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They sat and listened to the traffic hum, and Kirsty watched a string of black ants march purposefully along the concrete near her foot.
‘This place is run by volunteers, too,’ Carol said after a while. ‘People like me who value the past.’
‘Unlike me, you mean? The sketchy outback pilot who runs away from the past at every opportunity?’
A paper-dry hand closed over hers. ‘I get it, I do. Dealing with stuff is difficult and running away can be a coping mechanism. I wonder …’
‘What?’
‘Your mother—forgive me if I’m overstepping, Kirsty—but … did she ever tell you why she ran away from Clarence after your father died?’
‘No way. And if I asked her about it, she’d—well, I’m not sure what she’d do.’ Run away. Sell her belongings and shove the proceeds down a slot machine. Crumple into a wad of depression and self-loathing again.
‘Hmm. Remember that dastardly plan of mine? To claim moral ownership of the plane so the bank wouldn’t risk the bad publicity by laying claim to it?’
‘Ye-es.’ What Terri had to do with Carol’s dastardly plan, she couldn’t fathom.
‘Well, this is where it’s going to get a bit sticky. For you, love, in particular.’ Carol pulled a large yellow envelope across the table and tipped out the contents onto the bench seat between them.
Oh. The bundle of letters from the suitcase she’d been avoiding.
‘I’ve read them,’ said Carol briskly. ‘You’ll see two of those little yellow posty things marking the pages. Read them both.’
The date was the first thing she saw when she read the article about her father’s death. Seven months before she was born … so her mother had been telling the truth about that, at least.
FARMTRAGEDYTAKESLIFEOFLOCALFARMERTREVORBLUETTIn what has been described as an accident which could have been avoided, a twenty-two-year-old man has died after the motorbike he was driving crashed into an embankment near the small farming community of Clarence. The pillion passenger, a backpacker who had been working in the district, survived with minor injuries.
Trevor was the only child of Douglas and Mary Bluett.
‘Who was on the pillion?’ she said. But she knew the answer, of course she did.
‘Read the other one, love.’
Her fingers felt numb as she sifted through the pages to Carol’s next yellow marker.
CORONIAL INQUEST INTO CLARENCE FARMING TRAGEDY PROVIDES FEW ANSWERS.
Coroner Barbara Smith today handed down her findings into the incident which claimed the life of local farmer Trevor Bluett. Mr Bluett was killed in a single vehicle incident while riding a motorcycle borrowed from a backpacker who had been employed as a seasonal worker on the family farm. The only witness to the incident—passenger and owner of the motorbike, Theresa Fox—refused to cooperate with the enquiry.
In her findings, Coroner Smith noted the motorbike had been in poor repair, and it was a fact that the owner of the bike had known the brakes were faulty. The owner had previously taken her bike into the Clarence Mechanics for a puncture repair to the rear tyre, whereupon the mechanichad advised her the motorbike was not roadworthy and needed urgent mechanical repairs.
It was also noted in the coroner’s report that heavy rainfall had left pockets of deep mud in the area where the crash occurred.
‘My role as coroner,’ she reported, ‘is restricted to discovery of cause and manner of death, and for that reason I decline to comment on the loophole in current legislation which allows a negligent operator or owner of a motor vehicle who has contributed to the harm or death of another person to escape legal consequences where that incident occurred on private property.’
Theresa Fox, her mother—who had called herself Terri Fox for the whole of Kirsty’s life, but hey, that was a detail! That wasn’t the freaking bombshell! Terri had beeninvolvedin the crash which claimed the life of her father. Not just involved, butto blame.
And then … Kirsty pressed a hand to her mouth. And then her mother had run away.
‘You’re looking pale, pet. I’m sorry.’
She could only nod.
‘You must speak to your mother.’ For a grey-haired sweetheart, Carol had the basilisk stare of a cold-war interrogator.
‘It’s complicated, Carol. My mother has a problem—an addiction, actually, to pokie machines, which she is trying desperately to not relapse into—and bringing up something like this would act as a trigger.’
‘Hmm,’ said Carol. A small blue hatchback could be seen slowing to make the turn into the museum’s narrow driveway.
