by C. A. Larmer
“I knew he sounded familiar,” she says. “Dammit. I should have gone with my gut.”
“What?” says Craig, glancing at the screen over her shoulder. He, too, reads for a bit before his eyes widen.
“Whoa,” he says. “Okay, that explains the drugs then. He’s got form! Is that two deaths he’s been linked to?”
Ruth is still shaking her head. “And here he is, showing up at another. I can’t believe he didn’t mention this earlier tonight. Like we couldn’t have looked it up.”
“You think he brought the drugs?” says Kelly, and Craig is nodding for her.
“’Course he did, who else? And he thought we’d never find them!”
You nearly didn’t, you idiots. If it wasn’t for the SOCOs, that packet would still be bobbing up and down with every flush. I have no idea who they’re talking about, but it’s got me excited. Whoever it is, he’s clearly a criminal and it’s clearly not my brother.
Ruth turns to Craig. “Please tell me you got his contact details. His real details, that is.”
Craig pulls out his notebook and begins madly flicking through it while my heart begins to thump wildly. I watch for a few moments as he turns back a few pages then lets out a yelp and starts jabbing a number into his phone.
“I’ve got him!” he says, but my focus is suddenly shifting again.
I have another memory flash, but this one is very fresh and I just know it has to be related.
I am standing on the pool deck, staring at my phone while Justin Bieber massacres the Spanish language and someone screeches with laughter from the daybed. Then another sound catches my attention. It’s coming from inside the house, and it does not feel right. I frown. I step inside, and that’s when I see it, a tall silhouette of a man at the front of the house.
He has something at his side. What is that? He looks annoyed, no, aggravated. I feel a prickle of alarm. I want to ask what he’s doing there, but there’s something in his eyes that shuts me up.
I’ve seen the man before. I know him. I am suddenly awash with panic.
And now Craig and Kelly are rushing down my hallway and through my house. They reach the front door and burst through it and then down the driveway.
I watch with fascination as they make a beeline for the street, striding, one after the other, in the direction of Tessa’s place. From this angle it looks like they’ve got dibs on who’ll reach the house first.
Kelly wins the prize and throws himself at the front doorbell.
It buzzes loudly, quickly followed by a series of blunt knocks that reverberate through the hallway like a jackhammer. Mrs McGee starts at the sounds but Una is already up and opening it, her eyes widening, too, when she sees Kelly standing on her doorstep, Craig close behind.
“Is Vijay Singh on the premises?” Kelly asks, almost breathless from his sprint over.
She nods blankly, half turns, but Vijay is already there, his keys in his hand, his vest now buttoned up. It is as though he has been waiting for this all night. He looks defiant, almost smug.
“Hello, officers,” he says, sounding far too cheerful considering their presence.
“Detective Sergeant Powell would like us to escort you back to the May house for some more questions,” Kelly says.
He nods, not asking why.
“What’s going on?” This is Tessa, entering the hallway with Roco, cigarettes still alight.
Then Arabella steps forward, her eyes frantic. “But… but Vijay, honey, will you be coming back?”
He doesn’t answer her, but that term of endearment answers an earlier question, don’t you think? Now we know who was playing nookie in the spare bedroom. Although you probably already worked it out.
Vijay turns to Kelly and says, “Give me a moment, please.”
Then he steps away from the officers, but it’s Una he grabs on to, not Arabella, first holding her by both hands, then dragging her into his embrace.
“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s going to be okay. I’m innocent. You have to remember that.”
Then he hugs her even tighter, and it makes her whole body stiffen, but it’s not his touch that’s upsetting her. He’s whispering something in her ear, something like “not now” and “incriminating,” but the police don’t catch that.
Kelly just looks impatient and starts to wave a hand in the air as if to say “Yeah, yeah, no time for schmaltz.”
Vijay releases Una, then steps back and turns around to follow the officers out, only stopping halfway down the driveway to yell back, “Go back to the family, Una! Go back!”
Arabella looks confused, even a little put out, but Tessa is mortified and is staring daggers at Una.
“What’s he on about?” she demands. “What does he mean, he’s ‘innocent’? He’s not a client, is he, Una? Tell me you didn’t bring a criminal to Maisie’s party!” Then, an eyebrow pitched high, she adds, “And what did he just give you?”
Aha! So Tessa saw that too. Did you?
When he hugged her tight, Vijay slipped something flat and pink into Una’s jacket pocket. It has to be that pilfered envelope.
Una blinks down at Tessa as if she, too, is confused, then reaches into her pocket and retrieves the pink envelope, staring at it as though it’s a white rabbit.
She looks back at Tessa again, her expression now one of alarm as the others start crowding in.
“Yeah, what was that about?” This is Leslie, Jonas just behind her, Roco close by.
Arabella has stepped back, however, and is holding one ear, the one without the earring. She is thinking What a bastard.
Now it’s Una’s turn to step away, but she doesn’t look angry or smug or defiant. She looks panic-stricken and shoves the envelope back into her pocket.
“It’s nothing,” she says. “Nothing at all.”
“Come on, what does he mean he’s innocent?” Tessa persists. “Why wouldn’t he be innocent? What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Una is in a flap, and Tessa’s eyes are firing up.
