Paul hooked his fingers through the mesh fence and searched the faces of the crowd gathered at the front gates of the mill. ‘Are you sure it was Frankston?’
‘I damn well know what I saw, Paul.’ Hayden stood rigid at his side, scanning the faces of people they knew well. ‘He’s not here now.’
The gusting southerly wind had drawn the small crowd into a huddle. Warren Leadbeater, their union rep, turned to face his members. They shuffled back to give him room to speak.
‘Think about what we’re trying to do. We’re not going to let management get away with this. Our jobs, our livelihoods, they’re tied up in this mill.’ Warren pointed at loaded trucks waiting for forklifts and men to deal with their cargo. The mill appeared ready to spring to life at the flick of a switch.
Someone muttered, ‘Gas leak, my arse. Where’s that poncy Carter?’
‘Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to explain what’s going on.’ The familiar female voice added, ‘I heard that the mill won’t be reopening anytime soon. Not unless some fairy godmother comes up with the cash.’
Paul spotted the speaker and nudged Serena to join him. ‘Come on.’ Emily Handford, part-time cleaner at the mill and his own occasional cleaner, was almost unrecognisable with her pink beanie pulled low around her ears and wearing an oversized man’s jacket. He tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to him.
‘Have you heard something?’
Emily tugged the sides of her jacket together and zipped it up. ‘There was a bloke here maybe quarter of an hour ago. Reckoned we’re fools if we think the mill will operate again. Said he might buy it dirt-cheap and sell off the plant and equipment. Poser.’
‘Greg Frankston?’ Paul’s throat closed around the name and his stomach clenched as though he’d eaten a bad oyster. The mill, the people, even his brother disappeared as the face of the scammer responsible for his father’s decline filled his vision. ‘Was his name Frankston?’
‘Scumbag.’ Hayden joined them and kicked the gates, rattling the chains and drawing mutters of agreement from those nearby.
Emily looked at Warren. ‘I don’t know. Did you catch his name?’
Warren folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. ‘Yeah, I recognised the bastard all right. He’s out of prison and turned up here as soon as he heard the town’s down on its luck. My advice, Paul, stay well away from him. Bad like his old man, and twice as mean. But you know that better than most.’
‘If he’s back, then we have a score to settle.’
Warren gripped Paul’s arm and stepped in close. ‘Leave it, son. Sergeant Johnson might be on your side and choose to look the other way—hell, I think he’d like to shed his uniform and join you after what he lost in that scam—but the young coppers won’t. They’re strictly by the book. Don’t let Frankston do your head in.’
Tight-lipped, Paul pulled his arm out of Warren’s grip, knocking Serena’s arm as he did so. The union rep looked worried, but Paul wouldn’t make a promise he couldn’t keep.
‘Paul?’ Hayden dragged him out of the crowd and stopped beside a dented forty-four gallon drum around the corner from the gate.
Serena excused herself. ‘I’m going to phone my supplier and postpone further deliveries for this job until I know what’s going on.’
Hayden waited only until she was out of earshot and turned his back on the crowd. ‘Let’s find out where he’s staying and go give him what he deserves.’
Paul’s hand fisted. He could see Frankston’s sneering face bleeding from the nose, sprawled on the ground looking up as the Carey brothers meted out justice. It would feel so good to do something for their father.
Their father’s ‘forgive and forget’ attitude had been sorely challenged following the pine-tree debacle, but he still believed there was good in every person. Some, you have to look harder, dig deeper, to find it, but it’s there.
And that was how Frankston had been able to convince their dad to invest in the bogus scheme. Paul sighed. ‘Dad wouldn’t thank us for roughing him up, even now.’
Hayden strode several steps, stopped and jabbed a finger in the direction of one of the trucks in the yard. ‘If I don’t get our cotton out in the next week, we’re going to be up shit creek. And if that bastard has money to buy this place, that’s the last straw. We might as well lie down and roll over like bloody dogs.’ Anger rolled off him in waves. He glanced past Paul’s shoulder.
Paul drew a deep breath and turned. Serena stood a few metres away, fiddling with her phone. He relaxed his fists and stepped towards her.
She gave him a smile, one of those overly bright, I-wish-I-was-anywhere-but-here smiles. ‘It’s okay. I should probably go and give you space to—do what you have to.’
‘I’m sorry, Serena. This isn’t a great introduction to Mindalby. I’ll show you the way to Trish’s B and B now.’
‘No need. I mean, Mindalby isn’t that big. Surely I won’t get lost.’
She wouldn’t, but he wanted time to think and Hayden needed time to cool off. ‘It’s fine. We’ve finished our—discussion.’
