Darkening Skies

by Parry, Bronwyn

  ‘Have you been here before?’ she asked Mark.

  ‘Only once, I think. I was just a kid. They were living in part of the studio then, still building the house.’

  The blinds were drawn over the studio windows but the door was open. Leaving the crutches in the back seat, Jenn walked unaided beside Mark along the paved veranda, and knocked on the door. With the contrast of bright sunlight outside and shade inside, at first she could see nothing, so she called out, ‘Wolfgang? It’s Jenn Barrett.’

  Her eyes adjusted to the light. A showroom area inside the door, shelves lining the walls but only a few pieces of pottery remaining – plates and bowls and mugs. Packing materials were spread on a central table, sealed boxes stacked on the floor. In the work space beyond were two kick wheels, work tables, two large sinks, along with more shelves, some holding clays, glazes and tools, and a couple holding unfired pottery.

  But no sign of Wolfgang.

  ‘He’s probably at the house,’ Mark said. ‘Are you okay to walk that far?’

  She nodded. ‘Sure.’

  A gravel pathway led to the house, taking a straighter route than the curving driveway. Sunshine beamed, birds flittered and chattered in the native garden, and a stumpy-tailed lizard scuttled away at their approach. A peaceful retreat from the world – no wonder Wolfgang and Marta rarely ventured into town.

  She opened her mouth to comment, but the loud report of a gunshot cracked through the air, and a bullet sprayed the gravel in front of her feet.

  ELEVEN

  They set off at a run to the house, Mark crossing behind Jenn to protect her exposed side, his arm around her waist as both support and body shield.

  The shot had come from the wooded slope to the east of the house. A second shot went wide. A third ricocheted off one of the pergola posts. But then they were at the house, the building providing cover.

  Mark supported her as she limped further along the paving under the pergola, her face twisted in pain. Watching her, he almost didn’t see the trail of blood.

  Ants milled around the first drops; flies buzzed at the larger, sticky puddle and the bloodied hand prints on the open door.

  Jenn caught her breath. ‘Wolfgang—’

  A shot sounded from inside the house, then a second. It was hard to tell, but Mark didn’t think it was in their direction, and the nearby windows stayed intact.

  Mark pushed Jenn down between two large half-barrel planters. ‘If you’ve got your phone, call for help,’ he whispered. She nodded, her fingers at the zip of her leather bag.

  He stepped over the pool of blood, saw the trail criss-crossing the open-plan living area, and Wolfgang slumped by a panelled glass door, barely gripping a hunting rifle that pointed out through one of many shattered panels. The cushion stuffed under his abdomen was sodden with blood. The phone on the floor beside him also had blood on it. Mark hoped that meant he’d already called for help.

  Wolfgang mumbled something in German, and squeezed the trigger again, the reverberation echoing in the house.

  Mark dropped down to crouch on the floor, using the sofa as cover to get to the injured man. Sunshine streamed through the French doors, stifling the room and intensifying the sharp stench of blood.

  ‘Mark?’ Jenn called.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he called back. She had to be safer in here with him and a rifle than outside alone. ‘Come in but stay low. Wolfgang’s hurt.’

  ‘Keeping bastard … up there,’ Wolfgang muttered as Mark heard Jenn edging into the house. ‘More ammo … laundry … cupboard.’

  Mark risked a quick glance through the remains of the glass door. The cleared area around the house and studio stretched more than fifty metres before the scrub began again. Good bushfire protection, and a long way for a sniper to cross in clear view. Movement on the edge of the scrub caught his eye. He took the rifle from Wolfgang’s limp grasp, and raised it to his shoulder. Balancing the weight, he aimed and fired, holding steady against the rifle’s recoil. The sniper ducked back into the trees.

  Mark slipped to the other side of the doorway, where he had a better line of fire and wasn’t reaching over Wolfgang. In his peripheral vision he saw Jenn drop to her knees beside the injured man, sliding a box of ammunition clips across to Mark. Enough to hold the sniper for a short while until help came – assuming he didn’t have friends nearby.

  ‘Help’s coming, Wolfgang,’ Jenn murmured, taking his hand. ‘The ambulance won’t be long.’

