Sapphire Falls

by Fleur McDonald

  ‘Always amazes me how they’re thirsty, even when it’s winter,’ he said, indicating the pile-up.

  Fiona shut the gate and leaned against the fence. ‘Just so long as they get a feed,’ she said again. ‘That’s the most important part. If they’ve got full tummies they won’t go out into the weather because they’re hungry. And the change in weather and their being shorn could cause issues with exposure. I’ve thought about putting them back into the shed with this weather coming, but with the lambs on them it’s too hard. They need to be in the paddock, where both the lambs and their mums can get a feed.’ She looked up at the sky where the dark clouds were beginning to cover the top of Mount Remarkable. They were soft and fluffy, and not at all ominous-looking, but Dave knew better.

  ‘The wind won’t help,’ Dave commented. ‘The chill factor and all.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Fiona pursed her lips and Dave could see she was worried. ‘Come into the house and have a cuppa,’ she said. ‘I know you want to talk to me, but I want to talk to you, too. Sorry, Jack.’ She turned to the policeman, who was standing well back, listening to everything. ‘I forgot you were there. Come on, both of you.’

  Fiona read a note on the front door and Dave watched a smile spread over her face. She held it out to him.

  ‘I’m so lucky,’ she said as she pushed the door open and went in. ‘I’ve got a lot of people looking out for me.’

  Dave read the note: ‘Hi Fiona, you weren’t here when I dropped in. There’s another load of wood in the tank at the back. Hope shearing is going well, cheers, Rob.’

  ‘Sounds like a fire is in store tonight then. Who’s Rob?’ Dave asked.

  ‘He’s our local vet. Doesn’t just look after the Booleroo area, but all the way over to Orroroo and Jamestown and down to Laura.’

  Inside the house, Dave looked at the photos hanging on the wall, his hands behind his back. Charlie had been a handsome man and Dave could see from the look of adoration on his face as he looked at Fiona that he had loved her deeply.

  But not enough to face his demons. Stifling a sigh, Dave glanced towards the open office door and saw a silver urn on the mantelpiece. He knew what it contained.

  Dave turned back to Fiona.

  Jack stood near the doorway until she told him to sit down. ‘Can I help?’ he asked, as she struggled with a large, heavy kettle that had come to the boil on the gas stove. He moved to take the kettle from her. The Aga stove next to it looked like it hadn’t been used for a while. ‘That looks like a piece of history there,’ Jack nodded at both the kettle and the Aga.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said and grabbed a couple of cups from the cupboard. ‘I found the kettle over at the shearers’ quarters—I love it. When I had the Aga going I could keep it warm all the time and it never took long to boil. Since Charlie isn’t here I don’t have the need, so I just use the gas stove.’

  ‘I remember when I used to visit my cousin over here, her mum had one and they used it to heat the kitchen as well as cook on. It was the best thing for making soups and stews. Aunty Peg used to put the pot on the top and stir occasionally until the meal was cooked,’ Dave reminisced from the other side of the room.

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’ She offered him sugar and milk, before pouring it into her own and stirring. ‘Sit down,’ she said after she noticed Jack still hovering in the corner.

  The men each pulled out a chair and sat down at the large wooden table. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ Dave asked, stirring his coffee.

  She was quiet for a moment and took a sip of her tea before she answered. ‘Something strange has been happening around here recently.’

  The two policemen let her talk without interrupting.

  ‘I got in a contractor to spray my crops and I found out yesterday that it didn’t work. Jo, who’s a friend of mine and the local agronomist, came over to have a look and she agrees with me. It’s going to have to be sprayed again. She’s spoken to the contractor.’ She went on to explain how they’d worked out what had happened, then told him about the chemical drums.

  ‘So you think the chemical has been poured out of one lot of drums, replaced with something similar and then sprayed out?’ asked Dave. ‘Stolen?’

  ‘Well, that’s what Jo thinks. But why would someone do that? In fact, I don’t know how you could be sure that it was stolen.’ Wrinkling her brow, she spoke slowly. ‘It could have been tipped out, but if you were going to tip it out, why not use it? Oh!’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘I don’t know, but like I said, that’s what Jo thinks.’

