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Lexi realised after the second day that it would take longer than she’d hoped to recover from her ordeal. She sagged on her sofa and watched movies without remembering the plots or character names. Garima took a leave of absence from the church to care for her and moved into the bedroom he’d already claimed. He acted as head chef, cleaner, and sometime bodyguard. Visitors, including Tarant Leon and Lexi’s neighbour, he sent away.
“The guy from next door wants to speak to you about a petition,” Garima said as he walked into the lounge. “I said you weren’t well. Oh, and Tarant’s resorted to phoning me.”
“Because you confiscated my phone when I left the hospital,” Lexi mumbled. “Although I’d rather not spar with him right now.”
“Dad has called me eleven times.” Garima squirmed as he stared through the bay window into the street. “He’s eager to speak to you about something.”
Lexi snorted. “To reprimand me for investigating Father Donald’s death more like! He’s up to his scrawny neck in this somehow.” She blew out a practiced slow breath to calm her racing heart. “Do you think he knows what Rojas did to me?”
“I don’t know, Lex. Dad’s a mystery to me. But I’ve seen no connection to the Father’s murder or to any of the other moving parts of the case. Perhaps he heard a whisper or held a suspicion and didn’t want either of us involved.” He sighed and turned to face Lexi, his blue eyes wide with sincerity. “And in hindsight, he gave good advice. You almost died. It’s possible he’s not the villain of the peace.”
Lexi’s lashes fluttered closed. Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth. She adored her brother, but his generous and forgiving nature made her want to scream until her lungs collapsed. “He employs a man who’s twice attacked me,” she growled.
“We don’t know that,” Garima implored. “You should hear his explanation before judging him.”
Lexi killed the conversation, unable to argue with the unarguable. “I can’t get comfortable,” she complained for the millionth time. “It hurts every time I breathe.”
Garima perched his reading glasses on his nose. He slumped into an armchair wearing a faded rugby tracksuit and rested his bare feet on the coffee table. One hand lifted a pencil from behind his ear and the other settled his personal copy of the New Testament in his lap. “The district nurse should arrive soon,” he replied, tilting his wrist to stare at Patrick Allen’s old watch. He grunted as his bible slid between his thighs. “Let’s ask the expert’s advice.”
Lexi exhaled in frustration and released a cry of pain as her ribs and the associated muscles burned in complaint. “Note to self,” she gasped. “Don’t do that again.” She closed her eyes and steadied herself for a moment. Keeping still engaged different muscles which caused less pain. “When can I have my phone back?” she croaked.
Garima removed his glasses and dropped them into the fold between the book’s delicate pages. “Sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel like a prisoner. Your screen has two enormous cracks in it. Pieces fell out in my pocket at the hospital, and I nipped it to the man who mends phones at the shopping mall. But he noticed integral damage to it when he turned it on. It will receive calls but can’t make them. He deemed it irreparable. It perhaps got too hot in your handbag in the sun.” He cleared his throat, not wishing to remind Lexi of her traumatic afternoon on the searing paving slabs. “So, I ordered a new phone for you online. I planned to transfer all your data before I gave it to you.” His nose wrinkled, and he drew his knuckles across his right eye. “But having Googled the process earlier, I think it’s a little beyond my skill. I’d need all your passwords and to understand your complicated spying apps.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and smiled. “I think I’ll just give you the box when it arrives and let you loose.”
“Thank you.” Lexi stared at her brother, drinking in his ethereal goodness and the overriding kindness which made him the community’s beloved Father Allen. “I don’t suppose you replaced the brick you call a phone for yourself?”
Garima gasped. “I like my brick. According to the experts, it’s unhackable.”
Lexi grinned at him and laughed. Then groaned again. “Has Grunwald called you today?” she asked, hope burgeoning in her voice.
“Texted,” Garima replied. “The neighbour apologised for his destruction of the catch on our trundle skip. He sounds contrite. But the refuse company replaced it with a new version, anyway. The police seized the other one as evidence.”
