Darkening Skies

by Parry, Bronwyn

  Standing by his desk, he held his mug to his mouth and his Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow, but she could have sworn no coffee passed his lips. Yet after that tiny pause he answered easily enough, ‘Can’t say I noticed anything at the time, Jenn. It was dark except for the police lights, and Wolfie had to use the zoom. Might have just been a bit of rock or brush or something in the way.’

  ‘Probably. I just wondered. Seemed an odd thing for a head-on smash with a tree. See you later.’

  She let the door click shut behind her and stepped out into the hot, glaring sunlight. Saturday afternoon in Birraga? Definitely a contrast to last Saturday in Tashkent. Most of the main-street shops here were already closed, save for the independent supermarket and the takeaway further down the block. A couple of utes had stopped in the middle of the road, the drivers leaning out their windows to have a leisurely yarn together.

  She paused under the awning next to the Gazette office to wipe dust off her sunglasses, casually reading the signs in the window as she did. No longer Vanna’s Beauty Salon, the Bellezza Viva Day Spa exuded elegance and promised comfort, relaxation and renewed vitality – five days a week and Saturday mornings. But although the ‘Closed’ sign hung in the door and the blinds were drawn, she heard a phone ring inside and the murmur of a voice answering it.

  She’d parked a few doors down, in the partial shade of a street tree, but the interior of her car still blasted a wave of heat when she opened the door, and she sat for a couple of minutes with the air-conditioning on high and the window wound down to make it bearable, using the time to do a quick web search on her phone for Wolfgang’s phone number. Movement outside caught her eye: Larry, coming out of the Gazette office.

  There was no sign of his trademark smile or relaxed manner. Instead, he was hunched, his face tight, every movement betraying physical tension as he fumbled in his pocket for his keys and got into his car.

  A man troubled. Stressed. And, she had the distinct impression, afraid.

  EIGHT

  The pump at the Birraga fuel depot chugged as the petrol poured in to the last of Mark’s four twenty-litre plastic containers in the back of the ute. He had plenty of diesel at Marrayin, but the generator ran on petrol and the tank at the homestead was running low.

  Another vehicle pulled up on the other side of the bowser as he finished. Normally he’d nod and say g’day, but today … today he was no longer a federal MP, duty-bound to serve his constituents, and his natural reserve and desire for privacy won out.

  But if he’d hoped to avoid curiosity, questions or censure by not looking at the other driver, all three hit him when he walked into the depot shop and saw his name plastered in four-inch letters on the front pages of the major newspapers beside the counter: ‘STRELITZ SCANDAL’. ‘STRELITZ FALLS: POLICE INVESTIGATE’. ‘STRELITZ “FORGETS” DEATH’.

  Newspapers. They’d been the furthest thing from his mind today. But the headlines didn’t surprise him.

  Jared, who’d worked at the depot for more than a year and usually greeted him cheerfully and chatted about politics, now gave him an uncertain nod, his gaze skittering to the newspapers.

  Ignoring the elephant in the room impossible, Mark sought for suitable words to acknowledge it. ‘We’ll all have answers when the police finish their investigation,’ he said.

  Frowning, Jared rang up the sale and gave him the account docket to sign, breaking his silence to ask, ‘Will there be an election now?’

  ‘A by-election, yes. Probably in about six weeks.’

  ‘Any idea who’ll run?’

  The tension within Mark unwound a fraction as they settled into an almost-normal conversation. ‘No. The major parties will nominate candidates, I’m sure, but I don’t know who, or if any independents will stand.’

  ‘Yeah, well, let’s just hope he doesn’t,’ Jared replied darkly, jerking a thumb out the window to the other vehicle at the bowsers.

  Flanagan. Dan Flanagan, impeccable in moleskins and a blue shirt, filling up his top-of-the-range Land Rover. The very picture of rural wealth and confidence – and of a man who rarely did actual physical work.

  Mark couldn’t avoid him, and on one level was fiercely glad of the opportunity to confront him. He just had to step carefully.

