Her stolen passenger, p.1
Her Stolen Passenger, page 1
HER STOLEN PASSENGER
HER STOLEN PASSENGER
WHO IS HARRISON’S MOTHER?
DANIEL NORRISH
CONTENTS
I. 1990, Northern Queensland, Australia
1. Harp
2. Wu
3. Harp
4. Wu
5. Harp
6. Wu
7. Harp
8. Wu
9. Harp
10. Wu
11. Harp
12. Wu
13. Harp
14. Wu
15. Harp
16. Wu
17. Harp
18. Wu
19. Harp
20. Wu
21. Harp
22. Wu
23. Harp
24. Wu
25. Harp
26. Wu
27. Harp
28. Wu
29. Harp
30. Wu
31. Harp
32. Wu
33. Harp
34. Wu
35. Harp
36. Wu
37. Harp
38. Wu
39. Harp
40. Wu
41. Harp
42. Wu
43. Harp
44. Wu
45. Harp
46. Wu
47. Harp
48. Wu
Part II
49. Harp
50. Wu
51. Harp
52. Wu
53. Harp
54. Wu
55. Harp
56. Wu
57. Harp
58. Wu
59. Harp
60. Wu
61. Harp
62. Wu
63. Harp
64. Wu
65. Harp
66. Wu
67. Harp
68. Wu
69. Harp
70. Wu
71. Harp
72. Wu
73. Harp
74. Epilogue
The End
The Bodies We Won’t Bury: Love is Dangerous
1. Three. Two. One. Zero
2. Tell Her You Hate Her
Also by Daniel Norrish
Her Stolen Passenger: Who is Harrison’s Mother?
Copyright Daniel Norrish
www.danielnorrish.com
Independently Published
Action, Crime, Thriller, Suspense, Kidnap, Australia.
No character, organisation or collection of people in this book is based upon fact. No event or occurrence in this book is based upon fact. This novel is entirely fiction. Do not believe the words within this publication, but please enjoy the read.
This one is for John Norrish. No kid has ever had a better friend, hero, and father. Thanks for everything, mate.
PART I
1990, NORTHERN QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA
1
HARP
May Harp can smell the smoke as she watches the fire swallow her home in a writhing, squirming mass of brilliant heat. In the darkness of the sweaty rainforest at midnight, she sits behind the steering wheel of the motionless, curvy Ford Thunderbird at the far end of a gravel track, just before the turn. She blinks, and when she puts a hand to her face to wipe the thin strands of black hair from her eyes, she feels that the muscles of her jaw are as hard as fists.
Harp sighs and shakes her head, swears to herself, and winds the crank on the door to drop the window. The night air is warm on her face, and Harp flicks on the air-conditioning with a quick snatch at the dashboard.
She watches the destruction ahead of her (the turmoil and chaos of screaming neighbours and terrified volunteers) with a tight, almost flat frown.
There are no streetlamps or nearby houses so deep in the rainforest, so the world outside that enormous point of flame is entirely black. The faces of the nearest palm trees, all entombed by vines, hang down to stare at the carnage, but the trunks of these giants are lost into the natural gloom outside of this human interference.
Even from this far distance, Harp can tell the firefighters apart from the civilians. The reflective strips of high visibility material on their uniforms move from the blaze out into the darkness and back again like swooping magpies.
Something in the house explodes, and a plume of red flame with black smoke slips out over the mud and sparse, tall spears of lawn. A frantic chorus of screams is projected out into the rainforest.
Harp swears again, this time in Mandarin, and this time much more fervently. Her frown deepens until one of her crooked front teeth points out of her head in a tiny triangle. She presses the little “A/C” button on the dashboard of the car to turn off the cool air, and she cranks up the heat as high as it will go. She places a palm over each ventilation duct in front of her and wraps her thin fingers over the plastic like talons. Beads of sweat begin to form on her forehead, and they reflect the red, orange and yellow of the burning. Thin trickles of the salty body fluid run down her thin frame, under her shirt, from armpits adorned with coarse, dense black hair.
The animal of that murderous fire seems to be growing tired as the peaks of the tallest tongues dip and sway and finally die. The bungalow in front of Harp, now a pile of destroyed building materials, is smouldering and the spears of water from the firefighters’ hoses seem to be calming the final glowing patches. Steel stems topped with floodlights are erected to light the scene as the onlookers trudge off into the night with torches and small lanterns.
People are resting and removing layers of protective clothing. There’s so much moisture in the air now that the beads of sweat from Harp’s face have swollen and run in rivers to the collar of her top.
