"Running late!" muttered Cat, as she rushed into her studio and started to fling various items into large plastic boxes arranged along the wall, before pushing them into the corner of her studio. With her obsession with classification, this was the closest to messy that Cat ever got; even then, only certain things could go into certain boxes.
"Shall I help?" asked her studio partner, Rachel. She grinned at Cat's over-loud 'No!' Along with a barely seen printmaking student called Chloe, they'd shared a studio for a couple of years, and whilst not close friends, they had an affectionate regard for each other's foibles and character. Cat thought that Rachel - a loud, greenie political film maker - was overly concerned with the social life at the college (i.e. drinking and shagging lots of men), but she enjoyed having the studio mostly to herself, and found her approach to life (especially men), refreshing. Rachel thought Cat was just plain bonkers.
Cat grabbed her shoulder bag and swung it up over her head, staggering at the weight. Another drawback to being small and obsessive, transporting all the books, pencils, tools and found objects she felt essential for her day-to-day functioning was a real pain. She settled it heavily onto her shoulder and gave Rachel a quick wave as she left.
She'd arranged to meet her friends at Banjo's Cafe at six, and it was five past already. Not that it would worry them, she thought with a grimace, Bev's idea of timekeeping was so elastic she had been known to miss a presentation by a whole day, whilst Bee just plain forgot. She knew they wouldn't care if she was late or not, but still began a staggering run through the corridors, dodging chattering students. She waved at Joey-the-guard at reception as she passed him.
"Late, late, late!" she muttered to herself as she emerged from the College, bag banging painfully on her lower back. Lateness was one of her major dislikes, and she hated it in herself even more than in others. It didn't stop her from pausing as she emerged from the Art School, however, to take in the city in the twilight; the autumn light here was fantastic, and the mountain looming over the city seemed to bring the scene together. It was the best thing about the city, as far as she was concerned.
Another good thing about living in Hobart, she thought, as she began a staggering dog trot, was the closeness of everything - a quick run across town could literally be that. She dodged bollards and mooring ropes as she loped along next to the docks, enjoying the bustle of the local pleasure yachts and floating fish and chip shops, and thought briefly about living on a boat. "Not enough space," she muttered, noticing the size of the vessels in the harbour, "but no cats." A quick sprint across the main road, ignoring the pedestrian lights and giving an irate driver the finger as she cut in front of him, then onwards in the growing dark, reaching an unusually deserted little side alley that led towards the cafe. She had to stop briefly to catch her breath, then pressed on at a more sedate pace. She didn't want the others to see her arrive all sweaty and puffed out as though she'd hurried, so slowed even more, walking leisurely in the gathering gloom, enjoying the evening.
She entered Wellington Square via Kemp Street, a little 'U' shaped alley that served as a delivery route for the TAFE College and other nearby businesses. It was dark and had no streetlights along most of its length but tended to be busy as it was a shortcut into the city. Today it was deserted, with no shoppers using the now closed arcade as a shortcut, or TAFE students gossiping and smoking outside the fire doors. There were also none of the street people about, who tended to congregate here prior to finding somewhere to sleep.
Strange, thought Cat standing in the deserted square and looking around. This is the first time I've been here with no-one about. She felt watched, and slowly made a complete turn, peering into shadows and doorway. There was nothing, no movement except for a few scraps of paper that moved slightly in the evening breeze. The shadows seemed deeper, somehow, and the lights dimmed; even the city sounds seemed muted as though behind glass. All of a sudden Cat got the feeling she should not be here, she should be somewhere else, and she looked around for her exit.
There were three ways out of the Square, all running under buildings or roofed in between shopfronts. They were closed off with gates at various times of the evening, but no-one seemed that sure when it was going to happen, so leaving the square after closing time was a bit of a lottery. Tonight, all three were unlocked. With no-one about and many of the shop lights turned off, none of them seemed that attractive.
She headed for Soundys Lane, the quickest route. It was dark and unappealing, but Cat had played this game many times when she was younger, walking along deserted lanes and roads to prove she wasn't scared. It had worked out OK. Mostly. And when it hadn't, well, she'd learnt things about people. And knives. And running very fast.
There was the sound of talking ahead. That sounds like Bee's voice, she thought. A little louder than normal, probably arguing with one of the Greenpeace charity workers/muggers who liked to ambush distracted walkers in the city centre, though what they were doing here was a bit of a mystery. Bee could only have left the art school ten minutes ahead of me, and she was going to be late too, she thought a little indignantly, all fear gone.
Cat plotted revenge and decided to creep up on her friend and scare her a little. Taking her bag in her hands, she slipped to the corner, head down to hide the paleness of her face in the dusk light. Grinning, she mentally rehearsed her scary mugging speech, imagining some kind of a Robert DeNiro rip-off with fingers pressed into her friends back.
