‘I can show you where I drop him off, on Collers Road,’ Goatee said. ‘Need a ride?’
‘Car’s up the road. I’ll follow if that’s okay.’
He shrugged.
Before I left I slapped a fifty down on the bar.
‘Thanks for your help, guys, next round’s on me.’
The champagne, combined with success in locating David Geddes, had made me a little giddy so I slugged some water while I followed Goatee’s dust cloud. The road was unpaved and wound around farmhouses, paddocks and grassed river flats. When we turned off on Collers the road narrowed and climbed, and the forest became dense. Goatee pulled to a halt in what looked like the middle of nowhere and got out of his car. I stayed in mine, dust settling on my sweating skin. Magpies warbled, the engine ticked and his boots crunched gravel.
‘Nice car. A sixty-five?’ He leaned a forearm on the roof of the Futura.
‘Sixty-seven. Where’s this house?’
‘No one’s seen it, but I’ve dropped him off right there. See the driveway? Bit grown over, ’cause he doesn’t have a car.’
I turned to look out the passenger seat window and could just make out an overgrown track. No sign, no letterbox, nothing. My heart was beating hard. I tried not to get my hopes up, but it was just too perfect a hideout.
‘I see it. Thanks.’
‘You want me to come with you? He’s a crazy old coot.’
‘Nah, I’ll be fine. Tell you what though, if I’m not back at the pub in two hours, you might wanna send out a search party.’
‘No worries. Hey, you smoke?’
By the way he lifted his eyebrows I didn’t think he meant tobacco.
‘Very occasionally.’
He licked his lips.
‘Do you root?’
‘Never.’
He frowned, then laughed and punched me softly on the shoulder.
‘You’re just joshin’ me. Cheeky. See you back at the pub, okay?’
‘Will do,’ I lied.
He got back in his ute, revved the engine like he was preparing for a drag race and performed a screeching U-turn, kicking up dust and pinging rocks off my car, before tearing off like a bat out of hell. Boys.
Soon as he was gone I drove slowly up the road, looking for somewhere to park. No way was I cruising down that driveway. If Nick was there he’d take off like a startled rabbit. About five hundred metres later I found a rutted fire trail, turned off, bounced along and stopped when the car was hidden from the road. I went to the boot and swapped my thongs for an old pair of Dunlop Volleys, left my handbag and packed a small backpack with my water bottle, camera and a pair of binoculars.
I returned to the overgrown drive and walked down it as quietly as possible, stepping around dry twigs and ducking to avoid prickly vines. The heat intensified the smell of eucalyptus until it was almost overpowering, and sweat stuck my singlet to my skin. I wished I’d changed into shorts, although the jeans protected my legs from clumps of spiky plants.
The driveway went on for more than a kilometre, angling down. Bright red and blue rosellas swooped through the trees and dun-coloured pigeons scrabbled in the undergrowth. Occasionally I heard the rhythmic thumping of a kangaroo or wallaby bounding through the scrub. A dog barked in the distance and I stopped and stiffened, but it didn’t bark again and I continued on.
After about ten minutes I was beginning to think I’d missed another near-invisible turnoff when I finally glimpsed a small clearing at the bottom of the drive with a ramshackle wooden hut in the middle.
I backed up a bit, went off the driveway and picked my way through the bush, along a natural ridge that overlooked the shack. Twigs cracked, plants pierced my thighs through the denim, but eventually I found a big rock hidden behind a clump of blackberry, climbed up and sat on it. I took the binoculars out of my bag and found that when I adjusted them I could see the house through the gaps in the tangled vines.
The place looked like a one-room job, built on wooden poles. Steps led to a small veranda that leaned at a dangerous angle. The windows were too dusty to see through properly, and I didn’t catch any movement inside. All I heard was birdsong and a distant creek, water burbling over rocks.
I trained the binoculars on the yard. It was full of junk: rusting forty-four-gallon drums, plastic milk crates full of yellowing newspapers and empty long-neck beer bottles, a battered Toyota LandCruiser propped on stumps.