A tall man in a Queensland Fire Service uniform approaches her vehicle. He’s scratching at his short blonde hair and slipping in rapid, unsteady bursts on the gravel path. He reaches the vehicle, and he’s holding a firefighter’s helmet under his arm like a roman soldier.
“Miss Harp?” he begins, but she does not move, and she does not reply. Her palms are still pressed to the ducts pumping hot air into her car, and she continues staring at the place her house once stood.
“They told me to talk to you before the police get here. Well, before the important cops, I guess. There are a few coppers dealing with the onlookers—”
“They want you to talk to me before the detectives get here. So talk,” Harp says in quick, defined syllables.
The man shuffles his feet, and he opens his mouth to speak once more, but Harp looks up at him with furious black eyes sitting in thin sockets and nothing but air comes out of his mouth.
“Talk,” she repeats.
“The building is totally destroyed, I’m sorry, there’s nothing left. But, there’s a safe in the floor of the bedroom that we think might have survived.”
“It’s blast-proof, it’ll be fine.”
“OK, well, um.”
“What?”
“I was asked to find out if it’s, you know, good to open?”
“Good to open?”
“Yeah, if it’s dangerous for us to open.”
Harp lets out a short chuckle and says, “Why would I rig a trap to a safe in my own room? How am I supposed to sleep on top of that?”
“OK, so it won’t, you know, explode or anything?”
“It’s full of money, and there are a few guns. I’m sure whoever opens it will be pleased.”
“OK. There’s something else.”
“I know people are dead in there. Tell me, how many bodies?”
“One.”
“What? Only one?”
“Only?”
“Yes!” Harp barks and her lips tremble as she draws in two shuddering gulps of stinking oxygen, “Is there only one body in the house?”
“Yes, I’m so sorry, but it’s a child. A baby in a bassinet.”
“Just the one child? You’re certain?”
“Yes, well, we haven’t uncovered anything else, there still might be—”
Harp turns the key in the ignition and spins the car around in a spiral of screeching tyres and flung gravel. She flicks the headlights on, engages the high-beams and accelerates into the night.
2
WU
Taylor Wu pulls her car over to the side of the slim, muddy road as she hears the sirens of the fire trucks approaching. The vehicle is dark green, and on such a black night, it’s as camouflaged as a toad. Tears stream down her face while the baby in the backseat screams and screams and screams. The noise of the wailing in the car makes Wu all the more nervous, and she pulls short, rampant breaths into her lungs without any control over her diaphragm.
“Shhhhhhh, please, please Harrison. Please be quiet. Shhhhhhh,” she begs the infant as he lies on his back in the bassinet. He cannot lift his head, and his tongue pokes out of his mouth in a wet triangle.
Wu can’t see past the bend in the road ahead, but she can hear the sirens of the firefighting trucks approaching and, in an instant, the rainforest is soaked in red flashing lights.
Wu shrieks as the huge vehicles suddenly turn the corner ahead, and the lights from the massive machines blind her momentarily.
Now they’ve moved on, and the cacophony of alarms slips away towards the distant glow to the north.
Wu takes a moment to force a single, deep breath into her lungs. She wipes the veil of tears from her eyes and shoots Harrison a fake smile before moving the car back onto the road. Harrison is still screaming. His eyes are black marbles sunk into his soft, chubby head. The combination of Down Syndrome and the cute, thin eyes of a half Thai- half Australian infant gives him an endlessly precious appearance. Unique.
Harrison is, at once, a miracle of resilience and a monument to congenital disorders. Harrison is potential. In the extra lines around Harrison’s eyes, and in the wider gaps between his toes, some see the potential for Harrison’s disability to be a burden. Dependence. Others find the potential for joy. Endless, boundless, existence affirming joy. After the hundreds of appraisals and critiques and judgements that followed Harrison’s diagnosis, he still grows and cries and smiles like any child.
As Wu nears the river, she sees the sign stating, ‘Daintree Rainforest Ferry,’ and she parks the car at the back of the line of vehicles. There’s a round woman pacing up and down the column of vehicles collecting the ticket fee and balls of fat gather on her cheeks as she smiles at Wu.
“Good evening, two dollars, please. Are you all right love?” the fee collector asks when Wu winds down her window, and Harrison’s cries fill the night.
“Yeah,” Wu begins as she wipes her face once more, “we’re fine. He just hates travelling at night.”
“Awwww, bless him. Is he your first?”
“Yes, he’s mine. Yes.”
A giggle leaves Wu’s lips as she looks back at the tiny boy.
“How precious. How old is he? Let me guess, nine months?”
“Close, he’s fourteen months.”
“Hmm, they can be a handful, can’t they?”
“They sure can,” Wu sniffles, “but we’re not going far tonight.”
“That’s good, enjoy your evening little guy,” the attendant finishes, collects the fare, and waves to the backseat.
