33

The drive home was a blur of wheat paddocks and, I’ll admit, the odd angry tear. I blinked them away. Did my best to focus on something, anything other than that lying gun smuggler. Bloody hell, Leo. I’d bet there was a wife over there in the Congo as well. Maybe more than one. I’m not up on the number of wives permitted in that part of the world. Stone men, can’t trust any of ’em. Yes, yes. OK, Ernie.

Back in the day, before Ernie’s little Stone-men briefing, Leo and me, we were going to travel around Australia. We had it all mapped out—first up, we’d go work on a melon farm in Rockhampton. After that, we’d see the world. We’d discussed it all in detail, the night we went to see Grease at the drive-in. That is, when we weren’t focused on other matters.

There I was, seventeen, all full of plans and hope and trust. I told Ernie all about our scheme, of course. Ernie was our guardian—after Mum died, Ernie looked after me and Helen. Dad had buggered off long before.

Ernie gave me a long look. Stroked his grey moustache with his dirt-stained fingers. ‘Gotta be honest with you, Cassie. And best you know this now. Leo’s told at least three other girls that little plan. An early life lesson for you—on the topic of the untrustable fella. Still, it’s in his family, so maybe he can’t help it. None of those Stones has ever been any flaming good.’

A sleepless night. Was it true? Leo had said the big I love you. Was that just a bunch of words he told every girl? Should I bust up with him? The idea was a knife to the chest. And then, at 3am, I came up with a kind of compromise.

Next day I told Leo I needed a bit of time to consider that trip. Helen was quite impressed with that when I told her afterwards: she said it was surprisingly mature behaviour for a kid. She was an elderly eighteen and a half.

I would have been quite interested in further drive-in missions with Leo, while I considered our travel plan in more detail. But a couple of days later, the bastard nicked off to Rockhampton. Without me.

I swerved around a dead cat on the road.

It was definitely time I moved on. No more of this bloody nonsense, Cass. Who knows, he’s probably involved with Serena as well. Why do I always have to get interested in blokes who can’t stay loyal? And who can’t stay within the law?

I whipped past the ex-solar power joint. There are a lot of ex-things around here. I sighed. Well, I was still alive, as Dean likes to remind me, so I guess I should be grateful for that.

My phone rang. I pulled over.

‘Mum, you OK?’ It was Brad.

‘Just on my way home. Everything all right in the shop?’ I said.

‘Yeah, good. We’ve had a bit of a run on sweet-potato wedges, especially with Claire’s sour cream and lime dip. But we’re managing.’

‘When did we start doing wedges?’

‘Ah, today.’ His voice was casual.

You had to wonder if this was an attempt to divert the clientele into vegetarian slow food. Although maybe a wedge is too speedy to be genuinely classified as slow?

‘Dean get hold of you?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘He was looking for you.’

Great.

‘He was pretty worked up, Mum.’

Even better.

‘Anyway, he said you have to stay away from Leo Stone.’

‘Right. Will do.’

‘Mum? You’re not having some kind of mid-life crisis, are you? I mean, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Even chimps and orang-utans experience a bit of a slump in middle age.’

Thanks for that, Brad. Time for a change of subject. ‘Any progress with the book basher’s phone?’

‘Yeah, I got into it. And, yes, it’s definitely Morris Temple’s.’

An aha moment, followed rapidly by a nasty thought. ‘You didn’t mention that phone to Dean, did you?’

‘Course not.’

‘Excellent. Listen, can you get into the phone log?’

‘Maybe. What do you want to know?’

‘Who Morris called, of course.’

‘Yeah, but when?’

‘Err, how about you start with Natalie’s last day. The… twenty-eighth of January.’

Tapping sounds. ‘Five calls.’

‘Who to?’

‘Well, the last one that day says Andy, maybe that’s Andy Fitzgerald? Morris called him at 9.04pm. There’s another one to him earlier in the day, at 1.15pm. And Natalie called Morris at 3.25pm. A minute later, Morris called someone else. Looks like a Rusty Bore number, that one. And then he made another call, at 5.40pm. I’m guessing that one’s in Melbourne.’

‘What about text messages?’

A pause. ‘None.’

‘What, he hasn’t sent or received a single SMS? I find that hard to believe.’

‘Maybe he deletes them.’

‘Every single one? Seem a bit odd to you?’

‘Not necessarily. He might have good space hygiene.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You know, good phone practices. Keeps his storage of useless information to a minimum.’

‘Any chance you could find out who he called in Rusty Bore?’

‘How?’

‘Just go through the phone book. I’ve got one in the lounge.’

‘I’m not combing through the entire bloody phone book, Mum. I have a life, you know.’

‘Come on, Brad. There’s only 147 people in the town. Won’t take you long. And you can exclude me. That only leaves 146.’