Chapter Thirty-Two
CHAPTER
32
‘There’s something between you and Kit.’ Shelley, sitting in Grandpa’s chair on the verandah, looks over her shoulder to check that Rory is out of earshot. Stitching leather in the workroom, he looks up briefly before going back to his task. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
After our discussion last week at the Wattle Valley pub, whatever might have been between us is lost. I should be relieved I have one less thing to worry about. I have one less reason to toss and turn all night and—
‘Mac? Are you okay?’
I kneel to sweep a pile of scraps into a pan. ‘There’s nothing between me and Kit, and yes, I’m okay.’
‘He charged up to the stage like a bull at a gate at the meeting.’ She grins. ‘Didn’t you notice the way he looked at you?’
‘I was about to throw up, so no.’
‘He was concerned.’ She sighs. ‘A man on a mission.’
A Viking.
The almost-permanent ache in my chest ramps up. ‘It was nice of him to help out.’
‘Nice?’ She laughs. ‘That’s not a word I’d apply to Kit Thorsen.’
I sweep dust from behind the chairs. ‘Will you stay here in Summerfield, Shelley? Forever?’
Her smile slips away. ‘That’s a long time. How about you?’
‘I have Grandpa and the saddlery.’
‘Rory loves what you do.’
‘He’ll be a brilliant saddler.’
‘I love my kid,’ she says. ‘I’ll stay in Summerfield until he is.’
Early spring jasmine curls around the letterbox post. The wattle trees growing by the shed have tightly furled spheres that’ll flower next month. Sun streaks through the gums, making patterns on Phoenix’s shiny black coat. I’ve never thought of this place as anything else but home, so why—
‘Is it next week you go camping with Kit?’
‘Me, Kit and the film crew.’
When Aiden pulls up in front of the house, Shelley yells out to Rory. ‘Time to go, mate.’
‘He can stay longer if he wants. This isn’t a date.’
‘Given Kit’s angsty looks last week, it’d better not be.’
As they pass on the front lawn, Aiden kicks an imaginary ball to Rory. When he catches it, Shelley shouts, ‘It’s a mark!’
Aiden bounds up the steps. ‘I smell scones.’
‘Just out of the oven.’ We hug briefly. ‘Would you like coffee or tea?’
***
I’d like to confide in Aiden about the possible link between the break-ins at the saddlery and Dad’s film, but the police warned me not to say anything. I bring my chair closer as, sitting next to me at the kitchen table with the laptop in front of him, he scrolls through a folder containing photos and videos.
‘Sorry they’re not interesting like the ones of the penguins and bushland.’
He points to an image of a giant yellow chute loading rocks onto a truck. The men in charge are dressed in orange; one of them is laughing.
‘To an engineer, this is interesting.’
‘The colours and composition are good, and some could be useful to show people what the mine looked like before it closed.’ I indicate the third video in the folder. ‘Dad died not long after this was shot. Can we look at it first?’
Aiden smiles when I appear on the screen. ‘My memories of you are spot on. You were a cute teenager, Mac.’
‘Before the mine was closed, there was a fenced area, like a no-go zone, between the mine and the bushland on the other side of it. From what Dad says when he’s filming, the mine must’ve finished working at an area adjacent to the no-go zone. The mine operator had done basic rehabilitation work—backfilling, topsoil, planting— because that part of the mine wasn’t productive any more. The reason Dad was there was to see what had been done.’
After watching the video five times, I’d started to wonder whether I was overthinking why I might’ve got stuck in the mud, but Aiden looks as surprised as I was by what he sees. He goes back to the start, stopping at the place where I’m knee deep in mud before restarting the video and stopping it again.
‘You’re going down fast.’
He pauses the video when my hand, black with mud, is reaching out towards Dad. ‘What was it?’
‘Dad said it might be a drainage problem but …’ I look more closely. ‘It’s not watery, is it?’
‘The other areas were dry?’
‘Yes, so it’s not like it’d flooded due to rainfall.’
He magnifies the image. ‘Tell me about the mud.’
‘I wasn’t conscious of the smell until I was standing in it, so I don’t think it was sewerage or anything like that. The ground seemed firm when I stepped off the path, which is why I kept going, but then I started sinking.’
‘The texture. What was it like?’
‘Sticky. Viscous. Dad had an old T-shirt in the car, and I wiped my hands on that but …’ I rub my thumbs against my fingers. ‘It was thick, slippery. It left a residue.’
‘Was it oily?’
‘The soap in the bathroom at the mine offices wasn’t enough and that’s why …’ I think back again. ‘I think Dad gave me a solvent.’
‘Turps?’
‘Something like that. After we got home, I needed more of it to clean under my nails.’
‘Could the substance have been paint?’
‘It didn’t smell like paint, it smelt …’ I sit back in my chair. ‘They must have laid topsoil to plant the grasses, but it’s not like I wasn’t used to muddy paddocks and horse manure and all those things. Whatever I sank into was different.’
