An Iron Rose Read Online Free Page B

wearing her bluey and a beanie and yellow leather stockman’s gloves. Although she hadn’t known Ned, she’d come to the funeral.
    ‘I saw your legs at the funeral,’ I said. ‘First time.’ She’d worn a dark-blue pinstripe jacket and skirt and a black shirt and black stockings. Ned would have approved. All the other men at the funeral did, many of them sober.
     
    She scratched her forehead under the beanie with a thumbnail. ‘Legs?’ she said. ‘You only had to ask. What’s happening today?’
     
    We went over to the office to look at the bookings and check the answering machine.
     
    ‘You’ve got two over at Miner’s Rest, then the Shetland lady wants you. After that, there’s a new one at Strathmore. In the badlands.’
     
    ‘Badlands,’ she said. ‘Take the badlands before the Shetlands. Last time one of the things tried to bite my bum.’
     
    ‘The Shetland,’ I said. ‘A discerning creature. Knows a biteworthy bum when it sees one.’
     
    ‘I’m not sure how to take that.’
     
    ‘The right way. Leave you free on Thursday? Bit of hot work here.’
     
    After she’d gone, I got the forge going, got to work on some knifemaking.
     
    We had the reading of the will the day after Ned’s funeral. He’d made it soon after I reopened the smithy opposite the pub in the potato country, an hour and a half from Melbourne. It was the year Lew came to live with him following his mother’s drowning off Hayman Island. Monica Lowey tried a lot of strange things in her time but scuba diving on speed was the least well-advised. The property was Ned’s main asset. He wanted it sold and the proceeds divided 60:40 between Lew and me, Lew to get his share when he was twenty-five. I got the tools and the backhoe. Lew got everything else. And then there was a little personal matter: he asked me to use some of my share to look after Lew.
     
    I was working with the file when I heard the vehicle. I went to the door. Silver Holden. Shea and Cotter. Shea got out, carrying a plastic bag.
     
    ‘They say you can have this back,’ he said.
     
    I took the bag. I’d forgotten how heavy the Python was.
     
    Shea looked around as if contemplating another search. ‘Buy any rope recently?’
     
    ‘Fuck off,’ I said.
     
    He gave me the look. ‘Not helpful, the Feds,’ he said. ‘Fucking up themselves.’
     
    ‘That right?’
     
    Shea put both his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders, shuddered. ‘Jesus, how d’ya live out here? Santa’s dick. Fella down the road here, he can’t sleep. Knows your noise. Puts a time on you goin past. Good bit after the kid called the ambulance.’
     
    ‘Amazing what best practice detective work will reveal,’ I said. ‘What’s forensic say? There’s no way Ned would top himself.’
     
    He sighed, moved his bottom jaw from side to side. ‘Listen, I asked before. In his background. Anything we should know? Old enemies, new ones, anything?’
     
    I shook my head. ‘I never heard anything like that.’
     
    ‘Well,’ Shea said. He took his hands out of his pockets, rough, ruddy instruments, and rubbed them together. ‘It’s not clear he done himself or there’s help. Anyway, doesn’t look like he had health worries. Ring me you think of anything.’ He took out his wallet and gave me a card. As he was getting into the car, he said, ‘So there’s life after, hey?’
     
    ‘After what?’ I knew what he meant.
     
    ‘After being such a big man in the Feds they let you keep your gun.’
     
    ‘You’ve got to have life before to have life after,’ I said.
     
    He pursed his lips, nodded, got in.
     
    I went back to work on the knife, thinking about Ned. Suicide? The word burned in me.
     

It took me three days to clean out Ned’s house. I started outside, working my way through his collection of sheds, carting stuff back to my place. On the morning of day three, I steeled myself and went into the house. There had been no fire for more than a week