Murderer's Thumb

by Beth Montgomery

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ Snake said.

  ‘I dunno, but I reckon it’s a two-word clue with eleven letters, see the five and six. We’d better get thinking before another car comes.’

  The boys sat, each propped against a tree, scribbling frantically on scraps of paper salvaged from their school bags.

  Snake mumbled as he worked. ‘I’ve got it— five letters, must be “wheat”. Wheat, wheat…wheat grrout. Doesn’t make sense. What about “trout”?’

  Adam smiled to himself, folded his paper and put his pen away. ‘What about that?’ he said, indicating the water trough.

  Snake checked the letters through on his own paper. ‘That’s it!’ he shrieked. ‘Water trough. The girl’s brilliant!’

  Adam strode over to the trough and felt along its rim. The metal was hot.

  ‘Get down lower, mate, another car!’ Snake said.

  Adam lay in the dirt behind the trough. It was like an oversized, elongated bathtub. At one end there was a drainage point. At the other there was an old-fashioned pumping device, no doubt attached to the windmill. But the windmill wasn’t turning and the trough had been dry for years. Adam poked his pocket-knife up underneath the pumping mechanism. Something was lodged in the broken housing. He pushed it free. It was another film container. ‘Look what I found!’ he said, holding it up like a gold medal.

  Snake rushed to him. ‘This is it Stats. I’ll bet we have all the answers now.’

  TWENTY

  Sunday 24 September

  I’ve finished reading my spell book. I could design a ritual for anything now. Candles are vital, but anything natural works, like water and herbs, twigs and stuff. The book doesn’t go into it (because it just deals with white magic) but I reckon the really evil spells would have ‘wing of bat and eye of newt’ stuff like in Macbeth. So there weren’t any uses for a dead rat, but I think I’m on the right track anyway. It says a lot about trusting your intuition. I’ve got to meditate on freedom, that’s the central theme, and rats can hide better than people.

  M.T.

  Monday 25 September

  Meredith’s having a seventeenth birthday party on the seventh of October. With no oldies, except her parents. She’s inviting mainly friends from school, plus a few locals. I should ask her if that means Matt, but I don’t want to push it.

  Granny Bell rang today. It was good to hear from her. She encouraged me to stick it out here. She told me to keep doing cryptic crosswords, to keep my brain agile. That’s what keeps her sane when the pain’s too bad. She’s in a wheelchair all the time now. Can’t get out into the streets like she used to, looking for her ‘urchins’. But she still volunteers at the soup kitchen twice a week.

  She told me it was hard to get a good séance underway. Too many people want to take control. The way to do it was to release your ego, give control over to the spirits. Yeah right! I can’t see Mongrel handing control to anyone.

  M.T.

  Tuesday 26 September

  I rang Granny Bell back today. Told her about Matt and asked her what I should do. How do I make the first move without scaring him off ? She knows about those sort of things: why people act the way they do, how to get the best out of people. She told me to act naturally and not be desperate. If it’s meant to be it will happen in its own time. I have to think of some way we can be alone together, away from the farm and Emma, so we can talk without interruptions.

  M.T.

  Wednesday 27 September

  I asked Matt if he’d take me for a ride in his ute last night. He said yes! He’s coming by tonight after dinner and we could go down to the wetlands. I can’t wait.

  I keep imagining being with him. Us alone together. Maybe I should tell him I like him. I want to, but I think he’ll get scared and run away. He’s such a wild creature: innocent and strong. I’d love to touch him, kiss him. I wonder what he’d do. Maybe I could make a love potion…

  M.T.

  Thursday 28 September

  Bloody Emma. Why did she have to turn up? I wanted to spend time with just him. Not have her tag along. He drove the ute up to the house and I flew outside and there she was, sitting next to him in the front. She did it on purpose, the bitch, just to make sure I didn’t get onto Matt.

  Still, I pretended I didn’t mind and we drove down there. Even though it’s part of their property the only way to get there by car is to drive onto the Falcon Ridge Road and turn off at Pattersons Creek.

