Murderer's Thumb

by Beth Montgomery

  Find me.

  A diary.

  Look for the eighty-ninth key.

  M.T.

  Adam squinted at the paper. A puzzle! The ‘eighty-ninth’ key? Sounded cryptic. The word ‘key’ intrigued him. Did it refer to the key of the desk drawer, or to the diary? Girls’ diaries often had a small lock and keys. And whose diary was it? Someone with the initials M.T; must be one of the Thackerays. But why did the note say ‘ find me’? Was the diary lost or hidden? And why leave the note taped to the underside of the desk? Perhaps it was a game played by one of the Thackerays as a child. Adam put the note into a drawer, shut his eyes and concentrated. He knew if he took a few minutes, the answer would come to him; he’d know what the message was about. Normally, there wasn’t a cryptic clue he couldn’t solve, but this time he couldn’t focus on anything except the morning’s find at the silage pit.

  Frustrated, he lay on his bed. The leg bone and rib cage haunted him. So did the boot. A plain black boot, fastened with a buckle. Girls wore them all the time. Did Emma Thackeray wear them too? Did the goth? It fitted the image. And why did he care? It wasn’t as if he knew them or anything.

  His grandfather Witold had seen a few dead bodies in his time. Kazek had gone on about how important Witold was in the Lithuanian police force, the equivalent of an inspector back in the 1930s. He’d solved some infamous murder cases, like the baker’s wife who’d been poisoned and the young man who was found strangled in a ditch on the outskirts of a village after the snow had thawed. Had they stuck in Witold’s mind like this body in the silage was lodged in Adam’s?

  He reached for his photo album on the bookshelf beside his bed. It was half filled with old family snaps his mum had given him. There were a few scanned photos printed off Brock’s computer. A sort of going away present from Deakin Hills. Would he ever see those friends again? The last few months had been great. He’d spent most of the holidays at Brock’s place, chilling out to music by his pool while he perved at Brock’s sister and her friends. Now he lived in the driest hole ever: Falcon Ridge. The closest swimming pool was at Booradoo, a twenty-minute drive away.

  He flipped to the last pages. Tucked inside were two images of Witold, photocopies Adam had made from the pictures in Kazek’s scrapbook. It had been a major undercover operation to get them.

  Kazek’s scrapbook was off limits, hidden in his study where every item was strategically placed. Ring-binders for each taxation year were colour coded on the shelves alongside catalogued and dust-free reference books. Rolls of labelled plans were stacked neatly like wine bottles in a grey filing cabinet. His drawing board was always left bare, the clips arranged in a row beside his draughtsman’s square. Even his pencils were lined up in their tray in order of blackness: HB, 2B, 4B, 6B. If any object was touched, Kazek would know someone had been snooping. That’s how Rosemary had been caught out. She’d found the scrapbook inside a desk drawer when she was looking for a packet of sticky labels.

  Adam was only eight at the time, but he could have told her she was looking in the wrong spot. He’d made a careful study of Kazek’s habits, watched the way he placed objects in straight lines, created patterns with dates, colours and shapes. It seemed so logical to Adam. He knew where all the stationery was kept, how it was shelved and in what order. Odd shaped tools in one drawer, square objects in another; bulky items at the back, smaller ones to the front and so on. He couldn’t understand how Rosemary didn’t get it.

  Kazek had screamed at them when he found the labels had been put back in the drawer that held the scrapbook. Not only were the labels in the wrong place, they were also askew. He calmed down eventually, retreated to his study in a sulk and drank half a bottle of vodka. A few days later Rosemary mentioned over dinner how much Adam resembled Kazek’s father, Witold. How she’d seen the old photographs in the scrapbook. This time the old man exploded. The scrapbook was private! She had no right to spy! Kazek pulled her from the table and flung her up against the wall. She must never look through the scrapbook again, he shouted inches from her face. Then he stormed from the room.

  It was the first time Adam had seen his parents fight and the pain in his mother’s face made him hate Kazek. But the fight also fed his curiosity. Did he really look like Witold? He had to see the scrapbook.

