‘More than likely, I’d say.’ Kim grinned. ‘Although, I can’t speak with any authority. My niece is the closest I’ve come to having a daughter.’ She reached over and checked the temperature of the warmer, before screwing up her nose slightly. ‘They’re not quite warm enough yet, love. Do you want me to whack it in the microwave for you, or do you want the pastry crispy?’
‘Will they be long? I can wait for a while. I don’t have anywhere to be.’
‘Reckon if you give them another fifteen minutes, they’ll be about right. Can I get you a coffee or tea while you wait?’
‘A hot chocolate would be lovely, thank you.’
‘Take a seat in the dining room, it’s more comfortable in there.’ Kim pointed through the door. She went back into the kitchen and started frothing the milk. That poor girl, she thought. She looks just awful, like the rug has been pulled out from underneath her. She should be radiating happiness and being fussed over by her husband. Puts my news into perspective.
She dropped two marshmallows onto the saucer and took the cup out to Fiona, placing it in front of her. ‘There you go. I’ll keep an eye on the pies and let you know when they’re ready. When are you due?’
‘January. I’m four months and two weeks now.’ Fiona took a sip of her hot chocolate. ‘You know I went to boarding school with a girl from up here. Can’t remember her name, though. I remember she was so kind to all the new, homesick boarders. Tall, willowy girl with dark curly hair—a little like yours!’
Kim sensed Fiona wanted to talk, so she pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. ‘I’m Kim,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘Fiona.’
‘Well, it’s nice to meet you, Fiona. Where did you go to school?’
Fiona named a boarding school in Adelaide and Kim gave a loud laugh. ‘There you go. My niece, Amelia Bennett, went there. What years?’
‘Seriously? That’s who I was thinking of. That’s right; Milly, we used to call her. She was lovely. Bit scatty and forgetful but lovely.’
Kim nodded. ‘That sounds like my Milly,’ she said fondly. ‘She’s beautiful, inside and out! Married now to a farmer. Loves it!’
‘That’s so strange,’ Fiona mused. ‘I felt like I knew you when I walked in here, but I’m sure I’ve never met you before. It must be because Milly looks like you.’
‘Could be,’ Kim agreed. ‘She does look more like me than her mother. She’s a throwback!’
Fiona laughed and Kim noted it was just a little too loud and a little too long. Fiona sighed as she picked up her cup again and held it to her cheek.
‘I’ll tell you why I remember Milly—or, rather, why I remember her face. She was a couple of years older than me and I was really homesick. I can remember her sitting next to me at the sports day. I’d been crying because my mum hadn’t been able to make it down. It wasn’t long after my dad had left. Mum couldn’t get time off work—she was always busy with work or something.’ She gave a crooked smile.
Kim put her hands on the table and twisted the salt-and-pepper shakers around, listening.
‘Anyway, she must have known I was upset, but she never said anything about it. She just came and sat with me, told me she knew I was from up this way, too, and all the fun things she found about being in boarding school. After that she always kept an eye out for me. Always made a point of saying hello, or if we were going home on the same bus, that I had a seat near hers.’ She paused, her eyes fixated on a point in the distance. ‘I haven’t thought about her in years.’ Fiona smiled and refocused on Kim. ‘What a small world!’
‘It sure is,’ Kim agreed.
Their conversational flow was interrupted by sirens and flashing lights on the TV. Kim saw Fiona’s face freeze and looked up at the screen. She was pretty sure Fiona was remembering traumatic scenes from a few months ago. She wondered what Fiona might have seen; if it had been dark when her husband’s body was found, if the flashing lights had penetrated every remote corner of the farmyard—something Fiona would never be able to forget.
‘In breaking news,’ the newsreader said, ‘the body of a woman has been found in an alleyway off Hindley Street in the city centre.’ The urgency and excitement in his tone sickened Kim. ‘To date, the information is that the woman was strangled. Police are continuing their enquiries.’
Fiona’s face was awash with sadness. ‘That poor family,’ she said.
