by Helene Young
‘He is.’ Speedy looked riled. ‘He’s a good kid.’
Now what was the problem? He was supposed to talk to his neighbours, but not the kid?
‘He’s got no father. He’s impressionable,’ Speedy said with a glare across the cabin.
‘Seems pretty balanced to me,’ Ryan replied.
‘Yeah.’ Speedy was not happy.
Ryan tried another tack. ‘Kait well-liked, locally?’
‘Yes. She’s a volunteer with the Rural Fire Brigade as well as the SES. Bloody good worker. Methodical.’
Ryan could only nod. From the look of the straight lines she ran with her ride-on mower, she was all of that and more.
Speedy seemed to realise he should be giving directions, and that kept him busy right up to the turning down Carrington Road. The smoke was rising ahead and once they passed a cattery they could see the blaze.
‘Fuckin’ hell. The wind’s already got it.’
Ryan had noticed the trees starting to toss in the stiffening breeze. Up the hill it would be even stronger. ‘Are we going to need reinforcements?’
‘Yep.’ Speedy was already on the radio, calling it in.
As they approached, Ryan could see landowners with hoses and mops, putting out embers that attacked in glittering showers. Many had neatly mown blocks, but several in the danger zone were nestled into the trees. Everywhere he looked, the ground was parched and dry. Long grass on public land fanned forward under the wind. The hill slopes had a thick covering of dry vegetation.
Too late to do a hazard reduction burn now. All they could do was set up containment lines. Speedy pointed to a turning coming up and Ryan drove in through a gate, braking beside a dishevelled older man.
‘Mate, glad you’re here. It came out of nowhere.’ The man pushed a broad-brimmed hat back from his lined face, his mouth pinched and tight. Ryan slammed the truck door and clapped him on the shoulder, feeling the smoke already irritating his lungs.
‘We’ve got reinforcements on their way. Looks like you’ve done good work.’
The man shook his head, drawing his thick coat tighter around him. ‘Not enough. I’ve sent my wife and the dogs into town with a friend. She can’t walk. I can’t have her here.’
Ryan felt the other man’s fear and grief. ‘Good decision.’
Speedy called him. Ryan flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile at the homeowner and strode around the truck.
‘Get the hose going. Start wetting down the area round the house. We’ll need to back-burn this lot.’ Speedy gestured to the land from the house to the boundary. ‘Starve the bloody thing out.’
Half an hour was a long time with a fire, Ryan thought as he got to work with the water. Nothing to do but their best.
Once Speedy was satisfied they could control it, he started a slow walk with the drip torch. Ryan had to admit he was impressed. The line looked spot-on. The fire raced away in glowing rivers, barely visible in the bright sunlight, headed on an oblique angle for the fire front proper. It spread from the grass into the shrubs and licked the trunks of larger trees, curling the bark and causing leaves to drop in blackened flakes. But its lower intensity kept it from reaching the highest branches.
Rationally, Ryan knew it was the wind rising from the flames that made the trees toss, but they looked as though they were writhing in agony, desperately trying to shake the devouring monster clear. Playing the water along the line, he could see how mesmerising fire could be. Hypnotic. The beauty in the flames as the colours danced and spun like swirling ribbons was undeniable.
A loud bang up the hillside made him start and half crouch, instinctively reaching behind him. No comfort there today. The overalls had no place for a weapon.
He searched for the source of sound and found a trail of falling embers. A giant tree had exploded, and burning particles now showered down around them. The older man scurried forwards with his wet mop and dabbed at them, extinguishing as many as he could.
Speedy barely seemed to notice as he walked back to the truck. He picked up a beater and joined the man putting out spot fires. By now the fire trail he’d laid was closing in on the main burn. He spiralled his finger in the air. ‘Wind it up. We need to move to the next one.’
Ryan reeled the hose in and stopped beside the homeowner. ‘You call again if it threatens you. The road should stay open anyway, so you can always evacuate to where your wife is.’
