 
### The Evil Twin

Sam King
Published by Mercurial Avenue

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 Sam King

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Published in the United States of America

1st Kindle Edition

Photo-manipulation and cover design by Justin Baxter

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# Chapter 1

### Susan worried about Tom a lot. He was her eldest boy, she often said to herself, though of course he'd been born only three hours and seventeen minutes before his brother, Luke. The two of them were twins, and when she'd been pregnant she'd been silly enough to think that the two of them would turn out just the same, that they'd have the same likes and dislikes, the same attitudes, the same propensity for good or evil and so on. Though this wasn't the case. They were very different.

### Now they were fifteen, the two of them, and they liked to raise hell. Luke was her good boy, her youngest, but Tom ... well, Tom was a problem.

### Both of them were at Waverly now, which was costing Michael a fortune, but they needed a good education, didn't they? She thought so.

### She turned away from the microwave and posted two English muffins into the toaster. The boys would be down in a moment, and though they were perhaps a little old for it, she liked to make them breakfast each morning, at least on weekdays. On the weekends, she tended to let them fend for themselves, though if Luke was up early on a Saturday, they did sometimes have breakfast together. She liked to rise early, with the dawn, and spend a precious hour or more on her own. She would sit in the kitchen and work over the bills, or drift into daydreams as she drank her first cup of tea of the day.

### On Saturdays, when Luke came down, it was a little different. He would walk sheepishly into the room and look up at her, or he had when he was a little boy. Soon he would be taller than her. They both would. She'd make him tea and toast with plenty of butter, the way her grandmother had made it for her, and they would talk confidentially, mother and son.

### Sadly, though, it must have been two or three months since Luke had come down on a Saturday morning. Tom had never come. He liked to sleep late and always had.

### She winced, thinking of Tom. Yesterday she had found an iPod in his school bag, one that obviously didn't belong to him. It was the latest model, the one he'd been asking for for his birthday, though Michael had decided he didn't deserve it. Now he had one, somehow. It was sitting on the kitchen table, where she'd left it, so he would see it when he came in. She supposed it was stolen. Perhaps from some other boy. It wouldn't be the first thing he'd stolen. Though he surely wanted for nothing.

### She sighed, and the muffins came up. She began to butter them as she heard the first clatters and clunks from upstairs. The boys would be down in a moment, and already Michael was in the shower, as she could gage from the sigh of the water in the pipes.

### Luke came in a moment later, already dressed in his school uniform, and with his hair neatly combed. It was a little damp, but as usual, her breath caught in her throat. He was so beautiful. They both were. Blond and with that perfect, honey-toned skin. She wanted to step across the room and draw him into her arms, but they were getting too old for that now, and with this realisation came a stab to her chest, as though a claw were tearing at her heart. It was difficult to bear, the pain of it, and she raised her hand to her breast.

"You okay, Mum?"

"Yeah," she said.

### And then Tom stepped into the room, dressed in boxers and shirtless, his hair mussed. Sleep in his eyes.

"You've got about twenty minutes, Tom."

"I know, Mum," he said, and then poked his tongue out at her.

### If anything, he looked even more beautiful that Luke did, half-dressed and sloe-eyed. And wasn't he naturally more beautiful in some way? They were identical, or they had been, but somehow Tom had got some sort of advantage, or she often thought so. Then again, there were those times when she failed to tell them apart, even now, particularly when they were dressed in their school uniforms.

"Is that my iPod?" Tom said.

"Your iPod?"

"Yes, it's mine."

"Where did you get it, Tom?"

"Martin sold it to me."

"Martin?"

### He nodded.

"I see. And what did you pay for that?"

"Oh, some," Luke said, and then giggled.

"I have that money from Grandma Ellen, you know. That money for my birthday."

### Susan nodded. She tried to hold his gaze, but blinked, and he turned away. He reached for the iPod, seized it, and then turned to walk out of the room. A moment later she heard the strains of some modern song as Tom crashed up the stairs.

"You know about this?"

### Luke nodded, but had his eyes downturned. He took a seat at the table and reached for a muffin. A moment later he was chewing, smiling at her, his eyes twinkling in the bright fluorescent light, and she decided to let it go. No doubt there was more to it, but Luke was covering for Tom, which meant the real story would be difficult to uncover.

# Chapter 2

### Michael walked into the kitchen a moment later. He was dressed for work, in a pale blue shirt and navy tie. The tie had an art deco pattern on it, and she recalled buying it for him only last month, though this was the first time he had worn it.

"Oh, that looks good," she said.

"What?"

"The tie."

### He glanced at it, but seemed distracted. "Where was Tom off to in such a hurry?"

"Up to his room," Luke said.

### Susan sliced two more muffins and popped them into the toaster. Then Tom appeared again.

"Tom," Michael said, "have you got that slip?"

"It's in my bag."

"Well, you make sure you hand it in today."

### Susan nodded. The boys were going on an excursion to the art gallery on Thursday, and if Tom didn't hand the permission slip in today, he would most likely be barred from it. It had happened before.

### She buttered the muffins, reached for the teapot, and poured everyone a cup. Luke was chewing, but said thanks. She hated coffee, though the boys sometimes asked for it. Her best reply to this was to say that she had forgotten to buy any.

### She took a seat at the table, though she had already eaten. In a moment the boys might ask for something more, for a hash brown, or something she might cook up quickly, but breakfast was rushed these days. When they were younger, it had always been a good forty to forty-five minutes. Somehow, though, the time had slipped away, and it was difficult to get anyone moving any earlier.

### Michael gulped his tea and then wiped his mouth with his napkin. "I have to check something in the study," he said, and got up. He was as much a child as the other two, or it often seemed that way. Three boys together, and all of them pitched against her.

"Mum," Luke said, "is my swimming stuff in my bag?"

### She nodded.

### She kept track of all their clothes, and with two boys at Waverly this wasn't easy. There was the formal uniform, the casual blue shirts, the school and house ties, a uniform for P.E., another for wood and metal work, the various sporting outfits, and now, in the summer, the swimmers and towels. All of it had to be monogrammed and kept spotlessly clean. She wondered how the mothers who worked managed to keep up. It must have been a nightmare, trudging to work everyday only to have to come home and wash and iron.

### But she didn't work, and she was happy with that. When Michael and her were first married she'd worked as a secretary, but he'd said he wanted to "take her away from all of that," using those precise words, as though they were actors in a film. She had laughed, but he'd said he was serious. "I make plenty of money. Why should my wife have to work?" She'd nodded and smiled. If she didn't have to work, then, well, she wouldn't work. Who would want to?

### Michael was an accountant. He worked for Stanley, Patlock and Murton, one of the best accounting firms in the country. He said he enjoyed it, though what he could find to enjoy she didn't know. Numbers and money left her feeling nothing. Nothing.

### The boys got up, moving with one accord as they often did. Luke turned and walked out of the room, but Tom hesitated.

"I have swimming today too, you know?"

"I know, Tom."

"Well, is my gear in my pack?"

"Of course it is."

"Right," he said, and nodded.

### She had forgotten once, only once. She had packed Luke's swimming gear a few weeks back, but had somehow forgotten Tom's. He had had a terrible time of it at school. As it turned out, it had rained, but the boys had played in the gym, while Tom had had to stand on and watch. The P.E. master had given him a terrible time, asking time and again if he wasn't some sort of idiot, if he couldn't read a timetable.

### She sighed as Tom walked out of the room, and then gripped her forehead. The beginnings of a headache. She got up and found some aspirin in the drawer. She would have to drive the boys to school, and it wasn't a short drive. They lived on the North Shore, but the school was in Eastwood, which was miles away.

### Stacking the dishwasher was a pain, one of her least pleasant tasks, though she did the housework happily enough. Michael had at one point suggested a cleaner, but she liked doing it, or, more precisely, liked having things the way she had them. She wouldn't have been happy to have some unknown stranger in the house destroying every germ with an excess of chemicals.

"Are you ready to go?" she said a few moments later, standing in the hall as the boys came down the stairs. Tom, miraculously, had managed to have a shower, and now his hair was as neat as Luke's. He had his tie neatly knotted and his blazer buttoned. It was difficult to tell them apart.

### She smiled.

# Chapter 3

### In the Epping tunnel, a man cut her short, changing into her lane at the last possible moment. He was travelling at about forty-five kilometres per hour. She switched lanes, and then had to put her foot down, as there was someone gaining on her from behind. The Volvo roared into life and leapt ahead. Her heart jumped. She took a deep breath and changed left again, just as the car behind was about to hit her.

"Wow! This thing can really move," Luke said.

### She suppressed a smile, glancing into the rear view mirror at the idiot behind her, who was drinking something from a Styrofoam mug. Coffee, no doubt.

"You should drive like that more often," Tom said.

### She nodded non-commitally. He was sitting in the seat beside her, it being his turn to ride "shotgun" today, as the boys put it, both of them picking up these American terms somehow. Their life seemed imbued with them, to the point where she often wondered what was happening to Australia. It was disappearing into the morass of American culture.

### She turned into the gates of the school a few moments later, and then had to slow to 15 km. She passed the old mansion house, the prep school, and continued up the drive to the senior school. A Rolls Royce passed her, and then a Maybach. She could barely keep her head up in the Volvo. Waverly was the most prestigious school in the country, and driving in in the mornings was like driving into a showroom of the most expensive cars.

### She pulled up in the parking lot of King House, and as the car came to a halt, the doors clicked, the boys jumping out immediately, with no thought for a kiss or a hug.

"Bye, Mum."

"Bye, Mum."

### And then they were gone.

### She sighed, but sat on for a moment. Then Jean appeared beside her in the royal blue Jaguar she so envied. It slid to a halt and Jude opened the door. He waved to her, and then he was walking down the path and into King House.

### A moment later there was a tap on her window.

### Jean.

### She let it down.

### The raucous cry of kookaburras and magpies and ravens fought the ABC news, and she cut the radio.

"You're looking good."

"I had my hair done," Susan said.

"Not bad."

"I thought I could wear it a little shorter."

"It suits your face."

"Thank you."

### Jean hesitated, glancing across the garden at the house. "Are your two off to the art gallery on Thursday?"

### Susan nodded.

"That should be interesting. We took Jude and Frieda only last month."

"I know. We've been too. But not since last year."

"They have some Van Gough at the moment."

"Yes, that's the attraction."

### Jean was a neighbour. She lived seven doors down, yet the boys had never played with Jude before they'd started at Waverly. When she was a child, her brother and her had played with everyone in the street, knowing all the neighbours and their families. Ralph had used to make a game of spying on everyone. He would talk Susan into stealing into their houses when they were unaware, and then they would hide behind a sofa or in a cupboard and watch the ordinary and everyday lives of those around them. Usually, it was boring — Mrs Peterson cooking the evening meal, Mrs Jenson on the telephone — though they did one time get caught in the middle of an enormous argument between the Caulfield's, Mr and Mrs. Her overriding memory of the game, however, was watching Mrs Matthews iron for more than an hour.

### She remembered this wryly and began to smile. Then she thought of Ralph, her brother, who was in a psychiatric ward at the moment. It wasn't his first time, but how had that happened? she wondered. He had been such a happy boy.

"You're away with the fairies."

"Oh — sorry. It's just ..." She waved her hands ineffectually.

### Jean nodded. "I might pop around for tea later today — or maybe tomorrow."

"Oh — okay." That would be nice. The one thing she hated about being a housewife was the loneliness.

# Chapter 4

### She parked the car in the garage and trotted upstairs. Another cup of tea, and then she would clean the kitchen and see what else had to be done.

### Michael's mother needed a physiotherapist. Just last week she'd had a hip replaced, and the young man she had wasn't very good, apparently. Susan wondered whether this was true. She'd known Ellen to take a set against people in the past, and often it was the poor men taking on the traditional female roles, the nurses in the hospital, and at one stage a cleaner Ellen had had in. It was understandable, she guessed, but even so it wasn't 1945.

### Luke's room was spotless for once, but Tom's was a mess. She'd had a word to both of them after school yesterday, and had told them to clean their rooms if they didn't want her "invading their privacy." Luke had taken heed, and she respected this, simply walking through to his bathroom and making sure the toilet was clean.

### She spent almost an hour in Tom's room, opening the window first, as it had that fudsy smell. Then, with the heat of the day, she began perspiring, and had to close it again. The air conditioner took over and she sat on the bed, staring at the confusion. Clothes mainly. Though there were towels and books and plates and cups and his iPad tossed in amongst it all.

She sighed, and then flopped backwards onto the bed. She landed on something hard, something beneath the doona, and sat up again. It was a book, a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. She had heard of it, but had never read it.

### Someone who didn't know Tom well might have thought he was having trouble making friends. This wasn't the case and never had been. The boys had plenty of friends. They had always been popular. Most likely, he was interested in influencing people, and in influencing them in some Machiavellian way.

### She closed her eyes for a moment, and then turned the book over and read the blurb. The phrase "win people to your way of thinking" caught her eye, and then there was something about "applying the principles of psychology." But surely it was harmless. Millions of people had read the book.

### She reached forward and placed it on his desk, and then turned and looked out of the window. All that could be seen from her position on the bed were the leaves of the ghost gums in the front garden. They were olive green and seemed to be covered in dust. It hadn't rained for weeks, but in a few days there would be a storm. The days were getting hotter, and growing humid too.

### After making the bed, she considered putting the book back under the doona. Tom had thrown the doona over the bed, and had most likely thought it was good enough, yet it had been sitting askew. It hadn't been a serious attempt, she decided, and it would most likely be obvious that she had smoothed the doona and creased it near the pillows. Then again, he might not notice. Though he would certainly notice his room, because she intended to make it spotless.

# Chapter 5

### Ellen phoned just as she was finishing. She raced into the master bedroom and caught the landline just in time. Whenever it rang, she could almost be certain it was Ellen. Virtually no one else used the landline.

"How are you, Susan?"

### She was fine, but was aware of having failed to do anything about a physiotherapist as yet.

"I'm having trouble getting in and out of bed," Ellen said.

"Oh, no."

"Yes. I was up most of last night, sitting in the recliner, because I simply couldn't get my left leg into the bed."

### Susan nodded. "I'll get onto it in a moment," she said. "I'll phone the hospital."

### Ellen thanked her and asked how the boys were doing.

"Good. Great. Looking forward to the holidays."

"I'll bet."

"And you're coming for Christmas, of course. Aren't you?"

"Of course."

"Good. Well, hopefully you'll be a little more mobile by then."

"Oh, I should be fine. Most likely I'm making a fuss about nothing."

### Susan didn't think this was true, not if she'd been up all night. They'd only brought her home last Wednesday, and knowing Ellen, she'd been suffering in silence.

"Have you finished Foyle's War?" Ellen had leant her the complete series on DVD.

"No. Barely halfway through it."

"Is Michael enjoying it?"

"I've been watching it with my lunch, so no, he hasn't seen it."

### Ellen remained silent.

"Anyway, I'll get onto the hospital."

### Ellen thanked her and they rang off.

### After enquiring at the hospital she managed to find the number of a physiotherapist. She rang the woman, who sounded barely eighteen, and asked if she could see Ellen sometime today. Her name was Kath, and she said she could visit Ellen at around four p.m.

### Susan phoned Ellen and told her, and she sounded pleased.

### Now there was washing to do. She made her way downstairs, to the basement, and began sorting the clothes from the heap at the bottom of the laundry chute. Michael's shirts and underwear and the boys' school things took priority, but of course she had to look after herself as well. She would do three loads, she decided, sorting them into piles on the floor.

### As she finished, she put her hands on her hips and then turned to the machine. She heard music, very low music, coming from the play room. She opened the door and walked through. The boys had their own domain down here, a room the size of a family room, complete with leather sofa and arm chairs, TV and stereo. When they were children, they'd used to play down here, and there was a cupboard full of their old toys, most of which she supposed they'd never touch again.

### They'd left the radio on. The station was playing a dance track, one she knew, and though she approached the stereo with the intention of turning it off, the rhythm caught her and she turned it up, first tentatively, and then all the way.

It was the Jackson's, Michael singing ABC. It was as easy as walking to simply slip into the rhythm and dance a little as she made her way back to the laundry.

### Then she started the machine.

# Chapter 6

The boys caught the bus in the afternoons. When they came in, she was sitting in the kitchen drinking her seventh cup of tea of the day. She heard the front door slam and sat up a little straighter, guessing one of them would call out for her in a moment. Then she heard Jude's voice, and guessed he was here for the afternoon.

### Luke appeared in the kitchen a moment later.

"Jude's here," he said.

### She nodded distractedly.

"Is that okay?"

"Of course, Luke."

"Tom said he could come."

### Susan guessed she'd have to phone Jean and tell her. She hadn't come over for a cup of tea this afternoon, otherwise she would have been here now. Jude might have called her already, but the best policy with children was to always make sure, so that everyone knew where everyone was.

### She didn't particularly like Jude. He was a loud, gauche boy with dark hair and an oblong smile. He tended to make a mess of social situations, and on this account she had always felt slightly sorry for Jean. She knew she had problems with him, with him fitting in and so on. He wasn't shy. Quite the opposite. But he never seemed to know what to say or do, and she could now think back over a whole string of the boys' birthday parties, parties which had ended in tears for Jude. It had got so bad that this year she had hoped he wouldn't come. Luke had reminded her in the end, and he'd come, but it had been the usual mess. Not tears, but Tom had been ribbing him about something.

### And now Tom had him over for the afternoon, which might mean dinner as well. What was he thinking?

### She got up and rinsed her mug and then wandered into the hall. Tom was coming down the stairs with Jude in tow.

"We're going down to the play room," Tom said. He tossed something into the air and caught it again, something that looked like a plastic toy.

### She frowned. "You know you left the music on down there last night?"

"Not me. Luke."

### That was his standard reply. It was never his fault. It was always Luke's.

"How are you, Jude?"

"Not bad, Mrs Hope." He smiled his awful smile, and she winced.

### Then they were gone.

### She picked up the mail and began to open it. She'd avoided doing this earlier as she knew it would all be bills, or at least she'd thought so. There was a letter from her old school, inviting her to a reunion. She sighed.

### In the kitchen, Luke was making himself a cup of tea.

"You want something to eat?" she said.

"Is there any cake?"

"There's a slice of that orange cake left."

### He smiled, and then scooped his hair back over his head, an action that was characteristically him. Tom tended to leave his hanging forward, so that it was always hanging over his eyes.

### She retrieved the cake tin from the pantry and found him a plate.

"How was school?"

"The usual."

"Swimming okay?"

"Sure."

### She stopped for a moment and glanced at him. He seemed so like Tom at times.

"I spoke to Grandma Ellen today."

"How is she?"

"Getting better. She'll be on her sticks for a few weeks yet."

"Oh, right."

### She poured herself a cup of tea. In the pantry she found some biscuits, and then she sat at the table with him. A few minutes later came the sound of the most enormous crash from downstairs.

# Chapter 7

"What the fuck was that?" Luke said.

### She was already on her feet and already moving. It occurred to her vaguely to tell Luke not to swear, but she was worried about Tom. He might easily be hurt. Whatever had crashed downstairs had sounded dangerous.

"Oh, fuck!" she then heard. "Oh, fuck!" She was at the top of the stairs when she heard Tom's voice in distress, calling, "Mum! Mum!"

### She took the stairs two at a time and turned into the playroom only to see the toy cupboard on it's front, a cupboard that was in fact an old oak wardrobe. Toys were strewn all over the carpet, but protruding from one end of it she could just make out Jude's head.

"Oh, my God," she said.

### She reached for the cupboard and began to pry it upwards. Then Tom was beside her and Luke was in the room. Between the three of them, they managed to set the massive old wardrobe back on its feet. But Jude was unconscious.

"Hell!"

### She sunk to her knees and began almost automatically with her CPR training, which was a little sketchy. She listened for breathing, and when she couldn't find any, shoved her fingers into Jude's mouth, looking for an obstruction.

"He choked."

"What?"

"He choked on something."

"Hell!" She reached into his throat and felt something with the tips of her fingers, something slimy, but she couldn't get a purchase on it. She grappled for a moment and then all but screamed. "Call an ambulance." She glanced up at the boys. Tom was loosening his tie and Luke was scooping his hair back over his head nervously. "Luke, help me," she said. "Tom, call triple zero."

### A moment later Luke was at her side. "You know how to do the heart, the compressions?"

### He nodded, and then she thought to search for a pulse. She pressed her fingers onto Jude's neck, but as the moments passed realised there was no pulse. She glanced at his lips, at his oblong mouth, and then bent forward and took a deep breath. She sealed his nose with her fingers and exhaled, long and deep, though there was obviously a good deal of resistance. His cheeks puffed out and then there was a farting sound as air began to escape.

### She glanced up at Tom, to see if he had his phone out. She caught him smiling, but he had the phone pressed to his ear. It wasn't funny, and couldn't be thought of as funny. She closed her eyes momentarily, feeling a little faint. When she opened them again, Luke had started on the compressions.

# Chapter 8

### The ambulance wailed toward them and finally came to a halt. She gasped a deep breath and turned to Tom. They'd been at it for minutes now, but she could barely get Jude's chest to rise.

"Go and let them in."

### Tom nodded, looking grief-stricken now.

### She turned back to Jude and gave him another breath.

"He has something in his throat," she said to the paramedics as they came down the stairs.

### Then they took over.

### She sat back on her heels, then got up, reaching for Tom's hand. He pulled her to her feet, but all she could do was stare. It looked hopeless. They wanted to know what he'd swallowed, and Tom said, "A toy. My Wongdongler."

"A Wongdongler?" The paramedic winced.

### Susan vaguely knew what a Wongdongler was. She remembered buying one for Tom for a twelfth or thirteenth birthday. It was a plastic ball with spikes that protruded when you squeezed it. They popped out from everywhere, making the thing look like an old sea mine, meant to destroy ships. It was a puzzle, and once the spikes had protruded you had to depress them again in a certain pattern. This thing was now firmly lodged in Jude's throat.

