“His dad not involved at all?” Falk heard the note of curiosity in his own voice.
Gretchen heard it as well and smiled knowingly.
“No. And it’s OK; you can ask. His dad’s gone. No one you knew. Not a local, just a laborer who passed through for a while. I don’t know much about him other than he left me with this amazing kid. And yes, I know how that sounds.”
“It doesn’t sound like anything. It sounds like Lachie’s lucky to have you,” Falk said. But as he watched the child clamber athletically up the ladder, he found himself wondering what Lachie’s father had looked like.
“Thanks. It doesn’t always feel that way. I wonder sometimes if I should make an effort to meet someone. For both of us. Try to give Lachie a bit of a family. Let him see what it’s like to have a mum who’s not stressed and exhausted all the time, whatever that looks like. But I don’t know…” She trailed off, and Falk was worried she was embarrassed, when she flashed him a grin. “It’s a bloody shallow dating pool in Kiewarra. Muddy puddle at best.”
Falk laughed.
“So you never got married at all?” he said, and Gretchen shook her head.
“Nope. Never did.”
“Me neither.”
Gretchen’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Yeah, I know.”
Falk was never sure how, but women always seemed to know. They looked sideways and smiled at each other. Falk imagined Gretchen and Lachie living by themselves on the vast Kellerman property she’d bought, and he remembered the eerie isolation of the Hadlers’ farm. Even Falk, who liked his own space more than most, started to crave company after a few hours with nothing but fields.
“You must get lonely on the farm on your own,” he said, and he could have bitten his tongue off. “Sorry. That was a genuine question, not a terrible pickup line.”
Gretchen laughed. “I know. With lines like that, you’d fit in better round here than you think.” Her face clouded. “But yeah. It can be an issue. It’s not really the lack of company; it’s feeling cut off that gets me a bit. I can’t get reliable Internet, and even the phone coverage is patchy. Not that I’ve got loads of people trying to call me, anyway.” She paused, her mouth pressed into a tight line. “You know I didn’t even find out what had happened to Luke until the next morning?”
“Seriously?” Falk was shocked.
“Yep. Not one person thought to ring me. Not Gerry and Barb. No one. Despite everything we’ve been through, I guess I…” She gave a tiny shrug. “I wasn’t a priority. On the afternoon it happened, I picked up Lachie from school, went home, had dinner. He went to bed. I watched a DVD. It was so ordinary and boring, but it was like the last normal evening, you know? Nothing special, but I’d give anything to go back to that. It wasn’t until the next morning at the school gates and I turned up and everyone was talking about it. It felt like they all knew and…” A single tear slipped down her nose. “And no one had bothered to call me. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I literally couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I drove past his farm but wasn’t able to get anywhere near. The road was blocked, and there were cops everywhere. So I went home. By then it was on the news, of course. No chance of missing it then.”
“I’m so sorry, Gretch,” Falk said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “If it helps at all, no one called me either. I found out when I saw his face on a news site.” Falk could still feel the shock at seeing those familiar features attached to that terrible headline.
Gretchen nodded, and her gaze suddenly focused on something over his shoulder. Her expression clouded, and she hastily wiped her eyes.
“Christ, watch out. Incoming,” she said. “Mandy Vaser. You remember her? It was Mandy Mantel back then. Jesus, I cannot be bothered with this right now.”
Falk turned. The sharp-faced, ginger-haired girl he remembered as Mandy Mantel had morphed into a neat, tiny woman with a shiny red bob. She had a baby strapped to her chest in a complicated sling that looked like it would be made from natural fibers and advertised as “organic.” Her face was still sharp as she marched across the yellow grass.
“She married Tim Vaser. He was a year or two above us,” Gretchen whispered as she approached. “She’s got a couple of kids in the school. Also got her hands full as the self-appointed spokeswoman of the anxious mothers’ group.”
Mandy stopped in front of them. She looked from Falk to the ham sandwich he was holding and back again, her lip curled in distaste.
“Hi, Mandy,” he said. She pointedly ignored him, other than to place a protective hand around the back of her baby’s skull, shielding it from his greeting.
“Gretchen. Sorry to interrupt.” She sounded nothing of the sort. “Could you pop over to our table for a moment? Just a quiet word.” Her eyes flicked smartly to Falk, then away.
“Mandy,” Gretchen said without enthusiasm. “You remember Aaron? From the old days? He’s with the AFP now.” She emphasized the last words.
He and Mandy had kissed once, Falk remembered. At a youth disco, from what he could recall. She had surprised him by poking her fourteen-year-old tongue deep into his mouth, tasting strongly of cheap lemonade as mood lighting glowed against the walls of the school gym and a stereo blared in the corner. He wondered if she remembered. From the way she crinkled her brow and avoided eye contact, he was certain that she did.
“Nice to see you again.” Falk held out his hand, not because he particularly wanted to shake hers but because he could tell it would make her uncomfortable. She stared at it, making a visible effort to resist the automatic polite response. She succeeded and left him hanging in midair. He almost respected her a little bit for that.
“Gretchen.” Mandy was losing patience. “A word?”
Gretchen looked her straight in the eyes. She made no attempt to move.
“The sooner you say it, Mandy, the sooner I can tell you to mind your own business, and we can all get back to our Sundays.”
Mandy stiffened. She glanced over her shoulder to where a gang of mothers with similar hairstyles were watching from behind sunglasses.
“All right. Fine. I—we—don’t feel comfortable with Aar—with your friend—being so close to our children.” She looked straight at Falk. “We’d like you to leave.”
“Noted,” Gretchen said.
“So he’ll leave?”
“No,” Falk and Gretchen said in unison.
Falk actually thought it probably was about time he headed to the station to find Raco, but he wasn’t about to be pushed around by Mandy bloody Mantel. Mandy’s eyes narrowed. She leaned in.
“Listen,” she said. “At the moment it’s me and the mums asking politely. But it can easily be the dads asking not so politely if you’d find that message easier to understand.”