CHAPTER 5

Clem’s first purchase with the Galimore Foundation funds after the board reversed the Funding Committee’s decision was a large whiteboard. It was propped up in the shanty’s sunroom on a stepladder she’d found in the shed. Its white glare looked completely out of place surrounded by Noel’s drooping bamboo blinds and grubby grass mats. Ariel and Brady and Gaylene and Mary, along with a few of the more committed WAGSS members, sat in the mismatched sticks of chairs at the table, the dogs banished outside. She’d asked Torrens to come in at two o’clock; make up a reason to end the session. Clem didn’t want the ferals overstaying their welcome.

In the first column she’d written a summary of the actions taken to date and they’d been brainstorming the second column, marked Allies (the various wildlife advocacy groups, the Galimore Foundation and a major local donor, Andrew Doncaster, were at the top of the list). They’d just moved on to the third column, Opponents (she’d been careful not to write Suspects), before finishing up with column four, Next Steps. This third column was the whole purpose of this strategy session as far as Clem was concerned, but the meeting had been slow going so far. In hindsight, the idea of extracting valuable intelligence from the protesters seemed a little optimistic.

So far, they had listed Blair ‘the Mayor’ Fullerton. Jobs meant votes and he was hot for the mine, the port and everything in between. The group had advised that he had a very young, very blonde wife who spent most of her time shopping and sipping champagne in Brisbane, and a pair of teenage kids from his first marriage.

‘So, anything more on the mayor before we move on?’ she asked, marker pen poised.

‘Well, I do know he’s wonderfully effective as a politician,’ said Mary, a retired librarian who’d lived in the area for forty years. ‘Charming, people say—smarmy in my view. But then I’ve never voted Liberal in my life.’

‘I’d agree with that,’ said Brady. He had a forty-a-day smoker’s voice. ‘Helen always got a bit sucked in by him. Time to apply the blowtorch, I reckon.’

Brady was always looking to apply a blowtorch to something. He was bored sitting around in meetings strategising—much preferred to get out there and take it up to the bastards. Apparently, Helen’s moderate approach had often resulted in arguments.

‘He’s a bloody silver-tail, got a huge powerboat called Success. What a wank,’ Brady continued. ‘My mate skippers for him sometimes. Reckon we could stage something noisy, maybe something stinky even—right there at the marina, where he keeps it.’

To keep him happy, Clem wrote it down as a ‘possible’ under Next Steps. The group then added Ralph Bennett, the President of the Piama Progress Association, a retired plumber who lived in the new(ish) estate on the far side of the bay with his wife Selma. Clem had seen him in action at a town meeting—a bull of a man, red-faced, arm-waving and always on the verge of shouting. He and many other members of the residents’ association had been cast into something like financial slavery, sudden and wretched poverty after a lifetime spent preparing for a secure and peaceful retirement. There were about thirty of them, all retirees, who’d fallen prey to a rogue financial planner and a catastrophic fall in the share market a few years back. The port would involve acquisition of a number of Piama properties and the retirees were desperate to sell their heavily mortgaged homes at the inflated prices Marakai Mining was throwing around. It was possible, Clem thought, that some of them might be angry enough to have taken matters into their own hands.

Next was the company itself: Marakai Mining. None of the group knew the names of anyone within the company, but Helen had mentioned a key contact: Karene Bickerstaff, Director of Public Relations, and Clem added the name to the whiteboard and wrote next to it: ‘likes a drink’, which was all she could remember from her conversations with Helen.

It was almost two o’clock and the group seemed drained. She decided to move the discussion on quickly to some more targeted questions.

‘So, any of these Opponents violent?’

Looks of surprise all around the table.

‘Violent?’ said Gaylene from underneath her mane of hair. Gaylene was a sixty-something hobby farmer and always the first one there when you wanted someone to chain themselves to something, provided she wasn’t off on one of her caravan holidays with husband Les.

‘Well, we need to know what we’re up against, don’t we?’ said Clem.

‘They’re pensioners, most of ’em. Probably couldn’t kill a fly in a paper bag,’ said Gaylene.

‘I don’t know about that. Reckon they could do some damage with their walking sticks,’ said Brady, sniggering. ‘Crush a few toes with those mobility scooters.’

