You shouldnāt drink gin before you drive a sedan. But you also shouldnāt talk back to your mother, wear black with blue or sleep with loose men, and Iād done all those things plenty of times, so I didnāt hesitate when I soaked my throat with a thick finger of Tanqueray before I hit the road. New client. Weird kidāor at least heād seemed weird on the phone. Tweaky voice, even though his words were smooth. Like his private-school manners were paved over something that had cracked. Even before I met him I didnāt trust him. But I needed the cash, and I needed the workātoo much time between cases let a muddy fog waft into my thoughts. It was better to stay busy. He lived on a farm on the coast between Beauty Point and Hawley Beach, about an hourās drive from my flat in north Launceston. I burned up the East Tamar Highway, tyres sliding across the black ice that filmed over the road on every shadowed corner. I shouldnāt drive so fast. The Lancer canāt handle it. Itās handled a lot of things, but black ice: itās never been able to come to terms with that. The third time I spun out I grudgingly slowed down, crawling all the way to the Batman Bridge, where the light sprayed over the broad blue river, forcing me to blink and grunt and yank down the visor. It sure was pretty, all that light on all that water. Iām not interested in pretty things. I made it to the farm twenty minutes later, although it wasnāt really a farm, or not what I thought a farm should be. There were no sheep. No cows. No pigs or geese or goats. No barking dogs, shearing sheds or irrigation machines. There was just a lonely dirt road, a sandstone cottage and a few thistle-filled fields that sloped down to the grey ocean. How this kid made money had me beat. But as long as he had it, I didnāt care. I parked next to the cottage and knocked on the door, which he opened a few moments later. In the dim light I couldnāt make him out that well, but when he invited me inside I got a proper look. Skinny face. Skinny arms. Skinny everything. He offered me tea. I declined, but he boiled the jug anyway, said he needed a pick-me-up, sounding nervous and shaky. As the water heated he had a go at a bit of chitchatāhow heād seen my ad in the paper, how heād assumed I was a man, whether the drive was all right; all the usual small talk that I donāt go in for. Eventually the jug clicked off, and then we were sitting at the table in his little kitchen, me picking at my cuticles, him sipping and telling me what I could do for him. The story wasnāt as unusual as he thought it was. Mother dies, daughter goes bonkers, son acts like nothingās wrong, daughter runs away. He couldāve told me this in an email. Sure, the whole reincarnation thing was a bit off-script, but Iād seen stranger things happen to stranger peopleāblackmailers whoād stolen souls with high-powered cameras; thieves whoād sold their shadows to puppeteers; adulterers whoād swapped faces with gargoyles. You name it, Iād seen it. And Iād investigated it, solved it, and been home by nine with a glass of gin and a thick sandwich. Skinny boyās mother and all her twice-dead relatives didnāt make me blink. He handed me a photo of the sister as he spoke. Normal-looking girl in her early twenties. Dark hair, like his. Pale skin. A bit of mongrel in her face, Iād guess, but you never really know about that until you see someone fired up. I slipped it into my pocket. When he stopped talking I took out my notebook. Did the cops find anything? He rubbed his face. Not really. She was travelling south. The last place she was spotted was on a bus headed to Franklin. I went down there myself, but nobody had seen her. He was trying to sound calm, but there was that nervous shake again, wobbling about beneath his tongue. Who was the lead on the case? Pardon? The lead. The detective. Oh. He frowned and got up to fetch his wallet from the kitchen bench, pulled out a blue card. Senior Detective Graham Malik. He looked back at me. You know him? I tugged on a stubborn piece of skin. Somewhat. Graham Malik. The Last Graham. At least Iād be dealing with a face I knew. I stood up and smoothed back my hair. Thatās it? He swung forward from the bench. You donāt need anything else? Nah. I grabbed my coat from the back of the chair and made for the door, where I paused. Iām a master of the doorway pause. Except one thing. Now I turned to see what his face would do when I asked: Whereās your old manās place?
ICE
The cracks Iād heard in his voice swam up to his face, snapping over those pointy little cheekbones. Why?
A girl goes missing, you generally check her dadās place first.
Sheās not there.
Probably not. But Iām still going to check.
His voice rushed out, high and jittery. That isnāt necessary.
I crossed my arms. You want me to find her?
Of course.
Then let me do my job.
He had a go at staring me down and lost, badly. With wet eyes he grabbed a letter from the bench and marched over, handing it to me. Here. It was addressed to a Jack McAllister at a property down the highway, closer to Launceston. I slipped the envelope into my pocket and made to leave, but the kid wasnāt done talking. When will I hear from you? Iād appreciate updates.
Iād appreciate a long weekend with some Olympic gymnasts, I thought. But I didnāt bother telling him. I just opened the door and felt the wind slap my face. Iāll be in touch.
Ī
Half an hour later I arrived at the old manās house. It was a big timber pile just south of Exeter, perched on a bend overlooking the Tamar. The sun was falling fast, dropping behind the western hills, dragging shadows over the valley.
The house was something else. I donāt go much for ostentatious architecture, but I could appreciate what was going on here. Three storeys, two chimneys, at least five bedrooms. Built out of some kind of rich red timber that almost glowed, but that mightāve been the dusky light. Myrtle, I guessed, although I donāt know anything about wood. The mansion was surrounded by a sprawling, overgrown garden, flowers and bushes and all sorts of scrub pushing firmly against each other in what must have once, years ago, been a vast garden. Trees thrust up through the foliage, towering over the house, competing for the light. Some part of me realised that, like the view from the bridge, it was all rather pretty. I stopped looking at it.
