Friday Crime Fiction–Under the Bridge (3)

March 8, 2024March 8, 2024 / lmkling / Leave a comment

[In this bite-sized chapter, we meet Zoe Thomas who makes a discovery that will change her life and unbeknown to her at the time, unearth a more than 40-year-old mystery. This will ultimately open the proverbial pandora’s box and cause chaos to a number of now-settled individuals and their families. In future episodes, this revelation, for our Detective Inspector Dan Hooper, will add to his workload as the chief investigating officer, and force his partner in crime-fighting, Eloise Delaney to cut short her long-service leave and return to work.]

Who do ya think ya woz?

Monday January 17, 2022, 10:00 hours

Huon Valley, Tasmania

Zoe Thomas

While the mourners and well-meaning well-wishers and the like gathered in the church hall, loading their plates with condolences and their mouths with egg sandwiches, Zoe Thomas slipped out. Unnoticed, she slid around the corner away from the toilets and then leant up against the whitewashed wall warmed by the summer sun.

‘Oy!’ her dad called. ‘Y’ all right?’

She sighed. ‘Yeah, fine for a girl who’s just lost her mother, if you could call her that.’

‘What do ya mean by that?’ Dad rolled out a cigarette, flicked his lighter to flame, then cupped his hands to gently start the smoking ritual. Then with the cigarette hanging from his mouth said, ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead.’

‘You’re not my father, so how do I know that she’s my mother?’

‘Oh, what makes you think that I’m not ya pa?’

Zoe pulled a folded piece of paper, a computer printout, from her little black handbag. She opened it up and while he puffed away, she held it in front of him. ‘This says that a Francis Renard is my closest relative, my father, most probably. How do you explain that, Dad? I mean Greg.’

Greg blanched. ‘Oh, yes, well.’

‘Well? Did mum have a fling with this Francis Renard forty years ago? In 1981?’

Her father looked away before taking another drag on his cigarette. ‘She said neva to tell ya this. Ova ‘er dead body, she did. Well, now the bosses gone, I need to get somethink off me chest.’

‘What?’

‘Ya mutha woz not ya mutha.’ Greg coughed, a hacking cough.

‘What are you saying, Dad?’ She punched Greg softly on the arm. ‘You need to quit smoking before it…I don’t want to be staring down at you in a coffin or organising your funeral so soon after mum’s.’

Her dad cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, I know. Must give up.’ Then in a husky voice. ‘You woz adopted, luv.’

‘Oh, that explains it. You don’t mind if I chase up my birth parents, then? Which adoption agency did you go through?’

‘We didn’t. You came out of the apple orchard, ‘n paid for like.’

‘Huh? Come again?’

‘The truth woz, you wozn’t exactly a legal adoption.’ Greg sighed. ‘More like an arrangement between friends. Well, what I mean to say is that we ‘elped a girl who got ‘erself into trouble, out of ‘er trouble.’

‘For her financial benefit,’ Zoe said.

‘Yeah, but please don’t tell anyone. The missus, your mum didn’t want any trouble for us or the girl. She had a sad life and we just wanted to make sure she got off on the right foot and could make a go of it. And well, we couldn’t ‘ave children, so it was well, an arrangement that suited both parties.’

Zoe looked at Greg. ‘Do I know my birth mother? Did you stay connected with her?’

Greg shook his head. ‘It’s a long time ago, pet. Mum thought it best we didn’t. We didn’t want the townsfolk asking too many questions or the cops getting involved. And losing you.’

‘What was her name?’

Greg shrugged.

‘Do you know where she came from, at least?’

‘From the mainland, I think.’ Greg threw the spent stub on the pavement and ground it with his foot. ‘Came here for the apple picking season when we ‘ad the orchard in the Huon Valley. Stayed on in a caravan in the paddock till you woz born.’

‘You must’ve got to know where on the mainland?’

Greg rolled another cigarette. ‘All I know woz, she had a posh accent, like from England. It was a long time ago, luv. A long time…all under the bridge, now.’

