The Roadhouse

by Kerry McGinnis

  But for all that, once I was in bed it took ages for sleep to claim me. I lay thinking of Mike and when my eyes finally closed, I found myself tossing in an uneasy half-waking state, starting at imagined sounds and my rest full of alarming dreams that faded as they woke me. I relived the shock of seeing again that elderly look of vulnerability on my mother’s face and from there it was a short step to worrying about Bob, because Jasper notwithstanding, what if the sinister-looking Paul did return to continue his search and found him in the way? A cattle dog would stop most people but what if, for instance, he was to come equipped with a tyre iron? Or any other weapon?

  I felt as great a sense of responsibility for old Bob as for my mother. In every way that mattered, he was the only real father I’d known, and I loved every hair on his curmudgeonly old head. He had to be seventy-five if he was a day, and for all his macho pretence, he would be no match at all for a killer. And whatever the man sought it was logical, wasn’t it, that having failed to find it in the homestead, he would carry the search into the roadhouse? Unless he’d given up? But, worrying it over and over in the darkness, I couldn’t convince myself that he had.

  I went through it again, the time line of Annabelle’s visit as described by both my mother and Bob. The initial meeting in the roadhouse, the withdrawal to the homestead, then Mum’s return, leaving Annabelle alone to shower and change and hide whatever she was carrying. Then her dramatic exit without farewell through the Garnet – back verandah, front door and gone. One place I could definitely rule out was the roadhouse’s kitchen. If she had detoured into the storeroom-cum-office where Bob now slept, it would have had to have been a lightning visit. As for the sheds, there simply wouldn’t have been time enough for her to trek across to them, search out a hiding place, and return unnoticed.

  Therefore, she must have thought it out beforehand, I realised. Picked out a spot that she was certain would be overlooked, and when Mum had refused her she’d gone straight to it. It was the only possible conclusion, though it still didn’t answer the more baffling questions of what she’d hidden, nor why.

  An old station complex held myriad nooks and crannies in its sheds and outbuildings, but I’d already discarded them. Ditto the house. It had been scoured to the bones. There were the public amenities and the staff dongas, but neither could be considered secure with strangers regularly traipsing through or inhabiting them. Anyway, both were no more than plain sealable boxes possessed of a door and windows.

  I sighed with frustration. The whole thing was impossible! It wasn’t as if anyone had secrets or treasure to hide out here. The cash from the business was in the safe, and that had only been acquired since the abortive hold-up, so Annabelle wouldn’t have its combination. Briefly, I wondered where Mum had kept the money before. Probably in a locked box that anyone could’ve nicked. And locked only to keep my father from depleting the contents, not because she feared being robbed.

  I would ask in the morning, although first I’d have to convince Mum there was no need for her to bounce straight back into the managing dynamo she’d been before her collapse. The Garnet was running smoothly enough without her labour, so perhaps I could get her to do something sedentary – sewing maybe? She’d bought material to make new curtains back before I’d left home, and I’d seen it still there untouched in the linen chest. Making curtains would be ideal: an easy, undemanding task lacking physical effort. I was still working out the best way to present the idea to her when I dropped off to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  At breakfast, which Mum had prepared as Ute had to go straight from her bed to the roadhouse kitchen to cook the road crew’s meal, I remembered my question.

  ‘I was wondering, Mum – back before you bought the safe, where did you stash the dosh until you could get it into town? It must’ve built up into quite a sum each time.’ Trips to the Alice would have been rarer when the roads were worse. Every three to four months when I was a child, I’d have guessed.

  ‘The old deed box. It had a padlock and used to live under my bed,’ she said. She smiled at Bob. ‘I still recall the time we lost the key. It fell out of my pocket. We couldn’t make change for a week till you found it near the woodheap. We were at the point of hacking it open with an axe when it turned up.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Bob’s eyes glinted and he straightened in his chair. ‘Then Jim took ’imself off on that trip, remember? Some damn fool scheme to drill for copper, and I made us that strongbox in the summerhouse. Of course, we still kept a bit of cash in the deed box so he wouldn’t go looking. Doubt he’d ever have found it,’ he added with satisfaction. ‘It was a damned neat bit of work, if I say it meself.’