  They showed me the nesting boxes they’d set up. Some are right in the middle of the water. Matt said there were snakes in the summer, tigers and red-bellied blacks. But this time of year we were safe. I would have enjoyed being down there if it wasn’t for Emma and my new boots. By the end of our walk they were caked in black muck. I’ve just spent half an hour cleaning them and now they’re drying out in front of the fire.

  Emma told me I was a whinging city slicker.

  Sometimes she makes me want to smack her in the face.

  M.T.

  Friday 29 September

  Mum rang last night and told me she’d sent some money for the holidays. How considerate! The holidays are nearly over. She always throws money when she doesn’t know what else to do. She said she’d come up to Booradoo and meet me for lunch, if I liked—if she could slot it into her schedule. I told her not to bother. She could stick her schedule up her arse. Then I hung up.

  M.T.

  Saturday 30 September

  Last night we met at the shack again. I read everyone’s palms. Mongrel scares me. He’s got a murderer’s thumb, fat at the tip. I didn’t mention it though. Just talked about how practical he was. Had a heart line as straight and cold as a spear. I’m glad it’s not me marrying him. He’d be a pig of a husband.

  I could tell Meredith was interested in her destiny but the boys thought it was a big joke. They only want to drink. We didn’t get around to a séance. But we played 500 for hours. I think I’m getting quite good at it now. It helps if you have a smart partner like Meredith.

  Mongrel passed around a joint. I haven’t smoked for months and I couldn’t resist. I told them I did drugs once. Mongrel gave me a funny look, said he thought I must have, the way I handled it. Meredith was freaked out though. We got home around midnight, half cut and starving. I raided the fridge before I went to bed, but I didn’t put the jam away. This morning there were ants everywhere. Frank wasn’t impressed.

  M.T.

  Sunday 1 October

  I woke up this morning feeling crap. Throbbing head and a clogged up nose, plus I’ve got my period. Some holiday! Must be the universe telling me to slow down. I spent the whole day in bed and saw Matt go past on his way to milk.

  I’ve been working on the spell to put Mum off. I’ve got four green candles, some wormwood and eucalyptus leaves for the smell, and a collection of dead insects, beetles and things. I’m going to crush them together and make a stinking circle out of the powder, then meditate on freedom. Soon I’ll be free of them. They’ll never find me again.

  M.T.

  Part five lies at the murderer’s thumb.

  Asymmetric shape in manufactured home.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Adam held the receiver away from his ear and grimaced. Snake sneezed again, loud and spluttering. He had hay fever. He said it was brought on by grovelling in the dirt at the silo.

  ‘The clue, Snake? Did you look it up on the internet?’ Adam asked. ‘What did she mean by “asymmetric shape in manufactured home”?’

  ‘Lots of sites on kit homes…’

  ‘So no idea?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘What about the murderer’s thumb?’

  ‘Well that’s funny, that is. You know how we just assumed it’s some psycho’s digit?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, listen to this,’ he said, laughing, ‘“…bulbous thumb, also known as a potter’s thumb…” Has your mum got thumbs like that?’

  ‘No!’ Adam said, imagining how stupid his mum woul
d look with fat thumbs.

  ‘There was another site. It said: “Thumb shapes… pointed, square, round, clubbed…” So I read clubbed. “… indicative of a violent nature…fortunately rare…traditionally referred to as a murderer’s thumb…”.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Yeah, they all say the same thing.’

  ‘But if it’s clubbed then it’s still symmetrical, if you slice it down the middle. I don’t get it,’ Adam sighed. ‘I thought there’d be something else…some other clue.’

  ‘Well we know she means the wetland paddocks when she says murderer’s thumb…’

  Adam shivered. The wetland paddocks included the one with the silage pit. He didn’t want to go there again, even though forensics were finished with the site and the police tape had gone.

  Snake went on, ‘She was probably only going on the shape of the paddock. Her clues aren’t that complex, are they?’

  ‘Yeah…I dunno. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But I can’t find an asymmetric shape in the letters of “manufactured home”.’

  ‘You’ll get it,’ Snake said. ‘Anyway, I’ll be round later with the fake diary. After dark. See you.’

