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Tom smiled gently. ‘Didn’t you ask Sarah?’

He shook his head. ‘I accused her. We rowed. Too late now. She doesn’t want anything more to do with me.’

‘Try again. Don’t give up.’

‘Says she can’t forgive me for believing lies before giving her the chance to deny them.’

‘Why did her friend do such a thing?’ Tom asked.

The man shrugged dramatically. ‘I don’t know.’ He belched again. ‘Jealously, mischief . . . or just not right in the head. All I know is I love Sarah.’

Tom grinned, and then put his arm around the bloke, leading him to the door. ‘Go and tell her. And then prove it every day of your life. Women, from what I know, respond to honesty, especially if you share your feelings . . . what you feel in here,’ Tom said, tapping the man’s chest over his heart. ‘Can you get home all right?’

The man gave a crooked smile and nodded like a child. ‘I’ll walk it off. And then I’ll go and sing outside her home, shall I? Tell her how much I love her.’

Tom laughed now. ‘Sleep it off first, mate. You don’t want the neighbours pelting you with rotten fruit. Don’t let her get away, though, over a misunderstanding.’

His new friend brayed a laugh. ‘Bye, mate.’

Tom watched the man walk away, swaying slightly but not unsteady. Tom sighed, wishing his situation was just a misunderstanding, a lie that could be refuted and the damage repaired. But Fleur had made it clear he was not to contact her, and he had been raised to respect a person’s wishes.

Time to go then, back to Witchelina. She really did not want him, but maybe they would and he could accept his life as a wool classer. He’d also need to accept that his future days would hold private yearning for something he’d always wanted and now would never have.

He glanced at his watch. Yes, enough time to gather up his few belongings and head back to the Adelaide Central Railway station, which had promised so much when he’d arrived, full of wonder and the lightness of leaving behind a heavy load. Except the burden of lost love felt somehow heavier than the grief. Finding Fleur, discovering a door opening into so much potential with her and knowing she shared the same affection, had been like entering a new world. And now that world was shunning him, pointing him back to the familiar world he had come from. Though it offered none of the sparkle and promise he’d glimpsed in Fleur’s arms, it was a safer world. He knew how to live in it. And although his heart wouldn’t heal, it was reassuring to him in a way that now it could never break again. He’d leave one half in Adelaide, on a moonlit jetty with the sound of the shoreline where waves surged and receded, mingling with the sound of a woman’s laughter, while the other half would seek comfort in the outback’s isolation and peace.

30

Irma’s case had gone to trial because she had maintained her innocence. Two months after her father’s death, Fleur had been called to the witness stand, where she had answered all the questions from the prosecuting barrister with care and precision as he masterfully guided her through her memories of Irma’s behaviour and the question of Henry’s death.

And when the defending barrister took to his feet with an expression of disdain that was meant to throw her off balance, Fleur hadn’t reacted to his withering stare or the protracted silence as he made a theatrical tour of the space before her. She’d forced herself to regard Irma and was deeply surprised to find a sense of pity that someone would go to such lengths for money. It remained perplexing to Fleur because Irma had wanted for nothing as an Appleby, and Henry was far from an ogre as a husband.

It was only during the trial that Fleur had learned about Irma’s family, as her backstory began to take shape for the judge and jury. She’d birthed twins in her teenage years: a boy and a girl, now nearing forty, the son disabled with a twisted leg. They were both in the courtroom daily and Fleur found it her greatest challenge to face them from the witness stand and speak out against their mother.

She had been warned by the prosecutor not to elaborate when responding or the defence would find ways to constantly interject or ridicule her. The prosecuting counsel, in his formidable wig and robes, had impressed his guidance upon her. ‘Answer only what they ask. Be concise but explicit in your answers, and take your time to think before you respond. It’s your right to be careful.’

