Crows nest, p.1
Crows Nest, page 1
Nikki Mottram writes crime fiction and has a background in child protection. She has a psychology degree from The University of Queensland and has worked in London and Australia in positions protecting and promoting the welfare of children at risk of harm. She has been published in the Boroondara Literary Awards anthology and shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and the Hal Porter Short Story Competition. In 2018, she was the recipient of a Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers’ Centre Fellowship. She grew up and resides in Toowoomba, and brings to her work an understanding of rural communities.
For Alex, Emily and Jack
A woman, silhouetted in the light, was slumped over the steering wheel. The high beams of the panel van cut through the misty eucalypts, the car doors were outspread like wings – an angel of death.
She was miles from nowhere and the air was still. Trees like bones stood straight and pale in the moonlight. The temperature began to dip in the unnerving silence.
A mopoke called out, the first sound since the gunshots.
She suddenly realised she’d lost track of time.
The wind whispered through the trees and the sky turned white. The distant pain in her body ebbed as her breath turned to ice. She was floating. Through the tops of the trees, through infinite space, far beyond them all. The caw of crows welcomed the dawn.
She closed her eyes.
1
Dana headed north along the highway, her half-packed suitcase on the seat beside her. She passed prickly pear and creek beds, barbed-wire fences and desiccated trees. A flock of crows flew overhead in the late afternoon sky and as soon as she spotted them, a lone dropping hit the bonnet of her Mercedes. The car had been a gift from her husband, as was the ring on her finger, but as she gazed at the leather interior, the Art Deco diamond, she wondered if she’d ever care about any of it again.
She was still jittery from the fight they’d had before she left Castlecrag. He’d acted outrageously at his fiftieth. Let himself be dragged into their bedroom by that woman, the door slamming shut behind them. Hugh had sworn nothing happened, but Dana knew he liked her. Melinda, with the hard jaw and hooded eyes.
The kangaroo leapt from the side of the road and the windscreen shattered. She hit the brakes, a moan escaping her lips as the car fishtailed and skidded along the shoulder of the road before slamming to a stop against a tree. The radiator hissed and her heart hammered. She unbuckled her seatbelt and staggered from the car, observing the damage to the bonnet.
The kangaroo was lying about five metres behind her, its head flung back and a pool of blood at its mouth. Its neck looked broken, but she edged along the road to see if it was alive. A familiar feeling of dread filled her chest as she took in the kangaroo’s delicate forelimbs and velvety ears. Its helpless eyes were like Oscar’s – that cold morning when she found him in his cot, chilled and blue, the vomit on his jumpsuit like an oil slick.
She knew she should check for a joey but the idea was repulsive. A nightmare of images flashed through her brain – a deformed foetus, an injured youngster, having to snap its neck in a mercy killing. She paused, trying to build the courage to look. What would she do if it lived? Bundle it in her suit jacket and take it to Toowoomba? She pushed up her sleeves and shook her head. Get on with it, girl.
The fur around the pouch was surprisingly soft. She opened the flap and was relieved to find the moist pink cavity empty. She sank to her knees, tears stinging her eyes, the sky above her a heartbreaking display of fading pinks and blues. Beyond the endless telephone lines and a solitary windmill, the horizon shimmered. She pulled herself up and returned to the car. With shaking hands, she leant forward and flicked on the hazard lights then reached into her handbag for her Nokia. No reception.
Her chest tightened as panic set in. She stumbled up a nearby service road in her platform sandals and checked her phone. Nothing. She made a turn into a dusty paddock, hoping for a better signal. Yanking the wedges from her feet, she staggered forward another fifty metres and almost wept when two bars appeared. She started calling her insurance company then stopped, realising she hadn’t renewed her policy. She swore under her breath, grit her teeth and called them anyway.
A woman named Barbara answered and asked for her name.
She took a shaky breath. ‘It’s Dana Gibson. I’ve hit a kangaroo. I’m on the Gore Highway, between Goondiwindi and Toowoomba, just past Captains Mountain service station. The reception’s bad.’
