by Joanna Baker
But Chess was pointing towards the old Uniting Church on the hill across the creek, just visible above trees.
‘Could we go there? Just a little walk? This place is giving me the willies.’
The willies. I hated the way she talked.
***
To get to the church we had to climb another path through eucalypts and acacia. As soon as we emerged from this, I stopped and ducked backwards for cover. Sitting on the low stone wall of the church was Deb’s boyfriend, Andrew. He was slumped forward, elbows on knees, holding a long piece of grass in both hands.
I grabbed Chess’s arm to warn her, but she didn’t need warning. Chess is no actress and she was not surprised to see him there. That was why she had wanted to come here. From where we’d been on the bank, while I was lying down, she must’ve seen him park on the Albury road. So much for needing a walk.
‘No,’ I whispered. ‘We should leave him alone.’
Chess started to walk towards him. I grabbed her again. ‘No way, Chess!’ I hissed.
Andrew heard us. He stood up.
‘Hi,’ he called. ‘Come over. It’s all right.’
He was a big man, not fat, bulked-up. He had thick brown hair, cut neatly and combed down, like people who live in the city and work in offices. He wore soft pants with a plaited leather belt and a pair of those yuppie boating shoes. He looked like what he was — an accountant on a day off.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t see you at the funeral this morning. I was … not quite myself.’ He gave us a weak smile that didn’t quite make it to his eyes. He looked sad, but there was something else there too, something watchful. He went on, ‘I’m glad you’re here. I was thinking about Debbie.’ He gave a hard laugh and a little shrug, ‘Well, of course I was. I was even thinking of going to see you. Annie told me where you lived. There are things I wanted to ask you, about that last afternoon, when you were with Deb in the bakery. If there was anything you knew.’
‘We told the police everything,’ said Chess.
He turned to her, flushing. ‘Could you tell me? Please? It really would help, just to know how she was. Anything.’ The poor guy was twisting his piece of grass into a knot. Chess watched him closely.
She said, ‘After work Debbie was going to meet you here.’
We looked around us. The church was soft grey stone. It stood on the corner of two quiet roads, near the old people’s home and the entrance to a sports ground. There was never anyone around.
‘We always met here,’ said Andrew. ‘Deb’s house is pretty small and mine is too far, in Beechworth. We used to bring something to eat, have wine, put down a rug, or get in the car.’ He stopped, and looked at us in a surprised kind of way, as if he suddenly realised we were too young to know what a boy and girl do in a car. Maybe Chess was. He ended with a wave of a hand that meant it didn’t matter. ‘It was just a place to come.’
Around the church were several pine trees, black and tattered with age. The ground was mostly needles and bare dirt, which added to the deserted feel of the place. Despite the walk up the hill I felt a shiver.
Andrew sat down on the wall again, threw his grass away and rubbed his knees.
Chess said quietly, ‘Tara Roland said you asked Deb to marry you.’
At the thought of it, his eyes went shiny. ‘I asked her that day. Last Saturday. The day she died. God it was only a week ago …’ He sucked in some air through his nose. ‘I had meetings in Melbourne and I had to drive back. That three hour drive — I thought about her nearly the whole way.’ He turned to look at me. ‘She was the sort of girl you couldn’t stop thinking about.’ I nodded sympathetically, pretending to understand. ‘Anyway, I’d already decided to propose. I had a ring in the glove box. Deb loved jewellery.’
He drifted off a bit, staring at his knees. He was almost crying just talking about Debs. The prime suspect? As if he would have hurt her. Chess was an idiot.
‘When did you ask her?’ said Chess, standing in front of us.
‘I was driving along thinking about her and I got to the point where I couldn’t wait any longer. I decided to ring her and get it over with. She didn’t mind me proposing by phone. She liked the madness of it.’
His cheeks had gone a warm pink colour, which made them look fleshy. From my position close to him on the bench I could see wrinkles in his neck and little hairs near his ears that he’d missed when shaving. I’m always amazed that women could go for blokes like this. He did look strong in the shoulders and arms, as if he went to the gym. Deb would’ve liked that.
