What to aim at? He’s still not quite convinced a bullet won’t erupt from the barrel so he settles the leg of his bed into the tiny v of the sight. Safety off. The click as he pulls the trigger doesn’t shock him this time. Scanning the room a second time he sees the mirror and a human shape. Doesn’t matter that it’s his own. With the gun raised into the firing position, he can’t see the head so he aims at the heart and pulls the trigger.
Whack, down goes the bully.
He still has the rifle to his shoulder when a voice calls from somewhere in the house. ‘Melanie, come away from that door!’
When did Kirsty arrive home? He hasn’t heard her come in. Shit, he’s got the rifle out of its hiding place and it sounds as though she’s coming this way. He strides quickly to his bed and dropping to his knees, slides the twenty-two underneath. It’s out of sight there, and he can put it away later.
‘I’ve told you before not to sneak around like that. It’s not fair on the rest of us,’ Kirsty scolds and her voice is so close, Tim expects her to burst in at any moment. Then her voice changes tone. ‘Did Tim make you any afternoon tea? Didn’t think so. Come on, into the kitchen.’
Tim wants to be sure that they’re at the other end of the house so he can put the rifle away. He goes to the door, intending to listen and finds it ajar. Bloody careless. Kirsty might have walked straight in while he still had the rifle in his hands.
His luck has held tight this time, though. He can hear his sisters happily rustling the biscuit packets. No harm done. He transfers the rifle to its hiding place in the wardrobe and goes out to join them.
THE FOURTH SUNDAY
22
Kirsty sets the trap
A persistent fly lands on the cutting board, prompting Kirsty to chase it away with the knife in her hand.
‘Tim, do you want another toasted sandwich?’ she calls over her shoulder.
No answer. She takes three quick strides to the door and pokes her head through into the lounge room. Her brother is gone, leaving the crumb-strewn plate on the coffee table.
‘Typical,’ sighs Kirsty, but she can’t be too hard on him. Ian will be here in… she checks her watch. Almost one o’clock and he usually brings Melanie back around four, sometimes as late as six if he wants to squeeze out the last drop of tension.
She retrieves the dirty plate but instead of stacking it beside the sink with the other lunchtime debris, she leaves it abandoned on the bench and heads for her room. She’s been waiting for a chance like this since her mother left for work this morning. Tim was the frustration. He’d plonked himself in front of the television and hadn’t moved, until now.
Chloe’s camera is still in her school bag. She extracts it with reverence. This camera is going to get Ian Cartwright out of their lives.
The tiny screen comes away smoothly on its hinge and there’s the power button. So easy. In the lounge room she begins the serious business of finding the best vantage point. She needs to include as much of the room as possible. She moves from corner to corner. Finally she stands in front of the bookcase near the front door. The lens won’t zoom back to take in as much as she’d like but it’s the best angle she’s found and this will have to do. Removing a few books, she positions the camera on the shelf in their place and tries a test run. Checks what’s been recorded. Adjusts the angle a few degrees. That’s better. The camera is ready, the trap is set.
This is so good, Kirsty thinks to herself. Why didn’t she think of this two years ago?
There’s one more job before she’s ready, just to be sure that smart-arsed mongrel of a lawyer can’t weasel out of the details. She turns back to the coffee table, snatching up a page from the newspaper, then hesitates for a full minute in deepest concentration.
‘Okay, let’s do it,’ she says, borrowing a line from some cartoon heroine. Today, it’s going to be her and repeating Chloe’s words from last week she says out loud, ‘Kirsty Beal, this is your life!’
Red button pressed, recording light on. She looks straight into the camera and begins to speak:
‘My name is Kirsty Beal. Here is the front page of today’s newspaper to prove what day it is.’
She holds up the paper self-consciously and waits a second or two. This is harder than she thought.
‘In a little while a man is going to come, oh, his name is Ian Cartwright. Ian Cartwright is going to bring my sister back from an access visit. I have set up this video camera to record what he does when he comes here, because he does it every time and we shouldn’t have to put up with it. My mother has tried to tell people, but the police won’t listen. So I am going to prove it in a way he can’t lie about. This video will show what really happens and when you all see for yourselves, you will have to believe us. Then maybe you will make him leave us alone.’
