The move took Forrester across the Mudgee road. He parked his Land Rover near a crumbling chimney stack and repeated the tracking. When he finished, he made sure there were still a half-dozen workers feasting inside the bee box, then he locked it.

  The sun was sinking low by the time he discovered the hive. It was humming in the belly of a Bramley apple, not one hundred metres from the humpy belching a twisted curl of smoke.

  The bees began their assault on him when he was a good five meters from their cache.

  But Forrester had been stung four times before it registered.

  * * * *

  Gwynneth Davies found herself stopping yet again on the way back from nursing a client to read the headstones in the Protestant cemetery. It was in a clearing amongst stringybarks, just off the Mudgee road, a million miles from Caernarfon, where Dafydd had decided he'd been too young for marriage. After they'd been married eight wasted years.

  There was a fascination about the inscriptions that lured her there. Week after week. “George Griffiths, who was killed through carelessness in the Newcastle Co. Claim, Tambaroora, October 4, 1872...” She couldn't help saying the words aloud, savouring every syllable, even though she'd recited them a dozen times before. “...Sacred to the memory of Thomas William Anderson, who was accidentally killed whilst working in Rawsthorne's Mine, Hawkins Hill..."

  "Keep that up and they'll lock you away."

  Gwynneth jumped. She hadn't seen the tall stranger, clutching a thermos and paper cup, looking for all intents and purposes like a tourist searching for a good spot for a picnic.

  "You scared me!” Hadn't Dafydd always said she had an irritating habit of stating the bleeding obvious.

  "Did not. You scared yourself."

  He was Australian. That was certain. Since the cave man, there'd surely been no race of male more infuriatingly direct. She fumbled in her holdall, finally extracting a mobile phone.

  He laughed. “Reception out here stinks."

  Gwynneth glared. She'd plenty of experience with difficult patients. And at maintaining a diplomatic silence. But the inland heat laced with fear caused a rush of blood to her head. She waved the useless phone. “What gives you the right to go skulking about headstones, scaring innocent women?"

  The man moved off the path to walk around her. Then paused and looked back. “I'm saying goodbye to my father,” he said. And suddenly she realised the thermos wasn't a thermos after all and felt herself start to apologise. Until the stranger cast his unfathomable eyes over the pillars of sandstone and added: “Where're the innocent women?"

  And then, partly due to nerves and heat and partly because the situation was so ridiculous, she started to giggle.

  Forrester felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth as the pert blonde he apparently had the capacity to incense just by breathing the same air failed to contain her laughter.

  The music that bubbled from her lips both refreshed and saddened him. It'd been a long time since he'd heard laughter like that. It reminded him of his youngest sister. Adie. The giggler. The thought of Adie's bruised body killed the smile on his lips.

  Gwynneth misinterpreted the stranger's melancholic look and felt suddenly contrite. “You"ll be wanting to scatter the ashes.” She slid the mobile back into her holdall, immediately businesslike. “There's a clearing amongst the stringybarks up the back, filled with the most stunning purple flowers..."

  "Paterson's Curse.” The man's voice flickered with interest. “Salvation Jane. Echium plantagineum...” He was gazing off into the distance, looking past her white rayon uniform and sensible shoes, and the hair she'd washed that morning in lavender-scented rainwater. “A lot of folk say it's a weed, but my dad always said it made some of the best honey."

  He looked at Gwynneth, as if seeing something in her for the first time. “It'd be right to rest him there."

  She held the paper cup while he poured out the ashes. They were clumped into balls, like something from the bottom of a kettle barbecue.

  "Do you have a prayer?” she asked.

  For a moment he looked as lost as an unprepared little boy invited to say Grace at his first meal away from home.

  "No, I...” He turned to her, at last taking in the uniform, the white stockings, and the nametag that announced “Gwynneth Davies, R.N."

  "If you'd like me to, I could say a few words?"

  Assuming his nod to be a sign of assent, she continued. “...As we return to the earth from whence we came ... even though the spirit is already with you, we ask that you receive these ashes of the one that you created, that you might create again from them life anew."

