by Jennie Jones
‘As if I’d accept it for nothing!’ she said. He was right about the farmhouse needing some warmth though, she’d often thought that as she flicked a duster around the rooms, and she’d love nothing more than to buy it, but there was no chance in hell of that happening.
‘So are we having the conversation about the books today?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer. He got milk out of the fridge. He’d done her shopping yesterday. The twins had been in to see her of course, and had brought her gifts while oohing and ahhing over the fact that Josh was giving her so much attention. Everyone had been in to visit her with their oohs and ahhs and their speculation about Josh and Gem’s relationship. Her living room was crowded with flowers, pot plants, boxes of chocolates and a big red Get Well Soon helium balloon from her mum.
‘Are we?’ she asked. He’d been poring over her spreadsheets for almost two days. He said he was comparing what she had with what he had. How humiliating that he knew everything about her financial situation. He must know—although he hadn’t mentioned the fifty thousand.
‘What have you found?’ she asked.
‘Enough to get me interested in digging deeper. I want to know how long he’s been skimming and exactly how much he’s taken.’
Gem gasped. ‘Oh my god.’ This was the first time he’d said anything about what he’d suspected. ‘My father has been stealing from me?’
‘Me too.’
She took the cup and saucer from him. Her hands shook.
‘How?’
‘You paid for the reno job on the front of the shop from your own money.’
Gem paused. ‘Because you said you wouldn’t,’ she said cautiously. ‘Or so your trustees said.’
‘Not true. I gave eight grand for the upgrade.’
‘So what happened—’
‘Your father took it. I discovered from your financials that you’d paid for it yourself.’
Gem’s hands trembled even more. ‘So I owe you eight thousand dollars,’ she said. ‘Can I pay it back in instalments? Would that be alright with you?’
He took the cup off her and put it on the side table, then hunched down so he was in front of her and took hold of her hand. ‘You don’t owe me anything, Gem. He does. He owes both of us. He’s also been skimming off the rent.’
‘He told me there’d been a rental increase, but that’s not true, is it?’
‘No. He took my eight grand, and he’s taken a lot more from you over the last three years.’
Shame filled her. ‘I’m sorry, Josh. I had no idea—truly no idea.’
‘Hey.’ He stroked her fingers. ‘It’s not your fault.’
No, but the humiliation! ‘What else have you found?’
He smiled and lowered his chin and his voice. ‘Fifty thousand short, huh? Were you going to tell me?’
Her face flushed.
‘Don’t worry,’ Josh said, squeezing her hand. ‘We’ll sort this out. I promise. I’m not leaving until we do.’
Josh pinched his lower lip with his fingers as he examined the new spreadsheet he’d created on his laptop.
Highlighting the two main columns—one from his financials and the other from Gem’s—he was amazed at how easy it was to discover the discrepancies.
‘Josh!’
Josh lifted his gaze from the spreadsheets and called over his shoulder, ‘I’m busy! What do you need?’
‘I need you to come upstairs!’ Gem shouted back. ‘Oh—don’t worry,’ she added after a pause. ‘I’ve found it.’
Josh went back to the figures. Nigel Munroe had been clever in only one area—keeping the two set of figures apart and away from the eyes of both parties involved: Gem and the trustees. Having put himself in charge of Gemma’s financial affairs because of the inheritance money he’d given her to start the shop, Munroe had placed himself in the chairman’s seat.
‘Josh!’
‘What?’
‘How’s Thumps?’
Josh turned and leaned to one side to check the covered pergola area out the back. ‘He’s caught a cat. He’s got it backed against the bars of his cage with an AK-47 assault rifle pointed at its head.’
Silence.
‘He’s eating his carrot,’ Josh called.
‘Thanks!’
Josh shook his head. He’d have to carry her downstairs later; she’d slipped twice already that he knew about. The damned stairs were so steep. He wasn’t going to let her fall again so he was going to have to get used to it. She couldn’t bear not being in the shop, although all he got when she was on the shop floor were instructions. The showcase table should be turned. Put the teddies in the middle and the clockwork animals around the edge. Or, What’s the morning reconciliation? As if he didn’t remember all too well how to run the toy shop.
