The momentum is starting to build. Soon after the paramedics depart, also wearing confronting looks of relief, a steady stream of crime-scene heroes begins to fill the house. I guess some are with Forensics, some with the Homicide Squad, I can’t tell exactly as they all seem to know each other and no one bothers with introductions, unhelpful as that is. I hear a Johnno, a Babe, a Tandy Darlin’, and a You Fat Bastard. At no point, at least not in the first ten minutes or so, does anyone stop to see how my son is doing, and I am livid.
Wake up, people! There’s a child in there, shaking his little heart out!
When a guy called Chief arrives, I quickly realise why they’ve left Bob unattended. The top dog wants to sniff him out before a kindly relative sticks a muzzle on him or demands he is read his rights. Chief takes a cursory look at the body, I mean me, then asks, “So where is he?”
First Cop nods his head towards the living room, and Chief wanders in and sits across from my son in the guest armchair, the one I try not to use lest I wear it out.
Why did I do that? Why deny myself a really comfy armchair every day for thirteen years on the off-chance the Queen will come to visit or, worse, a homicide detective who’s about to incriminate my son? Now I wish I could go back and jump muddy footprints all over the bloody thing.
“I’m the lead detective, Bob. You want to tell me what happened here?” Chief is asking, and Bob looks up from his hands, dazed and glassy-eyed.
“Huh?”
“Do you want to tell me what happened to your mum?”
Now Bob just blinks back.
Oh Bob, I think, don’t turn into Mute Boy now. Be verbose, give them details, tell them you were in your bedroom the whole time! Or if you have to, channel your inner O. J. But he doesn’t seem to be capable of anything.
Chief asks where he was when it happened, and he mumbles, “Huh?”
Chief asks if he knows what happened to me, if he saw anyone, if he has any idea what’s going on, and all the while Bob stares at him stunned and unable to say a thing beyond the word “Huh.” If I never hear that word again, I’ll be the happiest woman alive. I mean dead. I want to weep, but my tear ducts are no longer functioning.
Then something very strange happens. Out of nowhere Junnifer appears.
“Oh you poor, poor darling!” she cries, sweeping into the lounge room and straight to my son who stands, steps towards her and into her arms.
I should be relieved. I said he needed a cuddle, but not Jenny, please God, anyone but Junnifer!
She is patting my son’s back and answering Chief’s questions very calmly, very politely. “Yes, I’m a very good family friend.”
Na-uh! I want to scream. She’s just the snotty-nosed mother of my son’s wayward mate.
“Yes, I was just driving past. I saw the cars. I wondered what had happened.”
I bet you did, you gossipy cow! And what do you mean you were just driving past? I live in the quiet end of town. No reason to come anywhere near my house unless Sebastian has a play date, which he doesn’t, or wants a lift to the old skate park nearby, which he never does.
“No, the officer outside told me what happened.” She choked back a sob. “Poor, poor Lulu. I mean, she could be, well, trying, but she didn’t deserve that!”
Ah, hello? You’re saying that in my son’s arms. He appears to stiffen at this, but perhaps I’m just wishful projecting. In any case, he soon untangles himself from her, and before he can drop back onto the couch, she is leading him out of the living room and through the front door but not before taking a sneaky peek herself towards my lifeless body, which is still lying on the kitchen floor in all its bloody glory. I’m not sure if I’m just imagining things, but I would swear on my grandmother’s life—hell, my own life I suppose—that she has a glimmer of relief in her eyes.
Chief doesn’t attempt to stop either of them from leaving the house, and I hate her and love her now in equal measure. Good, I think, get him out of there. But stop hugging him like he’s your son.
My body’s not cold yet, baby. Besides, you don’t get first dibs.
As they hobble across the road, past a few curious neighbours, in the direction of Cass’s house, I notice the copper with the receding hairline is already there, banging on my ex-husband’s front door like there’s no tomorrow. Someone must have finally put two and two together, but they’ve come up stumps. There is no answer from inside, and I have to wonder why.
It’s Sunday morning, and Cass is usually in there somewhere, lurking about, waiting for trophy wife to come home from soccer. Yes, her girls do play soccer, and she trains at least one of them while he stays home and waits it out. Did I mention he was useless?
I know what you’re thinking: Why don’t I just look inside Cass’s house and see if the useless git is scrubbing blood from his fingernails as we speak? Well, it’s like I said. For some reason I can’t explain, I can’t see into every room or every house. I can’t see into Bob’s bedroom, for instance, and I can’t see into the bathroom with the adjoining toilet, although I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. And I certainly can’t see into Cass and NagHag’s overly renovated hovel.
It’s all very bizarre, but let’s try to focus on what I can see, okay?
I can see Junnifer has walked my son onto the front veranda and helped him into one of the perfectly painted wicker chairs out the front of the house. Again I am grateful for that. The gathering vultures, I mean voyeurs, are staring towards my house, so it feels safer over there, and no one pays him much notice. Maybe Junnifer’s not so bad.
Hell, she’s not the one with a restraining order out against her, is she?
About that…