I leave him settled down in front of the TV.
When I get out of bed in the morning, Marko is up, showered and chirpy, a body of barely contained energy. He is not used to sitting around.
‘You didn’t think getting human ash in the mail was worth telling me about?’
‘I didn’t want to worry you.’
‘You are a very frustrating person, Dave Martin.’
‘I know.’
‘And I don’t believe that someone has just accidentally sent you stuff like that.’
‘No.’
‘That makes this a dangerous place, so you’d better come and live with me until it blows over.’
‘What am I going to do at your place?’
‘You’re that busy here?’ He is cooking eggs like it’s a ground-breaking science experiment that no one has attempted before.
‘I’ve got plenty to do here, and I can handle myself.’
‘Mate, I don’t think there’s evidence for either of those things.’
‘And you wonder why I don’t tell you everything.’
I’m not really listening to him. I’m thinking about Elaine and what she knows about this whole business. Plenty of husbands do things their wives never know about. Or is she more compromised than I know, and more evil? Did she send the money as a thank you, or maybe to keep me quiet?
‘Are you going to tell me about Elaine?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Anything you like.’ He serves scrambled eggs with tomatoes and toast, and we sit together to eat, and drink hot black tea.
‘She’s not my girlfriend.’
‘Right.’
‘I don’t know what she knows. She just said Tito got in some trouble, and that someone was blackmailing him.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘No idea.’
‘You can’t have a relationship with someone when you don’t know important things about her. And you can’t pretend that the problem, and the bloke who hit you on the head, have just gone away.’
‘I could.’
‘You’ll probably try. I get a feeling there’s more to this than you’re telling me, and it makes me worry that you’re in over your head.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You’re just a farmer. You don’t know anything about this sort of underworld thing. So stop carrying on like you do. I think you should come and stay with us.’
‘I’m not going to, so give it up.’
He finishes his meal, takes his plate to the sink, turns to me, and I know it’s speech time. ‘You’ve been through a hell of a lot. Everyone’s worried about you. Now is not the time to turn into some sort of vigilante private detective.’
‘I’m not. I won’t. I swear.’ The thought of staying with people, even the best people, is something I just can’t do.
He smacks his lips, and walks across the room and back. ‘Righto then, but I expect phone calls, and if you don’t call, I’ll come over every day and check on you.’
He gets into his ute shaking his head at me, fires it up, backs out, and then obviously has second thoughts. He winds down his window and says, ‘No bloke is an island. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘No you don’t. But to prove to you that two heads could be better than one, here’s a thought: fine-bone china. I did some reading about it this morning. Think about it. See ya.’
I watch him drive away, a little queasy in the stomach from his suggestion, and feeling the smallest sensation that if Marko exists I am not completely unlucky. I don’t know if he’s onto something, but I guess we’re both thinking there has to be a link between Tito’s pottery and the ash of assassinated enemies of the Vasiliev family.
The problem of Elaine presents itself again. If Tito sent the ash and the money as a diversion, this suggests that Tito and presumably Elaine were on the side of the good guys: trying to subvert the blackmailers. But even if that is true, she’s put me in a considerable amount of danger for no reason. She hasn’t even warned me. Is the money a salve for that?
Somehow, Tito must have decided not to do what the Vasilievs were expecting him to do. He was in trouble. Perhaps they were threatening to kill him, and later on did kill him. For some reason, he started sending things to me, but made sure they wouldn’t arrive for a year. Was he protecting Elaine, or hiding it from her?
There is a knock on the door. I have been so entranced by my thoughts that I haven’t heard a vehicle arrive. It unsettles me. I feel like I’ve lost touch and anyone could appear at any time without me hearing them. Standing at the doorway in clothes that look too serious for him is Tom Little, with some sort of computer tablet in one hand. He smiles at me when I open the door, and sticks out his other hand to shake mine, way too quickly.
‘Hello, Dave — Mr Martin.’