He looked up when the doorbell tinkled.
‘How’s it going?’ Ted asked.
‘Josh!’ came the summons from above.
Josh rested his frustration and his hands on the counter. ‘I’m serving someone!’
‘But there’s a fire!’
‘What?’ He turned for the staircase, fear spiking through his body. ‘Gem!’
‘Joking!’ she said, then laughed heartily.
Josh settled his fright. ‘Haven’t got a sledgehammer I could borrow, have you?’ he asked Ted. It would be easier if Gem was with him—at the farmhouse. No stairs. No yelling at each other. The whole street could probably hear them.
‘Going to do her in with it?’ Ted asked.
Josh laughed. ‘She’d talk me out of it. What can I do for you?’
‘Raffle tickets. But I shouldn’t come straight out and ask for your money. It’s not polite. So how’s it going at Grandy’s farmhouse? Must say, Josh, it’s given everyone a bit of a shock having his place opened up again. Ethan rented it to you, did he?’
‘The farmhouse is fine. I’m all cosied up.’
‘Lots of speculation about why you’ve moved in there.’
Josh shrugged. ‘Kookaburra’s is great—the best—but I wanted a bit more privacy since I’m staying to look after Gem and the shop.’
‘Can’t believe you broke her foot simply by kissing her.’
‘It’s an ankle fracture. And it was after I’d kissed her.’ No point in denying it; everyone knew. ‘Ted, can I ask you something? It’s about the town hall.’
‘If you want to book it for an event I can only accommodate one a month. It takes planning, you know. There are utility costs and the like to factor into price-per-head.’
‘How’d you get the shire to come up with the money for the renovations, in the end? Wasn’t there an issue with the amount of grant money you received?’
‘A right ruckus,’ Ted said. ‘If it wasn’t for my perseverance with the Protecting National Historical Sites program, I doubt this town would have a town hall to hold weddings in. Some guy up at the shire blocked our second-stage proposal. Said we’d be damaging too much history if we built the toilet blocks and extended the kitchen.’
Some guy up at the shire. Nigel Munroe had been a top accountant for the local shire when he’d lived in Swallow’s Fall. He’d never liked this town, even though he’d been born and brought up here.
‘Do you remember Gemma’s father?’
Ted shuddered. ‘Terrible man.’
‘Didn’t he offer to help you with the shire? He must have had contacts.’
‘He’s the one who told me to apply for an ad hoc grant from the minister, said it’d be quicker than going through the program—this was before I became friendly with a number of the shire bigwigs myself, that is—but some guy in the department stymied my plans. The guy Munroe suggested I talk to. Had to go through the program in the end, but we lost out. Heck of a lot of money. A new toilet block and a new roof’s worth.’
‘That’s when Munroe won his millions and left,’ Josh said.
‘That was luck going to the wrong hands, if you ask me.’
‘Why?’
&nb
sp; ‘He’d tried to purchase a few businesses in town. Caused a lot of trouble for—well.’ Ted settled his rumpled features. ‘That would be chinwagging and I don’t hold with unnecessary gossip. The man didn’t like any of us after that ugly affair. Then he won the lottery and left. Good riddance.’
What ugly affair? Who else had the shit hurt besides his wife and children? Josh determined to find out and he had a feeling—more than intuition, a reckoning—that he’d discover that the townspeople of Swallow’s Fall had been duped too.
A sad state of affairs all round, and if Josh hadn’t been so foolishly determined to wipe the memory of his hometown from his mind, he would have studied the financial reports a long time ago, and made enquiries as to who was running his shop and whether or not it was viable.
‘Anyway,’ Ted said. ‘I’m doing the rounds with raffle tickets.’
‘Not another speed-dating event, I hope.’
‘No. The sports stand. Thought it might cheer Gemma up. She’s been going on at me to start the fundraising all year.’
Josh eyed the raffle ticket book. In many ways, he was partly responsible for this mess.