The meeting was deteriorating. Clem moved on.

‘All right, any of our Opponents own a four-wheel drive?’ The police had not found any tyre tracks but Clem thought it might be possible to get a four-wheel drive up to the quarry’s edge over a rocky section of ground where it would leave no impression.

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Brady again, slumped in his chair, holding a piece of celery between his fingers like a cigarette. He was trying to give up. Doing it tough, by the looks.

‘Cars can give an insight into personality,’ said Clem. ‘Useful information for how best to influence people.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Ariel. ‘Like star signs. I read something about that somewhere. Geminis love the little Volkswagen Polos, whereas a lot of Scorpios drive Jeep convertibles—brave and secretive…off the beaten track.’

‘Ralph Bennett drives a Landcruiser,’ said Brady.

‘Surprised he can afford one,’ said Clem.

‘Looks like it’s from the Second World War. Even older than he is,’ he barked, fidgeting in his seat. ‘When are we going to talk about the next action? I’ve been thinking about a siege of some sort at council chambers.’

‘I wonder what it means if you drive a station wagon.’ Ariel’s eyes had glazed over. She turned to her notebook and scribbled a note next to the elaborate swirling doodle she’d crafted over the course of the meeting.

‘Yeah, we’ll talk about our next action in a minute, Brady,’ said Clem. ‘So does Ralph go off-road much?’

‘Wouldn’t know,’ said Brady. ‘Heard you drove a four-wheel drive once, Clem. Prado wasn’t it?’

She turned away from the whiteboard, checking his face for signs, trying to hide any on her own. He stared at her, took a pretend drag on his celery cigarette, pinched between his thumb and forefinger now, a reefer grip. He might be off the ciggies but that didn’t exclude anything else on the chemical menu. He exhaled and his mouth turned up in a sly smile.

‘And?’ she said.

Brady rested his celery on the lunch plate like it was an ashtray.

‘Was that the car?’ Ariel’s question hung, unsupported, without need of explanation. Clearly she and Brady had discussed Clem’s accident. Why should she be surprised? Of course they would have. Everything came back to that. Why would she be here in this backwater otherwise? She was defined by that mistake. And how dare she use the word mistake for such a reckless, deadly act?

‘I don’t see it’s relevant what car I drive,’ she said firmly, pivoting back to the whiteboard.

‘Hell yeah, it is. Our opponents could use it against you, to undermine the campaign.’ Brady was smart enough when he chose to be.

‘I think we should bring death into our conversations more,’ said Ariel. ‘It’s so important. I mean how do we appreciate life without death?’—Oh God, thought Clem, her felt-tip marker stalling on the whiteboard as she wrote down the make of Ralph’s vehicle—‘I mean, I think it’s also a tribute, like a song of respect for those who’ve passed.’

Clem blinked hard and turned to face the meeting again. Time to take control.

‘Okay, so shall we talk about Helen?’ It was fair enough—the group had been devastated, beating themselves up for not having seen the signs, failing to notice that their loved and apparently strong leader was suffering.

‘Oh yes. I mean I can feel her presence right now, in this very room.’ Ariel had everyone’s attention now.

‘Well, what does she think our next steps should be?’ asked Gaylene impatiently.

‘But the thing is,’ Ariel went on as if she hadn’t heard Gaylene, ‘you and Helen both share this amazing experience, Clementine. A truth very few people will ever know.’ She turned her eyes towards Clem. ‘Perhaps you could share, something…’

‘Eh?’ said Gaylene, completely confused and obviously not privy to Brady and Ariel’s previous discussions. Brady was looking fascinated, like the information might be genuinely useful in some sort of tactical way. Clem felt the marker slipping in her sweaty palm.

‘…something of the mystery of what it’s like to have life, there before you, and then gone.’ Ariel’s voice was a whisper now, as if sound might kill the magic.

All eyes were on Clem. Her mind was totally stalled and she could feel her mouth gaping open stupidly when the door burst open. Torrens filled the door frame completely, fully bearded, wielding the green water pistol menacingly—just needed a Ned Kelly bucket helmet with an eye slit to complete the picture.

His voice boomed into the sunroom, shaking the bamboo blinds. ‘Righto folks, this is a hold-up. Now off you all go. Come on, hands in the air and no one gets hurt.’

