Dark Country (6 page)

Her hand closed over his, gentle, just as it had all those times she’d been to see him and he’d been silent, unbelieving,
too unfamiliar with kindness to trust in it.

‘I just wished I could have done more for you.’

‘You did more than enough.’ He squeezed her fingers, disentangled his hand from hers – yeah, okay, so he still didn’t know
how to deal with
that
, either – and glanced around for something, anything, to change the subject.

The girl he’d seen last night came in from out the back, carrying a box of drink bottles, and she smiled across at him and
Jeanie before she went to stock the fridge in the far corner.

‘Another one of your strays?’ he asked Jeanie.

‘Yes, I guess so. Megan’s had it tough. Her adoptive parents died in an accident a few years back, and Community Services
eventually let her contact her birth family. But her mother had died of cancer already, so now Megan’s only got her grandparents.
Do you remember the Russells? Barb would have been your
age. She got pregnant straight after she finished high school, but she never told anyone who the father was.’

Barb Russell. The memory, long buried, slammed back into his consciousness. A hot summer night, and a bunch of teenagers gathered
at the swimming hole, celebrating their final exam results. He’d been passing by and Mark Strelitz, friendly as ever, had
called him over, handed him a beer, and invited him to join the party.

On the fringes of the group, Barb and he had got talking, and then she’d started crying for some reason, and he’d put his
arms around her, clumsily trying to offer some sort of comfort, and one thing had eventually led to another …

Gil turned sharply to look across at Megan, who was laughing with a young man who’d come in to pay for petrol, flicking her
straight black hair back from her face with long, fine fingers.

He stared at her face, and the reason she’d looked familiar last night hit him harder than the Barretts’ punches. Her features
were softer, more delicate, but he saw damned near the same brows, eyes and cheekbones every morning in the mirror.

He heard a chair scrape back against the tiles, realised vaguely that it was his, but the need to escape roared in his head
and without even a goodbye he walked out of the café, away from Jeanie’s too-perceptive gaze, and away from his daughter.

The mechanic sent out from Birraga to check the roadworthiness of the patrol car didn’t arrive until after eight-thirty. Adam
had the four-wheel drive out already, responding to a theft report east of town, which left Kris stranded at the Dungirri
station
half the morning, unable to leave for Birraga. At least it gave her a chance to reduce the accumulated pile of paperwork –
not a task that improved her mood, however.

The mechanic finally gave the all-clear to drive the patrol car, and she backed out of the driveway just before ten o’clock,
giving way to and then following an old truck that kept her to a crawl along the main street.

The slow pace gave her time to glance down the side street beside the pub, and she quickly flicked on her indicator and swung
left.

Two guys stood by Gil’s car, peering in. Despite their neat jackets, she didn’t read that as a good sign. A newer sedan was
next to Gil’s car, probably their vehicle, and she parked beside it, studying them as she got out. The jackets and polished
shoes screamed ‘city’, and their confident returning of her gaze said ‘detective’ just as loudly.

‘Can I assist you, gentlemen?’ She kept her voice cool and polite – a whole lot politer than ‘What the hell are you doing
here, without even the courtesy of notifying me?’ – but the guilty discomfort in the older guy’s expression told her he’d
read the unspoken question. The younger one barely managed to hide a smirk.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Joe Petric, from State Crime Command.’ The more senior officer showed his ID, and so did Mr Cocky
– Constable Craig Macklin. ‘We’re investigating a woman’s disappearance, and looking for a man by the name of Morgan Gillespie
to … assist with our enquiries. I believe this is his vehicle.’

Shit
. She nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak. What was Gillespie involved with?
Assist with our enquiries –
yep, that usually translated to ‘prime suspect’.
In a woman’s disappearance –
and he’d spent the night in her home. Yet all she could think was that she’d felt safe.

‘It is his car,’ she confirmed.

‘You know Gillespie?’ Petric asked. ‘Do you know where he is?’

‘I met him last night. Wait here. I’ll see if I can find out where he went.’

She crossed the road towards Jeanie’s. Three hours. Close on three hours since Gil had left this morning. Would he still be
at the café?

Jeanie met her at the door, a frown creasing her face as she gestured to the men by Gil’s car.

‘Is something wrong, Kris? Is Gil all right?’

‘He’s not here?’ Other than Megan, hovering nearby, Kris could see the café was empty.

‘He was here about seven, for a while,’ Jeanie said. ‘Maybe half an hour. But then he left, just walked off down the Birraga
road. I’m worried about him, Kris. I don’t think – I don’t think he quite knew what he was doing.’

‘You think he was ill?’ Another cause for concern layered on top of the detectives’ insinuations. Gil had seemed quite okay
this morning. But what if, after all, one of the punches to the head had done some real damage?

‘No, but he was upset, shocked, about something I’d told him.’

‘Something to do with his father?’

‘No. It was … a private matter.’ Jeanie clammed up, her face set. And although Kris wondered, there was no sense pressing
for anything more – if Jeanie held a confidence, she was immune to any pressure. ‘We’ve been watching for him, watching his
car, but he hasn’t come back. Those men – who are they?’

‘Police officers. They just want to ask him some questions.’
About a missing woman
. She kept that to herself and spoke calmly, as if everything was fine. ‘I’ll drive out to his father’s old place, see if
he’s there. Call me if you see or hear from him, please, Jeanie.’

She returned to where the detectives waited, had just reached them when some instinct made her glance around, and there was
Gil, walking along the road in front of the café, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. He saw them and slowed, his eyes
flicking past her, over the two officers, back to her again. For just a second, he stopped.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Macklin’s fingers flex, move to his waist.