### The paramedics used a pair of tongs, and finally managed to dislodge the Wongdongler. Then they set to work on Jude.

### She wrung her hands and hoped, but after a few minutes had passed she knew to expect the worst. They pronounced him dead at the scene and she began to weep.

"There!" Tom said silently, in something that sounded like a whisper.

### Luke had tears in his eyes.

### The paramedics retrieved a stretcher from the ambulance, and within minutes they were carting Jude out of the house.

"What happened?" she said, turning to Tom.

### Tom looked at Luke nervously. "I don't know. I was showing him my toys, and he put it in his mouth."

"But you had it in your hand as you were coming down the stairs."

"What?"

"The Wongdongler."

"Did I?"

### She nodded.

"It should have been in the toy cupboard."

### Well, of course it should have been, but he didn't seem to be making sense now. She reached forward and drew him into a hug. Whatever had happened, it hadn't been his fault. She knew that much.

"You boys go upstairs."

### They nodded, but then Luke lunged at her, wanting a hug also. She cradled him in her arms and drew him close.

"It'll be fine," she said. "I'll clean this mess up."

### They left reluctantly, hanging back for moments, and then, as Tom was mounting the stairs, he threw a glance at something in the corner. She turned to follow his gaze, but failed to see what he'd been looking at.

### A few moments later, she was on her knees with a collection of Star Wars figurines in her hands. She placed them in the appropriate tub, and then slid the tub back into the toy cupboard. The room was a mess.

### She'd have to phone Jean, or no, walk down and see her. Or better yet, drive down. It was quite a distance and she needed to get there soon. Before the police.

### She stood up with the intention of doing this and then spied her reflection in the corner of the room. She frowned, and then realised it was the screen of an iPad, set up on the shelves. It was filming her every move. She moved closer to it, looped her hair back over her ears, and then moved very close so that the pattern of her dress was all that could be seen. She picked it up and stopped it recording, not thinking about what it had been recording or why it had been recording.

### Then she remembered Tom's glance, thrown to this corner of the room as he made his way up the stairs.

# Chapter 9

### She wandered across the room with the iPad in her hand, thinking of Jean, and thinking of getting to her soon. Then it occurred to her that the iPad would have recorded whatever had happened this afternoon.

### She glanced at the screen, and saw a very small square with Tom's face close up in it. She gripped the pad with both hands and tapped.

### Tom's face appeared. He was bending forward, bending toward the shelves where the iPad had sat, his face close up.

"You want to see the perfect murder?" he said. "Just watch this."

### He reached toward the iPad to stop it recording, and then, apparently instantly, started it again. Only it hadn't been instant, because as he was saying the words, there'd been music in the background. Now there was none.

### He backed away from the screen, and turned around, and there was Jude, standing in the centre of the room.

### Jude looked nervous.

"So you think it's true?" Tom said.

"I know it is."

"How do you know?"

"Martin wouldn't lie."

"Maybe he did, Luke." Jude was always confusing the boys.

"I don't think so."

### Tom nodded. "You want to play a game?"

"What game?"

"It's called regurgitation. I give you something to swallow and you have to spag it back up again. Then it's my turn."

"What something?"

"I don't know." He crossed the room to the toy cupboard, opened the doors, and then made a show of retrieving the Wongdongler from a shelf, though Susan was very sure it had been in his hand all along. He turned, and held it out to Jude. "How about this?"

"What is it?" Jude said.

"It's a Wongdongler."

### Jude frowned.

"All you have to do is get it into your throat and then spag it back up again."

"You mean vomit?"

"No. Regurgitate."

"Oh, right." Jude said. He looked anxious.

### Tom handed the Wongdongler over, and after looking at it for a moment, Jude popped it into his mouth. He raised his eyebrows humorously, but he was obviously sucking on it.

"You have to swallow."

### Jude nodded. He tipped his head back and made a big show of swallowing. Almost instantly, he was in trouble. He raised one hand to his throat, coughed and then gagged.

### Tom moved toward him. "Are you right?"

### Jude shook his head. He gripped his throat with both hands and searched for a breath, his chest heaving.

"Are you choking?"

### Jude nodded, troubled. He flailed his arms, and then turned one way and the other.

"Here, I'll give you the Heinrich manoeuvre," Tom said. "Turn around."

### Jude turned toward the cupboard and then gripped it as Tom's arms encircled his waist. Tom jerked, and then lifted Jude off the ground. Jude was big, and he had to take a step backwards to regain his balance. He stumbled, drew Jude with him, and as Jude was gripping the toy cupboard, it too began to fall.

### Tom fell onto his rear and then scrambled backwards as the toy cupboard toppled onto Jude. It hit the ground with an almighty crash, the toys spilling everywhere. But Jude was pinned.

"Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!" Tom said. He struggled to his feet, gripped the old wardrobe and tried to pry it upward, but almost instantly realised it was hopeless. He turned uselessly, looked one way and the other, and then said,

"Mum! Mum!"

# Chapter 10

### A moment later she was in the room. It occurred to her, stupidly, that her hair did look good, and she liked what she was wearing. She watched on as she sized up the situation, said "Oh, my God," and turned from one to the other of the boys. It looked far more dramatic on film that it had seemed in reality.

### Then they were prising the old oak wardrobe up, and Jude was revealed.

### She was on her knees, giving CPR for minutes, Luke at her side. Then the paramedics arrived. It was everything she'd just lived, but it was odd to see it from another perspective.

"You boys go upstairs," she then said.

### They nodded, but Luke lunged at her, wanting a hug. A moment later, they were at the foot of the stairs. She watched carefully as Tom glanced toward the iPad. What had he been thinking? She didn't know, couldn't imagine. He'd said murder, but is that what he'd meant? That he'd deliberately tried to murder Jude? Without that inset at the start of the film, it all looked innocent enough. Surely anyone seeing it would come to the same conclusion.

### The film came to an end, and as it did, the doorbell rang. She stood insensibly, with the iPad in her hand, staring at the pattern on her dress in close up.

### Then there were footsteps on the stairs.

### It was Luke. "Mum, the police are here," he said.

### She turned toward him and blinked. The police? It sounded impossible. What would the neighbours think?

### She had the feeling that there was something she needed to do, something she needed to do right now, but she followed Luke up the stairs with the iPad held loosely in one hand.

### Two male officers were standing in the hall, talking to Tom. She was overawed for a moment by their uniforms, the stark crispness of them, the guns and the radios. The hall seemed different somehow, smaller, the space confined. Sunlight was streaming through the window above the door.

"There's been a death here this afternoon," one of them said.

### She nodded.

"We'd like to take statements from you if that's okay, from you and your children."

### Again she nodded.

"If you could come with us now, while everything's fresh in your mind, that would be appreciated."

"Sure," she said.

### She placed the iPad on the table and glanced at it. Even now it was showing a view of her dress, and it occurred to her that she needed to delete the movie, that she should have deleted it already. Then the screen darkened and she breathed an internal sigh of relief.

### In the back of the police car it occurred to her that she wasn't wearing any makeup. She had a few things in her handbag, eyeliner, some lipstick and some blush. She certainly had the leisure to do something as the car was soon ensnared in traffic, but as she thought of it, Jude's red face recurred to her as she'd first seen it, and then, following this, his very pale face as the paramedics loaded him onto the stretcher.

### She put her arm around Tom, who was sitting in the middle, and drew him close. He folded into her, his face by her neck. He was still a boy, she reminded herself, too young to understand what it was that he had done, if he'd really done anything. And had he? What would a judge say about the film? What would the police say? Without that stupid introduction it was little more than two boys horsing around.

### But Jude!

"Oh, my God," she said.

### Jude was dead.

### What must Jean be thinking? Nothing kind, not with regards to herself or Luke or Tom. No doubt she had a thousand questions. Or was it too soon for her to be thinking like that? Perhaps she was numb with shock. That would be more likely. She felt it herself. Numb, and even a little cold.

### When they pulled into the parking lot at Chatswood Police Station she reached for the doorhandle only to find it locked. Luke was having the same trouble on the other side. The officers got out and opened the doors from outside the car. Then they were led into the station where they had to wait in an anteroom. The elder of the two officers said they'd only be a few minutes.

### She glanced at Tom and then at Luke. Perhaps she should say something now. In the hall, both of them had been staring at the iPad, so perhaps Tom had said something to Luke. But what would he say? How could he explain his behaviour?

"You know ..." she began, but came to a halt.

### Then a social worker appeared. She said she would be sitting with the boys while Susan was interviewed, and that she was available to accompany them through their interviews if Susan wanted that.

### She said no, thank you. And then it occurred to her that she needed a lawyer, or should have one. But would that look odd? Surely they were regarding this as a routine enquiry. Back at the house, one of the officers had said something like, "... this is fairly routine with an unexplained death." They couldn't possibly think it was murder, an adolescent boy choking on a toy. This sort of thing happened every day.

### The same officers appeared again and led her away to a small, brightly lit room. They introduced themselves as Adamson and Grainger. Grainger was the elder of the two, but it was Adamson who produced a small, handheld recording device. He placed it on the table and rattled off the date, time and reason for the recording. Even so, it must have been some sort of backup, as there were microphones in the desk, one positioned toward each of them and another spare on her side. She glanced above their heads and noticed a camera. Again, stupidly, she thought of makeup, and then they began.

# Chapter 11

### They wanted to know everything, to know what she'd been doing when she heard Tom scream, to know how long it had been before she got to the stairs, to the play room, the position of the cupboard, what the boys had said to her and so on. They wanted to know if she had training in CPR, if she'd tried to remove the Wongdongler, how she'd positioned Jude's head, why she'd tried mouth to mouth, how soon it had been before she called the ambulance.

### It went on for minutes, for fifteen or twenty minutes, but they were very kind to her, and finally it ended.

### Then Tom was brought in. He looked a mess, his hair askew, his tie loose, his shirt untucked. If someone from the school saw him he would no doubt be in trouble. The boys were supposed to keep their uniforms immaculate whenever they were in public.

### He took a seat at the table.

"Please state your name," Grainger said, and Tom spoke up.

### He spoke well, but confused her right from the outset. She expected him to tell them that he and Jude had been playing a game, but he didn't do this. He told them that Jude had opened the toy cupboard and put something into his mouth.

### The officers nodded.

"I didn't see what it was. I was fiddling with the radio. When I turned around he was choking. I tried to give him the Heinrich manoeuvre, but he pulled the cupboard on top of us."

### They paused, and then began to question him, asking him to go back again. They got him to elaborate on everything he'd said, asked him what he was doing with the radio, what station he was on, whether he saw Jude open the cupboard or not, where the toy was, how he knew the Heinrich manoeuvre, and what he'd actually done. They asked him to stand up and demonstrate on Adamson without actually jerking his body, and then said, "That might not have been the best thing."

### Tom looked nonplussed.

"You can hurt somebody that way," Adamson said.

"I was trying to help."

### They both nodded, and Adamson sat down again.

### Then Tom began to weep. Susan jolted, surprised. He wasn't usually one for tears. She reached out a hand and gripped his elbow. He turned to her, his face tearstained, and her heart yearned for him.

### What had he done, her beautiful boy?

### They asked him a few further questions and then said that was it. Luke was led into the room and it started all over again, though Luke had nothing more to say than she had, and their stories matched precisely.

### She smiled tentatively at the officers as they finished up. Adamson reached for the recording device and Grainger began shuffling papers. They said they'd organise a car to take her home again and she got up.

"So — are we going to prison?" Luke said.

"No, son. It was a tragic accident."

### Luke nodded. He'd done his best to tidy himself up and in profile he looked a little like Tom, which was a silly thing to think. They were so like one another.

### They said that the statements would be typed and that they'd have to wait for a car to take them home again. They said they'd organise one.

"Is it okay if we take a taxi?"

### Grainger nodded. "Sure. Get the front desk to call you one."

### She put her hand on Luke's shoulder and led him out.

### In the waiting room, Tom was having an animated discussion with the social worker. She wondered what he was thinking. He couldn't be happy about the situation. No. That wouldn't be possible.

# Chapter 12

### Michael came in at around six thirty. She heard the Mercedes pull into the garage and then waited, her muscles tensed, until he appeared in the kitchen.

"Hi," he said, briefcase in hand. "Nothing cooking?"

"No. I haven't had a chance." They'd only got back ten minutes or so ago.

### Outside, the sky looked ominous, and she heard the first crash of thunder.

"They said hail on the radio."

"Oh. Right."

"Is something wrong?"

### Her face twisted and she started to cry. Then she was in his arms.

"Hey. What is it?"

"Oh — Jude."

"What? Jude?"

"There was an accident."

"Again."

"No. You don't understand. He's dead."

"Dead?"

"He choked on a toy."

"Oh — that's awful."

"Yes. In the play room."

"What? Here?"

"Yes. Downstairs."

"Hell." He let her go and held her at arm's length, inspecting her face. "When did this happen?"

"This afternoon."

### She wanted to tell him everything, but this simply wasn't possible. She had the iPad on the table behind her. She'd all but raced the boys into the hall to collect it. Both of them had glanced at her as she snaffled it from the table, but she was determined to confront Tom with the film when she got a chance. It was just that now, well, Michael was home. Michael would hand the film over to the police. He was a stickler for doing the right thing.

### He wanted to know more about what happened, and she told him, telling him the events as she understood them before she'd seen the iPad. He nodded, his eyes bewildered, and then hugged her again.

"How was work?"

"Oh — a pain. The Jensen audit."

"Still going with that."

### He smiled. She had no idea what he did.

"I was thinking of getting some pizza, or maybe some Chinese."

"Chinese."

"Okay. I'll order in a minute. What do you want?"

"Beef and black bean sauce."

"I think I'll have the same."

### They stared at one another for a moment, and then he said he was going upstairs to get changed.

### As soon as he'd left, she turned to the table and the iPad. What was perplexing her more than anything else was the fact that it was Luke's iPad, which had only just occurred to her as Michael arrived home. She'd been sitting, staring at it for minutes, staring at its red cover, which she'd closed, yet it had only occurred to her as Michael came in that it must be Luke's. Tom's had a blue cover, or did it? She wasn't sure now. She'd have to ask Tom, and she'd have to find time too to confront him with it. But she couldn't do that tonight. She'd have to find time tomorrow, and surely she ought to give the boys the day off school. They couldn't be expected to go in tomorrow.

### She ordered the food, not bothering to call up to the boys and ask them what they wanted. They could all eat beef and black bean sauce as far as she was concerned, though she ordered some dim sims and spring rolls as well.

### When they came down they looked sheepish. They'd changed out of their school uniforms, but had obviously been talking. Luke looked more worried than Tom, and she wondered what he'd told him. They kept so close together that she often wondered if they had any secrets from one another.

### The meal was strained. Michael was silent. The boys failed to complain about the beef and black bean sauce. She ate listlessly, and then, as she was finishing, began to choke on a large chunk of beef. She got up and thumped her chest, but she really was choking.

### Then Michael was behind her. He thumped her on the back and she coughed the beef across the table. It plopped into Tom's glass of Coke and he made a face at it. Luke laughed. She smiled wryly, and then Michael was laughing as well. It struck her as inappropriate given what had happened today. Then again, surely they could laugh.

### Tom speared the beef out of his glass with a fork and asked if she still wanted it. She said no, but he held it in the air for seconds, turning it over and over.

"This could have killed you."

"I know."

### Luke lowered his eyes to the table, and they fell into silence.

# Chapter 13

### In the morning, she woke feeling extraordinarily happy. Then the memory of yesterday crashed down upon her like breaking glass. She saw Jude's face, his red face as she had first seen it, and then realised she had dreamed.

In the dream, she was lying in a boat, in a skiff. She was dead, or asleep, and was viewing herself from above. The scene reminded her of The Lady of Shallot, that poem by Tennyson, and wasn't there a painting of the lady in the boat?

### As she turned it over in her mind, she swallowed. What could it possibly mean?

### It was still dark. She got up, being careful not to disturb Michael, and then whispered to herself, "The broad stream bore her far away," a line from the poem.

### She shivered.

### Michael liked the air conditioning set to twenty-one degrees Celsius, but it was too cool for her. She headed for the bathroom and took a shower.

### Downstairs, she filled the kettle with water and started it, then reached for the tea canister. It was empty, so she had to step into the pantry to find a new pack. She selected it from a group of fourteen, satisfied that she had plenty. She really didn't need to buy any more. She had plenty at the moment, but was very pleased Jean had put her onto Dilmah. It made an excellent cup of tea.

### She frowned, thought Jean, and then thought of the film. She had locked the iPad into the filing cabinet in her sewing room. The key was in her bedside table. She really ought to have it on her, but she didn't want to walk upstairs again. Not now. And the boys were asleep anyway. Why would they think of looking in the sewing room, and then think to look for the key in her bedside table? It would be unlikely.

### She spooned the tea into the canister and then decided to go upstairs. Michael was snoring. There was a moment of panic when she failed to find the key, but then she did find it, hidden beneath a black pair of panties, and more toward the back of the drawer than she'd thought.

### As she was walking out of the room she tripped, falling against the door and slamming it shut. Michael gruffled and turned over, but his breathing settled again. She opened the door and then hesitated outside the sewing room. She would get the iPad now, she decided.

### Back in the kitchen, she put the iPad on the table and then stared at it as she drank her cup of tea. It was a malevolent thing now, a device that had the power to lock Tom away from her forever, or for years, and she really would have to delete the film. But first, she needed to confront Tom with it, and she could do that now.

### She walked upstairs and tapped gently on his door. It was locked. The doors locked from the inside, not with a key but with a catch, and the boys liked to keep their rooms locked when they were in them. When there was no response, she knocked a little louder. Then Tom appeared, in boxers and shirtless. He peered at her, his eyes slits, his hair a mess as usual.

"What is it, Mum?"

"Come downstairs."

"It's five-thirty."

"I know what time it is."

"I have to go to the toilet."

"Well, hurry up."

### She turned and walked away. He appeared in the kitchen a few minutes later, but hadn't put a T-shirt on. He stood in the doorway, looking at her, and then noticed the iPad on the table.

"That isn't mine," he said.

"I know that."

### He swallowed.

"You want a cup of tea?"

"Sure."

### She poured him a cup and then motioned at the table. He took a seat. She sat down beside him and pulled her chair close. Then she reached for the iPad. She flipped the cover open and keyed in Luke's password, the first six digits of his mobile phone number, which had been the deal with the boys when they got these devices. And they weren't allowed to change their passwords, so that she and Michael could look at them anytime they needed to.

### The movie was frozen on her dress, and it took her a couple of moments to work out how to replay it, but she hesitated. She glanced at Tom, who had blanched, his face white. Shirtless, he looked vulnerable, and she wished he'd put a shirt on. Then again, he might be feeling vulnerable, and that would help her.

### She held it at arm's length and pressed play.

"You want to see the perfect murder? Just watch this."

### Tom's face.

### The film jumped, and she frowned over it as the radio cut out. Then it occurred to her that he must have filmed it the previous evening. The radio had been on when she'd been washing yesterday, and he certainly wouldn't have had time to film this bit with Jude in the room. Jude hadn't been a Nobel prize winning physicist, but he hadn't been stupid either.

### Tom walked away from the camera and Jude was revealed. Once again, she noticed how nervous he looked.

"So you think it's true?" Tom said.

"I know it is."

"How do you know?"

"Martin wouldn't lie."

"Maybe he did ..."

### She winced. Tom said, "... spag it back up again ..." and she put her hand on her forehead. Then he was taking the Wongdongler from the shelf, or pretending to.

"You had it in your hand," she said.

### He remained motionless, staring at the screen.

"What is it?" Jude said.

"It's a Wongdongler."

### She winced again, and then watched on as Jude popped the toy into his mouth. He raised his eyebrows humorously, but was obviously sucking on it.

"You have to swallow," Tom said.

### Jude nodded. He tipped his head back, and that was it. He was in trouble.

### It seemed less surprising this time, and she turned her attention to Tom on film. He was standing uncertainly, nervous, she guessed. Or stressed. It seemed unlike him, but she supposed he was posing for the camera.

"Are you right?" Tom said.

### Jude was shaking his head, distressed, and Tom looked seriously concerned.

### She relaxed a little.

### Then Jude's chest was heaving.

"Are you choking?"

### Jude nodded. He turned one way and another, flailing.

"I'll give you the Heinrich manoeuvre."

### She watched as he reached for Jude. He looked as though he was genuinely trying to help, as though Jude's death was the last thing he wanted. She wondered if he was acting. He took drama at school and he was good. But this? No, it couldn't be, she decided. He must have changed his mind about "murdering" Jude when the enormity of the situation crashed upon him. It certainly seemed that way.

### Jude pulled the cupboard on top of himself, and Tom scrambled out of the way.

"Mum! Mum!"

### She was in the room.

### She hesitated, thinking she ought to perhaps end the movie there, but perhaps it was better to go on and let Tom see the enormity of what he had done. She glanced at him. He was watching impassively.

"Hell," she was saying. She had her hand in Jude's throat. "Call an ambulance."

### Tom loosened his tie, and Luke scooped his hair back over his head.

"Call triple zero."

### Tom reached into his pocket for his phone.

### Then she was performing mouth to mouth, and she heard that farting sound.

### Beside her, Tom laughed.

### She scowled.

### The film ran on to the point where the ambulance men arrived. She glanced at Tom again and saw him swallow heavily. After minutes of struggle they pronounced Jude dead.

### She looked at the clock. It was five fifty-seven. She stopped the film playing and held the iPad rigidly for a moment, her eyes locked on the screen.

"I didn't do anything," Tom said.

"What?"

"I didn't do anything."

### She locked her jaw. "Tom," she began, "this is very serious. This film could get you locked away for years."

"I doubt it."

"You doubt it?"

### He nodded, pouting, or was that the hint of a smile?

"Tom. You say you tried to 'murder' Jude. I know that isn't the case. You might be finding it funny now, looking at the film, but your friend is dead."