  Her somber words carried through the airless heat and the scattered ashes, craving a breeze, stuck fast in the purple flower heads and on the taut, hairy stems.

  "We need some spring rain,” she said, then hurriedly added. “To freshen up the place, put a bit of life back into the soil."

  "Bees need water,” Forrester volunteered, startling her until he noticed the look she was giving him. “Josh Forrester's the name. I'm an apiarist. I collect wild honey."

  She liked the way the stranger's name rolled around on itself, like desert tumbleweed, yet with enough strength in it to have substance.

  She quite fancied writing home to Mother, telling her about the lean, dark Aussie she'd met scattering his father's ashes, about the sadness behind his smile.

  And she particularly fancied the knowledge that her mother would be around to Dafydd's drapery business quicker than a ferret after a rat to broadcast the news.

  "The Hargreaves does a fine pub meal,” she ventured. “Would you like to meet up there tonight?"

  "Sorry, got to sort out my ‘comb boxes."

  She genuinely believed at first it was some sort of joke, lopsided as this infuriating Aussie's grin.

  But then he added: “Got a big day tomorrow, raiding wild honey."

  She managed, under the circumstances, to hide her incredulity remarkably well.

  "Tomorrow night, then. Seven o'clock."

  Gwynneth had decided.

  Even Forrester had no answer to that.

  * * * *

  Forrester could smell vegetables frying as he lifted his hand to knock on the humpy door. Paterson's Curse cast a purple haze through the derelict orchard surrounding the weatherboard and iron hut.

  "Settle down, Ben!” he heard an elderly male voice growl. There was shuffling inside, towards the door. Then it opened.

  "Holy Mary, mother of God!” Kelly clawed at his chest, and leaned into the doorframe.

  Forrester was at a loss what to do. Last thing he wanted was the old geezer dying on him. Not now. Not like this!

  "Sorry, I...” he began, but Kelly raised a hand to silence him.

  "You shocked me, that's all.” He lifted rheumy eyes to take a hard look at the younger man. “God, but you're like your dad.” The eyes narrowed. “What brings you back?"

  Forrester's gaze shifted away from the face etched with lines he didn't remember. Lines earned from a life of freedom in the sun. It suddenly struck him how different the face was from his father's, skin pale as a baby's thanks to the protection of prison.

  "Dad...” He almost faltered. “...died. Wanted his ashes scattered. He had some good times here, before..."

  Kelly tut-tutted and shook his head. His gaze dropped to the curling verandah boards. “Heard last night in the pub that he'd gone.” Kelly crossed himself.

  "He considered you a friend, Ned."

  Kelly's face twisted. He wasn't good with words at the best of times, particularly when it came to comforting the bereaved or accepting a compliment. To be landed with the job of doing both at once threatened to swamp him.

  But there was no stopping Forrester, with his father's candid eyes and his unsettling honesty.

  "He asked me to come and tell you that. That he considered you a mate."

  Kelly could only shrug. He'd been thirty years in the same place. In all that time he'd never felt the need to cross a state border, let alone explore the edges of a comfort zone.

  Relief surged through him when Forrester changed tack.

  "Enjoying the simple life, Ned?” The interior design of Kelly's humpy seemed to Forrester like a snapshot from the Edwardian era. Wood fire, kero lamps, the pervading smell of soot.

  Kelly didn't waver. “Don't need a lot to make me happy."

  Forrester misread the awkwardness as offence.

  "I wasn't suggesting..."

  "And I wasn't suggesting that you were. Now, I'd invite you in, except the dog don't take too well to strangers."

  Forrester turned to go. Then stopped, as if suddenly remembering something.

  "You've a hive of wild bees in one of your Bramley stumps."

  Kelly hadn't been prepared for this. Small talk wasn't one of his strengths either. “Mad as hell, they are. What of it?"

  "I could get rid of them for you. I'm an apiarist. If you'd let me have the honey."

  The old man shrugged again.

  "Honey's no good to me,” he said and turned inside, locking the door.

  * * * *

  Forrester lost no time attacking the hive.

  Usually, he'd stand and observe awhile, reading the behaviour, planning his approach. But these girls were wild as a coachload of spurned wives.

