It’s time to address the elephant in the room. I know you took note of that restraining order; it’s probably all you can think about. So let’s get this over and done with, shall we, so we can get back to the important stuff? I might have been a devoted mum, but I was a pretty ordinary employee, the worst kind, in fact.
I slept with my married boss.
There, I said it. I’m not proud of it, if that helps. I bitterly regret the whole debacle, but in my defence, I have to say he took advantage of a woman at her most vulnerable.
His name is Todd Karlouis. Your classic sleazy boss cliché: thinning on top, widening around the middle, ogling anything in a skirt.
I’d become achingly lonely since Cass moved out, and recently, as Bob spent more time with mates like Sebastian and that hussy Henrietta, the loneliness had become acute. Bob was growing away from me, and it hurt. I guess that’s why I was pushing him away. Then I had no one to blame but myself.
Sleazebag Todd (aka Toadface) sensed my desperation and abused it, luring me into an equally sleazy tryst, but then his wife found out and threatened to kill me—oh, there’s another suspect, yay!—and so I threatened to kill her back. I wasn’t serious, but I might have said something like, “Not if I kill you first.”
Juvenile, I know, but who knew she’d take it literally and slap me with an Apprehended Violence Order? I gather it’s to ensure I don’t go within a something-kilometre radius. Or at least I think that’s what First Copper was wielding when he knocked on my door this morning.
Unless somebody else thinks I’m out to get them? Hmmm. I should think about that.
In any case, Mrs Karlouis needn’t have bothered. Not only did Toadface throw me out on my arse, I swore off men forever. Take it from me, jealous wifey didn’t have to kill me. I would have stabbed my own back if I were forced to go back to that creep.
I cleaned holiday rentals for a living, did I tell you that? Was quite good at my job, I might add, before I got the boot. Quite popular with the other staffers too (the cleaners, the receptionist, the woman who did accounts); they all delighted in my wicked sense of humour and total lack of respect for authority. Fat lot of good that did me. None of them ever wanted to pursue a friendship outside of work. It’s like they found me hilarious on the job but didn’t want to share my jokes later over cheeky Chardies at the local pub.
I didn’t take it personally. I’ve had that effect on others my whole life. People always find me mildly amusing, occasionally shocking, sort of like a naughty stand-up comic or a clown. Great fun for a bit, but you’d never invite one back to your house, right?
I work for a company called Yeah BnB. I know, Airbnb must be shittin’ itself. It’s a dinky-di little business that Todd started about five years back to help local landlords rent out their spare bedrooms, granny flats, dank corners… you get the drift. Toadface ran the operation from a few creaky computers in a shabby little office in town, and I spent half my time prepping the homes for guests (cleaning, fresh sheeting, general tszujing up) and the other half hanging at headquarters batting away Todd’s advances.
But he was persistent.
I suspect that’s why the slimeball employed me in the first place. Not because I was handy with a mop, but because he clocked me as a potential conquest, a “desperate and dateless” from the moment we met, and I was sorry I did not disappoint.
It seemed to me, the more I resisted, the more he tried it on, and eventually I couldn’t find the will to say no. Or perhaps I was worried about my job. If I didn’t put out at some stage, would he put me out to pasture? Jobs are few and far between in this regional town. I couldn’t risk it. Yes, I can see the irony—it cost me my job regardless.
So one thing led to another, and we ended up in the sack. Well, the supplies shed if you must know, and now I had his feral wife taking restraining orders out against me like it was all my fault.
Still, there is a silver lining. That AVO brought the cop to my door this morning and eased the burden for Bob of finding my lifeless body. I wonder if Curious Copper hadn’t knocked, what would have happened (assuming Bob didn’t do it, of course). Would starvation eventually have forced him out of his sulk and back to the kitchen to find me? Would he have known what to do? He might have compromised any potential evidence. He might have been foolish enough to close that back door, switch off that telly.
See these are the clues you need to focus on, and fast. Because that blasted light is intensifying, and Gran no longer looks happy, she looks ready to have another coronary. Did you know she died of a heart attack? In her sleep? At age eighty-nine? How ideal is that? No wonder she thinks I should “go gentle into that good night.” It’s all very well for her; she had no unfinished business. She must have been gagging for it by the time the tunnel light finally flickered on.
So I’m ignoring her frantically waving arms and trying to concentrate on the crime scene, which is now being manned by a woman, a uniformed officer who has a look of complete and utter boredom on her acne-splattered face.
I don’t think it’s boring at all! Even the simple blue-and-white police tape sends ripples of excitement through the growing throng, and I don’t blame them. At some stage, they taped up my entire property, from the cobwebbed letterbox to the garage on one side and my rickety old fence on the other. Suddenly it all looks very important.
The crowd, now swollen to at least twenty, are standing just beyond the tape, as though it might electrocute them. It’s amazing how humans obey that flimsy plastic barrier. Perhaps we should all string it up at night to propel burglars and molesters. Or knife-wielding types, perhaps? Again with the irony.
It’s a motley crew out there watching the proceedings, some busybody neighbours like old Mrs Oliver who lives next door to Cass, others I don’t recognise, but there is one face in the crowd that gives me pause for thought. Hell, it gives me cause for delight. It’s Sarah Burleigh from two blocks down, and she would make a really terrific suspect.