She raised her eyebrows.
‘For nine hundred dollars, I should think I could trouble the hostess for five minutes of her time.’ Jack said, his producer-voice creeping into his tone.
‘You ever seen six hundred thousand litres of anything all at once?’ She shifted slightly, mild surrender. ‘What do you want to know? It came down the hill, poured through the whole town. It was all over the road. Stained it, actually; I swear it’s darker now. It even got into the wood here, that’s why I repainted the house. We swept it into the gutters, but there were pools of it, for weeks, lying around in potholes and gutters. In the heat, the town stank. Like it was rotten.’
‘And that was the last straw, for most of you? With the Wades?’
‘You take an axe to Andrew Freeman’s wine vats, you take an axe to Birravale.’
‘Everyone feels like this?’ He stepped past her into the room. Saw a double bed. The room was sparsely furnished, but there was a water heater bolted to the far wall, and homely knitted blankets. It would be warm.
‘Of course. It was worse for some. Everyone with a cellar will tell you – and that’s everyone round here, mind you.’
‘Tell me what?’
She turned to leave.
‘It was like the walls were bleeding.’
The next morning Jack woke, dressed, and stepped out early. When he opened the door there was a plate on the carpet. On it, a single banana and a carbon-paper handwritten invoice. Breakfast. $50.
Jack stepped over it.
Now that he was here he didn’t really know what he planned to do. Interview the locals? Wait for someone to confess? He knew how to edit a crime so that it cut to credits at the perfect time, right when the heart was thrumming, so that, like an addict, you needed another hit. But actually solving one? How did people do that in real life? When there were no shortcuts or expository credits sequences to fill you in on what you missed last week? What do all narratives start with? he asked himself. Conflict. Tension. You don’t start a series with everyone in harmony – you drop them in discordance. You disrupt them, kick a beehive, and then see what falls out.
Jack had spent the night re-watching his show. He tried to view it from the prosecution’s perspective this time. Instead of dismantling the evidence, where it had been enough to merely show that there had been gaps, he now needed to fill those gaps. Wherever he’d called them out for making a leap – on placing Eliza at the Wades’, on the voicemail providing a motive, that the story she tried to sell pertained to Curtis Wade – he’d always looked to discredit the evidence rather than present a counter theory. So that seemed like a good first step. What did Eliza know that she thought she could sell? Why had she been at the Wades’? Jack didn’t know where to start, but he figured he might as well go kick some beehives.
Curtis Wade’s pebble driveway slipped underfoot. There were tyre ruts equidistant from the edges, the gravel loose enough to leave no footprints. It had taken him about fifteen minutes to walk there from the B & B. He’d stopped shivering quickly, though the grass underfoot was yellow and frozen and cracked when he walked. The Hunter Valley was Mars. When the sun was up, it boiled – he pictured pools of stinking wine beside the road – but as soon as it dipped below the horizon everything snap-froze. Heaven and hell, all at once.
There was only one media van at the base of the drive. Blue and silver, with a satellite on top. Jack couldn’t see anyone through the windows; he assumed they were sitting in the back. The news crews had come here initially: there had been bustling crowds of jostling microphones, helicopter shots. Some intrepid reporter had hovered a drone with a Go-Pro attached over the house. Curtis had sauntered onto the patio, rifle at his side, and had a few shots at it. A sharpshooter he was not and, though that was great footage, it was the last time Curtis had left the house. The driveway was so long, all private property, that there was nothing left to do but skulk at the bottom of it. And after two days with no money-shot of detectives leading Curtis, shackled, down that long drive, the experienced journos had headed back, leaving behind a few interns in case something exploded. Alexis’s murder wouldn’t be solved here, nearly everyone had accepted. But Jack had nowhere else to start. The driveway was slightly uphill. Gums folded over the drive like arms reaching out from the dust. Jack was panting by the time he reached the front patio.