  Kazek had left it in the drawer, booby-trapped. At least that’s how eight-year-old Adam had considered it. A strand of Rosemary’s hair was curled like a question mark across the cover. He memorised the exact proportions of the curve, collected the hair and opened the book.

  Inside were letters, official documents and newspaper articles. It was all written in Lithuanian. The faded newspaper clippings had yellowed. They were dated 1958 and 1960. He couldn’t read the articles, but he recognised his grandfather’s name in captions underneath the photographs. There were two: one of Witold as a young man in police uniform; the second was a group of men gathered on cobblestones outside a shop. Witold stood towering among them, a rifle strapped over his shoulder.

  Adam looked at the photocopies now and wondered how his mother ever made the comparison. Sure, he was tall like Witold, and maybe his face was the same shape, but the hair, and those wing-nut ears! Short back and sides was not a good look.

  Kazek’s childhood in resettlement camps in Europe and his eventual journey to Australia had been traumatic, that’s why he was so screwed up. But it didn’t mean he had to be such a prick and stalk them. He was such a mad, selfish bastard, restricting Adam’s every move, from how much time spent in the bathroom and on the phone, to how much toilet paper he used. It was like living with an army sergeant. He restricted Rosemary too. Kept her from going out and making friends. She lived like a caged bird, until she had the guts to go back to study. That’s when he started to get super possessive and suspicious. And now they were running like scared mice. He’d expected Falcon Ridge to be a place where nothing happened. Finding a dead body in the cow feed was definitely more than he’d imagined.

  Adam rolled onto his stomach and tried to think of something else, but it was hopeless. His mind was stuck in a loop: body, Witold, Kazek, boring country life, then body again. He had to get out of the house.

  He wandered up the hill towards the farmyard. To his right was an enormous shed, where the tractors were housed. The big green John Deere was missing. A smaller, much older, red Massey Ferguson stood alone. He went in to have a look around. The red tractor’s seat was a metal scoop, with a threadbare folded towel as a cushion. The gear sticks sprouted from a floor of dried black muck. Adam ran a finger through it, creating a small furrow at least five millimetres wide. The metal below gleamed. He knew she was probably a lot cleaner inside than out. That’s how it was with engines. He wiped his grimy finger against the tread of the back tyre.

  Behind the tractor were benches cluttered with spare parts: carousel-like air cleaners, pins and u-bolts, arms from an old three-point linkage, mower blades and blackened spark plugs. Beneath the benches were metal drums, probably filled with oil or solvents, Adam guessed.

  Above the benches, fastened to the wall, was a wooden cupboard with two doors. The left hung from its top hinge. A calendar, six years old, Adam calculated, bleached and curled, depicting a paddock full of Jersey cows, was taped to the top of the crooked door. Why so old? Unless time had become meaningless to the Thackerays since their daughter disappeared.

  He shifted his gaze to the other door. A crucifix was burnt into the wood. Was it idle decoration or did it have a meaning?

  Adam stepped back and felt something brush against his neck. Alarmed, he spun around. It was a tangle of dirty rags hanging from a skyhook. He’d been too absorbed by the tractor to see it earlier. He took a deep breath. The shed smelled of hay and dust and grease. Smells Adam liked. He stopped his snooping when he heard the drone of an engine approaching. He strode onto the driveway and walked towards the milking shed.

  The John Deere swung into view, pulling the empty silage trailer. The driver pulled up beside the milki
ng shed, cut the engine, opened the door and eased his way down. It was Colin Thackeray, red-faced, stern. He wore a faded trilby, navy boiler suit and gumboots. He squinted at Adam, gave a nod and said, ‘G’day.’ A sleek red dog jumped from the cabin behind him.

  ‘Mr Thackeray?’ Adam said, approaching him.

  ‘That’s right,’ the man said, turning stiffly as if his neck was fused to his shoulder blades. ‘Colin,’ he said extending a hand.

  Adam shook it. ‘I’m Adam Statkus.’

  Colin’s fingers were big and pink and his skin felt soft, but his grip was firm. ‘You the boy at the house?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  The farmer eyed him suspiciously. ‘Don’t look it.’