‘For now.’ Hayden glared at him, then looked at Serena and tempered his tone. ‘Welcome to Mindalby, Serena. Be glad you don’t live here.’
‘Enough, Hayden. We’ll talk again later.’ Paul took Serena’s arm and led her back to his ute. ‘The mill closing is bad enough on its own, but this—man who everyone is talking about—’
‘You don’t have to explain anything. It’s none of my business, but I can see you’re busy.’ She climbed into the passenger seat and settled her handbag on the floor between her feet, bumping a couple of boxes that rattled as she moved them with her toe. ‘Thanks for showing me the mill. Now I understand the situation here I’ll think carefully before I sink more money into my design project for the festival.’
He held onto the door, knowing he had to get his head together before she decided he was crazy. ‘If you’re free in the morning, we could have coffee?’
‘Maybe. I’ll text you.’
***
What a day to arrive.
As Paul made a U-turn, Serena looked at the men in the small crowd and wondered, was her father among them? Had he lost his job when the mill closed? Was he even alive and living in Mindalby? Her mother’s answers had always been vague, and without benefit of a name she didn’t have much to go on, but she’d already seen several men who fell into the right age group. Yesterday, as she’d driven into the sunset on her way out of Sydney, she’d decided to visit the dress shop before meeting with the saddler and begin her search by chatting with Veronica. The near accident had blown her plans apart. Finding herself in Paul’s yard had been sheer dumb luck, but his friendliness changed her mind. As they’d waited for their lunch, she had mentally geared up to tell him about her search. He seemed—nice. Nice, but extroverted.
That little squelch of fear had almost stopped her. Extroverted men, men with charm and good looks, were to be avoided. But Paul Carey had a larrikin sense of humour and a pair of smiling, dark brown eyes, and she’d tossed a mental coin and decided to ask him about people in town. Asking oblique questions to find her father might not be sensible, but it felt safe. And guiding the conversation to the segment of males aged from their late forties and older could flow naturally from conversation about the mill.
But then someone had called the name ‘Max’ and she’d panicked.
Stupid to panic out here. It wasn’t her Max—her stomach curled in on itself; never hers again, she didn’t want him. Not after his casual breaking of their engagement, and his callous disregard for the people who were important in her life.
If she never saw Max Zinsky again, it would be too soon. She’d pushed thoughts of her ex into the back of her mind and looked at Paul.
Into his kind brown eyes.
Then Hayden had turned up and she had gone with the brothers to the mill.
Now she glanced at Paul’s profile, at the muscle ticking in his cheek and his fierce grip on the wheel and wondered. What sort of man was this Frankston to inspire such a level of loathing? An awkward silence hung between them. She looked in the side mirror at the receding crowd of unemployed mill workers. After what she’d just witnessed, asking Paul for help to find her father was out of the question. Whoever this Frankston was, his arrival had compounded the difficulties of the mill closing. She wouldn’t add to Paul’s burden with her problem.
‘So, your brother’s cotton is locked up in the mill? This is a major cotton growing area; can’t he just collect it and take it to another mill?’
‘He tried, but couldn’t talk Sergeant Johnson into releasing it. Pity, because I could have got a truck to deliver it to Bourke.’
‘So his entire crop is being held hostage?’
‘A third of the crop. He planted in three stages. Because of the drought, Dad thought we might catch a bit of luck, weather-wise, if La Nina kicked in this year.’
Curious about his use of we, Serena leaned forward. ‘So you only have a third of your crop caught up in this drama? Isn’t that better than losing the whole lot?’
That same muscle ticked in Paul’s cheek and suddenly, she regretted her inclination to spout optimism at the drop of a hat. She knew nothing about cotton, nothing about the intricacies of mills closing, nothing about Paul Carey and his family’s business. Nothing about Mindalby, where her father may or may not be involved in what was happening.
‘Every last bale we can pick is committed. Water allocations dropped because of the drought and reduced the amount we can grow. If we don’t meet delivery, we’ll have more problems than just lost income.’ Paul’s words were clipped, his tone almost neutral except for the way he bit off the final word.
He didn’t speak again until he pulled into the driveway of a well-maintained garden. ‘Here it is. I can wait while you go in, unless you think you can find your way back from my place?’
‘Now I know where it is I’ll be able to get back easily. Take me back to my car please and I’ll be fine.’
Maybe fine wasn’t the word. Could she have chosen a worse time to embark on her search? She was already exhausted by the drive from Sydney; the emotional turmoil in this place was draining the last of her reserves of energy.
She’d lived twenty-six years without her father; one more night was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Tomorrow her search could begin in earnest.
But the memory of anxious faces and angry voices at the mill plagued her imagination. Maybe she’d get lucky and find her father.
But would her father be happy to see a daughter he knew nothing about?