Forbidden Fruit

by Ilsa Evans

  A large, mottled-blue lump had appeared on Rita’s forehead. She closed her eyes, not looking at all well. For a moment I thought she was going to simply drift into unconsciousness, but then her body juddered and she opened her eyes, took a ragged breath. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘Yeah, we got that,’ said Clare impatiently. ‘Now for the details. I’m going to count to three and if you haven’t started talking, I’m going to shoot your foot. One … two … three.’ Without pausing, she lined up the pistol and pulled the trigger. The sound was ridiculously loud, deafening, ricocheting around the lounge room for seconds after the original shot.

  Amy Stenhouse screamed and so, rather to my surprise, did Kate. I leapt up to check Lucy, my heart beating so hard in the base of my throat that my breath could not get past. She was fine, pale and shocked, but fine. From there I tracked my gaze across to Rita Hurley, who was not looking fine at all. She had scrambled backwards and was staring at a round black hole in the carpet between her feet. Smoke wisped around the edges.

  ‘So now I’m going to count to three again,’ said Clare, her voice holding a quiver that belied its conversational tone. ‘And then I’m going to actually shoot you. One … two …’

  ‘It was an accident,’ said Rita rapidly, her eyes fixed on the pistol. ‘I never planned any of it. And I never knew …’ She lifted her gaze to Clare. ‘I thought it was Harry and her. I thought I was going to lose my husband.’

  ‘Tell them how you killed her.’

  Rita flicked a glance at us before dropping her head to stare at the hole in the carpet. ‘I watched the march with Jim. It drizzled all morning. The men were soaked through. Then we all went around to the cenotaph for the wreath-laying ceremony. Afterwards Jim was going to go help Lilly with the shop because she only had a couple of days left before the opening.’ Her voice hardened. ‘He was such a thoughtful man.’

  ‘Still is, I understand.’ Clare sent a thin smile in our direction. ‘For those not in the know, Rita’s dear husband has been sleeping with Lilly Forrest for over forty years.’

  ‘Oh my,’ said Amy Stenhouse.

  Clare nodded. ‘But then Rita doesn’t like sex so she’d probably feel relieved, if anything. Tell us, Rita: when was the last time you had sex with your husband? Come on, tell us.’

  Rita shook her head, swinging it slowly from side to side like a caged animal.

  Clare lifted the pistol, lining it up with Rita’s crotch. ‘One … two …’

  ‘That same year,’ said Rita, the words shooting out like gunfire themselves. She continued defensively. ‘I lost my baby, you know. After that, I couldn’t … never wanted …’

  ‘You never did before then either,’ said Clare with a snort.

  ‘You haven’t had sex with your husband in over forty years?’ asked Petra. The sight of a gun-wielding stranger had barely ruffled her feathers, but this extended dry spell she clearly found shocking. I thought that probably said more about her than Rita.

  ‘Oh my,’ said Amy Stenhouse again. ‘That’s not very … oh, my.’

  I felt a surge of sympathy for Rita. ‘But if you didn’t like sex, then why would get involved with all that stuff? The swinging and everything?’

  ‘You what?’ exclaimed Amy Stenhouse. Her voice had risen several octaves.

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Clare. She turned to sneer down at Rita. ‘She needed someone to donate a baby to the cause. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘No! It’s not!’ Rita appeared more perturbed by this accusation than she had about the murder. She glared furiously at Clare. ‘My baby was Jim’s! He was!’

  ‘Yes. Total coincidence that your only pregnancy ever is announced a month after the Queenscliff weekend.’ Clare waved the pistol dismissively. ‘Believe whatever you want to, that doesn’t concern me. Go on with the story, though. Tell them how you killed her.’

  Rita blinked, as if needing to remember where she was up to. ‘It had started raining again so everyone went off pretty quickly, mostly up to the RSL. I was going to my car when I see Harry suddenly stop, halfway to his shop, as if he’s seen something. Then he starts almost running. So I followed. When I saw her car I knew.’ She paused, swallowed. ‘I thought I knew what was happening. I was almost there when Harry comes out of the chemist so I ducked behind a tree. He goes next door and gets his cash register, puts it in the car and drives off. So I went up there. It was my only chance to persuade her not to do this. To go back to her husband and leave us all alone.’

