Murderer's Thumb (9 page)

I didn't let on that I'd seen her.

When I got home Granny Bell rang, asking how I was coping. She's really cool for an old lady. I wish I could live with her, wish she was my real granny. She's the only one who understands why I ran away. She says kids need to have parents who listen, not wads of money. Money won't hug you when you're lonely. It's a shame she can't get about any more. It must be the pits living in a wheelchair all day.

I reckon Aunty Jane likes Granny Bell too. She only talked to her that once on the phone when they first organised my stay here, but Aunty Jane's always asking if I've heard from her.

M.T.

Wednesday 30 August

I went down to the wetlands with Emma after school. It's the murderer's thumb part of the property. Pattersons Creek swells into this boggy area where there are heaps of native trees, paper barks and stuff, before it flows out under the bridge and across the road. The undergrowth's thick and the ground's really muddy. Frogs were calling. It was kind of peaceful.

Emma showed me some nesting boxes. She and Matt had done a lot of work, setting up the boxes and planting trees. The place was like a real nature haven.

I found out more about her family. Apparently the Brolga is her dad's second wife. The first one died in a car accident after she'd dropped their kid off at kindergarten. He married the Brolga within months. A bit suspicious. The kid, Rachel—Emma's half sister—is now twenty-two and getting married next year. She's training to be a nurse. I've never seen her, but I've seen him, Neville, a few times. He's twenty-one so technically she's a cradle snatcher. Everyone calls him Mongrel. They're living together in Booradoo but Mongrel milks for Colin on Sundays.

And Matt's turning eighteen early next month. A Virgo. Wouldn't you know it! I hope he has a party and I get an invite. Imagine what would happen if I got him drunk enough and cornered him. He'd probably shit himself. Just a stupid thought. I wouldn't really do it. He's too innocent to know what girls are for, I reckon. It's a pity, because he is cute. But I'm not telling Emma that. She's really protective of him.

M.T.

Thursday 31 August

The only good thing about school is nicking off at lunchtimes. Only the year twelves have permission but I go down the street too. I don't go every day but when my allowance comes in on Thursdays from Mum I look for bargains. I love shopping, especially for clothes. Anything black and sinister is great. Sometimes I don't get back in time for period five. But I don't care. There is only one class I won't miss and that's art. I love it, especially etching, ink work and photography. Basically anything I do in art, I love.

Mum hates the way I dress. She says I look too dramatic, like I should be in a theatre production. She doesn't know shit. I bet she's never been to a play. It would be too frivolous for her. She's so wound up with her business reports and meetings. She loves that kitchenware company more than she loves me. I'm like old stock, stuff in the warehouse she's forgotten about until the whole place burns down.

M.T.

Friday 1 September

Frank and I had a fight again last night. This time it was about leaving my stuff in the lounge room. I told him to piss off. He leaves his work boots by the fire all the time. He said it's not the same as my junk. Junk, what junk? I hardly have anything. He said if he found any more of my dirty socks on the chairs he'd throw the socks in the bin. Aunty Jane just stood there with her mouth open, too scared to interfere. I couldn't stand it so I walked out and slammed the door. I could hear Aunty Jane yelling at Frank to calm down.

I went outside and climbed the middle cypress. When I sit up there I can see right over the Thackerays' farmhouse and down onto Falcon Ridge Road. Emma was strolling up the driveway with a bucket of feed for the calves. I called her over to the tree. She got a real shock when she couldn't see where I was. Then she climbed up beside me and we talked for ages.

Then she told me she and Lugger were off. She had her eye on someone else, some bloke who played footy for Falcon Ridge-Redvale. I asked her how many boyfriends she'd had. She laughed at me as if I was a moron. Then she said she'd been with heaps of guys, she couldn't come up with a number straight away. She finally worked out the tally. It was eighteen.

It all sounded familiar to me. When I was homeless, I'd met some street kids who'd done the same, slept around. They did it to survive, or for a hit. But Emma isn't like that. She isn't living on the edge. Emma doesn't have to steal or hunt through rubbish bins. Emma doesn't have to swap sex for cash. So what is it with her? Must be her parents. She's been oppressed for so long that she's punishing them with shame.