‘So will you buy a raffle ticket or ten?’ Ted asked.
‘How much are they are?’
‘A dollar.’
‘How many have you got?’
‘Three books.’
‘I’ll take the lot. Will you accept a cheque?’
Ted’s chin almost hit the counter.
A foghorn sounded on Josh’s mobile, indicating he’d received a text message. He picked the phone up. It was from Gem:
I need a vase from the top cupboard. I can’t reach it.
Josh looked up when the shop doorbell tinkled. A woman in a purple coat entered. She had a young boy in her arms who, by the look of things, had recently woken. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, his mouth pulled down at the sides.
‘Morning,’ Josh said, and smiled.
The woman stepped inside, closed the door and leaned against it, clinging to the child. ‘You must be Josh Rutherford.’
He nodded. ‘Looking for Gemma?’ She didn’t look like she was about to buy a bucket load of squeaky toys. Not that he was bothered about the sales, they’d been good today, given it was Sunday. She must be someone Gem knew. ‘She’s upstairs. She had a bit of an accident.’
‘No,’ she said, her voice hardly above a scared whisper. ‘I’m looking for you. I’ve been looking for you for two weeks.’
What had he done now? ‘You don’t look too pleased to have found me,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s what I need to do for myself.’
Josh scanned her face. He didn’t recognise her, he was sure of it.
‘I’m Marie Dawson,’ she said. ‘I’m the caretaker you hired.’
Josh thumped the counter. ‘Marie! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Where the hell have you been?’
The boy started fussing, squirming to be let down.
‘Sorry,’ Josh said. ‘Didn’t mean to scare him. Can I get him anything? Does he want an apple?’ He picked up the apple left on his lunch plate.
‘He wants to know that his mother isn’t a thief,’ she said.
Josh stilled. ‘Okay. I’m listening.’
‘Thank you.’ She stepped from the door and came closer.
She sighed, and it was so full of weariness and despair that Josh dragged the stool around the counter.
‘Sit down,’ he told her. He took the boy from her arms, smiling at him. ‘Come on, mate.’ He put him on the floor and gave him a box of building bricks. ‘Why don’t you make your mum a castle?’ The kid tipped the box and got straight into it.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Josh told Marie as he came back to the counter. ‘Now tell me what happened to you.’
‘My husband happened.’
Josh raised his brow. He nodded for her to continue, crossed his arms over his chest and lowered his chin.
‘I ran my own online business,’ she said. ‘I imported table setting goods from overseas. Then I had a baby and his father didn’t want us, so suddenly I was without enough money to keep us. My business only gave us a part-time income. I got wind about a possible cleaning job from a local agency. The woman who ran it was selling up but she asked if I wanted the job.’ She put her hand on the counter, as though bracing herself.
‘I remember that much. You sent me a letter, with references.’
‘I forged them.’
‘It’s alright.’ Josh reached out and patted her hand. ‘Go on. This was about three years ago, yes?’
She nodded. ‘I did go to the house once but my income wouldn’t stretch for food let alone fuel. I lost the online business because I couldn’t afford to import enough to sell—or pay for the internet. I didn’t know what to do. My son was only six months old.
‘I got assistance from the government and then I picked up a few jobs like junk mail deliveries and an overnight cleaning job at a newsagents—’ She blushed. ‘Anything where I could walk to work and take my baby with me,’ she continued. ‘I knew that I’d never save enough money for a decent place. The bedsit I was living in was a dump. So I took your money and banked it.’ She managed to look him in the eye. Josh gave her a nod.
‘I was going to put a deposit on one of the new units at the housing estate outside of Swallow’s Fall. I wanted to start again.’ She paused for a long time and Josh waited for her to compose herself.
‘I lied,’ she said in a voice that cracked. ‘I’d thought I could repay you once I’d got back on my feet. I was so disillusioned. I’ve never done anything bad in my life before this.’
