Beyond Fear (19 page)

Don’t get into it. ‘No, they’re up from Newcastle.’

She looked at him then back at the cars. ‘Why are they here?’

He shrugged. ‘There was an incident out of town last night.’

‘What kind of incident?’

‘A farmer was . . . found dead.’

‘What kind of dead?’

Jesus, another interrogation. ‘Dead is dead. Does it matter?’

She glanced over her shoulder at the cop cars now behind them. ‘They’re
investigating
the death, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah.’

Her lips were pressed hard together, her shoulders suddenly upright and rigid, and her voice was low and grave when she spoke. ‘It’s a murder, isn’t it?’

He frowned, not sure how to read her reaction. He’d expected horror – a hand to the mouth, a gasp of surprise, maybe – disbelief, sadness even. Not grim understanding. But he knew from experience not everyone fitted the mould on how to react to shock and he should have guessed Jodie would come at it from a different angle. From what he’d seen so far, she came at everything from some unpredictable cue.

‘Yeah, it’s a murder.’ He stopped walking. ‘What are you having? Cappuccino?’ He hooked a thumb at the bakery.

She pulled up a few steps in front of him, took a second to register what he was doing. ‘What? Oh, right, cappuccino. Yes. Thanks.’

He opened the door, checked out her butt as she walked in ahead of him. Don’t even think about it. She’s got a mood swing like a ping-pong ball and she’s
leaving tomorrow
. And you’re a train wreck. You don’t need any more debris on the rails. She stood in front of the counter, slid her hands into the back pocket of her jeans, turned around suddenly. ‘How do you like it?’

He smiled. There was no way he was going to have the right answer to that question.

She waved a twenty-dollar note about. ‘My shout. You’ve done more than enough already.’

‘He always has a large takeaway, double shot of coffee and full-cream milk,’ Rhona answered for him from the other side of the counter. ‘Predictable as ever, just the way I like my men.’ She gave a bawdy laugh and Matt grinned. Rhona had been married to the same man for nearly thirty years and had worked in his bakery for more than that. Matt remembered buying cream buns from her on the way home from infants’ school. She took Jodie’s order and fronted up to the coffee machine like she was landing a plane. ‘I’m so upset about John,’ she said over the noise of the steam jet. ‘How’s your dad now? He didn’t look too good when he was in this morning. I didn’t want to say anything then but I hope that teacake he bought doesn’t upset his diabetes.’

Matt smiled to himself. Eight weeks back home and he was still getting used to the country town no-privacy rule. ‘He’s fine, thanks, Rhona.’

‘Have the police been to see you?’ she asked.

Jodie’s head snapped around to him.

Had she heard Carraro’s conversation? ‘Yeah, we had a chat.’

‘They were in here about half an hour ago,’ Rhona said. ‘They’re talking to all the shop owners.’

‘Is that right?’ He tried to look interested in a vanilla slice under the counter.

‘I told them they should be talking to you seeing as you’re a detective and you know John and all.’ She stopped pouring milk for a moment and looked at him. ‘And I told them not to bother asking you all their questions. I said
they
should be asking
you
for advice.’

Christ, Matt thought. A hot tightness gripped his chest and he had to force himself to breathe.

Rhona kept talking as she put lids on the cups and took money from Jodie but he wasn’t listening. And he avoided Jodie’s big, dark eyes watching him while Rhona rambled on. He wished they had gone to the pub for something stronger.

Jodie passed through the door ahead of him, took half-a-dozen steps before saying, ‘You’re with the police?’

‘Not
with
the police. I’m on leave.’ He braced himself for another interrogation but she didn’t ask anything more, just watched him for a moment then kept walking. He was more than thankful for that. At the corner, he stopped and pointed across the street to the park. A picnic table sat under a huge, old tree, its bare branches leaving it bathed in dappled afternoon light. ‘Is that okay with you?’

‘Perfect.’

