Cemetery Lake (41 page)

She sits up and folds her arms in front of her.

‘Okay Stacey, here’s what I want you to do. We’re going to

get you to your feet and into the car,’ I say, taking off my jacket.

‘It’s dry and warm in there, and —’ I wrap the jacket around her — ‘and I want you to drive away from here. You know how to drive, right?’

‘Where do I go?’

“I want you to drive home. Then call the police.’

‘Okay’

I help her into the car. She tightens the jacket around her when she sits down. I lean in and start it.

‘Drive carefully, Stacey. You’re in a state of shock, you need to be careful. Do you think you can drive?’

‘Yes.’

Are you sure?’

‘There’s another woman.’

‘Where is she?’

‘He made her make a phone call. He made her lie about where

we were.’

‘Where is she, Stacey?’

She starts to cry. “I was so scared. I couldn’t help her. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything.’

‘Where is she?’

‘He put her into the water. He tied something around her legs

and she couldn’t swim with all that weight. She just sank. She sank real fast. It was so …’

She doesn’t finish the sentence.

‘Put your seatbelt on, Stacey.’

‘Okay’ She answers as if on automatic now. ‘Do you have a

cellphone? I can call the police.’

“It’S not on me. If you don’t think you can drive, then wait at the exit from the graveyard.’

‘What way is that?’

‘Turn around and go back the way he came. You’ll see where

to go soon enough.’

‘Okay’

And Stacey?’

‘Yes.’

‘Take your time. There’s no hurry now. I have a promise to

keep.’

There has to be a shovel around here somewhere but I can’t see it. I don’t want to spend long looking for it, and after about a minute I figure that’s long enough. The night is quiet except for the wind swirling around the trees and the rain slapping on the ground.

I shine the torch into the grave, and David is lying there in the same position I left him.

‘Hey hey, David, wake up. Hey!’

I pick up handfuls of dirt and start throwing them at his

face, hoping they’ll bring him around but they don’t. My hand

is aching from the punch I threw. I throw more dirt at David.

He groans. He looks half asleep as he tries to roll over inside the coffin. Things get a little awkward for him, and he reaches up to his face and a moment later opens his eyes.

Everything must flood back to him, because now he sits up

straight. His arm is on a funny angle and he stares at it with a confused look. He seems to understand what has happened just

as the pain hits him. His face tightens up as he tries to cradle his bad arm with his good.

‘What the fuck?’ he says.

‘Remember me?’ I ask.

He looks up at me, and I point the torch at myself so he can

get a good look.

“Yeah look, Mister, I don’t want any trouble here,’ David says, as if I’m the one causing trouble and he just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

‘Cut the bullshit, David. You’re not fooling me twice.’

‘I don’t even know who you are,’ he says, and a month ago he

might have been able to act his way out of any situation. But right here, right now in this moment, the mask he wears to fit into and be a part of normal society doesn’t cover his eyes.

‘You know who I am.’

‘And what if I do?’

‘If you do, then you know you’re seriously fucked up right

about now.’

‘So what, you’re going to kill me now? Is that your plan?’ he

asks.

‘You know I really haven’t decided yet. That’s about as close

as I can get. See, the last four weeks have been kind of tough on me. Hell, the last two years. I’m trying to weigh everything up, and I just don’t know.’

‘Fuck you.’ He gets to his feet and starts looking around,

probably trying to figure out if he can climb out before I get to him. I wonder how he got Father Julian out. He doesn’t look

strong enough to have lifted that much weight. I point the torch at the ground and pick out drag marks across the grass. He probably tied a rope around the body and towed it with his car. Maybe he towed him all the way to the lake.

‘Tell me why’ I say.

‘Get me the fuck out of here, man, my arm is killing me.’

‘Talk to me.’

‘No.’

‘Come on, tell me why. Was it because you liked fucking your

sisters?’ I ask, trying to shock him.

He doesn’t answer. Just looks up at me.

