Jill Jackson - 04 - Watch the World Burn (20 page)

The people of Glebe had gone back to the late-night news, checking emails before bed, maybe a last glass of something. The younger kids were sleeping, the older ones online. Back to normal for a Monday night, their train in no danger of derailing, just a brief detour past a scenic route. Something to talk about in the office tomorrow. Jill leaned against Gabriel’s car. There’d never been a ‘back to normal’ for her.

A fallen leaf from a branch above the car startled her briefly, landing in the canoe of her collarbone. She picked it up and held it to her face, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. The night air was warmer here, but with that scent she could have been back on the veranda at Lyrebird. They’d be wrapping up there, too, getting ready for bed. Layla would probably be settling a new roommate in tonight.

Jill opened her eyes to a snapping noise. Gabriel had locked down his evidence kit. After he’d collected the small samples from the scene, he’d spent half an hour taking photographs. He lifted the toolbox into the boot of his car.

‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said.

He took his cap off, looked at her, then turned back to the house. Crime scene were still processing, but the fireys were long gone.

‘I’m going to be working pretty late,’ he said. ‘Processing some of this shit.’

‘I could help.’

Gabriel rubbed at the stubble on his chin. ‘It’s not gonna work, you know,’ he said.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Trying to distract yourself. Haven’t you learned that you have to face it?’

‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said again.

He beeped the doors open. ‘Get in,’ he said. ‘We’ll pick up your car tomorrow.’

The first thing Jill did was to slide open Gabriel’s balcony doors. The summer night blew in. The tree whispered to her; she closed her eyes and listened, but she couldn’t understand the words.

‘You should get some rest, Jill,’ said Gabriel. ‘We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.’

‘You got anything to drink?’ she asked.

He cocked his head. ‘Help yourself,’ he said.

Jill found a bottle of port in a cupboard above the sink. She filled a coffee mug and put the bottle on the bench. She went to find Gabriel. He sat in his computer room, the glow from his machines the only source of light in the room.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Accessing the glass evidence database.’

‘There’s a glass evidence database?’

‘Yep. The techies will put samples of the bottle through spectrographic analysis; that’ll tell us its elemental make-up, but we won’t get access to the results until tomorrow. I did get the results of the bottle thrown into Scotty’s car, though. I’m going to check the database for that now. It holds more than seven hundred glass samples from manufacturers and distributors. It’s not going to give us the source of the glass, but I might be able to assess the chance that two glass samples from different sources would have the same elemental profile.’

‘But you won’t be able to compare them until tomorrow.’

‘And I’ll be ready.’

Jill took another sip.

‘You hungry?’ he said to the computer.

‘Nah,’ she said.

She moved about the room, tapped the keyboard of a sleeping screen. The machine droned into life. ‘What are you going to do after that?’ she asked.

‘Start trying to identify the exact type of accelerant. We know from the prelim analysis that the general type is the same at each scene, but if we can get an exact chemical match, we’re laughing.’ He stretched his arms over his head. His biceps bulged under his black T-shirt. ‘I’m still confused about the results at Incendie, though.’

‘Which results?’

‘The accelerants. Why would he use two – one on the face and one on the clothes?’

‘More bang for his buck?’ she said.

‘Yeah, but more risk. It doesn’t make sense to me.’

‘I’m so tired,’ she said.

‘Your bed is ready. You just have to unfold the sofa. No one’s slept in it since you were here last; I left the sheets on. You want a hand?’

‘No, I’m good.’

Jill kneeled on a computer chair. She swivelled around, catching the desk when it slowed and then spinning it around again. She laughed.

‘Why don’t you have a shower?’ he said, still to the computer. ‘You can sleep in one of my T-shirts. Just get one from the drawer.’

‘You trying to get rid of me?’

‘I’m busy.’

Jill drained her mug and left the room. From the benchtop in the kitchen, Ten watched her, blinking slowly. She moved towards the little cat, and the purrs began before she even stretched out her hand. She gave Ten’s cheeks a massage and poured another drink.

She took her coffee into the bathroom and rested it on the sink. She closed the door. A shower would be good. She hadn’t had a chance to have one when Gabe called tonight, and now her hair stank of smoke. Oh fuck, she suddenly thought. What am I going to wear tomorrow? Should’ve thought of that earlier, Jackson, you idiot, she told herself. She took her cargos off and stripped her singlet over her head. She folded her clothes and stepped out of her underwear, steadying herself on the sink. She threw her knickers into the shower cubicle and joined them.

The water felt great until the walls started spinning. She turned the heat down. The last shower she’d had was at Lyrebird. She couldn’t believe everything that had happened since then. She couldn’t believe they’d buried Scotty just that morning.

