Canticle Creek by Adrian Hyland

Author:Adrian Hyland [Adrian Hyland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ultimo Press
Published: 2021-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

Twenty minutes later we were standing on the edge of the road at Demon’s Leap. I did what I could to make sense of the tyre tracks, but the ground was packed so hard, it wasn’t giving much away. There were scratch marks on the fence that might have come from a bull-bar, the odd torn wire. My attacker had obviously clipped it on the way through.

‘And this bush you’re saying saved your life?’ asked Vince.

I peered over the ledge. There were a few shrubs on the way down, but they looked awfully insignificant in the light of day. I’d been luckier than I realised.

‘I’ll bring forensics here when they’re finished at the Falls,’ said Wallace.

We left, and ten minutes later we were rolling into Johnson’s Falls, now transformed from leafy green idyll into grim familiar crime scene: cop cars, clipboards, methodical officers in blue overalls and rubber gloves, cameras round their necks.

We climbed under the tape and made our way to the waterhole. Wolf ’s Nissan stood there forlornly, a grey ghost, patches of print-dust scattered across its panels, leaves building up on its wipers.

‘When did they remove the body?’

‘Few hours ago,’ said Wallace.

I wasn’t complaining. I didn’t want to look at it. The man had been a bloody nuisance when he was alive and was proving even more of one now that he wasn’t.

I retraced my movements from a couple of days ago, walking the banks of the waterhole, kicking divots, tearing off a leaf or two. I came back and leaned against the car, trying to come up with an explanation for what had happened here – preferably one that didn’t involve me going to jail. If you thump somebody and they drop dead days ‒ even weeks ‒ later, an enthusiastic prosecutor could still do you for murder, especially if they had an equally enthusiastic investigator arranging the evidence.

Surely the silly bugger hadn’t gone back to the car, found the keys, then returned to the creek, fallen in and drowned? He must have had some assistance.

Why would anybody want to kill Wolf? And how was his death connected to those of Adam and Daisy? Surely it must be, somehow. An unpleasant idea floated to the surface, bobbed about like a Polly Waffle in a public pool. Could it have been me they were after? I thought about Brock Gaunt staring at me from the Burns, or jerking off at the fire. What had he been up to – aside from the obvious? Was he trying to scare me off?

When Vince came back I shared my concerns about Brock Gaunt and his ongoing attempts to creep me out.

‘He’s weird,’ I concluded.

Vince folded his arms, listening carefully.

‘Brock’s got this way of looking at you,’ he said. ‘Somebody must have dropped him on his head when he was a baby. That’s just his manner. But aside from a few barroom brawls and the odd DUI – all rites of passage round here – he hasn’t got a record to speak of.

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