Cemetery Lake (39 page)

‘I doubt it. He hasn’t spoken to her since Rachel went missing.

Far as I can tell, he hates her. Man, really fucking hates her.’

‘I wonder why’ I say, but I already know.

‘Yeah,’ he says, trying to sound as if he knows too, but he has no idea. Nobody could.

‘When did he go?’

‘I told you, man, a few days ago.’

‘When exactly? Tuesday? Wednesday? Thursday?’

‘I don’t know’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Man, I don’t even know what today is.’

I push past him again and start going through the rest of the

house.

‘Hey, man, you can’t go through everything.’

“Then tell me where he is.’

“I don’t know’

‘He’s your friend, right?’

‘He owes me rent.’

Then you owe him nothing. Take a guess. Where do you think

he’s going?’

‘I remember him saying something about meeting a woman.

He had a date. But it was a weird date. I remember that.’

‘Jesus, if it was weird enough to stick out, why the hell can’t you remember the details?’

“I was, man, you know … I was kind of, well, in a different

state.’

‘You were stoned.’

‘Best as I remember, yeah.’

‘You get her name?’

‘Nah. Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Could it have been Deborah?’

‘Sure, it easily could have. But it just as easily could have been Susan. Or Nicola.’

‘That’s real helpful.’

Studly shrugs. ‘That’s all I know, man. Hey, you find him you

tell me he owes me rent, okay?’

‘Look, this is important,’ I say, and I hand him one of my

business cards. ‘You remember something, you give me a call.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he says, and he screws the card into his pocket.

I figure in five minutes he’ll forget it’s even there.

‘Okay let’s do this your way’ I say. ‘Got some scissors?’

‘Fuck you, man.’

‘Jesus, I’m not going to fucking cut you. If I wanted to do

something fun I’d just shoot you. Now, scissors? Come on, dude, hurry up.’

He heads into the kitchen and shows back up a few seconds

later. I reach into my pocket and pull out the money my mother gave me. I count out two one-hundred-dollar notes. I cut the

scissors across them, separating the notes into halves. I hand him two halves, along with the scissors, and I pocket the other two.

‘What the hell am I supposed to do with these?’

‘They’ll help you think. You gotta come up with something

useful to earn the rest.’

I sit in my car but don’t drive anywhere. I think about Rachel Tyler, and I think about David Harding, and I wonder who felt

the most revulsion when they found out the truth. For the years they were dating, there is no way David or Rachel could have

known they were brother and sister. As they shared the same bed, as they held each other in the night, as they spoke of dreams and fears, there was no way they could have known.

Rachel & David for ever.

Thafs what was inscribed on the ring.

Then somehow David found out. The truth made him sick. It

would make anybody sick, and it would make anybody angry too.

I wonder if he ever knew that type of reaction was within him, that depth of anger. Did he blame her? Did he blame himself?

Or just Father Julian? David has his own abyss, and maybe he

didn’t even know it, not until that day. He killed Rachel because he could not handle the fact his sister was his lover. Most men would have felt the anger, the embarrassment, the pain, but what is the normal reaction? To move on, to try and forget about it?

To never talk about it, to bury those memories and emotions as deep as they can be buried, and then never mention them again?

Or find a shrink, to admit it wasn’t their fault, to process it and process it to the point where it becomes just one of those things, like missing the deadline on your tax return or spilling red wine on the carpet.

David’s rage took him beyond Rachel Tyler and to other girls

he had never met, then it led him to kill Father Julian and to planting the murder weapon in my house. He chose me because

he saw me on the news, but the thing about David was he was

caught in the student world — a world where he slept in every day and missed the news report the morning following my car

accident. He didn’t know to move the murder weapon back out

of my garage.

I start driving away from the house. Other possibilities start to filter their way through my thoughts.

‘I never told him who his father was,’ Fiona Chandler tells me while I stand on her doorstep.