I sat watching, waiting for something to happen and hoping that if it did, it would involve Nick Austin walking out of the front door of the house. A treeful of cicadas began a shimmering song. Sunlight filtered through the trees, sweat itched my neck, and when I scratched the skin stung. I scooped my hair up into a ponytail. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sean leaving, and my dad blowing me off and everything else that’d gone wrong, but I didn’t care. Anger was bloody energising, and probably the only thing that was keeping me awake. I hummed Rage Against the Machine. Fuck ’em all.
An hour later I’d seen no movement from the house and was pretty sure no one was home, but couldn’t discount the fact that somebody could have been asleep in there, or quietly reading. Wanting to move things along I searched the ground around the boulder for smaller rocks, picked up a few the size of golf balls, and pegged them at the house.
The first one hit the dirt in front of the shack, but the second clanked onto the rusted corrugated iron, the sudden noise silencing the cicadas. I held my breath. Nothing happened. I chucked another onto the roof and waited. No one was home and I guessed Geddes was in town. It crossed my mind that he might have shown up at the Commercial and the guys were telling him his long-lost daughter was looking for him. Jesus. If he popped out of the bushes then I’d, well, pretend I was a bushwalker who’d gotten lost. He was harmless, wasn’t he? Not like he’d shoot me or anything.
Bugger it. I was going down to check out the house.
I bashed through the brush back to the driveway, and picked my way down, involuntarily jogging down the last, steep section and staggering into the clearing. I felt exposed out in the open: my heart thumped and I had to remind myself to breathe. The sound of the creek was amplified and I smelled the cool mossy scent of fresh water and river rocks.
I circled the house. Assorted tools and building materials were scattered underneath it: a rusting chainsaw lay next to a woodpile, along with an axe poking out of a block. I had an urge to grab the axe, but it looked heavy and I thought carrying it would only freak me out more.
The Australian bush had always struck me as spooky. I kept thinking I heard something moving and whirled around, eyes straining to see past the thicket of twisted gums, but there was never anything there. I made a deal with myself. Check the rest of the grounds, check the house and you can hightail it back to Melbourne to figure out another plan.
Rounding the back of the shack, I found a metal garbage can and opened the lid. Fat flies buzzed out and a rotten stench nearly made me gag. I wished I’d thought to bring my latex gloves from the car. I gingerly picked out a big green garbage bag, set it on the ground and ripped it open, separating the detritus by kicking it apart. Old cans mainly. No-name dog chow and beans and Campbell’s Chunky Beef Soup. A couple of Cadbury’s wrappers, old sachets of instant mashed potato and just-add-water pasta meals. And some bloodied gauze bandages.
My skin prickled. Nick’s bullet wound.
I squatted and rooted around some more with a stick, trying not to gag from the smell and the maggots, and found empty packets of antibiotics and painkillers. The prickle was turning into an electric shock. He’d been staying here, I was sure of it. Was he still here, or had he taken off? I had to get inside the house, find out what I could before anyone came back.
I stood up and smiled, wishing all my doubters could see me now. You had to admit, I was pretty shit-hot. Not even the cops had got this far. I swigged from my water bottle, walked to the front of the shack, and was about to take the first step to the veranda when my whole world turned upside down.
T
he leaf litter rattled, a whip cracked, and my feet went out from under me as I was hauled into the air by my ankles. It took me a few seconds to realise I was caught in a net, dangling like an orange in a bag. Nylon rope dug into my nose and cheeks and forced my arms to curl spastically into my sides. I strained to push against it but was stuck tight. Blood rushed to my head and I thought I was going to be sick. The rope creaked and the tree branch it was tied to dipped and groaned. I spun slightly and saw the cabin door open.
A man walked onto the veranda holding a blue heeler by its collar. He removed the muzzle from its snout, and the dog barked gleefully and pranced down the stairs. It jumped under the net, turning in excited circles, yapping and licking my trussed-up face.
Even upside down with one eye forced shut against the netting, I could tell the man was David Geddes. Wild grey hair tied in a ponytail, long bushranger beard. He wore an old checked shirt with the sleeves cut off, thick green socks and lace-up boots. Knobbly knees poked out of ripped khaki shorts.
If my face hadn’t already been red and engorged with blood, I would have flushed with shame. God, I was an idiot. Everyone had told me he was paranoid. Probably had the whole place rigged up.
‘Hi, David, think you can cut me down?’
He reared back on hearing his name, nostrils flaring, eyes wide.
‘Who are you? How do you know my name?’
