“Of the fact that he did what they can’t bring themselves to do, I think. Because now he’s out of it, isn’t he? While the rest of us are stuck here to rot, he’s got no more worrying about crops or missed payments or the next rainfall.”
“Desperate solution,” Falk said. “To take your family with you. How’s Karen’s family coping?”
“She didn’t really have any, from what I heard. You ever meet her?”
Falk shook his head.
“Only child,” Gretchen said. “Parents passed away when she was a teenager. She moved here to live with an aunt who died a few years ago. I think Karen was pretty much a Hadler for all intents and purposes.”
“Were you friends with her?”
“Not really. I—”
The clink of a fork against a wineglass rang out from the french doors. The crowd slowly fell silent and turned to where Gerry and Barb Hadler stood hand in hand. They looked very alone, surrounded by all those people.
It was only the two of them now, Falk realized. They’d also had a daughter once, briefly. She was stillborn when Luke was three. If they’d tried for more children after that they hadn’t succeeded. Instead they’d channeled all their energy into their sturdy surviving son.
Barb cleared her throat, her eyes darting back and forth over the crowd.
“We wanted to thank you all for coming. Luke was a good man.”
The words were too fast and too loud, and she pressed her lips together as if to stop more escaping. The pause stretched out until it was awkward, then a little longer. Gerry stared mutely at a patch of ground in front of him. Barb prized open her lips and took a gulp of air.
“And Karen and Billy were beautiful. What’s happened has been”—she swallowed—“so terrible. But I hope eventually you can remember Luke properly. From before. He was a friend to many of you. A good neighbor, a hard worker. And he loved that family of his.”
“Yeah, ’til he butchered them.”
The words that floated from the back of the crowd were soft, but Falk wasn’t the only one to whip his head around. The glares pinpointed the speaker as a large man wearing his midforties badly. Fleshy biceps that were more fat than muscle strained against his T-shirt as he folded his arms. His face was ruddy, with a scruffy beard and the defiant look of a bully. He stared down each person who turned to chastise him, until one by one they looked away. Barb and Gerry appeared not to have heard. Small mercies, Falk thought.
“Who’s the loudmouth?” he whispered, and Gretchen looked at him in surprise. “You don’t recognize him? It’s Grant Dow.”
“You’re kidding.” Falk felt the hairs on his neck prickle, and he turned his face away. He remembered a twenty-five-year-old with lean muscles like barbed wire. This bloke looked like he’d had a tough two decades since. “He looks so different.”
“Still a prize dickhead. Don’t worry. I don’t think he’s seen you. You’d know about it if he had.”
Falk nodded, but kept his face turned. Barb started crying, which the crowd took as a sign the speech had ended, and people gravitated instinctively toward her or away, depending on their sentiment. Falk and Gretchen stayed put. Gretchen’s son ran up and buried his face in his mother’s trousers. She hoisted him with some difficulty onto her hip, and he rested his head on her shoulder, yawning.
“Time to get this one home, I think,” she said. “When are you off back to Melbourne?”
Falk checked his watch. Fifteen hours.
“Tomorrow,” he said out loud.
Gretchen nodded, looking up at him. Then she leaned forward and wrapped her spare arm around his back and pulled him close. Falk could feel the heat of the sun on his back and the warmth of her body in front.
“It’s good to see you again, Aaron.” Her blue eyes looked over his face as though trying to memorize it, and she smiled a little sadly. “Maybe see you in another twenty years.”
He watched her walk away until he couldn’t see her anymore.
3
Falk sat on the edge of the bed, listlessly watching a medium-size huntsman spider perched on the wall. The early evening temperature had dropped only fractionally as the sun disappeared. He’d changed into shorts after a shower, and his damp legs prickled uncomfortably against the cheap cotton bedsheet. A stern sign hanging from an egg timer next to the showerhead had ordered him to keep ablutions to three minutes. He’d started to feel guilty after two.
The dull sounds of the pub thudded up through the floor, the occasional muted voice ringing a distant bell. A small part of him was curious to see who was down there, but he felt no desire to join in. The noise was punctuated by the muffled smash of a dropped glass. There was a short pocket of silence followed by a chorus of derisive laughter. The huntsman moved a single leg.
Falk jumped as the room phone on the bedside table rang out, its tone shrill and plastic. He was startled but not surprised. He felt like he’d been waiting for it for hours.
“Hello?”
“Aaron Falk? I’ve a call for you.” The barman’s voice was deep with a trace of a Scottish accent. Falk pictured the imposing figure who had taken his credit card details in exchange for a room key without comment two hours earlier.
Falk had never seen him before, and he was certain he would have remembered a face like that. Late forties, with broad shoulders and a full orange beard, the barman was a backpacker who had stayed and stayed, Falk guessed. He’d shown no spark of recognition at Falk’s name, just an air of disbelief that anyone would use the pub for a purpose not directly linked to alcohol.
“Who’s calling?” Falk asked, although he could guess.
“You’ll have to ask him yourself,” the barman said. “You want a message service, you’ll have to stay in a nicer establishment, my friend. Putting him through now.” The line went silent for a long moment, then Falk heard breathing.
“Aaron? You there? It’s Gerry.” Luke’s father sounded exhausted.
“Gerry. We need to talk.”
“Yes. Come out to the house. Barb wants to speak to you, anyway.” Gerry gave him the address. There was a long pause, then a heavy sigh. “And listen, Aaron. She doesn’t know about the letter. Or any of this. Let’s keep it that way, yeah?”
Falk followed Gerry’s directions along gloomy country roads and twenty minutes later turned his car onto a short paved driveway. A porch light cast an orange glow over a neat weatherboard home. He pulled to a stop, and the screen door screeched open, revealing Barb Hadler’s squat silhouette. Her husband appeared behind her a moment later, his taller frame throwing a long shadow onto the drive. As Falk climbed the porch steps, he could see they were both still wearing their funeral clothes. Wrinkled now.
“Aaron. My God, it’s been so long. Thank you for coming. Come in,” Barb whispered, reaching out her free hand to him. She was clutching baby Charlotte close to her chest and rocking her with a vigorous rhythm. “Sorry about the baby. She’s very restless. Won’t go down.”