The Killing Hour

It’s her favourite programme, not theirs, but he says nothing. Even when he can think straight he can hardly distinguish between all the programmes on TV. He reaches the doorway to the basement. He’s light-headed and the walls and the door are spinning in time with his mind, but in the opposite direction. He reaches out and balances himself. The room starts to spin faster. He holds his breath and the need to vomit slowly fades.

He thinks of Charlie. He thinks of Charlie plunging the knife into him, and at the same time the pain in his stomach flares up as though the knife is back in there, twisting around and around. He doubles over and collapses to his knees. No amount of money is worth this. When he gets back to his feet he unlocks the basement door and heads downstairs. The woman looks up at him and he can see she’s been crying. He hates it when women cry. It’s their way of making men feel guilty. It’s a weapon they use to make men feel like crap. He doesn’t want to feel bad. In fact he doesn’t want to feel anything.

He hates Charlie Feldman for being such an arsehole.

From the bench nearby he picks up a knife and moves towards her.





39


The hissing remains for another second, then the phone goes dead. I stare at it, looking to take back the words I just said, wanting to reach through the dead air and pull them back but they’re no longer mine, they’re Cyris’s. They have slipped through the phone and into another part of this world where they have killed Jo.

The car windows are slightly fogged over from my heavy breathing. It feels like fifty degrees in here and the air tastes stale. I wipe a hand over the glass, smudging a path through the moisture and creating a gateway to the outside. Kathy and Luciana are standing only a few metres from my door.

I squeeze my eyes shut, hold them closed for a few seconds to give the two girls a chance to disappear, and when I open them back up and see them still there I start to doubt that they’re only in my mind. They look happier since I saw them last, as if somehow at peace. My skin tingles as my arms break out in goosebumps. A cold chill blasts its way down the back of my neck as if the air-conditioning in the Holden has just been cranked to some mystery arctic setting. I try to open the door but my arms won’t move. I can barely breathe. The world sways and I can hardly stay conscious.

Kathy is wearing a long white dress, shoulderless, the material thin and whispery. Luciana is wearing a summer frock covered in small red roses and yellow daffodils. She’s wearing a hat too. She looks tanned. They’re holding hands as they stand there smiling at me and for the moment the phone call from Cyris is forgotten. I get my arms moving jerkily and manage to wind down the window. Their mouths open and close but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Kathy takes a step forward. Her hair is blowing in some invisible breeze. Luciana follows. My eyes are starting to sting but I’m too frightened to blink, too frightened that in that split second they will disappear. Something is going on here that can’t be controlled by either my imagination or my conscience.

I tell them I’m sorry but they don’t seem to understand. They stop talking and again they smile. I try the door handle and just then the phone rings. I glance at it. In that instant Kathy is gone, Luciana has gone with her, and I’m alone in my car looking back at an empty street. My window is still wound up, the smear mark on the glass from my hand is still clear. My face is covered in a film of sweat and the lump on my forehead is throbbing. I don’t know what happened but if Kathy and Luciana were here then they’ve just left to go and get Jo.

As I scramble for the phone it slips in my fingers and bounces off the passenger seat onto the floor. I reach down, grab it and open it while I’m still hunched over the gear stick. ‘Cyris?’



‘Charlie, it’s me.’

‘Jo!’

‘I’m okay, Charlie.’

Thank God. Thank you, God. ‘Has he hurt you?’

‘I’m okay. He wants me to tell you he’ll see you tomorrow night.’

‘I know.’

‘He says don’t try anything, Charlie.’

‘I won’t.’

‘He’ll let us go.’

‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

She hesitates, and then, ‘I have to go. Be careful, Charlie. Promise me that.’

‘Jo,’ I say, but I’m already talking into a broken connection.

Jo is alive and so is my hope and I know why the two ghosts were looking happy. I’m on the right track to saving Jo and on the right track to finding them justice. I will either die in hope or live in despair.

I drop the phone onto the seat and get back to the very business I came here to do, which is waiting. Waiting to see what Kathy’s husband does.