‘That’s why you raped them all, right? Because you loved it.’

‘How the fuck can you know anything about anything?’

‘I heard the tapes, David. I know you enjoyed it.’

‘It’s so simple for you, isn’t it?’ he says, and here is the calm David again. And perhaps the real one lives in both worlds, Good and Bad, Light and Dark, a man who balances his life between

creating an illusion and playing a monster. ‘Its simple to stand up there and look down on me, judging me, because you’re not the

one with a head full of disgusting memories, you’re not the one who …’

‘You’re a sick fucker who acted out,’ I say. ‘That’s the bit I understand. Rachel didn’t deserve what you did to her, not by any means, but I can at least figure out why. What I can’t figure out is why the others) Why kill them?’

‘Why the fuck not?’

He reaches his hand out to the ground above the grave and I

step towards it. He pulls it away without the need for me to crush his fingers.

‘When you were here two years ago for Rachel’s grandmother’s

funeral, what happened? Who spoke to her?’

‘It wasn’t her.’

‘Somebody spoke to you? Was it Sidney Alderman?’

‘Just some old drunk who smelled like he hadn’t showered in

about a month. I told him to fuck off. You want to know what

he told me?’

‘What?’

‘He said, “How does it feel fucking your sister, David? Is she juicy?” I pushed him away and he just laughed at me, like he was somehow proud of it. I took a swing at him and knocked him to

the ground. He stopped laughing then, but he wasn’t finished.

He said, “Do you know who your dad is? Do you know who her

dad is? Look it up, boy, look it up. And do something about it.”

I walked away from the guy, but his words, man, they just kept following me. It wasn’t because the guy knew who I was, it was something else. I found out the following day who my father

was.’

“Henry Martins told you.’

He starts to laugh. ‘That old fucker was just as bad as the

others. He told me all about Father Julian, and told me I wasn’t the only one. That fucking priest had been sleeping with his

parishioners for years. I asked him about Patricia Tyler. He knew, man! He fucking knew her. I went back to the cemetery. Bruce

was my brother. The old man, he was fucked up with drink, but

Bruce was okay. A bit nervous, but okay. And the closest thing I had to family.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘You’re kidding, right? If she hadn’t been fucking around back then, none of this would have happened. I’d have had a normal

life.’

‘You wouldn’t have even existed.’

He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter.

‘When you were alone at the funeral, how did Sidney Alderman

know who you were?’

“How the fuck do I know? I guess he recognised my mother,

and later I had all the proof I needed.’

‘You told Rachel who her dad was, and took her to see him,

didn’t you.’

‘She confronted him and he admitted it. I waited outside for

her. When she told me, I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. I dropped to my knees and just threw up.

When she tried to comfort me I pulled away. I didn’t want to be anywhere near her. I told her to leave me alone, but she wanted to talk. Thing is, she couldn’t when I had my hands crushing her throat. The life had gone out of her, and still I couldn’t let go. You probably think that’s bullshit. You think that it was my plan to kill her if that old drunk was right about what he said, but it wasn’t.

There was no plan. Jesus, we were still in the cemetery when it happened. I could even see the church.’

The rain is starting to get heavier and I wonder if it’s pooling inside the coffin or soaking into the wood. I have both hands

jammed in my pockets—my right one is starting to throb painfully — so I start pacing around the grave. David keeps turning in the coffin so he can keep looking up at me.

And the others?’ I ask.

‘What about them?’

‘Why’d you kill them?’

‘They were my sisters. I figured if it could happen once, it

could happen again.’

‘You’re full of shit. You’d already killed Henry Martins, which means you already knew the truth before driving Rachel to speak to Father Julian. That means you thought about it pretty hard

for a couple of days. It means the knowledge of you being with your sister grew like a cancer inside your brain and the only way you could cut it out was to kill Rachel. You took her to see Father Julian knowing that she wouldn’t be seeing anybody else ever

again afterwards. Once you knew who those other girls were,

there was no chance of accidentally dating one of them. You

were killing them because you enjoyed it. What about the girl

tonight? She’s not even one of your sisters, is she? You just can’t stop yourself.’

