“Press that for me, will you, Amelia?” Thyme said. “The rain’s left a whole lot of potholes on this dirt road. It’s ridiculous! The council should fix it.”

  I was reluctant. “What if it’s private?”

  “He knows we’re both going out to the farm. I texted him,” Thyme said patiently. “Just press the button, will you?”

  I did as I was told. The disembodied female voice read out Dawson’s text in a monotone.

  Be careful out there, you two exclamation point exclamation point I’ve just had a good talk with Chris, and Barrett’s still convinced it’s Marina exclamation point The other suspects that have come to light are the Roberts, Sheila Slunky, and the cleaner because she had access to the room exclamation point

  Thyme turned to me. “What are you laughing at?”

  “The scary robot voice made it all sound so funny,” I said, “and it actually read out the words, ‘exclamation points.’” I laughed. “And it even called them ‘exclamation points,’ when we call them ‘exclamation marks’ in Australia.”

  Thyme made a rude sound. “Amelia, you’re too much. You find humour in the silliest things.”

  I’ll show you, I thought. I texted Thyme, I bet you’ll find this funny. Hehe hehe hehe hehe. I copied hehe hehe and pasted it fifteen times, and then sent the text.

  “Oh, it’s another text,” the unsuspecting Thyme said. “Would you press that for me, Amelia?”

  “Sure,” I said as Thyme swung the car hard to avoid a fox that ran across the road. The disembodied robotic voice read out, I bet you’ll find this funny, and then said hehe hehe in a robotic voice for ages.

  By the time it finished, Thyme and I were both in fits of giggles. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,” Thyme said.

  I smirked at her. “You find amusement in the silliest things, Thyme.”

  We had reached the house. We both opened our doors a little, but thankfully no dogs ran over to us.

  The house appeared to be halfway through serious renovation. New French doors sat on the front of the building, but they were not painted, and the framework had not quite been finished. I wondered whether the Roberts had run out of money due to Bob’s antics or whether the renovations were simply part way done and in process. I remember being irritated as a child by my father always saying, “There are two classes of people who shouldn’t see things half done: fools and children.”

  “The jasmine smells so beautiful,” Thyme said, and I had to agree.

  “And look at those fuchsias there under the veranda,” I said. “I didn’t think fuchsias could grow in this climate.”

  “They look like they’ve been here a very long time,” Thyme said. She lifted her hand to knock on the door when a woman walked up the wraparound veranda. “Can I help you?” she said. Her tone was polite but filled with wariness.

  “I’m Thyme. This is my friend Amelia,” Thyme said. “We saw you at Bob Willis’s funeral.”

  The woman nodded. “Oh yes, I noticed you there.” She raised her eyebrows.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but a friend of ours has been arrested for his murder and she didn’t do it,” I said. “We wondered if we could ask you some questions about him.”

  The woman frowned and then said, “Would you like to come inside?”

  We followed her in. I was surprised to see the house inside was modern. The living room was open plan, and Carrara marble benchtops adorned the kitchen. “Your house is lovely,” I gushed.

  “We’re partway through the renovations. I don’t know if we’ll have the money to do much more. Then again, now that Bob Willis has gone, our finances will be in a better state of affairs.”

  She picked up a dainty, pale green teapot. “Sorry, that sounds mean. That didn’t come out right. It’s been a hard day. Anyway, tea or coffee?”

  I cast a look around the kitchen. “What sort of coffee do you have?” I asked her. It was my standard question when in a strange place because if they had mentioned instant coffee, I would know to decline.

  “I have this machine,” she said.

  I looked at the fancy coffee machine behind a tall potted plant. How could I have missed it? “Coffee would be lovely, thank you.”

  Thyme said she’d have the same.

  I took the chance to study Patricia. She had beautiful, long blonde hair, but the colour seemed to wash her out. She was wearing a lot of eyeliner, which I thought made her look older than she was, and the fuchsia coloured lipstick was an unflattering shade. Still, her skin had that glow about it that usually comes from having expensive facials or very good skin care products, maybe even chemical peels. I’d only had one chemical peel in my life at a beauty salon, and it felt as though a thousand ants were biting my face. I never went back for another one, even though my skin looked wonderful afterwards.

  Pamela made us each a coffee and then brought the cups over to the table. We all sat and looked out the window over an uninteresting, dry paddock dotted with sheep and dead gum trees. Tiny little bits of green grass were doing their best to emerge through the ground, no doubt encouraged by the recent rain.

  “You know, everyone wants to escape to the country,” she said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I knew plenty of people who wanted to escape from the country.

  “Oh yes,” I said, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my voice.

  “It’s not quite what I thought it would be,” she continued. “There are all the blowflies, and the tank water. I’d never really given a thought to where water comes from before, but having tank water has been a trial to me. And then there’s the snakes.”

  I was unable to suppress a shudder. “You’d get a lot of browns out here, wouldn’t you?”

  She nodded. “I had the front door open the other day, and the back door open as well, to let some air flow through. A large brown snake went straight through the house. I was just standing in the kitchen with my mouth open. I couldn’t believe it happened.”

