by Stella Quinn
Time to hold up your end of the bargain, Mrs Jones. I need that archive stuff ASAP.
A message flashed up on his screen a second later. You finished my ceiling yet, my love?
Soon, he typed, then shoved his phone in his pocket. He had to visit city hall and get the name of whoever had objected to his proposal before he could even think about plaster and cornices and fanciful frilly fretwork.
CHAPTER
27
Vera stood in the corridor willing the tremor in her hands to still. She was dog-tired, embarrassed, and royally pissed off with just about everyone in the world, herself included. She needed a moment to herself.
‘I’m ducking into the restroom,’ she said. ‘Back in a minute.’
The ladies’ restroom was full, so she headed into the parents’ room, hoping there’d be no-one in there so she could pull herself together in private. As she pushed the door in, someone hustled in behind her and swung her around.
She skidded on the heel of her boot and grabbed the nappy change table to steady herself. ‘Aaron. What the hell?’
‘You’re looking good, Vera.’
‘Don’t talk to me.’
‘Vera, honey—’
‘You rat. I have nothing to say to you.’ She took a step to the door.
‘Just hear me out, please.’
‘What could you possibly have to say, Aaron?’
‘Hey, I didn’t bring this charge against you. I’m not the bad guy here.’
‘You dobbed on me, Aaron. You knew I wasn’t using that recording device to entrap Acacia View. I was using it to monitor my aunt, who can’t speak for herself. She has dementia. And you sure as hell were the one who sacked me.’
‘I’m here for you, Vera, don’t you get that? Look, sure, I was a little hasty, but only because I cared for you. I still care for you, Vera. Why won’t you—’
She’d heard enough. Had Aaron always been like this? So self-absorbed that he couldn’t see the damage he’d done?
She turned to leave just as her lawyer bulldozed her way in through the swinging door.
‘Vera, you may be my favourite client,’ her lawyer announced, ‘but I don’t think you’ve understood just how surly I can become when I have to wait for caffeine, so hurry up—Oh! Well, well, what do we have here? The prosecution’s star witness engaging in a little off-court harassment?’
‘Let’s just go,’ she muttered.
‘Can I call you?’ Aaron said. ‘I know you’ve moved away, maybe I could come visit. Talk things through.’
What did he not get about how bitter she might feel about what he’d done? Did he not know? She wanted to scream at him, but beside her, Sue’s chest was swelling up like she was a self-inflating life jacket that had just hit water. ‘There will be no talking, Mr Finch. There will just be the sound of the door closing as you get the hell out of this gender-neutral nappy-changing facility paid for by the taxpayers of Queanbeyan. My client has nothing to say.’
Aaron looked for a moment as though he was going to argue the point, then his shoulders fell and he turned for the door. ‘I know we can get past this, Vee. I just know it.’ And then he was, finally, gone.
‘Drama queen,’ muttered Sue. ‘Thinks he’s auditioning for a role on Home and Away. Who in their right mind ever gets back with the dickhead who ruined their life?’
Vera drew in a shaky breath.
‘Hey, come on, don’t let him get to you. Want to know a little trick I learned my first year as a barrister?’
She breathed in, and out, and let her lawyer prattle on.
‘Whenever some arrogant guy was giving me grief—you know, suggesting I’d like to make him a coffee because I had ovaries and he didn’t, despite my law degree and having worked my arse off to get qualified at the bar, or leering down my blouse like he’d never seen boobs in the workplace before—I’d picture him naked, and work up an equally gendered backstory for him. Like, you know, when he was a small boy playing naked in the garden under the sprinkler, he had an unfortunate incident with the neighbour’s sausage dog.’
Vera closed her eyes. Jokes didn’t help, not today.
Sue tucked her hand into her arm and gave her a squeeze. ‘Come on. Let’s get you out of here. As fun as this is, the smell of yesterday’s stinky baby bums is going to get into my clothing, and you do not want to know how much I paid for this skirt.’ She pushed her way through the swing door and Vera followed her out.
