Since she was a kid, she’d always wanted to be a journalist. There had been a lot of setbacks, the local paper The Colmstock Echo closing being the worst one. Then she’d got an email saying she had been long-listed for a cadetship at the Sage Review, a national paper. A week later she was told she had been short-listed. Still, she hadn’t let herself get too excited. It was just too good, too amazing to happen to her. Then just eight days ago she was down to the final two. It was just her and one other hopeful person out there refreshing their emails today.
Her friend Mia was certain she would get it. Rose had laughed and made some joke about whether she’d seen it in her crystal ball, but really, she had believed her. In her gut, Rose knew she was going to get the cadetship, for the simple fact that no one could want it as much as she did. It just wasn’t possible.
She hurried past the lake, which was surrounded by dry knee-high grass, home to snakes and mosquitoes. It reeked of stagnant water. Next to it, the bare frame of a swing set stood, taken over by an insistent flowering weed. Someone had cut down the swings a few years back, leaving the skeleton of the frame. She wondered if the swings had been rehung in the backyard of one of the nearby houses or if they had been destroyed just for the entertainment of a few kids.
Rose turned away and picked up her pace, the rubber soles of her new shoes slapping against the sticky bitumen, trying not to remember how, once upon a time, when the water was still blue, she’d gone for picnics by that lake with her mother. Her mother, who had sat mute next to her new husband Rob James when he’d told Rose it was time for her to move out. It was okay, since the cadetship was in the city and board was part of the deal, but still, it had hurt.
She crossed over toward Union Street, careful to hop over the cane toad that was squished into the road. Here, people would swerve onto the wrong side in order to squash one. They’d stay there, flat as pancakes, covered in ants, until they turned stiff and hard like dry leather in the baking sun.
The main street of Colmstock was three blocks long. There was only one set of traffic lights and, farther up, a pedestrian crossing in front of the squat redbrick church. Not far from where she stood was a pub. She could see the dog racing on screens through one of its grimy windows, which were often splattered with blood from bar fights by the time it closed. There was the Chinese takeaway joint with its loud red lit-up sign, nestled between the Indian restaurant and the antiques store, which had both closed years ago.
Farther down was the primary school and the Colmstock council building. From where Rose stood, waiting for the lights to change so she could cross the street, she could almost see the burned-out courthouse. It stood between the library, which had escaped the blaze, and the grocery store, which hadn’t. In front of the steps to the courthouse was the memorial to the kid who had died there, Ben Riley. The picture of him was fading, bleached by the constant sun. The building was cordoned off with plastic tape. Barricades should have been put up, but it hadn’t happened yet.
Rose stared at the charred remains. Now that all the files inside the courthouse were ashes and the computers were melted blocks of plastic and wire, did that mean the scheduled trials wouldn’t go ahead? Did it mean that people who would have been criminals no longer were? Would the law be put on hold until they rebuilt the place? Even from here, she could smell it. The burned wood, bricks and plastic frying in the sun. It had been three weeks and the smell hadn’t gone away. Maybe that was just how Colmstock would smell from now on.
Her pocket buzzed. Forcing herself to keep her hand steady, she took out her phone. She half expected it to be some dumb text message from Mia or a spam email. But it wasn’t. She opened the Sage Review’s email, her mouth already tugging at the corners, ready to grin, ready to hold in a scream of excitement.
Dear Ms. Blakey,
Thank you for applying for the Sage Review Cadet Program. Unfortunately
Rose didn’t read the rest. She couldn’t.
Her mouth hadn’t caught up yet. She was still smiling a strange hollow smile as she crossed the road to Eamon’s Tavern Hotel.
Like many of the businesses on Union Street, Eamon’s Tavern Hotel had once been one of the grander houses of Colmstock. It was larger than the others and more imposing with its wide stoop and double windows. However, any opulence the place had once possessed was long gone. It had been due a fresh coat of paint about twenty years ago. Now the facade of the building was crumbling and dirty. In the windows were neon beer signs: Foster’s. VB. XXXX Gold.
Inside Bruce Springsteen played on repeat. The smell was musky: stale air and beer. The lighting was always dim, probably an attempt to hide the deterioration. Still, no darkness could hide the fact that everything was just a little bit sticky. It was the kind of place that had a few motel rooms around the back but no one would ever want to sleep there if they weren’t drunk off their arse.
The bar was half-full of tradies and cops downing their paychecks, sitting heavily on dark wooden chairs. The place was popular with the law. The police station next door served the smaller towns in the region as well as Colmstock, though the boys didn’t like to drink more than a stone’s throw from the station. Seeing the things they saw some days, even walking the ten paces to Eamon’s felt like too far for a beer. The other pub down the road was where you went if you wanted it to be clear that you didn’t like the company of cops. Still, anyone who still drank in public rather than staying home with a baggie of crystal and a glass pipe was considered an asset, no matter where they chose to do it.
Underneath a faded black-and-white portrait of the Eamon family, the original occupants of the house, was the L-shaped bar where Rose chatted with Mia. They had worked at the tavern together for years and had spent hundreds of hours doing exactly what they were doing now: leaning against the bar, drinking Coke and talking shit.
Laura wasn’t the only one who thought Rose looked like a princess. Senior Sergeant Frank Ghirardello, for one, was watching her from the corner of his eye as he drank his beer. Even with the tattoo up her tricep, she looked as pure and perfect as a movie star. That first sip of cold amber poured by Rose herself was the closest thing to bliss he knew. Frank had been keen on Rose from her very first shift at the tavern. She had served him a beer with foam six inches deep. The way she had looked at him, he was sure in that instant, she was The One. So he had taken the beer, tipped her and tried to drink the thing even though he had received a face full of froth with every sip. Frank had never been big on alcohol, but in the last few years he had developed a small drinking problem just to be close to Rose.
Around him, his squad discussed their theories on the most recent case, which had already replaced Ben Riley in their minds. Not for Frank. Some arsehole pyro had been causing a stir all year. It had been small blazes at first, a bush or a letter box smoking and smoldering. They’d liked to believe it was bored teenagers, although that had never been very likely. The high school had shut down this year because of low enrollment, the class sizes less than a quarter of what they used to be. Most of the teenagers either worked at the poultry farm or had adopted the pipe full-time. The ones on meth were still committing crimes, assault and robbery mostly, but none of them seemed to have the patience to light a fire just for the joy of watching it burn.
Then, last month, it had escalated very suddenly. The psycho had been too trigger-happy with his lighter and burned down half a block of Union Street. Ben had only been thirteen, and he was what they called “special.” “Brain damaged” was the real term. The boy acted more like a little kid than a teenager, but he was the darling of Colmstock. A smile for everyone. His parents owned the grocery store