  “Browns aren’t territorial,” Thyme said. “It’s the red-bellied black snakes that are territorial.”

  “That’s a relief— I think,” she said. She stared at the window, her eyes glazed.

  I figured she was trying to remember if she had seen any red-bellied black snakes recently.

  “Now you said you wanted to ask me some questions?” She shoved a packet of caramel Tim Tams under our noses as she spoke.

  Thyme selected one and chewed it, leaving me to speak. “We’re trying to build up a picture of what Bob Willis was like. Since you were his next door neighbour, we thought you’d know him better than anyone, even though you haven’t been here long. We heard he had a boundary dispute with you.”

  Pamela leant back in her chair and smiled. “So you think I’m a suspect, do you?”

  “Oh no, not at all,” I lied. “We just want to find out everything we can about him.”

  “Surely you should leave the investigating to the police?”

  Thyme and I exchanged glances. “The police have arrested our friend who clearly didn’t do it, so we know the police are wrong,” I told her.

  She nodded. “Well, what can I tell you? Let me see. I’ve always heard country people were friendly. Mind you, everyone else around here is, but not Bob Willis. I just couldn’t believe how rude he was. Apparently, our fence was on his land. He wanted us to put up a new fence and pay for it one hundred percent at our own expense. It would have been particularly expensive to build a fence there because it goes through a little gorge that’s quite rocky on the top. And really, it’s just rocks on his side. We asked if we could buy it, but he said it would be too confusing to subdivide with the council, and my husband even offered to rent it, but Bob wouldn’t hear a word of it.”

  “We heard he did a lot of damage to your property, but you couldn’t prove anything,” she said.

  “Yes, my husband could’ve killed him for it!” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just a figure of speech.”

  “Oh yes, of course it is,” Thyme said in a soothing tone. “What sort of sabotage did he do to you?”

  “He broke the pump to our main house tanks,” she said, “and he let all the water out of our tanks. He was always letting the sheep into wrong paddocks and letting the rams in with the wrong ewes. Did I mention he also broke the pump to the main dam and stole our energiser?” She broke off and sighed. “And a couple of times we had rocks thrown through windows.”

  “Surely the police would have to act on such a thing,” I said.

  She shifted in her seat. “We called the police after the first incident. They told us they would go and speak to Bob, but they wouldn’t be able to prove anything. After they spoke to him, it got worse and that’s when he put the rocks through the windows.”

  “What did the police say about that?” I asked her.

  Red spots appeared on her cheeks. “Paul said he didn’t want to go to the police any more, that it wouldn’t do any good. He said to leave it to him and he’d sort it out.”

  I picked up a Tim Tam and turned it over. “And did he?” I asked her.

  “What?” she asked me.

  “Sort it out?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to move away from here, but we really can’t afford it after sinking so much money into the place.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have killed him? I mean, if you had to name one person who might have killed him, who do you think it would have been?” Thyme asked her.

  I didn’t think it the most tactful thing of Thyme to say, so I was surprised when Pamela answered. “It could have been any of the neighbours around here.” She waved her arms expansively. “Where did you say your friend was from? Does she live nearby?”

  I shook my head. “She’s from Melbourne.”

  “What? Why would she have had a grudge against Bob?” Pamela said.

  Thyme answered. “Sergeant Barrett seems to think the motive was that she wanted to win the pumpkin competition at the Halloween fair.”

  Pamela’s eyes grew wide. “You’re kidding!”

  “No, I’m afraid to say.”

  We had finished our coffee and I didn’t think we would get anything else out of her. I stood up and thanked her.

  As she showed us out the door, her husband drove up in a white ute. Two red kelpies were tied in the back.

  “These ladies were at the funeral today,” she said.

  “Why are you here?” he said abruptly.

  I wasn’t prepared for his attitude. “The police arrested our friend for Bob’s murder and she didn’t do it, so we’re asking the neighbours if they knew anyone who might have wanted to kill Bob.”

  “You should leave that sort of thing to the police,” he snapped. “You’re not welcome back here, so be on your way.”

  I was shocked. I looked at Pamela. She was clearly embarrassed.

  “I’ll show you to your car,” she said. Her husband stormed off in the direction of their barn. When we reached the car, she said in a low voice, “I’m so sorry about that. Please don’t pay any attention to Paul. He’s just been very stressed lately, what with everything that Bob did to sabotage our farm. He’s usually a lovely person.”

  I very much doubted that. I smiled and nodded as we took our leave.

  Chapter 19

  “He did it for sure!” Thyme said.

  “Paul, you mean?”

  Thyme was gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. “Yes, he did it for sure.”

  “Just because he’s rude it doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”

  Thyme snorted. “Look at the suspects. Someone murdered Bob Willis, after all. The people with the most motives seem to be the Roberts, and Paul Roberts obviously has a bad temper. It’s him, for sure.”

  “I suppose,” I said. “Could be true.” I thought some more. “But don’t they say poison is a woman’s method?”

  Thyme made another derogatory sound. “Yes, but they’re probably just being sexist.”