  Adam hung up. He wasn’t as optimistic as Snake about the latest clue. What did she mean? If only Lina was alive. Adam wished he could ask her why this clue was different from the others. But was she alive?

  He’d looked up Trewin in the online phone directory. There were dozens of them. He didn’t want to work through the list. Lina would never have gone back to her parents anyway. She was escaping them, like he and Rosemary were escaping Kazek. Perhaps he should try out Lina’s spell to put Kazek off. He grinned, imagining himself sitting in a circle of stinking leaves and beetles, legs folded under him, meditating. What a joke!

  But Lina took it all seriously. She’d even written to Granny Bell for advice. But who was the old woman? It seemed as though she was a New Age social worker. If Adam could find Granny Bell, surely she’d lead him to Lina. But Lina never mentioned if Bell was her surname or Christian name. She could be any of thousands of old ladies who lived in the suburbs.

  The hum of the old Datsun roused Rosemary from her lounge chair at ten past nine. She rushed to the window and peered into the night. Adam was already opening the back door.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s Snake,’ he said.

  Rosemary looked startled. ‘Driving?’ she said.

  ‘Get over it, Mum. He’s been driving for years and we’re not going far.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me about this…’

  He cut her short. ‘It’s because you go off that I don’t tell you anything.’

  ‘You’re under age, both of you. If the police…’

  But Adam had slammed the door and didn’t hear the rest of her speech. He was racing for the passenger side door but Snake was in it, motioning for Adam get in the back. Toot was driving.

  Adam bundled into the back of the car and closed the door. ‘What’s going on?’ he said echoing his mother’s words.

  Toot twisted round, reversing the car, and met Adam’s furious glare. ‘Don’t get precious,’ she said. ‘I’m in on this too, now.’

  ‘What!’ Adam roared, directing his anger at Snake. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘It’s OK, Stats. Don’t stress.’

  ‘Don’t go sick at him,’ Toot said. ‘It’s not his fault. I punched it out of him.’

  They drove past the milking shed, up the track that led along the ridge. Adam could barely control his contempt. ‘This is bullshit! You know we had to keep this secret.’

  ‘You can blame yourself for that. You’re shit at keeping things underground,’ she said. She switched off the ignition and got out. The boys followed her to the fence. Toot had the sense to carry a torch which she flicked on. She slipped through the wire and strode towards the shack without waiting for them.

  Adam was puzzled by her words. ‘What’s she on about?’ he asked.

  Snake took a moment to answer. ‘Well she reckons we’ve been acting suspicious all week. It was obvious we were up to something.’

  Adam sighed. ‘What did you tell her? Everything?’

  ‘Kind of…no I…I told her we were laying a trap for Loody and Mongrel. She wanted in. She hates those bastards.’

  ‘Does she know we’ve got Lina’s diary?’

  Snake prised the wire apart and ducked through. ‘No… no I didn’t tell her. I reckon she knows though.’

  ‘Shit! How?’

  ‘Intuition? Stats, cool it, will you! She won’t talk. She’s fine.’

  Adam wasn’t convinced. From his experience women always screwed up. Of the six times they’d shifted house, Rosemary’s female work colleagues had let slip to Kazek information about their location four times. ‘Since when did women keep quiet?’ Adam said.

  ‘You’re unreal, you are,’ Snake said incredulously. ‘I thought you were progressive…being the city kid and everything. Not like the idiots round here anyway. But then you shock me with the dumbest, sexist comments.’ He walked off, leaving Adam on the Thackeray side of the fence.

  Adam was stunned into silence by Snake’s criticism. Was it true? Was he just as bigoted and opinionated as the Falcon Ridge hicks he derided? But how could he trust Toot? He couldn’t just take Snake’s character references as gospel. Of course he’d stick up for his sister, blood being thicker than water and all that crap. Then again, Snake had been right every time so far. Maybe Adam was being sexist. And he had to admit, he did like her. She was so measured, so unflp-pable. Even the time he’d told her to piss off, she didn’t freak out and overreact.

  ‘Come on,’ Snake urged. ‘She’s probably at the shack by now.’

  Adam threaded through the wires and charged after them.

  ‘Hurry up!’ she called. They could hear the groan and creak of the door as she forced it open.