  And he'd waited long enough.

  He rushed at the tree with a block splitter, making chips of apple wood fly into the rapidly warming morning.

  Attack was his best means of defence, and the wilder the bees the stronger the attack needed.

  "Bad bees are like rogue dogs...." His father was speaking to him again, so sharp he almost stopped chopping to look for him. "Show no fear and you've less chance of being stung or bitten...."

  Sweat beaded his brow and stained the back of his shirt.

  He swung the block splitter back and forth, back and forth, until the stump cracked and split.

  The cavity was bigger than he expected, occupying the central core of the tree. Forrester estimated it must have been home to generation upon savage generation of bees.

  By now the bees that were left in the hive were too busy salvaging what honey they could from his dreadful assault. They had neither the time nor the inclination to sting the wild beast attacking their treasure.

  Forrester heard the air humming with their furious endeavour as he smeared his hands with a protective layer of honey and plunged them into the hollow.

  He managed to pull out the comb intact, with little damage to the symmetry that still made him marvel, and placed it carefully in his honey bucket.

  Back at the Land Rover, he carved off a wedge of comb, pushed it into a clean jar, and topped it with the golden liquid.

  Then, with his forceps and scalpel glinting under a livid inland sun, he unlocked the bee box and took out the first of the six workers he'd chosen to sacrifice in the name of rough justice.

  * * * *

  From the commotion inside, it seemed there was more trouble with old Ned's dog.

  "A token of thanks...” Forrester held out the jar to a startled Kelly when he finally pulled open the door. “...for the honey, I mean."

  Despite his best intentions, Kelly found himself taking the jar.

  "Thought those bees'd eat you alive,” he said. “Haven't been able to walk that bit of ground in years."

  "Bad bees are like rogue dogs...” Forrester heard himself repeating his father's advice.

  Then he looked into the room Kelly was so intent on guarding. “...Where exactly is your dog, Ned?"

  * * * *

  It was after eight o'clock in the public bar at the Hargreaves before Forrester decided he'd been stood up.

  "Story of my life...” he began.

  He was, after all, familiar with deceit. He'd been introduced to it as a kid. When his old man had taken the rap for a missing find of gold in the shape of a peacock. Then been arrested by his best mate, Senior Sergeant Ned Kelly.

  "Give the girl a call....” Eleanor Parry was a good listener. She'd heard her share of confidences traded for the price of a beer. But after over an hour of Forrester's heady anticipation for “the sweet Welsh nurse with the heart of gold,” even she finally cracked.

  "She didn't give me her phone number.” Two too many whiskies on an empty stomach had started to slur the visitor's words.

  Parry tossed her blazing halo of hair back from her shoulders. “Since when did that ever stop a man!"

  She'd intended to provoke him, but Forrester's thoughts ran deeper. “Gwynneth's a sensitive soul...."

  Parry snorted. “Have a few more drinks, Josh. Next you'll be quoting poetry."

  * * * *

  Forrester was packing to leave town when Eleanor Parry caught up with him. Her deadpan expression told him immediately that something was dreadfully wrong.

  Adrenaline pumped through him.

  But he willed himself to stay cool.

  Anticipating the news about Kelly.

  "Gwynneth Davies.” Parry didn't bother to clothe the words in sympathy. She spoke in short, sharp sentences. “Found her this morning. Dead."

  Forrester felt the suspension of belief. Shock sucked at his breath.

  "Are you sure?” The question was ridiculous. He knew it. Didn't care.

  "Ned Kelly phoned to say she hadn't turned up to do his leg.” Parry's words came faster now. “You thought she'd stood you up last night. So I went round..."

  Forrester's head throbbed. He felt weightless. He had to slump against the running board to stop himself falling.

  His head fell forwards, then jerked up again at Parry's next words.

  "Looks like she found a stinger in that wild comb honey of yours. Had the jar open, place crawling with ants. Caught it right at the back of the tongue. Throat puffed up like a robber's dog."

  Sweat beaded on Forrester's upper lip. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His mind spun cartwheels. Could Parry hear the hammering in his chest?

