He thought for a moment.
“Karen was a really valued team member. But she’d become quite stressed in those last couple of weeks. She was snappy, which was unusual. Definitely distracted. And she’d been making one or two errors in the accounts. Nothing serious; we caught them. But again, it was unlike her. It bothered her. She was normally so precise. So she came to see me about it.”
Karen shut the door behind her. She chose the seat closest to Whitlam’s desk. She sat straight-backed and crossed her legs neatly at the ankles. Her wraparound dress was flattering but modest, with a subtle print of white apples against a red background. Karen was the kind of woman whose youthful good looks had been softened by age and childbirth into something less defined but just as appealing in their own way. She could easily be cast as a how-does-she-do-it mum in a supermarket ad. Anyone could have confidence in a brand of detergent or cereal Karen Hadler recommended.
Now she was clutching a small stack of papers on her lap.
“Scott,” she began, then stopped. He waited. She took a deep breath. “Scott, to be honest, I wasn’t sure about coming to you with this. My husband—” Karen held his gaze, but Whitlam felt she was forcing herself. “Luke, well. Look, he wouldn’t be happy.”
Raco leaned forward. “Did she sound scared of her husband?”
“I didn’t think so at the time.” Whitlam pinched the bridge of his nose. “But knowing what happened the next day makes me realize I probably wasn’t listening closely enough. I worry that I missed the signs. I’ve asked myself that every day. But I want to be clear that if I’d suspected for a minute they were in danger, I’d obviously never have let her and Billy go home.” Whitlam’s words unconsciously echoed Jamie Sullivan’s.
Karen fiddled with her wedding ring.
“You and I have worked together for a while—worked together well, I would say—” She looked up, and Whitlam nodded. “I feel I have to say something.”
She paused again and took a deep breath.
“I know there have been some issues lately. With me and my work. A few mistakes here and there.”
“One or two perhaps, but there’s no harm done, Karen. You’re a good worker. Everyone can see that.”
She nodded once, dropping her eyes. When she looked up, her face was set.
“Thank you. But there is a problem. And I can’t turn a blind eye to it.”
“She said the farm was going under,” Whitlam said. “Karen thought they had six months, maybe less. She said Luke didn’t believe it. Apparently he was sure things would turn around, but she said she could see it coming. She was worried. She actually apologized to me.”
Whitlam made a little noise of disbelief.
“It seems absurd now. But she said she was sorry she’d been so distracted. Karen asked me not to tell Luke that she’d told me. Not that I would have, of course. But she said he’d be upset if he thought she’d been spreading it around town.”
Whitlam chewed his thumbnail.
“I think she needed to get it off her chest. I got her a glass of water, listened for a while. Reassured her that her job wasn’t at risk, that sort of thing.”
“Did you know Luke Hadler well?” Falk said.
“Not well. I met him a few times, of course. Parents’ night. I’d see him down the pub occasionally, but not really to chat to. He seemed nice enough, though. Active parent as well. I couldn’t believe it when I got that call. It’s bad enough to lose a member of staff, but to lose a student. It’s a teacher’s worst nightmare.”
Falk said, “Who told you what had happened?”
“Someone from Clyde police phoned the school. I suppose because Billy was a pupil. It was late-ish by then, close to seven. I’d been about to leave for the night, but I remember sitting here instead, trying to process it. Trying to work out how to tell the children the next day.”
He shrugged sadly.
“There is no good way. Billy and my daughter were quite good friends, you know? They were in the same class. That’s why it was such a shock to hear Billy was caught up in it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Raco.
“Because he was supposed to be round at our place that afternoon,” Whitlam said as if it were obvious. He looked back and forth between Falk’s and Raco’s blank faces. He held out his hands, confused.
“Sorry, I thought you knew. I told the Clyde officers. Billy was supposed to come over and play that day, but Karen called my wife and canceled at the last minute. She said Billy had been under the weather.”
“He was well enough to come to school, though. Did you and your wife believe her?” Falk asked, leaning forward.
Whitlam nodded. “Yes. We still do, for the record. There’d been a mild bug going round. She might have decided he needed an early night. I think it was just one of those sad coincidences.”
He rubbed his hand over his eyes.
“But something like that,” he said. “Knowing how close he came to not being there. God, it leaves you with a lot of what-ifs.”
12
“We’d have known that if we were liaising with Clyde,” Falk said when they got outside. He tucked the box of Karen’s and Billy’s belongings under his arm. The cardboard stuck uncomfortably to his clammy skin.
“Yeah, well, no harm done. We found out, anyway.”
“Eventually. I don’t know. It might be time to bring them in.”
Raco looked at him.
“You honestly feel confident that we’ve got enough to make that phone call? Bearing in mind how they’ll react?”
Falk opened his mouth to reply when a voice rang out across the playground.
“Hey, Aaron! Wait.”
Falk turned to see Gretchen Schoner jogging over. He felt his mood lift fractionally. The funeral attire had been swapped for shorts and a fitted blue shirt, rolled up at the elbows. It suited her much better, Falk thought. Raco took the box from him.
“I’ll meet you back at the car, mate,” he said tactfully, with a polite nod at Gretchen. She stopped in front of Falk and pushed her sunglasses up, catching her blond hair in a complicated bundle on top of her head. The blue of the shirt set off her eyes, he noticed.
“Hey, what are you still doing here? I thought you’d left.” She was frowning and smiling at the same time. She reached out as she spoke and touched his elbow. He felt a pang of guilt. He should have let her know.
“We were having a word with Scott Whitlam,” he said. “The principal.”
“Yeah, I know who Scott is. I’m on the school board. I mean, what are you doing in Kiewarra?”
Falk looked past her. A gaggle of mums had their heads turned toward them, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He took Gretchen’s arm and turned slightly so their backs were to the group.
“It’s a bit complicated. The Hadlers asked me to look into what happened with Luke.”