The Game You Played (30 page)

Monday morning

I SLEPT FITFULLY, MY MIND ROARING with nightmares and then snapping awake. My dreams rushed and jumped from scene to scene.

My mother, sitting on her bed, counting her collection of buttons. Calmly, she looks up at me and asks, “What did you do to Tommy?”

I can’t answer. My mouth is too dry, and my head hurts, and I can’t remember. Bending her head over her tin of buttons, she returns to counting. I run from the room, catching my reflection in the hall mirror.

I’m gawky and reedy in my school uniform, and I’m no older than twelve or thirteen. Stomping back to her bedroom, I want to scream at her to stop counting the damned buttons, but she’s gone. The tin of buttons remains on the bed, half uncounted.

JUMP.

A nightclub. Frenetic, pulsing electronic music. Saskia and Pria’s hair flying as they dance, red and yellow lights strobing across their faces. Sass is in her element.

It’s December last year. I’ve been leaving Tommy with Luke on Friday nights and heading out with Saskia. Pria doesn’t come along often.

Sass thinks I should leave Luke. Says he’s no good for me. Sass and I get drunk and wild on our nights out, just like in the old days.

I’m wearing a new dress and feeling good. I’ve lost a lot of the pregnancy weight, though I’ve still got a long way to go. My hair’s been newly shaped and layered to just above my shoulders, and it swings when I move. I love, love, love the feeling of my hair swinging as I dance. I’m also very drunk. And Sass gave me a party pill earlier. The lights of the dance floor pop before my eyes, and I’m sure the music is plugged into every nerve in my body.

Sass is sick suddenly and needs to go home—the pill had a bad effect on her. I stay at the nightclub with Pria, having too much fun to go home.

Someone taps my shoulder. I whirl around to a handsome face. We dance. He moves closer. Asks my name. Wants to know if he can have my number. I shake my head, but I’m laughing. Happy.

We kiss. He grins at me. Stays with me all night at the club. Says he wants to take me home with him. To the USA. His face . . . is Dash’s face.

Dash is visiting Sydney, but I don’t hear the reason why over the pumping music.

JUMP.

Tommy splashes near my feet. We’re in the playground. Luke’s gone to get ice-creams. My phone rings. Rebel rebel, goes the ring tone. I’d forgotten I was supposed to be taking a phone call right now. I’d planned it the day before. The cans of bourbon had made me forget. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pull out my phone and answer.

The man who speaks is Flynn O’Callaghan. Calling me from London. His voice floods inside me, into every part of me. I can picture him as he speaks. He’s glorious, with his Irish accent and his crooked way of lifting his eyebrow at me.

He called me up out of the blue six weeks ago. Just friends, just catching up. At first. But it soon became clear to both of us that the spark between us had never extinguished. The following weeks, things became hot, heavy, and delirious over the phone.

Until the day he asked me if I’d leave Luke and go live with him in London.

Now, at the playground, I’m listening to the drumming inside my mind and chest as I hold the phone to my ear.

“Are you going to go ahead with it?” he asks.

“I want to,” I tell him, my voice uncertain.

“Then please, Phoebe. You know what you need to do.”

I’m nodding even before I answer.

JUMP.

I’m plunging scissors into the giant bear, tearing into it, letting its stuffing spill free. Then, Tommy’s face is there, his wide eyes staring up at me, and I’ve still got the scissors . . .

With a gasping scream, I woke. Not a terrified scream but an enraged yell.

God, what had I done?

I ran to the shower and wrenched the tap around with both hands. I stood under the too-hot water in my sleep shirt, wanting to burn myself. Shaking, I slid to the floor of the shower and let my tears flow with the scalding water.

It had been Flynn on the phone that day. Flynn urging me to jump on a plane and meet him in London. I’d blanked that out. Yes, I’d sneaked a few drinks that morning before Luke and I left home (to help me deal with Luke’s mother now being my live-in guardian) but I wasn’t drunk. It must have been the intense shock of losing Tommy (and then Saskia urging me to look like the perfect wife and mother) that had caused the blank. Whenever I’d thought back to that day over the past few months, my mind had switched off during the point Flynn had called me. Like a TV set momentarily losing reception.

Nan tapped on the door. “Phoebe! Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I rasped.

I wound the water off again. Wrapping a towel around myself, I headed back for my room and balled myself up on the bed. When the heat left my body, I began shivering in the chilled early-morning air.

I remained like that, in my wet clothing, until I heard angry voices outside.

Crossing the floor, I glanced down from my window into the street. The reporters were still there from yesterday, but they’d been joined now by a crowd of at least thirty people. They were yelling things I couldn’t quite hear, except for one word. One clear word.
Murderer.

I shrunk back when two of them spotted me at the window.

Taking the damp towel from the bed, I hung it over a chair and then dressed myself. I couldn’t go out. I was a prisoner. Not that I had anywhere to go.

My phone buzzed, and I switched it on. There was a message from Kate. But I couldn’t bear to talk to anyone right now. I was about to switch the phone off again when an alert jumped up on my news app. An alert about Phoebe Basko. I tapped on it.

My heart sank through my chest as I read the short article:

The blood-soaked “kidnapper” letter is the fourth letter to be sent to Luke and Phoebe Basko. Police forensics have confirmed that the blood on the letter belongs to Tommy Basko. The blood is estimated to be six months old, possibly from around the time that Tommy was first reported missing.

Police allege that the letters were written by Phoebe Basko herself, the mother of Tommy. Her fingerprints were found inside all four envelopes, the last two of which were sealed at the time that either the police or Mr Basko gained access to them. A hidden police camera recorded Mrs Basko placing the third letter in her own mailbox.