M.T.

Part two lies at the Mount of Venus.
Race to thirds (7,4)
delete first person with a cross.

TEN

Adam shut the diary and took a deep breath. A shadow of guilt crept over him. He'd unearthed something secret, the hidden thoughts of another person. But she was gone, long gone and her journal was meant to be read. He shook off his guilt.

MT wasn't a hoax. She was real and she had to be Lina, the goth. But why did she use the initials MT? Perhaps Lina wasn't her real name.

Reading the diary gave him a rush of adrenaline. The things Lina wrote about Colin and Loody made him smile. And Mrs Thackeray
was
a perfect brolga: fine and angular. An emu would be wrong. Far too scruffy. But it was Lina's comments on Emma that fascinated him. Emma the local girl who slept around. Emma obviously didn't want her parents to know what she was doing. But if Snake was right about Falcon Ridge, then the whole neighbourhood would have known anyway.

It was funny how Adam felt like a spy, just the way MT did. She'd run away from her parents, just like he and Rosemary had run away from Kazek. But her motivation was different. Adam and Rosemary craved freedom; MT had so much, it resembled neglect.

He stowed the diary inside the largest drawer of the bureau. If palmistry was the basis of Lina's clues, then he needed a palmistry map to follow. And if the next part of the diary was hidden in the Mount of Venus, then it wasn't far away. He wanted a good look at that aerial photo in the Thackerays' house. The way MT described the shape of the property, it had to correspond. Then he'd know just how close he was.

There was a knock on Adam's door.

‘Yeah?'

Rosemary stuck her head inside the room. ‘Didn't know snakes rode horses,' she said.

‘What?' Now his mum was saying stranger things than Matt.

‘You've got a visitor.'

‘Who?'

‘Snake.'

Adam went outside. Snake was standing by the verandah holding the reins of a large dappled-grey horse. ‘Where did that come from?' he said to Snake.

Snake laughed and stroked the horse's neck. ‘He's my secret.' He drew the reins over its head. It was an ugly beast, roman-nosed and heavy lidded. The dapples around its jaw formed grey steaks that made it look filthy, as if it had been slurping wet concrete. ‘This is Sarge. He's not mine. He's my sister's.'

‘Your sister? The one in the library?'

‘No, that's Toot. She doesn't ride horses. She's into motorbikes.'

‘Toot?'

‘Her name's Juliet but no one calls her that, unless they want a smack in the face.'

‘So why's she called Toot?'

‘When she was little she rode around on her tricycle calling out “toot toot” all the time. It stuck.'

Adam recalled how Toot pushed Snake out of the way. Were all girls that physical? He tried to conjure up Brock and his sister, back in Deakin Hills. God, it seemed ages since he'd thought about them. He smiled remembering how she draped a sarong low around her hips so that her belly was exposed. Adam was fascinated by the tiny line of pale downy hair that ran from her navel and vanished underneath the sarong. He wished he could have traced the line with his fingers, but he hardly knew her. They'd only smiled and talked. He wasn't even sure if she liked him. He was pissed off about the whole thing: ever since he'd been interested in girls, he'd been on the run from Kazek. There was no time to establish anything.

‘I've got two sisters,' Snake continued. ‘Meredith's doing Vet Science at uni, so someone's got to ride her horse, give him some exercise.'

Bush flies gathered around Sarge's eyes and nostrils and although he shrugged them away, they kept returning, settling on the long velveteen face like gamblers around a casino table. Sarge ground his teeth against the bit and looked at Adam.

‘I like horses,' Adam said. ‘Don't smell as bad as cows.'

‘So how's the milking going? Sick of it yet?' Snake said. He sat on the edge of the verandah and let the horse sniff the ground. Sarge gave a loud snort at the dust.

‘It's OK. I only do Saturday morning, Sundays and Monday arvo. Wouldn't do it seven days a week. Couldn't anyway.'

‘Why not? Most farmers do.'

‘Not me.'

Snake raised his eyebrows.

Adam leant against a verandah post and rubbed at his turned eye. ‘I…we might have to leave suddenly.'

