No Rescue Read Free Page A

Weddings? Studio?’
    â€˜Magazine shoots and I’m trying to build up a reputation for quirky street scenes and landscapes. I’d like to sell art prints, calendars, things like that.’
    At the tiger’s cage, they paused. The big cat was as lethal as the Komodo dragon, but so beautiful he mesmerised the senses. He lay in the sun, only the tip of his tail flicking.
    From further down the path came the sound of many feet and excited voices. Over the top of them rang out a command. ‘Girls!’
    Miri turned instinctively and a vice clamped around her chest, constricting her breathing. Panic. She swung back to Tad, focussing on his face and forcing her lungs to a slow steady rhythm. She could — would — control this. For the first time in too long, she was enjoying herself, and she would not have it ruined.
    Tad looked from her to the approaching schoolgirls. Their uniforms declared their private school status. They were perhaps thirteen years old, all carrying drawing equipment.
    They came closer, hurrying up to the tiger’s cage, undoubtedly drawn by the danger of the animal.
    Miri went cold.
    Tad put an arm around her and half lifted her off the path and back to a secluded bench they’d passed. He sat beside her. ‘What’s wrong?’
    â€˜I didn’t think.’ She stopped. Breathed. ‘I shouldn’t react like this.’
    â€˜A group of teenage girls are scary. Ask any cop. They’re unpredictable.’
    She couldn’t respond to the humour. She tried, she truly did, but her mouth shook as tried to force a smile.
    â€˜Should we go?’
    She shook her head and got the words out all in one burst. ‘Seven weeks ago, I was photographing a school trip in the Blue Mountains. My old school. I was a scholarship girl. They asked me back. Wanted a professional look for some promo they had planned. Camping and environmental work.’
    â€˜God. You were the one taken hostage.’ His tension enveloped her.
    â€˜We all were. The boy, Scott, he had a gun.’ If Tad remembered the story, she didn’t have to continue. But she couldn’t stop. ‘I talked to him for over two hours. After the first hour, I got him to let the girls go. Their teacher and I stayed. He told us…he told us horrible things about his childhood. He was only eighteen.’ It was a cry from the heart, an appeal for understanding.
    He rubbed his hand up and down her arm.
    â€˜Scott talked and talked. He was so angry. Despairing. He said others had everything and he had nothing. He needed help. He had almost put the gun down when the local cops arrived. The girls had called them once they were released. The cops crashed in. Shouted. Scott panicked. He didn’t raise the gun.’ She turned within Tad’s embrace and put a hand against his chest, needing the connection. ‘I swear he didn’t raise the gun. Scott went to run. He stepped back. He slipped.’ She shuddered. ‘He fell over the cliff and died.’ Her eyes and nose stung with tears. ‘They found the gun beside him. It was empty.’
    ***
    â€˜I’m sorry, Miri.’ Tad could feel her frozen horror. She was back in the moment. He wasn’t a trained negotiator and had never borne the responsibility of a hostage drama, but there were similarities to a rescue situation. You became the person’s link to life, to the real world of decent people. She had been the boy’s link. That took courage.
    And when the boy had died, that broken link had devastated her. He could hear the depressed, desperate note of failure and self-blame in her hurried speech.
    â€˜I thought I’d be all right at the zoo.’ Her voice was thick with tears, but a note of anger sounded through it; she was impatient with herself.
    â€˜Flashbacks are normal.’ And isolating. He resented his helplessness. She felt small and vulnerable as she huddled against him, and all he could