The Roadhouse Read online

  Chapter Twelve

  The afternoon seemed to lack some of the sparkle the morning had held. I would have regretted sharing my suspicions with Mike save that doing so had clarified things for me. I now knew I wouldn’t mention them to either the police or my mother. Annabelle’s death was on record, so I’d let it stand as a fact. Her permanent absence from my own life would scarcely worry me, even if the mystery of her actions continued to niggle away at the back of my mind. Life was full of puzzles, I told myself; this was just one more, and basically none of my business anyhow.

  Mike continued his enthusiastic search amid the rubble of the ages that had been brought down the gullies by the events of forgotten centuries, but for me the fun had gone out of it. I enjoyed more the meandering drives as we followed where the old mining tracks, made thirty and forty years before, led us. At Mica Valley, which we eventually reached, the ground and the sides of the hills glittered with shards and outcroppings of the mineral, and it was here, emerging from the valley as we were about to enter it, that we found Len and Cora.

  Mike pulled into the shade and we got out to greet the couple, who had stopped on the track. Cora waved and I went over to her while the men shook hands and spoke, both dropping easily onto their heels in the squat the stockmen used. Cora was brown and dusty, her hair showing in stringy wisps beneath her hat.

  ‘Fancy seeing you out here, love,’ she said. She sounded tired and a bit fed up, as if the warmth of the afternoon was too much. ‘Day trip, is it?’

  ‘Yes. How’s yours been – find anything?’

  ‘Oh, a few bits. Like I said to Len though, there’s a hell of a lot of rock mixed in with them. I reckon the valley’s about fossicked out so we’re heading back. We’ll camp at the racetrack tonight – there’re tanks there – and move on tomorrow. What’s the news on your mum? I heard she was having some big op.’

  ‘She’s doing well, thanks,’ I said, unsurprised that she should know about Molly. Out here, news, however trivial or personal, was the currency of the land. People collected it to pass on; it was one reason why visitors were welcomed so warmly, because they brought news into the isolated lives of those receiving them.

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘Look,’ I said impulsively, with a glance at the sun. ‘Our thermoses are empty but we’re carrying a billy if you’ve got tea leaves. We could boil up, have a cuppa?’

  Cora hesitated, then shook her head. ‘Ta, but I reckon not. Len wants to get back.’

  I was surprised – an offer of tea was rarely refused – but she was right; the men were already shaking hands again. Len called a greeting and farewell to me in the same breath and a moment later the battered blue vehicle was moving off. ‘That was quick,’ I said, regaining my seat. ‘And she seemed a bit unsettled. I wonder if they’ve had a row? What was he in such a hurry about?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘Dunno, but it is getting late. We should head back too. The good news is, Miss Carver, that we’ve succeeded. I just checked with Len and you are now the proud possesser of a genuine, fossicked gem.’

  I gaped at him, saying, ‘You’re kidding, right? Not a ruby?’

  ‘Nope. A garnet.’ He handed me a tiny stone half the size of my smallest fingernail. ‘I thought it looked promising but I wasn’t sure. Hold it up to the light.’

  I obeyed, saw a glint of red and laughed in delight. ‘We did it, Mike! On our first try. But you found it, you keep it.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s too small to be worth anything, but I’d like you to have it. A memento of our day. Which I have greatly enjoyed.’

  ‘Well, thank you. That’s very sweet of you. And I enjoyed it too.’ I gave one last wondering look at the tiny gem and buttoned it safely into my pocket for the journey home.

  We followed Len’s tracks back to the highway. There we turned west, while his had gone east. ‘They’re camping at the racetrack tonight,’ I said. Harts Range was the Garnet’s closest neighbour, if a collection of empty buildings fell into that category. Tom Cleary and his wife were the only inhabitants save for race-day, which the whole district turned out for, together with the ball that followed. The last time I’d attended such an event I’d been nineteen and newly engaged to Bryan.

  The road machinery, when we drove by the work site, was deserted. The men had knocked off for the day and a quick glance at the sun showed it to be later than I’d thought.

  ‘I’d best head back tonight,’ Mike said, as if also aware of the time.

