Catching Teller Crow

by Ambelin Kwaymullina

  ‘A ghost story as well as a psychological thriller, Catching Teller Crow seamlessly weaves together the poetic and the everyday. A magnificent and life-giving novel.’

  JUSTINE LARBALESTIER

  ‘Catching Teller Crow is an up-to-the-minute tale that goes straight to the heart of Australia’s darkest history. Through poetry and story, with great sensitivity, the Kwaymullinas pick up and deal with subjects most authors in this country find too hot to touch. Terrible crimes lie at the centre here; viewed through the eyes of young women of unquenchable spirit, they can be approached, examined, and ultimately solved. This novel will turn gazes in the right direction, and make the caw of every crow more resonant.’

  MARGO LANAGAN

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2018

  Copyright © Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76063 162 8

  eBook ISBN 978 1 76063 703 3

  For teaching resources, explore

  www.allenandunwin.com/resources/for-teachers

  Cover and text design by Debra Billson

  Cover images: photo of Immature Little Crow Corvus bennetti © Chris Watson (www.chriswatson.com.au); patterns within title © Ambelin Kwaymullina; background sky © pashabo / Shutterstock

  Text design images: patterns and background sky as above; illustrated chapter-opener crow © Ambelin Kwaymullina, first published in Crow and the Waterhole, Fremantle

  Press, 2007; ink splash © Milos Djapovic / Shutterstock

  Photo on page 202 by Viva Photography, Fremantle

  Contents

  Beth

  The Town

  The Home

  The Witness

  Catching

  The Sunset

  The Other-place

  The Beneath

  Beth

  The Truths

  The Station

  The Missing

  The Deaths

  Catching

  The Prisoner

  The Feed

  The Grey

  Beth

  The Colours

  The Cop

  The Story

  Catching

  The Two

  The Dream

  The Catching

  The Escape

  Beth

  The End

  The Beginning

  Authors' Note

  About the Authors

  My dad looked like crap.

  His blond hair was flat and grubby and his skin seemed too big for his bones. The muscly, tanned guy who’d built me a two-storey treehouse when I was a kid had been replaced by a pale shell of a man who didn’t build anything.

  You’d think it would be me who looked different. Dad said I didn’t. I couldn’t tell, since I didn’t cast a reflection anymore. But if I looked the same then the face smiling out from the pictures on the walls of our house must still be my face: curly dark hair, round cheeks, brown skin like Mum’s and blue eyes like Dad’s. Only I didn’t smile as much now. Dad barely smiled at all.

  He pressed his hand to his chest, out of breath from climbing up this rocky hill. There were a bunch of rock formations like this one around here, rising up from a flat red plain that was dotted with trees. I liked the trees. They were old and white and twisty, spiralling upwards to fling out their leaves as if they were hoping to touch the sky. I liked the sky too; there seemed to be more of it here than in the city. There were no buildings to block it out. No big ones, anyway. We could see much of the town from where we stood: a sprawl of houses surrounded by the scattered trees, with a long river to the north. The town was covered in the same dust that coated everything, including our car and my dad’s rumpled shirt and pants. The dust hadn’t touched my clothes, of course. My dress would always be as yellow and crisp as it had been on the day Aunty Viv drove me to the birthday party.

  Dad took a step closer to the edge of the hill, gazing outwards.

  ‘I don’t think you’re going to solve the case from up here,’ I told him.

  His gaze shifted in my direction. His eyes were bright with tears. Sometimes he couldn’t even look at me without sobbing. Today the tears didn’t fall. But I could hear them in his voice when he said, ‘I miss you, Beth.’

  ‘I’m right here, Dad.’

  Except we both knew I wasn’t. At least, not in the way he wanted me to be.

  The accident had happened so fast. One minute I’d been sitting in Aunty Viv’s sedan, everything normal. Then I’d heard the four-wheel drive ploughing through the bushes as it tore down the embankment. I’d looked up to see it hurtling at me, and … nothing. I didn’t remember the actual dying part. In fact, I felt as if I was still a living, breathing girl. Right now, for instance, I could see the town, hear the wind, smell the eucalyptus from the trees and taste the gritty dust. I just couldn’t touch any of it.

  This wasn’t how I’d imagined being dead, not that I’d ever spent much time thinking about it. But Mum had died when I was just a baby, and her two sisters – Aunty Viv and Aunty June – had always told me I’d see her again. Aunty June reckoned that Mum was ‘on another side’. Her husky voice echoed through my memory: This world’s got a lot of sides, like those crystals your Aunty Viv hangs in her window, and your mum’s just on a different side to us. So I’d always figured that when I passed over to another side, Mum would be there to meet me.

  She hadn’t been. But I sometimes had a sense that she was waiting somewhere ahead – I’d be seeing her, I knew it. What I didn’t know was exactly when. The ‘when’ didn’t matter so much though, since I didn’t count minutes or hours anymore. Days began when the sun rose and ended when it set. In between, the connections I made – like the ways I helped my dad, or didn’t help him – were what told me if I was moving forwards or backwards. As my Grandpa Jim had once said to me, Life doesn’t move through time, Bethie. Time moves through life.