Kim turned around to look, just as Steve, Dave’s boss, flashed onto the screen. Intrigued that he should be the spokesman instead of a media officer, she focused on what he was saying.
‘We are in the process of identifying the woman.’
Microphones were pushed into his face, but Steve held up his hand with authority and said, ‘That is all the information we have at this time. We are asking that if any of the public saw or heard anything to phone Crime Stoppers. Thank you.’
‘That poor family,’ Fiona repeated. She fidgeted with the empty cup and tore her eyes away from the screen as the newsreader came back on.
‘Not often there are murders in Adelaide,’ Kim commented. ‘And yes, how horrific for the ones left behind.’
‘Unless you catch the murderer, they won’t have closure,’ Fiona said. ‘And even then, they’ll forever ask the question why. Why it was their child, why she was there on that day, at that time. Why, why, why?
‘It’s a little like suicide, you can’t understand. You think that all the love and support in the world is going to help them, to pull them through it. But it doesn’t. And afterwards you’re left with a great big empty hole and a question that can never be answered. I think that’s the hardest thing. The why.’
Leaning back in her seat, Kim looked at Fiona. ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘A little like cancer, too. Why me? Why did it have to come now?’ Without warning, her eyes filled with tears and she blinked them away rapidly.
Fiona looked startled. ‘You have cancer?’ she asked.
‘It’s looking that way,’ she replied, before shaking back her hair and tilting her face upwards in a defiant way. ‘But the other side of the coin is: why not me? What are the stats now? One in eight get breast cancer, or something like that. But even knowing that, there’s still that great big question—why?’ She looked down at her hands and took a breath. ‘Still, nothing like what you’ve faced, sweetie.’
Her gaze dropped straightaway. ‘You know?’
‘Yeah, I do.’ Kim made her tone soft. ‘Bit hard not to hear of something like that no matter how far apart the towns are. And we’re not really that far from you, what—seventy, eighty-odd k’s? We’re country people and we care about our own. You’ve had a lot to contend with. Especially with the little one on the way now. Plus, the papers didn’t leave you alone for a while, did they?’
‘They were bastards!’ The word was ripped from Fiona. ‘They even turned up at his funeral.’
Changing the subject, Kim asked, ‘Why are you up here today? You’re out of your way, aren’t you? And it’s pretty early.’
Fiona scowled. ‘I couldn’t sleep. I’d been talking to my brother, Will, on Facebook and he suggested that I just get out and go for a drive. Let the road take me to wherever I ended up. So I jumped in the ute and drove. I don’t know why I turned right instead of left when I headed out the front gate, but I did and here I am.’ She adjusted her jeans around her waist and wriggled to get more comfortable. ‘Will was right, though. I had to get away. I had to see something different. I love being at home, but I’m surrounded with memories of Charlie there and occasionally I just have to not remember. I have to be normal, pretend like my life hasn’t changed forever, that I’m still the person I was before all of this.’ Then she laughed. ‘And then I felt like a pie, so I stopped.’
Leaning forward, Kim took Fiona’s hand. ‘You know what I think?’ she said, smiling at her. ‘I think we were destined to meet. I’m feeling just the same as you. I have to pretend that my life is still normal. That it hasn’t changed forever. Tw
o completely different circumstances, but entirely the same feelings. Maybe we could help each other.’
‘So weird,’ Fiona said. ‘Like I said, I felt like I knew you the minute I walked in. It seems safe here.’ She paused before taking a deep breath. ‘Tell me about the cancer?’ Then she flushed. ‘If that’s not too forward.’
‘Not at all!’ Kim told her what Chelle had said, finishing with, ‘I have to go back to Adelaide next week, just as Dave, my partner, is starting work again, to have the ultrasound and biopsy.’
‘Where’s the lump?’
Kim lifted her right arm and felt towards the back of her breast with her fingers. ‘It’s supposed to be here, but I can’t feel a damn thing. That scares me even more. Maybe there’re others and they haven’t been found yet. I tell you, I’ve gone over them with a fine-tooth finger and I haven’t been able to find anything else that feels unusual or sinister. So who’s to say there aren’t more there?’
