vivienne. Just an ordinary suburban housewife… no more

Chapter Eleven. “Lost and Alone”

Vivienne seethed. She felt like shouting, screaming at the top of her lungs “I am no murderer.” The cop had been fine. Nobody had been hurt. He hadn’t been hurt – she didn’t kill anybody. Anybody, I didn’t kill anybody she wanted to yell so the world knew she was innocent. She was just a mother with a baby daughter and a loving husband at home in the suburbs. Normal like everyone else – like everybody. Except for this heat. She looked at her arms, a fine sheen of perspiration making them shine like an oiled body on the beach. The beach. She looked at the surf as it crashed into the sand, and at first didn’t recognise it, wondering how the beach could be this far inland. Shocked, she realised that she was almost at Surfers Paradise. She had walked nearly five miles, power walked she guessed by her arms, and in less than half an hour judging by her watch. It said four-thirty, not too long before the light of dawn hit the horizon and bringing with it sunshine. Sunshine, the warmth of the sun – and people. Her picture had been spread across the newspapers and she was the talk of the town. She was labelled a killer and here she was in the centre of the waking tourist population, waiting for someone to walk past during their morning constitutional, or on their way home from a nightclub, and recognise her. She dashed across the road and saw a blue phone outside of a newsagency. The owner was disappearing into the doorway with a bundle of papers dangling from both hands. She hoped briefly that her picture wasn’t on the front of those too. Her trembling fingers pushed triple 0 again.

“Police. I’m Vivienne Curtis.”

Chapter Twelve. “First Contact”

Staffing was minimal at this time of night but suddenly Barnes and Gallagher were being feted, celebrated, patronised. Foster Barnes knew if he’d requested a lobster salad or a bottle of Bollinger, every effort would have been made to procure them. He knew the contrast was only because of Peters’ school buddy.

“If you’d done your homework correctly you would have known this friend of yours was in charge here beforehand,” he chided. “Might have saved us a lot of work.”

“Sorry boss, I thought I had. I was misinformed,” Pete grinned back. “Rob was in Townsville last I knew, but the old boy net failed me as badly as the formal staff lists forwarded three days ago.”

Foster Barnes knew Pete had not reacted to his gentle chiding and was only repeating the facts. Seems like professional courtesies were the same the world over, not what you know, but who. The young constable returned with the current working file on Vivienne, and pot of coffee as Barnes had requested. The file was very thin, surprising Barnes, but it was the coffee the Constable was most apologetic about.

“It was, is, it’s the best I could do sir, don’t, we don’t normally make “em by the pot.”

“It’s fine son – this is the only file?”

“Ah, yes sir, everything is on floppy, most things. I’ll log you on to the computer so you can open it.”

They were in a small cubicle of an almost deserted open plan office that Barnes knew would turn into a hive of activity in a few short hours. He wished to be well clear by then and nodded at the Constable to proceed. He looked over the short partition and wished he could hear into the operator’s room adjacent – there was something gentle and soothing about the flashing lights of their computer switchboard. He would read the reports first, then take a seat in that room with the suitably dim lighting and continuously flashing banks of switches and panels. In there he would think – and wait.

He firstly read the complaint levelled by Dudley William Wallace about his noisy neighbours across the road, Mr and Mrs Curtis. Wallace had thought the domestic dispute had risen to a level that required Police intervention. There had been no action recommended on the complaint as Wallace had reported the same neighbour on three previous occasions in the past year, the first two discredited after local patrols from the northern Police Station at Coomera carried out limited investigations. More importantly was the reference in the report to many other complaints Wallace had made in the last six years about almost every single one of his neighbours – they were cross referenced so that Barnes could access them if he wished, but he did not. He knew he would find nothing but the spurious ramblings of a serial whinger, and that if he bothered to check Wallace’s previous address, that local Police station would have many more.

Barnes read on, the report of the initial Police pursuit of Mrs Curtis after Wallace had rung in again and reported the damage inflicted to his car by Mrs Curtis. He grinned when he noticed the description Wallace provided of the vehicle Vivienne had driven away in. After further shouting in the street between her and her husband, she had left in a green 1994 Hyundai four door. Wallace even knew the complete registration number. Barnes knew Wallace probably had the make, model and registration number of every vehicle in his street, for those people that had come to his attention anyway.

The first Police pursuit had ended innocently enough with the pursuing car involved in an MVA, no injuries. Dispatch then advised an APB on Mrs Curtis, picked up almost immediately by a motorcycle cop who gave chase, the report citing a further MVA by both of them at a crowded intersection. Vivienne had run from the scene chased by the motorcycle cop on foot. The reports then cited several eyewitness accounts. Barnes glossed over the identity of the witnesses, as they all agreed that Mrs Curtis had pushed a stationary vehicle out of her way and disappeared into the large adjacent shopping centre car park. Unfortunately for the chasing cop, Mrs Curtis had pushed the car into the far left lane, the only moving traffic lane, and the ensuing havoc of vehicles taking evasive action saw several of them plough into the stationary lanes of cars waiting at the lights.

