by JP Pomare
He wets his lips, looks past me over the lake. ‘It really wasn’t so difficult to become him,’ he says. ‘Contact lenses. A mask ordered online from a military replica store. And a black-market shotgun. Finding your sim card made things much easier. I got into the dating account and organised a meet-up with him.’
‘You lured him here? So he was innocent? You’re telling me that I killed an innocent man?’ The familiar creep of guilt rises like bile; this can’t be happening.
‘It was supposed to be me. I was supposed to do it. Killing changes you and you pulling the trigger was the last thing I wanted.’
I remember Cain’s shock that night when he realised I had killed Daniel. We had gone off script; I was never supposed to escape from the fireplace, and I wouldn’t have if someone hadn’t made that comment and helped me. Cain was supposed to save me.
‘The hard part was setting up the cameras, capturing the footage in a way that exonerated us of wrongdoing. It had to show that we acted out of self-defence. So it showed me stumbling to the bedroom, but it didn’t show me taking the ladder and sneaking back out through the laundry while you were in the shower. It didn’t show me meeting him at the road with a shotgun and forcing him up that same ladder and into the bedroom.’ He clears his throat. ‘I stripped him and told him if I heard him or if he moved, I would kill him. And he was good, silent as a mouse. I locked him in that great big chest, then later the cameras showed Daniel dragging a body in a sheet to the spare room. But they didn’t show me forcing clothes back on him, pushing him out into the hallway. The hole in the wall and the smashed window let the rain in, filling up the chest, rinsing the floor and washing away any evidence that went against what the cameras showed. It was easy enough to open up the old gash above my eye on the door knob. Everything went to plan, except I was the one who was supposed to escape, rush out with my hands still bound and push him down the stairs. The camera would show me desperate to save you.’
My head feels light, filled with helium. My body is trembling. He did all this to get rid of Daniel. The viewers. Maybe this was his way of punishing me too. ‘But you didn’t save me.’
‘The princess saved herself,’ he says, a wry smile. ‘But you wouldn’t accept that he acted alone. You needed to keep pushing and probing. You didn’t trust me.’
I was right about seeing someone else – there was Daniel, and the second person I thought I saw was Cain. Just a glimpse of him behind Daniel. I can feel hot tears pricking my eyes. ‘I killed him. He was innocent.’
‘You have to believe he was evil, Lina. You have to accept the version of events you’ve believed all along. We have a choice, you and I. You can ignore those keys you found. You can go back to how things were. We can both forget each other’s secrets. I installed the cameras for us, for the money. I never watched anything, I’m not a pervert. I was training Rick Reynolds, complaining about money and he put me on to Peephole. He told me there was good money to be made, easy money. I could take all the earnings, all he wanted was local streams in his time zone. It was foolproof.’ His voice is rising now. ‘The money was laundered through international betting agencies.’ He chuckles to himself now. ‘It was Rick who alerted me to what you were up to. I asked for the video clips and he sent them. It wasn’t easy to watch, Lina, but I still loved you. The funny thing is, I did what I did for you, for us. And I worked out that you did what you did for us too. That’s why I still love you, Lina. In spite of everything. Some would say we deserve each other.’
My molars are numb from clenching my jaw. How could he have done this, plan that whole terrible nightmare in this house? He put me through hell. He chained me up and taunted me, just to make me hate Daniel, or the person I thought was Daniel. Just for the viewers and the money.
‘We’ve both got secrets, Lina. We’re bound to them, and to each other. There’s no untangling this mess. I’m prepared to forget, I can move on. You just need to decide if you can too.’
I can hear the crack of gravel, of a car on the driveway. He looks in that direction.
‘They’re here,’ I say, more to myself than him.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Axel and Claire have heard all about your scrambled eggs. Be a shame to let them down.’
I hesitate for a moment. We both have secrets. I follow him in, keeping my distance and feeling an ache in my chest. The pain of knowing. I could call Rata, I could tell him it was Cain and put him onto Rick Reynolds. But what would that mean for me? The world would find out what I did too. This baby would one day know as well. Slowly but surely, I come to a decision.
