Darkening Skies (27 page)

The old timber house that Bella O’Connell and her father used to live in had changed in the intervening years, but the roses he’d planted for his wife in the shade of a vine-covered trellis were still there. Roses in Dungirri’s hot climate had always struck Jenn as a grandly romantic but impractical gesture. They’d proved her wrong, though, surviving more than thirty years.

She could hear voices and the high-pitched laughter of children coming from the backyard, but she hardly knew Ryan, and hadn’t seen Beth in years until this week – so instead of
opening the gate and walking uninvited in to the yard, she rang the bell at the front door. Beyond the security screen the door was open, the short passageway dull compared to the bright sunlight outside.

A screen door at the back of the house banged closed, and Beth hurried to answer the bell, her face relaxing into a broad smile as she recognised Jenn.

‘Jenn! Come on through. We’re out the back, where it’s cooler.’

In the garden three young girls played in a wading pool, protected from the sun by a tree and a large shade-cloth awning off the garage. They paused and watched as she came out on to the veranda until, reassured by their mother’s presence just behind her, they resumed their game with the plastic floating bath toys that bobbed in the water around them.

Not just a play space, the backyard had some raised garden beds with a range of vegetables and herbs, and half a dozen chooks foraging lazily among them. Clothes – mostly T-shirts and shorts in assorted sizes – danced in the breeze on the rotary clothesline, and on one side of the open double garage a few pieces of weight-training equipment found usable space among tools and timber.

At the table on the veranda, Ryan Wilson greeted her with a broad grin. ‘Jenn Barrett. Jeez, girl, you’ve hardly changed a bit.’

Even though she’d heard about his accident a few years ago, a rugby tackle gone wrong, seeing him in the wheelchair still came as a shock. She leaned down to kiss his cheek and he wrapped a strong arm around her shoulder in a hug. ‘Good to see you, Jenn.’ He caught hold of her hand as she straightened up. ‘I’m so sorry about Jim. He was a good mate. A good man. We’re all going to miss him.’

A good mate
. She
preferred the simple, sincere words to any flowery condolences.

Sitting at the table with Ryan and Beth, sipping iced fruit juice, she could have been enjoying any pleasant weekend afternoon with friends. Except for the news she had to share.

She waited until Beth had brought out a plate of biscuits and sat down again before she began. ‘You’ll want to know … Mark asked me to tell you. There’s been another incident. At his place.’ She had their total attention and Beth’s hand slipped into Ryan’s. There was no easy way to say it, so she simply told them what happened. ‘He noticed one of the dogs sniffing at his car. He thought there might be an animal under it, so he checked. And found a car bomb.’

‘Oh, my Lord,’ Beth breathed, closing her eyes, and Jenn knew it was a prayer.

‘He’s okay. He’s at the police station with Steve and Kris, and the Sydney detective has just arrived. They’ll keep him protected now.’ She sounded more assured than she felt, and she had to put her glass down on the table to steady it.

‘What the f—, heck is going on, Jenn?’ Ryan demanded. ‘Jim, Doc Russell, Schmidty, a Molotov cocktail and now this?’

‘It seems as though Mark’s resignation has opened a can of worms.’ It was a cliché, but maybe ‘worm’ wasn’t such a bad descriptor for sexual predators and blackmailers.

‘Last night Wolfgang slipped me a memory stick containing photos,’ she explained. ‘There are images of Mark’s accident that – well, that raise a lot of questions. And there are other images, going back almost forty years.’ She kept her voice low, aware of the children not far away, seemingly absorbed in their play. ‘Disturbing images of sexual activity, mostly women in positions that could be bondage and S-and-M activities but more likely suggest coercion, maybe even rape. We went to his place this morning to ask him about them, but he died before he could say much.’ She raised the glass to her lips, took a sip and continued, ‘Have either of you ever heard mention of a club called Bohème?’