  Flanagan greeted him with a smile, as if they were friends. ‘I was very sorry to hear of your resignation, son, and the reasons for it. I trust that the police investigation will absolve you of any blame.’

  Mark didn’t bother to return the smile. Flanagan often called him ‘son’ but today it grated more than ever and he was in no mood to tolerate the man’s pretence of friendship. ‘I trust that you will inform the police of any information you have regarding the accident.’

  ‘But why would you think I know anything about it?’ Flanagan infused exactly the right amount of friendly puzzlement into the question. Too exact. Mark had spent enough years in politics to recognise the signs of a man lying through his teeth.

  ‘I saw the news reports at the time,’ Flanagan continued, with that same, smooth, faux concern. ‘And there was discussion about it, of course – such a tragic event, in a small community like this, with that pretty girl dying and you so seriously injured. Everyone was shocked and worried.’

  Inside the Land Rover, one of Flanagan’s grandchildren squealed with laughter at a game they played. Leaning casually against the vehicle, Flanagan could almost have been an ordinary country grandfather, taking the kids out for an ice-cream.

  Unless one knew the truth about him. In the wake of his sons’ arrests in September and the police investigation into drug distribution, extortion and violence, more than a few people had come to Mark with stories of blackmail and threats, seeking his advice about going to the police. He’d encouraged them all to do so.

  He’d never trusted and certainly never liked Dan Flanagan, but now he discarded any pretence of courtesy and drove straight to the point.

  ‘Gil Gillespie was framed, Dan. And more than one person had to have been involved in it.’

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about, son,’ Flanagan insisted. ‘Gillespie pleaded guilty, according to the newspaper reports. I understood it was a straightforward case. I confess I was glad to see the young hooligan behind bars. Culpable driving causing death is a serious offence.’

  ‘So are extortion, drug trafficking, arson and attempted murder.’

  If he’d hoped to rattle Flanagan, it didn’t work. The man sighed and nodded, with a reasonable impersonation of sorrow.

  ‘Yes, they are. My wife and I are devastated that our sons are in custody, and all our energies are focused on proving their innocence and securing their release.’

  His former wife. A member of a prominent Sydney mafia family. Flanagan had a habit of ignoring inconvenient truths. Mark stuck to the facts. ‘The judge apparently agrees that the police have sufficient evidence linking your sons’ activities with their cousins’ organised-crime operations to commit them for trial.’

  But not enough to incriminate Dan … yet. And although his power in the community had been reduced by his sons’ arrests and the exposure of their illegal activities, Mark didn’t doubt for a moment that Dan Flanagan still had ways and means to influence events to his liking.

  Flanagan studied him for a moment, but his tone remained that of a friendly, paternalistic advisor. ‘I’m sure, with your legal education and passion for justice, you believe in innocence until guilt is proved. Evidence can be manufactured, Mark. And sometimes those of us in leadership positions in the community make dangerous enemies.’

  There it was. Despite the ambiguous words and cordial delivery, the threat came through loud and clear. Mark had no doubt the man could still be dangerous.

  ‘If someone has a grievance with me, they should take it up with me. Not with anyone else. I’m the threat to whoever is behind this, because I will do everything in my power to ensure that the truth is uncovered, and that those responsible for concealing it a
re called to account for their actions.’

  ‘Very worthy of you, son.’ Flanagan couldn’t entirely hide the amused edge of sarcasm. ‘I wish you nothing but the best in your endeavours.’

  He didn’t specify the best of what. Failure, probably. But Flanagan’s confident double-speak signalled more than refuted his involvement in the cover-up, at least at some level.

  ‘Thank you, Dan. I’m sure the outcome of the police enquiries will be well publicised.’ With that pointed courtesy, Mark turned away and walked to the driver’s side of his ute, starting the engine and pulling out without looking back.

  Back bar of Impies. 6.15 pm. Pretend surprise. W.

