What did it matter anyway, she thought? Who would ever know but she and him? And what power did reason have over what she was feeling right now, how badly she wanted him?
He silently led her through the dusty trees as if it was inevitable that they’d come to this place. When they neared the water he found a grassy gully where he pulled her down and hurried her out of her dress, tugging off her clothes and then his own with an urgency that made them insensible of their surroundings. This time it was just a rough animal coupling and there was nothing but flesh and sweat and what they demanded of each other, their cries like those of strange birds vanishing through the trees.
Chapter 22
Terry Holloway couldn’t shrug off the unease he’d been feeling, the thing he couldn’t pin down. Maybe it was his lingering doubt over the murders, Lloyd’s notion that Lee Furnell couldn’t have been responsible. Or maybe it was Fielder and his smirking partners hovering over him like a dark cloud. There was a menace about Fielder that reminded him of something else. Or was it just the same sick feeling that had been gnawing away at him for so long? Or a combination of all those things?
As he and Cole intercepted cars and questioned their drivers, he asked, ‘Do you think we’re wasting our time?’
‘I’m sure we are,’ Cole answered. ‘Why don’t you take off for an early lunch? There’s no point both of us being boiled alive.’
‘I might go home then. Have lunch with Audrey.’
‘Good idea, Terry. Give her my best.’
Though his lunch was on his desk at the station, Holloway set off for home. There was no escaping the sun’s fierce heat, however, and as he began to walk he wondered if he shouldn’t retrieve his car from the station. And he’d been putting on weight. He could feel it as he laboured over the baking concrete footpath. He could feel himself breaking into a sweat. As he turned to look in a shop window he saw it was the florist’s and on an impulse he entered the shop and bought a tidy bouquet of colourful flowers. Pausing to catch breath, he continued by banks and businesses until he turned away from Main Street, heading generally back the way he’d come, until he crossed Churchill Street where an odd feeling of pleasure came over him on seeing his house further down the street.
He waved to old Edith Cochrane standing in her front yard training a hose on her roses. She smiled and waved back.
He knew he hadn’t been the best he could be for Audrey. He knew that all his worries weren’t her fault. Wasn’t she doing the best she could? And the flowers would be some compensation for what he knew was his grumpiness around her when he was always tired when he got home and didn’t want to talk about the claptrap going on at the station or the small talk of the day. When all he wanted to do was have his dinner and forget the trouble at the station and Fielder’s snide remarks and just sit down and watch television.
But maybe he should make more of an effort. Maybe he would, he decided, as he turned into his gate and unlocked the front door.
‘Audrey!’ he sang out as he looked at the bouquet, the flowers bright when everything else was so drab over summer.
When there was no answer he moved through the house opening all the doors but there was no sign of her, neither out in the back yard where he knew she sometimes sunbathed.
Suddenly deflated, he put the flowers in a glass of water and went to the refrigerator, pouring himself a glass of milk he stirred a teaspoon of chocolate Quik into.
There was a loaf of bread on the bench that should have been covered up – he could hear a fly bumbling against a window somewhere – but he made himself a cheese and tomato sandwich all the same.
Sitting at the table munching his sandwich he thought of Lloyd and Nancy Cole and how happy they were, Lloyd the closest thing he had to a friend, someone more reasonable than anyone he had ever worked with. Sometimes he was tempted to tell him about his worries and how occasionally the simplest job at work could turn into a mountain for him, but he couldn’t show his weakness because all people ever did was take advantage of it. Not that Lloyd would, but you never knew. Who could you trust, really?
He finished his lunch, washed and put away his dishes, folded the tea towel neatly over the oven door handle and washed his hands once and then twice in the bathroom.
Outside it was hotter if anything. The bitumen street was softening, rippling at its edges. He put his hat back on and began the slow trudge back to the police station.
*
Cole, too, had now given in to the heat, driving back to the station where he ushered Tom Tomasulo into the interview room.
He had been doing a lot of interviewing lately, Cole thought. Summertime, when everyone with an eye for trouble came crawling out of the woodwork.
‘Let’s make a start,’ he told the other man. ‘Give me your full name and usual place of residence.’
‘What’s this about?’ Tomasulo asked. ‘No one’s told me anythin’. You’ve gotta at least tell me.’
Seated opposite him now, he looked older than he had at first glance, Cole decided. His unruly, golden hair was in need of a wash. His skin was burnt, sun-marked. He looked more beach bum than fruit picker. Maybe it was the itinerant life – the constant moving about, the constant drinking and fighting. He smelt rank too, of stale sweat and something else he couldn’t place, something sour.
‘We’ll get to that,’ Cole said. ‘First things first. Basic details. I need to know who I’m talking to.’
The man sighed with exasperation.
‘Thomas James Tomasulo. I work all over so I don’t live anywhere normal, but if I had to say, home would be 37 Birdcatchers Street, Forest Lake.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘It’s Mum’s place, south of Brisbane.’
‘Thanks. Tom, we know you’ve got a record here for stealing clothes from an address in this town two years ago.’
