After a long moment of reflection on her words, Mark pushed up from the fence, stood straight, close in front of her, raising a hand as if to brush her cheek the way he’d done, so long ago. He dropped it, but he didn’t drop their eye contact.
‘Thank you, Jenn.’
Simple words, from a complex man. As she stood there, close to him, she remembered, understood now, why few people forgot an encounter with Mark. ‘Personable’, ‘charming’ – no, the words they often used didn’t come anywhere near the truth. When Mark Strelitz looked at a person, he saw them. Not just eye contact, but a total focus and awareness, instinctively seeking the person beyond the face and words. Right now he saw her, Jenn, not the public persona but the girl she’d been and the woman she’d become. An intensity of connection that worked both ways – if she opened her eyes enough to see it.
He was a private person, but not secretive. It was all there, in his eyes, the depth and complexity, the compassion and integrity that defined him.
And he’d driven the car in which Paula had died.
The growl of a motorbike engine coming closer provided a welcome distraction from the uneasy jangle of her thoughts.
Despite the helmet she recognised Gillespie on the bike, with a young girl riding pillion behind him in T-shirt and leggings, a long dark ponytail hanging down her back. They stopped near the police sergeant, who hugged the girl and called over the constable to escort her around the side of the house and inside, avoiding the plastic-covered heap in the driveway.
But it was the sergeant and Gillespie who interested Jenn. She couldn’t hear their words, but their body language spoke volumes. Unguarded concern on the sergeant’s face, very little space between them, Gillespie’s hand gentle on her shoulder.
Intimacy.
Gillespie at the pub, seven a.m. phone call, policewoman leaving hurriedly … it all added up. They’d been in room one, next to her.
‘Gillespie and a cop?’ she muttered in a low voice.
Mark folded his arms, unsurprised by the scene they’d just witnessed. ‘Yes. Kris and Gil fell for each other pretty hard when he first came back to Dungirri, a few months ago.’
‘But wasn’t he caught up in the mafia?’
‘Not through choice,’ Mark said. ‘And we’ve had our own tangled web of organised crime around here for a long time, Jenn. Gil might have walked a fine line sometimes through necessity, but it seems he stayed on the right side of the law.’
Unlike Sean, who’d fallen for the promises and the money and the power of corruption and committed acts she couldn’t reconcile with the boy she’d known.
Maybe there was more to Gil Gillespie than she’d thought.
‘Who’s the girl?’
‘Long story. The short version is, Barbara had a daughter, adopted out as a baby. Barb died of cancer a few years back, the adoptive parents died, and Megan is here with her grandparents.’
‘And Gillespie?’
‘Is her father,’ he said calmly.
Jenn stared at him, searching for signs that he was joking. Gil Gillespie and the cop was hard enough to figure, but Gil and Barbara Russell …
‘How the hell did that happen?’
For the first time since she’d been back, she saw a flicker of his old grin. ‘The usual way, I presume,’ he said. ‘It seems Barb didn’t share her father’s prejudices. Two decent, lonely teenagers can find a lot in common, given the opportunity.’
A hazy memory re-emerged: a summer night, teenagers gathered at the swimming hole on Dungirri Creek for an impromptu party, and Barbara joining the crowd, a little upset, a little defiant, a little nervous. Someone said she’d argued with her father and walked out. She’d been just as much an outsider as Gillespie, and no-one quite knew how to treat her. Except, perhaps, Gillespie, who lived and worked cutting timber with his violent father a few kilometres from town, and rarely had the chance to mix with his peers.
Two lonely teenagers, something in common, and the opportunity … she remembered seeing them talking, sitting together on a log at the edge of the crowd. One night, one party – it had to have been then, because Gillespie was arrested the next night – and now there was a teenage girl.
Oh, there but for the grace of a functioning condom … She felt her cheeks suddenly heating. Damn it. Why the hell was she blushing over something so long ago, so natural and normal for the teenagers they’d been?
