Dead Dry Heart_A psychological thriller

by Toni Pike

  Letitia gave me a dark look. “Sorry it doesn’t suit you, Tyler, but it’s not actually about you.” Charlie cried even louder.

  “Try to do something, please,” I said with a moan.

  She took Charlie to the kitchen while I stood there shocked at my own appalling behaviour. I ran upstairs and shut the bedroom door behind me.

  I fell asleep but then a crashing sound jolted me awake, and there were more loud bangs, the sound of urgent knocking on the front door. I leapt out of bed and strode over to the window. About ten policemen were down there, looking up at me. The officer in front yelled at me. “We know what happened, we know you killed your parents!” he cried.

  I stepped back, trying to find a place to hide. They were coming to arrest me.

  I slapped my own forehead and that woke me up, only to find myself lying in bed. The police raid had only been a nightmare that had scared me half to death.

  Relief swept over me as I turned to check the time – it was three o’clock. But rolling over, my heart pounded to see that Letitia was not in bed. I jumped out and raced down the hall to the nursery, hoping that my wife and child would be there.

  I pushed the door open but then my panic ground to a halt. A night light in the corner illuminated the room, and there was Letitia asleep on the single bed. Charlie was in his cot with eyes closed like a little angel. I fell to my knees beside the bed, gently stroking my wife’s beautiful face until her eyes opened.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” I whispered. “Please forgive me.”

  She also kept her voice low. “He has a middle ear infection, just a mild one. The doctor came around and gave him antibiotics and now he’s much better. I should have realised it wasn’t just teething.”

  My feelings of remorse went through the ceiling, a guilt score of one hundred per cent. “It’s all my fault, I should have been there for you instead of acting like an arsehole.”

  “It’s okay, Tyler, you had an awful day. Let’s just forget about it. No one can be perfect all the time, we all have our moments.”

  I nodded in agreement, but the trouble was that my worst moments were more vile than she could possibly imagine. “Why don’t you go back to bed now?” I asked. “I can stay here and watch Charlie for the rest of the night.”

  “I think he’ll be fine now, and we’ll have the monitor on in case he wakes up.” Letitia stood up and we gazed at Charlie for a couple more minutes. He was sleeping peacefully, so we walked arm in arm back to our bedroom.

  ***

  JOSHUA

  After talking to the police in Quarry and taking them to the gravesite, Joshua wanted to return to Queanbeyan. He didn’t want to lose his job at the restaurant or let the owner down, and he had been away far too long. He had never asked for anything in his life before, but dared to ask Lucas Nguyen to pay for his airfare back home.

  “I think we could work something out,” said Lucas, who wanted to humour him. “We’ll talk more once all the forensic tests have been done.”

  That was Joshua’s first plane flight and within a few hours he had returned to work. Ardee Chopra was pleased to see him back in the kitchen of the Chowpatty Restaurant. “My son doesn’t know what clean means,” he said to him that evening. “I’m glad the health inspectors didn’t come around while you were away.”

  “Have you seen the news?” asked Joshua, afraid that might lead to him being sacked. After all, the story of the two bodies in the desert had put his name in the national headlines.

  “That’s none of my business,” he replied. “All I care about is this place. Just do a good job and turn up every night. Besides, I don’t pay you very much.”

  There was an old television attached to the wall in a corner of the kitchen, and every night as Joshua tried to conquer the washing up, Natasha Curry kept him company. She was the immaculately groomed host of his favourite current affairs show, Local Sources, and he liked her friendly manner. It was filmed in Canberra because it focused on political news, so she was the obvious person to approach. He hoped and prayed that she would be interested.

  He waited for three more weeks and then phoned the studio, half-expecting them to hang up on him. They sent a car around for him early the next morning.

  Joshua was escorted onto the set. Natasha Curry was already seated in one of the red leather chairs and he sat beside her, unable to believe that he was so close. She was dazzlingly beautiful in real life.