‘Bohème as
in Bohemian?’ Beth asked. When Jenn nodded, she glanced over at her children and said, ‘I can’t say I know anything really. But when I was seventeen or so – it was after Mark’s accident – my mother came to my room one night for a talk. I always thought it was just, you know, that I was getting older, going out with the crowd sometimes. But she warned me – it seemed to really worry her – she warned me not to get
involved with any Bohemians. I was a bit surprised, because I thought she meant hippies and she’s not the type to be so judgemental. But she said it several times.’

So, Sylvia Fletcher had known about the Bohème Club. But how? From Caroline? If Mark’s parents didn’t respond to his messages soon, Jenn would visit Sylvia.

‘I don’t know much either,’ Ryan said slowly. ‘But there were a few rumours. I left school early, did casual work here and there before I went on the boxing circuit. Some of the guys I knew reckoned they wanted to get work with—’ He hesitated. ‘With certain employers, because rumour had it there were extra rewards for good work. Nudge-nudge-wink-wink kind of rewards. I assumed they meant booze or drugs, but “Bohemian girls” were mentioned a few times. I wasn’t a saint by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn’t want to get mixed up with anything illegal, and I steered clear of … of that employer.’

‘Dan Flanagan?’ Jenn asked outright.

He nodded. ‘Yeah. There were benefits if he liked you, but I saw more than a few guys employed by him who ended up broken. Some OD’d, some ended up in hospital, some left town and have never been back. Nothing they could ever prove, of course, even if any of them wanted to give evidence. It’s the way he always worked, right up until Gil came back to town and the mafia cousins got too ambitious. There’s a few people coming forward now, enough to put Flanagan’s sons away, but they were only ever his tools, just like everyone else. Unless they turn on him, he’ll probably get off scot-free.’

Not if I have anything to do with it
. The thought must have shown on her face, because concern tightened Ryan’s face and he added, ‘Tread carefully, Jenn. Very carefully. Flanagan is a dangerous bastard. Best leave it all to the police.’

Be careful
, Wolfgang had said, and now he was dead. And Mark would have been dead but for a quirk of luck.

Yes, she’d be careful. But the police were over-stretched, and she couldn’t rely on them to ask the questions – her questions – that needed answers.

‘You shouldn’t be standing at that window,’ Kris scolded, coming into the kitchen with her laptop and a notepad. ‘Anyone hiding in the scrub out there could see you.’

He stepped to one side so that the gingham curtain mostly blocked any view of him, but from where he could still see
down the road to Beth’s place. Jenn had been there for more than an hour while he’d been questioned by the very thorough Detective Haddad.

‘I might—’
call Beth
, he’d been about to say when he saw Beth’s car back out of the driveway.

‘Do whatever you like,’ Kris said. ‘Just stay inside and out of sight. I have to go and make some calls, but I’ll just be in the station. I contacted Jeanie. She’s finishing with the lunch clean-up at the pub and she’ll be on her way shortly.’

Staying inside chafed his already restless mood. He craved the outdoors, and the long list of work he should be getting on with at Marrayin worried him. He’d planned to go back after he’d had lunch with Jenn and work for the rest of the day, but the murder attempt had well and truly stymied that. With Jim gone, there was no-one to keep an eye on things, and Mark was reluctant to ask anyone else to go out there when there might still be danger. He had to hope that the water pumps were working in the various water troughs, that the dams had not dried up in the heat, and that the cattle still had sufficient feed in the dry paddocks. Salvaging belongings from the homestead wreckage could probably wait another day or two, as long as no summer storms rolled in.

Beth’s car slowed approaching the main street, and although it passed out of sight he heard it turn towards the station, and breathed easier when she drove into Kris’s driveway. Jenn called out a goodbye, greeted Rosie, and moments later tapped on the back door.

‘You survived the interrogation?’ she asked as he let her in.

‘We
came to a cordial allegiance,’ he said. ‘She’s thorough, Jenn. She won’t make mistakes. Did Beth or Ryan have any information to help?’

She pulled out two chairs at the table, sat on one and propped her booted foot on the other. ‘They’d heard things that rang true with our suspicions, but nothing specific. Ryan purposely avoided any involvement with Flanagan, although rumours about the benefits for good work included “Bohemian girls”. And not long after your accident Sylvia Fletcher warned Beth to stay away from Bohemians.’