‘We were in the bakery,’ said Chess. ‘There was a phone call that made her giggle a lot.’
Another smile of memory. ‘That would have been me. She was pleased about it, was she?’
‘She was stoked,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t stop smiling.’
Chess said, ‘She said she knew three things she couldn’t tell us, and one of them was very very good. That must have been the engagement.’
‘Ah,’ he sighed and his breath shook. It was obvious the guy was completely shattered. It was cruel to be even talking to him about it.
‘You don’t know what the other things might have been, do you?’
Chess had no right to interrogate him. I started to get angry, but Andrew shook his head.
‘Do you know anything about a necklace called the Eye —?’
That was it. I threw an arm out to stop her. ‘You made her very happy,’ I said to Andrew. ‘After you rang, she took the phone off the hook. She didn’t want any more calls.’
He nodded, looking a bit dreamy. ‘She said she was going to do that.’
‘So no one else knew about the engagement?’ said Chess.
‘No. No. It was our secret. Debbie and I had agreed that we couldn’t tell anyone until we told her parents and we’d do that the next day. We just wanted to see each other. I’d bought champagne and Thai on the way and I was trying to keep it warm. She was going to walk through the reserve and meet me. I came here and waited.’
He went quiet again.
Chess was frowning and thinking hard. She had another question. ‘What did you think? When she didn’t come?’
‘I didn’t know what to think. I had a look for her down near the creek but didn’t find her. I drove past the Bakery. I suppose I thought she’d gone home.’
Chess gave me a glance that meant something was significant. I made a face. She was unbelievable. The poor guy.
Andrew was still talking. ‘I couldn’t go to her place and annoy her. If she had gone home instead of coming to the church it meant she didn’t want to see me. She might’ve been having second thoughts about getting married.’
He thought for a minute and then his manner changed. He looked at Chess with a new intensity. ‘People say she started drinking before she came to meet me. By herself. It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe it.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Chess.
Chapter 6
I don’t know why Debbie’s mother, Annie, asked us out for morning coffee the next day. Maybe it was because we’d left the funeral early. Maybe she wanted to ask us about Debbie’s last day, or even what she’d looked like when we found her. We never discovered the reason exactly. Annie rang us each in turn, Tara and Chess and me. I know Tara tried to get out of it, but her parents must have insisted, because she came.
As usual, Tara brought Wando with her. Actually, Annie probably expected this. Wando went everywhere with Tara, and it had been like that for so long that people had stopped noticing. It would’ve been strange if Tara had turned up without him.
Debbie’s family, the Wilsons, lived on Station Road, the same road as Chess, but a kilometre further on. Tara’s father drove us there together in his big white Kluger.
It was good country out this way. Station Road was bordered by trees and it was always shady. The paddocks were soft sloping banks, which occasionally dipped into sharp gullies, and in other places pushed up into small hills with trees on top. The smoot
h curves contrasted nicely with the verticals of the trees along the road. There were glassy dams and ragged houses, and a yard I liked that held seven rusting trucks with bits pulled off them.
About three kilometres out of town was Chess’s place. Tara and her family had lived there before Chess. When Mr Roland’s businesses had started to make money, they’d moved to a bigger place in town. The place was pretty ordinary and no one thought it would ever sell, but not long after that, Chess and her Dad had arrived in town and bought it.
Chess was waiting by the road to be picked up. When she had squashed into the back seat with Tara and me, Mr Roland said, ‘The old place is looking good Jessie. I see your father’s finally rebuilt the garage.’
Chess didn’t like talking about her father and changed the subject. ‘It’s not a patch on your new place, though, Mr Roland. You’ve certainly improved your circumstances.’
Mr Roland laughed in the fake way he always did, singing ‘Ha, ha,’ as if they were words. He liked people to notice how well he’d done.
He put on a funny voice, kidding Chess about the way she spoke. ‘Improved our circumstances. Yes, you could say that, Jess. The new place is quite different from the old one.’
