The Mak Collection (64 page)

For Mum

covet
vb
1.
to desire inordinately, or without due regard to the rights of others; desire wrongfully.
2.
to wish for, especially eagerly.
3.
to have an inordinate or wrongful desire.

The kettle screamed.

Brother and sister looked up, but only one moved to silence it. Ben Harpin remained sprawled in his favourite armchair, feet up on the coffee table. He did not budge an inch while his sister rose from her place on the couch to attend to the making of tea.

‘White thanks. No sugar,’ he said as she walked away. ‘I’m trying to cut back.’

‘No sugar,’ Suzie assured him as she disappeared into the kitchen.

He likes ice cream. I’ll serve it with ice cream
, Suzie thought as she poured hot water into the teapot and pulled on an oven mitt. The pie would be ready by now. She opened the oven door and hot, sweet-smelling air billowed out, blowing her dark fringe back and stinging her eyes for a moment. She bent over, squinting, and coaxed the deli-bought apple pie out with one hand. It had been warmed for ten minutes to give it that fresh-baked feel, and now it looked simply delicious. Suzie poked at it gingerly and licked the sticky remains off a fingertip.
Mmm, sweet.

Ben’s kitchen was set up for a real homemaker, and so was the rest of his suburban house. It had every Mixmaster, six-slice toaster, slicer-dicer, super blender, cappuccino machine and fancy knife set any aspiring supermum would want. And as far as size was concerned, the living room alone dwarfed Suzie’s tiny bachelor pad in Malabar. But even with all these things she privately coveted, Suzie couldn’t quite feel envious of her brother. Ben’s estranged wife, Lisa, had walked out after barely two years of marriage, and now Ben lived in this big family house on his own, the proverbial white picket fence surrounding nothing. The Mixmaster was collecting dust in a cupboard along with sets of Royal Doulton china and various unopened wedding gifts, and the freezer was brimming with frozen meat pies and TV dinners. What a waste.

‘That smells good,’ Ben shouted from the living room.

Suzie snapped herself out of her ruminations and focused on what she had to do.

‘It’s coming. Hold your horses.’ She slipped off the oven mitt and grabbed a cake knife from a drawer. She cut a big piece of the pie, almost a quarter of the whole thing, and placed it on a plate. Then she fished around for the handful of pills in the pocket of her slacks, safely sealed in a Ziploc bag.
There you are.
The capsules were blood red, yet benign in appearance,
almost like jelly beans
, she thought. She held the bag up, mesmerised by the little capsules inside. She had
to urge herself to hurry. If she really was going to do this, there was no time to dilly-dally.

She pulled on a pair of dishwashing gloves to protect her hands and slid one of the sharp, expensive knives from the block on the bench. Now she really was committed. If her brother walked in she would have trouble explaining what she was doing. She just needed another minute or two. Carefully, Suzie prised six of the capsules open with the tip of the knife, and one by one poured their glistening crystal content onto a strip of baking paper on the cutting board.

She eyed the substance with amazement. It was derived from the dried wings and body cases of the beetle
Catharis vesicatoria
, found in Italy, southern Russia and Spain.

Spanish fly.

It was highly illegal, but the man she had confiscated it from had sworn it was the real thing, in pure crystal form, straight from the black market in Asia. She hoped he was telling the truth.

A bit clumsily, she cut a few holes in the top of the slice of apple pie, the crust crumbling a little as it broke, and then, with as steady a hand as she could muster, she shook the tiny colourless crystals into the openings she had made, using the baking paper as a funnel and the knife to make the pockets in the pie a little larger to accommodate the new ingredient.

When she was done, Suzie was not entirely happy with the result. She was no domestic goddess, but even by her standards this looked wrong. The crystals
had not really dissolved. Perhaps he would think it was some kind of sugar? No, it just didn’t look right.

The ice cream.

Vanilla ice cream fixed everything. Two big dollops covered all sins and the dish was ready to serve. She took a deep breath.

‘Coming…’ she called, and walked back into the living room carrying a tray with the pot of tea, two cups and saucers and Ben’s slice of apple pie.

He removed his feet from the coffee table. ‘Wow. This looks delicious. Since when did you come over all domestic?’

She set the tray down and smiled at him. ‘I have my moments. I’ll just get the milk for your tea.’

‘Aren’t you having any pie?’

‘Oh yeah, I am. Not enough hands. Go ahead and start.’

She walked off to the kitchen again and washed her hands before cutting herself a slice from the remaining, untouched portion of pie. In a moment she was back with her plate and a small jug of skim milk.