"He wasn't my friend."

### She flailed her arms ineffectually. "Whether he was your friend or not is beside the point."

"He was spreading rumours about me."

"Rumours?"

### Tom nodded.

"What rumours?"

### He shrugged.

"You can tell me."

"I don't want to tell you."

"Right." She rocked her jaw from side to side, at a loss as how to continue.

"Are you going to put it on YouTube?" he asked her.

"What?"

"The movie."

"You've got to be kidding?"

### He shrugged, and then smiled. He obviously was. He lifted his arms over his head and stretched.

"What was the point of filming it?"

"I don't know." He yawned. "I just wanted to see how things turned out." He paused for a moment, pensive. "I didn't really think it would work."

"Well, it did work."

"Yes, it worked well."

# Chapter 14

### Michael appeared in the doorway and she flinched. She flipped the iPad cover closed and set it on the table.

"You're up early," he said to Tom.

"I felt like a cup of tea."

"Not like you." Michael stepped into the room. "What's the big attraction?" he said, nodding at the iPad as he crossed to the counter.

### Susan spoke quickly, perhaps too quickly. "A game."

"Isn't that Luke's?"

"It's Luke's game," Tom said.

"Anything I'd be interested in?"

"It's not math."

"It's 'maths,' Tom. Not 'math.'"

### He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, thinking. "Not technically," he said. "The abbreviation should be 'math.' It makes more sense."

"I don't think that's right, Tom." She eyed the iPad, but got up. And then asked Michael if he'd like a cup of tea.

"That'd be great."

"And a muffin?"

### He nodded and drew her into a hug. Over his shoulder, she watched Tom reach for the iPad and flip it open. He keyed the code in and she closed her eyes. Please, she prayed. A few moments later she heard the 'ping, ping' of a game.

"You're up early," she said in a low voice.

"You woke me."

### He released her and turned to the table. "Show me," he said to Tom, and took a seat beside him.

### She busied herself with the muffins.

### When she turned around again, Luke was in the doorway. He too was in boxers and shirtless. But he had tears in his eyes.

"Why is everyone up so early?"

"Your mother woke us."

"Oh, Luke!" she said. He came toward her and she folded him into her arms.

"I can't stop thinking about it," he said. "I couldn't sleep."

"Well, don't worry about school today, you can stay home."

"Me too?"

"Of course you too. The school will understand."

### Michael nodded. "I'd almost forgotten," he said.

"Well, you wouldn't forget if you'd been there. It was horrible."

### He lowered his eyes, thoughtful for a moment. They had discussed it last night, well into the night. How he could have forgotten she didn't know, but his head was always full of numbers, and full of work too.

### She sighed, and then popped a couple more muffins into the toaster. She was running low, and told herself she had to go to the supermarket, and soon.

### Luke took a seat at the table and she poured him a cup of tea. Then she stood back and watched the three of them, her family, her boys. She buttered the muffins, asked Luke if he wanted raspberry jam, and then set them on the table. She took a seat herself, and a muffin slice, and began to eat.

### As soon as she'd finished she was up again. A fresh pot of tea for everyone. Then bacon and eggs, she decided. It was just like the old days, everyone having time to linger in the kitchen. She ate the bacon and eggs with them, and then got up to stack the dishwasher. She was busy rinsing the pan for a few minutes, and when she turned around, the boys had disappeared.

"Where did the boys go?"

"Upstairs."

### She scanned quickly for the iPad, but failed to find it.

# Chapter 15

### The boys were in Tom's room with the door locked. They'd been in there for minutes, but she'd had to wait until Michael decided to take a shower.

### They were as close as any pair of twins could hope to be, and when they were younger, had had their own language. It had sounded like gibberish, but somehow they had understood one another. They seemed to do this without speaking now. One would throw the other a glance, and then he'd smile or raise a hand. Some secret message. They moved in sync with one another too. And when they were twelve had gone through a stage of dancing for her and Michael as a pair, joking more than anything, but it had looked bizarre. They had practised for hours. Nowadays they liked to get together and talk, and she guessed had many secrets from Michael and her and their friends. They rarely fought, but whenever it happened it was Tom's fault.

"Open the door!"

### Silence.

"Open the door, Tom." She heard movement, scuffling, and then Tom appeared. He'd put a T-shirt on, a red one, and she faltered for a moment, staring at him. "What are you doing?"

"I was showing Luke the film."

### She pushed past him. "You've seen it?" she said to Luke. He nodded. He'd stopped crying. She turned to Tom. "You're a bastard," she said, all but spitting the words.

### She sat beside Luke on the bed and put her arm around him. The iPad was on the floor. She stared at it, spellbound, and there were moments of silence.

"I'm sure your brother didn't mean it," she muttered.

### Luke nodded, his eyes downcast.

### It occurred to her that they were hiding something, and she tried to guess what it was. Then she reached for the iPad. Their eyes followed her every move.

"What is it?" she said, turning to Tom and then Luke. "I know you're hiding something."

### Tom shrugged. He looked pleased with himself, and momentarily, she hated him.

### Then she gripped the iPad firmly and marched out of the room. She locked it in the filing cabinet in the sewing room again, but when she looked up, Tom was in the doorway, watching her.

"Can we go to school?" he said.

"You want to go to school."

"Yes."

"Well, you're not going. You and Luke are going to stay home, and we're going to have a long talk, you and I."

### He threw his head back and stared at the ceiling.

"Just stop it, Tom. I know you're not this cold. You're a good boy. You've always been a good boy, but you're playing some kind of game. You're acting, and I don't like it."

### He nodded, and then hung his head for a moment, pensive.

### She guessed she'd hit home with that a little. "Why don't you take a shower?"

### He turned away from the doorway and wandered back to his room. Luke was in the hall. He had just stepped out of Tom's room, and he had Tom's iPad in his hand. He looked at her and then at Tom. Something secret passed between them, a glance, and she wondered over it, but made her way back downstairs. She cleaned up the mess and then sighed. She put her head in her hands and sat for minutes, trying to decide clearly what she needed to do about Tom. It occurred to her that she should have deleted the film, and she decided to do this in a moment or so, but Michael appeared in the doorway.

"You okay?"

### She shook her head and began to cry. He drew her up and into his arms.

"You don't know how awful it was," she said, but knew she was lying. It wasn't so much what had happened, but Tom's part in it.

### The phone rang, the landline, and she supposed it was Ellen. Perhaps she was in trouble. In the hall, she answered it, but it was the school, the headmaster.

### He began by questioning her about Jude, then commiserated with her, but paused. It was a long pause, and she held her breath.

"I'd like you to come in today," he said. "I need to see you. It's about Tom."

### She closed her eyes and swayed. What did he know, this man? She had so much respect for him, but was as scared of him as the boys were. If he'd heard some rumour, or some hint of Tom having played some part in Jude's death, then he would track it down. He was relentless.

"Could you come in this morning?"

"Of course."

"Good. Would nine thirty suit you?"

### She said that would be fine and they rang off.

### She slipped her fingers into her hair, gripped, and tugged, feeling distraught. She felt as though she might go insane.

"Who was that?" Michael said, appearing unexpectedly.

"The school."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes. Everything's fine. But the boys will have to go in today."

"Oh. Okay. I'm going to get changed."

### She nodded. He passed her, and then made his way up the stairs. She would have to get changed too, and put some makeup on. Hell, she didn't need this. Not today. Not this. But what did he know?

# Chapter 16

### In the Epping tunnel, there was a second incident, but this time she actually hit a barrier. She lost concentration for a moment, and the car slewed toward the wall. It scraped along it for seconds, the metal grinding, and then bounced back onto the road. She lost control, and almost travelled onto the wrong side of the road.

"Hell, Mum," Tom said.

### Luke was beside her. "That was close," he said.

### She nodded, but couldn't turn to either of them. She was too determinedly set on staying on the road.

### At the school, in the parking lot, the boys jumped out to inspect the damage, yet she sat on for minutes, gripping the wheel and staring into the distance.

"It's pretty bad," Luke said, when she finally got out.

### She nodded, and went to have a look. All four panels were badly dented, the paintwork scraped away in places. It was going to cost a fortune to fix, but hell, what did it matter? By this afternoon, Tom would most likely be sitting in a watch house somewhere, charged with murder.

### The day was bright, the school ground full of the song of birds, the gum trees imposing. They wandered up the path to the office, the boys ahead of her and side-by-side. Tom tipped his head toward Luke and whispered something, most likely telling Luke not to say a word. It seemed incredible to Susan that he'd actually shown Luke the film. Did they have no secrets from one another? She did wonder, but it was so hot she could barely think.

### In the office, they had to wait for the headmaster for more than fifteen minutes. The boys had their phones out, each of them toying with something, but she sat on, staring at the minute hand on the clock. Oddly, she was reminded of the minute hand at a public swimming pool. This one was like those, sliding rather than ticking, and after few minutes she felt something bizarre steal over her, staring at the clock, at time.

### Finally the door opened, and Mr Mason appeared. He waved them in and shook her hand.

"How are you?" she said.

"Still in shock."

### He nodded.

### Three chairs were arranged in front of the desk, and she felt a little like a child herself as she took a seat, though she had never once been called to the office. But the boys had. It wasn't her first experience of this, and she was reminded of that joke from the Simpsons about parent-teacher night. "Let's share the blame," they'd had written on a banner over the school.

"A terrible thing has happened, boys," he began. "Your friend Jude has lost his life, and I want both of you to begin today by seeing Mrs Stevenson." She was the school's counsellor.

### They nodded in unison and in silence.

"I believe he choked. Is that right?"

"Yes," she said.

"Well, these things happen, and it is a great tragedy. Nevertheless, I need to speak to you about Monday's incident. I'm sure you both know what I'm talking about."

### The boys remained impassive.

"What's this about?" she said.

"Well, apparently, and I won't beat around the bush, Tom performed fellatio on Martin Lockheed on Monday."

"Fellatio?"

"Oral sex." He cleared his throat.

"That wasn't me," Tom said.

"Fuck up."

"It was Luke."

"You're a prick," Luke said.

"Boys, I've spoken to you about language before."

"I'm not swearing. It's him."

### The headmaster nodded. Susan began to fidget with her handbag as she tried to conceive of Luke doing such a thing. It had to be Tom. In some sense Tom was behind it, whatever had happened. Luke wouldn't do it. But she was overcome by a great sense of shame as she wondered whether Luke might in fact be gay, whether both of them might not be. It had occurred to her once or twice, but she had dismissed it as a possibility. It simply couldn't be true.

"So it was you, Luke?" Mr Mason said.

### Luke nodded, his head lowered. He looked angry.

### The headmaster went on to outline his thoughts on the subject and then began to question Luke. It soon became clear that the act had been payment for an iPod, for Tom's iPod, and as she understood this, she muttered, "You're a bastard."

"What was that?" The headmaster looked affronted.

"I was speaking to Tom."

### Eventually, they were let out of the office and into the heat of the day. She wanted to hit Tom, to smack him as she had once or twice done to both of them when they were children. It couldn't quite be conceived of now, but what other solution was there?

### The headmaster had put both boys on detention for the rest of the week, which meant they wouldn't be home until five today. She wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand and then turned to Tom.

"Where is the iPod?"

"In my pack," he said.

"Give it to me."

### He handed it over.

### She glanced at Luke, at his lips, and wondered how he could have done such a thing. What had Tom held over him? That was the question.

# Chapter 17

### As she was nearing the house, she spied Jean coming down the front path, walking away from the door. She glanced at the Volvo, and then stared at Susan, following her with her eyes as she disappeared into the garage. When she came out again, on foot this time, Jean was watching her closely.

"Jean."

### She looked distraught, her hair disarranged.

"What happened, Susan? I just want to know what happened."

"Oh, Jean."

### She had been crying, obviously. And had no makeup on. She was a little older than Susan, in her forties, with pale grey eyes and long, light brown hair. She was wincing in the bright sunshine, and looked distraught.

"I've lost my only boy," she said, and then used the palms of her hands to wipe at the tears. "He was such a good boy."

### He had been a good boy, but what was Susan supposed to say? That she hadn't liked him? That would hardly be appropriate. Nevertheless, it was the first thought that sprung to her mind. She swallowed awkwardly, ashamed at the unwelcome thought. Despite his problems, Jude had been a well-meaning boy. He had never been vicious or cruel.

### She chastised herself, and put her hand on Jean's arm.

"Come inside."

### Jean followed her as she walked up the path and unlocked the front door. Then they were in the hall, where everything was orderly. She was aware of the smell of floor polish. She had had the floor polished on Monday while the boys were at school, before all of this had started.

In the kitchen, she made a cup of tea. Jean sat at the table with her head in her hands, working up the resolve, it seemed, to question Susan thoroughly on her part in her son's death. Only it couldn't be that. She couldn't know. And what part had she played. None. No one could reasonably think so.

"I did everything I could, Jean," she said, taking a seat at the table and placing her hand on Jean's shoulder, "CPR, everything."

### Jean nodded. "I just want to know what happened. He said something about Luke, about something Luke had done at school, and he said Martin Lockheed was involved. Do you think that could have something to do with it?"

"Jean, he choked. He choked on a toy." She paused for a moment and gathered all of her strength. "There isn't any more to it than that."

### Jean considered this for a moment, and then said, "Tom was in the room with him, wasn't he?"

### Susan nodded, and then wondered how Jean knew this, how she could possibly know it.

"I spoke to the ambulance officers this morning. They said that one of them had been in the room with him. I guessed it was Tom."

### Susan nodded, and closed her eyes briefly. Jean had always had a set against Tom — and against Luke for that matter. It was surprising she and Jean got on at all. Then again, they were neighbours, and the boys were at school together.

"I don't understand why he would have swallowed a toy."

"Tom said he was fooling around."

"Fooling around?"

### Susan nodded.

"It doesn't sound very likely. He hasn't put anything like that in his mouth since he was a toddler. Are you sure Tom didn't push him?"

### Susan shook her head, but felt the tears start. "No," she said, but almost choked on the word.

### Jean looked at her suspiciously. "I know what happened at the party. He's told me all about that."

### Susan realised she was speaking in the present tense, in the present tense about Jude, as though he was still alive, but she didn't understand the reference to the boys' birthday party.

"Apparently Luke put Deep Heat into his underwear."

"Deep Heat?"

"Heat rub."

"Oh — right."

"He was mucking around, said take this, and thrust his hand into Jude's underwear."

### Jean must have meant Tom, so Susan said this, that it must have been Tom.

### Jean waved a hand at her ineffectually, perhaps to suggest it was irrelevant. "I never saw his underwear. He came home without them on."

### Was that Jude's problem at the boys' party? Had it been? Really? Had Tom really gone and done that? Again, Susan closed her eyes.

"I know Luke's always had a set against Jude."

"Tom."

"They both have."

### This simply wasn't true. Luke was unfailingly kind to all the boys at school. Even in his report cards he was praised for his social skills. But Tom? Well, Tom was a different boy.

"Anyway, I really need to speak to Tom — if he was in the room. I need to get things clear in my mind."

"Of course."

"It might have been an accident. It might have been." She stared at Susan directly for seconds and then began to get up. She hadn't touched her tea. "The funeral is on Saturday," she said, and then walked out of the room.

# Chapter 18

### As she followed Jean into the hall, it occurred to Susan that the iPad was upstairs with the film still on it. She should have deleted it, not locked it away again — and the iPad would have to be destroyed. There were ways of retrieving information from devices like that — at least she had heard this — and she couldn't take any chances. But how on Earth was she supposed to destroy it? Hack it to pieces?

"It's at nine a.m.," Jean said, continuing on the subject of the funeral. "At Saint Albans."

"Well, we'll all be there."

### Jean looked at her oddly. Then they were at the door. They said their goodbyes, but there was no brief hug. Not today.

### She turned back into the hall and glanced at the staircase. All of a sudden, it seemed insurmountable. She gripped the bannister and began to climb, but felt as though she was climbing a mountain. Surely Jean couldn't think that Tom had actually done something, not simply because he had been in the room.

### In the sewing room, she tried the filing cabinet, and then realised it was locked. As she was walking into her bedroom it occurred to her that she could burn the iPad. They had a wood stove in the lounge room, and if she fired it up with a heap of logs, she could melt the pad, or she supposed so. They looked pretty robust.

### She retrieved the key, then trotted back downstairs with the iPad in hand. She placed it on the table in the hall, and then turned to the cupboard under the stairs where there was a store of firewood. She carted two logs into the lounge room and had begun to search for some newspaper when the doorbell rang. She was expecting a delivery, a new remote for the television she had ordered from eBay, but when she opened the door she was faced with Grainger and Adamson, the officers from yesterday. She gulped awkwardly, feeling as though she might go insane. The iPad was on the hall table, right behind her.

"We have your statements," Grainger said, "to sign. May we come in."

### She nodded and pulled the door back. "The boys are at school."

"Today?"

"Yes, they had to go in." This struck her as an odd statement to make and she motioned awkwardly with her hands.

### Grainger stared at her. "Well, if you could sign? We'll come back another time for the boys."

### She took a breath. "Of course."

### They moved toward the hall table and Susan followed them, feeling distraught. Adamson slid the iPad aside and placed the paperwork on the table. Then he produced a pen and stood back.

"Read it through," he said.

### She nodded and then began, yet she could hardly concentrate. Every moment or so her eyes were drawn to the iPad. She barely knew if what was written was what she had said, but she supposed they had transcribed it faithfully. Why would they do otherwise?

### She signed, then handed the forms back to Adamson.

"It's a lovely day," he said.

"A little hot," Grainger added.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" She asked everybody. But she chastised herself immediately. She didn't want them in the house for an hour or so while all the time the iPad was sitting here on the table.

### Grainger glanced at it, stared for a moment, and then said, "No. Thank you."

### Adamson nodded, yet it looked as though he would have enjoyed a cup of tea. He seemed a little disappointed.

"When will the boys be home?"

"Three thirty," she said, but then remembered the detentions. "No — five."

"Five."

"They're on detention."

### The officers nodded gravely, and thereafter followed several awkward moments as they stared at one another in silence.

"We'll come back tomorrow," Grainger said to Adamson.

### Then they were leaving.

### She breathed a little more lightly as she led them to the door.

"Will the boys be home before four tomorrow?"

"No, it'll be five again. They have detention all week."

"I see. Well, we might come back this afternoon." He glanced at Adamson, but Adamson looked non-committal.

### They took their leave, and she closed the door.

# Chapter 19

### She walked directly toward the cupboard under the stairs with a new resolve. She would chock the woodstove full of firewood and build the hottest fire she could. Then she would slip the iPad in and watch it melt.

### It took her perhaps ten or fifteen minutes to build the fire, and then, with great care, she set the newspaper alight. Michael usually did this sort of thing, but she had done it in the past. The fire looked as though it was flailing for a few moments, but she'd managed to put in a little kindling, and once this had caught it seemed as though the logs would catch. They did — eventually — yet it seemed to be taking a long time.

### She stood back, staring at the flames with the door to the woodstove open. The flames leapt and curled, blue in places, orange and white in others. Tracing the patterns the fire made in the firewood was hypnotising, and for minutes she stood staring, thinking of nothing. Then she was perspiring, and realised she would have to adjust the air conditioning. She reached for the remote and toggled it down to seventeen degrees Celsius.

### In the hall she found the iPad, and as she was walking back through to the lounge room thought about taking one last look at the film. Something about it was perplexing her. As she'd stood, staring at the fire, thinking of nothing, some vague doubt had risen into her mind. She flipped open the cover, tapped on the camera, and expected to see the film, but she saw nothing. It had been deleted. Luke must have done it. There was little there but a few photos of Martin Lockheed, which seemed odd.

### She pressed her lips together, swallowed and closed her eyes. She was glad the film was gone. Watching it had been like living in a nightmare. Once it was in the fire, well, all her problems would be solved. No one could then accuse Tom of doing anything wrong.

### She tossed it in and watched as the cover curled and blackened, the bright red plastic disappearing into the flames. The pad blackened also, but after fifteen minutes had done little more than buckle. It wasn't melting, not exactly. Even so, it couldn't possibly still contain any information. Nothing retrievable. Not if she left it in there for the better part of the day.

### She closed the door to the woodstove and dampened the flue, building the heat. It was difficult to see the iPad through the door, and easy to believe it had disappeared. She stood with her hands on her hips for minutes, staring at the flames, and then began to wonder what she was going to do with the day. Clean? Clean again?

### The phone rang.

# Chapter 20

### It was Beck, a friend of hers from school, a friend she hadn't spoken to for more than fifteen years. At first Susan wasn't sure who she was, but she soon caught on.

"I was wondering if you're coming to the reunion," Beck said.

"The reunion?"

"Didn't you get an invite?"

"Oh — yes. Yes, I did."

"Well, it's Saturday night. You can make that, can't you?"

### Susan hadn't given the reunion a second thought. Her head had been too full of Jude. Now, as she turned it over, she wondered if she really wanted to go.

### She had been schooled at Waverly's sister school, an all-girls' school. There would be no one but middle-aged women there, and she no longer knew any of them. But it was now twenty years since graduation. She was thirty-seven, and Beck wanted to see her, everyone wanted to see her, Beck said.

"I really don't know."

"Oh, come on."

"I have a funeral on Saturday."

"Not your own?"

"No, of course not."

"It isn't in the evening is it?"

"No."

"Well — come then."

### Beck sounded as though she was still seventeen. Still as young and upbeat — and pushy. She had always been pushy. Full of zest, full of spirit, and hard to say no to. She had been a troublemaker, always the girl to suggest the maddest schemes. Susan remembered how she and Beck had one time climbed out of the window of the boarding house and walked into the city. They bought a bottle of whisky and were soon drunk. Then they got lost, but somehow made it back to the school by dawn, only to come face to face with the house mistress as they were climbing back through the window. They were lucky not to have been expelled.

"I know Janice wants to see you."

"Does she?"

