Darkening Skies Part 18

He smiled just a little. 'Everyone needs someone to lean on once in a while.'

'Who do you lean on?'

'Friends. Kris. Ryan and Beth. You.'

'I left. That's not much of a friend.'

He touched her then, brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek, the caress resonating deep within her. 'You were there when I needed you, growing up. My parents were ... distracted, but you believed in me, understood the things I cared about. You mattered, Jenn.'

A small piece of her heart defrosted. And cracked in pain. 'I wasn't there for you after the accident. I had to go.'

'I know. And you'll go again.'

'Yes.'

Yes, she'd go. She took a step away from him. Better to keep her distance now and resist the temptation to lay her head against his shoulder. She didn't need him, didn't need the rea.s.surance of his strength or the reminder of the affection and intimacy they'd once shared. She didn't want the pain of leaving him again intensified by becoming too close. She'd learned the hard way, last time, that having memories of love didn't make the parting easier to bear.

At least he didn't have the memories, and she didn't plan on giving him new ones.

'I'm sorry I woke you,' she whispered, retreating to politeness.

'You didn't. Bad dreams woke me.'

After too many disturbed nights and enough emotional turmoil to break a weaker man? Not surprising. 'You need to sleep, Mark. You're exhausted. We're both exhausted, with too much scope for nightmares. Go back to bed and think of dogs and count your cattle and you'll drift off.' She gave him a light kiss on the cheek, noticing the sensuality of his unshaven jaw, the faint salty scent of maleness, and was. .h.i.t hard by desire and the longing to slide into his arms and be surrounded by his strength.

She took another step back. Go, she pleaded silently. Go and don't let me give in to temptation to invite you to share this bed and hold me while we sleep.

His fingers brushed her face again, and she almost wished he were flirtatious and cheeky like Steve because she could have dealt with that far more easily than this quiet intensity, the presence of him and his eyes focused on her. 'You go back to sleep too, Jenn. I won't be far away if you need me. If ever you need me.'

He left the room, his footsteps silent on the wooden floorboards and she stayed by the window, staring out into the darkness.

From the living room, she heard the faint rustle of the bedclothes, the soft squeak of the mattress against the floor as Mark lay down again. Alone.

She went to her own bed, pulled the sheet up around her shoulders, rolled on to her side and curled up. Alone.

Her choice, her decision, but regret curled up with her, and she didn't sleep until she allowed herself to imagine being held, safe in the arms of a man who demanded nothing of her and who cared enough to let her go.

He lay flat on his back, wide awake and staring at the century-old pressed-metal ceiling. The ornate floral pattern didn't replace the image of Jenn's face. Jenn, looking up at him, wide-eyed and undecided. She'd wanted him to stay. He'd wanted to stay. And yet ...

And yet he'd left her there. He hadn't drawn her against him, held her and kissed her and comforted her, body to body.

s.e.x? Yes, he thought about s.e.x. His body thought about s.e.x. But she didn't want s.e.x, and beyond a basic pheromone reaction, neither did he. Not right now. He wanted more than physical intimacy from her. s.e.x with her a making love with her a would be wondrous, but not without emotional intimacy. And emotional intimacy still scared her. She'd walled off her heart in self-protection decades ago and strode through life, needing no-one.

He wasn't in a position to offer her much, anyway, and maybe in a few days, when they'd tracked down the killer and untangled the old crimes and new, when the intensity receded to normal, maybe then he'd be able to put their relationship into its proper perspective a an old friendship, a fondness and affection for a woman he respected.

He closed his eyes and let his mind relax, drifting towards sleep. In the semi-awake, semi-asleep stage the neurons wandered along their many paths, unmarshalled by conscious reason, freeing thoughts, ideas, memories and fears filed in various parts of his brain into a buzzing flicker of subconscious voices and images. Things to do. Parliamentary questions. His old dog, Sammy, loping across a paddock. Jenn, frowning over her homework. Insurance policies. Flames. A blue hair scrunchie caught up in a tangled cotton blanket. Sun streaming into the shearers' kitchen and Jenn laughing and reaching back with one hand to drag her wet hair out of its scrunchie.

His eyes shot open again, and he tried to grasp the wisps of memory. Jenn a yes he remembered that day in the shearers' kitchen. Sammy a much loved, long gone, his marker a cairn of stones and a painted tile. The scrunchie, in the room in the shearers' quarters he'd set up as a study and bolthole. The old camp bed he lay on while reading and listening to music, the desk with his books.

