by Harper,Jane
As they rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill, Aaron couldn’t believe it, then immediately could believe it. Luke was lounging on a rock, in perfect health, with a grin on his face and a cigarette in one hand.
“Hey,” he laughed. “What took you guys so long, you—”
Aaron lunged at him.
“Jesus, Gretchen, I am,” Falk said, trying to keep his tone light. But her message was clear. Don’t ask, don’t tell. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Gretchen sat back in her seat and smiled at him, properly. “Good. No reason at all. I just want to make sure you’re being sensible. Better safe than sorry.” She lifted her wineglass, realized it was empty, and put it down. Falk drained his own and went to the bar for two more.
“If everyone was so sure about me,” he said, when he returned, “I’m surprised they didn’t run Luke out of town as well.”
Gretchen took the glass, her smile fading.
“Some tried, you know. At first,” she said. “Pretty hard. But you know how Luke was; he brazened it out. He didn’t wobble, didn’t waver. Eventually, they kind of accepted it. They pretty much had to.”
She glanced around the pub again. Fewer faces were watching now.
“Look, if they’re honest with themselves, most people know Ellie killed herself. She was a sixteen-year-old girl who needed support that she obviously didn’t get, and yeah, we should all feel guilty about that. But people don’t generally like feeling guilty, and ultimately it was your name on the note. There never really was an explanation for that—” She paused and raised her eyebrows slightly.
Falk gave a tiny shake of his head. He couldn’t explain it then; he couldn’t explain it now. He had racked his brain over the years. Reliving his last conversations with Ellie, trying to decipher a message or a meaning. To her, he had been Aaron, not Falk. What had been going through her mind when she wrote it? Sometimes he wasn’t sure what disturbed him more: the trouble it had caused or the fact he’d never know the reason why.
“Well,” Gretchen said. “It doesn’t really matter. She was thinking about you in some way around the time she died, and for anyone looking to point the finger, it was enough. Like it or not, Luke was a big character. He was involved in the community. He became a bit of a leader in this town, and we couldn’t afford to lose many of them. I think by and large people just chose to put it out of their minds.”
She shrugged. “It’s the same reason everyone round here puts up with morons like Dow and Deacon. It’s Kiewarra. It’s tough. But we’re all in it together. You were gone; Luke stayed. You got the blame.”
Aaron lunged at him, and Luke stepped back.
“Watch it,” he said as Aaron grabbed his shoulders. They stumbled, falling backward to the ground. They landed with a thud, and Luke’s cigarette rolled out of his fingers. Ellie stepped over and ground it out.
“Watch the sparks, will you? You’ve already managed to scare them. Try not to burn us all to death as well.”
Aaron, pinning Luke under his own weight, felt him bristle at her tone. It was one he’d heard her use on farm animals.
“Jesus, Ellie, what’s crawled up your arse? You can’t take a joke all of a sudden?” Luke aimed for lighthearted bravado, fell short. Aaron could smell the alcohol in his sweat.
“Did no one tell you?” Ellie snapped. “A joke’s supposed to be funny.”
“Christ, what the hell’s wrong with you these days? You don’t like a drink, don’t like a laugh. You hardly come out, you’re always working at that stupid shop. You’re so boring now, Ellie. Maybe you and Aaron should just get together and be done with it. Perfectly bloody suited.”
Boring. As the word landed, Aaron felt like Luke had hit him. He stared at his friend in disbelief, then grabbed the front of his shirt and pushed him away so hard Luke’s head hit the ground with a smack. He rolled away from Luke, his breathing ragged, not trusting himself to look over.
Ellie stared down at Luke sprawled in the dust, her face showing something worse than anger. Pity. All around, everything seemed still.
“That’s what you think?” She stood over him. “You think your friends are boring because they’re loyal to you? Because they show some sense once in a while? The only joke round here is you, Luke. The fact you think it’s OK to use people for your own amusement.”
“Get stuffed. I don’t.”