‘Thanks, but I’m staying. This is all I’ve got.’
And that, Ryan found, was a common thread through the day. People didn’t want to lose their homes so they stayed, putting themselves at great risk, determined to tough it out. By six o’clock he was shattered, feeling the pain in his arm slowing him down. ‘You’ll do,’ was all Speedy said as they parted ways at the RFB base.
Ryan guessed that was as good as it was going to get.
Lights were on in the Taj as he drove past. No sign of the kid outside, nor super-mum. He was kind of looking forward to seeing Kaitlyn again.
The last thing he remembered to do before he collapsed into bed was put the gun and car key under his pillow. The state he was in, he’d take some waking. He’d need any advantage he could get if he had to leave in a hurry.
Chapter 17
KAITLYN swapped the phone to her other ear and spoke slowly. The receiver felt like it was scorching her skin.
‘I can’t provide my husband’s signature. He’s dead. I don’t have a death certificate because in cases where there’s no body, it can take seven years for the issue of such a certificate. It’s coming up on five years now. I did fill in the B-9 form that explained all that.’ Kaitlyn was trying not to lose her temper with the woman from the Immigration Department.
‘But if you’d just let me explain,’ the woman replied. ‘It’s not the lack of proof or incorrect forms. Our records show that Chris Jackson is still alive.’
Her voice was heavily accented and Kaitlyn had to remind herself to be patient. This might just be a language problem. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and exhaled. Phone conversations always lost the subtle nuances.
‘Look, buried in your database is the fact Christopher Jackson died in a Canberra fire five years ago on Wednesday the third of December. His body was never found, but he was presumed dead as there was very little left of the house.’ Or my father, or my life, she thought, the silence stretching out.
‘I see.’ But it was clear the woman didn’t see. ‘I’ll need to check with my supervisor. What number is best to contact you?’
‘I’ll hold, thanks,’ Kaitlyn replied, knowing full well that if she waited for them to ring her back it might take days. The squeaky wheel was the only way to get results, and clogging up the phone line made her a squeaky.
‘Just one moment, madam.’
The hold recording droned on, and on, and on. The way this was going, Julia would be back from dropping Dan at school before she was off the phone, and Kait would be late for work. Again.
She tapped her fingers on the benchtop, a monotonous drumming keeping time to the words. Two more years and she’d have the damn piece of paper saying Chris was dead.
Her fingers stopped and she looked down at them. Would there ever be a time when her blood didn’t heat in anger, her skin tighten with humiliation, and her eyes burn with the loss, the grief?
She missed her father, not her husband. If the fire hadn’t got Chris she doubted they would still have been together. The inescapable truth was that they should never have married in the first place. An unexpected child was no reason to tie two very different people together.
‘Hello?’
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘Thank you for holding; we appreciate your patience.’
Kaitlyn didn’t say anything. Like she had a choice.
‘I’m afraid this is more complicated than your application indicated. You’ll need to provide additional information. Our records definitely show that Christopher Jackson is alive and we
ll.’
‘He can’t be!’ Kait wanted to shout down the phone as the knot in her stomach grew. ‘It’s a mistake. Can you check his details again?’ She recited his date of birth and their previous address in Canberra, and heard fingers tapping on a keyboard.
‘I’m afraid it’s not a mistake,’ the woman said.
‘Where? What address? I’ll go and get him to sign the bloody thing.’ She was shaking now, blood roaring in her ears.
‘I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.’
‘You have to, otherwise how the hell am I supposed to get the form signed?’
The pause lasted for what felt like minutes. ‘Kairi, Queensland.’ The words were clipped. ‘He’s been living at the address for two years. That’s all I can give you. I shouldn’t even be giving you that.’
‘Kairi? K-A-I-R-I?’
‘Yes.’
Her head throbbed. Just up the road, half an hour away? How could that be? Surely if he’d survived the fire he would have been in contact? Goosebumps spread down the backs of her arms and she gripped the receiver with both hands, feeling it rattle against her ear. Surely they were wrong? They had to be wrong.
