chapter 29
"Whadd'ya mean, I didn't kill him? I stabbed him, for Crissakes! There was blood everywhere!"
"Jeez! Use ya ------- head for once! If ya'd killed him, don't'cha think the knife would've had more than coupla spots of blood on it? It'd been ------- drenched! Ya barely scratched him, matey! Ya was shakin' so much ya could hardly hold on to the knife, let alone use it. The old man did all the damage with the broken bottle."
"Dad killed him?"
Scott rolled his eyes impatiently. "Do I have to spell it out for ya? He wasn't ------- dead, ya drongo, he didn't ------- die!"
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Scotty was swallowing huge breaths of relief when, as instructed by his father, he ran to open the heavy ornate gates that led to the Phillips drive.
It had been a massive gamble, suggesting to Dad that they made out Ma's boyfriend had carked it. Not the idea itself, of course. That was so ingenious and yet so simple that Richie couldn't help but be impressed. Anyone with their wits about them would have quickly seen that the supposed corpse, though badly hurt, was moving and breathing. But neither Kane nor his mother would see that.
Even the tiniest glitch in her day was often enough to send Diane Phillips over the edge and the shock had plunged her into another trance-like state. And Kane was already traumatised by what he'd seen and heard that night. One small push in the right direction was all that it would take...
...all that it took. Richie picked up on Scott's words immediately, grinning slowly at his eldest boy.
"We gotta get rid of him, Dad. We don't want no cops round here lookin' for dead bodies!"
Father and son united. One or two loaded remarks. A handful of gestures and glances. Oh, how easy it was.
A little bit of broken glass, a knife, a blood-spattered room and some people will believe anything you tell them.
It suited Richie to have his wife believe there was no one left to run away with to ensure she was trapped in his power forever. It suited Scott to have his kid bro believe himself a killer to ensure Kane never told anyone about the diamonds. Sweet as a nut.
Scott's concern hadn't been the idea itself. It was how his father might react to it.
Nobody dared tell Richie "Gus" Phillips what to do and Scotty could've ended up with the bashing of his life for sticking his neck out like that. 'Course, things would've been easier had the guy on the floor been a tad more obliging and kindly carked it there and then. In fact, Scott had been half hoping Dad would finish the job. But it wasn't to be. Even Richie wasn't dill enough to kill a man in his own home. So Scotty had to content himself with the status quo. Which, all things considered, was probably for the best. He didn't want cops sniffing round here tonight any more than his Dad did.
Gritting his teeth, he pulled up the first rusty lock and ran with the heavy wrought iron gate to push it wide open, though it groaned in loud protest at the unwelcome intrusion into its quiet slumber.
The second gate was, as always, even more cantankerous than its twin. It took three attempts and a cut thumb before the lock finally yielded and, even then, the gate dragged itself along the ground, making a long, low, threatening growl, as though great age gave it a perfect right to be as awkward as it liked.
Scotty kicked it in revenge for its lack of co-operation but the kick was half-hearted. It was, after all, the only hiccup so far in his plans to stash the diamonds somewhere safe. He waited for his father to arrive with the truck, whistling a low, almost tuneful whistle, stoked that things had turned out so well.
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To Kane's terror, the face-down corpse seemed to flex its hand, as if it heard his father's words and, sensing its killer was still in the room, was seeking him out to take revenge. But it was only his imagination. If you looked at a door handle long enough it would move, if you stared hard enough at a black dot it would begin to crawl as if it were a tiny insect. He couldn't afford to let his imagination run away with him anymore...
"It wasn't my imagination!"
"What?" Scotty's attention had been momentarily distracted by a vague noise. If he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn he heard chopper blades.
"After I stabbed him - I saw the guy moving!"
"Well, bully for you, little bro! I figure we're quits now. I got the stash, you got the story. Ain't tellin' no one where me and the diamonds is headed so this is it, family reunion over, have a nice life!"
"Scott!"
"Jeez, what now?" Scotty spoke as if Kane were a kid again. Maybe, to Scotty, he always would be.
First time he'd clapped eyes on his younger brother, the olds had dumped him in the corner in Scott's old pram, where he lay, red-faced and screaming in discomfort, hot, hungry and thirsty, while his parents sat, drinking to the new bub's arrival, and totally ignoring him.
Scott crept across the room to peer curiously in at the tiny scrap and greet him warmly.
"G'day, ya ------- stupid whinger!"
The bub suddenly checked his scalding hot tears and...well, Ma said it was only wind as she swore and cuffed Scotty round the ears for shouting, and staggered drunkenly back with Kane in her arms, but Scotty knew he was right and it had been a smile!
And he realised there and then someone had to look out for the ------- wailing little b----r.
Toughen him up, keep him in his place, teach him how to lie, cheat and steal, shove him in central heating cupboards so's he wouldn't get the sh-t beat outta him, shut him up fast when he had nightmares before Dad bashed him for shouting about what happened that night. Jeez, the list of IOUs went on and on.
"Scotty, why the ---- didn't ya just tell me? Why'd ya let me think I killed him?"
"What kind of fool d'ya take me for? Had to scare ya into keepin' ya mouth zipped, didn't I? That's why I took ya the graveyard, buried the knife, made ya think Dad'd only buy it if I said we chucked the knife in the sea. Couldn't chance ya laggin' 'bout the diamonds."
"But I'd never have lagged! And you knew what it was like, all those years, the nightmares, almost every ------- night, the nightmares..."
Scott shrugged. No use crying over spilt milk. "Them's the breaks, bro."
"So why tell me now? After all this ------- time?"
