The Amber Trail (3 page)

“
How the
hell...?”

His mother opened her mouth to
speak, then pressed her lips together as her face contorted into a
new grimace.

 
Dig’s
grandfather stepped toward Jake, holding out an open arm. “It was
an accident.”

Jake’s eyebrows drew together.
“That’s a fucking understatement.”

“
An allergic
reaction. Came out of nowhere.”

“
Yeah right.” Jake
glanced at Dig, then crouched beside his mother.

Dig’s head fell back to the
couch, and his eyes fixed on a framed photo hanging skew on the
opposite wall. It was a family shot, taken four years previously at
his cousin’s wedding. In the photo, Dig’s parents stood with their
two sons, arms around each other, catching a rare moment of family
harmony. It was a moment that was gone, and could never be
repeated.

Over the next week, friends and
relatives arrived at the house with pitying looks on their faces,
and presented the family with flowers and dishes of rubbery
lasagne. Dig moved about the house like a zombie, nodding yes to
most of the questions put to him as the preparations for the
funeral began.

The nominated day arrived on a
cloudy Tuesday morning. Dig found a barely-worn suit at the back of
his cupboard, put it on, and walked out to the front driveway where
his mother stood by the car. Jake sat in the driver’s seat, gazing
vacantly ahead.

As Dig reached the vehicle a
rapping sound echoed from across the driveway, and he turned to see
a thin-faced man standing at the door to the brewery office. Two
broad-shouldered men loitered further up the drive. The three men
seemed to be of Indian descent, wearing dark suits and ties. The
thin-faced man continued to knock loudly on the door.

Dig crossed the driveway. “Can I
help you?”

The man took a step forward and
smiled, revealing dark, deep-set eyes. His colleagues approached
behind him—they looked like thugs that had just stepped away from
the door of a nightclub.

“
Hello,” the man said
in an Indian accent. “We’re looking for Shaun Buckley. We have a
meeting with him today.”

Dig glanced back toward his
family and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry guys, but I’ve got some
bad news. Shaun died this week in an accident.”

The man’s smile dropped from his
face. “He...has died?”

“
Yes.” Dig scratched
at his ear. “It was pretty sudden. We tried to let everyone know
but...obviously we must’ve missed a few.”

“
Oh.” The men
exchanged glances. “We’re sorry to hear that.”

“
Yeah. It’s been a
tough week.”

They stood in silence for a
moment.

“
Dig!” his brother
shouted. “What's happening?
”

“
You go! I’ll take
the other car.”

Jake frowned before backing the
car out of the drive.  

“
I hope you don’t
mind me asking,” the man said. “But is anyone handling your
father’s business affairs now?”

“
We hope to get
things moving again next week. But at this stage the brewery’s shut
down.”

The men glanced at each other
again, then nodded. “Thank you.”

“
No prob.” Dig took a
few steps toward the car, then turned back. “Hey, if you want to
go, the funeral’s on today...it’s at ten at St Mary’s church up the
road.”

“
Yes, we may attend.
Your father was a good man.”

“
Thanks. You’re all
welcome.”

The man tipped his head in a
small bow, then led his companions up the driveway to the
street.

The small church swelled with
people during the service. Light streamed through stained glass
windows, and the smell of burning incense competed with the perfume
of the pale blue flowers piled before the altar. His mother stood
frail in a black dress.

The service was long, and Dig
found it hard to concentrate. His father’s coffin, a glossy brown
box with solid silver handles, was propped up front and centre in
the church. Dig watched the coffin for a long time, his mind
drifting, remembering the last time he had seen his father
alive—sprawled on his back, struggling to breathe. Scared. Dying.
 

That’s the hardest part about
death,
he thought.
Most of the time people go out of this
life feeling scared or in pain—or most likely both. And there’s
little we can do to avoid it.