The house itself was older than the restaurant which Jack had observed with awe, about three-quarters down the drive, the frozen windows adding a hint of extra sparkle in the morning light. Fifty metres further on, the house itself had no such spectacle: a stone chimney stack, timber walls and dirty windows. A kelpie slept on the porch. Wilted plants hung from the front awning like corks on a swaggie’s hat. There was a garage with the door folded up. Jack could see a tarnished hatchback inside, jaw open and engine exposed. A HiLux ute, much shinier, in the other parking spot. He also caught a glimpse of a messy tool bench. A dirt bike.
Jack took a few long breaths and stepped onto the porch. He stood in front of the door and steeled himself. He wondered if Eliza had done the same thing. Did you go inside this house, Eliza? What happened to you?
The kelpie lifted its head momentarily, and then rested its jaw back on its paws. There was yellow crusted mucus around its mouth and eyes. It reminded him of himself. A dog with no bite.
He knocked on the door.
There were thuds from inside and then the jangling of a lock. Curtis opened the door. He was wearing shorts and a singlet, greying wiry hairs spindling out from his chest like the head of a worn toothbrush. His moustache was stiff and grey; you could polish a shoe with it.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we got a lot to talk about.’
Exhibit C:
Message Received, 20/03/2014, 4:52 p.m.
Hi. Um, Sam? You don’t know me. My name’s Eliza. I’m from England. Right, you probably don’t need to know that. I’ve been living and working in a town called Birravale for the last six months. Anyway, *inaudible* I’ve found something here. I thought you might be interested. I figure it’s one of those things that might go viral, people would share it, you know? Might even be, I don’t know, illegal? Either way, it’s pretty weird. Could be a good feature. So, you know, do you buy stories? I can’t tell you any more until we talk figures. Call me back?
PREVIOUSLY
Wind tore past Jack’s ears as he tried to keep up, but even standing and pumping his legs as hard as he could, his pedals spun frictionless. They whipped around, rapping his calves, grazing the skin with tiny metal teeth. The ground dipped, his stomach held in the air for a second, and they zipped through a stagnant puddle. Mud shot off Liam’s back wheel and sluiced up his spine. Jack felt the same wet shock to his t-shirt as he followed a second later. Then the ground was tilting up again, and they were out of their seats again, piston-legs. The sunlight was dappled by the overhanging eucalypts.
Liam outpaced him, not only because he was older, but because he had a newer bike. He’d been raving about these things called gears that apparently made riding easier. He had brakes on his handlebars, too. Ones that you used with your fingers. Jack still had to lock his pedals backwards to skid to a stop. Liam had let him ride the new bike once, telling him to squeeze softly. Jack, of course, had ignored his advice and gone straight over the handlebars, with Liam collapsing in laughter. Jack didn’t ask to borrow his brother’s bike again, but trailing him up the hill, he wished he had some of those magical gears.
Liam was at the crest now, yelling down at him. ‘Get there, Jackie. Come on. Get there. Get there!’
That was Liam’s favourite thing to yell at the footy players – either on the TV or when Dad found a game to take them to in the city. Get there! Who cares if you got crunched over the top of the ball, provided you got there. Liam’s assistant-coach career was famous around the house.
Jack focused on the ground, watching his front wheel slide occasionally left and right when hopping over a rock. Liam was right though. In this case, there was onl
y one way to the top and that was up. Jack counted the number of times the orange patch on his front tyre – from two weeks ago when he’d run over the remnants of a Carlton stubby – passed under his handlebars. No way but up. Get there.
He made it, panting, to the ridge. Liam was coasting in circles, with his body on the left side of the bike, both feet perched on the single pedal, occasionally dropping his outside foot to paddle the ground. The playing card lodged in his back spokes thrummed lazily.
‘Nice of you to join.’ Liam swung past him.
‘That hill got bigger, I reckon.’
‘Or you got smaller.’
‘Can I have some water?’
Liam hopped off the pedal, trundled to a stop. He had a water bottle strapped to the frame, another fancy addition that Jack didn’t have. Liam tossed it underhand. Jack pulled the rubber top open with his teeth, the first mouthful tasting like an old car. Jack spat it. The second squirt was much better.
‘You refill this?’ he asked.
‘Monthly.’ Liam smiled. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You should see your back, Dad’ll crack it.’