‘Thank God,’ said Tara, sulkily.
I thought that sounded a bit insulting to Chess, and quickly added, ‘I really like your place Chess. It’s got personality.’
Chess ignored me. She was watching Mr Roland closely. ‘Your various businesses must be successful.’ It was a habit of hers to keep a topic going longer than anyone else wanted. She was always trying to find out things about people.
I listened carefully to the answer, thinking about the money hidden in the foil, but Mr Roland never said much about money. ‘You could say that.’ He was still grinning when we arrived at the gate to the Wilsons’ place.
‘Seeing as I’m so close, I’m going to drop in on your Dad, Chess.’ He slapped Wando on the shoulder half pushing him out. ‘Have a great time.’ The cheerfulness sounded fake. You could tell from Tara’s face they’d argued about her having to come, but Mr Roland wasn’t going to change his mind. We all piled out.
The country was flatter here and not as nice. There were no trees near the road, just a scratchy-looking bottlebrush and a milk-barrel letterbox. There was more rain about, and the thick air seemed to push in on us. No one was exactly pleased to be there, except maybe Chess. We stood around in the sticky dust at the gate, feeling out of our depth, waiting for someone else to lead the way.
‘This is such a bad idea,’ said Tara.
‘We could just nick off,’ said Wando.
Chess, as usual, had embarrassed me by dressing as if it was some kind of big deal. The others just wore what they always do, but Chess had turned up in a pair of brand new jeans, carefully ironed, with a light blue plastic belt, a matching bandanna around her neck and a shirt of pink checks. The kind you see on tablecloths. She’d polished her lace-up shoes. She looked, not excited exactly, but a bit switched on.
‘Come on, let’s go.’ She took a step towards the driveway, but had to stop because no one else moved.
‘I can’t believe Dad wanted me to come,’ said Tara. ‘He wouldn’t come himself.’
‘He wasn’t invited, was he?’ said Chess innocently.
Tara curled a lip. ‘He doesn’t like them.’
‘Why not?’ said Chess.
Tara shrugged. ‘Not good enough.’
‘They’ve been in trouble with the police, haven’t they?’ said Chess. ‘Handling stolen goods?’
‘The son has. Craig,’ I said. ‘Not the others. They’re fine.’
Tara said, ‘Yeah, but Craig’s a total psycho and he’s definitely violent.’
‘He won’t hurt us. Your father obviously thought it was safe.’
Tara didn’t believe me. ‘Have you ever had anything to do with Craig?’
‘I’ve seen him around.’
‘He’s a reptile. When we lived out here he lit about seventeen fires out in the bush. He burnt down a house.’
‘Why isn’t he in jail?’
‘They could never prove it was him.’ Tara was speaking in that flat short way of hers. She turned her head to end the conversation. Then, to my surprise, she added, ‘I wish he was in jail. He scares me.’
I stepped closer. ‘It’s OK. He can’t hurt you with us all here.’
At this she looked me right in the eye, and for the first time ever there was a sign of warmth. Those eyes — violet, blue — I don’t know, but they were this amazing colour, shining against that golden skin of hers. And it was more than just the colour. The friendliness had that extra magical beauty of something that had been hidden for a long time and suddenly revealed, like Christmas presents when you first open them. I felt as if I’d been pricked by needles all over, and injected with something warm.
But there was no chance to say anything. Chess had completely missed the look Tara had given me, or didn’t care about it. She shrugged. ‘I’m sure there’s nothing for us to worry about.’ She started up the driveway, the smallest of us and an unlikely leader, but this time we followed her.
The driveway was a gradual slope uphill. Just inside the gate, on our right, was the first of the Wilsons’ sheds. It was a building I remembered from childhood drives, something you always noticed out along this road, because it was painted bright blue.
From somewhere we heard an angry shout, cut off suddenly, and then a clatter of metal.