They sat on bench seats either side of the table and sipped in silence for a minute or two, the winter sun warm on their faces. Matt eyed a ute as it drove three sides of the park before turning away.

Jodie took her sunglasses off and laid them on the table. ‘Where did it happen?’

The sun was behind her and he had to squint to look at her. ‘What?’

‘The murder. Was it near our barn?’

‘No, it was about fifty or sixty k’s that way, off Patterson Road.’ He hitched a thumb over his shoulder.

She narrowed her eyes in the direction he’d pointed, tapped her thumb against the side of her cup. There was a small frown between her eyebrows. ‘Have the police arrested anyone?’

‘No. That’s why they’re in town asking questions.’

‘Do they have any suspects?’

Jeez, twenty questions again. ‘I have no idea. I’m not involved in the investigation. Look, it’s been a bad day. Do you mind if we change the subject?’

She shook her head a little. ‘Yes, sure. I’m sorry. It must be very sad for everyone.’

He took a sip of coffee. Then she did. He heard a vehicle pass along the eastern edge of the park behind him, saw Jodie’s eyes follow its progress left to right as it made the corner and came down the southern side.

Jodie watched his eyes pick up the progress of the four-wheel drive as it passed them, the green-brown flecks of his irises angled slightly left as he watched the car into the distance. She liked his alertness. It made her feel like she wasn’t the only one paying attention. Relaxed and alert, like last night outside the pub, like this morning on the track. Maybe it was a cop thing.

The news that he was a police officer had made her feel a whole lot better about her decision to have coffee with him. When he’d suggested it, her first impulse had been to say no – after the last twenty hours, everyone within a hundred kilometres of the barn seemed suspicious. But Hannah’s words about symptoms of a breakdown were still ringing in her ears and even though she couldn’t tell if he was a threat or she was delusional, she’d decided she needed to ask some questions and Matt was the only person she had to talk to.

Although now she wasn’t so sure she wanted the answers.

A murder. Practically on their doorstep. Fifty or sixty k’s on the Patterson Road. She’d seen it on the map before they left home yesterday, it was one of the main access roads into Bald Hill. The barn was another thirty from town. Would a person drive eighty or ninety kilometres to the Old Barn after killing someone? The thought sent a chill down her spine and she pulled her coat a little tighter. No, she didn’t want to change the subject. She had questions to ask. Like whether the police had mentioned a car with a deep-throated engine and was the man she’d seen with Matt at the service station a policeman and what was it he’d said Matt couldn’t stay away from? And if she went back to the barn and told the others there’d been a murder, would they pack up and leave like she wanted to now or would they escort her to a padded cell?

‘So what have you been doing up at the barn?’ Matt’s voice cut into her thoughts.

She looked up quickly, the suspicion at work again. Why would he want to know what a bunch of mothers were doing on a weekend in the country? He swirled the remains of the coffee in his cup then lifted his eyes to hers – relaxed, alert, interested.
Can’t tell the difference between a come-on and an attempted abduction.
He’s a cop, Jodie. He’s just being nice, you idiot.

‘Well, last night we ate a lot of chocolate and drank a lot of champagne so today we’re pretty much fat and hung-over.’

He chuckled at that. ‘So what have you been doing today?’

The morning’s melodrama played in fast forward through her head. ‘Nothing much. Just stuff.’ She took a breath, told herself to tread carefully or he’d think she was nuts, too. ‘Are people allowed to camp on the properties around here?’

‘You thinking of coming back with a tent?’

‘God, no. It’s just . . .’ She stopped, tried to phrase it like a casual query. ‘We saw some campers on the ridge last night and I . . .
we
wondered what they were doing. Not your average camper, obviously. They’d use a proper camping ground. I thought they might have been hunters or poachers or . . . whatever.’

He frowned a little.

‘Do you get hunters around here?’

‘Did you see them hunting?’

‘If you mean did we see them actually pointing guns at the wildlife, then no.’

‘They had guns?’

‘No. No, they had torches.’

