Fall Read online

  About the Book

  A chilling, exhilarating new thriller from the award-winning Candice Fox, described by the Sydney Morning Herald as ‘an important new voice in crime fiction’.

  “I’m sure every day Eden looked in the mirror and wondered if she should kill me …”

  If Detective Frank Bennett tries hard enough, he can sometimes forget that Eden Archer, his partner in the Homicide Department, is also a moonlighting serial killer …

  Thankfully their latest case is proving a good distraction. Someone is angry at Sydney’s beautiful people – and the results are anything but pretty. On the rain-soaked running tracks of Sydney’s parks, a predator is lurking, and it’s not long before night-time jogs become a race to stay alive.

  While Frank and Eden chase shadows, a different kind of danger grows closer to home. Frank’s new girlfriend Imogen Stone is fascinated by cold cases, and her latest project – the disappearance of the two Tanner children more than twenty years ago – is leading her straight to Eden’s door.

  And, as Frank knows all too well, asking too many questions about Eden Archer can get you buried as deep as her pass …

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Fall

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Candice Fox

  Hades

  Eden

  Copyright Notice

  For Danny, Adam and Jess.

  Prologue

  Before the blood, before the screaming, the only sound that reached the car park of the Black Mutt Inn was the gentle murmur of the jukebox inside. It was set on autoplay, tumbling out a cheerful line-up of greatest pub hits one after another, but there was none of the growly sing-alongs of usual pubs, no thrusting of schooner glasses, no stomping of heels on the reeking carpet. The jukebox played in the stale emptiness of the building, and by the time it reached the car park it was no more than a ghoulish moan. It was windy out there and the stars were gone.

  The Black Mutt Inn attracted bad men, and had been doing so for almost as long as anyone could remember, as though the ground beneath it had somehow hollowed a vent to hell, the men who frequented it drawn in by the familiar heat of home. Nightly, at least, a bone was broken on its shadowy back porch over some insult or breach or another, or a promise was made there beneath the moth-crowded lamps for some violence that would occur on another night. Sometimes a plot was hatched there – the corners of the inn’s undecorated interior were very good for whispering, and the walls seemed to grow poisonous ideas like vines, spreading and creeping around minds and down necks and along legs to the rotting floorboards.

  The staff at the Black Mutt saw nothing, said nothing, but they absorbed secrets and requests, their ears and palms always open, their lips always sealed. They were loyal to no one and this earned them respect.

  On this night, Sunny Burke and Clara McKinnie entered the Black Mutt with their laptops and bags of chilli jerky and bright, suntanned smiles. The man behind the bar said nothing, saw nothing. He just served the drinks.

  Sunny and Clara brought their smiles into the Black Mutt, and though their Macleans glimmer didn’t reach any farther than the murky light above the door, the two carried this weak glow to the bar and set up shop there under the mirrors. Three men sat against the wall whispering, and another two stood at the pool tables watching the two travellers fresh from Byron, stamped with its optimism and cheap weed stink. Clara ordered a champagne and orange juice and downed it quickly, and Sunny nursed a James Squire and rubbed her legs.

  Into the dim halo of light stepped a man from the pool tables, and from that very second, although the bleach-white smiles remained, things in the world of Sunny and Clara began to get very dark.

  ‘G’day, mate,’ the man said, thumping Sunny between the shoulder blades. The man was tall and square and roped with veins, and the two hands hanging from his extra-long arms looked all-encompassing. Sunny looked up, appreciated the density of the man’s beard and smiled, swallowing envy.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Just down from Byron, are we?’

  ‘We’ve been there a week,’ Clara beamed.

  ‘I can see, I can see.’ The man brushed the backs of his fingers against the top of Clara’s shoulder, a brief brotherly pat. ‘Sun’s had its way with you, beauty.’

  ‘We’re just on our way back to the big smoke,’ Sunny said.

  ‘If you ask me, you’ve just come from the big smoke,’ the stranger jibed, and nudged Sunny in the ribs, hard. ‘Tell me you’ve got some grass for sale. Please tell me.’

  Sunny laughed. ‘Sure, mate.’ He glanced at the other figure in the shadows, the man by the table leaning on his cue. ‘No problem.’

  ‘I don’t get up to Byron often enough. Me back’s no good for the drive.’

