‘It’s blank. Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘Have you got a single photo of Lachie’s dad? One picture you can show me?’
She met the question with silence.
‘Have you?’ he said.
‘I don’t have to show you anything.’
‘It can’t have been easy for you. When Luke met Karen.’ Falk didn’t recognise his own tone. It sounded distant and cold.
‘For God’s sake, Aaron, he’s not Lachie’s father.’ Gretchen’s face and neck were flushed. She took a slug of wine. A pleading note had crept into her voice. ‘We hadn’t slept together for – Jesus, it had been years.’
‘What happened? Luke didn’t want to settle down with you, has one eye on the road. Then he meets Karen and –’
‘Yeah, and what?’ she interrupted. The wine sloshed against the side of her glass. She blinked back tears, and any earlier tenderness was gone. ‘OK, yes, it pissed me off when he chose her. It hurt me. Luke hurt me. But that’s life, isn’t it? That’s love.’
She stopped. Bit the tip of her tongue between her front teeth.
‘I wondered why you didn’t like Karen,’ Falk said. ‘But that would well and truly do it, wouldn’t it?’
‘So? I don’t have to be her best friend –’
‘She had all the things you wanted. Luke, the security, the money, at least what there was of it. You were here on you own. Your child’s father had moved on. Left town allegedly. Or was he actually down the road playing dad and husband to other people?’
Gretchen rounded on him, tears spilling over now. ‘How can you ask me this? If I had an affair with Luke while he was married? If he’s the father of my son?’
Falk stared at her. She had always been the beautiful one. Almost ethereal. Then he remembered the stain in Billy Hadler’s room. He remembered Gretchen raising her gun and shooting those rabbits down.
‘I’m asking because I have to ask.’
‘Jesus, what is wrong with you?’ Her face had hardened. Her teeth were stained from the wine. ‘Are you jealous? That for a while I chose Luke and he chose me? That’s probably half the reason you’re here now, isn’t it? Thought you might finally manage to get one up on Luke now he’s gone.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said.
‘I’m stupid? God, look at you,’ she said, louder now. ‘Always following him around when we were younger like a lapdog. And now,even now, you’re hanging round in a town you hate because of him. It’s pathetic. What kind of hold has he got over you? It’s like you’re obsessed.’
Falk could almost feel the eyes of his dead friend watching them from that album.
‘Jesus, Gretchen, I’m here because three people were killed. All right? So I hope for your son’s sake that lying about your relationship with Luke is the worst thing you’ve done to that family.’
She pushed past him, knocking his wineglass off the table as she went. The stain seeped like blood into the carpet. She flung open the front door and a gust of hot wind blew in a flurry of leaves.
‘Get out.’ Her eyes were like shadows. Her face was flushed an ugly red. On the doorstep she took a half-breath as though she was about to say something more then stopped. Her mouth twitched up in a cold little smile.
‘Aaron. Wait. Before you do anything rash – I’ve got something to tell you.’ Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘I know.’
‘Know what?’
She leaned in so her lips were almost at his ear. He could smell the wine on her breath.
‘I know your alibi for the day Ellie Deacon died was bullshit. Because I know where Luke was. And it wasn’t with you.’
‘Wait, Gretchen –’
She gave him a shove.
‘Looks like we’ve all got our secrets, Aaron.’