"Put your hands up and give me your bag," said a high, whispery voice, and Cat froze momentarily as the voice echoed what she was going to say.
There was a squeak from Bee, and Cat slid slowly around the corner, trailing fingers along the wall. Ahead, she could see Bee pressed against a wall, arms splayed out against the brickwork. A tall figure stood in front of her, face concealed by a dark hoodie. It clasped her by the throat with one hand, head on one side, and seemed to be examining Bee dispassionately, like a stain on a shirt, or a bug on a microscope slide.
Vague gagging sounds came from Bee as she tried to talk, and she moved her arms to start scrabbling against the hand holding her. Shit, Cat thought, he's going to choke her!
Cold now, Cat slipped her hand inside her bag and clasped the knife she kept right at the bottom, hidden under sketch books and pencils. A holdover from the days when Cat had wandered the streets of her hometown in the early hours, awake and angry following the death of her parents, the knife was long, thin, double edged and spike-like. It was also very, very sharp. Sharp enough to cut you, she thought at the figure, suddenly savage as she grasped the knife. Sharp enough to hurt you, she thought, her vision narrowing and focusing on the figure. Sharp enough to kill you, she whispered in her own head, her mental voice gone quiet and intense. She quietly slid it from its sheath and placed her bag on the floor, before advancing crab-like on the man.
Bee saw her creeping up on them, and her eyes grew wide with desperate hope. The man must have noticed this because he released her and turned towards Cat.
Just in time to receive her knife into his left arm, a deep stab that penetrated his heavy coat-sleeve and ripped out the other side, almost pulling the blade from her hands. Cat leapt back, a nasty grin on her face, weaving the knife slowly in front of her. She'd been trying to stick the knife into the man's side, a potentially crippling blow that she was unrepentant about.
The man made no sound, merely looked at his damaged arm with mild interest, then began to advance on her, right arm extended before him, fingers spread, damaged left arm by his side. Cat stepped back further, crabbing sideways a little, trying to draw the man away from Bee.
Suddenly he lunged, and Cat jumped back again flicking her knife across his outstretched hand, feeling the blade score hard against something. Again, he stopped, a puzzled look on his face, then flicked his hand as though testing it, before turning back on Cat, gathering himself ready to charge.
Shit! She thought, I've cut him twice and he's still going to attack me. She had a momentary thought of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who'd threatened to bite someone to death with his arms and legs chopped off. She felt a panicked giggle well up inside her. Not so funny in real life.
Bee's scream stopped everyone, and many things happened simultaneously. A man coming around the corner froze, then shouted. Bev, entering the alley behind her, took the scene in instantly. She, too, began shouting, before digging into her bag and throwing anything she laid her hands on at the man. A half-filled pot of paint caromed off his head before bursting open behind him against the wall, green paint exploding across the brickwork. An art textbook followed, narrowly missing his face, followed by a tattered journal, shedding paper inserts like feathers as it whipped towards the man. This, Cat later admitted to her friends, was what she thought had made the man turn tail and flee. Not being stabbed twice with a wicked looking knife, but the indignity of having a tin of paint bounce of his skull, followed by books, handfuls of paintbrushes and a half-eaten packet of sandwiches.
.....
About an hour later the three girls were sitting in the police station being interviewed by what seemed to be an archetypical Aussie detective. Mid-fifties, stocky, with short salt-and-pepper hair and an aged leather jacket slung over the back of his seat, he'd been ponderously quizzing the three friends for twenty minutes. He'd introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Connor, checked that Bee didn't want to see a doctor, then started in on a long list of questions.
"So, you're sure there was no reason for the attack?"
"Other than wanting to steal my bag, no," said Bee, sarcastically. This was the first time she had been more than compliant and dazed during the whole interview.
"Other than wanting to steal your bag, yes," repeated the detective carefully and wrote something in his notebook. Cat was pleased to see Bee spark and regain some of her spirit; she did not suffer fools gladly in normal circumstances. Glancing at the detective, she thought she could see the hint of a smile, and realized he'd been playing the role of dull plodding copper to get this response. Obviously, he was a lot smarter than he made out, and she had to work hard not to glance at the bag where her knife was hidden. She'd slipped it back into her shoulder pack as soon as the mugger had run off, swearing her friends to silence, and they'd cobbled together a story of the man running off when everyone had started shouting.
"So, one more time. After grabbing you by the throat he demanded your bag?" He looked more closely at the bruises blooming on Bee's throat, darkening marks a few centimeters long running around her neck. "Nasty, I'd put some ice on them," he added as an aside. "Anyway, so he demands your bag, then runs off when your friends arrive and start shouting. Nothing else? No description of the man? Eyes? Hair? He must have been as close as I am, but you didn't see anything. How about his voice? Accent? After-shave?"
