Read Online The Other Side of Sorrow by Peter Corris - Free Book Online

you think they’d be in touch with Megan?’
    â€˜Rex? No way. Dora might be. She’s under his thumb but she not quite as crazy as he is. Tell him Frank sent you. That’ll really get up his nose.’

8
    It wasn’t a day for the mountains. Sydney was cool and wet, the mountains were likely to be cooler and possibly wetter. I grabbed a parka I keep in the office and headed west. Mentally, I picked through the information I’d acquired about Megan and Talbot. It could be structured not to sound too bad—a ‘crazy mixed-up kids’ gloss could be put on it. But it could be a lot worse in reality, with the drugs and Talbot’s violence factored in. I tried to treat it like any missing persons case—concerned parent, worrying features, bad associations—but the personal aspect kept cutting in, confusing me and making me unsure of my assessments.
    The country around Mount Wilson looked bleak in the pale winter light. After a long, hot summer there hadn’t been much rain until recently and the land was parched-looking and damply yellow. Frank French’s directions were good and I located the property easily. It was at the end of a long dirt road and the word that sprang to mind to describe it was neglect. The fences were in poor repair, broken down in spots by the press of branches, sagging elsewhere from wood rot. The driveway to the main building had once been covered with gravel but now the rocky ground was showing through. The rambling main building, constructed from what looked like rough, pit-sawn local timber, immediately struck me as odd. It was huddled down amid trees and shrubs in a hollow as if deliberately trying to avoid the view to the west. If it had been located just a few metres in that direction on higher ground it would have commanded a magnificent outlook over paddocks to forest and far ranges.
    The garden beds and lawn flanking the driveway were scruffy. An old Land Rover was parked on a patch of remaining gravel to the left near a rusting pre-fab shed. I stopped dead in front of the building, got out and looked around. No telephone lines, no electricity cables, no TV antenna. Isolation. The right context for dogma and obedience. The place depressed me already.
    I suppose I expected white robes and sandals, but the man who met me at the top of the front steps wore a business suit and a business-like expression.
    â€˜Welcome to Harmony and Tranquility,’ he said. ‘How may I help you?’
    He was middle-aged, plump, balding, normal-looking, so I behaved normally by showing him my PEA licence and telling him that I wanted to talk to Rex and Dora French on a family matter. I’d put the parka on in the car to keep myself dry on the dash to the building. I took it off and revealed myself in suit and tie. No gun bulge. No knuckle-duster.
    â€˜I believe they’re both meditating. Nothing distressing I hope?’’
    I made a non-committal gesture which he didn’t like and he liked it still less when I asked him who he was.
    â€˜Pastor John,’ he said. ‘The leader of this community. I’ll make enquiries about Brother Rex and Sister Dora. If you’ll just wait inside?’
    He ushered me up the steps and through the door into a room on the left. I had time to glimpse a faded carpet in the hallway, a lack of light, and to smell a musty odour that confirmed my impression of neglect. The room I stood in was bare apart from an old set of church pews arranged around three sides. The window was small and the panes were dusty, inside and out.
    After a few minutes a woman came into the room. She was fiftyish, small and tired-looking. Her grey hair was wispy and the cardigan she wore over a woollen dress was ill-buttoned. No make-up, thick stockings, flat-heeled shoes. She stopped one step into the room and looked at me as if I was going to bite her.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Mrs French?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    I went into a