“You do,” Ellie went on. “You do it to all of us. Me. Aaron. Your girlfriend over there. You think it’s normal to frighten the people who care about you? To play people off against each other?” She shook her head. “And to you it’s all just a big game. That’s the scariest thing about you.”
No one said anything for a long moment. The words hung between them in the air like mist as each of the four avoided looking at the others. Ellie moved first, turning sharply, and without a second glance, she walked off. Luke and Aaron stared after her from the ground, then clambered to their feet. Aaron still couldn’t bring himself to look at Luke.
“Bitch,” he heard Luke mutter at Ellie’s back.
“Hey. Don’t you call her that,” Aaron said, his voice sharp.
Ahead, Ellie gave no sign whether she’d heard either of them and continued walking at a steady pace. Luke turned and flung his arm around Gretchen, whose sobs had been stunned into silence.
“I’m sorry if I gave you a bit of a scare, babe. You knew it was meant to be a bit of fun, didn’t you?” He bent his head and pushed his lips against her cheek. His face shone with sweat and was an angry red. “But fair enough. Maybe things went a bit far. Said a couple of things I shouldn’t have. Maybe I owe you guys an apology.” He sounded like he’d never meant anything less.
“You certainly owe them something.” Ellie’s voice drifted back in the night air.
None of them had mentioned the argument again, but it had clung to them like the heat. Ellie spoke to Luke only when she had to, and always with the same polite but distant tone. Aaron, embarrassed around Ellie and pissed off with Luke, kept to himself a little more. Gretchen found herself cast in the role of middleman, and Luke simply pretended not to notice anything had changed.
It would probably all blow over, Aaron told himself, but in reality he wasn’t sure. The cracks had been exposed, and they were deeper than he’d realized. He never found out whether he was right or not. Ellie had only another two weeks to live.
Gretchen reached out across the scarred table and touched the edge of Falk’s fingers. The noise of the pub faded a little into the background. She had hardworking hands. Her nails were bare and clean, and the pads of her fingertips were rough against his own office-blanched skin.
Ellie had been wrong about her, Falk knew. Gretchen was never an airhead. She was made of much sterner stuff than that. She had stayed and faced the music. She’d built a life in a community that had got the better of others, not least himself and possibly now Luke Hadler. Gretchen was tough. She was a fighter. And she was smiling at him.
“I know it wasn’t easy for you to come back here, but it really is good to see you,” she said. “You were always the only one of us who had any sense. I wish—”
She paused. Shrugged. One tanned shoulder lifted against the strap of her dress. “I wish you’d been able to stay. Maybe then everything would have been different.”
They looked at each other until Falk felt heat creep up his chest and neck. He cleared his throat and was still thinking of a response when a figure stepped in front of him.
17
Grant Dow placed a half-empty beer glass firmly on the table between them with a bang. He was wearing the same shorts and Balinese beer T-shirt as the day before. Falk groaned.
“I thought you were barred,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral as he could.
“I generally find that’s more of a suggestion round here.”
Falk looked past Dow to where the barman was watching with a resigned look. Falk raised his eyebrows, but the barm
an just shrugged. What can you do? Across the table, Gretchen caught Falk’s eye. She gave a tiny shake of her head. When she spoke, her voice was light.
“What do you want, Grant?”
“I’ll tell you what you want, Gretch. You want to be more careful who you choose for your boyfriends.” Dow had some of Mal Deacon’s arrogance, Falk noticed, but while his uncle’s mean streak was reptile cold, Dow was definitely hot-blooded. Up close, his face was a flushed mess of broken veins and high blood pressure. “Girls who hang around this bloke tend to end up dead.”
Behind him, his mates sniggered, their reaction a fraction late. Falk wasn’t sure if they were the same gang Dow had been with the previous night. They looked wholly interchangeable. The barman had stopped serving as he watched the exchange.
“Thanks, Grant. But I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions,” Gretchen said. “So if you’ve said your piece, why don’t you get on with your night and leave us to get on with ours.”
Dow’s laugh exposed a mouthful of neglected teeth. His beery breath wafted toward Falk.