Arabella has now dropped onto the couch while Mrs McGee is clutching the kitchen door as though it’s the only thing keeping her up.
“You brought that man to the party, Una!” Tessa’s voice is rising, her pitch getting hysterical. “Who the hell is he? What did he do?”
Una’s palms are out. “I don’t know… I didn’t…” She backs up towards Arabella, then drops down beside her and crumples.
Oh, Maisie, she thinks to me. Oh honey, I didn’t think… Honest, I didn’t. I’m so sorry…
Everybody is staring at her, aghast, including me, and when she looks up, she recoils before swallowing stiffly.
“I need to tell you guys something,” she says.
Then the sound is suddenly switched off.
Oh no you don’t! No, no, no, no, no! Don’t you dare hide from me, Una Conway! You turn the volume back up this instant!
But Una’s now whispering furtively to the group, and most of them are looking shocked and alarmed except for Arabella, who just looks embarrassed.
Dammit, Una, what did you do? Or, more importantly, what have you been up to?
Because it’s too late for silence, and I think I know your secret.
I’m not sure what Vijay’s story is—I can’t get my head around that yet—but I do know one thing for sure. I saw that pink envelope, Una, and this time I saw it clearly. It had the initials DM scribbled in Biro across the front and, below that, a clumsily drawn love heart.
Are you keeping up, dear reader? Do you understand what I’m saying?
Those are my father’s initials—David May—and the handwriting… Oh God, the handwriting is not my mother’s.
Chapter 17
“It’s all your fault.” This is Neal, and he’s by my side again.
I swing around to stare at him. “What? Why?”
“You’re not ready to hear it yet. You’re not ready to face the truth.”
I am! I am! I am! I am!
“Then why is that conversation still hidden from you?”
“I don’t know!” I screech back at him. Honestly I don’t.
I glance back down to Una, who despite having everyone’s rapt attention, looks absolutely bleak, guilty too. Do you think she looks guilty?
I wish I could see into her jacket, into those large, lumpy pockets and double-check that envelope. The writing was not my mother’s, but it was deeply familiar. It can’t be Vijay’s, I know that much, so it must be Una’s; it just has to be. Nothing else fits.
Is that what she was doing in my father’s study earlier tonight? Was she penning him a letter and, if so, why?
Why would a work friend be leaving my father a letter on blush-coloured stationery with love hearts? Why would she have his personal mobile number for that matter? A mobile he never told me about? A number I was never given.
I told you Una had dangerous taste in men. Did I also tell you she liked them older and married if she could manage it? But it was worse than that. She was unapologetic about it.
“Single men are so needy,” she told me once, “at least young men are. That’s why I go for older blokes, the attached ones.”
The two needn’t necessarily be linked, I wanted to tell her; there are plenty of single older men who’d be happy to treat you like crap.
“Older married men are more blasé,” she continued. “They keep it light; there’s no strings attached.”
“Well, apart from the wives’ apron strings of course,” I ventured, unable to help myself. It was one thing to joke about this, but these were real people’s lives, I remembered thinking. Am thinking now, but she scoffed as if it was inconsequential.
Then she mocked me and said, “You’re so old-fashioned, Maisie, honey, you really are.”
Like affairs are a harmless twenty-first-century invention.
I shake the thought away irritably and try to think more recently. Did she flirt with Dad? Did he flirt back? Of course he flirted back; he flirts with all my friends.
Did she read that incorrectly, or was there something more serious going on?
My heart drops again. I taste bile in my mouth.
Surely my dad and Una weren’t… Urgh, I can’t even say the words out loud, and if you’re thinking what I’m trying not to think, you can scrub your mind out with soap.
There is no way that Dad… There is no way that Una…
And what has any of this got to do with my murder?
Think, Maisie, think!
Did I go back and read that letter? Did I confront Una about it? She’s a big girl; we all know who’d come out second best if things turned violent.
Neal snorts beside me, and I turn to catch him mid-eye roll. He’s as bad as Kelly. It makes me want to scream.
“What?” I say to him. “You think I’m overreaching?”
“I think you’re getting distracted again.” Then he nods his head towards my house and repeats the words Vijay uttered just recently. “Go back to the family, Maisie. Go back.”
And so I tear my eyes away from that silent confessional and back towards my house, noticing as I do so that several sets of neighbours are still awake. One man is peeking through the blinds, as though waiting for an encore, others lie under blankets, shifting and turning and shifting again, pummelling pillows like they wish it was my face. They’re annoyed with me now, angry that my death has interrupted their slumber, and unlike Una, they don’t care if I know it.
Well excuse me for keeping you up! I want to bellow. How dreadfully rude and inconvenient of me!
I feel like haunting them now. I feel like whooshing down and rattling the bedcovers, but that very thought has Neal tut-tutting.
“I’m not going to do it,” I tell him.
“Tempting though, isn’t it? When I died, the old farts across the road threw a party. And I’m not talking the sobbing to the tunes of Nick Drake type of party that your mates are throwing. I mean, Flora and Lionel Johnson were thanking the Lord that the likes of me were no longer walking the earth and corrupting others.”
