Murderer's Thumb (16 page)

Adam glared at him.

‘Good tool for you, Matt. Go looking for nesting owls.' He winked at Adam.

Matt flinched and stared at his cereal.

‘Course there aren't any owls nesting along old Byrd's fence line now, are there?'

Matt looked up. His pale eyes scanned their faces. Adam couldn't work out the emotion behind them, but he saw the pain. ‘Not…not any more. Not now Lina's gone,' Matt said in a dull tone.

‘Yeah, shot through because she was a crook,' Loody said.

‘She wasn't…' Matt mumbled, but Loody drowned him out.

‘Pinched stuff for drugs. You know the type.' Loody's face was directly across from Adam, but his eyes were angled at Matt.

Adam felt his temper rise. From reading the diary he imagined he knew Lina intimately. If she had stolen anything it was probably because she needed the money to leave town quickly. But stealing wasn't her style. Adam was sure she was above that. ‘What do you mean?' he said.

‘When she lived up at your place heaps of things went missing, remember, Matt?'

Matt squirmed in his seat, blushing again. Loody could see the torture he was putting Matt through and Adam realised that Loody enjoyed making Matt suffer. He wasn't a match for Mongrel, but he wanted to copy him, bully whomever he could. Matt was the perfect victim.

Loody continued his take on the story. ‘Frank's wallet was stolen and turned up a couple of days later without any cash. Colin's money went missing from the car. No one could prove it was her, of course. She was too good at it. She was a shocker, that one. Had blue hair, totally feral.'

‘If no one could prove it, then how do you know it was her?' Adam asked.

Loody gulped down his juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He eyed Adam suspiciously. ‘Don't you believe me, Mr Inspector?'

‘Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty?' Adam said.

‘You don't know the chick. She was bad news, believe me.' He scooped up his breakfast dishes and took them over to the sink. ‘I'll see you later, Adam, Matt. Got to get some maintenance done.' He picked up his cap and padded out to his boots at the back door.

Adam looked up from his empty cereal bowl, aware of Matt's gaze. His eyes were watery, his mouth slightly open.

‘Sorry, mate,' Adam said.

‘Em's dead. Is Lina dead too?' he asked.

At that instant, Adam felt for sure Matt was thick. Mental, as Snake would say. It was unsettling the way Matt looked at him with those empty grey eyes. Maybe Snake was right and Matt Thackeray was an axe-wielding maniac. There definitely was something odd about him and his question about Lina
was
really off. But surely he was harmless…

Was Lina dead too? Those words echoed in Adam's mind. Adam had read the diary, sensed the urgency in her message. She'd been in trouble, found out something dangerous. She knew her safety was compromised. Matt hadn't read it, but he suspected what Adam feared, that Lina had been killed also.

‘I dunno,' Adam shrugged. He rose from the table. ‘I guess I'd better get home. I'll see you this afternoon, Matt.'

Matt nodded and grinned. ‘The cows like you, Adam. You're patient with them.'

‘Am I?' Adam said, taking his dishes to the sink. He was glad of the compliment. ‘I like them too,' he said.

He made his way out to the hallway. According to the diary entry the photograph was in the lounge room. He pushed open the first door on his right but it wasn't the lounge. It was more like a shrine. It had to be Emma's room. Soft toys were propped against pillows on the bed. The room smelled of minted air freshener and had been recently dusted. Photographs of Emma were everywhere: covering each wall, placed on the desk, the bedside table, the bookshelf. There was even one above the door. But there was something wrong. They weren't pictures of a fifteen-year-old. They were all primary school Emmas: gawky, flat-chested and innocent.

Adam searched for a photo of Emma and a girl with blue hair. Nothing. On the far wall framed certificates stated Emma's prowess at freestyle and middle distance running events, but they were ten years old: under eleven and under twelve age groups. Wasn't there any record of the teenage Emma?

Someone across the hall was playing the piano, softly, like rippling water. Adam shut Emma's door and crept to where another door stood ajar. He peeked inside. The Brolga sat upright stroking the piano keys as if in a trance. Adam could imagine her fingers as feathers. She spun around and gaped at him.

