by Sam King
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 remin
ded 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.”
