Read Online The Tying of Threads by Joy Dettman - Free Book Online Page A

strangers. They got on well now, and were hopeful that morning. Prospective renters were arriving from Melbourne at eleven, their call the only one received from the agent’s city advertisement.
    Two weeks ago the Bendigo couple had driven up to look the place over, which had taken them five minutes. The woman sneered at Charlie’s old cash drawer and docket book system then, without a word, walked out. Her cocky little bantam husband had at least nodded a form of goodbye.
    ‘Heritage’, had since been added to the agent’s advertisement. This morning’s couple knew what they were driving hours to see – if they understood English. Their name was Con-dappa-doppa-something or other.
    Emma, as desperate as Jenny to return to her own life, had lined up a dozen customers to come in at five- or ten-minute intervals – her sisters, her brother’s wives, her husband and her eighty-odd year old mother. All is fair in love and war and in the getting rid of unwanted property.
    Jenny had done what she could. She’d raided Ray’s insurance account to pay for a few improvements since the Bendigo woman’s sneer. After the fire Georgie and Teddy Hall had broken into the shop through the storeroom window to retrieve the shop’s and the ute’s spare keys. There was new glass now in that window, and the smell of fresh paint.
    By eleven, the prospective renters hadn’t arrived, which necessitated an alteration to Emma’s customer roster, but the Con- doppa-somethings eventually came and while Jenny played guide, Emma handled the customers, who rang Charlie White’s cow bell at five- and ten-minute intervals.
    The Greek couple barely glanced at the bookwork where Jim’s neat figures took over from Georgie’s larger figures. Jenny showed them the cash drawer, the old docket book system – the heritage bit – then left them to look around. They’d driven a long way and were in no hurry to leave. They walked out the back door and came in the front, then reversed their steps.
    Jim called just before one, impatient for a verdict.
    ‘No verdict,’ Jenny whispered. ‘They’ve got their measuring tape out now, and we haven’t had a customer since the rush of Fultons. Call Amy and Maisy and ask them to come in and buy something.’
    He didn’t call them, but drove around to buy a packet of cornflakes. Jenny added two packets of cigarettes to his order, two kilos of sugar and a pound of butter. The prospective renters watched Jim hand over his money and receive his change and docket then followed him out to the veranda where the male leaned against a leaning veranda post. A passing dog approached, wanting that post, but the woman flung a stream of Greek at it and the dog moved on.
    ‘Trudy would have understood that,’ Jenny said. ‘Her girlfriend’s grandmother can’t speak a word of English.’
    For half an hour more the Con-doppas stood in the shade of Charlie’s veranda, eyeing the few customers who entered and left, the woman commenting on each in her own tongue, Jenny and Emma coming up with possible translations by means of her expression, his tone and the length of his reply.
    Then a black car with dark tinted windows pulled into the gutter out front and the Greek couple got into it.
    ‘It looks like a mafia hit man’s car,’ Emma said.
    ‘Drug baron,’ Jenny said. ‘They’re looking for a replacement for Monk’s cellar.’
    On the night of the kidnap, the police searching for Tracy had found a crop of marijuana growing beneath artificial light in Monk’s old root cellar.
    ‘You could fit a good few plants in here,’ Emma said. ‘Plenty of lighting.’
    Then the prospective renters were gone, and all Jenny could do was wait.
    For two hours she watched the phone, willing the agent to call. He didn’t, so she called him and, no, he hadn’t heard from the Greek couple, however, the Wallis couple from Bendigo had phoned again this morning and made an offer. They wanted a month by month lease, with an