  Dad was staring at me with the lost expression I’d come to hate. I waved encouragingly at the town. ‘Why don’t you go investigate?’

  He stared for a moment longer. Then he turned away and wiped at his eyes, focusing his attention on the houses below us.

  ‘I am investigating. I’m getting a sense of the place.’ His voice was raspy. He drew in a deep breath, and added in a more even tone, ‘It reminds me of where your mum and I grew up.’ His mouth twisted as if he’d tasted something bad. ‘Local police officers can have a lot of power in a place like this.’

  He was thinking about his father. My grandpa on Dad’s side – who I’d never actually met – had been a cop for thirty years, and he wasn’t a good guy. Dad said his old man thought the law was there to protect some people and punish others. And Aboriginal people were the ‘others’. Grandpa and Grandma Teller had thrown Dad out when he started seeing Mum, and they’d never wanted anything to do with me, their Aboriginal granddaughter. />
  ‘Do you think there are police like your dad in this town?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Places like this are changing. Places everywhere are changing. Slowly, but it’s happening.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m just not sure there’s anything here to investigate.’

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I needed Dad to be interested in this case. My father was stuck in grief like a man caught in a muddy swamp. I had to get him to walk forward until he’d left the mire behind. Otherwise he’d just keep sinking until the water swallowed him.

  ‘Someone did die in that fire,’ I pointed out.

  That was why Dad was here, because an inferno had engulfed a children’s home and killed … well, somebody. The body had been burned too badly to identify, so the cops were working on getting DNA or dental records to find out who it was. But at least it wasn’t one of the kids. They’d all escaped, which I was glad about; the littlest was only ten, same age as my cousin Sophie.

  ‘You can’t give up on this case before you even know who’s dead,’ I told him.

  ‘The only people living in that place besides the kids were the home’s director, and the nurse. So it’s likely one of them,’ Dad replied. ‘Probably the nurse, because he was tall, and so is our corpse.’

  ‘Then what happened to the director?’ I demanded. ‘There were no other bodies, so he can’t be dead. Which means he’s vanished. Very mysteriously.’

  ‘The local police might have found him in the time it took us to drive here,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t go over-complicating this, Beth. The fire was likely accidental, remember.’

  ‘You don’t know that for certain! The faulty wiring is only a … what did they call it? “Preliminary assessment”?’

  Dad snorted. ‘Preliminary or not, the local cops could’ve handled all of this. At least until there was more information.’ He gave a frustrated shake of his head. ‘I’ve only been sent here because of Oversight.’

  Oversight was the name of an initiative the government had introduced after a series of bungled murder investigations. Whenever there was a possible homicide, an experienced senior detective had to look things over to make sure it was all being done right. Dad had lots to say about how the money put into Oversight should’ve been spent on more resources and better training instead.

  Except Oversight wasn’t really why he was here. Dad’s boss, Rachel, thought Dad was still grieving and not ready for anything too difficult yet. I knew because I’d followed Dad around the police station and listened to what people were saying after he’d left a room. Rachel had figured she was doing him a favour by giving him an easy assignment. She was wrong. My father needed a real mystery. Something to solve. Something to do.

  I was trying to think of another way to interest Dad in the case when his phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and cast a quick glance down at the screen. Then he put it away, letting it ring out into silence.

  I didn’t need to ask who was calling. It had to be one of Mum’s brothers or sisters. The Uncles and the Aunties had been taking care of my father since the accident. Dad hadn’t minded so much about Aunty June, Uncle Mick and Uncle Kelvin constantly checking in on him, but lately they’d been trying to get him to make up with Aunty Viv, which he did mind.

  ‘The crash wasn’t Aunty Viv’s fault,’ I told him. ‘It was the other driver who lost control of his car, and it wasn’t his fault either. There was nothing more to it than rain and a sharp turn on a slippery road – the guy wasn’t even speeding! It was an accident, Dad.’

  No reaction.

  ‘You’re not being fair to Aunty Viv.’

  Still nothing. But deep down inside he must know he was being unfair. He just couldn’t stop himself from blaming her, which made no sense. It wasn’t like she’d wanted to get out of the crash with nothing more than a concussion and a few bruises. She’d come round to the house once, to pound on the front door and scream, ‘You think I don’t wish it was me who was dead? You know how I loved that girl!’

  Dad hadn’t opened the door, and after a few minutes she’d slumped down on the step.

  I’d gotten so busy taking care of Dad that I hadn’t looked in on Aunty Viv as often as I should have, and I’d been shocked at the sight of her. For starters, she was wearing an old grey tracksuit. Aunty Viv hated grey, and she never wore tracksuits – it was Aunty June who had the wardrobe full of gym clothes and the cupboard full of health bars. Aunty Viv ate chocolate biscuits and said a few extra kilos just meant there was more of her to love.