  “There’s only three minutes to spare before filming starts,” she said in her well-modulated voice. “Don’t worry, Joshua – your face will be all broken up – pixelated – so no one in the street would recognise you. And your voice will be disguised as well, so that it sounds a bit like Darth Vader.”

  “Good, that’s what I want,” he said. “Now that I’m out I just want to live a quiet life like anyone else.” His mouth felt dry so he took a sip of water from a glass on the yellow table between them.

  “Places everyone,” said the producer as she waved her hand. The lights flicked on so that Joshua couldn’t see anything except Natasha’s face. He was suddenly gripped with fear about whether he could go through with his plan. For a moment he wanted to escape but knew that there was no turning back, like someone at the summit of a rollercoaster ride. All he could do now was hope for the best.

  Natasha gave a friendly smile as she looked at the camera. “Tonight our special guest is Joshua Byrnes, who has just been released after twenty-five years in prison for the murder of Peter and Kylie Thompson. They were the parents of Prime Minister Tyler Thompson, and were killed when he was just eleven years old. Now Mr Byrnes wants to reveal what he says is the true story of what happened that night.

  “I should add that he recently told the police where the two bodies were buried in the Great Sandy Desert. At this stage, the police are refusing to talk to us or reveal any information about that.” She turned to her guest. “Good evening, Joshua Byrnes, and thank you for being here with us tonight.”

  “Good evening, Natasha,” he said with a shaky voice. “It’s good to be here.”

  “Could you tell our viewers what happened that night, more than twenty-five years ago?”

  He opened his mouth to speak but hesitated. He looked at Natasha and saw the hint of panic in her eyes as she tried to urge him on.

  Finally, the words began to flow.

  “Peter and Kylie Thompson were camping along Eighty Mile Beach with their son, Tyler,” he said. “I’d been living in the outback for years and was wandering around the Kimberley at that time. Early that evening I stumbled on their campsite and they invited me to stay and have a drink with them, although I don’t think they really wanted me to stay. After a while it became clear that they were mistreating and neglecting their son. We argued about it and I ran off.”

  “You had a physical fight?” she asked.

  “No, just an argument. But then I decided that I should to try to save that kid, so about an hour later I came back. Peter Thompson was about to hit him with a cane. I rushed over and knocked him over. Then his wife Kylie attacked me, so I pushed her away. I didn’t want to hurt her but she fell on the sand. They were drunk, you see.”

  Natasha’s eyes widened. “So what happened then?”

  “I was trying to make sure that she was all right, so I had my back to Tyler. He grabbed a small rock, went over to his father and hit him repeatedly on the head. I raced over as soon as I realised what was happening, but while I was seeing if there was any way to help him, Tyler attacked his mother with the rock as well.”

  Joshua leaned forward and lowered his head in his hands.

  “You’re saying that it was Tyler Thompson who killed both of them?” asked Natasha.

  “Yes, that’s right,” he replied. “I felt sorry for him and wanted to protect him. He didn’t deserve to be treated like that. So we cleared away all trace of the campsite and carried the bodies into the desert, several hundred metres away. We buried them there.

  “We threw the
rock, the murder weapon, into the ocean. Then I took Tyler with me and drove their van until the petrol ran out. We abandoned it and began walking, staying together for three days until we reached another road. We saw a truck and Tyler followed our plan. He ran over to flag it down.”

  “You had a plan?” she asked.

  His voice was choked with emotion. “Yes, that was my idea. I told him to say that his parents had run out of petrol, gone off on foot to look for help and never came back. I told him not to mention me at all. But somehow he must have revealed that I’d been at the family’s campsite. There was no real evidence against me, but they charged me and at the trial Tyler yelled out that I was a murderer. I didn’t want to ruin his life, so I kept my mouth shut. They sent me to prison for twenty-five years, but now I want to tell the truth.”

  He lowered his head as if he had nothing more to say.

  “Thank you, Mr Byrnes, that is a shocking story,” said Natasha. “So you’re saying that you helped dispose of the bodies, but that it was Tyler Thompson, a child, who killed them.”