"I was speaking to her this morning. I'm trying to get the whole class involved."

"Are you organising it?"

"No. Samantha is."

### At the sound of the name, Susan felt her breath catch. She had had a crush on Samantha at school, something that had lasted for the better part of a year. For a while there, she had wondered if she was a lesbian or not, but had then met Michael at a school dance, with the boys from Waverly.

### She closed her eyes momentarily and pictured Samantha's face. She was young and blond and winsome, with fair skin and an extraordinarily sensitive expression, which at times looked painful. She had been so beautiful. But what would she look like now? It'd be good to see her again, though they'd never really understood one another.

"Come on," Beck implored her.

"I don't know."

"It'll be fun."

"I guess. I mean, I suppose I could."

"Oh, great. I'll call Sam and tell her."

### Susan made a fist with her left hand, a little frustrated. She didn't really want to go, didn't think she should. Then it occurred to her to wonder why, and she remembered the iPad and Jude all over again. Tom's face reared up in her imagination. "You want to see the perfect murder? Just watch this." he said.

"Anyway, it'll be great to see you," Beck went on. "I'm determined to get everyone there."

### Susan remained silent.

### A few minutes later, the telephone call ended.

# Chapter 21

### She wandered back into the lounge room feeling dazed. Some smoke was escaping from the woodstove. She released the dampener on the flue and then walked back through to the cupboard under the stairs to add a couple more logs. The iPad was black and twisted now, the screen barely visible. She shivered, thinking of what was on it. But the information must have been destroyed by now, or she supposed so. At any rate, she would leave the fire burning all day.

### She left the house via the front door and headed for the supermarket. In the bright fluorescent aisles she wandered, feeling dazed, unable to concentrate on what it was she wanted. She had forgotten to bring a cardigan, as she almost always did, and in the freezer aisle she was shivering.

### She approached the checkout, looked askance, and saw Martin Lockheed's mother two aisles over. Her first thought was that she might say hello, but then she remembered the boys and what had happened. Karen Lockheed turned, saw her and frowned. She stared for what seemed minutes, a cold expression on her face. Susan felt terribly ashamed. Then she recalled the pictures on Luke's iPad, the photos of Martin Lockheed, who was surely a very attractive boy, and her mind turned, thinking over the possibilities. Why did Luke have photos of him?

### She dropped in to see Ellen on the way home, with the few provisions she had bought for her. It took Ellen minutes to answer the door, and then there she was, sticks and all, looking incredibly awkward and frail. Her own mother had died only last year, her father a few years before, and she had found in Ellen a surrogate mother. But now, as she looked Ellen up and down, she felt a sinking certainty that the relationship must now change. Ellen had been supporting her, but now, with this hip, it was Ellen who needed support.

"Come in."

### Susan followed her down the hall to the kitchen. The house smelt antiseptic, the aftermath of a hospital visit. Ellen stood in the doorway. Susan unpacked the groceries and put them away. Then she put her hands on her hips and sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing," Susan said, but it was impossible not to tell Ellen something. She would hear of it anyway. And so she began telling her about yesterday, about Jude and how he had choked.

"Come into the lounge room," Ellen said.

### There was a new chair in here, a rented hospital chair with a straight back, and Ellen sat on that, hooking her sticks carefully over the arm.

"Are you in any pain?"

"No. Not so much. It's just awkward." She winced. They stared at one another for a few moments. Then Ellen said, "Tell me more."

### Susan began awkwardly. All she had said so far was that Jude had choked, but now she began describing the scene and her fear, how she had given him mouth to mouth, and how the paramedics had pronounced him dead.

"But what did he choke on?"

"A toy."

"A toy?"

### Susan nodded.

"There's more to it than that. Something you're not telling me."

### Susan raised her hand to her throat and swallowed. She closed her eyes and wished she could tell Ellen. That would be a load off her mind. Even so, it wasn't possible. Ellen might not tell anyone. With her practical nature and experience of life she might very well support Susan. But Susan couldn't risk it. She mentioned Tom's name, babbling almost, and Ellen said,

"Was Luke there?"

"No. He was with me. Tom was down in the play room, but Luke was with me."

"So Tom was with him when he choked?"

"Yes."

"Were they fooling around?"

"I'm not sure." But this sounded like a lie.

### Ellen narrowed her eyes. "There's something you're not telling me, Susan."

### She nodded, her lips tight together, but said nothing.

### Ellen sighed. "Is it Tom again?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is he causing you problems again?"

"No. No. He's been good."

"Well, of course. I'm sure he didn't make the boy choke."

"No."

"He's always been a good boy."

### Susan nodded.

"You're too hard on him."

### Ellen had said this before. She had been Tom's advocate in many a fight, yet she had never seen him at his worst. And even if she did, Susan doubted she would see Tom's behaviour for what it was. He had always been a favourite.

"If you need support, Susan, you know I'm always here."

"Of course."

"There's something you're not telling me."

"No."

"Well?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Nothing." But in her imagination she looked distraught.

"The garden's looking a bit ratty," Ellen said a few moments later.

### Susan agreed. She suggested paying someone. But Ellen wanted to know if the boys would come over and do some weeding for her. They might have done this when they were younger for some extra pocket money, but she couldn't imagine them agreeing to it now.

### She made a face.

"You don't think so?"

"They're too involved with school." She hesitated. "I'll find someone for you."

"Someone local?"

"Of course — and I'll pay."

### Ellen brightened up a little. She began speaking of Michael, asked how he was and so on, and related a funny story about him dressing up as a girl when he was a child.

"I couldn't imagine him doing that now."

"No," Ellen said, and they began to laugh.

# Chapter 22

At home, Susan made herself lunch and put on the next episode of Foyle's War. It was about his son this time, who was now flying with the RAF. It was interesting enough, but a little slow, and all the while she had to put up with the heat from the woodstove on one side and the cool of the air conditioner on the other.

### It ended, finally, and she took her plate and mug through to the kitchen. In the backyard, a kookaburra was bathing in the bird pond — bathing, she thought for a moment, but then realised it had a lizard it was bashing to death with its beak against the stone. She turned away. Life could be so harsh.

### The boys arrived home just before five, followed soon after by the police. They'd barely raced upstairs when the doorbell rang. Susan thought it would be Jean, come to speak to Tom, but it was the officers, and again she was surprised to come face to face with them.

"We've come back with the boys' statements," Grainger said.

### Susan nodded, swallowed awkwardly, and let them in.

"Tom! Luke!"

### The boys appeared a few moments later, trailing down the stairs, their eyes wide.

"We have your statements," Adamson said.

### Luke read his over on the hall table while Tom stood by her side, a serious expression on his face. He was pouting a little, acting, looking as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and as the two-faced nature of it struck her, she felt her heart start up, feeling it must be very obvious to the officers. Grainger eyed Tom for a moment, and she felt ill. Then he smiled, and she felt everything would be okay, but his smile faltered and he frowned, staring at Tom.

### Luke pulled away from the table and handed the pen to Tom. Susan watched on from behind as he made a big show of reading over what he had written. But eventually it was over. He stood back. She released a breath.

"That's everything, then," Adamson said. "We shouldn't be troubling you again."

### She felt a little lighter as she led them to the door, but Tom was determined to stay by her side. As they turned to leave, he waved facetiously. She slapped his arm and closed the door.

"Grandma Ellen has some gardening she wants the two of you to do."

"What?"

"Oh, Mum."

"No, I'm serious. She isn't able to get into the garden and she really needs some help. Perhaps on Sunday we could go over there for a few hours."

"Perhaps."

"No. Definitely."

### Luke groaned.

"Is there any money in it?" Tom said.

"I'm sure she'll give you a few dollars."

"Right."

"I want fifty at least." Luke reached for her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. "She'll give us fifty, won't she, Mum?"

"I'd say so."

# Chapter 23

### The boys trailed upstairs again, and she was left alone in the hall. She turned to the mail and opened it. Nothing but bills, and the electricity bill was more than five hundred dollars, which struck her as absurd. She carried the paperwork through to the kitchen and put it into the drawer she kept for this sort of thing. She would deal with it all tomorrow morning. Now she had to do what she'd been putting off all afternoon — phoning the insurance people about the car.

### She searched for the number among the paperwork, but when she'd found it, hesitated for a moment and took a breath. She dialled, put her phone on speaker and set it on the table. Then she made a cup of tea, listening to the inane muzak they were playing for her on hold.

### She'd managed to pour the tea and was just about to drink it when someone came on the line. It was a woman. She wanted to know everything about the accident, whose fault it was, if there was another car involved, what speed she was travelling and so on. She had to assure them that she hadn't been convicted of a crime in the last ten years, and as the question surfaced she wondered if she was committing a crime by protecting Tom. Most likely she was. Withholding information from the police or something like that. Yet it was hardly something she could worry about. Her boy wasn't going to prison.

"Are you there, ma'am?"

"Yes," she said, and the woman went on. She had to take the car to an authorised repairer where it would be assessed. She agreed to do this, and chose the place in Lane Cove. They would give her a courtesy car to drive, the woman said, while the Volvo was being repaired. This was part and parcel of the policy.

### She nodded her head and looped her hair behind her ears. It all sounded remarkably simple, though she wondered what they would do with the car when they saw it. Perhaps it was a write-off.

### The call ended, and she looked up to find Tom standing in the doorway.

"Where's my iPad?"

"Your iPad?"

### He nodded, a grim expression on his face.

"Luke had it this morning. He took it out of your room."

### He blinked at her, his expression unreadable. "Right."

"There's no point questioning me in that tone of voice, you know?"

### He shrugged and then walked further into the kitchen. "How come the fire's on?"

"The fire?"

"Yes. The fire. There's an iPad in there."

"That's Luke's."

"Right." He smiled, and then stretched his arms up over his head. He locked his hands together and stretched.

"That solves a problem, doesn't it?"

"I suppose so, Mum."

"You won't be going to prison."

"No." He mouthed the word but didn't make a sound.

### Luke appeared in the doorway.

"Your iPad's kaput. It's in the fire."

"What?"

"Mum melted it."

"I had to, Luke. I couldn't let anyone see that film."

### He glanced from Tom to her and back again, seeking some further explanation it seemed.

"He wants another one," Tom said.

"Perhaps you ought to buy it for him."

"I doubt I'll be doing that. You and Dad are loaded. Just buy him one."

"What? So you can go and ... Why don't you give him yours?"

"No way. It's mine. You understand that, don't you, Luke?"

### Luke closed his eyes for a moment and shrugged. Now he looked on the verge of tears.

"I'll buy you another one," she said without even thinking.

### He nodded, but he didn't look any happier.

# Chapter 24

The following day, Tom's iPad was in his room again, sitting on his desk. Beside it was the copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. She was more troubled by the book than the iPad, but it occurred to her to check the pad, just to see what was on it. She keyed in the first six digits of Tom's phone number, but the iPad failed to open. She wondered what he had to hide, and guessed she'd be speaking to him again this afternoon.

### His room was surprisingly tidy. There were some clothes on the floor, but it was much better than usual. Luke's room was a mess. She sighed as she turned into it and set to work.

### Yesterday, when Michael came home, he had immediately asked if there wasn't something burning, and she'd had to admit she'd had the fire on. She didn't have any good explanation for doing this, not at first, but he said the house was full of smoke. She'd been in it for so long she'd failed to notice.

### He walked into the lounge room and opened the wood stove. The iPad was lost in the ashes, but even now there was a red glow. He frowned at her.

"I wanted to clean it out," she said.

"Clean it out?"

### It made no sense and she knew that. "Just check that everything was working."

### He nodded at her, a grim expression on his face. "Well, we'll have to open some windows. I can barely breathe in here."

### He hated the winter because he hated the house being heated. He liked the cold, and her and the boys had to argue to get the wood stove burning. Now it was summer — the height of summer — and she'd had the wood stove on.

### It was a lot hotter with the windows open than it had been with the woodstove on and the air conditioner on seventeen. But eventually the house aired and she was able to cool it down again.

### At around five, the boys crashed into the house with Martin Lockheed in tow. She was standing in the kitchen when she heard his voice, and her first thought was that it was Jude, come back from the dead. She stepped into the hall, saw Martin, and drew her head back.

"Martin's here for the afternoon," Luke announced. He had a bright smile on his face, but Tom was scowling. "We met him on the corner."

### This seemed unlikely, but she knew the boy didn't live far away. It wasn't the first time he'd been over. He'd been a friend of Luke's for a few years now, but as it dawned on her that this was the very boy Luke had been accused of ... She couldn't finish the thought.

"Hello, Mrs Hope."

### He was unfailingly polite, and reminded her of a European prince, with brown silken hair and wide dark eyes. His skin was like milk, his expression innocent, his mouth a bright red rose.

"Hello, Martin. How are you?"

"Good, thanks."

### She nodded, and then the four of them stood in the hall, at a loss for words. On everyone's mind but Martin's seemed to be the incident at school, though she supposed he could be a little empty-headed. Maybe he didn't understand that she knew.

"We're going downstairs," Luke said. He gripped Martin's elbow and led him toward the stairs.

### Tom held back. "He shouldn't be here," he said the moment the two of them had disappeared. "Martin's mum and dad would be furious."

### She took this statement calmly, but then it occurred to her that she'd have to phone Karen Lockheed. The expression on the woman's face recurred to her from the supermarket checkout and she winced.

"Luke's probably doing it again," Tom said.

"What?"

"I'd better go down and keep an eye on them."

### He turned to leave but she stopped him. "Tom, I tried to have a look at your iPad today, but you've changed the code."

"The code? Oh, right."

"You need to change it back."

### He nodded and disappeared.

# Chapter 25

### Martin ended up staying for dinner. Susan was unable to reach his parents, either of them, though she tried several times. At around six, she gave up, and began to cook the evening meal, a beef stroganoff.

### Over dinner, the boys began talking of their excursion to the art gallery, and she remembered it had been today. A painting had fallen off the wall, it seemed, a Van Gough, but as the story went on, Susan began to understand that it was Luke who had been responsible. He'd bumped it or something.

"More like you tried to steal it," Martin said.

### Luke guffawed.

### She glanced at Michael, who was frowning. The boys changed the subject, but Michael stopped them. He wanted to know all about the painting and what had happened.

"You realise that's worth millions of dollars?"

### Luke nodded.

### Martin turned from him to Michael and then to her, and then began to eat again, a little chastened, it seemed, as he had been in high spirits over the incident.

### As the meal finished, she sighed, realising she would have to try Karen Lockheed again. If only Michael would do it. She mentioned it to him, and Luke said, "Martin can stay overnight. He can sleep on the trundle bed."

### Both boys had a trundle bed in their room, and she knew Martin had slept in Luke's room before. But now, with what had happened at school, she wondered if this would be appropriate. She wondered what the headmaster would say if he heard of it.

"That should be all right, shouldn't it?" Michael said.

### She opened her mouth, but said nothing. She hadn't had a chance to tell him about the meeting at school this morning, to tell him what Tom had made Luke do. When he heard, he would be aghast.

"He can sleep in my room," Tom said.

"Your room?" Luke seemed angry.

"Well, considering."

"Oh, fuck up, Tom. He's my friend."

### Tom nodded, looking like an ancient sage.

### But it made her wonder what was going on. Something more than she had so far gathered at any rate.

### The boys helped her clear the table and she started the dishwasher. Michael tried the Lockheed's and got Martin's father. He said Martin could stay for the night, but the phone call was brief, and afterwards she was left wondering whether Karen had told her husband anything. Most likely not.

"He said his wife was out."

"I see," she said. She felt angry now, disgruntled. She didn't want that boy in Luke's room tonight. If the school heard of it, she'd be terribly ashamed. And what if they ...? But no. It had to be some sort of misunderstanding. Luke wasn't gay, and there was no way he would have voluntarily done what he'd been accused of doing.

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep in my room?" Tom said to Martin as she was fishing some sheets out of the linen press.

"What? So you can do it again?"

### There, she thought. She had heard it. And by the sounds of it, at least in Martin's mind, it had been Tom who performed the act. That would be more likely. Though the boys were such exact copies of one another that everyone got them confused.

# Chapter 26

### Karen Lockheed rang at six fifteen a.m.

"What on Earth were you thinking, Susan? You didn't really put them in the same room together for the night."

### She admitted that she had.

### Karen had been at her father's bedside all evening. He was ill in hospital, which only made Susan feel worse. The boys hadn't surfaced yet. It was far too early for them. But a tendril of fear made her wonder if they'd slept as soundly as she imagined. For all she knew, they'd been up all night.

"I'll be over in a few minutes."

### Susan nodded, but the call was at an end. She walked upstairs and knocked on Luke's door. No response. She knocked again, a little louder, and a moment later the door opened. Martin in a pair of underpants.

"You'd better get dressed. Your Mum'll be here in a moment."

### He nodded, and she turned away, but as she did she happened to catch sight of Tom's iPad, lying by the trundle bed with the cover open. She frowned, but made her way downstairs. She really needed a cup of tea.

### As she was pouring it, Martin appeared in the doorway, his arms awkwardly at his sides.

"You want a cup of tea?" she said.

"Do you have coffee?"

"No. Just tea."

"It's all right."

### She frowned. When she was a child, no right thinking person in this country would have refused a cup of tea.

### She put the pot down, but didn't take a seat. She looked askance at her tea cup, feeling awkward in the presence of the boy. Then the doorbell rang.

### Karen Lockheed looked furious. She took Martin into her arms and then held him protectively at her side.

"I can't believe he was here for the night."

### Susan stared at her, wondering what she was supposed to say. A year or so ago they'd gotten quite friendly, though they hadn't seen much of one another lately. Karen had been to Waverly's sister school as well, but she'd been a couple of years behind Susan. She didn't remember her from those days very well.

"If he comes again, can you bring him home?"

"I did try — I mean, I called you."

### Karen nodded, staring at Susan as though she was a criminal. Susan wanted to reach out to her. She was in so much trouble. They all were. But the door closed without another word — just a vague goodbye on her part.

### She turned back into the kitchen and wondered what today would bring. Something was troubling her, but she couldn't seem to pinpoint what it was. The police wouldn't come again. They had no reason to. Jean had said she wanted to talk to Tom, so she guessed they'd have to endure that — and the funeral tomorrow.

"Hell," she said.

### She sat at the table with her head in her hands and wept. When she finally looked up, Tom was standing in the doorway.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, Tom."

"This is about me, isn't it?"

### She nodded.

"I won't get into trouble, Mum."

"You won't get into trouble," she repeated flatly.

"No one can say I did anything. It would be impossible."

"Impossible."

"Is there any tea?"

### She nodded at the tea pot.

### He poured himself a cup and sat at the table with her. After a few moments had passed he said, "Don't you think you should get Martin out of Luke's room?"

"He's already gone home."

"Oh — right."

"And I don't know why you're making such a big fuss. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it had been you."

"Me?"

"Yes. You."

"But Luke said it was him."

### This much was true. She had to admit that. But Luke wouldn't have ... well, maybe he had. "Why was Luke doing that for an iPod you wanted?"

"It's complicated."

"I'll bet it is."

"He'd do anything for me." He grinned.

"What have you got over him?"

"Nothing."

"It doesn't sound like it."

"Well, if you don't know, Mum, then I can't enlighten you."

# Chapter 27

### The day passed without incident. She drove the boys to school and then made her way to the repair shop in Lane Cove. They had another Volvo for her. It was smaller, and an older model, but even so, she was thankful for it.

Friday meant book club, but she didn't feel as though she could cope with it. She rang Claudia and said she was ill. And then, after cleaning the house desultorily for couple of hours, she took a few Valium and watched three episodes of Foyle's War back to back. She laid on her bed in the afternoon and fell asleep.

### Saturday morning dawned bleak, with dark, low clouds and a heavy rain. It struck her as appropriate, though she couldn't for the moment think why. Then she remembered that Jude's funeral was today, and that she'd have to get the family organised.

### The hall was dark. She tripped as she was making her way down the stairs and twisted her ankle slightly. It was annoying more than anything, but she had to limp her way into the kitchen.

### She decided to attend to the bills, which she'd neglected doing yesterday, and after she'd made herself a cup of tea, pulled them out of the drawer. She used her phone to pay them online as she always did. It would have been easier to use the computer she had in the sewing room, but she liked to get all of it done in the kitchen. What she really needed was an iPad. Her own. But as this occurred to her, she felt a sick, sinking feeling. Luke's iPad was still in the wood stove, a fact that had occurred to her now more than a few times. It was buried in ash, and could most likely sit there for a few months before Michael discovered it. But even so, she had the time now, and she really ought to do it.

### She grabbed a few plastic bags and wound her hand into one as she walked through and into the lounge room. She opened the wood stove door and sunk the plastic-covered hand into the ash. The iPad was easy to find, a hard rectangle. She lifted it carefully and slipped it into a second plastic bag. Then she tied a third around this.

### She walked back to the kitchen with the odd-shaped package, turned one way and the other and wondered what she was going to do with it. In the end she decided to put it into a further bag with some vegetable peelings to disguise it. Then she put this in a further bag and ran outside to the wheelie bins in the rain. She dropped it inside and dashed back inside. Surely that ought to be safe, but the bins wouldn't be emptied until Tuesday night.

### She sighed, and then toasted a couple of muffins for herself. As she was buttering them, she became aware of someone in the room, though it was very early. It struck her all of a sudden that it was Saturday, that it was Luke come down for early morning tea, and she turned toward him with a bright smile on her face. He was wearing a hoodie with his boxers. She supposed it was a little cold.

"It's really pouring down," Luke said, glancing at the kitchen window. The rain was lashing the glass in waves.

"Yes."

"I might stay in bed all day and read a book."

"It's Jude's funeral today."

"Oh — right."

"You want tea and toast?"

### He nodded, looking a little wide-eyed as though he were scared, or very young. She reminded herself that he'd only just woken up. She opened the bread bin and cut four very thick slices. She hadn't touched the muffins, but that didn't matter. Saturday morning meant tea and toast old-style. Very sweet tea and the toast dunked.

