Blood Born Read online

  Twenty minutes later she pulled up outside the center and immediately saw two small figures in the shadows of the streetlamp, one bent over. She rushed over to offer support but Violet urged her to take them somewhere safer.

  Once inside, Anya locked the entrance and quickly glanced out the glass door to make sure no one was outside. She switched on the light and led the girls to the examination suite.

  The girl with Violet staggered to the lounge chair, her friend at her side. Anya would not have recognized the face even if they’d met before. The cheeks and eyes were swollen, and blackened. Blood stained her pale shirt. With one hand, she held a blood-soaked towel to the back of her head. The other showed a deformed wrist and forearm, which on a quick glance had to be a displaced fracture.

  Anya immediately pulled on latex gloves and grabbed a thick surgical pad along with a pillow. Violet made way as she moved over to the lounge.

  “That’s a pretty nasty gash to the head. Can I take a look?”

  The girl seemed to defer to Violet, who nodded.

  Anya carefully lifted the broken forearm onto a pillow on the owner’s lap. The woman grimaced but did not resist. Next came a cursory examination of the scalp wound.

  “Looks like someone really did a job on you. This might sting a bit.”

  Anya pressed around the seven centimeter split in the skull, feeling for boggy swelling, anything to suggest a fractured skull beneath. Relieved not to find any abnormality, she then studied the jagged laceration more carefully.

  “Can you tell me how this happened? It’s pretty obvious someone wanted to hurt you.”

  Violet had folded her arms and sat on a single seater, bent forward, with her long black skirt stretched over her knees. “Is this confidential? Like you promised when you saw me?”

  Anya looked across. “Yes, but if someone’s life is at risk, that confidence may have to be broken.”

  The two women exchanged looks. “Told you she was all right,” Violet said. “We’re safe here. Go on, tell her.”

  The laceration had temporarily stopped bleeding but would need stitches, so Anya sat, gloved palms facing upward on her lap.

  The unknown woman spoke through a split bottom lip.

  “My name is Savannah. Savannah Harbourn.”

  18

  Anya had heard a great deal about the crimes of the Harbourn family, but never any mention of Savannah.

  Violet appeared agitated while she explained, “We used to be friends. That’s how I met her brother, Rick, the one I was going out with when…” She picked at the skin framing a thumbnail. “The night I came here.”

  “She means the night she got pissed and had sex with my brothers,” Savannah said, matter-of-fact.

  “Do you know whoever did this to you?” Anya asked. “You and Violet look terrified.”

  Savannah breathed through her puffed-up mouth. The bridge of her nose had already widened with swelling.

  “I went over to see my two younger sisters. I moved out, but go back to help them with homework and stuff. It was after eight and no one was cooking for them, so I started making spaghetti.”

  “Their mother has never given a shit,” Violet said. “If it wasn’t for Savannah, they’d live on potato chips and Coco Pops.”

  “When I was in the kitchen, Mum and Gary, my oldest brother, started arguing about the police and what they had on him this time. He just kept saying he had it covered. I ignored it ’cause they argue like that all the time. It’s why I left home.”

  Anya could imagine the scene in the crowded, squalid home full of teenagers and adults in constant trouble with the police. If criminal behavior was learned, the family home was the ideal schooling ground. Savannah was wise to move away from it. With this family, though, violence seemed to have been inescapable.

  “What happened then?”

  Anya stayed seated, allowing Savannah to tell her whole story before suturing and cleaning the wounds. She had numerous questions about what Savannah knew about the family’s criminal acts but wanted to gain the sister’s trust by letting her speak freely for a while. She hoped something-anything-would come out about Giverny and the attack on Sophie and Rachel Goodwin. Even though this conversation was in complete confidence, Anya just might be able to persuade Savannah to speak to the police about what she knew.

  “Gary started screaming and then Bruce and Paddy came home. They joined in and said Paddy got rid of the paint from that night, and that’s all he and Bruce did. But Mum didn’t believe them and started slapping them around the face.”

  Violet spoke again. “They would just take that from her, no one would dare hit back.”

  Anya wondered if the violence they inflicted on women was a surrogate way of getting back at their mother. Abusers had often been abused themselves, but it was no defense-moral or legal. It didn’t make the victim’s suffering any more bearable.

  “I stayed out of it, but half the street would have heard. They kept telling Mum that they got rid of the paint, that’s all. Eventually she took off in her car. There’s this bloke she goes to when she’s pissed off with us lot.”

  The paint. Was it the red paint they had used to scrawl threats on Giverny’s car? That meant the Harbourns were involved in what happened at the Hart home, despite four of them being in jail at the time. Anya wanted to know exactly what they had said to incriminate themselves, but had to be very careful in dealing with Savannah. At the moment she was a patient, not informant.

  “Can I get something for the pain? This arm is killing me when I move.”

  Anya didn’t want her to have anything orally, in case the arm had to be pulled back into place under a general anesthetic. And she didn’t carry injectable narcotics, to protect the unit from attacks and break-ins.

  “That arm may need surgery, so you can’t have anything by mouth until we get an X-ray.”

  Violet moved to stand but when Savannah tried to lift her arm to do the same, she recoiled into the lounge.

