‘Right.’ Falk suppressed a smile. Raco may be sporting the uniform and talking the talk, but Falk had been around long enough to know off-the-books probing when he saw it.
‘Maybe Luke picked up a few odd spares somewhere,’ Falk suggested.
‘Yeah, definitely could have,’ Raco said.
‘Or the shots were the last in the box and he threw away the package.’
‘Yep. Although there was no sign of that in the household rubbish or his ute. And believe me,’ Raco gave a short laugh, ‘I’ve checked.’
‘Where haven’t you searched yet?’
Raco nodded at the missing weatherboard.
‘On this property? I think this officially makes everywhere.’
Falk frowned. ‘It’s a bit weird.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I thought too.’
Falk said nothing, just stared at him. Raco was sweating hard. His face, arms and clothes were covered in grime and dust from scrabbling around in the baking heat of the sheds.
‘What else?’ Falk said.
There was a silence.
‘What do you mean?’
‘All this effort. Down on your hands and knees all morning in a dead man’s barn, in this heat,’ Falk said. ‘There’s something more. Or at least you think there’s more.’
There was a long pause. Then Raco breathed out.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘There’s more.’
Chapter Five
They’d sat for a while by the side of the house, backs up against the wall beside the loose panel and grass prickling the backs of their legs. Making the most of the thin slice of shade while Raco ran through the facts. He started with the slightly detached air of someone who’d said it all before.
‘It was two weeks ago today,’ he said, fanning himself loosely with the crinkled porn mag. ‘A courier with a delivery found Karen and made the emergency call. That came in at about 5.40 pm.’
‘To you?’
‘And Clyde and the local GP. The dispatcher notifies us all. GP was closest so he was first on the scene. Dr Patrick Leigh. You know him?’
Falk shook his head.
‘Anyway, he was first, then I turn up a couple of minutes later. I pull up and the door’s open and the doc’s crouched over Karen in the hall, checking her vitals or whatever.’ Raco paused for a long moment, staring out at the tree line with an unfocused gaze. ‘I’d never met her, didn’t even know who she was then, but he knew her. Had her blood all over his hands. And he’s yelling, kind of screaming at me, you know: “She’s got kids, there might be kids.” So –’
Raco sighed, and flipped open Luke’s aged pack of cigarettes. He put one between his lips and offered the pack to Falk, who surprised himself by taking one. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smoked. It might easily have been in this very same spot with his late best friend next to him. For whatever reason, taking one now felt right. He leaned in as Raco lit the ends. Falk took a drag and immediately remembered why he’d kicked the habit easily. But as he breathed deep and the smell of the tobacco mingled with the tang of the eucalyptus trees, the heady sensation of being sixteen again hit him like the rush of nicotine.
‘So anyway,’ Raco picked up. His voice was quieter now. ‘The doc’s yelling and I bolt off through the house. No idea who’s in there, what I’m going to find. If there’s someone about to step round a door with a shotgun. I want to call out to the kids but I realise I don’t even know their names. So I’m yelling, “Police. It’s OK, come out, you’re safe,” or something, but I don’t even know if it’s true.’ He took a long drag, remembering.
‘And then I hear this crying – this sort ofwailing– so I follow it, not knowing what’s waiting for me. And I go into the nursery and I see that little girl in her cot, screaming blue murder, and honestly, I’ve never been so glad to see a kid bawling her eyes out in all my life.’
Raco blew a plume of smoke into the air.
‘’Cause she wasfine,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t believe it. She was scared, obviously, but not hurt that I could see. And I remember thinking at that moment that it might all still be OK. Yes, it was sad about the mum, tragic. Butthank God, at least the kids were OK. But then I look across the hall and a door’s ajar.’
He carefully ground his cigarette butt into the dirt, not looking at Falk. Falk felt a cold dread seep through him, knowing what was to come.