  ‘In the summerhouse?’ I was flabbergasted. ‘Where, exactly? There’s nothing there but the old bench.’ And the chair, I mentally added, which used to stand on the verandah.

  ‘It’s under the bench, let into the floor. I set some of the flagstones into the lid. Your dad …’ He coughed apologetically, shooting a glance at my mother. ‘Let’s just say it weren’t wise to leave money lyin’ around the joint. He had a nose for it.’

  ‘He helped himself to anything he could get his hands on,’ Mum said bluntly. ‘That’s why we needed the strongbox.’

  ‘Who else knew about it? Did Annabelle? I’ve been flogging my brains trying to think of somewhere she could’ve hidden stuff … Why didn’t you say, Bob?’

  He bristled. ‘I forgot about it. Besides, only Molly and me ever knew it was there.’

  ‘Huh, I’ll bet Annabelle knew too! Come on, show me. It’s the obvious answer – the perfect hiding place and she’d have needed only seconds to reach it.’ I was on my feet. ‘When was it last used?’

  ‘Not since you were a child.’ Mum had risen too. ‘Lord, I haven’t even thought of it for a decade or more. She couldn’t have known it was there.’

  ‘You think?’ I led the way out the back door and down to the summerhouse, which looked quite attractive now that the flowerbed had been cleared of weeds so the blossoms could be seen. ‘Right, Bob. Under the bench, you said?’ I seized one end of it and, grunting, he grabbed the other to help move it aside. ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘Yer ain’t meant to.’ He got creakily down onto his knees, grabbed a bit of flagstone standing slightly proud of the rest and heaved. It was heavy, I could see, but he slid the lid easily to one side, then glared transfixed into the cavity beneath.

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered!’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I crouched beside him to stare at the fluffy blue folds of fabric tucked into the space.

  ‘That’s my cardy!’ Mum, glimpsing it, sounded outraged.

  ‘There’s something wrapped in it,’ I said. ‘Let me see.’ I lifted the bundle clear and placed it on the bench. The garment was a pale-blue cardigan knitted in a lacy pattern with little imitation pearl buttons down the front. I unfolded the top layer to disclose a bulging calico bag.

  ‘Tip it out,’ Mum said. I obeyed, opening the drawstring to upend the calico over the cardigan and was rewarded with a rain of chains and rings and bracelets, cascading down in a glitter of silver and gold and the effulgent gleam of gems.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Bob picked up a handful, the delicate links of the gold necklaces incongruous against his leathery palm. ‘It’s the stuff they stole! Gotta be. How much did they reckon this lot’s worth?’

  ‘Over eighty thousand, retail anyway,’ I replied, and he whistled as I goggled at the flash of diamonds, the duller glow of square-cut emeralds, the deep, almost purple gleam of sapphires. ‘Rubies, amethysts … could those be topaz? And platinum, do you think?’

  Bob ignored the question. ‘No bloody wonder he turned the joint over lookin’ for them.’

  ‘But how did she get it inside? I mean, you’d have noticed if she was carrying all this, Mum, wouldn’t you? And it’s too big for a pocket. Surely Paul would have noticed it too.’

  ‘She had one of those roll-on bags they carry onto planes,’ Mum said.
‘I thought she meant to stay overnight, and then when she said she’d shower before she left I just thought it was typical of her to make use of … well, I was too angry really to think much at all. But it must’ve been in there with her clothes. I suppose she must’ve told him that she meant to freshen up, so it would seem natural to have the bag with her.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Bob said impatiently. ‘Don’t matter how she done it. We need to get shot of it. You’d best ring the copper, Molly.’

  ‘Wait, let me check if there’s anything more.’ I still couldn’t understand Annabelle’s motive for this. The presence of the jewels certainly provided a reason for her murder, but not for her to hide them in the first place. Paul would eventually have noticed the loot was missing, maybe that same day, even.