  Sunny nodded sympathetically. The stranger threw out a hand and Sunny gripped it, felt its concrete calluses against his palm. ‘No probs, no probs. How much are you after?’

  ‘Aw, we’ll do all that later. Hamish is the name, mate. Can I invite you to a game?’

  ‘Yeah! Shit, yeah. This is Clara. I’m Sunny.’

  ‘Me mate over there’s Braaaadley, but don’t you worry about him. He don’t talk much. Plays a rubbish game of pool, too, don’t you, Brad? Ay? Wake up, shithead.’ The man squawked back towards the pool table but roused nothing in his partner. ‘Excuse me, miss, excuse me, but me old Bradley’s prone to leaning on that pool cue till he drifts off and no amount of slapping can get him back, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Right,’ she laughed.

  ‘You want some jerky?’ Sunny asked.

  ‘Nah, mate, nah. I’m all good. Me chompers ain’t no good, as well as me back. I’m falling apart at the seams here, mate.’

  They racked the balls while Clara and the silent one watched, now and then letting their eyes drift to each other, the hairy man in the dark struggling beneath the weight of his frown, the young woman rocking awkwardly, swinging her hips, holding onto the cue. She finished her second champagne and wanted another, but the men were talking and laughing and making friends, and Sunny always had trouble making friends, so she didn’t interrupt.

  ‘How about a little wager, just to make things interesting?’ Hamish asked.

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ Sunny puffed out his chest, ignoring a warning look from Clara. ‘Where do you, I mean, what do you usually –?’

  ‘Five bucks?’

  ‘Five bucks?’ Sunny laughed, coughed. ‘Sure, mate, sounds great.’

  They played. Clara was the most excitable, howling when she sunk the white ball, cheering when Sunny scored. There was plenty of kissing. Rubbing of backsides. The men in the booths watched them. The happy group at the table were cut off from the rest of the world by the cones of light that fell upon them.

  ‘Very good, young sir,’ Hamish said, offering his big hard hand again. ‘How about another?’

  ‘Twenty bucks this time,’ Sunny said. ‘You can pay me in labour, if you like. The van needs a wash.’

  ‘Sunny!’ Clara gasped.

  ‘Listen to this guy, would you?’ Hamish laughed. He squeezed the young woman on the shoulder, made Clara’s face burn red. ‘What a cocky little shit. You’re lucky you’re so goddamn beautiful, Sunny me old mate. No one’s gonna knock that gorgeous block off no matter what you say.’

  They laughed and played again. Hamish was hard on Bradley. The balls cracked and crashed and rolled in the pockets. Clara was good. She’d always been good. Her daddy had taught her the game young, bent over the felt, his hips pinning her against the side of the table. But she knew when to sacrifice a shot so that she didn’t lean over too f
ar and give Bradley a view of her breasts, her arse.

  The man looked at her funny. Made her ache inside.

  ‘One more?’ Sunny said. The bar was empty now but for the bartender, who was motionless in the shadows. Sunny won, and won again.

  ‘One more, little matey, and then it’s off to bed with you. What say we make it interesting, huh? Everything you’ve won, you give me the chance to win it back. We go even. I lose, you take the notes right outta my hand, no hard feelings.’

  ‘Mate,’ Sunny drawled, ‘you win this and I’ll give you double what you owe me.’

  ‘Sunny!’

  ‘Oh ho. Just listen to this guy,’ Hamish laughed.

  ‘Sunny, no.’

  ‘Cla,’ the boy drew her close, ‘they haven’t won a game all night. It’s fine. I’m just having a laugh.’

  ‘Sunny –’

  ‘Just shut up, would you?’ Sunny snapped, giving her that look. ‘I’m only having a bit of fucking fun.’

  Clara shut up because she knew what men could do, and it began with that look. She watched the men shake hands, rack the balls. When the game began, it was all Clara could do to keep those lips shut as Hamish leaned down, took aim and began sinking balls.

  The table was empty of Hamish’s balls in less than two minutes. And then he sunk the black in a single shot. Sunny never got a turn.

  ‘Mate,’ Hamish said when it was done, straightening and leaning on his cue, the smile and the charm and the humour forgotten now, his eyes lazy as they wandered over Clara. ‘Seems you owe me quite a bit of cash.’

