Cobram
Wednesday 14 September
Fitz had sent a telegram to Raff a few days back. Will be in Cobram for some time. Raff would either reply that he was sending mail, or that he was on his way. If there was still trouble, or if he had more information for Fitz, Raff would bring it himself. The police wouldn’t let up if they thought Fitz still had something to report.
On his way back to the hotel, he saw Patto still waiting patiently where he’d left him in the stables. Crossing the road, Fitz pushed on the door at the Cobram Courier newspaper office. Locked. Peering through the window, he couldn’t see anyone inside. Maybe a good thing after all. If he was going to write a story on the strange goings-on around here, it would be better to remain anonymous. In a small town like this, he’d need to be careful getting the story into the local paper—that’s if the editor wouldn’t be too nervous about printing it.
His nom-de-plume, Mr Fossey, was well known in some parts for his scathing and accurate depictions of injustices, and he’d gained a following as Fitz moved from district to district. Maybe he should retire the name, let its notoriety fade. Simply signing off the next article as Our Correspondent would save any more so-called ill repute.
He stared across the road at the pub. Big Tim had asked him where he was staying, so had his brother. Neither man gave him a sense of security, so he’d camp out, like he’d told the barman, though the thought curled his lip a little. He’d much rather have good shelter, a bed and a bath. Heading for Patto, he reckoned if Robbo was going to accompany him to the property, it was time to meet him on the road. Fitz just hoped they weren’t going to scare the daylights out of the poor wife when two fellas rode up to interrupt her day. That’s if she was there.
They turned off at the cairn and the track was a good two-wheeler, well used.
‘The house is a little way in off the main road,’ Robbo said, a smoke dangling from his lips. He flicked away the flies, tugged his hat lower.
‘Big piece of land?’ Fitz asked.
‘Nah. Six hundred acres. Wouldn’t do no one much good on its own, ’cept for buyin’ yourself a feed.’
Fitz liked the look of the country. Big old gums squatted here and there, others rose, majestic, tall and proud reaching high above. Saplings too, cheeky and strong, stood in clusters; gangly youngsters loitering by their bigger brothers. Shrubs, flowering maybe, he didn’t know their names, but the area was thick with them. Powdery dust under the horses’ hooves covered a country thirsty for water, and wooded plains ran for a few miles on either side of the track. Glimpses of white sand intrigued him and as they got closer to the river, he realised he was looking at a small beach.
‘Plenty of those along this stretch of water, real pretty,’ Robbo said. ‘This way.’ He steered his horse off to the right as the track split into two.
The small house appeared in a clearing dotted with the long dead trunks of trees sawn down, most likely used for the building. No smoke curled up from the chimney. No livestock around except for a few chickens scratching and pecking over by the wood heap.
Robbo stopped. ‘You around, Miz Bayley?’ he called.
Silence. Not even a rustle of leaves on the breeze. A blowfly buzzed. A bird swooped on it. They nudged the horses closer.
Bayley. The name rang a bell. Bayley … Damn. That was the name he’d been trying to recall, Gideon’s brother-in-law’s name. Seems this was the place he’d been looking for. But what had happened here?
One wall of the dwelling was made of handmade bricks but the rest of it was mostly wattle and daub. Set on a small rise about a hundred yards up from the river, it had little charm despite its beautiful surrounds. Ramshackle, on a lean; there were some thick, rough-hewn planks placed in strategic positions propping it up. The roof was made of old corrugated iron, some sheets had rust chewing away at what little cover they afforded. Off to the side of the house was a decent-sized copper sitting on a stack of bricks; there’d be remnant coals underneath from when the wife had last done her laundry. Fitz wondered if there’d be any warmth still in them, but looking around thought likely not; it was clear the place had been abandoned a while. Swathes of fabric hung listlessly in two open windows that were devoid of glass. Had shutters ever been fitted to protect against the bitter winter? How the hell anyone lived like this …
They dismounted. Robbo called out again. Still no answer.
‘It don’t seem right, does it? Like, when you know a place is empty because folk have gone to town or whatever, it still has life, somehow. But this’—Robbo shook his head—‘this place doesn’t have life, you know?’
Fitz knew. ‘There’s no feeling.’
‘That’s it.’
‘When was the last time you saw your mate?’
‘Maybe four, five months. He weren’t real happy, but never said much about what was botherin’ him. Then when I come out again, weeks later, she said he’d just upped and gone one day. Left the house like usual and didn’t come home.’
‘On foot?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Drowned, maybe?’
Robbo shook his head, took the smoke from between his lips and pinched the end to make sure it was out. He poked the butt behind his ear. ‘Don’t reckon. Less he was chasin’ somethin’ an’ it ran into the river, but by that time he had no sheep left. Sold ’em. And folk around here respect this river, don’t take it lightly. It woulda been a bit cool then, so he wouldna been swimmin’, neither.’
Fitz drew in a breath. ‘Would he have …?’
Robbo lifted a shoulder. ‘Who would know? I woulda said not, but life can wear a man down.’ His gaze flickered away.
Fitz knew that well enough. He stared at the serene river. Any secret it had about Bayley would likely remain that way. A body might never be found if it got snagged deep below.
‘So, he had sheep,’ Fitz mused. ‘He must have had fences then, done a bit of work.’
‘I helped him do some of it, but just before he disappeared, he said he’d finish the rest himself. Wasn’t too much to do. Still, even small as the place is, it’s a bit of a job on your own. I was offerin’ to help for nothin’, a friend an’ all.’
