Dark Country (10 page)

‘We arrested him, seized his vehicle and brought him here,’ she pointed out. ‘Kind of gives us a moral obligation since there’s
no public transport. And it’s not as if it’s out of my way.’

‘He could afford to buy a damn car and drive himself. Joe reckons he’s worth fifteen million.’

Fifteen million?
That
, she hadn’t expected. The well-worn leather jacket, the plain old sedan – not the usual accessories for multi-millionaires.
‘Money’s not a problem, Blue,’
he’d said. Obviously not.

‘Millions or not, buying a car, legally, at this hour isn’t that easy, especially for a stranger in town. Do you think he’s
too much of a risk? I can easily make some excuse not to give him a ride.’

‘I don’t think he’s that kind of trouble. And I know you can handle yourself, Kris. I’m just a little wary of close-mouthed
ex-cons associated with two murders in forty-eight hours.’ Steve glanced at his watch again, pushed his chair back. ‘Sorry,
I’ve gotta get going.’

‘Got a date?’ she teased.

He grinned back. ‘I wish. Nope, it’s a meeting with the Community Services director about the Davies’ case.’ The brief frown
brought by mention of the child abuse investigation was quickly erased by one of his cheeky winks. ‘Mind you, she is hotter
than hell …’

‘She’s also married to the works engineer at Council.’

‘Real tall bloke? Built like a brick shithouse?’ He grimaced when she nodded. ‘Ouch. There goes that idea.’

He shoved his laptop into his backpack, and followed her to the door. ‘Hey, Kris,’ he said as he flicked the light switch
off. ‘Send me a text when you get home, okay? Just so I know you got there safely.’

She agreed, because it made sense, and because his wariness had fed her own worry. Could she really trust Gillespie? She had
so little to go on: his actions since she met him last night, Jeanie’s opinion, and her own instinct, which could well be
way off the mark.

The question hung in her mind while she finished the most pressing of the day’s tasks. Just on six, the desk officer paged
her and she grabbed her keys and went out to find Gil sitting in the reception area, a new kit bag at his feet.

The darker colouring around his bruised eye and cheek and the swelling of his split lip lent his usual shuttered expression
an even rougher edge, but when he looked up and saw her, met her eyes, his attempt at a wry smile seemed a crack of connection
and openness.

Most of her uncertainty evaporated. She was used to people in custody often being angry, aggressive. Yet in the whole day
since his arrest, despite his evident frustration at the situation, he’d shown no hint of hostility towards her. In fact,
he’d treated her with a simple respect, more genuine than Joe’s performance of collegiality.

He’d dealt with the confinement and the questioning, and although she’d seen the tension in him, he’d been self-controlled,
not taking it out on her or anyone else. Gil Gillespie might have secrets, but his behaviour provided no evidence that he
had any intention of harming her.

She led him to the patrol car, and he slung his bag into the back seat. More than just a change of socks and jocks bulked
its
sides, but she didn’t comment. The guy deserved some privacy after the day he’d been through.

The drive back to Dungirri was about as quiet as the trip to Birraga had been in the morning. At least this time, Gil sat
beside her, his hands unfettered, although he still stared out the window, absorbed in his own thoughts.

Kris focused on the road ahead, the headlights cutting through the early darkness. The previous night’s rain had gone, but
wind chased intermittent clouds in front of the near-full moon hanging in the east.

Despite the million questions whirling in her mind, she didn’t disturb Gil by broaching any of them. She needed brain space
to think through the day’s events, go over the few details Joe had shared and the information Steve Fraser had added, because
no matter which way she’d looked at it all so far, it didn’t add up to anything simple.

Instead of getting out of uniform and spending the night curled up in front of the fire with a good movie, she’d be asking
some of her own questions around town. Dungirri might be small, and fairly dead after ten o’clock at night, but maybe someone
had seen something. The ball committee meeting hadn’t finished until after midnight, so she’d start with them.

She was approaching a bend in the road when Gil asked out of the blue, ‘Can police access mobile phone data?’

She felt his gaze on her, but she kept her eyes straight ahead, negotiating the bend. ‘Not without authorisation.’

‘How long does it take to get authorisation?’