  Adam shrugged. So many times people misjudged his age.

  ‘Loody said you were after a bit of work,’ Colin added.

  ‘Oh, yeah…I’d like to…’

  ‘You milked before?’

  ‘No, but I’m willing to give it a go.’

  ‘Tomorrow then, six a.m. and evenings at four,’ he said and made for the milking shed, his gumboots thwack, thwacking with each stride, the red dog slinking behind.

  ‘OK,’ Adam shouted after him. Did he talk to everyone that way, or was it Adam’s turned eye that made him want to leave? If it was his daughter lying dead down there, he was probably too cut up to talk.

  Colin stopped at the doorway and called back to Adam. ‘Well, you coming to have a look at the shed, or what?’

  ‘Right.’ Adam jogged over to the building and followed the farmer through the sliding aluminium door.

  ‘This is the milk room, where the milk’s stored,’ Colin said as Adam stepped inside.

  Apart from a dusty window at one end, the rest of the room was spotless. A silver vat lay on its side. As big as a car, it shone like a jewel encased in a concrete display box. Puddles of water marked the floor. A control board hung near the doorway. Thick pipes threaded their way along the walls at ankle height.

  ‘Mind your step,’ Colin muttered as he slipped through another doorway. Adam walked past the gleaming tank. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Below him was a darkened pit. A huge mechanical disc took up most of the space. The whole contraption was a tangle of metal railings and black pipes, as big as a carnival ride. He half expected to hear rock music belting out over a loud speaker. Instead he heard Colin trudging about in his gumboots and a sparrow twittering on the wet floor.

  Colin appeared from around the side of the machine. ‘We milk sixty a time on the rotary,’ he said without looking at Adam. His voice echoed around the chamber. Then he climbed some steps and walked off into the sunlight on the far side.

  Adam thought there’d be cow shit everywhere but it was spotless, every surface cool and wet. The cement floor sloped for drainage and there was a row of plastic aprons hanging on the wall behind him. He walked around the platform and made his way up the stairs after Colin, who was standing in the yard, arms resting on the top railing, staring down the hillside. He coughed as Adam drew close. The red dog at Colin’s feet slipped under lowest railing and slunk into the shade of a nearby gum tree.

  ‘This is the yard where they come in. You got gumboots?’

  ‘Ah, no.’

  ‘We’ll lend you some.’

  ‘OK, anything else I need?’

  ‘Nup.’ Colin took a deep breath. ‘You with Loody this morning down at the pit?’

  Adam kicked at the fence nervously. ‘Er, yeah.’

  ‘Best keep quiet then…about what you saw,’ Colin said.

  ‘But the police might want to interview me—’

  ‘I don’t mean them,’ he snarled. ‘I mean every other bastard in this place. Gossip spreads like wildfire. You understand?’

  ‘Sure,’ Adam said in a deflated tone. But he was going to tell his new mate Snake about it, or at least quiz him on the missing girls. Colin could shove his warning.

  FIVE

  It was Sunday morning, just after six o’clock and the sun was close to rising. Adam could just make out a shadowy line of cattle meandering uphill towards the shed.

  He gulped down the last of his muesli bar. It had been a supreme effort for him to climb out of bed when the alarm went. He couldn’t get over how quiet it was on the farm, how empty. He missed the sounds of car exhausts, truck air brakes, bells ringing at the railway crossing and the roar of the train as it hurried into the city. He wished he were back there, not standing in the yard with Loody, the try-hard cowboy.

  Some of the cows bellowed. A flock of white birds shrieked as they flew, V-formation against the dawning sky.

  ‘How many cows are there?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Milking four hundred and seventy at the moment,’ Loody said, squinting at him. ‘You like cows?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘They’re all right.’

  ‘You can’t milk ’em unless you like ’em. The cows know. Sometimes they’ll have a go at you, kick you, crap on you.’

  ‘I bet they do…’ They sounded like a few people Adam had met: school bullies, bitchy year eight girls, local politicians.

