Darkening Skies (39 page)

Birraga hospital. Again. A young doctor she didn’t recognise – she’d have remembered the purple spiked hair and the nose stud – took her in hand while Morag Cameron directed Mark’s gurney to an examination cubicle and pulled the curtains closed.

‘I’m
Abby,’ the young woman said, kindness in her eyes as she skimmed over Jenn’s grubby, scratched, bloodied appearance. ‘I’ve come up from Dubbo hospital to help out. Let’s check you over and see how you are.’

Jenn ran her gaze around the emergency room. ‘Rhonda – the nurse—’

‘In police custody.’ Abby’s arm on her shoulder gently steered her towards a bed. ‘She’s no threat to you now. Hop up on the bed here. Is it okay if I take your blood pressure and examine you? You’ve got a fair few scratches and bruises.’

Her attention still half on the curtained cubicle beyond, Jenn acquiesced to the doctor’s request. Disproving the stereotypes of the stud and the spikes, the young woman’s compassion and professionalism impressed her, and almost enabled her to unwind some of the tension that still gripped her.

‘The Dungirri children – how are they doing?’ Jenn asked while the blood pressure cuff tightened around her arm.

‘Most went home this morning. We’ve still got two in, for observation for a little longer. The children who were taken to other towns are all doing well. The two teachers who were flown to Sydney are listed as serious, but that’s better than critical.’ She noted the monitor readings on the chart. ‘I’d like to put in a cannula, give you a litre or two of fluid. Is that all right?’

The familiar panic fluttered in Jenn’s chest. ‘I’m not … I don’t want to stay. I’m not hurt and this place …’
Reduces me to a scared kid
.

‘I don’t think you’ll need to stay overnight. But if you can manage an hour or so while we rehydrate you, you’ll feel a lot
better. And I can get you a cup of tea and some food if you feel up to it.’

An hour or so – she could do that. An hour or so and she should know how Mark was, should have her composure back after the adrenaline crash. Some fluids, a cup of tea and some sustenance and she might even feel human again.

Steve arrived as the young doctor attached the second bag of intravenous fluid to Mark’s drip. He hadn’t needed a transfusion, and for that he was grateful. Jenn fidgeted, restless in the chair beside his bed, unable to settle. She had some colour back in her face and she’d eaten a light meal but she refused a second litre of fluid for herself and he knew she itched to escape.

He didn’t blame her. He, too, wanted to be out of here, somewhere quiet and peaceful. Alone with Jenn.

Steve dragged a chair over and collapsed into it. ‘You two are looking a whole lot better. And I’ve got good news for you. McCarty and the two other guys are in custody. They’re on their way to Dubbo hospital but one of the guys is wide awake and talking fast. Dan and Vanna – they won’t hurt anyone again.’

‘They’re dead?’ Mark asked. He knew the answer but needed to hear it.

‘Yes. Dan bashed Vanna pretty badly. She didn’t make it. It seems that McCarty shot Dan, trying to stop him, and Dan was dead when we got there.’

Vanna and Dan both dead. Mark wished he could feel more relieved. They wouldn’t harm anyone else now, but the repercussions of their decades of influence in the district would
take a long time to alleviate. Too many damaged people, too much damaged trust. How could lives and relationships be healed?

‘How did you find us?’ he asked Steve, because that question might be easier to answer.

‘Your parents emailed me late last night, Mark. You’ve probably got one as well. They’re on their way back and will be here tomorrow morning, but they attached a full statement. The convent’s on one of the original Flanagan holdings; Sister Brigid said that Dan’s great-grandfather donated the land for it. First thing this morning Kris spoke with a couple of the women you identified and they told us exactly where it was. They all have similar stories to your mother’s.’

His mouth still dry, Mark asked, ‘Which is?’

‘Back when all this started, in the seventies, your folks went to the club a few times. Apparently it seemed pretty harmless then – music, some drugs, no-one raising an eyebrow about sex. But they met McCarty, and he blackmailed your mother over her father’s debts, and the sex and domination frightened her. When Len found out there was a fight, him against McCarty, Flanagan and a few others. He was knocked out, doesn’t remember the end of it. But years later, when your parents and Flanagan were deep in business rivalry, photographs were sent to Caroline. Photos of Len in bed with a woman who was tied up and beaten, along with newspaper reports of police finding her body a week after the fight, and threats to send the photo and witness statements to the police unless your mother complied with their demands. It seems that McCarty and Flanagan got their kicks from power
games. Your father was besting them in business but they took sexual control over his wife. And they enjoyed it.’

A spike of red-hot fury made it through Mark’s numbness. ‘Bastards.’

‘No. That’s too mild a word for them,’ Jenn said, her eyes glinting with anger.

‘The prints on the bottle used for the Molotov cocktail – they’re Mick’s,’ Steve continued. ‘We found a phone on him and there are calls – a number of them – between that phone and Vanna’s. The truck he was driving when he tried to run you off the road is an old one that used to be registered to Flanagan’s Transport.’

‘Vanna manipulated him?’

Mark saw the tension in Jenn’s face. ‘It’s not hard to manipulate a mad alcoholic,’ she said. ‘And he never had much of a moral compass. I’m not sad he’s dead.’