Jill lost the sound of the shower under all that sobbing, and when the walls would not stop rotating she sat down. Five minutes later, the stall door opened and Gabriel stepped in. She saw his boots first. He squatted and put his hand under her chin, lifted. She met his eyes. He smiled through the water streaming over his face; his black T-shirt slick against his chest. He reached his hands under her armpits and pulled her to her feet.

She clung to him. Desolate.

Gabriel turned the taps off and stepped out of the shower. He unfurled a huge chocolate bath sheet and held it out in front of him. Jill couldn’t move. Gabriel stepped back into the shower and wrapped Jill in the towel and his arms. She stood there, her head bowed into his chest. Gabriel moved his hands over the towel, over her shoulders and the small of her back. With one hand he lifted the edge of the bath sheet, and with the other hand he lifted her face and dried it. He wiped the towel around each ear. Jill watched his eyes, her own still running. He dried her cheeks again, gently. And then he lifted the towel over her face and rubbed at her hair. Not so gently.

‘Ow,’ she said.

Gabriel led Jill out of the stall and into the lounge, where he’d unfolded the sofa into a bed; the sheets and a light blanket had been folded back. A T-shirt waited on a pillow. ‘You put that on and I’ll be back,’ he said.

‘Don’t go,’ Jill said. She sat on the edge of the bed wrapped in the towel, half her blonde hair spiked at ninety degrees, the other half flopping in her eyes.

Gabriel moved to the pillow and unfolded the T-shirt. He sat next to her on the bed and pulled the shirt over her head, manoeuvring her arms through the holes. The shirt swum on her.

‘Lie down,’ he said.

She reclined back onto the bed and Gabriel pulled the sheets up over her. She didn’t take her eyes from his. Gabriel moved to stand. Jill reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face to hers. Gabriel kissed her once, the briefest touch, and pulled away.

‘You’ve got to try to sleep, Jill,’ he said.

‘Don’t go,’ she said.

Gabriel straightened. ‘Close your eyes, or I’m leaving.’

Jill closed her eyes, reached for his hand. He held it until she fell asleep.

‘I thought you could do with something more than fruit for morning tea today, Mrs Hart,’ said Hamish, standing in her office doorway. He made a knocking gesture and she waved him in. He placed a white cardboard box on her table and dragged a chair for himself closer to her desk. ‘I’ve put the kettle on,’ he said. ‘Instant okay for you?’

‘I’m not sure I need any more stimulation,’ said Erin. ‘Maybe I should just have water.’

‘Open the box,’ said Hamish, ‘while they’re still warm. Then you can decide.’

‘God bless you, Hamish,’ she said. Six churros, dusted with cinnamon sugar. She peeled the lid off the container inside the box. Yep, melted chocolate. ‘You are going to love your Christmas present this year.’

Over coffee and the fluffy Spanish donuts, Erin gave Hamish the details about the firebomb thrown into her dining room. Hamish kept a hand to his throat through the whole tale.

‘Thank God Callie and Reece are okay,’ he said.

Erin’s lip trembled. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

‘Where are they now?’ he asked.

‘School,’ she said. ‘After I called you last night, I contacted a therapist friend and she told me to send them to school this morning. She said that it was best to try to stick to routine after a traumatic event.’

‘I think that’s good advice,’ said Hamish. ‘My friend Toby Darnell quit his job and moved to Canada when his husband left him. He’d never even
been
to Canada. He was back within a month and had to start all over again, trying to get his life back together. I really think it’s best to just get on with things, if you can.’

Erin smiled. ‘Reece was okay to go,’ she said. ‘But Callie was teary. She kept asking if I was going to be okay.’

‘Poor little buttons,’ said Hamish.

‘Neither of them wants to stay at their dad’s this week, either, but I don’t want them home until we fix the place up a bit.’

Hamish nodded. ‘Do the police have any idea who might have done it?’ he asked.

‘They couldn’t really tell me anything last night,’ she said. ‘I just gave my statement to Ron Kennedy. But first thing this morning I got a call from someone. He’s coming around this morning with his partner to go through things.’

‘A cop from Glebe?’ asked Hamish, dunking a churro.

Erin smiled. She knew Hamish was always willing to stay late or come in early when she had a meeting with the local police.

‘Nope. Get this – he’s a federal agent.’

‘Shut – up!’

‘I know.’

They grinned at each other.

‘Well, you are an elected representative, Mrs Hart,’ said Hamish. ‘They should be taking this seriously.’

She made a face.

‘You haven’t changed your mind about tonight, have you?’ he asked.

‘Hamish, I don’t want to go out tonight. After all this–’ It’s the perfect excuse to get out of it, she thought.

‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do – sit in a smelly house by yourself all night?’

