‘Me neither. My wife’s the maker.’ Andrew took a long swig from the bottle. ‘I’m the drinker. This is a good one though, trust me.’ He filled his glass almost to the brim. Jack was reminded of an old saying: Don’t get high on your own supply. That saying only applied to drug dealers, but Jack supposed Andrew was technically a drug dealer, especially if the sign in the Royal was anything to go by.
Jack took a sip. Andrew was right. It had that smoothness where it feels as if your tongue is waxed and the liquid is levitating above it. He didn’t know how much this bottle was worth; he tried to imagine what a thousand-dollar bottle would taste like.
‘Andrew,’ Jack said, ‘you didn’t bring me up here just to show me the view.’
‘I thought hospitality might be in short supply. Besides, I think in order for you to come back here you must have something pretty heavy weighing you down. Maybe you’re back for the right reasons this time.’
Jack took a sip of his wine. Laughed. ‘I thought you were bringing me up here to throw me off.’
‘Water. Bridge. Birravale might not have a creek, but it’s under it. Not everyone here’s an enemy.’ Andrew raised his glass. ‘If I can do something to help put that man away again, I will.’
They sat in silence, appreciating the view. Jack could see the romance of it. But had Andrew realised how beautiful his wife was up here, in this light, or how rich? A technicality, he supposed. He remembered what Lauren had said about being born into wine, and here was a local cop, married into it, yet respected all the same. At least there was one person in town keen to help him. And, seeing as how Andrew was the sergeant, this olive branch could be useful. McCarthy hadn’t replied.
‘One thing I do need is medical records. The coroner’s report.’
‘Why?’
‘The detective from Sydney’s too cagey. I’m only getting half the picture. Have you heard anything?’
‘I wish I could help, but I wouldn’t know.’ Andrew shrugged. ‘I’m not a cop anymore.’
‘Shit.’ Jack looked into the deep red of his glass. Alexis’s words were echoing – You definitely got someone fired.
‘It wasn’t you,’ Andrew said, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking. Though you ruined a lot of reputations.’ He finished his glass and topped it up again, holding the bottle up to the sun, swishing it at Jack. Jack shook his head. ‘No? Don’t act so surprised. You cost a lot of people their jobs. Not mine though. I was happy to retire. I get to spend more time up here, spend more time with Sarah. Besides, a small-town cop has only got one murder in him, I think. We’re bred tough here, don’t doubt that, that’s not what I mean. I’ve peeled children off blacktop, ground fathers out of harvesters. But murder . . . country people are good people. We know death, more so than city folk. But the difference is that we respect death. Murder, though, there’s no respect there.’
‘Hmmm,’ Jack agreed.
If Andrew wasn’t a cop any more, then who was? Birravale didn’t have its own police station, but at least when the sergeant lived in the town there was some authority. Though he’d always had a lot of ground to cover. Where was the nearest station? Cessnock? Newcastle? Jack reminded himself not to get into any real trouble out here.
‘Yep. One murder’s enough for me.’ Andrew skulled the rest of the glass, refilled it. He examined the empty bottle, slotted it into the picnic basket. ‘It didn’t make sense, what you said about me. You know.’ He was speaking quietly; he didn’t sound mad.
‘I know,’ Jack said. ‘I’m starting to realise I got a lot of people wrong.’
‘That I killed a woman. Just to get back at him for emptying my tanks? Fuck that.’ Andrew’s voice was slightly slurred. ‘I didn’t even press charges. Some feud.’
‘You broke his windows, I hear.’
He shook his head. ‘Dawson’s boys did.’
Jack tried not to let the surprise show on his face, mentally filed away that the blonds in the pub were Brett Dawson’s sons.
‘After all, they built the hideous thing. You know how expensive one of those curved windows is to replace?’
‘Like a fireman setting fires,’ Jack said, ‘to rescue the people inside.’ Brett Dawson smashing the windows he’d put in so Curtis would have to pay him to have them fixed. He was double dipping.
‘When I started as a cop,’ Andrew said, ‘Sarge at the time had a handshake deal with the pub. Let him know ahead of time who was headed home drunk. Sarge’d pull them over, completely randomly, of course.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Offer them a cash fine to not get hauled down the station. Then he’d split the profits with the publican. So yeah, I’m saying they set their own fire.’
