Page 97 of Serenity Falls

Dax leans over the counter and lowers his voice. ‘Something Frankie said to me before he died – “If there’s never been a murder in Serenity Falls, that must mean everyone here is perfect, right?”’

‘Or?’ Sadie prompts.

‘Or someone is committing the perfect murders.’

He raises his eyebrows. She stares at him, and then they both jump as the cinema doors swing open, emitting a buzz of street noise. A young mum and a little boy walk in.

Dax straightens, hands her a ticket and says in a louder voice: ‘Screen 2 is to your right at the end.’

28

Obviously, she is not my wife. Obviously, it is simply a passing resemblance. She’s just a nice lady. A nice, pretty lady. And a work colleague, I remind myself. And I have no reason to call her about anything at all. And yet …

I maintain this internal battle of heart and head all the way home, pausing only briefly to pop into the grocery store to pick up a few more supplies. For the first time, realizing that I have left my wallet at the house, I pay using the Serenity bracelet and, when I get back, I let myself in with it. I guess it’s kind of useful, I think, as I walk through to the kitchen and dump the grocery bags on the kitchen worktop.

I hum to myself as I unpack the groceries, pausing only when I realize a/ I’m fucking humming to myself and b/ I have picked up a bottle of white wine. Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc. I don’t remember picking it up at the shop. But I do remember thinking the bill was slightly high, and this is obviously why. I stare at the bottle. This was Nat’s favourite wine. It was wasted on me. All wine tastes the same to me after the first glass, but Nat made me more civilized. For a while.

I’d buy it as a treat sometimes, and we’d share a bottle in the evening. Lazy summer evenings where the heat of the day had started to melt away, sitting out on a pair of ramshackle deckchairs in the back garden, Pearl Jam playing on the stereo. We weren’t rich by any means, but rich enough, I guess, to splurge on the occasional bottle of fancy wine and the odd take-out.

This was when we had lazy evenings. Before Sadie, before they were a thing of the past, like wild nights out and noisy sex. You make sacrifices for your children, and most you don’t mind. I didn’t even miss the noisy sex that much. But those evenings, I missed those sometimes. I miss them even now.

Perhaps that’s because I don’t like to think of the other nights. The ones where I came home to find Nat had drunk a whole bottle of cheap wine to herself and was itching to pick a fight; the nights where the bottle would end up smashed across the floor. The drink wasn’t the real issue. It was a symptom of her depression and mood swings. When Nat was happy, she was joyous; when she was low, she carried a cloud with her everywhere she went, and sometimes that cloud would break and I would have to endure the storm.

I put the wine down, consider putting it away in a cupboard, and then think, Fuck it, I’ve bought it now, might as well chill it, and stick it in the wine rack in the fridge. The six-pack of beer I bought nestles temptingly just beneath it. I glance at the clock. Almost 5 p.m. Too early. I shut the fridge and try to control the slight irritation. Not beer o’clock yet. I always used to set a limit. No beer before 5.30 p.m., or basically until I got home from school. No bourbon before 10 p.m. (after dinner). I haven’t thought about that for a while, mainly because I haven’t drunk bourbon for a while. I wish I hadn’t thought of it now.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the card Lorraine Hegarty gave me. I stare at it. It’s a bad idea. A bad, bad, bad idea. Terrible. Stupid. Irresponsible. Idiotic. So, before I can change my mind – or perhaps let sanity prevail – I pull out my phone and type out a text.

Hi, this is Dan Barker. It was great to meet you earlier. I wondered if you wanted to grab a drink or a coffee? I’d like to chat to you more about my daughter.

It’s shit to use Sadie as an excuse. But on the other hand, maybe talking about Sadie wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I get the feeling there’s stuff she’s not telling me.

Message sent, regret almost instant (but too late now, pal), I fold up the paper grocery bags and stuff them in a cupboard to re-use, even though I know I’ll forget to take them with me the next time I go to the shop, and we will end up with a cupboard full of crumpled grocery bags. I glance at the clock again. Still not time for a drink.

I open the fridge and pull out a bottle of sparkling water instead, and then I remember I have half a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in my bag upstairs. One sneaky nicotine hit couldn’t hurt.

I pad upstairs, grab them and hurry back down. I pull open the sliding doors and step outside. I stand in the shade and light my cigarette, breathing in the beautiful poisonous fumes. Then I slip my sunglasses down from the top of my head and stare out across the yard. Palms sway, the pool sparkles … and tied to one of the pool handrails, a bunch of brightly coloured balloons sways gently in the breeze.

Serena

Sometimes, things just go wrong from the start. Like the universe is trying to give you a heads up. Abort. Abandon your plans. This is not going to end well.

The evening of the Pumpkin Patch Party, Mom was in one of her moods – stressed, flapping about every little thing: My hair wasn’t right, the dress she’d chosen for me to wear was too short, a little slutty, maybe she should let down the hem or find a cardigan to cover the low-cut top. And was that a zit near my nose?

I tried to let it wash over me. I didn’t care about my hair or the stupid dress. I wouldn’t be wearing it for long. I’d already packed a change of clothes in a small backpack, which I’d hidden in some bushes in the park. Along with the clothes, I’d also packed a flashlight, chips, and a couple of beers I’d sneaked from Dad’s stash.

Mom’s bad temper wasn’t helped by the fact that Johnson Green, the Conservator, had ‘popped round’ to check how we were. I was pretty sure by this point that he was sweet on Mum, even if she didn’t reciprocate his feelings.

I didn’t like Green. He was pompous and loud and generally a bit of a dick. But he was still preferable to his son, Owen, who he had, once again, dragged round with him.

I sometimes felt mean about disliking the kid. He was only ten, overweight and kind of unfortunate-looking: big, almost my height, with greasy dark hair and a weird pudgy face, a bit like a Cabbage Patch doll. But something about him genuinely made my skin crawl. Some kids. You just know they’re not right. You can feel it, radiating off them. Owen was like that. He was all kinds of wrong.

I made my excuses and hid away in my room till they left. Eventually, Mom came up and decided she was semi-satisfied with my appearance. A cardigan had been found to cover the low-cut top and my hair would pass. We were around fifteen minutes late leaving the house when Mom discovered that somehow one of her favourite china figurines had been smashed.

Somehow, it felt like an omen. A bad one.

The town square was packed, as it always was for the party. I did my thing, announced the opening, gave out some prizes and then rang a bell shaped like a pumpkin to officially declare the party open.

Normally, I’d be released quickly after that, but Mom must have been feeling guilty about her panic before we left, and she insisted on buying me an ice-cream. I ate it so fast I gave myself brain freeze, but it was still another thirty minutes before she was finally distracted enough, trapped talking to one of the party organizers, for me to slip away. I checked my watch as I hurried towards the park. Already gone seven thirty.