### She made a fresh pot of tea and toasted the slices as Luke began to talk about the art gallery again.

"It wasn't really my fault," he said. "I was only walking past it."

### She nodded.

"The guard jumped at me and grabbed my arm."

"I can imagine."

"I was trying to steady the painting — not steal it."

### She laughed. The idea of him stealing anything was ridiculous. And he'd hardly steal a Van Gough. "You've probably given that guard nightmares."

### She buttered the toast and poured the tea. As Luke ate, he was pensive. Then he suddenly said, "You don't think Tom or I could go to prison do you?"

"Prison?"

### He nodded, serious.

"That's not going to happen, Luke. Not to either of you. Not if I can help it."

"But Tom ..."

"Tom what?"

"I don't know." He trailed off, and then sat in silence for moments. "Are you really going to buy me another iPad?"

"I guess so. But you really should have Tom's. It was his fault yours has been ruined."

"I don't want his. It's old. I want a new one."

"I'll get you a new one."

# Chapter 28

### The family was dressed by eight thirty, the men in dark suits with ties and herself in a navy frock. They gathered in the lounge room and then made their way downstairs. The Mercedes backed out of the garage and the rain drummed on the roof, heavier than she would have supposed. They could barely see through the windscreen as Michael turned onto the street, and then they had to battle the early Saturday morning traffic. They arrived with five minutes to spare and walked through the parking lot with umbrellas. There were more than a hundred people in the church, possibly as many as two hundred, and as they made their way to a pew, she found herself nodding at smiling at many familiar faces. Most of Jude's classmates seemed to be here. Yet it struck her as odd that this was the upshot of Jude having choked with so little fanfare in the playroom — such a large funeral.

### The coffin sat centre stage, looking a little smaller than it would have done for an adult, and as she realised this she felt awfully sorry for Jean. She was sitting in the front, with Frieda and her husband, Jerry. Michael had managed to find a place for them only a couple of rows back. Yet still, it was too close for Susan. She didn't feel as though she could face Jean today. The memory of the film was still too vivid, and as the organ music quietened down, she heard Tom's voice in her mind very distinctly say, "You want to see the perfect murder? Just watch this."

### A few of the boys from Waverly spoke, but as they did, it occurred to her that they hadn't been particular friends of Jude's. Jude hadn't had any particular friends other than Johnny Cartwright, who'd left the school last year. The boys spoke well, but it was obviously very rehearsed. There were tears in the congregation, and some of them from the boys. Tom and Luke, however, sat on impassively, Tom with something that might have been the hint of a smile on his face, Luke stiff-backed and unmoving.

### Then they had to make their way out into the rain to the grave side. Six of the boys from school bore the coffin, yet she couldn't help wondering how wise this was, the way boys fooled around. If it was Tom or Luke she would have confined the whole thing to family, not put on a show like this.

### They gathered around the grave and tried to hear over the rain as the minister said some final words. Then she had a sodden piece of mud in her hand to toss onto the coffin. It fell heavily, as others did, and one of the boys — not one of her boys — laughed.

### As they turned to go, Jean was suddenly at her side, gripping her elbow. Her face was tear-stained, her mascara running.

"Come for the wake," she said.

"Of course." Susan hadn't thought of doing anything else.

### They drove straight there, but were a little early, and had to wait in the car while the windows steamed up until Jean and Jerry and Frieda arrived in their Jaguar.

### Inside, it was cold and damp, the house so large Susan wondered if it could be heated. Then again, it was summer. Who was expecting to have to heat their house today?

### Jean had had the wake catered, but the food was awful. Limp canapés and tart white wine. She couldn't wait to get home again, but supposed she'd have to go and visit her brother Ralph this afternoon. You couldn't leave someone in a psychiatric ward for weeks on end without visiting them. Not conscionably.

### A few of the boys starting horsing around, but she kept Tom and Luke close. They tended to be better behaved in Michael's company as he didn't stand for any nonsense. An hour wore away with nothing more than small talk to occupy her. Then Luke farted loudly and a boy laughed, smiling at Luke with crinkly eyes. Someone else laughed and the mood was suddenly lightened. But Jean came into the room just at that moment from the kitchen, confused about the laughter, and no one explained.

### As they were leaving, Jean caught her at the door. "Is it all right if I come and have a word to Tom tomorrow. I want to get everything clear in my mind."

"Of course." She smiled, and determinedly held Jean's glance.

### Then it was over.

### As they walked in the door, she said, "You boys may as well stay in your suits. We're going to visit Uncle Ralph."

### Tom groaned, said, "Ralphie!" in a high-pitched voice, and then both of them ran upstairs.

# Chapter 29

### She made everyone some lunch, a pasta with chicken, and then got the boys ready again, as they'd taken off their jackets and ties.

"I'm sure Ralph won't care what we're wearing," Luke said.

"Maybe not. But seeing as you're dressed, you may as well look your best."

### She ushered them down to the garage, to the Volvo, and as they got in, Luke said, "What a bomb!" meaning the car.

### She nodded distractedly and then took off.

### Finding a parking space at the hospital on a Saturday proved a challenge. Finally she had to follow someone walking away from the doors and ask if they were leaving. It was embarrassing, but she managed to secure herself a spot. Then it was a question of walking through corridors of hospital space to the mental health building. Ralph was in ward E8, an entire floor of egg-shell blue and royal blue decor. The floors were cleanly polished, and as she walked to the desk, she stared at her reflection, as though she was walking on glass.

### Ralph obviously hadn't been expecting her visit, as he drew his head back when he saw her. It looked as though he'd been asleep, his hair askew and his eyes bleary.

"How you doing?" she said.

### He smiled his lopsided smile. "Fine, sis."

"Hey, Ralphie," Tom said, pronouncing it "Ralf" rather than "Raif" as it always been pronounced.

### Ralph winced.

### Luke smiled at him and they walked out onto the large veranda where there were tables and chairs. They gathered around a table, her and the boys on one side and Ralph on the other. They were silent for a few moments.

### Then Tom said, "I committed a murder."

"What?"

"I killed somebody."

"Really?" Ralph grinned, and then lifted his eyes to hers.

### Tom seemed to have a very twisted perception of how ill Ralph was and just what he could understand.

"He's joking," she said.

"No, really. I'm not. We went to the funeral this morning."

"That's enough, Tom," she said, a hint of danger in her voice.

They were silent for moments, and then Ralph said, "You are very dressed up. All of you."

"We have been to a funeral — one of the boys from Waverly."

"But Tom didn't really kill him, right?"

"Of course not."

"That's one story," Tom said.

"Stop it, Tom."

"I'm only saying."

### She felt her temper fraying. He was sitting beside her and it would have been so easy to lash out and slap him on the back of the head. Her fingers itched, and she made a fist.

"Ellen's out of hospital."

"Ellen — oh, good. Is she all right?"

"She's fine. A little shaky. But she should be okay."

"I always like her," Ralph said. He spoke to voices, and began to do this now. "You always liked her, didn't you?" "Ellen?" "Yes, Ellen." "I don't know about that." He muttered both sides of the conversation, so she was never at a loss to understand what was going on. It was his idea that one of these voices was his daughter, and he spoke to her all the time. He called her Helen.

"How is Helen?" Tom said.

### Luke hit him. She hadn't noticed him at the end of the table, but his face was red with anger.

"She's fine," Ralph said, and lowered his eyes. He began to trace a pattern on the table with his finger and she felt dreadfully sorry for him. These voices were part of his brain he'd said a year or so ago. They were complexes of a sort, and acted independently, with definite personalities. It was difficult for Ralph to get the doctors to agree with him, but he said if one or two of them began taking him over, then he'd have what amounted to a multiple personality disorder.

### Two of the patients were playing ping pong. The ball bounced toward Luke and he jumped up to retrieve it He tossed it toward a young man with a beard and then turned to the table. He seemed to be seething, though exactly what comment it was of Tom's that had started it she didn't understand. He took a seat on Ralph's side of the table and gripped his elbow. He whispered into his ear. Ralph nodded, raised his eyebrows at her humorously, but then looked very serious. Shaken, really. She wondered what Luke had said.

### They sat on in silence for a minute or more. Then the afternoon tea arrived and Ralph got up to get himself a cup.

"You're a fuckhead," Luke said as soon as he'd gone.

"What?"

"You're a fucking idiot, telling him you murdered somebody. He isn't a fool. He's really smart."

### Tom looked affronted, but a moment later his eyes were downcast. He twisted his hands together and stared at them. Ralph returned with a cup of tea and biscuits.

"So? My nephew's a murderer," he said, and nodded.

# Chapter 30

### On the way home, Tom asked if he could have his iPod back. She was momentarily confused by this and said, "Your iPad?"

"My iPod."

"Oh — your iPod. You want that back, do you?"

### He nodded.

"Well, I don't see why I should give it to you. Perhaps tomorrow, after you've weeded Grandma Ellen's garden."

### He groaned.

### Michael was in his office, busy with paperwork, but she set about making everyone some afternoon tea. It didn't happen often, but sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday she managed to gather them all together. She made some cucumber sandwiches, laid out some biscuits she'd baked and cut some cake. Then she called them. They ate at the kitchen table and after a few minutes the rain eased up and the sun came out momentarily. She smiled, looking at her boys. Surely everything would be all right now. Jean was coming tomorrow to speak to Tom, but after that, well, things would be back to normal.

### Then it occurred to her that tonight she was due at the school reunion. She'd all but forgotten.

"Damn," she said.

"Mum!"

"I know, I shouldn't swear."

"What is it?" Michael asked her.

"I have a school reunion — tonight — and I said I'd go."

"School?"

"Yes, I did once go to school, Tom."

"I know that, but what are you going to do?"

"Meet and talk. Dance a little."

"Is Dad going?"

"I haven't asked him." She turned to him. "Would you want to?"

"Count me out. With your friends, I'm sure it'd all be women."

### Yes, she supposed. Beck had said nothing about bringing a husband. It'd simply be the girls.

### Michael and the boys drifted away. She stacked the dishwasher and looked up only to see a return of the rain, sheets of it noisily lashing the window again. The last thing she wanted to do was go out again, and what was she supposed to wear? Not what she'd worn to the funeral. A little black dress was what she needed, and she supposed she had three of those.

### She walked upstairs, selected one and laid it on the bed. Then her mind turned to the evening meal. She'd been thinking of making a lasagne, but had thought to make it later. If she did it now, Michael and the boys could heat it up. Then again, they could get some take away.

### She put her hands on her hips and stared out of the window at the back garden. The window was sheltered by an eve, unlike in the kitchen. The heads of the gum trees were tossing and turning, and there was something like a small river flowing through the back yard.

### It occurred to her that life was good, but that thought was forced. It wasn't good at all. Not at the moment. She felt as though she was hearing the strains of string instruments, stretched to breaking, as though she was teetering on the edge of a cliff. This thing with Jude. Would it ever be over? It was one thing to think it had occurred, but another to be aware of Tom's part in it. If she'd never seen the video she'd be none the wiser. But would that be good? She couldn't imagine it would be, even if she'd be feeling no strain now. No. It was better to know. And to have done what she could. Even so, she was hounded by the thought that it hadn't been enough — and further, that there was something she was missing.

"What are you doing?" Michael said, appearing behind her.

### She jumped. "Staring at the rain."

### He drew her into his arms and she gripped him tight. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"So, it's just me and the boys tonight."

"Sorry."

"No — it'll be all right."

### He wasn't the best baby sitter in the world, but the boys could look after themselves. "You want me to make something you can heat, or ...?"

"Suit yourself. You're not our slave."

### She turned it over in her mind. She didn't really want to make the lasagne. Would prefer lying down for an hour or two if she had to go out tonight, so she said this.

### Michael nodded. "We'll get some Indian."

# Chapter 31

### At five thirty she got up and took a shower. Then she put some makeup on and dressed. When she appeared downstairs, Michael whistled. He was watching TV with the boys, a game of football.

### The reunion included a meal and was held in the school hall. She was one of the first to arrive, and she stood awkwardly, embarrassed, staring at the few faces around her without comprehension. Then a red-head started toward her and said, "Susan!" her voice a screech.

### It was Fiona Peters, she realised after they'd hugged, a girl she'd never got on with and who had never had red hair. They talked for a few minutes as the hall filled, and then she found her place at the table and took a seat. No sooner had she done so than there was someone behind her. She had to get up again. It was Janice, who'd been her best friend for a year or more.

"You're looking good," she said.

### They hugged.

"What are you doing now?"

"Housewife," Susan said, and made a sour face, as though she hated it.

"Really? Children?"

"Yes. Two boys."

"I'm still on my own. Still looking."

### Susan glanced askance and caught sight of Samantha. She flinched at the sight of her, this girl she'd loved, and then wondered how she could possibly look so good. She looked all of twenty-five and was dressed in pink.

"If I find the right man, it'll be a miracle," Janice said.

"You'll find someone."

"I hope so."

### Samantha walked by without seeing her and Susan wondered if she remembered at all. There'd been a few serious talks, more than a few smiles, and some hand-holding. But what did all that mean now? Nothing.

### She talked on with Janice for minutes, and then realised that the hall had quietened down. She turned to find her seat again and saw that Samantha was sitting on her right. Janice's place card was on her left.

### She took a seat.

### Samantha turned toward her, blinked, and then looked aghast.

"It's Susan," Susan said.

"Yes. I know. I remember. Samantha."

"Of course. You look great."

"I see." She hesitated. "You're looking great too."

### She'd always been a bit spacey, and she didn't seem to have lost this. It'd always been part of her appeal.

"What are you doing these days?"

"I work in advertising."

"Oh, really?"

### Samantha nodded, and then turned her head toward the person on her right. Janice attracted her attention, and they were lost in conversation for minutes. When she turned back again, Samantha was sitting quietly, a pensive expression on her face.

"So what do you actually do?" Susan asked her.

"I'm a creative. I come up with the ideas."

### Susan was struck by a sudden certainty. She was lying. She most likely didn't work in advertising at all. And after they'd got up from the table this was more or less confirmed for her. Romy happened to catch her elbow and whispered into her ear. "Did you hear about Samantha?" she said.

"No."

"Apparently she's working as a prostitute." Romy threw her head back and laughed, but Susan felt awful.

### A few minutes later, she sought Samantha out again. She supposed there was a tired look in her eye, something that suggested too much experience of life.

"We ought to get together for lunch sometime," Susan said.

### Samantha looked stunned, but then quickly said, "That would be great," a smile blossoming on her face.

### Susan asked her if she wanted to dance, and Samantha said okay. They stepped onto the floor and a few minutes later were holding hands as they swayed. It occurred to her that she was quite drunk now, that she must be, as the hall seemed blurred. And what was she doing? She didn't know.

# Chapter 32

### She woke with a headache. Her throat was dry and she groaned. It was five thirty a.m. already, but she felt like sleeping in, and so turned over. When she woke again, Michael was already up. She needed some water.

### She got up and drank some from the glass in the bathroom. Then she took a shower. Downstairs she made herself some bacon and eggs. Smelling it, the boys drifted into the kitchen. Then Michael appeared. She wasn't really in the mood to make the family breakfast, but she plated her bacon and eggs up for Michael and then made more. By the time she got to the table, she was yearning for something fatty to still her stomach. She knew she shouldn't have drunk vodka last night, and told herself not to do it again. She ate hungrily and ignored the talk of the others until she heard Michael raise his voice.

"But what happened to your iPad?"

"Mum burnt it."

"Burnt it?

"She put it in the wood stove."

### Susan was sipping her tea. She coughed. "He had something inappropriate on it." She hesitated. "Something sexual."

"And you burnt it?"

### She gulped and nodded, her eyes wide.

"Surely that wasn't necessary."

"You should have seen it," Tom said. "Two boys. Naked."

"Two ... boys? Oh, I see." He turned to Luke. "Luke, you really need to be careful," he said. "How did you hit upon that?"

"I don't know, Dad," Luke said. He had his hands clasped and his eyes downcast. Even so, he managed to throw an angry look at Tom.

"And now you want another one," Michael said.

"Mum said she'd buy me one."

"Maybe for Christmas," Susan said.

"But that's weeks away."

"Three weeks." Which reminded her that this would be the boys' last week at school before the holidays.

### Luke huffed and shut his eyes tight, a characteristic gesture which she recognised as his way of saying things were getting too much. He'd used to do it as a little boy.

### She got up and put her hand on his shoulder. He raked the chair back and folded into her arms.

### Tom had a grin on his face. He locked his hands behind his head and expanded his chest.

### Luke nuzzled his face into her neck. She had thought they were too old for hugs, but with everything that was happening now, they seemed to be asking for more than ever.

"It really was your fault, Luke," Michael said calmly. "What on Earth were you searching for?"

### Luke began to cry.

# Chapter 33

### The doorbell rang.

"Who on Earth can that be?" she said. She disentangled herself from Luke and walked into hall. It was Jean. "Oh, Jean. Hello."

### Almost immediately, Susan felt a great wave of guilt wash over her, as though she'd been responsible for Jude's death herself. Jean looked ashen-faced, her skin pale and clear of makeup, her eyes red-rimmed.

"I haven't slept," she said.

"No."

"Oh, Jean, hello," Michael said from behind her. "That was a lovely service yesterday. Brilliant."

"Thank you," she said, but she looked on the verge of tears. "I've come to talk to Tom."

"To Tom?"

"Yes. He was in the play room when Jude choked."

"Oh — right."

"I'm just not sure I have everything straight in my mind. Martin Lockheed's mother rang me last night, and apparently there's a film?"

### Susan's heel twisted sideways and she all but fell, reaching for Michael for support.

"A film?"

"Apparently one of the boys showed Martin a film of Jude — of him choking."

### Michael turned to Susan and drew his head back, his eyes searching.

"I don't think there's a film," Susan muttered.

"No?"

"No."

"Then why would Martin say that?"

"Come in, Jean," Michael said. He gripped Susan's elbow and pulled her away from the door. After ushering Jean in he shut the door. The three of them stood awkwardly in the hall.

"There was a film," Susan muttered, "but it's been deleted."

"What was that?"

"I said there was a film, Jean, but it's been deleted."

### Jean looked suddenly angry. She clenched her fists. "You're lying."

"No, I'm not lying."

"It was on one of the boy's iPads."

"Yes, I know."

"And it showed Jude's final moments."

"It was awful Jean. I deleted it to save you from it." She hesitated, motioned awkwardly with her hands, and then said, "I thought about it, thought you might want to see it, but really, it would have only upset you."

"I don't believe you. I don't believe it's been deleted. I want to see it."

"That isn't possible. I ... well, I burnt the iPad. I can show you the remains."

"The what?"

"The remains of the pad."

"The remains?"

"Yes. It was so awful, Jean. I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear the thought of you ever seeing it, so I burnt the iPad. I put it into the wood stove."

"You must be insane."

### Susan shook her head ineffectually and lowered her eyes.

"Show me, then."

"Okay, Jean."

### She turned and led the way into the kitchen on her way to the back door. As she entered the room, both boys jerked and sat up a little straighter. She opened the back door and marched outside. The path was a little slippery after the rain, with some moss growing, and as Jean came out, she slipped. Michael caught her just as she was about to go down. Susan opened the wheelie bin and bent forward into it. The iPad was beneath a box. She retrieved it, and then began to pull the plastic bags to pieces in something of a frenzy. Vegetable peelings sprayed everywhere, all over her dress and all over the lawn. She made a hole in the final bag and ripped the iPad free.

"There!" she said, and handed it to Jean.

### Jean frowned, staring at the blackened ruin of the device. "It was on here?" she said.

"It might still be." Michael sounded concerned. "It's difficult to destroy that type of information."

"Can I keep it, then?"

"No," Susan mouthed, and reached for it.

### Jean frowned at her. "What is it, Susan? What's on it? I need to speak to Martin Lockheed about it, but I need to see it too." She turned the iPad over. "What are you trying to hide?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Of course not, Jean."

"I see." She hesitated, glanced at Michael, and then said, "Could I get a bag to put this in?"

"Of course, Jean," he said. He turned to walk back into the house.

### Jean glanced at her angrily. "I thought you were my friend."

# Chapter 34

### In the kitchen, everything was confusion. Both boys were up. Luke had the dishwasher open and Tom was toasting bread. Michael reached for a plastic bag and then took the device from Jean. Tom turned and saw the iPad. His eyes widened. He glanced at Susan.

### Be careful what you say now, she thought.

### Michael tied the plastic bag, though as he was doing this, Luke became aware of what was happening. He blanched, staring first at his father and then at Jean.

### No one said a word. Jean reached for the bag, took it from Michael, and then turned it over in her hands. She looked shaken, but gathered herself in a few moments.

"Tom?" she said to Luke. "I need to speak to you."

"I'm Tom," Tom said, turning from the toaster.

"Well, perhaps I need to speak to both of you."

"Luke wasn't there," Susan said, all but spitting the words.

"Well — maybe, but even so, he might be able to shed some light on things."

"We have no problem with you talking to them," Michael said.

### Jean nodded. "Perhaps I could speak to Tom alone."

"Of course you can." He turned to Tom. "Tom. Leave that."

### Tom's toast popped up just at that moment. He turned away from it reluctantly.

"In the lounge room, Jean?" Michael said.

"Could we go down to the play room. I really want to map things out in my mind."

"Of course."

### Michael walked out of the room with Jean and Tom in tow. Susan turned to Luke.

"She won't really want to speak to me, will she, Mum?"

"I don't think so. I'll tell her again you didn't see anything."

"I didn't."

"I know that." She hesitated. "But you have seen the film." She lowered her voice. "Did you tell Martin about it?"

### He stared at her for a moment and then lowered his eyes. "Tom did."

"What did he say?"

"I don't know. He was laughing about it."

"It isn't something to laugh about, Luke."

"I know that." He looked on the verge of tears again, but she was too angry to give him a hug.