  ‘Rural crime can be anything,’ Dave explained. ‘It’s not just stock stealing. I’ve certainly heard of chemical being stolen before. The incidence of this type of crime is getting higher because things are costing more. The bottom line isn’t quite as large as it used to be.’ He put his elbows on the table and thought for a moment. ‘I’ll take a look at this before I go. Now, I’ve got some questions for you.’

  Fiona nodded and breathed deeply.

  ‘I need something of Charlie’s that would have his fingerprints on it. A hairbrush or pen. Something of that ilk. Would you have something like that?’

  Fiona spun her cup around slowly, thinking. ‘There’s a letter opener that he often used in the office. I haven’t touched it. Would that help?’

  ‘That would be great. I’ll grab it while I’m here, but I may have to hold onto it for a while.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Tell me about Charlie, Leigh, Eddie and Geoff’s relationship. Were they close?’

  ‘Charlie and Leigh were. Eddie and Leigh were too, and Charlie and Geoff were farming mates, if that makes sense.’

  Dave nodded; he understood. They were brought together by farming and talked farming, but not much more.

  ‘So there wasn’t any bad blood between any of them? No business dealings that had gone wrong, or fights over women? Nothing of that nature?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. Geoff, in particular, is a sworn bachelor. Eddie, I don’t really know much about, and Leigh, he’s had the occasional girlfriend, but they never seem to last.

  ‘As for business dealings, I couldn’t really say. Charlie would have known more. I never heard anything that indicated there was any bad blood between them.’

  Jack wrote a few notes and looked at Dave—it was clear he had a question. Dave nodded and let him take the lead.

  ‘Who knew they were all going shooting that night?’

  Fiona shrugged. ‘Have no idea who the others told. But I was supposed to go, then Leigh texted and said his council meeting was finishing early so I got left behind and he went in my place.’

  ‘You were supposed to go? Do you shoot?’ Jack sounded surprised.

  ‘I love shooting!’ She gave a smile. ‘Charlie and I used to go all the time. I don’t like killing kangaroos though. Foxes? Let me at them. Horrible, cruel bloody creatures they are. And rabbits, they’re just destructive, so I don’t mind getting rid of them either.’

  ‘Who taught you?’

  ‘Charlie. He wanted me to get my licence so I could have a gun to shoot snakes. It went from there.’

  ‘But it was Charlie’s gun that was on the ute that night?’

  ‘I know he took two, but I can’t tell you which ones. He put them in the ute while I was in the shower. It wasn’t until you guys told me which ones that I knew.’

  ‘How did you know he took two then?’ Jack asked.

  ‘He always took two. Different guns have different ranges. The gun he used depended on what he was shooting.’ Her hands flew to her stomach and she shifted uncomfortably in the chair as she sucked in her breath.

  Dave half rose. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Ugh.’ She arched her back. ‘Oh, stop that! Little bugger is kicking me under the ribs. Yep, I’m fine.’

  ‘Active little sod!’

  ‘Farmer in the making. Did you want another cuppa?’

  Both men shook their heads.

  ‘I�
��ve heard that they had to pick Leigh up from his farm. Why would that have been? Especially since they came back to shoot here?’ Dave asked.

  Fiona frowned. ‘I guess it was just another way of having a look around. They were keen to get this dog, and if they took some of the gazetted roads across the back to Leigh’s place, they might have come across it. That’s all I can think of.’

  ‘And what about Charlie? Tell me about him after the accident.’

  Chapter 25

  Fiona reached for a box of tissues and blew her nose.

  ‘After the accident,’ she repeated softly. ‘He was a different man. He couldn’t sleep. He said he kept dreaming about seeing Eddie on the ground, and the blood. There was blood bubbling towards him. He could hear the scream and the silence all at once. Charlie said he couldn’t explain it, and I suggested he might’ve been slightly deaf from the shot.’ She shrugged, still clutching the tissue. ‘I don’t know, it was an assumption on my part.’