‘They were pointing torches at the wildlife?’

‘No, they were walking around with torches.’ Of course they were, it was dark. ‘And, well, we had a bit of an argument about what a couple of blokes would be doing camping out there in the middle of winter.’

He shrugged. ‘They could work on the property and be sleeping near their worksite to save travelling out in the morning.’

Well, that seemed plausible. ‘Would they be working at night?’

Matt took a moment to answer, watching Jodie as though he was considering her, not the question. ‘There could be problems with animals damaging fences at night.’

Of course there could. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation for what she’d seen last night, wasn’t it? The skin on the back of her neck felt hot. But what about today? The front door being open, the thud on the verandah. She turned her coffee cup slowly in her hands, thinking about what to ask next. ‘What . . . ? Do you think . . . ? I mean . . .’ She took a breath, looked up at him. ‘How big do the possums get around here?’

One corner of his mouth turned up, just a little, like he wasn’t sure if she was being funny. ‘Where are you going with this?’

He didn’t laugh but a hint of humour had crept into his voice. One that said, ‘What the fuck is she talking about?’ Then she knew she wasn’t going to ask any more questions – she didn’t want to see that look in his eyes, too. The same one that was in the eyes of the girls back at the barn. Especially after the way he’d looked at her right up until this moment – like she had a clue, like she wasn’t just a middle-aged single mother, like there was something in her damaged self that was worth taking a second look at. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at her like that and right now, with everything suddenly crystal clear, she needed to hang onto that.

Because she saw it now. How she’d imagined everything. How there was a rational explanation for it all – torches, farm workers, damaged fences. And she saw how the flashback must have sparked her paranoia. That maybe Hannah was right, that she was teetering on a steep and slippery slope to some kind of breakdown.

‘Actually, I’m not going anywhere with it. Just, you know, making conversation.’ She ran a hand through her hair, picked up her cup and tipped it way back to finish the dregs of her coffee, hoping it would hide the embarrassed flush on her cheeks. ‘Anyway,’ she said, looking around for something else to talk about. ‘It’s really nice here. I’ve never been to Bald Hill before. I’ll have to bring the kids out some time.’ The what-the-fuck look was still there in his eyes so she stood up, wanting to go, feeling like a fool. ‘Do you think my car will be ready now?’

She pushed her hands into her pockets while he watched her for a long moment. ‘If it’s not, it’ll be close.’

As they walked back to the station, he asked about her kids and her job, whether she had a husband waiting for her back home. He said he lived with his dad above the station, joked that it wasn’t as pathetic as it sounded. She was flattered at the singles questions, the kind people asked when they were checking out the territory, working out how much baggage a person had. She should probably tell him she had so much baggage she was sinking under the weight of it. But she figured she didn’t have to. When she drove off in her battered car, he’d remember the what-the-fuck moment and figure it out for himself. As far as she could tell, it’s what most men did when they met her.

‘Thanks again,’ she said as she started her car. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. I hope your weekend gets better.’

‘Yours, too.’ He smiled and she let her eyes linger on him for a moment. She liked his smile. And his eyes.

She turned the car around on the driveway and waved briefly as she drove off. She liked a lot about him. And she wondered, as she did on occasion, what different decisions she might make in her life if she hadn’t had a knife plunged into her belly at the age of seventeen.

17

Jodie stopped at the mini-market to buy four more steaks for dinner, wondering where she’d left the other ones. It was cold now but she cracked the window open as she drove out of town, worried she might fall asleep at the wheel. The adrenaline rush of fear and anxiety she’d been riding for almost twenty-four hours had caught up with her. She was exhausted and, sitting in the warm car, painfully aware that it was more than likely the result of her own demented imagination, she was overwhelmed with a bone-aching, head-pounding tiredness. She imagined slipping between the crisp, white sheets on her bed at the barn and drifting into a deep, dreamless sleep – and let out a long, tired sigh, knowing it wasn’t going to happen.