  Loody went back to the shed. Adam watched Colin bringing the cows in. It was a slow process. Now Adam understood the expression ‘standing around like Brown’s cows’. The ones at the rear of the line had to be pestered to continue walking. Colin whistled, shouted and waved his arms. The red dog jumped off the four-wheeler Colin was riding, rushed at the cows’ heels, barked, then leapt up onto the crawling vehicle again.

  ‘Come and get your apron on!’ Loody called out.

  Adam turned and descended into the pit. The aprons were all an off-yellow colour, like the rubber of discarded condoms you see on footpaths around the city. He selected the one that seemed largest, and looped it over his head.

  Loody clicked a switch and the machinery began to hum. The figure of a young blond man, lean and half-asleep, stood in the milkroom doorway. He smiled at Adam.

  Loody shouted introductions, ‘This is Matt, Colin’s son! Fucken zombie this time of day, aren’t ya, mate?’

  ‘Morning!’ Adam said.

  ‘Matt’ll show you how to put the cups on,’ Loody said, pointing to the far side of the pit.

  Matt flicked an apron off the hooks and strode over to Adam. He was tall with a narrow face but he had inherited Colin’s ruddy cheeks. Adam recognised him as the guy who jogged each night.

  ‘W…w…we wait over there,’ Matt said, moving over to stand beside the entrance of the carousel. ‘And you hold the cups like this.’ He took the nearest set of cups and held the bunch sprawled out over his left palm. ‘You do it,’ he stammered, passing it to Adam.

  The long black suction cups weren’t heavy but they lolled from the base like the arms and legs of a puppet. Adam took a moment or two to get a feel for their weight and motion.

  The machinery was loud. Adam leant closer to Matt so he could hear the next instruction. That’s when he noticed Matt wore a small key around his neck. It was threaded through a strand of black rope, snug against his throat. Startled, he thought of the eighty-ninth key. It was too far-fetched, but still, Adam wondered how he could possibly borrow it. Matt would probably think he was weird if he asked for it straight out.

  The parade of cows had reached the top of the hill and was stepping into the yard. Their hooves click clacked on the concrete. They were bigger than Adam had imagined and their bums were bony. The nearest ones eyed him with suspicion. They had the most enormous brown eyes he’d ever seen. They were so expressive Adam believed he could read the emotions and temperaments of each one as they passed. The spell of their mesmerising stares was quickly broken, however, as one lifted her tail and let out a stream of green liquid, all over the leg of the cow behind. The stink of cow shit was intense.

  One by one the cows trod their way onto the turning platform. It rotated slowly enough for the next cow to get on, until dozens of cows stood, bums out, each with their
heads immersed in a trough of cow feed, udders waiting to be hooked up to the milking machine.

  Matt demonstrated how to attach the cups on the nearest cow. His hands were swift and sure, darting under the cow’s legs, then out again. Meanwhile the next cow was ready to be connected, and a third, and more were lining up, shoulder to shoulder, urged closer together as Loody prodded them with a piece of black plastic piping. Matt put a second set of cups on, while Adam struggled to place his bunch beneath the udder in front of him. Would she kick? He managed to get the first teat in. Would she shit on him? There was dried manure all down her bony legs. It shone glossy black against the white hair. Now the second teat was attached. But the platform kept moving and Adam had to move with it to finish the job. By the time he had his first set of cups on, Matt had completed three other cows.

  Within minutes Adam gained confidence and speed. He had enough time between cows to glimpse the engineering of the milking machine. The suction cups were like large demented spiders, minus a few legs, connected by string to the main web, which was the rotary frame. When a cow had no more milk to give, the cups came off automatically and the string pulled them back up to the web where they dangled ready for the next swollen bag of milk.

  Loody attended each spent cow, spraying liquid on her udder. He worked with practised ease, moving from one cow to another, his big forearms skimming under each one and out again.

  ‘You…you like milking?’ Matt shouted to Adam, over the din of the machinery.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ Adam said. Physical work didn’t bother him. He could let his mind wander and see results quickly. Just like mowing the lawn or cleaning the gutters. Milking cows was no different, except that animals were involved.