Murderer's Thumb by Beth Montgomery

Author:Beth Montgomery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781921776564
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2010-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

It was Saturday morning and the first time Adam had milked with the Brolga. For some reason her presence made the whole routine feel different. It wasn’t the way she spoke to Adam or Loody. It was the way she worked the cows in her tight pink rubber gloves. Her movements weren’t fluid and natural like Matt’s and Loody’s. She was awkward and jerky, holding her head to the side as she put the cups on, the way Adam felt he must have been on his first attempt. But the Brolga had milked for years. Why did she look like a beginner?

She caught Adam staring at her. She smiled with empty eyes. Must be the tranquillisers dulling her brain, taking the sharpness out of her gaze, Adam thought. Perhaps they affected her coordination too. But it was no wonder she used them. She must be so screwed up with grief.

Later when Adam was hosing down the yard she walked over to him. ‘Are you having breakfast with us this morning?’

‘Er, no…maybe tomorrow.’

She pulled her hair back behind her ears, then dropped her hands by her side, bony fingers fldgeting. ‘You’re most welcome, you know.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I…I wanted to ask you about last week, at the silage pit.’

‘Yeah.’ Adam waited for her to go on, but she just stood there wringing her hands. ‘What is it?’

‘Tell me what you saw,’ she said.

Adam hesitated. He didn’t want to bruise her more with careless words. ‘I saw some bones and a shoe.’

‘You didn’t see her bag? If we could find that, it might help us understand…we could check her phone…’

‘Her phone?’

‘Mmm. See who it was that rang her…told her to sneak out of the house.’

Adam shook his head. ‘No. There was no bag. No phone.’

She walked away, head down, fingers working furiously.

When Adam finished hosing, Loody handed him a plastic milk bottle filled with milk straight from the vat. ‘Compliments of the Thackerays,’ he said, filling a second bottle for himself. ‘Drink it before any stuff you’ve got in the fridge ’cause it hasn’t been pasteurised.’

‘Are you sure it’s all right?’

‘Nothing wrong with it. Straight from the cow.’

‘No, I mean, tapping their milk like that.’

‘It’s the Saturday morning reward. She always gives me a bottle.’

‘So you’re not really nicking it.’

‘Nah,’ he said, tilting his head to one side and squinting, ‘but what about you? Did you pinch anything from the tractor shed yesterday?’

‘I already told you…I wasn’t pinching anything,’ Adam said. Loody was a pain in the arse.

Loody frowned and screwed the lid on his milk bottle. ‘I reckon you’re after that missing diary.’

Adam laughed it off. ‘Nah. What would I want that for?’

Loody scratched at a bit of dried cow shit that clung to his hairy forearm. ‘I thought, seeing as you’ve got copper’s blood and everything, thought you’d be bustin’ a gut to find it.’

‘Aren’t you and Mongrel making a big deal out of all this?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well it was just a journal…someone’s opinions and notes,’ Adam said. He watched Loody’s face for a reaction.

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