Angel Rock

by Darren Williams

  “No? Well, there’s a trick to it. Light’s got to be hitting it just right. Even then, well, it’s a bit of a stretch. People say whoever named it had had one too many.”

  Gibson smiled. Pop left. Gibson raised his arm and little finger to Hughie Bean and ordered another beer. He took his time drinking it and then he slouched outside and squinted up at the bright, empty day he found there.

  After a while he wandered down the street to the grocer’s shop and bought a pack of cigarettes from the big, talkative lady behind the counter. He ran a cursory eye over the other shops he’d seen the night before and then he walked down towards the river and the park that hugged its gently curving course. He strolled past the war memorial, running his eyes over the unfamiliar names chiselled into the marble, and then he carried on along the riverbank and up to the ferry ramp and the rotting posts of the old bridge alongside it. He walked in a long ragged circle around the town until he came to a little rise. From there he could see the whole town spread out before him, the valley stretching away to the northwest, the river—a fine river—glittering in the hard midday light. A dog barked. He thought the scene was very pretty, very peaceful, and the water made him feel like the Harbour once had, when he’d been a child, before he’d pulled one too many bodies out of it. He took the picture of Darcy from his pocket and stared at it. Again he felt a little hollow, a little alone, a little out of his element. He couldn’t really blame Pop for his devotion to the living of Angel Rock, his ambivalence towards the dead, and he knew that he couldn’t rely on him for much more in the way of help. As Pop had pointed out in his gruff but fair way, his claim to it was little more than threadbare. He sighed, flicked away his cigarette, and tried to imagine Darcy walking the streets below, killer and victim both, but he could not.

  He walked back up to the café for a bite to eat before heading up to the old Flood house. He was the only customer. He sat by the window and looked at the dead insects in the ravine running along between the glass and its frame. He ordered coffee but what he got was undrinkable. He caught the eye of the smiling proprietress and ordered a pot of tea. He wasn’t hopeful about the food he’d ordered. He reckoned that with the time they seemed to have on their hands out here the least they could do was get their food right, but when the plate came he could only sit and look at it for a few moments, his eyes wide, his surprise of the pleasant variety. There was a steak an inch thick, two of the yellowest-yolked eggs he’d ever seen, a mountain of vegetables, and two thick slices of fresh white bread.

  “Get it down ya,” said the woman, smiling.

  “Thank you,” he said, and tucked in.

  When he was finished he paid the woman and complimented her on her cooking and left. He went to the car and looked at the map he’d drawn of Pop’s directions and then he set off.

  It took him half the afternoon to find the place. The hills above the town were crisscrossed by a network of unnamed and unsignposted shale tracks that seemed bent on leading him away from where he wanted to go. When he finally found the head of the track he was after he realised he’d already driven past the spot at least twice. He stopped the car in a cloud of pale dust and slammed the door behind him. He caught a glimpse of a structure away through the trees and he set off down the track towards it.

  He soon regretted slamming the door so hard when the quiet closed back around him and he realised what he’d disturbed. There was very little breeze and the trees about were still and silent. There was no sign of movement from the house and no sign that it was occupied. Some of the weatherboards at its front were rotting and loose and its triangular roof was red with rust. Back behind it he could see more sheds and outbuildings in similar condition. He went up to the front door. There was some kind of dark stain on the lintel over it and he reached up and touched it with his fingers. Small brownish flakes came fluttering down. He wiped his hand on his trousers and gave a little involuntary shudder.

  “Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?”

  Silence.

  He turned the knob and pushed open the door and looked down into the hall, his eyes adjusting to the gloom.

  “Hello?”

