by PJ Vye
Nothing was real, and he was destined to live inside his remorse until he found the courage to confess it.
Letting a jury decide his punishment was the only way he could let go of the self-recrimination.
He was tired.
And it was time.
“Sorry, could you please repeat the last question?”
Veronica Knight remained unflustered at his glazed look and rephrased her words. “How does it make you feel, Mat, to know that hundreds of thousands of lives will potentially be changed forever—because of you?”
Mataio thought of Sunny. He was sorry she would find out this way. She loved him—he knew it.
But she didn’t know who she loved. She didn’t really know the real him. He couldn’t protect her from himself.
Sometime in the future, if he was upset with her or she made him mad, he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t hurt her. His father had loved his mother once and he’d killed her anyway.
There was only one way to stop Sunny loving him.
There was only one way to get Aunt Tulula on that plane.
Tell the truth.
The truth would release them.
The truth would release him.
He could save Sunny from the same fate as his mother. A sacrifice had to be made. A life for a life.
Mataio was sorry for so many things. His aunt would never forgive him, but she’d finally return to Samoa and get the closure she needed. They could have a funeral for La’ei.
The guilt and shame had consumed him for too long. Not time, not money, not The Rules—not even a life-saving cure could change that.
He was going to jail. It was where he belonged.
All he had to do was confess it. Tell the world.
He focussed his eyes on the red dot on the camera in front of him. “Veronica, how many lives did you say might be saved?”
“The forecast over the next decade is millions.”
Mataio took a steadying breath before asking, “Veronica, can I ask you, how many lives must a man save before he can redeem himself for the one life he took?”
A slight flutter in the crease of her eyelid was the only sign that he’d slightly unhinged her.
“The one life you took? You mean giving up your personal life in your quest for a cure?”
“No, Veronica,” he said and met her eyes so that he couldn’t be misunderstood. “The life I took. I killed my cousin when I was fifteen years old. I smashed her head with a rock until she died.”
Forty-Nine
SUNNY
Sunny couldn’t understand how Mataio could be arrested for an illegal drug trial so quickly. She watched through glass doors as police officers walked Mataio outside and into the back of a police car. She tried to get down to street level, but she couldn’t get access without a security guard.
After what felt like an eternity the Channel Nine security led her out but refused to answer any of her questions, saying she’d need to watch the news tonight like everyone else. She couldn’t understand why it would air tonight when the plan had been for tomorrow. Didn’t Mataio insist Junior and his aunt be gone before they released the details?
Sunny walked the seven blocks to the Melbourne police station and asked to see him. They said he was giving a statement and not allowed to see anyone.
Sunny drove back to her motel room and waited, her phone beside her, fully charged.
Mataio had asked her before the interview to wait for him. Would he call her and tell her what was going on? Would he let her help him? She had money. She had Judd’s money. They’d hire the best lawyer they could afford. A man as talented and hardworking and civil-minded as Mataio wouldn’t see a day behind bars for trying to save his obese cousin from dying when he would have died anyway. Surely.
Why were they taking it all so seriously?
Sunny turned to Channel Nine and waited. She checked her watch a dozen times. Would it make the four o’clock news or would she have to wait until six? Maybe they’d made a mistake. Maybe it was tomorrow after all.
Why was she so anxious about this? Something seemed off when they’d led him away. There was a lack of respect for him from the police officers that didn’t quite fit his actions.
She boiled the kettle and poured the water onto a t-bag but then forgot to drink it. Her nausea had eased but the pregnancy stick sat on the bedside cupboard, glaring.
She should have told him. It might have made a difference. Maybe he wouldn’t have blabbed about Junior if he knew.
The television was muted when she saw the image of Mataio being led to the police van with the headline across the bottom of the screen, “Killer confesses,” she assumed the typographer had made a mistake. The headlines didn’t match the footage.
She rushed for the remote and with trembling fingers unmuted the sound, but she missed it. It’d only been a quick grab to the newsroom between advertisements for the previous show and it was over.
Sunny sat and waited, not daring to mute it again, her second cup of tea also going untouched.
When 4pm hit, the team announced they had breaking news and they would run the entire exclusive interview without interruption.
The footage began with Mataio’s confession to the reporter in white. “I killed my cousin when I was fifteen years old. I smashed her head with a rock until she died.”
Sunny’s body went cold with horror. Mataio, what did you do?
The reporter, Veronica, kept her composure and without emotion, asked, “Why did you kill her?”
“I was angry.”
“Why were you angry?”
He didn’t answer and shook his head.
“Can you tell us what happened?”
Mataio spoke slowly and paused between each sentence, as if the words were hard to come by. “I didn’t mean to kill her. But I did. I buried her behind the long rocks at Treefall Valley.”
The camera zoomed in and Sunny touched the screen where his face changed right in front of her. His shield was finally down and she could see everything. This was Mataio. Raw and honest.
