Darkening Skies

by Parry, Bronwyn

  Mick unplugged the laptop and tucked it under his arm.

  Food was one thing – he’d been right, Jim didn’t need it now – but valuables were another thing entirely.

  ‘Leave it, Mick,’ she warned. ‘That’s for Paul to deal with it.’

  ‘Get out of my way.’

  ‘No.’

  The smell of alcohol assaulted her nose as he approached but she stood her ground, one hand reaching for her phone, the other held out towards Mick. Her heartbeat thudded but she didn’t let him see her rising anxiety. ‘Take the food, but give me the laptop. It stays, Mick.’

  ‘Don’t you fuckin’ tell me what to do, you little bitch.’

  He shuffled forward and took another slug from the bottle, tipping it up to drain it but keeping his eyes on her. Hate-filled eyes, devoid of reason, just like the last time she’d faced him, and belatedly she realised that he’d positioned himself where he almost blocked her path to the door, the table inches to her right hemming her in. Stand her ground? Try to dodge around him? She didn’t dare give him power by dropping her gaze to her phone; dialling triple-0 wouldn’t do much good way out here, anyway.

  He spat straight into her face. ‘You should be dead. It should have been you, not her. You should have died with your goody-two-shoes fuckin’ mother. My bloody brother Pete couldn’t even get that fuckin’ right. It’s all your fuckin’ fault.’

  At seventeen, she’d almost believed him. At thirty-five, she knew the ravings of a mad alcoholic bastard, but still … still his barbs hit, derailed her concentration for an instant. First her parents, then Paula, then Jim … he was screwing with her mind.

  Get out. She had to get out, get away from him. She pushed past him, but before she reached the doorway crashing pain hit the side of her head and the bottle bounced against her arm before shattering against the doorframe. She instinctively raised her arm, turned her head to protect herself from the flying glass, but shards stung her. Head swimming, unsteady, she couldn’t move quickly enough, and Mick grabbed her wrist, jerking her around with surprising strength, throwing her stumbling back against the sharp edges of the door.

  ‘You should have burned instead of Jim, you bitch,’ he said, and in her blurred vision all she could see was his fist, flying towards her face.

  FIVE

  Mark jumped out of the SES truck the moment Karl pulled to a halt behind Mick Barrett’s ute. Around the back, the dogs barked. Closer – inside the house – a woman’s cry rang out.

  The uneasiness that had been nagging at him since he’d seen Mick drive down Gearys Road blazed into full-blown alarm and he pounded up the front steps and into the house. A thud and another gasping cry led him to the kitchen just as Mick raised his arm to swipe another blow at Jenn, who was scrambling to her feet, blood on her face and arm.

  ‘Leave her!’ Mark bellowed. Fury raged red in front of his eyes as he grabbed Mick’s arm, hauling on it, shoving him away from Jenn and forcing his body between them.

  The old man snarled and with unexpected strength wrenched out of Mark’s grasp. He stood for a few seconds, panting like a raging bull, venom in his eyes. ‘You killed her. You bloody killed my girl. You and that bitch.’ With a roar he swung, fists flailing. Mark dodged the blow and locked his arm in a choke hold around Mick’s neck, dragging him backwards, swinging him around to slam him against a wall and holding him there.

  Heat and revulsion and wrath pounded in his head along with his heartbeat. The image of Jenn, bloodied, flinching as she tried to deflect the blow played again in his mind, and he barely resisted the urge to ram Mick’s head against the wall, repeatedly. If Mick had gone for him, he’d have understood it, but to attack Jenn – that was unforgivable.

  ‘Jesus, what the—’

  One glance at Karl confirmed he had grabbed a first-aid kit before following him. ‘See to Jenn while I get this mongrel out of her sight.’

  ‘I don’t need seeing to. I’m okay,’ she said behind him, but the breathless shake in her voice belied the words. ‘Just keep the bastard away from me.’

  ‘I will,’ he vowed. ‘I’ll get him outside and then call Kris. She should be able to send someone down.’

  ‘Don’t bother the cops yet,’ Jenn said, lifting her hand to her head and wincing. ‘They’ve got more important things to do right now. They can pick him up later if they need to. He won’t go far.’

