Peter Corris - The Coast Road

‘Won’t be long. I could use the jug but I prefer it this way.’

‘I would too.’

‘You don’t strike me as a country type.’

‘I’m not. Boyhood memories and romantic fantasies.’

‘Have a seat.’ She busied herself spooning ground coffee and getting mugs down from the dresser. The draining board on the sink was empty. She was compulsive about putting things away, like me. I sat at the table and enjoyed watching her as she went unselfconsciously about the tasks, padding softly across the tiles in her thick socks. The kettle whistled and she poured the water and set the plunger.

‘Milk?’

‘If you’ve got it. Doesn’t matter.’

We settled with two steaming mugs of coffee and about a hundred years of pine table history between us. The surface was scarred and scorched and gouged, but it had been oiled and cared for lately and gave off a soft, yellow gleam.

She saw me noticing. ‘This was the mine manager’s house. The shaft entrance is about fifty metres off that-away.’ She pointed. ‘Covered with lantana now, of course.’

I nodded and drank some of the very good coffee. ‘I didn’t expect anything like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Someone so knowledgeable about the area and about the Farmers. Lucky.’

She shrugged. ‘Don’t know what good it’ll do you. What’s your brief from Elizabeth?’

I sipped. ‘You’re very direct.’

‘I don’t like to piss about. I know Elizabeth thinks Matilda hyphen whatever had Fred killed. I think it’s likely but no one else does. What are you supposed to do, prove it?’

‘Investigate,’ I said.

‘Oh, right-sit on the fence and charge so much a day.’

I drank more coffee and said nothing.

She cupped her hands around the mug. ‘I’m sorry. That was rude and offensive. It’s just that she needs someone on her side.’

‘You are.’

‘Apart from me. I can do bugger-all. Have you met Matilda?’

‘Yes.’

‘What d’you reckon?’

I liked this woman. I liked her house and her dog. I liked her coffee and the way the flue in her combustion stove didn’t work perfectly so that there was a bit of fragrant wood smoke in the kitchen. ‘I’d say she was capable of almost anything.’

‘Good on you. More coffee?’

Sue Holland was a lecturer in horticulture at Wollongong TAFE. She’d bought the mine manager’s cottage on three hectares ten years before when she’d got the job, using an inheritance and taking out a solid mortgage. She was divorced, no children. She’d got to know Frederick Farmer and Elizabeth some years before his first wife’s death.

‘They came down together pretty often,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see much of him at first when he married Matilda and then I saw him a lot-after that went sour. We got on well. He was a nice man. Loved the bush.’

We were on our second mug of coffee and the kitchen had heated up. I wanted to take off the flannel shirt but worried that it’d look presumptuous. I wiped away some perspiration and she laughed. ‘Heats up in here, doesn’t it?’ She stripped off her sweater. She wore a loose, collarless white cotton shirt under it. ‘Better take off the flannie. I’ve got things to tell you.’

I took the shirt off and draped it over the back of my chair. I’d tucked my notebook into the hip pocket of my jeans and I pulled it out. ‘Got a pen?’

She found one near the phone and passed it to me.

‘I saw someone hanging around Fred’s house a couple of times in the week before the fire. I didn’t think much of it. There’s all sorts of council types-inspectors, dog catchers. I told the police and would’ve given evidence at the inquest but it was over before I knew about it. The cops were useless. They didn’t like Elizabeth and they don’t like me.’

I’d made a note. I looked at her.

‘Dykes,’ she said.

‘I’d have thought enlightenment would have penetrated this far south.’

‘Nothing much penetrates the skull of Detective Sergeant Barton of Bellambi.’

‘I know the type.’

‘I told him about the…lurker. He thinks I’m a man-hater, which I’m not, and he thinks Matilda’s shit doesn’t smell.’

I poised the pen. ‘Can you tell me exactly what you saw and when, with dates if you can recall them? Did you see a car? Describe the person as precisely as you can. Did he leave anything behind? I want impressions, guesses, anything you can rake up.’

She smiled. ‘You’re as different from Barton as it’s possible to be.’

‘Thanks. He’s on my list of people to see. Do you know someone called Carson Lucas?’

‘Is anyone called Carson Lucas?’

‘The insurance investigator, I’m told.’

‘Never met him.’

‘It doesn’t sound as if the thing was gone into very closely.’

‘Right.’

‘That’s strange. Usually-’

‘You have to understand how things are down here. Local matters determine the thinking and the action. Fred had an offer for his place. Good offer, but he turned it down. Me too. Has to be a developer, even though the area can’t be subdivided. But the pressure builds and zoning can be changed. The council is keen to get more ratepayers. The cops want more paved roads, gutters, street lights, fewer secluded acres where people can grow dope, cook up speed…’

‘You’re giving me more suspects than Matilda.’

‘What if she was in with them?’

‘You’re a conspiracy theorist.’

‘You bet. You don’t think the conquest of Iraq was conspired at?’

‘Big scale, that.’

‘The scale doesn’t matter-the principle’s the same. Follow the money.’

‘You’re teaching me my job.’

‘I think you already know it.’

We talked for a little while longer. She gave me as accurate a description of the person she’d seen as she could. It wasn’t much-small to medium and carrying a clip-board-hence her guess at an official. Raincoat. It had been raining both times, and then she came up with the sort of thing that makes my job hard but interesting.

‘I was nearly a hundred metres away both times,’ she said. ‘Buggering around among the old apple and pear trees. There was just something about him that struck me as odd. Sorry, can’t put my finger on it. Look, I’d had a joint, one of those times. It can sharpen you up, or, you know. .’

I knew, although more about the effect of whisky than marijuana. I got her phone number and gave her my card. I thanked her for the coffee and the information.

‘No worries. How’s Elizabeth?’

I thought about it. ‘Composed.’

‘That’d be right. She with anyone?’

I shrugged. ‘I saw her at the uni.’

I didn’t like to lie to her, but gossip wasn’t my game. We shook hands again and I patted Fred on the head on the way to my car. He barely stirred.

I drove back to Thirroul and had a swim in the beachside pool. The water was cold but after a few laps I didn’t feel it and stayed at it long enough to feel I’d had a reasonable workout. I showered and changed back into the clothes I’d worn the day before. The shirt wasn’t the freshest, but the outfit looked better for calling on cops and insurance officers than the flannie and jeans. I wondered why Elizabeth Farmer hadn’t told me about the development angle. Possibly because she wanted Matilda to be at the bottom of everything. Not very objective, but that tends to happen with fallings-out inside families.

The Bellambi police station was next to the courthouse on the highway, both solid old structures reflecting an investment in law and order. I went through the door of the cop shop and got what I expected-an old shell, new fittings. Air conditioning, computers, bulletin boards bristling with pinned-up papers. An outer office for the uniforms and civilian support staff and an inner sanctum for the detectives. A fresh-faced young constable left his desk and approached the chest-high counter. Counters in police stations are always higher than elsewhere. Don’t