  “What I mean is, Paul seems to have a bad temper, so if he wanted to murder Bob, surely he would have attacked him with a pitchfork or a firewood blocksplitter or something. I’m sure he could think of all sorts of horrible things to do to Bob, and what’s more, Bob lived on a farm. Farms are a source of accidents. I’m sure if Paul wanted to kill him, he would have made it look like an accident.”

  “I’m not sure I follow your reasoning,” Thyme said.

  “Well, if someone who had brute strength murdered him, they could have pushed him down a hill or done something like that.”

  The rain had started again. Thyme put the windscreen wipers on. “Don’t you hate it when there’s just enough rain to turn the dust into mud and not enough rain to wash the dirt off the windscreen?”

  “Turn the windscreen washer on,” I said.

  “The car is overdue for a service and there’s no soapy water left in the whatsit,” she said.

  “Thyme, you can fill it up yourself.”

  She shrugged. “Yes, okay then, remind me to do it later, would you? Anyway, I really think Paul did it. I think he used poison to throw suspicion off himself and make the cops think a woman did it. All the other suspects are women, aren’t they?”

  I scratched my neck. “You’ve got a point.”

  “Amelia, I’ll have to roll your window down. It’s too foggy in here and the demister doesn’t work properly.”

  As soon as she pressed the button to roll my window down, the rain picked up and blew in all over me. I screeched and pressed the button to roll my window up.

  “You know, we should snoop around his house while we’re here, we might turn something up,” I said.

  “Dawson won’t like it if we break in and snoop around.”

  “Who’s going to know?” I asked her. “It’s not as if anyone will see us. And if anyone does, we’ll just say we got lost.”

  She shook her head. “Dawson will never believe me, and besides, I don’t like keeping things from him.”

  “Okay, so confess it when he’s in a good mood.”

  She sighed. “All right, I suppose no one will come out in the rain, and the police have already searched his house. What if the estranged son is there?”

  “The estranged son!” I exclaimed. “He’s the other male suspect. I completely forgot about him!” I slapped myself on the side of the head.

  “So did I!” Thyme said. “We must be losing the plot. All this worry over Camino has pushed me over the edge.”

  “Turn there!” I yelled, pointing to the right. Thyme turned the wheel so hard that the car slid a bit. I gripped the sides of the seat until the car righted itself.

  “You could have given me some warning,” she muttered.

  “I thought you knew the way. Anyway, I’ve thought of a good excuse! If the estranged son catches us, we can simply say we were coming to offer him our condolences.”

  Thyme snorted rudely. “You heard what he said about his father at the funeral.”

  “We can still offer him our condolences,” I said. “He won’t mind at all. It’s the normal thing to do.”

  “I suppose it gives us an excuse, but what if he’s there when we arrive?”

  “Same excuse,” I said. “If he’s there when we arrive, we’ll tell him we were visiting neighbours and thought we should pop over and offer our condolences, and if he’s not there, we can snoop.”

  “What if he catches us in the house?”

  I smiled. “If there’s one thing I’ve learnt since moving to Bayberry Creek it’s that country people always enter a house by the back door. If we hear a car, we’ll run out the back door and pretend we were looking for him outside.”

  Thyme slowed down. “I’m sure Bob Willis didn’t have security. They wouldn’t even lock their doors out here. Still, I’m sure the police locked the doors after they searched the place. We’ll have to find a way in.”

  Thyme parked the car in front of the old house. “I wonder who’s taken his working dogs?” I said, more to myself than to Thyme.

  She answered. “I do happen to know that. It’s one of the No Kill shelters in town. The estranged son gave them his permission.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “I hope he didn’t do it. Anyway, we’ll have to stop referring to him as the estranged son. What was his name again?”

  Thyme laughed. “How could you forget that? Willy. Willy Willis.”

  “Don’t say that too loud,” I admonished her. “Let’s call him William.”

  Bob’s house was no grand affair. In fact, it was approaching ramshackle. Wisteria had grown over the porch and claimed most of the house. What’s more, the house badly needed restumping. It was on a decided angle. If someone put a marble up one end of the house it would end up down the other end of the house in double quick time, so severe was the tilt.

  I climbed the five steps up to the porch. As I made to step onto the porch, Thyme caught my arm. “Be careful where you walk.”

  I looked down. There were gaps in the boards and some were rotten. I carefully made my way to the front door and tried it. I was dismayed to discover it was locked.

  “Told you so,” Thyme said. “Bob might never have locked it, but the police sure would.”

  “There’s got to be a window open, surely,” I said hopefully. “Let’s go around the building and look.”

  We headed to the left, going past several sets of French doors. They were the old Australian type, each with one big pane of glass, and were painted the most hideous shade of green. I think it would have been lead paint from back in the day. The rest of the house hadn’t had a coat of paint in decades, if ever. The timber planks were dark brown. Perhaps they had been treated with a nasty chemical that was now banned.

  We reached the back door and tried it, but it too was locked. “I’ll push you through that little window there,” Thyme said to me.

  “Why don’t I push you through the window?” I narrowed my eyes as I said it.

  “I’m stronger than you are.”

  I was puzzled. “Why do you say that?”

  “Look, are we going to stand around here all day or are we going to try to break in?”

 

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