‘The milk is skim and the ice cream is low fat,’ she told him.

‘Thanks. Dr Mike says the sweets will kill me. And the beer.’

She nodded and poured some milk in his tea. He was already halfway through the pie, eagerly shovelling it into his mouth, ice cream melting across the plate.

Ben had put on a lot of weight in the past few months. At first, after Lisa left, he had dropped a few
kilos. Now he had an unattractive paunch and didn’t appear to be getting any exercise. Ben wasn’t as disciplined as Suzie. Suzie liked to keep herself strong. It didn’t surprise her that the doctor had said something to him.

‘So how’s work?’

‘What work? The building trade ain’t what it used to be,’ he said with a full mouth.

She watched his lips as he spoke. There was ice cream gathering in the corners. ‘No big jobs coming up then?’

‘No. Things are slow.’

She took a sip of her tea. ‘Why don’t you take the opportunity to get away for a while? I could mind the house for you.’

‘What for? The plants are already dead.’

She smiled.

‘Nah, I should really start looking for work again.’ He didn’t sound too convinced of his own motivation.

She noticed that Ben had almost finished his apple pie, and she hadn’t touched hers at all. Her slice should be safe, but somehow she didn’t like the look of it. She found she had no appetite. Would he notice?

‘So you don’t have anything exciting coming up?’

‘Not really. No.’

Now he was scraping up bits of crumbled piecrust with his fork and eating those.

She took another sip of tea. ‘When do you think you’ll get around to selling this place?’ she asked.
‘It’s a beautiful house. You should get good money for it. You almost own it outright, don’t you?’

‘What is this, twenty questions?’

She laughed. ‘Come on, are you selling it or what? Do you have a real estate agent yet?’

‘No.’

‘Will Lisa get much of the money, do you think?’

‘Look Suz, we’re separated, not divorced.’ A touch of anger. ‘I’m not going to just suddenly sell the house.’

‘Suddenly? It’s been almost a year! She’s shacked up with that guy, Ben,’ Suzie pushed, aware that it wouldn’t take much to send him over the edge. ‘Surely the courts wouldn’t want you to support her. You don’t have any children. You wouldn’t owe her anything.’

He pushed his plate away, frowning, his face flushed.

‘Calm down, Ben. I’m just saying she shouldn’t be entitled to anything after what she’s done.’

‘It’s none of your damn business, sis. It’s between Lisa and me. She’s…she’s…’

He got up and stormed off into the kitchen.

Oh no
…

‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ she offered, following right behind him and trying not to panic. She had not considered that he would even be able to get to the kitchen once he consumed her preparation. She wasn’t sure if everything was cleaned up properly. At least he had finished his pie before he got up. But would he find anything strange in the kitchen? Would it matter now?

‘It’s just that you have to face facts, Ben,’ she continued as calmly as she could, looking around for telltale signs of what she had done.

He didn’t answer her, but stopped by the fridge and opened it. She stood in front of the countertop with her arms crossed, hoping he wouldn’t look past her at the cutting board. Over her shoulder she could see that although she had tossed the empty red capsules in the bin, the baking paper was still on the bench, sprinkled with the remnants of the cantharidin crystals. Not that he could possibly guess what they were.

But she needn’t have worried, as Ben seemed preoccupied with getting himself a beer. Suzie saw that the fridge was empty except for a slab of Victoria Bitter and a package of Chinese takeaway that looked past its use-by date. Ben grabbed a VB, ripped the top off and took a swig. He shook his head and slammed the fridge door, bottles rattling as it shut.

Since Lisa had left him for Heinrich, their German accountant, Ben hadn’t got off his arse to do anything about a divorce, or the house, or much else, really. It certainly didn’t sound like he had a real estate agent or lawyer putting the wheels in motion. He had been avoiding the issue all this time, just as Suzie thought. Anyway, it hardly mattered now. The conversation only reinforced what she already knew. It was too late for him. The decision was made and Suzie was here to get her plan under way. Unlike her brother, she was not prone to procrastination. It would all be over soon.

Get him away from the kitchen
…

Beer in hand, Ben walked over and stood beside her at the counter. Suzie’s heart went up into her throat at his proximity to her carelessness.
You idiot!
He would have no way of knowing what it was, but what if he touched some crystals with his bare hands? Would it do anything on contact? What if they struggled and she accidentally touched some of it herself? She couldn’t risk that. She had to move them both away from it.
Fast.