He throws his empty stubby in the bin, and the way he lobs it from a distance, the measured way he moves, the easy way his hand returns to his side, all spells routine. He has a V-neck cricket vest on over his shirt, and sweat stains under his arms. The dark tips of his hair sit against his forehead; the rest of his hair is a combination of mousy brown and dry bleached blond. His face is a contradiction of things – heavy jaw, soft lips, substantial nose, light and expressive eyes. She knows his name: it’s Aden Claas. On his pants, either side of his groin, are red cricket-ball stains. She notices a thin black strip of leather around his wrist, and the way his shirt is unbuttoned and pulled to one side, exposing a section of suntanned collarbone.
No surprise registers on his face when he sees her. He brings his gaze up as though he’s been aware of her all along. He smiles with lips together, warm and brief, doesn’t break his stride, doesn’t – she can tell – know who she is: as good as a tourist passing through to him, not even a flicker of recognition. But then his eyes linger on the car – recognising it as something local, a clapped-out V8 that screams Kiona – and his gaze comes up again, looking at her now through the windscreen. A smile plays on his lips and his eyebrows draw in. He can’t place her. By the time he’s passed the car they’ve made that across-the-room-type contact: he’s smiling and looking over his shoulder, holding her gaze through the wound-down window.
Rebecca slides across and says, ‘Are you going into the restaurant?’
He looks surprised she’s spoken. ‘Sorry?’
She says again, ‘Are you going into the restaurant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you do me a favour?’
He makes a show of wheeling around. No schoolyard games, no sending a friend over to say,
Guess who thinks you’re cute
, no taunts on the bus – he hides nothing, acts as if he has nothing to hide. He comes up to the car and leans down with one hand on the roof and looks in at her.
‘Who are you?’ he asks.
He has a deep, no-nonsense voice, small white teeth, pointed incisors – intriguing to her, making her want to rub her tongue along the blunt edges of hers, imagining what it must feel like to have carnivore teeth.
‘I’m … waiting for someone,’ she says.
He looks at her, amused.
‘I’m waiting for my next-door neighbour,’ she tells him.
‘Well, that makes sense.’
He looks down at the chocolate wrappers and drinks on the seat, and then over at the oval. ‘You know, you can park closer than this if you’re a fan.’
‘I’m not a fan.’
‘Not of the game?’
‘Nope.’
He purses his lips and watches her, drums his fingers on the car roof. ‘What’s the favour?’
‘I thought if you were going into the restaurant you could tell my friend I have to go soon.’
‘Your friend?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why don’t you go in?’
Rebecca ducks down, inclines her head from side to side. ‘I don’t want to get involved.’
He says nothing, looks at her, probably thinks she’s lost the plot.
‘It’s an unusual situation,’ she says.
‘Is it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
After a moment he taps the roof and straightens. ‘So I gather I won’t need to know your friend’s name either?’
Before giving her a chance to answer he begins to walk away. Rebecca looks down and sees she’s twisted her fingers together on her lap. What she assumes has happened is that he’s picked her as a schoolgirl, or Rebecca Toyer, and his interest went from midrange down to zero in a second. When she glances back up, though, he’s turned around and is walking backwards, shadows distorting his features, his eyes shining in the half-light.
He says in a raised voice to reach her, ‘How about you don’t tell me your name and I don’t tell you mine, and when we meet down the pub later we can have show and tell.’ He smiles, pleased with himself, liking his line.
‘I might not want to play kindergarten games with you,’ she says.
He parts his hands, delivering the punchline. ‘We could play adult games instead.’
She’s still struggling to control her smile when the restaurant door opens and he walks back out. He comes down the path purposefully, arms crossed high on his chest and his head on an angle.
When he gets to her he says, ‘Are you having me on?’
He glances around as if expecting his mates to jump out from behind the trees, then squints at her and says, ‘There’s no-one in the restaurant – it’s just the staff and my mum. There’s been no-one but them in there all day.’
Rebecca shakes her head. ‘No. She’s in there. I watched her go in. She went around the back. She’s been in there over an hour.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I watched her go through that gate.’ Rebecca points, feeling already the need to confirm it herself, doubt springing up that quickly. ‘She said she wouldn’t be long. I watched her walk across the yard. She’s in there.’
