Something Fishy (25 page)

The Australian bush. I hated it. The sooner it was turned into woodchips, toilet paper and florists' accessories, the better.

As I climbed to my feet, a spanking new Nissan Patrol came lumbering along the track from the direction of the firebreak. Bullbar on the front grille. It juddered to a halt beside me and a flush-faced, silver-haired man in a crisply ironed check shirt leaned out the window.

‘G'day,' he said, in an unconvincing attempt to sound as if he hadn't spent his entire adult life in a corporate boardroom.

‘G'day,' I responded, spotting an opportunity. ‘Got myself a bit bushed here, mate. Any chance of a lift back to civilisation?'

A brittle-coiffed matron scrutinised me from the passenger seat, not entirely thrilled by the idea. Her R. M. Williams collar was rakishly turned up. Protection against the harsh outback sun for both a well-preserved neck and a string of rather good pearls.

‘Hop in,' said the silverback.

I climbed into the back seat, inhaling the ambience of the leafy suburbs. The vehicle had a dashboard like a B-52. Traction control, six-speaker CD, floating compass, artificial horizon, dual airbags. ‘Murray's the name,' I said.

‘Douglas,' said the man. ‘And my wife Pamela.'

The massive machine crawled forward. Douglas craned over the steering wheel, concentrating on the narrow, rutted track.

‘Bit new to this,' he explained. ‘We're planning a big trip to the Top End later in the year. I thought I'd get some off-road experience first.'

We bumped and rocked to the top of an incline, then ploughed downwards. Douglas hadn't counted on an audience. He kept wiping his hands on his thighs. Wet patches darkened the armpits of his shirt.

‘Sure this is the way?' I said. ‘You got a map?'

The wife had one on her knee. ‘This track leads to the Mount Sabine Road,' she said primly.

You're the one who got lost, her tone implied.

I lapsed into grateful silence.

Pamela stared fixedly ahead. I couldn't tell if her tension was caused by her husband's driving or a suspicion that the rough-looking stranger in the back seat was about to cut their throats and steal their expensive new car.

The track was little more than a fissure between close-packed trees. Branches scraped the doors and the vehicle yawed from side to side.

‘Honestly, Douglas,' said his wife, clinging to the handrail. The minutes ticked past. I grew prickly with impatience.

‘I really appreciate this,' I said.

Suddenly, Douglas hit the brakes hard and the Patrol lurched to a halt.

A wild-eyed figure was blocking our path.

He was compact and sinewy, his scalp razored back to a braided topknot. Sweat and grime covered his nut-brown skin and his bare chest heaved beneath a shark-tooth necklace. His army surplus pants had been sheared off mid-calf and cinched at the waist with a tattered saffron scarf.

He was semaphoring desperately for us to stop.

I hit the ground running and reached him in ten seconds flat. He had a sharp, tapered face, small ears and darting eyes. A mongoose if ever I saw one.

He teetered on the spot, sucked down air and steadied himself. He was much older than I'd assumed. Twenty-five at least.

You prick, I thought, bracing for the worst.

‘Need help, man,' he panted. ‘I was, like, taking these young dudes to check out this place where I'd, like, seen this amazing platypus and next thing there's this loony pointing like a shotgun at us and sort of herding us into this kind of shed but I'm like basically behind a tree and he doesn't see me so I, like, see my chance to go get help so I make a break and…'

The torrent dried up and he paused to catch his breath. I clamped a hand around one of his Polynesian wrist tattoos. ‘Cut the outdoor-education crap, Mongoose. I know all about you ripping off the dope.'

The twerp stared at me, eyes wide with astonishment. His mouth did a passable impression of a dying carp.

‘Are those kids okay?' I demanded. ‘Tell me exactly what happened.'

Mongoose licked his lips, cowering slightly. Probably because I was twisting his arm behind his back.

