The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(44)

Falk’s mood was low as they reached Gerry, who was leaning on a broom outside one of the barns. He looked up in surprise as they approached, and cast a nervous glance toward his wife.

“I didn’t know you’d arrived,” he said as Falk handed him one of the mugs.

“He’s been inside helping me,” Barb said.

“Right. Thanks.” Gerry sounded uncertain.

“There’s still plenty to do, when you’ve finished messing around out here.” Barb gave her husband a small smile. “It looks like you’ve made even less progress than I have.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s harder being here than I realized.” Gerry turned to Falk. “I thought it was time we came and faced it. Confronted things.” He looked toward the house. “Listen, is there anything in there you’d like? Photos or anything? You’d be welcome.”

Falk couldn’t imagine wanting to take a single souvenir from that terrible house into his own life. He shook his head.

“I’m good. Thanks, Gerry.”

He took a large gulp of coffee, swallowing so rapidly he nearly choked. He felt desperate to get away from this place. He wished Barb would leave so he could speak to Gerry alone.

Instead they all drank in silence, watching the horizon. In the distance, Falk could make out Mal Deacon’s farm sitting squat and ugly on the hillside. He remembered the barman’s comment about Deacon’s farm going to his nephew.

“What will you do with this place?” Falk asked. Gerry and Barb looked at each other.

“We haven’t really decided,” Gerry said. “We’ll have to sell it, I suppose. If we can. Put the money in a trust for Charlotte. We might have to bulldoze the house, though, sell it as land only.” Barb made a small tutting sound, and Gerry looked at her.

“Yeah, I know, love.” A defeated note had crept into his voice. “But I can’t see anyone round here wanting to live in it after all this, can you? And it’s not like outsiders are lining up to move here.”

“Have Deacon or Dow mentioned anything about joining forces?” Falk said. “Parceling up both properties for Asian investors?”

Barb turned to him, her face a picture of disgust. “We wouldn’t sell those two a five-dollar note for ten bucks, let alone team up with them. Would we, Gerry?”

Her husband shook his head, but Falk suspected he had a more realistic view of the state of the Kiewarra property market.

“We’ve had nothing but thirty years of grief from that side of the fence,” Barb went on, her voice a little louder. “We’re not about to help him now. Mal used to sneak out in the night and move the boundaries. Did you know that? Like we’d be too stupid to notice. Helped himself to anything he could find that wasn’t nailed down. I know it was him who ran over Luke’s dog all those years ago, no matter how much he denied it. Do you remember that?”

Falk nodded. Luke had loved that dog. He’d been fourteen and had cried openly as he’d cradled it by the roadside.

“And he always had a houseful of town blokes hanging round until all hours when he was younger, didn’t he, Gerry? Drinking and tearing up and down the roads in their trucks. Blasting their music when he knew we had to be up at the crack of dawn to keep the farm going.”

“That was a while ago now, love,” Gerry said, and Barb turned on him.

“Are you defending him?”

“No. God, no. I’m just stating a fact. He’s not been able to get up to much like that for a while, has he? You know that.”

Falk thought about his strange encounter with Deacon at the pub.

“Sounds like he has some sort of dementia.”

Barb snorted. “Is that what they’re calling it? A miserable lifetime of bad deeds catching up with the drunken bastard, if you ask me.”

She took a sip of coffee and looked up at Deacon’s land. When she spoke again Falk could hear the regret.

“It was Ellie I felt most sorry for. At least we could shut the door on him, but the poor girl had to live with it. I think he did care for her in his own way, but he was so defensive. Remember the upper field, Gerry?”

“We couldn’t prove that was him.”

“No, but it was. What else could it have been?” Barb turned to Falk. “It was when you kids were about eleven, not long after Ellie’s mum did a runner—not that I blame her. The little girl was forlorn, wasn’t she, Gerry? She was so thin; she wasn’t eating properly. And she had this look in her eyes. Like it was the end of the world. Eventually, I went up there to tell Mal that she wasn’t right and he needed to do something, or she’d be making herself sick with all that worry.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, he showed me the door before I could barely get the words out, as you’d expect. But then a week later our upper field died. No warning, nothing. We did some tests, and the soil acidity was all wrong.”

Gerry sighed. “Yeah. It can happen, but—”

“But it happens a lot easier if your neighbor dumps a round of chemicals on it,” Barb said. “It cost us thousands that year. We struggled to keep afloat. And it never properly recovered.”

Falk remembered that field, and he remembered the tense conversations around the Hadlers’ dinner table that year.