No lights were shining from any of the windows, no smoke was pumping from either of the chimneys and no sound was coming from under any of the doors. No cars in the driveway, either. I knocked anyway, expecting nothing and getting it. No father to be found. Iād check with Malik in the morning. I jumped back in the Lancer, swung the wheel and headed back out onto the highway, but not before Iād seen something Iād missed on the way in: a broad, blackened patch of burnt grass in the lawn, right in front of the house. The grass around it had grown high and lush, but this ring of charcoal had not recovered. I thought of the mother, the one whoād burned twice, and felt a brief twinge.
By the time Iād followed the river home it was completely dark. I parked in the alley, let myself into the flat, and made a ham and mustard sandwich. A glass of gin happened too, and another few, until I was lying on the couch watching someone shout at me from the television. At some point the neighbourās cat came in, a huge black tom that had taken a liking to me. I couldnāt tell how it kept getting in. It sat on my stomach as I fed it strips of ham. More gin. The room turned swimmy. Iād find the girl in the morning. As long as she hadnāt become a ring of burnt grass.
Ī
In the morning my brain was having a fight with my skull and I hated pretty much everything, but that was normal. I shoved the tom off me and began my breakfast routine: toast, black coffee, push-ups, sit-ups, hot shower, toothbrush, Panadol, clothes. By the time I was pushing buttons through my shirt I was as good as I was going to get. In the mirror I saw that my hair was reaching past my ears. I smoothed it back, wiped on some cherry lipstick, sorted my eyes out with a bit of liner, grabbed my coat and got out of the flat before I had to look at it for any longer.
It wasnāt far to the cop shop. All the nature strips I walked past were covered in a brittle layer of frost; the local footy oval was a glistening white pan. I remembered my playing days, and the feeling of my body crunching into the ice after an early start in the under-fourteens, my skin first going sharp, then numb, then stinging for hours until the match was over. I didnāt miss it.
I kept walking, over the bridge and into town, my hangover coming too but having the decency to stay more or less quiet. On my way past a bakery I stepped in to buy a couple of croissants. The sugar in the air put a perk in my stride, and by the time I reached the station I was feeling almost fine. At the front desk a junior cop wanted to know if I had a complaint. I drew on a smile. Iām here to see Senior Detective Malik.
What case would you like to speak to the senior detective about? Heās very busy. The boy-cop smiled back, and behind his too-white teeth I could see his fragile little thoughts tracing lines, making assumptions, bouncing off words like Duty and Career and Citizen and Safety.
Iām his ex-wife. Tell him Iām on the way up. I started moving towards a door in the rear left corner of the room, the one that led up to the detectivesā desks. It didnāt open for me, so I turned back to the officer. Or I could just call my lawyer. I pulled out my phone. The numberās on speed-dial. Graham would love that.
He blinked, and his neon smile flickered away into the stale cop-shop air. My thumb hovered over the keypad. He blinked again and pressed a button underneath the desk. The door began slowly opening. I gave him a mock salute and started climbing the stairs.
Three flights up and I was banging on a glass door emblazoned with Malikās name and rank. Come ināJesus, he barked, so I yanked on the handle and strode into the office of the Last Graham. A squat, lumpy boulder of a man was leaning over a chipped desk, shuffling through a stack of finely printed paper. His sleeves were rolled up past his hairy forearms, and even though the morning was freezing and the station had sh*thouse heating there were little circles of sweat rolling down his bare, coffee-brown scalp. Look, Patricia, youāve already got my balls. What the hell else do youā¦
He looked up as I planted myself in the stiff guest chair. Morning, Graham.
You son of a bitch. He collapsed into his own seat and kicked ineffectively at the pile of paper. I thought you were Patricia. Sheās taking me to the cleaners, you know.
I heard. I tore open the bag of croissants and placed it on the desk between us.
f*cking bitch. Kids, house, kayak, everything.
I raised an eyebrow. You kayak?
He snatched up one of the croissants. I did. When I had a f*cking kayak. The whole pastry disappeared into his mouth, golden crumbs spraying over the papers. Anyway. What do you want?
They called him the Last Graham for two reasons: first, because the name Graham had been so unpopular for newborn babies for the last few decades it was highly likely that once a few old codgers kicked the bucket he, Graham Malik, would be the last Graham on the island. Second, because he was perceived to be so slowāphysically and mentallyāthat he was always the last d...
Estilos de citas para Flames
APA 6 Citation
Arnott, R. (2018). Flames ([edition unavailable]). Atlantic Books. Retrieved from https://www.perlego.com/book/3522825 (Original work published 2018)
Chicago Citation
Arnott, Robbie. (2018) 2018. Flames. [Edition unavailable]. Atlantic Books. https://www.perlego.com/book/3522825.
Harvard Citation
Arnott, R. (2018) Flames. [edition unavailable]. Atlantic Books. Available at: https://www.perlego.com/book/3522825 (Accessed: 14 June 2024).
MLA 7 Citation
Arnott, Robbie. Flames. [edition unavailable]. Atlantic Books, 2018. Web. 14 June 2024.