### Michael walked back into the kitchen.

"I need to use the bathroom," she said.

### She stole into the hall and crossed it to the stairs. Then she crept down them, careful not to make a sound, until she could hear Tom's voice.

"He was spreading rumours about me."

"Rumours?"

"He said I sucked Martin's cock."

"And you didn't?"

"It was Luke."

### Moments of silence followed. Then Jean said, "Show me where you were standing."

"I was over here, by the radio. I was switching stations."

"And where was Jude?"

"He had the toy cupboard open, and he was standing in front of it."

"How? Like this?"

"Yes, but be careful. He pulled it down on top of himself."

"The whole cupboard?"

"Yes."

"You didn't hit him, did you?"

"Hit him? No."

"And you didn't encourage him to swallow the toy?"

"Of course not. He did that himself. I didn't say a word."

"You didn't say a word?"

"No. Nothing." He sounded close to tears now. "You can read the police report."

"I have read it. But I'm not sure it's accurate. You and Luke had a set against Jude, didn't you?"

"A set?"

"You didn't like him."

### Silence. But she could imagine Tom turning this over. "It's not as though I murdered him."

"No?"

"I've told you what happened. I was fiddling with the radio. When I turned around, he was choking."

"But why would he put a toy in his mouth?"

"I don't know. I didn't see."

"It doesn't make any sense."

"He was always doing stupid things."

"He wasn't a stupid boy."

### Silence.

"He wasn't, Tom."

"Maybe."

"He was a good boy."

"I know that."

"You did something to him, didn't you?"

### She felt that this had to end. Jean was openly accusing him. She took a few definite steps down the stairs and into the room.

"How're you going?"

"I don't know. I don't think I'm any clearer on what happened." She hesitated. "Could I speak to Luke?"

"Luke was with me."

"I know that, but perhaps he knows something."

"What is there to know, Jean?"

"You tell me."

### Susan stared at her for the space of a few moments and then gripped Tom. "Come on," she said. She walked upstairs and found Luke and then told him Jean wanted to speak to him. She trailed downstairs with him again.

"I was with Mum," Luke began. "I didn't see anything."

"I know that, but perhaps you heard something. Or perhaps someone's said something."

### Luke shook his head determinedly.

### Jean began to question him on his movements, but it was just as Susan remembered things.

"That's precisely what happened," she said.

### Jean nodded slowly, obviously unconvinced. She turned to the shelf and picked up the plastic-wrapped iPad. "I'll get the film off this," she said.

# Chapter 35

Susan spent the next few hours lying on her bed, wondering if Jean would be able to retrieve the film from the iPad or not. Then it occurred to her that something was wrong. Jean said Martin had seen the film. Martin had slept over on Thursday evening, which meant he couldn't have seen it, at least not then. And in fact there would have been no time in which anyone could have seen it. She had kept a close watch on the iPad until it was burnt.

### She turned this over in her mind for a few minutes, certain she had the circumstances right. Even so, she didn't feel easy. In her mind's eye she watched the iPad blacken and buckle all over again, but somehow it wasn't enough. The film still might be on it. Jean might be able to retrieve it, and if that happened, well, she didn't like to think of the consequences.

### Could she possibly break into Jean's house and steal it? Perhaps this evening? She pictured herself in black, in the dark, breaking a window, and then guffawed. No, that wouldn't be possible.

### She turned over and suddenly realised what had happened. She caught a brief glimpse of an iPad lying on Luke's floor the other morning and understood all at once that the boys had switched iPads on her. The covers were interchangeable. Luke must have been showing Martin something, and she guessed it was the film.

### But how? When?

### She remembered knocking on Tom's door Wednesday morning. He'd been showing Luke the film. And then afterwards, Luke had walked out of his room with Tom's iPad, which must have been his, simply with the dark blue cover clipped onto it.

### Hell, she thought.

### She got up quickly, and as she did, she remembered failing to find the film on the iPad she'd burnt. All she'd found was a few photos of Martin Lockheed. And they must have in fact been Tom's photos. And it must have in fact been Tom who had done what Luke had been accused of at school. Nothing else made sense.

### She marched furiously along the hallway and rapped on Tom's door.

"Tom! Tom! Open the door!"

### Silence.

### Michael emerged from the study, and she turned to him, feeling distraught. No matter how things turned out, he couldn't be allowed to see the film.

### Tom opened the door.

"I want your iPad."

"My iPad."

"I'm confiscating it."

"What's this about?" Michael said.

"He's changed the code, so I can only suppose he's hiding something."

"Are you hiding something, Tom?"

"Mum's losing the plot."

"What?"

"You're losing the plot."

"Give me the pad."

### Tom turned into his room and retrieved the iPad from his desk, the iPad that in fact must have been Luke's. He handed it to her, a tongue pushed into his cheek.

"Took you a while to work it out, didn't it, Mum?"

### She took it angrily. Her overriding concern was to delete the film, but with Michael standing beside her this wasn't possible. She took it into her sewing room and locked it into the filing cabinet. Even if she did have time to delete it now, she didn't know the code. She'd have to get that out of him also, or burn this pad as well — as it was.

### She felt as though she was going crazy. She slipped the key into her bra, something she never did, and turned back into the hall.

"Maybe we could have a cup of tea," Michael said.

### She nodded, frazzled. "You can get ready," she said to Tom.

"Ready?"

"We're going over to Grandma Ellen's."

# Chapter 36

### Ellen answered the door on her sticks, looking a little less frail than she had the other day. She was bewildered to see them, and perhaps she'd been resting, but when Susan told her they'd come to do the garden she brightened up.

"Oh, you are good boys," she said.

### Both of them smiled.

### After ten or fifteen minutes of talk, they trailed out to back shed as a family, with Ellen on the veranda. Every gardening tool they could possibly have needed was neatly arranged, and within a few minutes they were all at work.

### The soil was sodden after the rain, with a deep, loamy smell, and it turned easily. The weeds weren't as bad as Ellen had made out, but the day was humid and hot. Within a few minutes Susan was perspiring madly. She turned the fork around the roses, bent forward, and then plunged it deep. She went off to the house in search of water, and ended up spending the next hour or so talking to Ellen on the veranda.

### The boys moved to the front and she walked through the house with Ellen. They stood on the front veranda for a while while Ellen called out the odd direction to Michael and the boys.

### Then she said, "How about some afternoon tea?"

### This sounded like a wonderful idea.

### In the kitchen, she buttered some scones, cut some cake, and made some sandwiches. Ellen puttered around, fussing over the tea, but it was obviously difficult for her to manage much with the sticks.

### Michael and the boys came in.

"Wonderful job," Ellen said, "but wash your hands. We have afternoon tea ready."

### They disappeared into the bathroom and Susan smiled at Ellen. It was so nice to be here, so nice to have the family all together. Something about Ellen made her feel comforted, as though everything would be all right.

### They ate in the lounge room, Ellen on the straight-backed chair again and Michael on her recliner. Susan sat on the lounge with the boys, the afternoon tea spread before them on the coffee table.

"It's a terrible thing to have a death in the family," Ellen suddenly said when the conversation flagged.

### Michael said, "We haven't had a death in the family."

### Ellen waved him down. "In the home, I mean."

"Oh — you mean Jude. You know about that?"

"Susan told me."

"Luke killed him," Tom said. "He murdered him deliberately."

### Luke lashed out at Tom, striking him on the chest with an open hand. Tom gripped his wrist and tried to hold him back, but Luke was furious. A few moments later, the boys were on the floor, locked in a wrestling hold. Michael bent over them and hauled Luke up, though Luke managed to get in a final kick.

"Sorry," Susan said.

"But what a stupid thing to say, Tom." Ellen looked dismayed. "You don't joke about murder."

"I wasn't joking. He's a killer."

"You are."

"Me?"

"You're a fuck."

"I don't go around trying to steal paintings — or sucking other boys' ..."

"That was you, Tom," Susan said. "I'm sure that was you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You've got some hold over Luke, haven't you? He told Mr Mason it was him, but it was you, wasn't it?"

### Tom turned away, but he looked chastened. Obviously it had been him. Luke wouldn't do such a thing. But both boys were red in the face now and they had to go. They said goodbye to Ellen and made their way out to the car.

"Tom, you need to stop this nonsense," Michael said as they were pulling away. "That boy died as a result of a tragic accident, and it isn't the sort of thing you make a joke of."

"Yes, Dad," Tom said.

# Chapter 37

### That evening, while Michael was taking a shower, Susan stole into the sewing room and then reached into her bra for the key to the filing cabinet. It wasn't there. She had lost it gardening this afternoon, she finally decided, after she'd walked into the master bedroom and taken off her bra.

### So now the iPad was locked in the filing cabinet and there was no key.

### She slept fitfully that night. Every few minutes she woke and turned over. She saw Jude's face again, rearing up at her, and the photos she'd seen of Martin Lockheed, of him smiling. She pictured Tom laughing at her, and Luke crying. And at three a.m., unable to bear more of it, she got up.

### She sat in the kitchen over a cup of tea and cried. She felt as though her life were falling apart. By six a.m. she was dry-eyed and staring at the wall. She decided to gather herself and made a second pot of tea. Then she set about thinking.

### The iPad was locked in the filing cabinet which meant it was safe enough, at least for the moment. Later today, she would try to get it open. Then she would delete the film and burn the iPad. That made sense. Jean wouldn't come back again today, and even if she did, only Tom (and probably now Luke) knew where the iPad was. Michael had watched her confiscate it, but he hadn't realised the significance. If he saw Jean again, it might occur to him.

### At a few minutes after eight, the boys came down for breakfast. It was Monday again, which seemed incredible. This time last week her life had been a comparative bliss it now seemed. Everything had crashed down on them on Tuesday, and perhaps by next week, things would be back to normal again, or would they ever be normal? She didn't know.

### She drove the boys to school and then searched for tools in the garage. Michael wasn't much of a handyman, but she found a file, a screwdriver and a hacksaw. She supposed she'd make do with those.

### Upstairs, it proved hopeless. She spent more than an hour trying to pry the drawer open, but it was no good. She needed a professional, some sort of handyman.

### She walked downstairs and found the local paper. There was somebody called "Odd Jobs Pete," and she phoned him. She explained about the filing cabinet, but he was talking to someone in the background at the same time. He said he could come tomorrow, at around three, and she said that would be fine. She rang off.

### That afternoon, when the boys came in, she was sitting in the kitchen once again. She made them a fresh pot of tea and cut some cake. She really needed to get baking again. Ordinarily she baked something on a Monday, but she'd done nothing today, simply sat and stared, it seemed.

"Martin's gone to Italy," Tom said.

"What?"

"His family's gone to Italy for the Christmas holidays."

"I think his mother's Italian," Luke said.

### She wasn't. With a name like Karen she couldn't possibly be. But with Martin in Italy, he wouldn't be able to say anything about the film — if he really had seen it.

"Did you really show him that film, Tom?"

"Luke did."

"Oh, please. Can you stop lying?"

"Why is that a lie?"

"You know it's a lie."

"Is it a lie, Luke?"

"I did show him, Mum."

"You showed him." She felt betrayed. "Why did you show him?"

"Tom wanted me to."

### There it was again. Tom was holding something over him. She sighed and put her head in her hands.

"Mum," Luke said a moment later, "it isn't that bad. I didn't show him the beginning, where Tom said ... you know. I only showed him the rest."

"Fuck you're a liar."

"I'm not a liar."

"You so are, Luke."

"So he didn't see Tom's bit at the beginning?" she asked him.

"No, Mum."

### Well, perhaps that wasn't so bad then. The film simply showed a couple of boys fooling around. Yet when Martin did come home again, Jean would no doubt make something of it. The point was to get rid of the film. No matter what the boy said, there could be no real incriminating evidence without the film.

# Chapter 38

### The next few days passed uneventfully. Odd Jobs Pete failed to show on Tuesday, and when she rang him, said he couldn't make it until Friday afternoon. On Friday morning she received a call from the hospital, a usual enough occurrence seeing as Ralph was a patient and she was his support person. It was one of the doctors. He seemed to think Ralph was deteriorating. She considered this calmly, but she was as antagonistic toward them as he was. She'd heard too many stories. The doctor wanted to give Ralph electroconvulsive therapy — an electric shock to the brain. She took in his meaning, and then said, "You can't be serious."

"He seems to be obsessed with murder. He says his nephew's a murderer."

### She gripped the phone tightly, but said nothing.

"We're not asking for your approval. We're simply letting you know that we're applying for the procedure."

"I don't think that would be in his best interests. To tell you the truth, I didn't even think hospitals did that anymore."

"It can be very effective."

### She doubted this.

### Ralph phoned half an hour later, distraught with the news. He could fight it, he said, but he needed a lawyer.

"Could you help me out?"

"Of course we can. There's no way they're giving a brother of mine an electric shock."

"Thanks."

"Don't worry about it. I'll find you someone good."

"Okay." He paused for a moment. "Is Tom there?"

"Tom? No. He's at school. Last day today before the holidays."

"Could you ask him to give me a call sometime?" he said, and then hung up.

### Odd Jobs Pete failed to show at all, which meant it was now the weekend again and she had no solution for the iPad.

### Michael came home with a smile on his face. He said he was taking them away for a week, to a guest house at Katoomba.

"I've got the week off."

"Great," she said, but a guest house at Katoomba didn't sound particularly exciting. What they really needed was a beach, a beach far away.

"We leave in the morning," he said.

### She nodded.

### That night she woke at two a.m. and thought of trying the lock on the filing cabinet with a bobby pin. She got up, found a pin, and then walked down the hall. The house was silent, the ticking of the grandfather clock the only sound. She turned on the light to the sewing room and then stood in the doorway, staring at the filing cabinet. It seemed an ominous thing now. She moved toward it and squatted. Then she began working the pin in. After fifteen minutes, she knew it was hopeless. She didn't know how to pick a lock.

"Hell." She bit her lip. "And damn that man," she said, thinking of Odd Jobs Pete.

### She took a seat at the sewing machine and wrung her hands. When the boys were younger, she'd made clothes for them, yet she hadn't sat in here seriously for a few years now. She stared at the needle on the machine and thought, as she'd often thought, how dreadful it would be to get your finger caught beneath it. But would it actually puncture a finger? She supposed so.

### She sat on for minutes, and then reluctantly turned to the filing cabinet again. She was going to have to go away tomorrow, to Katoomba, and leave the iPad in the filing cabinet. If someone came in, if someone stole it ... but it didn't pay to think of such things.

### She walked back to the bedroom and got into bed.

"I think I'm going to go insane," she muttered, and then fell asleep.

# Chapter 39

### The weather in Katoomba was a few degrees cooler, with a crisp sharpness in the air. They took a journey on the skyway over the Jamison Valley, the car suspended more than two hundred and seventy metres above the ravines below them, with rainforest and spectacular waterfalls on display through the glass floor. It was breathtaking, and more than a little frightening. She was aware of a slight feeling of vertigo all the way.

### On the second day they walked down into the valley, and then took the cableway back to the plateau again. They spent time in the gift shop, ate a lovely old restaurant, and shopped for souvenirs.

### The rest of the week was a little quieter. They went to a bushrangers museum and toured a few historic houses. Back at the guest house, they swam in the pool and played croquet on the lawn. The boys were incredibly well-behaved, and if it hadn't been for this thing with the iPad, she would have genuinely been able to enjoy herself. Gradually, though, her mind left the problem. The only thing that happened to disturb them during the whole week was Luke, who lost his phone on one of the trails.

### On Monday, she'd arranged a lawyer for Ralph, and on Friday, before they left, she called him to see how things were going. He said the hearing was Monday.

### When she got home again, she had to stop and think what it was that had been on her mind so urgently all this time. Then she remembered the filing cabinet and the iPad. She supposed it was safe enough in there for the moment. She couldn't reach it and neither could anyone else.

### On Saturday morning, Jean rang the doorbell again.

"I need to speak to you, Susan."

"Of course, Jean."

"I've been on the phone to Italy, to Martin Lockheed and his mother, and it's just as I imagined. There's more to this than I thought. Apparently the boys were playing a game, at least Tom was, and he had Jude swallow that toy, you know?"

### The words came tumbling out of her in a rush.

"Have you been away? I tried you yesterday. But really, to me this sounds like manslaughter."

### Susan felt like closing the door in her face, but instead, she stepped out and closed the door behind her. She didn't want Michael to overhear them.

"I'm having that iPad looked at too. It's with a professional. He said there's some hope of retrieving the film. Surely you saw it, Susan. If you did, then you must know the boys were playing a game. Martin said that Luke egged him on, that he told him to swallow the toy."

"Tom."

"Is that what happened? Was it a game?"

"Maybe it was, Jean. But it was innocent enough. If you'd seen the film you'd agree. If you see it. You'd have to."

"What happened exactly?"

### Susan sighed and then told her more or less what had happened, as she guessed Jean had heard it from Martin Lockheed.

"That isn't what's in the police statements. It isn't what you say, and it isn't what the boys say."

"I know, but ... but I hadn't seen the film then, and Tom, well, Tom must have been worried. It was all innocent enough. If you saw it, you'd have to agree."

"Agree? You must be out of your mind. Your boys made Jude's life a living hell and now they've gone and murdered him!" The last two words sounded a little insane.

### Susan drew her head back.

"Apparently there's Luke's iPad as well. Apparently the film was on that."

### Susan gulped.

"Martin said you'd taken one iPad, but that they had the film on another. So I'm here, Susan, to implore you to show me that film. The copy."

"I can't."

"You can't?"

"That iPad's been lost."

"You're lying."

"I'm not lying."

### The front door opened and Michael appeared. "What's all the fuss?" he said.

"Susan has that film and she won't hand it over."

"What film?"

"The film of my son's death, of him being murdered."

"I don't know what this is about," Susan muttered.

"It's on the iPad."

"But we gave you the iPad," Michael said.

"Yes. One iPad. But you have another. Tom's."

"I think you'd better calm down, Jean. Would you like to come inside?"

"No. I'm going home to phone the police. Either you give me that iPad or that's my next course of action."

### Susan felt like wrestling her to the ground. "You can't," she muttered.

"You just watch me."

### She turned and marched away.

"Is there a copy of the film?"

"No. Of course not."

"I never saw it."

"No. I know."

"You didn't think to show it to me."

"I just wanted to ... get rid of it."

"What was on it?"

### Susan sighed. "Nothing. It was nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing."

### She bit her bottom lip and then told him, making the circumstances sound as light as possible.

"That doesn't sound like nothing."

"I know, but ... it was. You'd have to see it to understand."

"And that's now impossible?"

"Unless Jean retrieves the film."

# Chapter 40

### She visited the sewing room four or five times on Sunday and stared wanly at the filing cabinet. Then it occurred to her she could visit Ellen and look for the key in her garden. She didn't want to leave the house, but she did, taking a novel she said she needed to return to the library, and saying she'd be an hour or so.

### She didn't want to bother Ellen, so she walked around the house and into the back yard. She trailed along the garden beds looking for anything glinting in the bright afternoon sunshine. There was nothing, so she opened the shed and found the garden fork. The only bit she really remembered doing was around the roses, so she started there, turning the soil over once and then again. There was a hard crust on it now, but it was dark and damp underneath, with worms wriggling to the surface. She worked at it for ten or fifteen minutes and then jumped at the sound of Ellen's voice.

"Susan!"

"I lost something," she said.

"You lost something?"

"Yes. A key."

"Not your car key?"

"No."

"But what were you doing in my back yard?"

"No — I mean I lost it the other day, a couple of weeks back."

"Oh, I see. And you've only just realised it."

### Susan nodded. She turned back to the garden and began to fork again, but it was hopeless. The key could be anywhere. It might have fallen out of her bra at any point during the day.

### She put the fork away and mounted the rear stairs. Ellen was on the veranda.

"No luck?"

"No."

"That's a shame. Do you want a cup of tea?"

### She nodded. She felt downhearted now. But surely she was making a big deal out of nothing. There had to be some way to get into the cabinet.

"What you need is a locksmith," Ellen said.

"A locksmith?" That was the answer. A locksmith. Why hadn't she thought of that.

"A locksmith can get into anything."

### She drove home feeling happier.

### On Monday morning, Ralph rang, nervous about the hearing. He wanted her to come, and she agreed, though it would mean bringing the boys along and leaving them outside. They groaned when they heard, but she wasn't in the mood to hear them tell her how well-behaved they'd be if she left them at home on their own. Her major preoccupation was the filing cabinet, and the idea that one of them might get into it.

### On the way to the hearing, she had to pick up the car from the repair shop in Lane Cove. It was ready. She took a good look at it before they left, and found it difficult to believe she'd ever crashed it.

### When they arrived at the hospital, Ralph was dressed in a clean shirt and trousers, but was wearing thongs.

"Don't you have any shoes?" she said.

"Not with me. These clothes aren't even mine. They're from lost property."

### She nodded. "I can bring you things from home if you need anything. I've told you that before."

"I'm fine."

### They waited outside the room where the hearing was to be held for more than fifteen minutes. Then the doctors appeared along with the lawyer, a man in his twenties.

### Ralph wanted Susan to speak as his support person, and she entered into a gusty diatribe on the failings of the medical profession in the past and how electroconvulsive therapy sounded medieval.

"Do you have any data on the long term consequences?" she concluded. "As I understand it, my brother would lose his memory for at least a short time, and possibly even lose some of his memory permanently. Is that worth the risk?"

### The doctors said they'd considered all other treatment options. But then the lawyer spoke. In ten minutes flat he proved that Ralph was competent enough to make decisions on his own treatment and that was it. The board agreed.

### They left the room with the lawyer and shook hands at the door.

"That was great, sis."

"I'm not sure I did anything."

"No. You really told them."

### She shrugged.

"Oh, there they are," Ralph said, meaning Tom and Luke, who were bounding down the corridor towards him. "Tom's the murderer," Ralph said to the lawyer. "Luke's innocent."

