Loch Nessa
Page 21
“Great!” There was no sarcasm in this statement, and my mother cut her eyes to me suspiciously.
“Drugs?”
“No, I – “
“You found a wallet full of money on your way home and you’re keeping it?”
“No, I – “
“Oh well. Better luck next time.”
“I’ve got big news. It’s the reason I’m happy.”
“You’ve finally got a boyfriend and he’s asked you to move in with him! Isn’t that wonderful? Quick, let’s go upstairs and I’ll help you pack. Who is he? When do I get to meet him? How old is he? Not that I care too much if he’s going to get you out of my house.”
“MUM! That’s not it. I don’t have a boyfriend.” She looked a bit put out at that. “But I did quit my job today.”
“Really?”
“Yes…”
She was concerned. I could see it on her face.
“Where are you going to work now?”
I paused. I hadn’t really thought about that. In fact, I’d totally overlooked it.
“Umm…” I began. “Umm…”
“Yes?”
Oops. Forgot about that bit. That whole getting-another-job thing. I wasn’t really qualified to do anything. At all. Maybe I could get unemployment benefits. It probably paid better than my last job.
“I don’t actually know. I don’t s’pose you’ve heard of any jobs available?” I hoped she had. I’d do anything. It couldn’t be any worse than working at Gregory’s. I was desperate. “Anything?”
“I’ve heard there’s an opening at Coles.”
Well, maybe not anything.
The next morning I stumbled out of bed far too early. Somehow I managed to make it to the bathroom with my eyes still shut. When I finally opened them and caught sight of myself in the mirror I nearly screamed, thinking there was a monster in the room with me, but when I put on my glasses (which I’d taped together last night) I realised it was just my own purply-blue face in the reflection. The bruise hadn’t gotten a lot better over night. If anything, it was worse.
I had a quick shower (only half an hour – quick for me), avoided looking at myself in the mirror again, dressed in semi-professional clothes, and headed down to the kitchen for breakfast. After that I planned to spend the rest of the day job seeking. I settled on a glass of orange juice (which I spilt) and a piece of toast (which I burned) with jam (which kind of made up for the other two mistakes), and then I sat down and grabbed the newspaper to study while I ate. I meant to look for jobs vacant in the Classifieds, but the heading on the front page caught my eye. This had been the hottest piece of gossip going around Gerongate yesterday. I’d heard about it from everyone I talked to. Well, nearly everyone – Jeremy and I hadn’t had a chance to discuss it, for obvious reasons. I’d been far too busy destroying his marriage for that. But everyone else had mentioned it. When I saw the headline I just couldn’t resist.
OLD MCKENZIE HAS THREE FARMS, $2 BILLION, NO HEAD…
(What a touchingly sincere title. So sensitive I could barely stand it.) I discovered that Francis McKenzie had been found dead on Tuesday morning, when his (headless) body was discovered by a couple of kids. They must have been awful burdens on society to get a karma trip like that.
The decapitation wasn’t what had killed him, luckily – it looked like he had been shot to death first. Phew. It would suck to be murdered, but if I had a choice between dying of bullets or having my head hacked off, it wouldn’t take long for me to decide.
I read further down the article and found out that Frank had left everything he owned (which was quite a substantial amount, what with him being a billionaire and all) to one person – his nephew, James McKenzie.
I knew James McKenzie. Everyone did. He was two grades above me in school, and he was the most popular guy there. He was also my mother’s best friend’s youngest child. After he completed Year 12 he’d gotten straight into police academy. He must’ve done OK there because a year later he was working as a cop at a Gerongate Station.
Personally, I didn’t really like James McKenzie. I’d always thought that he had an over-inflated sense of his own importance. I suppose that wasn’t really his fault if you saw the way people acted around him. Not me, of course. I’d been friends with him when we were little because of our mothers, but he changed. (I know, I know – “He’s not the same person as he was when he was four!” Whatever.) We still had to see each other a lot while we were growing up (much to our disgust) but since it generally ended in tears/swearing/violence, we tried to keep our contact to a minimum. I’d hardly seen him since his mother kicked him out, even less since we finished school, and that was fine by me.
Everything James ever had was a present from his Uncle Frank. Frank had no wife or kids and was a bit of a cranky old fart, to tell the truth. He didn’t like many people, but he and his nephew James got on like a house on fire. When James was kicked out of his parents’ house (age 16), Frank had taken him in and made him continue on with school. When James had decided to become a cop, Frank had payed his fees, and given James a house (free of rent) as a graduation gift. And it wasn’t like this was just some shack in a side alley. We are talking a few million dollars’ worth of mansion. I’d never actually been inside, but I’d driven past and it was massive.
Some people have all the luck.
But now Frank was dead, and everyone was accusing James. It was understandable that they thought it was him. I mean, he had motive (a couple of billion motives, if you catch my drift), and the only person who could give him an alibi had left for South America on Tuesday afternoon, hadn’t been questioned, and was currently unable to be contacted. And James had means. Frank had been shot with a pistol, and in Gerongate – and the rest of Australia, as far as I knew – only cops were legally allowed to carry pistols. If James had used a registered gun then it was only a matter of time before he was caught. Of course, being a cop, he probably came into contact with plenty of unregistered guns, too…
Poor little James. Means, motive and, right now, no alibi. Everyone thought he was a murderer, and his perfect reputation was in tatters. Boo-hoo. Now don’t get the wrong idea – it wasn’t like I was enjoying this. Well, maybe I was. It was just nice that for once I wasn’t the one being publicly humiliated.
It was sad about Frank, though. What a gross thing for someone to do. And everyone thought his nephew had done it – at least, nearly everyone. I thought McKenzie was a moron, but I still didn’t think he was a killer. I wasn’t sure he had it in him.
When I finished reading the article I flipped over to the ‘Jobs Vacant’ section. Not much there. Coles needed new checkout workers. McDonald’s was looking for young people to pedal their ‘food’. Same old, same old. I checked the date on the paper. It was yesterday’s. Hmm. So the jobs in the paper weren’t looking incredibly promising. Google didn’t throw up much either.
There was only one thing for it.
I shuddered at the mere thought.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
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Also by Clare Kauter
About the Author
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L
osing Your Head