‘Is the video dated?’
I point to the numbers above the file. ‘All the dates are here.’
‘Are there other videos from this time?’
‘None at the mine.’
Aiden looks at the dates. ‘This video was taken on a Sunday. Did your father take photos that day?’
‘I haven’t checked all the dates yet.’
There are no stills on that day, or the day before, but there are stills from the Monday after. A cavernous metal shed with a concrete floor and double doors marked with the mine logo. Sixteen large blue silver-lidded drums standing four to a pallet. Six additional pallets, stacked up in a pile. The lighting in some of the photos is poor and they all lack the artistic quality of Dad’s usual photos, but the images are clear.
‘What would have been in the drums?’ I ask Aiden.
‘Steel makes them suitable for anything, including corrosive substances.’ He zooms in on the photos. ‘See the red diamond stickers? They signal flammable. The rectangular stickers are more specific about the contents.’
‘There would have been waste like this at the mine?’
‘The Summerfield mine was a simple open-cut coal operation. Raw materials, thousands of tonnes of rock, were trucked out of the mine and refined elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t have been hazardous materials on site, like machinery oils, petroleum products, solvents and other chemicals. Hazardous materials are isolated and stored until they can be safely taken away.’ He points to the logo on the doors. ‘We’re looking at a storage facility at the Summerfield mine.’
‘You’d expect a shed like this?’
‘It would have been taken away on decommissioning.’ He checks the date again. ‘Summerfield was the only mine your father worked at?’
‘Yes, and he didn’t leave Summerfield in the weeks before his death.’
Aiden zooms in on the drums again. ‘Why would your father take these photos? They’re nothing like his other shots.’
‘I noticed that too.’
Aiden sits back in his chair. ‘You’re looking for something, aren’t you?’
‘It’s odd, that’s all.’
‘Almost fourteen years after you sank to your knees, you’re interested in what you sank into. I agree this looks dodgy, but I’m wondering why it’s suddenly so important.’
‘Do you think the mud and the drums could be related? In the shed, there were more pallets than drums. Why would Dad specifically photograph that?’
‘Be straight with me, Mac. Why did you want me to look at the video?’
Can I trust Aiden? He hasn’t given me a reason not to trust him. ‘You have to keep this to yourself.’
He holds up a hand. ‘Scout’s honour.’
‘What I’ve shown you could be of interest to somebody else.’
‘What somebody?’
‘The somebody who knew I’d unearthed Dad’s film. There was something in it they wanted. When I cornered him in the shed, Joseph Rossi told me he was paid to recover film, to steal it. But he hasn’t admitted that to the police. He’s now insisting he was acting on his own and denying he was after anything specific.’
‘What are the police doing about this?’
‘They only have my account of a conversation which Joseph denied ever happened, so there’s nothing much they can do. Particularly as Joseph didn’t find anything because the film was under the house and then I gave it to Kit. The police said when I got it back, I should look through it. I couldn’t see anything in the pictures or videos of Antarctica or the bush at Summerfield, but maybe Dad’s footage of the mine is different.’
‘Explain that.’
‘Dad videoed me sinking in the mud on a Sunday afternoon. The next day, when he’d usually be working in the office, he was taking photos in a shed.’
‘A shed that housed hazardous waste.’ Aiden peers at the photos again. ‘The doors are open in the first few photos. In the others, there’s far less natural light. He could have had a reason for closing the doors.’
‘Why take so many photos of empty pallets? Was there supposed to be something on those pallets that was no longer there? Maybe he saw something he wasn’t supposed to see.’
‘That’s possible.’
‘Not that we’ll ever know for sure. The next day, he had the accident.’
Aiden blinks. ‘Tell the police what you’ve found, Mac. Let them decide.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Dad’s film is thirteen years old and all we have is conjecture. I don’t want to stir up trouble in Summerfield by making accusations about cover-ups or suggesting that the break-ins are related to what went on at the mine until I know more. Not when the town is finally moving on and the documentary team are here to capture that.’
‘Aren’t you afraid of another break-in?’
‘Joseph has strict bail conditions and his grandmother is keeping a close eye on him. Anyway, Kit has the original footage, and it’ll be clear from last week’s meeting that everything has been digitised. If we stay quiet, whoever wanted it will assume no one has seen the significance of whatever it is they wanted to hide.’
‘They’ll know you have copies. They might suspect you’ve found something.’
‘Like I said, not if we don’t say anything.’
‘I’m not sure about this, Mac.’
‘I’ll report what we’ve found when the time is right. And I’ll make sure there’s nothing dumped at the site that shouldn’t be there, particularly now I know about the possibility of hazardous waste.’
‘When will the time be right?’
‘I’ve got commitments with the documentary team next week. As soon as I get back, I’ll go out to the mine to see if I can remember where I sank. Then I’ll go to the police.’