  Mick struggled in Mark’s grip and let loose a stream of abuse, continuing as Mark and Karl dragged him out of the house and down the front steps. Mark held him face-first against the side of the SES vehicle, and signalled Karl to stand back.

  Days ago, when he’d visited Mick to inform him about the accident, the man had been drunk and morose and slow with it, as usual. But without alcohol dulling his system, he became mean and unpredictable. And right now, Mick didn’t have enough alcohol, despite the fumes on his breath. Whatever happened here, Mark wanted Karl as a witness, but not involved.

  ‘I’m going to give you a choice, Barrett,’ Mark said roughly, only just keeping his fury in check. ‘You can get the hell off my property right now, or I can ignore Jenn’s wishes and call Kris Matthews to come and arrest you for break-and-enter and assault.’

  Twisting around to spit at his face, Mick missed and hit Mark’s T-shirt. ‘Fucking lying murdering bastard.’

  Mark gritted his teeth and hauled the man around to face him. ‘If you want to have a go at me, then do it. But I swear, if you ever touch Jenn again, I won’t hold back. You understand me, Mick? She had nothing – nothing – to do with Paula’s death. Or Jim’s.’

  He let Mick go, and stepped back half a pace. For a moment, he thought Mick would swing at him, but the old man must have thought better of it.

  ‘I’ll fuckin’ have you for assault.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you in court. And you can be sure I’ll explain how I dragged you away from belting Jenn.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  Mark folded his arms and regarded him coolly. ‘Yes, I can be, and on this I will be. So get out of my sight and off my land before I change my mind and hold you here until the cops come.’

  ‘Sonofabitch. You’ll fuckin’ get it, Strelitz. You’ll fuckin’ get it one day, you will.’

  Mark clenched his jaw, but didn’t waste his breath responding as Mick shambled to his ute, still muttering threats.

  Karl stepped beside Mark, phone in hand. ‘I recorded pretty much all that. Just in case he tries to make trouble.’

  ‘Thanks. Can you go inside and take care of Jenn? I want to make sure he actually leaves.’

  ‘I’ll follow him up to his place. You look after Jenn. Last time she saw me, other than last night, she was babysitting me and I put tadpoles into her glass of water. So, she might have more faith in your abilities.’

  For Mark, the cheeky, perpetually scabby-kneed boy had long disappeared in the capable young man Karl had proved himself to be through thick and thin, but perhaps he was right – Jenn didn’t know that side of him yet.

  The kitchen was empty, but the water pump was on and from outside the bathroom door, Mark heard a tap running, a sniff and then a few swear words. When the water stopped running, he tapped lightly on the door. ‘Mick’s gone, Jenn, and Karl’s following him to make sure he stays away.’

  ‘Good.’ He heard another sniff, a nose blow, the gurgle of the sink emptying.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ll live.’ She pulled open the door. ‘Nothing broken except some skin.’

  Nothing broken maybe – but puffy eyes, red marks on her face and jaw, scratches still seeping blood, and a damp facecloth wrapped around her forearm, which she held against herself, upright.

  The sight of those injuries made him wish he had slammed Mick’s head into the wall. But his anger at Mick wouldn’t help her and he tamped down the violence simmering within him.

  ‘Come and sit down and let me check you over.’

  ‘I’m not …’ Her hesitation telegraphed her relu
ctance.

  Have a man touch her after Mick’s assault? He understood her hesitancy. ‘Would you prefer me to see if Beth can come? Or Kris?’

  ‘I’m okay. Really. Although maybe this cut could do with some tape or something. And I think there might still be a bit of glass in here.’ She indicated a place just above her elbow. ‘But can we go outside? It just feels … not right, being in Jim’s house.’

  With Karl’s first-aid kit, they went out to Mark’s ute in the backyard and she sat on the tailgate while he unwrapped a sterile dressing pack and laid out the contents. The dogs watched, noses pressed up against the fence.

  ‘What happened?’ Mark asked as he took the facecloth from her arm to examine the cut.