The preceding accident that left Vivienne’s car on the centre traffic island and the abandoned Police motorcycle between the lanes meant many cars were sitting unattended, engines still running or the drivers having placed them into neutral as they looked around at what was happening. The car striking the end vehicle began a massive domino effect as cars concertinaed into each other. The motorcycle cop had just moved in front of one car, looking up in time to see firstly, Vivienne disappearing into the car park, and then turning his head as the cars began their long nose to tail crashing. He made his one fatal decision – he stopped. Seconds later he was crushed by the bullbar of the small 4wd he stopped in front of, then impaled on the pushbike rack mounted on the tow ball of the car in front. Energy dissipated, the car with the pushbike rack only moved a couple of feet before gently kissing the bumper of the car in front of it. The impaled body of the cop dropped to a bloody mass on the road. His helmet had done its job and his face was unscathed, except for the silent scream of terror and pain permanently etched onto its features.

“She didn’t kill the cop,” he whispered to Pete. “She’s out there terrified thinking she’s a cop killer, and she didn’t do it,” he added more to himself, with not a little relief. “We’ve got to find her soon.”

Before Pete could answer, they both turned as the sound of knocking on a window drew their excited attention. The operator behind the glass mouthed something unintelligible. They recognised the gesture that there was a phone call – the call from the only person that would come through the triple 0 operator for them. Barnes ran into the room and was handed a headset, the operator nodding at him.

“It’s her,” he said unnecessarily. He pushed a button on the console and the sound of the ocean came through the headsets.

“Mrs Curtis, are you there?”

“Yes. Who are you? I asked for a specific person, who are you?”

“This is Foster Barnes speaking Maam, I’m a Special Agent of the FBI. Mrs Curtis, we need to meet, I need to talk to you.”

“You don’t sound like an American, much. How do I know you really are this Foster Barnes guy?”

“Mrs Curtis, you didn’t kill that Policeman…”

“I know I didn’t. I haven’t killed anyone. What I don’t know is who you are – you could be anybody pretending to be this Foster Barnes.”

“Mrs Curtis, how are you handling it, the heat I mean, the heat I know you’re feeling inside, the heat that makes you feel invincible doesn’t it? But Mrs Curtis, I want to, need to warn you, whatever you do, do not… Mrs Curtis? Mrs Curtis, are you there? Vivienne? Damn it, she’s gone. What the hell happened?”

Pete was standing beside the operator who nodded at him.

“She hung up boss.”

Chapter Thirteen. “Hidden Treasure”

Vivienne recalled the words – they still echoed around her head. “…how are you handling it, the heat I mean, the heat I know you’re feeling inside, the heat that makes you feel invincible…?” There was no doubt in her mind that it had been Foster Barnes she had spoken to. But how did he know? How could he know what she felt? She still held the receiver in her hand, and replaced it slowly, noticing the false dawn and knowing she needed to find another hidey-hole for the day. She remembered the council van park further down the esplanade. She would find something there, somewhere cool and out of sight. She began to run, ignoring the looks of the pre-dawn risers walking the dog or the more enthusiastic surfers changing into wetsuits. One of them even wolf whistled at her as she sprinted past, dress caught up around her upper thighs and hair sailing in the breeze of her making.

She ran and ran, and only slowed as she neared the van park itself as she thought about where the entry gates were. To her amazement she found herself jumping the two-metre high chain mail fence and then and only then did she stop, from surprise. She glanced around quickly, recalling that van parks were notorious for early risers, but remembering this was a council park and there should be no permanents. It was not holiday season – there wasn’t a soul in sight. She located a small cabin with attached ensuite, the cabins on either side and opposite all looked unoccupied. The door opened easily after she softly knocked a few times, and she closed and applied the safety hook once inside. She sunk to the floor of the little cabin, a floor thankfully of linoleum over cool concrete, and heard those words again in her head.

“… how are you handling it, the heat I mean, the heat I know you’re feeling inside, the heat that makes you feel invincible …?”

“How could he know?” she whispered.

Chapter Fourteen. “Closing In”

“What was all that about boss?”

“A stab in the dark Pete, just a stab in the dark.”

“I hope it wasn’t a fatal one.”

“No, I think I may have surprised her is all, shocked her maybe. Did we get a trace?”

Pete glanced again at the operator who responded.

“Yes sir, she was at a public phone on the Esplanade at Surfers.”

“Do we want to go there boss?”

Foster Barnes considered this for a moment. “How far is it?”

“No more than seven or eight minutes tops at this time of morning.”

“No, she’ll be miles away by then. Can we have a map, a tourist type map not just a road map?”

“Yeah sure, any of the service stations should have one. I’ll get the Constable to get us one.”

“Service station?”

“Yeah, roadhouse.”

“Oh, uhuh, yeah that’d be great – no hurry.”

“You don’t think we can catch up with her?”

“I don’t think she’s mobile, you know, she wouldn’t be using public transport for fear of being recognised. She doesn’t have her car anymore, and what, she’s moved less than five or six miles in three days? And finally, her husband and her daughter are still only just up the road, close enough to run home to, turn to if she gets desperate enough. She’s scared, scared about what’s happening to her and scared at what’s happening around her – and she’s scared for her husband and baby. That’s the reason she ran, not because she got uppity with a neighbour.”