Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

and meaty. She squeezed it to show she wasn’t intimidated.

‘Emmaline.’

‘Nice name. Unusual.’

‘Unusual to have a nice name?’ she asked.

‘Unusual to hear it.’ Matty sipped his beer. ‘Do you always try to wind people up?’ he asked, nodding to the far end of the bar.

‘Only if I’m bored. Or fucked with.’

Matty smiled. ‘I’ll try and do neither then.’

‘Then we might just get along,’ said Emmaline.

‘What brings you here?’ he asked, taking another sip.

‘The Maguires. Do you know them?’

‘Not as such. I saw them around town. Heard somethings.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘Usual small town stuff. Gossiping. Speculating. The father came in to buy materials at Spider Mallon’s place.’

‘Often?’

‘Every couple of days. Maybe just to get away from there. To not go mad, you know? Like cabin fever.’

‘Does that happen a lot out here?’

‘Been known to,’ said Matty with a knowing nod.

‘What was he like?’

‘I only spoke to him once. He seemed guarded, I suppose, but you would be if you didn’t know anyone. He just came in to do business and got out. He was always glancing over his shoulder though, as if he thought he was being watched.’

‘What did the wife and kid do when he was getting the materials?’

‘That was the odd thing,’ said Matty. ‘You never saw them together. It would either be him or her in town. Her less often. And only to buy groceries.’

‘How often?’

‘Only a couple of times.’

‘So she bought in bulk?’

‘You’d have to ask Darcey at the store. But I doubt it. You don’t keep nothing in bulk around here. Except the golden stuff,’ he said, raising his half-empty glass.

Emmaline wondered about the grocery shopping. Maybe Naiyana Maguire drove further afield to get supplies. To Leonora or Wisbech perhaps. To pick up specific items, stuff to make them feel at home.

‘And the boy?’

‘Sometimes he was with them, sometimes not.’

‘Any sign of trouble? Aggro?’

Matty laughed. ‘Like what? They didn’t spend every living minute together so maybe they argued, maybe they didn’t. Or maybe they didn’t have to live in each other’s back pocket.’

He was of course right. Most trouble wasn’t an explosion. It was devious and cunning, bubbling slowly underneath the surface before revealing itself in all its destructive glory. Like a volcano.

‘Did you spot anyone else new in town?’

‘What? Apart from you?’

Emmaline smiled and looked to the end of the bar. The three guys were whispering amongst themselves. Her senses warned her that they were planning something.

‘I’m sure this town is no stranger to police,’ she said.

Matty tilted his head and pursed his lips suggesting that she was correct in that assumption.

‘You seen anyone new, Bill?’ asked Matty.

The barman answered without moving from the back counter, surveying his domain. ‘Some tourists, some farmhands. One insurance salesman. And one guy who was lost. All dressed up for an interview. He’d gotten Kallayee and Kalgoorlie mixed up. Poor bastard.’

Matty and Bill shared a laugh. But Emmaline had another question. ‘Did anyone pay the Maguires a visit? A getting-to-know-the-neighbours deal?’

‘Nothing I’ve heard,’ said Matty.

Emmaline glanced at Bill. His face was impassive, helped by the frozen nerves on one side of it.

‘But that’s not to say that someone couldn’t have,’ continued Matty as he made his excuses to go to the dunny. As he went to leave, Emmaline stared at his face, drawn again to his cool, blue eyes. His most redeeming feature. They exhibited a coldness, however, that suggested he might have been capable of meeting and threatening the family. But of shamefacedly bragging to the cops about it? Hard to tell. She couldn’t discount the possibility that someone in town had something to do with the family’s disappearance. But what would they have done with them? Kidnap them? Kill them?

A few punters started to file out of the pub behind her. Towards home she surmised as she doubted there was a nightclub worth its salt within a hundred kilometre radius.

As she kept her eye on the three men stubbornly hovering at the end of the bar there was a tap on her shoulder. The woman was in her sixties, with dishevelled grey hair. Her face beamed, her kindly demeanour supported by a night on the sauce.

‘You got a picture of them?’ she asked.

‘The family?’

‘Yeah, love.’

Emmaline pulled out her phone and brought up a picture. The three of them together, in a semi-formal pose. Dressed smartly but relaxed. Donated by Lorcan’s family.

She tapped the phone with one wavering finger. ‘I’ve seen him.’

Emmaline perked up. ‘The father? Where? When?’

‘Before New Year. Last Tuesday, I think.’

‘The twenty-eighth?’

‘Yeah, love. In Wisbech.’

‘Wisbech? What was he doing?’

The silver-haired woman shrugged. ‘Talking to someone.’

Emmaline scrolled through the photos and found one of Lorcan’s entire family. ‘Any of these people?’

The woman studied the photo closely, tongue poking through her lips in concentration. She shook her head. ‘I only saw the back of his head. Black hair. Neatly cut.’

‘Nothing else?’

She shook her head. ‘I only saw his face,’ she said, pointing at Lorcan. ‘But I recognized him from town. From Mallon’s. The hardware place.’

With that she left, aiming for the door and barely making it through. Given her state of inebriation she wasn’t an entirely reliable witness statement but it was something. Who had Lorcan Maguire been meeting in Wisbech last Tuesday? Not his family, so a friend? Or someone from INK Tech? Matty had said that he seemed defensive, always checking over his shoulder. Did they follow him back to Kallayee? Was this the cause of the panicked recording on the phone?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Matty’s return but her mind remained abuzz. She was suddenly desperate to reread the files, convinced she had missed something.

‘I have to head back,’ she said to Matty.

His raised eyebrows intimated that he had another suggestion. ‘You can stay at mine. I’m right around the corner.’

Emmaline smiled. Dismissed any flicker of temptation. She instigated her rule. ‘Not tonight.’

Matty grinned. ‘But another night?’

Finding her car keys in her pocket, Emmaline said, ‘Who knows? I could be around for a while. Until I talk to the Maguires anyway.’

She glanced at the three