‘There’s a gun,’ Jack blurted.
‘A gun.’ Jansen’s eyes went flat.
‘Someone sent it to me. In a box. Gift wrapped. I found it when we came back from the park earlier. But I never saw it before. The gun, I mean. I’ve never used a gun in my life.’
‘Maybe someone thought you needed it.’
‘What? No. I mean. There’s no reason... look, I work in insurance, all right? I process insurance claims. I don’t need a gun. I’m not a criminal.’
‘Why don’t you show it to me?’
Jack slid the bag off his back. ‘It’s in here.’ He started to unzip it but the cop put a heavy hand on his shoulder.
‘Why don’t you let me do that, son?’
Jansen steered Jack away from the benchtop. He put on a pair of latex gloves, reached into the backpack and pulled out the gun, still wrapped in the tea towel. He put it on the benchtop and folded back the top of the towel until the gun could be seen. Jansen gave a look to the other cop. She came forward with an evidence bag and took the gun.
‘I thought you said it came in a box. What’s it doing in the backpack?’ Jansen asked.
‘I was going to bring it to the police station. That’s where I was going when you got here.’
‘And the tea towel? This parcel you got... did the tea towel come with it too?’ There was a tone to Jansen’s question that made Jack’s flush deepen. He wasn’t taking the piss, not quite, but it was close.
‘No. That’s mine,’ Jack said. He straightened up. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but he sounded guilty. He had to cut that out. Stand up for himself.
‘Why did you wrap the gun in the towel?’ asked Lucy Phillips.
‘I just... it felt weird, having it out in the open. Uncomfortable. So I just wrapped it up.’
Cam was standing off to the side now, looking scared. Jack went to him and put an arm around his shoulders.
Jansen nodded seriously. ‘But you haven’t wiped it down? When we test this, we’ll find your fingerprints on it? And, presumably, the prints of whoever sent it to you.’
Shit.
Jack forced himself to hold Jansen’s gaze. ‘I don’t know about the guy who sent it to me. Maybe he cleaned it. I... I barely touched it. So maybe it has my fingerprints, maybe it doesn’t.’
The two other cops were in the house now. They were both tatted-up guys in their twenties with tight haircuts. They stood there, waiting, until Jansen gave them a nod. Then one of them turned and started lifting cushions on the couch. The other went into Jack’s bedroom. Lucy Phillips started opening the kitchen cupboards and moving things around. It was insane, how quickly everything had changed from a normal evening. It didn’t feel real.
‘Dad?’ Cameron said. There was a lot in that one word. Uncertainty. Some fear. Maybe a request that Jackdosomething about the fact that their home was being pulled apart.
‘It’s okay, Cam,’ Jack said, automatically.
‘Maybe you’d both like to take a seat?’ Jansen said, gesturing to one of the two rickety bar stools. ‘Let us get on with things?’
They sat. Jack still had the warrant in his hand. He tried to make sense of it but the document was a mess of fine print, none of which meant anything to him.
‘Look, the box is right there,’ he said. He needed to get things back on track. Needed them to understand that he was a normal person. That he was like them. One of the good guys.
‘The box?’
‘The box the gun came in. See? I left it there, on the bench beside the microwave.’ Jack pointed. ‘And there was a letter with it too. It’s in my backpack.’
‘A letter?’ Still wearing his latex gloves, Jansen pulled the bag towards him again. He opened it.
‘Not a letter, exactly. Just a page with a quote on it. Like from a poem or a book or something.’
Jansen read from the sheet of paper.