He could see himself standing there, holding the scrunchie, puzzling over its presence. It took a moment to pin the memory down. In those first few days home from the hospital, his brain was still healing from the injury and sometimes foggy, making it harder to come to terms with Paula's death, with the gaping hole in his memory, with Jenn's absence and with the news that he'd become Paula's boyfriend. A scrunchie from a girl's hair caught up in the rumpled blanket? The only conclusion to draw at the time was that he'd lost his sense and maybe even his virginity with Paula in those days he couldn't remember.

But Jenn remembered those days, and the only girl he'd ever dreamed about sleeping with, making love with back then, was her. Paula had never featured in his youthful fantasies, and he doubted he'd ever featured in hers.

Whereas Jenn ... Jenn still featured in his dreams. Every few months through all those years, he'd woken in the night, having dreamed of her in his bed, in his arms, in his life. There'd been other women every now and then, even a couple of relationships, but he'd never dreamed of those women the way he dreamed of Jenn.

He turned over and tried to relax the tension in his body. All this time he'd told himself that he'd dreamed of Jenn because he saw her name in the newspapers, her face on the television. That was all.

He must have slept, because he woke suddenly in the first light of dawn to a car's engine revving in the street, a fast brake, and the dogs on the veranda barking in warning.

Steve swore, car doors slammed outside and footsteps sounded on the veranda steps, Dash barking loudly, Maggie growling.

Alert and wary, Mark rolled off the air mattress and pushed to his feet as someone knocked hard and repeatedly on the front door.

'Officer, please, it is urgent. Please open.'

Kris hurried past and joined Steve near the front door as Jenn came out of the bedroom. Mark gently pushed her back, out of the line of sight of the door. Gil came and stood beside them.

Kris checked through the spyhole and nodded at Steve. 'It's okay. It's a couple of tourists I've met.'

The young couple stood on the doorstep, dishevelled and tense. The young man spoke first, his English accented with a soft Scandinavian lilt. 'Officers, there is a murder. A man shot. At Ghost Hill campground. Two hours ago, but we hid, could not come earlier. There was a car, and shouting, and then the gunshots. The killers did not leave straightaway, so we waited in hiding. When they did, we went to help the man a but he was dead. We did not touch, we left him, came straight here, but see this.' The young man pa.s.sed his phone to Steve. 'I took his photo. We do not know his name, but perhaps you know him?'

Steve looked hard at the phone image, then pa.s.sed it to Kris. Mark saw her frown, studying it for a moment before looking back at him. 'Mark, you remember faces well.' She handed him the phone.

In death, the man's face was slack, sightless eyes staring up beneath spa.r.s.e grey hair, jowls fat around his neck. In his sixties perhaps, or older. Mark tried to imagine the face with movement and life, and recognition crystallised.

Mark handed the phone to Gil. 'Yes, I know who that is.'

Gil glanced at the image and nodded.

'Please, wait here for just a moment,' Kris said to the tourist couple. 'I'll take you through to the station shortly to get the details from you.'

She half-shut the door and the five of them gathered in the kitchen, all eyes on Mark and Gil.

'Okay, so who is it?' Steve asked.

'It's Bill Franklin,' Mark said. 'The old sergeant.' The man who'd framed Gil and written a false accident report. At the very least.

Gil said nothing, his dark eyes narrowed.

'The Northern Territory coppers thought he was dead,' Steve said.

Mark thrust his hands into his jeans pocket and leaned on the kitchen table. 'He is now. He had a lot to lose with the reopened investigation. That might be why he was here. But the big question is: who killed him?'

After the abrupt awakening the morning crawled by in uncertainty and restlessness, waiting for news. There was no chance to find a few minutes alone with Mark; the tourists had to be calmed and were invited for breakfast, and then Leah Haddad arrived with her team in quick response to Steve's call, and the small station overflowed with police and forensic officers.

Jenn had to admire the detective's focus. Leah held a quick briefing with Steve and Kris and despatched them to the scene, then interviewed the young couple, called Mark in for some questions and background information and within a very short time was ready to head out to the campground. Before she left she joined Jenn in the kitchen, a young constable behind her.

'I've asked Mark to come with us, because he knows that area well,' she said. 'So, Constable Riordan will stay with you for now.' She paused for a second, hesitation that might have been uncertainty. 'I have a favour to ask you, Jenn. Our media team is flat-out with something else, and the regional media officer has appendicitis a and I need to get a media statement out covering yesterday and this morning. You'd know the kind of thing well a could you possibly draft something up if you have the time? I'd be very grateful.'