  As if the tracksuit wasn’t bad enough, Aunty Viv’s feet were encased in flat sandals showing unpainted toenails. I hadn’t even known she owned any sensible shoes, and I’d never seen her nails without sparkles. She’d looked nothing like my round, bubbly Aunty who made every space brighter just by being in it.

  I’d tried speaking to her, even though I’d known by then that only Dad could see and hear me.

  ‘I don’t want you to be the one who died, Aunty. What would your kids do without you? Ella’s so little! And Sophie and Charlie need you too. Especially Charlie – who’s going to keep him out of trouble if you’re not around?’

  I’d had no impact, of course. She’d just kept on sitting. After a while tears had started to roll down her brown cheeks and she’d sunk her head in her hands. Her grief had reminded me so much of Dad’s that I’d panicked and yelled, ‘You have to be okay! I can’t be the reason anyone else falls apart!’

  A few moments later, Aunty had stopped crying. When she raised her head there was a slight frown on her face, as if she’d been struck by a realisation. The frown had faded into bewilderment as she gazed down at her tracksuited body – she clearly couldn’t recognise herself in what she was wearing any more than I had.

  She’d stood up and called to Dad, ‘I’m always here if you need me, Michael.’ Then she’d walked off with her shoulders a little straighter than they’d been before. I liked to think that her spirit heard mine even though her ears didn’t.

  When I’d next checked on her, she was wearing her favourite pink dress. The toenails still weren’t done, and her shoes still had no heels, but I’d known she was going to be okay.

  I wanted Dad to be okay too. And I wanted him to speak to Aunty Viv.

  I tried again. ‘She lost me as well, you know. All the family did. More than you, even, because they can’t see me.’

  Something roared to life in Dad’s eyes. ‘No one lost you more.’ He turned and stormed back down the hill.

  Stupid thing to say, Beth. And he was right, he had lost me the most. Not because he loved me the most, but because he couldn’t remember me the way the rest of my family could.

  When the others spoke of me, they talked about what I’d loved, and what I’d hated, and what had made me laugh. They talked about me even when they were desperately sad about my death – in fact, especially when they were desperately sad. Their memory of me had become the glue that held everyone together, and I loved them for that. It was as if I, Beth Teller, was holding my family up, and so everything great they went on to do would be a little bit because of me, and a little bit like I was doing it as well.

  Dad was different. He and I were the reverse of each other: I couldn’t remember my death; Dad couldn’t remember my life – at least, not without focusing on how it ended. I was sure it was the reason only he could see me. No one but him needed reminding that I’d been so much more than a few screeching moments of chaos and wreckage. That I was still so much more.

  Except now he was stomping away.

  On the other hand, at least he wasn’t crying.

  I thought about that. No tears was surely a good thing. In fact…

  I grinned. Maybe I could add ‘make Dad angry’ to the list of things I was doing to keep him headed in the right direction.

  Pleased, I trailed after my father.

  What had once been the children’s home was now a pile of blackened timber.

  We were well out of town, sur
rounded by trees that scattered across the red earth and crowded together along the edge of the river in the distance. This whole area must have been swarming with police right after the fire. But now forensics and arson had been and gone, and the burned body taken for an autopsy. There was only the rubble, and the quiet, and the lingering tang of smoke in the air.

  A crow flapped down to perch on a splintered beam jabbing upwards from the ruin of the home. I waved. Sometimes it seemed as if animals could sense that I was about. The crow fluffed out its feathers, tilting its head to one side. Almost as if it was asking me a question. Then it flew off. Maybe it had seen me and thought I was shooing it away? Or maybe the crow had always been going to take off right then. My science teacher said that just because two things happened together didn’t mean one was because of the other, or as she put it: ‘correlation does not imply causation’.

  But Dad said that was scientist-talk not police-talk, and if two things happened together you’d suspect the first thing had caused the second until it could provide you with an alibi.

  He was pacing around the ruin with the case file tucked under his arm. He’d got over being mad sometime during the drive between the hill and the home. I knew he wasn’t really angry with me anyway. More like angry about me, or at least about me dying. I could understand that. I’d been mad after the accident too. I wasn’t supposed to be dead before I even made it to my sixteenth birthday. In fact, when I let myself think too much about the unfairness of it all, I still got mad now. But I couldn’t lose myself to that, not when Dad had been left behind twice over. He’d told me once that when Mum died, it had been looking after me that had kept him going. Now what was keeping him going was me looking after him.

  I wished Mum was here to help. Aunty June always said nobody had ever been sad around my mum because she radiated happiness like a fire radiated heat. But it was just me here, and Dad, and I didn’t like the frustrated expression on his face. He wasn’t seeing anything interesting in that ruin.

  I asked the first question I could think of. ‘Why did they build the home so far from the town – especially when it was supposed to help kids who’d been in trouble? Doesn’t seem like there’s much for them to do out here.’