  ‘But I thought you had the weekend off?’ I bit my lip the moment that the words, with their clingy connotations, were out. ‘I mean, stay and have a meal at least – come over to the house and eat with us,’ I added, making clear that he wasn’t meant to pay.

  ‘Thanks, Charlie, but you’ve fed me once today already. No, my washing’s calling. If I don’t get it done tomorrow it’ll be dirty duds all week. It’s been great today. I hope we can do it again – or something else. I’ll be back,’ he said, coasting to a stop before the roadhouse.

  ‘I’d like that,’ I said simply. The men from the road camp were already there, their vehicles parked to one side. ‘It was a lovely day. Thank you. And for my garnet.’ I touched my pocket.

  ‘My pleasure.’ He leant across the gear stick to kiss my cheek, his breath warm on my skin. ‘I’d like to stay but I’d really better get back. Till next time, then.’ He handed me the cooler, carried the two thermoses to the verandah, returned to the vehicle and left with a wave and a smile.

  ‘You had the nice time, yes?’ Ute asked. Her blonde hair was tied back and she was turning meat in a pan on the stove, the smell of it suddenly igniting my hunger.

  ‘I did,’ I said buoyantly. ‘And we found a garnet.’ I fished it out and showed her. ‘Mind you it was a lot of work.’ Now that it was over I felt for the first time the ache in my shoulders from my sessions with the sieve. ‘Busy day?’

  ‘The big – road trucks you call them? With the cows?’

  ‘Road trains, yes.’

  ‘Five today,’ she said, sounding impressed. ‘This is a lot of cows, Charlie – to where do they go?’

  I shrugged. ‘The saleyards, I suppose. They’ll be headed to Alice or Darwin. There’s nowhere else to send them.’

  ‘There is much emptiness here,’ she agreed, putting the pan aside to begin draining and mashing potatoes. ‘Bob says it is called bugger-all. This is correct?’

  I grinned. ‘More or less. But you’re not afraid of it, are you?’

  She looked surprised. ‘For why should I be? You are not.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I love it out here.’ And, pulling off my hat, I went through to relieve Bob at the counter.

  Sunday was a quiet day. I checked on Mum, who said she was doing well, and had been out of bed to shower. She sounded alert, and I deduced that the hospital was cutting back on the drugs. The men from the road camp wandered up to the roadhouse mid-afternoon to play cards and drink in a desultory fashion. One of them asked me for reading material and I found him a couple of paperbacks, but mostly they just sat around and talked. Sundays were a pain, the reader told me; he’d sooner be working than loafing around in camp.

  On Monday evening when they arrived for their evening meal, there was much speculation as to what was going on further down the road. The coppers, Rob Wyper told us over the neck of the cold beer he was holding, had been buzzing back and forth all day like blowflies. Something was obviously afoot.

  ‘Might’ve been a rollover,’ Bob offered. ‘Silly bastards not used to drivin’ on gravel always hit the brakes too hard. Them HiLuxes – start a skid in one of them and you’ll roll. Their centre of gravity’s too damn high.’

  ‘Could be,’ Rob agreed. ‘There was a covered van, might’ve been an ambulance went by. Too much flamin’ dust to get a decent look at it.’

  ‘It’ll be on TV,’ I said, but although I flipped channels that evening to catch each news bulletin, I could find nothing about an accident on the P
lenty Highway. There was a row in federal parliament over funding for Aboriginal communities, another school shooting in America, an earthquake in Colombia and, on the home front, the police were no closer to finding those responsible for the death of the widowed manager of the jewellery store in Alice Springs. So, whatever had happened along the highway, nobody had as yet informed the local media.

  The following morning I had barely opened the roadhouse door when Tom Cleary appeared in his dusty police vehicle.

  ‘Morning, Tom. Lovely day.’ I straightened the coir mat before the screen door and cast an eye along the verandah for overlooked bottles and cans from the previous evening. The air was crisp enough for a jumper and scented with wattle. The range loomed purple behind the twisted trunks of the mallee and the pink dust of Tom’s arrival hovered between red earth and blue sky.

  ‘Good morning, Charlie. Bob about?’

  ‘He won’t be far. Where’re you heading today?’