  "I didn't give her any wild honey."

  The ex-copper grimaced.

  "No, but Ned did. Old coot's so shaken up he's even starting to sound half sane."

  Parry's cool eyes surveyed Forrester.

  "Said he couldn't eat the stuff you gave him. Being diabetic. So he passed it on to his nurse. Then, he produced this...."

  Parry extracted a faded khaki satchel from the floor of her Landcruiser, opened the drawstring, and extracted The Peacock.

  "Kelly's fessed up enough to guarantee your dad a pardon, posthumous though it is."

  The news was infinitely satisfying to the ex-copper. Taking her old adversary of a senior sergeant into custody had given her a buzz she hadn't felt in years.

  But it was little comfort to Forrester. The earth was tilting. He couldn't stop it.

  "Honey's been sent off to pathology..."

  Parry frowned as she looked again at the bee man, pale with shock, starting to rock.

  And reached for her cuffs.

  (c)2008 by Cheryl Rogers

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: THE BLUE PLATE SPECIAL by Brendan DuBois

  As we go to press with this issue, Brendan DuBois's new thriller, Twilight, is also hot off the presses from St. Martin's. The New Hampshire author writes both series and non-series books, but his stories for us, like his 2006 Barry Award winner “The Right Call,” are usually non-series. The award was bestowed at the 2007 Bouchercon in Alaska, and was sponsored by Mystery News and Deadly Pleasures magazines.

  So it has come to this, Elaine Fletcher thought, as she parked her Volvo sedan in the dirt parking lot of the Have a Seat diner in Montcalm, New Hampshire. She left the car in Park and kept the engine running, as the Volvo's radio struggled to pick up an NPR station from Montpelier. It was six on a Wednesday morning and her head and jaw ached. Already the lot was practically full, with pickup trucks and rusty sedans and a couple of SUVs. On the passenger's side of her Volvo were a reporter's notebook, a file folder, and her laptop—a pathetic collection that marked the sudden halt to a very promising career. She would leave the laptop and file folder behind during this first visit.

  Once, a lifetime or two ago, she had been a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, living in an upscale section of Brooklyn, writing stories about finance and business and purchasing trends. In her varied career she had reported from London and Dubai, had interviewed the head of the London Stock Exchange and two members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and had a nice little career ahead of her.

  And now?

  Well, now she was living in rural New Hampshire, hadn't seen her name in print in months, and was about to try to interview the owner and head cook of the Have a Seat diner for a possible freelance article. Among other things.

  She gathered up her notebook and went out into the cold October morning, suddenly remembering something from her newspaper days. Once, in an editor's office, she'd seen one of those workplace inspirational posters hanging on the wall. This particular poster had shown a steamship overtaking a sailing ship, and the large caption underneath had said: CHANGE IS GOOD.

  At this moment, in this parking lot in Montcalm, New Hampshire, she knew that if the designer of the poster were to walk out of the diner, she would try to strangle him.

  * * * *

  From the quiet of the parking lot, she went into the noisy chaos of the diner, and had to stop for a moment to take it all in. Before her was a traditional counter, with round stools stretching out on both sides, and on the other side of the counter were two refrigerators, a grill, coffee machines, and other odds and ends of diner gear. On either side of the small room were rows of booths, and even at this early hour, the booths and the stools were mostly occupied. She worked her way down one row of booths, where the very last one—next to a fire exit—was made for two people. She sat down, shoved her reporter's notebook into her purse, took a breath, and looked at the customers.

  A fair mix of small-town New Hampshire, a people she was learning about, and would no doubt continue to keep on learning about the longer she was exiled here. There were the women in nurse scrubs, ready to go over the river and up to the big Dartmouth-Hitchcock regional hospital. There were the few farmers who ran dairy farms, in their worn jeans and flannel shirts. A fair mix of other men who worked with their hands—contractors, plumbers, mechanics—as well as a few women heading out to who-knew-where. She found herself smiling, looking at the crew before her. Not one who would be tagged as “professional,” as she'd been in her Manhattan work days, though who in hell knew what a professional was anymore?