A novelette in 20 chapters

Telling the Bees: Chapter 14

The Watcher

‘Uneasy’ by Steve Fendt

‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, ‘Tom was called away on … ah … family business. He must have forgotten to let you know. He had to leave in a hurry. He’ll be back in …’

‘That’s absolutely fine,’ said Jason. ‘Not to worry.’ He stooped to rub Harris’ woolly back.

Amélie wondered if she had to let the man in, invite him to drink a cup of tea with her or something neighbourly. She couldn’t leave him at the door.

Hopefully, he would just go away.

‘Maybe I could have a look by myself, get some ideas? Draw up a list of indigenous natives for our planting scheme. Because we’ll need to clear it with the State Forest people …’

So the offer to plant a few bushes to screen the new fence had become ‘our planting scheme’ and official channels were to be gone through. Taking control of the situation with military efficiency.

‘Well …’

‘Because it would be useful to get the perspective from your side of the creek, so to speak.’

‘Oh, there’s no need …’

But he was already turning to go.

‘Is it this way?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s right. Just down there.’

As if you don’t know.

She didn’t want him poking around their land. She didn’t want it. It wasn’t like her to be this ineffectual. The damned fuzziness in her head, it was like trying to fight your way through a hedge.

*Bordel de merde que c’est dure.**

She called Harris inside. Shut the door. Tried to get on, but in her mind’s eye, all she could see was Jason stalking around on their land.

Eventually, she found where she had left off, engrossed herself in the accounts again. It was worse than she had thought. They were in danger of sliding irrevocably into debt.

A rap on the window, a face peering in. She heard a frightened little gasp escape her throat. Jason!

Jason. Of course, of course. He had been looking at the creek. How long had he been out there?

He smiled warmly as she opened the French doors. ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to say, I’m done here. When are you expecting Tom to get home?’

‘Soon. Very soon.’

A slight frown, just a little vertical crease between the eyebrows in that handsome, bland, confident face.

‘Amélie, is everything quite all right?’

‘Yes. Yes, it is. Perfectly fine. Thank you.’

‘Good. Good.’

Was she imagining that faint, cold amusement behind the eyes?

‘Because if there’s anything you need, Louisa and I are just a phone call away.’

‘That’s very kind of you. But Lottie Gallinari is staying with me, so we’ll be fine, thank you.’

‘Ah, yes. Nice girl … Glad to hear you’re not here all by yourself … Well, do take care, and the offer stands.’

He knows. Somehow, he knows about me.

She watched as the large white truck receded down the drive.

Then, hearing the trudge of heavy boots and the creak of a rusty axle, she turned to greet Lottie, who was pushing a barrow piled high with fouled straw and manure. She had been mucking out the chooks and the goats.

‘Jason Forrester.’

‘Yes.’

The young woman shivered. ‘I don’t like him.’

It was unusual for her to offer an unsolicited opinion.

‘Neither do I, Lottie. Neither do I … Come on, lunch time! You’ve worked hard this morning. You must be hungry.’

De-booted, hatless, hands and face scrubbed, Lottie soon sat at the kitchen table. She watched as Amélie cut the oven-warm bread, took a round of fresh goat’s cheese from the fridge, tossed the salad leaves. At length, she spoke.

‘Aunty Rita says he thinks she doesn’t recognise him.’

Amélie looked across at her, raised her eyebrows in query.

‘But she does.’

‘Sorry, Lottie, I don’t follow.’

‘Jason.’

‘Why should she not recognise him?’

‘From before. When they were young.’

‘Oh. I thought he was new to the area.’

‘Yeah. That’s what he wants people to think, Aunty Rita says.’

‘But he isn’t?’

‘No. He’s the nephew of old Whatshisface.’

‘Who?’

‘That old guy who used to own the Homestead.’

‘Judge Steiner?’

‘Uh-huh. When he was young, younger than me, Jason came here a few times in the holidays. Aunty Rita remembers seeing him out riding.’

‘I see.’

‘He didn’t have a posh Pommie accent back then, she says.’

‘Well, Lottie. That does surprise me. I didn’t know that Judge Steiner ever lived here. I thought it was just an investment property.’

‘Uh-uh. His family have always owned it. A long time ago, like, before I was born, they used to come here every summer. Aunty Rita says.’

‘So he’s related to the Grants, then?’

‘Grants?’

The original owners, who built the Homestead. A long time ago, in the eighteen-hundreds. Harold Grant. Peter Grant …’

‘I guess. Maybe.’

Something obvious was eluding her, Amélie worried as she washed the dishes. It was so damned difficult to think straight.

Jason Forrester was not just a property manager who had been hired by chance, by an ‘old colleague’, the shadowy ‘owner’, to oversee the renovations at the Homestead. His connection to the property was deep and lifelong.

Was he actually the person behind the camouflage of shell companies and partnerships? Was he himself in fact the owner? Why buy the property on the open market, then, from his own uncle?

It could be as Jason had said. There was no reason a new owner wouldn’t employ a member of the Steiner family to manage the renovations, was there?

Or the Grant family?

‘Les Seigneurs de la Chasse’ as she had taken to calling them, in her mind: the Lords of the Hunt.

Though there was no solid evidence to link any Grant to the killings and disappearances. Or proof that they had hunted human beings, like wild beasts, through the forest …

Why give the impression that he had no prior connection to the Homestead?

Had he in fact given that impression, or had she merely assumed?

There was so much to think about — and it was so hard to think.

‘We were talking about Jason earlier,’ she remarked that evening after the mosquitoes had driven them indoors, as they sat in the living room’s battered, comfortable armchairs, each engrossed in her own electronic device.

Tom had sent a lengthy text: it seemed that his mother wasn’t going without a fight. Amélie had started to wonder, a little desperately, when he would be coming home.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘You said you didn’t like him.’

‘Yeah … no.’

‘Any reason in particular? Other than the not-wanting-to-be-recognised?’ Because after all, that wasn’t so bad. Almost understandable.

‘He watches you.’

‘Watches me?!’

Lottie giggled in embarrassment. ‘No. Me. Girls. Women.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘He thinks I don’t notice. When I look at him, he looks away. But sometimes I catch him at it.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded emphatically, glanced at Amélie, then continued, blushing.

‘So one time we bumped into him in the supermarket. He was talking to Dad, right? And looking out the window, like, you know, he was thinking about something else … Then I saw his reflection, and he was looking straight at me.’

‘Oh.’

Next week in Telling the Bees:

Chapter 15: Comings and Goings

Tom returns from Perth and Amélie takes a close interest in mysterious activities on the other side of the creek.

Notes

• Bordel de merde que c’est dure. — Holy shit it’s hard work.

Telling the Bees is published in weekly instalments in Serial Stories. Links to other episodes will appear in due course in this list:

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