Everything else had been a lie.
“Why didn’t you confess,” asked Veronica. “At fifteen you would have been tried as a juvenile.”
“I wanted to. But I couldn’t.”
Veronica paused a moment, then asked, “Your father was in prison at the time, is that right?”
“Yes. Sentenced to life for killing my mother with a cricket bat.”
“How old were you?” There was no compassion on her face, but her voice was low and gentle.
“I was ten when my mum died. I went to live with my aunt after that. It was her daughter, La’ei, I killed.”
Veronica nodded. “Tell us more about what happened that night.”
“I lost control, and I killed her. Just like that. One second of madness. One second of giving in to my true nature. I become just like him.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do next?”
“I waited.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. For someone to find out. For someone to lock me up. But the days went by and no-one did. I nearly confessed so many times. I knew I wanted to make it right, but going to prison seemed like such a waste.”
“Go on.”
“I knew I had to be punished. I knew I had a responsibility to my family. I needed a way to serve both.”
“And what was that?”
“I wrote a set of rules.”
“Rules?”
“I asked myself what would someone have to give up in prison. I wrote a list of eleven rules. If I could serve my time on the outside, I could still take care of my family. I gave myself a twenty year sentence.”
“You followed this set of rules for twenty years?”
“Almost. Yes.”
“Why almost?”
“I messed up.”
Sunny swallowed hard and recognised her own part in the rule breaking. It all mad
e sense now. Why he tried to save her, why he couldn’t be her friend, why he looked so devastated after having sex. She’d broken him.
“How did you mess up? Did you kill someone else?”
“No,” said Mataio. “Nothing like that.”
Veronica waited and Mataio went on. “I believed if I followed The Rules without a single mistake, I could lock away the part of me that hurt people. I thought that while I followed The Rules, I’d be in control of myself.”
“And?”
“I wrote The Rules down every month, ticked them off like a check list and sent them to a post office box. A ritual. A roll call. Keeping me honest. It worked.” He shuffled in his seat. “Until a few weeks ago.”
“What happened?”
“The Rules were designed to punish me, but also to protect those around me. When I broke The Rules, something inside me changed. I can’t trust myself now. I’ve realised the only way to find closure is to admit the guilt, tell the truth and live with the consequences.”
“Why did you kill her?”
“I can’t say.”
“Don’t you think your family deserves to know why you killed her?”
“It won’t help.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Sunny recognised the rigidity of Mataio’s answer. He wouldn’t be sharing that piece of information with Veronica today.
Veronica sat silent a moment, then announced, “You should know, Dr Brinn, that the police have been called and are on their way. Is there anything else you want to say before they get here?”
Sunny’s hot and clammy body didn’t feel like her own as she touched Mataio’s face on the screen. The camera was so close you could see the pores on his skin, the sorrow in his eyes and the defeat in his shoulders. After a twenty year marathon, he’d not only walked away from the finish line, he’d turned and set his sight on the start line.
Mataio looked straight into the camera and said, “If I could’ve given my life for La’ei’s, I would have done. A hundred times over.”
Right on cue, two uniformed police officers handcuffed Mataio and led him away.
Veronica turned back to the camera after a short silence and said, “You’ve just heard the confession of a man who murdered his cousin, daughter of Tulula and Akamu Euta, and kept it hidden for twenty years. Inventor, medical doctor and soon to be convicted criminal, Doctor Mataio Brinn summed it up best I think, when he said, ‘How many lives does a man have to save, to pay for the one life he stole?’
This new patent might save millions and turn our healthcare system on its head, but can it excuse the violent, reckless act of a damaged youth, and how will society judge him in the future?
You heard it first, here on Nine. I’m Veronica Knight. Back to you, Cade.”
Sunny turned off the television and sat on the bed, the silence folding in on her.
She’d never see Mataio again.
She’d gone from a relationship with an abusive man to a violent murderer. She needed to rethink her taste in men. The idea made her laugh out loud—a sickly, black laugh that sounded neither funny nor sarcastic.
She should feel pathetic. Worthless. Depressed. A quick scan of her body revealed none of those things. She felt okay. Was she in shock?
Two hours ago with Mataio in the studio, she was thinking of baby names and where they’d live as a family. What a joke! She should be devastated.
She wasn’t.
Something inside her clicked.
This was her life now. She’d be okay. Better than okay. She felt stronger. This was just another thing to rise above.
Mataio had not been indifferent to her. He’d broken a twenty year pack, just to be with her. He hadn’t treated her badly. He’d been following The Rules. In another universe, a universe where La’ei was still alive, they might have been together.
Somehow, knowing he’d been living in a prison of his own making, made everything seem better. It wasn’t her, it was him. How many people could say that and it be true?
Mataio needed to make his choices and she was free to do the same.
Hadn’t it been her that told him the only way to release yourself from the guilt was to tell the truth? She’d just never imagined the truth would be so abhorrent.