[…continued next Friday fortnight]

© Tessa Trudinger 2024

Feature Photo: Sleeping Beauty over Huon River © L.M. Kling 2016

***

Sometimes characters spring from real life,

Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction.

Sometimes real life is just real life.

Check out my travel memoirs,

And escape in time and space

To Central Australia.

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Friday Crime Fiction–Under the Bridge (2)

February 23, 2024 / lmkling / Leave a comment

[A continuation of my foray into crime writing…]

Chapter 1

Part 2

UNDER THE BRIDGE

The Guilt of Omission (part 2)

Saturday June 27, 1980

2pm

Hiking Trail enroute to Mt. Lofty

Lillie

Raindrops stung the frozen tips of Lillie’s fingers. ‘There’s no way I’m staying it’s raining, now,’ she said rubbing her numb digits then taking a few steps along the path. The further she could get from her guilt the better. No one need know. But what if they found out? What if Fifi showed the necklace and the detectives linked her to the man’s death? Lillie trembled. She’d never get a job, a boyfriend; she’d lose everything—possibly even her freedom.

Fifi blocked her. ‘There’s a cave. You can shelter in that.’

‘What?’ Lillie recoiled. ‘With the body?’

‘It’s dead – just bones, it can’t harm you,’ Fifi said.

‘I’ve got a bad vibe, man! Bad vibes.’ Jimmy paced back and forth, swaying his flowing locks. ‘I’m not staying.’

‘I won’t be long, just thirty minutes at the most.’ Fifi stomped further up the track. The rain intensified, drops pummeling their parkas. She whipped around and pointed at Lillie and Jimmy. ‘You two stay here!’

‘No!’ Jimmy strode a few steps towards her and stopped. ‘Look, I really have a bad feeling about this.’ He looked back at Lillie.

*[Photo 1: Ice-Sculpture, Hokkaido © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger 1985]*

Lillie froze to the spot like an ice-sculpture. A flock of black parrots shrieked above in the violet clouds. The birds dipped and whirled on the wind currents. Fifi’s words rang in her head. You have to tell. She knew deep in the emotion curdled base of her stomach, no one would miss that man, that horrible man. Wasn’t my fault, he deserved it. She reasoned and focussed on Jimmy shaking his pink fist at Fifi. The parrots circled above their heads, and as if bored with the rain, darted in formation south. With a dull throb of resignation, Lillie made her decision. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘Fifi, Jimmy, you stay here.’

‘I’ll come with you, Lillie,’ Jimmy offered.

‘No, it’s alright. Fifi looks brave, but she needs company,’ Lillie said.

Lillie forced her stiff legs to move, one foot in front of the other, each step she believed closer to a life with no future; her living death. She paced through the driving rain, down the path by the falls leading to the carpark below.

Lillie hopped in the car and hurtled down the winding road to Greenhill Road and then home. She had no intention of reporting to police. What if they suspected her?

*[Photo 2: Home in a beachside suburb of Adelaide © L.M. Kling 2006]*

7 Months later…

Mum was out cold, stone asleep on whiskey and an afternoon of television serials. Good, Lillie thought as she rushed to her room, pulled her sports-bag from under the bed, collected two drop-waist dresses, a pair of jeans and large tee-shirt from her wardrobe and stuffed them in the bag.

‘Bad timing,’ she muttered.

Winter had rolled into spring, exams, end of school celebrations and choices made that she had begun to regret. Like the body of that man, her friends’ father, who festered just beneath the surface of her conscience, another secret silently grew…

But she didn’t want to spoil Christmas, then New Year and plans for travel and seasonal work in Tasmania. She’d missed three periods.

*[Photo 3: Christmas Tree © L.M. Kling 2023]

She fobbed off her friends telling them, ‘Yes, I did go to the police, but…you know, they have to keep it under wraps so as to not scare off the killer.’

However, she knew they’d figure it out and her image would be ruined. Francis Renard, the man involved in her bad choices and situation, wouldn’t want her in that condition. And she wouldn’t want him till death do us part—he was too much like her dead-beat father who abandoned the family long ago. She had to get away.

