Flare-up: a tense, taut mystery (A Cam Fraser mystery) Read online

  He scratched his head and looked up, saw the wool bales balanced on the beams above his head. He noticed that the bale closest to the end was slightly darker than its companions, as if spoiled by water. Upon further scrutiny, though, he realised the colour wasn’t caused by water at all, but by a moving mat of flies.

  He stopped breathing for a moment, felt his stomach flutter. Rita’s voice faded into the background.

  ‘I think one of the signs Sergeant Harris meant was the way he’s been so distant and distracted lately.’

  Cam took several cautious steps underneath the beam and regarded the bale from a different angle. Near it, a spider web quivered with the vibrations of ten thousand wings.

  Rita continued the conversation, unaware of Cam’s preoccupation with the shed roof. ‘I mean, just because he forgot my birthday last month . . .’

  Cam was no longer listening. The buzzing of the flies competed with the sharp peal of warning bells in his head.

  ‘Rita,’ he said finally, ‘I think you’d better call the police.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Constable Leanne Henry’s latest dietary experiment involved eating the same amount and the same kind of food as usual, only splitting it into six small meals a day instead of three large ones. She was sure she’d lost weight since applying this theory, but the downside was the constant clock-watching. It made the time drag — especially when she was on traffic duty, like now.

  She’d parked behind some scrub in the dusty truck parking bay, out of sight of the cars on the highway. All around her in the gravel clearing the heat jellied up from the ground, making the shredded truck tyres littered about her curl like dead goannas in the sun.

  The clock blinked three and it was time for her second lunch. She unwrapped her polony and sauce sandwich and took the first rapturous bite: ecstasy! Rationed food always seemed to taste better. A sip of fully leaded Coke to wash it down was better still. Radio traffic had been slow, so she turned up the regular station to listen to the news headlines while she ate.

  ‘Another terrorist attack in Rome leaves four dead.’

  She took a second bite of sandwich. The tomato sauce had sogged through the bread, leaving it pink and doughy.

  ‘Flooding in India leaves thousands homeless . . . Oxfam appeals for donations.’

  She shook her head before taking another slurp of Coke.

  ‘. . . The Canadian Meat and Livestock Association confirmed that a fifth cow has tested positive for mad cow disease.’

  Leanne stopped chewing and turned up the radio.

  ‘All five cows were infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy before new restrictions on animal feed came into effect,’ the newsreader continued. ‘Efforts are now underway to identify whether any other animals are at similar risk. Scientists believe humans can contract a deadly brain-wasting disease by consuming beef products from cows infected with the disease. The federal government has urged the Australian public not to avoid beef products, as there has been no sign of the disease in Australia.’

  Despite the smooth, reassuring tones of the newsreader, Leanne was not convinced. She pinched the remnants of the polony sandwich with her fingertips and stepped out of the police Commodore, heading for the rubbish bin near the parking bay exit.

  Mulling over the health benefits of vegetarianism, she barely noticed the ground shuddering beneath her feet until the car and caravan were almost upon her. They hurtled into the parking bay, forcing her to step back into the scrub behind the bin, the driver oblivious, it seemed, to the parked police car only a few metres ahead. A curse accompanied the opening and slamming of the old four-wheel drive’s door, and the driver made an undignified dash to a scraggly jarrah at the edge of the clearing.

  Leanne didn’t need to see the old man’s face; she’d recognise those legs, with their knots like blue marbles, anywhere. While his back was turned she crept back to her car so as not to cause him too much embarrassment.

  She waited until he was heading back to his vehicle before calling out, ‘G’day, Mungo, how’s it going?’

  Adjusting the utility belt at her waist — she was sure it felt looser — she walked over to him, finding it hard to keep the smile from her face. The old man always reminded her of the sidekick in the old cowboy movies she used to watch with her dad — Walter Brennan, was it?

  Mungo did a double-take and paled under his tan, his face wrinkled as a walnut.