  ‘Won’t … make … it.’

  Mark kept his eyes and the rifle trained on the trees in the distance, but he heard the despair in Jenn’s unsteady voice.

  ‘Of course you’re going to make it. You have to be all right. I need answers to questions, Wolfie, and you’re the only one with them. So, you just lie still and keep breathing and they’ll have you in hospital in no time.’

  ‘Bohème club … sex … taught Dan … develop … photos …’ The words trailed away, his breathing becoming hoarse gasps.

  ‘Shush, Wolfie. No need to talk now. You can tell me later,’ she lied. ‘You’ll be fine to tell me later.’

  The sniper moved again, a white shirt against the brown grass, and Mark waited one second before he pulled the trigger so that he could get a look at the man. A bush hat shading his face, jeans belted over a generous gut. Mark fired just to the right of the man, sending him back behind the tree.

  He reloaded, and in those brief seconds he saw tears running down Jenn’s face, Wolfgang’s closed eyes and grey face and he heard the deathly slow, faltering breathing.

  But he murmured again, and Mark had to strain to hear: ‘Club … convent … went bad … blackmail … hurt Marta.’

  Jenn gulped, choking back a sob, in her eyes a silent, desperate plea to Mark before she leaned over Wolfgang, hugging him, stroking his cheek. ‘Don’t try to talk, Wolfie,’ she whispered. ‘Just stay with us.’

  ‘Marta …’ He exhaled the single word, and fell silent.

  Mark blinked away the moisture in his own eyes, training the rifle’s scope on the figure weaving up through the trees, away from the house. Away from Jenn. If the man turned and doubled back, Mark would shoot to kill.

  He didn’t move until the distant figure topped the rise and disappeared, and the faint wail of sirens became a loud blare outside the house.

  And all those long minutes Jenn talked softly to Wolfgang, holding him and soothing him, stroking his face as his life drained away.

  The senior detective from homicide gave all the orders. What she lacked in size she more than made up for in authority, coordinating the police response on the scene with cool, no-nonsense efficiency.

  Jenn sat on the timber edge of a raised vegetable garden, shivering despite the sun’s heat, watching half a dozen uniformed police gear up in protective vests to start searching the area for the sniper while the detective grilled Mark over by the studio. Unlike the younger detective constable who’d briefly interviewed Jenn, every subtlety of her body language and tone telegraphed scepticism and suspicion.

  Beth came out of the house, the orange trousers and navy T-shirt of her SES uniform incongruous on her petite figure, the large first-aid kit looking heavy in her hand – and of no use to Wolfgang.

  Beth crossed the dry lawn and knelt beside her. ‘How are you holding up, Jenn? Would you like me to clean up your hands?’

  Jenn held out her arms, Wolfgang’s blood smeared almost up to her right elbow. ‘Thanks.’

  While Beth spread out a plastic sheet with saline and wipes and set to work on her hands, Jenn watched the interchange between Mark and the detective. Mark stood his ground, his courteous manner remaining firm despite the detective’s forceful style. Although she couldn’t hear the words, it seemed Mark calmly repeated his story, again and again, answering every question without hesitation.

  Noting the direction of her attention, Beth cast a glance over her shoulder towards them. ‘Don’t worry about Mark. He’s been in parliament for six years. He ca
n hold his own.’

  He could hold his own against the toughest journalists, too. Jenn knew his reputation, had watched interviews. He wouldn’t crack because he wasn’t hiding anything. But the detective had yet to realise that. ‘Do you know where Steve is?’ she asked Beth.

  ‘He’s not here.’ Beth dropped her voice. ‘I think he’s off the case.’

  ‘Off the case? Why the hell would she—’

  ‘He’s friends with Mark, friends with Gil. Maybe she thinks he’s too close to it.’

  Or maybe their very different styles clashed. ‘If he called her “sweetheart”,’ Jenn mused, ‘he’ll be busted down to constable. Or buried.’

  ‘Oh, I think Steve’s smarter than that these days.’

  So did Jenn. But regardless of the reason, if Steve was off the case, chances were she and Mark would be sidelined, and denied information. She narrowed her eyes against the sunlight, planning. ‘I need to talk with you later, Beth. Will you be home this afternoon?’

