The Long Shot

By Deborah Sheldon

After a six-year estrangement from her troubled family, Simone Parker returns home to the small Australian town of Brownbeck to attend a funeral. Now that their violent and abusive father is dead, she hopes to reconcile with her younger sister, Claire. When Simone is the only witness to a brutal and near-fatal bashing, she discovers that Brownbeck harbours a criminal gang trafficking in illegal firearms. At the funeral, she recognises Claire’s new partner as one of the assailants.

How can she help police officer Mitchell Ross in his investigation if her own sister might be involved?

The Long Shot is a dark crime-suspense short novel exploring the aftermath of domestic abuse on children who have grown up in a violent household. With romance and sisterly love at its core, this story offers hope for second chances and starting over.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twelfth Planet Press
• Release date: Dec 10, 2020

Deborah Sheldon

Deborah lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her works include short stories, novellas and novels across the darker spectrum. Her credits also include TV scripts, stage plays, magazine articles, and award-winning medical writing.

Book preview

1

Simone Parker could see the entire cemetery from the gate. Thankfully, she was the only person there. Correction. The only living person. This cemetery held the remains of many generations of families from the township of Brownbeck, including Simone’s. Her hand tightened on the gate.

A new red-brick toilet block sat alongside the cyclone fence. Apart from that, the cemetery looked the same as she remembered. Back in high school, the ‘bone orchard’ had been the favoured hangout after dark, the meeting place for bored teenagers with nothing to do and nowhere to go in a small country town. She could almost hear the laughter and the chatter, see the boys play-fighting and the girls trying to act cool. The police often chased them out—the swing of torches the signal to run—but everyone always came back the very next night, Simone, who never wanted to be at home, anyway.

She closed the gate behind her and walked the path, her shoes crunching on the gravel. Cockatoos screeched overhead. There was no traffic noise. Simone had expected the area to be more built up by now. Then again, who would ever want to live in Brownbeck? Unless you had an interest in paddocks or cows, the town had nothing to offer.

The autumn sun came out from behind a cloud. She took sunglasses from her handbag and kept walking. The graves on either side of the path were weather-beaten, many of them commemorating deaths from the nineteenth century, the headstones granite or marble. Never forgotten proclaimed one neglected plaque. Simone shivered in the cool air. Hugging into her jacket, she walked faster.

At the sight of one of the monument graves, a bronze obelisk topped with a bronze woman, she pulled up, and smiled. Damn. Right there, behind the grave and hidden from sight, she’d had her first kiss—a chaste pressing of lips—with a tousle-haired boy named Mitchell Ross. She hadn’t thought about that in years.

The breeze gusted, carrying the sweet, familiar smell of hay, and for a disorienting moment it was like she had never left Brownbeck at all, and the time she'd spent living and working far away in the northern part of the state, in the regional city of Mildura, never happened.

She faltered on the path. Maybe she should go back to her car and drive home, but that meant another seven hours behind the wheel on top of the seven she’d already done. She could stop halfway and stay in Melbourne overnight, somewhere nice in the CBD, somewhere luxurious. A plush hotel, a room with a bay side view, mini-bar, room service... Yes, the idea had plenty of appeal. She thought about Uncle Henry. Whether she wanted to or not, she had to stay, at least until after his funeral tomorrow. Hanging around in Brownbeck over the weekend for the reading of the will on Monday, however, was another thing. She could decide that later.

She kept walking. Her feet knew where she was headed, to the wooden bench at the first crossing of paths. The sight of the bench was a relief. Something, other than the new toilet block, had changed. The faded paint and the patches of green lichen flowering over the slats were proof of the six long years that had passed, proof that Simone wasn't a timid eighteen-year-old anymore and was, in fact, a full-grown woman who had decided her own destiny and got the hell out of Brownbeck.

She sat down. The birch behind her cast a far-reaching shadow in the late afternoon light. She took off her sunglasses. Ahead, the graves extended across the green lawn to a stand of trees. A blue tarpaulin weighted down with bricks covered one spot on the lawn. That might be Uncle Henry’s plot. The realisation gave her a tiny shock. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen him and couldn't.

The cockatoos shrieked, closer now. She lifted her gaze to search for them in the sky. The backdrop of hills looked, as always, like folds in a giant yellow blanket. There didn’t appear to be any new houses. If she turned her head, she would see the old homestead.

No, she wouldn’t turn her head. There was no need. She could picture the homestead in her mind’s eye.

She could see the house perched high on the rise, framed by its single line of eucalypts, the fat chimney chuffing smoke. As a girl, whenever she had been in the bone orchard, she had kept an eye on the homestead. If the light was on in the den, it meant her father was drinking in there with the door shut, nursing his imaginary grievances against the family. Let him alone, Mum would say to Simone and her sister, Claire; let him drink himself to sleep. Many nights, Simone heard Claire weeping. Simone would climb into bed with her, holding her and murmuring words of reassurance. Their drunken father would storm and rage through the other rooms of the house with Mum following behind, arguing with him, both breaking things, turning over furniture.

