Gift of the Gab (6 page)

I think the crew are onto me.

The flight attendants have been giving me strange looks ever since we got on the plane.

I saw two of them whispering to each other just now.

‘The girl in 58B,' I think one said, ‘she's planning to ruthlessly hunt down a French criminal and make the French police look lazy and slack. We'd better alert the French authorities.'

I hope I'm wrong.

I hope they're just staring because of my mouth-organ. I was playing it a bit loudly during takeoff. I needed something to help me relax and you can't dig on a plane.

My worry, but, is that they're staring because of the security-alarm incident.

It wasn't fair. Nobody warned me that a mouth-organ would set off the metal detector at the airport security gate. I'd have put it through the x-ray machine with Dad's belt buckle if they had.

Instead I had to take everything out of my pockets, including the plastic car and the rag doll I've borrowed from Erin's toybox.

Dad gave me a puzzled look when he saw them. He knows I haven't played with dolls for years, and I only play with cars when he wants a race.

I'm hoping he's thinking I've just borrowed them to remind me of Erin. Instead of to help me act out Mum's death for the jury in a French courtroom.

The security guards saw them too, and swapped a look.

I reckon they told the flight attendants.

It'll be tragic if I get stopped now, because everything's gone so well over the last three days.

We drove down to the city without any problems except for one scare when we saw a van behind us. We thought it was Paige Parker but it just turned out to be a nappy service.

The travel agent in the city was really helpful, specially when we gave him a box of apples. And the passport office, where we thought we might have to queue for days, was a breeze. They've got a special counter for handicapped people, and because Dad's finger was in a splint after he shut it in a cupboard door at our motel, we felt OK about using that.

It was the busiest three days of my life. I hardly had time to think, let alone worry about being sprung.

I've only started worrying about that since we've been on the plane.

If only I could tell Dad what I'm planning to do. At least then if the French customs officials handcuff me and try to bundle me on a plane home, he could protest to the Australian embassy.

But I don't want to make him more stressed. He's got enough on his plate as it is, poor bloke. The pressure of being unfairly hounded by the media's really getting to him.

Usually he wears his best clothes when we're going somewhere special. His pink satin shirt with the black guitar on the back and his Viking-on-a-tractor belt buckle.

So far this trip all he's worn are denim work shirts and the World War One belt buckle he only wears when he's depressed.

Usually if he was in a group of three hundred bored people he'd have a sing-song going by now. There's a Carla Tamworth song about a bloke sitting on a rock waiting for his pilot sweetheart to arrive for their wedding. He doesn't know she's crashed and he waits so long that moss grows on his tuxedo. It'd be perfect for a twenty-two-hour flight like this one.

But Dad's just sitting here, flicking through the in-flight magazine.

I offered him a go on the mouth-organ, but he just shook his head and –

Oh no, a flight attendant's bending over and speaking to him.

Is she explaining that I'll have to be sent home at Singapore?

No, she's just asking Dad to tell me not to play my mouth-organ once they start the movie.

Phew, they mustn't be onto me after all.

That's a relief.

Now I can relax for the rest of the flight.

Except for one other little thing that's worrying me.

When we were saying goodbye to Claire and Erin at the airport, Claire whispered something to Dad. She didn't think I heard because I was busy blowing a raspberry on Erin's bottom, but I did.

‘Ro's old enough to know the full story,' she whispered to Dad.

The full story about what?

I asked Dad while we were waiting to get on the plane, but he just looked away and mumbled something about showing me the exact place where Mum was killed.

I had the weird feeling he was hiding something.

I hope not.

Perhaps I'm just getting too suspicious after everything that's happened.

Can't be helped.

You need to be a bit suspicious when you're tracking down your mum's killer.

We got through French customs without a hiccup.

OK, one.

On his customs form, under ‘Reason For Visit', Dad put ‘holiday'. On mine I put ‘business'.

It was careless of me, but luckily they just thought I was a dopey kid who didn't understand forms.

Still, I wanted to get out of that airport fast, in case their computer matched my name with Mum's name and they saw I was the daughter of an unsolved hit-and-run victim planning to take the law into her own hands. I know Mum's death was quite a few years ago, but computers can do that sort of thing standing on their heads.

‘Airport train station,' said Dad. ‘This way.'

I've got Claire's rucksack and Dad's got a suitcase on wheels so we can move pretty fast.

We're here, I thought, my insides tingling with excitement. We're in France and I'm going to avenge Mum and nothing can stop me now.

Boy, was I wrong.

First, we got lost. Paris airport is like a huge shopping centre. Dad always gets lost in shopping centres, even ones that don't have signs in French.

We bought a French phrase book and found the station.

Then Dad tried to buy tickets.