‘Yeah. People reckon it was somethin’ weird and all that, but all it was, was a joke with me mates. It was a joke and I told them that at court, too. I just got warned.’
‘So, have you paid any attention to that warning? Because every other day now we’ve got people coming into the station reporting theft of underwear and other female clothing from different properties. Do you know anything about that?’
‘Nothin’, I swear. I copped it for ages in pubs after that cos the story followed me around everywhere like a bad smell. Everyone askin’ what kind of undies I had on today. Could I advice them on the location of a good bra shop? I got sick of it pretty quick.’
‘No doubt. But I’ll tell you this, Tom. Whoever is doing it, it’s getting right out of hand. So you, or whoever is behind this, has to stop it right now. Do you hear what I’m saying?’
‘It’s not me, I promise.’
‘And there are officers out there watching at night now. It’ll be a custodial sentence when we catch whoever’s doing it.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Gaol.’
‘Well, it wasn’t me who done it this time.’
‘Was someone else with you that time you pinched those clothes here?’
Tomasulo drilled a finger into his ear.
‘Yeah, they were.’
‘Was it someone local?’
‘Nah, it was two mates of mine stayin’ at the Union then – Scotty Fisher and Barney Davis. They didn’t come down for the season this year. Scotty got someone up the duff and Barney’s just too piss weak.’
‘The house you stole those things from. Do you know whose place it was that you robbed?’
‘It was just a joke, right?’
‘The place you stole those things, the people who live there, are the Faradays. Does that name ring a bell with you?’
The fruit picker thought, wondering if it was a trick.
‘Maybe. Not sure. Why?’
‘I’ll tell you why, Tom. Some weeks ago
a girl living at that house was murdered, along with another teenager.’
‘Hey, hang on mate! I heard about them. But I didn’t kill no one. That’s total bullshit!’
He almost jumped out of his chair.
‘Sit down! I didn’t say you did. I just said someone at that address was murdered. And because you have a connection with that property you are, as we say here, a line of inquiry we have to follow.’
‘But it’s bullshit!’
‘That could be right. Or it might not be. But what I’m saying to you is this, make sure you don’t step out of line around here, not even for the smallest thing. And if you hear even a whisper about who killed Max Quade, and Rosaleen Faraday – at the pub or anywhere else – you let me know, okay? There might even be something in it for you if you help us catch the culprits. Are you with me?’
Tomasulo shook his head in agreement. ‘Can I go now?’
Cole studied his face a moment. ‘You can. But not too far away. Because I’ll want to talk to you again.’
*
It was an hour later that Gene Fielder dropped Audrey off at the corner of Churchill to leave her walk the short distance home.
‘Tomorrow? Tomorrow here, okay, same time?’ he said as she got out from the car.
‘Wonderful. Thank you.’
The first time she’d been with Gene she was apprehensive, if not frightened. Thrilled too, but petrified she might be found out. This time, in the middle of the day, her nerves jangled but she told herself there was nothing to be worried about with Terry safely at the station. All she could think about was making love with Gene by the river. She already wanted him again.
And then she walked inside and saw the flowers on the table.
She felt sick. He’d been home and she wasn’t there.
Take a deep breath, she told herself. You’ve been up the shops like you would be on most days. But what if he asked her? Where would she say she’d been? Which shops? She sat down and rehearsed the places, the things she’d seen. She hadn’t bought anything in the end because weren’t they trying to save?
But she hated the deception. She wasn’t temperamentally suited to this kind of lying. Why she was with Gene was something she could barely explain, but the thrill of being with him, even the secretive nature of it, or maybe partly because of that, sent bolts of lightning through her, made her feel like what a normal life was supposed to be. Love, a man’s attentiveness, and passion. If only for a while she was getting something that hadn’t been there for a long time, something that was her right.
But then she looked at the flowers on the table and felt a stab, the stab of her betrayal of her husband.
Why now? she almost wept. Why did you bring these home now when you never do anything like this?
She took the flowers from the glass and carefully arranged them in a vase, placing it back on the table.
She was going to hate lying to him.
Chapter 23
No sooner had he opened the garage for business the next morning than Ray Furnell heard a car pulling up at the petrol bowser. He hurried out expecting an early customer but as he saw the police car and its occupants he slowed and was about to turn back into the garage when Fielder called out to him.
‘What’s the hurry Mr Furnell? We need to have a little talk.’
‘You’re not welcome here!’ Furnell turned on him. ‘You and your mates – get!’
Fielder wandered away across the apron, Quattrochi and Risdale following.
‘Now that’s not the kind of hello we’re used to in this town. Is it boys?’
The other two shook their heads in mock disappointment.
‘See? Now we’re all upset. But I’m not a one to intrude on a man during his working day, Mr Furnell, so we’ll just oblige you to send your boy out here.’
‘Why? Haven’t you talked to him enough already? Roughed him up enough already?’
‘This is just going to be a friendly chat,’ Fielder said. ‘You see that story in the paper the other day?’
