The Woman Who Didn't

by HC Michaels

  It would be a lie if he said he hadn’t known about Clara’s pregnancy. He’d received her letter at the boarding house he was staying at, but by then his head was so full of Antoinette he found it easier to pretend she didn’t exist. That was the good thing about Australia. It was so far away he could easily convince himself it wasn’t there.

  He’d assumed Clara would’ve had an abortion, so receiving a letter years later from his daughter had come as a shock. Not an unpleasant shock, if he was honest. Apart from Antoinette’s reaction. That redefined the word unpleasant.

  Skye had sent her letter directly to the farm. Someone at the ballet must have passed the address onto Clara. She’d been fairly determined to keep in touch with him in those early days so it shouldn’t have been a surprise she’d managed to track him to the farm.

  As happy as he’d been to receive Skye’s letter, it just wasn’t possible to have a relationship with her. Not if he wanted a relationship with Antoinette, which he most certainly did.

  Then he’d received her most recent letter telling him she had cancer. It was a hard blow to take. He’d waited all these years and now it might be too late. He knew how cruel ovarian cancer could be. His mother had died an awful death. To think he’d passed this onto his daughter was devastating, especially as it was the only thing he seemed to have given her.

  He opened Claude’s folder and winced at what he saw. It was a newspaper article, featuring a photograph of a woman who was unmistakably his daughter. The caption said she’d been arrested for her husband’s murder.

  He swallowed as bile rose to the back of his throat.

  This couldn’t be true. The sweet girl who wrote him a letter on her birthdays couldn’t possibly be a murderer. He must go to Australia and help her. He hadn’t been a father her whole life, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t start now.

  His poor girl.

  He began to read the article.

  Skye Manis has been arrested for the murder of her husband, Theo Manis, as well as the attempted murder of her mother, Clara Butterford and her husband’s twin brother, George Manis. This development comes shortly after the startling revelation that she faked a battle with ovarian cancer.

  Jacques closed the folder and clutched at his throat as his breath came in short gasps. She faked her cancer!

  This wasn’t his poor girl. He didn’t even know this woman. She might share his blood, but she wasn’t his daughter. It was too much to take! He’d had enough tragedy in his life lately. He didn’t need this.

  What kind of a person would fake having cancer? It was inconceivable. If she was capable of that, she was almost certainly capable of murdering her husband, too. He couldn’t stand behind someone like that. His mother must be shaking her head from heaven to think her granddaughter would make such a mockery of the disease that took her life.

  It was time once again to pretend Australia didn’t exist.

  Life as a simple farmer wasn’t so bad after all.

  Rin barely had a chance to think about the death of her ex-husband. She was far too worried about her daughter.

  Amber had taken the news badly.

  She’d locked herself in her bedroom and wouldn’t talk to anyone. She hadn’t even logged into any of her social media accounts. That in itself was a sign she wasn’t coping—a big, flashing warning sign with yellow lights and a siren.

  Rin had made the mistake of pointing out to Amber that she was going to be rich. Skye couldn’t possibly profit from the crime of killing Theo, which meant Amber would get all of his inheritance.

  “I don’t want his money!” Amber had screamed back at her. “I want my dad. Give it to charity for all I care.”

  Rin would never do that. She’d always struggled with money and her lack of it. Her daughter was set. She’d get over her father one day, but that money would last a lifetime.

  Amber could travel the world, drive a reliable car and eat in fancy restaurants. She wouldn’t have to lose sleep wondering how she was going to pay the electricity bill or stand in line at the supermarket praying she had enough to cover what was in the trolley.

  It was a relief to know her daughter’s life would be so much easier than her own. If only she could be certain her other children would be able to enjoy such stress-free lives. The way they were tracking at the moment, her kids wouldn’t have much of a head start on what she’d had when she first moved out of home.

  She knew it was horrible to think of Theo’s death as a blessing for Amber, but when there was that amount of money at stake, it was hard not to give it a little bit of thought.

  There were advantages for her also. Never again would she have to negotiate her way around Theo when it came to Amber. She was the sole parent now. He couldn’t take her daughter away from her or choose her school or decide what parties she could attend. Finally, she could finish raising Amber the way she wanted to.

  Still, it was sad Theo had died. Murdered by his own wife.

  If he hadn’t left her all those years ago, he’d still be alive. She wouldn’t have killed him. Well, she was fairly certain she wouldn’t have. He was the kind of man you did want to strangle sometimes. Or jump into bed with.

  At least now she didn’t have to decide which way her feelings fell. He was neither strangleable or jumpintobedable anymore.

  His funeral had been torturous. It brought back memories of his parents’ funerals at the same church. Two hours of sitting on a hard, wooden bench listening to two old men chanting in Greek, their off-key voices rising and falling in unison with George’s howling.

  He didn’t look well, all thin and pale with huge bags under his eyes.

  Poor guy. He was never going to get over this. For all the competitive banter that existed between the twins, they really had loved each other.

  Tears sprang to Rin’s eyes and she blinked them away. She’d lost Theo once before and she’d coped. She could cope with losing him again. She had Jeff now.