  In the car park, Bradley walked behind them, glancing now and then towards the Black Mutt, although no such careful eye was needed. Not here, not where a hidden hole drilled straight to hell warmed the air as it breezed across the asphalt and ruffled Clara’s thick dark curls. Hamish’s hand on the back of her neck was like a steel clamp. They approached the Kombi van, the only one in the lot. It was parked out in the middle of a huge barren wasteland so that the young couple would be safe from whatever might be lurking in the towering wall of dark woods when they returned. Clara put her hands out to stop Hamish slamming her into the side of the van and turned. Bradley had let a steel pipe slide down from where it was hidden high up inside his sleeve.

  ‘Give me an inventory,’ Hamish said.

  ‘There’s the CD player, some cash, and Clara has some jewellery,’ Sunny was saying, fumbling with his keys. ‘There’s the weed, too. You can take it. Please, please, I’m asking you now not to hurt us.’

  ‘You go ahead and ask whatever you like, you snotty-nosed little prick,’ Hamish said. ‘You bring out whatever you can from in there and we’ll see if it’s enough, and if it’s not, I’ll decide if anyone gets hurt.’

  ‘Take them up to the ATM,’ Bradley grunted. Clara jolted at the sound of the silent man’s voice. She turned and found him staring at her, eyes pinpoints of light in the dark.

  ‘Sunny,’ Clara croaked, tried to ease words from her swollen throat. ‘Sunny. Sunny!’

  ‘Shut up and hurry up,’ Hamish snarled.

  ‘I’m going. Please. Please!’ Sunny was pleading with anyone now. Clara heard the pleas continuing inside the van, heard the rattling of boxes and drawers. As soon as the boy was out of sight she felt the man with the concrete hands slip his fingers beneath her skirt. Hamish smiled at her with his big cracked teeth and pressed her into the van.

  ‘All this excitement getting you wet, is it, baby?’

  ‘Sunny! God! Please!’

  ‘Your pretty boyfriend better come up with something very special, very soon, baby cakes, or I’m afraid you’re footing the bill on this one.’

  ‘How about this?’ Sunny said as he emerged from the van, hands full, thrusting the items at Hamish. ‘Will this do?’

  The knife made Hamish stiffen, made his eyes widen slightly as they dropped to the items in Sunny’s hands, which all fell away and clattered to the ground, revealing the leather handle they concealed, the leather handle attached to the long hunting blade that was now buried deep in Hamish’s belly. Sunny, as always, didn’t give the man a moment to appreciate the surprise of the attack. He pulled the knife out of his stomach and plunged it in again, pushed it upwards into the tenderness of Hamish’s diaphragm and felt the familiar clench of shocked muscles. Clara slid away as the young man went for a third blow, took her own knife, the one she kept flush against her body between her breasts, and went for Bradley. The hairy man backed away but Clara’s aim was immaculate. She set her feet, pulled back, breathed, swung and let go. The knife embedded in Bradley’s back with a thunk right between the shoulder blades, and he fell and rolled like roadkill on the tarmac.

  She went to the silent man and pulled out the knife, wiping it on the hem of her soft white skirt. Bradley was still alive, and she was happy because it would be a long time until she was finished with him. Clara liked to play, and though it wasn’t really Sunny’s thing, she thought maybe because they were on holiday he would indulge her just once with some games. She turned and looked at him, Bradley still gurgling against the asphalt under his cheek.

  ‘Baby.’ She turned on her sweet voice for her killer partner. ‘What if we took this one home and –’

  A whistle and a shlunk.

  At first it seemed to Clara that Sunny had fallen, until she felt the wet spray of his blood on her face. She tried to process the noise she’d heard, the whistle and the shlunk, but none of it made sense. She crawled, shaking, and with her hands tried to piece back together the split halves of her boyfriend’s skull, grabbing at the bits of brain and meat sprayed across the asphalt around him. There was no putting Sunny back together again. She kneeled in the blood, both his and Hamish’s, and tried to understand, little whimpers coming out of her like coughs. Hamish was sitting up beside the van, his hands still gripping at the knife wounds in his belly.

  A whistle and a shlunk, and the top of his head came off. He slid to the ground.

