Sooner or later, you become yesterday’s news. Something more interesting comes along, another murder or scandal, and people start to forget about you — especially once the word ‘murder’ stops being used. The autopsy report, followed by the coroner’s report, take care of that.
Jan hasn’t spoken to me since the funeral, but Geoff emails me when the coroner’s report is released.
Xander,
I hope this email finds you well. I just wanted you to know that the final coroner’s report is through. I’m sure you’re already aware of this, but the coroner was satisfied there were no suspicious circumstances. This has been a difficult time for us all, but I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have your name dragged through the media like that.
I don’t know if you want to see the report, so delete this if you don’t. But it might help give you some closure. It’s certainly helped me.
I always thought of you as my son, and I’m sorry it had to turn out like this.
Best of luck with med school,
Geoff
I reread the email. There doesn’t seem to be any obvious malice in there, no threats of exposing me for illicit entry to medical school. I guess, on that score, Geoff has just as much to lose as me. But I still feel guilty for falling out of love with his daughter, after everything he’s done for me.
‘Hey,’ I say, when Ronnie enters the room, a towel wrapped around her. ‘Look what I just got.’
She sits beside me. ‘What’s? Oh. What does it say?’
‘Here.’ I open the attachment and hold up my phone so we can both read it.
My eye skips over the formalities at the start, going straight to the cause of death: ‘In my opinion death was due to: Subarachnoid haemorrhage following fall from height; on a background of LSD intoxication.’ The attached medical report lists Ashleigh’s other injuries, including fractures in her skull, cervical and thoracic spine, ribs and legs. Her intrauterine pregnancy is also noted, dated at four weeks’ gestation.
‘Well,’ Ronnie says. ‘That’s that, then.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s that. I guess.’ The coroner is satisfied. The police are satisfied, especially once Dom told them about the suicide conversation we’d had a few months before, when Ashleigh had said she’d throw herself from a great height. Even Ashleigh’s parents have closure, in some way, or at least her father does. Maybe I should forward Tess a copy, so she can stop beating herself up. I was relieved when she’d emailed to tell me she wasn’t returning to med school this year.
I never meant to hurt Ashleigh, she’d written. I just hated how she was so mean to you. I swear those Facebook messages were the only ones I ever sent her.
I haven’t replied. Sometimes it’s best to let people drift out of your life.
I finish reading the report and return to my email folder. There’s another one there, which arrived yesterday afternoon. It’s the confirmation of my placement at Wellington Clinical School from March next year.
‘Are you sure you’re OK with me going to Wellington?’ I ask Ronnie, for what must be the tenth time.
‘Of course.’ She rubs my arm. ‘It’s only one year apart. If you stay, then you’ll be stuck here for three more years. I’ll come up to do my masters the year after next, and we can move in together. It’ll be a new beginning. Exciting, huh?’ She kisses me. ‘We’ve been through hell, but you know what Winston Churchill said?’
‘If you’re going through hell, keep going,’ I answer, and she grins.
‘Of course, you would know that.’
‘Of course, I would. You know me well.’ I kiss her back, enjoying the way her body softens into mine, the way her eyes glaze over when I caress her.
Sometimes she asks me to choke her during sex. It’s our little secret. One of them, anyway.
Once I hear Ronnie’s breathing become slower and regular, I’ll ingest my own tonic for sleep. Gin, it’s odourless. The more I drink, the more I need. Tolerance, it’s called; the anatomy of my addiction.
There’s no other way to survive, no other way to be free.