Council buildings in country towns like Barnforth followed a model. Two-storey Victorian buildings, high-ceilinged, with wide shallow steps along the extent of the street frontage. This one had the year of construction (1879) carved into the stone above the front door.

Clem waited twenty minutes. The group had decided Blair the Mayor must be handled with diplomacy—he’d been known to attack when cornered. They were unaware that Clementine’s primary purpose was to expose Helen’s killer; nevertheless, it was good advice and Clem thought hard about how to approach him. She decided to present as a better alternative to Helen, someone he could work with; more capable of compromise, perhaps even vaguely corruptible. Who knew, she might unearth something. Might even score an invite onto his boat, she thought, smiling to herself. The door opposite her opened and a woman with an incredible hairdo, a hard-wired bouffant mass, appeared.

‘Miss Jones, the mayor will see you now.’ The woman bared a set of small pointy teeth and led her into another room that appeared to be her office—carved wooden chairs, coat rack and gilt-framed but slightly faded Tom Roberts print. Then on through another door into a huge semi-circular office, with a dark mahogany desk at one end big enough to play a game of table tennis, long windows from the lofty ceilings to the burgundy carpet—plush and so deep your shoes left a footprint. Outside was a carefully sculpted lawn with manicured hedges and stone bench seats.

Blair Fullerton stood up from behind the ping-pong table and advanced towards her, hand outstretched.

‘Good afternoon, Ms Jones, good to see you again.’ Round face, grey eyes and a smoothly barbered helmet of greying hair.

He ushered her to the other end of the room where chairs were placed around a dark coffee table in front of a huge fireplace with fake logs. The mantelpiece above displayed a few carefully arranged ornaments.

‘Thanks so much for seeing me, Mr Mayor,’ she said, smiling with as much tooth as she could muster. ‘I know you have a very busy schedule.’

‘Never too busy to meet with my constituents, Ms Jones.’

She wasn’t a constituent, just passing through. Never mind.

‘Oh, call me Clementine, please.’

‘My sincerest condolences on the passing of your predecessor.’

The words were as hollow as a paper straw and in his eyes she saw nothing resembling sympathy. What she could see, reflected in the concrete grey, was a fleet of earthmovers and a hundred local voters in hard hats and high-vis shirts.

She repeated the word diplomacy in her head like a mantra; visualised herself stepping onto his boat.

‘Yes, a great loss. Something we’re all struggling to recover from.’ The words were like a mouthful of dry flour.

‘I’m sure it will be felt for some time. But now,’ he said, clasping his hands together, ‘how can I assist you, Ms Jones?’

‘Well, although we’re still mourning Helen’s death, we all agreed she would want us to keep moving forward.’

‘Indeed.’

‘So, we’re about to take the next steps on the campaign but we wanted to speak with you first and keep you in the loop.’

‘Well, I appreciate that very much, Ms Jones, transparency and dialogue are fundamental, I always say.’

She forced herself past the management babble and pressed on. ‘We’re lodging an appeal against the minister’s approval for the mine’s water management plan. Funding has come through from our supporters and we’re preparing for the first stage.’

Fullerton’s cheeks fell, then quickly reconvened themselves back to their moon shape.

‘Well, I’m disappointed to hear that, given we believe the mine and the port are in the community’s best interests. But of course,’ he said, holding his palms out wide, like a true believer, ‘it’s the right of every citizen to call for further scrutiny.’

‘Democracy in action, Mr Mayor,’ she smiled.

He nodded; smiled back.

‘The thing is, councillor, I didn’t want to deliver this news without at the same time extending an olive branch. I do believe there may be some scope for further dialogue.’

‘Ah, well that sounds promising. What did you have in mind?’

‘Well, with legal proceedings under way, it’s often an opportune time for parties to come together and explore more practical solutions.’

His eyes lit up. ‘WAGSS is prepared to discuss a compromise, then?’

‘You could say that, councillor,’ she said, in full knowledge she had no authority from either WAGSS or the Galimore Foundation to say any such thing. She hadn’t even raised it with either of them. ‘I’m inclined to think the best solutions are uncovered outside the courtroom, don’t you?’

‘I totally agree. So have you anything particular in mind at this stage?’

