The Killing Hour

The sun sinks and my anguish rises.

I stop at a supermarket and ignore the looks. A person dressed in fatigues is a common enough sight. People who have been beaten up are also common enough. It’s not often the two are combined, and normally the guy in the fatigues has given the beating. Stopping at the supermarket has never been so weird. It’s as if I’ve evolved beyond walking up and down aisles looking for pastas and cereals and bread. This kind of mundane day-to-day living is behind me. This isn’t where people go when death is all around them. I grab chips, doughnuts, a packet of cheese slices and two bottles of drink. I roll out a hundred-dollar note and the looks on the faces around me change. The girl working the checkout takes a small step back. She’s thinking I just mugged somebody. Or killed them.

I pull past Kathy’s house at six-fifty in my shiny rented Holden and park six houses further down. There are no police cars. No police tape. Life has moved on. Death hasn’t, though. I can feel it waiting in the street watching me. The Mercedes I saw the other night is still parked in the same place. Maybe it’s broken down. The street is pretty quiet. I start waiting.

I flick through the newspaper I bought with my snacks. The murders are still front-page news. No mention of Landry. I figure it’s too soon. The cops will be concerned. I’m sure Landry kept any information about me to himself. Had to so he could execute me without fear of being caught. At least that’s something in my favour, I guess. I try to think if anything connects me to Landry’s death. My fingerprints are all over the cabin, which will match those at Kathy and Luciana’s houses. What else is there? Oh shit. There’s the piece of paper he showed me with my name and phone number surrounded by rubbed pencil. If Landry’s body is found the note will be discovered. And the copy that was left on my bed. He would have taken that too.

The thought of going back into the forest to look for the two notes makes me ill. I put my hand on the door, ready to open it, ready to throw up on the footpath and put an end to this stakeout, when I remember him slipping the pad into his jacket pocket. The same jacket I threw into the fire with the rest of his clothes. The second note would be in there too.

I’m still shaking with relief when a dark Mercedes pulls into a driveway six houses ahead of me. Into Kathy’s house. I put the binoculars to my eyes and manage only a glimpse of the car before it rolls out of sight. I glance at my watch. It’s seven-forty. I start the car and move up to pull in behind the silver Mercedes. Does everybody in this street own one? I kill the engine. Wait patiently.



I can see the right front of the house and the back of the Mercedes. I can’t see any movement inside the house or the car. The sun is still winking over the horizon. No need for any lights yet.

I wait. Not much more I can do. I came prepared to wait for hours and now it seems I may just be doing that. I have to remain focused. Remain sharp. I have to trust everything is okay. If I believed otherwise I’d be believing there’s no point in carrying on.

I start to grow restless, fidgety. The sun disappears but it’s still light outside. The minutes slip by like lost nights. A few people are out and about. Some are walking dogs. Others are power-walking, thrusting their arms in front of them in self-defence movements to stay fit. Nobody pays any attention to me. I probably look like a reporter. Or a cop. Both would have perfect justification to be sitting here. Both wouldn’t look out of place with cuts and bruises on their faces. I consider reading the newspaper again but it’s too dark. The streetlights come on but they don’t help. I want to get out and stretch a few of my aching muscles. I look into the rear-view mirror. My jaw where Landry hit me is getting darker. The swelling has gone down and the bruise has come up. I run my finger along the line of the bruise. It feels soft, like a small balloon of water is trapped underneath.

I look up at the sky and wonder if it will rain tonight. At one minute past nine my phone rings. I fumble through my vest pockets, forgetting which one I put it in and finding it by sound. I get to it before Cyris hangs up. It stops ringing when I flip it open. I check the display. The number Cyris is calling from is blocked.

‘Why aren’t you at home, partner?’ His voice crackles through the earpiece.



‘Didn’t want you changing your mind and deciding to kill me instead.’

Cyris says nothing as he thinks about it. So I say nothing. A minute goes by in which it seems we’re setting a trend.

‘You got the money?’ he asks.

‘I got it.’

‘Fifty grand.’

‘What?’

‘You’re pissing me off, buddy. It’s fifty grand now. It’s not free to dial a cellphone.’

No, but it doesn’t cost ten thousand dollars either. ‘I only have forty.’