Barbara’s voice was calm and motherly. ‘That’s fine, we’ll get someone to help you as soon as possible. Are you okay? Do you have any injuries?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Right, I need you to park your car as far to the left side of the highway as possible, turn on your hazard lights and fasten your seatbelt.’
‘I turned on the lights,’ said Dana. ‘But I’m worried—’ The line dropped out. ‘Fuck,’ she cried, only just preventing herself from hurling the phone into the dirt. She picked her way to a straggly tree on the other side of the field and stabbed the buttons to redial. The thrum of cicadas drilled into her brain. There was an agonising wait and finally, on the tenth ring, she got through.
‘Dana?’ Barbara asked.
‘Yes, thank god,’ she said. ‘My licence plate is SMV 158 … I have an awful feeling I haven’t renewed my policy.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Barbara, her fingers tapping against the keyboard. ‘I’ll check it now.’ There was a brief pause. ‘By the looks of this, the policy was renewed a month ago.’
Hugh had paid her car insurance, and she’d never been more surprised in her life. Since when had he done any of the chores – taken the clothes to the dry cleaner, lodged the tax returns?
‘I’ve logged the job with roadside assistance,’ said Barbara. ‘They should be no more than an hour away.’
Dana longed to keep Barbara talking, to hear her calm, soothing voice, but she detested weakness and instead thanked her and hung up. As she returned to the car, she could see crows fighting over the carcass of the kangaroo. She rushed towards them; her face contorted with rage. ‘Leave it alone!’ She clapped her hands until the birds scattered into the sky.
She fought a wild impulse to call Hugh, but what would she say? I accused you of having an affair, but could you drive a thousand kilometres and pick me up? Speaking to him now would only confirm that he was right, she’d been foolish to take an agency job. And in a place she hadn’t been to for twenty years. Still, she yearned to take refuge on his chest and have him console her. He’d warned her not to drive at dusk, to stop overnight and break up the long drive, but as usual she hadn’t listened.
As she opened the car door and sat down to wait, she recalled how badly she’d behaved during their last argument. She’d slapped him. Actually slapped him. ‘I can’t believe you’d choose her, when you could have chosen anyone else.’ And after she’d paused for breath, ‘She’s not even attractive.’
Hugh hadn’t yelled back, was red-faced when he said, ‘You could hardly blame me if I had. When was the last time we were in the same bed together?’
Dana ran a hand through her hair as she tried to remember. She’d been sleeping in the spare bedroom for a while now. What started with finishing late at work and not wanting to disturb him had stretched into weeks, then months. She’d been so busy managing a high-risk investigation and assessment team she’d barely noticed their time apart. Instead, she’d filled her head with cases of child abuse and neglect, the sad and sometimes hopeful stories of the families who came onto the radar of Community Services.
She’d watched as Hugh paced around their kitchen, stress etched on his face. Truth be told, she enjoyed sleeping alone, having the freedom to stretch out, to toss and turn after a harrowing day at work. But she knew it bothered him, knew it violated one of his deeply held beliefs about coupledom. Had she been a decent partner she would have done everything in her power to remedy the situation. Instead, she’d followed him into the lounge room and continued their argument.
Glancing in the rear-view mirror she could see the indents in the leather seat where the baby capsule had been. Hugh must have removed it at some point and she realised that what they’d hardly spoken about since the funeral was the loss of Oscar. Everything in the house reminded her of him. The nursery, lovingly decorated in Winnie the Pooh prints, the white sleigh cot and velvet comforter that had only been in use for a few months.
Just before she’d left for Queensland, as she’d hoisted her bag and opened the front door, Hugh touched her arm. He gazed at her with bottomless sadness and said, ‘We’re alright, aren’t we?’ She didn’t know. All she knew was that she needed some time and space to think things through without the constant reminders of what her life could have looked like.