  I realised that Rita Hurley had only recently discovered that her truth – where Dallas had returned to Majic to reunite with Harry, thereby leaving Rita’s next-door neighbour, whom her husband happened to be in love with, totally available – was incorrect. She appeared to be having trouble getting her head around it.

  ‘She was standing at the window, watching him go.’ Rita announced this with evident disgust, as if Dallas had been caught in some lewd act. ‘So as soon as I entered the room, I said, “Don’t do this. It’s wrong. You’re breaking up families.” And she just shook her head, told me to mind my own business. I begged her, asked her to think about the children. I said that it was immoral, selfish. But she wouldn’t listen.’

  Clare put up her other hand to steady the pistol, which was shaking. She had gone pale.

  ‘She laughed at me, told me to be thankful that I’d got what I wanted and now it was her turn. Then she turned away and I … I just wanted her to listen …’

  ‘You hit her,’ I said. ‘What with?’

  ‘My umbrella. It was a big heavy one of my father’s.’ Rita closed her eyes as if she could still see the sequence of events. When she opened them again, they shone with tears. ‘I swung it up before I even realised, like a softball bat, and it hit her on the back of the head. She fell forward and hit the windowsill. I couldn’t believe it.’

  I was watching Clare. There was a good chance that this story would end badly – again.

  ‘I stood there for ages, waiting for her to sit up. But she didn’t. Then I took her pulse and she was dead. I had to do something.’ She looked up at us beseechingly. ‘I was going to lose everything. I had to do something for my baby.’

  ‘That wasn’t for your baby,’ said Lucy. She had shuffled around on the couch so that she could watch the proceedings. ‘That was for you.’

  ‘It wasn’t even necessary,’ added Kate. ‘It was nothing to do with you. You could’ve just left it. She wasn’t watching him leave, either, she was just trying to get her tin. And when you said what she was doing was immoral, she probably thought you meant her.’

  ‘What did you do with her car?’ asked Petra, ever practical.

  ‘I drove it round to old Jensen’s place. It was littered with car wrecks. He used to live just out of town, where there’s that new estate now. The one day of the year when he was guaranteed not to be there was Anzac Day. He was a World War I vet.’

  ‘What a stroke of luck!’ said Clare bitterly.

  ‘But surely he would have noticed another car suddenly appearing?’ asked Amy.

  ‘No. I stopped at my house on the way, put her suitcase in the back shed, got changed and took a screwdriver along. Then I parked it up the back at old Jensen’s, undid the plates and walked home. It was still raining, so there weren’t many people about. When Jim got back I told him I’d a few drinks, decided to get a lift home. He took me into town the next day and I picked up my car.’ An edge of pride had crept into her voice, which complemented the disturbingly methodological way she recounted the events. ‘I put her clothes into a plastic bag and dropped them off at an opportunity shop in Bendigo, dropped the suitcase at a different one, and I threw the numberplates out with the household rubbish the following week. Ten years later, when old Jensen died and the council was cleaning up his place, I was worried something would be said about the car, but nothing ever was.’

  ‘I cannot believe you never got caught.’ I shook my head. There were so many points where it should have ended dif
ferently, yet the mystery had endured for over forty years.

  ‘Nobody was looking for her, that’s why,’ said Clare, the bitterness still ringing each word. ‘Nobody was looking for her, or the suitcase, or the car.’

  ‘But what about the body?’ I asked Rita.

  ‘I put it in the wardrobe before I left.’ Rita was staring at the carpet again. ‘She was so small. Then I went back two days later. I couldn’t face it before then.’

  I glanced across at Clare. Her face was flat, hard.

  ‘I brought a spade with me. Dug a hole in the back corner of your father’s yard.’ She sniffed wetly and then looked at Petra and me. ‘She’d wanted to be with him, see. Not Paul.’

  ‘She’d wanted to be with me,’ hissed Clare, bobbing down so that she could make eye contact with Rita. ‘Me!’

  ‘I didn’t know that then! I really didn’t!’

  ‘You were pregnant.’ Petra was staring at her. ‘How on earth did you dig the grave?’