He raises his eyebrows, shakes his head.
Rebecca says, ‘But that can’t be right.’
‘From the backyard you can get out onto the riverbank – perhaps she’s done that.’
‘Did you check the toilets?’
He smiles. ‘No.’
‘Can I come in and check?’
‘If you like.’
His gaze settles on the car again, eyeing the caked-on dirt and dust, the metre-long jack on the back seat, the loose spanners almost the size of baseball bats.
He says, ‘You’re the truckie’s daughter. You live out by Kincaid’s. You don’t mean that neighbour, do you?’
‘Yes – Mrs Kincaid, that’s who I’m talking about.’
He unfolds his arms and turns to look at the gate.
Up at the restaurant a woman walks out onto the veranda. The last of the daylight is gold-coloured down the side of her. She has a solid build, and is wearing a plastic apron; her hair is swept up in a bun, her face is tanned and shiny.
She calls, ‘Did you get it sorted out?’
He calls back, ‘She’s waiting for Joanne Kincaid.’
‘Oh.’
‘Has she been?’
‘No.’
They fall silent. Something passes between them.
‘What?’ Rebecca says. ‘What’s the matter?’
Aden turns to her, smiles in a way that suggests they won’t be meeting at the pub, that they’re about to swap names and details on a much more matter-of-fact level.
‘You’d better come inside.’
Not the best of circumstances, but the first time all the same that a man has ever opened a car door for her and waited as she climbed out.
8
It’s during the ride in, headlights illuminating the road, the green glow of the dash illuminating the car interior, that Zach’s father says to him, ‘You know it’s best not to say your mother was upset. It’s easier all round to keep things uncomplicated. If you have to, you can tell them I told you this morning about Aden Claas being related. You can say you don’t know how your mother felt about it. He’ll probably be there – Aden – helping with the search. Stay away from him. Same goes for his mother.
‘The police will be there already. The whole mess with Kara and Aden is going to be a part of it. I’m sorry about that, Zach. I really am. You’re probably going to hear things about what happened back then, and I want you to know that only five per cent of what you hear will be true. I want you to trust me and know I’ll always put you first. I wasn’t much older than you when all this started, and you know what my father said to me – what he told me?’
‘No.’
‘He said to invite her out – Kara Claas – invite her out while she’s pregnant and he’d run her off the road. Kill two birds with one stone – that’s what he said. He would have done it too – make the call and he’d do the rest.’ He tightens his hands on the steering wheel and stares out through the windscreen. ‘I couldn’t do it, though. Errors of judgement – the same moment where you lose concentration and cause an accident is no different to a lapse of judgement in other things. People cause injury to others every day. And if it’s done in the heat of moment, without thought, without control … there’s no place to lay blame. And that’s the difference, Zach – if it’s not planned, it’s no-one’s fault. If it is planned, well, that’s when you’ve got some right to apportion blame.’
Zach says, ‘Did they say on the phone if Rebecca was still there?’
‘They didn’t say.’
‘Will she have to go to the station and give a statement?’
‘It’s a search – I don’t know how it works. I know she’s said that your mother was upset and acting strangely. Saying those sorts of things will get attention every time. It gives the police something to latch on to. It’s a shame the whole town knows what your mother’s like. It’s why they were there so quick.’ He runs his hand down the steering wheel, taps his thumb on the grey leather. ‘Do you know Rebecca very well, Zach? I didn’t think you were friends with her at school.’
‘I’m not.’
‘How well do you know her?’
‘Not very.’
‘Are you seeing her?’
‘No.’
They are silent. Zach can hear his father’s steady breathing.
‘I don’t want you seeing her any more.’
‘Okay,’ Zach says.
9
There’s a small farm gate opening down onto the grassy slopes of the river, a well-beaten path, a few shrubby bushes, one or two gum trees overhead, eerie in the dark, like they might drop spiders down your back. The path leads off alongside the river. Torchlight shines into the water and along the reedy banks. There are very few voices, which is surprising considering the amount of people out.