  Besides, Theo was so much more likeable now he was dead. All her bad memories of him were rapidly fading into the depths of her mind as the good ones rose to the surface.

  He hadn’t been such a bad person. He was smart, ambitious, inventive...

  She shook her head and pounced on the pile of washing spilling out of the laundry. Time to do some housework. If she could clear this lot of washing, she’d be able to get to her vacuum cleaner.

  She took the washing basket into her room and tipped the clean clothes onto the bed, folding them into six neat piles, one for each member of her family. She ignored the tears that insisted on spilling down her cheeks.

  She didn’t need Theo. She never had.

  Then why did it feel like the glue was falling out of all the cracks in her heart she’d so carefully repaired?

  “Oh, Theo,” she said, wiping her tears with a pair of Jeff’s underpants.

  She’d never be free of his hold, not even in death.

  Jeff couldn’t exactly say he was sorry Theo was dead. Not that he’d admit it to anyone. He’d look like a real bastard if he said that.

  If anything, it was a relief he was gone. Never again would he have to watch that rash crawl up Tamarin’s neck when she spoke to him on the phone. Never again would he have to wipe away her tears when Theo forced her into a decision about Amber. Never again would he have to wonder if she harboured secret hopes of getting back together with him.

  Finally, after all these years, he felt Tamarin belonged to him and only him. The third person in their marriage had left their lives for good.

  He’d been so carefully watching for her reaction, he’d hardly noticed how devastated Amber was. It wasn’t until Tamarin said something about her that he realised she hadn’t come out of her bedroom since she’d heard the news. She just needed time. Teenagers were selfish—particularly teenagers like Amber. She’d be back posting selfies on Facebook in no time.

  He knew he was being harsh. It was just hard to imagine anyone being that upset about Theo dying. He rea
lly hadn’t been a very nice person. He’d left his wife with a newborn baby for goodness sake, and now people were talking about him like he’d been a saint.

  Thankfully, so far Tamarin hadn’t seemed that affected by the news. He’d even seen glimmers of her being happy about it. Amber wouldn’t be able to move back in with her father now. And she’d be wealthy.

  These were all unkind thoughts, but they were contained within the privacy of his head, so he figured he was allowed to think them.

  If he were as unkind in his actions as he was in his thoughts, he would’ve killed Theo himself. The truth was that he hadn’t. He may have fantasised about it a couple of times, but murder wasn’t something he’d ever considered adding to his to-do list for real. Although, if he had such a list, then Theo most definitely would’ve been on top.

  He appeared to have been on the top of Skye’s list, too. What a heartless woman to kill her husband like that. Personally, he’d never trusted her motives. Plastic women were always up to something. That was why he’d married a real woman. There was nothing plastic about Tamarin. Theo really had been a dickhead leaving her. She never would have done that to him.

  Maybe it was just as well the poor bastard had died before he found out about Skye faking her cancer. That news in itself might have killed him. It would certainly have killed his career.

  Or maybe he did know? Maybe he was in on it. Perhaps Skye had told him she was going to come clean about it and he’d killed himself to escape the shame. That seemed believable for a man as gutless as him.

  However it had happened, the result was the same. Theo was dead.

  Tamarin came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist.

  “The kids are asleep,” she said.

  He turned to embrace her.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “You,” he said. “Always you.”

  He scooped her up into his arms and carried her from the room.

  “What are you doing?” She shrieked with laughter. “You’ll break your back.”

  He threw her down on their bed, kicked the door closed and made love to her in the only way he knew how.

  Slowly. Softly. Gently.

  Theo had never made love like that in his life. And now he never would.

  Sammy slammed her bedroom door and leant against it, sobbing as loudly as she could manage.

  It was no use. Her mother couldn’t hear her. She hadn’t heard anything she’d said for the past week. It was like her ears had stopped working. She walked around the house like some kind of zombie.

  Her dad’s ears were still working, but he was always at the office. He couldn’t hear her all the way from there.

  Amber’s dad was dead. He wouldn’t hear anything Amber said ever again, unless heaven was real and he was sitting on a cloud somewhere watching everything that was going on.

  Amber had locked herself in her bedroom and hadn’t let anyone in for ages. So much for the sleepovers.

  But that wasn’t why Sammy was crying. She was crying because everyone was treating her like a little kid. Nobody would tell her how the dying bit had happened. She’d seen people die on television, usually from heart attacks or bullets, but her dad said it hadn’t been like that with Amber’s dad. He went all white when he said it, then tried to change the subject, like he did when he didn’t want to talk about something.

  It was so frustrating. She thought about that word for a moment. It reminded her of when she’d been furious.

  All the best, most powerful words started with an F. That must be why she heard people talk about the F-word.

  “Fucking prick!”

  Bruno shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and glared at the front cover of the newspaper on display outside the milk bar.

  Why did that bastard have to go and get himself murdered? Who was going to bail him out when he got in trouble now?

  Theo’s hot little piece of meow meow was on the cover. Man, what he wouldn’t do to get in her pants and have himself some of that. She was single now. Maybe he should have a crack.