  ‘There’s something here – a card.’ With two fingers Mum delicately moved aside a filigreed silver bracelet to reveal a printed oblong in a familiar shade of pale green. ‘It’s a Medicare card,’ she said blankly, ‘in the name of Paul A Belligrin. Why in the world should that be hidden with stolen property?’

  ‘To identify him,’ I exclaimed. ‘Of course! Once the police get that they’ll know who they’re looking for. They can get his address from the system and track him down. Why, it could be weeks before he even realises it’s missing – if you’re not visiting a doctor you’d never even notice your card was gone. Not like a driver’s licence. The question is, why did she do it? Was it out of revenge, or to protect herself?’

  ‘Could she have meant to threaten him with it?’ Mum asked. ‘Like informing the police where the jewellery was if she didn’t get what she wanted?’

  ‘Don’t make no difference now.’ Bob grabbed up a handful of jewellery and began stuffing it back into the bag. ‘Let’s get this somewhere safe till the copper gets ’ere.’

  I put a hand on his arm. ‘I have a better idea. We’ll put it back where it came from. Then Tom can see for himself where it was found. We don’t want the cops thinking we knew about this, which they might if we suddenly produce it out of the safe.’ I knelt by the cavity again, but before I could receive the bundle from him I glimpsed other items in the bottom of the strongbox.

  Hand to my mouth, I stared, then bent to lift them carefully out: a tobacco tin, a musty-smelling copy of Venture to the Main, a skipping rope with painted wooden handles and a child’s handkerchief with something knotted in one corner. I knew immediately what it was.

  ‘Didn’t you have a rope just like …?’ Mum began, but her words tailed off as I pulled the knot from the hanky to reveal the plump gold locket that had been my birthday gift. ‘Why, that’s …’

  I twisted the tin and the lid came easily away to reveal, nested in their cotton wool as I had always kept them, my little shell family. I touched them gently with one finger: Mum, Dad, Bob, me, and the two little babies with their pencilled eyes (somewhat crooked, I saw) and their tufts of glued-on curls.

  ‘That wicked child!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘So she did take them, just like you always claimed.’

  ‘Yes.’ I riffled through the book, checking the illustrations of the sailing ships, and of the handsome captain with his rapier and cummerbund, which I had coloured in. I’d forgotten that. The book smelled old and musty, and the colours on the illustrated cover had faded. I had loved that book. Gently I laid it back down and looked up at Mum. ‘Proof, if you still need it,’ I observed dryly, ‘that Annabelle knew about your strongbox.’

  I replaced the items together with the stolen goods, dusting off the knees of my jeans as Bob lifted the heavy concrete lid into place. We left the bench where it was but even uncovered the lines of the hole were hard to distinguish, for the flagstones cemented into the lid overlapped the straight edges of the cavity. It was a masterly piece of disguise, typical of Bob’s fussy workmanship.

  Back inside once more, I rang Harts Range to tell Tom of our discovery, which, I pointed out, was certain proof that Annabelle’s death was linked to the break-in at the homestead.

  ‘His name’s Paul Belligrin, by the way,’ I added smugly.

  There was a moment’s silence before Constable Cleary asked suspiciously, ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘His Medicare card’s with the swag.’ That’d be an expression to trick Ute, I thought frivolously, presuming of course that she’d ever encountered a real swag in her outback travels, for she carried a sleeping bag herself. ‘When do you think you can get here, Tom?’

  But he needed no urging and was at the door some thirty minutes later with a camera to take pictures of the loot in situ, of the summerhouse itself, of the emptied cavity and, finally, of the jewellery laid out on the kitchen table. He slipped the card into one evidence bag and divided the recovered items between three others, having carefully numbered the various pieces first. All three of us were required to make statements about the steps that led to finding it, which he told us he’d have typed up ready for our signatures when it was done.

  ‘Well, you’d best bring ’em down to us for that,’ Bob said. ‘We can’t all be traipsing up to the cop shop just to sign things. Some of us have work to do.’ He sniffed, saying virtuously, ‘’Specially as we’ve done all the hard yakka of locatin’ it for yer.’