“I’ll bet you will, Gretch,” he said, giving her a wink. “You’re looking particularly fancy tonight, if I may say so. We don’t normally see you all frocked up round here.” He looked at Falk. “That dress must be all for you, you dickhead. Hope you appreciate it.”
Gretchen’s cheeks colored, and she avoided Falk’s eye. Falk stood up and took a single step closer to Dow. He was gambling that Dow’s desire to avoid the hassle of arrest would outweigh the temptation to throw a punch. He hoped he was right. Falk knew he was a man of some skills, but pub fighting was not among them.
“What is it you want, Grant?” Falk said calmly.
“As it happens,” Dow said, “I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. So I’ve come to give you a chance to make amends.”
“For what?”
“You know what.”
They looked at each other. Grant Dow had always been older, bigger, stronger. Constantly hovering on the cusp of anger, he sent people scurrying to the other side of the street as he approached. Now older, fatter, and with the faint whiff of chronic ill health on the horizon, the bitterness seemed to seep from his pores.
“Is that all?” Falk said.
“No, that’s not bloody all. Take my advice. Take my uncle’s advice. For what it’s worth these days. Leave.” Dow’s voice was low. “That sack of shit Hadler’s not worth the trouble you’re going to find yourself in, mark my words.”
Dow glanced over his shoulder at his cronies. Out of the pub window was nothing but night. Falk knew beyond the main street, the town was all but deserted. Out here, those badges don’t mean as much as they should. Maybe so, but they still meant something.
“I’ll be leaving when we’ve got some clarity about the Hadlers’ deaths,” Falk said. “Not before.”
“This has bugger all to do with you.”
“A family shot dead in a small town like this? I’d say that has something to do with everyone. And you seem to have some strong thoughts on the matter, so maybe we start with you. Make this thing official. What do you reckon?”
Falk reached into his pocket and pulled out a small notebook and pencil. He wrote Hadler Inquiry across the top of the page. Directly underneath he wrote Dow’s name in large capitals so the man could see it.
“All right. Calm down, dickhead.” He was rattled, as Falk knew he would be. There was something about seeing a name on paper that said “on the record.”
“Confirm your address?”
“I’m not giving you my address.”
“No problem.” Falk didn’t miss a beat. “Luckily, I know it.” He wrote down the details of Deacon’s farmhouse. He looked past Dow to his group of followers. They had taken a step away from the exchange. “I’ll take your mates’ names as well. If they’re so keen to weigh in?”
Grant looked around. His gang had lost their vacuous expressions and were glaring at him.
“You trying to stitch me up?” Dow said. “Trying to find yourself a scapegoat?”
“Grant,” Falk said, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “You’re the one who came over to our table.”
Dow looked him up and down, his expression thunderous. He’d closed his right fist. Seemed to be deciding whether it was worth it. He glanced over his shoulder. The barman was still watching them, his hands braced on the countertop. He gave Dow a stern look and nodded toward the door. There’d be no more drinks for them tonight.
Dow loosened his fist and took a casual step away. Like it was hardly worth his effort.
“You’re as full of lies and bullshit as ever,” he said to Falk. “Well. You’ll need to be. Might give you a fighting chance here.”
He jerked his head, and his mates followed him out of the pub. The general noise level, which had dimmed during the exchange, gradually swelled to normal.
Falk sat back down. Gretchen was watching him, mouth open a fraction. He grinned, but as he put his notebook away he kept his hand in his pocket until he was sure it had stopped shaking.
Gretchen shook her head in disbelief. “Jesus. Some welcome back. Well done.” She gave him a wink. “I told you you were the only one with any sense.” She went up and got the next round.
Later, when the pub was closing, Falk walked her to her car. The street was quiet. Under the streetlights Gretchen’s hair glowed like a halo. They stood there, a foot apart, looking at each other, every move awkward and overthought until eventually she laughed and put both hands on his shoulders. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, catching the very corner of his mouth. He slipped his arms around her, and they held each other close for a moment, heat on heat in the warm night air.
