11.30 a.m.
Todd Mullins is sitting on the sofa, a cup of coffee in hand. He’d woken late, gone 10 a.m., and found the house empty, Blair already gone. He’d scratched around in the unfamiliar kitchen, dug out the coffee, sniffed the milk, good enough, made himself a cup. Trying all the while to push thoughts of yesterday out of his mind. Of the blood everywhere, the stench of it. Of Karen and Mark in his bed, both of them dead.
Did he do it? Did he get home, pissed out of his skull, find Mark there, put an axe through both their heads, then go and sleep it off in the vehicle? His hands are shaking at the thought. He coulda done it, especially to Mark Bailey, no loss there. A cheating cunt, a liar, a thief, and if anyone deserved an axe in the face it was him. But Karen? She’d stuck by him, even when times were rough. She’d put up with his foul moods, his disgust at his failure to find anything after he’d gone it alone. He’d been convinced he’d show Bailey who was the real opal king but he’d had no luck, none at all, everything turning to shit around him. He’d taken it out on her, had been a right bastard to her, no doubt about it. His thoughts turn maudlin, mourning the good woman he’s lost, the one he hadn’t appreciated enough.
Still, she was in bed with fucken Bailey. The thought makes him angry and bitter again. He reckons if he’d come home and found them there together, he coulda lost it. He definitely coulda. He knows he’s got a little hatchet somewhere, but he wouldn’t know exactly where. The shed maybe, but the cops would’ve looked there, would’ve found it. So maybe he hid it somewhere afterwards. Maybe he did do it.
He puts his head in his hands. Hot tears slide across his fingers. If only he could remember something, but the whole night’s a blank. He must’ve really tied one on, to not remember nothing. And surely, if he’s done this, if he’s killed the pair of them, surely he’d remember, even if he was pissed.
He leans back on the sofa, closes his eyes, wishing himself back to sleep, away from this horror. He’s a murderer. He’s killed Karen. Nausea rises and he breathes deep, trying to push it down, but he can feel it coming and then he has to leg it to the bathroom, throw up, just coffee and not much else, the bile stinging his throat as he empties his guts into the toilet bowl.
He has a drink of water from the bathroom tap, rinses his mouth and goes back to the sofa, lies down, closes his eyes, trying to remember something, anything. The beginning of the night is there. He was in the pub, there was a fight and he was enjoying himself. Stewie Charles, holding a blade, eyes as cold as the steel in his hand, planning to cut Mark. No one liked Mark, a lot of people would have been happy to see him dead. He remembers the pub emptying, Mrs Pidgeon and her bloke leaving, her bitter little raisin eyes judging him. He might have told her to fuck off. He’s pretty sure Scott Hemmings was there, Paul from the roadhouse too, but he can’t remember talking to them, can’t remember anything. Can’t remember leaving, can’t remember driving home. All he remembers is waking up, the sun already touching the horizon. Finding himself in the vehicle, parked outside the house, not on the driveway. He must have been too drunk to park it, pulled up and switched the engine off, gone to sleep. He’d moved the car onto the driveway, gone inside, made a coffee, slept a bit. And then … The blood, the stench, the horror of that room. His stomach clenches again – he forces his mind away, manages not to throw up this time.
Nothing else comes to him. The longer he thinks, the worse he feels, a knot of ice building in his stomach. He’s gonna do time for this, a long time too, for a double murder. Fucksake, he needs to remember what happened.
He must fall asleep, the fear, the misery, shutting down his brain, pushing him under. When he wakes up again, his neck is stiff from lying on the arm of the sofa but a tendril of a memory is wafting across his mind. It disappears as he tries to grab at it. He lies there, waking slowly, the pain in his guts still there, his head thumping, the living room stuffy and close. He’s rubbing his hand across his eyes, thinking he needs a beer, or a rum, when it comes back to him.
He was in his vehicle, his head against the window, the glass cool against his skin, drifting in and out of consciousness. Someone was trying to move him, trying to get him out of the car, pulling, hands under his armpits. Then the voice, low but distinct, he can hear it now: ‘Leave him, maybe it’s better this way.’
He sits upright, staring at the wall in front of him, searching his memory as hard as he can. Nothing more comes to him, but the voice is clear as a bell inside his mind. He lies back, putting two and two together, trying to figure out why Mark had to die, why Karen had to die.
He needs a drink to help him think. He rummages around the fridge: nothing, not a single stubby. He opens a few cupboards: nothing. He’s about to give up when he looks properly at the TV, which is sitting on some kind of storage unit. Opens the doors to the unit and, bingo, a bottle of Bundy, two-thirds full, and a two-litre bottle of Coke. Warm but who gives a shit. He gets a glass, pours himself a big drink, more rum than Coke, and sits on the sofa, thinking.
He can tell the cops what he remembers but if they’ll believe him or not, well, that’s another story. And maybe he has a better idea. Maybe he can use this information, turn it to his advantage first, tell the cops later. Mark found an opal big enough to retire on. That’ll be what this is about. That’ll be why Mark was murdered. And Karen – well, that was probably to set him up for it. Almost got away with it too. But he reckons with what he remembers, and what he can figure out beyond that, he knows enough to lay claim to that stone. A stone that will get him out of here. Away from the failure, away from the horror, off to a fresh start.