I think about it. I think about what Schroder said last night, our nice friendly chat about people getting locked away and let right back out, our nice friendly chat about what a huge revolving door prison is these days.
“They’ve all spent time in jail,” he carries on. “Had to have. I’m betting some of them, if not all of them, probably met in jail. That’s what jail is, right? For me, it’s my home. I’ll never see outside of these walls again, but for these men it’s a place to learn new skills, make new friends.”
I stay silent, but continue to listen.
“Jail takes people in, it educates them in very, very dangerous ways, then it spits them back out into society. Most if not all of Jodie’s killers have walked in and out of these doors for various crimes.”
“And you know who these people are, right? It’s why you’re telling me. You want me to find these people to satisfy your darkness.”
“I think we can help each other out,” he says.
“No way. This is bullshit,” I say. “I’m not helping you out.”
“Would that be such a bad thing, son? Or would you rather let them go free? The voice can be a bad thing, son, but it can be a good thing too. You can use it to make the men who did this pay for what happened.”
“To satisfy your darkness?”
“No. To keep you sane. If you can’t control it the way I could, you’re going to hurt good people.”
“Hang on a second. Are you saying you controlled it all those years?”
“Of course. I gave in to it as well, in a way, but I controlled it. That’s why I never killed anybody who mattered.”
“You killed eleven prostitutes,” I say. “How can you say they don’t matter?”
“They don’t.”
“They do.”
“Compared to what? Compared to my own family? My friends? Our neighbors? They didn’t matter compared to anybody else I knew. Once you can control it, it’ll keep you from hurting good people. It’ll keep you from going off the rails and losing your daughter. The monster won’t go away now, not if it’s taking the steering wheel and making you do things. If you can’t control it, you’re going to be more like your old man than you ever thought possible. We’re blood men,” he says.
“What?”
“Other people, they’re attracted to looks, or money, nice jobs, all the hollow things in this world. Other men are attracted to tits or ass, women are attracted to smiles and eyes. Your monster, my darkness, they’re attracted to blood. It makes us blood men.”
He stands up, and suddenly I realize that this meeting, if that’s the word for it, is over. I stand up too. Dad reaches over and grabs my hands.
“No touching,” the guard says, and when Dad doesn’t let go, the guard comes over and separates us. “That’s enough for today,” the guard says, stamping his authority on us.
Dad walks away. “I love you, son,” he says, but he doesn’t turn back to say it. “No matter what happens now, remember that.”
I don’t know how to answer him, so I don’t. I walk away too. And it’s not until I’m in the parking lot that I look down at the folded piece of paper in my hand.
I haven’t seen my father’s handwriting in twenty years. He used to help me with my homework. We’d lie down on the floor in the living room with the TV going but the volume mostly down, discussing why bees collected honey or how seven wouldn’t divide into twelve. He’d write things down for me, he’d read over my assignments and jot down ideas in the margins, other times he’d take notes out of whatever books I was searching through for answers. He has this elegant printing style, where the letters don’t bleed into each other, each one separate, easy to read, easy to recognize even after all this time. He always wanted me to be the best that I could at school. Those days come back to me, the smells of my mum baking something, or cooking dinner, the TV going, laughter, warm weather, a dog barking, school uniforms, life.
Another car pulls into the parking lot. It’s a rundown Mercedes, the type that isn’t old enough to be classic, but nowhere new enough to be cool. There’s a long scratch running along the bottom of the passenger side. A guy, maybe around twenty, steps out of it, his dreadlocks bouncing.
“Hey, bro, what up?” he asks, tilting his head upward as he does so. I immediately hate him. His T-shirt is full of holes and has
I ATE AT THE BLEEDING BUDGIE
all in capital letters across the front of it. No picture, no further explanation, maybe there’s a punch line on the back, but I don’t look. He realizes his mistake in speaking to me because I ignore him. He shrugs and heads in through the glass doors.
The air in the car is so hot it almost curls the paper my dad gave me. I wind the windows down but it doesn’t help. I read it over a couple of times and think about what it means.
L
ISTEN TO THE VOICE
. S
HANE
K
INGSLY
. 23 S
TONEVIEW
R
OAD
.