She moved the bed and pushed her fist through a hole in the wall; a hole hidden by an old Sherbert, the band, poster. She fished around before latching onto a small tin and pulled it out. Lillie opened the tin and then scraped out the notes and coins. ‘I have a ferry to catch,’ she said as she inserted the money into her purse. ‘All I wanted to do was have a quiet life with my friends. How dare that creep rear his bony head.’

*[Photo 4 and feature: The crimson rose © L.M. Kling 2006]

She sat down at her desk, picked out a pale pink sheet of paper. She wrote, taking care to avoid the crimson rose in the corner:

‘Dear Fifi and Jimmy,

I have to go away for a while. I have a job in Tasmania. None in Adelaide, ha-ha.

I went to the police station again and reminded them of the bones under the bridge. The nice policeman took down my details—AGAIN! and accepted my statement and said he’d deal with it. So don’t worry, it’s in the hands of the police. They are going to keep it quiet because they already have their suspicions who did it, and they don’t want to scare them off. They reckon they’re getting close. So don’t tell anyone, promise, please.

Take care of yourselves. And look after my brother, Sven while I’m away. I will miss you, my friends.

Love,

Lillie.’

*[Photo 5: My black cat, Storm standing in for the fictional Moe © L.M. Kling 2024]

Lillie sealed the letter in the envelope and pressed the stamp of the queen in the top right-hand corner.

Moe, her black cat scuttled under the table as Lillie raced past and out the door. She headed for the cream and red Kombi parked around the corner at the end of her street. A man with dark curls and a pair of square, black-rimmed glasses, opened the passenger door. ‘Are you ready for a road-trip to Melbourne?’

Lillie panted and then caught her breath. ‘Yes, Francis,’ she said as she scrambled in. ‘Just need to drop by the letter box.’ She stared at the letter addressed to Fifi and Jimmy Edwards. She had another one for Francis Renard. And her mum and Sven, of course. She left that note on the kitchen table.

She planned to travel on the ferry from Melbourne, Victoria to Devonport, Tasmania, alone.

[…continued in a fortnight]

© Tess Trudinger 2024

*Feature Photo: The Crimson Rose © L.M. Kling 2006

***

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The Wends, they were such a gentle group of people…until someone put it in their heads that there were witches amongst them…

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Diamonds in the Cave.

Friday Fiction–Under the Bridge

February 9, 2024 / lmkling / 1 Comment

[Hey, I had planned a profile of an ancestor, but somehow time got away and it never happened. Still more digging and researching must be done. So, in the meantime, here’s the beginning of my attempt at Crime fiction. (I stress that the following tale is fiction, the characters are fiction, and I’m writing under the name of my alter-ego/crime-fighting name, Tessa Trudinger). I’d love to know what you think as I tackle this challenge to develop my Detective Dan series.]

Chapter 1

Part 1

The Guilt of Omission

Saturday June 27, 1981

2pm

Hiking Trail enroute to Mt. Lofty

Lillie

Fifi’s voice echoed through the steep gully, ‘Hey, what’s this? Some cow carcass!’ The blackberry bushes around her rustled in the icy breeze. ‘Come on, Lillie! Have a look! It’s gross! I nearly slid right into it.’

Lillie brushed past the liquorice plants and tottered down the slippery clay of the embankment. ‘I really don’t want to see a dead cow.’ She held out the billy while hunting for clear running water from the storm water pipe. ‘I hope the water’s not diseased.’

‘Nah, you’ll be right.’ Fifi poked her auburn curls above the bush and beckoned. ‘Looks like it’s been there for years – it’s just bones.’ Her russet crown disappeared. ‘Just wait.’

Lillie stepped forward. The clattering of the stream over stone was louder here. She stood still and drew in the sweet, scented blend of rain-soaked eucalypt, liquorice and mud. The aroma awakened a memory. I’ve been here before. She thought. The sun’s golden rays parted a curtain of thick cumulous clouds, causing the droplets on the leaves to sparkle like a million diamonds.

