She returns to her chair and keeps her eyes on her food.
Craig continues to commentate. ‘Parts of Jackson have gone too, up near the river. Full on.’
Dad clears his throat. ‘I know it’s hot but perhaps we can put on the sprinkler and play some cricket. There’s some shade in the yard.’
He looks so hopeful, so desperate for us to break the claustrophobia of the table, that I find myself meeting Scott’s eyes. We call a silent truce.
‘Sure, Ned,’ he says.
‘Great idea, Dad.’ He clutches me in a brief hug as I walk past. ‘I’ll grab the cricket set.’
After an hour of hot, sweaty, half-hearted cricket, we trundle back inside for more wine.
Craig is itching to put on the TV. ‘Might just flick on the news to see the fires …’
Megan mutters under her breath and disappears into the kitchen. I open another bottle of wine and busy myself with filling glasses. Angry flames light up the screen as a slightly panicked reporter describes the devastation.
‘Bloody hell,’ says Craig. ‘They’re everywhere.’
Laura serves bowls of cold pudding with brandy cream.
I check my phone again. Still nothing from Felix. I picture him reflected in a hazy Christmas bauble, surrounded by his blonde daughters, their hair neatly braided, as his wife serves a traditional Christmas dinner that she cooked entirely herself. Or maybe Maisie has tattled, and he and his wife are locked in a furious stand-off, all the doubts that ever existed between them being dissected like a turkey, with ‘Jingle Bells’ playing in the background.
Scott interrupts my thoughts by depositing a squirming Ben onto my lap. I face him into my chest, away from the raging fires, and hum softly into his ear. His body is heavy with pre-sleep. Dad pats me on the shoulder and kisses Ben on the forehead before settling into the armchair. Laura and Craig sit side by side on the couch. Scott is shoving discarded wrapping paper into a large garbage bag. Aunt Megan sits primly in Mum’s old armchair near the stereo, which is still doggedly playing Christmas tunes. Rosalind would have turned twenty-nine today, I think as my eyelids drop, and the flames on TV turn into a writhing mass of scarlet rose petals.
Chapter Fifty-five
Saturday, 26 December, 9.30 am
The office hums with post-holiday chat. Extra people have come in because of the fires. An emergency crew is using one of our meeting rooms as a base. Everyone knows someone who lost a house in the Christmas blaze. Overnight, the wind coaxed the fires west and now they are burning wildly across acres of Australian nothingness. Smithson has let out its breath. Safe for now.
The headline in the paper screams A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE and photos show the ring of fire around the town. I flip over the front page and Rosalind’s face looks out at me. STILL NO JUSTICE FOR SMITHSON’S ANGEL reads Candy’s headline. I click onto the Smithson Today website and scroll through the articles. After a few minutes I push my chair away from my desk. I feel hopelessly restless and desperate to know whether Maisie has said anything. Where the fuck is Felix?
‘Woodstock, need you in here.’ Jonesy walks past my desk without stopping.
I enter his office and sit down. He paces in front of me.
‘Gemma, we’re losing the uniforms. Because of the fires.’
I sink into the couch. This case is slipping out of my grasp. ‘All of them?’
‘I’d say so. There’s bullshit coming at the department left, right and centre. We just can’t justify keeping them when so many places need the manpower.’
‘Does McKinnon know?’
‘Yep, spoke to him last night.’
‘Why didn’t you speak to me?’ My eyes burn into his.
He holds my stare. ‘I wanted you to have a day with your family. Have a break from all this. Fair enough?’
‘I guess.’ I’m trying to contain the heat flaring inside me.
‘Right, well. The guys you have now will work the day out and then I’d say that will be it. So do your check-in this afternoon and then you’ll need to pare it back and work out how you want to run it.’
‘And then?’
‘And then I don’t know. We get a solve ideally.’
I stand up and turn to leave, feeling oddly empty. ‘Is that everything?’
‘Almost. What’s this I hear about you getting flowers, Woodstock?’
I freeze. ‘Flowers?’
‘Yes. Flowers. Big fat bunch of red roses, in fact. Delivered to your house at the beginning of the Ryan murder investigation.’ Jonesy’s nostrils flare and I can see bristly hairs hiding inside them like spiders under the eaves. ‘I’m sure you remember—unless of course you get sent flowers all the time.’
‘We don’t know it’s linked to the case.’
‘I didn’t even know about them at all!’ He glares at me. ‘Not good enough, Woodstock, and you know it.’
‘Did McKinnon tell you?’
‘Who told me is the least of your problems. You should have told me. I want you on this thing, Woodstock, but you’re making it very hard.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I should have told you.’
‘Yes, you should have. We’ll speak later. For now, just keep yourself out of trouble. That’s an order.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He walks away, thrusting a pudgy hand through his oily hair.
I go back to my desk and blindly check emails and make notes. My fingers curl and I imagine slamming my fists on the keyboard until it breaks and the keys rattle to the floor like teeth. I look over at Felix’s desk, but he is still nowhere to be seen.
Still fuming, I catch up on the Christmas Day suicide. It doesn’t appear to be related in any way to Rosalind’s case. The twenty-year-old video store attendant had been a student at Smithson Secondary College but had never been taught by Rosalind, and nothing suggests they were acquainted. He had a fight with his girlfriend on Christmas Eve morning and made the decision to go off his meds shortly thereafter. That poor girl: she will rake over that argument in her mind for the rest of her life.
At midday I get a call about an incident at the Ryans’. A man covered in blood is allegedly screaming at the house from the front yard. I rush down a couple of bites of my sandwich and then call Felix, leaving him a message as I jump in the car.
By the time I get to the Ryans’, two cops are already there. They have a bloodied Bryce sitting on the front steps, looking forlorn. I get out of the car, squinting as light pings off the collection of cars in the driveway.
Timothy is standing on the front veranda talking to a uniform. He’s looking across at the small crowd that has gathered on the other side of the street. I spy the manager of the local bank, and a property developer, whose name I can’t remember; he writes about investments in Candy’s paper. Smithson’s finest dragged out of their Christmas hangovers by this unexpected spectacle.
I push my sunglasses on and amble up to the front of the house. ‘Hi, boys.’
They look at me petulantly.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ says Timothy. ‘Just a misunderstanding.’
Bryce nods in agreement.