As the last of the sun faded she flicked on the interior lights, the diamond on her hand sparkling up at her as she took her new Alanis Morissette CD from the wallet. She placed it in the Discman and put on her headphones. By the time ‘You Learn’ started, the bright yellow beams of a tow truck were cutting through the darkness. It pulled up ahead of her and made a U-turn on the highway.
A thin-hipped man in fisherman pants sprang from the vehicle holding a torch. In the dim glow of the tail-lights, she could make out a Sanskrit tattoo on his bicep and a hoop in his ear.
‘Dana Gibson?’ he asked. ‘That’s an unusual name. How do I say it?’
‘Day-na,’ she replied, answering the question she’d been fielding her entire life.
‘Jimmy,’ he said, pumping her hand and holding eye contact for longer than necessary. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’ He swung his torch around, surveying the scene. ‘Man …’ He exhaled. ‘Those roos are vicious little buggers. I’d say this one’s done a pretty good number on your car.’
He scratched the skin on his chest where it met a blue singlet. Wife-beater. The word echoed in her mind. There was something about the way he kept eyeing her that sent shivers up her spine.
‘I don’t get it.’ He shook his head. ‘They get dazed by the headlights, but instead of jumping away from the car they jump into it.’ He returned to his vehicle and came back with a towing hook. ‘You can wait in the truck. I’ll be here a while.’
‘Sure,’ she said, grabbing her handbag and phone. ‘Thanks,’ she added, remembering herself and handing him the keys. She walked over to the passenger side of the truck, hiked up her skirt and hauled herself into the cabin. Her wedges came to rest on a bed of Coke cans and food wrappers. The air inside had the dead-oil smell of McDonalds. She switched on the overhead light and leant over to study her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Her mascara was smudged, her blue eyes and pale skin red from crying. If Jimmy found her attractive, he was clearly desperate. Move along, she addressed him silently. Nothing to see here.
She slid her hand into the side door compartment and pulled out a ragged Hustler magazine. She started flicking through the pages, but when she landed on a picture of two women with a feather boa, she shoved it back where she’d found it. Dana peered through the grimy back window. Haloed in the truck’s spotlight, Jimmy was still bent over her car.
She yanked open the glove box. She knew she was intruding, but if being a social worker had taught her anything it was that a person’s vehicle could tell you more about their life than a made-up story. A sea of wrappers fell to the floor and she reached inside and pulled out a leather holster. Inside was a serrated knife coated in a sticky substance. She turned it over in her hands and read the inscription: guaranteed sharp. She snapped the compartment shut.
A road train roared past and the cabin shook. The beams of the tail-lights glowed menacingly before receding into the darkness. She sat back in her seat and tried to relax. She’d been on the road for almost ten hours and she was almost there – she couldn’t give up now.
The driver’s door opened and Jimmy dragged himself into the cabin next to her, clicking the buckle of his seatbelt. ‘That towing hook on that flash car of yours was a bastard to find. But, on the upside, at least I got to rescue a hot redhead.’ He chuckled as the engine roared to life and he eased the truck onto the highway.
She ignored him and changed the subject. ‘I wasn’t too worried about breaking down. Barbara from the hotline said someone would be out within the hour.’ Dana had a good mind to call her and abuse her for sending this lunatic.
‘Where you coming from?’ he asked.
‘Sydney.’
‘Sydney?’ He laughed. ‘That’s where they have the Mardi Gras!’
‘That’s right,’ she said, repulsed, but not wanting to get on the wrong side of him.
‘But you’re not gay, darl.’ He wagged his eyebrows. ‘Are you?’
She rolled her eyes as though it was a big joke, but her chest was tight as she wiped her sweaty palms along her skirt.
He reached for the CB radio from the rack and spoke into it. He had a twitchy, nervous quality as he tapped the steering wheel, making her wonder about amphetamines. Her mind raced ahead to the coronial reports she’d read about women being murdered after accepting lifts from strangers. And while she was no hitchhiker, she wondered whether she’d inadvertently put herself in the same position.
