Angel Rock

by Darren Williams

  When Pop and Fay had poured the tea and settled themselves he began. He caught Steele’s eye as he lifted the cup to his lips.

  “Let me just say how sorry I am for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” whispered Fay. Ezra said nothing. Gibson watched his eyes flick over to his wife, watched hers drop to the teacup she cradled in her hands.

  “I just want to get a few details, clear up a few things in my mind.”

  “Yes,” said Fay.

  “Sergeant Mather tells me Darcy had run away before?”

  “Yes, half a dozen times.”

  “Do you know why she did?”

  Fay shook her head, suddenly tight-lipped.

  “Did she ever try and . . . did she ever try to . . . take her life before?”

  “No.”

  Gibson nodded. Ezra Steele stared at him, his bottom lip jutting out. He paused, then began again.

  “You didn’t tell Sergeant Mather she’d gone missing straight away. Why was that?”

  Ezra spoke up, his voice deep, gruff, each word sheared off with a blunt razor. “She didn’t go missing. She ran away.”

  “We . . . we . . . ah, thought it might have been best if she’d run off, you know, for good,” said Fay.

  Gibson raised his eyebrows. Pop leant back in his chair and sighed and ran his hands through his hair. Gibson asked them why but neither answered.

  “When, exactly, was the last time you saw your daughter?”

  Steele breathed out through his nose and looked up at the ceiling for a few long moments before answering.

  “Just after Christmas.”

  Gibson saw the glance Fay shot him, but he’d already decided from the look of him that the information was untrue, that he had better subtract at least a week from the time. He looked from one to the other but didn’t press the point, just pretended to write down the date in his notebook. Fay Steele watched him, chewing her lip.

  “When she left, she didn’t leave a note?”

  “No,” said Fay.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” said Ezra.

  “Was there an argument? A fight?”

  “No.”

  Steele took his eyes off Gibson after answering and looked down at his hands. They were huge, and seemed roughly hewn from stuff that barely resembled flesh. His chest rose and fell. Gibson began to think it was time to go.

  “All right then. Thank you very much.”

  Fay looked about to say our pleasure but stopped herself in time. Ezra Steele shook his head, but not in answer to any question. Fay Steele’s eyes became bright and shiny, and then she started to sob, pearly tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” Gibson said again.

  He looked across at Pop and Pop motioned that it was time to leave. Gibson stood and went to the door, then glanced back after he’d stepped through it. Fay hadn’t moved and she didn’t look up as her husband went to close the door behind them. They walked down to the car and as they were getting in Gibson saw a boy standing up by one of the sheds, watching them. Pop saw him too. “Sonny,” he whispered.

  He was just on six feet tall and already heavy in the belly for such a young man. He wore a pair of dirty overalls open at the front and his pale, soft chest glistened with sweat. He flicked his head to one side to get a greasy bang of hair out of his eyes and then ran his forearm over his mouth. Pop raised his hand in greeting but the boy did not acknowledge him, just turned and went back to whatever task it was that occupied him.

  11

  They sat at the bar of the Angel Rock Hotel and watched Hughie Bean fill two schooner glasses with Pilsener. They watched him in silence and when he’d finished they lifted up their glasses in unison and Gibson said cheers and each took a long sip.

  “That’s better,” Gibson sighed. “I think we earned that.”

  They sat and neither spoke for half a minute or so. It was Gibson who broke the silence.

  “Sorry about the little bloke you lost.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Pop said, staring at the surface of his beer. “These things happen . . . but the place won’t be the same for a long time.”

  “How’s the one who came back?”

  “All right, considering. He doesn’t remember much—which may be a blessing—but he has nightmares. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Nightmares? What about?”

  “He can’t really say.”

  “What do you think . . . someone up to no good?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone, you know, kidnapped them or something?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Pop said, giving him a strange look.

  “No one’s got a grudge against the family, the parents?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?” asked Gibson, unconvinced.

  “Well . . . Henry and Ezra have been at each other for a long time—their kids are even at it now—but that’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “What’re they fighting about?”

  “Started with them both liking the same girl years ago. That’s about it.”

  “Who was the girl?”

  “She’s dead now—look, Ezra had nothing to do with it. He came out to look for little Flynn with me for Christ’s sake. Searched for days.”

  “You saying you trust him then?”

  “I know him. I have faith in people, Gibson. Up here, if we don’t have that . . .”

  Gibson nodded and sipped his beer. “I have faith in evidence and that’s about it.”

  Pop turned to him.

  “Why’re you here, Gibson?” he asked, his tone suddenly and unexpectedly inquisitorial. Gibson picked up his glass again, slowly, and took a good sip.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, innocently, wiping froth from his top lip.

  “I mean I rang Erskine after your call. I know him from way back. He said that, strictly speaking, you’re on holiday. Said that, officially, there’s nothing for you to do here.”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Well?”

  “Well . . . you could call it something I need to do.”