  The text message from an unknown number arrived half an hour after Wolfgang had brusquely denied during their phone call the possibility of still having any images from the accident. Had he remembered some – or changed his mind about his answer to her question? Pretend surprise – the instruction sent her imagination into overdrive. Larry’s nervousness, Wolfgang’s caution – whatever she’d stumbled on, she’d better be alert.

  A few minutes after six o’ clock she arrived at the Imperial Hotel and studied the blackboard menu for counter meals in the back bar. She needed to eat. Preferably something healthy. She ordered the chicken salad and a mineral water and found a vacant table by the wall.

  Ten past six. Too early for Saturday-night crowds, just twenty or so people relaxing on a hot evening. She drew a notebook from her bag and opened it on the table. Few people approached a woman dining alone, writing in a notebook, and it gave her the perfect excuse to spend some time with her face down, ostensibly working, while she unobtrusively kept an eye on movements in the bar.

  Although one or two faces seemed familiar – perhaps people who’d been at Birraga High in her day – most of the small crowd concentrated on their friends or on the sport playing on the large TV screens, and no-one recognised her.

  Wolfgang walked through the door at six-seventeen. Tall, a leather waistcoat buttoned over tattooed skin, faded jeans – unchanged but for the lines chiselled on his weather-hardened face and some loss of muscle tone. He was still striking, still sensual in his rebel-artist way, although he must be well past sixty. He greeted a couple of people, propped on a bar stool, made a dry joke with the barman and ordered a beer and a packet of chips without once looking in her direction.

  The rumours whispered in Dungirri, long ago, that he’d escaped the East German Stasi in Berlin in the 1960s took on a whole lot more credence. Most people – people other than dissidents, spies, undercover cops, actors and investigative journalists – didn’t have the skills or experience to carry off a charade so convincingly.

  She continued to doodle on her notepad, wondering about him. Although he and his wife, a potter, lived closer to Dungirri than Birraga they’d generally kept to themselves, and aside from the spy rumours and hushed references to pornography, the locals – at least the older locals – had mostly regarded them as drop-out hippies who didn’t belong in Dungirri. She’d learned a little more about him through his part-time photography work for the Gazette – but not much.

  When she casually glanced around again Wolfgang had swivelled on the stool and was watching the action on the TV screen on the wall to her left. She let her gaze drift to him, smiled in recognition, and he saw her then, and performed a credible double-take. With his slow, crooked grin he slid off the stool and sauntered over to her, beer in hand.

  ‘Jenn Barrett. Almost didn’t believe my eyes. Who’d have thought you’d come back here?’

  She stood and he enveloped her in a bear hug, kissing each cheek and then her mouth, tasting of beer and salt and marijuana.

  He winked. ‘Couldn’t do that when you were sixteen.’ Dragging a chair out, he put his beer on the table and sat down, to all appearances settling in for a catch-up yarn. ‘So, what have you been up to, kid? Other than what we see on TV.’

  She played it as relaxed and easy as he did. ‘Work, work and more work. An apartment in Sydney I don’t see much of. I was based in London for a couple of years, covering Europe, more recently in Afghanistan for a year or so. And I’ve just come back from three weeks in Central Asia.’

  ‘I saw the ad for your report. Tuesday night, isn’t it?’

  She nodded. ‘Part one this week, part two the next.’

  ‘So, is it what you wanted it to be? The career?’

  The question took her by surprise. Was it? She let some mineral water cool her throat. ‘I’m happy with what I’ve achieved so far. But there’s always more to do, and journalism is a rapidly changing field. Technology is making it the best of times and the worst of times, as far as news and current affairs are concerned.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Forty years in Australia and it still came out more like ja. ‘For art, also. Good times and bad.’

  ‘How is Marta?’ A quiet woman, Jenn remembered from their few meetings, with an unpretentious beauty that Wolfgang had often captured on film.

  The energy in his face drained, so that it became merely skin stretched over bone, a skeleton in waiting. ‘Gone.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Wolfgang.’

  ‘Cancer, five months ago. Bastard of a disease.’