‘Sorry to disturb,' Adam said, thinking quickly. ‘Just wanted to say thankyou for breakfast.'

‘That's fine,' she murmured. She stared at him with dull eyes while Adam thought of something else to say. ‘But don't go upsetting Matt about Em's death,' she said. ‘He hasn't moved on yet.'

‘It was Loody…I…er…didn't mean to…to…you know…'

‘I overheard you talking,' she said, easing herself up from the stool. Her voice rose also, shaky.

Adam stepped inside the room, his shoulders hunched. ‘Loody said…my pay…'

‘Oh yes. It's here.' She motioned to a bookshelf where an envelope was propped against a photo frame. She brought them both over to him. ‘Em was Matt's favourite sister,' she said. She pushed the photo towards him. ‘Here's the three of them when they were little.'

Adam held it out to admire. Three faces were beaming. Matt was in the centre, sporting a bowl haircut and a pale green shirt. Two girls hugged him, their eyes gleaming. The Brolga pointed to the thinnest one. ‘That's Em,' she said. ‘She was only fifteen when she died.'

She wasn't fifteen in the photo though; she was more like seven: teeth uneven, hair in pigtails. Emma had inherited Colin's square chin but otherwise she was unremarkable. The other girl had a narrow face, slender neck and full lips. Adam pointed to her. ‘Who's that?'

‘That's Rachel…my step-daughter. She's married now.'

‘This must have been taken a long time ago.'

‘Matt's tenth birthday.'

‘Why aren't there any recent photos of Emma?'

The Brolga narrowed her eyes. Her voice became shrill. ‘You've been snooping about, haven't you?'

‘I didn't mean to. I was looking for you…for my pay.'

She snatched back the photo and stared at it. ‘Boys were always searching for her, wanting photographs, ringing up. Should have burnt them all.'

‘Burnt what?'

‘The photos. They started disappearing. I knew it was her, giving them to boys, spreading her image as she spread her legs.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Sorry for what?' Her eyes wandered from the photo to rest on Adam's face, but he had the sensation that she wasn't really seeing him. Her eyes were clouded with grief. ‘That she went crazy with boys. Flaunted and cheapened herself, for what?'

Adam shrugged. ‘I'm just sorry, that's all.'

Her mouth twitched into the slightest of smiles. ‘Here. Take your pay.' She gave him the envelope.

He took it and looked about the room for the aerial photograph. It was hanging behind him above the doorway. Irregular shapes of greens and yellows were patched together like a poorly made quilt.

He pointed at it. ‘Is that the farm?' he said.

‘Yes, it was taken about ten years ago now. Things haven't changed much.'

Brown and silver blobs surrounded by dark green clumps were obviously the buildings, nestled between the trees. ‘I can see the houses, and the dam…' Adam began. He searched for lines, for the fate line. The driveway and tracks were the most obvious, but he'd already discounted them. How would Lina hide pages along a road? It had to be a fence that she referred to. ‘Where's the farm boundary?' he asked.

She smiled at him, her manner calm once again. ‘Here… to the creek, where our wetlands are,' she indicated. She wasn't a pointer, Adam reflected. Someone must have told her that stupid idea that it's rude to point, just like Rosemary always told him.

Adam peered at the picture, imagining the outline of a hand. Along the road and the creek line it was well defined, and Lina was right. It did look like the side of a human hand, including the thumb.

‘And here to the east…and the Byrds to the south and west.' She waved her hand, cutting through the air and down.

‘It's hard to see where some of the fence lines are,' Adam commented.

‘Depends if the paddocks were grazed, or if there was a crop in.'

He was disappointed that the picture didn't have lines, especially a fate line. By superimposing his memory of the palmistry map over the aerial photograph he believed there should have been a fence that ran down the hill, right through the middle of the farm. There were sections where a fence was hinted at, but the line was broken.

‘Some of the internal paddocks are hard to make out,' he said. He pointed to where he thought the fate line should be. ‘Is there a fence here?'

‘There was a long time ago,' she said. ‘There are only remnants now. We mostly use electric fences.'

Adam ducked into the hallway, his hope fading. What if Lina had hidden the next section in the old fence, and it had been destroyed, pulled out and used for firewood? He'd have to examine the boundary and see what was left.