  ‘All day, as long as there are no call-outs.’

  ‘Good. Thanks.’ She stood up, testing her ankle, putting her full weight on it and holding it. Painful, yes, but bearable. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

  She walked across the grass at a reasonable pace without favouring her ankle, concentrating on not grimacing despite the pain. As she reached Mark and the detective she held out her hand with such assured confidence that the detective accepted the invited handshake automatically.

  ‘Detective Haddad, isn’t it? As Mark will have told you, I’m Jennifer Barrett. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’

  Dark eyes raked over her, set to drill. Haddad knew exactly who she was. ‘Ms Barrett. I hope I don’t need to remind you that this matter is a police investigation and the details and name of the deceased are not yet released to be broadcast.’

  Jenn met the rigid formality with another serve of imperturbable courtesy. ‘Detective, I’m sure Steve Fraser has briefed you about my family connections to this case. You have my word that I will respect the investigative process. I have no wish to have my family’s tragedies become the centre of a media storm.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Haddad replied, infusing the few words with a chilly warning. ‘Mr Strelitz,’ she continued, turning to Mark, ‘a forensic officer will be here shortly. He will require your fingerprints, and the clothes you are wearing. Please wait in the garden until he arrives. Ms Barrett, I—’

  ‘Are you arresting me, Detective Haddad?’ Mark spoke over her.

  She didn’t make that mistake. Not in front of a journalist who could have it on national news bulletins within an hour. ‘You were in possession of a loaded, recently fired weapon at the scene of a fatal shooting. I expect your full cooperation in the investigation.’

  ‘Which I have already given and will continue to do so,’ Mark responded evenly, with no sign of offence. ‘Naturally your priority is to conduct a thorough investigation. I’ll go home and change – it’s only a couple of kilometres from here – and you can send an officer to collect the clothes.’

  Jenn didn’t feel inclined to be so polite, but she took her cue from Mark’s assertive, win–win approach. She could understand the detective’s perspective: two people found at the scene of the crime with no other witnesses and, as yet, little evidence to support the existence of the sniper.

  ‘If you want my clothes, too, you can have someone collect them at the hotel in Dungirri. As I promised the detective constable, I’ll write up my statement today, including the few words that Wolfgang spoke before he died. I think they may be relevant. If you give me your business card, I’ll email that to you as well as to Steve Fraser.’

  Haddad nodded curtly. ‘Thank you. I may need to speak to you again later. Which hotel are you staying at?’

  A city woman who obviously hadn’t looked around Dungirri yet. ‘There’s only one,’ Jenn replied. ‘You can’t miss it. But here’s my card with my mobile number.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The detective tucked the card in her pocket without looking at it and walked away, a mental dismissal as she moved on to her next problem.

  ‘She’s just doing her job, Jenn,’ Mark said, too easily reading the annoyance she thought she’d concealed.

  ‘I understand that. The scary thing is, I look at her and see aspects of myself.’

  Oh, the detective could probably be polite and friendly, even charming if necessary, just as Jenn could. But Jenn also recognised the single-minded focus, the total absorption in the work, and she wondered if Leah Haddad had any life outside the job.

  Someone had been in the cottage. Mark stood in the open doorway after Jenn dropped him at Marrayin and surveyed the sparse contents of the living room. He didn’t have much in there – the few camping chairs and a folding table he’d brought down from the shed, a couple of boxes from his Canberra apartment – but the chairs had been moved to reach the boxes, and they were open, the books and papers no longer neatly packed. In the bedroom he saw the telltale signs of interference: the door of the wardrobe where he’d hung his Canberra clothes ajar, a kit bag holding his few remaining casual clothes gaping open, the camp bed slightly out of position.

  Not vandalism or destruction, but a search. For what? The old police report? If so, the intruder went to a great deal of effort to locate a document that contained so little.

  The gun locker in the laundry remained locked, and appeared undamaged. Mark keyed in the code, and breathed easier on seeing his laptop and hard drives exactly as he’d left them. He had most of his files backed up on external servers, but with the damage to his home office and Birraga office, this was the extent of the technology left to him until he could replace the destroyed items.