  In the echoing flatness of his voice she understood his joviality of a few moments before as the pretence it really was – not only a performance for any malicious observers, but a courageous pretence of being alive, of being okay.

  In the face of his grief, words deserted her and she closed her hand over his on the table. He squeezed her fingers for several seconds before he broke the contact to raise his glass and sip his beer.

  ‘You want something to write about, Jenn? Do you know how many women in the bush – young women, often – have a double mastectomy because they can’t afford to spend weeks or months in Sydney or Dubbo or Tamworth having chemo and radiation? We were okay because we live pretty frugally, had a bit put aside, but working women, women with kids or caring for parents – and guys with other cancers, other illnesses, it’s the same. There aren’t enough choices and they’re too bloody tough.’

  His concern for others touched her, and she automatically saw possible angles, approaches and questions – but she already had plenty to write about, projects in the works, leads to follow, and none of them had anything to do with Birraga or Dungirri. ‘I’ll mention it to one of my colleagues,’ she told Wolfgang. ‘He does a lot of work on rural issues.’

  The waiter brought over her salad, and with the interruption Wolfgang checked his watch and then drained his glass. ‘My pizza will be ready to pick up, so I’ll leave you to your dinner. Good to see you, Jenn.’

  Leaning over, he gave her another surprisingly strong hug, holding her tightly, burying his face in her hair. ‘There’s a USB drive in your bag,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘Be careful what you do with it. There’s danger, Jenn.’

  The next moment he was strolling away, returning his empty glass to the bar, then walking out the door with only a raised hand in farewell. And she found her vision blurring with unexpected tears.

  Sorting files did little to improve Mark’s mood. Sorting files, carting boxes for storage, running the shredder – activities that kept him busy but didn’t occupy all his thoughts. Apart from the intermittent burr of the shredder, his Birraga office was quiet, the last sunlight of the day slanting through the west-facing windows into the reception area where he stacked boxes of correspondence and resource material to take to Marrayin, and bags of shredded material for recycling.

  Like Marrayin, this building had a history, and that was one of the reasons he’d chosen it for his electorate office. Originally a bank built more than a century ago, it still had most of the original features: the long, solid cedar counter, the large fireplace behind it that they never used, and the walk-in safe, built sturdily enough to deter bushrangers back when there’d been gold in Birraga.

  Tellers, bank clerks, accountants, customers – generations of local people had known the building, tr
ansacted their business over the counter or in the manager’s office. It had always seemed to him fitting to continue that connection and honour the traditions and the history, so he’d left the counter in place, and the safe and the images of historical Birraga, although the other former bank buildings in town had been gutted and modernised to fashionably bland office style.

  Mark carried another box of files to the growing pile by the door. To make additional room he pushed aside the chairs and coffee table and the stands with information leaflets about various government services. There’d be more boxes yet. Despite his resignation, he still had work to do – correspondence to respond to, referring constituents to other assistance, and sending submissions to parliamentary inquiries, albeit as a private citizen now.

  His phone vibrated in his shirt pocket and he checked the screen before deciding to answer. Jenn.

  ‘I might have something,’ she spoke as soon as he answered, crisp, quick. ‘Some info about the accident. Are you at Marrayin?’

  Curiosity and wild hope flared. ‘No, in Birraga. In the office.’

  ‘Good. I’ve just left Impies. Have you got a functioning computer there? I need to look at some files.’

  ‘Yes. You know where my office is? The old bank in Burke Street, just off the main street.’

  He caught the lilt of amusement in her voice. ‘I’ll find it. See you in five.’

  Of course she’d find it. Birraga’s business district consisted of two blocks. He opened the front doors of the building and tried to still the questions circling in his mind by loading the first of the boxes on to the tray of his ute, parked immediately outside.

  Jenn turned into the street and pulled in beside the ute. Stepping out of the car, she slung a small leather bag across her body and stood for a moment studying the graffiti scrawled across the front wall below the windows.

  Amusement curved her mouth. ‘“Lying batsard”? That’s a new twist on an old insult. Or a dyslexic vandal.’