I agreed. ‘It would have been better if they’d had a chance to meet.’ There was more I could say but I stopped myself. It all sounded trite, too easy.
Ned looked over at the photo of Norma and Karen on the far wall, his eyes soft. ‘It was quite a sum of money Norma left to Karen, you know. When she died, I mean.’
‘Really?’ I said, straightening. ‘I didn’t know that.’ This was new. I wondered if the other prison inmates knew about Karen’s wealth. ‘She told me she was giving away all her worldly goods and was going to live in a commune in LA.’
Ned shrugged it away. ‘Well, I guess it will go to Sunny now. And that’s got to be a good thing.’ My mind wandered, thinking of all the implications of Karen’s wealth, until Ned waggled my ankle for attention. ‘We’d better be looking for a new place to stay when we’re in Auckland, hadn’t we?’ He had deftly used the pronoun ‘we’ to suggest an intimacy that right now was also being expressed in the way his fingers made easy with my foot. An innocent enough act, you’d think, given the knee and all. Perhaps even an unconscious one. That’s what I told myself, anyway. Then Ned threw me a look and suddenly that touch didn’t seem innocent at all. None of it did. He smiled at me. And I smiled right back at him. It was a deciding moment …
… shattered by the loud insistent ring of an old-fashioned phone.
‘You should get that,’ I said.
He cupped his warm fingers around my heel. I didn’t pull away. ‘It won’t be for me,’ he said. ‘I’ve never given the number to anyone.’
The phone rang insistently.
‘Neither have I,’ I said.
‘Well then, it won’t be for you either.’
The phone stopped ringing. We looked at each other. The answerphone message started up in one of those robotic American voices.
‘I need to pee,’ I said.
He laughed and released my foot. I could feel his eyes on me as I hobbled unattractively across the room towards the bathroom. I didn’t need to pee. What I needed to do was remove myself from his body heat before I did something I was very likely to regret. I ran the tap and splashed cold water on my flushed neck and gave my reflection a silent talking-to. Robbie and I had never said we were exclusive but, given the recent developments, such as the suggestion to move in together, sleeping with Ned, though technically not wrong, would not be technically all that right either. As I bent to splash more water on my face, I startled. There was a woman in the living room, talking to Ned. I knew that voice well. The woman was undeniably, unmistakably, Karen.
Ned was wide-eyed. His face white, his hand pressed theatrically against his breast. I suspect the hand still hovered there from when he’d crossed himself. Karen’s voice boomed loud and clear from the answerphone.
‘ … just so excited. I know, I know you’ve told me not to expect too much, but I can’t help myself. Anyway, I’ll ring you on your cell. I just thought you might pick up if you were there.’ A faint sound in the background and Karen’s voice yelled, ‘Hang on!’ It was so loud, both Ned and I jumped. Karen laughed as if she’d seen our response. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘There’s someone at the door. I’ll ring you back in a minute.’
A click followed by a long beep ended the call. Ned and I stared at each other as the automated voice announced, ‘Call ended. Saturday 24 November, seven thirty-two a.m.’ We waited out the entire next message from a telemarketing firm in silence. Neither of us moved. I don’t think we breathed. Only when the long beep finished and the answerphone clicked to a halt did we breathe out. We knew what we had heard. The call was from Karen to me on Saturday morning. And it was her killer she had gone to open the door for. Ned crossed himself again without any attempt to hide it. Normally it’s the sort of thing I would have a person on about, but I didn’t. I was pretty close to making the talismanic gesture myself. Hearing Karen’s voice was creepy enough. Hearing her killer knock at the door was even creepier.
Ned was the first to speak. ‘I’ll take it into the police station first thing in the morning.’ He stared wide-eyed at