Clementine rolled up a pair of jeans and shoved them in the open suitcase. The faded yellow bedspread was strewn with clothes, a bulging garbage bag sat upright under the open window, one arm of a white shirt flopped over the lip. Pocket limped into the room and sat near the door, watching quizzically, his bandaged leg resting lightly on the timber floor.
She bent down and ruffled the tuft of fur on the back of his neck. ‘It’s okay, mate, you’re coming too,’ she said. His tongue flopped out, his mouth in a wide grin, his tail like a windscreen wiper. She pulled open another drawer, scooped up an armful of T-shirts, pushed them roughly into the case.
Pocket’s ears pricked up and he clamped his mouth shut, then scampered away up the hall, squealing with eagerness. Then she heard it too. A car coming up the driveway.
Oh God. She rushed over to the window. She just saw the back end of a green Holden station wagon behind the plum tree in the front yard before the corner of the house obscured it from view.
She hadn’t seen the car before. No one came out here. Someone lost, she thought? Someone from next door? Not Jim, he drove a Landcruiser. Her heart started pounding. Ambrose’s gang mates? No, she could hear Pocket yelping at the front door. It was his welcome noise.
A knock at the door. Pocket ramped up the excitement, barking wildly.
She put the clothes down on the bed, walked up the hallway to the door, her socks making no sound on the floorboards. Pocket’s tail was wagging furiously. Definitely a friend. But she didn’t want visitors. Not now. Not ever.
She approached the front door, slowly, peering at a shape through the frosted-glass strip running down one side of the door. A stick? Not a stick, too straight, too uniform. She took a step closer. Crutches.
Oh God. Rowan.
Another knock. Pocket was going crazy.
‘Clem, it’s me,’ Rowan shouted.
He knew she was home—her car was in the driveway. She would have to open the door. Just get rid of him fast, make something up.
She opened the door halfway. He was grinning at her, the same grin he’d flashed through the car window when they first met after she’d smashed into his van. His three-day growth, the short, clipped hair, everything about him the same as it had been then.
‘I bloody hope that car’s an automatic,’ she said. Dempsey’s Handyman Van had been impounded as evidence.
‘Yeah, well, it’s only my left leg that’s bung. You gunna invite me in or what?’
He was wearing a tailored shirt, tapering in close to his waist, the dark blue of the collar framing his jawline. It occurred to her that he’d put his best shirt on for this visit. She was dismayed.
‘No, sorry, I’m not.’
‘Oh, come on. You have to now. Can’t let me drive in this condition.’
‘Look, Rowan, I can’t. I’m in the middle of something.’
‘I’ll give you a hand.’
‘No, really, I don’t need any help.’
‘You heard from the evil drug lords again or something?’ he asked. Now that Gerard had been arrested, the word was out about Ambrose and the drug ring at the centre of the horrifying events in the Arkuna National Park.
‘No, no. It’s all fine. But I really can’t talk right now.’
‘If it’s about the other day, at my place—’ he said.
‘No, no,’ she stammered, looking at the doormat, ‘nothing like that, I just…’ She looked up. ‘Actually, yes, it is.’
Rowan looked away, the crutches splayed either side of him, his bad leg resting forward. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have—’
‘No, Rowan, it’s fine…really.’
‘I shouldn’t have…shouldn’t have mentioned Kate either,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘It was just the way you…just someone caring, you know. But it’s not anything to do with Kate. I don’t… you two are so different anyway…’
He was trying hard, this man of few words, this big-hearted man who’d saved her life.
She cleared her throat. ‘Well, I’ll see you around, okay.’ She started closing the door. He stuck out his right crutch, jamming it in between the door and the doorframe. Pocket saw this as an opportunity, squeezed through the gap and trotted off towards the shrubs around the side of the house.
‘Hey. Hang on a moment,’ Rowan objected. ‘This is weird. This is so not you, Clem. What’s going on? Is there someone here? One of those thugs?’
‘No, no,’ she mumbled, her heart thumping. This wasn’t what she had planned. A quick, invisible getaway, no goodbyes. She had managed to hold it together, but now she could feel it unravelling. ‘Please, Rowan, leave me be.’
This only seemed to embolden him. He pushed his shoulder against the door, opening it enough to swing his left crutch forward into the hallway and push his way in.
She backed off, not wanting him to fall over on his crutches. He started down the hallway to the kitchen, yelling, ‘Whoever’s here, I’ll deal with you right now. I’ll fucking smash your brains out.’
He stuck his head in the kitchen, the front room, the lounge room.
‘I’m telling you, there’s no one here,’ she said.
He was charging back up the hallway. She blocked the way. He pushed past her, his eyes blazing, came to the bedroom, stopped in his tracks.
There was a silence as Rowan took it in. The half-packed suitcases, the garbage bags.
‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’ he said slowly.
She didn’t answer.
He hobbled further inside the bedroom, as if he might find more information there. Clementine took a few steps into the room behind him. He turned around to face her, bewildered.
‘You’re leaving?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’
She couldn’t speak.
‘Have they threatened you?’
She shook her head.
‘You moving into town?’
‘No, I’m leaving Katinga.’
‘But I thought you liked it here. Your cottage and all.’
She couldn’t argue with that. It had started out as a place to end the days of aimless driving, a temporary refuge. It had become a sanctuary.
‘And the team? What about the players?’
She shrugged. She hadn’t planned for this, hadn’t concocted a story or figured out a way to explain.
‘Something is seriously wrong here. Tell me what the hell is going on.’
He took a half-step forward on his crutches, reached his hand out, gently touched her arm.
She was staring at the rug on the floor; his touch on her arm had started something. She fought to stop it taking over. ‘Rowan, I can’t…I can’t tell you…you’ll find out soon enough, and that’s fine, but I don’t want to be here when you do.’ Her voice was choking. ‘I’ve got to leave.’
She stepped around him and went to the chest of drawers, started flinging clothing into the suitcase.
He took a step towards her. She felt his hand on her shoulder, gently pulling her back, guiding her to the edge of the bed. She sat, her head bowed, fists clenched on her knees and a tremor running through her arms all the way to her shoulders.
He eased himself down next to her, letting the crutches fall with a thud on the floor. He took her hand in his. She felt the sudden warmth. Then he gently lifted her hair from across her face and tucked it behind her shoulder.
‘Clementine, please, I can help. You can tell me.’
She could not stop the sob that surged out, her whole body shuddering.
Rowan took her in his arms. ‘Shhhh. Shhhh. It’s okay. I’ve got you.’
She sat, his arms around her, weeping freely. After what seemed like an eternity, the sobs eased. She felt him brush a tear from her cheek. Every muscle in her body, every bone, every sinew screamed at her: she needed someone to know the truth. The long lie was coming to its end. She had to tell this man.
Raising her head, she looked through her tears into his eyes. She felt the months of grief, the weeks of torment, the long days living with the shame piled high. She felt every moment of guilt like a knife in her side.
Softly, in a whisper, she said the words.
‘Rowan. I killed someone.’