‘Sylvia knows.’

‘She knows
something
,’ Jenn corrected. ‘But what Beth recalls of the warning is pretty vague.’

Vague
. From Mark’s knowledge of the Fletchers, that sounded like the devout Catholic Sylvia, with her natural innocence and naivety, wasn’t quite sure what she was warning Beth about.

He filled Kris’s electric kettle and flicked it on. He didn’t expect her fridge to yield much – he’d known her for five years and cooking wasn’t one of her strengths – but was pleasantly surprised to see cold meats and cheese. He suspected Gil’s influence. His half-starved stomach rumbled.

‘Have you eaten?’ he asked Jenn. ‘I’m going to make up a couple of sandwiches.’

‘Some sourdough bread at the pub, that’s all. I didn’t get time for lunch, although it looked a lot better than I expected for the Dungirri pub. So, I could go a sandwich, thanks.’

While he sliced the loaf of bread he found on the bench he explained: ‘Deb is the chef, and a good one. She and Liam, the bar manager, worked with Gil in Sydney, and came up
here with him. They stayed here when he went into witness protection, and since Nancy Butler hasn’t been able to sell the pub – Stan died earlier this year – Deb and Liam stepped in to keep it open. Jeanie’s been helping them out.’

‘A town this size without a pub – it would be a death knell.’

‘Yes.’ Just one of his many concerns about the town’s future. ‘George and Eleni Pappas want to sell the shop and retire, too.’ He slid her sandwich on to a plate and passed it to her, lightening the gloomy talk with a teasing, ‘I don’t suppose you want to move back to town and buy a shop or a pub?’

She laughed outright. ‘Me counting lollies or pulling beers? Nope, not going to happen. But what about you? I can see you as the friendly local publican. Might be a good investment for the family company.’

So much for dispelling the gloom. He sat at the table with his sandwich in front of him, his appetite receding. ‘Strelitz Pastoral has been over-extended for a long time. My father’s rivalry with Dan Flanagan stretched the company’s resources too far years ago. It’s been a constant battle to get it back into the black ever since I took over, and it’s not there yet. You know the usual story – borrowings too high, drought, flood and bad seasons reducing income.’ And now it would be even more difficult, without his parliamentary salary to supplement the running costs, let alone rebuild the homestead.

‘Can you sell some land?’

‘I could any time – to Dan Flanagan. A couple of Chinese companies have been sniffing around the district and there are mining companies around, too. But I’d much prefer to sell to
someone who is going to manage the land sustainably and invest in agricultural production for this country.’

‘Land, gas and water,’ she commented. ‘The problems are everywhere. I sometimes wish there was more I could do, beyond making people aware.’

Stay here and rebuild Marrayin with me
. The wish formed unbidden in his thoughts, the wild rush of hope immediately doused by brutal rationality. Yes, they’d resumed a friendship, despite the shadow of Paula’s death. He had to be grateful for that, content with that. Even if he could make sense of what he felt now, why he felt it, they had little in common in adulthood beyond, perhaps, nostalgia for an adolescent attraction and friendship, and a commitment to finding the truth about the past.

Jenn was her own person, always had been, always would be. Proud, independent – a wild bird that flew high and far and rarely settled for long.

‘The Dungirri Progress Association has developed a plan to revitalise the town, and presented a proposal to a prospective buyer for the pub. If things go ahead as the Association hopes, perhaps you could encourage any lifestyle reporters you know to come out and feature the town, later in the year.’

She stopped with her sandwich halfway to her mouth, and lowered her hands to the table again. ‘Okay, some things make sense now. I heard Gillespie ask Liam for figures the other night, and he walked behind the bar like he owned the place. Is he going to buy the pub?’

Mark fervently hoped so, for the sake of the town, and for Kris and Gil. Liam and Deb had asked Mark for his feedback on the business plan they’d put
together for Gil, and he’d made a few suggestions, given his encouragement. But it wasn’t his decision to make, or his place to comment. ‘You’d have to ask him that, Jenn.’