  The boys reached the ramshackle building and followed her inside. The air smelled musty. Toot’s torch illuminated an interior cramped with wooden pallets and plastic drums. The old tin heater and the car bench seat were pressed into a corner against the wall. There was no sign of the wooden chair or table.

  ‘So what have you come up with?’ Adam asked.

  Snake took a small notebook from his back pocket and handed it to Adam. A bit too small for a real diary, but it would be fine for what they needed.

  Toot stood beside him with the torch. ‘Like it?’ she asked.

  Written inside, in Snake’s unusual elongated script, were about five pages of entries, all listed as early October. Adam skimmed a few pages and saw the references to ‘Mongrel the Moron’ and ‘Loser Loody’. Adam cracked a smile. ‘What made you write this shit?’ he asked Snake.

  ‘I dictated it,’ Toot said. ‘Thought it needed a woman’s touch, authentic feel about it.’ As she spoke her hand crept across his back and shoulders. It made his skin prickle. He was thankful Snake was inspecting the drums and pellets.

  ‘It’s good,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you’d like it.’ Her words were also thick with double meaning and she pinched him then, hard on the waist. So hard, he gave a startled gasp.

  Snake swung around. ‘What is it?’

  Adam and Toot doubled up laughing. ‘Nothing,’ Toot said. ‘I just stood on his toe.’

  ‘Uh, right,’ Snake said suspiciously. ‘Well where should we plant it?’

  ‘The pallets?’ Toot said.

  ‘No,’ said the boys together.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have it on good authority that they weren’t here when the diary was hidden,’ Snake said in a pseudo professional tone. ‘I say we slip it into the car seat.’

  ‘Sounds all right,’ Adam said. He handed him the diary. ‘You can plant it yourself.’

  Snake took the torch and scrambled over the pallets to the old seat. Adam stood in the dark, sizzling with anticipation. Would she touch him again? He could smell her beside him, a
peculiar mixture of mechanic’s solvent, which he liked, and deodorant, which he didn’t. Her fingers tangled with his, she leant against him and whispered, ‘I’ve been watching you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you want to…we could…you know…’

  The torch light swept the room and they sprang apart.

  ‘Done it,’ Snake said. He leapt from the pallets onto the floor in front of them and gave them a strange look. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ Adam said, his voice sounding choked. He felt cheated, her warmth snatched away. He wanted to touch her again, but what would Snake do? Would he freak? Did it matter if he did? He wasn’t mental about his sister like Matt had been about Emma.

  They walked back to the car in an awkward silence. Snake was in the middle, still holding the torch. ‘It’s only half past nine,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go for a drive?’

  Adam didn’t object. The more time he spent with Toot the better. ‘Where to?’ he said.

  ‘How about the silage pit,’ she said challengingly and she gave the keys to Snake. ‘You’re driving.’

  The instant she mentioned the silage pit, something in Adam’s gut twisted. He had to put them off. ‘I thought you weren’t allowed to drive on the road,’ he said.

  ‘We’re not. Dad thinks we’re in one of our back paddocks. We won’t let him know.’ He opened the door and got in.

  Adam and Toot brushed together, both reaching for the back door. ‘Sorry, you can sit in the back,’ he said, moving away.

  ‘No, you.’

  ‘Just get in, will you!’ Snake said. He started the engine.

  Adam hesitated, then slid in beside her.

  ‘What is this? A taxi service?’ Snake asked.

  ‘I’ll get in the front if you like…’ Adam said, but Snake was already driving down the track to the milking shed. He babbled on, outlining the plan to hook Loody’s interest tomorrow.

  Adam was only half listening. His knees stuck out either side of the driver’s seat. Toot’s leg was touching his, sending waves of anticipation to his head. Would she take his hand again? Would she lean against him? Maybe around the bends…

  The first turn onto the Redvale-Booradoo Road had Adam against the door, then there was the big curve around the murderer’s thumb part of the farm that held him there. Even when they went into the paddock it was still a left-hand turn, and someone had to get out to open the gate. Toot emerged as soon as Snake stopped the car. No arguments, no delay.