She slid a glance at Mark, but he watched the couple across the road, deep in his own thoughts, oblivious to the memories fresh in hers.
That long-ago afternoon, just after his eighteenth birthday, in the old shearers’ quarters, the sweet, shy, gentle loving between them, and the heart-tearing sorrow that followed it when she told him she was determined to leave Dungirri soon …
He didn’t remember anything about that week. None of it. That bittersweet afternoon was gone, wiped from his mind along with the memories of the accident and Paula’s death.
Two decent, single adults could find a lot in common, too. Not only sex. And in the case of Kris and Gil, Mark could see the strengthening of the deep physical and emotional attraction he’d witnessed develop between them during Gil’s return to Dungirri back in September. Respect, friendship, intimacy, commitment, love – it was all there, in a lively match of temperament and personalities, of values and ideals. No wonder Gil had voluntarily left witness protection to return to town again last week.
All the more reason Mark needed to stand his ground and see Gil’s name completely cleared. He owed it to Gil, and he owed it to Kris, one of his closest friends, to do what he could to enable their relationship to flourish.
He and Kris had never been lovers – never wanted to be lovers, either of them – but their friendship had sustained them through some of Dungirri’s darkest times, since she had arrived in the district five years ago. He trusted her completely: as a police officer, as a community leader, as a friend. In the twenty or so minutes since she’d arrived on the scene at the Russells’, she’d spoken sympathetically with Esther, handed her to the care of Beth and Karl from the SES, instructed her constable, Adam, and made calls and given orders. Other than conveying the basics of the situation, Mark hadn’t talked with her. Some time he’d undoubtedly get a good-hearted blasting from her for making his public announcement without warning her first, but for now all her concern – and his – focused on the murder of the doctor and its implications.
Gil rode off, and Kris strode across the road to them, a frown narrowing her eyes. A frown directed at Jenn.
Mark made the introductions, although it was clear that Kris had already figured Jenn’s identity.
‘The police will release a media statement later this morning, Ms Barrett. Until then there will be no comment.’
Jenn matched every ounce of Kris’s professional firmness. ‘Sergeant, you needn’t worry. I’m in Dungirri for personal reasons, and I’m just as invested in discovering the truth in this matter as you are. It’s family business, not work, and I’m not at all interested in rushing to be first on the morning news with no more than a headline about a suspicious death.’ She gave Kris a restrained but genuine smile, one capable professional woman to another, and then turned to Mark. ‘When you’re finished here, can you let me know? I’ll need to get my car from your place.’
Of course she’d want her car. He mentally juggled timeframes and tasks. ‘I’ll have to wait for Steve Fraser, so I’ll probably be here at least an hour yet, maybe longer. Then I still have to go out to Jim’s place.’
‘To feed the dogs?’ She had never been one to stand around idle, so it didn’t surprise him when she offered: ‘I could do that, if you can lend me your car. I can probably still tell one end of a dog from the other.’
One problem solved. In the building heat of the morning, the likelihood of the dogs being out of water had become a major concern. Even if they refused to take food from a stranger, they’d at least have access to fresh water. She’d been around the station
dogs enough in their youth, and Jim trained his working dogs well, so Mark didn’t worry about how she’d handle them.
Mark passed the keys to his ute over to her without hesitation. ‘Thanks, Jenn. The dog run is around the back and the feed’s in a bin in the machinery shed.’
‘I’ll find it,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back soon. Assuming they don’t eat me.’
With a flash of her old, wry grin, she took the keys and headed over to his ute, practical and focused, and for a moment it was Jenn the teenage girl he saw, not the television journalist, and the summer heat on the breeze and the scent of dry grass brought a hundred memories of working together at Marrayin tumbling back.
As the ute did a U-turn and took the corner into Gearys Road, Kris shook her head. ‘I’d heard she was Jim’s niece, but I still can’t quite get my brain around seeing Jennifer Barrett here in Dungirri. She lived here for a while, didn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Mark replied. ‘At Marrayin for some years when Mick worked for my father, and then in town.’