I drive home, but the only voice speaking comes from the radio. The news comes on but the announcer ignores the bank robbery and doesn’t mention anything about the men being caught. I end
up pulling in behind another slow-moving truck so I take a different way home, getting caught instead at a set of roadworks where the street has been ripped up and there’s dust and dirt in the air. There are exposed pipes and wiring and machinery but nobody around, the workers off for the Christmas break, the roadworks now in limbo until sometime next month. Tiny bits of gravel shoot out from beneath the tires of the car ahead of me, hitting the windscreen but not chipping it. My cell phone rings. I recognize the number.
“You went to visit your dad again,” Schroder says. “Want to tell me why?”
“He’s my dad. I don’t need a reason other than that. And I certainly don’t need to give a reason to you.”
“You sound different, Edward.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You sound like you’ve been thinking about things, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like the kind of things you’ve been thinking.”
Somehow I think Schroder is the kind of guy who might like what I was thinking—problem is I can’t share with him. “Are you ringing to tell me you’ve caught the men who killed my wife?”
“We’re working on it.”
“I thought so. So why are you calling, other than to bust my balls for visiting my dad?”
“To remind you not to get any bad ideas.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“I think you do. I think you’re so lost right now you’re turning to your father for advice, and trust me, he’s the last person you want to be turning to.”
“I keep thinking if you spent less time worrying about my life, you’d spend more time on catching the people who ruined it.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Edward.”
“To who? Nobody knows who I could do anything stupid to anyway!” I say, and I hang up. He doesn’t call back.
Back home I sit at the dinner table and smooth the piece of paper out, pressing it flat against the wood, pushing my fingertips and palms onto it as if ironing out the wrinkles. My house is still
empty. No shadows, no presence, my wife even less here today than she was yesterday. I have a name and an address and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. Not once did I even think of giving that information to Schroder when I was on the phone, and weighing it up now I’m glad I didn’t. It wasn’t Schroder’s wife who got killed. Does that mean I’m listening to the voice?
I listen for it now. There’s nothing.
I can’t go through what I went through last night. Can’t drive to this man’s house and . . . and what?
Let me help you.
And there it is.
“No,” I say, and the word sounds empty in my empty home.
We can do this.
“No.”
Then let me do this for you.
I go online and search for Shane Kingsly. He shows up pretty quick, he’s made the news on and off his entire life. Nothing big—not in the taking-a-life way of being big. He’s done plenty of shitty things. Plenty of theft convictions. He has some assault charges, and a couple of drug possession charges. Not all the statistics are here to tell me how many years he’s spent in jail on and off. His last sentence was for two years after he held up a service station with a shotgun. It doesn’t say when he was released from jail, but it must have been early for being a model prisoner—which I guess is easy to do when there aren’t any service stations or shotguns in prison. This man was one of the six, but he wasn’t the one who planned it. Is this the man that killed Jodie? He may well be.
When the phone rings it’s my father-in-law.
“When are you coming to pick Sam up?” he asks. “She misses you.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I hear myself saying. I’m on automatic now. “I’ve been busy. I’ve been at the police station all morning.”
“Do they have . . . any news?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you okay, Edward? You sound weird.”
“I’m fine. Can I talk to Sam?”
“Sure. Hang on a second.”
“Daddy?”
“Hello, honey. Daddy-Nat and Gramma taking good care of you?”
“We’ve been putting up a Christmas tree,” she says. “They let me help. It was so cool. Will Santa bring something for Mummy this year?”
I sit down, my legs weak. I suddenly realize that I have no idea where our cat is. I can’t even remember the last time I saw him, and I’m not even sure if I’ve been feeding him or if he’s even still alive. Jesus—the monster didn’t get him when I was drunk, did it?
“Daddy?”
“Not this year, honey. I’m going to come and see you, okay? Tell Daddy-Nat and Gramma that I’m on my way.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she says, and hangs up without another word.
I pack some of her clothes. Jodie bought a bag for this a couple of years ago as occasionally Sam spends the night at her grandparents’. I find a couple of toys, and I figure it ought to be enough. Everything else—pajamas, toothbrush, et cetera—are at Nat’s house.
