Dark Country (Dungirri) Read online

  The sergeant had gone quiet, stopped asking her questions. With her head back, eyes closed, a hint of vulnerability underlay the confident cop persona she’d shown earlier. Wayward curls of red hair framed her face, and a few wet ends curled against the pale skin of her neck, just above her shirt collar. For some reason, that sight gave him a sharp, hot kick in the guts.

  He turned his eyes back to the road. Oh yeah, lusting after a cop, in Dungirri of all places – that was truly the definition of stupidity.

  Christ, he hadn’t even given her his surname, because even if she hadn’t heard of him, she’d have made the connection between his name and that of his old man, and those blue eyes would have turned cold, lumping him with the same label as his mad bastard of a father.

  And if the locals had told her about him, or if she’d heard the other end of that phone call … well, she’d sure be doubting the wisdom of getting into a car with him.

  And what did it all matter, anyway? In just a few minutes he’d drop her off at the cop station, and he’d never see her and her lively blue eyes again. He’d go and call on Jeanie, do what he’d come to do, and then leave Dungirri. He’d get back on the road to try to sort out the god-awful mess his life had just become, before Tony Russo took his vendetta out on people who didn’t deserve it, like Liam and Deb.

  The dim lights of Dungirri appeared, and he shifted down a gear as he came to the first scattered houses. Another landslide of bad memories tumbled out thick and fast from the dark places in his mind, catching him unawares, jumbling on top of his current worries and making his gut coil tight.

  Damn his memories. Damn this town. Damn that stupid conpulsion that pushed him back here to finish once and for all with his past before he moved on. Dungirri held nothing for him but bitterness and nightmares.

  As he drove into town along the deserted, mostly dark main street, a line from something he’d once read suddenly came into his mind like some bleak premonition and drummed again and again in his head: The wheel has come full circle; I am here.

  Well, he might be here, but he wouldn’t be for long.

  The old police station hadn’t changed much. A new keypad security system, a phone link to connect straight through to Birraga for when the local cops were out, and a coat of paint were about the only differences Gil could discern as he walked up to the steps. When the sergeant opened up the station and he carried the larger of the computer boxes in for her, he saw that the 1950s wooden chairs in the small reception area had been replaced by 1970s orange plastic chairs. So much for progress.

  She pushed open the door to the interview room. ‘In here thanks, Gil. I have to make space in the office first before I can set it up in there.’

  Hell, it would have to be the interview room. Definitely a place he had no desire to revisit. He slid the box onto the table in the small room and made for the door again, without checking whether it was the same wooden table he’d had his face smashed into.

  On the veranda, he sucked in a breath of fresh, damp air.

  ‘Are you staying at the hotel?’ the sergeant asked from behind him. ‘Can I shout you a drink later, to thank you for your help?’

  He turned to face her, and the light from the porch illuminated her in the doorway. Not a classically beautiful face, yet attractive in her own way, and small lines around her eyes revealed that under the aura of relaxed competence she carried tension and concerns. Well, if she’d been in town longer than a year or so, she’d have had more than enough stress and worry. Two abducted kids and several murders couldn’t have been easy for any cop to deal with, let alone one who seemed to have a whole lot more soul than the old sergeant had ever had.

  Kris Matthews. A woman with a name and a history, not just ‘the sergeant’ as he’d called her in his mind – since there could be no point in thinking about her as a real person.

  ‘I’m not staying,’ he told her.

  She stepped out, directly under the light, so that it glinted in the red–gold of her hair, but cast her face into shadow.

  ‘Oh. Well, thank you for the lift. I do appreciate it. And drive safely, wherever you’re going.’

  He raised a hand in acknowledgement, took the three steps down from the porch in one pace, and strode to his car.

  He drove back down the main street, past the empty shops and the few businesses still struggling to survive, past the council depot and the pub, and pulled into the empty parking area of the Truck Stop Café. It was only eight o’clock and lights spilled from the café, but other than a couple of teenage kids laughing at the counter, he could see no-one inside. Jeanie might well be in the kitchen, or in the residence upstairs.

  He pushed the door open, and both kids watched him enter. The girl, maybe sixteen or so, wore a blue ‘Truck Stop’ apron over a black goth-style skirt and top. The lad, sweeping up behind the till where customers paid for petrol, might have been a year or two older. So, Jeanie was still giving employment to Dungirri’s youth.

  The girl smiled. ‘Hi, there. I’m afraid the kitchen’s closed, if you were after a meal, but I can still do coffees and there’s pies and sausage rolls left.’

  The mention of food made his gut do an uneasy somersault. It had been a while since he’d eaten, but his appetite had disappeared somewhere on the road to Dungirri.

  ‘No, that’s okay. I was looking for Jeanie Menotti, actually. Is she around?’

  ‘I’m sorry, she’s out tonight. There’s a meeting to finalise the ball arrangements. She won’t be back until late.’

