The Heatwave

by Katerina Diamond

  She thought about the wisdom of leaving Tim at her house. How would she explain any of this to her parents? She guessed it wasn’t her place to explain anything to anyone. Maybe Tim would be gone by the time she went back and she could forget all of this. Pretend that she had never seen those photos and pretend that the necklace she cherished wasn’t ripped from the neck of a dead girl. The thought of wearing that necklace ever again made her want to cry.

  ‘Come on, tell me what’s going on. Is it Tim? Did something happen?’ Felicity asked as her mother left the room.

  Jasmine nodded and started to cry.

  ‘It’s not what you think. I don’t even know what it is. I’m so confused.’

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Tell me what’s going on. I won’t say anything, I promise. Did he hurt you or something? Oh my God, did he force himself on you?’

  ‘What? No, it’s nothing like that.’ Jasmine took a deep breath. ‘I broke into the guest house when he was out, to try and find out more about him. He’s been behaving really weirdly. I was going to tell you, but I wanted to find out what the deal was first.’

  ‘Oh my God! What did you find out?’ Felicity said, clearly trying not to look too excited. She lived for drama.

  ‘I found some photos, horrible ones, dead girls and stuff.’

  ‘What, like snuff movie type stuff?’

  ‘Like … serial killer type stuff.’

  ‘What?’ Felicity’s mouth fell open. ‘Whose photos were they?’

  ‘He said they were my dad’s. He said my dad killed his girlfriend.’ Jasmine could feel her breath shortening as she spoke. Was this really happening? Those photographs though, someone did that to those women and Jasmine was faced with two possibilities. One, that Tim killed them and was covering his tracks because she had found him out. Could she really let him go without calling the police if she truly believed that to be the case? The main issue with this theory was that he could have killed her too, at any time. Two, that Tim was telling the truth and her father, Frank, had murdered those women. Should she confront her father? Would he even admit it to her if it was true? And what if he did? What if it was true? Should she beg him to stop? She didn’t know what to do. She looked at Felicity, whose mouth was still open.

  ‘That’s mad. Are you being serious? What are you talking about? Is Tim off his head or what?’

  ‘I don’t know what to do. I should be scared of him, I am scared of him. But I don’t know, I can’t help thinking about it. What if he isn’t lying?’

  ‘You’ve got to tell your parents.’

  ‘What if he’s right?’

  ‘That’s insane,’ Felicity scoffed. ‘He’s not right. He’s some kind of con artist or something. Who are all the girls your dad is supposed to have killed?’

  ‘You know how every year we go away to help somewhere? According to Tim it was all a lie. My father was just trying to get access to young women no one would look for. The countries we went to were already overloaded with violence, so who would miss a girl or two? We heard stories like that all the time. If you picked the right girl they just didn’t seem to look for them. If some other girl with no family was targeted instead of Rosa, then Tim wouldn’t even have been looking, no one would.’

  ‘If he’s even telling the truth …’ Felicity shook her head. ‘Your dad wouldn’t do anything like that. No way. You have to call the police and get Tim out of your house.’

  ‘I don’t want to call the police and I don’t want to tell my parents. What if the police believe Tim? He is such a good liar.’

  ‘What are you going to do then?’

  ‘I don’t know. What would you do?’

  ‘We should tell my mum. She knows how to deal with scumbags.’

  ‘You don’t even like your mum.’

  ‘Dan’s gone now so she’s pretty straight at the moment. Honestly, she has dealt with more than her fair share of liars and manipulators; she always comes out the other side. He’s probably just a chancer. Trust me, she’ll know what to do.’

  Tim was wrong about her father. He had to be. Jasmine couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d found those images in Tim’s room, not her parents’. And Tim was a proven liar, over and over … yet in the back of her mind his accusations turned over again and again, gaining more credibility with every passing moment.

  She remembered getting the necklace from her father on her eleventh birthday. It was nothing but glass seed beads interspersed with sequins, handmade. All tiny and imperfect and not expensive in any way, but she had always loved it, loved the way the light caught the beads. Jasmine now wondered if he’d taken it before he killed Rosa. Those creeping thoughts were impossible to reconcile with her own understanding of who her father was, though. He looked after people; he bent over backwards to make sure the people around him were happy. Was it guilt that drove him to be so generous and charitable, or was it all part of his mask? Did he do those things so suspicion would never fall on him? She couldn’t figure this out on her own; she would have to tell Felicity’s mother.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Now

  The front garden is overgrown and looks like it hasn’t been touched in years. Dead brown vines cling to the garden wall and the shrubs are a tangled mess, not how I remember things from my childhood. I wonder how the neighbours feel about the state of it. Every other house on this street looks like a contender for some kind of garden competition, with roses and dahlias in every imaginable colour all tastefully arranged and almost certainly trimmed on a daily basis.

  I stare at the house. It looks smaller than I remember. It looks derelict; the wood on the front door is blown from water damage and big strips of the black paint have peeled off. I see the brass letterbox is broken, rusted open and twisted. The curtains are pulled across, the lining faded at the folds.