‘Are you there, Ms Scott? Hello?’
Kaitlyn swallowed, trying to find enough saliva to wet her lips. ‘Thanks for your time,’ she croaked, and hung up.
She stood up, pushing the stool back with her foot. Where the hell did she go from here? The police?
‘I’ve no damn idea,’ she muttered, striding out onto her long, wide veranda. Across the way she could see early sunlight glinting off the windows of Jerry’s place. The air held a faint taint of smoke. Left over from the night.
She stomped the full length of the house. How could it be? Was she supposed to believe that her husband had faked his death to escape prosecution and now lived close enough to make contact with his son, but hadn’t bothered to do so? She wanted to scream, throw something, rant, but it was not her nature to be impulsive. The one time she’d acted on impulse she’d been rewarded with an unexpected pregnancy, then a beautiful son. She closed her eyes against the strength of the memory and slumped against a post.
Chris had been a local fireman who her father, Stephen, had befriended at a fire scene. The younger man had shown an interest in the intricacies of arson investigation and Stephen was always keen to share his knowledge. Kait had been introduced not long after. She’d been flattered by the golden-haired man with calm green eyes who showed her such respect. They’d gone on a date to the movies, then several times to dinner. She liked him, he made her laugh, but there was no fire, no passion – more the comfortable fit of a friend. But he was persistent.
She succumbed to his gentle charm two months after they met, never dreaming one shy encounter might lead to something more permanent. By the time she realised she was pregnant an abortion was out of the question. Secretly, she’d been glad. To make a choice would have been heartbreaking. Daniel was born healthy, late and very much wanted by his mother. His father was a different matter.
In hindsight, Chris had married her out of respect for her father. Stephen and Julia were from a generation for whom the stigma of an illegitimate child was still strong. They were appalled to find their serious, studious daughter was pregnant out of wedlock. But they’d supported her.
A shift of breeze brought a stronger smell of smoke in from the west and Kait scanned the horizon. No sign of telltale build-ups or columns of smoke. She straightened up. She’d never believed the accusation that Chris had lit the fires. That was as likely as accusing her father of lighting them. The two men were professionals who understood the fascination and the power of fire. Stephen had always maintained that there was a little pyromaniac in all of us, but most of us were too scared to do anything silly.
Just why Stephen had gone to his daughter’s house that day, no one knew. Nor could anyone explain why Chris’s ute had been stacked with full fuel drums if he’d been the one responsible for starting the spot fires that had destroyed the Greentrees plantations. Surely to God he would have known better than to torch the trees bordering his own property. Being a fireman, he would have known the chances of that fire getting away. The frantic phone calls he made from the property calling for assistance didn’t make sense if he was the arsonist. She’d heard them all. The police had insisted she identify his voice. Unfortunately, she’d been able to do just that. Her father’s badly burnt body was found partly covered by roofing iron. He’d suffered a head wound but the autopsy indicated he’d been unconscious when the fire roared through. That only served to point the finger more directly at Chris, and yet …
And yet she would have bet her life on the man. He may not have been husband material, or even father material, but he was no more an arsonist than she was.
His gutted ute, scraps of his clothes, and his twisted and melted mobile phone were all they recovered from the fire. That, along with some human remains that were a match for his DNA, was deemed to be proof that he’d died in the fire he was accused of lighting. At the fire station where he worked, his locker was found empty of any personal items. That contributed to the theory that he was planning to die that day, that he’d deliberately cleaned out any evidence before he’d torched his own home.
For Kaitlyn, it had always raised the spectre that Chris was planning on leaving her. So why did she find this latest twist with Immigration so shocking? Hadn’t she always wondered if there was another explanation? Did someone murder him? Or was he still alive? If he was, why had he lit the fire? Too many questions.
