by Grace Martin
‘Katie, you know your Mum…’
‘I know my Mum lost her grip long before she sent me away to that stupid boarding school.’ Go cross country walking (start with a small country).
‘Bunty sounded nice. You were always so mean about her in your letters.’
‘I didn’t want another best friend. And Mum didn’t want me so I’m not going back and that’s final.’ See a glacier before they all disappear.
‘Um, Katie…?’
Oh, God. ‘Yes, Silly?’
‘I’ve already driven up to get you. I’m in Collarenebri. I stayed at the pub last night. I just need directions to the property.’ To Do: Live longer.
I pursed my lips. Now I was screwed, wasn’t I? What else could I do? She’d already come eight hundred odd kays, she might as well come the last twenty kays from town. When I got off the phone I threw the bucket list away. There was no point, really.
It’s not the number of breaths that you take, they say, but the number of moments that take your breath away. They say. Smug bastards. You don’t say things like that when you’ve got cancer. It was only after the mastectomy they told me that I was doomed anyway. More important than that, I only had fifty bucks in my account. You can’t get far on fifty bucks.
Silly had been my best friend since her parents moved in next door when we were three. By the time we’d driven through eight hundred kays of the picturesque Australian countryside, four hundred of which passed while I tried to wedge a towel in the window so I didn’t burn to a crisp, I was ready to end our friendship in a number of creative ways. All methods were going to be permanent, but the hotter the sun got, the more reasonable they sounded.
‘Why didn’t you tell me your air-con was broken?’ I asked, as we passed through Narromine.
Silly had her eyes fixed on the road. There were only two or three turns in the road between Sydney and Collarenebri so I understood why it took her full attention.
‘Oh, um, you know…’
‘Silly, it must be fifty degrees outside! And it’s hotter in the car! We’re going to die.’ Or at least, one of us is going to die.
‘I hate taking the car to a mechanic. They always overcharge me. They get this look in their eyes when they see me coming.’
‘You could try standing up for yourself.’
‘Oh, um… I know…’
Yes, I knew.
As we got to Come-by-Chance (and, as they say, went like blazes) I realised that the sun had shifted. I yanked the towel down from the window and wound it down. The sun was shining in Silly’s window now. I was unforgivably smug all the way to Penrith.
When we pulled up outside the house I seriously considered not getting out of the car. I might have stayed there a lot longer if it hadn’t been so ready to murder my best friend. Anyway, I felt disgusting, like a sweaty, smelly, dishevelled remnant of what had once been a woman and at the very least, if I got out of the car, I might be allowed to shower.
Mum met us at the door. Weeping. I said ‘There, there, Mum,’ and lugged my bags inside.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Katie,’ Silly said from the doorway. ‘Bye, Mrs Elliot.’
‘Silly don’t you dare leave me here-’ but she was already halfway down the path.
I dumped my bags in the lounge room.
‘Oh, Katie, darling,’ Mum said damply, ‘remember when you were a little girl? You used to play behind that lounge for ages.’
‘Dad told me I’d be chased by an army of the undead if I came out.’
‘Him and his silly stories.’ She pressed the predictably lacy and realistically damp hankie to her breast.
‘There’s sure… something… to be said for being the daughter of a horror writer.’
‘It was good practice, anyway,’ she said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Good practice? It would be nice if she’d hold it together for just a few minutes until I caught my breath but I knew I was asking too much. That was why I was here, wasn’t it? I sighed and followed her.
‘Make the tea would you, darling?’ Mum said when I joined her in the kitchen. ‘I’ve got Atahualpa and eighty thousand Mayan soldiers in the Guesthouse and I want to make sure that Mrs Danvers isn’t feeling too overwhelmed.’
‘Sure thing, Mum.’ This wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d ever said to me, so whatever, right? ‘Are Jenny and Lance staying?’ They were the only guests I’d ever seen in the Guesthouse. It’s not like a business run by my mother would ever do a roaring trade.
‘No, darling.’ Mum came over and ruffled my hair, which I despised. ‘They only come at Christmas. Open a packet of biscuits if you like. They’re… well, they’re somewhere.’
The biscuits were in the cutlery drawer, but they were chocolate coated, so I was OK with it.
I’d had my tea and biscuits and I was upstairs, unpacking, when the police officers knocked on the door.
Mum was downstairs so I let her answer the door but I stood near the top of the stairs so I could eavesdrop.
‘Mrs Elliot, we’ve got some news about your husband,’ a man said and I was down the stairs in time to see Mum’s confused look.
‘Do I know you?’ she asked.
‘He’s a policeman, Mum,’ I said. ‘That’s probably as much as you need to know.’