  I’m not sure how long I have been standing here. I see the drive is the only thing that looks used, and the space in front of the garage door is clear. Someone has been here recently.

  There is no sign of movement at all in the house, so I wonder if I can sneak around the back and through the garden. I had done it before as a teenager, more than once. I take my first step forwards, my guts wrenching and everything in me telling me to just get away from here. I promised myself I would never come back here; I didn’t think I ever could. The last night I was here was the night my best friend in the world died.

  I walk down the side of the house, past the wheelie bins, and try the back gate. Past the gate the garden is overgrown and looks derelict, a pit in one corner full of old furniture, clothes, bits of wood and metal, ready for some kind of bonfire that never happened. The place is a mess.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Then

  Jasmine hadn’t bitten her nails in years, not since her mother put that awful tasting clear nail polish on in a bid to get her to stop. But now she was chewing on the skin around her thumb nervously as she told Carol what Tim had told her. Felicity’s mother stared in silence as Jasmine recounted what she had seen and what Tim had said. Felicity gripped her other hand for support. The silence continued long after Jasmine had finished speaking, until Felicity finally spoke up.

  ‘Well, Mum? What should Jazz do?’

  ‘She needs to tell her parents. I’ll come with you if you’re afraid. Or we can call them and tell them here, if you’d prefer. Just in case that man is around the house and listening. You can’t let him ruin your life, Jazz. There’s men out there who just want what’s in your wallet or between your legs. Sounds like he’s one or the other,’ Carol said, lighting a cigarette and taking a long draw from it.

  ‘You don’t think he could be telling the truth then?’ Jasmine asked, ignoring Carol’s crude assessment of Tim, feeling almost like she should defend him.

  ‘He sounds like a complete fantasist, sweetie. You said he was a homeless man before he moved in with your family. Maybe he has mental health issues.’

  ‘Mum!’ Felicity shouted with
indignation.

  ‘I mean, you hear about stuff like that all the time, don’t you? I’ll call your house and get your parents to come pick you up. We can tell them together when they get here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jasmine said as Felicity pulled her out of the room, leaving her mother alone to ring Jasmine’s parents. Jasmine couldn’t help but feel as if she were blowing everything out of proportion. But she couldn’t explain the photos. Where did they come from? Her head was spinning. Nothing made sense anymore. Felicity was the only person she felt she could trust at the moment.

  They both sat on the sofa waiting for her parents to arrive, Jasmine’s hands firmly clutching Felicity’s. They were going to be angry with her for keeping secrets. As much as her father respected privacy, he hated secrets and she had promised him that there would never be anything she couldn’t tell him. Even the thought of her parents finding out she had kissed Tim filled her with dread, let alone the other things they would discover.

  ‘What if they throw me out?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Why would they do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve just got a really bad feeling, Flick.’

  ‘Whatever happens, I’ve got you. OK? I love you, Jazz, and if they kick you out then you’ll come and live here with me,’ Felicity said before putting her arms around Jasmine.

  The sound of crunching gravel outside alerted them to the arrival of a car, and moments later her father was sitting on the leather recliner opposite Jasmine, Felicity’s mother next to her, holding her hand.

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  Jasmine couldn’t find her voice, didn’t know how to tell her father what she had found out and how she had even become suspicious in the first place. In the back of her mind she couldn’t help wondering if she could trust him, if she even knew him at all. He smiled his funny little half smile, the one he used when he knew she was anxious about something, the one that always calmed her down. How could she have ever doubted him? How could she have listened to a man she barely knew? She had to tell him the truth now, no matter what the consequences were. She remembered all of the secret interactions she had had with Tim and she kicked herself. Once her parents started questioning her then they would find all of it out and they would never trust her again.

  Felicity’s mother squeezed Jasmine’s fingers before speaking.

  ‘Your lodger has been telling Jasmine all kinds of crazy stories and she’s a bit spooked, I’m afraid. She found some rather graphic photos in his room and …’

  ‘Why were you in his room?’

  ‘Does it matter? He had some really awful pictures, Dad. Dead girls, cut up, blood everywhere.’

  ‘In his room?’

  ‘I asked him what they were, and he told me he thought you killed his girlfriend, Rosa,’ Jasmine said.

  Her father let out an involuntary bark, like the beginnings of a laugh.

  ‘What on earth would make him think that?’

  ‘He said someone saw her getting into your car. Said you were the last person to see Rosa alive. I think he wants some kind of revenge. I think he wants to hurt you and Mum.’

  Her dad shook his head in disbelief, as if he were trying to wrap his head around what she was telling him. He opened his mouth to speak again at least twice but then stopped.

  ‘I’ll get us a cup of tea,’ Carol said softly before leaving the room. As if tea could in any way repair what was being broken here.

  ‘I think he did something to Mr Morrell, too. I don’t think he killed himself.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘He just said some weird stuff about it, that’s all. The night of the fair, when I bumped into Mr Morrell by the toilets, he grabbed me and Tim came and helped me. He threatened Mr Morrell and not long after he died. Tim’s not a good guy; I knew then that he wasn’t. The other night he took me up to Pennington Point and was acting really erratically. Saying things about punishment and mercy and other things that didn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us? Oh my God. Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?’ Frank said. His voice was full of concern but his eyes were flat. Maybe she was imagining it.

