Flinders and I spent half an hour poking around the site, trying to discover if it had anything more to tell us.
It didn’t, but as I stood at the northern end of the scene, I heard a diesel chugging and caught sight of a tractor working its way across a paddock at the end of the lane.
The brigade captain Danny Clarion had told me Raph’s family had a farm down there. There’d been mention of a father and a brother.
I drove down to the paddock, pulled up alongside the fence and gave what I hoped was a friendly wave to the driver. He responded. Inspector Dougherty had warned me off talking to witnesses, but as far as I knew, this guy wasn’t a witness.
The machine drew to a halt and the operator climbed down from the cab. He walked across the paddock with that slow where’s-the-horse? gait men tend to settle into in the bush. He was in his thirties, wearing an oilskin jacket, a blue beanie and a look of mild suspicion.
The suspicion diminished when I introduced myself, giving him a quick glance at my ID and nothing about my current employment status.
He pulled a blade of grass out of the ground, chewed it slowly and asked how he could help me. He’d obviously grown accustomed to talking to cops over the past few days.
His name was Jared, and yes, he was Raph’s brother. He lived with his wife, Marcie, and a mob of kids in the main house on the property. He seemed puzzled that I was out here asking more questions about the incident.
‘We heard you’d arrested Nash Rankin for it.’
‘We have, but there’s a few things we need to clarify. You reported that he and your brother were arguing the day before . . .’
Jared said he hadn’t heard the argument himself, but Raph had mentioned it to him that evening, said Nash had been really pissed off. I asked what the dispute was about.
‘Rats,’ he replied.
‘Rats?’
‘Vermin. We had to poison them. Nash thought we were putting the wildlife at risk.’
No surprise there. I’d seen enough of my own little housemate to know the rats were up and about. And it fitted with what I’d seen of Nash’s predilections. If he’d jump in front of a speeding car to save a turtle, god knows what he’d do if one of his precious raptors was under threat. I’d heard numerous stories over the years of birds of prey dying after ingesting poisoned rodents.
‘And were you putting them at risk?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe, but we had other priorities – like putting food on the table. There’s a plague of rats round here, eating us out of house and home. Wreaking havoc in the orchard, getting into the sheds, even the house. One ate my fucking boots last month.’
‘Jesus – tough rats.’
‘Well, it had a serious go at ’em, anyway. We have been trying other solutions – clearing, fumigation, monitoring nests, shooting the bloody things. Believe it or not, most of us on the land don’t actually want to kill native wildlife. Raph said all that to Nash, but apparently he wasn’t listening. All he was thinking about was his birds. Very admirable, sure – but to kill a bloke over it? He must have been off his rocker. And not for the first time, from what I heard.’
I couldn’t argue with that. Nash was definitely an eccentric. Maybe he had gone over the edge. But I needed to explore other options.
‘You can’t think of anybody else who might have had a grudge against your brother?’
Jared shook his head. ‘I suppose I would say this, but Raph was a decent bloke. Kept to himself, but he had no enemies that I know of. The odd punch-up on the footy field, maybe, but that was years ago.’
‘Nothing more recent?’
He contemplated the distant treetops. ‘We have had a couple of run-ins with hunters, but they seemed okay when we talked to them. Couple of kids on trail bikes. I certainly don’t know anybody with cause to carry out a crime like this.’
A Subaru drove into the yard around the house. A horde of kids jumped out and swarmed in every direction. Some of them tore out handfuls of grass and ran down to the horse yard, where a trio of horses vied for their attention and grass. A woman stepped out of the driver’s seat and glanced at us.
Jared gave her a quick wave as she wrangled the youngsters into the house.
‘Curriculum day,’ he explained. ‘Marcie took ’em to the flicks in town.’
‘Raph had no family of his own?’
‘Nope.’
‘Girlfriend? Boyfriend?’
There was a momentary hesitation.
‘Like I said, he kept to himself . . .’
That hesitation needed following up on.
‘You don’t sound as sure about that as you’ve been about a few other things.’
He pulled the beanie off and scrunched it with his thumbs, kicked at the dirt with a boot heel.
‘I don’t know if he was in a relationship or not – certainly there was nobody he introduced us to . . . but there might have been a spring in his step a while back.’
I gave him a puzzled look, pressed for more information.
‘Marcie noticed it,’ he explained. ‘He started sprucing himself up – shaving every day, brushing his hair, taking long walks when he didn’t used to.’
Walks? That suggested somebody local.
‘Then, a few weeks ago, things took a nosedive. He disappeared for a week, wouldn’t say where he’d been. But he seemed distracted and down, on edge.’
‘How long did he stay like that?’
Jared gazed at the sky. His eyes followed a flock of cockatoos that angled overhead and settled in the treetops. ‘Probably up until the time he died. That might have been why he was in an argumentative mood when Nash had a go at him about the rats. Normally they got along okay. Marcie figured, if Raph had been seeing someone, maybe it hadn’t worked out.’
This Marcie sounded like she’d be worth talking to. Not right now, though. She had her hands full. Down at the yard the horses shuffled and stamped their hooves, hungry for more. The kids had come back out of the house and were off the leash. The more spring-heeled of them were climbing onto fence posts and leaping onto the horses’ backs. A big old draughthorse stood there patiently absorbing the assault and munching on a biscuit of hay.
‘Those were Raph’s horses,’ Jared said, following my gaze. ‘He raised ’em to be gentle.’
We chatted for a few more minutes, but when I noticed him glance back at the tractor I left him to it and returned to my car. What had I learned? Not much. Raph Cambric was a private man, had kept to himself, worked hard. Him and every other farmer around here. He might have been having an affair, but if he had, it had ended weeks ago. He’d been brooding over it.
I drove around to the immediate neighbours to see if they could add anything to the picture of Raph I was building in my mind, but nobody had much new to offer. Everybody knew the Cambrics, everybody liked Raph – as far as I could tell. They weren’t a very expressive lot round here. Mostly they were laconic farmers – beef and dairy, a couple of orchards and wineries – with muddy boots and weatherwise demeanours. A few of them mentioned that they’d played footy or gone to school with Raph. Several people commented on the fact that he was gifted with animals, could settle a restless horse with a touch of the hand, calm an aggressive dog with a stern look. That tallied with what Jared told me. A lot of them employed Raph to shoe or trim their horses, said he did good work.
The only one who had anything original to offer was a hard-nosed character in a weathered leather jacket who pulled up on a Triumph Classic at a cottage on Goodwin’s Lane. He introduced himself as Stefan Heller, didn’t appear to fit the local farmer mould. He rented the place, worked as a welder in Windmark and had flashing, blue eyes, slag-burned hands and a blunt manner. He said he’d had a couple of conversations with Raph about bikes. I hadn’t seen Raph as a bikie, but Stefan said he rode a Kwacker 5000 he’d restored himself. The pair had talked about making a daytrip into the hills. That never happened, but Stefan said a few months ago he’d spotted Raph racing along the river trail with a woman riding pillion.
I asked if he recognised the woman but he shook his head. It was getting on for dark and they were fanging it. He hadn’t lived round here for long, didn’t know all the locals.
‘Could you describe her?’
‘Long, dark hair, slim, maybe in her late thirties. She wasn’t wearing a helmet.’ He glanced down to where I assumed the river lay. ‘One thing struck me though: she was laughing.’