Josh believed her. He’d seen people in despair, and no matter how poor he and his mother had been, they’d had each other to rely on. Marie had been deserted by the man who’d fathered her child. His heart went out to her. Luck didn’t always find its way to people, especially when they needed some.
She fished in her pocket and took out a folded cheque. ‘This is it. All of it, I promise, it’s all of it.’ She handed it over, then put her face in her hands as her courage turned to anguished tears.
Josh stared at the cheque. Had he missed the money? Had he hell. He hadn’t even bothered reckoning the quarterly amount into his living expenses.
‘You’re a brave woman, Marie.’ He handed her the cheque. ‘And I’ve been a fool. Let’s call it even.’
She took it with trembling fingers, still trying to control herself. ‘You’re giving it back?’
‘Put the money down on the deposit for your unit.’
‘Are you for real?’ she asked. At least he couldn’t see so much pain behind her eyes now. Just shock.
‘You’re going to be living in this township. We have a thing here called Support to Survive.’ He thought of Ted and spoke faster: ‘The people of Swallow’s Fall are resilient and steadfast. We look after each other.’
‘This is too much.’
‘Not at all. You wouldn’t believe what people have done for me. I’m passing it forward. Oh, and by the way, if you’re interested, I could do with a bit of Support to Survive assistance myself. Any chance you could cover the shop for a few weeks?’
‘You want me to do that as punishment? It would a delight to work in this shop.’
‘Not punishment. I’m in a jam.’ He hooked a thumb behind him. ‘It’s those stairs. Long story.’
‘But—I’ve got a child.’
Josh lifted a shoulder. ‘This is a toy shop, Marie. He’ll be as happy as a puppy in a room full of squeaky toys. Look at him now.’
‘I don’t have anywhere to live yet.’
‘You can live upstairs.’ He turned and indicated the area behind him. ‘There’s a little kitchenette through there, so you could put a daybed up for the nipper and also make yourself a cup of tea and a sandwich whenever you want one. There’s a toilet out the back too—so there’s no need to keep trudging up and down those stupid stairs.’
Marie stepped back, cru
mpling the cheque. Josh leaned over the counter, took it off her and tore it up. ‘What’s a few thousand dollars anyway?’ He threw the pieces over his shoulder, where they scattered like snowflakes. ‘And actually, I don’t think I was paying you enough to begin with.’
‘But I didn’t do the work!’
‘Not the point, Marie. I have should have offered a better hourly rate and I should have checked that you were alright about the work you were undertaking—’
‘I didn’t undertake any—’
‘I had no idea you had a child and were trying to make ends meet by working all the hours God sends.’
‘I didn’t do—’
‘Please accept my apology.’
Marie hauled in a breath. ‘This is crazy.’
Josh agreed with a tilt of his head and upturned mouth. ‘We’re all a little crazy in Swallow’s Fall. Don’t worry about it—you’ll be crazy soon too and it’ll all seem normal.’
Marie blinked, swallowed. ‘You mean this, don’t you?’
Josh smiled. ‘What time can you start?’
Fifteen
‘We have to take my rabbit.’
‘We’ll take your rabbit.’
‘And we have to stop the speculation. People are going to go overboard with their suppositions.’
Josh agreed with a nod of head as he settled Gem on the stool behind the shop counter. ‘We’ll tell them we’re hooking up for sex and nothing more. We’ll tell them we don’t intend to leave the bedroom until we’re spent. That should keep ’em quiet.’
‘So where’s this woman today?’ she asked, ignoring his suggestions.
‘Her name’s Marie and her kid’s called … Tommy … or Kenny.’ Josh leaned her crutches against the shop counter. ‘She went back to a friend’s place yesterday, to spend the night and to collect her gear.’
‘Thought you said she was homeless.’
‘She was going to be. The friend’s husband doesn’t want her in the house, so she was planning on spending the next few nights in the car again until she found another friend who’d put her up.’
Gemma’s face paled. ‘Oh, my god, the poor woman.’ She put her hands on her cheeks. ‘She had the look of a lost and lonely soul. I should have asked if she was alright. I wasn’t very caring, was I?’