23

‘I want Zippy. I want my Zippy back,’ Phoebe howled in her top bunk at bedtime. ‘It’s not fair!’

Brigitte held her, stroking her silky hair, Phoebe’s face hot and wet against hers. The steel bed frame creaked as Phoebe’s body shook. When she finally went limp, Brigitte could hear the rain thrumming against the window. She tucked the doona around Phoebe. For a moment she was struck, like a slap across the face, by her daughter’s beauty. They never discussed looks or weight, or bought vacuous women’s magazines promoting unrealistic body images — she didn’t want her girls, or boy, to be sucked in by such things. And she never told Phoebe how beautiful she was. She unstuck a clump of hair from Phoebe’s cheek, pushed it off her face, and kissed her lips: something the twins baulked at now when they were awake.

She climbed down the ladder and sat on Finn’s bottom bunk.

He asked what had really happened to Zippy.

‘I told you. Harry found him near the water. It looked like he was just sleeping peacefully.’

Disbelief clouded his blue eyes.

‘Maybe he had a heart attack, or a disease we didn’t know about.’ She should have said nothing, rather than lie. ‘Whatever it was, it was quick. He didn’t suffer.’ Another lie. She looked at her hands.

Finn argued that Zippy was healthy, and he’d just had a check-up at the vet.

‘Go to sleep now, Finny.’

‘It hurts so much.’

‘I know.’ She heard Aidan running the shower.

‘Aidan’s sad, isn’t he?’ Finn said.

‘Shh.’ She clicked off the lamp, put a hand on his hip, and rocked him gently like she had when he was a baby.

The sounds of the rain and the shower ran together, and the words of the old folk song that Papa used to sing came back to her. It was a White Stripes song now.

Did you forsake your house and home?

Did you forsake your baby?

Did you forsake your husband dear?

To go with Black Jack Davey?

To go with Black Jack Davey?

Aidan was making up a bed on the couch. He wore track pants and a faded Nirvana T-shirt. He’d shaved and his hair was damp. He shook the doona, tucked one side of it into the couch, and smoothed it over.

‘Do you think the same person did it?’

‘Did what?’

‘Murdered Zippy and Maree Carver.’

‘It’s not called “murder” when an animal’s unlawfully killed.’

She crossed her arms. ‘I don’t care what you call it. And why can’t you ever just answer my questions?’

He shot her a glance: black ice.

‘It wasn’t random, was it?’

‘What?’

‘They targeted us?’

‘Think you’ve read one too many crime books.’

Ouch.

Ella wandered out rubbing her eyes, saying she couldn’t sleep. She looked at Aidan. ‘Why are you sleeping on the couch, Daddy?’

‘I don’t feel comfortable in the big bed.’

‘You fighting?’

‘Mummy’s fighting with herself.’

Ella giggled. ‘You’re silly, Daddy.’

Brigitte agreed and shooed her back to bed. When she was sure Ella was out of earshot, she put her hands on her hips and said: ‘It was a waste of police resources.’

He looked at her, eyebrows raised.

‘Spying on me.’ She felt the blood rising up her neck.

‘Didn’t have to.’ He pulled a Batman pillowcase onto a spare pillow. ‘Your phone rang me from your pocket. Or bag.’ He plumped up the pillow. ‘Doubt you had any pockets on at the time.’

Oh God. What would he have heard?

He folded the doona down and sat on the couch, pillow on his lap. ‘I’m really tired now so …’

She wanted more of a response from him, a screaming match, anything. ‘You lied to me.’ She snatched the pillow from his hands.

He smirked and shook his head, so fucking self-righteous.

‘Oh, that’s right. You call it withholding information.’

‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me Maree Carver was murdered on the island?’

‘What difference does the location make?’

None. But that wasn’t the point.

‘Or that her throat was slashed?’

‘I tried to tell you, but you were … busy.’

She hugged the pillow to her chest. He stretched out and pulled the doona over his long legs.

She threw the pillow at him and walked away. At the doorway, she stopped and turned back. ‘Nothing happened, Aidan.’

He looked up as he put the pillow under his head, faked a condescending one-sided smile, and said, ‘Is that the same information you withheld from Sam?’

The silence was broken by her mobile ringing in her pocket.

‘Better get that,’ he said. She caught the tremor in his voice: his bluster was all bluff.

They locked eyes. She let it ring out, calmly, but her pulse was rocketing.

He looked away first. ‘Can you switch off the light, please?’ He turned his back.

She wanted to crawl in behind him, mould her body to his, warm her cold feet on his legs, feel the bumps of his bony spine against her face, inhale the smell of his clean skin, the vanilla-bean soap, and the citrus cologne that lingered even after a shower. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. And that she was sad, and scared. She flicked off the light.

In the bedroom, she listened to her phone message. Matt: Just calling to see how you are. All apologies for Sunday night. Call if you want to — She deleted it before she heard the end of his message. You have no new voice messages.

Her heart was still racing, no way she could sleep. She sat on the bed and checked her email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Nothing of interest. She keyed a Google search: Meaning of The Postman Always Rings Twice. It was either literally a reference to postal customs or an old dirty joke. Or something about retribution and not getting away with murder twice.

In shallow sleep — without her dog, without her grandfather, without her husband — she drowned again and again.