‘What brings you to Toowoomba? No wait—’ he said before she’d had a chance to answer. ‘It’s work, isn’t it? You’ve driven here in your fancy car with your nice clothes because you’re going to show these country people how it’s done.’
‘You’re right,’ she said evenly. ‘I signed up with a social work agency and I’ve been sent to Toowoomba.’
He grinned, pleased with himself. ‘Where are you working?’
‘Department of Families.’
‘Families, hey,’ Jimmy said, sharply interested. ‘Your lot do child support?’
‘No,’ Dana said truthfully.
‘My ex-wife lets me see the kids every second weekend and gets half of what I earn. Major bitch. You have any kids?’
‘A boy,’ Dana lied, thinking he might be less likely to harm her if he knew she had a child. ‘He’s at home with his dad at the moment – his dad’s in the police force.’ Another lie.
He was undeterred. ‘And you’ve been in a relationship longer than six months?’
‘Yes,’ said Dana, wondering what on earth he was getting at.
‘Congratulations,’ he said bitterly. ‘As soon as you have a kid and you’ve lived together for longer than six months, you get sixty per cent of everything.’
‘That seems unfair,’ she said, trying to pacify him.
‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘But I guess she’s a better parent than me in some ways, at least she doesn’t get frustrated. Storm used to cry for hours at night, this piercing cry. Sent me mental every time.’
The tension in her shoulders eased. Perhaps he wasn’t that bad if he could concede the reasons he hadn’t been awarded custody. ‘Are your kids in Toowoomba?’ she asked.
‘No, Crows Nest – a small town forty kays north. Joel’s nine and Storm’s fifteen. I’d like to have more of them, actually. Move to Bali and have a whole tribe running around.’ He rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck from side to side, then leant over and whispered in her ear. ‘You know, darl, I’ve been cooped up in this truck all day and I think it’s time we had a bit of fun.’ He reached past her and rifled around in the glove box.
Dana’s breath came in short, shallow bursts. She couldn’t believe she’d been lulled into a false sense of security. Wasn’t it the modus operandi of sociopaths to be charming?
She gripped the seatbelt buckle and thought about escape routes, about throwing herself from the fast-moving vehicle. The roar in her ears became so loud it was impossible to think.
2
Jimmy produced a joint, lit it and took a deep drag. He gazed out the window with a faraway look. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Relief swept over her. ‘I’d prefer you didn’t.’
‘Do you know what they say about Toowoomba?’ he asked as they rounded the bend at the top of a hill.
She shook her head.
‘World’s smallest lake. World’s flattest mountain.’
She smiled despite herself, remembering the man-made Lake Annand in the centre of town and the treeless summit of Table Top Mountain. ‘What else do they say?’ She was surprised he’d made her laugh.
Jimmy considered the question. ‘Well, the thing I reckon is interesting, but no-one ever talks about, is that in Toowoomba the wrong side of the tracks is like, literally, the wrong side of the tracks. There’s this train line that runs right through the middle of town separating east from west, and the east side is posh and the west side is where all the deros live.’
‘Really? I’d never thought of it that way, but now you mention it …’
‘The other thing no-one talks about is,’ he said, warming to the subject, ‘once a year there’s a really brutal murder. Like three years ago there was the torso murder, the year after there was a triple murder, and then last year there was that guy who killed his brother and his freaking teacher helped bury him out the back of Mount Lofty somewhere.’ He flicked the joint out of the window. ‘Mind if I turn the radio on?’ he asked, reaching for the open packet of chips sitting between them and cramming a handful into his mouth.
The dramatic music of the ABC news bulletin came on:
Here is the 7:30 pm news for this day, Sunday, twenty-eighth of April 1996. In breaking news, a gunman armed with two high-calibre semiautomatic weapons has killed in excess of thirty people and wounded countless others in Port Arthur, Tasmania, the former prison colony and popular tourist spot.