‘But Curtis took it out on you. Why didn’t you press charges?’
‘The wine’s insured. Look, it sounds bad, three million. That was the claim, anyway, but those numbers – they’re all projections. They sound intimidating, but the thing is it’s not real money. Worse than it sounded, is what I’m saying. It wasn’t three million, not even close. So we didn’t press charges, because we didn’t want to add fuel. Look at things now.’ Andrew looked out over the town. ‘Everything’s ablaze.’
‘You could have told me this before.’
‘I thought no comment was my best option. Sarah didn’t want to get pulled into it. But you were making your show. You’d chosen your story, and I could tell you were sticking to it. What voice would you have given me? But now someone you know has been killed, so I’m thinking you’re on my side.’
Jack was silent. Would he have listened? He’d been confronted with conflicting evidence, and he’d hidden that away. Now here he was, starting again. He thought of Lauren, begging for his help. Was he really listening this time?
‘Do you know how complicated it would have been for me to even think about arranging a conspiracy as complex as you proposed? No. I’m sorry.’ Andrew waved a hand. ‘I shouldn’t. I’m sorry. I said I forgave you and I have. I shouldn’t have drunk so much. I’m trying to help you. He killed her. Killed ’em both, I’d say. So let’s get him.’ The last few words spat from his plump, reddened lips.
‘You know it doesn’t make sense for a murderer to set up a body pointing straight back to him.’ Jack couldn’t believe he was defending Curtis. ‘Even an idiot dumps a body better than that.’
‘You flipping sides again?’ Andrew was exasperated, his voice high and tired. ‘Do you think he killed them or not?’
‘Yes,’ Jack said, and it was true. He did believe Curtis had killed Eliza, even if he wasn’t sure as to what had happened to Alexis. But he was still convinced that Eliza’s murder, the truth behind it, would unlock everything else. ‘But I need to know why. I need to know how he got her to the middle of that field. You can see the whole town from here. Curtis’s whole property. You didn’t see her before she died, after she stopped working here?’
‘No.’
Something there. A flicker. Not a lie. Not the truth.
‘You sure. Never?’
‘I’m sure.’
A long shadow was passing through the town now. The sun was shedding its last golden rays across the vineyards. A few lights popped on in town. Another one, closer, the windows of the Wade restaurant emitting a soft glow. Through the curved glass it looked like a lantern, a beacon. Lauren’s invite. Tomorrow.
They sat for a time without talking, the single street below hazy with a dewy mist.
‘I should go,’ Jack said finally.
‘You didn’t finish your wine.’
‘I don’t really drink. It was delicious. Thank you.’
‘No bother, leave it. I’m gonna stay up here a while longer. You right to get home yourself?’
Jack nodded. It would be a fast walk downhill. He went slowly backwards down the first few rungs. Just before he dropped below the rim, Andrew called out to him.
‘We’re friends now, Jack,’ he said. ‘Anyone gives you trouble . . .’ He raised his fists, tossed a few imaginary jabs, laughed. ‘Tell ’e
m they’re messing with me.’
Jack held his best smile until the wall of the silo rose over Andrew, blocking him out. He was careful on the descent, used a mixed grip – one hand over, one hand under. It felt a long way down, and that he was going too slowly. Think of the positives, he reminded himself, it could be much faster. Whump.
Jack didn’t know what to make of Andrew. On the one hand, Andrew had shown some true intent to bury the hatchet (provided it wasn’t in his wine vats again). But there was an anger in him that leaked out too, snuck through his red lips in fits. Andrew had suffered seven weeks of a one-sided conversation – all but accused of conspiracy. Was it so strange he’d wanted to have his say, to clarify his character? But there was something disconcerting there, something not-quite-nice about a man who decides to marry his wife based on a view. Jack realised, somewhat uncomfortably, that he was looking forward to seeing Lauren again tomorrow. God forbid, he actually preferred the Wades. At least they spoke their minds. With Andrew, Jack couldn’t tell if what he was saying and what he was thinking were the same thing. You can move a restaurant across the road, but if the food’s rotten . . .