Word is getting around. Rebecca’s not clear if it’s official yet that Mrs Kincaid is missing, what with only one police car out the front, no real plan of action, still a level of confusion, and Mr Kincaid not yet having shown his face, but the people in the surrounding houses believe it to be so – they’re out looking. Aden Claas believes it to be so – he’s been out looking. He’s changed out of his cricket gear and walked the riverbank and down the river trail until it comes out near Dunbar’s Track. He’s taken the small yellow hatchback Rebecca assumes is his mother’s and checked the back streets leading out of town. He’s returned and is now speaking in low tones to his mother in the centre of the lawn.
Rebecca hears him say, ‘… you could drive a car up there, park at the end in among the bush, and no-one would see you. If you take Dunbar’s Track all the way to Riddles Road you come out near Cummings’ – you haven’t even crossed the main drag – straight into the back of Kincaid’s.’
‘I don’t think it’s right to say those sorts of things,’ Kara says. ‘It’s up to the police.’
‘But you’re going to say something, aren’t you?’
‘Not if I don’t have to,’ Kara answers.
Aden turns and heads inside.
‘It’s my prerogative,’ she calls after him.
‘It’s always been your prerogative, Mum.’
Rebecca also starts towards the house. She shines the torch down at her feet. Her skin is goosed with the cold, mosquito bites itch on her arms and legs.
‘Not much to do out here,’ Kara says when Rebecca reaches her. ‘You should go in and get something to eat. Ask Marc in the kitchen to fix you something.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘You’re cold,’ Kara says, touching Rebecca’s arm.
Rebecca keeps the torchlight down on the ground between them. There’s enough light to see the hot-pink and purple streaks in Kara’s hair, the grey wisps around her neck. She’s taken her apron off and revealed an odd assortment of free-flowing clothes in clashing colours and prints.
‘Go in,’ she says in her husky voice. ‘The police said Ben Kincaid is on his way. You should be able to go home then.’
‘Did they say why it’s taken so long to get onto him?’
‘Out on the property, they said. And he had to organise someone to stay at the house in case she turns up there.’
‘She’ll turn up, won’t she?’
‘I think so.’
A ute pulls in through the open gate and drives onto the lawn. Rebecca and Kara shield their eyes from the glare of the headlights. Rebecca’s chest tightens at the thought of Mr Kincaid, but the vehicle isn’t one she recognises. A young man leans out the open window and asks where it would be best to park.
‘Let’s get some light on the scene, Mrs C,’ he says, in a lazy ocker drawl.
‘Thanks, Nigel. Wherever you think is good, as long as you don’t blind the people coming up from the river.’
‘Or mistake them for bunnies and let off a couple of pot shots.’
‘Or that.’
After backing up and positioning the vehicle, he turns off the headlights and switches on a row of spotlights attached to the roof. The lights, each one of them, cut a clean funnel of light through the night air and shine on the lawn. The light spreads over the ground and reaches to the back fence and as far as the fruit trees on the other side.
Along the veranda someone has turned on a set of coloured party lights in among the grapevine. Classes in pottery and leadlight are held on the back veranda: there are half-finished stained-glass pieces leant against the walls and hanging from nails, clay-covered newspaper spread out on a separate trestle table.
‘Finally flipped out,’ Nigel says as he ambles over. ‘Flipped out and thrown herself in the drink – what do you say, Mrs C?’
‘I hope not.’
‘Not so good for business?’
‘No.’
‘I dunno, couldn’t you rename the place Virginia Woolf’s?’
He’s close enough now for Rebecca to make out his stubbly hair and small skull, the pitted skin and misshapen nose. She recognises him as one of the Fairbanks boys. Another seasoned local. He winks at Rebecca.
‘You’ve thought about that the whole way in, haven’t you?’ Kara says. ‘Really had to rack your brain to come up with that.’
‘Always tryin to impress you, Mrs C.’
‘Here, put yourself to some good use.’ Kara takes the torch from Rebecca and passes it to him. ‘Go out and do all the back streets, go do the park and around the oval.’
‘Steady up – I supply the lights. I’m needed here for any fine adjustments … and to down a couple with Aden. Where is he?’
‘It’s not a party, Nigel.’
‘Could be – if Mrs Kincaid comes wandering in naked singin “I’m a Little Teapot”. That’s some Saturday night entertainment I wanna see.’