The Shearer's Wife

by Fleur McDonald

  Ian looked at her, then down at her finger. ‘But if you don’t come I won’t get to see the kids grow up.’ He paused. ‘Don’t you want to be with me anymore? Have you met someone else?’ A flicker of rage crossed his face and he carefully put Alroy on the ground and moved to sit next to Rose, taking her hand. ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’

  ‘What? No! No, Ian, that’s got nothing to do with what I’m talking about. I’ve missed you and I’m glad you’re here. But I don’t want to travel all the time anymore. No more. You’ve got no idea how hard our old lifestyle would be with these two in tow. The thought just frightens me.’ She closed her eyes and shuddered, before drawing in a deep breath. ‘In time the kids will need to go to school and then they really won’t be able to be pulled and pushed all over the country.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ He was watching her, then put his hand up to her face. ‘If you still love me, why wouldn’t you want to be with me?’

  ‘I haven’t once said I don’t want to be with you. Stay here for a week and you will see. Kids aren’t playthings you can just put in the car and drive with. They’ll slow you down; stops for changing nappies, a feed. You know they still cry? Can you imagine driving thousands of kilometres with a screaming baby in the back?’ Tears pricked her eyes.

  ‘Well, if you feel so strongly, Rose, I won’t ask you.’ He glanced at the boy, who had rolled onto his stomach and was now picking at the lawn. ‘The kids …’

  ‘You haven’t been here for the past year,’ Rose said bravely. ‘You’ve missed a lot of their growing up anyway.’ She paused. ‘You don’t have to go, you know. Would you … Would you think about staying around here? Getting a job on a farm? Please?’

  Ian shook his head immediately. ‘You know that’s not what I like doing. I don’t stay in one spot.’

  Rose looked at him sadly. ‘Guess we’re at a stalemate, then.’ She paused. ‘Can I ask you something? Did you miss us at all?’ The expression that passed over Ian’s face told her everything she needed to know. She got up. ‘I’m going to check on Bridget. It’s odd she hasn’t woken up yet.’

  Disappearing into the house, she put her fist up against her mouth and leaned against the wall, trying to stop the sobs that wanted to rip from her. He hadn’t missed her and she’d be naive to think he hadn’t had other women. Maybe it was better to tell him their relationship was over.

  Breathing hard to get back in control, she wiped her eyes and went in to see Bridget. Placing her hand on her head, Rose frowned. Bridget was hot to touch.

  ‘Bridget?’ She shook her a little and then reached in and picked her up. ‘Bridget?’

  The baby didn’t open her eyes and Rose could tell now she had a fever.

  ‘Ian,’ she called, the panic plain in her voice. ‘Ian? I have to take Bridget to the hospital.’

  He appeared in the doorway. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘She’s got a temperature and she’s not waking up. Can you stay with Alroy?’

  Ian looked down at the baby in her arms and nodded. ‘Best you get on, then,’ he said. ‘We can finish talking about this later.’

  Chapter 18

  2020

  Dave slammed the car door, hard. He’d stewed all the way home from Adelaide, and he still wasn’t sure what he was more furious about: the fact that Kim hadn’t told him what was going on, or that she’d bailed Essie.

  ‘What the fuck was she thinking?’ he muttered as he stomped up the pathway.

  The door opened and Kim stood there, a look of defiance on her face. He shook his head, pushing past.

  ‘I did the right thing,’ Kim said, following him inside.

  ‘And how do you arrive at that conclusion?’ Dave walked down the passage and put his briefcase on the kitchen bench before turning to face her. Blood thudded in his temples.

  ‘Calm down, Dave. Please. You know Essie needed help.’

  ‘She would’ve got all the help she needed from me in the right capacity.’