  ‘I thought he was just looking out for me in the beginning, but he just got weirder and weirder.’

  Jasmine didn’t know whether just to come clean about everything, including the conversation she’d had with Tim on the clifftop. She didn’t want Frank to know about her secret relationship with this stranger in the house; he would never forgive her; he might never forgive himself. She couldn’t remember all the lies Tim had told her over the last few weeks; she could barely even sequence everything that had happened today. All she knew was that she wanted things to go back to how they were before she ever even knew Tim existed. He had done this, he had ruined their lives. Nothing would ever be the same again and she felt she was the one who let it happen. If only she had told her parents about the night he gave them weed and made out with Felicity. They would have got rid of him then. Or maybe she could have told them about the time she spent alone with him. It was no use thinking about that stuff now; it was too late. The damage was done.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. Can we just go home?’ Jasmine asked just seconds before everything came to the surface and she burst out crying. Her dad came and sat next to her on the sofa, putting his arms around her. She buried her face into his chest and sobbed. How had she messed everything up so badly?

  ‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I never should have invited him into our house. I thought he was a good guy, you know? I wish you had said something sooner, I would have got rid of him. And now he’s upset you with all these lies about Belize. I’ll call the police and then call your mother and warn her not to go home yet. We don’t have to go home until he’s out of the picture.’

  Her dad stood up and left the room. Jasmine could hear him talking on the phone in the hall. Felicity came back into the room and put her arms around Jasmine.

  They leaned back into the sofa, still hugging. So many questions were still unanswered but Jasmine didn’t have the strength to even think right now, let alone quiz her father more. She had got what she wanted; he had put her mind at ease. She couldn’t believe she had even considered that man, that stranger might be telling the truth. She never should have doubted her father. She felt safe again. By now hopefully the police were on their way to her house to get him. When Jasmine finally got home Tim would be gone and everything could return to normal, couldn’t it?

  The way these thoughts circled in her mind made her feel uneasy, though. It was as if she were trying to convince herself, but an alarm was going off in the back of her mind that she was trying to ignore.

  She had never told her father that Tim’s girlfriend had disappeared in Belize.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  ‘Listen to me,’ Jasmine whispered to Felicity. ‘I need you to go upstairs and pack some stuff.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just grab some money, ID, toiletries and clothes, that sort of thing. Get some bits for your mum, too. We all have to get out of here. Please, please, please just trust me.’

  ‘You aren’t making any sense, Jazz. Are you worried about Tim? The police will deal with him.’

  ‘I’ll be up in a minute. Please, Flick, I’ll tell you everything in a bit.’

  She heard Felicity thumping up to her bedroom and the sound of her floorboards creaking overhead as she followed Jasmine’s instructions. That was when Jasmine realised that was all she could hear. Her father was no longer speaking on the phone. Where was he?

  Jasmine stepped into the hallway, but he wasn’t there. The kitchen door was closed, and Jasmine had never seen it closed before. She moved slowly towards it, listening. There were some strange shuffling noises and the sound of metal clanging against the floor, a spoon falling off the counter top maybe.

  Jasmine wrapped her fingers around the handle and pressed down, releasing the catch. She held her breath and pushed forward.<
br />
  Inside the kitchen, her father was standing behind Felicity’s mother with his arm locked around her neck, pulling back as she clawed desperately, a barely audible rasp coming from her throat as she saw Jasmine, pleading with her eyes for her to help, to stop him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jasmine screamed, frozen on the spot. Her father was focused on his task, his left hand gripping his right wrist and pulling it towards him, crushing Felicity’s mother’s windpipe. He didn’t even look up, a focus in his eyes that Jasmine had never seen before.

  ‘You never said anything about Belize, did you?’ he said, still straining.

  ‘How did you know?’ she said, tears brimming over before she had a chance to stop them.

  ‘I remember Rosa. As soon as you said her name I thought of that summer. Finding her, getting her to trust me, until eventually she got into the car with me. When she begged for her life, she said she had a boyfriend. They all say that though, so I just assumed she was making it up like the rest of them,’ he said, releasing Felicity’s mother, who fell to the ground, unflinching as she smacked her head against the leg of the table.

  ‘How could you do this?’ Jasmine sobbed.

  ‘It’s not something I planned, it’s just how I turned out. I never talk about my past but I had a very strange childhood. My mother died when I was young so I was raised by my dad, and he had no business raising children. I saw things that no one should see.’

  ‘Is that a reason to kill people? You could have got help,’ she said, unsure why she was trying to reason with him; the deeds were done, the girls were dead.

  ‘There is no help for someone like me,’ he said, his face devoid of emotion. ‘My dad would take me with him when he went to see prostitutes; he would pick up women in bars, and I would be in the room when he did whatever he did. Your mother and I worked hard to make sure you had a stable childhood with loving parents. I didn’t want you to turn out wrong, like I did.’