  Nah, he had some standards. Bros didn’t do that to each other. There was a code when it came to things like that.

  Anyway, he wished she wasn’t single. That would mean Theo wasn’t dead.

  Prick.

  If what the newspapers said was true, then she did it.

  Death by chocolate, screamed the headline.

  Not a bad headline, he supposed.

  The one they’d used for him a few years ago was better. Someone had taken pot shots with an AK-47 through his bedroom window while he slept. The newspapers had been real clever with that one.

  Bruno Martini: Shaken not stirred.

  So, they reckoned Theo’s wife did it. That sounded like bullshit to him.

  Not that it really mattered who did it. The result was the same.

  The pigs had better not try to pin it on him. He’d never baked a fuckin’ brownie in his life. Or a fuckin’ anything.

  He kicked the pile of newspapers at his feet and watched them spill onto the footpath, the loose pages fluttering in the breeze.

  The shopkeeper glanced up from behind the counter and looked away.

  Smart guy. He knew better than to pick a fight with Bruno Martini. Nobody won a fight against The Great Bruno Martini.

  He threw his shoulders back and continued down Sydney Road. What he needed was one of those Lebo pizzas. The sort with the mincemeat on top. He could sit down and eat it while he thought about who the fuck was going to represent him in court next time he needed it, which would probably be soon. It always was. He’d racked up frequent flyers at that courthouse. Too bad he couldn’t cash them in.

  He’d invested heavily in Theo over the years. Not just in a financial way. He’d raised him like he was his fuckin’ mother. He’d practically breastfed that cunt. When they first met, he was so green he looked like Kermit the fuckin’ frog.

  But Bruno had seen his potential. He had a knack for things like that. He knew Theo would never let him down. He never did either. Loyal up until the day he died. He’d have laid down in front of a freight train if Bruno asked him to.

  Maybe he’d have had a better chance in front of a train than he had with that brownie.

  Poor bastard. What a piss weak way to go.

  He thought about how he’d like to go one day. The words blaze of glory sprang to mind. That’d be sweet.

  He saw himself with his arms outstretched, police bullets flying everywhere, a hot chick in a tight red dress screaming for him to save himself.

  Tell my mother I love her, he’d call out, as he sank to his knees. Only, nobody would hear him over the cries of the hot chick as a bullet went straight to his heart, killing him instantly.

  He shivered as he pulled his right hand from his pocket and made the sign of the cross.

  Now that his lawyer was dead, this scenario seemed a little less fantasy and a little more possibility.

  Why did Theo have to die?

  Fucking prick.

  Linda was at the drycleaner when Theo died. She’d arrived at the house to find the street swarming with police, reporters and ambulances. There was even a firetruck.

  She knew immediately it had something to do with Theo. Maybe someone had come to even a score. People who associated with the likes of Bruno Martini didn’t usually live to get their telegram from the Queen. Thank goodness her connection to Bruno had been severed along with her marriage.

  She’d parked the car, unable to get anywhere close to the house, and sat staring at the commotion.

  He was dead. He had to be. There couldn’t possibly be this much fuss for any other reason. Unless it was Skye. Maybe she had a bad reaction to her medication. It would seem odd though. She’d looked well enough when she saw her that morning. Better than she’d looked earlier in the week anyway.

  A man with a camera had walked past and Linda had quickly slipped out of her car to talk to him.

&nb
sp; “What’s going on in there?” she asked.

  “Theo Manis died,” he said, barely glancing at her as he weighed up his photo opportunities.

  Despite having already figured this out, it came as a shock. Linda had only seen him the night before, coming through the front door as she was leaving. It was extraordinary to think that was the last night of his life. She wished she’d said something more significant to him other than goodbye.

  “Who killed him?” she asked.

  “Now, isn’t that the million dollar question.”

  She realised she’d just assumed Theo was murdered. People died from natural causes all the time.

  “Did you know him?” asked the photographer.

  “No.”

  He gave her some kind of half-nod and walked away, clearly deciding she wasn’t worth wasting any more of his time on.

  She locked her car. It wasn’t a lie. She didn’t know him. She knew what brand of toothpaste Theo used, what size pants he wore and how he liked his steak cooked, but really she knew nothing about him at all.

  His death barely made a mark on her. The only sadness she felt was for Amber. That girl loved her father. He hadn’t deserved her love with the way he treated her, especially towards the end.

  Poor Amber would be really messed up over this. She’d have to look out for her. She was the closest thing to a daughter she’d ever had. In the last few years, she’d had more conversations with her than with her own sons.

  Linda had pushed through the crowd, explaining to a police officer who she was before being allowed through the front gate.

  “Hey, wait!” called the photographer, who only five minutes ago had decided she wasn’t worth talking to.

  She ignored him and continued on towards the house.

  A female police office with more freckles than bare skin led her to the side entrance and asked her to wait downstairs in the library.

  It never occurred to Linda she could be a suspect until the detective arrived and started firing questions at her. He grunted at her answers, writing furiously in his notebook. Nothing she told him seemed to satisfy him. Nor did anything she said in the many interviews that followed in the days to come.