Kirsty pauses. Is that it? Has she said everything she was going to say? She cringes at the stumbles and mistakes. Best to end it. A hand reaches towards the red button and inside the little machine Kirsty’s face dies instantly.
23
Ian Cartwright visits the Beals for the last time
‘It’s him. Ian’s just pulled up outside,’ Kirsty calls down the hall to her brother’s room.
‘It can’t be,’ Tim shouts at the door. Looks at his watch to be sure. ‘It’s only half past one. He’s never here this early.’
‘See for yourself, if you don’t believe me.’
His sister is fiddling with something at the book case when he emerges into the lounge room. He hurries to the front door, still unable to believe what his eyes are showing him. ‘But Mum’s not even here.’
‘Maybe he’ll just leave Melanie and go,’ says Kirsty.
‘Do you think so?’ Tim’s spirits lighten as he retreats towards the kitchen. When Cartwright’s heavy tread on the stairs shakes the house, his body doesn’t stiffen as it usually does, the stone doesn’t harden in his stomach. The familiar figure blots out the light streaming through the open doorway and still in the grip of hope, he tries to look past him, for his little sister and her overnight bag.
‘Where is it!’ Cartwright roars as soon as he sees Tim.
Hope dies.
‘What are you talking about? Where’s what?’ says Kirsty with the same heat.
‘He knows what I mean.’ Cartwright comes straight at Tim, lowering his face into the boy’s, invading his space. Tim is petrified even though he doesn’t know what Cartwright is on about.
‘I-I d-d-don’t….’
Oh God, he’s stuttering already. And this Sunday was going to be different. This Sunday he was determined to make it through without a hint of weakness.
‘The rifle, my twenty-two. You’ve got it here in the house.’
‘Rifle!’ laughs Kirsty. ‘You’re crazy. We haven’t got your rifle. You got rid of it years ago, anyway. Mum made you do it.’
Cartwright backs away from Tim far enough to address his venom towards Kirsty. ‘Your mother could never make me do a thing. You should know that by now.’ He gives a dismissive flick with his outstretched arm. ‘Of course I didn’t get rid of it. I’ve got it at my new place, except Melanie told me just now that Tim’s got a gun in his room and when I went looking for mine, it’s missing. Someone was in my house last weekend. I know because the back door was open.’
His iron gaze turns to Tim again. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You stole my twenty-two.’
Until now, Kirsty’s voice has been harsh and unbending. At this, though, she falters. ‘A gun? Melanie saw you with a gun? Tim, what’s he talking about?’
Tim feels trapped because he must deny it and the only way to do that is to make fun of Melanie. He knows, even as he opens his mouth, that it won’t stand up in court, but he blunders on.
‘No, of course not. She’s making up s… stories. You know what she’s like.’
‘Bullshit! She said you’re keeping it under your bed,’ yells Cartwright, barging into the hall and then Tim’s room, slamming the door back against the che
st of drawers. Tim and Kirsty go after him.
‘Get out!’ Kirsty shrieks in outrage. ‘You’ve got no right to be in our rooms.’
‘I’ll go where I want,’ Cartwright growls and he is already on his knees, checking under the bed by the time brother and sister arrive.
Nothing there, so he moves to the built-in wardrobe, but for all his years living in this house, he doesn’t know about the loose panel and the space it conceals, and his fury is too rampant to search methodically. He dumps everything from the chest of drawers even though the rifle would surely be too long to fit.
When finally he admits that he won’t find it, Tim dares to claim a rare victory. ‘I haven’t got your stupid gun. Just go, get out.’
Cartwright takes a final, frustrated look around the dishevelled room. ‘Where is it?’ he says with menacing calm.
‘I told you, I haven’t…’
Cartwright’s arm moves like a cobra until his open hand stings Tim’s chest with as much force as if he’d balled his fist. The air explodes from Tim’s lungs and his entire body goes limp. He would fall to the floor like a bag of bones if the enormous hand didn’t immediately clench around a hank of t-shirt and hold him upright. The other hand isn’t so subtle and as the knuckles make contact with his jaw, Tim Beal sees, more than he feels, the starburst of pain.