‘I thought I might go and stay with my parents tonight.’

‘But you promised! I spent all the money I don’t have on my outfit.’

Erin sighed. Not a day had gone by that Hamish hadn’t mentioned the dinner tonight. She’d asked him months ago, when she’d first received the invite, whether he’d like to come. He’d only just started working with her, and she’d imagined it would be a big imposition to ask him to come to a work function after hours, but she just couldn’t imagine showing up at that swanky do alone. It turned out, though, that Hamish couldn’t wait. He’d circulated the menu to all his friends and had begun shopping that afternoon for something to wear.

‘Well–’ she began.

‘Oh, can’t you see that it’s destiny? Your house was firebombed and we’re going to a restaurant named Incendie where a woman just got burned to death!’ He grinned.

‘Oh. Now that you put it that way, I’m ever so much more tempted.’ The doorbell sounded at the front of the office. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know after lunch. See how I feel.’

‘I’ll get the door,’ said Hamish, pouting. ‘I locked it again after I came in. It seemed like the right thing to do.’

‘Yep. Thanks, Hamish,’ said Erin.

As soon as Erin heard his voice, she madly considered scraping the rest of the morning tea into the garbage bin or her desk drawer, but he was at her door too quickly. Great. Shane. Her estranged husband was the only person on earth she worried about seeing her eating donuts dipped in chocolate.

She stood and moved to the front of her desk. Maybe she could block the donuts with her arse? They’d probably already contributed to its donut-blocking abilities.

‘Erin, are you okay?’ Shane reached his arms out and she stepped into an awkward hug. She stepped away as quickly as he dropped his hands.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I guess so.’

‘It’s just terrible,’ he said. ‘Was there a lot of damage?’

‘Well, it could have been a lot worse. I was just about to call the insurers. Get them to come over so I can start looking around for repairers.’

‘Should I come and take a look?’ he asked.

‘If you want to,’ she said.

‘I mean, I trust you to handle things. I just thought, because it’s our house...’ He trailed off.

‘All that work we put into that room,’ she said. ‘It made me cry.’

‘I’m sure the insurance will pay for a tradie to fix it up.’

‘Yep. I’m sure they will.’

After a moment of silence, Erin said, ‘Oh, thanks again for taking the kids this week.’

‘No. Oh, of course. That’s okay.’

‘It’s not putting you out, is it?’ she asked.

‘Well, I was planning to go away Friday. I don’t suppose things would be back in order by then?’

‘Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot,’ she said. ‘No. That will be fine, I’m sure. Callie wanted to go to a party, anyway. I’d rather she came home after it – I just want to make sure she’s okay.’

‘Well, I mean, if I wasn’t going away, I would have made sure she came back to my place all right,’ he said and smiled. Then frowned.

‘Oh, I know that,’ said Erin. I hate these fucking careful conversations. ‘I mean, I wasn’t meaning to–’

‘That looks like quite a breakfast you’ve had there,’ said Shane, craning his neck to look around her at the desk.

‘Yeah, Hamish just thought, what with the shock and all–’

‘Turn to chocolate. Makes sense.’

‘You hate chocolate.’

‘I don’t hate it,’ he said. ‘I just hate that I have to work extra hard in the gym to get it off me.’

Erin flicked her shirt sleeve back, took a long look at her watch. ‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘The morning’s marching on.’

‘Yes, I should get back to work too,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.’

She smiled sweetly.

‘Do you have any idea who did it?’ he asked.

‘Not really,’ she said.

‘Not really?’

‘Well, I’ve been getting the usual threats,’ she said. ‘This is the first time anything’s come of it, though.’

‘Well, there was that paint thrown at the car that day,’ he said. ‘And the egging of our front door. And all those phone calls that went for months at home.’

‘I remember,’ said Erin. ‘I was there. What’s your point?’

‘Well, I just wondered how long you were going to keep doing this.’

‘What? Working?’

‘No. The politics stuff. You’re a teacher, Erin. I always thought you’d go back to teaching when you’d got this out of your system.’

‘Yes, you always were
so
supportive.’

Shane sighed. ‘I did my best, Erin.’

‘Maybe we should shut the door, or catch up about my political career on another date,’ she said.

‘Well, I should have some sort of say,’ he said. ‘They’re my kids too, and all this–’ he swept a hand around the room, ‘could have got them killed last night.’

Erin folded her arms across her chest. ‘Oh, yes, you’re so concerned about your children’s welfare,’ she said. ‘That’s why you left them to be with a slut half your age.’

‘And here we go again,’ he said. ‘I’ll be going, then. But I don’t know when you’re going to get it, though, Erin. I didn’t leave Callie and Reece. I left you.’