Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

shoulder at the mine, Christmas Day had been spent making plans. His dad had transferred enough money to fix the wall and the roof only. He didn’t dare ask for more. You don’t beg Santa for more at Christmas. What he did realize was that he missed his parents. He had itched to break free of them when younger but it was true what they said about missing something when it was gone. Despite being surrounded by his wife and child he felt alone.

He wasn’t alone for long. At around eight there was a knock on their door.

He glanced at Naiyana who shook her head.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

‘Your neighbours,’ came the reply. Ian’s voice. Warm, but insistent.

Lorcan stiffened and moved for the bedroom and the rifle. Naiyana intercepted him.

‘You can’t answer the door with a rifle,’ she whispered.

‘Why are they here?’

‘Why don’t we just ask?’

Lorcan watched her approach the door and open it, as he stayed just out of sight.

He heard Ian wish her a happy Christmas and Naiyana respond before inviting him in. Two more sets of footsteps followed. All three strangers were in their house. Shit. He let her lead them into the living room before he joined them, standing in the doorway, within sprinting distance of the rifle. He was glad Dylan was tucked up in bed.

The tension in the room was thick, each side staring at the other. Lorcan wondered if they were armed.

‘I hear there are visitors planned for tomorrow,’ said Ian, his face again betraying a calculated cunning.

‘Who told you…?’ said Lorcan, looking at Nee. She didn’t hide her guilt.

‘We don’t need any others in this relationship,’ replied Ian.

‘It wasn’t planned. They just want to see the new place.’

‘We need you to put off anyone from coming out here. It’s best for all of us.’

The sentence was again accompanied by a cat-like narrowing of his eyes. Lorcan read a very real threat in them. But where fear should have led him to cower, his own anger began to rise. How dare they come into his house and threaten him and his family by their mere presence.

‘Do you think that I wanted them to see this mess? I had to beg them for money.’

The miners stayed quiet. He wondered if Mike and Stevie had shared his earlier request with Ian. He decided not to leave it to chance.

‘It might be time that some of the wealth was shared around.’

‘Meaning what?’ asked Ian.

‘Lorcan, don’t—’ started Naiyana.

He cut her off. ‘This needs to be said. I feel I’m being backed further and further into a corner.’

‘You chose the corner,’ said Mike.

Ian glared at Mike to shut him up. He turned his attention to Naiyana. ‘Are you all okay? The boy? Got enough food?’

‘They’re okay. We’re fine. Happy Christmas!’ spat Lorcan.

‘Bully you, mate. We’re stuck down a hole,’ said Mike.

‘You chose the hole,’ said Lorcan. ‘Plus, you’re making money.’

‘Through hard work,’ noted Stevie.

‘We can all work hard. If given—’

‘Look,’ said Ian, his hands up, conciliatory. ‘Things are tense, I get that. This is still a getting-to-know-you period. But whether we like it or not we are in a sort of… shared relationship.’

‘Symbiotic,’ offered Stevie.

Ian clicked his fingers and pointed at him. ‘Symbiotic relationship.’

‘More parasitic,’ muttered Mike, punctuated by the ritualistic snap of gum.

‘Mike…’ said Ian.

‘What are they giving us apart from a headache?’

‘My parents asked to come. It wasn’t planned,’ said Lorcan.

‘We prefer plans,’ said Mike.

72

Emmaline

After finishing her double espresso and agreeing a plan, Emmaline joined Rispoli on the visit to the next dealer.

He drove, Emmaline happy to take the passenger seat and enjoy the town as it passed by. She quickly decided Leonora was quite pretty, wide double-lane roads, nourished single-storey houses and scrubbed commercial properties, spread out lazily, luscious trees poking over the top like curious residents. There seemed nothing hurried about it.

Rispoli pointed out the dominating blood-red veranda of Tower Street, the grand White House Hotel and the Information Centre and Library with its symmetrical porches and columns, red and yellow as if wishing to blend into the scenery.

As they reached the top of the street an enormous rumble rattled the glass in the windows, a massive road train passing through, the ground shaking as if an earthquake was rolling through town at its own gentle pace, disturbing the peace rather than damaging it.

The final place of note on his inadvertent tour was the Leonora Alternative Place of Detention, an old mine workers’ hostel which had, up until 2014, been used as an immigration detention centre for asylum seekers.

‘Fucking shameful. Sometimes you could hear them at night. Crying. Wailing. Like there was a banshee on the loose.’

Emmaline could only nod. ‘If the government had their way they’d be stuffed down the mines rather than in hostels. Out of sight, out of mind.’

There was a moment’s pause.

‘Do you always end your tours this way? Does a downer get you more tips?’

Rispoli laughed. ‘I do it for the love of it. Not the money.’

‘Clearly.’

They both laughed, the warm air settling in her lungs.

‘How’s the caravan?’ he asked, glancing over at her.

‘It reminds me of my student house,’ said Emmaline, thinking of Matty, their bodies sprawled on the U-shaped couch/bed.

‘That must have been bad.’

‘When you’re a student you don’t much care.’

‘But you’re not a student now.’

‘You don’t think that I could pass for one?’

‘I think I’m not answering that question.’ Another shared smile. Relaxed.

‘Does it not get lonely out there?’

She wondered what he was fishing for. An invitation? Maybe he had heard about her and Matty. Not that she would be embarrassed, just that it might affect any future hook-up between her and Rispoli. If there were any.

He pulled up outside a house on Hoover Street, the business nothing more than a prefab steel building in the yard with a couple of chairs, a desk and a safe inside.

The dealer’s hopes of a sale were dashed as soon as they introduced themselves, his open, expressive and blotchy face tightening to pinched as if