  Clara looked around at the tree line behind her, a hundred metres or so away, and then looked at the trees in front, the same distance, dark as ink and depthless. The silence rang, and under its terrifying weight she crawled, tried to get to her feet, heading towards the bar. Another whistle, another shlunk, and her foot was gone. Clara fell on her face and gripped at the stump of her leg. She didn’t scream or cry out because there was only terror in her, and terror made no sound.

  Clara lay and breathed, and then after some time began crawling again. She heard the sound of uneven footsteps, punctuated by a metallic clop, and looked up to see a figure coming towards her slowly, barely distinguishable against the dark of the trees from which it had emerged. The sounds kept coming out of Clara, the shuddering breaths through her lips, but through them the metallic clopping kept coming. A woman moved into the light of the van. Clara could see she was leaning on an enormous rifle, using the gun like a crutch.

  The woman stepped quietly between the bodies of the men, and Clara lay in the blood and looked up at her. She thought, even as shock began to take her, about the woman’s black hair, how it seemed to steal some blue out of the night and hold it, like the shimmer woven through the feather of a crow. The woman with the gun bent down, used the enormous weapon to lower herself into a crouch. Clara wondered what wounds she was carrying, what gave the other killer such trouble as she settled herself beside the dying girl.

  Eden looked at the trees, the bar, finally at the girl on the ground.

  ‘Just when you think you’re the deadliest fish in the water,’ Eden said to the girl.

  Clara gasped. Her fingers fumbled at the wet stump where her foot had been. Eden sighed.

  ‘I admire the game,’ Eden said. ‘I really do. It’s clever. Two naïve little travellers just waiting to be picked on. You flounder around like you’re just drowning in your own idiocy, and you see which predators come to investigate the splashing. Who could resist you? You’re adorable. You lure them out into the deep, dark waters and then you surg
e up from below. Pull them down.’

  Clara fell back against the asphalt, her mouth sucking at the cold night air, throat blocked by shock.

  ‘If I was well, this would have been more personal,’ Eden said, her leather-gloved hand gripping the rifle tight. ‘But I haven’t been at my best lately, so I’m afraid there’s no time for play.’

  Clara tried to speak, but she couldn’t force words up through the whimpers. They came out of her like hiccups. The woman with the long dark hair rose up slowly, pushing the rifle into the ground, and when she’d risen fully she actioned the great thing with effort, once-strong hands betraying her as the bullet slid into the chamber.

  ‘I’m the only shark in this tank,’ Eden said.

  The last gunshot could be heard inside the Black Mutt Inn. But no one listened to it.

  The Victims of Crime support group of Surry Hills meets every fortnight. The only reason I started going is because my old friend from North Sydney Homicide, Anthony Charters, goes there. If I didn’t have a friend there, I’d have never bowed to my girlfriend Imogen’s demands that I get counselling for the ‘stuff that has been going on with me’ the last few months. That vague collections of terms, the ‘stuff’ and its propensity to ‘go on with me’, frequently came between the beautiful psychologist and me in our first few weeks of dating, when she realised she’d never seen me completely sober. She said she couldn’t imagine me ‘relaxed’. Privately, I argued I was a lot more relaxed than Imogen herself. Imogen takes an hour and a half to get ready in the morning, and the first time I farted near her she just about called the police. That, ladies and gentlemen, is not ‘relaxed’.

  But, you know. You don’t tell them these things. They don’t listen.

  I’d started courting Dr Imogen Stone in the dangerous and electric place between my previous girlfriend being slaughtered by a serial killer and my partner detective almost getting herself disembowelled by a pair of outback monsters. Imogen liked me, but she was dealing with the psychological aftermath of both events. I was by all accounts an unpredictable, volatile and difficult-to-manage boyfriend. She couldn’t count on me to turn up on time, say appropriate things when I met her friends, drive her places without her having to worry that I was about to career the car into the nearest telegraph pole. She couldn’t be sure when I ducked out of the cinema that I wasn’t going to knock back six painkillers in the glorious solitude of the men’s room stall, or lose myself in thought and just wander off, turning up back at her apartment at midnight drunk and stinking. I was a bad beau, but I had potential, so she didn’t give up on me. Ironically, I understand that the ‘fixer-upper boyfriend’ that I seemed to be is just about the perfect model for the worst type of man you can be attracted to – according to the psychology textbooks I’d perused in her office, it was the cute, broken bad boys who became abusers.