She stopped pacing and stared across the valley, seeing the tops of the trees shiver in a shift of wind. When she’d bought this land the native plantation in the valley was owned by Greentrees. At the time, their safety record in North Queensland was enviable, but now they were in receivership and the plantation was untended.
Maybe Julia had a point. Maybe Kait had chosen to thumb her nose at the gods of fire and build something strong, impregnable, on the very precipice of an inferno.
And why? Because you wanted to prove you’d put the shame, the fear, the anger behind you. Maybe that shame and anger had followed you and your family after all.
‘No,’ she said into the stillness. ‘No, Chris. This will not destroy us. If you are alive, I’ll hunt you down and make you pay for what you’ve done. If there’s another explanation, another answer, then I’ll find it this time. And if you’ve been wronged, then I’ll lay you to rest.’
She strode back inside, anger still heating her skin.
For a fruitless thirty minutes she trawled the online phone directory, Google, Facebook, several other sites, and even the Australian archives. There were the death and funeral notices she knew all too well and a few matches on Facebook that she quickly discounted. She hadn’t really expected to find anything. If a man was going to fake his own death and then disappear, he was unlikely to shout his activities from the rooftops.
The chair seemed to sigh as she stretched back in it. For a long moment she hesitated, then sat forward in a rush. What use were contacts if they couldn’t provide information when you needed it?
The number she dialled wasn’t listed, but she knew it off by heart. The answer was a distracted mumble.
‘Martin?’
‘Speaking, speaking.’
‘Martin, it’s Kaitlyn, Stephen Scott’s daughter. I’m sorry to trouble you at work.’
‘Kaitlyn? How lovely to hear your voice, a welcome distraction. How’s Julia and your lad?’ The voice was creaky, but she knew the brain behind it was still sharp. Martin Farrell would in all probability be carted out of his office in a body bag. His job as an arson investigator had always been consuming, but once Maggie, his wife of forty years, had died, it became his life. He didn’t even have a pet any more. The scruffy little mutt who’d been part of his family for so long hadn’t survived Maggie by many weeks.
Kaitlyn doubted that Martin ate anything at home and, if his secretary hadn’t taken it upon h
erself to feed him lunch, he would be even more skeletal than he was.
‘Doing well, thanks, Martin. The pace is pretty slow up here. Having a yarn seems more important than getting the job done. I think it suits Julia. She’s even playing the piano again. And Dan?’ She laughed. ‘Dan’s most pressing problem is his recent and burning desire for a horse, which his mean and improbably hard mother won’t buy for him.’
Martin laughed. ‘I’m glad Julia’s playing again. Your father would have liked that.’
‘You’re right. Dad would have been sad if that beautiful piano had stayed silent.’
‘And you? You always played so well.’
Kaitlyn shook her head. ‘I don’t play like Julia. I was only ever adequate.’
‘No, no. Maybe you didn’t play as brilliantly as Julia, but maybe you didn’t apply yourself, either. If you had, who knows?’ Kaitlyn could almost see him shrug, gangly shoulders rising up to meet ears that stood out from his long head. ‘But you didn’t ring for a lecture. What can I help you with?’
‘I’m sorry, Martin, it’s complicated. Is now a good time or are you busy?’
‘Complicated is good and I have all the time in the world for you.’
‘Thanks.’ Kaitlyn hesitated, paranoia raising its ugly head. ‘Julia wants to go back to England for a visit. She wants to take Stephen’s ashes back to the village where they met as children and wants us to go with her. Dan’s never been. So I applied for a passport for Daniel and there’s been a hitch. It seems there’s a problem with the paperwork. It’s a long shot, but I have no one else to ask.’
‘You need a reference? A title search?’
‘Not that easy, Martin. I wish it were.’ She tried to steady herself, but her words came out in a rush. ‘They’re saying Chris is still alive, that I need to get him to sign the forms before they can issue a passport. I don’t know where to begin. I thought I’d dealt with all this and put it behind us.’ She knew her voice had a catch in it, but there was nothing she could do.