  ‘You would have left her in jail?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I was going to her bail hearing so I could speak on her behalf if I had to. Then, if she wasn’t given bail, I was going to be there to reassure her everything would be all right.’ He took a breath. ‘Next thing I know, I’m being abused by the AFP and they’re the ones telling me that my wife—my wife—had given the surety. How the fuck do you expect me to calm down when I’m informed about something so important as this by the arresting officer!’

  Sitting at the breakfast bar, Dave tapped his fingers on the bench and looked at Kim, who had her back to him now.

  ‘How could you not discuss this with me?’ he asked. ‘And why you thought it was okay to raise bail for Essie and not even let me know you had beggars belief.’

  ‘I tried. That’s when you sent the text saying you were at court and couldn’t talk. I did try, Dave.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You tried after the fact. After you’d been in to see Jack and signed the papers, but not before. You didn’t give me an opportunity to tell you how your actions might affect me and my job.’ He got up and went to the fridge, grabbing a beer. ‘To get shown up by those plastics.’ He shook his head in disgust.

  Kim turned around, fury on her face. ‘Is that what you’re worried about?’ she hissed. ‘The fact that they knew before you did?’

  ‘No! That wasn’t ideal, but it looks like I was party to what you did, when I wasn’t. And it’ll cause me problems.’

  ‘If it does, I’m sorry for that, but you knew who I was when you married me, David Burrows,’ Kim shot back at him. ‘I’m my own person. I make decisions without being swayed by what people think or tell me. Essie needs help. So does that little girl! How could you think I’d let an old lady languish in the cells? Surely you know me better than that. God knows what could have happened to her in there already. She’s not strong! And Paris needs her here.’

  ‘But this wasn’t the way to do it,’ Dave argued. ‘I can’t help—’

  Dave’s mobile phone rang. Angrily, he took it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve got to take this.’ He didn’t look at Kim as he answered. ‘Detective Dave Burrows.’

  He paused, then pounded his fist softly on the bench.

  ‘Yes.’

  Pause.

  ‘Yes. Okay.’

  Pause.

  ‘Yes, sir. See you tomorrow, sir.’ Deflated, Dave put the phone gently down on the bench.

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘That’s wrecked that.’

  Kim’s tone was fearful. ‘What?’

  ‘That was the Assistant Commissioner. I have to go and see him tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, no, Dave. I never meant …’

  Dave took a sip of his drink and shook his head. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered, looking at the kitchen counter.

  Kim put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. A few moments later, he put his hand on top of hers and swung around to look at her.

  ‘For God’s sake, next time something like this comes up, talk to me about what you’re going to do first, okay?’ Kim nodded, her face full of concern. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to help Essie.’

  ‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘I probably knew deep down you were going to pull something like this. To bail Essie is just the sort of thing you’d do.’ Dave looked up at her. ‘And that’s the sort of thing that made me want to marry you.’ He stood and drew her into a hug.

  Dave pulled his car up at the police station, the humiliation of the Assistant Commissioner’s words still stinging after the four-hour drive back from Adelaide.

  His sat tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, then reached over and rifled through the glove box to see if he could find any mints. Actually, what he was doing was delaying seeing Jack. He’d already texted Kim with the news.

  ‘Just rip the bandaid off, Burrows,’ he muttered to himself.

  The wind tried to tear the car door from his hands as he got out, but he held
on tightly, retrieving his briefcase and wallet.

  ‘You’re back,’ Jack said from behind him.

  Turning around, Dave nodded. ‘Well, that’s stating the obvious,’ he said with a grin.

  ‘How’d you go?’

  ‘Come inside first. It’s bloody cold. What’s happened here today?’

  ‘Not too much. Did a highway patrol out near Port Augusta. Got a couple speeding and one with mobile-phone use. A P-plater texting. Know how I got her?’

  ‘How?’ Dave pushed open the door, nodded to Joan and headed towards his office, Jack following.

  ‘She was on the wrong side of the road coming around a corner.’

  ‘They never learn, do they? What’d you say to her?’