The sun was gone now. Dark. Jack climbed down into the abyss.
Jack was only halfway down the drive when he heard yelling. A dog barking. The air was so still and clear that the sound flooded and filled it. Short words. Oy. Hey. Stop. They hung in the night.
Towards town, down the hill, he could see the Wades’ field, a dampened yellow glow encasing it in some kind of ethereal bubble. Behind and above, across the tops of the trees, a harsh white circle of torchlight scanned. Glints of possum eyes, bright as stars, sparkled then vanished as they darted off, branches rustling. The light wasn’t smooth, it shuddered up and down, across the canopy. It was a feeble, shaking beam. Whoever was holding the torch was running.
Jack was running now too, back up the drive. Yelling from the Wade property was something to worry about. He crossed the back of the Freeman restaurant, and his line of sight cleared. In the valley below, the Wade property looked like a POW jail break without the air siren. Between the rows of grapes, the beams of two torches were scanning back and forth. At the base of the rise, a cracking sound, bushes shaking, as someone picked their way through the shrubbery line that separated the properties. One of the torches in the field lowered from the canopy above Jack to illuminate the bush below. A shadow lurched, on Jack’s side now, hopping on one leg out of the undergrowth as if struggling with a sock, then bolted into Andrew Freeman’s vines.
More yelling. Stop. Hey. Fuck. Barking. A car started.
The shadow heading through the Freemans’ vineyard looked as if it was aiming to go up and over the hill. If Jack ran straight along a row, he’d cut them off. He knew he had to catch them. Fleeing the Wades’ this late at night? That was someone dangerous.
Jack hurried past the wine silos, sparing a quick glance up. Was Andrew still there, watching? He couldn’t tell. The ground opened up to the rows of grapes in front of him. The entrance to each was black, with curling vines raking backwards, the entrance to a maze. A torch was flashing over the vines, that person having plucked their way through the bush as well. One of the Wades giving chase? Jack took a breath, ran into the closest entrance.
The rows were tall, immediately blocking the moon. The torch scanned through the gaps in the foliage in a slow pan, momentarily dipping him in and out of darkness. A zoetrope. It must have been later and colder than he’d thought, because in one flash of light his breath was coming out in puffs and mist swirled at his ankles. The intermittent torchlight was screwing with his night vision, the night almost impossibly dark when it moved away from him. He kept drifting downhill, shouldering the vines and fence posts on his right, ricocheting back into the centre of the row. Tendrils whipped at his face. Then light. Then dark. Jack was wondering how the hell he was going to know when he was even close to the person he was chasing when he heard a yelp and tripped right over them.
He landed hard on his elbows. Rolled. Everything was dark. Something was in his hand, a sock, an ankle. Grunting. A foot kicking out. Then it was light again, the torch beam rotating past, and there was mist glowing around his head and a glimpse of someone in front of him, scrambling on their stomach to go under the fence. Then dark. Something wooden like a baseball bat hit him hard in the jaw and he felt his neck snap backwards and his head bounce off the ground. There was a scuffling noise. The torchlight scanned over him again, he could tell from the glowing red across the back of his closed eyelids.
He rolled onto his back, opened his eyes, and came face to face with the mouth of a hunting rifle.
Lauren peered over the top of the rifle, lowered it and swore.
She reached out a hand and pulled Jack up from the dirt. She didn’t have time for him, spun around and aimed her gun and torch up the hill. Jack turned to see the intruder burst into the tree line in a shower of broken twigs and snapped branches and vanish.
‘Lauren, what happened?’
‘I could have shot you!’ She was crying, her toughness stripped away, as if the tears dissolved her back into that young girl trying to hold it all together.
‘Who was that? Why do you have a gun?’
‘I caught them! I heard something, it woke me up, something crashing around in the shed. So I took the gun. Just because I was scared, okay? They saw me and ran.’
‘Did you get a look at them?’
‘Did you?’ Jack shook his head. She sniffed. ‘Me neither. It was too dark.’ She was breathing heavily, shoulders ragged, shock settling in as the adrenaline wore off. Jack steadied her with an arm. ‘You don’t understand. They took his axe. Curtis’s axe. They took it.’