  ‘Crikey, Leanne, no need to give a bloke a heart attack.’ He was prone to shout too, like many of Brennan’s characters, partly from deafness and partly from a constant state of near hysteria for which his own stupidity was usually the cause.

  ‘You would have seen me sooner if you’d not been in such a hurry to greet the tree.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you know what it’s like for us old fellas.’

  ‘’Specially after a skinful, eh, Mungo?’

  ‘Now, that’s not fair, not fair at all, Leanne; it’s me prostrate, that’s what it is. You shouldn’t be flinging accusations around like that.’

  ‘All the same, I’m going to get you to blow into the bag. Hopefully you can prove me wrong.’

  Leanne fetched the breathalyser from the police car.

  Mungo ran a hand over his brow, shot an apprehensive glance at the caravan and spat on the ground. ‘Sure is a hot one, Angel. Mind if we move over to the shade?’

  The caravan lurched on its axle. Leanne looked from it to Mungo and frowned. ‘Is someone in there? I suppose you do know that it’s an offence to allow someone to travel in a moving caravan?’

  ‘Nope, it’s not that. Just moving some stuff for the missus, something must have shifted.’ He rocked back on his worn thongs, hands behind his back, eyes wide as poached eggs.

  She caught a scuffling sound from inside the caravan, then another noise — a bleat? Surely she was hearing things. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to open the caravan door, sir.’

  Mungo gave a nervous laugh. ‘What’s this “sir” caper? You going all official on me, Leanne?’

  Leanne kept her face impassive and stared back at him. The caravan rocked again. Mungo let out a huffing breath. ‘Oh, all right, then, but it’s all above board, nothing illegal.’ He lifted the latch and creaked open the caravan door.

  About ten pairs of bright eyes returned Leanne’s stare. One of the sheep made a dive for the open door and Leanne slammed it shut before she had a mass escape on her hands.

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. ‘Nong.’

  ‘Just moving some sheep on for agistment, Leanne.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you using your stock crate? Show me your weigh-bill.’ She put out her hand and clicked her fingers.

  ‘Umm, didn’t think I needed one for such a short distance. Me trailer tyres were buggered, anyhow.’

  ‘You know very well — ’

  Her words were interrupted by the distorted voice of Sergeant Harris over her car radio.

  When she returned from the car, Mungo was sitting slumped on the caravan’s wheel guard. One thong askew, he was drawing lines in the dirt with the yellowing nail of his big toe.

  ‘Quick, blow into this, I’ve got to go.’ She shoved the tube into his mouth, giving him no choice, and he ended the procedure with a hawk and a spit.

  ‘Not bad,’ she said as she took the reading. ‘You’ve just scraped through.’

  The grin almost cracked his face, until she added, ‘But you’re not off the hook for the sheep. Take them to the station so Derek can check out their brands and ear-tags. I’ll radio ahead and let him know you’re coming.’

  ‘Aw, fair suck of the soss, Leanne!’ was all she heard as she raced back to the police car.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cam watched Leanne’s arrival from where he was sitting with Rita under an olive tree near the shed. A funnel of red dust spiralled into the air as Leanne applied the Commodore’s brakes and skidded to a stop. With an inordinate feeling of relief, he pulled his arm from Rita’s shoulders an
d climbed to his feet, smacking the dirt from his jeans. It had been tough sitting it out with Rita, knowing he could offer little in the way of comfort, as sure as she was that it was her husband’s body they’d found in the wool bale.

  Rita barely acknowledged Leanne’s arrival, continuing to sit under the tree with her head in her hands. Leanne moved over and touched her arm. ‘Is there anyone I can ring for you, Rita?’ she asked gently.

  Rita took a shuddering breath. ‘Cam’s already rung my sister. She’s coming as soon as she can.’

  ‘A cuppa, then?’

  Rita shook her head. ‘I think I could use a shower, that smell . . .’

  Cam put his hand on her elbow and helped her to her feet.

  After Rita had turned in the direction of the farmhouse, Leanne whispered, ‘You really think it’s him?’

