Under the harsh shop lights, the man’s warm smile froze mid-grin as recognition kicked in a moment later. His eyes darted around the deserted shop, which Falk suspected had been as empty for most of the day. A moment’s hesitation, then the smile continued. Easier to have principles when you’ve got dollars in the till, Falk thought. The shopkeeper guided him through the store’s limited apparel selection with the thoroughness of a gentleman’s tailor. Falk bought three shirts, because the man seemed so grateful that he was prepared to buy one.
Back on the street, Falk tucked the purchases under his arm and continued on. It wasn’t much of a walk. He passed a takeaway that seemed to offer cuisine from any corner of the world as long as it was fried or could be displayed in a pie warmer. A doctors’ surgery, a pharmacy, a tiny library. A one-stop store that appeared to sell everything from animal feed to gift cards, several boarded-up shopfronts and he was back at the Fleece. That was it. Kiewarra’s main hub. He looked back, toying with the idea of giving it another pass, but couldn’t work up the enthusiasm.
Through the window of the pub he could see a handful of men staring indifferently at the TV. His bare room was all that was waiting for him upstairs. He put his hand in his pocket and felt his car keys. He was halfway to Luke Hadler’s place before he knew it.
The sun was lower in the sky when Falk parked his car out the front of the Hadlers’ farmhouse in the same spot as before. The yellow police tape still hung from the door.
This time, he ignored the house and walked straight over to the biggest of the barns. He peered up at the tiny security camera installed above the door. It looked cheap and functional. Fashioned from dull grey plastic with a single red light glowing, it would be easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there.
Falk imagined Luke up on a ladder, fixing it to the wall, angling it just right. It had been positioned to capture as much as possible of the entrances to the barns and the shed, where the valuable farm equipment was stored. The house was merely an afterthought, the small slice of driveway captured by accident. The property wouldn’t go under if thieves stole the five-year-old TV. Losing the water filter from the barn would be another story.
If someone else had come along that day, had they been aware of the camera? Falk wondered. Could they have been there before and known what would be captured? Or had they just been lucky?
Luke would have known his ute’s number plate would be recorded, if he had been the one behind the wheel, Falk thought. But by that point, maybe he simply didn’t care. Falk walked across the yard and did a complete circuit of the outside of the house. Raco had been as good as his word at keeping out prying eyes. Every blind was drawn and every door locked tight. There was nothing to see.
Needing to clear his head, Falk left the house behind him and tramped out across the paddocks. The property shouldered the Kiewarra River and up ahead he could see a copse of gums marking the boundary. The summer sun hung low and orange in the sky.
He often did his best thinking on his feet. Usually that involved pounding the streets around his city office block, dodging tourists and trams. Or clocking up kilometres around the botanic gardens or the bay when he was really stumped.
Falk knew he used to be at home in the paddocks, but now it all seemed very different. His head still felt crowded. He listened to the rhythm of his steps against the hard ground and the bird calls echoing from the trees. The shrieks seemed louder out here.
He was nearly at the boundary when he slowed his pace, then stopped altogether. He wasn’t sure what made him hesitate. The line of trees in front of him stood shadowy still. Nothing moved. An uneasy feeling crept up Falk’s shoulders and neck. Even the birds suddenly seemed hushed. Feeling a little foolish, he glanced over his shoulder. The paddocks stared back blankly. The Hadler farm lay lifeless in the distance. He’d walked the whole way around it, Falk told himself. There was no-one there. There was no-one left in that place.
He turned back in the direction of the river, a feeling of foreboding still fluttering in his chest. When the answer came, it crept up slowly, then thundered home all at once. Where Falk stood now, he should be hearing the rush of water. The distinct sound of the river carving its way through the country. He closed his eyes and listened, seeking it out, willing it to materialise. There was only an eerie nothingness. He opened his eyes and took off at a run.
He plunged into the tree line, pounding along the well-worn trail, ignoring the whip and sting of the occasional overgrown branch. He reached the river bank breathing fast, and pulled up short at the edge. There was no need.
The huge river was nothing more than a dusty scar in the land. The empty bed stretched long and barren in either direction, its serpentine curves tracing the path where the water had flowed. The hollow that had been carved over centuries was now a cracked patchwork of rocks and crabgrass. Along the banks, gnarled grey tree roots were exposed like cobwebs.
It was appalling.
Struggling to accept what his eyes were telling him, Falk clambered into the cavity, hands and knees scraping against the baked bank. He stopped in the dead centre of the river, in the open void where the heavy ribbon of water had once been deep enough to close over his head.
The same water he and Luke had dived into every summer, wallowing and splashing as they soaked up its coolness. The water he had stared into for hours on bright afternoons, fishing lines dangling hypnotically, with his father’s sturdy weight at his shoulder. The water that had forced its way down Ellie Deacon’s throat, greedily invading her body until there was no room left for the girl herself.
Falk tried to take a deep breath but the air tasted warm and cloying in his mouth. His own naivety taunted him like a flicker of madness. How could he have imagined fresh water still ran by these farms as animals lay dead in the paddocks? How could he nod dumbly as the worddroughtwas thrown around, and never realise this river ran dry?
He stood on shaky legs, his vision blurred as all around the cockatoos whirled and screamed into the scorching red sky. Alone, in that monstrous wound, Falk put his face in his hands and, just once, screamed himself.
Chapter Fourteen
Falk sat for a long while on the river bank, letting a numbness seep over him as the heavy sun dipped lower. Eventually he forced himself to his feet. He was losing the light. He knew where he was headed next, but couldn’t be sure of finding it in the dusk.
He turned his back on the path leading to the Hadlers’ property and instead headed in the other direction. Twenty years ago there’d been a small river trail. Now Falk had to rely on his memory, picking his way over exposed roots and dry undergrowth.
He kept his head down, focused on not losing his way. Without the great river flowing alongside as a beacon, he caught himself nearly wandering off track several times. The surroundings looked different now, and markers that had once been familiar failed to appear. As he was beginning to worry he’d gone too far, he found it. He felt a sharp rush of relief. It was a short distance from the bank, almost overrun by scrub. As he trampled his way through the thicket, a spark of happiness raced through him, and for the first time since he had arrived in Kiewarra he felt the stirrings of homecoming. He put his hand out. It was still there, it was still the same.
The rock tree.
‘Shit, where did they go?’
Ellie Deacon frowned and delicately kicked aside a small pile of leaves with the toe of one beautiful boot.
‘They’re down there somewhere. I heard them hit the ground.’ Aaron scrambled around the rock tree. He crouched, scouring the ground and sifting through dried leaves for Ellie’s house keys. She watched through hooded eyes and half-heartedly turned over a small stone with her foot.
Falk ran his hand over the rock tree and smiled properly for what felt like the first time in days. As a child, it had seemed like a miracle of nature. A huge eucalyptus had grown tightly against a solid boulder, its trunk curving around to trap the two in a gnarled embrace.
When he was younger, Falk had been at a complete loss to explain others’ lack of fascination with the tree. Hikers walked past every week with barely a glance, and even to other kids it was little more than a quirky landmark. But every time Falk saw it he wondered how many years it had taken for the rock tree to form. Millimetre by millimetre. It gave him the free-falling sensation that he himself was a tiny dot in time. He liked it. More than twenty years later, he looked at the rock tree and could feel it anew.
