by Sam King
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 dev
ice 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, s
he 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.