  “Hold on,” Anya explained. “I can walk you across the road to X-ray and give you an anonymous code, which we have permission to do. No one has to know your name, or what happened. But that arm definitely has to be fixed, or you could lose function in it. If it’s an unstable break, it could cut off the blood supply to your hand, which would mean something a lot more serious.”

  With a fresh head injury, Anya also wanted the girl to remain conscious and lucid. Painkillers could sedate and cause even more problems. Immobilizing the arm was as effective as pain relief for now. She rechecked for the wrist pulses. The fingers were pink and still receiving adequate blood flow. She then repositioned the pillow closer to Savannah’s body, so the arm was better braced against even the slightest movement.

  Anya locked the unit when the three of them walked across the road to the emergency department. Violet wanted a cigarette and waited outside. She could have been keeping an eye out.

  The triage sister kindly fast-tracked them with an anonymous code and soon they were in X-ray. Anya put on a lead gown to stay with her patient.

  Two ribs had been broken, but thankfully hadn’t managed to puncture a lung. Above the wrist was fractured but the skull was intact. The emergency physician on duty put in a local anesthetic block in that arm and pulled it back into place. Another X-ray showed it back in alignment. They then moved into a treatment room and waited for the same doctor to return.

  He opted to stabilize the forearm with a plaster backslab and bandage. It wasn’t the ideal treatment, but under these circumstances could be easily removed if Savannah needed to be seen by her family and didn’t want them to know she’d been to a hospital.

  As they waited together for the plaster to set, the doctor left to get a suturing kit for the scalp wound. Savannah began to open up.

  “Why are you being so nice?”

  “It’s not nice, it’s my job. Just like the doctors in here.”

  Savannah began to cry. “No one’s ever been this kind to me before.”
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  Anya put an arm around the girl, who had grown up with abuse and beatings. The smallest amount of compassion could set off an avalanche of emotion in someone like Savannah.

  “Mum reckons I waste air when I breathe. She hates me.”

  Ordinarily, that would sound like an immature reaction to an argument, but Noelene Harbourn had some serious psychopathology. Savannah may well have been right about her.

  With the plaster in place, it was time to suture the head wound. Hair could hide the stitches, if she washed it carefully when she got home.

  As Savannah sat bravely throughout the procedure, Anya thought about the dysfunctional family.

  Social commentators and clergymen lamented the demise of the family, but whether nature or nurture caused criminality was irrelevant. Families like this should be broken up and separated.

  Savannah had deserved much better.

  “What happened after your mother left?”

  Savannah paused and lowered her head. “After dinner when I was cleaning up, Gary told me to find his baseball bat and got wild when it wasn’t there. My sisters called me into the bedroom and said the police had been around asking more questions. All Gary cared about was what Bruce and Paddy told the police, but Amber said they’d already taken off somewhere with the bat. Gary lost it and started laying into me. First with his fists, and when I went down he started kicking me.”

  Anya’s mind raced. Was it the brothers taking the baseball bat that sent him into a violent frenzy? Or what they were going to do with it? Gary was capable of turning on anyone, except, it seemed, his own mother.

  “What did they do with the bat? Why did he care so much?”

  Savannah stood up, cradling her arm. “It’s what he used to beat people up with. Anyone who owed him money or double-crossed him, he reckoned.”

  They headed outside to where Violet was sitting on a step, still smoking.

  “Did she fix you?”

  Savannah nodded. “Thanks, I feel a lot better.”

  Anya said, “This time you were lucky. How did you get away from Gary?”

  “I didn’t. He just left. Rick had been out with his mates and at least he helped me off the floor when he got home. The others had got home and passed out on the lounge.”

  “It isn’t the first time. Those assholes would belt her up if she didn’t get them a drink or bag of chips or do some shit they told her to.” Violet flared. “Tell the doctor what happened when your mum got back.”

  Savannah rubbed the bandaged arm with her good hand.

  “She’d been drinking. I could smell it. When I told her what happened, she started yelling at me for making Gary angry. Then she slapped me really hard in the face and went to bed.”

  19

  Martin brought Ben over to stay and agreed to have dinner with them. Over schnitzels, vegetables and chocolate-chip ice cream, the three chatted for hours about the trip and their adventures. It was almost like earlier times. The holiday had done them wonders.

  Martin barely mentioned his girlfriend and Ben thrived on the attention from both parents. Past bitterness seemed to have been forgotten. Both parents kissed their sleeping child goodnight.

  The Saturday with Ben passed in a blur of hugs, laughter and games. Anya could have sworn he had grown in the days since she had seen him.

  Sunday morning had him up much later than normal. Anya checked to make sure he was all right, and watched him sleep, so peacefully, so innocently. Disneyland and the trip home had exhausted him. Even so, he’d hung a display full of badges by his bed, collected and swapped in Anaheim.

  Anya looked at the unmade bookcase at the back of the room. Ben hadn’t even asked about the boxes; all he wanted was his mum. She couldn’t help smile. Last night they’d snuggled on the lounge and watched Ratatouille. Days, and nights, with Ben were precious and too few.

