Muriel Gray - Furnace

‘Sorry to trouble you, Nelly, but there’s been a real bad accident.’

Josh watched her face carefully as a line of fear and confusion passed over its undoubtedly handsome structure. She was much younger than he’d thought. In her late forties maybe. It was hard to tell. But she looked good. He held his breath. He was confused and light-headed. Pace saw what she was thinking and hurried along to halt it.

‘Alice Nevin’s baby was killed this morning.’

Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh sweet Lord. Alice? Berry Nevin’s girl?’

Pace nodded.

‘How?’

Her voice was croaky.

‘It was out the front of the mall. Maybe you saw some of the commotion if you were in town early?’

He looked at her carefully, but if there was to be any flicker of guilt or duplicity it was not going to register on this woman’s sympathetically open face.

She shook her head slowly, her hand now at her neck.

‘We haven’t been out yet, John. What happened?’

‘Stroller rolled right out into the street. I’m here to tell you ’cos I know that’s a big piece of your campaign, Nelly. To get them metal barriers up in front of the store.’

She was shaking her head in disbelief now, and Josh watched her, seeing only a woman in genuine distress at an appalling tragedy. Pace was continuing.

‘Mr Spiller here, well, he was the real unfortunate one who just happened to be passing by slowly in his truck. Just shows you, you were right about an accident waitin’ to happen. He was way under the speed limit, braked an’ everythin’, but there was nothin’ he could do. Little Amy rolled right under there. Didn’t stand a chance.’

She silently mouthed the words ‘little Amy’ to herself, then turned her eyes on Josh. There was a fleeting second, no, less than that; a fraction of a second, in which a cold wind blew across his heart and he imagined he saw the same cold reptilian eyes that had stared him down at seven o’clock this morning, light years away.

And then his bruised mind allowed him to see what was really in front of him. Two eyes that were already glazing with tears and regarding him with an expression of horror that the killer, albeit an unwitting one, was here in her house, which was being replaced with some obvious effort by a sympathy that seemed so warm and genuine he felt tears prick his own eyes again.

John Pace looked concerned. ‘You okay, Nelly?’

She swallowed and waved a hand at him. When she spoke, she was still visibly wrestling with revulsion and compassion. ‘I don’t know what to say. You poor man.’

Pace looked at his feet.

‘Like I say, Nelly, if those barriers had been up like you’ve been shoutin’ for, this’d never have happened. I just wanted Mr Spiller here to know that it ain’t never goin’ to happen again. Kind of put a bit of his mind at ease.’

Josh stared at her, his mind spinning. How did he get here? A few hours ago he was on the interstate trying to find his breakfast, and now he was in a living nightmare that he was never going to wake from. Nothing would ever be the same again. He had killed a child. Not her. Not this middle-class, bland and ordinary woman who spent her life campaigning for tiny small-town victories. Him. He had been sleepless and crazy. Seeing things. He had seen some dumb poster on a wall and his mixed-up, fucked-up brain had concocted that stuff. It was no one else but him. He was the killer.

She got to her feet. Her face told the story that she was still unsure of him, almost as though she were reading his guilty mind, and as she spoke her next hospitable words, her eyes suggested she was thinking of running to get a gun.

‘Can I fetch you something, Mr Spiller? A coffee? A cold drink?’

Josh shook his head. ‘No. Thank you.’

She paused, staring at him with an expression that was difficult to read, then spoke gently. ‘Well let me give you this. Please.’

She went to a drawer in an elegant sideboard, took out a small yellow pamphlet, crossed the room and handed it to him.

Josh took it and looked down at its cover. It showed a poor drawing of a family, a mother and father straight out of the Brady Bunch, all big collars and bad seventies haircuts, and two apple-cheeked children encircled by their parents’ arms. At the back of the family, the figure of Christ was holding his shepherd’s crook out and beaming great rays of light over them. Large-seriphed type declared, ‘ Jesus, the head of the family of man. His love heals all .’

He looked up at Nelly McFarlane in dismay. She had almost lost all trace of uncertainty and dismay, but now adopted the brain-damaged expression of the born-again Christian, beaming at him as though she had given him some delightful gift.

‘Are you a believer, Mr Spiller?’

He looked at the pamphlet again to avoid her eyes. ‘No. I’m afraid not.’

‘Please read it anyway. It might help you. Jesus wants to help the unbeliever not only to be at peace, to be healed, but also to come to Him and embrace the word of God.’

Pace was looking at the table, his hands still clasped, and it was impossible for Josh to see if it was out of embarrassment or piety. The woman turned her attention back to the silent sheriff.

‘Should I go round there, do you think, John?’

‘She’s been taken to the clinic, Nelly. She’s pretty shook up. I reckon you should wait a piece.’

She nodded, then turned back to Josh.

‘May I pray for you, Mr Spiller?’

Josh felt awkward and silly. ‘Sure. Thank you.’

‘Then I will. I’ll pray very hard. You must be in terrible pain.’

He nodded and then looked to Pace, telegraphing that he was desperate to leave. The sheriff read the face of his companion and stood up. Josh did likewise.

‘Anyhows, Nelly, I’m real sorry to intrude, but like I say I thought you should know. Hope it’s helped Mr Spiller here, too, knowing that it’s something that’s goin’ to get fixed.’

Nelly McFarlane stood up, moved quickly round the table and grasped Josh’s arm. He recoiled, but her touch was not the horror he had dreaded. Her hand was warm and soft.

‘You can be sure of that, Mr Spiller. Barriers are going up on that sidewalk if I have to build them myself. But for the moment, while the pain of this is still crippling you, try and let Christ into your life. He can help too.’

Josh nodded dumbly and shifted his feet. She scanned his face for a few more moments then led them into the hall. At the door Josh unzipped his jacket pocket to put away the pamphlet, and as he did so the handbill that Pace had given him poked out of the corner. She saw it, smiled and pointed with a slender finger, clipped clean nails without varnish. The finger of a neat, God-fearing mother. Not the painted nails of a terrifying harpy.

‘Guess you hoped I’d be a slice more glamorous if you saw that picture before we met, Mr Spiller. Sorry you caught me in Grandma mode.’

Josh managed a weak smile.

‘You look just fine.’

She responded with the coquettish grin of a woman flattered. ‘Well I just throw that old pink suit on when I need to look like I mean business. This is me really.’ She lifted the sides of her denim skirt like a little girl.

Josh gave an embarrassed upward nod of acknowledgement. The sheriff shook her hand, asked to be remembered to Jim, and they walked back to the car. She watched them go then quietly pushed the door shut.

Josh was silent for the first few minutes of the return journey, gazing out at the passing houses and their uniform blankets of velvet gardens. Pace broke the silence.

‘Well?’

Josh remained quiet, thinking. Agonizing.

Pace looked sideways at him.

‘That your murderer?’