# Chapter 41

### At home, she made some lunch for everyone, some sandwiches, and ate with the boys in the kitchen. As soon as they'd disappeared, she picked up her phone, meaning to search for a locksmith, but just at that moment it rang. It was Samantha.

"Hi," she said.

"It's Sam."

"Yes, I saw." She'd keyed her number in at the reunion.

"I'm in a little trouble, and I wondered if you could help me."

"Trouble?"

"Yes, my boyfriend's left me, and I need a place to stay. Is there any chance I could crash at your place."

### She sounded stoned, her voice slurred. Susan couldn't help remembering what she'd heard at the reunion, that Samantha was a prostitute, which meant the boyfriend might very well be a pimp.

"I need someone to pick me up."

### Susan closed her eyes and gripped her forehead. This was the last thing she needed. "Where are you?" she said.

"At the Cross."

### Susan nodded, her worst fears confirmed. She considered driving into King's Cross, but automatically rejected the idea. It was full of drug addicts and prostitutes and it was the last place she was going. "If I pay for a taxi, do you think you could make your way here."

"That'd be great. What's the address?" Susan told her, and a few moments later the conversation ended. She considered making up the guest room and walked upstairs with this idea in mind. Then it occurred to her that she could pay for a motel. She could make some excuse and pay for a motel, even for a few nights.

### Samantha arrived about twenty-five minutes later. The boys were swimming in the pool. She answered the bell and then walked out to the taxi, giving Samantha barely a look. She handed her card over and asked for a receipt. It was more than thirty dollars.

### She turned to Samantha, then drew her head back sharply. All she could see were bruises, and one very slight black eye. She felt terribly sorry for her and drew her into a hug.

"You know," Samantha said as she released her, "I really loved you."

### Susan nodded. "You want a cup of tea?"

### Samantha smiled.

### In the kitchen, she put the kettle on and asked Samantha what had happened.

"Oh, you don't want to hear about it."

"No. Really. Tell me."

"Well, Wayne — he's my boyfriend — we had a fight, and I, well, I got angry at him ..."

"He hit you?"

### She nodded.

"You ought to go to the police."

"No. It isn't like that. We'll get back together again. He'll give me a call in a few days."

### This sounded like insanity. If Michael hit her, they definitely wouldn't be getting back together in a few days time, probably not ever. Then again, she couldn't imagine Michael hitting her.

"Samantha," she began, "I can't really give you a place to stay. Not now. But I can pay for a motel for you."

"Oh, no. Not a motel. I hate motels. If I'd thought I was going to a motel I wouldn't have come."

### Susan remained silent.

"Can't I stay, even for one night?"

"Well, perhaps for one night. But that will have to be it."

"That'd be great."

### Susan nodded.

### They walked upstairs together. She collected some sheets from the linen press, an old floral set that had been her mother's, and began making the bed.

"This looks lovely," Samantha said, turning to the window and placing her hands on the sill. "You sure are lucky to have a husband and everything."

### Perhaps, but then she wasn't prostituting herself either.

"Take a bath if you want to, and maybe then you'd like to lie down."

"I sure would."

# Chapter 42

### Susan walked into the sewing room and called the locksmith. He said he could come within the hour and she nodded, feeling a frisson of tension, but mainly relief. If only he actually did come and did manage to get the drawer open.

### She turned to the window and looked down at the boys in the pool. Luke was floating lazily on a recliner and Tom was about to execute a dive. It was a clear blue day without a cloud, the water sparkling, and for a moment she considered going out to the pool herself. Then it struck her that it was almost Christmas, that it would be Christmas a week from today. She needed to get moving with preparations and so on. There was shopping to do, shopping for food and for gifts. And then there were the decorations. She could do something about that now.

### She walked downstairs and through to the sunroom, a large room at the back of the house with enormous glass windows. It overlooked the pool and had a door that opened into the pool area. She spied Tom stalking along the edge of the pool. He looked as though he was about to jump Luke on the recliner. She watched on as he dove beneath it and then came up, upsetting Luke.

### She shook her head.

### The Christmas decorations were stored in a large cupboard by the laundry door. She opened this and then found the stepladder in the laundry. She got onto it and pulled the Christmas tree down — a fake one, though it was realistic enough and stood a full two metres. She hefted it over to the windows looking out onto the pool and then left it, figuring she could interest the boys in erecting it when they came in.

### She went back to the cupboard and pulled out the boxes with the tinsel and Christmas lights and tree decorations in them, and hefted these too over to the windows looking out onto the pool. In a further box she found decorations for around the house, some snow-covered miniature houses, holly and ivy, and a wreath for the front door. She walked through the house, opened the front door, hung the wreath on the hook, and then stood back to admire it.

### A van pulled into the driveway — the locksmith — and she turned to greet him.

### He was a large man with a beard and a protruding belly. His head was bald, but for some very untidy grey fluff at the sides and the rear.

"How're you doing, Missus?" he said, an unexpected greeting.

"Fine," she said.

"So where's this filing cabinet?"

"Upstairs."

### He opened the van door, pulled out a toolbox, and followed her into the house.

### Upstairs, he inserted some sort of gadget into the lock, twisted it back and forth a few times, and then opened the drawer.

"Oh — right," she said.

"It's that easy."

### Apparently it was. Apparently, with one of those gadgets, anyone could open any lock.

"Do you want a new lock on it?" he said.

### She said that she did, and he disappeared downstairs again. Tentatively, she stepped forward and peered into the drawer. The iPad was in there. She took it out and placed it on the desk. The locksmith returned a moment later. He fitted a new lock and charged her more than a hundred dollars.

### After saying goodbye to him she made her way upstairs again. The iPad was sitting near the sewing machine. She took a seat and tapped in Tom's code, but it failed to open. Then she remembered that it was Luke's iPad. She tried his code, but again, it failed to open. Hell, she thought. She got up and locked the iPad back into the filing cabinet again, and then took both the new keys (held together on a ring) through to her bedroom. She placed them at the back of the top drawer in her night table.

### She walked downstairs and out to the pool area.

"Tom!"

### He was breast-stroking lazily. Luke was sunning himself on the recliner again.

"What is it, Mum?"

"I need to talk to you. Come inside." She paused for a moment. "You may as well come in as well, Luke. I want the two of you to put the Christmas tree up."

"The Christmas tree!" He tipped sideways off the recliner and into the pool with a splash.

### She watched Tom get out of the pool and find his towel, and then held the door to the sunroom open for him. She sheparded him through and then closed the door.

"You need to give me the code for the iPad," she said.

### He was drying his hair, and didn't immediately answer.

"I need to know what it is."

"What are you going to do, Mum?"

"I'm going to delete the film and destroy the pad."

"Burn it again?"

### She nodded.

"I can do it for you, Mum."

"I'll do it. But I need the code."

"Could I watch it again?"

"No, Tom." She waited a moment before prompting him. "What's the code?"

"One four seven nine five three."

"One four seven nine five three?"

### He nodded.

### Luke opened the door and walked into the room. "What's going on?" he said.

"Mum's going to torch your iPad."

"Oh, Mum. Not really."

### She bit her lips.

"You really are."

"I have to, Luke."

"It was on my phone as well."

"What?"

"On your phone?"

"It got there automatically. With iCloud."

"You didn't tell me," Tom said.

"I didn't want to."

Susan took a breath. "You mean it was on your phone? The phone that you lost when we were in Katoomba."

### He nodded, but looked a little shaken.

### She felt like lashing out at him.

"Oh, Luke," she said.

"Sorry, Mum."

"And you didn't delete it?"

"I was going to."

### She thought back to the day they'd walked along a trail into the Jamison Valley. Luke's phone had slipped out of his pocket sometime during the day, when they'd stopped for lunch — at least they supposed so. He was meant to be getting a new phone and a new iPad for Christmas, but that sounded like a joke now. What sort of parents were they? How indulgent could they be?

"You won't be getting a new phone, Luke. And you won't be getting a new iPad, either. Neither of you will be."

"That sucks, Mum," Tom said dryly, as though he didn't care.

"Sucks, yes."

### She turned away, her immediate thought being that Luke would need a new phone for emergencies. She could hardly deny him that. But an iPad? No way. Neither of them were getting a new iPad.

### She stormed upstairs and slammed the sewing room door. She locked it and then remembered the keys, which were in her night table. She opened the door again. Both boys were standing at the top of the stairs.

### She yelled at them. "I told you to put the Christmas tree up."

"We're going, Mum," Luke said. "We're just getting changed."

### Hell, she was really losing it.

### She marched into her room, retrieved the keys, and then marched back out again. Samantha appeared on the landing, looking a little lost and as though she'd been woken.

"Is everything okay?" she said.

"It's fine, Sam. Everything's fine."

### She turned away and locked herself in the sewing room. Then, as she was pulling the iPad out, she heard Tom, in conversation with Samantha. She hadn't even told the boys Samantha was in the house. She opened the door again. Tom turned to her, looking bewildered. Samantha wasn't even decently dressed. She had her breasts partly bared.

"Tom, this is Samantha, a friend of mine from school."

### Tom was wearing Speedos, and he obviously felt uncomfortable. He disappeared into his room.

"Sorry, Sam," she said.

"The shouting woke me."

"We should be quieter now."

### Samantha nodded and turned away.

### Susan locked herself into the sewing room and turned on the iPad. She clicked on the camera and was bewildered for a moment by the number of still frames she had to chose from. She searched for Tom's face, but then saw a frame that looked like the photo of a naked boy. She tapped on it and was confronted by Martin Lockheed in his underwear.

# Chapter 43

"What the fuck?" she muttered to herself.

### There were seven photos of Martin altogether, all of them provocative, two of him bending forward and one with his hands on his hips. He was smiling, as though it was a great joke, but this was obviously child pornography.

### She frowned.

### Tom had had photos of Martin as well, but those were snapshots of him out and about around the school — photos that looked as though they'd been taken without his knowledge. These were different.

### She shook her head over it and then tapped on the film.

### Tom's face again.

"You want to see the perfect murder? Just watch this."

### She hadn't meant to watch the film again, but as it jumped, something caught her attention. There was something here that she'd missed. She watched Tom pull away from the camera, but her first thought as he did it was that it was Luke and not Tom at all.

### She frowned, and then watched him carefully, convinced as the film wore on that she was in fact watching Luke pretending to be Tom. She had seen it before, but never quite this convincingly. The main problem was the school uniform and the hair, the way he had it flopping over his forehead. But this was obviously a trick, she eventually realised. In the film, she lifted her head from Jude's side and told Tom to call an ambulance. At this point the boys performed a kind of shuffle. Tom loosened his tie and Luke scooped his hair back over his head. Then, while she was distracted, Tom shook his hair forward. They had changed roles again.

"You bastards," she muttered.

### She flopped backwards in her chair and began to think out the ramifications of this as the film wore on. Luke had pretended to be Tom, which meant that it was Luke and not Tom who had implored Jude to swallow the Wongdongler. And both of them had lied all the way through it, to the police and to her. If anyone was going to jail, then, it would be Luke rather than Tom. Or more likely both of them, as it now seemed to be some sort of conspiracy.

### She felt suddenly alone, as though she didn't know a soul in the world. Luke had betrayed her. Her boy! She began to cry.

### The film finished and half an hour or so passed as she thought over the times the boys had fooled her in the past. It was the school uniform more than anything else and this thing with the hair. Luke was always so neat and tidy while Tom was such a mess. She often didn't look up to check. Yet it had taken her a third viewing of this film to sort one son from the other. No wonder other people got confused.

### She thought back to the day Jude died. Luke had come into the kitchen that afternoon, straight from the bus with his shirt tucked in and his tie knotted, his hair scooped neatly over his head, and she'd talked to him, all the while unaware that she was talking to Tom. And then later, at the police station, something had been off there. The boys had performed the same trick again, she now realised, so that when Tom was being interviewed he could in fact give the real version of events as he'd witnessed them — from her perspective, as he'd been with her and not in the play room. Luke, meanwhile, must have endured the interview as Tom, the boy who'd been in the play room that afternoon.

### It was confusing, but she had it straight in her mind within a couple of minutes. Which made sense of Tom's ongoing certainty that nothing could touch him, as all he'd done was record an introduction to the murder, a murder that his brother had carried out. And it was this, obviously, that Tom now held over Luke, the means to put him in prison, or at least threaten him with the same — to the point where Luke had been frightened, she imagined, into admitting to the incident with Martin Lockheed, if that even made sense. If it didn't, then the two of them had made some sort of pact about it.

### Hell, she thought.

### What sort of children was she raising? Where had she gone wrong?

### After sitting for a few minutes more, she became aware of a growing sense of anger. She got up and unlocked the door, forgetting the iPad altogether. She made her way downstairs and out to the sunroom. The boys had the tree up and were putting the finishing touches to it. She watched on in silence. A few minutes passed without them noticing her. Then Luke turned. Then Tom. They stared at her impassively, without comprehension, and then went back to work stringing baubles. A few moments later they stood back and hit the fairy lights interlaced into the braches of the tree. The lights flashed on for a few seconds and then began to blink rhythmically.

"There!" Tom said.

"What do you think, Mum?"

### They'd done an excellent job. She couldn't deny that. When they were younger, she'd told them Santa wouldn't leave presents beneath a sadly decorated tree. Somehow this had stuck, and they'd done as good a job as ever.

"I need to speak to both of you," she said. But she didn't want to speak to them together. She wanted to speak to each of them alone. She asked Luke to come upstairs with her, and as they were making their way up the stairs, she remembered the iPad. She ushered Luke into the sewing room and locked the door.

"What is it, Mum?"

### She showed him enough of the film to give him a chance to admit it. Then she confronted him with the idea that it had in fact been him with Jude that afternoon. He admitted it tearfully and began to cry.

"You don't think I'll go to prison, do you, Mum?"

### She shook her head. "Not if I can help it." She paused for a moment. "But why did you do it, Luke?"

"It was Tom's idea."

"Tom's idea?" She could easily believe that.

### But when she called Tom in he told a different story. He said that Luke hated Jude and had wanted to do it as much as he did. Now she didn't know what to believe.

# Chapter 44

### She deleted the film and the photos of Martin Lockheed and locked the iPad back into the filing cabinet. She would have to put it in the wood stove, but she couldn't do it now. The time had worn on and it was past two p.m. Samantha was here, and she needed time to air the house out before Michael got home. She would do it tomorrow.

### She wandered downstairs and made some lunch, not only for herself and the boys, but for Samantha also. Then she traipsed upstairs again and knocked on Samantha's door. She wasn't sleeping and did want some lunch, but she came down in the same singlet she'd had on beneath her jacket, the one that revealed her breasts so boldly.

### Susan introduced Samantha to Luke, but both boys ate quickly and left the room. Then she was alone with Samantha. She happened to glance at her arms and saw track marks, the tell-tale signs of heroin addiction. Samantha lit a cigarette and then asked if she had an ash tray. She didn't. No one had smoked in her house for years. But Samantha failed to take the point. She ashed onto her plate, where the crusts of her sandwiches sat uneaten.

"So where did you think you were—" Susan began, but she was cut short by the doorbell. She excused herself and got up to open it, wondering, for some reason, if it would be Jean again. It was the police. She drew her head back. Grainger and Adamson were grim-faced and serious.

"May we come in, Mrs Hope?" Grainger said.

"Of course."

### She led them into the lounge room and took a seat. They sat next to one another on the sofa.

"We've been speaking to Mrs Lasseter," Grainger began. "She seems to think her son's death was the result of foul play. We're not sure if that's true, but apparently there was a film?"

### She said nothing.

"A film of the incident?"

"Yes, there was a film."

"And where might it be now?" Adamson said.

"It's been lost. It was deleted."

"Yes. Mrs Lasseter said. And apparently you destroyed an iPad. Is that correct?"

### She nodded, and then thought of a lawyer. She needed a lawyer.

"We'd like you to come down to the station again. We want to give you a second opportunity — you and your boys — to give us an accurate statement."

"It's all a misunderstanding."

"No doubt it is," Grainger said. "But according to Mrs Lasseter the events of the day were somewhat different. The boys were playing a game?"

### She shook her head. "I think I'd better phone a lawyer."

### Grainger and Adamson glanced at one another.

### She searched for her phone. The easiest thing to do was to contact the lawyer she'd arranged for Ralph, so she did that. He was available, and said he could be at Chatswood Police Station within the hour.

"Where are the boys?" Adamson wanted to know.

"They're downstairs. In the play room."

"Would you get them?"

"Of course."

### She got up shakily and walked out of the room. As she made her way down the stairs she had to grip the bannister tight. Then she stood in the doorway of the play room watching the boys for a few moments. They were playing Wii tennis, and were whooping at one another. She waited for the game to end, and then said, "Boys. The police are here."

### Luke turned quickly. "The police?"

"Yes. You're going to have to give your statements again." She was about to implore them to tell the truth when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Grainger and then Adamson stepped in.

"So is this the play room?" Grainger said.

### She nodded.

### The boys looked frightened.

"And this is the cupboard?" Adamson asked her. He stepped toward it and ran his hand over the doors.

"Boys," Grainger said, "you're going to have to come down to the station again. We're going to have to question you."

### They nodded in unison. Luke had put a T-shirt on, but he hadn't changed out of his speedos and he looked incredibly vulnerable. Yet they took them just like that, without giving him a chance to change.

### At the station, they sat in the waiting room for fifteen minutes or more. She implored them to be honest, and then turned the subject to the photos of Martin Lockheed she'd seen on Luke's iPad. She wanted to know what they were for and why they were there.

"That was Tom's idea."

"My idea?"

"It was your idea."

"Okay. It was my idea."

"What were they for?"

"A website," Tom said. "We thought he could make some money."

"So you sold them to a website?"

"No. We never got the chance."

### She nodded, and then Grainger appeared. He led her to the interview room where the lawyer was waiting. His name was Matt Harrison, but she'd only just got this straight in her head.

### Grainger and Adamson questioned her again on the events surrounding Jude's death. Her answers were the same, she reasoned. She'd been upstairs when she heard Tom call, and then had rushed downstairs to find Jude unconscious. There really wasn't much else to say.

### But now they wanted to know if the fall of the toy cupboard looked natural, where exactly "Tom" was standing, and whether or not he'd said anything. As she heard mention of Tom's name, she hesitated. She really ought to tell them, she figured, that the boys had been deceiving them all along, but she couldn't quite find the strength. And wouldn't that then incriminate Luke.

### They turned to the subject of the film and asked her what was on it. She said it'd been set up in the corner, that it had been filming the boys playing the Wii, and had only just happened to catch the events of the afternoon — her first lie.

### Grainger nodded. "And what did it show?"

### She hesitated, and then decided to fudge it. "I really don't know. I only glanced at it briefly."

"You only glanced at it briefly."

"Yes."

### They questioned her for another half an hour, going back over the incidents of the day, but she stuck to this story. Then Tom was called in, but Luke appeared.

# Chapter 45

"Tom," Grainger began, "it appears now that there was a film of the afternoon's events. One of your friends has seen it, and what he saw was related to Jude's mother. She seems to think you might have played a part in her son's death."

### Luke began very calmly. Yet he related the events differently this time, telling them plainly what the film had shown — importantly, the game he and Jude had been playing, which he was now calling "spag it up."

"Have you played that game before?"

### He nodded. "At school."

"And what does it involve?"

"You dare someone to swallow something and regurgitate it and then you have a turn."

"Did you understand when you dared Jude to swallow that toy just how dangerous it would prove."

"No. Of course not. I didn't think about it."

### Luke obviously thought he'd done nothing wrong, because as the interview wore on, he stuck to his story. It was more or less the truth, but for the fact that Tom had planned to murder Jude, and that Luke must have been following his directions.

### The crunch came when they asked "Tom" why he'd told a different story to begin with.

"I knew it would look bad," Luke said, "but I knew I hadn't done anything wrong."

### He looked utterly innocent, and for a moment she believed him. She hoped the officers did also.

### Tom was called in as "Luke" and he related the same story he'd given to begin with — the story of being with her and arriving late on the scene. It was all very plausible, and she supposed she had two very good actors for sons, which didn't in the slightest make her feel comfortable.

### The lawyer had sat through all three interviews without saying a word, but in the end she thanked him. She felt thankful. Everything had gone very well, and she had a very certain feeling that the police thought Jean was a bit of a nutcase, that she was making a mountain out of a molehill.

### They returned home to find Samantha gone. When Susan knocked on her door she received no reply. Then she noticed two Royal Doulton figurines missing from the lounge room. She understood almost instantly, but checked Samantha's room before checking the house. She'd taken a suitcase, two paintings, a small statue, seven figurines, and a camera. Then in the master bedroom Susan discovered her jewellery case ransacked. Every single item had been taken, some of it expensive and some of it having sentimental value.

### She sighed. But really, she was glad to see the back of Samantha.

### The following day she burnt the iPad in the fire, and then, around four p.m., took it out of the ashes and threw it in the wheelie bin, again encased in plastic. This time no one would ask her to retrieve it, she was sure. That was the end of the matter.

### Then, at a little after five, she received a strange phone call. It was from a man named Peter, who said he had Luke's phone.

"And you're his mum, right?"

"Yes."

"Is he the boy in the video?"

"What video?"

"The video where he says he's committing the perfect murder."

"That's all a joke."

"It doesn't look like a joke."

### She didn't know what to say. She gripped her forehead in frustration.

"Anyway, I'm only calling to bug you. I don't want any issues with the police, but I thought I ought to do the right thing, so I posted it online." He was speaking in an annoying, whiny voice. "Do you want the phone back?"

### She couldn't quite process the question. "Online?"

"Yeah. On a video site. I made it private. I figure if I call "Jude" I might get his parents. That is, unless you want to pay?"

"Pay?"

"Give me fifty thousand and I'll make it go away."

### Fifty thousand! She could gather this without troubling Michael. She had more than one hundred thousand in her savings account, the proceeds of her mother's will. "I'll pay," she said. "For the phone and anything else."

"Okay, then. Sounds as if we have a deal. When could you give me the money."