There were two police officers, one male, one female. The man looked me up and down and so help me, I did the same to him. Tall and strong and handsome in his uniform, dark hair curling under his hat — but then, I was a wreck of a woman who didn’t have breasts and couldn’t have children thanks to the cancer treatment. It didn’t stop his dark eyes from looking me up and down like I was his new best friend.
‘Katie Elliot,’ he drawled.
‘Am I on a list somewhere?’ I asked.
‘No.’ His face went very bland as he seemed to gather his thoughts. ‘You’re Mr and Mrs Elliot’s daughter. Is your brother at home, too?’ The other officer gave him a look and he said, almost as though he was explaining it to her, ‘We have news for your whole family, Katie.’
‘The whole family is right here,’ I snapped
‘My Ricky’s away,’ Mum said. She reached into her sleeve to draw out her lacy hankie and dabbed at her eyes. ‘He’s fighting for King Arthur.’
The officers looked at each other.
‘Mrs Elliot,’ the woman said, ‘can we come in and sit down? We need to have a talk with you.’
‘Oh dear!’ Mum cried, the hankie still flailing. ‘Oh, dear, I just can’t!’
I should probably say here that even though she was a nutter my Mum was still very beautiful. She was pale and lovely and the perfect foil to my dark, handsome father. Even with children old enough to have homes of their own she was still slim and her hair was still a shining blonde. Her eyes were wide and blue and even from behind I could see the officers turn to putty in her hands. The big one reached out a chivalrous arm for her to take.
‘Mrs Elliot, let me help you to a chair.’
I rolled my eyes.
‘Maybe I can help you, officers?’ I felt that I should say something before Mum fluttered her eyelashes or fainted. She did both pretty often, but Dad was always there to deal with both. He always knew how to deal with Mum’s histrionics and heaven help me, I had no idea. Both officers ignored me.
The officer steered Mum into the lounge room and towards a chair. I was annoyed that he was making himself so at home so I grabbed Mum’s other arm just as she started to lower herself into the chair. She ended up being lowered by the policeman on one side and lifted by me on the other. I took a vicious pleasure in seeing a beautiful woman in such an ignominious position. She let out a little squawk.
‘Mum, why don’t you go lie down and I’ll deal with the nice officers,’ I said as though to a child. The policeman holding on to Mum gave me a sharp look. He examined my face as though he was making sure he could give a full description of me later. Terrific. They thought Mum was a wilting flower in need of care and protection and
I was a suspicious character who should be watched closely.
‘She doesn’t cope,’ I snapped, suddenly furious. I’d been pushed about as far as I could go. I’d run away from home, severed all connection with my family for this very reason. I was sick of always being the sensible one, the strong one, the one to guide my stupid mother through the complexities of the real world. I was sick and exhausted and I wished desperately that just once Mum could deal with this on her own.
‘Mrs Elliot needs to be here,’ the suspicious policeman said, still giving me that detailed stare.
‘Fine!’ I flung myself onto the chair next to Mum’s. ‘Don’t blame me if she weeps or faints.’ Seating themselves, the police officers regarded us sympathetically. Even the suspicious one looked compassionate. The fight went out of me when I realised what those sympathetic looks meant. Mum was going to faint for sure.
The female officer told us. ‘Mrs Elliot, Katie, I’m sorry to have to inform you that we found Mr Elliot’s body this morning.’
Body. Oh, God.
Mum went white, but she didn’t faint. ‘What happened?’ she asked in a thin, reedy voice I didn’t recognise.
‘We found his body in the national park, ma’am,’ the kindly officer said.
‘What happened, she said,’ I snapped.
The officer hesitated. ‘It appeared that he was attacked by some kind of animal. We have to wait for the post — mortem to confirm the cause of death.’
If possible Mum went even whiter. She flicked a quick glance at me and up the stairs to Dad’s study, as though she expected him to come down and deny the charges. I was too shaken to despise her for it.
Good Cop cleared her throat. ‘Ma’am? We’re going to need someone to identify the body.’
So help me, I couldn’t say a word. Mum said, ‘Katie — Katie.’
‘Yes, Mum. I’ll do it.’
After that the police didn’t stay for long. Desperate for comfort I went to sit next to Mum on the lounge. Despite my best efforts a few tears escaped and I was heartily ashamed of them. Mum cried a few pretty tears but held herself upright until the officers left, like a woman who has discovered her own inner strength for the first time. She closed the door behind them.
Then she fainted.
***
A morgue is not a nice place to be. Trust me, you only want to visit one once. And there are so many reasons why you don’t want to be in a position to notice details. Everything was very clinical, sort of like a hospital. But you know how hospitals try and make themselves look cheerful and restful? The morgue doesn’t have to impress anyone. The guy at the desk didn’t make any effort, either.
‘Jeez, we’re really busy at the moment…’
I stared back at him as he sullenly rustled papers. I wanted to identify the body of my father, not get my hair done.