  Of course – the ball the sergeant had mentioned. As incongruous as a ball in Dungirri sounded, if there was going to be one then Jeanie would be involved in running it.

  It just put a massive spanner in his plans to be out of here tonight. For a brief moment, he contemplated leaving an envelope for her with these kids, but he ditched the idea straight away. Jeanie would be more than hurt if he went without seeing her, and Jeanie, of all people, didn’t deserve that sort of shoddy treatment.

  ‘What time does she open in the morning, these days?’ he asked the kids.

  ‘Six-thirty. I’m opening up for her tomorrow, but she’ll be around not long after that,’ the girl answered, and something about the way she smiled struck him with a vague sense of familiarity. Probably the daughter of someone he’d once known. Although, in his day, Dungirri kids hadn’t worn multiple studs in their ears and nose. A touch of the city, out here in the outback.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll call in tomorrow, then.’

  Out in his car again, he thumped the steering wheel in frustration. He’d be spending the night in Dungirri. He could sleep in the car, out on one of the tracks that spider-webbed through the scrub east of town … no, not a good idea. All day in the car had been more than enough for a tall body more used to standing than sitting, and he had the return journey to make tomorrow.

  He reversed out and swung around to park in the side street beside the hotel, away from the half-dozen other vehicles parked randomly around the front.

  Harsh weather and neglect had worn away at the century-old hotel. The external timberwork cried out for a coat of paint, and the wrought-iron railings around the upstairs veranda were more rust-coloured than anything else. The ‘For Sale’ sign tied crookedly to a post had faded in the weather, too, adding another forlorn voice to the visible tale of lost glory.

  He yanked his bag and his laptop from the back of the car and went in through the side door, purposely avoiding the front bar. The back bar was dark and empty, as was the office. He tapped on the servery window into the front bar, keeping out of the line of sight of the customers. He had no desire to meet up with any familiar faces from his past.

  A bloke in his early twenties in a work shirt and jeans finished pulling a beer for someone and strolled over to him. Not anyone he recognised.

  ‘Have you got a room for the night?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Sure, mate.’ He reached into a drawer, passed a key and a registration book across the counter. �
��Room three, upstairs. Just sign here. You wanna pay in the morning, or fix it up now?’

  Gil paid cash, signed the book with an unreadable scrawl the guy didn’t bother looking at, and headed up the stairs. The room was basic, as he’d expected, relatively clean but with worn-out furnishings that had seen a few decades of use already.

  He dropped his bag on the floor, lay flat on his back on the bed and stared up at the old pressed-metal ceiling. A few creaking springs warned him that it wouldn’t be the most comfortable of nights. He’d coped with far worse.

  Staring at the ceiling only let his brain wander to places he didn’t want to contemplate, and his body clock wouldn’t be ready for sleep until at least his usual time of two or three in the morning. He swung his legs back over the edge of the bed, hauled out his laptop and set it up on the small, scratched wooden table in the corner, draping the cord over the bed to get to the single power point. The room had no phone line or wireless network – the twenty-first century hadn’t made it to Dungirri, yet, it seemed – but he connected his laptop to his mobile phone and went online.

  For an hour he worked, tidying up the loose ends of the inner-city pub he’d just sold, checking and sending email, making payments to creditors, transferring funds between accounts. And all the time, the half of his brain that wasn’t dealing with facts and figures tussled with other questions – like who the hell might have had the balls and opportunity to shoot Vince, and what the response of his various rivals would be.

  Maybe Tony would be too caught up in fighting for power to pursue his long-desired vengeance on Gil. Gil dismissed that hope as quickly as he thought of it. Tony would view getting even with him as a sign of his new authority, and a message to anyone who might stand in his way.

  Somewhere around nine-thirty, the single light bulb in the room pinged and went out. A light still burned outside on the veranda. Just his bulb blowing then, not a loss of power. Reluctantly, he headed downstairs to ask for a replacement. In the corridor behind the bar, an older guy swung out of the gents’ just as Gil passed, almost knocking him with the door.

  The bloke turned around to apologise, and Gil stifled a groan as they recognised each other. His bad luck was still holding strong. Of all the people in Dungirri to come face to face with.

  The man’s face whitened. ‘You …’ He seemed to struggle for control, pain and rage contorting his face, then lost it. He raised a fist, took a step towards Gil and roared, ‘You murdering bastard.’

  TWO

  Kris took the call on the radio just as she and her constable, Adam, drove back into Dungirri, towing the damaged patrol car on a trailer behind the police four-wheel drive. A fight at the Dungirri Hotel, police presence requested.

  ‘We’re right outside,’ she told the dispatcher as Adam slowed down to pull in opposite the hotel.

  ‘I’ve been on duty fifteen hours already today, and I am so not in the mood for this,’ she grumbled, flicking her seatbelt off and thrusting the door open.

  ‘Well, if it’s the Dawson boys again, you can make good on that threat to throw them in the old cell, and force-feed them your cooking,’ Adam teased, as they crossed the road at a jog.