Behind him is the small car he has parked at the entrance.
‘Tommy — what a nice surprise.’
‘Yeah. It’s a long time since I’ve been out here.’ The silence is awkward, but I know he has attempted an acknowledgement of what used to be.
‘Come in.’
‘Actually, I won’t, Mr Martin, if that’s all right?’ He pauses for me to indicate that it is. ‘I’m not here for a social call. It’s a work thing.’
I’m enjoying the way he’s expressed it as he holds up the tablet as proof.
‘So how can I help you?’
‘Well, according to the police and the hospital, there’s been two incidents — assaults maybe — out here in the past couple of weeks. You and Mrs Slade.’ He says the last name carefully. ‘I wanted to get your first-hand account of all that. I’m not too keen to interview Mrs Slade.’
I think hard about this. In local news terms, it probably is a story. Bashings are hardly a common event on the farm. But what can I give him? I tell him about my win at the races, and that I believe it was just a one-off by some opportunist. It seems his device is recording me.
‘What do you know about the Slade incident?’
‘I can’t say for sure at the moment. All I know is that I found her in a pretty bad state.’
He asks me about when, how, and why I was there, and I do my best to answer. When we’ve finished, I say, trying not to be too pretentious: ‘But, off the record, there is actually a big story behind it. One that you should stay on if you really want to be a journalist. For the moment it is two assaults, unrelated.’
He scrapes his feet and squeezes his eyes shut. ‘A big story?’
I tell him how I was hit from behind, how I have been threatened by people looking for crockery, and then about all the things that have happened to Elaine. When I am finished, he looks at me with a wry, not-quite-amused smile.
‘Mr Martin? Crockery? I mean, I know I made a fool of myself over Mrs Slade, and I’m sure everyone had a good laugh, but I’m not an idiot. If you’re making fun of me, I don’t think it’s very fair.’ His fingers fidget on the edge of his tablet.
‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m not making fun. I promise. And, like I say, there’s a lot more to come.’
‘So someone tried to rob you once, and did rob your brother-in-law?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then, a fair bit later, someone assaulted you in your home, but didn’t take anything?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you guess at the reason for the second incident?
‘I can’t say why at the moment.’
‘At the moment?’
‘At the moment.’
‘It’s quite a drive to come out here, sneak up on you, hit you on the head, and steal nothing, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
‘And you can’t help me with any reasons for that?’
‘Not really.’
‘How long
were you in hospital?’
‘Forty-eight hours or so.’
‘Any injury sustained?’
‘I lost consciousness. Had a big cut to the back of my head, but the doctor said no concussion as such.’
‘Are you okay now?’
‘Yes. Thank you for asking.’
‘That’s about it.’ He holds his computer by his side. ‘Thanks for everything, Mr Martin. I might call in on you another time, if that’s okay?’
‘Please do. And stay in touch.’
He smiles inscrutably, turns, and walks to the tiny, battered car.
‘Tom, someone sent me a large amount of money.’ He stops where he is, and listens. ‘And human remains, in boxes. There’s a real story here.’
He nods, and then keeps walking, and I’m not sure whether he’s agreeing or confirming that he thinks I’ve lost it.
12
I have successfully not thought about Elaine for some hours, but I know I should be talking to her, telling her everything that’s happened, and asking for her take on it. I get in my vehicle and drive to her place. In the front of my mind is the fact that nothing good has happened for me when we’ve met up. Twice I’ve found her hurt, once I got myself into trouble, and once I declined a pretty significant offer. What’s on the agenda this time? As I approach her mailbox, I see an old ute bumping up the drive towards her house. I stop. Ben was happy to say some pretty nasty things about Elaine in public. But Elaine said he was helping her with something. Why would she rely on him? I could drive in there and ask her, but I know that turning up at her place again unannounced with some sort of foreknowledge will be creepy. She will know I’m spying on her. I turn the ute around and head home, the sunlight disappearing around me.