“Horrible,” I say.
“Typical,” is his response. “I really wanted to punish them. I had great plans. Was going to make their old video tape of The Wizard of Oz levitate.” He giggles. “Deseree stopped me. Party pooper.” He smiles. “But enough about me. We’re getting sidetracked again.” Then he brings a broken finger to his lips and makes a shushing sound. “It’s not over yet, Maisie, not by a long shot.”
Sniggering, he adds, “Sorry, I just know how much you love a good pun!” before floating back to the tunnel.
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes, but I do as he suggests and focus back on the detectives. Ruth is sitting across from Vijay at the kitchen table, as though waiting for the entrée to be served up. Craig stands behind Vijay. Kelly behind Ruth. Tanner has long gone, which is just as well, and Louise is in the study trawling through Dad’s emails.
No one is speaking, but Vijay doesn’t look quite so smug now.
Ruth takes a deep breath, then recites Vijay’s legal rights while he nods along, almost melodically, as though it’s a tune he’s heard many times before.
“Now, I’d like to ask you about Anya Mirakai and Geraldine Smythe.” He stares at her and says nothing, so she adds, “I’d like to ask you about their suspicious deaths.”
His lips droop a little. “I can’t see why. I was acquitted on both counts. And I’m pretty sure the report you’ve just been looking at tells you that.”
She licks her lower lip. “Your fingerprints were discovered at the homes of both women; they found some correspondence between you and Mrs Smythe.”
He shrugs. “So we chatted. I made a few visits. She was a sad old dear. I was just keeping her company. That’s not a crime, detective.”
“It is if you killed her.”
“And yet I didn’t.” He meets her eyes and does not flinch. “You do understand the meaning of the word ‘acquitted,’ yes, Detective?”
She smirks and thinks, Smug bastard, then says almost as an afterthought, “Did you have anything to do with the death of Maisie Leanne May?”
He leans back in his seat, forcing the chair onto two legs.
My mother hated the way my brothers used to do that. Would admonish them every single time. “You’ll break the chair,” she’d say. “You’ll break your back.”
I hope he leans out further.
Ruth repeats the question, and now Vijay looks disappointed in her.
He says, “I’d like to see my lawyer now.”
And Ruth just nods, clearly expecting this, but I am furious. That wasn’t an answer. He didn’t refute anything. Is Tessa right? Did Una inadvertently bring a cold-blooded killer to my party? It’s all so outlandish I can hardly think.
Luckily, Ruth is doing the thinking for me. She packs him off in a patrol car headed for police headquarters where she’ll join him later for an official interrogation, his lawyer by his side, no doubt.
Vijay seemed neither alarmed by this development nor surprised, but I am suddenly feeling quite deflated. Is that all this is? A random killing by a friend of a friend, a crazy client of Una’s? Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Please, Death, don’t make it as depressingly shallow as that!
It’s such an anticlimax.
I turn away. I make my way to the tunnel. I’m ready to hold up the white flag.
Deseree is standing there now, Emie by her side, Neal nowhere to be seen. Good. I’m fed up with his Royal Smugness.
“Okay,” I tell them. “I’m done. Let’s get this over with.”
“But it’s not over,” says Deseree, and I snort.
“Well, it’s over for me. I don’t think I care anymore. So Vijay killed me because he’s a psychopath, or maybe it has something to do with Una, I don’t know. Makes no difference, really. I’m worm fodder no matter how it pans out. The party’s over now, anyway, might as well mosey on over to the tunnel and get on with
it.”
Deseree is shaking her head. “I told you before. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Well, it does for me! You tell… whoever it is back there calling the shots, you tell them that I’m ready. I’m good to go! Let’s fire up the engines, people, let’s get this show on the road!”
They both just look at me sadly. Their sympathy is worse than Neal’s smugness.
I groan. “Why?” I sound like my toddler self again.
“Read Rule #4 again,” Deseree says as the tunnel swallows her and Emie away.
Rule 4. Thou shall see all when thou is open to seeing.
Hello! I’m open! I’m here, aren’t I? I’m trying!
I stare after the vanishing light and scowl, then back towards earth where Craig is also scowling. He’s flicking through his notepad frantically, his eyebrows wedged together.
No, dammit, no, he is thinking. It just doesn’t work.
I don’t know what he’s looking for or what doesn’t add up, but I don’t care anymore, and it’s not because I’m over all this. It’s because I can hear a very familiar sound, and it makes my heart break.
The two people I love most in this world have arrived home, and I’m stuck here to witness their misery.
Thanks, Deseree, thanks a lot.
Chapter 18
A dusty silver station wagon is just pulling into our street, rattling down the road and sliding into position at the bottom of our driveway. It’s my folks, of course, and they are not in any hurry.
The engine is switched off, but for several minutes neither of them gets out. They just sit there staring at the road ahead, and at first I am offended. Why aren’t they rushing in, all guns blazing?
And then it makes sense. I get it now. By opening their car doors, they will beckon in a new reality, a darker dawn, so they’re putting it off. They’re procrastinating. That’s all very well, guys, but you’re already six hours late.