Liam and Dad had just had an animated discussion about Liam removing the rear mudguard on his new bike. For aerodynamics, Liam argued. When he’d next got home with a gash of mud from his arse up to his collar, Peter said that he wasn’t allowed to sit on the couch until he’d washed. Liam, who’d wanted to watch Gladiators without delay, chose to stand in the lounge room. Peter was fine with that, as was his parenting style for the most part, he was happy to let the boys make their own choices and live with the consequences. His favourite saying was: That’s not a threat, boys, it’s a promise. An hour later, with Liam still standing by the coffee table, Dad wafted past and sank into the lounge with an indulgent sigh: How are those aerodynamics treating you?
‘It was worth it,’ Liam told Jack later that night, his pale face peeking out from the top bunk. ‘The bike goes wicked fast.’
‘Swim?’ Liam looked up; the sun was harsh, though some clouds were brewing. ‘We’ll dry.’
‘We rode up the hill for nothing, then.’
‘Not for nothing!’ Liam spread his arms out as if showing off a kingdom. ‘For glory! For fame! Swim?’
‘All the way down to the river?’ Jack grimaced. ‘Nah.’
‘Maybe on the way back. Up?’
‘Up.’
Jack dragged his bike off the dirt road and leaned it in the shrub. Liam, careful of his paint job, carefully wheeled his Giant over to a small clearing, where he propped the bike upright against a tree. It was a bush-bash from there, the two kids in a twig-snapping cyclone along a lightly cleaved path. Liam, ahead, peeled back the larger branches and held them for Jack who took this as a brotherly courtesy before being whopped in the face with spring-loaded foliage. Spitting gumleaves and spider webs, he’d give chase, until both of them were doubled over, panting and laughing. The further they went, the steeper it became, and soon they were scuttling, hands and knees slipping over shale, kicking the big rocks and watching them gather clumps of soil as they avalanched down the hill.
Black under fingernails, they reached the top. A rock formation loomed above them. The top had been carved by the wind and rain into lumps that resembled knuckles. The Fist. They called it that because from a distance it looked like a giant curled hand, a sentient mountain just awoken, punching the sky. In the middle, there was a large crack that you could squeeze into, as if the whole thing had been struck by an axe. No matter how dry the day, the crevasse was always water-slicked, fronds sprouting from the sides. The outside of the Fist was marbled and smooth from thousands of years of rain; there was no way to climb it. But if you put your back against one side of the crevasse, and the soles of your feet against the other, you could shuffle your way up to the top. And, once up there, it was so high and so clear. Rolling waves of greenery like coral, shoals of birds wafting on thermals, everything rippling together as if joined in Nature’s slow, rhythmic current. The boys loved it. On top of the Fist, they punched the sky. Is this aerodynamics? Jack asked once, spreading his arms and letting the wind ripple his t-shirt in his armpits. Kind of, Liam replied.
The Fist was massive, and with its imposing black slicked-rock walls, Peter would have been much firmer with his punishment than a no-sitting-in-the-lounge-room rule had he known they were going up there. He’d probably take their bikes away for good.
Liam had already poked his head into the fissure, rubbed his hand on one wall, inspected the grime, and cleaned the moss on his shorts.
‘Looks okay,’ he said.
‘Looks slippery,’ said Jack.
‘Huh?’
‘Dad says it’s pretty dangerous.’ Jack looked up; the tops of the trees were rustling. ‘It’s getting windier. Maybe we should come back tomorrow.’
‘You’re the one complaining about coming all the way up here for nothing.’ Liam rolled his eyes.
‘I know.’
‘And now you don’t want to come up?’
‘Dunno.’ Jack looked at the ground.
‘Well?’
‘Let’s just go swimming.’
‘You scared?’ Liam played his ace. The Achilles heel of any ten-year-old. You scared?
‘I’m not scared. Dad says —’
‘Dad says lots of things. That’s his job.’
‘I am not scared.’ Jack braced his feet to shoulder width, trying to assert himself.
‘People aren’t scared of heights, bro,’ Liam said. ‘They’re scared of the ground.’
