“He was involved, you know,” would be the whispered accusation.
“But his parents are such lovely people.”
It was also tearing at the hearts and minds of Tanja’s brothers. Especially the youngest. He didn’t understand the jibes and the pushing and shoving he got in the schoolyard, the silence of his other brothers and the ‘don’t talk to her’ orders from his parents. But all the boys were so petrified of their father they were powerless to act, even to the point of speaking with their sister. To do so would have brought an enraged and extremely violent Angelko Polowski down on their heads.
By the Sunday night Tanja’s brothers had erected a timber add-on to the mainframe of the house. A plastic sheet covered the space left for the window. A few timber off-cuts thrown together made for a bed and loose boards spread across the floor provided the only insulation from the ground. True to her mother’s word, a hole had been cut through the wall into the kitchen so Tanja’s meals could be pushed through to her. Her blankets were threadbare throwaways and of little use. There was no heating. Even the door, held to the frame by two small hinges, had substantial gaps, both at the top and at the bottom.
It was cold, damp, dark and terrifying.
* * *
A week after the rape, Tanja was still highly stressed and in deep shock. She was also in great pain from the damage caused to her internally. She also knew she needed to see a doctor, maybe even spend time in hospital. But most of all she knew she had to get out. But where? The family had no known relatives in Australia. She was too terrified to go back into the town. She couldn’t go to the hospital because her mother worked there. Tanja was desperate.
She could feel her strength sapping and she knew she was becoming very pale. She had no money. No clothes. No transport. But somehow she knew she had to find a way out or she would die. Panic gripped her, but she had read enough and learned enough to know that she must try and stay calm at all costs.
She had a thought. She knew that within any ethnic family there was more often than not, a ‘stash’, an amount of money hidden away in case of dire emergency. She had no idea if her parents had one. She was betting they did. Either way, she gave herself three days. After that, come what may, she’d be gone. Even if it was only up the road to the neighbour’s house, the old guy who had picked her up the morning after her ordeal and give her a lift home.
The next day, after making sure everyone had left and her mother had gone to sleep after working the night shift, she sneaked into the house and decided to search. Not knowing where to start, she sat and thought about it. She looked at her surroundings and could see no obvious or even hidden starting point. As she cast over her mother’s cooking utensils she did see something a little odd. She noticed there were two rolling pins. One had green handles, the other red.
I’ve never seen her use the red one, she pondered, moving silently across to pick it up.
She thought it felt a bit light. Then she picked up the other to compare. Indeed it was decidedly lighter. Careful not to make the slightest sound she tried each red handle to see if it unscrewed. One of them did. A wave of excitement swept through her when she discovered the body of the rolling-pin crammed full of money. Tanja’s heart was pounding in her eardrums and she tried not to panic. Carefully she took the money and counted it, keeping an eye on her mother as she did so. There was more than $500. Tanja took it, screwed the handle back on, replaced the pin and sneaked out of the house.
Not too smart mama…and I’m not even a damn burglar! she thought, very pleased with her efforts.
Immediately she knew she had to get out, and now. Once her mother discovered her money was missing there would be hell to pay. Tanja decided to go right away. Rolling what pathetic belongings she had into a blanket, she quickly located one of her brother’s football socks. She carefully laid the money flat, slid it into the sock then tied the sock round her waist. As she looked down at herself she noticed she had again started to bleed. Tanja cussed. Now being driven even more urgently out of the fear her mother may wake up, she quickly checked outside. Satisfied there was no one around she made a dash to freedom.
Her spur-of-the-moment decision was to try to get to the neighbour’s place about two kilometres away. Thick bush ran along both sides of the road. Tanja was grateful for that, as it provided her with cover should a vehicle approach from either direction. When she was far enough away and her home was only a speck in the distance, she stopped to catch her breath.
She knew panic had been driving her but she also knew she was in deep trouble. The bleeding had become heavy and she felt decidedly weak. She strained her eyes to look ahead. She could barely make out the neighbour’s place. She continued on. Each step feeling like ten. She’d feel faint, then she’d be all right. She’d stop, then get going again, all the time checking behind that her mother wasn’t charging after her.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity she found herself at the back door of the house. She attempted to knock.
“Sounds like someone at the door,” she heard the old man call to his wife. He opened the door and saw Tanja, half-collapsed. He quickly stepped outside the door and knelt down to her.
“Wh…what?” Then he yelled inside to his wife. “It’s the young girl I was telling you about. The Polowski girl. Oh my God, look at her!”
Tanja could barely speak. “Please…don’t tell my parents I’m here. Can you get me to a doctor, but…not here. My mother works at the hospital and…wants me dead. I’ve been trying till now to get away. Will you hee…”
He gathered the young girl in his arms and took her inside, saying to his wife, “Get me something to put under her, there’s blood everywhere.”
Then her vision blurred, her hearing went deaf and she blacked out.
Chapter 4
Senior Sergeant Ken McLoughlin was sipping coffee as he waited for a meeting with Victorian Police Commissioner Jack Rowland. He had arrived early for his 8:30am appointment. It wasn’t something he’d planned. It had simply turned out that way. But he knew he got an exceptionally good run into Melbourne with the traffic lights that morning. He parked his unmarked V8 in the police compound and made his way up to Jack Rowland’s office. His boss’s PA wasn’t due in till 8:30, so he decided to help himself in the Police Commissioner’s kitchen. He remembered the coffee granules were in the fridge and it wasn’t long before the percolator was bubbling. He checked his watch and made himself comfortable in one of two high-backed and studded leather chairs.
Jack Rowland walked in not long after, grumpy as hell. “Sorry to fuck up your holiday, Mac. It’s just that those pricks from Sydney…”
“Don’t worry about it. It had a happy ending.”
“Yeah.” Jack Rowland replied, not really listening.
Moments later, his PA walked through the door and put her boss’s coffee on his desk. When she left the room Jack Rowland said, “You did a bloody fine job up there, old son. Anyhow, what now? You want to meet the new bloke or get the new XR8 and try your luck?”
McLoughlin shrugged his shoulders.
“No problem. Tony will be here in a moment. I’ve already read him the riot act. But it’s your call. I was only one vote in the appointment, but if he fucks up, tell me while he’s still alive. Not when he’s dead. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Jack Rowland pushed a folder across his desk to McLoughlin “Have a squiz at that.”
McLoughlin glanced at it. “New South Wales?”
“Yeah they let us