  ‘That I really didn’t want to be informing her parents that she’d been involved in a fatality, which is what it would have been if I hadn’t been watching and on my game. Unless I’d been killed too.’

  ‘And the response?’

  ‘“I wasn’t texting.”’

  Dave shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘They think we’re stupid sometimes—as if we haven’t heard every excuse in the book. Did you give her a ticket?’

  ‘Sure did. Said I had the authority to look at her phone and I’d be able to see at what time any text message had been sent or if she’d been texting in the last five minutes, which would have been while she was driving. Funnily enough she didn’t give me any trouble after that.’

  ‘Good job.’ Dave sat down heavily, and Jack did the same, looking at him expectantly. ‘Well, I’m out,’ he said.

  Jack reared back in his chair. ‘What do you mean “out”?’

  ‘I can’t have anything to do with the Essie Carter case. Or anything to do with her at all. Can’t even be seen to be talking to her.’

  Relaxing, Jack sank back into his chair opposite Dave. ‘I thought you meant you were out of the force.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Simms would like to see that happen.’ Dave leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. ‘He’s put in a report on me. Said I interfered with his arrest right from the beginning. Can’t see what’s in front of my face. You know, the sob-story bullshit he went on with when he was here. Twisted my words, et cetera, et cetera.’ He waved his hand as if he didn’t care. ‘Oh, and let’s not forget he thinks I’m past it.’

  ‘What did the AC say to you?’

  ‘Formally instructed me to stay away from everything to do with the case. And to keep Kim away from anything like this again. Nothing I wasn’t expecting. A bit of a rap over the knuckles. But I’m not going to be able to help Essie in any way.’ He rubbed his hand over his chin and gave a heavy sigh. ‘And that gives me the shits because there must be a reason Essie has done what she’s done. There is no way she’d take possession of drugs by choice.’

  Jack was silent.

  ‘I wonder where Melissa got to after you pulled her out of that car and saved her life,’ he finally asked.

  Dave shook his head. ‘No idea. But Essie did say she was frightened to talk to anyone. That should have raised my antenna in regards to Melissa. I stuffed that up.’ He paused. ‘I should have tried to find Melissa, but now I can’t do anything.’

  ‘You didn’t know this was going to happen.’

  ‘You’re right there. Anyway, going back to the AC, he said a few more things you might be interested in.’

  Jack looked at him expectantly.

  ‘Well, he agrees with me. What sixty-plus woman with no priors would be importing drugs without a reason? Something isn’t sitting right with him either, and we all know as coppers we have to trust our gut and then find the evidence to back that feeling up.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘It’s a pain in the arse, because we still can’t do anything, even knowing he agrees with us.’

  Jack frowned and jiggled a knee up and down. ‘If you and I and the AC see it, why can’t the Feds see it?’

  ‘All they’re interested in is a conviction. They don’t care about causal triggers. Just statistics. They’ve made an arrest and that’ll go towards making them look good.’

  ‘That’s fucked.’

  ‘That’s the plastics.’ Dave shrugged. ‘And, look, it’s not just me who’s been warned off. It’s both of us.’

  ‘Why?’ Jack looked incensed. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Guilt by association. That’s the way it is, mate. We’re going to have to run with it.’

  ‘I wonder if the darling daughter might be blackmailing her mother into buying the drugs for her,’ Jack said thoughtfully.

  Giving a ghost of a smile, Dave said, ‘Now, Jack, you’re beginning to sound like me.’

  Jack laughed. ‘Don’t think that’s a bad thing,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I guess a rap over the knuckles is better than being booted off altogether. Anyway, I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘You’ve always got ideas, Dave. What is it?’

  ‘I think I should set up a meeting with Zara.’

  ‘What the hell? What for?’ His tone was high with shock.

  ‘We can’t give Essie the help she needs. If we’re seen to be involved, the boss will cut us off at the knees. But Zara’s an investigative journo and can look into this as a public-interest story.’

