Dark Country by Catherine Lee

Author:Catherine Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catherine Lee

26

Will had left early on Monday morning for his weekly supply run into Bathurst. There’d been no calls this morning, nothing to say there had been any more murders, thank goodness. No news was good news. Anna had been up half the night; the baby was pressing down on her bladder and she’d found it impossible to get comfortable. She was sitting with a cup of tea and a book, hoping to take her mind off things, when Alex knocked on the back door.

“Only me,” he called out as he entered. Charlie settled himself on the mat outside the door.

“Hi Alex. Are you searching today?”

“Just about to head out. Will gone into Bathurst?”

“Yes, he left an hour ago.”

“Okay. Tell him I checked the gun safe, Dad’s .22 is missing. It’s the one he uses most for rabbits.”

“Well that’s something,” said Anna. “That means he most likely took it, and intended to kill his own food, right?”

“That’s the way I’m looking at it. We’ve got to stay positive, Anna.”

She smiled. If there was one person she could rely on to stay positive no matter what, it was Alex. She had a definite soft spot for her brother-in-law.

“How are you this morning?” Alex asked.

“Tired. People talk about you not getting much sleep once the baby arrives, but this little bugger is starting early. I can’t tell you how many times I was up last night.”

“You can’t have much longer to go, can you?”

“A couple of weeks yet, if it goes to term. I doubt he will, though. I’ve got a feeling this young man wants out, and that’s fine by me.”

Alex chuckled. “I’ll leave you to get some rest while you can, then.”

He was backing out the door when Anna remembered something she’d been meaning to ask him. Goddamn baby brain.

“Alex, I know it’s a stupid question, but have we done a proper search of the farm? I mean, what if John hasn’t gone anywhere? What if he was just working somewhere remote and got into trouble?”

“I’ve thought of that, too. We’ve covered pretty much the whole farm. I guess the only place we haven’t looked is the old sow stall shed. But Dad never went down there anymore.”

The old sow stall shed was down the back of the property and was used for storage. A couple of years ago the farm had gone completely sow stall free. They’d ripped the stalls out of the main sheds and, because there was nothing much they could do with them, they piled them up in the storage shed.

Anna had been overjoyed when Will and Alex had finally convinced John to do away with the sow stalls. There was a movement in the industry to do away with them anyway, because they were seen as a cruel way to keep sows. While John just grumbled about ‘new-age’ methods, Will and Alex saw an opportunity to change their market focus. They’d convinced John to change the farm’s practices in line with, or even better than, the new industry standards.

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