‘Hey, Lillie! A chain.’ Fifi held up a blackened necklace, a tear-drop pendant with a quartz stone shimmering in the light. The hand and chain vanished behind the tangle of mint-coloured leaves and thorny branches. ‘Just a minute.’

Lillie’s heart galloped, slamming against her rib cage as if in a desperate attempt to escape. She wanted to run, straight up the hill back to the campsite, back to the comfort of the fire and Jimmy Edward’s, arms. No, that wouldn’t be proper. He’s just a friend. Fifi’s brother. Her legs turned to jelly and froze. ‘What?’ She squeaked through a constricted throat. She had been here before. Summer, five years ago when she was twelve. The landscape dusted in tan and yellow. The moist green of mid-winter had lulled her into a false sense of ignorance.

*[Photo 1: Resting enroute to Mt. Lofty © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger) 1983]*

A scream pierced the winter silence. ‘Oh, my God!’ Fifi ripped through the tangled bush, her freckly face flushed and green eyes wide as saucers. ‘It’s not a cow! It’s – It’s…’

‘What?’ Lillie rasped puffing out plumes of breath into the frigid air. Blood rushed through her head, roaring, while remembering the hike she preferred to forget.

January 1975: She’d only gone to the creek to fill her canteen. On a 38-degree Celsius day, hiking with her friends, the same friends plus her brother Sven, she was thirsty and needed water; they all needed water. That day Fifi had already fainted from dehydration. What was the harm in getting water from the storm water drain? What was his problem? That man?

*[Photo 2: Hiking with school friends up to the summit of Mt. Lofty © C.D. Trudinger 1969]*

‘Human!’ Fifi announced.

At that single word, the ball of anxiety swirling into Lillie’s chest converged in the sickening centre and dropped, thudding to the base of her stomach. ‘Oh, dear!’ she said as a blizzard of shock swept over her mind blanking out any thought.

Fifi scrambled up to Lillie and grabbed her hand ordering her to see the skull, commanding her to check out the leather coat, demanding she follow her to under the drain bridge to view the grisly find. Her best friend pulled her down to the creek, to the cavity under the bridge, her body meekly following like a frightened lamb to the slaughtered, her mind viewing the sequence of events as if from above in the clouds.

At first the sight before her resembled a side of beef at the abattoir, except the remains of him lay half sheltered at the base of the sand-stone bridge, and melted into years of silt, moss and sour-sobs. The leather hide of dry skin had sunk into the ribcage, and a disjointed hand of bones reached into the subterranean cave.

That time, when she was twelve, Lillie intended to explore up the creek in search of water. She thought she heard the water rushing. She was sure she did. The creek proved disappointing. Just a trickle. The hot northerly breeze had gypped her. She listened. A faint mewing. A kitten? A poor little kitten mewing from further up. Tracking through the dry creek bed crowded with brittle sticks of shrivelled saplings and prickle bushes laden with green unripe berries, she discovered the man-sized drainpipe. Water dribbled out into a stinky puddle surrounded by a cracked clay pan and rocks, broken tree branches and salt bushes caked in white like plaster of Paris. The kitten’s cries echoed in the black hole that penetrated deep into the hillside.

‘There you are! Ripe for the picking.’ A man’s hot breath stung the back of her neck. Cold hard metal gouged into her shoulder-blade. She turned and caught the look in his eyes, glazed, pupils dilated. He looked like a hungry wolf.

Lillie pushed him away and ran, scampering up the slope like a frightened rabbit.

*[Photo 3: Calmer times resting by the creek at Waterfall Gully © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger) 1986]*

‘We have to tell the police.’ Fifi stared at the coat of membrane and bones.

‘Why?’ Lillie patted her straight blonde hair. She remembered his boots thumping after her.

‘Cos it’s the right thing to do.’

[to be continued…Friday fortnight]

© Tessa Trudinger

Feature Photo: Waterfall Gully © L.M. Kling 1996

***

Sometimes characters spring from real life,