The Midnight Estate #4
Silas had no idea if he could even stomach the milk but Marie was in shock and pregnant to boot. His mother would have said
that anyone under such stress needed sugar and sustenance and so that was exactly what he tried to provide Marie.
Finally, Silas walked back upstairs and rapped the back of his knuckles against her bathroom door.
“Silas?” Her voice was hoarse. Raw. “Is he gone?”
“Come downstairs when you’re ready but don’t turn on the lights. The moonlight is plenty, and I don’t want any of the neighbors
to see that we were up.”
The simple request to move through the house without the lights on reminded Marie of how much trouble she was in. She wanted to believe that anyone would understand it was an accident, and that there were good reasons for her to be so afraid as to push Rupert down those stairs.
The problem was that as the shock cleared, she was finding the guilt cleared with it. That man threatened sweet little Ernest.
He’d come to kill her. It was his life or hers and her baby’s, and Rupert had taken more than enough from Marie already. She was starting to worry
that in a police interview, she might not be able to display a remorse she didn’t feel.
Marie felt numb, certainly. And there was fear and anxiety and confusion, but the resounding, overwhelming feeling—the one
that she feared would be the one to remain when the shock was entirely gone—was relief.
It wasn’t over yet. Her husband’s body was a matter that absolutely needed to be dealt with, and with great urgency too. But
at the same time it was over. The nightmare had ended, and a glorious new dawn had broken. Rupert would never come for her
again. His hold over her was broken and her life was her own again.
Marie had saved herself. And in doing so, she had saved her baby.
With this realization Marie finally left the bathroom. Silas had already gone downstairs, and just a minute or two earlier
she might’ve been afraid to follow him, but she was strong as she cast her eyes over the now-empty lobby. She held her head
high, and even though she trembled a little she walked down that mammoth staircase, over the floorboards where her husband
had fallen, down the long hall and into the kitchen. Silas sat at the farmhouse table, creamy candles melting onto their holders
to illuminate the room with their gentle, flickering light. Two cups of milk sat waiting, steam rising into the night air.
She took her seat on the bench opposite Silas and she reached for the milk. She couldn’t taste it but the warmth of the liquid making its way through to the stomach was comforting. Silas pushed the Anzac biscuits towards her and she shook her head.
“What are we going to do?” she asked him. “Are we going to call the police?”
“No,” Silas said calmly. “No, we can’t do that.”
“But—”
“Marie. Think about it. We’d have to tell them everything. We can’t.” They sat in silence for a while. The candles flickered and the house shifted as the air outside cooled, and every now and
again there came the echo of an owl outside, the clicking sound of possums playing in the trees. Finally, Silas said, “It’s
up to us. We have to lay him to rest.”
His tone was heavy with solemnity, as if he were speaking about a cherished community figure who had passed peacefully after
a fruitful life of service.
“I think what you’re trying to say is, we need to hide his body,” Marie said, and it occurred to her that she was going to
be far more pragmatic than her creative-minded accomplice even now.
“The man deserves very little,” Silas sighed. “But as a human being he does deserve a respectful burial.” Before Marie could
be too chastened by his gentle scold, Silas rubbed his eyes and added wearily, “And it just so happens we also need to hide
his body.”
“Do you have any idea where . . . ?”
“I don’t write crime novels, or even read them, really,” Silas muttered. “Which is a real shame in this instance, because
perhaps if I had read that genre I might have some ideas about what to do next.”
They sat like that for a while. As her senses came back to her she became gradually aware of the calmness after the chaos. It was humid that night, the spring air heavy with moisture after a week of rain.
“We need to find a place that no one will ever think to look,” she whispered. “But even if we can do that, people must have seen him as he made his way here. He must’ve asked for directions to your house at the very least.
He probably flew here on his own passport—”
“Yes,” Silas said, then he cleared his throat. “Yes, it was in his pocket. And a bus ticket from a station near the airport,
to Forbes.”
“So the authorities will know he came here.”
“There are outbound and incoming passenger records of course, but unless he told someone he was traveling here, why would
they think to look for him in the list of people on a flight to Australia? Even if the police back home suspect he traveled
internationally, surely they’ll focus on places much closer to home.”