Snake grinned. ‘I get it. You're like fugitives, running from the law or something.'

‘Nah, not the law. It's my old man, the bastard.'

‘Why? What's he do?'

‘He's been chasing us for two years. Follows us everywhere. Waits outside school, or at the footy, then corners me about how we should move back in with him. He always hassles Mum at work. When she leaves in the afternoon he comes after her, begging her to get back with him. He's chased us through shopping centres, swearing and pleading. Even stolen our mail. Rings fifty times a day. That's why we've got a silent number. I ended up chucking my mobile.'

‘Can't you get an intervention order?'

‘Mum tried. They just laughed at her.'

‘Why?'

‘Because he's so old. Like when I say old, I mean ancient. He's over seventy. They got married when he was fifty-four. Mum was only nineteen.'

‘Fuck! You're kidding!'

Adam shook his head and sat down. ‘So that's why we're here, hiding. And that's why I get paranoid about trusting people. Twice now, he got our address from one of my mates at school. Then mum freaks out and off we go.'

Sarge hung his head listlessly and swished his tail. Snake let the reins fall slack. ‘Shit, you have to tell me what he looks like so I can sus him out if he turns up.'

‘He's tall…and he stoops. His ears stick out…he's got grey hair…what else? He wears brown cardigans and smokes a pipe. Plus his accent's pretty thick.'

‘Right. Can't miss him.'

‘Can't miss his car. It's an orange Ford Falcon. Not many of them around. He reckons orange is safe. Looks crap to me.'

The horse shifted its weight and ground its teeth again. A long string of dribble oozed from its mouth and hung motionless in the air, until the weight of it was too much. It broke and plopped in the dust.

‘And I thought my family was weird,' Snake said.

‘How?'

‘Well everyone thinks Toot and me are weird for a start. She's like the biggest tomboy in the whole district and I'm the boy who chooses Home Eco for an elective. And I can't kick straight. Major drawback for someone who loves footy. It's Dad's fault. He loves cooking and he's super clumsy too.'

Adam smiled. At least Snake was under no illusions about his football prowess. ‘Guess everyone's parents are strange. Look at the Thackerays. Colin's not exactly friendly and his wife seems completely out of it.'

‘She is. Doped out on tranquillisers half the time. And she's one of those “born agains” that go to the freaky Jesus church in Booradoo.'

‘What?' Adam laughed. ‘Freaky Jesus?'

‘Yeah, they give testimonials about how they've been saved and all that. If someone screws up they have like a public shaming. Stand up the front and confess your sins. Olwyn Thackeray's right into it. Bags out sexual immorality, you know: underage sex, prostitution, poofters and that.'

‘Really? Never heard her say much at all.'

‘She'll ask you about sex before marriage any day now, you wait.'

‘Great,' Adam said sarcastically.

‘She wasn't always religious. She joined up when Emma was little and tried to get the whole family to go along but Colin kept them home. She went totally off her head when Emma started rooting around. She's a pretty fucked unit.'

‘So everyone knew about Emma and her guys?'

‘We knew through my sister. Mum was shit-scared Meredith would end up the same, but Meredith's got more brains.'

‘Meredith and Emma, were they good friends?'

‘Yeah.'

‘What did she think when Emma disappeared?'

‘Thought she'd gone off with the latest boyfriend… some guy called James. The police called him in and everything but he had nothing to do with it. They released him straight away.'

‘Did they interview Meredith?'

‘Whatd'ya mean? Like you're interviewing me?'

‘Jeez, it's important stuff, isn't it?'

Snake sighed. ‘Yeah…well Barry interviewed everyone who went to the party.'

‘What party?'

‘Meredith's eighteenth, at our place. Dad had beef on a spit and everything. And a barrel of light beer. He thought everyone would get too pissed to drive home. Of course they all brought their own anyway. There were heaps of people, mostly Meredith's friends from school and a few locals from the footy club, the usual crowd.'

‘Did Lina go?'

‘Yeah, her and Emma were there. They left early though. Dad took them home because they had an argument with those arseholes, Mongrel and Loody.'

‘You really hate those guys, don't you?'