The Brolga walked him to the back door. Adam mumbled his goodbye and marched up the driveway. She had made him feel uncomfortable. What a moody piece of work she was. It was grief. Had to be. It did weird things to people. Made them irrational.

He opened his pay packet: a sweet sixty dollars. It felt good.

SEVENTEEN

Later that evening Adam explored the farm. There was about another hour of daylight left. He went outside and walked underneath the row of cypresses, searching for the tree Lina must have climbed. Smells of effluent and dust hung in the still air. Most of the trunks and limbs were armed with thin dead twigs, which Adam judged too prickly to climb. But one tree was smoother, and its first boughs were low to the ground. Its limbs stuck out straight at regular intervals like a Christmas tree. He hauled himself into it.

It was easy to climb. Adam knew it was Lina's tree as there was so little dead wood. He'd made it half-way up, at least five metres without any snags. The higher he climbed, the better the scenery. He could see right over the hills into Booradoo. Behind him, he could see the abattoir and the fields leading off to Selwyn. He looked closer to home, trying to position himself so he was looking down into the giant palm and fingers of the Thackeray farm. He took out Snake's palmistry map.

It was hard to make out where the farm ended and the neighbour's property began. But Adam was certain that the big dam lay in the ‘upper mount of Mars', the fleshy part of the palm, between the thumb and the forefinger. The fate line must be to the right of it, running perpendicular. He concentrated his gaze to where he thought it would be. There was a small gully but there were no permanent fences, just a clump of trees, mostly saplings. If there had been a fence there before, it was now gone. And if Lina had hidden the diary inside a post, then his chances of finding it were zilch.

A ute rattled up the driveway. It was Colin. Adam crouched motionless in the tree, hoping he hadn't been seen. After the farmer had passed, Adam clambered down the cypress. He made his way through the paddocks till he came to the trees that lay in the gully. Four majestic gums towered over the other trees, mostly young acacias. Spindly, green and supple they stretched their foliage above the grass. The remains of an old fence ran down the left side. Adam's hopes lifted.

Newer posts had been put in to form a boundary that enclosed the nursery of trees. The undergrowth at the edge of the fence was neatly trimmed by hungry resident heifers that moved away as he approached the trees. Now they were cautiously plodding back, their enormous brown eyes wary but intrigued, their breathing soft and rhythmical.

Adam inspected the corner posts. Strands of wire ran through holes drilled in the red gum. The timber was tough and weathered grey. Some had natural holes too, an accident of the milling process, where the saw had gone through a knot in the grain. Spiders scurried away, burrowing into the holes.

‘What you doing out here, son?' came a voice from higher up the hill.

Adam twisted around, startling the dozens of heifers that had crept up on him. They shied, lumbering sideways, flicking their tails.

Colin stood on the rise behind them, holding a shovel and a long thin cable with a coiled end.

‘I…was…er…I'm looking for…ah…beetles,' Adam garbled. ‘Bugs and things.'

Colin rubbed his jaw with his free hand. ‘Are you now?' he said. His eyes were black slits.

‘Not much here,' Adam said. ‘Except a few spiders.' He came away from the fence, waving his arms to emphasise they were empty. His face burnt with embarrassment.

‘You after bait?' Colin said quietly. ‘There's mud-eyes over at the dam. What are you after—cod, perch?'

Adam didn't understand. Cod, mud-eyes, perch? He stood there with his mouth open. Then it hit him. Fishing! ‘Er, I'm er…looking for worms,' he muttered. ‘For fun like, nothing serious.' He backed away, willing his legs to move but they felt weak, as if he'd just got out of bed.

Colin's neck and shoulders didn't move, but his eyes followed Adam's retreat. ‘No use hanging round here, boy. Worms don't climb posts. Better off in the veggie patch,' he sneered. He swung the cable slowly from side to side.

‘Right,' Adam said, sizing up Colin's spade and the length of wire. He'd seen something like it before. It looked like a handbrake cable from a car. A formidable weapon if you wanted to strangle someone. And what was the spade for—pirate's treasure, Lina's diary, or digging a grave? Adam gulped. He had to get out of here. Whatever Colin was up to, he meant business.