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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

I think about the nights I search my mother’s name. Sometimes it feels like I really do miss her, but it’s not just that. It’s something different. I think about those short spells I lived with her, in old flats in town, carpet swollen and peeling up at the corners like wet cardboard, loud second-hand fridges and moth-eaten curtains that barely closed. Then there was the parade of men. And of course, there was another presence in the house. Those empty casks of wine piling up, the addiction gripping her body and shaking her until only bones and skin remained. It took everything, drained her of love and filled her with spite. I don’t blame her, it’s a disease after all. But I blame her for running away from her parents’ home when she was fifteen and pregnant. I blame her for not seeking help, not accepting the hand her parents offered, and I blame her for trying to take me back even though she was unwell. Dragging us all through the courts. I’ve come to accept that my mother is a bad person. I told myself I would never become her; I’d be a better mother.

‘Cain,’ I say now, feeling the weight of guilt pressing down on me. ‘I think I’ve lost my ring. I’ll do one more big search at my locker at work, but what if it doesn’t turn up?’

He’s beside me in the car, as we’re about to leave. A knot at the bend of his jaw. He sets his eyes ahead. ‘You’re going to have to find it, Lina. That was my mother’s, ’bout the only thing I’ve got left from my parents. You’re just going to have to find it.’ Then the car starts and we’re driving.

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Peephole

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Stream: 016A

Viewers: 011

A family enters the house, a man in his late thirties, wearing a New York Yankees hat, drags two suitcases in and a heavily pregnant woman follows him, holding the hands of two children. She sits on the couch, and opens her handbag, fetching a packet of apple slices for the children, who appear to be twins. She bends forward now as the kids rush about checking the rooms. She reaches and unties her shoes, pulling them off, placing her socked feet on the coffee table. Meanwhile, on camera 3 the husband is removing his clothes. He wraps a towel around his waist and heads to the shower where camera 5 picks him up – 17 viewers. He points to the child as he passes the bunkroom, then points out into the lounge. She rushes out, grabs her bag and comes back into the room. The woman turns the TV on, scrolls through channels. Dissatisfied, after ten minutes, she gets up, goes to one of the suitcases and pulls out her laptop. At the couch she puts a US reality TV show on the screen.