The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(88)

“No.” Falk reached over and buckled his seat belt, frantically gesturing for Raco and Barnes to do the same.

“Yes, I know. I’m sor—”

“Who did she speak to?”

“As it was rather a large sum, she went straight to the top. The principal, Mr. Whitlam.”

Falk hung up the phone.

“School. Now.”

Raco slammed his foot on the accelerator.

Luke’s body juddered a little under the tarpaulin as Whitlam trundled along the short distance to the Hadlers’ farm. Whitlam dragged his eyes away from the rearview mirror and gripped the wheel tightly, his hands sweating inside the plastic gloves. At the farmhouse, he pulled Luke’s truck to a stop and jumped out before he had time to think what was ahead. Only at the front door did he hesitate.

Whitlam didn’t know the layout of the Hadlers’ house and grounds well at all. Certainly not enough to go searching for Karen. Struck by the sudden madness of it, he saw his hand reach out and press the doorbell. He would bring her to him. The shotgun hung by his side, snug against his thigh.

Karen Hadler opened the door, blinking once in recognition and surprise. She drew a breath, her tongue curling behind her teeth for the sibilant s, the hard c forming in her throat, then his name was cut short as he raised the gun in a swift movement and pulled the trigger. He closed his eyes as he did it, and when he opened them she was falling backward, her stomach red and raw. Whitlam winced as her elbow caught the tiled floor with a loud crack and her head snapped back. Her eyes flickered eerily, and a long alto moan sounded from deep in her chest.

Whitlam’s ears were ringing, and he could hear nothing.

“Mummy?”

No. No. He could hear nothing else.

“Mummy?”

Nothing but the breath in his chest and the ringing in his ears, and definitely not Billy Hadler shrieking like a bird from the shadow of the hallway, a toy dangling from one hand and his mouth stretched wide in horror. “Mummy?”

Whitlam couldn’t believe it; he could not believe it. The kid was here. The kid was here. Why the hell wasn’t he far away, safe on the other side of town, playing in Whitlam’s own backyard? Instead he was here. And he’d seen, and now Whitlam had to make it as though he hadn’t seen, and there was only one way he could think of to do that, and are you happy now, you nosy bitch, he screamed at Karen’s body as Billy turned and belted down the hall, too scared to cry so making ghoulish gasping little sighs instead.

Whitlam felt as though he’d stepped out of his body. He followed and burst into the bedroom, almost unseeing as he flung open cupboard doors, ripped off the bedspread. Where was he? Where was he? He was angry, furious, at what he was being made to do. A sound came from the laundry basket, and Whitlam couldn’t remember pushing it aside, but he must have because there was Billy. Billy, pressed against the wall, his face in his hands. But Whitlam remembered pulling the trigger. Yes. Later he would remember that well.

There was the dreadful ringing in his head again, and again—oh dear God, please, no—something else. He thought for a hideous moment the cries were coming from Billy, who was missing half his head and chest. He wondered if he was making them himself, but when he put his hand to his mouth it was closed.

He followed the noise, almost curiously, across the hall. The child was in the nursery, standing in her cot, bawling. Whitlam stood in the doorway and thought he might vomit.

He positioned the barrel of the gun toward his own chin and held it there, feeling the heat radiate off the metal, until the urge passed. Slowly, he turned the weapon around. It wobbled as he trained it on the baby’s yellow jumpsuit. He took a breath. The chaos in his head was deafening, but amid the noise was a single urgent note of reason. Look! He made himself pause. He blinked once. Look at her age. And listen. She’s crying. Crying, not talking. No words. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t tell.

It scared him that in that instant, he was still tempted.

“Bang,” he whispered to himself. He heard a scary laugh, but when he looked there was no one else around.

Whitlam turned and ran. Over Karen’s body and out to Luke’s truck and then behind the wheel and roaring out onto the country road. He passed no one and drove until the jitters got too strong for him to hold the wheel. He took the next turnoff he saw. A pathetic track leading to a small clearing.

Whitlam climbed out and dragged his bike from the truck, his teeth chattering in his skull. With shaking hands, he threw back the tarpaulin, obscuring four horizontal streaks left against the paintwork as the bike’s wheels had shifted and moved during the journey.

Instead, Whitlam steeled himself and leaned over the body. There was no movement. He peered at Luke’s face, so close that he could see where the other man had cut himself shaving. He felt no whisper of air. Luke had stopped breathing.

Whitlam pulled on new gloves and a plastic rain poncho, then dragged the body to the edge of the tray. He hauled it with some trouble into a slumped seated position. Shotgun between Luke’s legs, his fingertips pressed to the weapon, the barrel propped against his teeth.

Whitlam was terrified the body would slip and crumple, and he had the bizarre thought that he should have practiced this somehow. Then he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. Luke’s face disappeared, and his body fell backward. The blow to the back of his skull was lost in the mess. It was done. Whitlam crammed his gloves, poncho, and the tarpaulin into a plastic bag to burn later. Then he took three deep breaths and wheeled his bike onto the empty road.