‘Course we did,’ Furnell snapped. ‘It was a downright disgrace. And story was all it was. If you’re so sure it was Lee why haven’t you charged him?’ And with his anger gathering, the mechanic stalked back to Fielder. ‘And you want me to tell you why you haven’t charged him? Because you haven’t got a single bloody thing on him, that’s why. You, Mr High and Mighty, you can’t pin anything on him and you want him to admit he done it when you know as well as anyone he didn’t.’
‘Is that so, is it?’ Fielder held his ground, neither man giving way until they stood a foot apart. ‘Well, Mr Furnell, Ray, I think you should let me speak for myself don’t you? And if you were speaking in defence of Lee, I think you’ll find yourself right in the minority. See, no one in this town believes he is innocent. Everyone knows who killed those two youngsters. And the people in this town want to see justice done. And I’m the man who’s going to deliver it to them.’
And with that he gestured to the other two detectives to go into the house and fetch Lee Furnell.
‘You can’t go in there!’ Furnell yelled at them and there was a scuffle that ended with him on the ground, the detectives barging into his house and emerging with his son.
‘They can’t do nothin’!’ Lee sang out to his father. ‘Weak as piss rotten bastards!’
Quattrochi and Risdale crushed him between them before bustling him into the car.
Fielder looked at Furnell who slowly got to his feet rubbing his shoulder.
‘See?’ the detective said. ‘There goes your boy of his own free will to be interviewed at the police station.’
‘You keep your hands off him or I’ll take this to the top you rotten shit!’
But Fielder just laughed as he got behind the wheel of the car and roared off down the street.
In the police station’s interview room Lee Furnell was pushed down onto his chair, the three men resuming their now familiar positions.
‘Are you angry, Lee? Is that it?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘And you think you and your old man can abuse me and these fine officers here, is that what you think?’
‘I don’t care. I know what you’re going to do.’
Fielder took a packet of Craven A’s from his jacket pocket and set it down on the table in front of him, placed a box of Redheads carefully beside it.
‘Words can come back to bite you, Lee. And bite you hard when I don’t think you’re in a position to be upsetting people,’ Fielder said as he shook a cigarette from the packet and lit up, blowing a lungful of smoke Furnell’s way. ‘It’s come to our attention that you assaulted a man in the London Milk Bar recently. Would you like to tell us about that?’
‘There’s nothin’ to tell.’
‘Oh, I’m sure there is.’
‘No there isn’t.’
‘Argumentative, isn’t he boys?’ Fielder said to his colleagues.
‘Very,’ Quattrochi answered on their behalf.
‘Very feisty.’
Fielder sat back smoking for long minutes, saying nothing but keeping his eyes on Furnell, who now and then stared back defiantly.
‘You’ve changed, Lee, you know that?’ Fielder said presently when he stubbed his cigarette out in the glass ashtray. ‘I think it’s guilt that’s doing it. The rotten side of you is taking over the good side. At the start I thought the good side of you was going to do the right thing by yourself and your family, but I’m rapidly giving up hope on that score. I think the thing that made you kill your girlfriend and Max has swallowed you up and now you’re telling lies you probably even believe yourself.’
‘It’s no lie.’
‘No? Then why did you fight Conor Quade? Wasn’t it enough that you killed his brother?’
‘I never killed no one.’
‘
No, you didn’t kill no one. But you did kill Max Quade and Rosaleen Faraday. Everyone knows it and everyone wants to see you in gaol for it. See Lee, you think you’re part of this town and that people respect your father and your family, but it’s trash the lot of it. No one cares a toss for you or any of your family for harbouring you, a criminal. All they say to me is, why hasn’t that boy been charged with murder yet? And I have to be truthful, and say that I ask myself the same question. But we all know the answer to this hiccup in proceedings, don’t we? I tell them it’s because Lee Furnell will not admit to his crimes. He’s so selfish and determined to get away with these crimes that he can’t even see what he’s doing to his own family. That he’ll let the whole town turn against his own family rather than take the blame for his own actions.’ He leant forward across the table. ‘That’s the state of play right now, Lee. Mitchell is going to crucify your family hour by hour, day by day until they drive them right out of the town with your poor old man nailed up to the cross right there by the town speed limit sign.’ He paused then. ‘But you’d be making a very big mistake, Lee, if you thought I was just going to roll over like a little dog waiting for its belly to be scratched, waiting for that to happen. Let me tell you that I’m going to protect the citizens of this town from a sad little bastard like you. I’m going to run with you every single minute of the day until I get that confession. I’m going to keep you right in my sights and put every single thing I can on you until you can’t take it any more and do the right thing. That’s my duty. And you know how I’m going to start?’
This time Furnell didn’t answer.
‘Here’s how. I’m going to charge you with affray and the assault of Conor Quade at the London Milk Bar.’
‘You can’t. He started it.’
‘Not according to our witness.’
‘What witness?’
‘There was a witness.’
Furnell’s head shot up in disbelief. ‘Who?’
‘Ruby Bunn. The girl behind the counter.’
‘Oh, she’s always there.’
‘You don’t think she counts, Lee?’
The Summertime Dead Page 13