But Gil didn’t run. He continued walking towards them, slow and steady, watching the two detectives as if he’d seen that slight
movement of Macklin’s, sliding his hands out of his pockets as he approached so that when he stood before them, it was clear
he held no weapon.

He ignored her, keeping a steady, wary gaze on the two men. The testosterone flowed between the three so thickly she could
almost smell it.

Petric, it seemed, had met him before, but he introduced himself again, showed his ID, introduced Macklin, all with a firm,
follow-the-rules professionalism. Watching Gil closely,
he added, ‘We have a warrant to search and if necessary, seize your vehicle.’

Gil’s dark eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Show me.’

Petric handed the paper to him, and Gil cast his eyes across it before passing it to Kris. She glanced over it herself.

‘It’s all in order, Gil.’

He nodded, so tightly wound that she half-expected something in his body to snap. But every instinct in her screamed that
it was distrust, not guilt.

‘Would you unlock your vehicle for us, Mr Gillespie?’ Petric asked smoothly.

Gil fished keys from his pocket, unlocked the door, then stood back, arms folded in front of him.

The younger officer, Macklin, began to go through the contents of the glove box. From what Kris could see, it seemed to be
mostly insurance papers, a torch, a cleaning cloth. Petric glanced into the back seat, then leaned in the driver’s door to
pop open the boot. The latch clicked open, and Petric strode around to open it fully.

‘Oh, God,’ Petric groaned, just as a sickly, nauseating aroma wafted to Kris, tainting the cool freshness of the morning air.

A woman’s naked body lay inside, bound, gagged and brutally beaten, dried blood from her slit throat splattered on her torso.

Oh Christ, Marci, not like this
.

Gil closed his eyes against the sight, willing it away, but when he opened them again she was still there, horrifically real
in his vision, not some nightmare imagining.

He fought back the anger steaming into rage. He might have often wished Marci out of his life, but he’d never wished her dead.
He’d done what he could for her, and it hadn’t been enough. Either someone had got to her before she could leave or else stupid,
stupid Marci had tried to play one lot off against the other for whatever she could get, and had lost, big-time.

And now she was dead, and in his car.

‘Morgan Gillespie, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Marcella Doonan.’

He nodded, muttered ‘Yes’ when Petric recited the standard caution and asked him if he understood.

Yeah, he understood all right. Someone was framing him for Marci’s murder.

He dragged his eyes away from Marci’s battered face.

The sergeant was pale, her skin against the blue of her uniform almost white. In her eyes he saw horror, and a million questions.
But not the condemnation he’d been dreading.

‘I didn’t kill her.’ He spoke to the three of them, but saw only her.
Believe me, Blue
. ‘I know it might appear that way, but I did not kill Marci.’

Kris swallowed, turned away, and he wanted to read her reaction, but Petric stepped between them, ordering him to put his
hands up against a nearby tree, and as he endured the frisk and the cuffs snapping onto his wrists, he could hear only her
voice, cold and hard, telling Macklin to keep away from the rear of the car, to avoid walking on any evidence.

The detectives’ vehicle was too close to his own, so Petric ordered him in to the back seat of Kris’s patrol car. Gil hauled
in a breath, then another and another, the small space pressing in on him, and rage and frustration pounding in his head.

The wheel has come full circle; I am here
.

Back in Dungirri. Back facing a jail sentence.

Sweat beaded on his forehead, trickled down his temple, but with his hands cuffed behind him he could not wipe it away.

The wheel has come full circle; I am here
.

No, damn it,
not
full circle. He straightened his spine, unclenched his fists and stopped pushing his wrists against the confines of the cuffs.
It might be some damned loop, but he wasn’t back where he’d been. It was different now.
He
was
different now. Not some wild, angry kid, powerless against a system he’d scarcely understood.

He’d done more than enough years in prison for one lifetime, and there was no way he’d let anyone send him back there. He
needed to work out who had set him up, and prove his innocence.

Not far from the car, Petric and Macklin were talking in low tones, mostly inaudible. The few words he heard told him nothing.
Kris was out of his sight, but he tuned in to her voice, in a one-sided phone conversation, arranging officers and forensic
specialists.

The dappled sunlight falling into the car dulled to shade as she finished her call and joined the detectives, stopping just
outside the car window.

‘I don’t know what you think you’ve got on Gillespie, but you’re going to have to think again.’ Her voice wasn’t loud, but
her icy tone carried every word to him, despite the closed door and window. ‘His car was empty at eight o’clock last night.
I know that because he gave me a lift into town, and I put two computer boxes in there. No body, no blood, no weapons, nothing.
From eight o’clock he was in his room at the pub, until a posse of locals decided he was their evening’s entertainment. From
ten o’clock, he was down at the station with me and from midnight until six this morning he slept in my spare room, and I
woke him every hour to make sure he wasn’t concussed. By seven this morning he was in the café, with one of the world’s most
reliable witnesses, who will also testify that after he left there he was nowhere near his car until the moment he walked
up to us.’

Her back was to him, but he could see her in his imagination, defiant, eyes blazing, just as she’d been last night, facing
down the crowd.

‘So …’ She paused for a fraction to take a breath, and continued clearly, as if she knew full well he could hear. ‘So, troublesome
pain in the neck he may be, but I think you’ll agree that there’s not a whole lot of opportunity there for him to have found
and murdered this woman and stuffed her in the back of his car, without anyone happening to notice.’