She didn’t want coffee in some grey, city bistro.
She wanted mountain air. She wanted a quiet moment in the chair by her window with a fat grey cat on her lap.
She wanted to go home.
CHAPTER
28
Josh stared at the name. He’d marched down to the council office and asked Barry O’Malley to show him the objections council had received to his renovation proposal. Now here it was in front of him.
Pamela Hogan.
Why, oh why, was that name ringing a bell?
Sandy hadn’t known the name, and there were no Hogans in their client list. ‘Want me to google her? Stalk her on social media? I’ve got mad skills online, Josh,’ the receptionist had offered.
‘Drop your weapons back in your holster, Kojak. Let me ask Hannah first, okay?’
‘No problem. But refilling kitty litter trays isn’t my only skill. Just saying.’
‘Understood.’
Sandy had insisted on coming to work even though the clinic was shut and cordoned off with crime tape. She was neck deep in sorting paperwork in the back office, determined to do something useful. He’d not had the heart to say no—single mums with growing sons needed their wages same as any other parent.
He tracked Hannah down in the old shed out back, where she was looking into the engine of her car with a cranky look on her face. He moved in next to her and looked down. ‘Problems?’ he said.
‘Besides our livelihood going up in smoke? Yeah. My fan-belt’s screaming every time I start her up, the heater doesn’t work, and there are so many rust spots now, some days I feel like I’m driving a dalmatian.’
He pulled the oil stick from the engine, inspected it, and shoved it back in, thereby exhausting his knowledge of all things mechanical. ‘Maybe it’s time to say goodbye to the old beast and fork out for a new one.’
‘Says moneybags himself.’
He laughed. ‘Han, if you could see my bank balance, you’d know just how ridiculous that sounds. The bulk of my savings went into buying building materials for this place.’
‘We’re going to be broke before long if we can’t open up. There are the repayments on the ultrasound machine, the haematology unit.’
‘I’ve put a call in to the insurer. I’m waiting on them to get back to me.’
‘Yeah. You think they’re going to be paying us a single dollar if the police are investigating us as the potential arsonists?’
‘One anonymous Crime Stoppers phone call is not a police investigation.’
‘It’s pressure, Josh. It’s pressure on our business.’
‘I wonder …’ he said slowly. ‘Hannah … do you think that could have been the plan all along? Is someone trying to make us walk away from our business?’
She whacked the support strut out of its lock and slammed her bonnet shut. ‘You mean, one of the other vets in the region? That’s a big claim, brother, and you don’t know them like I do. We help each other out, we don’t sabotage each other’s businesses.’
‘Sorry, Han. You’re right, you do know them, but if we’re not being harassed by a competitor, who is behind this? Here, read this.’ He handed her the copy of the objection letter he’d picked up from council.
‘What’s this?’
‘The objection. Signed by someone called Pamela Hogan.’
‘Bloody hell.’
He looked at his sister’s arrested face. ‘You know the name?’
‘I sure as hell do,’ she said. ‘Quick, to the back office.’
His sister ran across the flagged rear yard of the building and through the side door like the hounds of hell were after her. What on earth?
By the time he’d followed her into the office, she was on her knees in front of the filing cupboard, hauling out a jumble of manila folders.
‘You’re messing up my good work, Hannah,’ said Sandy.
‘Sorry. I’ll fix it. Okay, here it is.’
She slammed a green folder on top of the desk. ‘Pamela Hogan. You remember the offer we got to buy the building, way back, after we’d just officially become the owners?’
‘Um, sort of. I didn’t really take much notice, to be honest, Han. Walk me through the details.’
‘Okay, so the first offer came when you were on your final internship at the Dalgety Flats Stables. You hadn’t graduated. It was a letter in the mail, I think. I put it through the shredder with the rest of the junk mail and lined the cages with it.’
‘And there was another offer?’