"I could meet you."

### He named the mall at Castle Hill, which was a long way away.

"Okay," she said. "When?"

"Tomorrow? Three?"

"Yes, tomorrow. Three And you need to take it down from the video site."

"I'll let you do that. I'll give you the details, but it'll go public if you try to cross me. I'll make sure of it."

"I won't."

"No?"

"I won't."

"See you tomorrow," he said. He laughed, and then hung up the phone.

# Chapter 46

### That night she dreamed of Luke's phone. It was submerged in water. The screen was showing a photograph of Martin Lockheed. She woke in a sweat and got up. It was four a.m. The house was dark but for a strip of moonlight shimmering on the carpet.

### The entire day was one long wait for three p.m. She left the house at one, leaving the boys on their own for once, something she didn't like to do, but which was necessary today. Storm clouds were hanging in the south west, looking dark blue and ominous, and there was Christmas traffic everywhere. She drove to the bank at Lane Cove and asked to withdraw fifty thousand dollars in cash. The teller drew her head back in surprise.

"What was that?"

"Fifty thousand dollars."

"I'll have to ask the manager."

### She disappeared, but came back again a few moments later with a grey-haired man with glasses.

"Ordinarily, you need to arrange a withdrawal that large," he said. "We're only a sub-branch."

"Can you do it?"

"We can do it today, but please don't make a habit of it."

### She nodded. She'd brought an old soft-leather briefcase with her and she figured it would fit easily into that.

### The teller had to withdraw to the vault, and it was more than fifteen minutes later before she was able to leave the bank.

### It then took her the better part of an hour to drive to the mall at Castle Hill. She made it with eighteen minutes to spare. She'd never been here before, but it was very small. The IGA was easy to find. He'd said he'd be waiting on a bench at the front.

### There was a bench, but there was no one on it. She took a seat and glanced at her watch. It was fifteen minutes to three. She glanced at her hands, at her wedding and engagement rings, and realised she was shaking. She locked both hands beneath her thighs and looked up at the shoppers. There was a real rush on. People moving quickly past her — too quickly, it seemed. Everyone seemed to be brightly dressed, as though this was the summer for bright clothes. The mall was colourfully decorated, with lashings of tinsel and lanterns, and they were playing Jingle Bells. She thought of Europe, as she often did at Christmas time, and wondered if they were dashing through the snow over there. It seemed incredible to her that it could be so hot here when they were enduring an awful winter.

### She'd been to Denmark as a child, and had spent a Christmas there with some relatives, so she had some idea of what it could be like. She'd only been six, so it was a vague memory at best, the highpoint being Legoland.

### She glanced at her watch again. It was four minutes to three now. He'd said he'd be waiting, and she began to wonder whether he'd show or not. If she'd had a different type of husband, she might have relied on him to be with her today, to be backing her up from behind the card rack in the gift shop, say, or from within the newsagent's.

### At about ten to three she began to give up hope. Then a scruffily dressed man appeared without warning from behind her and sat heavily on the bench. He was about thirty-five, with a dark beard and rheumy blue eyes. He smelt of petrol, of all things, as though he'd been at work on a lawn mower.

"Are you the lady with the phone?"

### She wasn't sure how to answer, but nodded uncertainly. He was frightening, this man, frightening in an unstable way.

### He peered at her, and then said, "Where's the money?"

### The briefcase was looped on a strap over her shoulder and she motioned at it.

### He stared at her angrily. "I need to see it," he said.

"Do you have the phone?"

"It's right here," he said, and then patted the pocket of his trousers.

### She could just make out a rectangular shape beneath them.

"Give me the money," he said.

### She began to move, but then hesitated. She needed to make sure she got the phone. And the details for the website he'd posted the video to. She mentioned this and he patted his shirt pocket. Then he reached into it and withdrew a folded piece of A4 paper. He tossed it onto her lap.

### She picked it up and opened it.

### It read:

###  Dailymotion

###  trickster359

###  ab793reiTQ87

### She frowned over it for moments, but finally came to the conclusion that Dailymotion was the site, trickster359 the account name, and ab793reiTQ87 the password.

"Is this all I need?" she said.

### He nodded. "It's the only video on the account."

### She folded the piece of paper and put it into her handbag. Then she glanced at him again. He moved one arm toward her and fingered the briefcase.

"The money," he said.

### She reached for the shoulder strap but hesitated again. "Can you show me the phone, just to prove to me that it is the phone?"

### He forced his lips together and shook his head in disdain. After staring at her for a few moments, he reached into his pocket and withdrew the phone. He turned it on, said, "I had to hack it," and then brought up an image of Tom's face. In a tinny voice he said, "Do you want to see the perfect—" but the man shut it down.

"Okay," she said. She looped the briefcase off her shoulder and pushed it toward him.

### He drew the phone away, but grabbed the case. She thought he was going to run, but then she realised he was struggling with the catch. He opened it wide and looked inside, and then, apparently satisfied, got up. He began to walk away, but turned and tossed her the phone at the last moment.

"Happy viewing," he said, and smiled, his teeth terribly stained with nicotine.

# Chapter 47

### In the parking lot, she deleted the video. She shoved the phone into her handbag and started the car. She was very conscious of not wanting to have a second accident, but as she came out of the lot, she realised it was raining heavily. She fumbled for the wipers, but turned the indicators on accidently. Then she found the wipers. She turned out into the street and almost hit a man running across the road.

"Hell," she said.

### As she made her way back to the North Shore, it began to hail. The stones were too small to dent the car, but the noise of them on the roof put her nerves on edge. It was past four thirty by the time she drove into the garage. She turned the key in the ignition and sat back for a moment. She wasn't quite ready to face the boys yet.

### Then the door to the house opened and Luke appeared.

"Mum!" he said. "Mum! Come quick." He waved her forward.

### His face was contorted in desperation. She grappled for her seatbelt and jumped out of the car.

"What is it?"

"Mrs Lasseter. She's going crazy."

### Susan raced up the stairs.

### Jean was in the hall, screaming at Tom. She looked absolutely dreadful, her dress askew and her hair awry. "I know you have it," she said, and then lashed out at Tom, striking a blow to his head.

### The boys had loud music on, playing from downstairs, and the sound of a heavy beat and bass made the scene look crazy. She rushed forward and gripped Jean's wrists, surprised at how quickly she'd moved to protect Tom, some animal instinct coming to the fore. She wrestled Jean for a moment, but then lost a wrist. A moment later she was slapped across the face.

"The police might not be taking this seriously, but I'll find someone who will," Jean screamed. "I want that film."

"But you have it, Jean. You have the iPad."

"There's nothing on it. I want the copy."

"There is no copy."

"But there must be," Jean said, and then started to cry.

### Susan shook her head definitively.

### Jean broke down and reached for her, and a moment later Susan found herself cradling her in her arms. She smelt like cheese, as though she hadn't bathed for days. Susan held her breath, but all she could think was that Luke's phone was in her handbag with the film still retrievable, most likely.

"How about a cup of tea, Jean?"

### Jean nodded limply.

"Come into the kitchen." She began to lead her away, but turned back to the boys. "Lose that music," she said, "and fast."

### Both of them nodded.

### She sat Jean at the kitchen table and set about making a fresh pot of tea. Jean put her head in her hands and sobbed.

"He was such a beautiful boy," she said.

### Susan nodded distractedly.

"He really was."

### Again, Susan nodded.

"You didn't know him the way I did."

"No," she mouthed. She reached into the cupboard for a mug for Jean and selected a particularly nice one with orange and white stripes. Then she shook her head at herself — at the absurdity of thinking this might comfort Jean.

### The rain had let up now, and the afternoon sun was lighting the tops of the ghost gums in the back yard. Everything looked vividly green in the bright sunshine, the effect heightened by the dark storm clouds serving as a backdrop.

### Susan poured the tea.

"So there really isn't a copy?" Jean said.

"No."

"I don't know what Martin meant, then."

"Do we have to go over it again, Jean?"

"Just tell me."

"There's nothing to tell."

"The police won't take me seriously."

### That sounded like good news. Susan felt a little lighter, and a little more able to give Jean comfort. She placed a hand on hers and squeezed.

### Jean smiled wanly. "You've always been a good friend."

"I am a good friend."

# Chapter 48

### Half an hour later she was waving Jean goodbye at the door. "Be sure to drop in on Christmas day," she said, and then regretted saying this. Christmas was most likely the last thing on Jean's mind. She turned back into the house.

### Luke was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He gave her an odd look, and then, as she passed him, said, "Women are pretty weird."

"Why do you say that?"

"She slapped you and now you're friends."

"I've been her friend for a long time."

### Luke nodded, but he didn't look convinced.

### She retrieved her handbag from the kitchen and made her way upstairs. Luke had disappeared. She locked the door to the sewing room and then locked the phone into the filing cabinet. It was too late in the day to burn it. She would do it tomorrow. She sat at her desk and fired up her computer, and then retrieved the piece of paper she'd slipped into her handbag — the piece of paper the man at the mall had given her.

### She typed in "dailymotion" and was led to a site on the YouTube model, a site for uploading videos. It all looked pretty simple. She typed in the account name and the password, and before she knew it, was looking at a still of Tom's face.

### It seemed somehow incredible that it was here, and from what she knew of the legalities of such sites, this video would sit in their databanks for years now, possibly for all time. The point, however, was that no one would access it. It was private, as she soon ascertained, and judging by the counter, no one had seen it.

### She deleted it and then deleted the account. She figured that was safer. If the man ever wanted to get back into it, well, that was just too bad.

### When Michael came home, he noticed the paintings missing in the hall. He'd walked by the blank spots Monday and Tuesday (just like a man) without saying a word. But today, apparently, the blank spaces were very evident.

### She explained as best she could, telling him that she'd given an old friend a chance, but that she'd obviously been a heroin addict. She didn't mention prostitution, as that might have proved too much for Michael. He would have gone on about the boys, and the inappropriateness of having her in the house.

### Even as it was, he did just this.

"She didn't leave any needles around, did she?" he wanted to know. "You have checked."

### She hadn't been into the spare bathroom, but she assured him that she had.

### Then he wanted to know if she'd called the police, and she had to admit she hadn't.

"It was only a few things," she said, "and she was a good friend. I'd hate to see her charged for it."

"I see."

### She kissed him on the cheek, but couldn't help reflecting on how many things she kept from him, events that happened at home while he was at work, things it was easier not to get into. She hadn't yet told him about the Martin Lockheed incident at school, and figured now that she never would.

### That evening, she grilled some steaks on the barbecue. The family gathered around to eat, and then later, she and Michael sat by the poolside, drinking white wine and watching the boys swim. The day had cleared into a cloudless night, and she let herself imagine that all her troubles were behind her.

# Chapter 49

### The following morning, she fired up the woodstove and threw Luke's phone into it. Tom happened to catch her just as she was doing this.

"What was that?" he said.

"What?"

"You threw something in there."

"It was a piece of wood."

"No. It was a phone."

### She bit her lips.

"That wasn't mine was it?"

"No, it was Luke's."

"Luke's?"

"I got it back."

### She couldn't explain why, but she found herself telling Tom all about the man at the mall and how she'd done a deal with him.

"You paid him money?"

"He wanted five thousand dollars."

"For a phone?"

"No, Tom, not for a phone. For your freedom. Here," she said, "give me a hug." He stepped forward reluctantly and she folded him into her arms. "Now no one can say you did anything wrong. There's no evidence."

### He nodded.

She spent the next few days Christmas shopping. Luke wanted a skateboard and Tom a Nintendo 3DS. She figured she'd buy Luke a phone as well, which meant she'd have to pad Tom's stocking out with another expensive item. She finally decided on a bluetooth speaker for his computer. She bought them a pair of headphones each and a novel. For Tom, Catcher in the Rye, and for Luke, Lord of the Flies. Each of them had to have some Lego as well, as they had an ongoing competition involving it. Each Christmas Michael set them some new project to construct, and they always ran short of pieces. She bought them chocolates and lollies, toys for the pool, water blasters, and a model plane set each. That was enough. More than enough. When she considered it all at home, she felt a little sick.

### On Saturday, she battled her way through the supermarket, determined to buy everything she needed in one go. It took her more than an hour, but in the end her trolley was piled high with nuts, chips, crackers, pudding, chicken, lamb, ham, cola, juice, pickled onions, and Christmas crackers. It totalled more than three hundred dollars and took all her energy and strength to unpack once she'd reached home.

### She was so hot and bothered she decided to have a swim, and so went upstairs and changed into a one piece, which was all she was prepared to wear these days. The boys were in the pool, and she emerged from the sunroom to cries of,

"Mum!"

"Yes, Mum!"

### She slipped into the water and felt the tension ease from her body. The boys wanted to race her, and she agreed. She'd always been a strong swimmer, and when she'd raced them last summer had still had the advantage.

### She lined up on the edge with them and then dove into the water. She raced them freestyle to the finish line, but failed to beat either of them. Then she was exhausted. She laid around on the recliner for an hour or so and then made her way inside. She had a Christmas cake to bake.

# Chapter 50

### Ralph was given leave from the hospital, so she went to collect him first, followed by Ellen. The boys had been up since five a.m., but weren't allowed to open their presents until Ralph and Ellen arrived. They were playing on the front lawn when she came home again, playing with a pair of water blasters. She realised belatedly that she'd bought them water blasters again this year. And she'd thought perhaps they were too old for them. They followed the car into the garage.

"Tom!" Ralph cried, getting out of the car. "You never called me."

"What?"

"I asked your mother to call me, but you never did."

### Tom was standing with one hand on the rear of the car, but as Ralph stepped toward him he backed away. He raised the water blaster and shot Ralph.

"That's it," Ralph said. "You're a killer. Luke told me all about it."

"Me?" Tom said.

"Yes, you. You've got that look in your eye." His tone was jocular, but all the same, Susan could tell he was wary of Tom.

"It was Luke anyway," Tom said. "Luke did it."

### Ralph laughed.

### They trailed through the house and out to the sunroom, stopping every now and then so Ellen could admire the changes to the house. It had been a few months now since she had seen it, and Susan had done quite a lot.

"I can never get maidenhairs to grow," Ellen said as they walked into the sunshine bright room.

### It was bright blue day, a day without a cloud in the sky. The weatherman had said the temperature would rise into the high thirties. But the air conditioner was on, and the room was cool.

### There were four cane armchairs, one for each of the adults, and as soon as Michael appeared, everyone took their seats. Then it was time for gift-giving, an opportunity to watch the boys open their presents, more than anything.

### Luke ripped the paper off his skateboard first and said, "Wow, Mum! Thanks."

### Tom opened his speaker and was surprised, but obviously pleased.

### One by one they tore the wrappings off, less interested in the novels than she might have hoped, and soon the room was full of discarded coloured paper.

Then it was time for the personal gifts. Susan asked the boys to hand them out from the bottom of the tree. She received soap and a recipe book from Tom, hand cream and a novel from Luke. Michael gave her the complete Downton Abbey on DVD to watch with her lunch, and from Ellen she received a marble salt bowl and spoon set. Ralph had no gifts to give, as he'd been in the hospital for almost six weeks now and had had no opportunity to buy any.

### The boys handed one another a present, and she watched in dismay as Luke opened his ruined phone — a gift from Tom. He turned the blackened device over, and then closed his eyes.

"It's a phone," Tom said. "I got you a phone."

"Yeah. I get it."

"Where did that come from?" Michael said.

"I found it in the trash."

"You found it in the trash?"

"Yeah."

"How was it in the trash?"

"Mum burnt it."

"You ...?"

"I found it."

"It was Luke's," Tom said. "The phone Luke lost."

"It was Luke's? You mean the phone he lost in the mountains?"

"Yes. A man handed it in," she said, "to the police."

"So you burnt it?"

"It was ruined."

"Ruined? — No, wait. I know. It had that film on it." He paused for a moment. "It did, didn't it?"

### She nodded.

# Chapter 51

### Michael followed her into the kitchen and they began to argue.

"What was on this film?"

"Nothing."

"It can't have been nothing."

"It was nothing. Really."

"I don't believe you."

### She opened the over door and pulled the roast out. "It was nothing."

"If it was nothing, then why didn't you give it to Jean?"

### She tried to think of a reply, but came up blank. The she said the only thing she could say, but kept her voice down. "It was incriminating for the boys."

"Incriminating?" Michael had lowered his voice also.

"They were playing a game. Luke — Tom — told Jude to try swallowing that toy. He wanted him to try and regurgitate it."

"Regurgitate it?"

"I'm telling you all I know."

"So he encouraged him?"

"Yes."

"Is that what all this is about?"

"It was a game."

"A game?"

"They were playing a game."

"I see." He blinked at her for a few moments. "Tom was playing a game that led to another boy's death."

"Yes."

"Then why haven't I been told this?"

"I didn't want to involve you. You get too serious about things."

"Serious? You're talking about manslaughter, Susan. I can't imagine anything could be more serious."

"It was a game. They were fooling around." She turned the leg of lamb over and dropped it into the pan. "That's all it was."

"And it was all captured on this film, was it?"

### She nodded.

"How?"

"The boys were filming themselves with the Wii and it was left on."

"Really?"

"Yes."

### He stared at her for moments.

"Can you just calm down about it?"

"I am calm."

"It's over."

"Over?"

"The police have been. They've interviewed the boys. I've talked to Jean. Everything is fine."

# Chapter 52

### Only everything wasn't fine. The following day, Jean appeared again. Michael was at Ellen's, seeing to some repairs. Susan was out by the pool, scooping leaves.

### It was a brilliant blue day. The pool scoop was sliding gently beneath the glittering blue surface of the pool. The sun was shining, and she was lost in a hypnotic kind of trance.

### Tom opened the door from the sun room and said, "Mrs Lasseter's here."

### She hadn't come yesterday, and Susan imagined for a moment that this was a belated visit. Then she saw Jean's face. She was smiling widely, triumphantly, and had an iPad in her hand.

"Susan," she said. "Guess what I found?"

### She couldn't imagine, but held the pool scoop gently in one hand, allowing it to rest on the surface as she turned to Jean.

### Tom disappeared into the house, but a moment later she saw him through the windows of the sunroom, standing by the Christmas tree with his Nintendo 3DS in his hand.

Jean advanced upon her. "You want to look at this?" She waggled the iPad. "A friend emailed it to me."

### Susan drew her head back.

### Jean turned and stood beside her on the edge of the pool. She angled the iPad toward her and tapped on an icon. In the bright sun, it was difficult to see much. Then she recognised Tom's face and heard the familiar words. "You want to see the perfect murder? Just watch this." At the sound of them, her heart jerked painfully.

"That's your son, Tom," I believe. "But wait. Look at this. This is Luke."

"So you think it's true?"

"I know it is."

"How do you know?"

"Martin wouldn't lie."

"Maybe he did, Luke."

"I don't think so."

"You want to play a game?"

"What game?"

"It's called regurgitation ..."

### Susan stepped off the edge of the pool and crossed in front of Jean. The pool scoop caught her in the hip and Susan pushed hard. Jean lost her grip on the iPad and fell backwards into the water with a splash. She flailed for a moment, her dress ballooning around her head. Susan hit her on the head with the pool scoop and then tried to push her under. The scoop flexed and bent and then Jean had it in her hand. She tugged on it and Susan tripped into the pool.

### She took one short stroke forward and gripped Jean around the neck. Jean went under for a moment. Then one of her arms came up awkwardly and frantically lashed the surface. Susan had a rubbery hold on her head, but Jean came up again. She lashed out with a hand and caught Susan in the face. Susan turned quickly and gripped her arm, she bent it backwards, and again Jean's head went under. A shockingly white foot surfaced, still in its shoe.

### Unconsciously, Susan tugged Jean toward deeper water. Then she gripped her neck again and twisted it downward. It was easy to keep her own head above the surface due to Jean's thrashing efforts to rise. Susan made a scissor-like action with her legs and caught Jean's body between them. Her head went under as she tipped backward, but the water stilled.

### Then Jean made a new, concerted effort. The water thrashed as her endeavours grew violent. A hand surfaced and gripped Susan's face, but she twisted away from it and held on. Just hold on, she said to herself. The water stilled again. A few small ripples clicked against the filter box, but it was over.

### Jean was limp beneath her and she let go. Her body rose to the surface and bobbed in front of Susan. She looked past it to the sun room, where she the tree lights were winking and blinking colourfully.

### She took a deep, noisy breath and coughed. And then became aware of Tom, who was standing on the edge of the pool with Jean's iPad in his hand. He must have come out some time after she'd slipped beneath the surface.

### She wiped a hand over her eyes and stared up at him, blinking impassively. He smiled, the sun an aura behind him.

"Well done, Mum," he said.

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Also from Mercurial Avenue

### Obsidian

James has a problem. He's gay, but he doesn't know it. He likes to hark back to his time with Tina in New York, but all his thoughts are about men. The only problem is, this never seems to occur to him.

James has left New York in search of isolation. He's rented a farmhouse miles from anywhere, one so remote he has no TV or Internet connection. The only people around are the farmer and his son, Ben, who takes a sudden interest in James.

Ben is very obviously gay, and in James he seems to have found the perfect partner. The only problem is, James has other ideas. He isn't going to let Ben close, not unless Ben pushes things, and sometimes you can push just a little too hard.

### Fracture

At 33, Colin is still a virgin. He's never questioned his sexuality, but when Alek arrives on Colin's doorstep, he's unexpectedly heartstruck by the young man's beauty.

Colin has done a crazy thing. He's burned down his house and built a duplex, a house divided into two apartments. His reason for doing this is simple. He wants to spy on his tenant, the young girl he imagines renting the place to, but the arrival of Alek puts an unexpected twist on this plan.

Is Colin gay? As he watches Alek through the two-way mirrors he's installed in the bedroom and bathroom, he begins to wonder. In fact, he thinks he might just be falling in love with Alek Antonov, but with this tangled love comes a spiral toward madness, toward murder.

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