‘Well, it would certainly need to include a sizeable commitment from Marakai Mining, you know, to a mutually agreed conservation program…something sufficiently meaningful to satisfy our membership.’

‘I see.’

‘The association could then withdraw the legal proceedings…’

‘And the port could proceed?’

‘As you said, councillor, it’s what the community wants.’ She forced a smile.

‘Well, that is certainly something that ought to be explored.’ The grey eyes had a glossy sparkle to them now: polished concrete.

‘And I think it would be useful if the council could act as a broker of sorts, at least in the public eye. I’m sure it would be helpful if the community were to see your leadership bringing the parties together.’

His face was aglow with enthusiasm—the opportunity to increase his standing, to be the hero of the day, he was eating it up.

‘You know, I’m very pleased to be hearing this type of thinking,’ he said. ‘Your predecessor was, well, somewhat inflexible.’

‘Helen was a passionate advocate.’ Forgive me, Helen. This is all for a greater goal, I promise.

‘And have you considered the sort of monetary contribution that might be sufficient for the association’s ends?’

‘I’ll give that some thought now that we’ve discussed the concept, councillor. But before we move to that step, there is something else the members are keen to pursue and they’d like to raise it formally before we progress any discussions about a compromise.’ She could see he understood the euphemism: this is a precondition. Listen up.

‘I’m all ears, Ms Jones. If there’s something I can do to help, please let me know.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, with a slow nod. ‘The thing is, a number of us believe the investigation into Ms Westley’s death was, quite frankly, lacking.’ She watched his face, searching for a sign. Was that a twitch, like a feather tickling the edge of his right eye?

‘I’m sure the police have given it their close attention,’ he said. Definitely a pained look in his eye. Was it guilt, or just the simple realisation that the deal Clementine was offering might come with an awkward price? Impossible to tell.

‘Still, we’d like your help. We’re speaking to the Labor Party councillors and the independents,’ she lied, ‘and it seems they’re keen to support WAGSS in calling for an official inquiry.’

‘Inquiry?’ Fullerton uncrossed his legs and planted his feet firmly on the carpet.

‘Yes, a council-led inquiry into the efficacy of local policing in the Rivers Shire.’

‘But council has no authority over the Queensland Police Service,’ said Fullerton, completely rigid in the deeply upholstered chair.

‘No, no,’ said Clem. ‘I realise council has no jurisdiction, but it doesn’t mean the QPS aren’t alive to politics, does it? I mean, don’t tell me the cops don’t know what’s good for them, right? The last thing they want is the Police Minister coming down on them because he’s under pressure from local government.’ She gave Fullerton a knowing look; decided a wink would be over the top. ‘And in the spirit of open dialogue, you would be doing them a favour to go see the local officer in charge and let him know the lie of the land. Call it community relations, whatever, but get them to dig deeper, demand they dig deeper, or…’

‘Or what?’

‘Or else, an inquiry. A public inquiry, with Helen Westley’s death a central focus.’

Fullerton’s look was blank, all expression vacuumed away. She couldn’t tell whether it was actual culpability or a stock defensive routine, well-practised in the heat of politics. Either way, she was sure she’d got under his skin: unnerved him and, at the same time, hung out a most tantalising carrot. If he was the killer, maybe it would scare him into a mistake. If he wasn’t, he would go ahead and pressure the police to take up the investigation again.

Win win.

The view from Ralph Bennett’s living room was superb. So much better from a two-storey house than the verandah at the shanty. From here Piama was a canopy of palm trees above a strip of golden beach, the Great Sandy Straits banded in teal and navy and the vast expanse of K’gari’s shoreline stretching as far as the eye could see.

She was looking out from the dining room with Ralph the Resident President himself—in checked shirt and brown shorts, smelling of Deep Heat—as he explained how he’d come to the Seascape Avenue subdivision twelve years ago.

‘Got in first,’ he said, nodding proudly. ‘Best block in the whole estate.’

Clem had heard Ralph got in first on most things, took his share, staked his claim, bullocked his way to the front of the queue. He’d chosen his home for their first meeting, Ralph’s territory marked with Ralph-scent: elephantine leather recliners, a framed fishing photograph of Ralph with a huge tuna hanging from a steely gaff, and instructions to his wife, Selma, to bring tea like she was his personal secretary.