  Joshua raised his head and sighed. “That is correct,” he said.

  ***

  TYLER

  I was in my office at eight o’clock in the evening with a pile of paperwork that needed to be signed off and, at the same time, trying to have a productive meeting with Deputy PM, Derek Slade. “If we could find another half a billion, the superfast train would be a real possibility,” I said. “Making a start on the project in this term of government would be a great achievement for both of us.”

  “My only concern is the impact on the airline industry,” replied Derek, always keen to play devil’s advocate. “Seeing jobs slashed there won’t be a vote winner.”

  “We can work on developing transport hubs and there’ll be plenty of new employment opportunities with the superfast trains, in both the construction and operational phases.”

  The door swung open and Ranjit charged into my office, eyes wide in alarm. “On Channel Six, Joshua Byrnes is being interviewed,” he said as he pressed the remote switch. With a flourish, he urged the wall-mounted TV screen to spring to life.

  Natasha Curry burst onto the screen, speaking to a man with his face concealed behind a brown blur of pixels.

  “What’s all this about, Tyler?” asked Derek, failing to see the urgency. He was known to keep on talking whenever people were keen to hear something else.

  I gestured for him to be quiet as a vice-like knot squeezed my stomach. The police had managed to keep quiet about the bodies so far, although they would soon have to release that information. But there was Joshua Byrnes being interviewed on Local Sources.

  We sat there in silence hanging on every word that he said, and I was numb with shock. When the interview ended I sat back in my chair, wondering what Ranjit and Derek were about to say. The word was out. Tyler Thompson had killed his parents.

  Natasha Curry looked at the television camera and seemed to be staring straight at me. It was as if I could read her mind. You did it, Tyler Thompson, now worm your way out of this one.

  Ranjit was speechless, but Derek Slade as usual had something to say. “He’s talking bullshit, isn’t he, Tyler? That’s outrageous.”

  “Yes, of course he is,” I replied, struggling to rise to the surface as my life was sucked down the toilet. “More than bullshit, a complete fabrication.”

  “They’re just lies, but we’ll need to mount a response,” said Ranjit. “I’ll call an emergency meeting of cabinet, perhaps for eleven o’clock tonight. What do you both think?”

  “Good idea, the sooner the better,” said Derek.

  “Perhaps he’s delusional after all those years in prison,” I said, wondering how I could so easily deceive my friends.

  “Or just a pathological liar,” said Ranjit.

  My phone buzzed and Letitia’s face lit up the screen. I pressed the key and she spoke as soon as it was connected. “Tyler, I saw that interview,” she said. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

  “No, but I saw it too. Trust Channel Six to be out to sabotage me.”

  She didn’t ask me if his story was true, and instead jumped to my support. “It’s a disgrace – a complete fantasy. What will you do, sweetheart?”

  “Probably a press conference first thing in the morning, but we’re holding an emergency Cabinet meeting tonight. Don’t wait for me to come home, just go to bed and try to get some rest. How is Charlie?”

  “We’re in the living room. I was giving him his final feed. I couldn’t help crying when the interview started, it was so unreal and when I hugged him, he patted me on the back as if he understood.”

  “Give him a kiss from me.” Thoughts about my precious son swirled around in my mind. If the truth came out, I wouldn’t have the chance see him take his first steps.

  “We love you, take care of yourself and try not to worry,” she said. “This will all be forgotten soon.”

  When I ended the call, messages appeared from five of my colleagues and then a phone call from Helen Janssen, the Foreign Minister.

  “Don’t answer,” said Ranjit with a wave of his hand. “I’ll send out a message, they can speak to you in person in a couple of hours.”

  I expected dozens of questions at the Cabinet meeting that night, but instead everyone was subdued and keen to hear my reaction to the interview.

  “Thank you very much for being here so late and at such short notice,” I said, looking around at the seventeen Ministers. “I’m sure you’d all much rather be in bed.”

  “We wanted to hear your reaction, Tyler,” said Derek, trying to break the ice.