In another twist to this explosive case, it’s been confirmed that Mrs Basko received a phone call from a mysterious person in the minutes before Tommy vanished from the inner city playground.

Police investigations are expected to concentrate on finding the identity of the person on the other end of this phone call. It is assumed that this person is connected with Tommy’s disappearance, possibly having abducted Tommy under Mrs Basko’s direction.

Police are confident they’re closing in on a resolution to the case and finding out what happened to Tommy.

It is expected that Mrs Basko will be under arrest by this afternoon.

I was going to be under arrest today . . .

Of course, what else did I expect? Murderers got arrested. Even if I arranged for someone else to do it, I was still a murderer.

But how could they be talking about Tommy and me? It was surely a news story about another mother and child, one of those stories that you read in the news that was so terrible you couldn’t believe it had really happened.

I scrolled down the page to a battery of reader comments under the story.

Slaughter the murdering slut the way she slaughtered her kid!

Drop her in prison, from a great height. Then let the prisoners rip into what’s left of her!

I never trusted that po-faced bitch!

The comments got worse. People hoping I’d get raped and disembowelled. Hundreds more comments followed. I threw the phone onto my bed like it had seared my hand.

I heard someone talking to Nan, downstairs.
Mrs Wick
. I guessed she’d come over to help Nan tidy the house.

I needed to go and help Nan, too. If I was going to be leaving this house today, I had to do this one last thing. To help clean up the mess caused by me.

Mrs Wick met me with a lingering gaze as I descended the stairs. She never held back on staring at people with her tiny, caustic eyes.

“I feel awful for your nan,” she informed me.

“I’m sorry for her, too.” I kept walking, out to the kitchen.

“She shouldn’t have to deal with something like this at this stage of her life. She’ll go down, you know. And once old people go down, they often don’t get up again. Like Gladys at number 26. I knew that once they put her in a wheelchair, she was gone.” She paused, only to end with, “Dead within weeks.”

Her voice followed me along the hallway. She’d put it as though I were a disease that would end up killing Nan. I’d sensed fear in Mrs Wick’s tone. Fear that yet another old person that she knew was going to die.

Nan came in from the yard. She’d been pegging out clothes on the line. It was Nan’s washing day, and she was obviously determined to stick with her routine. She nodded an acknowledgement at me as she passed into the living room. Her eyes were red, and I guessed she’d been crying while hanging out the clothes. I wanted to hug her, but Mrs Wick’s words rung in my head. I was a disease. There was no comfort in me. Only hurt and pain.

I started on the kitchen first. All of the cupboards had been emptied by the police.

The process of putting all Nan’s things away felt oddly like trying to put the meat back onto bones. It couldn’t be done. The memories of the house had been stripped away. New memories replaced the old. Scenes of police tramping through the hallways and rooms, touching everything and disturbing the time-worn order.

Nan and I didn’t speak much. And we stayed away from the windows. The media were ready to feed on the rotting meat.

When there was nothing left to put away, I headed upstairs. Mrs Wick eyed me with a hostile gaze, a possessive hand on Nan’s shoulder.

Kate called again, and this time I answered. She gave me the name and number of a lawyer that she and Elliot knew. The conversation was short and awkward, Kate steering clear of all topics except the lawyer’s reputation and to ask how I was.

Pria called shortly afterwards, and although she wasn’t awkward, it was far from a normal conversation. She simply said that I was in her thoughts. It didn’t take rocket science for me to guess that she and Kate were together, either at her house or Kate’s, talking about me and then making the calls.

Sass hadn’t called. But suddenly, I wanted to hear her voice. She’d always billed herself as my oldest friend. And it was true that she was. We’d first met each other as newborn babies. We were like family. And I had no siblings, no parents. Today was maybe the last time I’d ever speak to her, and I wanted to say good-bye.

I dialled her number, but her phone kept ringing. I was about to hang up when she answered.

“Hi . . . Phoebe.” Her voice was stiff. Was I imagining that? No, I wasn’t imagining it.

“How did the funeral go?”

“You know us. We made a bit of a celebration of it. Like Nanna Rosie would have wanted.”

“How’s your mum doing?”

“She’s coping with it a lot better now.”

“That’s good.”

A pause followed before she spoke again. “I have to go, Phoebe. Family stuff.”

She wasn’t convincing. I didn’t blame her. And I didn’t even know what I had hoped for in calling her. It wasn’t like Sass not to want to take control of the conversation and run on about everything that happened. Nothing, not even a funeral, dampened what everyone unkindly called her motor mouth. Sass dealt with everything by talking—whether she was happy or sad.

“You’ve heard the news here?” I ventured, my voice as thin as burned paper.

Another pause. “I didn’t want to say this to you, but you brought it up. Yes, I heard the whole thing. About the letters. And the toys. I—” She stopped and started again. “
Why?
”

I felt like I’d been punched in the throat. “Sass, I don’t remember . . . anything.”

“He was beautiful.” Her voice caught.

“I know.”

“I can’t . . . talk to you right now. I’m sorry. Bye, Phoebe.”

The phone went dead.

I collapsed into my chair.

The trembling started up again fresh.

Dr Moran called at two in the afternoon. I had the stupid thought that it was too early for her to call for the
small steps
program. She told me that she’d spoken with Detective Gilroy and delayed my arrest, organising instead for me to go to a mental health facility. Luke had just been to see her. He’d barged into her clinic demanding to know if I’d admitted murdering Tommy to her. He’d told her I was nuts. That I’d tried drowning myself in the bath. Worried that I was at risk of suicide, she’d responded by ordering him out and arranging for me to go somewhere where I could be watched. Which had enraged Luke more, accusing her of trying to have me declared insane, to make it easier for a lawyer to get me off a charge of murder.