She went to the table and picked up the pill box again. She’d seen it before, she recognised it. She thought hard, closed her eyes.

She ran upstairs clutching the box and burst into the bathroom. Opened the mirrored cabinet full of bottles and packets, cotton pads and nail clippers. She pulled things aside, stuff clattering into the sink, and exposed a space.

This morphine had been in their house recently. Surtsey saw it a couple of weeks ago when she opened the cabinet to get out cotton buds. That meant her mum hadn’t taken it with her to the hospice when she moved in, and she hadn’t been home since.

Someone else got them and gave them to her. Within the last fortnight.

She ran out the bathroom and threw open the door to Iona’s room. Her sister was still crashed out on top of her covers.

‘Did you do this?’ Surtsey shouted, waving the empty morphine packet, now crumpled in her fist.

Iona squinted and rolled over. ‘Fuck off.’

‘Don’t turn away from me,’ Surtsey said, grabbing at her arm.

Iona curled into herself.

Surtsey threw a punch at her shoulder, connecting with the meat of it. That got her attention. Iona pulled her arm away and scuttled backwards, sitting against the headrest of her bed.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Mum took these,’ Surtsey said, throwing the box at her.

Iona flinched and screwed her eyes shut, then opened them. ‘Hang on, I’m still asleep here.’

She fumbled for the packet, looked at it but clearly couldn’t focus.

‘It’s Mum’s morphine.’ Iona looked up. ‘So she killed herself?’

‘And you helped her do it.’

Iona shook her head.

‘Don’t lie to me.’ Surtsey hammered her fist at Iona’s chest.

Iona’s hands came up to defend herself, scrambling Surtsey away. ‘Get off me, psycho.’

‘All that shit on the beach earlier, seeing her in the hospice, all along you were responsible for her death.’

‘Whoa, I’m not responsible for anything.’

‘You killed her.’

‘Sur, let me speak.’

Surtsey stood over her sister, hands on hips, breathing hard. ‘I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say.’

‘Just listen,’ Iona said. She’d sharpened up, eyes wide, and she held the packet by her fingertips like it was radioactive. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘They found it in her room after she died.’

‘And she definitely took them?’

Surtsey thought about that. ‘They think so.’

Iona shook her head. ‘I didn’t give these to Mum.’ She examined the box, ran a finger over the label. ‘They’re her prescription, Sur.’

‘But look at the date,’ Surtsey said. ‘They’re from before she moved up the road.’

‘So?’ Iona said. ‘She kept hold of them, probably for this purpose.’

It was Surtsey’s turn to shake her head. ‘No, these were in the bathroom cabinet recently.’

‘Come on, you don’t know that. There’s tons of junk in there.’

‘I saw them,’ Surtsey said. ‘With that same label on them.’

‘She had hundreds of pill packets,’ Iona said. ‘Remember? When she was managing it at home. We were swimming in pain relief and sleeping pills.’

‘No,’ Surtsey said. ‘I know what I saw. These were in the cabinet recently. You took them and gave them to her.’

‘You’ve lost your mind.’

Surtsey tried to keep her voice level. ‘She said you went to see her two days ago. Did you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s my fucking mum.’

‘That didn’t mean anything before. You never went to see her before. Why now?’

Iona shrugged. ‘I just felt like it, OK?’

Surtsey breathed through her nose. ‘No. She asked you to bring these to her, and you were only too willing to help.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Did you know?’

Iona stood up, faced up to her sister. ‘About what?’

‘About Tom being your dad?’

Iona looked incredulous. ‘How could I know, you just saw me read the letter.’

‘You didn’t seem that surprised.’

Iona tried to touch Surtsey’s arm, but she threw it off. ‘I think you’d better go before you say something you regret.’

Surtsey stood her ground. ‘Maybe you knew. Maybe she already told you.’

Iona shook her head. ‘If I had known you were fucking my dad, don’t you think I would’ve told you to stop?’

‘Maybe there was another way,’ Surtsey said. ‘Maybe you killed him.’

Iona shoved her sister and Surtsey shoved back.

‘Get the fuck out of my room, and get the fuck out of my life,’ Iona said.

Surtsey’s eyes were wide. ‘It makes a lot of sense. You resented him for never being there for you. You discover that he’s been spending time with me. That he loved me, not you.’

Iona threw out a hand and punched Surtsey, a swing that connected with her jaw and made spit fly from her mouth. Surtsey held her face for a moment, shaking her head.

Iona stood over her, fists clenched. ‘Get out.’

Surtsey stood tall. ‘No. You need to tell me the truth.’

Iona stepped back. ‘I don’t have to listen to this shit.’

She went to walk past her sister but Surtsey grabbed her arm and held on. Iona threw another punch to her shoulder and her grip loosened.

‘Get your hands off me.’

She pulled away and ran down the stairs then straight out the door, leaving Surtsey standing there, jaw aching, tears in her eyes.

33

Doorbell. Fucking doorbell. Just one damn thing after another.

Surtsey ignored it. She was stoned, several hits to the good. Her bedroom smelt pungent. She stared at the morphine box in her hand, one of the last things her mum touched before she died. Surtsey imagined her mum’s spirit imbued in the cardboard box. No schmaltzy rainbows or bubbles that people claim to see, a sign their loved ones are happy in the afterlife. Louise was alive and thriving in an empty box of painkillers.

The doorbell didn’t stop.

Surtsey sat up on her bed and took a drink of water. Breathed in through her mouth, out through her nose.

Doorbell.

She put the pill box in her pocket and trudged down the stairs. Looked through the spyhole in the front door. Cops.

‘Please answer the door, Miss Mackenzie.’ It was the older one. Yates. What was the other one called? Something Irish and stupid.

She sniffed the air. Her nostrils were full of the stench of hash.

Fuck it.

‘Hello, officers,’ she

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