The solid platform of the ferry fills with cars and the cables that hold it on its track dip slightly as the bulk of the machine moves out over the crocodile-infested river. The vehicle creeps across the black water and sneaks quietly through the dark night.
Other passengers are peeking out of their car windows and glimpsing down at the liquid, or up at the black, cloudy sky, but Wu stares back at Harrison and smiles. As the ferry reaches its destination at the other bank, the first cars move slowly onto dry ground and accelerate off into the night.
Wu follows a moment later, steering her vehicle onto the sealed road and quickly bringing the car up to the speed limit. She looks back behind her and into the rear-view mirrors at the people following her away from The Daintree Rainforest National Park. The brilliant balls of light from another vehicle’s headlights are ruining her vision, and she squints to see if she can recognise the vehicle. This car is right behind Wu, and she slows a little to warn the other machine to back off, but the daunting car moves to sit just a few centimetres behind her boot.
“No,” she groans as she realises it’s a red Thunderbird.
“No, no oh God no, it can’t be her,” Wu prays as she presses her foot down on the accelerator and speeds ahead of the pursuer. A decent gap stretches out between two cars, but then the Thunderbird jerks forwards and approaches once again.
Wu can’t push her vehicle any harder, and the steering wheel is trembling in her white-knuckled fists. The Thunderbird approaches, bearing down on Wu and taunting her with its superior speed.
“No, oh, what have I done?”
The Thunderbird swerves on the road, missing the rear of Wu’s car by no more than a couple of centimetres and Wu is certain that the machine will knock hers and send her vehicle into a chaotic, spiralling roll.
Wu slams her foot down on the brake and throws the car onto the emergency lane beside the road. Wu’s vehicle’s rear end skids to a halt and Wu looks up to the passing Thunderbird to see a pack of young men laughing and waving obscene hand gestures down to her.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she says as she looks back to the wailing infant.
“It’s going to be all right, I promise.”
Cairns is lit with yellow streetlight as Wu and the child arrives in the early hours of the morning and Wu parks the vehicle in the car park of a seaside hotel. She steps out into the warm air and leans on the vehicle for a moment to stretch. Harrison is asleep, so she silently gets into the back with him. He garbles, and he’s snoring in tiny, quick puffs. Wu places a hand on his warm belly, and the infant settles into a silent and tranquil slumber.
“It’s going to be all right,” she says as she closes her eyes to rest for a moment.
When she opens them, the sun has risen above the horizon and the final remnants of morning dew are returning to the sky. A young couple is glimpsing at Wu periodically as they walk hand in hand towards the nearby hotel. Wu steps out of the vehicle, and an old man walking a dog through the car park deliberately looks away.
“Good morning sunshine, are you hungry?” she asks Harrison as she raises the infant to rest on her bosom. He clutches at her collar and makes unimpressed sounds until Wu sits back in the car, undoes two shirt buttons and offers to feed the young boy. The muscles in his neck are still too weak to hold his face to Wu, so she supports the back of his head with a gentle palm. His mouth does not have the strength needed to immediately latch and suck, so Wu waits patiently. She encourages the little battler to fight for his nutrients until Harrison’s instincts force his tired lips to work. He drinks slowly, but he drinks a lot.
As soon as Harrison seems content, Wu carries him to the main road, and she draws two thousand dollars out of an ATM.
“Everything is going to be all right.”
3
HARP
Harp leaves the Daintree River Ferry behind in that dark, evening forest and her red Thunderbird charges onto the main road. There are no cities in the distance or passing towns, so the horizon is entirely black, and grey with the passing bulbs of clouds. She slips past every other vehicle around her, and soon she’s barrelling down the highway. She slides the machine into a service station advertising unleaded petrol for 61.7 cents per litre and stumbles down out of the car. She stands here, bent and hunched and groaning with pain, and she pulls out her long, fibreglass hiking stick from beside the seat.
Holding the extendable stick in-between her legs, Harp forces her back to straighten. She produces a small bottle of pills from her pocket and swallows a couple before filling the car with gas in the lonely lot.
Her legs move her between the fuel pumps and into the service station easily, but her spine threatens to topple over, and Harp clutches to the elongated hiking stick to support her back.
“Are you all right ma’am?” the young attendant asks as she arrives at the counter and pays the bill.
“Yes, yes, thank you for asking. But, I do have a small problem. I was supposed to meet my son earlier today, and I got lost.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Could I please use your phone?”
“Of course.”
The attendant scratches his nose, and Harp notices the valley of a harelip surgery scar below his nostril before he passes her a small beige handset, stretching the winding cord from a dock beside the register. He retreats back into an office.
