by Chris Else
VP You stayed there.
CW Yes. I stayed with her. I tried to feel her pulse and I thought there was one. A little one. I thought she, well, I thought there was a chance.
VP When did you put the rifle in the boot of the car?
CW I don’t remember.
VP It wasn’t in the bedroom when the police arrived.
CW Really? Well, I guess I moved it. I must have.
VP And where was it originally? Where did you keep it?
CW Where? I don’t know. I think it was in the wardrobe.
VP The wardrobe in the main bedroom?
CW Yes. I think so. It was right there, in my hands.
VP What about the shells?
CW They were there too.
VP We found them on the desk in the study.
CW I must have moved them. I suppose I did.
37.
LISA FELT NUMB. THE swelling light, like a cold flash-burn, swept up into her face and prickled over her skull. She sat down at the kitchen table as the sensation passed on by. She could hear the hum of the dishwasher. She could see the shadows from the morning sun, the brightness of the window, in a skewed angle across the surface of the kitchen cupboards. She could feel the table under her hands, if she tried, if she thought about it. There were other things to anchor her, too. Like the realisation that she had been through this before. Something like this. The day Carla died. Except that then, under those circumstances, the first thing she had felt was that she had to look after Tom. Now, it was Imogen.
The phone started ringing. Slowly, she got to her feet, moved across to where it sat on the bench beside the refrigerator, picked it up.
Hello?’
‘Lisa?’ It was Maddy.
‘Hi.’
‘You’ve heard?’
‘Yes. Sylvia just called.’
‘My God. Isn’t it awful? Do you know what happened?’
‘No. Except that he shot her. And that he’s been arrested.’
‘For murder,’ Maddy said, as if it were impossible.
‘Yes, well. You’d expect that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Look, do you want to come over? Or I thought we might go over to Larry and Sylvia’s. For company. Larry’s still in bed. He didn’t get home till after six apparently. But, you know, I thought … Ward is taking this really hard. He needs you. We need each other. At a time like this.’
Why? Lisa wondered. Then she saw that it made sense. They were all in this together, in a way. The Tribe. The idea gave her comfort. Just a little.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It’ll depend on Imogen.’
‘Oh God, poor kid. This must be hell for her. How is she?’
‘Not good. She’s in her room.’
‘Give her our love. Give her a hug from us.’
‘Yes.’ A little pause. ‘And I have to call Tom. He doesn’t know yet. He’s gone to Greenwise.’ The words were as much a reminder to herself as information for Maddy.
‘Are you all right?’ Maddy asked.
‘Yes. A bit dazed.’
‘Call me later. If I’m not here, I’ll be at Syl’s.’
‘Yes.’
‘I know this must be extra complicated for you.’
‘Thanks, Maddy.’
She hung up, wondered for a moment what to do and then found herself walking out of the kitchen, down the hallway. She knocked on Imogen’s door. No answer. Turned the knob.
The room was full of light. Imogen was lying on the bed, fully clothed, with her arm across her face, shielding her eyes from the brightness. Lisa went to the window to dim the Venetian blinds. Then she crossed to the bed and sat down beside her daughter. Imogen didn’t move, kept her arm where it was, the bony elbow sticking up under the navy blue sweatshirt. Lisa reached out her hand, watched it stretch the distance and begin to stroke the child’s hair. The touch, the smoothness of those silky strands, brought a sudden stab of pain through her numbness. Her own pain and Imogen’s, and with it came the bite of love and the fierce urge to protect. He should have killed himself as well, she thought. He should have done the decent thing and left us cleanly, without any mess. He’s lost her now. A sob lifted in Lisa’s chest. The tears swelled and pushed at her.
Imogen moved her arm, looked up at her. Big eyes. Helpless, frightened. Lisa swung her legs on to the bed and lay down, folding her daughter into her arms. The girl began to weep softly too. Lisa didn’t move, just held on.
‘Greenwise Garden Centre, good morning.’ Tom’s voice in the receiver, confident, matter-of-fact.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ Lisa said. ‘Something’s happened.’
‘What is it?’ Alarm under the cool surface.
‘There’s been an accident … Well, I don’t know if it’s an accident. Heidi’s dead. It looks as if Colin killed her.’
‘Jesus!’ Just the one word and then a silence. Something about the word, the tone, that stopped her speaking. Force, the force of it. An explosion.
‘Are you okay?’ she said, at last.
‘Yes. I … Billy isn’t here yet.’ He sounded vague, helpless suddenly.
‘Don’t worry. We’re okay. We might go over to Larry and Syl’s. Ward and Maddy will be there.’
‘Yes.’ As if he hardly heard her.
‘Okay … Well, then …’
A pause. What did she want of him? To rush home and be with her and Imogen? To utter words of shock or comfort? Anything. Anything at all, as long as it was not this paralysing silence.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked again.
‘Yes,’ he said, cold and distant now.
‘All right. See you.’
38.