  “That doesn’t seem a good enough reason to go poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You’ll have to give me a better answer than that, Gibson. If you don’t, nobody will talk to you, believe me. I’ll see to it. I don’t want to have to do that but I don’t want people upset. What happened just now was bad enough.”

  Gibson looked at him and saw he was serious. Behind the bar Hughie was suddenly staring at him with suspicion in his eyes. He let out a sigh.

  “What else did Erskine say?”

  “Nothing else.”

  Gibson nodded and then he looked at Pop and made a decision.

  “Look,” he began, “when I was twelve, my sister, Frances, committed suicide. I don’t remember anything about it. Blocked it all out I guess. Anyway, we were very close. She was something of a hero to me—my best friend, really. She took the family car and drove it out into the bush and then she swallowed a bottleful of my mother’s sleeping pills. She was only seventeen. She left a note to tell us why she’d done it but it took months before the car was found and by that time the insects and the weather had got to her note and turned it into pulp.”

  “Jesus, Gibson. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, you know, we just had to accept it. It knocked all the faith out of me, I can tell you. I hadn’t really thought about her for years, but then, when I saw Darcy like that . . . it brought it all back.” He stopped and took a swig of beer. “Kick me out of your town if you must, Sergeant, but I’m determined to find out a few things. There’s no mystery as to the how—Darcy locked herself in a dingy little room and cut her wrists—it’s the why that troubles me. I mean, if I could find that out . . . Maybe it’s too late for Frances, but maybe it isn’t for Darcy.”

  Pop didn’t answer for a while.

  “It’s shocking what happened,” he began, “but I don’t see what you can achieve by being he
re. You didn’t know this girl at all.”

  “That’s right, I didn’t. But I’m hoping to change that. I just want to get to know her a little. That’s all. Maybe then it might make a little more sense.”

  “Look, Gibson, it’s just that I don’t want the town stirred up again,” Pop said, a little less insistently than before. “You can see why I wouldn’t. The Steeles need their peace, Henry Gunn and his family. Things need to settle down. There’s been too much grief here. If you go looking for things that aren’t there I’m just afraid, good intentions or not, you’ll cause more people to suffer.”

  “Well, that’s not what I’m here for. I’ve got no intention of causing anyone harm.”

  They sipped at their beers and were quiet for a time until Gibson asked Pop another question.

  “So . . . why do you think she did it?”

  Pop looked at him and sighed.

  “I don’t know. It’s just one of those mysteries of life. One of the grim ones.”

  “What if there’s something concrete? A reason.”

  “Then it’ll come out.”

  “Only if someone looks for it.”

  “It’ll come out, eventually,” Pop repeated.

  Gibson shook his head. “You’re a religious man, aren’t you, Pop? I can tell. I’m not, myself. Not really. I don’t believe justice just happens by itself.”

  “Neither do I. It comes from God.”

  “Well, we sort of agree then. Maybe your God’s using me. Maybe I’m His emissary. How do you know I’m not?”

  Pop narrowed his eyes and peered at him. Gibson had the feeling then that Pop had underestimated him, just slightly, and had only just realised his mistake.

  “Maybe there were . . . reasons. I have looked into some possibilities.”

  “Like what?”

  “All the running away. Who knows what she got up to, or who she met.”

  “I think I know what you’re getting at. You know what the coroner said?”

  “What?”

  “Said she was a virgin.”

  Pop stared at him. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure he was. You seem surprised.”

  Pop paused, rubbed his whiskery chin, then nodded.

  “I am. There’ve been stories, rumours, since,” he said.

  “Stories, rumours,” Gibson repeated. “Listen, if you’d had any . . . doubts about Darcy before, would you have let your daughter run around with her?”

  “Probably not.”

  “All right then.” Gibson drained his glass and clapped it on the bar to gain Hughie’s attention.

  “Now,” he said, “what can you tell me about a man named Billy and this man here? These were found with her.” He gave Pop the photos he’d found in Darcy’s hands. Pop slipped on his glasses, looked at the pictures, then blinked and shook his head.

  “This man’s name is Adam Carney,” he said, pointing. “The other is Billy Flood. Ezra told me he’d caught Billy hanging around the farm a few times lately. He seemed to think he’d come to spy on Darcy, but, well, Grace says Darce was on good terms with him.” He put the photographs down on the bar and tapped them, shaking his head once more. “Billy . . . well . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know . . . gee, I haven’t seen him for years. I know he used to turn up on people’s doorsteps scrounging for food, that sort of thing.”

  “What is he, itinerant?”

  Pop didn’t answer for a long time. “I better tell you about Billy,” he said, finally.

  “Well, yeah, sounds like you’d better. You’ve got a face like thunder.”

  Pop grimaced, then began.

  “In nineteen fifty-one, when he was a boy of sixteen, seventeen, there was an . . . accident, near here. Annie, Billy’s sister, drowned.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “No one quite knows.”

  “This the girl the feud’s over?”