‘Where is it?’
Tim says nothing because he can’t. He can hear though, and see, as Kirsty screams and throws herself into the tight space between himself and Ian Cartwright. To push her away, Cartwright has to let go of Tim who feels himself flop to the floor. The room spins around him, he’s going to be sick and for a few moments he blacks out.
When he’s conscious again a rough hand has hold of him and there’s no sign of Kirsty. He stares up into the contorted face of a monster.
‘I’m going to beat the truth out of you, boy, and I don’t care if the police do charge me. It’ll be worth it. You lot have been begging for this for a long time.’
Cartwright takes a tighter grip on Tim’s shirt but stops before doing anything more. His head cocks to the side as he straightens.
‘She’s calling the cops.’
Cartwright drops Tim on the floor and bolts into the hall and before Tim can so much as raise his head, he hears Kirsty’s desperate shouts from the lounge room. ‘Help us, help us,’ and then a scream. Something brittle smashes against the edge of a table.
Tim climbs to his feet, although he’s as giddy and disoriented as when he had half a dozen rum and Cokes swilling about in his bloodstream. He sees himself in the mirror and winces at the blood leaking from his mouth. Spits it out and takes another look into the reflection at a human shape, the one he shot in the heart.
Kirsty screams again. That bastard is hurting her. It’s got to stop. He has to stop it, forever. Hatred, that was how he murdered the mannequin. Now the real thing is here. He won’t fail this time. This time he’ll kill the possum.
He staggers to the wardrobe and pulls aside the loose panel. The gun doesn’t want to leave its cosy nook and he’s almost in tears with rage and frustration before it finally comes free. The magazine too, because the gun is useless without the bullets. He slots it easily into place, pressing firmly to be sure. The drill he practised during the week takes over. Bolt pulled back, bolt pushed forward, bullet ready to fire.
There was one more thing. He has to remember what it is. Yes, the safety. Looking down, he guides his thumb as it switches the safety from on to off, then Tim carries the rifle out into the hall.
The camera does its job
Kirsty Beal, Kirsty Beal. This is her Sunday, the day she hopes will set her free. Or is she already free? She sometimes dares to think she is, despite Ian’s fortnightly visits. She has Chloe and Rachael and Phoebe and there is Dylan, too, and after him there will be other boys, perhaps. It’s not like she’s in love, just happy to have a guy of her own who cares about her, shows affection.
What would be the point, though, if her mother and her brother and her little sister weren’t free of Ian Cartwright as well? So the tiny camera works away on the bookshelf, barely making a sound, recording impartially all that it sees.
Kirsty Beal, Kirsty Beal. One last Sunday and her family will be free.
24
A week later, Dylan visits Tim
Dylan watches Tim’s face as he drifts in and out of sleep. Around them the room is crowded with odd and grotesque shapes, tall poles with bags sagging from a single hook, black boxes emitting faint beeps, a monitor playing its own repetitive video game. The door opens briefly, admitting the harsh light of the corridor until a woman’s silhouette turns quickly and closes the door behind her.
‘Excuse me, have to do some observations.’
Dylan knows the routine and moving back against the wall watches the nurse go about her duties until the last of the numbers is scribbled into a folder.
The disturbance has woken Tim again. ‘Dylan, how long have you been here?’
Twenty minutes is the answer and they’ve already started a couple of conversations during that time, but Tim doesn’t seem to remember.
‘Is Mum coming to see me, do you know?’
‘She’s pretty cut up, Tim. I heard something about sedatives. Melanie is staying with Mrs Fuller along the street.’
‘What about Kirsty? Have you been to see her?’
What kind of a question is that? ‘Yeah, I’ve been to see her.’
‘She’d like that. She really likes you, you know.’
‘Jesus, Tim, don’t do this to me, please.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This stuff about Kirsty. What can I say? I never thought it would turn out like this.’
‘We’ll be all right. Ian’s dead. I killed him. Mum, me, Kirsty, we don’t have to worry about him any more.’