The best way to get a handle on what Elaine is really up to is to spy on her. Or maybe it’s the worst way, but it is a way, and it gives me something to do that I am willing to do. That first day, when she came to my place looking for a box of crockery and later received it in the mail, doesn’t fit with my theory. Perhaps Tito had sent it as a decoy, and Elaine was expecting it. But he’s been dead for a year. This suggests that someone else sent it. And it turned out to be just rubbish, didn’t it? And why did Ben also come looking on that day? Was that just a coincidence? There are plenty of reasons for people to get parcels in the mail or have one go missing.
In the dark, I ride my old pushbike halfway to Elaine’s, and pull off the road past the table drain and into the long grass alongside the fence that runs up to a nearby ramp. I still have a couple of kilometres to walk across wheat paddocks and sorghum stubble, but if I don’t want to be seen, there’s no choice. There is only a half moon, but it is bright, and the night is clear, so I can make out detail in everything around me. My shadow is defined as though it were daylight. I climb the fence and set out with long strides, sticking to the wheel tracks in between the perfect crop rows, and keeping an eye out for random vehicles and errant piggers. The cicadas sing their persistent background song: the sort of quiet noise you can’t get closer to or further away from.
I am walking on Jack Turnbull’s place, the neighbour I never see. He and his wife, Ruth, are away a lot, and have managed to give people the impression that they would rather not live around here. It’s a form of insult, even if unintended. When I am halfway across the wheat paddock, a spotlight lights up white out of nowhere, and sweeps across the earth towards me. I dive forward, and flatten myself, hoping the furrow will shield me. The light pans the paddock, glides over the top of me, and is gone. I begin to breathe again, and the dirt sticks in small clods around my mouth. Now I can hear the diesel throb of a vehicle in low gear. It is distant, so whoever it is must be on the edge of the paddock, avoiding driving all over Jack’s faultless plantings. Then the light swings back, and I try to sink into the dirt, wondering if they are the kind of mad city shooters who take pot shots at anything that moves. The beam disappears, and I find myself whispering my hope that they have given up. But I barely finish getting the words out when a boom in the air, followed by a thudding sound ahead of me, momentarily lifts me out of my slough and bangs my heart against the sides of my chest. For someone who wants to die, I am showing a commendable fear of being collateral damage.
I shut my eyes, and lie still for maybe ten minutes. My breathing is still loud, but I can no longer hear the engine. If I walk again in this open paddock before they are gone, there is the risk that their spotlight will find me accidentally, maybe on the back swing. I stay down a little longer, and think, Be calm. Eventually, I’m sure I hear the vehicle in the distance, moving away from me. I put my head up as though I’m engaged in trench warfare, and see no vehicle and no lights. I get slowly to my knees, ready for the crack of a rifle and a sudden, searing pain. When neither happens, I stride out again, alert to the palest reflection of man-made light.
I walk for another half an hour until I get to Elaine’s machinery sheds near her house. All the lights are off except at the house, and as usual it is lit up as if there is excess electricity in the world that needs to be used up. There are no cars out the front, which might mean no visitors, and indicates that the security guard has been given the night off. I take a spot in close, pushed into the hedge, where I can see Elaine and not be exposed by the lights of any car that turns up.
I see her at the kitchen island, writing or drawing something. Her hair is hanging down, obscuring her face. There is music, instrumental and low-key. Elaine takes a sip from a tumbler without looking up, and then continues to do what she has been doing. My idea of spying suddenly seems very stupid: watching a normal woman at home, at night, doing normal things. Soon I might be perving on her doing the ironing. I lean back into the hedge, and think about the walk back to my bike. And then what? Ring Marko, and ask if I can stay with him? I concede the main reason I came on this foray was to do something — anything except sit in my house, think painful thoughts, and drink myself into oblivion.