Jenn had the time. She had hours to fill, stuck in the cottage with the young probationary constable, who took her duties so seriously that she followed Jenn from room to room. The media statement a how many thousands of these had she read during her career? a took only a short time, bland facts and standard declarations of resources allocated to the continuing investigations and the Crime Stoppers contact number for anyone with information.

She collected the page from the printer in the bedroom and handed it to the constable, Tenita, standing in the doorway.

'Tell me what you think,' she said, not because she needed any rea.s.surance herself, but because the young woman seemed as bored and restless as she was.

Jenn then sat back down at her computer and opened a new doc.u.ment. She should write something. Something other than a bland media statement. She was a journalist in the middle of a series of crimes in a town she'd once known and she should record ...

Record what? Events? She'd done that, in the single page Tenita was reading. Distant, objective statements of fact, circ.u.mstance and intentions. Easy.

She rested her fingers on the keyboard. Could she stand back enough from herself to observe realities and impacts? She had no plans to report anything for now a in fact, avoiding the media was her preference a but maybe there could be a feature article down the track. The effect on a small community. The experience of being caught up in crime after crime. Someone she cared about threatened.

Any number of potential angles came to her. But the page remained empty.

Steve returned several hours later.

'I dropped Mark at Ward's store,' he said, propping against the kitchen bench, more relaxed than he'd been earlier. 'He's getting some supplies for Marrayin. He's worried about things being neglected out there and wants to get back.'

'But-' Jenn glanced at Tenita. 'Is there someone with him?'

'Nope. Good news is, the vic's definitely Franklin. Our Danish friends said he was already camping out there when they arrived yesterday morning. And the portable scanner confirmed that his fingerprints are a match to the ones on Mark's gate on Friday, and yesterday's explosives tape.'

Jenn pushed aside her laptop as relief and worry battled for dominance. 'Franklin tried to kill him?'

'That's what the evidence says. Oh, and the man's a fool. Any cop a h.e.l.l, any crim a worth their salt knows that if you're going to stand on a damp garden in boots with a distinctive print while garrotting a man, you should toss those boots and get a new pair.'

A fool? Or a man panicking? 'So, he tried to get the report on Friday and failed, silenced Doc Russell on Sat.u.r.day, and since Mark was away from home on Sat.u.r.day night he wired his car?'

'That all fits. There's nothing yet to connect him with the attack in Birraga, but I'm still not convinced that was a murder attempt.' Steve grabbed a gla.s.s from the drainer and filled it with water. 'Anyway, Mark's prepared to take the risk and wants to look after things at his place.'

'Do you know yet who shot Franklin?' He couldn't. Not so soon. So, there was still a murderer out there.

'It wasn't Dan Flanagan. He was in Birraga hospital all night with angina, so he's in the clear. Again.' He gulped a few mouthfuls of water. 'Look, I know what you're thinking. But I can tell you that Franklin a his death was execution-style. His prints may well be linked to a drug seizure a while back. He has to have been living off the grid, so to speak, and drug running would make sense. But if you p.i.s.s off the wrong people in that game, there's no need for a pension fund.'

'So, you don't think it's connected?'

His mouth curved into a small grin. 'Oh, all things are connected, Gra.s.shopper, in one way or another. And I may be spectacularly wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. I can still argue a case for protection for you. That's up to you.'

Another day holed up inside? 'No. Thank you. There are some things I need to do.'

He smiled, and this time it wasn't a cheeky grin but a warm smile of friendship. 'Mark said to ask you if you could give him and the dogs a lift to Marrayin. If you want to. Otherwise he'll call Karl and hitch a ride with him.'

If she wanted to? She had plenty of unanswered questions, but that wasn't one of them. Although the answer frightened her. She and Mark were a team, she reasoned, actively searching for the truth, and when they found it she could leave Dungirri with her heart intact. Mostly.

The sun hot on her skin, she walked the block down the main street to Ward's Rural Supplies, the first in the row of century-old shops, the rest of them empty. She pushed the door open, an electric buzzer sounding instead of the jingle of bells she expected. That had changed. Little else seemed to have altered. Tools, stock tags, marking rings, ropes and other supplies on the first few shelves; drenches, weed killers and other chemicals beyond, and deeper into the store stacks of dog food, rolls of wire, fence strainers and star posts.

