An Iron Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

now and the damp cold had come up from under the floorboards and taken hold.
    I did Ned’s room first: there was no other way. I packed all the clothes into boxes, put the few personal things in Ned’s old leather suitcase. Then I started to pack up the rest of the house. It wasn’t a big job. Ned’s neatness and his spartan living habits made it easy. I left the sitting room for last. It was a big room, made by knocking two rooms into one. There were two windows in the north wall, between them an old table where Ned had done his paperwork. There were signs that the cops had taken a look. Both drawers were slightly open.
     
    I took the deep drawers out. One held stationery, a fountain pen, ink bottle, stapler, hole punch, thick wads of bills and invoices held together with rubber bands, a large yellow envelope, Ned’s work diary, a ledger. The other one held a telephone book, a folder with all the papers relating to the purchase of the property and the regular outgoings, three copies of the Dispatch , string, a magnifying glass, a few marbles, and a wooden ruler given away by a shop in Wagga Wagga. The yellow envelope was unsealed. I looked into it: staples, rubber bands, string, assorted things. I stuffed the newspapers into a garbage bag and packed everything else into a box.
     
    At the end of the day, I had all the things to go to the Salvation Army in one shed, the things to keep in another, and the contents of Lew’s room and Ned’s personal things on the back of the Land Rover. I also had two large bags of stuff to be thrown away.
     
    I drove home via the shire tip and dumped the bags. Then it was all speed to the Heart of Oak, the pub a few hundred metres from the smithy. I was parked outside, taking out the key, taste of beer in my mouth, when the question came to me.
     
    Why would Ned keep three copies of a newspaper in his drawer? All the other papers were in the shed, tied in neat bundles for the recyclers.
     
    Forgot to throw them out.
     
    No. Everything else in that drawer had a purpose.
     
    I turned the key. Back to the tip. The man was closing the gate as I arrived.
     
    ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘You want it back.’
     
    The bags were where I’d left them, and the papers were on top of the one I opened.
     
    I took them into the Heart of Oak with me. It was just me and Vinnie the publican and a retired potato farmer called George Beale. Vinnie and George were playing draughts, a 364-day-a-year event contested in a highly vocal manner.
     
    ‘Now that’s what I call a dickhead move,’ George was saying as I came in. ‘Told you once, told you a thousand times.’
     
    ‘Funny how I keep winnin,’ Vinnie said.
     
    ‘Sometimes,’ said George, ‘the Lord loves a dickhead.’
     
    They said Gidday and Vinnie drew a beer without being asked.
     
    The papers were about six weeks old, the issues of a Monday and Tuesday in April and a Thursday in June. The front-page lead in Monday’s paper was headlined: Body in OLD MINE.
     
    I VAGUELY REMEMBERED READING THIS, PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT IT IN THE PUB. THE STORY READ:
     
Police are investigating the discovery of a skeleton at the bottom of an old mine shaft at Cousin Jack Lead in the State forest near Rippon.
     
The macabre find was made by Dean Meerdink of Carlisle, whose dog uncovered the shaft entrance and fell about ten metres, landing on a ledge.
     
‘We were out with the metal detector,’ Mr Meerdink said. ‘Deke was off looking for rabbits and he just vanished. I was calling his name and I heard a faint bark. Then I saw this hole and I thought: he’s a goner. I didn’t want to get too close in case there was a cave-in, so I went back and rang the shire.’
     
Three CFA firemen with a ladder went to the scene and shone a spotlight down the shaft.
     
‘The shaft goes almost straight down and then branches off parallel to the surface,’ said CFA fireman Derek Scholte. ‘The dog was fine and I was about to go down when I saw