I look back at Elaine, and she is in the same position, still doing whatever she was doing. Then a man appears from another part of the house, and she doesn’t acknowledge his existence. He is short, older. He walks to her, and puts a hand on her back. She still doesn’t look up. I know who he is. It is Ben Ruder, in her kitchen, treating her like an old friend or even a lover. I think I’m choking, and begin hoping that alcohol abuse is causing me to have delusions or sight problems. Elaine gets up and goes to the stove, and I focus on the man. I was right the first time — it is Ben, of all people, and I am jealous. Jealous of this awful little man. I realise I was enjoying just watching her, and if Ben hadn’t materialised I probably would have gone on being a peeping Tom as she went about her normal life: washing the dishes, doing the accounts, finishing a meal. Even more startling is the fact that, through all this, I haven’t had a thought of Sarah. This fact means she might even condone my voyeurism.
With her back to the stove, Elaine shakes her head at Ben over something that seems trivial. He steps closer to her, and could be talking, but I can’t tell because I can only see his back. Then he hits her with an open hand, full to the face. I fall sideways into the hedge, break a branch going down, and then have to hang on to it to stop myself running in to defend her. I try to tell myself this is not my business and that nothing will be helped by a surprise visit. I do not know what is going on here. He was Tito’s uncle. He helped them find the farm and to relocate when they were desperate. Is he helping her with something now? To fight the Vasilievs? Or is he controlling her? Either way, they have to be involved in the boxes. They want what is in those boxes, even if they don’t know what’s in them. Perhaps Elaine has her own plan, or has committed her own crimes. Nevertheless, my heart is insistent in my chest, and I know if I am capable of doing good for someone else, this is the time and place — whether Elaine wants me to or not.
With one hand she is holding her cheek where Ben hit her, and with the other she clings to the s
tove. Ben remains close to her, and looks like he will do it again with only the smallest provocation. Now she tosses her hair back and stands tall. I have the stupid thought of my rifle and of what I could do with it. Could I really shoot Ben? But I don’t have my rifle, and I do need to do something. Ben’s open hand moves out from his side, and I get to my feet and then duck down again. I cannot sit here and do nothing.
An idea of an action sprouts in my head, comical and misplaced, but it’s all I’ve got. Instead of running in to save Elaine, I begin to moo like a cow that has lost its calf. It’s a reasonable impersonation, without the bovine volume. Ben jerks his head back. Perhaps he thinks there’s a cow in the garden, or maybe he is unsettled by the strangeness of the sound. I am sweating trying to think of another distraction. I would throw pebbles at the other windows if there were any in reach, but there aren’t. So I opt for a butcherbird whistle: one long note, then a series of ups and downs just discernible from a magpie’s call. Ben nearly runs to the door, his feigned hobble an afterthought. He pokes his head out, and looks one way and then the other, concerned, but not sure what to be concerned about. As he shuts the door again, I give him a made-up trill from a non-existent bird that carries clear, lonesome, and ridiculous in the night air. I can see immediately how much it annoys him. For me, the thrill is unmatchable. But after a moment he manages to ignore the sound. No one is going to be sitting in Elaine’s garden making fake bird noises. But I haven’t finished. When he takes two steps back towards Elaine, I bark like a dog. Sometimes, certainly not all the time, my bark can fool my dogs. Ben hears it, and I’m sure he’s only half-fooled. He steps out, and walks up and down the verandah, yelling obscenities into the night. It takes him some time, but eventually he cools, and decides he’s frightened off whatever it was that was making the noises, goes back inside, and pulls the door firmly shut behind him.
When he turns to face Elaine again, she is holding a kitchen knife, jabbing it towards him. It’s possible she is saying the name ‘Greg Costello’, but I can’t be sure. Ben puts his hands up as she points with the knife towards the part of the house that he originally appeared from. Then he says something I can’t hear, and she drops the knife and her shoulders. Her face is covered by her hair, and he steps in close and puts his arms around her. She does not push him away. This is as insane as everything else that has been happening. Ben hugging Elaine means I am on my own.
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