  “Of course, and that is why we’ve called the meeting tonight. Joshua Byrnes made some fairly wild claims on television tonight and there’s no truth to any of them. I don’t know yet if the police will investigate, and I don’t know why he didn’t go to the police first with that story. Presumably because he just wants to cause trouble.”

  “You haven’t spoken to the police?” asked Helen Janssen, making notes as usual.

  “Tomorrow morning we’ve made an appointment to speak with Detective Inspector Barry Elliot,” said Ranjit.

  Now came my dramatic moment, and I could feel my lower lip tremble. “I’m not going to be like some sort of dictator,” I said. “Let me stand aside if you think that would be best for the government.”

  “No, that’s not what’s needed here,” said Derek. “We need to completely deny these claims and say we’ll make no further comment. Stand firm and treat them with the contempt they deserve. We’re talking about a serial killer, a man who’s just been released from prison. They say he killed an elderly couple a few years before that murder. And his own parents died in a murder suicide, but perhaps he had a hand in that as well.”

  “Here, here,” said Helen and then there was a chorus of support. I thanked them for their professional attitude, and said what an asset they all were to the Government. I was wearing my Prime Ministerial mask, a leader who could handle any situation.

  Emerging into the cool night air, there was a media scrum waiting for me. I gave a modest smile and waved as I climbed into the back of my car, assuring them that I would give a press conference in the morning. There were more press waiting outside The Lodge but we drove past them and the gates shut behind me.

  I swore to myself that I would continue lying to the very end to keep up the pretence of innocence. Having survived this long, my goal was to deflect and defuse every weapon that came hurtling towards me and disarm every enemy who tried to undermine me.

  Chapter 16

  Ranjit met me in my study at The Lodge at eight o’clock the next morning and we rang Barry Elliot via videophone.

  Although it was much earlier in Port Hedland, Barry was keen to talk to me. “I’m sorry about all this, Tyler, it’s so unexpected,” he said. “We’re trying to finish all the forensic tests so that we can close the case once and for all.”

  “Have you reached any conclusions
yet?” asked Ranjit, straight to the point as usual.

  “Not till we see all the results. People don’t realise that it’s more of an art than a science. And we’re working on other cases at the same time, unfortunately.”

  “Byrnes’s allegations could damage the Government,” I said. “We want to make an announcement this morning, denying all of his claims.”

  “I understand it’s a very difficult situation for you, Tyler, but that’s sounds like a good idea.” “Normally, it would take a few more weeks to assess the evidence, but I’ll take a look today at what we already have. Can I ring you at six o’clock, your time, to tell you how things are progressing?”

  “I’d appreciate that, Barry,” I replied, secretly dreading the results and feeling sick with guilt at deceiving him. So far, he did not seem the least suspicious. But when we ended the call and Ranjit left the room, a sense of impending doom swept over me.

  An hour later, my driver took me to Parliament House. I headed straight to the press briefing room and stood on the podium with Ranjit, Helen Janssen and Derek Slade by my side. Letitia would be watching at home. Dozens of journalists stared at me, hungry for news like a pack of wolves circling a lamb. They could smell blood and that was driving them into a frenzy.

  I took a deep breath and clutched at the remnants of my normal confidence. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming here today,” I said. “My announcement this morning will be brief. No doubt, last night you heard the extraordinary allegations made by Mr Joshua Byrnes who was released from jail a few months ago after serving twenty-five years for murder. I was as shocked as you were by last night’s interview, and want to assure you that none of his allegations are true.

  “I met Mr Byrnes that night when he came to the campsite for a short while, but then he ran away. As you have heard before, the next day my parents left me alone in the desert with our campervan. They never returned. I eventually wandered off and later managed to flag down a truck. I never saw them again.

  “Mr Byrnes has recently led the police to where he claims to have buried their bodies. The police will be releasing information about that when they have finished their investigations. At a Cabinet meeting late last night, my colleagues gave me their full support. I don’t want to speak about this matter again. That was a very sad period of my life.”