‘There's five of them,' he said. ‘Four guys and a chick. We were doing a run-through of this guy's crop. He springs us, and suddenly he's waving this gun around, yelling out stuff like, “Hands in the air, shuddup, get in the shed.” The others, they're like totally freaked but, “Sure, man, whatever you say” and I'm out of there, so I don't see what happens next. But there's no shots, nothing like that. He's, like, taken them prisoner or something. I think.'

Douglas was hovering apprehensively. All this, and he wasn't even in the Northern Territory yet. He glanced back at the Patrol. Pamela stood a few paces behind him, fingering her pearls. In her other hand she held a bottle of water.

‘Where's this happening?' I said.

Mongoose flapped his free arm. ‘Back that way. Along a creek, bottom of a ridge.'

‘Take me there.'

He wrenched free. ‘What for, man? Take me to the cops, I'll show them the way.'

‘The cops already know where it is.'

‘Bullshit. How could they?'

‘You don't know the half of it, you dopey deadshit,' I said, with more assurance than I felt. ‘Take me there and I'll put in a good word for you at the trial.'

He accepted a swig of water from Pamela and gulped, his adam's apple pulsing. As he drank, he eyed me warily as though I might snatch the bottle from his grasp and deck him with it.

‘You're out of your fucken tree, man. No
way
am I going back there. Not without an army of cops.'

I turned to Pamela and Douglas and adopted my doorknocking-in-a-marginal-seat tone. ‘This sorry specimen has put a group of teenagers in serious danger. They're in the hands of an escaped convict, a murderer. One of them is a young girl. We need to get to the police, ASAP.'

‘That's what I'm telling you, man,' bleated Mongoose. ‘Except I didn't know he was a murderer, just some dude with a dope plantation. Dead set.'

I shoved him towards the Patrol. He shoved back. ‘Fuck, man,' he said peevishly. ‘No need to get so heavy.'

I balled my fist, seething with anger, frustration and anxiety. ‘I'll get as heavy as I like, pal,' I said. ‘One of those kids is my son. And if anything's happened to him, I'll have you up on so many charges you'll be meeting parole conditions for the rest of your sorry-arsed life.'

The sky was darkening, the trees groaning in the wind. I shivered, a coldness creeping through me. Finger by finger, I unballed my fist.

Douglas and Pamela had gone into whispered conference beside the Patrol. Now Pamela turned on her heel and strode towards the driver's door. ‘For God's sake, Douglas,' she said. ‘This is an emergency.'

I followed Mongoose into the back seat. Douglas took the front passenger slot. Pamela got behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition.

‘Seatbelts,' she commanded.

She slammed the Patrol into gear and gunned it along the rutted outline of the track. Lips tight, pearls swaying as the leviathan powered forward. She was, I knew at once, a formidable presence on the tennis club social committee.

Mongoose retreated into his corner. He smelled of sweat and fear and patchouli oil. But even in his deflated state, there was a hint of nervy charisma about him, an expectation that people would turn towards him. I could understand how his bush-warrior pose might appeal to a surly, insecure kid like Matt Prentice.

Redmond Whelan, on the other hand, should have known better.

I tried to picture the scene at Syce's camp, imagine his reaction to the sudden appearance of a stampeding herd of plant-plundering adolescents. At least, if the funked-out Mongoose was to be believed, he hadn't starting blasting away with his shotgun. On the other hand, he didn't need a gun to be lethal. A shovel would do, or even an oyster knife. I didn't want to think about it. Drop my bundle now and I'd be no use to anyone.

Pamela was boring ahead like a three-time veteran of the Paris–Dakar. I leaned into the gap between the seats and gave them a thumbnail of the situation. A police operation was in progress, I told them, but this was a new development. I said I was worried the police might get there too late. Didn't mention the doings of the previous night. Fudged the reasons for my involvement. Clear as mud, but it covered the ground.

‘Dreadful,' said Pamela above the grunt and thrash of the engine.

‘You're a member of parliament, you say?' Douglas sounded sceptical.

‘Labor,' I explained.

‘Ah.'