  Jack watched him before speaking. ‘That doesn’t sound like you.’

  ‘I know. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I just don’t see any other way of helping Essie—I can’t even be in the same room as her.’

  Jack nodded his understanding, then rubbed his head as if he had a headache.

  ‘I’m not sure how Zara and I are going at the moment,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yeah, Kim told me what she saw the other night.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Jack fiddled with the ruler on his desk but didn’t look at Dave.

  ‘Just because you think something doesn’t mean that the first conclusion is the right one. Look at all the cases we solve. If you love someone you’ve got to trust them.’

  ‘Yeah, good idea. Just like you and Kim,’ Jack bristled.

  Dave harrumphed. ‘Touché.’

  Chapter 19

  Jack opened up the Farming Telegraph and flicked through the first couple of pages, past stories about seeding rates and fertiliser applications, past the barley price and the planned inquiry for the egg industry. Scanning for stories written by Zara was a habit he’d picked up when they first got together.

  Early on in their relationship, Jack had told Zara that he’d never been much of a reader or a writer. ‘Only writing I do is the reports I have to,’ he’d told her over dinner. ‘And I read fishing magazines.’

  ‘Do you fish?’

  ‘Nope.’

  She’d laughed at him that night and told him he was weird, but in a nice way. He still remembered how she’d leaned forward and kissed him, her long hair tickling his arm.

  How had something so good gone so wrong in a matter of days, he wondered. Still, looking back, he was sure Zara had started to change about six months after Will died. Her face had always been open, a smile ready, but as time had gone on her frown became permanent and the laughter stopped. Unless she’d had a bit to drink. And that was the other unusual thing: she was drinking much more than Jack had ever known her to.

  Work was really all she focused on. Kim had mentioned something to him about it a few months back, but Jack had dismissed her concerns, because Zara hadn’t said anything. He was sure she would have talked to him if there was something wrong.

  Flicking the page over, a shiver of horror ran through his body.

  There was Zara’s name under the story about Jesse. Not just her name, but a photo of her and Jesse together. Jesse had his arm around Zara’s shoulders.

  Jack wanted to slam the paper shut, but some morbid fascination took over him. He leaned forward.

  Zara was smiling up at Jesse as he stood in front of the shearing shed and looked straight at the camera. What was Zara even doing in the photo? She was the journalis
t, not the subject of the story and, as far as he knew, she’d never worked with a photographer before. Had she asked someone to take a photograph of them together?

  The next photo was of Zara and Jesse crouched over a wether, sweat dripping from his forehead and glistening on his arms. The creamy wool was piled on the board and the look on the sheep’s face was one of confusion, while it waited for the haircut to finish.

  Jack turned his attention to Zara. Her smile was wide and she was leaning in towards Jesse.

  Shaking his head, Jack couldn’t think. What he was seeing didn’t make any sense. Who took the photo? He felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing his heart.

  Turning his attention to the story, he read.

  Jesse Barnett has travelled the length and breadth of this land since he was sixteen years old. There wouldn’t be many people who have seen as many sights as he has.

  He’s breathed the agricultural industry since he was born: life started for Jesse on the wide outback plains of Wilcannia on Palcarinya Station. Here he was taught through School of the Air, alongside the other children on the station, but his real education came on the land …

  He didn’t get any further before throwing down the magazine in disgust.

  ‘Hey, what’s got your goat?’ Dave said, looking up from his desk.

  ‘Nothing,’ Jack snapped.

  ‘Sure doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘I just need to go and see Zara about something.’ He picked the paper up and put it under his arm.

  ‘Maybe ask her to come and see me when she’s got a spare moment.’

  ‘You’re really going to go ahead with that idea?’

  ‘Yeah, I thought about it overnight.’ Dave nodded. ‘But you’re not to have anything to do with what I’m doing. Just ask her to come and see me, then get the hell out of there. You guys not talking might be a good thing once this starts to play out.’