He shrugs. ‘So what does it matter?’

‘Because you were talking to her like she was. It just goes to show how fucked in the head you really are. But why me? Why

try and frame me for Father Julian?’

‘You killed my brother.’

‘He killed himself.’

I think about Patricia Tyler’s last words to me, the promise

she wanted me to make. The last month has been full of broken

promises. I think of the man I once was, the man I became when I was drinking, the man in between, and the man I am now.

Which one of them is the real me? I could keep talking until the police arrive, or take him into the station myself. That would earn me some credit. They’ll lock David up and there’s enough

evidence to put him away for a long time, but a long time in this justice system is only ten years. Is that really justice? He won’t even be thirty-five when he comes out. I doubt that would sound like justice to any of the girls. Or to Patricia Tyler. Can this sick kid be redeemed in ten years? Is redemption even possible?

‘We’re going to the police,’ I say.

‘Fuck that.’

‘It’s the only option.’

He goes quiet as he thinks about it. ‘Okay but you’re going to have to help me out of here. My arm’s broken.’

‘Don’t try anything.’

‘I won’t.’

I close my eyes. I think of Emily. I think of all the dead girls.

I think of a promise I made. I crouch down and lower my hand.

He grabs it and pulls me down, and I fall, just as I have been falling since the day I drove Quentin James out into the woods.

I let it happen, and I knew it would happen, and when I land on top of him my face doesn’t register the surprise he was hoping to see. His plan, his only plan, to pull me in and crack my head into the coffin or break my neck, hasn’t worked. He can see that now, and he can see his mistake.

The blood floods out over my hand. It’s warm and sticky and

thick, and I hate the feel of it. When I pull it away from him, I leave the pocketknife I took from his car in his chest. He reaches down to it and pulls it out as if he’s just been stung by something, then looks at it as if he has no idea what it is. He stares at me, his face pale and streaked with blood and tears. His mouth opens and closes, but he can’t say anything; his mouth forms an O but nothing comes out. This lonely boy who learned who he was and

made the rest of the world pay for it. He breathes heavily until the breaths become softer and softer. The knife falls from his hand.

He sinks back down as he dies in front of me. I wipe my hand

across the soggy lining of the coffin before pulling myself out.

I sit on the ground and lean against the gravestone, and I watch the sky, looking for a break in the clouds, hoping for a break in the rain, wishing more than anything that I could have a drink right about now.

I’m not sure how much time passes before the police arrive,

but I’m still sitting here when they do. Three days sober, and more positive than ever that I now know exactly who I am.

acknowledgments

I had a lot of people help me in a lot of different ways with Cemetery Lake. I want to start out by thanking Harriet Allan from Random House. Harriet is an awesome person who has

shown a lot of faith in my story-telling abilities, and without her support and feedback, and the rest of the team at Random, this book — along with the previous two — wouldn’t exist.

Thanks also to my friend David Batterbury who has helped

more than he knows with not only the book, but in pretty much

every other area of my life. And to Daniel Myers, my friend and agent and fellow author who provides the magic feedback I need to make me a better writer.

I want to thank my friends who made sure I got to the end

of 2007 with some sanity: Paul Waterhouse and his wife Tina,

who offered feedback on the book and are always there for me;

Daniel and Cheri Williams; Nathan and Samantha Cook; Kim

McCarthy; and Phil ‘Dr Phil’ Hughes, who I can count on for

anything at any time.

Amanda Harris offered ideas that were truly helpful as Cemetery Lake took shape. Shawn Ingham reminded me of something important about the basics that helped a lot with the final draft. Ray-Charles Smading, a man for whom there is no

subject that can’t be touched for a joke. Jane Parkin, my editor, has made editing easy for me by being professional and creating a great working relationship. And Sonja ‘Scarecrow’ Sowinski,