Fiona grinned. ‘Maybe your husband should check for you, too. Just in case!’
Kim let out a belly laugh—they both needed to laugh now. ‘I like the way you think, Fiona!’
Chapter 7
Walking into the police station for the first time in nearly five months, Dave felt the familiar surge of excitement, but it was quickly clouded by disillusionment.
‘Good to see you, Dave,’ Joan said from the front desk as he walked past.
‘Nice to see you, too, Joan. Anything interesting happen while I was away?’
She shook her head, her tightly curled grey hair a stiff helmet. ‘It’s all quiet on the Western Front,’ she quipped.
He made his way to the tea room, relieved to see the coffee machine still in place. That had been one of the first things he’d changed when he’d arrived: the instant coffee had been thrown in the bin and replaced with a sparkling stainless-steel machine that radiated beautiful, rich coffee smells. He switched it on and waited for it to warm up before pouring himself a cup.
The door to his office had been shut, and judging by the cool temperature within the room, it had probably been kept closed the whole time he’d been gone.
He switched on the computer and idly flicked through the paperwork on his desk while he waited for it to boot up. Nothing grabbed his attention.
There was a clatter of boots on the floorboards outside and a few moments later Andy Denning stuck his head in.
‘Well, look what the cat dragged in.’ His smile was broad as he held out his hand. ‘How goes it, big fella?’
Dave leaned over and grasped the young man’s hand. ‘Good to see you, Andy,’ he responded, wishing he still had his colleague’s youthful enthusiasm. He could see it in Andy’s face—the expectation of what was going to happen next, the desire, the eagerness. As they got older, did they all lose it? he wondered. Or was it just blokes like me who get hauled over the coals when they least expect it? He took a breath. ‘So, what’s news?’
‘Not much going on around here since the Eddie McDougall and Charlie Forrest incidents. We’ve been checking speeds in the school zones now that the holidays are over. Although,’ he paused for effect, ‘I’ve had word I’m getting a transfer.’
Dave’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Is that right? Where are you off to?’
Andy looked slightly bashful. ‘I’ve been asked to do a detective course in Adelaide. I saw there was a job coming up and applied. Then one of the head honchos rang and said he’d heard some good things about me, thought I’d make a good detective and did I want to have a crack. Of course I said, “Is the Pope Catholic?”’
Immediately Dave schooled his features. He couldn’t let Andy know what he was really thinking.
No one had contacted him and asked for a reference regarding Andy and his abilities. That’s what should have happened. If they had he wouldn’t have agreed that now was the right time. In the two years he’d worked under Dave, Andy had certainly improved, but not to the extent of being ready for the detective course. He was a reasonable copper. However, there was a difference between being a reasonable copper and a detective.
Still, he knew that no one was applying for detective jobs and the department was scraping the bottom of the barrel. The word had got out about how hard it actually was to work as a detective and suddenly very few wanted to take it on as a career. The job had changed so much and there was so much work around. Detectives kept long hours, and quite often their marriages—if they were married—didn’t survive. They were known for being hard drinkers and never being home. All in all, it was a tough and lonely life. Dave’s marriage had been an exception for the first twenty years, but it had gone the way so many went—not talking, no connection, easier to work than be among all the stilted silence of an unloving home. He would never let this job come between him and Kim.
‘Well, mate, that’s great news. When do you leave?’
‘End of this week. Course is six weeks, so I’m hoping I’ll be a fully fledged detective in seven weeks’ time.’
‘Good for you.’ Dave turned back to the computer and saw the screen was alight. He clicked the emails and cringed as he saw there were over one thousand to read. Bugger. ‘What’re your plans for this morning?’
‘Jack and I are going to do a patrol over towards Port Augusta. Been a few reports of a grey Holden ute doing fairly high speeds and taking corners on the wrong side. Four, actually—one couple were nudged off the road.’