Jack understood her panic immediately. He clicked his jaw; he thought he’d been smacked by a baseball bat, but that wasn’t right. It was the wooden handle of the axe. Who could possibly want to steal Curtis’s axe? Only someone who had use for it. And what possible use? Someone who could put Alexis’s blood on it and then plant it somewhere later. Perhaps the same person who had slipped into the vineyard in the middle of the night, months ago, and carefully placed a pink running shoe in a place they knew Jack would have to look. A killer, covering their tracks.
And Jack had been close enough to grab them, at last, but he’d let them get away. In the quiet of the night, he could still hear them crunching through the bush. They hadn’t got away quite yet.
‘Lauren, call the police.’ He was already running up the hill. She sat, stunned, dropped to the ground with her head in her hands, gun useless in her lap. Her torch beam pooling uselessly on the ground. He should have taken it, he realised halfway up. But it was too late for regrets. He crossed into the tree line.
Now that he wasn’t periodically blinded by brightness, Jack’s eyes were able to adjust to the gloom. Black bars, tree trunks, slotted his vision. He couldn’t run in the dense bush, but he tried to hurry, arms in front, scanning for danger with his palms. Everything felt simultaneously far and close, each shadowed shrub managing to jump out at him. It was the thin branches that caught him off guard the most; the big ones he could make out, avoid, but hundreds of tiny sharp twigs jabbed at him. He felt something on his cheek, wiped it off. Hot and wet. Blood. Heard something ahead, a similar twig-crunching, skin-bruising ricochet through the bush. He was getting closer.
The ground flattened out into a small clearing, he felt a crunch of hard plastic underfoot, and then he was going downhill, steep and quickly, his heels digging in and slipping, plant litter skittering down the hill in front of him. He fell, landed in something wet, felt it soak into his jeans at the knees, bone cold. He got up, reminding himself to tell Andrew Freeman he’d found the fucking creek. Then he was rocketing downhill again. Before he had time to remember the CREST and STEEP DESCENT signs from the main road he was going faster than he could control. The barcode of the night sky whipped past above. Then something caught him on the shins and swept them out from under him. He landed hard, skinning h
is palms on asphalt. Asphalt? He gingerly stood up. He was in another clearing. Night sky above. No, he was on a road. A road which bent upwards to the left and snaked down in a wide turn to his right, hooking back around behind the bush. This was the long S-shaped road that was marked on the signs, but instead of going around the curves, they were running across it. Jack looked behind him; he’d tripped on the steel safety barrier, it had knocked his shins and pitched him forward.
Someone was climbing over the barrier on the other side of the road, back into the bush. Jack followed without thinking, he was so close. Get there. Get there, Jack. The shadow seemed to have one leg over the barrier, and then it looked like they turned and shouted something.
It sounded like ‘Watch out.’
Then the world exploded.
Everything turned a blinding white. Jack had about two seconds to contemplate the new brightness, enough to see his hands bleached bone-white, his dirt-crusted bloodstained fingertips. And to see the wall of light pushing towards him. Close enough now to see a huge aluminium grill. Close enough to see insects swirling inside two cylindrical beams, as if the darkness outside was solid. The ground vibrated. The squeal of brakes and hot rubber, burning brakes, thickened the air. Wind dragged around him. Close enough now to see nothing but brightness. Nothing but death.
Then light.
Then dark.
Jack was surprised that his feet lifted off the ground before he felt any pain. He was even more surprised that the pain, when it did come, was in the wrong spot. A shock through his arse that jarred his back.
He barely noticed the truck had come to a stop in front of him. Smoke was curling from the back tyres, the truck bed jackknifed at a slight diagonal to the cabin. There was a hiss and the cab hopped on its suspension as someone got out. Hazards clicked behind the smoke, casting the scene in a flickering glow every few seconds, like a series of orange-hued photographs. Jack breathed in, the tang of pulverised brake pads so acrid that he could smell it with his tongue. He was sitting on the road next to the truck that should have killed him. But he was alive.
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