They sat down at the large dining table and Selma laid the cups in front of them, darting back to the kitchen and appearing again with a plate of homemade Anzac biscuits. She smiled sweetly at Clem with her hair fresh out of rollers, soft curls around crinkled eyes.

‘Thanks love,’ said Ralph lunging for the plate.

‘Beautiful view, Mrs Bennett,’ said Clem. She wanted to say, ‘Shame to bulldoze it for a coal port’ but held herself back. Selma turned towards the kitchen and as soon as she was out of the room Ralph started.

‘Now. Let me tell you a few things.’

He sounded like Clem’s old high school headmaster. It made her feel cheeky, rebellious. She reached for an Anzac and took a bite. Still warm!

‘I worked hard all me life, see. Had me own business, raised four kids, made enough for me and Selma to have our little piece of paradise up here. Grandkids can stay for school holidays, teach ’em to fish, get ’em outside and away from them Apples and Blackberries into the sunshine. Selma can have her garden and play bowls once or twice a week. And believe me, we deserve it. Fair dinkum tax-paying Australians all our lives.’

The polite thing to do would be to say ‘too right’ but Ralph didn’t look like he wanted to be interrupted, so she nodded enthusiastically and kept her listening face on, chewing discreetly on the Anzac. Golden syrup crunch, soothing, like home.

‘So everything’s peachy, just like we planned, until this bloke, this preening rooster come through town: Robert Considine.’ He scowled and leaned back in the chair abruptly, arms crossed tight on his chest. Clem could imagine Ralph swinging a gaff straight through Robert Considine’s eyeballs.

‘Yep, Robert Considine sold us a line. Could make one of those rhyming things out of it. What do they call ’em?’

‘Limericks?’ said Clem helpfully.

‘Yeah, that’s it,’ he said. ‘A limerick. Only it wouldn’t be anything I’d recite in front of a lady.’ He glowered at her for a moment then looked away. She could tell he did not consider her a ‘lady’. More of a ‘girly,’ probably. She had expected as much and didn’t take offence. Ralph came from an era of unconscious patriarchy, as normal and healthy in a man as a bushy moustache or chest hair. She’d already planned to play the part. You never knew what a full-blooded man of the 1940s might let slip to a harmless girly.

She frowned, shook her head in silent agreement with Ralph, damning Robert Considine to hell.

‘And bugger me, I got in first again, didn’t I,’ he said, startled, as if he was still stumped as to how it could have happened. ‘Fell for his bullshit hook, line and sinker. Had me eye on a new centre console fishing tinny, 115 horse four-stroke on the back, even showed him a picture of it. Fifty grand’s worth. Well, old mate Rob the Dog said I’d earn that in less than twelve months. Take out a loan against this place, invest the cash in shares. So I thought to myself, this joker’s backed by the big banks, obviously successful, drives a flash car, and the graphs! Oh! Those pretty graphs—all pointing up and up. And I thought, Selma’d like a trip to visit the youngest in London, I could have my boat…I’ll give it a go.’ He rested his big plumber’s hands on the table, bitterness oozing from his fingertips.

‘That slimy bastard,’ his hands flew up and thudded down again with a crash. ‘Said it’d never happen. More chance of getting struck by lightning were his actual words.’

She knew what came next. The share-market collapse, the price of Ralph’s shares falling too low to secure the loan, the margin calls from the banks demanding payments from cash that Ralph and Selma did not have. Then, to save them from taking his home, he would have had to sell the shares as the prices were diving to the bottom—not enough to pay out the loan, substantial mortgage against his home and nothing to show for it.

She sat quietly as Ralph continued.

‘Banks were on the phone the very next day, the vultures. I didn’t even tell Selma. Kept it from her for weeks until I had to sell her car. She cried. Not for the bloody car either…’ Ralph blinked. ‘For our dreams.’ He swallowed hard, his lips coming together in an embarrassed, emasculated line. ‘And she cried again when Lynette—the eldest—started sending us money to pay the bills.’

Clem imagined Selma weeping. ‘Ought to be illegal,’ she said softly. ‘Playing with people’s lives like that.’

‘Yeah, well, we’ve got a class action going,’ Ralph declared, bristly jowls bouncing like exclamation marks.

‘And I understand there’s quite a few in the same boat?’

