The Amber Trail (23 page)

Dig nodded, drumming his fingers
on the seat as he watched her walk toward the rear of the
building.

Beside him, the pump sloshed out
petrol in a steady stream, and the numbers ticked over at pace.
Eventually, the machine clicked off and the driver returned the
nozzle to its cradle, walked inside to pay, and returned to the
car.

As the engine started, Dig hung
his head outside the window, looking left and right, but Jules was
nowhere to be seen. He muttered under his breath, then leaned
forward. “I’ll be back in a minute.” The driver wobbled his
head.

Dig walked across the station
forecourt and around the back of the building. Behind it, a
rectangle of gravel flanked the rear brick wall.

Jules stood at the far end of the
clearing, holding a cigarette and staring into the distance. The
smoke wafted toward Dig, filling his nostrils with the same sweet,
musky odour from back at the hotel. He scowled as he approached.
“The taxi’s waiting.”

Jules turned quickly, startled.
She dropped the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out. “Coming
now.” She exhaled two long streams of smoke from her nostrils, then
looked to the ground and turned in a circle. “Where’s my
pack?”

“
On your
back.”

“
Oh!” She grinned.
“Silly me.” She stumbled toward the car.

Dig strode ahead of her and cut
off her path.

She frowned. “That was the last
of it okay! It’s all gone. So don’t freak out.”

“
You sure? The
roadblock’s probably just around the corner.”

“
Yes! You’re worse
than my bloody brother.” She moved to step around him, but Dig
blocked her path again. She took a deep breath, then held her pack
out. “Do you want me to empty it out for you? I’ll do
it!”

Dig met her gaze for a few
seconds, then stepped aside.

“
Come on,” she said.
“Let’s go do this.” She trudged back to the taxi.

They drove through the early
afternoon as they approached the outskirts of Hampi. Jules rested
her head on the window frame, eyes closed. Dig stared out the front
windscreen and fidgeted with the zip on his pack. The rock
formations of the Hampi region appeared on the horizon.

As the vehicle topped a rise, Dig
recognised a cluster of road barriers blocking the road. A
thin-faced policeman stood behind them, waving a fluorescent stick
to the shoulder.

Dig elbowed Jules, and her eyes
popped open. “Police check.” She nodded and rubbed at her
eyes.

The taxi slowed, rumbled into the
road shoulder, and stopped. The policeman lowered his head through
the window frame and studied them, then gestured for them to get
out.

Dig stepped
down
to the
gravel
with
his bag. Jules stood beside him with tight shoulders and her arms
folded.

The thin policeman walked to a
hut beside the road barriers and spoke a few words, and a heavyset
policeman with a thick, grey moustache and peaked cap appeared in
the doorway. Dig recognised him as the police chief from his visit
through the checkpoint a few days before.

The chief glanced at the pair,
then hitched up his pants and trudged toward them.

He stopped in front of Dig and
looked him over, then spoke to the taxi driver. The taxi driver
popped the boot of the car, and the thin policeman produced a heavy
torch and shone it through the space, lifting up the carpet and
searching through the spare wheel.   

The chief turned to Dig and
picked at his teeth with a toothpick. “I’ve seen you
before.”

Dig nodded. “I was here a few
days ago.”

“
Why have you come
back?”

Dig glanced at Jules. “I wanted
to show Hampi to my friend. It’s a beautiful place.”

The man pointed to a table beside
them. “Open your bag.”

Dig dumped his bag down and
pulled it open. The policeman rummaged through it, pulling items
out and placing them on the surface. He studied the items for a
moment. “Okay,” he said before turning his attention to Jules.
“Your bag please.”

Jules lifted her bag and placed
it on the tabletop with a shaking hand.  

The policeman began to sift
through it. “First time in Hampi?” he said.

“
Yes,” Jules said
quietly.

The policeman extracted the
contents, lining them up onto the table. Jules stood with her hands
clasped together at her waist. Her face was ashen.

Once the bag was empty, the
policemen picked it up and shook it, then chewed on his toothpick
and watched her. “Why are you so nervous?”

Jules blinked. “I…I don’t know.”
Her gaze dropped.  

The policeman glanced from Dig to
Jules with narrow eyes, then gave a small nod and turned to shuffle
back toward the roadside hut.

The thin policeman waved them
away. “You can go.”

Jules herded her possessions into
her pack, and they returned to the back seat of the taxi. The
driver started the car and directed it through the barriers to the
open road, moving up through the gears toward Hampi.
 

Dig turned to Jules. “Everything
alright?”

Jules shot him a glassy stare.
“Fine.” She turned to look back out the window. The tag from her
shirt protruded against her neck.

Dig watched her for a moment,
then turned his gaze forward again. Buildings appeared on both
sides of the road. They were nearly in town.

THE TAXI PULLED TO A STOP
on the
Hampi bazaar, and they stepped out to the road and paid the driver
through the open window. The street was busy, and people milled
around the stalls that lined the edge of the dirt road. A man
roasted nuts over a bucket of charcoal, and the tangy smoke wafted
into their faces. A large white cow with sagging jowls sat in the
middle of the thoroughfare and licked at its rump.

“
Where to now?” Jules
said.

“
Over here
first.”

Dig hitched his bag over his
shoulder and threaded through the crowd to a familiar shopfront
with
Helpful Hari’s Tourist Information
written in the front
window. He pushed through the curtain of beads in the doorway. Hari
was sitting in his usual position behind the desk, scratching at
his sideburns, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. His nephew
sat at one of the computers with headphones on.
Call of Duty
gunfire burst across the screen. As Dig walked in Hari
frowned.

“
You,” he said. “You
owe me one bicycle.”

“
Yes, I do. But the
bad news is I can’t bring it back to you. It was lost.”