"Dunno," Scotty lied.
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Kane was too young to understand but Scotty knew at once what had happened to his mother. He suspected it had been happening for a long time, but he was damned if he was gonna do anything about it or the bashings. Ma was too far gone to seek help, Dad was never going to dob himself in. Kane was just a little kid. But if Scott blabbed and the cops rocked up, then he could kiss goodbye to the diamonds and the diamonds were Scotty's future.
So, when Richie Phillips made his offer in exchange for his silence, Scott's silence had been bought. And bought cheaply. Pocket money, a handful of smokes, a few tinnies. Wasn't much to value to value a life at but, hey, a guy had to think of himself.
So Scott got exactly what he wanted and things should've been apples. But they weren't. There was one huge problem.
See, nobody told Scotty he had a conscience. Nobody warned him how the guilt would burn through him every time he saw his mother left in a bruised and bloody heap. But Scotty shut it all out of his mind and spent years working on being Richie Phillips' ideal son. And almost succeeding. Not even Kane saw through him. Nobody saw through him till Kirsty.
Why did she have to bring back memories?
Like she knew. But that was impossible because nobody knew. Nobody knew Scotty had kept the pictures. Not that there were many. One of himself and Kane when they were very, very young, sitting on a table, Scott with his arms wrapped protectively round his baby bro so that he didn't fall back.
And then there was Jamie. Why did he have to look so much like Kane when he was a kid?
"You better not hurt my Mum!"
In the glow of candlelight Jamie's face contorted in terror as he picked up the knife and pointed the blade. The same knife, the same words Kane himself had used all those years ago.
"Kane would never kill anyone. And I...I don't believe you would either."
There it was again. That flash of fearlessness in her eyes. What was it with this chick?
How come she knew so much?
The time he'd held the Summer Bay doc and his wife and some wrinklie at gunpoint he had no intention of pressing the trigger. The time he'd ramraided the supermarket, his foot had been on the brake long, long before he screeched to a halt, a reflex action the second he realised he'd mow down the dude stupid enough to be working late if he didn't stop. And during the servo robbery, he could easily have shot dead the old guy, the gun was pointed straight at him, he was looking at Scotty with abject terror in his eyes, pinned to the spot by fear, but...
Jeez, what was the point when the high, the pumping adrenaline, was all in the danger of pulling some job and making the getaway?
Tasha now, when he'd bundled her in the boot of the car, the plan had been to scare her into keeping her mouth shut but he had to make her think her days were numbered. Same with the kidnapping of Shauna Bradley. Scott was bloody expert at scaring people. Or thought he was. But Kane's wife, she just didn't scare. Didn't flinch, like she was supposed to, like everybody had always done before, when Scott played his favourite game of cat and mouse.
Had he still been alive, Richie would have been so disappointed at how his eldest son, the one he pinned all his hopes on, turned out. But for once in his life, out here on the cliffs, Scotty felt good about himself. Knew he'd done something right for a change. Maybe it made up for all those years of doing something wrong.
So many questions were in Kane's mind. But one more so than most.
"So this guy...If he didn't cark it, what the hell happened to him?"
Scott guffawed. "You mean you ain't figured it yet? And I thought you was meant to be the one in the family with all the brains! He..."
And then suddenly it came again. The whirring sound of the chopper. Except this time it brought a crazy rush of wind and a flat moonlight shadow fell across the ocean like a giant bird about to swoop. The SES pilot circled one last time, needing to assess the second emergency situation that the towering flames of the nearby fire had originally alerted them to, so low that they could see his face at the 'copter window.
Jeeeeezusssss, Scotty realised, he had to shoot through with the diamonds while he still had the chance! Only one thing for it now. If he took Devil's Leap, it'd give him one helluva headstart...
Kane read his mind. Knew there was no way he could possibly make it, not now, not with the cliff edge so badly, so dangerously crumbled away.
"SCOTTY, DONNNN'TTTT!!!"
But Scott, always knowing better than his little brother, only laughed and jumped anyway, sure he could ace it. And he might have done. He really might have done. But at the very last moment, his heel catching, sliding, twisting. And then he was falling. Falling so near to the cliffs that the jagged edges took great offence at his close proximity and furiously ripped open the backpack on his shoulders.
"SCOTTYYY!!!! SCOTTTTYYYY!!! SCOTTTTTTYYYYYYYY!!!"
Kane's desperate, harrowing cries echoing round and round and round the towering grey cliffs as though they would echo there forever. Where the breeze was fresh and the moon high and the smell of smoke tainted the night air. Where the contents of the rucksack were scattering far and wide.
Some landing on the sea-bathed rocks, some floating or sinking in the silvery waters, some disappearing somewhere into the cliffs. Rings and necklaces, bracelets and ear-rings, necklaces and broaches, dazzling and thrilling in a myriad of beautiful colours.
Costume jewellery, cheap, shiny baubles, the occasional starlit flash of diamante. Oh, but not a diamond amongst them. Not one.
And the red tinge in the sky from the fire fading now so each star taking its turn to sparkle more brightly than the rest and the white-tipped waves rushing into each other and sighing
...if only... if only...if only...if only...
If only Scott had had the chance to look into the rucksack at least once since he grew up. If only Melanie had thought to check out the stash or Kane asked his brother exactly why no one ever asked about a missing fortune. If only someone had known. That there were no diamonds. There never had been any diamonds.
Because in the end, in the very, very end, one summer afternoon long ago two little boys stumbled upon some cheap jewellery ablaze with dancing colour and saw the world through the eyes of children.