‘Does she know anything more? About what happened?’
‘I don’t think so. She was only seventeen at the time, Kris, and she and Paula were close. I left messages for her the other night, before the media conference. Like everyone else, she believed Gil was responsible for the accident.’
‘Yeah.’ Kris blew out a long breath, and leant against a tree. ‘I heard about your resignation on the radio while I was driving to a suicide at Jerran Creek. I couldn’t call Gil right then to find out what the hell was going on, but when he got back from Sydney last night I extracted the details about the conversation you two had last week.’
Extracted. He’d have felt some sympathy for Gil if he didn’t know that the man was more than capable of meeting Kris’s assertiveness head-on and deflecting it.
But he needed to set matters straight. ‘I’m sorry, Kris. I knew it would be a shock to you, but it seemed the best way to handle it.’ He made an attempt at a grin, but it probably looked more like a grimace. ‘I’ve challenged the government – both parties – often enough about honesty and accountability. I don’t plan on being a hypocrite.’
‘You’ve never been that.’
A simple statement, from a woman who didn’t bullshit, and for a moment gratitude clogged his throat.
Her phone beeped and she glanced at the message, then tucked it back in her pocket. ‘I can understand why Gil kept quiet, all these years,’ she said. ‘I don’t necessarily approve, but I can understand his take on it – that to speak out would do more harm than good. Especially since you don’t remember it, and few would trust his word over yours.’
Privilege. She spoke no more than the truth, but he hated how the world worked, how he’d benefited from an accident of birth when others – when Gil – had struggled against prejudice and injustice every step of the way. Mark had recovered from his injuries, gone on to university, made a life and a career for himself, while Gil had gone to prison, just a youth, alone and friendless in a violent environment. It shouldn’t have happened that way, and it made a mockery out of the principles he’d tried to live his life by.
‘The investigation was corrupt, Kris.’ He couldn’t keep the anger from his tone. ‘Those involved in framing him have to answer for it – for threatening an eighteen-year-old youth and sending him to prison for something he didn’t do.’
She nodded in agreement, and her gaze settled on the doctor’s body, just visible in the driveway. ‘Was he one of them, Mark?’
‘I don’t know.’ And that was the honest truth. ‘To all appearances he was an ethical man. A defender of moral decency.’ He had a folder filled with letters from Doctor Russell in his office, demanding parliamentary action on a wide range of issues.
‘But he certified a blood-alcohol sample as Gil’s when it wasn’t.’
‘Yes.’ Mark could see no grey between the black and white in this case, no greater good to be served that could defend the magnitude of the lie, and he couldn’t fathom the doctor’s reasons.
But he had done it, certified the form when Gil was sixty kilometres away – and the only other patient who Mark knew with certainty was at the hospital at the time was him. If the well-over-the-limit blood sample proved to be his, then criminal responsibility for Paula’s death lay squarely with him.
Driving down Gearys Road suited Jenn’s restless mood better than waiting around, either outside the Russells’ or back at the pub.
At Gearys Flat, a couple of kilometres from Dungirri, the 1930s homestead Jim had lived in was as well kept as Marrayin, except that instead of terraced gardens there was mown grass and a sturdy wooden swing set and a treehouse not unlike the one Jim had built for his boys when they were small.
Jenn had helped out mustering here a few times long before Jim became the manager, so she knew the place a little. The driveway, homestead, garage and assorted sheds to the rear of the house were all standard rural layout. As she drove around the back and parked near the large machinery shed, three border collies rushed at the fence of the dog run, barking.
Despite volunteering to do this, it had been a long time since she’d had anything to do with dogs, and somehow she had to get these ones to trust her. She walked slowly over to the fence, talking to them in an even voice, letting them watch her and take her measure while she took theirs. Three females of assorted ages. One grizzled around the jaw and thicker in the middle, but still the dominant dog. One quieter, holding back, wary. The third a half-grown puppy, all legs and bounce and excited barks.