  The jeans and shirt he’d washed out late on Friday night flapped on the line in the breeze. He unpegged them, sunlight warm, and changed on the back veranda, folding his discarded clothes – Steve’s clothes – in a pile for the officer to collect shortly.

  In the dog run at the end of the yard under the trees, Jim’s dogs watched his every move. Next priority, feeding them. He let them out, and Dash and her mother Maggie bounced around him, jostling for pats and attention. Rosie came for a wary sniff and a pat but then kept a cautious distance.

  Mark crouched down, letting them close to nuzzle him and lick his hands, building their familiarity with him. ‘If you girls could talk, you’d tell me who was here, wouldn’t you?’ Dash barked twice and pawed at him. Mark ruffled her head and rose, keeping up the one-sided chatter. ‘Really? He didn’t feed you? And you haven’t eaten since yesterday? Poor starving puppy.’

  After they’d eaten he threw some old tennis balls he found in the shed for them to chase, and they brought them back again and again. This, this he’d missed all the years of commuting to and from Canberra, of travelling all over his huge electorate. He found himself grinning with the sheer, simple pleasure. But when a ball bounced off a tree branch and rolled towards his LandCruiser, Maggie lost interest in chasing it and instead gave the vehicle her total attention, crouching low to sniff some scent underneath the car, behind the front wheel.

  Mark called her off and strolled over to take a look. It wouldn’t be the first time a possum or a rat had found its way into an engine bay, or a snake curled under a car. A rat with a taste for rubber and plastic could do hundreds of dollars of damage to a vehicle.

  When he hunkered down to peer underneath the chassis, he noticed a few footprints beside the vehicle, a few scuffs in the dust. Scuffs that went a fair way underneath. Scuffs too large to be a possum or a rodent.

  He lay on his back, wriggled under … and froze. No possum. No rat or snake. A human hand had wired the pack of explosives and the detonator into place.

  TWELVE

  Jenn carefully descended the stairs from her room and hesitated at the door to the courtyard. Sunday lunch at the Dungirri pub seemed to be popular. An inexpensive buffet selection, a barbecue in the courtyard, and free face-painting for kids had brought o
ut the families, and most of the tables in the courtyard were taken up with groups of families and friends, mostly adults and teens sitting down while the children ran around.

  When she’d dropped Mark at Marrayin they’d agreed to meet here for lunch but she hadn’t expected the place to be bustling with activity and people. Dungirri people. The likelihood of finding a quiet table and having an uninterrupted talk over lunch fell somewhere below zero.

  The door into the front bar opened and a man backed out, carrying a tray loaded with glasses, two large jugs of soft drinks and a couple of schooners of beer.

  ‘Jenn! Hello! We wondered if we’d see you today. Chloe and the kids are out there with my lot. Come and join us.’

  It took her a moment to place the familiar face. Andrew Pappas. Andrew and Sean had been the only two other Dungirri kids in her year at high school, and he still had the broad grin and the easy charm she remembered. Some of the Birraga kids had picked on him because of his Greek background, but in Dungirri’s much smaller community the kids knew each other better, had to rely on each other, and the only teasing tended to be good-natured.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m meeting Mark,’ Jenn said. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘No, not yet. Come and say hi while you wait.’

  She hardly felt social, but refusing would be churlish. No matter how far behind she’d left Dungirri, how rarely she thought of it, in the way of small towns they still regarded her as belonging, as one of them.

  ‘Look who I found inside,’ Andrew announced as they came to the first large table, shaded by two umbrellas, and within seconds she found herself drawn into the circle in a hubbub of greetings and hugs and introductions.

  Andrew’s father George embraced her and kissed both her cheeks. ‘So much more beautiful than on the television. But we are very, very sorry about Jim. He was so proud of you, wasn’t he, Eleni? So proud. Always he told us when your reports would be on.’ And Eleni kissed her cheeks, too, and squeezed her hand, and Andrew’s wife Erin – no longer a fourteen-year-old with braces – hugged her and introduced an assortment of kids too quickly for Jenn to remember names. And finally Chloe, Paul’s wife – whom Jenn had only ever seen in a photograph – stepped forward with red-rimmed eyes, a brave smile and her hand outstretched.