The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(34)

They’d been happy there once, Falk knew. He and his father, at least. Looking at the house now, it was like a line in his life. A marker at the cusp of before and after. A surge of anger fizzed, directed at least partly at himself. He didn’t know why he’d come. He took a step back. It was just another building in need of repair. There was nothing of him or his dad left there.

He was turning to leave when the screen door screeched open. A woman stepped out, her squashy figure backlit by the television glow. Dull chestnut hair was scraped back in a limp ponytail, and her hips spilled over the top of her waistband. Her face was the purple-red of a woman whose drinking was crossing the line from social to serious. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, staring at Falk in cold-eyed silence.

“Help you, mate?” She exhaled, her eyes narrowing into slits as the smoke drifted across her face.

“No, I—” He stopped, mentally kicking himself. He should have thought of something. Some excuse for lurking outside a stranger’s door as night fell. He studied her expression. There was suspicion, but not recognition. She didn’t know who he was. That helped. He considered and rejected telling her the truth in a single moment. He could always flash the badge. He would if he had to. But Falk the cop was embarrassed to find himself there.

“Sorry,” he said. “I used to know the people who lived here.”

The woman said nothing, took another drag from the cigarette. With her spare hand she reached behind and thoughtfully plucked the seat of her shorts from between her buttocks. She never took her narrowed eyes off Falk.

“Me and my hubby are the only ones here. Been here five years. And the place was his mum’s for fifteen or so before that.”

“It’s been about that long,” Falk said. “The people before her.”

“They’re gone,” she said, with the tone of someone forced to state the obvious. She dabbed her index finger and thumb to her tongue and removed a piece of tobacco.

“I know.”

“So?”

It was a good question. Falk wasn’t sure of the answer himself. The woman twisted around at a noise from inside the house. She opened the screen door wide enough to poke her head back indoors.

“Yeah, love,” Falk heard her say. “I’m sorting it. It’s fine. No one. Go back in. No, just—go back in, will you?” The woman waited a moment then reemerged, red-faced and scowling. She turned back to Falk and stepped off the porch toward him. Stopped a few meters away.

“You’d better leave right now, if you know what’s good for you.” Her voice was quiet but hostile. “He’s had a few, and he’s not going to be happy if he has to come out here, right? We’ve got bugger all to do with any of that stuff that happened back then. Understand? Never have. His mum neither. So you can take your bloody press pass or spray paint or bag of dog shit or whatever you’re here for and piss off, all right?”

“Look, I’m sorry.” Falk took a big step back, showed her his palms. Unthreatening. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Either of you.”

“Yeah, well, you have. This is our home, right? Bought and paid for. And I’m buggered if we’re going to be harassed. It’s been twenty years. Aren’t you dickheads bored of it by now?”

“Look, fair enough. I’ll go—”

She took a single step forward, pointed to the house with one hand and held out her cell phone with the other.

“Too right you will. Or it won’t be the cops I’ll be calling. It’ll be him inside and some of his mates who’ll be all too happy to get the message across. You hear me? Get. Lost.” She took a deep breath, her voice louder now. “And you can share that with whoever needs to know. We’ve got nothing to do with them that lived here. Nothing to do with those freaks.”

The word seemed to echo across the fields. Falk stood frozen for a moment. Then without a reply, he turned and walked away.

He didn’t look back once.





16


Gretchen’s blond hair bobbed through the pub crowd, and Falk felt a swift stab of gratitude that he hadn’t given in to his urge to cancel.

Leaving his old house behind the night before, he’d walked straight to his car and stood there for a long time, fighting the temptation to drive all the way back to Melbourne. After a restless night, he’d spent the day holed up in his room, poring over the stack of documents he’d taken from the Hadlers’ farm. It had been a fairly fruitless search, but he’d continued to work through methodically, making the odd note when something caught his eye. Head down, get the job done. Emerging briefly only to get food, he’d ignored the weekend bustle on the street and, after a moment’s guilt, turned his phone to silent when Gerry had called. Falk would do what he’d promised. That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it.

Now, downstairs in the pub, for the first time all day he didn’t feel in quite such a hurry to get away. Gretchen found him sitting at a table tucked into the back corner, his hat pulled forward. She was back in black, but a dress this time. It was short with a hem that skimmed her bare legs as she walked. It suited her far better than her funeral clothes. A few heads among the Saturday night crowd turned as she passed. Not as many as in high school, Falk noted, but some.

“You look nice,” he said.