  Even though it was quite airless and smelt like it had been closed up for some time it seemed much cooler inside. He waited, listening, but heard nothing except his own respiration. He moved down the hall, looking into the rooms on either side as he went. They were empty of everything but dust and decades-old blinds and curtains but on the back of one of the doors he found markings that caught his attention. They were made with pencil and recorded the increasing heights of two children over nearly a dozen years. Billy and Annie. Gibson passed his finger over the old marks and then turned away. He walked down the hall and into the living room. One of the windows was open and a stained and ragged curtain hung down from a warped wooden rod. The floor in front of the window was rotting where rain had blown in over the past few years. The room reminded him of something, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t quite pin down what it was. He took hold of the curtain and the fabric crumbled between his fingers. He stood there a little longer, frowning, and then he moved on to the kitchen. It was empty too but there was a slightly less abandoned look to it. He opened the stove’s firebox door and sniffed. The ashes were cold, inconclusive. Pop was right. No one had lived there for a long time.

  After a quick look around the house he headed back down to Angel Rock. His thoughts kept distracting him from his driving and before very long he was lost again. By the time he’d found his way again and pulled up in front of the station house it was getting late. He looked back up at the hills to where he reckoned the house was. The setting sun had turned the clouds over them as pink as fairyfloss. Later, after dinner, he went back outside and looked that way again. The stars were out, the breeze was out of the east, and the evening was clear and achingly beautiful.

  He set off towards the river and then took the road that ran out past the ferry. Lil Mather had been only too helpful when he’d asked her where Henry Gunn lived—he doubted Pop would have been so forthcoming. He was curious about what Pop had said about a feud between Henry and Ezra Steele. He’d seen feuds escalate until they enveloped the innocent before and the possibility had to be ruled out.

  It took about fifteen minutes to reach the house. He walked up the steps and looked in through the open door before knocking. He could see Henry Gunn asleep on the couch inside. He was still wearing his work clothes: blue singlet and shorts, gaiters around his boots. “Cold Cold Heart” was crackling out from a pair of battered speakers and as he stood there the record hit a pothole of a scratch and skittered back a few bars. When he looked back to Henry his eyes had opened.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Gibson. I’m a detective.”

  “Yeah? You don’t look like one.”

  “So people tell me.”

  “What do you want? You come about my boy?”

  “No, I didn’t. I . . . ah . . . just wanted to ask you about something.”

  “What?”

  “Pop Mather was telling me about Billy Flood, about how his sister drowned.”

  Henry rested his head back against the arm of the couch.

  “Yeah?”

  “He told me you and Ezra haven’t got along since then.”

  Henry muttered something under his breath.

  “Listen, does this have anything to do with my boy, because—”

  “Maybe it does.”

  “Maybe? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m just trying to find some things out, just trying to get the lie of the land.”

  Henry eyed him suspiciously, but then he lifted himself off the couch, went into the kitchen and brought back two bottles of beer.

  “You want one?”

  “No, not right now.”

  Henry shrugged and then gestured to a seat. Gibson sat.

  “You staying at Pop’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “He send you d
own here?”

  “No.”

  Henry nodded. The record stopped playing and in its aftermath Gibson could hear crickets chirruping outside. Henry glanced over his shoulder and then leant forward.

  “I think I know what you’re getting at,” he said, quietly. “Don’t think I haven’t thought it myself. But Ezra Steele didn’t have anything to do with the boys going missing . . . or only Tom coming back. The thing about him, Gibson, is that he’s a piss-weak, yellow coward. So’s his boy. Ezra knows if he ever touched anything of mine I’d go over there and kill him with my bare hands . . .”

  Gibson nodded. It was hard to doubt him.

  “And Sonny?”

  “Same thing.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about Annie Flood? Pop said no one actually saw her drown.”

  Henry lit a cigarette with his calloused, nicotine-stained fingers and then he passed over the packet. Gibson took one and lit it. Henry leant back and inhaled. Maybe it was because he was speaking about something other than the disappearance of his boy that made him relax, as if he was glad of the opportunity.

  “No, no one saw her go under, but that’s . . . I mean, she was an odd girl. She liked to go off and do things on her own. Sometimes she was just giving Smith the slip.”

  “Smith? Who’s he?”

  “Smith was a mate of Horace Flood’s. His right-hand man. They knew each other before they got religion. Met in a boys’ home, I believe.”

  “Why did Annie have to give him the slip?”

