A wee snippet from ‘Baby Farm’ to whet your appetite

For your reading pleasure, an excerpt from ‘Baby Farm’ with my favourite character, investigative journalist and super-sleuth, Seth VerBeek.

Seth reversed out of the parking bay. On the street he lit a smoke, turned up the radio and revved the Jeep through the chicanes of Lamington Street. Straight home, or to his favourite bar? Whichever he chose, he needed to do plenty of thinking.

He took the scenic route, east along Kingsford Smith Drive to the old airport, back on the Gateway tailgated by a snarling B-double, left at the flyover to Sandgate, and left again into a quiet tree-lined street.

He pulled on the handbrake, cut the engine and lit another smoke. Without realising it, his homing instincts had guided him to his own apartment block in Clayfield.

Once inside, he rummaged in the fridge for a Corona. He snapped off the lid, pressed its frothing mouth to his lips and drank in the malty comfort.

The apartment was stuffy. The lingering odour of last night’s fry-up had been heightened by the hot day. He opened the balcony door and settled in a deckchair. The stars were pale specks, muted by light-sheen emitted by a city of more than a million inhabitants.

In the bush, the spangle of stars was dazzling. On a cloudless night each constellation was visible and clearly defined. When he was on bivouac with the army in the weeks before his youth was stolen by the Vietnam War, he’d marvelled at the vast expanse of night sky unblemished by pollution. Lying on his back in the dust he’d pick out Orion and the Seven Sisters and the Southern Cross while the other conscripts played poker or smoked weed or did other unmentionable things that would have brought them before a court martial.

What would he have done, had he known about his brother’s transgressions?

Want to know more? Come to a library talk in Brisbane this spring. First up is Capalaba Library on Saturday 17th October at 2pm. I’d love to meet you there.

Happy reading!