Deserving Death by Katherine Howell

Author:Katherine Howell [Howell, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Australia
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2014-01-31T13:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

‘Why don’t you stay?’ Netta said an hour later, closing the photo album they’d been laughing over. ‘I’ve got mushrooms for breakfast.’

Why not? Ella thought. She could get up in time to go home and change before work. She thought of lying in her old bed in her old room – ostensibly the spare, though neither Netta nor Franco called it that – and hearing them get ready for bed themselves, the low murmur of conversation through the walls, the click of light switches, the quiet dark settling over the house. The feeling of security she’d had as a child, knowing that one cry would bring them running, that the doors were locked against the world and she was loved and safe from all harm.

‘Sure,’ she said.

‘The bed just needs the clean sheets putting on,’ Netta said, starting to get up.

‘I’ll do it,’ Ella said.

The linen cupboard smelled of mothballs and fabric softener as it always had, the folded sheets were still worn smooth with use, and the light from the round fitting in the centre of her bedroom ceiling fell in the same way on the same striped crocheted blanket. She sat on the side of the bed with the sheets in her arms. Franco had painted the ceiling a few times over the years but the same tiny cracks always showed through eventually. She used to lie in bed and trace them with her eyes, taking a different direction each time, imagining them as roads leading to new places. She remembered the sense of anticipation she’d had about life, wondering what she might do – always sure it would be something splendid – and about the person who would be by her side while she did it.

She wondered how Callum had seen his life, and how he was feeling now. Whether the party had died after what’d happened, people drifting out the door unsure what to say or how to say it. Her arrogance had caused that. She’d had a go at Genevieve for ruining his birthday and looked what she herself had done. Her efforts to get Callum to talk were no better either. It all came from her desire to fix everything for everybody; her bigheaded belief that it was in her power – and that she was right – to do so.

She felt hollow. Had she just thrown away something precious for the sake of her pride?

Franco came in. ‘Need a hand?’

‘Actually, I think I’m going to go,’ Ella said. ‘There’s something I need to do.’

*

The killer drove smoothly and below the speed limit. His eyes were drawn to the dark spaces between the streetlights and in the alleys, his thoughts to the things you could do in places like that.

He lowered the window and felt the night breeze in his hair, the hugeness of space above this petty world. He passed a couple arguing on a street corner, heard the tremble of emotion in their voices. People never learned. Feelings got you nowhere. You had to get control and only then could you do what needed to be done.

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