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘FIND THE PLACE alright?’ Cain asks Claire with a smile as if nothing has changed.
‘Yeah, easy enough.’
He takes the long black out of Claire’s hand and brings the decaf latte to me at the stove. ‘For you, Quin,’ he says, offering it. I continue stirring the eggs, and he sets it down beside me. He takes a sip of his coffee. ‘Need this after Axel made me down that last double of Glenmorangie at midnight.’ He’s so normal now.
Axel laughs. ‘Had to really twist your arm, did I?’
At the table, we sit and everyone begins reaching for grilled tomatoes, scooping scrambled eggs or spearing the crispy bacon with their forks. Everyone but me. Does no one else feel the thickness in the air, or see the heat in my cheeks? The energy in the house has shifted, like the moments after a strong earthquake, but one only I felt.
‘Not hungry?’ Cain says.
I realise he’s talking to me. My eyes, fixed on the empty plate before me, rise now to his face. ‘No,’ I say.
‘Morning sickness?’ Claire asks.
I turn to her. Do you know? No. They couldn’t know. Cain wouldn’t risk it. ‘Yeah, possibly.’
‘Well, everyone else dig in,’ Cain says. I force a mouthful of my decaf latte down.
‘Sometimes,’ Cain begins, ‘I wonder what we would all be doing now if it didn’t happen. You know? If that bastard didn’t do what he did to us.’ He’s looking at me. ‘I can forgive him and what happened, I can pretend it never happened knowing that he’s dead.’
No one speaks, so he continues.
‘I guess that makes me emotionally primitive. Forgiveness in death. Maybe… I’m just a caveman.’ He laughs. Axel gives a snort.
I am a fucking caveman. Those words Daniel said; no, not Daniel. Cain. He can forgive what happened because Daniel is dead, a dead man can’t replace him. Something else he said comes to mind now. I could never raise someone else’s kid, knowing the real parents were out there in the world. Did I force his hand? I imagine him now, heading to the hospital that night with Daniel’s phone on him. Flushing the coloured contact lenses down the toilet. Believing he had committed the perfect crime. Impervious to interrogation, built to survive the toughest environments and prepared to go further than his enemy. I see that tattoo on his chest again. Who Dares Wins.
‘No need to dwell on it now, though. This weekend is about giving the house a proper farewell,’ Claire says.
‘Let’s get that boat in the water after breakfast,’ Axel says, changing the subject.
‘Good idea. We’ll get the bolt cutters out,’ Cain says. ‘You can be the skipper.’
‘Bloody oath I will be.’
I’m still looking at Cain, catching his eye for just a heartbeat. Then he looks back to his food. I put my coffee down and wait for breakfast to be over. A flush of guilt rushes over my skin. I think about that gurgling sound; Daniel Moore bleeding out almost directly above where we now sit and his only crime was pursuing the wrong woman.
‘Why don’t you lie down after breakfast, Quin?’ Cain says. ‘You don’t look so well.’
‘I’ve got magnesium oil,’ Claire says. ‘I’ll grab it for you, it’s supposed to help with the nausea.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say, swallowing hard. ‘I am fine. It’s just being back here in this house; the light of day gives that night context.’
‘You did th
e right thing,’ Cain says. ‘You saved me. And you saved yourself.’
Claire helps me pack up the dishes and Axel and Cain go out to the boatshed. Is he going to continue life as usual, carry on like nothing has changed? I know the ball is in my court and I know what I need to do.
‘Back in a sec,’ I say to Claire, hanging the tea towel over the handle of the oven.
I take my phone out. It’s got one bar of reception and I dial the number for Rata. I hold it hard against my face as it rings and rings. He doesn’t answer so I leave a message.
The boat engine chugs now, it turns over but doesn’t start. Cain must have found the key. Again, someone pulls the starter and this time it roars into life and I step closer to the window looking over at the two men on the lawn. I’ve loved Cain so much, from that first moment. Lots of others from his unit became involved with drugs or crime, to chase that thrill, or to make money. Cain wanted to make it work for us, he was desperate to earn a good living and look after me, but he took it too far. My phone rings, it’s Rata. I see Cain rushing across the back lawn towards the house. The door opens.
