Exiles (Aaron Falk #3)(10)

“Okay,” Kim said in a way that had made Falk vaguely wonder—even then—if she was already regretting the commitment. “See you there.”

“Great. Bye, Mum. Love you.” Zara had pushed her chair back to stand, her finger already hovering over the screen.

“Bye, Zara. I love y—”

Zara had tapped the screen once, and the call went dead.

There was no way she could have known at the time what was coming, Falk thought now as he looked across the kitchen at the teenage girl, twelve months on. There was a dark weight behind her eyes that had not been there a year ago, and Zara’s gaze was somewhere else as she stared out of the window at the vines.

Falk would bet good money she relived that conversation often. The ending, at least. When she’d leaned forward and reached toward the screen. The single tap of her index finger, the light touch of skin against glass to cut short those last words she would now never hear from her mum. Falk hoped he was wrong, but he doubted he was. Zara looked like she felt that movement in her sleep.





4


The sun was lower over the vineyard by the time they’d finished dinner and loaded the boxes of appeal flyers into Charlie’s Land Rover. Rita and the kids came to the front door to say goodbye, Henry already wrapped in a bath towel. Raco kissed them, then climbed into the back seat next to Zara as Charlie fired up the engine.

From the passenger seat, Falk watched Rita wave as they pulled away. Her smile didn’t dip, but he knew her well enough to spot the hint of stress. He couldn’t decide if she was relieved or sorry not to be joining them.

Charlie didn’t say anything as he drove. The boxes of flyers slid in the trunk with a gentle thump as he turned out of the vineyard and onto the road. Last year they’d driven this same route, but the trunk had been clinking instead, loaded with a couple of crates of Charlie’s own shiraz.

“I make a few bottles most years,” he’d told Falk back then as they’d loaded those crates into the trunk. “See how it turns out.”

“It’s not a big part of your business?” Falk had asked, and Charlie had laughed.

“Not even a small part. A few of the wineries buy pretty much everything from the vines, but I keep a bit back myself for fun. Bottle it up. Sell it at the festival, couple of the farmers’ markets, that kind of thing. Give it to friends, whether they want it or not.”

Falk had reached into a crate and picked up a bottle, turning it over in his hand, looking at the vineyard’s logo on the label. He’d tried to imagine creating something like this from scratch, from grapes to crate. “Does it come up well?”

“It does.” Charlie had grinned. “If I do say so myself.”

Falk had put the bottle back. “You didn’t fancy following in the family footsteps, then?”

“No, I did not,” Charlie had said with such vigor that Falk had had to smile. The Racos were a police family, and the three brothers had grown up watching their dad oversee this very town as the long-standing local sergeant. Keeping the place firmly shipshape by all accounts, until he’d finally retired fifteen years earlier and moved away with their mum to soak up a bit of Queensland sun. He’d died a couple of years ago, Falk knew, but two of his three sons had continued his legacy with careers in the force.

“Never appealed to me at all,” Charlie had said. “You’ve got to be a certain type, I reckon. No offense.”

Falk had laughed. “None taken.”

“I’m a little offended,” Raco had said mildly as he straightened up a crate.

“I know, mate. That’s because you’re exactly that type,” Charlie had said and grinned back at his brother as he’d slammed the trunk.

There was no joking in the car this year as they drove toward the festival site, barely exchanging a word. Marralee’s streets were already heavy with tourist traffic and they hit a slow crawl well before they could see the grounds themselves. The site was only a few kilometers from the vineyard, Falk remembered from the previous year. Close enough for them all to walk, had it not been for the boxes of flyers stacked in the trunk, but no one complained. They were edging into the parking lot when Zara finally broke the silence.

“Do you think this will work?”

Raco shifted in his seat. “The appeal?”

“Yeah.”

Falk glanced at Zara in the side mirror. She was running her eyes over the cars in the next lane, scanning the occupants carefully. He wasn’t sure what she was expecting or hoping to see.

“I think it depends on what you’re expecting, mate,” Raco said. “Will it shake some memories loose, maybe help fill in the timeline a bit more? Yeah, hopefully. Are you going to come away knowing what your mum did, step by step? Unlikely. I’m sorry, I wish—”

“No. I know. It’s okay.” Zara’s face was still. Only her eyes continued to move, darting from one car to the next.

The approach to the site looked exactly the same as Falk remembered. Even from inside the car he could hear the lilt of a band playing somewhere in the distance, the faint notes mixing with the familiar low, steady hum generated by hundreds of people converging in one place. Parking attendants in sunglasses and high-vis vests directed cars into a single file and herded them past rows of earlier arrivals toward an open field.