The Dead Path

by Stephen M Irwin

  “And I feel compelled to point out, yet again, that I’m not black. Of course, if I were black, I’d be proudly black. But I’m Indian. Subcontinental. Hindustani. Whereas you are the ill-favored offspring of deported criminals.”

  “Touche,” replied Hird. “And, in response to your brassy defense of your low-slung heritage, let me just say this: check.”

  Pritam sighed and took a sip of sherry. He could now save his king and lose his bishop, or resign. Just once he would love to see the old man’s face in defeat. He scoured the board for alternatives that he knew would not be there.

  “Who were your visitors earlier?” asked Hird.

  “Never mind.”

  “Well, I do mind. What if they were more Hindustanis? Unwashed half-breed cousins you’re trying to slip in under the radar? You breed like frogs. Or worse: what if they were Liberal campaigners? Soliciting your venal, oily hide for your curry-fingered vote?”

  Pritam looked up at the old man. His eyes were sparkling with delight.

  “You met one of them at Gavin Boye’s funeral,” he said.

  Hird’s white eyebrows knitted together. “In the church?”

  Pritam nodded. “And his sister.”

  Hird thought for a moment. “Here to discuss the suicide?”

  “I resign,” said Pritam.

  “At last!” crowed Hird, then sobered slyly. “Oh, you mean the chess game. No, I won’t let you. Always to the death.” He looked at the younger man. “Well?”

  “They were talking about the murder of the young Thomas boy.”

  The older reverend nodded. “And?”

  “And nothing.”

  “My friend Bill Chalmers baptized Nicholas Close. The boy’s agnostic, like his mother and, I presume, his sister. Their father was a dodgy bastard: turned to drink, left his wife in the lurch with the kids, wrapped himself round a power pole. And then, of course, when Close was a boy his young mate, the other Boye lad, got done in…” Hird carefully cleared one nostril with a thumbnail, and looked up over his eyeglasses at Pritam. “I might be old and foolish in my choice of successors, but I still have capacity to wonder why two agnostics would come to see an Anglican reverend on a rainy winter’s night.”

  Pritam waited. There was no getting around this. Hird would harass and hassle him into answering as inevitably as he would extract a victory on the chessboard. He sighed.

  “They mentioned a Mrs. Quill. A dressmaker, I think.”

  The older reverend nodded, very slightly. “And?”

  “And, nothing. I didn’t want to worry you with this sort of nonsense, John.”

  Pritam fell silent, and Hird watched him over his spectacles.

  “I know English isn’t your first language, so take your time.”

  Pritam threw up his hands. “Fine! He wanted you to look at the photograph of Eleanor Bretherton and then for me to ask you about this Quill woman.”

  Hird looked over his shoulder at the old photograph of the church’s construction, and wearily got to his feet.

  “And now you’re going to do it?” asked Pritam, incredulous. “Is this your way to draw out my misery?”

  Hird winked and hobbled over to the picture. He adjusted his glasses.

  “I remember Mrs. Quill,” he mumbled.

  Pritam returned his attention to the board. If he couldn’t find a graceful way out of this game, he could at least backtrack and see the mistakes that had led him to lose.

  “Did you learn to play in Korea? John?” Pritam looked up at the old man. Hird was staring at the photograph. His face was white and his hand shook with a palsy.

  “John?”

  Hird looked at Pritam and shook his head slowly.

  “She’s…”

  Then he dropped to one knee and slumped onto the floor like a shot beast.

  “John!”

  Pritam ran to the old man. His breaths were shallow and fast, and his mouth formed silent, unknowable words. Pritam scrambled for the telephone.

  T he rain had finished, and the clouds were leaving like concertgoers after the final curtain. A beautiful night: chill and clear, moonless; the sky was a dark glass scrubbed clean and waiting.

