‘Yeah. Listen, Jamie, you should know, it’s at Luke Hadler’s place.’
‘You’re joking. I was just with him. Is he OK?’
‘I don’t know the details. I’ll call you. Let yourself out. Love you.’
‘You too.’
And he was gone.
Sullivan got dressed with shaking fingers and drove home. He’d seen a shooting accident once before. A friend of a friend of his father’s. The acid copper stench of blood had slithered up to the back of his nostrils and lingered for what had felt like months. The memory of it was almost enough to conjure up the hot sick scent again, and Jamie was blowing his nose when he arrived home to find two fire trucks outside. A firefighter in protective clothing met him as he ran to the door.
‘It’s all right, mate, your gran’s OK. I’m afraid your kitchen wall’s another story.’
‘After you went to Jamie’s asking questions he called me, scared,’ Leigh said. ‘He said he’d been caught off guard and had lied to you about where he was.’
Leigh looked them both in the eye. ‘There’s no excuse for that. I know that and he knows that. But I ask you, please don’t judge us too harshly. When you’ve been lying about something for so long it becomes second nature.’
‘I’m not judging you for being gay, mate, I’m judging you for wasting our time when a family’s lying dead,’ Raco said.
The doctor nodded. ‘I know. If I could go back and do things differently, I would. Of course I would. I’m not ashamed of being gay,’ he said. ‘And Jamie – he’s getting there. But there are plenty of people in Kiewarra who would think twice about letting themselves or their kids be treated by a poof. Or want to sit next to one in the Fleece.’ Leigh looked at Falk. ‘You’ve seen first-hand what happens when you stand out here. That’s all we wanted to avoid.’
They sent the doctor on his way. Falk thought for a beat, then jogged out of the station after him.
‘Hey, before you go. I want to ask you about Mal Deacon. How bad is his dementia?’
Leigh paused. ‘I can’t discuss that with you.’
‘One more thing for the list, eh?’
‘I’m sorry. I would. But I really can’t. He’s a patient.’
‘I’m not asking for specifics. General observations will do. What kind of things can he remember? Ten minutes ago but not ten years ago? Vice versa?’
Leigh hesitated, glancing back towards the station. ‘Very generally speaking,’ he said, ‘patients in their seventies with symptoms similar to Mal’s tend to suffer fairly rapid memory deterioration. The distant past may be clearer than more recent events, but often the memories blend and get muddled. They’re not reliable, if that’s what you’re asking. Generally speaking, that is.’
‘Will it kill him? Last question, I promise.’
Leigh’s expression was pained. He looked around. The street was virtually empty. He lowered his voice. ‘Not directly. But it complicates a lot of things healthwise. Basic personal care, nutrition, it all gets compromised. I’d suspect a patient at that stage would have a year or so, maybe a little more. Maybe less. It doesn’t help if the patient’s had a drink or three every day of his adult life either. Generally speaking, of course.’
He nodded once like a full stop on the conversation and turned. Falk let him go.
‘They should both be charged. Him and Sullivan,’ Raco said when he returned to the station.
‘Yeah. They should.’ They both knew it wouldn’t happen.
Raco leaned right back in his chair and put both hands over his face. He gave an enormous sigh.
‘Jesus. Where the hell to now?’
To kid himself that they weren’t stuck in yet another dead end Falk put in a call to Melbourne. An hour later he had a list of all the light-coloured utes registered in Kiewarra in the year Ellie Deacon had died. There were 109.
‘Plus anyone from out of town could have been driving through,’ Raco said gloomily.
Falk ran his eyes down the list. There were a lot of familiar names. Former neighbours. Parents of his old classmates. Mal Deacon was on there. Falk stared at that name for a long time. But so was everyone else. Gerry Hadler himself, Gretchen’s parents, even Falk’s dad. Gerry could have seen half the town at the crossroads that day. Falk closed the file, fed up.
‘I’m going out for a bit.’
Raco grunted. Falk was glad he didn’t ask where.