  “Oh, it was like he owned her, and Billy. He bossed ’em around and made them do this and that. Horace was too busy with his damn church to notice. Smith basically raised them both after Mrs. Flood passed on.

  “He used to put all kinds of funny ideas into their heads,” Henry continued, with a slight laugh. “Some of them silly, some just plain . . . mean.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Oh, he used to tell Billy all the time that he was slow in the head and that slowies were useless and couldn’t be allowed near women because their seed was bad. And he was forever telling Annie that he’d marry her one day. That there was nothing she could do to stop it, that her father had already agreed to it.”

  “I thought she’d been engaged to Ezra?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. He asked her. I suppose she must have said yes. Fuck knows what happened but nothing ever come of it. Then I started taking her out. Ezra still hasn’t gotten over it. Hates my guts to this day. Anyway, Smith blamed me and Billy for what happened to Annie. That’s the kind of bloke he was.”

  “He blamed you? Why?”

  “I don’t know—that we weren’t looking out for her or something? God knows what the fuck he expected us to do—God knows me and Billy would have saved her if we could have.”

  “Where’s this Smith now?”

  “Don’t know. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of the sorry cunt for twenty years.”

  Gibson ashed his cigarette and rubbed his chin.

  “What about Billy?”

  “Nope. Haven’t seen him for years either.”

  Just then came a sound that Gibson, at first, thought was some kind of animal in distress. The wail rose and rose and then trailed off into silence. A boy—dark-haired and good-looking—but with worry and concern in his eyes, appeared in the hallway. He stopped when he saw Gibson sitting there and he looked over at Henry, his forehead creasing.

  “It’s all right, Tom. I’ll go. Gibson . . .”

  “I’ll go. I’m . . . ah, sorry,” he muttered. He walked down the path feeling like an intruder, and as he made his way back into town he looked back over his shoulder at the darkened windows of the house and shuddered.

  12

  At three o’clock, just after they’d arrived back from the funeral, the telephone in the station house rang. Grace looked up from where she stood in front of the kettle, her eyes still red and weepy. Pop heard Lil’s soft footfalls as she came out of her room and walked up the hall to where the phone hung on the wall, then the murmur of her voice, then her step once again.

  “It’s Reg Pope,” she said, her head appearing around the door.

  “What’s he want?”

  “He didn’t say, just said it was very important.”

  Pop sighed and heaved himself up off his chair, then patted Grace’s shoulder as he passed by.

  “Yes, Reg, what can I do for you?”

  The old man’s voice was faint and crackly down the line and Pop didn’t catch his first sentence.

  “Speak up, will you, Reg? I can barely hear you.”

  “I need to see you, Mather!”

  “What about?”

  “About that girl.”

  “What, Darcy Steele?”

  “Yes. Can you come up?”

  “Can’t you talk to me now?”

  “No, not on this blasted thing!”

  Pop replaced the receiver, his ear ringing from the crack it had made as Reg had hung up. He rubbed his chin and wondered what the old coot could possibly be wanting to tell him. He picked his hat off the peg near the back door and then stepped into the kitchen.

  “Tea’ll have to wait, love. I have to go see someone. You’ll be all right till I get back?”

  Grace nodded.

  “Good girl.”

  He drove out of Angel Rock toward the Popes’ place, peering out through the windscreen and rubbing away condensation with the back of his hand. There was a steady drizzle falling from the low sky and the hills around were swathed in ragged grey sheets of cloud. Usually he loved days like these—the fresh smell of the rain, the earth drinking it in, the creeks swollen and full—but today felt as oppressive as any summer heat wave because of the funeral.

  He came to the crossroads where the boys had been dropped off by Artie McKinnon and he slowed and turned the car onto the road up to the Popes’. Soon the sealed road ended and the shale track which replaced it became slick and slippery the further it wound up through the hills. The ceiling of cloud sat just above the trees, softening the edges of everything. Drops of water falling from the overhanging trees drummed on the roof of the car like so many fingers. The tail of the Falcon slithered around on the rutted track and Pop wondered how on earth the Popes’ big Roller managed it, even in the dry. He passed the old Flood house, then the turn-off to the dam and after another fifteen minutes of slithering came round a corner and spotted the Popes’. When he reached the gate he turned off the engine and looked down at the house. With no heirs to consider, the brothers had let it fall into general disrepair. It hadn’t seen a coat of paint in more than twenty years and was way out of true now, thanks to the wet and, more than likely, the termites. He got out of the car and hoisted himself over the gate and walked down the blue-metal drive to the house. Reg was waiting for him just inside the open front door.