‘Yep. You can repeat that tale thirty times over and you’d have the story of Piama.’ Ralph picked up his cup, took an angry gulp.

‘So,’ said Clem after a polite pause, ‘the court case? What are the lawyers saying?’

She’d researched the class action against the banks that supplied the margin loan products to Considine’s clients—it had been dragging on for five years or more with a series of interlocutory hearings, procedural matters, long and pedantic picking over the documents to be disclosed and those that might be withheld, barristers arguing over timetables…All of it eating up months and years.

She imagined all the pensioners living on mince and canned peas; ageing bones sweltering in their beds, unable to turn on the air conditioning; taking three-minute showers and watching their carefully tended gardens shrivel as they minimised the water bill.

‘Ha! Bunch of blood suckers the lot of ’em! Useless as tits on a bull. And we’ll be waiting till kingdom come for a decent offer from the banks, with all their carry-on.’

As much as she felt for the Bennetts and the cruel turn their lives had taken, she sensed it was time to take the conversation closer to the end goal. ‘So if you could get a satisfactory offer you’d settle?’

‘Of course we bloody would!

‘Maybe one will come soon?’

‘Don’t be silly—the parasites have to run up the fees first and the banks are still in combat mode. Could be years away.’

‘So how will you and Selma survive till then?’

‘Can’t keep accepting money from the kids, that’s for sure. Tried selling the house. Couldn’t even cover the mortgage. The new port’s our best shot. They’re offering a shitload more.’

‘Enough to clear the mortgage?’

‘Yep, and some left over.’

Clem nodded, ‘Geez, you’d kill for that I reckon.’

Was that a curl of his lower lip? Ralph Bennett, proud provider to Selma and his kids all his life, the man in front, first in the queue, now accepting money from his daughter to survive, his paradise turned to the pinch and pucker of poverty in the blink of a financial flog’s eye—he was motivated, for sure, and now she searched his face for discomfort, for compunction of any type.

He leaned in towards her and spoke slowly, so the girly could understand. ‘Listen, this is pretty simple, love, it’s you and your reptiles versus people. Right? Real people. Senior citizens who’ve made their contribution and deserve more than what’s been served up to them.’

‘Yes,’ said Clem. ‘I can certainly see your point of view, Mr Bennett, it’s a terrible situation’—and it was—‘but I guess, well, it is only one perspective isn’t it?’ She was pushing shit uphill here, but she had to give it something.

‘There’s only one perspective that counts, sweetheart.’

‘But it’s just…well…an entire species. To see it obliterated, lost forever…’

Ralph snorted. ‘What about your fellow man? Geez, you lawyers are all alike,’ he started laughing now, ‘reptiles protecting reptiles.’ A crumb of Anzac exploded from his nose and he grabbed a handkerchief from the back of his shorts and blew it loudly.

Helen would have persisted: Humans need no special support, Clementine, we’re dominating, relentlessly…we’ve got to share the planet…be the voice before it’s too late. Clem didn’t see the voice having any impact whatsoever here in Ralph Bennett’s dining room. But still, it seemed she had managed to convince Ralph that she was not a threat, little more than a hippy turtle-lover and certainly no match for his manly arguments. That was an advantage she might be able to use.

‘Hey, have you heard the one about the catfish and the lawyer?’ he said.

‘Ralph, don’t!’ yelled Selma from the kitchen. Clem knew the joke: it was one of her favourites.

‘One’s a bottom-dwelling scum-sucker and the other’s a fish.’ Ralph’s whole body was shaking with laughter, holding his eyes pinched between his thumb and forefinger as he laughed.

Clem laughed then helped herself to another Anzac, taking a big bite into its crisp honey-ness. ‘Gee these are good,’ she said, savouring the sweetness. ‘Helen could bake, too, you know. Her brownies were the best.’

Ralph looked uncomfortable. He drained his cup. ‘Selma, love, could you get us another?’

‘Can I ask you something Mr Bennett?’ She put her Anzac down on the plate in front of her. ‘Do you think it was suicide?’ Eyes trained on his face, every movement, every twitch. As much as she felt for his situation, nothing justified what had been done to Helen.

He didn’t flinch, calmly rested his arms across his chest again.