‘Don’t Tim, please. It’s my fault, I know. If I hadn’t… Oh shit, oh Christ.’
Dylan drops his head into his open hands. The pain it brings him. If he could swap it now, be anyone else, make time record over the tape in his head. ‘That bloody rifle,’ he moans. ‘We should never have touched it.’
‘You don’t have to worry, Dylan. No one knows but you and me. The police want to talk to me when I’m a bit better, but I won’t tell them anything. Ian couldn’t make me tell him about the gun. The cops won’t do any better.’
Tim is interviewed by the police
Tim sleeps and wakes and sleeps again. The visit from Dylan seems only a few minutes ago but the nurse has told him otherwise. It was two days ago, in fact. They don’t pump as many drugs into him now and there’s more light in the room. Or is it simply that his eyes open wider? His body is still trussed up so tightly he can barely move. He checks the clock on the wall and only then discovers that he’s not alone in the room because there’s a figure standing underneath it. Sandy blonde hair, soft face.
‘Kirsty?’
‘Ah, so you’ve woken up on your own. Good,’ says the voice. ‘I didn’t want to wake you myself, but time’s getting a bit short.’ She looks at her watch and by then Tim knows it’s not his sister.
He doesn’t understand the reference to time and there’s something else about the woman that piques his interest, her clothing, not white or blue, not a uniform at all.
‘Are you a doctor?’
‘No, I’m a lawyer. Emily McConville,’ she says, holding out a hand briefly before realising that Tim’s right arm is immobilised. ‘Please call me Emily. I’ve been appointed to act for you.’
Act for him! What did that mean?
Emily comes closer, standing beside the bed where he can get a better view. She doesn’t look at all like Kirsty now, much taller and very slim, too. About twenty-five, maybe a little older, she’s pretty because of her youth but dressing in a dark skirt and jacket to match, she appears rather serious, despite the smile.
‘I wish we’d had a chance to talk a bit first, but the detectives are waiting outside.’
Detectives! Oh, yes, the police. Tim remembers now. ‘Let them in,’ he says, coming fully awake at last.
After the gentle presence of Emily McConville, the two detectives seem huge and overbearing, but they hold back, only one of them coming past the end of his bed. Emily moves to give him room. Deep male voices rumble, introductions are made. They are Detective Sergeant Vlarnic, who does the talking, and Detective Tomlinson who remains near the door with some rolled sheets of A4 clutched in his fist.
Vlarnic puts a small tape recorder on the hospital tray in front of Tim and presses the red button. He repeats their names flatly then changes suddenly, speaking now with a gentleness that seems comical from a man his size.
‘Tim, we’re trying to sort out exactly what happened at your house on that Sunday.’
‘Easy enough, isn’t it? I shot Ian.’
Emily moves quickly back to his bedside. ‘This is a serious matter, Tim,’ she says with a frown. ‘These policemen can have you charged with an offence based on the answers you give today. Do you understand that? Think very carefully about what you tell them.’
Vlarnic waits patiently until she withdraws towards the window, then continues in the same tone. ‘We already know you shot Ian Cartwright. What we’re trying to establish are the events beforehand. One of the things we’re not sure of is how the rifle came to be in your house in the first place.’
‘Ian said I’d stolen it from him. That’s why he was so angry.’
‘Did you steal it, Tim?’
He hesitates, even though he knows he shouldn’t. If he’s going to convince them he has to get the denial out there as quickly as possible. ‘No,’ he says, shaking his head vehemently, but it’s too late. A vital second has ticked by. He watches as the two policemen exchange glances.
‘We don’t believe you, Tim, and there’s quite a bit of evidence to prove otherwise. A neighbour of yours from across the road was out gardening when Cartwright arrived. She saw him walk up your front path, says he looked agitated, but she’s adamant that he wasn’t carrying a gun. Then there’s the statement given by a Ms Tracey Woods. She was with Cartwright at his house the weekend before and says the back door was open when they woke up one morning. Cartwright was sure someone had been inside but couldn’t work out what was missing. Finally, your sister Melanie says she saw you with a rifle in your room.’
Kill the Possum Page 17