  Shifting in her chair, she watched as both men took notes. ‘He couldn’t talk about what he saw at the scene. He just said there was lots of blood. It was wet and dark and everything was confused. Charlie did say that he felt like he could never get Eddie’s blood off him and how heavy Eddie was when he fell on him. That was early on after the accident. Probably when he was still in shock.

  ‘Later he turned into a shell. He didn’t speak much to me. Well, to anyone, really. I begged him to talk to someone else—a counsellor or even one of the other guys, if he couldn’t talk to me. He did go and see a counsellor for a little while, but it didn’t seem to help. He drank more than usual.’ She broke off. ‘I don’t know what else to tell you.’

  ‘Did he spend much time where it happened?’

  Fiona rubbed her arms as if trying to keep warm. ‘No. He never went there. He said he couldn’t face it. And I never saw him up there. Because it’s up on a hill, I would have noticed the ute.’ She paused. ‘If I was here, of course.’

  ‘So you think it’s safe to say he blamed himself?’

  ‘Without a doubt.’ She got up and started to pace the kitchen. ‘Charlie was kind-hearted. He loved everyone. This tore at the very core of him.’ She brushed away angry tears, then raised her voice a little. ‘Which is just stupid. I kept trying to tell him that. Just because it was his gun that the bullet came from, didn’t mean it was his fault. The bloody ute tipped over. No one could have known that was going to happen. It wasn’t Geoff’s fault because he was driving, it was just the way it happened.

  ‘He said to me once he thought the gun hadn’t been secured. That he forgot to put the safety on. Of course it’s his responsibility to do that.’ She looked at both men. ‘Which, knowing how conscientious he was about gun safety, I always found weird, but …’ She shrugged helplessly, her voice trailing off. ‘Maybe something hit it during the accident and it came off. I suggested that to him heaps of times, but he wouldn’t listen. He had it in his head it was his fault and nothing was going to sway him.’

  ‘He was very careful?’

  ‘Always. Never, ever left a bullet in the chamber unless the gun was secured. Maybe he just didn’t have time to make sure it was safe before the ute tipped over, but again—I’ve been through this a million times in my head—if the ute was moving, he should have, he would have, had it secured so it couldn’t fire.’ An expression of disbelief crossed her face. ‘Dave, I’ve had nightmares about this. There must have been a reason it wasn’t.’

  Dave drained the last of his coffee and got up to rinse his cup, before placing it upside down on the sink.

  ‘So, in leading up to when he died, were there any changes in him?’

  Resting her elbows on the table, she let her head fall into her hands. ‘Nothing more than had become normal,’ she replied sadly. ‘Withdrawn, non-communicative, angry.’ She stopped. ‘Yeah, angry. Charlie never yelled. But in the two weeks before, he would snap at me constantly. Nothing I did was right, or good enough. Oh, of course I ignored it—what else was I going to do. I knew he was hurting so badly. He certainly wasn’t at all loving.’

  She swallowed, not sure if she should go on. Even in her nightly ‘wralks’ with Will, she hadn’t told him about the way her lovely Charlie had turned into a monster. How he would snarl at her. He would go from not talking at all to picking on her, and there had been one night when he had grabbed both her arms and shaken her. You’ve got no fucking idea what I’ve been through!, he’d screamed at her. None! You didn’t have to see a bloke die by your hand. By your own gun. There was so much blood. Blood smells, did you know that? He’d looked at her accusingly. Nah, of course you wouldn’t. You. Haven’t. Been. Through. What. I have. She could remember cowering in the corner, hoping the moment would pass. It had, but he’d never said sorry.

  She quickly summarised the memory, all the time looking at the table. She didn’t want to remember Charlie this way; it wasn’t the real him. It felt like she was telling tales on her husband.

  ‘I think he lost a bit of memory, too,’ she finished.

  Looking at her sympathetically, Dave asked why.

  ‘Because there were certain things he couldn’t remember about the accident. Whether or not he wanted to remember is a different story, but he definitely said he couldn’t remember when the other policeman was interviewing him.’

  ‘Can you recall what it was about?’