  Cam shrugged as he watched Rita move down the race towards her tin-roofed farmhouse. The big dog, coat tanned as a summer paddock, slunk at her heel like a tame wolf.

  ‘The body’s quite badly decayed,’ he said. ‘I tried to hide it from her, but she noticed one of the arms sticking out through the rotted cover of the wool bale. She recognised his shirt.’

  Leanne exhaled. ‘Jeez.’

  Shading his eyes, Cam looked along the Pilkingtons’ long, tree-lined driveway. ‘Sergeant Harris not with you?’

  ‘On his way.’

  The silence stretched. Finally Cam cleared his throat. ‘Do you want me to show you where it is?’

  Leanne shot him an awkward smile, nodded and followed him into the shearing shed. He flicked on the light and regarded the interior, as if for the first time, through the young constable’s eyes.

  Apart from the addition of electricity and a modern wool press, the place hadn’t changed much over the last hundred and seventy years: ‘A renovator’s dream come true,’ Pizzle had enthused during one of their brief catch-ups.

  Bright sunlight filtered through strategically placed holes at the top of the western wall, where the early settlers would have stood on barrels to take pot shots at the Aboriginal stock thieves. The walls consisted of stacked layers of Toodyay stone, strata of pinks, greys and algae green, sandwiched together with baked mud. Situated on slightly higher ground than the others, this shed was the only building left of the original settlement washed away by the great river flood of 1832.

  Pizzle had confided to Cam his ambitious plan to turn the old place into an antique shop and tearoom. The first thing he’d do, he’d explained, would be to excavate the original dump site in the olive grove and fill the shed with the valuable settlers’ relics that were sure to be in it. There was good money in settlers’ relics: antique bottles alone were worth a small fortune these days. And some people made a lifetime hobby of collecting rusty old farm tools — paid hundred of dollars for them. What he didn’t want to keep he’d sell, and they’d probably pay for the restoration themselves.

  ‘The problem is, I don’t have the money right now to hire the machine I need for the digging,’ he’d said. ‘Any chance of a loan, Cam?’

  Cam was shaking his head when Leanne’s voice pulled him back from his thoughts.

  ‘Crikey, it stinks in here,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t think much of it when I was shearing. Some of the sheep were struck and Rita told me there was a dead one under the shed floor. I thought that explained it.’

  Hands on hips, Leanne pivoted on her heel, fixing her eyes first upon the bale on the beam, then on the hanging block and tackle next to it. She moved to the wool press. Turning her back to it, she regarded the bales of crumbling hay stacked against the far wall, absently running a gloved hand down a limp sack curtain hanging from the roof. She seemed to be looking at anything and everything but what Cam wanted her to see.

  He waited for her to have a good look. When it became obvious she’d missed it, he directed her with his finger to a dark stain on the floor near the door.

  ‘I noticed it when I was sweeping,’ he said.

  Leanne’s face took on a look of serious concentration as she examined the irregular patch of discolouration just inside the door. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Cam, I mean.’ She sighed as she straightened. ‘Could be animal blood.’

  ‘Could be,’ he said, leaving it at that. ‘Rita and I discovered the body when we were sweeping up the spoiled wool. We piled the wool up over there in the corner. It has all sorts of junk in it.’

  ‘Then I guess it’ll be me who has to sort through the dags — as usual,’ Leanne said with a grimace. ‘We’ll have to take the haystack apart bale by bale, too.’

  Cam nodded. Leanne had learned a lot about procedure over the last few months. Her probationary period was almost up and she’d soon be a fully fledged constable. With her natural curiosity and caring nature, all she needed was a bit more maturity to become a very good one.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Hope Sergeant Harris isn’t going to be too much longer. I’m supposed to be meeting Ruby and Jo at the old Rawlins place.’ He paused. ‘Maybe I’d better cancel.’ Yes. Cancel. His mind latched on to the idea and wouldn’t let go. Leaving the force after twenty years’ service was a hard enough notion to grasp. The thought of looking at rural properties for his proposed horse agistment business after a day like today was almost unbearable.