‘Cops seem to think so.’ The words had a finality to them. Ralph was a man easily satisfied by whatever the cops might say, the blue-collar workers of the justice system. Not like lawyers and other assorted scum-suckers.

‘You knew her longer than I did, of course, but she seemed pretty happy to me, that’s all.’

‘Hmm,’ he sniffed. ‘Who the hell knows what goes on in women’s heads?’

There was a crash from the kitchen as Selma amped up the tea-making.

‘The woman is dead, Mr Bennett.’

Ralph was defiant, leaning forward, whispering so Selma couldn’t hear, ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t know her that well and as far as I’m concerned, she was a waste of air. All that nonsense about scientific turtle studies. I’ll tell you what the science says,’ he pointed his fat plumber’s forefinger at Clem’s face. ‘We need a mine and a port to give young families jobs and we need to start producing in this country, exporting instead of buying everything from China. That’s what’ll pay for hospitals and nurses and teachers. It’s basic common sense,’ he spat, pushing back again into his chair. His face had gone the colour of a good shiraz.

Selma appeared with another cup of tea, which she set down, just a little too firmly, on the table in front of Ralph.

Turning to Clem she said, ‘Another cup, dear?’ Those nanna eyes would melt your heart.

‘No, thank you Mrs Bennett. The Anzacs were delicious.’

Selma smiled, nodded and turned to go, giving Ralph a glare. He glared back at her.

After he’d finished his tea, Ralph saw Clementine to the door. Selma followed them out as they strolled down the driveway and past Ralph’s old Landcruiser.

‘Enjoy a bit of four-wheel-driving do you, Mr Bennett?’

‘Used to. Can’t afford the fuel now.’

Clem cast her eyes down to the tyres as she passed by, checking the tread: caked with mud. There were no dirt roads in the township and the highway in and out was bitumen.

‘Take her up to the quarry much?’

Ralph turned towards her, slowly, eyes narrowing to slits.

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Clem tried to look casual. ‘Just interested to know what folk do around here, other than fishing.’

The police should be taking soil samples. She could ask them to; demand it. She imagined that sergeant—what was her name? Wiseman—her condescending look. Clem wondered whether you could just rake over tyre marks. How long was the track in? Might be a lot of work. She should go up there.

‘You don’t get it do you, you people? We can’t afford to do anything other than put food on the table and pay the bills, never mind fuel for skylarking! We’re in bed before dark so we don’t have to turn the lights on, for God’s sake.’

Ralph had gone that shiraz colour again. He stood near her, too close, imposing his height, his weight and his shock of wiry grey hair on her.

‘Sorry Mr Bennett, didn’t mean to offend.’ She kept walking down the driveway, looking back at the house to check for security cameras. There were none of course. Who would need such things in Piama; or, as Ralph had pointed out, who could afford them? Towards the front, on the concrete landing pad of a driveway, was an aluminium dinghy on a trailer, covered in a tarp.

‘I suppose you get out fishing though? Dinghy would run on the smell of an oily rag wouldn’t she?’ Clem didn’t wait for an answer, she knew he did—had seen him out there a few times. ‘Do you enjoy fishing too, Mrs Bennett?’ asked Clem.

‘I used to love it. Haven’t been for a long time now, though. My hips…I can’t get in and out of the boat like I used to,’ she smiled, ‘but I love a nice fresh flathead. Lightly seasoned and fried with a bit of lemon, that’s how we do it.’

‘Me too,’ said Clem. ‘Delicious.’

A surprised grunt from Ralph.

‘So, do you fish, Miss Jones?’ asked Selma.

‘Never tried it but I’d love to have a go.’

‘Well I’ll be,’ Ralph chuckled. ‘The Westley woman was a flaming vegan!’ He seemed genuinely delighted to find a greenie who would not only eat meat, but hunt and kill it.

‘Well then, you must go out with Ralph!’ said Selma.

‘Oh no, I wouldn’t want to impose.’

‘Don’t be silly—he’d be pleased to take you, wouldn’t you, dear?’ She rounded on Ralph like a teacher, both scolding and encouraging.

Ralph harrumphed and raised his hands in submission. ‘S’pose it wouldn’t hurt. Whiting are running,’ he half-smiled. ‘Let’s hope we don’t catch too many catfish, eh?’