“Right.” Lexi shivered despite the heat circulating in the sunny room. She couldn’t stop her mind from meandering along unhealthy paths. What did Sam Barnard intend to do with her dead body? Would he bury her in the vast bush above Rangiriri to replace his other victims, or dump her in his compost bin with a helping of lime to prevent the smell of decay?
Garima’s personal phone bleated with a text, and he frowned at it after reseating his glasses on his nose. “Peter says to watch the news at one o’clock.” He glanced up at Lexi and winced. “A fresh development? Perhaps I should break out the bottle of gin Jock sent for you. What do you think?”
Lexi declined. They spent the next ten minutes watching excited contestants push shopping trolleys around a supermarket and guess the value of the contents. One woman slipped on the tiles and limped to the finish line with an expensive pan set sequestered beneath multiple bags of disposable nappies. Lexi let her mind drift, wondering what she’d grab first. Avocados and bread. Luxury cat food for Nahla. The ginger feline rested on Lexi’s thighs, her pink nose pointed in her direction, as though on guard duty. Her translucent lashes fluttered like cobwebs against her strange milky eyelids and her ears twitched. She’d folded all four feet beneath her as though indicating a temporary truce. Lexi wondered why she’d chosen the temperamental ginger kitten all those years ago instead of the cute tabbies which promised cuddles and companionship. With a pang of realisation, she saw she’d done the same thing with Sam Barnard. Pity had governed common sense.
The woman with the nappy filled trolley scowled as her competitor won. An older contestant had spent her five-minute countdown in the salad aisle and her near empty conveyor belt held more value than the one brimming with plastic wrapped items. “Wow,” Lexi breathed. “Who knew?” She squinted at the screen as the camera angle revealed ten green avocados nestled together in the bagging area. A flicker of satisfaction passed through her, and she eased her face into its first genuine smile.
The familiar news jingle followed five frustrating and inane adverts. Lexi tensed as the newsreaders turned with their perfect hair and made-up faces on their swivel chairs to acknowledge the camera. “Get on with it!” Lexi hissed. But she tensed at the words which slipped from the female anchor’s lips after her male colleague had greeted the nation.
“And now for breaking news,” she began.
Lexi didn’t make it to the end of the half an hour segment. Garima held her hair as she vomited into the toilet basin. She felt no satisfaction in being proved right. The DNA of the second woman unearthed alongside Layla Jasper matched Keith Barnard’s. Layla’s stricken husband stood behind Detective Inspector Grunwald as the police officer spoke before a packed press conference. Tears surged into Lexi’s eyes as she saw the decades old devastation written on his face. He’d remarried and fathered children only to have his new family launched into the spotlight alongside him.
Layla, a volunteer at a women’s refuge, had befriended Allison Barnard a week before the developer’s wife disappeared. A deep dive of old case notes had revealed the fledgling friendship as recounted by Tom Jasper in his statement. But Allison’s death had happened around the same time, backed up by Sam’s fake paperwork showing natural causes. The police had taken the angle no further and never linked the two disappearances.
Keith Barnard spoke well, though his voice wavered as he expressed his grief and anger at his mother’s fate. But a footnote from a rural reporter tipped Lexi over the edge of reason without warning. As she digested the news that Jane Doe was Allison Barnard as she’d expected, a sunburned and ruddy faced journalist led a broadcast from the edge of the Waikato River. Divers sloshed in the background while police officers erected a white screen around an unidentified male body. The guileless Garima bowed his head to pray a blessing over the deceased, but Lexi knew. She just knew. The unnamed man who’d gone swimming while wearing a suit was her father’s chauffeur. Robin.
Lexi retched until nothing remained in her stomach. But the pain in her ribs kept her pinned by the toilet and unable to rise. Someone buzzed the gate alarm and Garima danced a jig of confusion beside Lexi. Realising it might herald the promised medical assistance, he abandoned Lexi with an apology, answered the call, and ushered in the bubbly district nurse.