There was less stock now than there used to be, and instead of Joe Ward, a young woman rang up the stack of items on the counter.

'On the account, Mark?' she asked, casting a quick, curious smile at Jenn.

Mark's smile lasted a good second longer but he gave his attention back to the woman and answered, 'Yes, thanks, Mel. Do you remember Jenn Barrett?'

Mel. She had to be Melinda Ward. Not six years old anymore. Tall and capable in jeans and a cotton drill shirt, with strong hands that had probably hefted many a twenty-kilo bag of feed.

'Hi, Mel,' she greeted her politely. But reluctant to get bogged in conversation with the woman when she'd scarcely remembered the child, she turned to Mark. 'I'll go and get the car from the pub. Won't be long.'

The empty shopfronts she walked past each evoked memories. The bakery and milk bar. The barber's shop. The butcher's shop. All gone, and only George and Eleni's corner store across from the pub providing groceries now.

If Dungirri lost the pub, the town would die.

She left her gear in her room, and was upstairs for only a few minutes, but when she came down she found the local police constable, out of uniform, standing near her car. She'd seen him at the Russells' on Sat.u.r.day morning and out at Wolfgang's yesterday. A young Indigenous man with a serious att.i.tude and an easy manner with his colleagues. Adam, she'd heard him called.

'Hi. Steve just phoned, asked me to check your car before you drive it. Can't see any signs of interference around or under it but let's be sure, hey? You wanna pop the bonnet?'

Checking her car a she hadn't given it a thought. Grateful to Steve and to Adam, she unlocked the door and leaned in to pull the bonnet lever. Adam propped it open and spent long moments examining the engine and surrounds.

'You seem to know what you're doing,' she commented.

'Yeah. I was a mechanic for a few years.' He dropped the bonnet and pressed it down closed. 'She's clear of any surprises. Explosive ones, anyway.'

She thanked him, and he sauntered off down the road. Although he'd a.s.sured her the car was all right, she still hesitated when she put the key in the ignition. The engine hummed to life, and she exhaled a long breath.

Mark waited out the front of Ward's, a couple of sacks of dog food at his feet, and a few tarps and ropes. Once loaded, they collected the dogs from the police cottage, and with the three animals lying on the back seat she reversed out the driveway and turned the car towards Marrayin.

So far their conversation had been practical, about tarps and dogs and Melinda running the store after her father's death. Nothing about their discussion in the night or the connection between them that refused to be ignored. She kept her eyes on the road and the conversation away from that particular emotional minefield.

'You're confident you're safe at home?' she asked.

'Yes. Pretty much. Franklin's dead, and his prints are sound evidence he was the one out there. He was out there, and he had motivation.'

She gripped the steering wheel tightly, the black ribbon of road blurring slightly in front of her. 'So, he killed Jim.'

'We might never know exactly what happened, Jenn. But he left him unconscious in a burning room. That's close enough to attempted murder.'

And for that, she hated the former police sergeant. But hate was destructive and she made herself consider reason and motivation instead. 'I just don't understand why he would have come back. If he'd faked his death and has been living anonymously for the past few years, why did he risk it?'

'Could be any number of reasons, I guess. He'd been in the police service for his entire career. Maybe he wanted to reappear and claim his superannuation pension.'

'If the truth about his role in the corruption came out, he wouldn't be able to.'

'Yes. That's purely conjecture, of course. And we don't know for sure what he was searching for at Marrayin. He probably knew I had the police report, but perhaps he also knew there were photos in existence. Or if my mother had gathered information to hold over Flanagan, he might have been looking for that.'

She turned into the driveway and drove up between the long avenue of trees. The damaged homestead was quiet but for the flapping of the police tape in the breeze and the sounds of cattle in the distance.

Although the kitchen and the east wing had escaped mostly unscathed, sections of the roof were damaged and open to the elements. Not that the weather a huge blue skies and harsh sunlight a threatened more damage yet, but Jenn remembered how quickly a summer storm could come up in the evenings.

It took more than an hour to drag the tarpaulins over the roofline on each side and secure them to the veranda posts, Mark up the ladder and clambering on the roof, Jenn below holding ropes and hoping every moment that the beams were still strong enough to hold.

He'd lent her a hat but by the time it was done they were both hot, sunburned and sweaty. Mark splashed water over his head at the tank stand and she followed suit, drinking long from cupped hands to quench her thirst.