  ‘Just here. To see Bob.’

  I gave up. He obviously wasn’t about to tell me why. ‘Come in, then. I’ll get him.’

  Haled from his task of pumping fuel, Bob stumped irascibly over to the roadhouse where the constable waited, tapping an impatient boot. I made to withdraw but Tom beckoned to me. ‘No, stay – you might be able to help.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘This.’ He placed a small plastic evidence bag, like the ones you saw on the TV crime shows, on the counter, nudging it towards us with one finger. ‘Either of you notice a recent customer wearing this? A youngish, dark-haired woman, it would’ve been, going back three weeks, say – maybe a month.’

  ‘I wasn’t here a month ago.’ I picked it up all the same, turning it about, then froze, staring at the contents. It was a slender gold chain with a pendant in the shape of a golden harp. ‘That’s …’ I began, then stopped. ‘But it couldn’t be!’

  ‘You’ve seen it before?’ He leant towards me, suddenly gimlet-eyed.

  ‘Yes – well, one like it. Annabelle had one – you remember, Bob?’ I turned to him. ‘You must’ve seen her wearing it. But it’s obviously not hers. Where did it come from?’

  ‘So can you identify it as the property of Annabelle Carver?’ Tom pressed.

  Bob bristled. ‘That ain’t what she said. Me, I dunno. I might’ve seen it, I don’t pay no attention to women’s gewgaws.’

  Suddenly I understood. ‘You’ve got her handbag, haven’t you? And they’ve sent this back for identification. But they said her licence was with her clothes on the beach …’ Something in his face stopped me. ‘Not the handbag. Her body’s turned up – is that it?’

  He nodded soberly. ‘A body has, yes. We’re trying to identify it. What about this ring, then? Seen that before?’ He handed me another bag.

  It was a showy piece, what could have been diamonds – or zircons for that matter – set in a rose-gold band. I shook my head. ‘It looks new, but I’ve never seen it before. Where’s the body?’

  Ignoring the question, he said, ‘If it should turn out to be your cousin’s, do you know of anyone who would have wished her harm?’

  ‘What?’ I stared at him. ‘But what’s that got to do … Annabelle killed herself. I mean, it was your lot who said so! She swam out to sea … Didn’t she? You told Mum —’

  ‘We were led to believe so,’ he said portentously, ‘but it now seems possible that wasn’t the case.’

  ‘But – the note, the clothes … Why would anybody —’ I stared at him, wondering if I should mention my suspicions.

  ‘Where’d yer find this body, then?’ Bob demanded. ‘It’s near a month since Annabelle was ’ere, anyway, so it certainly ain’t hers.’

  ‘Unless she was killed immediately after leaving the roadhouse. Which we now think is what occurred. The body we found had been dumped in Mica Valley. A fossicker and his wife stumbled across it on Saturday and reported it that night.’ I sat down on the nearest chair as if someone had winded me with a punch, remembering Cora’s distracted manner, Len’s disinclination to linger.

  Appalled I said, ‘You’re talking about murder? Annabelle? First she killed herself, and then she didn’t, and now somebody has murdered her? I don’t believe it.’

  Shocked into it, I had unwittingly voiced my private suspicions. Nor did the constable miss it; he stiffened like a hunting dog scenting prey.

  ‘What exactly do you mean by “And then she didn’t”?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  There was no help for it then but to tell Tom of my midnight reconstruction of the staged suicide. Old Bob, predictably, would have none of it.

  ‘That’s barmy,’ he said forthrightly. ‘If she’s gunna kill herself she’ll not be fussing over ’er clothes.’

  ‘But that’s just it, Bob. It wasn’t fussing as such – it was second nature with her.’

  Cleary broke into the conversation then. ‘How was she dressed when she left here, Bob? You saw her, spoke with her.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘I did, and the geezer with her.’

  ‘We’ll get to him in a moment. First, tell me what she was wearing.’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said crossly. ‘Clothes. Somethin’ blue, maybe?’ It was obviously a guess. Cleary sighed with exasperation. ‘It’s a bloody month ago,’ Bob complained. ‘How the hell’s a man supposed to remember who was wearing what?’