‘Idiot.’ Dave rolled his eyes in annoyance. He was one who believed it should be mandatory that every young driver be taken to an accident scene. Let the kids see the twisted and mangled bodies, let them see the deaths and the survivors—the wheelchair bound and worse. Shock tactics. There would be fewer accidents that way, he was positive. ‘I’ll catch you when you get back then.’
Andy stood there a bit longer. ‘Um, Dave? Any chance I could get some information from you about this course? You’ve already been through it and you’re my mentor.’
‘Sure, Andy, no problems. It’s changed a lot since I did it and it’s not as hard to get through. I’ve taught you a lot of the basics of detective work. I’m not sure I can catch up with you tonight. Kim and I have a bit going on, but I’ll make sure I do before you go. We’ll need to organise drinks as a catch-you-round, too.’
‘I saw Kim yesterday, she looked pretty ragged.’ Andy eyed him curiously.
Dave’s immediate reaction was that if Andy was going to be a detective he’d need to learn to hide his feelings better and to ask questions more strategically and cryptically. In Dave’s experience, people rarely responded well to direct questioning.
‘Yeah, there’s just a bit of crap going on at the moment, mate. Nothing that we can’t handle.’ He nodded. ‘Better get on with answering these emails. Seems like the whole force has missed me.’ He turned away, thinking about Kim and their conversation the night before.
He’d been so relieved when she’d sat down next to him on the couch. Taking the beer from his hand, she’d put it on the coffee table and held his hands in hers.
‘I’m sorry.’ Kim had given a half-smile that Dave now recognised as sad. He’d seen it so many times over the last week that he never wanted to see it again. Instead he wanted to see her wide grin, hear her belly laugh, and that delighted tone she usually had when she talked to people.
‘I’m sorry I shut you out. I didn’t know …’ She broke off. ‘I didn’t know how to do anything—how to react, how to be, how to understand.’
‘Hush, love,’ Dave had said to her, taking her face in his hands and looking into her eyes. ‘It’s fine. We’ll deal with this when we know what we have to cope with.’ He’d wrapped his arms around her then and held her as tightly as he could, wanting to make everything go away. They’d gone to bed and made love as deeply and intimately as ever, and when Dave had kissed her goodbye this morning, he’d felt even closer to her.
The pain in his gut was the fear of losing her. But he couldn’t let her know he was terrified. He had to be he
r rock.
Running his eyes down the list of emails, he quickly deleted the ones that were newsletters and updates—they were out of date now!
The phone on his desk rang and he snatched it up. ‘Burrows,’ he snapped.
‘Steve Morris.’ His boss’s voice echoed down the line.
Dave paused for a moment, unsure how to respond. Finally, he said, ‘G’day, mate, how’s things?’
‘Glad to have you back, Dave. Sorry about all that bullshit you had to go through.’
‘I won’t say it’s okay,’ Dave retorted, his tone flat.
‘No, well …’ Steve stopped, obviously trying to find the right words. ‘As I’ve said before. We need you. Just not the way you react sometimes.’
Dave opened his mouth once again to defend his actions, but then shut it. He didn’t care. He knew he wouldn’t change anything.
‘How’s Kim?’
‘We’re still waiting on more tests. She has to have an ultrasound and biopsy this week. We’ll be heading back to Adelaide on Thursday.’ Dave sounded more clipped than he’d intended. He just wanted Steve to get on with his reason for calling.
On the other end of the line his boss cleared his throat. ‘I hope you’re both holding up okay,’ he said gruffly. ‘Now, Eddie McDougall. I want you to have a look at his file.’
‘Sure. What seems to be the problem?’
‘The whole file is a mess. There were protocols that weren’t followed. The fingerprints of the three men on the back of the ute weren’t taken, for crying out loud.’ Steve broke off, his frustration obvious. ‘It’s just a fuck-up. My first impression is that the officers have gone to the scene, where everyone was distressed, decided it was an accident and left it at that.’
‘Didn’t Andy Denning and Jack Higgins cover this?’ Dave asked.
‘They did,’ Steve confirmed. ‘However, from what I’m seeing, it’s mainly Denning who put this file together.’
Sapphire Falls Page 7