The track divided. The right-hand fork, better-defined, ran uphill. Douglas fussed with the map.

‘Go right,' said Mongoose. He shot a furtive glance down the side track.

‘Stop the car,' I said.

Pamela hit the anchors and hoisted the handbrake. We propped precariously, bullbar angled upwards.

I loomed over Mongoose like a cobra. ‘It's down there, isn't it?'

‘I'm not going back, man. Not without…'

‘Yeah, yeah,' I cut him off. ‘At least give me directions.'

‘Surely you're not thinking of going alone?' said Douglas.

‘How would you feel if it was Verity?' said Pamela.

Douglas said nothing, but if I wanted to get myself shot, it was fine with Mongoose. ‘Track ends at a fallen tree,' he said. ‘Somebody's had a go at it with a chainsaw. Slope drops away, totally steep. Creek's at the bottom. Follow it downstream, ten, fifteen minutes.'

I repeated the instructions to myself and opened the door.

‘What's your shoe size?' said Pamela.

‘Nine,' I said. ‘Why?'

‘Give him your shoes, Douglas,' she said. ‘And socks. He can't go tramping through the bush in those sandals.'

Douglas unlaced his Timberlake hikers. A Christmas present, judging by their mint condition. He peeled off his cream cotton socks and handed them over. Socks and boots both were a perfect fit.

‘Take care,' Pamela said, laying a motherly hand on my shoulder. ‘Good luck.'

The Patrol grunted upwards. I jogged down the left fork in my brand new seven-league boots, plastic bottle in hand. I ached in some parts and chafed in others, but the exhaustion had evaporated. I was hyper. Dark possibilities coursed through my brain.

The faint ruts, the barest figment of a track, sank deeper and deeper into the swaying grey-green immensity of the ranges. After ten minutes of thudding footfalls and heaving lungs, they were just a gap in the vegetation, a narrow seam weaving through the trees.

The trunk of a long-dead stringybark blocked my way, a decaying giant notched with incisions. Once upon a time, an optimist had tried to clear the path, given up. I vaulted the log and traversed the shoulder of a ridge. The ground dropped away to one side. Like, totally steep, man.

This looked like the place. Unless Mongoose had been winding me up. He wouldn't dare, I told myself.

It was nearly three o'clock. Jake Martyn was expected mid-afternoon. Any time now. The cops, I assumed, had already established some sort of perimeter. With luck I'd connect with them or the fish dogs as I approached the camp. I half expected to see a hovering helicopter, squaddies abseiling down ropes into the tree canopy.

I plunged down the incline, skidding though clumps of parrot-pea and careening off grey-gums. The drop was almost vertical. Hurtling headlong, I snatched at anything in reach. Thorns and blades of native grass ripped my skin, wiry, like frayed cable ends. I fell on my arse and rode the seat of my pants to the bottom, steering with my feet.

The creek was a chain of tea-coloured puddles, midges swarming. I caught my breath, examined my abrasions, took an abstemious slug of my bottled water and started to work my way downstream.

The watercourse meandered through a tangle of rotting logs and moss-covered rocks, its fern-crowded banks never more than three or four metres apart. The air smelled peaty and primeval. Bellbirds pinged. The air was almost still, the wind a distant moan.

The slopes on either side gradually became less steep. Dry, undergrowth-choked gullies converged with the creek bed. At the mouth of one, I found footprints in a spill of quartz-speckled sand. Mine, I concluded. My lost-at-sea loafers. I spent half my political life going round in circles, but this was beyond a joke.

Nerve-ends tingling, I began to move more cautiously, half-recognising features of the terrain from the previous night. The wind picked up again, sighing and whistling in the treetops. The creek bank became a redoubt of weathered, lichen-colonised granite. Edging around it, I caught a glimpse of the sandbagged dam, hose running up to Syce's camp.

I turned and crept back the way I had come, assessing the lie of the land. A hundred metres upstream I scrambled up the bank. I began to circle the camp, dreading what I might discover.