  The suburb of Tallong eased itself to sleep. House lights switched off one by one, two by two, by the dozen, until it seemed only the bright pearls of streetlamps strung their beads around the dark folds of the slumbering suburb. The narrow roads were glossed with the rain, and tiny streams chuckled in the gutters and fell with dark gurgles into stormwater drains to rush underground toward the nearby river. No cars disturbed the stillness. Only the trees sang softly their night-breeze song, whispering.

  The woods were all shadow and moist as private flesh.

  At their heart, a fire flickered. In a cottage that had been long built even before the suburb’s old Anglican church had been started, flames licked fallen twigs in a stone-lined fire pit. The fire cast tall, thin shadows that jerked and clawed up the timber walls as if desperate for escape.

  Over the flames hunched an old woman. Her withered lips moved, but her words were soft; intended, perhaps, for the flames, or for something unseen already listening for her offer. Her hands, more like bone than flesh, moved quickly. In the uncomforting flicker of the hungry flames: a flash of silver, a splash of dark liquid, the ash of something crumbled through deft fingers. Then a final item, and the old woman’s hands slowed and moved with care. Tweezered in her skeletal fingers, a few long hairs joined by a small patch of blood-crusted skin. In went the hair and skin.

  Her lips moved again.

  The fire rose.

  Outside, a chill wind grew, as if to carry across the night treetops, along the empty streets, and into the slumbering suburb a dark gift, urgent and baleful.

  Chapter 18

  T he sunlight felt harsh and brittle. Nicholas squinted as he watched Suzette speak on her telephone. He was exhausted. Even the simple choice-whether to stand and close the greasy curtains or sit here squinting-was debilitating.

  Suzette finished her call and looked at her brother. There were bags the color of soot under her eyes. She’d aged ten years in a night.

  “Nelson has a fever,” she said.

  They had talked about this possibility for a half-hour over tea this morning. She’d risen from her deep, unnatural sleep and her hand went to her raw patch of scalp. Nicholas had argued that she must have lost the clump of hair scrambling away from Garnock. She disagreed, and stated plainly that the dog-and she said the word “dog” the way most people said “cancer”-had wrenched it out right after it surprised her with the bite.

  “It wasn’t sent to hurt me,” she explained with a smile. “It was sent for my hair. She’s going to hex me.”

  And not a minute after she’d said those words, her mobile phone rang. Bryan was calling with news that their son was suddenly ill.

  Nicholas and Suzette sat silent for a while.

  “Bryan’s taking him to the twenty-four-hour clinic in Glebe,” said Suzette, finally. She licked her lips. There was more she wanted to say, but wouldn’t.

  “You have to go home,” said Nicholas.

  For a long while she stared at her hands, saying nothing.

  “How sick is Nelson?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is she…” Nicholas hesitated, but there was no easy way to phrase it. “Is she trying to kill him?”

  Suzette thought about this, then shook her head. “I don’t think that’s her plan,” she said, and looked up at Nicholas. “She’s dividing us.”

  He nodded.

  “But you can look after him? Nelson?”

  “If it came out of the blue, maybe not. But since I know this sickness is an attack, yes. I think so.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “But I have to be there.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s afraid of us,” she said.

  Nicholas snorted. “She has no need to be.”

  He produced the telephone book and hunted for the airline
’s listing.

  “We know more about her than anyone else in a century and a half,” said Suzette, turning one hand over. The puncture marks were healing remarkably fast and already looked days old. She touched them uneasily.

  Nicholas imagined little Nelson a thousand kilometers away, face slick with sweat and turning fitfully as he dreamed of Christ-knew-what. Nothing pleasant, he was sure of that.

  “She’s halved us in one easy move, Suze. If you think she’s afraid, you’re an idiot. She’s just playing.” He slid the open phone book toward her.

  Suzette stared at it a moment, then picked up her phone.

  N icholas shut the cab door. His sister wound down the window. “Show me,” she said.

  He unzipped the front of his hoodie, revealing the burnished brown of wood beads. Suzette nodded approvingly. She looked into his eyes.

  “I don’t know, Nicky.”

  He drove his hands into his pockets. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Okay.”