  “Yes. Ezra and she were engaged to be married for a while, but then Henry came into the picture and busted them up, or some such nonsense. Anyway, there were rumours she was pregnant with one or the other’s child, but that was all rubbish. No one really knows what happened. Billy was always an odd sort of boy, delicate, you might say, but then, at the funeral, he went right off the rails. His father had to put him in an institution. I went and saw him once or twice. It seemed to me the pain he’d felt was so great it made his mind shut down, made him forget everything, even his own name, for a very long while. I saw him not long after he’d gotten out of the hospital, probably be nearly five years ago now. He was deathly pale, and weak, like he’d come back from a war, but he was determined to start his life again. I had to admire his determination. He stayed away from people as far as I knew, stayed out in the bush. The next time I saw him he was a different man again—his own man—but then he started drinking. Maybe things just caught up with him like they caught up with you.”

  Gibson returned Pop’s gaze with no interest and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook and began to jot things down.

  “His parents still around?”

  “His mother’s dead. Horace is a preacher. An evangelist. Horace’s . . . teacher, I suppose you’d call him, was an old feller named Adam Carney. Father Adam everyone called him. Horace and his two youngsters lived with him up until the drowning. Horace left then but Adam stayed on in the house. He was there up until a couple of years ago, but now he’s down in the old people’s home in Laurence, in a pretty bad way, I believe.”

  “Can you tell me where this house is?”

  Pop nodded and told him, but then he didn’t say anything more for a minute or two. He seemed to be thinking about things he hadn’t thought about for years. Gibson tried his best to be patient. The country sergeant had a quiet, measured way of speaking, as though he was used to being listened to, used to giving orders, used to having them carried out. Gibson thought it might be more fruitful not to interrupt him too much, but let his sentences play out, reveal the man and his thinking.

  “When I was a young bloke Adam used to preach around here sometimes, just as a layman. This was before the war, when nearly every man and woman was a churchgoer and competition for souls was pretty fierce. He was a fire-and-brimstone man, hell and damnation, and he was only young, not even forty. Eventually he got so intense, so . . . picturesque, that the minister had to ask him not to come. So he’d stand up on the war memorial, or in the park by the river, and preach, until people were coming from miles around to hear him. They’d bring their picnics and sit out on the grass to hear this firebrand preacher.”

  They sat for a time and then Pop gave Gibson a dry grin. “You’re right about me being religious, Gibson. In my own way I am, but I always felt pretty shabby next to old Adam. That old bloke was touched by God all right. But then things changed. War broke out. People didn’t want to hear about hellfire and punishment. They wanted . . . hope. Rainbows. Adam stopped preaching altogether. It took a long time but he settled right down until he was the gentlest, kindest old man you could ever hope to meet. And listen, Horace Flood was a hard man when he walked into this town: a brawler, gambler, crook, drinker . . . you name it. That all changed after one day listening to Adam. And I know for a fact that Billy kept visiting Adam right up to when he went into the home. Adam told me so.”

  “And your point is?”

  “Just that Adam had faith in the boy. If you’re thinking, because of this picture, that he had anything to do with . . . what Darcy did . . . then I think you’d be barking up the wrong tree, that’s all.”

  Gibson lit a cigarette. He sat smoking silently for a while and then he asked Pop another question that took a while to be answered.

  “What do you think went on in that house, Sarge?”

  “I don’t know, Gibson. I really don’t. Ezra’s a bit of a tyrant, but look, you saw him, he’s like a mean dog when it comes to protecting his own.”

  Pop stood then and flattened his hands out across the bar and looked down at them.
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  “Listen, Gibson,” he said, “I have to be going. Darcy’s body is coming up on this morning’s train. I thought I’d go over there, make sure there’re no hitches.”

  “When’s the funeral?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Gibson closed his notebook and slipped it into his pocket.

  “What was she like?”

  “Darcy? Darcy was . . . she was a good kid really. Bit too excitable though, and an overactive imagination, but I always thought she was good for my Grace. She’s always been a little on the quiet side, you see.”

  Gibson nodded.

  “So, where do you think I should start looking for this Billy Flood character?”

  Pop sighed and half shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe you could try the old house. Apart from that . . . I know Billy used to do a bit of work down on the cane farms a couple of years back. He was drinking then. I heard they had to throw him in the lockup a few times. You could go ask the copper down there. Last I heard of his old man he was out west at a place called Mount Wright. It’s his home town and he buried his wife and daughter out there. He might know where Billy is but I very much doubt it. Afraid that’s the best I can do.”

  Pop downed the last of his drink and then leant in a little closer to Gibson.

  “If you do find him, go easy. Believe me, he’s not as tough as he looks. Ask him to come see me. He knows who I am.”

  He picked up his hat and walked to the door.

  “So, you going to let me stay?”

  Pop gave him a wry smile. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Hey,” Gibson called to his departing back. “I looked pretty hard last night but I couldn’t see any angel in the rock.”