BooksBarbecue
Back The Last Guests
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART ONE
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. DEADLY SAS RAID IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER SCRUTINY
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. PART TWO
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. DANIEL MOORE: ‘A SINGLE BLOKE, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, A BIT OF A DUNCE BUT WITH A GOOD HEART,’ BEST FRIEND SAYS.
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. THIRTY-TWO
  41. THIRTY-THREE
  42. THIRTY-FOUR
  43. THIRTY-FIVE
  44. BREAKING: POLICE CONFIRM DANIEL MOORE ACTED ALONE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. SECOND ARREST MADE IN WESTAY HIDDEN CAMERAS CASE
  50. EPILOGUE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  52. Discover More
  53. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  54. Also by J. P. Pomare

Waiting areas are never designed for comfort. Police waiting rooms are cattle stations. The cold plastic chair does its utmost to cut off circulation below the knee and when I stand to stretch, I get pins and needles. My nerves are frayed as it is, but sitting here for half the night has only made it worse. I think about the baby, stress is bad for both of us. I make myself breathe slowly and try to relax. I imagine her or him growing, expanding.

The doors open. I see Cain and a cool blade of guilt runs down my spine. I’ve never felt like this looking at him before; the shame, the sense that I barely know my husband. My eyes avoid his and settle somewhere near his waist, where his hands are cuffed. Then they fall to his feet, he’s wearing neat sneakers, then up over his pants, his button-up shirt. But no higher. I can’t look at his face. He’s the biggest person in the room but he seems diminished. His head turns to me as he passes, and I freeze. I’m not angry or stressed anymore. I feel… sadness.

‘Lina, this is a mistake,’ he says. ‘You don’t understa –’

Then I meet his eyes and see they’re pleading but before he can get another word out, he’s pulled through a door by the beefy arresting officer. I almost rise to stop them, to tell them to let him go but then I remember what he was watching. How could he access it? What does it mean? He’s my husband, and I still love him, I just don’t understand why he was watching that footage. In place of the panic that rose so suddenly in the study there is something else: doubt. I’m not even sure what really happened. Was he actually going to hurt me? He would never hurt me, would he?

A second officer follows him in and I continue doing what I have done for the past few hours: thinking about my husband, him visiting that house on Hillview Terrace, him volunteering to go to the lake house so often without me, and now watching the footage from that night. All while I wait for Rata. The taxi had dropped me here at around 2 am, and it’s now almost six.

•

Next time the doors gasp open, it’s Rata coming through. He gives me a curt nod and approaches the front desk. He speaks briefly with someone out of my view.

‘Lina, let’s go,’ he says. I rise and pass through the door he holds open for me.