‘I’m a friend of Nick Austin’s. Simone. Nick’s told me about you.’ It was a struggle to move my lips against the rope and I sounded like I’d had a full dental block. ‘I need his help. I’m in a lot of trouble.’
That was an understatement.
‘Nick? I don’t know anyone called Nick.’
Sure.
‘You were at Melbourne Uni together.’
He shook his head and his eyes darted from side to side.
‘Please, let me down. I think I’m going to spew.’ It was true. My stomach felt like it had fallen into my lungs, and there was so much pressure in my head I thought my eyeballs were going to pop. My injured cheekbone throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I couldn’t take much more.
Geddes walked back up the stairs into his hut and the dog bumped me with its snout, causing me to spin. By the time I’d completed a full revolution David was back, standing in front of me with a rif le and a bowie knife. Oh god. Just how crazy was he?
He grabbed the net and pulled it down so my face was resting against the dirt, then cut the rope, and I crumpled to the ground like a sack of spuds. The dog got really excited, slapped its paws onto my chest and barked in my face. Geddes pulled him back by the collar.
‘You had no right to trespass. This is private property.’ His voice was grizzled, like he was carrying a throatful of phlegm.
‘Sorry.’ I struggled, still unable to move. When he approached with the knife all I could do was tremble. I held my breath as the glinting steel swept past my face, but he was only cutting the net away. Soon as he was done he jumped back, sheathed the knife in his belt, grabbed the rif le and pointed it at me.
I untangled myself and sat up, rubbing my ankles where the rope had cut in.
‘Your backpack. Throw it over here.’
I slipped it off my shoulders and chucked it to him. He dug in his shorts pocket and pulled out a roll of silver gaffer tape, threw it at me.
‘Tie your ankles.’
I did one layer, kept it loose.
‘Tighter, keep putting it around.’
When I finished he cut the tape with the knife and gaffed my wrists in front of me. He returned to the house and emerged with a packet of Port Royal tobacco and a long-neck of beer, sat on the middle step and rolled a cigarette.
The dog was sniffing around, barking in my ear.
‘Kropotkin! C’mere!’
The mutt backed off when called, trotting to the base of the stairs, keeping a smug eye on me. Had to have been responsible for the bark I’d heard. Geddes must have muzzled it and they’d both hid in the house, probably watching me through a gap in the wood.
‘Nick must have told you who I am,’ I said, trying to keep my voice calm and even. ‘The cops shot him at my flat, which wasn’t my fault—I didn’t know they had me under surveillance. I saw the dressings and the antibiotics. I know he’s been here. Please, just tell me where he is. The guy who killed Isabella is after me too. I don’t want Rod Thurlow’s reward money and I’m not working with the police. I just need Nick’s help. Please.’ The wild energy that had got me up to Castlemaine suddenly dissipated. I was starting to crash and burn.
Geddes, infuriatingly, just sat there, smoking his rollie and swigging beer.
‘I don’t know any Nick.’
‘Yes you do.’ I was going to argue the point but suddenly didn’t have the strength. I brought my thighs up to my chest, rested my head on my knees and closed my eyes. I wondered if goatee guy had taken my ‘send out a search party in two hours’ request seriously. I hoped so.
I wasn’t sure how long I remained in that position, taped by my wrists and ankles. Five minutes, maybe ten. I heard Geddes smoke and drink and the dog chew at a patch of fur. A twig snapped and the bushes rustled on the other side of the clearing.
I lifted my head. The dog had its nose up, but Geddes seemed to be in his own little world. The shack blocked a large section of my view, and the dog ran behind it, barking.
‘Aren’t you going to see what it is?’
‘Probably a roo.’
‘I wasn’t a roo.’
‘You were coming down the driveway. Nothing back there but blackberries.’
But the mutt was really going crazy and Geddes frowned and stubbed out his rollie on the sole of his boot. He was just getting up when the dog yelped in pain. The undergrowth crackled, and it limped out, dragging itself under the house. Blood trailed in its wake.
‘What the fuck?’ muttered Geddes, standing up and grabbing his gun.
He turned, and stopped. I followed his line of sight.
Oh Jesus. A figure in cargo pants and a navy tracksuit jacket had entered the clearing and was marching around the house. His face was obscured by an Elvis mask.