Uphill from the blue shed were others in unpainted wood and corrugated iron, and lots of steel fencing that I supposed were cattle yards. I knew the Wilsons ran cattle. I didn’t know how many hectares they had or anything, but I guessed not many. The place was pretty rundown.
As we passed the sheds we heard movement, and saw that there were two men there, surrounded by old cars and machinery. One was Deb’s father. The other was weedy and fair, about twenty-five. Deb’s brother Craig. They stopped and watched us go past. Chess gave them a dumb little wave, palm open, fingers stiff, which they didn’t answer.
A ratty-looking kelpie came running from the back of the house, and went past us towards the road, carrying a white supermarket bag full of something. Craig swore and chased it. We turned just in time to see him catch the dog up against a tattered lavender bush. He tore the bag away, scattering rubbish on the bush and on the driveway. He sounded like an animal himself, growling and snarling at the dog. He aimed a kick at its retreating backside, then picked up a few bits of the scattered paper and put them back in the bag.
‘Oh dear,’ said Chess.
She moved to go back and help, but Craig straightened and faced her, feet apart, shoulders pushed back, arms tense. He called, ‘Don’t worry about it.’
His posture wasn’t all that frightening. To me it was the way all small men stand when they wished they were bigger. He had an unshaven face with hollow cheeks and very small eyes, one eyelid drooping lower than the other. His expression reminded me of a sulky pre-schooler, but he got his message across. Chess backed away and left him to it.
‘I told you,’ whispered Tara. ‘Everyone knows he lit the fires out this way. When he’s bored he burns his hand with a lighter.’
Craig started yelling at our backs.
‘Which one of youse pinched the necklace? We know she had it on her. We’ll go to the police.’ We kept walking with our heads down. ‘Debs loved that necklace!’
After that, the house was starting to look like a positive safety zone. At least there were a few trees there. Two, to be exact, and a few strangled roses, and a thin lawn that must almost disappear in dry weather. The house was small, fibro, brown. It had a cheap flat-roofed extension that looked as if someone had tacked it on with a staple gun.
Behind us Craig had gone quiet, but no one was game to look to see where he was. We shuffled up to the front door, feeling about as welcome as mosquitoes.
Fortunately, the atmosphere here was a bit different. Suddenly it looked the sort of
place Debbie might have lived. The door and windows were very clean and there were china pots holding pink and white flowers.
‘Petunias,’ said Tara. Her voice was a bit thin. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to be scornful or not.
There were a lot of plaster things too — horses, dwarves and rabbits. Tara gave a grunt, this time sounding nervous.
Debbie’s mother, Annie, answered the door and, as usual, I was impressed by how young she looked. She was a straight-haired version of Debbie, small and quick. Her skin was drier and she had lines around her eyes, but she was in no way like a mother. She had long white-blonde hair, lots of black eye-liner, a wide curving mouth, and a voice that would stop a truck. I know that last part because I’d seen her do it once, yelling after her husband in High Street when he’d forgotten something.
She smiled her wide smile. ‘Come in, you lot.’ There was no sign of the tears of the day before, except that she was a bit blotchy and there were purple shadows under her eyes.
The room she led us into was small and bright. There were flowered chairs, a flowered couch, flowered curtains, and vases of the things everywhere, with sympathy cards attached.
Wando went straight for an armchair and the rest of us hovered near the doorway. Chess was the worst. It was something that always happened when she was nervous. She would go perfectly still, push her arms to her sides and flatten her hands along her thighs so that she ended up looking stiff and lifeless, like some kind of pencil. It made the people around her tense up too. I put a hand behind her and shoved her further into the room.
Annie was being cheerful. ‘What’s Craig carrying on about? Dog been at the rubbish again, has it?’
We laughed uncomfortably, a bit too loud. ‘Yeah.’
‘Craig’s just emptied the bin in Debbie’s room. I told him not to leave the bag on the step.’ Annie kept smiling, but it looked like an effort and she didn’t seem sure she could carry it off. She said, ‘Look, I’ll get us something to eat and drink. I’ve got that many sandwiches left over from yesterday. Anyone not want coffee?’