He had turned onto the final stretch when he saw the figure up ahead. Standing by the road all alone. Waving.
Chapter Thirty-five
Falk clattered into the station, panting. He had hung up the phone and run all the way from the pub.
‘It was a smokescreen.’
Raco looked up from his desk. His eyes were bloodshot and he still had sleep in the corner of one.
‘What was?’
‘The whole thing, mate. It was never about Luke.’
‘Great,’ Luke muttered as he drove closer, his heart sinking as he was able tomake out who was waving. For a moment, he wondered if he could keep going,but it was a scorching day. It had to have touched forty earlier, he reckoned.
He hesitated a moment longer, then touched the brake and brought the ute to a stop. He wound down the window and leaned out.
Falk opened the Hadlers’ file with shaking fingers, both excited and frustrated with himself.
‘We’ve been tying ourselves in knots trying to find connections to Luke – what was he hiding, who wanted him dead? And what have we ended up with? Nothing. Well, nothing substantial. Lots of minor motives, but not enough. And you were right.’
‘Was I?’
‘I did have tunnel vision. But we both did. We’ve been backing the wrong horse the whole time.’
‘Looks like you’ve got some trouble here?’ Luke leaned out. He nodded at the object lying at the person’s feet.
‘Thanks. I think so. Have you got any tools on you?’
Luke killed the engine and climbed out. He crouched down to look more closely.
‘What’s gone wrong?’
They were the last words Luke Hadler spoke as a heavy weight smashed into the back of his skull. There was a wet thud and a sudden stunned silence as all around the birds in their trees were shocked mute.
Breathing raggedly as he towered over Luke Hadler’s slumped form, Scott Whitlam looked down at what he had done.
Falk rummaged through the file and pulled out a photocopy of Karen Hadler’s library receipt. The wordGrant??stood out above Falk’s own phone number. He pushed the page across Raco’s desk and stabbed it with a finger.
‘Grant.For God’s sake. It’s not a bloody name.’
Karen shut the door to the principal’s office behind her, muffling the everyday sounds of the Wednesday afternoon bustle. She was wearing a red and white apple print dress, and she looked worried. She chose the seat closest to Scott Whitlam’s desk and sat straight-backed with her feet neatly crossed at the ankles.
‘Scott,’ she began. ‘I wasn’t sure about coming to speak to you about this. But there is a problem. And I can’t turn a blind eye to it.’
She leaned in, cautious, embarrassed even, and handed over a piece of paper. On the letterhead, the Crossley Educational Trust logo stood out against the white background. Karen peered up from under her blonde fringe, her eyes looking for one thing. Reassurance.
Somewhere in the deepest fight-or-flight part of Scott Whitlam’s brain, a hidden door cracked open and offered the briefest glimpse of just how far he was prepared to go to stop her.
‘Grant,’ Falk said, pointing at the diary. ‘Also known as a bursary, a fund, a windfall, a financial gift. Like the kind Kiewarra Primary applied for from the Crossley Educational Trust last year. And their claim was rejected. Except guess what?’
Raco blinked in disbelief. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘I’m not. I was on the phone this morning to the head of the trust, and Kiewarra Primary was successfully awarded a financial grant of fifty thousand dollars this year.’
In hindsight, Whitlam could pinpoint the singular moment when he blew it. He had picked up the page, branded with its telltale letterhead, and examined it. It was a form survey, sent automatically to successful grant recipients to gather feedback on the submissions process.
It wasn’t much of a smoking gun, which meant there was probably more paperwork, he guessed. Other things that she’d kept back. Karen was giving him a chance to explain or confess. Whitlam could tell by the way she looked at him, with those blue eyes begging for a reasonable answer.