‘Some guy from Lake Realtors over at Jindabyne. He’d received a generous offer, one we “couldn’t refuse”. He came during clinic hours. Sandy found him wandering through the first floor taking photos on his phone. I said we weren’t interested and told him he’d better have a sick pet with him next time I caught him wandering around my property.’
Josh nodded. ‘Nice.’
Hannah grinned. ‘I’m not a total coward.’
‘You’re the bravest person I know.’
She cleared her throat. ‘Where was I? Right, so then the emails started. I printed out a few and kept them.’
‘These emails, are they from Pamela Hogan?’
He opened the folder and rifled through the pages. Pamela Hogan, Solicitor from an office in Cooma whose unnamed client had apparently authorised her to send increasingly persistent offers to acquire the Cody and Cody building, month after month.
‘Nothing for the last few months, though,’ he said. ‘Nothing since I’ve been here.’
‘I had the computer guy block her email account.’
He had a thought. ‘You know how Barry O’Malley wouldn’t tell us who was behind all the trivial complaints we were getting because of some privacy law?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Maybe we get that cop, Meg, to ask. She may be able to convince him there’s a greater good here. And if it’s the same person, it’s starting to paint a pretty big picture, Han.’
‘Call her,’ she said.
‘I’ll make copies of all these so you can give her the file,’ said Sandy.
‘Thanks, Josh,’ said Hannah. ‘Thanks, Sandy. I’m not sure I could be the one who … it’s just … dealing with stuff isn’t really my special skill.’
‘No big deal, Hannah Banana. I’ve got your back.’ Yet another reason he’d fought so hard to come home: he didn’t want to leave Hannah on her own when their parents decided their retirement involved circumnavigating the country in a motorhome.
She butted her head into his shoulder so her thanks came out muffled against his shirt, but he got the gist.
She lifted her head. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have just ignored the first letter. If I’d been more proactive and told them to rack off, they’d have got the message and stopped harassing us.’
‘We’re too nice. That’s the problem,’ said Josh.
‘Correction. You’ve been too nice. I’m bitchy as hell, but only in the privacy of my own bathroom. I can’t take this on, Josh. I can’t do conflict.’
He put down the letter and his coffee and wrapped her in a hug. ‘I know. Hannah, I’ve got this.’
She didn’t need more pressure in her life. And damn it, he’d worked too hard to get tripped up by some crackbrained vendetta against the Cody vet business.
He’d sort this. Somehow.
CHAPTER
29
The gracious old snow gum in the centre of the town square was lit with a thousand white fairy lights. Around it, the timber and stone Federation buildings were mostly dark, their shopfronts closed and tidied away for the night; the residents of their upper storeys tucked into bed with a book, a chamomile tea, a late-night bingefest of their favourite show.
The world kept going round, even while it felt like it was ending.
Her indicator tick-tick-ticked in time with her thoughts as she slowed to make the turn into Dandaloo Drive. She had to be in the café at dawn the next morning which was—she looked at her watch—dear god, only eight hours from now. Food prep, check the catering jobs, order supplies. After the breakfast rush, she’d duck out to Connolly House and sit with her aunt for a while. Maybe she could work on the summer menu while she was visiting; tourists would be plentiful, and that would mean more slices to bake, more sandwiches to fill, more cold drinks to stock. Perhaps a line of picnic lunches for the hikers who’d flock to the Snowy River National Park over summer.
A busy day tomorrow, which was good. Busy meant no time for brooding about going to trial.
The three-storey building that was home to the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic loomed on her left and she took her foot off the accelerator. Not a crumbling ruin, then, despite the yellow crime scene tape flickering across the plywood sheeting where the clinic’s front windows used to be.
She eased into the kerb and sat awhile, surveying the charred bricks and rubble tumbling down the front steps.
She wasn’t the only one who’d had a crap few days, she should remember that. Movement in the narrow street that ran down the side of the building caught her eye. A man stood there, his hands shoved in his pockets, staring up at the building.
