The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(50)

“I was in the fields after Luke left at first, but then I went for a bit of a drive,” Sullivan said.

“Where?”

“Nowhere really. Just around.”

“Be specific,” Falk said.

“Out to the lookout. Nowhere near the Hadlers’ place, though. I wanted some space to think.”

Falk looked at him. Sullivan tried to meet his gaze.

“That farm of yours,” Falk said. “How big is it?”

Sullivan hesitated, sensing a trap.

“Couple of hundred acres.”

“Pretty big, then.”

“Big enough.”

“So tell me why a man who spends twelve, fourteen hours a day on a couple of hundred acres of fields needs any more space to think?”

Sullivan looked away.

“So you reckon you went for a drive. Alone. What’s your excuse for keeping that quiet?” Raco said.

Sullivan glanced at the ceiling, considering and rejecting his initial response. Then he held his palms out and looked them both in the eye properly for the first time.

“I knew how it would sound, and I didn’t want the hassle. To be honest, I was hoping you wouldn’t find out.”

For the first time, Falk felt like he was hearing the truth. He knew from the file that Sullivan was twenty-five years old and had moved to Kiewarra ten years earlier with his late father and grandmother. More than a decade after the day Ellie drowned. Still.

“Does the name Ellie Deacon mean anything to you?” he asked. As Sullivan glanced up, a look flashed across his face too fast for Falk to read.

“I know she died. Years ago. And I know—” He nodded at Falk. “I know Luke and—and you—were friends with her. That’s about it.”

“Luke ever talk about her?”

Sullivan shook his head. “Not to me. He mentioned her once or twice, said that he had a friend and she drowned, but he didn’t talk about the past much.”

Falk thumbed through the files until he found the photo he was looking for and slid it across the table. It was the close-up of the interior of Luke’s truck’s cargo tray, zoomed in tight on the four horizontal marks near his body.

“Any idea what they are?” Falk said, and Sullivan stared at them.

Four lines. In two columns of two on the interior side of the tray, about a meter apart. Sullivan didn’t touch the photo. His eyes ran over the image, as though trying to work something out.

“Rust?” he ventured. He was neither convinced nor convincing.

“OK.” Falk took the photo back.

“Look, I didn’t kill them.” Sullivan’s pitch rose. “Luke was my mate. He was a good mate to me.”

“Then help us,” Raco said. “Help Luke. Don’t make us waste time looking at you if we should be looking somewhere else.”

Wet circles had seeped out under the arms of Sullivan’s blue shirt. The whiff of body odor drifted across the table. The silence stretched out.

Falk gambled. “Jamie. Her husband doesn’t have to know.”

Sullivan looked up, and for a second there was a ghost of a grin on his face.

“You think I’m shagging someone’s wife?”

“I think if there’s anyone who can confirm where you were, you need to tell us now.”

Sullivan went very still. They waited. Then the farmer gave a tiny shake of his head. “There’s not.”

Not quite right then, Falk thought. But he also got the feeling he wasn’t entirely wrong.




“What’s worse than being fingered for a triple murder?” Falk said half an hour later as they watched Sullivan get into his four-wheel drive and pull away. The interview had gone around in circles until Sullivan had folded his arms. He’d refused to say a word other than insisting he needed to check on his gran or call someone to make arrangements.

“Yeah, he’s scared of something,” Raco said. “Exactly what, is the question?”

“We’ll keep tabs on him,” Falk said. “I’m going to head back to the pub for a while, go through the rest of the Hadlers’ files.”

When in doubt, an instructor of Falk’s had always said, follow the money. It had been sound advice. Raco lit a cigarette and walked with him to his car, parked on a patch of land behind the station. They rounded the corner, and Falk stopped dead. He stood and stared, waiting for his brain to process what his eyes were seeing.

Across the doors and the hood of his car, the message had been carved over and over into the paintwork. The letters flashed silver in the sun.

WE WILL SKIN YOU KILLER SCUM





21


Gretchen stopped whatever she’d been saying, her mouth frozen mid-word as Falk drove his damaged car into the pub parking lot. She was talking to Scott Whitlam on the pavement as Lachie played around her feet. In his mirror, Falk could see them staring as he parked up.

“Bugger,” he said under his breath. It was only a few hundred meters from the police station to the pub, but it had felt like a long journey through the center of town. He got out of the car, the silver scrapings in the paint winking at him as he slammed the door.

“Oh my God. When did that happen?” Gretchen ran up with Lachie in tow. The little boy waved at Falk before turning his wide-eyed attention to the car. He reached out a stubby finger to trace the carved letters, and to Falk’s horror began sounding out the first word before Gretchen hastily pulled him away. She sent him to play on the other side of the parking lot, and he reluctantly sloped off to poke things down a drain.