‘Can’t say I am, either,’ Steve said. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going to have to go. We’ll need to get statements from you both, but that can wait until tomorrow. Oh, one last thing – Mark, I can tell you officially that there will be no charges over the initial accident and Paula Barrett’s death. Everything we have strongly suggests the vehicle was tampered with and that’s why you lost control of it. There’s no evidence of culpability on your part. The Assistant Commissioner will make a public statement announcing it later today.’

‘But the blood-alcohol report – was it mine? I was here, in the hospital that night.’

‘And so was Rhonda,’ Jenn answered instead of Steve. ‘Vanna told me that she got the blood from “an old alky”. But I knew
before then that it couldn’t have been yours. It was too high a reading. You’d have been slurring, unsteady on your feet. Paula would never have gone in a car with you if that had been the case.’

Steve nodded in agreement. ‘Gil says he saw no sign of impairment, Mark, and I have two witnesses who’ve come forward and said you were playing street cricket with them that evening, totally sober, before you left to pick up Paula. So you can rest easy on that now. I know I will.’

After Steve left, Mark strugged to find some clarity in the complex whirring of his thoughts. He hadn’t caused the accident – but he still carried responsibility for the events of the previous days. ‘I’m sorry, Jenn. All this has happened because I resigned so publicly. If I’d done it differently … If I’d done it quietly, you’d never have been at risk. No-one would have died. Mick wouldn’t have harmed anyone.’

‘And the truth would still be buried.’ She reached over and took his hand. ‘You did what was right. You’re not responsible for Mick’s actions or anyone else’s. There are women who will get some justice now. Gil has justice. Paula has justice.’

More grateful than he could express for her support, he rubbed his thumb gently against her hand. ‘And you?’

‘I have answers. About Paula. Even about my parents’ deaths. Vanna admitted that she killed them. But, Mark …’ She gripped his hand tighter. ‘I still have a lot of questions. About myself. And some of them are as scary as hell. I need to take a little time to work through them.’

He had questions, too. Mostly about Jenn; about what they were to each other and what they could become. But he
understood her need for time. The bond between them had lasted for eighteen years. He could wait another few weeks or months until they came to a decision about their futures.

The tougher question, the one haunting him since Vanna’s comment about him being untouchable, was which man – Dan Flanagan, Gerard McCarty or Len Strelitz – had fathered him?

He remembered the date and year code on the first image of his mother with McCarty. Nine months before his birth. A month before his parents’ marriage. McCarty had coerced her, and who knew what else had happened. And Dan Flanagan had always called him
son
…

Mark was
silent as the constable drove them towards Dungirri in the evening light. Jenn sat beside him in the back seat, and told the constable not to take the turn-off to Marrayin.

‘You need to sleep, Mark,’ she said quietly when he realised they’d passed the turn. ‘You’re exhausted. We’re both exhausted, with too much scope for nightmares. You can’t be alone at Marrayin.’ For her own need, as much as for his, she drew on her courage. ‘There’s a comfortable double bed at the pub. Are we friends enough to simply hold each other and sleep?’

She saw the tiny pause in his breathing, the slow exhale. ‘Yes. If that’s what you want.’

She entwined her fingers in his and rested her forehead against his shoulder, trusting him with her vulnerability in a way she’d trusted few others. ‘It is. Just tonight. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I don’t want to face the nightmares alone.’

‘I’ll be
there, Jenn,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Close your eyes and sleep and I’ll be right there beside you.’

And she could hear Mark’s heart, feel the soft fabric of his T-shirt, the warmth of his arms around her, one hand gently cradling her head against him. Always and never, except for a few stolen moments that had to last.

She breathed deeply and slowly in her sleep, his shoulder her pillow, chestnut hair falling loosely over his arm that held her close to his side. Her hand rested lightly on his chest, and he enfolded it in his, her fingers instinctively curling into his. The sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains. His parents would be here shortly but he was reluctant to break this moment, to wake Jenn and start the day and face others and lose the quiet joy of just being with her.

But he had to.

The wound in his side ached as he showered and dressed in borrowed clothes, but not as badly as the ache in his heart as Jenn withdrew from him. Although she kissed and hugged him before they went downstairs to meet up with his parents, it was affection, not love; any deeper feelings she might have had were hidden behind the smile that didn’t make it to her eyes, and they went down the stairs side by side but not touching.

His parents waited in the courtyard, deserted at this hour of the morning although a tray with coffee cups and a plunger sat untouched on the table.

They embraced him, both of them, hard and tight and his mother’s tears dampened his cheek as she kissed him.

His father
cleared his throat. ‘Mark, Jenn – I don’t know how to apologise, what to say. I’m not the man you are, son. I should have faced them years ago. I should have gone to the police and faced the investigation, whatever it brought. But I didn’t – and Caroline, you, so many others have paid for that. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve you.’

The pain and guilt in his father’s eyes were familiar, but deeper now, and Mark recognised it for the load he’d always carried – maybe even the reason for the constant drive to serve others.

‘I made my choices,’ Caroline reproved her husband. ‘You didn’t make me do what I did, didn’t know until afterwards. But I’m okay. I survived.’ And she smiled, but it was forced and brave and never made it to her eyes.

‘But I should have gone to the police then,’ Len objected, and Mark wondered how often they’d gone around and around the same arguments. ‘We might have had enough, with Wolfgang’s help, to cast doubt on them.’

‘There would have been false witnesses, Dad. They would have convicted and imprisoned you. Or worse. You know that. And that would have left Mum at their complete mercy. I don’t know that I’d have done anything different.’