  ‘I’ll ring Mum,’ I offered. ‘She might recall.’ Diffidently, because it was the last thing I wanted to do, I added, ‘Is the body in a fit enough state to recognise? I could —’

  ‘No.’ Cleary said abruptly. ‘It’s not. It looks like her face copped – and anyway the insects and animals have …’ He left the sentence unfinished and I was glad of it. ‘Unless there’s some clear way of identifying her, it’ll have to be dental records or DNA – and unless the DNA matches yours, it will only tell us who she’s not. I understand she was your father’s niece?’

  ‘She was actually his daughter, my half-sister – something I only recently learned.’

  ‘Better,’ he said approvingly, impervious to Bob’s sudden glare.

  ‘And,’ I remembered, ‘she broke two of the toes on her left foot when she was twelve. The little toe and the one next to it. Would that show up in an autopsy?’

  ‘I’ll pass it on – they can X-ray the remains. Thanks, Charlie. Now, if you could give me a number for Molly, maybe she can help with the clothes.’

  ‘No,’ I said definitely. ‘I’ll do it. I’m not having her badgered. I’ll ask and if she can’t recall details that’s the end of it. She’s recovering from major surgery. If necessary,’ I warned, ‘I’ll tell the hospital they’re not to put your calls through.’

  He held up his hands. ‘All right, all right. But soon as you can, okay?’

  ‘I’ll do it now.’ Daytime phone rates seemed a better deal than trying his patience too far. I couldn’t see him agreeing to wait, and I wasn’t certain the police didn’t have the power to override any instructions I might give to keep them from interviewing Mum.

  The phone seemed to both ring forever and then not long enough as I tried to frame the question without giving away the reason for asking it, but for once Mum seemed less than interested.

  ‘What?’ she mumbled. ‘What do you want, Charlie?’

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’ She sounded off somehow.

  ‘Yes, well, my head aches, and this damn bed’s uncomfortable. Why are you ringing?’ she asked. ‘I was trying to sleep.’

  ‘Sorry. Aren’t they bringing your breakfast about now?’

  ‘I’m not hungry. What do you want?’

  ‘Well, only to see if you can remember what Annabelle was wearing the last time you saw her. But if you can’t —’

  ‘Of course I can,’ she snapped. ‘She came in a pair of those skinny jeans and a black top – though why she’d wear black the way it shows the dust … She changed when she showered, though, into a dress and white sandals, which are just about as silly. One step outs
ide and …’

  ‘What sort of dress, Mum? What colour was it?’

  ‘Red, with a white ruffle from neckline to waist. It matched the red rosettes on her sandals. How can it matter anyway? Look, this is a waste of money. Ring at a cheaper time, Charlie.’ The phone went down and I was left with the dial tone. At least she hadn’t asked why I wanted to know.

  I’d made the call from the privacy of the homestead and, thinking hard, I walked slowly back to pass her words onto the constable. He left shortly afterwards and Bob, who stood staring after him, said abruptly, ‘You reckon this murdered sheila could be her?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. If it is, how did her stuff get left on a beach in Ballina?’ Because the murderer – if there was one – took it there to throw us off the scent and account for her disappearance, I answered myself. ‘We won’t learn anything until it suits the coppers to tell us. I mean, Cleary’s seen the body, he already knows how it was dressed, but he didn’t give us anything, did he?’

  Bob cleared his throat. ‘I told ’im I could take a look, see if I could recognise her. He wouldn’t have it, but. Said her face was bashed in, let alone what else has ’appened since.’

  I nodded. ‘So that’s what killed her – blunt force trauma, as they say on TV. Did someone take her there and kill her? Or was she already dead and just dumped? Maybe whoever did it believed she’d never be found?’ I thought about that. ‘If it is Annabelle, it’s a perfect reason for staging her suicide in a way that could neither be proved nor disproved, and to account for her disappearance. Everybody would just accept that she died in the ocean and never washed ashore.’

  ‘Yeah, well’ – Bob pulled at the loose skin of his throat – ‘I daresay we’ll hear if it’s her or not. How was Molly?’

  I smiled ruefully. ‘Cranky with me for calling. Maybe she’s getting tired of hospital.’