‘It varies,’ said Grace. She reached behind her to the fridge and fumbled under a crayon drawing. She handed him a brochure. ‘Rising Stars Agency,’ she said.
‘I know it,’ said Scobie, feeling panicky.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’ He coughed. ‘Fraud. And he photographs children. Anything else?’
Grace Duyker grimaced and rubbed at her forehead. ‘I think so but Mum was always cagey about him. Protective, but also embarrassed. I heard rumours in the family that he’d been done for exposing himself, groping schoolkids on a train, something like that. When he was young.’
‘How old is he now?’
About fifty-five.’
Scobie wrote in his notebook and Grace watched him, pleased and avid. He ate the second muffin.
‘More?’
Scobie was warming to her. ‘What about when your daughter gets home from school?’
‘I’ll bake another batch. No problem.’
This time she ate one with him. He didn’t mind being managed in this way. Even so, he knew he’d have to watch what he said. For all he knew, Grace Duyker might contact Neville Clode and Peter Duyker just to gloat, thereby warning them, or her husband was in on it. Or she was.
‘Where is Mr Duyker now?’
‘Mr Duyker. That’s good. Mr Duyker’s too close for comfort.’
‘He’s here on the Peninsula?’
‘He returns every so often-I think when things get too hot for him elsewhere. He rang a few nights ago to say he was back.’ She sensed Scobie’s frustration and added, ‘A shack in Safety Beach. Fibro holiday house. Been in the family for decades.’
Scobie noted the address. ‘You haven’t seen him this time around?’
‘No. He wanted to visit the other day, but I put him off
Scobie said carefully, ‘What does he drive?’
Grace shrugged. ‘Never paid much attention. I’m not good on makes.’
‘Van? Sedan? Four-wheel-drive?’
‘Oh, a van, to cart his gear around in,’ said Grace.
‘Colour?’
Again she shrugged. ‘There have been two or three over the years. White? One year he had a yellow one but it broke down.’
‘Married? Children?’
‘No.’
‘Does he have friends here?’
Grace was enjoying herself again. ‘Oh, Uncle Pete and Nifty Nev have always got along well.’
31
In the mid-north of South Australia, Jim Ely was thinking that the Bluff’s forefathers had chosen a well- drained site for the cemetery. On a gentle slope beyond the town’s stockyards, it was screened by several old gum trees and was an oddly silent place, especially today, a soft spring day, and a good day for digging a new grave.
Ely arrived just after lunch that Thursday, driving his rattletrap truck, a Massey Ferguson tractor on the back. The tractor came with a bucket on the front, and a backhoe, making it a useful piece of machinery for hire in the district. Ely was always in demand. He’d been digging graves for ten years, but he also contoured paddocks to protect against soil erosion, dug septic lines and carved out drains, dams and swimming pools. He’d known Ted Anderson: they’d gone to school together. He’d known Ted’s wife, even dating her a couple of times. With a heavy heart he parked the truck on clear ground near her grave and unloaded the tractor. The funeral was early the next morning, so today was Jim’s only opportunity to prepare the grave. The Catholic priest’s circuit took in several towns, and he was giving the service at two other funerals on Friday, eighty kilometres apart.
Galahs screeched from the trees, disturbed by the racket Jim was making. They wheeled pink and grey against the balmy sky and settled again as he worked.
The soil above Glenda Anderson’s coffin had settled in the five years since her death but soil once disturbed is easier to gouge out than soil compacted or baked hard since the beginning of time. Jim carved away. He knew that Glenda’s coffin was two metres down. He wouldn’t go that deep, of course, but leave a hand’s width of soil above her for her husband’s coffin.
The thing is, when Jim made his first swipe at the soil, going down about half a metre, and had swivelled around in the tractor and deposited that first load, and returned for his second, he spotted an anomaly in the loosened earth. He got down and crouched for a better look.
Heavy-duty black plastic, maybe a garbage bag. But the scoop’s steel teeth had gashed it open and a putrescent mass was oozing out. The stench was stupefying. Odd place, he thought, to bury offal or a dead pet. He didn’t want to think past that.
He climbed aboard the tractor again and manoeuvred the bucket carefully, deftly going in under the plastic and hoisting it out. Soil fell away. The whole oozing mass rolled like jelly.
He swung around and gently trundled to a far corner of the cemetery, where he deposited the putrid bag. Jim’s intention was clear: finish digging the grave, nice and tidy, ready for Ted’s coffin tomorrow morning, then rebury the rubbish somewhere else.
Still his mind wasn’t letting him make the obvious leap. That didn’t happen until the bag split open and slime-covered trousers and shoes emerged into the open air for the first time in several years.
32
The child psychologist’s accusations were serious, but Ellen wanted more facts before she tackled van Alphen and Kellock. Besides, it was too soon after the Nick Jarrett shooting. She would start by talking to Alysha Jarrett, and phoned Laurie to arrange a time.
High school got out at 3.30. Laurie Jarrett arrived with his daughter at 4.15. ‘This had better be good,’ he said. He glanced around Ellen’s office with contempt. ‘I can think of better things to do than share a building with my nephew’s killers. You say you want to talk to Alysha?’
‘Yes.’
Ellen’s gaze went to the girl. Her initial impression was of a pretty child, physically advanced, wearing black leggings and a yellow top that showed her midriff. A typical thirteen-year-old, in fact. But she wore rings in her ears and navel, dark makeup around her eyes, as if she were years older, and knowing.
‘About what?’
‘Neville Clode.’
‘Ah.’
Ellen cocked her head. ‘Laurie?’
‘Nothing. Ask away.’
Ellen began with a series of gentle questions. It soon became apparent that Alysha’s air of knowingness had no foundation: she was a child; her replies in response to Ellen’s gentle probing and her father’s gentle coaxing were slow, monosyllabic and affectless. But she had clearly been abused by Clode. She hadn’t the guile to be a convincing liar, or the ability to read people or situations to her advantage. Ellen was surprised that Kellock and van Alphen hadn’t seen that. Instead, they’d demonised her because she was a Jarrett, hated by the police and the