Hari lifted a finger in the air.
“You'll have to pay. Two thousand rupee.”

“
Fair enough.” Dig
extracted his wallet and handed over the money.

Hari took the cash, inspected it,
and waggled his head with a smile. “Very good,” he said. “Now is
there anything else I can do for you? Train ticket? Bus
ticket?”

“
First, I’d like to
make a phone call home.”

“
Of
course.”

“
Then I’d like to
hire a motorbike.”

Hari’s smile dropped.

They were on the road soon after,
with Dig in control of the motorbike and Jules hooked in behind
him, her arms tight around his waist. The bike threw up gravel as
they weaved through the centre of the bazaar.

Jules leaned into Dig’s ear and
spoke loudly over the roar of the engine. Her hair blew behind her
in the slipstream. “How far away is it?”

“
About half an hour,”
Dig shouted, “But it’ll be a pretty bumpy ride.”

Jules’ grip tightened around his
waist. “Have we got this right?”

Dig shrugged, and turned his
attention to the road.

They followed the trail to the
old railway line, then Dig slowed the bike and turned left to
rumble down the centre of the tracks. The air was dry and dusty,
and thick bushes lined the tracks on both sides.

As they travelled, a familiar
fluttering grew in his stomach. He realised that everything was now
on the line—not just his own life, but the lives of Jules, Chook,
and his family. His whole world was hedged on his hunch regarding
Raj.

But was his hunch correct? And
could he even prove it? And if it was true, what value did the
secret hold to Maxine?

He didn’t know. But he knew he
had to try. Otherwise they would be back, in Dig’s own home, and
dishing out retribution on Maxine’s own terms. Dig gritted his
teeth and focused on the centre of the railway tracks. It was time
to face it all head on.

The track dipped down across the
low wooden river bridge, and the motorbike wheel bounced through
the sleepers. As he steered the bike up the opposite bank, Dig
glanced toward the cluster of broken bushes where he had crashed
Shiv’s motorbike on the way out.

The track straightened and
directed itself toward the bowels of the high, imposing hill that
stood as the last line of defence between the brewery and the
outside world. The rocky ridges rose up on both sides of the track
and the dark crescent of the tunnel appeared ahead like a rotten
sinkhole.

Dig slowed the bike to a stop
outside the tunnel mouth. A warm breeze howled into their faces,
like the fetid breath of the mountain itself.

“
What’s happening?”
Jules said.

Dig took a deep breath. “The
brewery’s on the other side of this tunnel.” He rummaged through
his bag and unfolded his map. After studying it for a moment he
pointed to a square on the plan ringed by closely spaced contours.
“We’re surrounded by cliffs here. The tunnel’s the only way
through.”

“
And they’re holding
Chook on the other side?”

“
That’s what Shiv
said.” He turned to her. “You ready?”

Jules blinked rapidly. Her face
was white. “Just a sec.” She stepped off the bike with hunched
shoulders and brought her pack to her chest. She fumbled the zip
open and lifted out a packet of cigarettes, then with trembling
hands she extracted a thickly rolled cylinder and a lighter from
the box. She placed the cigarette into her mouth and tried to fire
it to life, but the wind extinguished the flame.

She turned her back to Dig,
shielded herself from the wind, and attempted to light it again.
Soon the familiar, sweet musky smell filled the air.

Dig opened his mouth to speak,
then closed it, and just shook his head minutely.

Jules turned. “I don’t know Dig,
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” She took another drag on her
cigarette. “It just feels like we’re walking into a big
trap.”

“
You don’t have to
come. You can wait here if you like.”

Jules grimaced. “I’ve got to get
Chook...” She swallowed. “Look, how about this. We go in, and I
just hand back all the cash and gear I stole and we ask for a
truce.”

“
I thought you said
there was no more?”

Jules’ eyes narrowed. She stood
with one arm across her midriff and an elbow propped up holding the
burning cigarette. She turned her back to him again; the protruding
tag on the back of her shirt was still visible against her
neckline.

“
How’d you get the
stuff past that checkpoint?”

Jules remained silent.

Dig ran a hand through his hair,
then his attention returned to Jules’ shirt tag. He kicked out the
bike stand and stepped off the machine.

“
Did you say that you
got that shirt made up in Badami?”

Jules glanced at him, then tried
to push the lighter back into the cigarette packet with a shaking
hand. “Yeah that’s right.”

“
So why do you have a
Made in China
tag on the back of it?”

The lighter fell clattering to
the timbers between the tracks. The tendons in Jules’ neck
tightened and she reached to the back of her neck to tuck the tag
away.  

Dig frowned. “So what did you…”
He took a quick intake of breath. “Your bag...you had him do
something to your bag. To hide the opium you stole.”

Jules scowled. “You should keep
your head out of my business.” She glanced at the pack on Dig’s
shoulders as she walked back toward the bike. “Let’s just go find
my brother.”

Dig followed her gaze to his
pack. A heavy feeling settled in his stomach. “No,” he said. “You
didn’t. Did you?”

He whipped off his bag and dumped
it on the ground between his legs, then ripped open the zip and
pushed the contents about inside, pressing his hand against the
inside walls. Jules’ eyes widened.

Dig continued to search—and then
he found it, a patch of rough, thick stitching around a piece of
fabric that did not match the rest of the material. He pulled at
it, and the material tore away, revealing a flat, hard block
wrapped in plastic wrap.

He glared at her. “When I went
for my walk in Badami,” he seethed. “
You sewed drugs into my
bag?
And left me to carry them through the checkpoint for you?”
Heat flushed through his body and he stepped toward Jules with his
fists clenched. She cowered away and took a couple of unbalanced
steps down the track ballast.