has decided to use her mother’s money to take Sunny away to Europe with her. I know this money is Ned’s money. It is the money we have been waiting for. I ring Ned and I tell him: that bitch isn’t going to give you your money. I say to him, what are we going to do? And Ned says not to worry, he’ll sort it.’
Well, he’d certainly done that. It occurred to me that if I’d slept with Ned that Friday night, as I’d been sorely tempted to, he’d never have taken the phone call from Salena; he wouldn’t have flown to Wellington first thing the next morning to confront Karen; he wouldn’t have killed her. On a bad day I could feel I was responsible for Karen’s death. On a good day … well, I hadn’t had one of those for a while, so I’d just have to wait and see.
‘Why did Justin agree Karen could take Sunny away with her?’ My voice echoed around the room but I couldn’t tell if it was a symptom of the blow to the head or impressive bathroom acoustics. ‘Why did he agree to that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Salena said. ‘That’s the truth!’ she added, as if it was a rarity that surprised even her. She spoke to my disbelieving look in the mirror. ‘It must have been something big Karen had on him because he would never even let her name be spoken in the house. He didn’t want Sunny to have anything to do with her. I don’t know what she said to change his mind.’
We all turned at the sound of a siren. The ambulance was only minutes away. I had it all figured out now anyway, but I wanted confirmation. I was hoping this was the last time I’d ever have to see them.
‘So Ned caught the red-eye to Wellington on Saturday morning and stuffed up your plans by killing Karen,’ I said.
Salena did that European turned-down mouth thing that indicated agreement. ‘He said it was an accident,’ she said, not even trying to make it sound convincing. She kept her focus on Ned.
‘Karen dead meant all the money would go to Sunny,’ I continued. ‘The only way you two could get your hands on it then was if Justin was out of the way leaving Salena as Sunny’s guardian.’ I looked from one to the other. ‘So which of you two took the photos of Sunny?’
For the first time since he’d hit me Ned acknowledged my existence. ‘What do you take me for?’ he said. I was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that without me having to spell it out for him.
Salena looked away from us both, caught her image in the mirror and adjusted her hair.
Chapter 25
THURSDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2012
While the two ambulance men attended to Ned, I wandered onto the street to settle my nerves and to keep an eye out for Sunny and Neo. They’d been gone over an hour and I was starting to worry. The pavement steamed from the heavy downpour. Having dumped their load on the city streets, huge grumbling thunder clouds lumbered off towards the Waitakeres. The street was rich with pohutukawa, decked out in their full crimson garb. Soon it would be Christmas with all its accompanying madness. The expanding balloon sensation in my head had been replaced with a high-pitched whistle, like wind moving across the prairie in an old Western movie. I almost expected a tumbleweed to, well, tumble by.
‘Things settled down a bit in there, have they?’ I’d clocked the wiry, middle-aged man bent over stroking a ginger cat but didn’t recognise him until he spoke. Manny made room for me on the concrete fence a few doors down and we sat calmly together for a surprisingly long time, the big ginger cat weaving in and out between our legs. Manny was one of those rare breeds of people that you feel comfortable being quiet with.
‘What are you doing here, Manny?’
‘I hear that everyone does these slide shows at funerals now,’ he said. ‘No reason I could think of why Karen shouldn’t have one of them as well. I came up to collect some photos.’ His eyes slid in my direction without making purchase. ‘It’s her funeral on Saturday.’ The cat leaned itself against his leg, head stretched up in invitation, its eyes narrowed with pleasure. Manny responded with a luxurious stroke of his hand down the length of its body.
‘I’ll let you