The sun is still blazing bright, the day isn’t as hot as it was a few hours ago but I still drive with the window down. Christchurch weather has the ability to turn on a dime. There are bus stops full of people all waiting to go somewhere, tourists with backpacks half the size of them visiting the Garden City, mums with baby carriages and bags full of shopping. Every mailbox outside every house is jammed full of supermarket and store brochures. Kids on front lawns are running through and sitting on top of sprinklers. I pass hedgehogs flattened by cars and dogs walking freely along sidewalks, sniffing at fast-food bags dropped in the gutters. I’m in control the entire drive, and I’m in control when I pull up in the driveway and step out. Sam comes and hugs me, and leads me inside to show off the Christmas tree. It’s the same tree they have every year. I smile at the tree and say how good it looks, but the truth is I’ll probably never enjoy Christmas again.
“You look like hell,” Nat says, and I guess he’s right—I haven’t really checked.
“Can I fix you something to eat?” Diana asks.
“Sure, thanks,” I say. I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since the boxed cereal yesterday.
I spend a couple hours at the house. I fit in well enough, but it’s like I’m an outsider the entire time, and even though my in-laws try hard, I think this may be the last time I visit them—other than to drop Sam off or pick her up. I can’t be here with them, and I don’t know why. They don’t blame me for what happened, but their pain and loss are written all over their faces. I don’t need to see that, not now, perhaps never again. After dinner we sit out on the porch, me and Nat, him drinking a beer and wondering why I don’t want one too.
“Listen, Nat, can you watch Sam again tonight? There’s something I have to do.”
He takes a long swallow of beer before answering. “You know, Eddie, I’m not kidding when I say you look like hell.”
“I know.”
“The only thing you ought to be doing right now is taking care of what family you have left.”
“That is what I’m doing.”
“Uh-huh. And how exactly are you doing that?”
“Can you take care of Sam or not?”
“Of course we can, Eddie, you know that. I’m just worried you’re thinking of doing something stupid.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something. Stupid.”
“I’m only helping the police with a few things.”
“You’ve got a daughter who needs you. I’m not telling you to let go of what happened, but you have to let the police do their job. A man needs to know what his priorities are.”
“I know. You’re right. It’s only for tonight,” I say, “I promise.”
“Okay, Edward. And don’t worry, I won’t hold you to your promise,” he says, and finishes off his beer.
I sit in my living room with the curtains closed and the stereo off and the TV off and the phones off. I’m sick of the world. Sick of my phone—sick of messages left by reporters and the psychiatrist I used to see years ago and by people wanting to check up on me. I stare at the TV as if it were on. In the beginning I can see my reflection, but the later the day becomes the harder it gets to see. I have nothing to do but wait for it to become dark. I stare at the Christmas tree and once again I think about taking it down, but once again I decide to leave it up for Sam. The sun comes in through one of the living room windows, it climbs up the walls as it sinks toward the horizon, reflecting off the shiny balls and bells on the tree. It moves over a photo of Sam, over a wedding photo of me and Jodie, it reflects
across the room, orange light, weakening, and then it’s gone.
I keep waiting.
Darkness settles in. An hour goes by. I switch on the TV and there’s a New Zealand–made show about psychics on. They’re trying to solve the crimes the police haven’t been able to. A short time ago this kind of thing disgusted me. People were making money off the misery of victims—from the psychics themselves to anybody who had anything to do with the shooting of the show. Women were raped and murdered only to have their story re-enacted and retold by psychics trying to make a quick buck, and the TV-viewing public loved it—or at least enough of them did to keep making the show. But now I think of it differently. If the police can’t do their job, maybe the psychics can. Before I can change channels, the front of the bank appears, then two side-by-side photos, one of my wife, one of the bank manager. Jonas Jones, the main psychic on the show, sits down at an office table that may or may not be inside the bank, closes his eyes, and, surrounded by burning candles, tells the public that the stolen money is still in Christchurch, hidden, somewhere near water, which is a great feat considering Christchurch is on the edge of an ocean. No wonder psychics aren’t winning the lottery every week.