‘So your maiden name is …’

‘Harding,’ she says. ‘Then it became Martins, and now it’s

Chandler. Some good names and bad memories.’

She invites me in out of the rain and we stand in her hallway

with the door open. She sucks in a deep lungful of cigarette

smoke, then blows it into the air, aiming for outside. It forms a small cloud as it hugs the cold air and slowly moves towards me.

‘How did David react when you told him about his father?’

“I never told him, not the complete truth. He thinks Henry

Martins is his father. He doesn’t know about Father Julian.’

‘I’m pretty sure he does.’

‘That’s impossible. David was already angry for a lot of reasons.

He didn’t have the easiest of lives. He was abandoned by two

men he never knew. I didn’t need to tell him everything, so I only ever told him about Henry. I told him that Henry left me when I was pregnant, but I never told him that Henry wasn’t his father.

He asked if Henry made child support payments. Henry didn’t,

and even though Father Julian offered to, I didn’t want his money.

He had ruined my life, and I never wanted anything to do with

him. So all David knew was he had a dad who wanted nothing to

do with him and wouldn’t help support him.’

‘Why’d you keep going to the church if you wanted nothing

to do with Father Julian?’

She shrugs. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense. It’s just that, well, I kept thinking he’d leave the church behind to be with me. But he didn’t.’

And you never told Patricia of your affair with Father Julian?’

‘It wasn’t the sort of thing you went around telling. Perhaps

these days, but not back then.’

‘Did David find Henry? Talk to him?’

“He wanted to. And that just made him angrier.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It happened the same week I told David about him. Just one

of those things, I guess. He wanted to visit Henry and talk to him because he thought Henry was his dad. He wanted to confront

him, I suppose, but he never got the chance. Henry died that

same week. It was an awful coincidence, and I guess David felt abandoned all over again.’

‘So when was the last time you saw him?’

‘I went to Patricia’s mother’s funeral. David came along, of

course. David and Rachel met when they were kids through

Patricia and me. It was one of those relationships you could see coming up before it ever started. Anyway, it was a few days after that I think Rachel disappeared. It was around the same time

Henry died — I can’t remember exactly the details. I’d call David, but he’d never want to speak to me. After a while he stopped

taking the calls. Time just kind of went by after that. To be honest I don’t really know what happened. The shock and the loss,

I guess, but that’s when family should become closer, right?’

She stares at me for some kind of confirmation, and I slowly

nod.

‘Except he was losing people — he lost Rachel, he lost a dad

he thought he was about to meet. Yet these things seemed to rip us apart. Believe me, I tried. I really did. But there’s only so much you can do. David, well, he had his own life. He was in control of it and I couldn’t change his decision. Can you believe that?

I did the best I could, but in the end it wasn’t good enough and his anger towards being abandoned became anger against me,

and, well … well, I should have told him sooner. If I had told him when he was a small boy, maybe he would still think of me as his mother and not some … I don’t know, monster or whore or

incubator or whatever it is he thinks I am.’

My cellphone starts ringing.

“I should take this,’ I say, and pull the phone out of my pocket.

‘It’s important.’

I take a few steps back from the doorway and flip open the

phone. I don’t recognise the number.

‘Hello?’

‘Yeah, man, it’s Oliver.’

‘Who?’

‘Oliver. You were just at my house?’

‘Oh, Studly.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

“I got something for you.’

‘Yeah, money does the memory wonders, right?’

‘How do I know I’ll get it?’

‘Do I look like the kind of guy who would lie to you?’

‘Honestly man, you look like a guy capable of anything.’

‘Then maybe you should think about that and tell me what

you remembered.’

‘Okay okay, dude, but you gotta gimme the other halves of

those notes, man.’

“I guarantee it.’

‘I want them now’

“No, the only thing you want now is to not piss me off.’

‘Okay, okay. Look, David said something weird the other day,

I mean, it might not mean anything, right, but this girl he was seeing. Like I said, he only just met her, right? So to me it seems a little odd he’d say that.’