‘Come on, ladies, let’s go for a spin,’ he shouts into the house.
I look down at the phone in my hand.
THIRTY-NINE
‘YOU WANT A lift?’ Cain says to Claire, turning and presenting his back to her beside the edge of the lake.
‘Alright.’ She climbs up. He sloshes out through the water to knee height and backs her up to the boat where Axel has it idling. Cain sloshes back through the water for me. There’s tension as I climb up onto his back, feel the muscles pressing against me through his t-shirt. I know you, I think. I’ve loved you all these years. He ferries me out. The words are there, but I can’t say them. I won’t. I’ve made my decision, and nothing can change it now.
I climb over the side of the boat and then Cain lifts himself in. We take up seats opposite each other, on the sides of the boat. Claire faces forward in behind Axel, watching her husband.
‘Ready?’ Axel calls but before anyone can answer he throws the throttle forward. In a heartbeat we’re flying. The water rushes by. The engine dials up to the timbre of a buzz saw and lake water drifts over the front and sides of the boat in sprays.
Suddenly we are in the middle of the lake, the house just a pale square in among the green.
Cain is watching me, completely neutral, a laser focus.
Axel slows it down a little now, turning around and yelling something out with a grin, but the words are stolen by the wind. We keep moving until we are so far from the house that I can barely see it behind us.
Would he hurt me? It’s one of those odd principles he lives by. He would never hurt a woman. But he has killed men. They trained us to kill but they can’t untrain us. He’d never accept the dole. He’ll always protect me. I tell myself it’s true, even now after everything.
Claire stands, puts one arm around Axel’s waist, bracing against him as the boat rocks. Halfway towards Hot Water Beach, my eyes move back to my husband’s. A moment of eye contact. We both know each other’s secrets. He looks down and I follow his gaze. He’s holding those two keys, now without the buoy key ring, and a phone. I know it’s Daniel’s phone. It has the dating app, the messages, the evidence that he was lured to our house. His arm moves out over the side. And now I see a question in his eyes. I nod. Do it.
The phone and the keys fall and are swallowed by the lake where it froths and boils at the boat’s edge. They’re gone in the growing tail of foam in our wake. Just the slightest lift at the corner of his mouth as if to say, it’s done, the past is behind us. Cain was using the photos and the phone to force me to forget about the second man, to stick with the narrative, to do the interview and clear our names, but now they’re gone. Twisting and turning through the murky depths.
I breathe in, breathe out, give just the smallest nod once more. Our indiscretions confined to a point in time, a place that soon we will never see again. Our secrets plummeting to the deepest part of this lake that has given me so much, but taken even more.
Peephole
Live Cam Premium
Stream: 021A
Viewers: 006
This stream is a favourite with the viewers. It’s one of the longest running streams on the platform and, unlike many of the others, it’s rarely new people staying in the home. It’s almost always the same couple, the muscle-bound man and the tattooed woman with the short black hair. They’re there so much of the time, with that little brown dog. After so many months, viewers feel like they know them, viewers can inhabit them. They can see the woman’s stomach growing with her pregnancy. Today someone else is in the house. He’s in a black balaclava and comes through the front door. He punches in the code to the alarm and carries a stepladder and a small toolkit with him. He goes directly to the corner of the living room and climbs up the stepladder to the camera. It’s quick, methodical work. Viewers drop away as one by one he removes all of the streams. In the living room, the bedrooms, the bathrooms. They all drop out and it’s almost like the cameras were never there. It’s like he was never there.
SECOND ARREST MADE IN WESTAY HIDDEN CAMERAS CASE
Police have arrested a man and raided his Grey Lynn home, seizing computers, hard drives and other hardware in dramatic scenes. The arrest is believed to be in relation to the Tarawera home invasion and an online network of voyeurs who produce and share covert footage within holiday rentals from websites such as WeStay.
