Leave Her Hanging: A Noir Thriller

Chapter Six

Night fell hard on Auckland. It was just after ten by the time I got back to Ella’s place. The neighbourhood didn’t look any better in the dark, but the baby had finally stopped crying. I’d changed out of my uniform into jeans and a t-shirt and a thin jacket, which was more than enough to keep me warm on a night like this. I kept my hands in my pockets as a backfiring old station wagon zoomed past, then I turned and hurried down Ella’s driveway, opened the gate that led around the back, and closed it quietly behind me.

All the windows in the house were dark. I hoped that meant Max was right about his mum being asleep. I didn’t know if Mr Lewis was at home or still in hospital. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to have a look around, maybe see if Max knew anything else. Then I could go home and sleep and get on with living a life of guilt. But first I needed to try to understand.

The back door opened easily. I slipped inside and carefully closed the door, easing slowly up on the door handle. I knew I was in the laundry, but it was too dark to see anything. I pulled out my phone and used it for light as I stepped forwards. My footsteps sounded like the T-rex approaching in Jurassic Park. I kicked off my sneakers and crept into the kitchen in my socks.

Someone upstairs was snoring loud enough to be mistaken for a vacuum cleaner. I let the light of my phone guide me past the overflowing rubbish bin and the leaking tap and the dirty dishes stacked next to the sink, out to the main hallway, and to the stairs. By some miracle the only thing in the house that didn’t creak was the staircase. I hurried upstairs as quickly as I dared and came out in another hallway.

The snoring was coming from the master bedroom down the end of the hall. I waited for a moment, listening again, but the snores never changed their rhythm. I was safe. I wiped my sleeve across my forehead to mop up the sweat and padded to the other end of the hall, to Ella’s room.

The door was closed. The hand-drawn note that said Ella’s Room: KNOCK FIRST THAT MEANS YOU MAX xoxo still hung on the door, surrounded by pictures clipped from magazines and comics printed from the Internet. I paused with my hand hovering over the doorknob, my guts tying themselves into a reef knot. Maybe I’d open the door and she’d be in there, fast asleep, rolled over on her side with her mouth half-open and her hair drooping across her face. Or maybe if I turned around now and left without opening the door she’d be like that physicist’s cat, alive and dead at the same time, forever.

But that was absurd. She was dead, her body already decaying, sitting somewhere waiting to be stuck in a box in the ground. I took a breath and pushed open the door.

The room smelled like her. The scent clung to my nostrils, drawing me in.

And then I’m back, maybe seven, eight months ago, coming into her room for the first time. We’ve just got home from seeing some arty film that Ella wanted to see but I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, and now she’s got me by the hand, pulling me into her room, showing me her space, smiling. She’s got books all over the shelves, most of them old, secondhand. The duvet cover has a pattern of stars. I see the poster of that actor stuck to her wall, what’s-his-name, Andrew Garfield, and I get a pang of stupid immature jealousy hitting me in the heart. But she laughs and kisses me briefly and tells me he’s got nothing on me, which I know is a lie but I appreciate it anyway, and the taste of her is lingering on my lips and I pull her close again for another kiss, longer this time, harder, and her hands are running through my hair, and she nips my bottom lip with her teeth.

Then she breaks away from the kiss, eyes sparkling, and tells me to wait a minute, she has to write something down first. And I’m confused, and I’ve got a hard-on that’d cut diamonds, and I ask her what the hell she has to write at a time like this. She laughs and kisses me again and tells me to be patient, she just wants to write in her diary. About us. She writes everything in her diary. So I watch her while she goes to her bottom drawer, pulls it completely out, places it on the ground, and reaches into the space left behind to pull out a small black book with a fake leather cover. She tells me she keeps it there to stop nosy little brothers prying, and she sits cross-legged on the bed, opens the book, and starts writing. I watch her for a second, trying to get my hormones under control, watching the slight smiles that cross her face as she writes, and I think she’s the most beautiful creature that could ever exist, and this isn’t just lust, this is it. This is love.