‘It depends. Can be pretty quick, if there’s a strong reason. But there’s formal channels to go through with the telco, and
it’s not instantaneous. Why?’

Beyond the hum of the engine, the silence stretched.

‘Spill it, Gillespie. What’s going on in that brain of yours?’

‘No-one knew where I was,’ he said slowly. ‘So I’m wondering how both the police and the … how they found me.’

‘You must have mentioned it to someone – your employees, perhaps. Or the woman, Marci. You said you saw her yesterday morning.’

‘No. I told no-one. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.’ The quiet certainty of his words rang of the truth.

‘What are you suggesting, Gillespie?’

‘I had my phone on the whole trip yesterday. I received that call when we were driving into Dungirri. I made a phone call
from my hotel room. Two, I guess, since I accessed the internet through my phone. I can’t think of any other way that anyone
could have found out I was in Dungirri. Unless you put something on the police system last night.’

She cast her mind back to what she’d reported, and how. ‘Yes, I did. I logged the incident in the pub, the Barretts’ names
and yours. If Joe had an alert in for your name, the system would have notified him. But that wasn’t until around eleven o’clock
last night. And it wouldn’t explain how whoever put Marci in your car knew where you were.’

‘No.’ The single word said he’d already thought that far.

‘Who’s trying to frame you, Gil?’

She wanted an easy, straight forward answer. An answer that meant the problem could be identified, dealt with, and solved.

Instead, he exhaled a long breath and eventually replied, ‘I don’t know. Could be any one of several options.’

‘Jesus, Gillespie, how many people have you pissed off?’

‘Probably a few.’

Yeah, and count her among them now. ‘How?’ she demanded. ‘What
are
you involved in?’

His voice was quiet. ‘It’s … complicated, Blue. Best you don’t get involved.’

‘Too bloody late for that. Oh, shit,’ she added, as the beam of the headlights picked up a dark, ragged shape on the road,
and she reduced her speed.

A huge branch, fallen across the road, shattering dead timber from one dusty side to the other – a real hazard if drivers
failed to see it.

Frustrated and angry with the universe, she glanced in the rear-vision mirror as she flicked on the indicator and pulled over.
They were on a long straight stretch of road here, and the lights of the other vehicle were pinpricks in the darkness a couple
of kilometres away. She switched on the emergency lights as a warning, and reached under the seat for a reflective vest.

Gil was already out of the car, testing the weight of the heavy end of the main limb, while she thrust her arms into the vest.

‘We should be able to move it,’ Gil said, ‘if you can take the lighter end of this part.’

A few metres long, the branch was heavy, but as most of it was hollowed out by insects they managed, with a bit of effort,
to lift it and carry it to the side of the road. Shorter branches littered the bitumen, and Gil began picking up the pieces
that were too dangerous to leave in the dark.

Kris checked the road behind them. The headlights of the other vehicle were getting quite close, so she took her flashlight
out and stood in the middle of the road to wave the car down. It approached with some caution, lights on low beam. She couldn’t
really see what kind of vehicle it was, but as it came within a few metres, she stepped forward to go and speak to the driver.

The sudden glare of the car’s lights blinded her, and she jerked her arm up to shield her eyes. The engine roared, the tyres
screeched, and she dived out of its path as it raced straight towards her.

Dropping an armful of wood into the bush beside the road, Gil heard the scream of rubber, the dull thump of a body against
a vehicle, and was already leaping back across the ditch as Kris hit the bitumen, hard.

She lay still on her side, among the debris from the tree, too small and fragile beside the bulk of her vehicle. He crouched
next to her, fingers seeking a pulse in her wrist, scanning for blood or obvious trauma.

Paula had died
.

He shoved that memory away. He found her steady pulse, saw her chest rise and fall in breathing. There might be internal injuries
he couldn’t deal with, but he knew more about first aid than he had years ago, and with radio and phones, help could be called.

Her eyelids flickered open, closed again, and she moved her arm closer into her chest. ‘Fucking bastard!’ she said, and he
breathed again, grateful for the normality of her voice.

‘He won’t ever again if I find him.’

Damned stupid thing to say, but there was too much pounding in his head, relief and worry and anger, the anger the only one
he had words for.