WARD LOOKED AWFUL. ALL his flesh seemed to be sagging on his big frame, his face grey, as if he were suffering from a wasting disease. He and Maddy sat side by side on one of the sofas, not lolling there relaxed, but tense, drawn into themselves, like witnesses waiting to be called into the courtroom. Sylvia made them coffee. It was something to do, something to keep her own hands busy, to stop her mind whirling around the sick, empty feeling in her stomach. This was why Ward and Maddy were here, of course. To pass the time. It was the only thing you could do when something like this happened, something big and awful and personal. You had to submit to the process. You had to endure, as best you could, and help other people to do the same. Make coffee, sit, talk, repeat the words, over and over, until the feelings were worn out, exhausted, until there was nothing left to do but go on living.
‘Here we are.’ Putting the tray on the table. Four faces looking up at her. Ward and Maddy. Josie and James. Sylvia wondered whether the kids should be there but they seemed to want it. They were bound up in it, of course, like everyone else. They had their feelings to deal with, as well, perhaps, as their curiosity.
‘Thank you,’ Maddy said.
Sylvia sat down. ‘How are the boys?’
‘Oh, they’re okay. They have things to do. Things arranged. And they thought, well, yes. They may as well just do them.’
‘How’s Larry?’ Ward asked suddenly, almost cutting off the end of Maddy’s sentence.
‘He’s still asleep.’
‘Don’t suppose he got any at all last night.’
‘A couple of hours before …’ The words she wanted were ‘before Colin called’, but she found it hard to say his name.
‘So do you know what happened? Why?’ Maddy eager for information.
‘Only what I told you on the phone really. What Larry said this morning when he got back. It seems they had an argument. He got the rifle, for some reason. She lost her temper when she saw it. Crazy, yelling, apparently. She said all sorts of things, horrible things. He pointed the gun at her to make her stop. It went off.’
‘Oh, God,’ Maddy said.
‘Just one shot?’ Ward asked.
‘Yes.’
‘In the head?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ Maddy said. ‘At least she didn’t suffer.’
‘How do y
ou know she didn’t suffer?’ Josie’s voice, suddenly there. Sharp, accusing.
‘She would have died instantly. With a head wound,’ Maddy said defensively.
‘Why? People can have really bad head wounds and not die. There was a man in America who had a crowbar through his head. It went in here,’ — pointing to her cheek — ‘and came out here …’ Pointing to the top of her skull above her eye.
‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ Ward said sharply.
‘It’s not nonsense. His name was Phineas Gage and he …’
‘Josie!’ Sylvia stopped her.
Josie glared, a little glare, in place of an apology.
James, of course, was just sitting there, very still, taking it all in.
‘We’re all upset,’ Maddy said. ‘Of course we are.’
Sylvia pressed down the plunger on the coffee, poured into the three mugs, handed two of them to Ward and Maddy.
‘Do you kids want something?’ she asked.
They shook their heads in unison.
‘No,’ Josie said. ‘Thank you.’
A silence. Strange how they had come together to talk about it and now there was nothing to say.
‘Have the police been in touch with you?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Maddy looking surprised at the question.
‘They probably will. About how things were last night.’
‘They were fine. We had a great evening. I thought everybody did.’
‘Yes,’ Sylvia said, remembering the warmth and the love and the laughter. ‘We did.’
‘That’s what makes it so terrible. Everything can be going along the way it should and then, suddenly, something happens. Something that makes no sense.’
‘It was an accident,’ Ward said.
‘Yes,’ Maddy agreed.
‘Colin couldn’t possibly mean to kill anyone.’
‘Of course not.’
‘It’s manslaughter, then. He’ll be out in three years.’
Was that all he cared about? Sylvia wondered. The length of time Colin would spend in gaol?
‘It might not work out that way,’ she said.
‘Of course it will. With Larry defending him.’
‘Larry doesn’t think he can take the case.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s involved.’
‘But he has to.’ Ward looking appalled that there could be another possibility.
Sylvia felt sick at the thought of Colin’s defence. ‘Nobody seems to be thinking very much about Heidi,’ she said.
‘Poor woman.’ Maddy looking suddenly upset. ‘God, it’s awful.’
All we’ve got is clichés, Sylvia thought. Appalling, awful, sad, poor woman. Words too weak to get a grip. But maybe that’s the way it should be, had to be. The event lumbered on, like a rolling boulder, and none of their talk seemed to affect it at all, just flutterings of rags against its grinding surface. But maybe enough flutterings would stop it in the end. And maybe, if you could get a purchase, it would simply rip your arm off.
‘Yes,’ Ward said. ‘But we can’t help Heidi now, can we? It’s Colin we have to worry about.’
He was right, perhaps. This was not a time for judgment and condemnation. Friends couldn’t do that. Friends stood by you when you were in trouble. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t point the finger. They didn’t think of themselves. They were just there. Except that Sylvia wondered what would it be like if things were the other way around. If it was Colin lying in the morgue and Heidi in a cell at the police station. How would it all seem then?
39.
TOM PARKED THE UTE beside the garages, leaving as much room for Kenny and the machinery as possible. As he got out and began to walk back to the corner of the house he saw a man coming towards him. Monty Kerrington, it must be. Plump with sloping shoulders. Wavy brown hair and a well-cut suit with a white shirt and lemon-yellow tie. A handkerchief to match the tie in the breast pocket of his jacket. All smart for a Monday morning.