  ‘I was out here with the dogs,’ she said flatly. ‘I saw Mick through the window. I went around the front and saw he’d broken in. He was helping himself to the contents of the kitchen. Then he took Jim’s laptop. We had words. He told me I should be dead. Then he threw a bottle at my head.’

  Every one of those staccato sentences raised a dozen questions, but the last worried him most. ‘At your head? Did it hit you?’

  ‘Not hard. Just bounced off the side of my skull and then hit the doorframe. That’s when it smashed.’

  Not hard. Bounced. Definitely worrying. He stepped back a small pace so he could see her eyes and her responses. ‘Does your head ache? Do you feel woozy or nauseous?’

  She looked straight back at him, direct, focused, and well aware of his examination. ‘I’m suffering from caffeine deficiency, sleep deprivation and the remnants of jetlag, and I’m royally pissed off with the universe right now. But no, I’m not about to collapse from bleeding on the brain or concussion.’

  He wanted to believe her. But the red marks, the bruising beginning on her jaw and face meant there’d been at least two blows to her head in addition to the bottle. He didn’t waste his breath suggesting the hospital, yet, although he’d make sure that someone kept an eye on her for the rest of the morning.

  ‘Do you want to formally report the assault to the police?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Probably not. It was stupid of me to confront him. I should have remembered how much he hates me. I do remember it. The day after Paula died, he made sure I understood that it should’ve been me, with his words and fists.’

  The day after Paula died … Everything kept coming back to that one event. For a moment he didn’t dare look at her, didn’t dare touch her, his gaze focusing only on the disinfectant wipe as he carefully laid it on the plastic sheet.

  ‘He assaulted you then?’ he asked quietly, anger building in his gut again.

  She nodded. ‘He was drunk, angry and looking for a scapegoat. I was crying in my bedroom and didn’t run fast enough. Fortunately, Jim came along and stopped him.’

  Mark pressed the first steri-strip across the cut on her arm. The reality of her bruised and bleeding now, as an adult, was bad enough, but imagining the teenage Jenn in the same state, vulnerable, grieving and alone, disturbed him deeply. That he’d known nothing about it, had failed to help her when she’d needed a friend, sat uneasily in his soul. ‘Did you report him then?’

  ‘No. Maybe I should have, but what would’ve been the point? He was grieving for his daughter. I doubt they’d have even laid charges.’

  Given what he knew now about the man who’d been the Dungirri police sergeant at the time, the man who’d helped frame Gil, she was probably right. ‘Is that why you left Dungirri?’

  She paused imperceptibly, but in that moment he both wanted her answer and dreaded it.

  ‘After Paula’s funeral, there was no reason to stay.’

  No reason. He focused on the task at hand. Of course their friendship had not been enough reason. He had not been enough reason. They’d just been kids with different goals and no defined relationship to bind them.

  No reason for his distracting physical awareness of her proximity now, either. No reason other than nostalgia, memories, fondness and pheromones.

  They both fell silent as he put the last steri-strip on the wound and covered it with a dressing. He flushed the small cut near her elbow with saline, her skin smooth and warm from the sun, and the small fragment of glass washed out, a brief sparkle amid a trickle of diluted blood.

  She slid off the tailgate while he packed up the first-aid gear, but the tension from being so close to her didn’t dissipate with the increased distance.

  He couldn’t allow himself to spend time thinking about why. If it turned out that he bore responsibility for Paula’s death, it would obliterate any remnants of their friendship, destroying his past as well as his future.

  Jenn hunkered by the fence of the dog run, their warm tongues licking her fingers through the wire. The dogs’ enthusiastic attention seemed surreal in the circumstances, but she stayed there, wishing the playful contact could restore some badly needed equilibrium.

  She couldn’t think straight, her ability to objectively assess a situation totally derailed by the onslaught of unfamiliar and conflicting emotions. The reality of Mick’s physical attack had hit her as she sat on Mark’s ute, her reaction so disorienting that she’d almost succumbed to the temptation to turn into Mark’s arms and weep. Except that he was the cause of at least half the confusion in her head.