The suspect has been granted interim name suppression, but it is understood that he has a ‘significant profile’ and is refusing to cooperate with investigators.
It is alleged the individual has engaged the illegal service Peephole, which investigators learned about earlier this year.
The raid came after NZSAS personnel received a tip-off.
‘Obviously it’s a major concern for the public, and it’s an important part of our tourism industry that travellers can feel safe, particularly with the places they choose to stay. We’re confident that we are on top of the situation and will be in contact with all those who may have been affected,’ lead investigator Ed Rata explained. ‘Anyone caught distributing, recording or viewing this material will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’
Given the anonymity of the video-sharing platform now known as Peephole, it’s unlikely there will be further arrests.
EPILOGUE
Fourteen Months Later
SHE’S A PERFECT little girl. Esther Rose Phillips. I had to give her my grandma’s name because she came out with Grandma’s eyes, and Cain wanted his mother’s name as her middle name. It was a fair compromise in the end. They say you fall deeper in love with your husband when you have your first child, when you see the unfiltered joy, the silliness, the cooing soppy man this tiny infant makes them become – and it’s true. My big macho husband is putty in her hands, the doting father who can see no wrong in his child. You will never see a little girl who loves her father more and a father who would do so much for a child. We are the parents neither of us had growing up and I couldn’t be prouder of my family.
I watch him now from the kitchen window, the new hammock swinging beneath the blooming pohutukawa. The red haze of the flowers. The hot ceramic sky, mirrored in the lake. The saddle of the mountain with its deep, rich greens and those two out there lazing in the mid-afternoon heat. Cain bends to the shape of the hammock’s net, looking out at the water with Esther nestled in against his chest.
Sometimes I have thoughts about Daniel, and the odd nightmare. Collateral damage, that’s what Cain would say if we ever talked about it. But we don’t talk about it. We will never talk about it. I try my best not to think about it and I find it works: I think about it less and less with each day. Some shrapnel the body must press out, some stays in there sealed in scar tissue.
I’m somehow a hero, but Daniel’s friends and family still want answers, even now. Where did he get the gun, why did he do it, why was there so much ketamine i
n his body as detailed in the coroner’s report? There’s more evidence still out there, on that video that has continued to circulate. Of course, the terror in my eyes was real. Daniel stepping into the hall was real. But I’ve watched it a few times and now I can see moments when ‘Daniel’ exhibits signs of weakness in his right leg. Anyone who points any of this out is labelled a conspiracy theorist, something I’m grateful for.
•
Scotty’s new partner reported him when he almost sideswiped a cyclist, and he tested positive for fentanyl. It’s justice, but I didn’t need to take my job back. Without the high Auckland rent we can survive just fine. My paid leave carried through until my due date and then I had maternity leave. Cain’s new gym in Rotorua is providing more than enough income for us now.
Cain carries Esther along the lake’s edge. Her pigtails bounce and her lilac cotton dress presses against his side as he points out the ducks floating by.
‘That’s the mummy and those are the babies,’ he says.
She turns to me as I stride across the lawn with her sunhat in my hand.
‘She’ll get burnt,’ I say. I see that grin, the two white nibs beginning to punch through her bottom gums, and those eyes and I feel the stirring inside. The feeling only a mother knows. These are my people, this is my family and my home.
It feels good to build something new, build it from scratch. We start again and leave old bones in the ground, never to surface again. We move on. Silent but knowing. That’s the key, I think now, to a long and happy marriage. That’s the grease that keeps family life turning smoothly. Our secrets are as quiet and as deep as Esther’s beautiful green eyes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’M BEGINNING TO realise that the author does not decide how long a story will take to write. If you’re lucky and pay close attention, if you stick with a story long enough, it might one day reveal itself to you. The Last Guests took about eighteen months longer than I anticipated to complete. I worked harder and spent more time with it than any other project I’ve commenced but I never lost faith in the premise of the story, and the incredible people I’ve managed to surround myself with never lost faith in me.