‘Yeah, I can imagine that you would be. The dead can be so impatient.’
He looked up at me, trying to see if I was sympathetic and stupid or a smart arse and stupid enough to open my mouth. You pick which one I am.
The idiot wiped his greasy hair away from his face and pulled at his wilted collar. He looked me up and down. I wanted to kick him but the desk was in the way, so I tilted my head — just so — and smiled, just like Mum would have. He decided I was sympathetic and stupid and warmed up to me immediately. ‘Yeah, things just have to get done and we’re stretched real thin right now. Look, it’s just me on, ‘cos everyone else has gone home already, would you mind just coming into the cooling room?’
The cooling room. What was my father, preserved meat?
‘No, I don’t mind,’ I lied, disgusted at the idea of my father being in a cooling room. ‘I don’t want to take up too much of your busy day.’ The living can be impatient, too.
The guy led me down a corridor into a room clearly designed for ease of washing down. Linoleum curved up the walls for a few inches, so no… so nothing got caught in the skirting boards. A gurney covered with a cloth was in the middle of the room and I tried not to think what it had been used for. One wall was made up of stainless steel doors, like you see in movies. However, in movies they pull the bodies out of a drawer at a convenient height, which was not to be the case here.
Mr Slimeball checked his list. ‘Body’s in A7,’ he said to me, as though it meant something. He disengaged the wheel-locks on the gurney with a violent kick and pushed it close to the wall. He took off the cover, revealing a row of rollers, then cranked it up like a jack until the surface of it was higher than my head. Slimeball could barely reach up to open the door.
A small tug pulled out a board, bearing a corpse in a bag.
Air was forced out of my lungs by the grotesqueness of it all and I turned my head away. I couldn’t bear it. My father — jerked out of a hole in the wall in a cooling room onto a table that looked like something out of the Inquisition. Slimeball didn’t notice — he was lowering the gurney.
‘Come have a look,’ he said. He wiped his hands on the back of his trousers.
So I went to have a look. The body was badly ravaged. No wonder he was dead. Taking a step closer I looked at the face. It was my father’s face, stripped of the soul that enlivened it. He looked different, but it was definitely his face. I stepped closer still and lay my hand on his. He was cold, but it was the last time I would ever touch his hand. ‘Goodbye, Dad,’ I whispered, the words too precious for Slimeball to hear.
I stroked my finger over the cold hand to find the webbing between thumb and forefinger as I had done so often before. When I was a little girl Dad and I had an accident. He was helping Mum wash up, elbow deep in dishwater while Mum swiped at the plates with a tea towel. I was in the kitchen, too, and reached up to grab a stack of saucepans. They all came clattering down around me. I screamed, and I still remember the crack as one of the saucepans fractured my skull. Dad cried out but I hardly heard anything through the pain in my head and the blood that ran into my eyes.
I passed out, waking up on the kitchen floor with Mum’s fingernails digging into my tongue — she was afraid I would swallow it. Five minutes in front of a mirror was enough to teach me that my tongue was attached and could not be swallowed. I was spitting blood when the paramedics arrived. It was years later that I found out the reason behind the scar on my Dad’s hand. He’d had a hand full of cutlery when I screamed and his sudden movement had driven a fork right through the webbing on his hand.
A prosaic injury, but a distinctive one. This hand, under my caressing fingers, had no scar. In fact, it was pristine. It might have been a baby’s hand. I drew back my hand. This might look like my father, but it wasn’t him. I looked closer. Now that I was suspicious I could see that it wasn’t really my Dad. Tiny things were wrong — you don’t realise how well you know the look of a person until you see those details missing. And yet it looked too much like my father for it to be anyone else.
Who would do this? Who could do this? Whoever it was and however it was done, they expected me to just identify the body and go home. They must have gone to a lot of effort to do this. They expected the story to end here.
No way was that going to happen. If someone had killed my Dad then they were going to answer to me.
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About the Author
Grace Martin writes fantasy novels and loves to read. Her favourite authors are Sarah J. Maas, Anne McCaffrey and Suzanne Collins. She finds endless inspiration in the world around her and lives in Sydney with an obsessive, abusive and adoring mini cat. Connect with Grace via her website where you can sign up for her newsletter for exclusive notifications about coming promotions and new releases, or you can follow her on Instagram or Facebook.
Other works by Grace Martin
• The Night Princess
• Daughter of a Captive God: Book 1 in The Author’s Daughter Series
• A Game of Starlight and Secrets
• Vengea
nce: The Umbra Chronicles Book 1
• Defiance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 2
Copyright
Resistance: The Umbra Chronicles Book 3
Copyright (c) by Grace Martin.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except as permitted by copyright law. For permissions contact: gracemartinauthor.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