  She slipped downstairs and boiled the kettle while he slept. In retrospect, the divorce with Martin had been inevitable. Except Anya hadn’t counted on losing custody because she had become the working parent supporting them all while Martin stayed at home as the primary carer.

  Anya placed two teaspoons of leaves and another “for the pot” as her grandmother had always done, and filled the teapot with boiling water before turning it three times, just like Nanna used to.

  She sat and felt the sun on her skin through the kitchen window. This was her favorite time of day. No phone calls or meetings, and the world felt temporarily calm. And Ben safe upstairs, as if he lived there permanently.

  Anya thought about how much of Ben’s schooling she had already missed, and it was only his first year. Other mothers did reading and canteen duty, but she had to work to pay child support on top of the mortgage and Elaine’s wage. Business had improved, but a lot of the government work went unpaid. Even so, it often led to paid jobs, which always helped.

  A mug of tea later, Anya heard quick steps on the wooden stairs. “Good morning,” she said and met him in the doorway with a hug.

  Ben, still sleepy-eyed, wrapped his arms around her without a word. When he didn’t move, she checked to see if he had fallen asleep standing up.

  “How about some breakfast? I can do orange juice, scrambled eggs and toast.”

  “Can we go out for waffles? I like waffles with maple syrup like we had in Disneyland.”

  “How about we see what cereal’s left in the cupboard, after you ate two big bowls yesterday?”

  Ben grinned with pride.

  Anya was always conscious of wanting to make sure Ben enjoyed his visits, but tried hard to make sure he ate something nutritious for each meal.

  He yawned and scratched his belly underneath his pajama top. For a moment Anya saw a mini version of her former husband. Ben opted for some muesli with banana and milk and sat himself in his usual spot at the small table, across from his mother.

  Within moments of the first mouthful, he was back to his chattering self, regaling her with funny moments from Ratatouille, interspersed with more tales about the airport and plane food. Sometimes the stories he told took longer than the actual scenes, but that was one of the things she loved about him.

  After he’d finished, he asked if they could color together. In a flash he was back with a pencil case and coloring book full of animals. He flicked open at a page of a mother tiger and her cubs, handed her the orange pencil and began with blue for himself for the sky.

  “Mrs. Henry says I need to practice staying in the lines. She says I am good at writing letters but go too fast coloring. Did you do that when you were in kindergarten?”

  “I don’t remember, it was a long time ago.”

  He had managed to color over clouds but Anya chose to let him go.

  “Hey, after this we can go to the park, then come back here for lunch. We have to go out with a work friend this afternoon to visit his sick dad.”

  Ben glanced up through his curly mop of a fringe. “Are we going to the hospital?”

  “No, sweetie, we’re visiting a place called a nursing home, where people go when they’re not well enough to look after themselves, but not sick enough to be in the hospital.”

  He swapped the blue for a green pencil and began tracing the outline of the grass. “Why don’t their mums and dads look after them?”

  “Because their parents are usually in heaven.”

  “Do they have families?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “So why don’t they live with them instead of the nursing place? Mrs. Henry says families are supposed to look after each other. That’s why we have a family.”

  Mrs. Henry, Ben’s kindergarten teacher, featured a lot in his conversations. Anya loved the way she made learning a game for him.

  “Some families can look after their older members, but most can’t.” Like everything in life, the issue was complicated.

  “Why not?” The grass merged with a cub, which was fast becoming green and black.

  The questions never ran out with Ben. “Why” had to
be his favorite word.

  Anya thought about the number of reasons. Smaller families, longer working hours, distance from relatives, selfishness, family problems; the list was endless. She opted for a practical answer. “Well, if your nanna was in a wheelchair, she couldn’t live here because the bedrooms are upstairs. Where would she sleep?”

  Ben considered this for a moment. “You could bring her to our house and you can come and live with us too.”

  Anya would love nothing more than being with her son full-time, but Martin had a girlfriend. Besides, she couldn’t live with an adult who thought surfing was more important than paying bills. Even so, looking at Ben, she had to admit that, as a father, Martin was doing a great job.

  “Hey, as far as I know, Nanna’s pretty happy seeing her patients and looking after her garden. Now, what about the park?”

  Ben placed his bowl by the sink and trotted off to get dressed. While washing up, Anya wondered what sort of a father the Harbourn children had had. Chances were he hadn’t fathered all of the children, if Noelene’s “profession” continued throughout the relationship.

  Had he been inherently bad, abusive or violent? Was he even literate? Was he strict, or morally void?

  It can’t have been easy raising nine children, but large families could be perfectly functional, or at least appear that way. She headed for her office and clicked on her laptop to check her emails. There was nothing further from Dan Brody. They would still expect him this afternoon.

  Ben reappeared in a new Buzz Lightyear shirt and shorts. The navy made his eyes an even deeper blue. “Mum, why don’t you have the same name as Dad and me? There’s a boy in my class whose parents didn’t get married and they have different names.”

  “Your dad and I got married but when we got a divorce, you kept the name Hegarty, and I changed my name back to what it used to be.”

  He maneuvered onto her lap and dangled his legs beside hers. The computer was an instant magnet for her son, but she wasn’t about to turn down the affection it encouraged.