  ‘I was worried about that,’ admitted Rita. ‘But the ground was so soft. It was autumn, see, and we’d had so much rain. The hardest bit was carrying her …’ She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Carrying her down the stairs. I arranged her nicely, you know.’ She transferred her gaze back to Clare. ‘With her hair neat and her handbag and all.’

  ‘Oh, excellent.’ Clare stared at her balefully and then straightened, looking across at us. ‘So do you still think I’m cruel? Do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re cruel exactly,’ said Amy. ‘But I do think that these are the sort of occasions where we need to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus Christ do?” And the answer to that is, of course, to show her mercy. It’s the Christian thing to do. To err is human, to forgive divine.’

  ‘Who are you again?’ Clare held up her spare hand. ‘No, don’t bother telling me. You’re an idiot. After I shoot her, I’m going to shoot you too.’

  ‘How did you know it was her?’ asked Petra, over the top of Amy’s gasp.

  ‘Process of elimination. I was so sure it was Rex that I never went any further than that. Once that changed, and I discounted your father, she was the only one left.’

  ‘Can I say something?’ My arms were beginning to ache and I could feel the plastic ties digging into my wrists. ‘I think you’re absolutely justified in killing her.’

  ‘Nell!’ said Amy, shocked.

  ‘But I also wonder if you’ve considered that you’re letting her off easy that way.’

  Petra was already nodding. ‘She’s right. If you kill Rita, she becomes the victim despite everything. But if you let her live, then she has to stand trial for murder. Everything she has tried to protect will come tumbling down. And she’ll have to watch.’

  Rita had been looking from my sister to me as we put our case. Her face was the colour of ivory, with the smudgy-blue lump on her forehead standing out in sharp relief. ‘No.’

  Clare was also watching us, but with more enthusiasm. ‘What if she gets off?’

  ‘Mum?’ called Lucy from the couch. She waved a hand to get my attention.

  ‘She might,’ said Petra. ‘It’ll be manslaughter for starters, but she’ll have a choice. Plead guilty and avoid everything coming out – the affairs, the baby, the jealousy – or fight the charges and have all the dirty laundry aired. Either way, she loses.’

  ‘Do you know what I don’t get?’ I was staring at Rita. ‘He didn’t love you any more. You were young, attractive, you could have found someone else, had a whole quiverful of babies. Why didn’t you?’

  Her face hardened and for an instant I saw the woman who had surged across the room, heavy umbrella drawn back. ‘And let them be happy? Let them win? Never.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you a charmer,’ said Kate. She seemed to have taken a strong dislike to Rita.

  ‘Um, can I say something?’ asked Lucy. ‘Mum?’

  There was a sharp knock on the door, sudden and unexpected. Seconds later it was accompanied by Senior Sergeant Eric Male’s most officious voice. ‘Police! Open up!’

  ‘She has a gun!’ shrieked Amy Stenhouse. ‘Be careful! She has a gun!’

  ‘You are really beginning to annoy me,’ said Clare calmly. But she kept the pistol on Rita.

  I stared over at her, my heart rocketing. I knew that we were suddenly more in danger, more at risk. What if she snapped, panicked? This was the point where tragedies happened.

  ‘Mrs Fletcher?’ asked Eric Male loudly. ‘Are you in there? It doesn’t have to be this way.’

  Clare smiled across at our table. ‘What’s the bet they’ve only just put two and two together and realised I had a hand in my husband’s death. Half their problem is they underestimate older women. Always. Of course, now they’ll be sure I did away with Dallas as well. Idiots.’

  ‘Mrs Fletcher?’

  Clare took a step closer to the door, keeping her pistol low, and aimed at Rita. She raised her voice. ‘Give me five minutes!’

  ‘Um, I’m really sorry,’ said Lucy. ‘But I don’t know that I have five minutes. I seem to have wet myself. Something chronic.’

  ‘Oh my god!’ I jumped to my feet. Lucy was sitting on the edge of the couch, her lilac pants now stained a deep purple. I whipped around to face Clare. ‘You have to let her go!’

  ‘Well, obviously,’ she said, irritated. She gestured towards Kate. ‘You, over here.’