Simone shuddered. To calm herself, she focused on the flight of the cockatoos overhead. None of her family members lived at the old homestead now, hadn't lived there in a long, long time. Dad was dead. The last she’d heard from Uncle Henry in a rare phone call, Mum had moved to Rockhampton with some new boyfriend, and Claire had dropped out of school and gone to Melbourne to start a hairdressing apprenticeship. Mum and Claire would be at the funeral tomorrow. The thought of seeing them again laid heavy, a weight in her guts.

How would they treat her after so many years?

Not with open arms that’s for sure.

Well, Simone would see them at the funeral, and that’s that. She took a deep breath. It might be a good idea to phone Claire first, to break the ice beforehand. When Uncle Henry’s executor called last week, he provided a few contact details.

Simone took out her mobile. Damn, no coverage. Yet another reason to hate Brownbeck. She’d try again at the motel. If she still couldn’t get a signal, there was always the motel’s landline. Hi Claire, it’s your big sister, she imagined saying, but vetoed that opening line. No point in sounding friendly; Claire would take it the wrong way and assume sarcasm. Hello, Claire, it’s Simone Parker. No, too formal. Hello, it’s your long lost relative...

Simone’s stomach churned. If she called, Claire would no doubt hang up. It might be wiser to forget the phone call, just say a few neutral words of greeting at the funeral. In all likelihood, Claire would ignore her anyway. So would Mum. In fact, so might everyone. She knew Mum and Claire had bad-mouthed her to relatives and friends, while Simone offered no one in Brownbeck her side of the story. Would she feel the gaze of hostile eyes, see the disapproving shaking of heads, the pursing of lips? She should wear her sunglasses throughout the funeral. The idea of showing her face to the town felt like too much to bear.

Driving home right now sounded better than ever.

No, she was here for Uncle Henry, nobody else. That's what she tried to tell herself. So what if she got treated like a pariah? She hadn't done anything wrong. Let people think whatever they liked. Afterwards, she would return to Mildura, live her quiet, dull little life as a school secretary and TV crime show enthusiast, and put the whole experience behind her.

Unless, of course, Claire seemed open to reconciliation.

Despite herself, Simone allowed her hopes to rise. How would it feel to have a sister again? They were both adults now. Perhaps they could be the type of sisters who met for lunch once a week. Just the thought gave Simone's heart a small tremble. They might have a favourite bistro and be on good terms with the waitress who would pour their wines right to the top of each glass instead of stopping at the printed white line. Another thought struck Simone. What if Claire had a child? A beautiful little baby ... or a toddler? Simone would try her best to be a wonderful aunt. She'd volunteer to babysit so Claire could have an evening out whenever she felt like it with her husband. Or her de facto... Maybe she was a single mother?

A cold breeze wound through the graves and headstones, and Simone shivered as it passed over her. Don't get ahead of yourself, she thought. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment. Claire might not give you the time of day. Weary, she rubbed at her temples, wishing for a moment Uncle Henry’s executor had never tracked her down in the first place.

The clouds turned pink and orange against the setting sun. She got up, shouldered her bag and walked the gravel path towards the gate. She had parked her car on the grass verge to one side of the road, next to a fenced paddock that held a couple of dozen giant rolls of hay.

As she climbed in, it occurred to her she hadn’t visited her father’s grave. After a moment’s hesitation, she twisted the key in the ignition. Pay her respects? The old man didn’t deserve it. The radio sprang to life. There was no traffic on the road, but she checked the mirrors and flicked the indicator out of habit before pulling away from the kerb. She had never stayed at the Brownbeck Motel. Fingers crossed, her room would be comfortable.

Dusk fell across Brownbeck with the speed of a dropped stone. Simone had forgotten about that particular phenomenon—one minute day, the next minute night. It must have something to do with the scarcity of lights.

She turned into Centre Street. Small houses lay on either side. She slowed down to look. One house caught her eye, and she braked. The blue and yellow weatherboard had a tiny porch, and two wrought iron chairs arranged around a dainty table with enough room to hold a coffee cup. Potted plants sat at intervals between the struts of the balustrade. It made for a warm, welcoming sight. What if Simone had never left Brownbeck? She might live in a house just like this one. She might sit outside in the evenings to watch the sunset, ending her day with a gin and tonic, maybe a brandy if she felt like it. If this colourful weatherboard belonged to her, there’d be no landlord to enforce a NO PETS policy. Simone smiled.

I sit at my tiny porch every evening after dinner, my tortoiseshell cat curled in my lap, and sip on a mixed drink as the sun goes down. Neighbours and other people I know slow their cars to wave out the window at me or just toot their horn, and I wave back.

The door to the weatherboard opened. Jolted, Simone pressed her foot against the accelerator pedal and sped away. She was tired that’s all, tired from a long day behind the wheel and not thinking straight.

Along Centre Street, the homes gave way to shops, and the shops petered out again into paddocks. There sat the motel. It hadn’t changed. The reception building, a bungalow, still had a wooden slat billboard affixed to its roof