The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(74)

“Just something Gretchen I were talking about before. About Ellie being unhappy. Not just unhappy, miserable. I’m sure Mal Deacon was abusive.”

“Physically? Sexually?”

“I don’t know. Maybe both.”

“Right,” Raco said. There was silence.

“Deacon doesn’t have an alibi for the afternoon the Hadlers were killed.”

Raco sighed heavily down the line. “Mate, he’s in his seventies with mental problems. He may be a bastard, but he’s a doddery old one.”

“So? He can still hold a shotgun.”

“So,” Raco snapped, “I think your view on Deacon is colored by the fact you hate his guts for what happened to you over twenty years ago.”

Falk didn’t reply.

“Sorry,” Raco said. He yawned. “I’m tired. We’ll talk tomorrow.” He paused. “Rita says hello.”

“Hello back. And sorry. Night.”

The line went dead.

It felt like only minutes later when the room’s landline woke Falk with a sharp plastic trill. He prized open one eye. It was barely seven. He lay with his forearm over his face, struggling to make himself respond. He’d looked at his notes until falling into a clammy disturbed sleep, and now his head was pounding in protest. Unable to bear the noise, he summoned the energy to reach out and pick up the receiver.

“Jesus. At last,” McMurdo said. “Did I wake you?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever, my friend, it doesn’t matter. Listen, you need to come down right now.”

“I’m not dressed—”

“Trust me,” McMurdo said. “I’ll meet you round the back. I’ll give you a hand as best I can.”




Falk’s car was awash with shit. Streaks and smears covered the paintwork, pooling around the wheels and under the windscreen wipers. The mess was already dry in the early morning sun and had settled into the words scratched into Falk’s car. SKIN YOU, spelled out in shit rather than silver.

Falk ran over. He had to hold his shirt over his nose before he got anywhere near. The smell was almost solid in his mouth. The flies were in a frenzy, and he swatted them away in disgust as they landed on his face and hair.

The inside was worse. A funnel or hose had been wedged into the tiny gap of window Falk tended to leave open on the driver’s side to let heat escape overnight. The revolting sludge was splattered across the steering wheel and radio and collected in murky pools in the seats and footwell. None of the other cars in the lot had been touched. McMurdo was standing off to the side with his forearm pressed across his mouth and nose. He shook his head.

“Bloody hell, mate. I’m so sorry. I was bringing the empties out and found it. They must have come in the night.” McMurdo paused. “At least it’s animal. Mostly. I think.”

Still holding his shirt over his nose, Falk walked around the car silently. His poor car. Scratched and now destroyed. He felt a surge of rage course through him. He peered through the streaked windows, holding his breath. Careful not to get too close. Through the grime, he could see there was something else inside the car. He stepped back, not trusting himself to speak.

Plastered to the seats and smeared with shit and stench were hundreds of fliers appealing for information about the death of Ellie Deacon.




The mood at the station was bleak.

“I’ll read Dow and his uncle the riot act, mate,” Raco had said to Falk before picking up the phone. “You know what the car’s worth? Could be some compensation.”

Falk had shrugged distractedly as he sat at a desk looking blankly at the Hadler files. Across the room Raco now hung up the phone and put his head in his hands for a moment.

“Looks like Deacon’s making a preemptive strike,” Raco called over to Falk. “He’s put in a complaint. Against you.”

“Really.” Falk crossed his arms and looked out of the police station window. “And yet my car’s the one covered in shit.”

“He says you’ve been harassing him. Tampering with his daughter’s grave or something? He’s coming in with a lawyer.”

“Right.” Falk didn’t look around.

“Do I need to ask—?”

“I wasn’t, but there were no witnesses. So it’ll be his word against mine. And I do have an axe to grind, so…” Falk gave a shrug.

“You not bothered about it? It’s serious, mate. I’ll have to process it, but it’ll go to someone independent. Career could take a hit.”

Falk looked over.

“Of course I’m bothered. But that’s Deacon all over, isn’t it?” Falk’s voice was so quiet Raco had to lean forward to hear him. “Leaving a trail of destruction and misery. He used to smack his wife around; probably did the same to his daughter. He had a hold over this town and used it to drive me and my dad away. His nephew’s done God knows what to make Karen Hadler write down his name days before she died. That pair are dirty. And no one ever calls them on it.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know what to suggest. I’m just saying Deacon deserves to be strung up by his balls. Getting him on a vandalism charge is too good for him. He’s as guilty as sin for something bigger. The Hadlers, his daughter. Something. I know it.”