Fitz could see Robbo’s concern and that he was genuinely bewildered. ‘What do you think happened?’
Robbo wiped a hand under his nose then dug his hands in his pockets. ‘I reckon he mighta been run off the place.’ He shrugged, furtive. ‘I dunno.’
Swinging his bony shoulders a little, Robbo said, ‘That’s the scary part. She waited a while, months, then one day, gone.’ He gaped at Fitz, eyes red-rimmed. ‘Where’d she go?’ he asked the air, kicking at the dirt. ‘Nothin’s happened out here since her ol’ man’s been gone, no one’s tried to take the place from her, far as I know. So I dunno. I dunno.’ More anxious now.
‘Let’s look inside.’
‘What for?’
‘Might see something you didn’t see the other day.’
Robbo trudged up to the door and hammered a fist on it. ‘Miz Bayley,’ he yelled. ‘Open up, it’s me, Cyril.’ He only waited a few beats, then threw up the latch and swung open the door.
Fitz stepped inside behind him. Light poured in from the open window spaces opposite, no glass in them either, no shutters. A crude curtain, the faded fabric maybe from old flour bags, hung limp and streaked. Dust motes were suspended in the air. Sure enough, the table was set for one, the cutlery skewed, a teacup—a lady’s cup—was on its side nearby, contents dried, the stain inside the cup revealing that tea had still been in it when it was pushed over.
‘Possums have cleaned up the rest,’ Robbo muttered and brushed dung pellets off the table. ‘It’s eerie. I don’t like it in here.’
The table, its top scuffed, its solid legs turned, had once been a good piece, a handsome thing. Only two chairs; one was tipped over, resting on its back. By the fireplace, there was an old, stained settee, big enough for two people to sit and warm their feet at the hearth. Possum piss covered it, and droppings dotted in the sagging seat cushions. There was only one internal wall with a door in the place. Must be the bedroom, unusual in a hut of this size. Fitz gave Robbo a look.
‘There was nothin’ when I checked last I was here, so I just closed it again,’ he said. ‘Didn’t want no vermin in there.’
No warning stench was obvious so Fitz crossed the earthen floor, lifted the latch, and pushed the door. There wasn’t a body.
Behind him, Robbo breathed a loud sigh of relief. ‘Just as I left it,’ he said.
The bed was an iron frame with a thin mattress. A floral cover was on top of the quilt, and pillows in calico cases were neatly stacked. The window over the bed was shuttered, the only one in the place, and nothing had been degraded by possums that might have otherwise marched over everything, leaving their droppings and squirting urine indiscriminately. A chest of drawers and a pair of lady’s slippers sat neatly underneath. A blue checked dress, its hem ragged in places, hung on a hook nearby. Above, the ceiling was intact.
The one place a woman could feel sheltered, a neat space, a sanctuary.
Fitz stood in the room, the picture before him belying the life the woman must have led.
‘So where’d she go?’ Robbie asked again, foot tapping.
Fitz eyed something on the dresser, a little wooden doll crafted by someone who’d chiselled delicately and scraped and smoothed the pale timber. Faded blue-checked fabric made a tiny pair of trousers. The dress on the back of the door—the woman had cut a piece from her clothes. A pullover shirt on the doll had possibly been fashioned from an old handkerchief. ‘You said they buried a child here.’
‘Yeah, that was a year ago, or more.’
‘Where’s the grave?’
‘Bit of a walk, I reckon I can still find it. This way,’ Robbo said, only too happy to leave the house.
They marched a fair way past the horses and into the low scrub at the back of the house then climbed a gentle rise. Over his shoulder, Fitz saw the river wind in a broad ribbon away to the west, a peaceful meandering, a quietly determined flow that took no notice of man, beast or machine. He faltered only a moment; if this place were his, he’d have built here, right on this spot, high enough up on the hill to see that sight every waking day.
A rough gouge in the bank on this side took his eye. Pointing at it, he asked, ‘What’s that?’
Robbo squinted. ‘Start of a channel looks like, maybe Roy was tryin’ to get water flowing.’ A grunt of surprise. ‘I never knew he started. Need more’n one man to do that.’ He kept up his pace.
Fitz’s gaze swept the landscape as his boots scrunched over the dry fuel load. It’d be a bastard here if the scrub caught alight. Ahead, as if to let him know fire had roared through, a narrow stand of long dead trees, burned to towers of charcoal, threaded its way down to the water.
Despite it, the piece of land was a treat; no wonder folk were vying for it. As he trudged behind Robbo, the sorrow, the stillness of the place weighed on him. Something had happened out here. He stopped, tried to hear its voice. Looking to the sky, the blazing heat of the late-afternoon sun fell on his face. A blowfly dived close, darted off. Silence enveloped him. There was nothing to—
‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’
He heard a sob in Robbo’s voice. When Fitz got to Robbo, the man was on the edge of a clearing, turned away, bent over and gagging onto the dust.
Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he pointed behind him. ‘That’s her.’
A little wooden cross marked a mound surrounded by a low circle of rocks. Over the grave was the body of a woman, fully dressed. She’d been ravaged by nameless creatures. Ants busied about, intent with purpose. Flies rose and swooped again. Face down, she was prone over the grave, her hair straggly, scalp torn and blackened. Her right hand was flung towards the base of the cross, the fleshless fingers curled loosely around it.
It looked as if her grief had killed her.