The kitchen is now eerily empty. Everyone has cleared out. Even the burnt toast has been carted away as evidence of nobody knows what. All that remains is the bloody patch of linoleum. Who cleans that up, I wonder? I hope they’re not leaving it for poor Bob. If so, they’ll be waiting awhile. I could never get the lad to tidy his bedroom, let alone wash the kitchen floor.
That’s when I remember. Of course! How could I forget? He did wash the kitchen floor, or at least he wiped up the milk he spilt there soon after trying to steal the birthday cake after dinner last night. Bob had the entire cake on a plate in one hand, glass of milk in the other, and was just making his escape when I strolled in.
“Arrgh!” he cried as though caught with a smoking joint, splashing half the milk across his shirt and the other half on the kitchen floor.
I raised my eyebrows. I stared pointedly at the milk and cake. He blushed profusely, then dumped both items on the bench and retrieved a wet sponge, which he used to start mopping up the mess. And by “mopping up,” I mean spreading the mess farther.
I found a dry sponge under the sink and helped him get it under control although it took us a while. Why they say not to cry over spilt milk is beyond me, it’s a bugger of a thing, all sticky and turning sour fast. Then, most of the floor glistening wet, he skulked out but not before I took the cake and placed it back in the fridge where it belonged.
Bob was not welcome to his birthday cake until he had the decency to speak to me. And not a nibble sooner. As I did all this, he gave me a look I had never seen before. It was as dark as the fudge icing on his fingers. He was angry. Really angry. And I remember being surprised by this. It’s just cake, kiddo, and probably not a very good one if my previous efforts are anything to go by.
Still, that dark look haunted me long after he’d left the kitchen (haunts me again now if truth be told), which is why I’m so thrilled about the blond hair. See, that’s the thing I want you to focus on, folks. Surely if anyone had dumped a blond hair here earlier than my murder, we would have wiped it up last night! We did a pretty thorough job; I am a cleaner after all. Or was, before Toadface tossed me out.
I think we can safely assume that whoever killed me, dropped their hair while doing it. Sort of like a memento. That blond hair has to belong to the murderer, right? Oh I hope so, because it eliminates my Bob. Don’t forget, his hair is short and brown. Really, it’s very short, and very, very brown.
Now, back to the cake. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Should we check inside the fridge? I’m about to do just that when I hear a voice so familiar, so achingly beautiful, it’s like a choir of angels singing another Leonard Cohen song.
“Mum? Ohhhhhh Mum.”
Huh?
“Mum, can you hear me? Muuuum?”
My heart has leapt in all its bloody gory into my throat. I think my son is calling out to me. Shhh! Let’s shut up for a moment and listen.
“Mum, I’m so sorry, so, so, soooooooo sorry.”
I feel a crush of despair. Yes, that is my son’s voice, but he’s not talking aloud, he’s talking to himself, and he wants me to hear. Worse, I think he wants to confess. I feel sick, I want to scream, but then he says something that shuts me up.
“Oh Mum, I should never have let Seb give me that ciggie, and I should never have kissed Henny. I only did it to scare her off, but it didn’t, and I never meant to—”
He stops. There is silence.
Why is there silence? What’s going on?
I zoom back out of the kitchen and towards Cass’s house where I notice Chief is now ringing the doorbell again. Damn you meddling cop!
The bell must have interrupted Bob’s thoughts because within seconds he is opening the door, standing there, mute again.
What was Bob trying to tell me before Chasin interrupted? Why was he kissing Henny to scare her off? Didn’t he know that would only encourage her? There’s a reason it’s called first base!
And what was he about to say? What did he not mean to do?
What?
I want to grab Bob by both shoulders and give him a shake, but Chief already has his grimy hands on one of them and is distracting Bob from his thoughts.
“How’re you holding up, son?”
Bob shrugs. “All right I guess.”
“That’s the way. Could you do me a favour and fetch your dad, please?”
Bob withdraws, and now, finally, I can see into their house. It is no longer closed to me. Bob must be welcoming me in whether he realises it or not. I wonder what Cass and NagHag would have to say about that.