The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(25)

“It’s what we needed.” He lowered his voice. “Tree hasn’t got a hope in hell, though. God knows what we’re supposed to tell the kids when it dies. Anyway.” He nodded toward the blond-brick building. “We’ve gathered together anything belonging to Karen and Billy, like you asked. There’s not a lot, I’m afraid, but it’s in the office.”

They followed him across the grounds. A bell rang somewhere in the distance. End of the school day. Up close, the buildings and play equipment made a depressing sight. Paint had chipped from every surface and the exposed metal was red with rust. There were cracks in the plastic slide, and only one end of the basketball court had a hoop. The signs of a community in poverty were everywhere.

“Funding,” Whitlam said when he saw them looking around. “There’s never enough.”

Around the back of the school building a few sad sheep stood in brown paddocks. Beyond, the land rose sharply to a chain of hills covered with bushland.

The principal stopped to fish a handful of leaves out of the sheep’s water trough.

“Do you still teach farm skills these days?” Falk remembered checking a similar water trough once upon a time.

“Some. We try to keep it light, though. Have some fun. The kids get enough of the gritty realities at home,” Whitlam said.

“You teach it?”

“God, no, I’m a humble city slicker. We moved up from Melbourne eighteen months ago, and I’ve just about learned to tell one end of a cow from the other. My wife fancied a change of scenery from the city.” He paused. “We got one, all right.”

He pushed open a heavy door to a hallway that smelled like sandwiches. Along the walls, kids’ paintings and drawings were pinned up.

“Jesus, some of these are depressing,” Raco murmured.

Falk could see what he meant. There were stick-figure families in which every face had a crayon mouth turned downward. A painting of a cow with angel wings. “Toffee My Cow in Heaven,” the shaky caption read. In every attempt at landscape, the fields were colored brown.

“You should see the ones we didn’t put up,” Whitlam said, stopping at the office door. “The drought. It’s going to kill this town.”

He took an enormous bunch of keys from his pocket and let them into his office. Pointing them to a couple of chairs that had seen better days, he disappeared into a store cupboard. He emerged a moment later carrying a sealed cardboard box.

“Everything’s in here. Bits and pieces from Karen’s desk, some of Billy’s schoolwork. Mostly paintings and worksheets, I’m afraid.”

“Thanks.” Raco took it from him.

“They’re missed.” Whitlam leaned against his desk. “Both of them. We’re all still reeling.”

“How closely did you work with Karen?” Falk asked.

“Reasonably so. We’ve only got a small staff. She was excellent. She looked after the finances and accounts. Good at it too. Too smart for this job really, but I think it suited her with child care and things.”

The window was open a crack, and the sounds from the playground drifted through. “Look, can I ask why you’re here?” Whitlam said. “I thought this was resolved.”

“It involved three members of the same family,” Raco said. “Unfortunately, something like that’s never clear-cut.”

“Right. Of course.” Whitlam sounded unconvinced. “The thing is, I’ve got an obligation to make sure students and staff are safe, so if—”

“We’re not suggesting there’s anything to worry about, Scott,” Raco said. “If there’s something you need to know, we’ll make sure you know it.”

“All right, message received,” Whitlam said. “What can I do to help you?”

“Tell us about Karen.”

The knock was quiet but firm. Whitlam looked up from his desk as the door opened. A blond head poked around.

“Scott, have you got a minute?”

Karen Hadler stepped into his office. She wasn’t smiling.

“She stopped by to speak to me, the day before she and Billy were killed,” Whitlam said. “She was worried, of course.”

“Why ‘of course’?” Raco asked.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound facetious. But you saw those kids’ pictures on the wall. I meant everyone’s scared. The adults are no different.”

He thought for a moment.

“Karen was a really valued team member. But she’d become quite stressed in those last couple of weeks. She was snappy, which was unusual. Definitely distracted. And she’d been making one or two errors in the accounts. Nothing serious; we caught them. But again, it was unlike her. It bothered her. She was normally so precise. So she came to see me about it.”

Karen shut the door behind her. She chose the seat closest to Whitlam’s desk. She sat straight-backed and crossed her legs neatly at the ankles. Her wraparound dress was flattering but modest, with a subtle print of white apples against a red background. Karen was the kind of woman whose youthful good looks had been softened by age and childbirth into something less defined but just as appealing in their own way. She could easily be cast as a how-does-she-do-it mum in a supermarket ad. Anyone could have confidence in a brand of detergent or cereal Karen Hadler recommended.