‘You haven’t told me what he said.’

‘Oh, yeah, man, you’re right. Shit. My point is, who takes

a person they’ve just met to a funeral? That’s what he said. He said he was taking her to a funeral on Sunday, but that’s weird, right? You don’t have funerals on Sunday. Anyway, that’s where he’s going to be tomorrow, though I don’t know what funeral.’

‘It’s Sunday today’

‘It is? Oh, shit, man, that’s awesome. Do I still get my

money?’

‘No, because nobody gets buried on a Sunday’

‘Shit, man, that’s why it sounded so weird to me. But that’s

what he said.’

‘Then you’re wrong. Unless …’ I look up at Fiona Harding.

‘I gotta go,’ I say, the message for both her and Studly.

I tuck the cellphone into my pocket and sprint to my car.

‘Why can’t I get hold of Schroder?’ I ask.

“He’s busy, Tate,’ Landry says. ‘He’s got his own case he’s

working on. I was about to call you anyway. Where are you?’

‘He did it,’ I say. ‘David Harding killed Henry Martins first.

Then Rachel. Then the others.’

‘What the hell? Are you drinking?’

“He did it, Landry. He absolutely did it. He found Henry

Martins and confronted him about leaving, and when he learned

the truth, when he learned from Martins that his real father was Father Julian, he used that university education of his and killed him, but first he got the list of names. Martins knew about Julian’s bank accounts. That’s how he found out Julian was having those affairs. It might even be why he started to suspect his own wife.

He knew the list of names and he gave them to David before he

died.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Listen to me, Landry. David Harding …’

“No, you listen to me. Where the hell are you?’

The city is dark now. The cloud cover is thick, but the occasional flash of sky comes through and shows a quarter moon or a few

stars before shrouding back up. Sunday night is kicking in, and Christchurch is getting ready to watch primetime TV before

falling asleep and starting the week all over again.

Answer me, Tate. Where the hell are you?’

‘I’m out and about.’

‘Jesus, I told you to stay the hell out of the way. Where’s

Horwell?’

‘What?’

‘She just phoned her producer a few minutes ago. You’re in

some deep shit.’

‘What?’

‘You need to come into the station.’

I pull the car over and cut the ignition. ‘What the hell is going on, Landry?’

‘Horwell made the call. Somehow she got to her cellphone.

She says you abducted her and you’re going to kill her. She said everything she suspected about you was true, and you found

out. She said she had proof you killed Quentin James and Sidney Alderman, and also Father Julian. And she gave us a location.’

‘That’s bullshit.’

‘Come down to the station.’

‘Have you found Deborah Lovatt?’

‘Stop making things harder for yourself.’

‘It’s David Harding. He’s doing all of this.’

‘You’re wrong about Harding. I have a good bullshit meter,

Tate, and Harding didn’t even make a blip on it.’

‘That’s because the guy’s a sociopath,’ I say. ‘It was an act.

Come on, Landry, you need to trust me.’

I pull back out and start driving fast. I steer around a corner a little too quickly and my dad’s car fishtails. I drop the cellphone while I gain control of the car.

‘What the hell?’ Landry asks when I pick the phone back up.

‘Where are you going?’

‘When is Father Julian getting buried?’

‘What? He got buried today’

^Nobody gets buried on a Sunday’

‘Yeah, well, God or somebody made an exception. It was

all part of the service. It was Julian’s church, so it made sense somehow to have the funeral today. Look, Tate, you need to calm down and think about what you’re doing. You hurt Horwell, and

you’re …’

‘I don’t have her, Landry. You’re being used, don’t you get

that?’

“He sed? Explain that to me?’

‘Figure it out yourself. Look, I’m on my way to find Deborah

Lovatt. I know where she is. She’s …’

‘She’s at home, Tate. She spent the weekend with her boyfriend, and she left her cellphone behind. She’s home and we’ve spoken to her.’

‘What?’

‘Whatever is going on, Tate, is going on inside your head.