  “Come on,” he said, turning down the hall. Pop took off his hat, shook it, and followed him. He could see, despite the gloom, the shiny tracks on the walls where the rain was leaking down through the roof and ceiling. He could hear water dripping into buckets and saucepans and there was an odd smell in the air. It wasn’t a bad smell—more like being inside a damp cave or standing next to new-turned earth—and soon he didn’t notice it at all.

  Reg limped along the hall to the kitchen, leaning heavily on his walking stick and huffing and puffing. Pop had never seen him looking so old. He’d worked too hard all his life, but the last few years of his retirement, his supposed slowing down, hadn’t seemed to have done him much good at all.

  “All right, Reg, it’s a filthy day and I’ve come out against my better judgement—”

  “Spare me, son, I don’t want to hear it,” said Reg, but not in the same cranky tone he’d used on the phone. “Not at my age.”

  He shuffled across to the bench and leant against it, then looked at Pop over his shoulder.

  “I’ve always said my piece straight. I want to tell you something. Sit yourself down. You’ll be wanting a cuppa, I
suppose?”

  “Only if you’re having one, Reg.”

  “I bloody am now,” Reg muttered. Pop smiled to himself. He watched the old cocky go about the business of tea-making and didn’t interrupt him. His brother Robert didn’t seem to be about. When Reg had finished he passed the mug with one quaking hand, threw the teaspoon down on the table with the other.

  “Now, I want to get something off my chest,” he said, pulling out his chair.

  “This sounds like a confession,” said Pop, stirring sugar into his tea.

  “It is a confession. Of a sort. Something I need to tell.”

  “What about the pastor?” said Pop, unable to help himself. “Why not tell him?”

  “I don’t believe any of that mumbo-jumbo!” Reg said, emphatically, and Pop caught a glimpse of the grumpy old sod he’d always been and relaxed a little.

  “But you’ve been going to church for years.”

  “Yep. That’s right—very observant, young feller!—but I’ve changed me mind about a lot of things recently. Decided you’re the only bloke around here I could tell this to.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes! Don’t make me change me mind!”

  “All right. Sorry. Go on.”

  “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. A lot of things. Like that young girl of Steele’s.”

  “Darcy.”

  “Yeah,” said Reg.

  “You know something about . . . what she did?”

  “Listen, wait a while and let me finish. I’m tellin’ ya, aren’t I?”

  “Yes. Go on. I won’t interrupt.”

  “Me and Robert, we never were married. You know it. Whole valley knows it. Don’t ask me how we both missed out because I don’t know. But us being not married didn’t mean we didn’t have . . . you know . . . needs. You follow me, man?” he finished, gruffly.

  “Yes,” said Pop, his heart sinking a little.

  “Now Robert, he was the quiet one, but he’s the one who took matters into his own hands and looked for women who’d be . . . friendly with him, you follow?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never could bring myself to do it,” he said, shaking his head. “Just bloody . . . couldn’t. Anyway, a few years back we were out on the road, in the car, when we sees this young girl walking alongside the road, holding out her hand like she wanted a lift. Crikey, we said to each other. Young thing like that. What’s she doing out here on her own? So we stopped and picked her up. I’m not sure Robert’s intentions were altogether honourable, but when he saw how young she was, he pulled his head in. She spun us a big old story about this and that but I knew who she was. Robert didn’t, but I did. I’d seen her before, with her mother. I knew she was Ezra Steele’s girl. Anyway, she sort of invited herself home, on account of Robert’s chivalrous nature and me keeping quiet and her being a bright spark, making us laugh with her stories.”