‘Yeah. Me too.’ She opened her eyes again, started to roll over, but he put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, fumbling for
his phone with his spare hand.

‘Lie still, Blue. You’ve been hit by a car. You need an ambulance.’

‘No. It’s okay. It didn’t hit me. I just hit mine.’ Her crooked grin reassured him as much as the coherence of her words.
‘Misjudged my Superwoman leap.’

‘Forgot your cape, too.’ His mouth as dry as their attempt at humour, he ignored the pounding in his head and took her hand
carefully, the flashing red and blue lights casting eerie shadows on the scratches and cuts along her palm and up her arm
to her shirt sleeve. ‘You’re going to need some patching up, Blue. A debris-strewn road isn’t as soft as a trampoline.’

‘I noticed.’

She tried to sit up, wincing as she went to put weight on her hand, and Gil put an arm around her back to help her into a
sitting position.

‘What hurts?’ he asked.

‘Everything. Just jarring and bruises, though. Nothing broken.’

‘Except your skin.’ It looked like she’d taken the brunt of the fall on her left arm, landing on a rough mix of gravel and
wood splinters. Now she was upright, blood was trickling down her arm in several places. ‘Is there a first-aid kit in the
car?’

‘In the boot.’

When he returned with the kit, she was standing up, leaning against the car, inspecting her arm. The day had been warm enough
for short sleeves, but in the dark with the wind blowing the night had turned chilly. She shivered, her grazed skin coming
out in goosebumps, and he took off his leather jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

‘Get in the car. I’ll get the worst of the splinters out now, and drive you back to Birraga hospital for the rest.’

‘There’s no need for the hospital. Nothing major is damaged, and I just want to get home.’ The defiant tone cracked, and she
jerked away, heading towards the driver’s door.

He stopped her with a hand on her uninjured arm. ‘You’re not driving, Blue. Either we get someone to come and pick us up,
or I drive. Assuming it’s not a hanging offence for a civilian to drive a police car.’

She huffed in frustration before nodding. ‘You’re probably right. And under the circumstances, the punishment for the offence
is probably a pile of paperwork for me.’

Her smile was clearly a strain, so he kept things light. ‘Only if your boss finds out. And I won’t tell him.’

‘Thanks.’ Probably unaware she was doing it, she pulled the jacket a little more closely around her shoulders. ‘I need to
phone Adam. The car might pass through Dungirri. Did you see the type of vehicle?’

‘Not well. Dark, probably black. A large four-wheel drive. Maybe a Land Cruiser or a Patrol or something similar. Must have
a fair bit of power, to have accelerated that fast.’

‘That’s what I thought. I don’t suppose you saw the registration plate?’

‘No.’ He’d been too focused on her, landing hard on the road, to even think of looking at the damned rego. He’d probably relive
the moment a hundred times over the next few days. ‘Now, get in the car, out of the wind. You can phone Adam while I’m taking
that tree trunk out of your arm.’

She sat in the passenger seat, and he crouched beside her, using the open door as a small protection from the wind as he took
out the wipes and bandages from the first-aid kit.

Her conversation with her constable distracted both Gil and her from some of the discomforts of the task. While she briefly
related what had happened, Gil inspected the damage to her skin. Her uniform had protected the rest of her body from significant
abrasions and splinters, and the adrenaline and shock were probably masking the pain, but she’d be aching before too long.

He decided he’d just deal with the main sources of bleeding now – a large splinter, and a cut – and do the rest in Dungirri,
with better light and some warmth and water. Or better yet, get someone more qualified than him to do it.

‘Don’t try to stop the vehicle, Adam,’ she was saying. ‘He tried to run me down, so it’s too dangerous when you’re on your
own. I just want the rego number, vehicle type, and if you can get any idea of the occupants.’ She winced as Gil eased a three
centimetre-long sliver of wood from above her elbow and pressed a dressing against the wound. ‘No, it’s okay.’

Gil caught her eye. ‘Is there a nurse or a doctor in town? Someone who knows the proper way to do this stuff?’

She nodded. ‘Adam, could you ask Beth if she’s free? I’ve got a couple of scrapes she could look at. Thanks.’