‘Excuse me?’
‘Of the game. You were so sure of how you’d do it. How it would work. What you wanted.’
‘Don’t get into that. Don’t make—’
‘Were there others?’
‘—your own life harder than it needs to be right now, Evan.’
‘But this wasn’t the first time, was it? With Linda. The killing you’ve described. It was so … escalated. So advanced. People like you, they don’t go from zero to ten like this. There must be—’
‘The coppers,’ Dad cut over me. His eyes, when I braved to look at them, were full of warning. ‘They’ll have Chris coming into town, Evan. They’ll have him on the CCTV at the pub. And they’ll have the text message, on my phoneandhis, telling him to come down and meet me. You need to make sure this doesn’t become a problem for me, my son. Because if this becomes a problem for me, I’ll tell them that I did indeed meet my grandson at the pub at Redbelly that night. That he was talking aggressively about a girl who was inside. That he’s a fucked-up little weirdo who has threatened violence before, and that I left because I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I’ll say that the last time I saw him, he was heading towards the stairwell.’
‘YourDNA is on her!’ I had to growl the words through the rage that was suddenly so hot and all-consuming it made my teeth lock together. ‘They haveyour DNA!’
‘Do they?’ he asked brightly. Gave an amused snort. ‘You know, I asked you to come onto this because I wanted it bungled. But you and your brother have really cut to the chase with the whole thing. I’m actually impressed.’
‘I thought the sample was Chrissy’s,’ I managed. ‘It’s a familial match to me and Rus. They’ll test it further. It’ll come back as you. What the hell am I supposed to do about that?’
‘I can explain away my DNA transferring from me to Chris, and from Chris onto the dead girl.’ Dad waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’ll have a hell of a lot of an easier time making a jury believe that story than you will making them believe an old, chronically injured hero cop killed that feisty young woman in that room.’
‘You’re not chronically injured,’ I said. ‘You can’t be. The strength it would have taken—’
‘I’ve been playing up the injury since it happened.’ He rotated his shoulder. ‘I’m fine.’
I thought about that case. The wife who went missing. The back door of the house open, and the potatoes cooking on the stove. The husband accused. My father shooting him before he could ever be officially pinned down for the crime. I wanted to ask if it had been him. Dad. If he’d killed that woman, too. My thoughts turned to my mother. Dead, slumped, in the back shed, waiting for my brother to come home and find her. I got up and went to the windows. Gripped my hair in two handfuls, tried to make the pain take me away from this moment. It didn’t work. The whole world was closing in around me. ‘You’re talking about my son, Dad! You’re talking about my baby!’
‘Evan—’
‘I can’t clean this all up. I’m … I’m behind. I’ll never catch up. I’m not smart enough.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Evan.’
‘Don’t do this.’ I hid my face and cried into my hands. ‘Please, please, please. Dad, please. Don’t take my baby.’
‘I warned you,’ came his voice from behind me. ‘Didn’t I? I warned you, a long time ago. Never love anything. That’s the safest way to be in life. You never love anything, and you’ve got nothing to lose.’
He got up and went into the kitchen. I stood at the windows and looked out into the yard, at the rusting car bodies and the broken-down coop and the distant bush. It was as still as death out there. No sound beyond the drumming and thundering and splintering and crashing between my ears, the orchestra of panic and rage that had been silenced far too long. I almost felt my body giving into it. Letting that inky black thing inside billow out and take over, stretch into my fingertips and the soles of my feet. The thrumming in my skull softened, and what took its place was the noise of the screaming of the kettle in the kitchen. The kettle noise masked the sound of me walking over and picking up the rifle by the armchair.
Dad was at the sink. He turned around, going for the coffee canister, and noticed me standing there. He looked at the rifle in my hands, then at my eyes. A disbelieving smile fluttered at thecorners of his mouth. It dropped off his face as I ratcheted a bullet into the chamber.
‘Evan?’ he said.
I shot him in the chest. The rifle kicked hard into the hollow of my shoulder, hit the bone, which sang with pleasure and rightness. My father gripped at the hole in his sternum, went down onto the linoleum. I came into the kitchen, sliding the bolt forward and back again, the shell casing singing as it flew and hit the top of the fridge. Dad tried to slide away from me, his back on the floor, leaving a trail of blood, his legs working. One hand up. Reaching for his child.
‘Oh god! Oh god! Oh god!’ he cried.
‘There’s no god where you’re going,’ I told him.
Then I shot him in the face.
RUSSELL
John James Special was a slight man, silver-goateed and with rich brown eyes that hid behind those spectacle lenses that go dark when they’re hit by sun. They were doing just that, hiding his expression, as Dodge and I pulled up on the gravel driveway of his neat little property fifteen minutes outside Redbelly. John was putting a bowl of biscuits out for a scruffy white dog, which lost its damned mind at the sight of us and scrambled down the stairs to meet the car, a hairy tornado of fury. Cockatoos in the nearby gums also started going bananas. I was beginning to feel like it was personal. John silenced the dog with a single word and it went back to his ankle-side, still unconvinced about us and issuing high-pitched whimpers.
‘It’s my daughter’s dog.’ John glanced at the creature. His voice was unusually raspy, like he’d been gargling sawdust all that morning before we got there. ‘She’s away, so I’m dog-sitting it for her. Mongrel thing hates everyone.’
‘Mr Special,’ I said, ‘we’re here about the murder of Chloe Lutz.’
