The Killing Hour

The first thing I do is untie Jo. While she eats we study the front page. The police have released more details. They mention that Luciana was found by a work colleague, Kathy by a neighbour. Both husbands have been questioned and released. Luciana’s husband was in Auckland with his new partner at the time. The article mentions the pair’s separation, says the husband is gay. Kathy’s husband, Frank, also has a solid alibi.

The van outside Luciana’s house was found with the key snapped in the ignition. Luciana’s car, a dark blue Ford, was found abandoned several kilometres away. The police have a lead on a vehicle they’re looking for – a dark blue – or possibly dark green – stationwagon. Cyris’s? I’m not sure. I read the sentence over and over and each time I breathe a sigh of relief that nobody is mentioning me or my car.

I read the article twice more, then I go deeper into the paper where a related article has been written by a different journalist. I read this but don’t learn anything. I go back to the front page and read the headlines again. Something in them doesn’t quite gel but I can’t put my finger on it. I look through the paper searching for any mention of Jo but there’s nothing. Then I even read my horoscope. It says forces in my life are conspiring to change my future but isn’t any more specific.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Jo says, ‘that if this Cyris guy is after you he’s going to come for you at night, right? He does his thing at night, and he wouldn’t risk anything during the day.’

She’s sitting on her bed and I’m sitting in the kitchenette and we’re both staring at the carpark and watching the rain.

‘I guess that makes sense. Why? What do you have in mind?’



‘First of all, you need to contact the police.’

Unbelievable. ‘I’m not going to the …’

‘I didn’t say go to them. Now are you going to shut up and listen or not?’

‘Get to the point.’

‘You know things about Cyris, important things that the police don’t know. You said they wouldn’t know about the paddock, well, you could tell them to search there. You could tell them everything you know by writing a letter and sending it anonymously.’

I think about what I would put down. I would tell them how it was me who broke the key found in the van but I wouldn’t mention I was the one who smashed Luciana’s phone so the police couldn’t be called.

‘It’s a good idea, Charlie.’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘Did he see your car?’

‘No doubt there.’

‘And we both need to call in sick at work.’

Christ, I haven’t even thought about that. I wonder how many students were sitting around yesterday celebrating the fact I didn’t show up. I wonder if I still have my job.

‘Then what?’

‘If he’s looking for you, Charlie, where’s the first place he’s going to go?’

The answer is simple. ‘You want to head back to my house?’

‘Why not? He saw your car, he would have noted your registration plate to figure out where you live. I’m saying we need to stake it out.’

Staking out my own house. Considering everything else that has happened this week this new development doesn’t seem strange to me. ‘I guess it’s a logical progression.’

‘Oh, it definitely is, for him and for us. And that has to be our plan. That, and figuring out a way to catch him when he does show up.’

‘How are we going to do that?’

Jo pushes away her empty plate and sips more of her bad coffee. ‘That’s what we need to work out.’





9


Another day, another dollar. And already it’s going badly.

It started with waking up and having no appetite. It moved on to him hovering over the toilet for ten minutes fighting the waves of nausea the pills were supposed to fight for him. The day he’s been dragged into has been built with bad weather. He hates rain more than he hates the heat. His packet of cigarettes was empty and the plug on his coffee machine was broken. The thought of stripping the wires and poking them directly into the mains became even more appealing when he factored in the chance of being killed. In the end he had to settle for drinking warm water, and when you’re stumbling through this world in a dozing stupor trying hard to wake up, trying hard to stay focused with both cancer and cancer-fighting poison running through your system, water simply doesn’t cut it. Apparently slapping himself hard doesn’t work either.