The advice – and indeed warning – had burned in her mind as the man defending Irma began his interrogation, doing his utmost to corner Fleur into yes or no answers that worked against her testimony. She’d calculated soon enough that his intention was to make her claims against Irma feel circumstantial, unable to be proven without doubt. Even Fleur could sense that her claims were coming across as simply her word against her stepmother’s.

But she had her ace card, which she now knew her beloved Tom had brought into play. The powerful admission by the father and son coffin-makers, which had added all the weight for the case against Irma, could not be doubted. Bert Coglin even produced a damning note written by Irma, instructing him to buy the oysters that she would leave to decay so she wouldn’t be associated with their purchase. Fleur had looked down when this piece of irrefutable evidence had been produced, knowing it was the proverbial nail in the coffin for Irma.

She had proven to be as capable an actress in court, fighting for her life, as she had been in the Appleby home where she had outmanoeuvred Fleur. Nevertheless, even Irma couldn’t wriggle out of the statements made by the Coglins under oath, which corroborated all of Fleur’s claims. And the more the barristers delved into Irma’s life, the more she seemed to damn herself as a person prepared to risk everything for self-interest . . . or at least the interest of the children she seemed to truly adore.

The treachery against Fleur and Tom was not presented, considered irrelevant to the main thread of the case. It wounded Fleur privately to think that the great love of her life and the betrayal that had taken him from her was considered immaterial; it felt like her whole life had been rent twice over by Irma.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all was watching Irma weep when she had to take the stand and talk about her children. Fleur had spent too long in Irma’s company not to have developed a keen sense for her stepmother’s guile, but in this instance the sound of her sobs seemed genuine. Fleur hadn’t known until that moment that Irma had the capacity to love, or that she possessed a single mote of authentic tenderness within.

This epiphany had begun as a small tangle of uncertainty in Fleur’s gut that, over the course of the trial and in the days leading up to sentencing, grew bigger until it squirmed uncomfortably in her belly. Fleur knew what her conscience was demanding. She’d looked around the courtroom and despaired; from the accusations to the onlookers salivating over the details of greed, jealousy and murder, it was everything her father would squirm away from. She could feel its stain spreading over her as she tried to keep her expression even and her posture straight when it wanted to curve under the weight of the trial.

She wished she could share with Tom that Irma’s guilt felt like lead weight. She felt like yelling at the judge, This shouldn’t be my burden and still it is! All she wanted when the trial was over was to walk out into the sunshine and Tom’s strong, safe arms and not have to feel any of the trial’s guilt following her.

But he was gone and the heaviness of Irma’s trial was pressing on her shoulders. On the day of the sentencing hearing, when the newspapers were clamouring to report on the decision – anticipating that it would be a death sentence – Fleur had asked to be heard. She sat quietly, looking down at her lap as the judge opened the session. Various people spoke about the guilty verdict that had inevitably been announced at the end of the trial and then Irma’s defence counsel had his chance to argue for a lenient sentence, taking into full account her background and lack of prior involvement in anything remotely close to murder. The prosecution had an identical opportunity and naturally pressed for Irma to face hanging, irrespective of her sad background, based purely on the gravity of her crime against an innocent, good man of South Australia, so well regarded in his community.

The demand chilled Fleur.

All the anger and despair that had built over the years of living alongside this horrible woman since childhood, culminating in the day of Irma’s arrest, seemed to flee in that moment as the prosecution made its advice known. The barrister pressed on the fact that the jury had accepted Irma’s premeditated actions in the murder of Henry, that she had set about causing his death using two forms of poison over the course of a protracted period.

Fleur’s mind raced as Irma’s children were allowed to speak. She couldn’t bear to listen; instead she withdrew into her thoughts. I can’t bring Dad back, she told herself repeatedly, the truth of it knocking about in her mind like a fly banging against a window pane. And a second urgent fly banging against the same pane: Irma’s death achieves nothing.

As Irma’s daughter finished giving an impassioned plea for her mother’s life, the judge finally turned to Fleur.