"For the fiftieth time, nothing. He was big, he had a hoodie on, his back was to the light. His voice was weird, a bit high and breathy as though he was disguising it." Bev paused for a moment, as though remembering something then continued. "Paper, he smelled of old paper, sort of damp and a little acidic." Another pause. "Like a good, heavy cartridge that you've wetted too many times, you know?" Bev and Cat nodded in understanding.
"And none of you others saw anything of him as he ran off?"
Bev and Cat shook their heads simultaneously. "Other than the clothes, (black), shoes, (black), and build (tall and thin), all of which we've already told you about, no," Bev answered. It always amazed Cat that Bev could somehow manage to insert brackets in her speech, in a sort of summing-up-for-less-smart-people way. She guessed it came from having so many siblings to keep crushed and compliant.
The detective raised his eyebrows and turned back to Bee. "So, this man comes out of nowhere, grabs you not ten metres from the main road, demands your bag then runs off empty-handed when someone shouts at him." He sat for a few moments staring at the girls and Cat could almost feel him disbelieving their story. She'd made her friends swear to not mention her knife on the spur of the moment, but had only just thought about blood, after stabbing the man twice it must be everywhere. Perhaps his coat soaked it all up. She glanced furtively at her hands under the table but could see nothing. Perhaps the detective was just waiting to see whether they'd admit to stabbing the guy; perhaps the mugger was already dead, having bled out somewhere in the town and DS Connor was going to arrest them all for murder or something. The uncomfortable wait went on, and she opened her mouth to confess when the door of the cafe opened, and a young policeman came in. He walked over to DS Connor and whispered in his ear.
Whatever he said caused raised eyebrows and at one point a brief laugh. He muttered something to the PC, who left quickly. "Curiouser and curiouser," said the detective, turning back to the three friends. "Seems your mugger, after being scared off, ran a couple of hundred meters up the road, slipped into a side alley, then took off all his clothes. He then folded them and placed them in a neat pile, before disappearing. We're now looking for a tall, thin, naked man, smelling of damp paper, wandering about the town in the twilight. Kind of distinctive, eh?"
The girls exchanged looks. No one had mentioned blood, and after being stabbed twice there was sure to be lots. "There were no signs of anything on the clothes?" asked Cat tentatively.
"Like what?" asked the detective, turning his gaze back on her.
"Oh, you know, dirt, oil, blood. Clues, that sort of thing."
"Yeah, make-up, disguise stuff, a wig," added Bev quickly.
"Or a wallet? Car keys? Bus pass? Dried paint that could be traced only to one location in the docks?" continued Bee, obviously feeling a bit better. Clearly the others, too, had realized that the detective was far smarter than he pretended to be, and were running interference for Cat.
He smiled briefly at them then got up. "None of them, it seems, but I'm sure forensics will find something after they've had a look." He started to leave, then turned back. "Oh, and however you scared him off, well done." He glanced at Cat's shoulder bag, nodded, then left.
.....
They got a lift back to Bee's place with the young policeman, Gary, who they'd met after the break-in at college. Bee was more upset now, shaking a little, and they'd all decided to sleep over on her floor. She'd already refused an offer to call her parents, saying she'd contact them herself tomorrow. Now, all three girls were lying on the floor in her room under a mishmash of blankets and duvets. Bee was in the middle, and they began to talk through the attack.
"I missed the first bit, so what exactly happened?" said Bev from under the covers.
Cat, lying against Bee under perfectly folded blankets, felt her friend tense before beginning.
"It was like I told the detective, he just appeared. One minute I'm hurrying down the alley, worrying that I'm late, the next this man appears out of the shadows. He grabbed me and shoved me against the wall." The two girls could feel Bee starting to shake a little as she told her story. "He must have been standing there in the dark, waiting for someone to come by." Bee was crying now, gulping in great draughts of air and Cat and Bev cuddled her from both sides as best they could. After a few minutes the sobbing stopped, and her breathing eased. They lay in the dark for a while, before Bee said, in a little voice, "I thought he was going to kill me."
No-one said anything, then Bee continued. "You stabbed him. I saw you creep up on him with that bloody enormous knife we always tease you about and you stuck it right in him. If he hadn't turned ..." She stopped for a minute, remembering the look on Cat's face as she'd crept upon the mugger, the all-consuming rage. "Would you have killed him?"
Cat thought for a moment, remembering the searing anger she'd felt at the man touching, hurting one of her friends, one of her sisters; even thinking about it now made her heart race. She waited a few more seconds just to let everyone think she had to consider the question, that she wasn't a complete knife wielding psychopath. "In a brief second," she answered firmly.
A pause from the others, then Bev added, "And I would have pissed on his corpse afterwards." Bee started to cry again.