“We only had passports because we went to Mexico on our honeymoon,” she whispered. That was the first and only time she’d
been on a plane until Silas came along. She felt like a fool now for not questioning the luxury of that honeymoon at the time.
What small-town policeman could afford such an expense, except one who had a profitable side business? “And you said there
was a bus ticket to Forbes . . . but how did he get out here?”
“There’s no car out front. Taxis don’t run this late out here. He either hitch-hiked, or he walked—and you know how quiet
this road is at night. I don’t think he hitch-hiked.”
“Could he walk this far?”
“It’s only a few miles. I’m sure it’s possible.”
“He might have told Irving where he was going.”
“He might,” Silas sighed. “Or other associates. And I imagine he’s been interrogating the people in your life quite frantically
since you left.”
“The people in my life,” she repeated numbly. Who exactly would that be? She had no real friends to speak of now.
“He and Irving are—were—very close?”
“I suspect Irving would say yes to that question but no, I don’t think they really were. The hero worship went one way.” That
made her feel so sad for her brother, and on this came another wave of grief. Irving had hurt her very deeply but she had
always assumed she’d see him again at some point. That would not be possible now.
Was he even missing her? Was he looking for her? Marie highly doubted that given the way their last conversation went.
“It all depends on Rupert’s motive for coming here,” Silas said suddenly. “If he intended to kill you, he wouldn’t have told
anyone where he was going. Nor would he have risked finding his way out here with any assistance because anyone who drove him would
be a witness to confirm he was here. So we can assume, if he intended to kill you, no one will come looking for him.”
“Exactly.”
It all came down to that. But for the knife, they might have assumed he’d told plenty of folks back home that he knew where
Marie was and he was coming to get her.
But . . . there was the matter of the knife. Even Rupert wouldn’t have told the other officers at the station that he was traveling halfway across
the globe to attack his wife for leaving him. He might have made some excuse for leaving, but he couldn’t have told them the
whole truth, and that meant there was an excellent chance that he hadn’t told them any truth.
“You know best, Marie,” Silas said eventually. “What does your gut say?”
She raised her gaze. Silas was exhausted, heavy bags beneath his eyes—but his eyes were still so kind, and he trusted her.
You know best, Marie. Quite a change from the last man she’d lived with, who had spent years convincing her that she knew nothing at all.
“Rupert came to kill me,” she said flatly. “No one will ever know he was here.”
There was still the matter of whether any locals saw him—did he speak to anyone on the bus, or did he stop in town to ask
for directions? Marie and Silas decided that they could deal with that if it arose. The biggest issue that remained was where
to hide the body, and in that, they both felt similarly clueless.
“We need a place no one will disturb. I want to be certain this is over. I don’t want to live worrying someone might stumble
upon his body years from now and ask questions,” Silas said.
For a while, they considered the endless open space that surrounded the town. There were patches of undisturbed bush land,
even massively expansive nature reserves.
“It has to be accessible by car, but remote enough that no one will see the car,” Marie said.
“But he’s probably heavier than I am,” Silas conceded. The men were about the same height, but Silas was thin, and Rupert
had been strong and stocky. “I won’t be able to carry him far. And then there’s the matter of how I bury him. The rain will have softened the dirt but the bush land around here is so rocky.”
Marie could scarcely believe that they were calmly sitting at the kitchen table having cups of hot milk and biscuits and discussing where to hide her husband’s body.
Her gaze drifted to the bank of windows along the kitchen wall.
Cloud had covered the moon and it was a little darker outside.
Soft rain was drizzling down the glass panes.
Silas suddenly gasped, and Marie looked back to him in surprise.
“Do you have an idea?”
“God forgive me,” he whispered, as his eyes shone with the gleam of unshed tears. “I have an idea, but I’m not sure you’re
going to like it.”
When the morning came, Marie called Christine.
“Silas and I both seem to have caught a flu,” she lied. “We’re both so unwell. Could you perhaps come and collect Ernie?”
“A springtime flu, how unusual!” Christine exclaimed. “You poor things. I’ll be right over.”
Christine was at the doorstep within ten minutes, a container of frozen chicken soup from her freezer in her hands.
“It’s the best I could do at short notice,” she said apologetically, passing Marie the container. Ernie came flying down the
stairs and threw himself at his mother.