At the conclusion of the service,
they walked the coffin up the aisle and outside to the waiting
hearse. The family stood with the congregation as the vehicle
pulled into the street, heading for the crematorium. Everyone stood
silent for a moment, then Dig’s grandfather cleared his
throat.

“
The family would
like to thank everyone for coming,” he said from the top of the
steps outside the church. “And we now invite everyone back to the
house to have a drink in Shaun’s memory.”

Dig drove back to the house with
his mother. They were first to arrive home, and as they reached the
front door Dig noticed that it was hanging ajar. He stopped and
frowned.

He exchanged a look with his
mother, then gave the door a push. It caught against something
heavy on the opposite side. Dig surveyed the drive behind him, then
turned and pushed the door again, harder, forcing enough space
between the door and jamb for him to squeeze into the front
passage.

Inside the house, a black ceramic
umbrella stand lay flat across the beige carpet, wedged behind the
door. A mess of umbrellas were spread beside it, along with a chunk
of jagged timber that contained the housing for the door lock. Dig
looked back to the jamb and saw it had been smashed clean away from
the frame.   

Dig whispered to his mother.
“Someone broke in.” She stiffened and dug through her purse for a
phone.

Dig stepped further into the
house. Beams of sunlight fell diagonally through the hallway
windows, illuminating dancing clouds of dust. He tilted his head. A
low hum and muffled clanking could be heard from inside.

He knelt and picked up a long
umbrella with a solid wooden handle, and brandished it loosely
behind him like a baseball bat, his stomach knotting as he tiptoed
across the passage toward the kitchen doorway. When he reached the
opening he swallowed, then moved through quickly—arms up, ready to
strike.

The room was a mess. Cupboards
lay open with their contents spewed on the floor. Cushions from the
couch were piled against the wall. The fridge freezer door was
ajar, and water dripped from it to form a wide, wet puddle on the
tiles. But the room was otherwise empty; Dig allowed himself to
breathe.

The noise remained, and louder
now, a clattering rumble combined with a tinkling of shattered
glass. It was the sound of breakage and destruction, and it was
coming from the back of the house, toward the bedrooms. Dig’s grip
on the umbrella tightened until his knuckles turned
white.

He stepped through the kitchen
with his stomach churning. As he reached the counter he spotted a
timber block brimming with knife handles. He placed the umbrella
carefully on the bench, and selected the largest knife of the
collection—with a ceramic handle, wide steel blade and pointed tip.
He held it up with a shaking hand, took another breath, and stepped
into the hallway that led to the back of the house.

As he entered the passage, Dig
stopped and listened. The crashing, crunching sound echoed from the
far end of the hall, behind the closed laundry door. His hands were
clammy, and he wiped them on his shirt before he tiptoed forward.
 

As he passed the open doors of
the three bedrooms he saw further evidence of destruction:
wardrobes thrown open; boxes of shoes tipped out on bedspreads;
side drawers emptied onto the carpet; and mattresses pulled up and
dumped against the wall.

He reached the end of the hallway
and stood before the laundry door, where the noise was loud and
immediate. Dig clenched his teeth, then twisted the handle and
flung the door open. He stepped into the room, eyes
wide.

A heavy, humid heat billowed into
his face. The room was covered in white tile, and a washing
machine, dryer and sink lined up along one wall. Natural light
streamed through a glass door on the opposite side, leading to the
backyard. Dig scanned the room—ready to shout, ready to fight,
ready to run.

But nobody was there. The room
was empty. He exhaled.

Above his head, square timber
cupboards lay open; at his feet, bottles of bleach lay strewn
across the tile. Though the room was empty, the sound remained—a
loud clunking and tinkling through a resonant hum. He glanced down
and saw the dryer was rumbling by his knees. It was a front loading
model, and through the glass viewer something churned in the vortex
of the internal tumbler.