By 5pm, she’d packed her belongings into her suitcase and checked out of the hotel.
She drove to the airport and parked in the long-term car park, leaving the ticket on the dash. She then made her way to the departure desk, purchased a one-way ticket for the next flight to Heathrow, checked her bag, walked through security, found a spot near a window, laid down and closed her eyes.
An hour later when she opened her eyes, she had no recollection of how she’d gotten there.
She watched a small child trace the outline of a plane with a finger on the window and a young woman eat an apple mindlessly as she read a Jojo Moyes novel. She watched a medical team push a large man on a stretcher through a private entrance, followed by a small, stooped older woman in a wheelchair, holding his hand.
Sunny’s addled brain took a while to understand why Junior and Aunt Tulula were being pushed through an airport terminal.
Samoa. Private charter. Tonight.
She wanted to hide. She couldn’t bear to see their faces. The hurt and the betrayal and loss they must be feeling.
She didn’t want to know their pain, knowing it had been Mataio who inflicted it. She wanted to keep Mataio separate somehow. Separate to the thing he’d done. The man wasn’t the crime. But of course, he was.
She stayed in her gate as they passed, her head down, her back turned.
Bored passengers watched the curious patients and their medical team as they passed. What would they do if they knew who they were?
“Sunny,” she heard Tulula’s voice from behind. She didn’t flinch and hoped she’d think she was mistaken. “Sunny.”
Slowly she turned to see the entire convoy had stopped and were staring at her. “Hello, Aunt.”
Tulula lifted herself out of the chair and wobbled towards Sunny, then pulled her into a tight hug that left Sunny powerless to resist.
“Come with us.”
“I’m going home, Aunt. To the UK. Where I belong.”
“You’re family now. Come with us.”
Sunny looked over at Junior who seemed to want to disappear. A crowd had gathered, and it was the first time he’d been out of the house in years. This many people must be freaking him out.
Sunny didn’t want to make it any worse for him. Her flight was still hours away. “I’ll walk with you a moment.”
Tulula climbed back into her wheelchair and Sunny pushed. She didn’t know what to say. How do you start a conversation with the woman who birthed the child that the man you loved killed with a rock?
Mataio would be pleased to know his aunt was finally going home. At least his confession had achieved that.
“How long since you’ve been to Samoa, Aunt?” she asked instead.
“A long time.”
“Do you have an address? I could perhaps write to you?”
“You come with us now. You don’t like it, you go to London later on. For now, you come with us.”
“I don’t belong there, Aunt.”
“We need you, Sunny. Please.”
Sunny’s eyes stung with tears that she’d been refusing to let flow. They stopped at a lift and waited for it to arrive while Junior stared out at the planes through the window.
“But I feel…I feel…” The baby growing in her belly was Mataio’s and the people in Samoa would hate her through association. She couldn’t subject the child or the relatives of La’ei to more anguish.
Enough deceit. She’d just tell the truth.
“I’m pregnant.”
Tulula watched the numbers light up on the lift and answered quietly, “Then you have no choice. Samoan baby must be born in Samoa.”
“I can’t hate Mataio, Aunt.”
“Why?”
“Then that is what you must do.”
“I want to help him. I’m sorry. I can’t be on both sides here. I have to pick one.”
“Why must you pick a side? There are no sides.”
“He’s a good man. I know he is.”
The lift arrived and they piled in. They travelled in silence through the exit and headed towards a sliding door. The security guard read the boarding pass and allowed them through onto the tarmac. The cool evening air bit against Sunny’s skin and the idea of a tropical beach and warm weather suddenly seemed far more appealing than a London autumn.
Tulula touched Sunny’s hand resting on the handle of the wheelchair.
“Mataio always believed he was destined to become like his father. But I always thought he had too much of his mother in him to do anything bad.”
“So why do you think he did it?”
“What explanation will be enough?”
“Of course not. I’m so sorry.”
Aunt pulled an envelope from her handbag and handed it to Sunny.
“What is this?” asked Sunny.
“I found it in Mataio’s room. That’s his handwriting.”
Sunny’s thumb circled the PO Box number. “I don’t think I can open it.”
Tulula clicked her tongue. “La’ei has been buried in an unmarked grave for twenty years. We must get her home so we can say goodbye the proper Samoan way. You must help me. I can’t manage all the government paperwork on my own.”
Aunt squeezed together both Sunny’s envelope holding hands. “Please, la’u tama teine? (my daughter)”
Maybe she could go to Samoa for a while? If it didn’t work out, she could get a flight to the UK from there. “My bag is already checked in for the UK.”
“We’ll wait. So, you come?”
“Maybe.”
Aunt didn’t quite smile, but her relief showed.
“I want to send Mataio money,” Sunny said. “For lawyers. How do you feel about that?”
“If you want to.”
“And one day, when Mataio is released, will he be welcome in Samoa?”