  She spoke to the driver and the cab pulled away into the bright street and soon became a winking spot of yellow too bright to watch.

  K atharine nodded while Suzette rushed around the house collecting her suitcase, her makeup bag, her toiletries bag, her spare shoes. Outside, the cab horn tooted again. Katharine had swallowed not a word of the tripe Suzette had dished up about her and Nicholas having had a few too many Jagermeisters last night and forgetting to tell Katharine she was crashing there at the flat.

  I may be getting long in the tooth, she thought, but I can still tell the difference between hangover and panic. The way Suzette was rushing around like a dervish, the only drug in her veins was adrenaline. All that rang true was that Nelson had come down with something.

  “Okay. That’s everything,” said Suzette, pulling her hair back behind her ear.

  “Great,” said Katharine. It was ridiculous. Nicholas was like his father-strange and handsome and flighty-but Suzette was supposed to be like her. Grounded. Sensible. She was tempted to march to the porch, throw the cabbie twenty bucks and dismiss him, sit her daughter down, and demand an explanation.

  The cab horn beeped again, longer and more insistent. Suzette wheeled her suitcase out of the room and kissed Katharine on the cheek.

  “Gotta go.”

  Katharine nodded.

  It seemed to take just a moment, and then an engine rumbled, an arm waved, and the house was quiet again.

  Katharine went to the kitchen and filled the kettle.

  She sat, determined not to think as she waited for the water to boil.

  L aine taped the last box shut. That was it, then: all of Gavin’s belongings put away; some for charity, some for the dump, some to be saved for a happier “one day” that Laine felt, right now, was as distant as the stars.

  She and Gavin had moved into the house fourteen months ago to look after his mother. Mrs. Boye’s husband, Gavin’s father, had passed on two years earlier, and the widow’s decline had accelerated in those twenty-four months. Three personal caregivers had quit, finding her manner too abrasive even for their seasoned experience.

  Twelve months ago, the arrow on Laine’s marriage fire-danger sign had pointed to “moderate.” Over the subsequent six months it had escalated to “high.” She and Gavin had been trying for a child for more than a year and had finally started IVF treatment. The hormone injections gave her an immovable headache that soured every heartbeat. Waking up sick, commuting to her grinding job at a graphics company that seemed to tender only for redesigns of cereal boxes and fridge calendars, then returning home to Mrs. Boye’s increasingly nonsensical and voluble rants made it hard to unearth even minuscule moments of pleasure.

  Gavin got a promotion: sales executive, Asia Pacific. He wasn’t the brightest man, but he was good-looking and seemed to get along well with everyone. He had a natural charm. He’d certainly charmed her. But he had also put her through the humiliation of two affairs. Both times Laine had caught him out, and both times he had collapsed at her feet in a ball of remorseful tears promising never, ever to be so stupid again, but then he landed another overseas job that would deliver him into temptation for weeks on end. The needle moved to “extreme.”

  Then, the unforeseeable. A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks’ notice. “I’ll get a job around here,” he’d told her. “Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We’re not paying rent, and Dad’s left us plenty. You should quit too.” A year earlier, this news would have filled her with delicious, full-fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty-weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grown-ups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn’t keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn’t trust it.

  But Gavin seemed to mean it. He began eating properly-health food and raw vegetables. It should have been good. It would have been good. Had he not started talking in his sleep.

  In the middle of the night, when the huge house ticked uneasily, Gavin’s whispering would wake her. She had to lean close to hear his words. “ Bird. Tris. Back. Dead. ” By the watery light coming through the window, she could see he was deep asleep as he spoke, yet his expression was adulating, hungry. “ Bird. Please. Bird. Dead. ” The words kept her awake long after he’d rolled over, snoring. Two people muttering to themselves in the house made her feel guiltily glad she hadn’t gotten pregnant; she didn’t want a child infected with this family’s madness. She stopped taking the fertility drugs, but didn’t tell Gavin.