  ‘I hope the police will make public the fact that it’s been found,’ I added. ‘Because Mr Belligrin could come calling again. Especially if he’s noticed his Medicare card’s missing. He just might work out when and where he lost it.’

  ‘Could you swear to the last time you saw yours?’ Tom asked. ‘Anyway, that’s a decision for my bosses to make, but I shouldn’t think you need worry.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re right, Tom. I’ll have something to say if the Garnet gets done over too,’ my mother promised.

  ‘It won’t happen, Molly. He’s already searched the place – why would he come back? Well, I’ll be off, then, to report this.’

  He gathered up his evidence bags and departed, rattling past the road crew’s vehicles. Though he was plainly well pleased, Tom’s reassurances rang hollow in my ears. The card was the only means the police had of identifying the man wanted for double murder. Why would Belligrin not risk returning to find it when, if discovered with the stolen goods, it guaranteed him a life sentence should the police ever manage to catch him?

  We waited, watching the midday, afternoon and evening news with religious zeal, each day expecting an announcement that the police had recovered the jewellery, but nothing was reported.

  ‘The buggers are keepin’ it quiet,’ Bob said. ‘They don’t want him to know he’s been rumbled. Means they can’t find him, even with his name and bloody address, which they oughta have by now.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was worrying. Of course, Belligrin could have left his old address should he have discovered the card was missing and guessed that Annabelle was responsible. Or the continued media silence could mean he was lurking about the ranges still and had yet to return to his residence. Or he might have skipped off overseas, or headed up to Darwin – the possibilities were endless. If he owned a vehicle the police could circulate the numberplate nationwide … I shook away the train of thought. It was pointless, I knew, but I couldn’t help worrying. I had never felt so exposed and helpless, so open to attack. The Garnet, lapped within the sheltering folds of the range, had always been a place of peace and serenity, of blue skies and bird calls and now, everywhere I looked, I imagined danger sneaking ever closer to harm those I loved.

  I wished Mike was with me. I could talk to him at least, air my fears. I wasn’t about to upset Mum with them, or worry Bob, who was still manfully guarding the roadhouse each night, and I didn’t plan to alarm Ute. Hadn’t I told her the bush was safe? And so it was, I silently reiterated, only once you added a double murderer to the equation everything changed.

  If Mum had any misgivings over Paul returning, she didn’t show it. To my relief she was being sensible about resting and leaving the lifting and carrying of stuff to Bob and me. Something to be thankful for, I thought, fin
ishing up the task of scrubbing the dried mud off the verandah. The daily spraying of the dirt track by the water truck meant that the road crew trekked mud everywhere, but mud, I figured, was better than dust. Mum was presently behind the counter seated in a cane chair Bob had fetched over from the quarters, working on her crocheting. The curtains were finished and she’d moved on without urging to a hobby previously confined to winter evenings, but that now filled the peaceful stretches between customers. She laid down the delicate work as I entered.

  ‘There you are, Charlie. Could you watch the shop for a bit? I want to get the washing off the line.’

  ‘I’ll do it, Mum. I’m due over to the house anyway to do the watering. You want a cuppa before I go?’

  ‘Maybe when you come back. The benefit barbecue’s this Saturday, remember. I need to make some lists and ring whoever’s turn it is to bring the meat.’

  ‘Surely not,’ I protested, ‘it’s only a couple of weeks since the last —’

  ‘The races,’ Mum said. ‘This one’s early so the two dates don’t clash. I find it’s best to remind the stations because everyone’s so busy with the mustering they’re likely to forget it’s on.’

  ‘Okay. How much more money do they need to raise to fund this clinic building?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Years’ worth, the rate we’re going. The CWA’s doing their bit, and the Race Club are pitching in too, but we could do with a really big sponsor to move things along. Meanwhile, you just have to tell yourself that every little bit helps, and it’ll all be worth it in the end.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  As I had been hoping, the Abbey Downs lot attended the barbecue. I saw Mike’s tall form among the hatted group of young men and my heart gave a little joyful skip as he came towards me.