She couldn’t make out his face, but she knew it was Josh. She didn’t know how she knew it, she just did. Damn guy had snuck his way in past her defences while she was distracted by all that handsome manness.
Before her head could persuade her otherwise, she slid her fingers into the catch of her car door and opened it, to step out into the chill mountain night. A low woof sounded, and Jane Doe came scampering up to push her wet nose into Vera’s hand.
‘Hey, girl,’ she said and pulled a soft ear through her fingers.
Josh turned his head and watched her as she walked towards him.
‘Hey,’ she said.
She stood next to him and looked up to where he was looking. Stone. Timber windows trimmed in white. The gracious acanthus brackets of a bygone era carved beneath the old parlour windows of the upper floors.
The breeze off the lake had more than a whisper of cold in it but she welcomed it. The drive up from Queanbeyan had taken two hours, but it felt like she’d travelled back through history a hundred years. City traffic, diesel fumes, crowds … she’d barely noticed the busyness of Queanbeyan when she’d lived there, but these few months she’d been living in Hanrahan had changed her.
She pulled in a lungful of air, smelled the lake water, eucalypts, a lingering curl of woodsmoke from the fire. And Josh.
‘I’m so sorry about your building,’ she said.
‘Mmm.’
‘You get all the animals out?’
‘Yeah. They spent the night in Graeme’s toolshed, then the sick ones went to the vet in Cooma and the rest back to their homes.’
She looked down at the dog seated by his feet, gazing lovingly upwards. ‘This animal doesn’t look like she’d leave you willingly.’
He shrugged. ‘Unlike some. Two days you’ve been gone, Vera.’
She drew back. Oh, wow. She must seem like the most selfish cow in the southern hemisphere. She had a quick flash of the people who had gathered in the park when the clinic was on fire—all of them there to help or offer support. And she’d just driven away.
Sure, she’d had to … but Josh didn’t know that, did he? Because she was too ashamed of herself to share her secrets.
She cleared her throat. ‘If I can do anything to help, I hope you’ll let me know.’
He glanced at her. ‘Last time I asked you for help, you weren’t so keen to oblige.’
Oh my god. The council b
y-laws he’d wanted her help to research to stop the nuisance complaints about the practice. A horrid thought came to her. ‘You don’t think … holy hell, was this fire deliberate? Oh, Josh, I’m so sorry.’
He frowned down at her. ‘Where have you been the last few days? The gossip wire’s been running so hot, I’d have thought your café would have heard all the news. It was definitely arson and the really fun part, Vera, is that someone called the cops and dobbed me in for doing it.’
‘What? That’s crazy.’
He let out a long sigh that sounded as tired and dispirited as she felt. ‘We’re just lucky the damage was limited to the reception rooms.’
‘You don’t need to demolish the building?’
‘No. But the insurer’s dragging their feet while the investigation plays out, so I’ll probably have to refit the clinic myself if we want to get the business up and running again. Once we’re allowed back in the front room, that is.’
‘That sounds like a big job.’
‘Marigold’s set up a working bee to clean the smoke smell out of the upstairs apartments, and we have a smoke extractor running in there now. It’ll take time, but we’ll get there.’
Time. The one thing she didn’t know if she had.
‘Where will you stay?’
‘You remember the Krauss family?’
She remembered getting the lips kissed off her on the mountain above Ironbark Station, home of the Krauss family. She was going to be remembering that moment until the end of her days, so yeah … she knew who they were.
‘Richer than they need to be, but also super happy to help anyone out. They own the old Hanrahan Pub. It’s two planks of wood away from being derelict, so there’s only a caretaker been living there for a couple of years now. Me and the Doe family have moved in there.’
‘Hannah too?’
Josh shook his head. ‘Hannah would rather sleep in a wet ditch than accept a roof over her head from Tom Krauss.’
‘That sounds like a story.’
‘So I keep telling her. She’s not shared it with me yet. She’s staying with her friend Kylie for a few days until we know what’s what.’