The bloke in the ticket office couldn't understand what Dad was saying and Dad couldn't understand what the bloke was saying.

Dad said the name of Mum's town all the different ways he could think of, but the ticket bloke just kept frowning.

‘Sorry, Tonto,' muttered Dad. ‘It's been twelve years since I've said it.'

I handed him the phrase book.

The phrase book didn't have towns.

‘Tell you what,' said Dad to the ticket bloke. ‘Show me a list of all your towns and I'll see if I can spot it.'

The ticket bloke looked at him blankly.

Dad started thumbing through the phrase book.

I started feeling pretty anxious in case the ticket bloke decided to run a check on us. Train ticket-office computers are almost as powerful as customs ones.

Then I had an idea.

I rummaged in my rucksack until I found the old French press cuttings about Mum. Without letting anyone see them, which wasn't easy because there were about fifty angry people behind us in the queue, I copied down all the words in them that started with capital letters.

I showed my notebook to the ticket bloke, praying that one of the words was the name of the town.

The ticket bloke rolled his eyes and put two tickets on the counter. He said something in a loud voice. It was in French but I got the gist from his hand-movements. He was saying I was smarter than Dad, which I thought was pretty unkind in front of all those other people.

Then he said something else.

I watched his hands closely.

‘We've got to change trains in the city,' I said to Dad.

‘I knew that,' said Dad grumpily. ‘I'm not an idiot. I only did this trip twelve years ago.'

The station we changed at in Paris was the biggest station I've ever seen.

I gaped, even though I've promised myself I won't get distracted from my mission of revenge by tourist sights. There was a roof over the whole station, and the noise of pigeons and trains and French people echoed like something in a dream. And the air smelled fantastic, like apple fritters made with garlic.

Dad brought me down to earth quicker than a sprayed codling moth.

‘After we've had a squiz at Mum's grave,' he said, ‘we'll go to Euro Disney.'

He pointed to a huge poster of Mickey and Goofy riding on a roller coaster with French writing coming out of their mouths.

I stared at him in panic.

Why would a bloke who's just travelled round the world to his dead wife's grave want to go to Disneyland?

Must be jet-lag.

‘Um . . .' I said, trying desperately to make my hands look natural, ‘I'm feeling pretty jet-lagged too so I wouldn't mind resting-up in Mum's town for a bit first. Just for a couple of weeks.'

Dad gave me a strange look. I don't know why, I was telling the truth. I hardly slept at all on the plane. Every time I nodded off, I clunked my head on the woman next to me's crossword book. It's OK for Dad, he can sleep anywhere, even on a tractor.

We're on the train now, and I'm staring out the window at the French paddocks. They're even flatter than ours at home. And really dark green, except for the ploughed ones, which are dark brown.

A few minutes ago a thought suddenly hit me.

I'm only a few miles away from Mum.

Maybe the colours just seem darker because of that.

They can do, when you've got tears in your eyes.

Then I had another thought. As far as I can see, the French paddocks are bare of trees. There are a few trees around the houses and villages, but they don't look very friendly.

‘Is Mum buried near apple trees?' I asked Dad anxiously a moment ago. I really hoped she was. At least they'd remind her of home.

‘No,' said Dad. ‘Too wet round here for apple trees. All they can grow round here is turnips.'

That's really crook.

My own dear mum, buried near turnips.

That mongrel driver's gunna pay for that.

It's not fair.

All I needed was a few days.

Once I was on the hit-and-run driver's tail I could have tracked him down really quickly. Specially if he'd panicked and left clues lying around.

I could have had a written confession by Thursday, probably.

Instead all I got was twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes in Mum's town before the police swooped.

Twenty minutes and here I am in the back of a police car.

They probably spotted me and Dad when we came out of the station. We must have looked pretty suspicious, the way we were staring at everything.

Dad was staring at street signs, trying to remember the way to the hotel. He was also glancing anxiously at every passer-by.

At first I couldn't work out why he was doing that. Then I twigged. He must have been worried the locals would recognise him as Mum's husband. And think he'd come back to stir up trouble about her death.

If things turned ugly he couldn't run very fast because a wheel had fallen off his suitcase. That must be why he was trying to hide his face with his jacket collar, which is about as suspicious as a person can look in public, specially when they're wearing cowboy boots in a district that doesn't have any cows.

I can't blame it all on Dad, but. I was probably looking pretty suspicious myself with all the staring I was doing.

I was staring at how narrow the streets are. No wonder people get knocked down here. And you can't even widen these streets because all the houses and shops are made of brick. At home if you want to widen a street you just bung the wood and fibro buildings on the back of a truck and shift them back a bit.

I was staring at the streets for another reason too.

I was wondering which one Mum was killed on.