‘Greenwise?’
‘Yes,’ Tom said.
‘Kerrington.’ Holding out his hand.
Tom took the hand, looked into the face. Monty had brown eyes and a narrow, finely sculptured nose, a pointed chin, scrubbed-pink shaven. A small, sad mouth with turned-down corners. Innocent. The husband. Did she talk to you? Did she mention what happened on Friday? No, of course not. Nothing happened, did it?
‘Hi,’ Tom said.
‘Your bloke’s starting today?’
‘Yes. They should be here any time now.’
‘Good, good.’ Monty nodded, setting the pouching flesh at his neck aquiver. His attention drifted away past Tom’s shoulder, floating over the land perhaps, his land. Glance back at Tom. He had a question to ask.
‘Did you drive past the neighbours’?’
Ah, of course. Tom felt a surge of rage. Why should that bastard be alive and she be dead was the thought that came with it.
‘Yes.’
‘Police still there?’
‘No.’
‘You know what happened?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Murder.’ Monty offered the word without expression, without comment. He wasn’t trying to impress. He didn’t even seem to be taking a ghoulish interest. A curiosity, was it? ‘He murdered her. Odd feeling, having that in the neighbourhood. I know him, you know. We’ve had them over for drinks. It makes you think.’ A pause. Another glance.
Tom tried to find the words that would disengage the two of them but there was nothing there, not readily. And he couldn’t just turn away. You kiss a man’s wife, you have to be polite to him.
‘What makes somebody do that?’ Monty asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Bizarre. Bizarre to think about. I mean, you read about crimes in the paper, you see them on TV, but none of it’s real. Even the real things don’t seem real, if you know what I mean. And then, well, it happens just up the road, next door, virtually. And the police are interviewing you. And, what’s more, it’s somebody you know. I mean, I’ve shaken the hand that pulled the trigger. Makes you think.’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmmm.’ Thinking. Fishing around in his trouser pocket. Then, suddenly, he had his car keys in his hand and was clicking at the black remote attached to them. The garage door began to open.
And then there was Kenny, walking towards them from the corner of the house.
‘Morning,’ Tom said.
Kenny didn’t answer, responded only with a grin and an upward flick of his head. Monty turned and saw him, though.
‘You the fellow with the machinery?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Are you blocking my drive?’
‘Not yet,’ Kenny said.
‘Well, let me get out of here first then, will you?’ Turning, heading towards the garage. A big grey car. A Mercedes.
The front-end loader nudged at the earth like a butting animal. Roar of the diesel motor as the forks lifted, bucket full of brown dirt. Turning, trundling towards the mound that was to be. Kenny had gone, but Tom still stood there, watching, trapped in the safety of the noise.
‘Good morning.’ She had come up beside him.
‘Hi.’ He did not look at her, kept his eyes on the machines.
‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I have to go.’ Which was true. There were orders to get out. Stock replacement.
‘You heard what happened at our neighbours’?’
‘Yes.’ A pause. He felt the words coming and decided not to stop them. ‘I knew her.’ There was more to say. A lot more. ‘She was a friend.’
‘Really?’
He could feel her looking at him but he did not respond to the attention. He just let her register whatever was obvious, what might have shown in his face. Which could have been anything. Or everything.
‘How does that make you feel?’ she asked.
‘Angry.’
‘Yes, I guess it wo
uld. How angry?’
The loader was full again, turning, lumbering up over the rim of the crater it was making and heading towards the rudiments of the mound.
‘I want to kill him,’ he said, the words like a sudden certainty, a realisation.
‘Could you do that?’ She did not sound shocked or surprised. She seemed interested, as if he had just laid claim to an unusual ability.
‘I don’t know. I doubt I’ll get the chance to find out.’ Because they had put Colin in gaol. Gaol protected him; gaol took away your right to vengeance and gave it to a system.
A roar from the machine as the bucket tipped and dumped its contents. Three buckets to the cubic metre. Brown earth tumbling, slithering, a fraction added to the growing volume.
‘When will you be back?’ she asked.
When? In a day or two, he supposed. To check how it was going.
‘Later in the week. Friday, maybe.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Make it sooner than that. I want to talk to you.’ A touch on his sleeve and she was gone, walking away, back to the house.
40.
COLIN FELT THERE WAS a barrier now, a thick shield, like safety glass, between himself and the events. It all seemed bright still. He could hear the words, replaying in his head in cuts and snatches, loops of meaning, twisting flakes like the ash from a fire. Yet, despite its vividness, he felt almost nothing. The pain was deep inside. It had become part of him.
Larry came to talk about what he called the First Appearance. He had another lawyer with him. A woman called Fiona. She had short-cropped sandy hair and was dressed in black. Larry explained that he could not represent Colin in court because the police had interviewed him about what had happened at the dinner. They probably would not call him as a witness, but the fact that they could made it impossible for him to appear for the defence. Fiona was here instead. She was from Larry’s firm. She was a first-class barrister.