Dig looked back down the empty
hallway, blinking rapidly, then squatted in front of the dryer. He
examined the buttons on the machine and pressed the catch on the
door. It popped open and the power cut out, and the contents
settled to the bottom of the tumbler drum with a final clatter and
crash of glass. Smoke billowed from the opening with a stench of
burnt paper and ammonia.

Dig prodded the door further open
with one finger, and leaned in for a closer inspection. Stuck in
the lower corners of the tumbler baffles were piles of splintered
black timber and broken glass. Dig squinted closer and saw that
nestled amongst the shards was a darkened rectangle of paper. He
reached inside and gingerly lifted it out by one corner. The paper
was thick and warm, and sticky to touch, and after he extracted the
curled rectangle from the machine he balanced it in the centre of
his palm.

Its edges were dark and burnt,
but the shadowy silhouettes of four people could be made out on the
square. Dig recognised it as a family photograph—the same family
photograph that up until this morning had resided in the middle of
the lounge room wall.

Dig stared at the picture, then
glanced at the shards of timber and glass in the dryer. A shiver of
unease rippled through his spine.

“
Dig? Are you here?”
It was his brother’s voice.

“
In the
laundry.”

Jake stood in the doorway and his
eyes darted around the room. His mother appeared behind
him.

“
What kind of sick
bastard breaks into a house while people are at a funeral?” Jake
said.

“
A smart one,” Dig
said. “You can be sure that nobody’s home.” He passed the photo to
Jake.

Jake frowned. “Is that from the
lounge?”

Dig nodded. “I found it cooking
in the clothes dryer. The whole thing was in there, frame and all,
smashed to bits.”

Jake swore under his breath and
shook his head. “If I ever catch who did this, I’m going to rip
their head off.”  

Outside, the wail of a police
siren approached from the distance. His mother took the photo from
Jake and studied it. “We need to forget this for now,” she said.
“I’ll deal with the police. You guys help the people arriving for
the wake. We can send everyone out to the back deck.” She looked
them both in the eye. “And no jealous fighting between you boys
today either.”

The brothers glanced at each
other, then nodded.

AS PEOPLE ARRIVED FOR THE WAKE
, they
presented Dig with cards and flowers. The back deck filled
shoulder-to-shoulder, and the hum of conversation filled the air.
His mother had prepared tables of wilting sandwiches and cubed
cheese. Tubs of
Buckley’s Chance
lay in beds of ice at their
feet.

Jake stood at the railing with
two
of Dig’s older cousins—solid,
rugby-playing
guys
with crewcuts and
broad shoulders. They rationed out large helpings from a bottle of
whisky.

Dig did his best to socialise.
“It was a beautiful service,” said his grey-haired neighbour as he
fiddled with the label of his beer.

“
Yes, very moving,”
said the neighbour’s wife beside him.

Dig nodded and tried to muster a
smile, but his mind was elsewhere. He couldn’t stop thinking about
the break-in. The house had been full of people that
morning—dressing for the funeral and preparing for the wake—then as
they stood in the church, a stranger had ransacked through their
personal belongings with no regard for sentiment or pity.
 

“
Everyone.” Dig’s
grandfather startled him from his thoughts. He stood at the head of
the deck, his face etched with wrinkles. “I’d like to say a few
words.” The conversation dropped to a murmur.

“
First, thanks
everyone for coming. It means a lot to see you here. The last week
has been difficult to say the least, and the family thanks you for
your support.” He pursed his lips. “For Shaun to be taken from us
in such a sudden and tragic way is...an unthinkable
heartbreak.” He blinked rapidly and dropped his head before
continuing.

“
Shaun was a great
man. Fiercely loyal to his family, a great father, a trusted
friend, and a man who had the courage to follow his passions.” He
lifted a bottle of beer from a tub beside his feet. “Shaun started
his life as a pretty average bricklayer, but during that time the
back shed was always full of sacks of malt and hops, and he’d work
the mash tun long into the night.” Dig’s neighbour smiled and
nodded.