“What? I can see Mummy.”
“Oh.” Sure enough, a little farther up the path stood Rita. She was holding Henry against her chest, her hair falling down her back as they both craned their necks up. The little boy lifted a chubby hand to the sky, marveling at the ferris wheel creaking and clanging above them.
“Wow, can we go onthat?” Eva called, running toward her mother, who broke into a smile as she saw Raco and Falk following.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“As expected,” Raco said, and Falk nodded. They came to a stop on the path by Rita, and Falk looked up himself.
“Whereabouts was her carriage?” he heard Raco ask quietly, and Falk pointed.
“Right near the top. Around where that one is, or the one next to it.”
Raco tilted his head back and shielded his eyes. Falk watched the top carriages move and thought, yet again, about those few seconds a whole year earlier. He tried to slow the scene down, freeze it in his mind to examine it more closely.
What had he seen? There had been the stroller bay, near the base of the ride, where Zoe Gillespie would be found alone two and a half hours later. The path ahead. Gemma had been there, of course, talking to Naomi—the whole reason Falk had stopped walking at all. He’d seen Rohan, too, underneath the ride, talking to those Queensland tourists before looking up. Falk gazed up at those carriages now and wished—not for the first time—that he had focused a little longer when it had mattered. If he’d been less distracted, would he have seen something that would have made a difference? Any clue as to what had been going through Kim Gillespie’s mind, in those final few hours?
“Dad.”Eva was pulling at Raco’s hand. “Can we please go on this one?”
Raco was still squinting up, his face hard to read. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, Eva. Let’s go on this one.”
They bought three tickets and joined the queue, waiting among couples and families until the attendant directed them into a carriage of their own. Falk sat on one side and Eva and Raco on the other as the attendant locked the door behind them, enclosing them safely in the capsule. The wheel started to turn and Eva shifted in her seat, making the carriage sway gently as she pressed her face to the vertical safety bars.
“Here we go,” she called as they lifted into the air.
Falk leaned against the bars himself, watching the view change as they glided upward. They were nearly at the top when the ride slowed and shuddered to a halt to let people on and off below. Not far from where Kim and Zoe’s carriage had been, Falk guessed, when he’d seen Rohan wave from the ground.
Had Kim hesitated at all before waving back? Falk really couldn’t be sure. But gazing down, he could understand why she might have. It felt even higher up here than it appeared from below. The people seemed small and much farther away than he’d expected. Falk could believe it might take a moment to notice what was going on.
And there was a lot going on, he realized. Turning in his seat, Falk could see right across the festival grounds. All the way, from the main entrance to—he twisted in the other direction—the distant white flash of the first-aid station tent visible near the back exit. Beyond that lay bushland and the reservoir.
“I can seeMummy,and I can seeHenry.” Eva pointed them out in turn, then thrust her arm through the bars and waved. On the ground, a handful of people waved back. “Daddy, look.” She tugged at Raco’s sleeve with her free hand. “You’re not even looking.”
“Sorry,” Raco said, with a cursory glance down.
Eva had been right, Falk saw, Raco hadn’t been looking at his family. Instead, he’d been doing exactly the same as Falk. Running his own gaze right across the wide, expansive view beneath them.
Falk didn’t need to ask why. A year earlier and a couple of dozen meters lower at ground level, Falk might not have been able to make out much at all. But from this height… his eyes met Raco’s over the top of Eva’s head. They were thinking the same thing, he could tell immediately.
Up here, from the vantage point of this bird’s-eye view, Kim would have been able to see everything that was going on below.
22
Falk left Raco and Rita once again battling with the kids’ car seats and walked back to the vineyard alone, thinking hard. He beat them this time, too, and was about to let himself into the guesthouse when he heard his name being called.
“Aaron. G’day. Do me a favor and come and try this, mate.” Charlie appeared in the doorway of the large barn. He had a bottle of red in his hand and was holding it up to the light, frowning slightly.
Falk walked over. The barn had been closed since he arrived, but he followed Charlie inside now to find a large, cool space with high ceilings and exposed beams. Wide shutters lay open to let in both the breeze and the glorious view of the vineyard stretching out beyond. The concrete floor looked recently swept, and the place smelled clean and fresh. Someone—Charlie, presumably—had started to set out trestle tables and chairs.
Falk could see another man rummaging in a storage cupboard across the room. Rohan, he realized, as the bloke straightened and stepped out, brushing dust from a barbecue gas canister. At the far end of the barn, Zara was sitting cross-legged in a patch of sunlight, blowing bubbles for Zoe. Naomi was there, too, a forgotten stack ofsilverware half organized on a table in front of her as she sat absorbed by the sight of the one-year-old stretching up her soft little arms to the bubbles floating in the air.
“Great space,” Falk said as Charlie handed him a glass with a splash of wine in it.
“Thanks. We hire it out for weddings sometimes. Getting it ready for tomorrow.”
“This is for the christening?”
“Yeah, well, afterward at least.” Charlie grinned and nodded at the wine in Falk’s hand. “Anyway, have a taste of that. Rohan?” He beckoned, holding up the bottle. “It’s last year’s grenache. Thinking about opening some for tomorrow.”