  ‘A couple of questions. One was about guns. How many they were carrying. He couldn’t remember that, or who was holding what gun at the time.’ She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at Dave. ‘I researched this. There’re actually websites for coping with causing an accidental death. They said that memory loss can be a symptom of trauma. Along with a whole bunch of other things.

  ‘When Leigh found him in the car, he’d been drinking Johnnie Walker scotch. Something I never understood, because he hated it. His favourite brand was Jameson. Maybe he’d just forgotten he hated it?

  ‘Do you want me to grab that letter opener?’

  ‘That would be great, thanks. We’ll come with you though, as I have to put the letter opener in an evidence bag.’

  While Dave put on a pair of gloves and took a plastic bag out of his pocket, Fiona flicked the button on the answering machine.

  ‘Fiona, this is Ray Newell from Booleroo Transport. Just calling in regards to an overdue account. This is the third request we’ve made. Can you call us when you come in? It’s from when we carted three hundred and twelve lambs to Dublin.’

  ‘Ah, g’day there, Fiona. Ian Tonkin calling. I know you’re not interested in selling—you’ve made that clear. But I did want to reiterate it’s not me who is spreading the rumours about the sale of your farm. I also wanted to let you know that BJL Holdings have upped their offer by twenty-five dollars a hectare. Just in case that might sway you. Cheers.’

  Tapping the steering wheel in time to some country music he didn’t recognise, Dave drove back to Barker with Jack. The Mount Remarkable ranges were just that—remarkable, tall and majestic, covered in trees. The road was narrow and winding and Dave had to concentrate. Even so, he kept going back over what Fiona had told him.

  He understood Charlie’s memory loss regarding the time of the accident, but he should never have forgotten what he liked and didn’t like to drink. Fiona also mentioned that they never kept Johnnie Walker scotch in the house. So where did it come from? Just another anomaly with this case.

  The letter opener Fiona had given them was bagged and in the back of the car, waiting to be sent off for analysis.

  And regarding the chemical that was replaced with wetter—he’d shown Jack how to fingerprint the chemical drums and checked around to see if there was anything else out of the ordinary, but nothing had stood out.

  He’d asked if Fiona had a security camera. She didn’t, so before they’d left, Dave had offered the use of one of theirs for the time being.

  He had a motion camera in his detective’s toolkit, so he set it up at the front
gate, hanging it high in a tree. At least it would let them see which vehicles came in and out of Charona while it was there.

  When people drove into the property, the camera would start recording and they’d be able to get the numberplate as well as the make and model of each vehicle.

  ‘Mightn’t be much use,’ he’d told her, ‘but it’s worth giving it a crack in case someone decides you’re an easy target.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Jack asked Dave as the road changed from bitumen to dirt. It was slippery and Dave immediately took his foot off the accelerator and slowed down until he reached a safe speed.

  ‘We need to check the registrations on all the guns, to start with. When I get back, I’m going to read Charlie’s file and we’ll make a call from there. Did you pick up on anything you wanted to follow up?’

  Jack flicked back through his notes. ‘Isn’t it odd that she’s got overdue accounts and she’s claiming Ian Tonkin is hassling her to sell? And that phone call, it really sounds like that company wants her land. Why would that be? Not only to help Fiona out, I’m sure. There must be something more to it.’

  Dave nodded. ‘I agree. It’s normal for banks to freeze accounts when someone dies—until probate is issued. And I’m not that surprised people want her to sell. Although I can tell they haven’t got a chance. But what have we got?’ He stabbed at the air every time he made a point. ‘One, we have a dead man who was accidentally shot with Charlie’s gun. Two, we have an alleged suicide. Three, since the suicide there’ve been numerous rumours of Fiona selling and the real estate agent strongly suggesting she sell. Four, there’ve been how many sales in the area—four, three? I have to check my notes. To the same company, in a very short period of time. Five, chemical replace—sabotage?’ Dave leaned his head back on the seat and watched the road, all the while thinking. ‘Hmm, maybe, maybe not. But certainly a crime—stealing. Six, inconsistencies with gun numbers. Oh and seven, the drone.’