The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(2)

Above the three coffins, a family of four stared down from a blown-up photograph. Their static smiles were overlarge and pixelated. Falk recognized the picture from the news. It had been used a lot.

Beneath, the names of the dead were spelled out in native flowers. Luke. Karen. Billy.

Falk stared at Luke’s picture. The thick black hair had the odd gray line now, but he still looked fitter than most men on the wrong side of thirty-five. His face seemed older than Falk remembered, but then it had been nearly five years. The confident grin was unchanged, as was the slightly knowing look in his eyes. Still the same, were the words that sprang to mind. Three coffins said differently.

“Bloody tragic.” The farmer at Falk’s side spoke out of nowhere. His arms were crossed, fists wedged tightly under his armpits.

“It is,” Falk said.

“You knew ’em well?”

“Not really. Only Luke, the—” For a dizzy moment Falk couldn’t think of a word to describe the man in the largest coffin. He mentally grasped about but could only find clichéd tabloid descriptions.

“The father,” he landed on finally. “We were friends when we were younger.”

“Yeah. I know who Luke Hadler is.”

“I think everyone does now.”

“You still live round this way, do you?” The farmer shifted his large body slightly and fixed Falk properly in his gaze for the first time.

“No. Not for a long time.”

“Right. Feels like I’ve seen you, though.” The farmer frowned, trying to place him. “Hey, you’re not one of them bloody TV journos, are you?”

“No. Police. In Melbourne.”

“That right? You lot should be investigating the bloody government for letting things get this bad.” The man nodded to where Luke’s body lay alongside those of his wife and six-year-old son. “We’re out here trying to feed this country, worst weather in a hundred years, and they’re crapping on about scrapping the subsidies. In some ways you can hardly blame the poor bastard. It’s a fu—”

He stopped. Looked around the church. “It’s an effing scandal, that’s what it is.”

Falk said nothing as they both reflected on the incompetencies of Canberra. The potential sources of blame for the dead Hadler family had been thrashed out at length over broadsheet pages.

“You looking into this, then?” The man nodded toward the coffins.

“No. Just here as a friend,” Falk said. “I’m not sure there’s anything still to look into.”

He knew only what he’d heard on the news along with everyone else. But it was straightforward according to the commentary. The shotgun had belonged to Luke. It was the same one later found clamped into what had been left of his mouth.

“No. I suppose not,” the farmer said. “I just thought, with him being your friend and all.”

“I’m not that kind of officer, anyway. Federal. With the financial intelligence unit.”

“Means nothing to me, mate.”

“Just means I chase the money. Anything ending with a few zeros that’s not where it should be. Laundered, embezzled, that sort of thing.”

The man said something in reply, but Falk didn’t hear him. His gaze had shifted from the three coffins to the mourners in the front pew. The space reserved for family. So they could sit in front of all their friends and neighbors, who could in turn stare at the backs of their heads and thank God it wasn’t them.

It had been twenty years, but Falk recognized Luke’s father straight away. Gerry Hadler’s face was gray. His eyes appeared sunken into his head. He was sitting dutifully in his spot in the front row, but his head was turned. He was ignoring his wife sobbing by his side and the three wooden boxes holding the remains of his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Instead, he was staring directly at Falk.

Somewhere up the back, a few notes of music piped out from speakers. The funeral was starting. Gerry inclined his head in a tiny nod, and Falk unconsciously put his hand in his pocket. He felt the letter that had landed on his desk two days ago. From Gerry Hadler, eight words written with a heavy hand:

Luke lied. You lied. Be at the funeral.

It was Falk who looked away first.




It was hard to watch the photographs. They flashed up on a screen at the front of the church in a relentless montage. Luke celebrating as an under-tens footballer; a young Karen jumping a pony over a fence. There was something grotesque now about the frozen grins, and Falk saw he wasn’t the only one averting his gaze.

The photo changed again, and Falk was surprised to recognize himself. A fuzzy image of his eleven-year-old face looked out at him. He and Luke were side by side, bare-chested and open-mouthed as they displayed a small fish on a line. They seemed happy. Falk tried to remember the picture being taken. He couldn’t.

The slideshow continued. Pictures of Luke, then Karen, each smiling like they’d never stop, and then there was Falk again. This time, he felt his lungs squeeze. From the low murmur that rippled through the crowd, he knew he wasn’t the only one shaken by the image.

A younger version of himself stood with Luke, now both long-limbed and freckled with acne. Still smiling, but this time part of a foursome. Luke’s arm was slung around the slim teenage waist of a girl with baby-blond hair. Falk’s hand hovered more cautiously over the shoulder of a second girl with long black hair and darker eyes.