Lucy Finkleton was sitting behind the office desk. Above her, a piece of twine had been strung from one nail to another displaying a cheerful assortment of Christmas cards. She stood stiffly and gave a smile that tried for comfort but fell short. “Hello, Perce.”
“Luce.” They had been at school together when they were kids. Percy could still remember her announcing a wobbly tooth to the class and then crying because she’d swallowed it with her lunch.
“Lucy,” said Doyle, “would you mind making a note of Percy’s boots?” He turned to Percy as she felt about for a pad of paper on the desk. “Just so we can check no one turned up after you left.”
Percy gave Lucy the details and she copied them down with a careful hand before coming out from behind the desk to trace an outline. When her head was bent over the paper he noticed there were gray strands in her brown hair.
“Give my love to Meg, won’t you?” she said when she had finished. “I telephoned earlier to say you’d be late, and Alastair Hughes called to let us know he had Blaze stabled over at his place. No hurry to collect her. Just when you’re ready.” There was a momentary pause and then she said quickly, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, “Such a wicked thing, Perce. Such awickedthing to happen, here in our town.”
Percy was about to agree when he heard his name—“Mr. Summers?”—and looked over his shoulder to see Sergeant Duke standing at the end of the hallway.
For the first time, Percy realized how tall the other man was. The hems of his pale trousers were dirt-stained, and his city shoes were covered in dust. “One more thing before you go. Did you say your son was involved with the eldest Turner girl?” He glanced at his spiral notebook and then over the top of his glasses at Percy. “Matilda Turner?”
“They were friends. They went to school together. You know how kids are.”
Sergeant Duke gave no indication whether he knew that or not. He made a note and said, “His name?”
Percy’s attention was caught by the collection of Christmas drawings made by kids from the local school and stuck up on the wall. Maud McKendry had started the tradition years before, as a way to show some community spirit and fundraise for those less fortunate. He could remember his own boys taking part when they were younger, the two of them at the kitchen table with all their colored pencils and funny ideas. It felt like yesterday; it felt like a hundred years ago.
“Mr. Summers?” A drumming of light rain sifted across the iron roof.
“Kurt,” said Percy. The pointed edges of the name stuck in his throat. Only four letters long, and yet weighted with all possible love and hope and dreams. Setting it out there felt like blasphemy. Percy wanted to reach up and catch it in his hands; keep it for himself and away from the gaze of this policeman from the city.
“Thank you, Mr. Summers,” said Sergeant Peter Duke, a mild, unreadable expression on his straight-featured face. “That’ll be all for now.”
5
Rain fell in the glow of the streetlights as Percy made his way along the main street of Tambilla. His trousers were wet and fat drops pitted the brim of his leather hat. When he’d stepped out of the police station, he’d stood for a moment in the dark, face to the heavens, and Doyle must’ve been watching, because he’d come out onto the covered stoop. “Give ya a lift, Perce?” he’d called over the rain. “No trouble, mate. Car’s round the back.”
Percy had thanked him, but told him no. He preferred to walk. His house wasn’t too far and he needed time, before he arrived home, to put some space between himself and what he’d seen that afternoon.
The street was deserted. There was a light on in the kitchen of Betty Diamond’s tearoom and a couple of people in the bar of the Tambilla Hotel across the street. Nowhere near as many as usual. A safe bet half the population was still out with the search. Tambilla was that sort of town. People liked to help one another, regardless of their differences. Percy had noticed Reverend Lawson gathered with the others down on Willner Road when he went with Doyle and the sergeant back to the police station. Word traveled fast. This wasn’t an easy place in which to have a secret.
Christmas candles flickered in some of the windows along the main street. It was becoming something of a tradition in the Hills, started a few years back in Lobethal. Most of the shops over there—and some of the houses, too—put lights up now to mark the season. People liked that sort of thing. Some, he’d been told, took an evening meal when they went to have a look; a basket packed in the back of their cars with picnic blankets so they could make an occasion of it. Kurt had been talking about inviting Matilda Turner to go with him this year. The day before Percy left for the Station, his son had asked if he could borrow the ute. He’d tried to soundcasual, but Percy had always been able to tell from the set of his firstborn’s mouth when he was excited. He and Matilda Turner had been friendly since they were knee-high, part of the same group of kids who mucked around on the walk to school and on weekends at the water hole or down by the old mine. But in recent months, Percy had sensed things were more serious between them. Hard to say how, exactly; an air they carried when they were together, as if they were surrounded by an invisible barrier, so intent on one another that they couldn’t help but exclude everyone else. Then he’d seen the necklace on Kurt’s desk, sitting in its box among the schoolbooks and careful study notes. “That’s a pretty piece,” he’d said, and if the intended recipient hadn’t been obvious to him from the first, the flush that spread across Kurt’s cheeks told a clear story.
That had been last week. Today, he’d seen the necklace again, fastened around Matilda Turner’s throat, the dainty locket resting in the dip of her décolletage. For a split second he’d thought,Well, how about that, the lad has done it!before the shock and other worries pushed it away.
Christ! Percy’s hand went out to steady himself against the trunk of the large old oak he was passing. What he’d seen—the horror of what had happened up there by the water hole. He reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. He’d kicked the habit some years ago, but Esther Hughes had offered him one when he turned up on their doorstep; he’d taken it so hungrily, she’d sent him away with more.
Under the shelter of the tree, he struck a match and drew deeply on the cigarette. What, he wondered, had Sergeant Duke been driving at with his final questions? He’d pushed Doyle for an answer when the two of them were standing out the front. “What was that all about?” Percy had said, gesturing back toward the building. “What’s any of this got to do with Kurt?”
“Kurt?” Doyle had frowned, a look of genuine confusion on his face. “Nothing to worry about there, Perce. Just the big city brass, crossing all the t’s and dotting the i’s.”
But something about the way Sergeant Duke had stood there in the hall writing Kurt’s name in his notebook had made Percy’s heart freeze in his chest. He kept returning to the pause during the interview as the sergeant considered the word “accident” in relation to the scene at the Wentworth place. “I wonder,” he’d said, as if the thought had never occurred to him.
But if not a terrible accident, then what? And why? And how could it have anything to do with Kurt?
A black cat abruptly materialized in the glow of the nearby lamp before disappearing again in a streak across the street. Percy stubbed the last of the cigarette out against the tree’s trunk and started to walk again. It couldn’t have anything to do with Kurt. It didn’t. Like Doyle said, the out-of-town policeman had just been getting his bearings.
One thing Percy knew for certain: his son would be shattered by the news. He was a private person, Kurt—sincere and thoughtful. Marcus was their firebrand, reacting fast and hot whether he was happy or cross. Kurt, though, played things close to his chest; always had, even as a young kid. He would know by now, Percy realized. News traveled fast in small towns, bad news at the speed of light. He felt a pang of exquisite pain, a tactile memory of the fragility of the tiny baby—born six weeks too early—whom he’d held against his chest.
Just beyond the streetlight, Percy caught sight of the shop, and the sign above the awning that read:
Summers & Sons
Grocers
The “s” at the end of “Sons” was glossier than the rest, a distinction that was less visible in the daytime, but which the nearby light brought to the fore, the white paint gleaming where the rest had fadedto matte. It was Meg who’d suggested the recent modification. “The boys are getting older now, Perce,” she’d said. “Helping more, doing their bit. Won’t be much longer and they’ll be finished school. Might as well make it official.”