  Mark, who’d dragged her bastard uncle away from her, the rage and power of that moment kept in check, directed by reason, all his interactions with her afterwards unfailingly calm as he responded to her needs.

  A man who … damn it, that was the crux of it. A man, not a boy. Standing close to her, tending to her arm with a gentle, considerate touch, his masculinity had inundated her, throwing her even further off balance than her uncle’s attack had.

  Maybe she’d been half in love with Mark as a teenager. More than half. He’d been a rock, understanding her, challenging her, supporting her in her efforts to shape her own life. Caring for her. But she wasn’t a lonely, lost teenager anymore. She’d carved her own life, worked hard for her successes, learned from her failures, and she didn’t need a man to lean on emotionally. She didn’t need Mark.

  She rested her aching head against the high fence and breathed deeply. With some peace and quiet, she’d sort the mess in her brain into its proper place. She had to find Gil Gillespie, ask him about the accident. Do what she could to help Paul and Chloe arrange Jim’s funeral. Then return to her apartment in Sydney and her work.

  First things first. ‘Can you give me a lift back to the pub?’ she asked Mark. ‘I need to change. And maybe find some coffee.’

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed instantly, but underneath the courtesy she heard the rasp of fatigue. Exhaustion carved fine lines in his face, his skin drawn beneath his natural tan. All the signs of a man who hadn’t slept much recently.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ A simple topic to deal with. Practical, logical, nothing to do with emotion. ‘You could probably still get breakfast at the pub.’

  ‘I could do with some breakfast,’ he admitted. ‘But I have to speak with Steve first. I’ll come up to the pub after I’ve seen him.’

  She collected the food and bowls while he put the dogs in the back of the ute and fastened their leads. She paused for a moment to watch the firm but easy way he handled them – remembering him with the first dog he’d been given sole responsibility for, to train from a pup. ‘Your old Sammy – I suppose he’s long gone, now?’

  ‘Sammy?’ He shut the tailgate but she caught his wistful smile as he went to the driver’s door. ‘Yes. He made it to sixteen, but he died just before I was elected to parliament. I haven’t had the time since then to give to a dog.’

  But he would take on Jim’s dogs, if Paul couldn’t. The fact that he’d remembered them, seen to their needs despite everything else happening, spoke volumes.

  When they arrived back in town they saw four more police vehicles parked outside the Russells’ house, and a young constable blocking the street, directing them around to the hotel via the main
road. Mark parked in the shaded side street beside the pub, ensuring the dogs in the tray of the ute were protected from the sun and filling a plastic container with water for them.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay, Jenn?’ he asked as she turned to go inside. ‘I’d be happier if you were assessed properly, in case of concussion.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she insisted. ‘I promise, if I get a bad headache or start feeling woozy I’ll let someone know.’

  He didn’t like it, judging by his frown, but he didn’t argue. ‘I should be back in an hour,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll take you to collect your car.’

  Inside, the breakfast buffet was still laid out in the bistro, the only guests a couple of young tourists so absorbed in each other they scarcely glanced up when she entered. They must have been in room three. Scandinavian, by the sound of their accents and blond looks. Young and in love and travelling the world, and as oblivious as the dogs to the violence and murder outside. They didn’t notice her blood-stained T-shirt.

  The rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee hit her nostrils and almost, but not quite, overpowered the smell of blood and antiseptic clinging to her skin and clothes. The thought of food didn’t tempt her, but the caffeine craving kicked in and she longed for some kind of normality and comfort. Just as soon as she’d cleaned up.

  In the solitude of her room her composure wavered, but she caught the beginnings of self-pitying thoughts and stopped them. She would not let Mick, a miserable failure of a man, determine her emotional state. No way in hell. Now the initial shock of their confrontation had passed she’d square her shoulders, ignore the bastard, and get on with achieving her objectives.

  In the bathroom, she dragged the bloodied T-shirt over her head and dumped it in the bin. A quick wash, a fresh T-shirt and assertive thinking restored her sense of self and purpose, and she gave her reflection in the mirror an affirming nod. Mick might have bruised her face but that would heal quickly enough, and he couldn’t touch the core of who she was.