He snorted a small laugh. Bitter, and tired. ‘I don’t fit into the narrative.’
I was beginning to think he didn’t fit into my narrative either, that I was wasting my time out here. It didn’t make sense that this man would have been setting up bombings, planning to terrorise a town full of people with a baby strapped into the passenger seat of his dusty old ute. I found myself hazarding a few steps closer to the man and the child, a strange desire stirring in me to see the baby’s eyes.
I was knocked out of my spell by the sound of barking coming from outside the house. Jed and I turned towards the sound, and I saw Digger the dog crossing in front of my car, sniffing at the wheels.
‘That bloody dog,’ I said. ‘It sure gets around.’
‘You can take it back to town before I shoot it,’ Jed said, slipping out from between me and the kitchen counter, taking the baby out of sight. ‘I’ll give you a thirty-second head start.’
Chapter 47
SNALE WAS WAITING for me outside John Destro’s beautiful, sprawling mansion just down from the schoolhouse on the northern side of Last Chance Valley. Dez had organised the dinner with Snale – the officer agreed he had the best relationships with everyone in Last Chance, would know things about them that she didn’t. Dez seemed somehow to have secured all the best grass in the small town. To the right of the double garage I could see an extensive green lawn softening to sparse fields inhabited by slow-moving cows. The animals made long shadows as the sun lingered on the edge of the valley rim.
‘Where did you go?’
‘I went out to see Jed Chatt,’ I said.
‘What!’ Snale slapped my arm. ‘By yourself? Are you crazy?’
‘I don’t think he’s as scary as you all make out.’
‘He’s plenty scary,’ she said. ‘It’s not right, him living out there all by himself with nothing to do. Creeping into the town to buy his supplies, not talking to anybody. It’s weird. I wish he’d just go off somewhere else. He gives me the willies.’
I don’t fit into the narrative. Jed’s words came back to me. I don’t fit in.
‘Is he the only member of the Chatt family living nearby?’ I asked.
Snale nodded. ‘All his people moved on years ago,’ she said, walking me to the front doors of Dez’s house. ‘They were all scattered around, and it was tense, you know, because of the fight between the two families way back when. Some were in the town, but they didn’t seem to belong. They all went their separate ways eventually, but he stayed. Making us all feel bad for the way we live down here in the valley.’
‘Do you know much about his family?’ I asked. ‘The ones who moved on?’
‘No.’ Snale shrugged. ‘I don’t think they keep in touch.’
I didn’t want to mention the baby. Jed had been right to suspect that, as a non-local cop, I’d probably come out to check on the welfare of the child in his care, concerned about the inappropriateness of the environment for raising a baby. I knew plenty about child custody from my time as a foster kid. There was no way the authorities would condone the arrangement out there, Jed and the baby alone in the desert, the guns and the blistering isolation.
I thought about my mother. When child services had come and taken my brother and me away from her, we’d been covered in cigarette burns and rashes, malnourished, and bruised. The one-bedroom apartment where we lived with her, her pimp and another man had been raided on suspicion of drug dealing the week before by police, the door splintered and duct-taped back together from being kicked in. A cop in the raiding party had probably reported my brother’s and my condition to child services.
I wasn’t going to be the cop who brought child services down on Jed Chatt. But I knew I wanted to go back, to understand what was happening out there. To discover if the man was a danger to himself, the baby, or the town.
Chapter 48
WE ENTERED THE high-ceilinged hall of the house. There were pictures lining the walls, framed landscapes of the sun hitting Last Chance Valley at different romantic angles, some vintage blueprints of the town pub and the post office. I stopped by a charcoal sketch of a bunch of European settlers standing by the edge of the empty valley, shovels and pickaxes on their backs, their bonneted wives hugging children nearby.
‘This was done by my great uncle,’ Dez said, coming up beside me. He smelled of aftershave and was dressed crisply in a stark white shirt and tie. ‘Beautiful artwork, right? The family camped up there on the ridge for two months while the men went down and prepared the valley.’
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘It’s nice.’
‘There are more here.’ He led me into the living room. ‘Make yourself at home. Can I get you a glass of wine?’
Kash was standing on the porch looking at the cows in the field, a small glass of what might have been Scotch in his hand. I could only see a slice of his profile, but he looked sad. I wondered if he’d spoken to Tenacity while I’d been out with Jed. He noticed me through the window, glanced a little guiltily at his Scotch. I smiled.
The girl who wandered out from the kitchen came as a surprise. A waif-like figure with long blonde hair. Dez’s daughter. She’d managed to escape her father’s squat, bulky frame but she had his ginger freckles snaking down her cream-coloured arms. She came over and stood beside me, admiring the sketch.
‘This is from the north side,’ she said, pointing. ‘They walked around the whole valley trying to find the best way in before they descended. It was treacherous. They lost a couple of horses just trying to get down.’
‘Harriet, allow me to introduce my daughter, Bella. She’s been hearing stories of the Destro settlement since she was a kid.’ Dez was setting the table. I took a chair on the end, next to Snale.
‘Do you live here with your dad?’ I asked. Bella smirked. She was wearing a T-shirt that read ‘I’d wear it if it came in black’ and shorts, a pair of expensive slippers. She went to a nearby chair and sat down.
‘Hardly. I’m just visiting. I’m supposed to be studying for end-of-year exams. I’m at Sydney Uni, law and politics.’
I almost choked on my drink.
‘Yeah.’ Bella gave me a forgiving smile, curled her feet up into her chair like a cat. ‘I know who you are. I’ve been following your brother’s case since the girls started disappearing. Most of my courses were online at the time, so I wasn’t around, but people were pretty scared. I watched it all on the TV. And then Dad told me you were out here. I mean, wow. Did you have any idea your brother was killing chicks?’
‘ Bella!’ Dez snapped. ‘Detective Blue doesn’t want to discuss her brother’s situation. This is supposed to be a friendly dinner.’
The girl shrugged.
Dez put out snacks and we made small talk about the town and its various characters. Kash was quiet, staring into his drink. In time Dez cleared the plates and we sat down at the dining table. I could feel Bella’s eyes wandering over me while I talked to Snale.
‘Do you know much about her brother’s case?’ Bella asked Snale, leaning around me.
‘Bell, really,’ Snale sighed.
‘Hey, everybody’s got skeletons in their closet,’ the girl said, playing with her fork. ‘I don’t think you’ve got anything to be ashamed of, Harry. Our people slaughtered the Indigenous inhabitants of Last Chance Valley when they settled here. They banished the survivors to the desert. Two centuries later there’s only one of them left, loitering out there in the badlands like a stain no one can get out.’
Dez sighed at the ceiling. ‘Do we have to talk about this?’ Bella was watching me carefully, waiting for a reaction. ‘People think they called it Last Chance because of all the desert,’ she said. ‘Your last chance for food and shelter before the big barren nothingness in all directions. But it’s not true. The Destro family turned up, and told the natives to get out. And when they wouldn’t, they gave them one last chance before they came down the mountainside with their guns.’