Finally, with a small sigh, she pulled herself away, got into her car, and with a smile and a wave was gone. Falk stood alone under the swath of stars thinking, of all things, about Grant Dow. The man talked a lot of shit, that was certain. But he’d said one thing that Falk had caught and kept, and now took out and examined in his mind, turning it over like a find.
That dress must be all for you, you dickhead.
He grinned the whole way back to the pub.
Falk had one foot on the staircase leading to his room when the barman’s voice called out.
“In here a minute, mate. If you don’t mind.”
Falk sighed, hand on the banister. He looked longingly up the stairs. A badly framed portrait of the Queen gazed down unsympathetically from the landing. He turned and trudged back through to the bar. The place was empty now. There was the acid lemon scent of cleaning fluid as the barman ran a cloth over the countertop.
“Drink?”
“I thought you were closed.” Falk pulled up a stool and sat down.
“I am. This one’s on the house.” The barman set a beer in front of Falk then poured one for himself. “Call it a thank-you.”
“For what?”
“I’ve seen Grant Dow have a go at a lot of people, and more often than not it ends with me cleaning up someone’s blood. Because that’s not the case tonight, I can kick back and have a cold one with you.” He held out a hand. “David McMurdo.”
“Cheers.” Falk took a swallow of beer, surprised by how easily it went down. He’d had more to drink that week than he normally had in a month. “Sorry about all that. I know I said there’d be no trouble.”
“My friend, if all the trouble round here was handled like that, I’d be a happy man,” McMurdo said, stroking his beard. “Unfortunately it’s weighted a wee bit too much toward the hands-on kind in this place.”
“How long have you been in town?”
“Coming up to ten years. A lot of them still see me as fresh off the boat, though. Born and bred here, or forever an outsider, seems to be the Kiewarra way.”
“Born and bred isn’t a free pass either,” Falk said with a grim smile. “How’d you end up all the way out here, anyway?”
McMurdo paused. Rolled his tongue over his teeth. “What reason do yo
u give for leaving Kiewarra?”
“Career opportunities,” Falk said drily.
“Well. Think I’ll say the same and leave it at that.” McMurdo gestured around the empty bar with a wink. “Still. Seems to have served you well. Your pal Luke could’ve used some pointers from you on dealing with Dow, to be honest. Too late now, of course.”
“They had run-ins?”
“Like clockwork,” McMurdo said. “Used to make my heart sink when one would be here and the other would walk in. They were like—I don’t know, a pair of magnets. Siamese twins. Jealous ex-lovers. Something. Neither of them could ever leave the other one alone.”
“What did they fall out about?”
McMurdo rolled his eyes. “What wasn’t it about? You name it. The weather, the cricket, the bloody color of their socks. Always picking at each other. Any excuse.”
“What are we talking? Fistfights?”
“Occasionally,” McMurdo said. “It got vicious a few times, but not so much recently. Last few years it was more scuffles, heated arguments. Don’t get me wrong, there was no love lost. But I think they both enjoyed it in a way. Have a shouting match. Blow off some steam.”
“I’ve never understood that.”
“Me neither. I’d rather have a nice drink myself. But it must work for some blokes.” He wiped the counter like a man who knew the health inspectors weren’t watching. “To be fair to Dow, it can’t be easy looking after that uncle of his.”
Falk remembered how Mal Deacon had mistaken him for his father.
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“A wee bit touched in the head these days. Whether it’s the drink or something more medical, I couldn’t say. But it tends to keep him quiet, whatever it is. He wanders in and sits here with a drink sometimes, or potters around town scowling at folks with that dog of his, but that’s about it.”
“Grant Dow’s never seemed the Florence Nightingale type. Does he care for his uncle full-time?”
McMurdo grinned. “God, no. He’s a laborer. Does odd jobs, plumbing, bit of building. Whatever keeps him in beer money. But it’s amazing what the promise of a windfall does, eh? Deacon’s leaving the farm to him, or that’s the story, anyway. It could be worth a fair bit with those Asian investment groups always sniffing round for land. The drought won’t last forever. Apparently.”