  ‘I’ll go!’ said Amy quickly. ‘Really, I’ve had experience. And I’m the grandmother. One of them, anyway.’

  Clare shook her head. ‘In that case I’ll give the baby its first-ever present. I’ll keep you here.’ She strode over towards Kate, who was only just getting to her feet, and pulled her towards the island bench. After a rapid glance at each of us, she lowered the gun and began to search the kitchen drawers. Metal implements clanged against each other. I wondered what the police were thinking. Clare straightened, grabbing Kate’s arm again and swivelling her around. ‘Keep still.’ There was an abrupt, slicing sound.

  ‘Oh, gosh.’ Kate brought her hands forward and rubbed at her wrists. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Okay then.’ Clare flung the knife onto the bench. It slid with a slow spin all the way to the end. If my hands weren’t bound I could easily have reached it, but then I probably wouldn’t have needed it either. Ah, irony. All this flashed through my mind in an instant, along with the suspicion that I might have concussion. I blinked, bringing my attention back to matters at hand. Clare had returned to her position near Rita. ‘You can both go,’ she said to Lucy and Kate. ‘Call out first so the police know it’s you.’

  Kate hurried over to the couch and helped Lucy to her feet. They moved towards the door, pausing on the threshold.

  ‘Two people coming out!’ I bellowed, still on my feet. ‘Don’t shoot!’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Petra. ‘You just burst my eardrum.’

  ‘You won’t hurt them, will you?’ asked Lucy of Clare. She waited for her to shake her head and then gave me a grin. ‘See you soon, Mum.’

  ‘See you, honey. And good luck.’

  Kate opened the door and murky sunshine flooded inside. I could hear the wind. They made their halting way out onto the porch and then the door swung closed behind them. We all turned to face Clare.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking.’

  Amy Stenhouse sat back down. ‘It’s not too late to turn yourself in. Do the right thing.’

  ‘I said I’m thinking!’ snapped Clare. ‘Bloody hell, for five cents I really would shoot you!’

  ‘I’ve got some change,’ muttered Petra. Amy looked at her suspiciously.

  I wondered how Lucy was going out there, whether an ambulance had been called. I lowered myself into my chair, moving forward so that my arms weren’t jammed too badly. My head still throbbed, but it was a steady, almost friendly throb. I glanced at Rita, who had been silent for some time. She had curled into herself, her cotton dress tucke
d up on one side to show a pallid, fleshy thigh. She was staring into her lap blankly and I wondered if she had gone into shock.

  ‘Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,’ Clare said decisively. ‘You’re right, I was letting emotion cloud my judgement. I had this romantic notion of killing her where she killed Dallas – but yes, that would be letting her off too easy. So instead I’m relying on all of you to make sure the record is set straight. Tell them what she did. What it meant.’

  ‘What about you?’ I asked. I was washed with a horrible suspicion.

  ‘I’m going to give myself up,’ she said. The words were accompanied by a slow smile, as if she loved the sound of them. ‘It’s the best thing.’

  I shook my head slowly, staring at her. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘Yes, she does!’ said Amy Stenhouse. ‘Absolutely, she does!’

  Petra turned on her furiously. ‘Shut up, you fool. Don’t you realise what she’s saying?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Clare was still smiling. ‘And there’s nothing you can do to talk me out of it. Think about it for a moment. I found it all hard enough before I found out what happened to Dallas …’ Her smile faded. ‘What we could have had. And now, with that plus what I did to Rex? He was like a lamb to the slaughter. No idea. I may as well have pulled the trigger myself.’

  ‘But you could –’

  ‘No, I couldn’t. And I don’t want to. I always knew it would finish like this, even before I decided to let her live. I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  Petra and I exchanged glances. There was nothing to say. If I had been Clare, I probably would have felt exactly the same way. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’m looking forward to it.’ Clare’s smile returned. ‘But I apologise about your head. I didn’t mean to hit you like that.’ She turned to Rita and her face transformed in an instant. ‘You. I hope you rot in hell. But not until after you’ve faced the music here.’

  I was filled with a desperate desire to stop her. But alongside that was the certain knowledge that this desire was more about me than Clare Fletcher. I actually liked her. And I felt sick.