I kept getting a pang in my chest and it wasn't just the rucksack strap cutting into me.

For a bit I wasn't sure if I really wanted to know.

Then I remembered it was a clue and I had to know.

I was about to ask Dad when he suddenly pointed to a damp-looking grey building.

‘Our hotel,' he said.

I don't understand why the police didn't just pick us up on the street. Why did they wait till we were in the hotel? Perhaps they needed to go to the toilet before they arrested us.

I certainly did.

I left Dad at the check-in desk thumbing through the phrase book and went for a pee.

When I sat down I realised how tired I am. I haven't slept for about twenty-six hours. I almost nodded off on the dunny.

I stopped myself, but, and when I got back to the check-in desk Dad wasn't there.

I looked around.

I saw the police car parked outside.

I saw an anxious face peering at me through the car window.

It was Dad.

For a sec I thought I'd nodded off and was having a nightmare.

I hadn't.

This isn't a dream.

We're in a police car and the policeman behind the wheel is driving much too fast down these narrow streets.

He must be taking us to police headquarters.

Well, I won't be blabbing.

They can shine a lamp in my eyes and question me for hours, but it won't do them any good.

All I'll tell them is my name, my address and what class I'm in at school.

Talk about weird.

I mean, I know France is a foreign country, but I wasn't prepared for anything like this.

The police car suddenly stopped outside a brick house with blue shutters on the windows and a hedge that had been carved into shapes of birds and windmills and things.

Jeez, I thought, pretty strange police head­quarters.

It got stranger.

The policeman beeped the horn and two people came running out of the house. One was another policeman. He had a moustache and a tummy that wobbled as he ran and a feather duster. The other was a tall woman in normal clothes. I figured she must be a detective. She was wearing an apron, but I've heard how much French people like to cook.

As they got closer to the car, I noticed a really strange thing.

They were both grinning and waving at me and Dad.

They both looked really excited to see us.

All I could think of was that it had been ages since they'd had anyone to interrogate and they'd been getting really bored.

Then Dad got out of the police car and the policeman with the tummy threw his arms round Dad.

The woman detective did the same.

Dad looked a bit taken aback and I got out of the car in case this was a form of police brutality I hadn't come across in Australia.

It wasn't – they were hugging him.

The woman hugged me too, and even though I didn't have a clue what was going on, it felt pretty nice.

‘Rowena,' she murmured. ‘Little Rowena.'

She let go of me and I stared at her.

Her voice didn't sound like a detective at all. It was so beautiful it made my neck prickle. It was the warmest, softest, gentlest voice I'd ever heard. I wondered if all French people sound like that when they speak English.

‘Rowena,' said Dad, ‘this is Mr and Mrs Bernard. They're mates of mine.'

Normally I can cope with just about anything Dad comes out with, but today I just stood there staring at Mr and Mrs Bernard like a stunned aphid.

Mates of his?

Mrs Bernard was gazing back at me.

She had tears in her eyes.

‘Poor girl,' she murmured. ‘Poor, lovely girl.'

I wondered if she meant me.

Mr Bernard was talking excitedly at Dad in French, waving his feather duster. I tried to work out from his feather-duster movements what he was saying. Something about a telephone.

‘My husband does not speak English,' Mrs Bernard said to me.

I nodded. My brain was still too scrambled to say anything intelligent.

The policeman who'd driven us was carrying our bags into the house. Mrs Bernard put her arm round my shoulders and gently steered me along the gravel path to the front door.

Mr Bernard was still talking excitedly.

‘Alan is saying we are sorry we didn't meet you,' Mrs Bernard said to Dad, ‘but when the hotel rang us we were unprepared. Why did you not let us know you are coming? Why the secret hotel?'

I could see Dad didn't know what to say, even in English.

Perhaps Mrs Bernard's voice had got to him too.

‘Er . . .' he said, ‘um . . . we were gunna surprise you.'

I had a feeling he was making that up, but I didn't dwell on it because suddenly I had something else on my mind.

Something so big and so confusing that I tripped over Mrs Bernard's feet and almost fell into a bush shaped like a car.

I would have done if Mrs Bernard hadn't caught me.

The thing is this.

If Dad is such big mates with the local police, why didn't he get them to track down Mum's killer?

I'm sitting on the bed in the little attic bedroom Mrs Bernard has brought me to and I'm trying to figure it out.

I can't.

When Dad came in to check my bed was comfy and to see if his toothbrush was in my rucksack, I asked him.

He looked away with a pained expression.

At first I thought he hadn't heard me because he'd just remembered he'd used his toothbrush on the plane to polish his boots.

But he had heard me.

All he did, though, was give me a big hug and say, ‘Sometimes, Tonto, it's best to let things rest.'

Well, he might think so, but I don't.