The Tambinder Engine (part twelve)

The Tambinder Engine 

A McAlley Story

(part twelve)

He was there, his old self, at a dim-lit table. She hadn’t showered. She hadn’t expected human talk with anyone, not this day. But it wasn’t embarrassment leadening her feet; it was Matthew, how he stared three-quarters to her. How daylight through glass made his skin watery.

“You weren’t at home, were you, when I tried to visit?”

“I am at home,” he said. “It’s what needs knowing.”

Deenie inched, got near enough to touch his hand. Held hers back. His face would turn, and the eeriness of their approaching contact would break her nerve. She would scream.

Stop.

“Matthew, are they making you do things? Do you mean you’re a hostage at home? Lynn and Mick aren’t letting you…”

Go, she did not say. Did she have occasion for knowing Mick’s name?

A voice cut in, reedy like the narrator of Tirza’s constant program. Today we are discussing…

“Hello, there.”

Door propped on his backside. Comings and goings today as though customers were being served. As though he and Matthew had popped in off the street.

Jollying: “Mr. Gilgan, is this where you’ve turned up?”

Entering, the cocky motorbike walk, bending to take Matthew by the arm. But straightening. “Mrs. Carmadge, why don’t we speak in the office?”

“Funny the door hasn’t been locked.”

“People forget their duties. There’s another way out, along by the toilets?”

Crude thought. “I’m parked back there, yes. No, I won’t sit.”

Mick sat, on the edge of the desk, glanced at Railsback’s note, stooped to lift it, reading. He drew a deep breath.

He’s gearing up to kill me, Deenie thought.

“It’s wrong, Mrs. Carmadge. Wrong. I couldn’t put my hand on him. I don’t know any reason he wouldn’t be dead. He was. Dead, and bloody, and she…”

Did Deenie know you could buy a crematory chamber, if you had a livestock farm, if you needed disposing of large carcasses? Did she know, out there in the brushlands, things were made to disappear, did anyone know?

“Why did you ever murder him?”

“Believe me, I don’t know at all what happened. Believe me. I helped her get rid of him. I told her, we need to quiet things down. We should fly somewhere. Let me clear out my place, settle the rent…”

“Lynn gave you money for that?”

“Sussed me.” He smiled. “I’m not settling, no. Not even fetching my stuff. But I am flying out.” He drew his wallet, letting her see the cash. “Drive me. Come along.”

“Leave Matthew’s ghost at the table?”

She shoved back to the dining room. Matthew, flushed pinker, damp-looking still, was outdoors making for a car at the curb. The passenger side mirror showed his striped oxford shirt, his unbarbered hair.

His eyes and mouth. Lynn’s…

Her sunglassed eyes, and falling mouth. The car shot off, smashed another, backed into a third, shrieked towards the unknown.

19

The Tambinder Engine

The Tambinder Engine (part thirteen)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)