  Then, just a few days ago, Gavin had risen early. Laine had been so exhausted, having finally fallen asleep at four, that she hadn’t stirred. Mrs. Boye had slept uncharacteristically late too. They’d both been roused at seven by police knocking to bring “some very bad news.”

  And now? The will was in probate, but Mr. Boye’s inheritance was hers. She would find a caregiver for Mrs. Boye and get the hell out of this quietly haunted house. Two nights ago she had been in the shower making plans for just that when Nicholas Close had visited.

  Close was pale and odd-looking. Not unhandsome, but held together inside by wires stretched too tight. Laine had heard that his wife had died and that he’d been with Tristram when he was taken way back when. Close had said he wanted to talk about Gavin, and she’d had to clamp her mouth shut. She had wanted to yell: Tell me about the bird! What does it mean? What bird? But that would have signed her application into Bedlam, so she sent him on his way.

  Now it was done. The last box was packed. She could go and put all this behind her.

  Except she wanted to know.

  Gavin’s brother had been murdered. His killer had suicided. A boy had gone missing a week or so ago. His killer had suicided. Gavin had suicided. What linked all this death? Nicholas Close.

  She was leaving this awful city. Who cared if he thought her mad? She would go to see him.

  A cross and down the road, the Myrtle Street shops were quiet. A car parked. A man entered the convenience store and emerged shortly after with two stuffed bags of groceries. The light in the computer repair shop went out. Two minutes later, a lanky man stepped out and locked the front door. He leaned and sidestepped to peer into Plow amp; Vine Health Foods, gave a short wave, then strode around to the side street where his Nissan was parked. He drove away.

  Nicholas checked his watch. It was 5:34.

  The lights inside the health food store went out.

  He took a small step back, lowering himself a little behind the tangled shrubs.

  A moment later, the door of Plow amp; Vine Health Foods opened and a tall, slender young woman stepped out. Rowena. She reached into her handbag for keys, dropped them, knelt to pick them up, and locked the door. Nicholas watched her test that the door was secure, then she checked her watch and hurried out from under the awning of the shops, away from his hiding spot. He watched her draw her long, knitted coat about herself as she strode a
way. He waited until she was far enough away that he would be just a shadowed stranger in the distance before stepping out from behind the lasiandra to follow.

  Sedgely had her shop here. Quill had her shop here. But that didn’t automatically cast any tenant of the shop under suspicion, did it? Of course it did. Old Bretherton. Old Sedgely. Old Quill. The old woman walking in the woods with Garnock. Were they the same person? He’d come to think so. But was there any connection between them and the vital young woman hurrying ahead of him? Was there any similarity between friendly, clumsy Rowena who sold wheat germ and organic licorice with a lovely smile and the sinister, bent thing that had watched with glittering eyes from her nest between hanging dresses? No. But that didn’t mean they weren’t connected. Nicholas pursed his lips. He knew, foolishly, he wanted to exonerate Rowena because he found her attractive.

  Ahead, her coltish long legs took her across Myrtle Street and up toward the corner of Madeglass. She was moving fast, so Nicholas picked up his pace. At the end of Madeglass Street was a busier road that led under the railway line. At the corner, a small huddle of people waited at a bus shelter. Rowena slowed her pace as she moved to the end of the queue.

  Nicholas slowed and stopped behind a power pole fifty meters away. He leaned against the hard wood and the faint tang of creosote rose through the chill air. The sun was gone now, and the first sparkles of stars were appearing in the purple sky. He watched Rowena. She was chatting with a middle-aged woman in the queue ahead of her. Both women laughed. Rowena’s teeth were white in the gloom. The headlights of a bus appeared in the railway underpass, its windows glowing warm yellow. A moment later it let out an elephantine sigh and stopped to take on passengers. Rowena got on board. Nicholas watched her pick her way down the aisle to a seat halfway back. The bus rumbled and soon was gone.

  Nicholas drove his hands further into his pockets. He was relieved. Had Rowena gone to the woods, he’d have had no doubt that she was party to the web of murders. But she’d gone home in a bus, nattering with the other passengers.