‘We should come back another day.’
‘Suit yourself. Stay here. I’ll be back.’
‘Wait —’
But Liam had already levered himself into the gap. He dried his hands on his shirt. Then he shouldered the rock, twisting his weight until he had one foot up. Liam was tall; he’d always been good at this part. Jack squeezed his eyes tight. They felt hot. He wasn’t scared, he told himself. He’d just spied the clouds coming in from the right and at the very least he didn’t want to ride home in the rain. And if it rained while they were up there, how would they get down? His eyes stung. He wasn’t scared. He opened his eyes.
Liam was halfway up already, folded into the crease, soles flat on the wall, knees on his chin. He reached out a hand.
‘Last chance – you coming up or not?’
Jack had been inside the Wade house before, to interview Vincent and Lauren during filming.
But it still struck him with the same sense of déjà vu he’d felt the first time. A place he’d never been but knew intimately from poring over crime scene photographs. He knew the carpet in the bedroom had been torn up and replaced in the left corner years before. He knew that the cornice in the lounge room shielded a slight crack rippling through the drywall. The doorways he knew especially. His team had built a silicon hand and slammed it in every door, trying to match the finger wounds.
Curtis led him into the sitting room and Jack absent-mindedly flicked on the light as he stepped over the threshold. Just like his familiarity with Alexis, knowing her from videotape, he knew where every light switch, every scuff was. He’d seen every inch of this house before. At 100x zoom, in 4K HD.
But this time the walls didn’t glow blue with black light and the hallway was clean of plastic yellow numbers.
Curtis shot him a look that implied he would be the one choosing whether the lights stayed on or off in his house, but he didn’t say anything. Jack sat on the frayed couch (he felt comfortable sitting on this couch, they’d scoured it for splatter) and Curtis shuffled off.
Jack heard clinking from the kitchen. He took his time alone to look around. Off-white carpet. Dark wood furniture, but nondescript. Mass made. Everything here was cheap. The couch he was sitting on had a broken beam and the cushion threatened to swallow him. Jack shuffled forward, perched on the edge. The bottom of the couch had a thin red stain on the skirting. That had excited the police at first. Until they’d tested it: wine
. With the winery placed as it was, between the Freemans’ and the town, it bore the brunt of the wine-damage. The Wades had refused to replace the couch. They’d only replaced the carpet out of absolute necessity. Defiance, Jack figured. Curtis didn’t want to admit the damage he’d caused, even to himself.
The house smelled clean, as if bleached. Scientific. It was almost unnaturally neat, a side-effect of being pulled apart and put back together again by so many forensic teams. Residue of fingerprint dust and luminol was soaked into the walls and the carpet. All of this was long gone, of course. But four years hadn’t been enough to make it feel like a home again. Eliza might not have stained this house, but suspicion had.
Curtis came back with a plastic tray, laminated with watercolour drawings of cats. On the tray was a fancy white teapot, two maroon, yellow and blue mugs with footy team logos, and a small saucer of milk. A collision of finery and practicality. Curtis was doing his best to put on a show of civility. He set the tray down on the table between them and lifted the teapot. It rattled in his hand. The courtesy was a thin shield for his discomfort, poking through in his shaking hand.
‘Tea?’ Curtis said.
It felt absurd. An ex-convicted killer who might have killed again, whose hands were supposedly more comfortable wrapped around a wine-stained axe handle, was instead holding a delicate teapot. A seriously messed up tea party. Jack managed a nod.
‘I reckon I owe you this conversation, Jack, but I don’t want to be pulled into anything here. You and me, we’re square,’ Curtis said while pouring. The growl was familiar.
Jack nodded again.
‘No cameras,’ said Curtis.
‘This is for me.’
‘It always was.’ Curtis added milk, dropped a teaspoon in the first mug with a clatter and pushed it over to Jack. Both mugs were the same team, from Brisbane. The Wades used to live up north.
‘Do you miss it up there?’
‘Byron? Well, the weather, of course. But not the tourists. I’d say I like the peace here better, but’ – he waved a hand – ‘you know.’
Greenlight Page 10