The oldest and the youngest sniffed her hand through the wire and she spent a few more moments talking to them, light and easy, encouraging the timid one closer. Undoubtedly not the way Jim had talked to them, although he had always been a bit soft when it came to his dogs. Working dogs, yes, but mates, too. Unlike Mick, who’d treated his dogs more as barely tolerated slaves.
‘How about I get you some food and water, hey? You hungry? Want some munchies?’
Three dog dishes stacked on top made locating the feed bin in the shed easy, and next to it sat a full sack of food with feeding guidelines on it. Not that she had any clue how much each dog weighed, but it gave her a rough idea. As she wasn’t sure when they’d last been fed, or when Mark would be out again to collect them, she added extra. It surely wouldn’t hurt.
She found a metal bucket upended on a post near the tank stand and filled it with water, the precious liquid noisy as it bubbled into the bucket. Just as well she’d come: the bowls in the run were empty, and the temperature was climbing. They were dependent on her, those innocent, trusting dogs. Not the kind of dependence she sought – her lifestyle was way too erratic to ever consider that kind of commitment – but today she could do this task for Jim, and take one weight from Mark’s shoulders.
With feed bowls stacked in one hand and the water bucket in the other, she approached the gate to the run, the dogs running backwards and forwards along the fence. She had a vague memory of Jim feeding his dogs once – they would have been different ones, long-gone now – and giving them a command to sit and stay before allowing them to eat. With her hand on the gate latch, she tried telling them to sit, and with a second, firmer command, they did.
She felt as ridiculously pleased with herself as the puppy looked.
The puppy wasn’t so good at the ‘stay’ part, jumping around her, but she managed to get the bowls down on the ground without spilling the dry food, and all three dogs began to wolf down their meals when she told them to eat. Innocent, trusting, and oblivious to death and murder. They would miss Jim when he didn’t come home. The two older dogs looked up frequently, both keeping an eye on her, and looking for their pack leader.
She opened the gate into the larger, grassy part of the enclosure and spent a few minutes tossing well-chewed balls and a piece of knotted rope for the younger two dogs while the older one sat beside her, permitting a back scratch. She envied them the simplicity – eat, play, work, sleep. Not to mention free
, no-obligation back rubs.
The dog suddenly tensed under her hand, and the other two stopped tugging at the rope, all ears turned towards the house.
She heard a car door slam. A neighbour? A visitor? Maybe Paul’s wife, Chloe. Jenn rounded the dogs back into the smaller enclosure and latched the gate securely. As she headed towards the house, she saw someone in the kitchen. Definitely not Chloe.
Shit.
She reached for her phone, well aware she stood, fully visible, in the open yard.
The man crossed the kitchen in front of the window. Her Uncle Mick. Bitter and self-absorbed, he’d managed some affection for his daughter but never for Jenn. She’d avoided him as much as possible even when they lived in the same house, but now she had to confront him.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She dropped her phone back into her pocket. Mick might well have reason to be at his brother’s home. For all she knew, he might live here – although probably not, since Mark hadn’t mentioned it.
She walked around to the front of the house, and found the door open, the lock jemmied with a crowbar. In the kitchen, he had half-filled a cooler with meat and other food from the fridge and was rummaging in the pantry cupboard, leaving discarded tins and packages strewn over the floor.
For all that he was a broken old man, her anger boiled over. ‘For God’s sake, Mick, he’s been dead for less than twelve hours and you’re here stealing his food?’
He barely glanced at her, but she saw recognition and contempt register in his bloodshot eyes. ‘He doesn’t fuckin’ need it now, does he?’
His callousness about his own brother stunned her, and for a moment words failed her.
He yanked open another cupboard, and muttered, ‘Yes.’ Bottles – wine, spirits, a six-pack of beer, went into his cooler. He opened a bottle of Scotch with an inch or so in the bottom and took a swig.
She followed when he wandered out into the dining room, bottle in hand. Jim must have been in the midst of doing some accounts, for there were papers on the table, a chequebook and a laptop.
Darkening Skies Page 7