  Leanne rolled her eyes as he reached into his back pocket for his phone. Her here-we-go-again expression wasn’t lost on him. ‘There’s no way I’ll make the appointment with the real estate agent at five o’clock,’ he added defensively, hesitating over the buttons of the phone to steel himself for his daughter’s reaction.

  ‘Just tell Ruby you’ll be late. She and Jo can talk to the agent and you can join them later. It won’t be dark for hours,’ Leanne said.

  Jeez, she must think I’m scared of my own daughter, he thought. Can’t she see I’m not scared of her, I’m scared for her?

  Cam blew out a breath and rang Jo’s mobile. She was out of range so he left a message that he was running late. Jo would understand, but he’d have to make it up to Ruby with a fish-and-chip dinner tonight.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cam paced around outside the shed, waiting for the inevitable round of questioning that he yearned, with a pain that was almost physical, to be doing himself. Every now and then he surreptitiously peered through the open door to see what they were up to. He’d seen Harris climb the ladder and inspect the wool bale on the beam, then walk the scene with Leanne. When she pointed out the stain on the floor, Cam sidestepped away from the door and eavesdropped with the flies under the shade of the veranda roof.

  ‘Good work, Constable,’ he heard Harris say.

  Next Harris called the Scene of Crime Officers and the pathologist, all still busy at an accident at Toorrup. The new sergeant seemed incredulous when he was told they wouldn’t arrive for several more hours, and even more so when he heard he might become the officer in charge of the case.

  ‘They have a long way to come,’ Leanne reminded him. ‘It’s not like the city, with everything on hand twenty-four/seven. Even Toorrup is an hour and a half’s drive from here.’

  Harris grumbled something into the handkerchief he’d clamped over his nose.

  ‘It’s usually up to us to handle the crimes on our patch. I mean it’s not like we haven’t handled murders on our own before,’ Leanne added with a puff of pride that would have made Cam laugh had the circumstances been different.

  Harris had no idea about the working of the shearing shed, and next he asked her to explain the wool press to him.

  ‘They stuff the wool in the sack that’s held in the frame of the press,’ Leanne said. ‘Then they push this button and a pneumatic thing forces the square plate down hard to compact the wool into the bale. Once the weight gets to around two hundred kilos they tie the bale off, then they move it out of the way and start the next one.’

  ‘So the body’s been compacted along with the wool. I hate to think of th
e damage; let’s just hope the poor man was dead first. But what’s the bale doing up on the — ‘A barrage of sneezes snapped his sentence short.

  ‘Bless you,’ Leanne said when he’d finished. She continued with her spiel. ‘Anyway, farmers store bales if the wool prices are low, holding on to them until the prices rise again. The bales would’ve been hauled up using the block and tackle that’s hanging off the beam. I reckon one person could’ve easily put it up there on his own.’

  ‘Or her own.’ Harris trumpeted his nose into his handkerchief. ‘Okay, we’d better get prints off the block and tackle as well as the press.’

  When Leanne had finished Harris’s crash course in wool handling, they joined Cam outside. Harris blew into his sodden handkerchief then pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing so hard Cam thought his eyeballs might fall down his throat.

  Leanne frowned. She caught Cam’s eye before saying, ‘Are you all right, Sarge?’

  ‘Bloody hay fever,’ Harris moaned, dropping his hands to his sides with a disheartened smack. His nose twitched as if he were about to sneeze again. He took a sharp breath and the muscles of his face tensed — then sank with the anticlimax as the sneeze failed to happen.

  ‘I’ll get the crime-scene tape from your ute,’ Leanne said to him, suppressing a smile as she headed towards the vehicle that only a short time ago Cam had considered to be his own.

  ‘Glad to see you looking better,’ Harris said, awkwardly, his voice sounding as if he were speaking through a pillow. They’d only met once before, when Cam was about to be discharged from hospital. His replacement had turned up with a box of melted chocolates and a swag load of questions about the police district he was about to take charge of.

  ‘Question time, ‘Harris continued.‘But first let’s get further away from this ghastly shed.’