  ‘Watch it, Constable Performance-appraisal-tomorrow,’ she retorted, her grin reflecting the easy friendship they’d built over the past three years. They worked well together, and if she had to go and break up yet another pub brawl, there were few she’d feel more comfortable with having at her side.

  The fight had already spilled out in to the courtyard behind the hotel, judging by the shouts. Pub fights were rarely serious here – usually just a mix of too much drink and testosterone, and a few lousily aimed drunken punches.

  This one, she saw when she pushed through the gate into the courtyard, was different.

  The outdoor lights clearly illuminated a dozen men who stood by watching while four others laid into one man with fists and kicks. The victim – it was him, Gil – seemed to be aiming to block blows rather than fight back. And the only one trying to help him was Ryan Wilson, out there in his wheelchair, dragging at the arm of one of the fighters. And strong ex-boxer though Ryan might be, the odds weren’t in his favour.

  For an instant, an image of a body, beaten beyond recognition, flashed in her memory. No, that wasn’t happening again. Not in this town.

  Bellowing an order to stop, she charged in on a surge of adrenaline and determination, Adam beside her. She caught one guy’s arm as he lifted it to punch again, wrenched it up behind his back before he realised what was happening, and dragged him out of the fight, handcuffing him to one of the big wooden tables. Adam pulled another away and clicked handcuffs on him before going back to help Ryan. The fourth man managed to get in one more punch before Kris made it to him, and Gil staggered under the blow to his head and stumbled against the fence, while she pushed the guy down against a table and held him there.

  And then it was quiet, but for some heavy breathing, and Kris looked up to see some of the watchers starting to sidle out the gate.

  ‘Nobody move,’ she ordered at the top of her sergeant’s voice. ‘If any of you try to leave before I get to the bottom of this, I will throw the whole damn charge book at the lot of you. Do you understand me?’

  She glanced around at Gil, straightening up to lean against the fence, already digging in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his nose. Not as bad as Chalmers, thank God.

  Ryan wheeled across to him.

  ‘Does he need an ambulance, Ryan?’

  ‘No,’ Gil replied for himself. ‘I don’t.’

  She pulled up the guy she held – Jim Barrett – and dumped him on a chair. She did a quick look round the other men involved. All Barretts. Not the usual troublemakers. Adam still held Jim’s brother, Mick, a morose guy in his sixties who normally propped up the corner of the bar and hardly said anything to anyone. And the two others were Jim’s boys, in their mid-thirties.

  She glared at the entire group, including Gil.

  ‘Right. Which one of you is going to tell me what the hell is going on here?’

  ‘That’s Morgan Gillespie.’ Jim pointed an accusing finger. ‘He killed Mick’s daughter, Paula.’

  Oh, shit. Her stomach dropped into her boots.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Ryan interjected, before she’d had time to draw in a steadying breath. ‘The conviction was quashed.’

  ‘He got off on a bloody technicality,’ Jim spat back.

  ‘A rigged blood-alcohol report is hardly a technicality,’ Ryan argued. ‘And he spent three years inside because of it.’

  Her brain whirled. So, Gil – Morgan Gillespie – had been to prison for some accident involving Mick’s daughter, way before her time because she’d not heard about it. Until now.

  Well, she knew Ryan better than she knew Jim, and if Ryan was prepared to stand up for a person so strongly, she’d lean towards trusting his judgement over Jim’s. Ryan was a decent man, and with a cooler head than Jim.

  The two people most concerned stayed silent. Mick stood, stooped in Adam’s grasp, face downcast, tears running down his cheeks. And Gil had slid down to sit on the paving of the courtyard, still leaning against the fence, his head tilted back and eyes closed.

  She crossed to him quickly, reaching to check his pulse automatically. ‘Are you okay, Gillespie?’

  Dark, near-black eyes opened and looked straight into hers, alert and piercing, and the pulse in his wrist drummed strong and strangely hot against her fingers.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Split lip, bloodied nose, bruised face aside, his pulse and breathing seemed good, and there were no signs of dizziness or disorientation in the sharpness of his gaze. She figured he might be right, although she’d take him up to the station and check him over properly very soon. With the ambulance – and the nearest doctor – at least forty minutes away in Birraga she wouldn’t call them out straight away, but she’d keep a close watch on him.

  She let his wrist go, sat bac
k on her heels and looked straight at him. ‘Anything you want to add to what they said?’

  ‘No.’

  No excuses, no denials, no explanations. She wasn’t sure whether to respect him for that, or throttle him in frustration. Throttling the lot of them held a certain appeal, right now. But she still didn’t know exactly what had happened.

  Satisfied that Gillespie probably wouldn’t collapse and die right there, she stood up and glared at the gathered crowd, with no attempt to hide her anger and disgust.

  ‘Right. Gillespie’s coming with me for some first aid and then some questions. Adam, you keep this lot under a close watch and take statements from all of them. I want some answers. Davo, close up the bar. The only thing you’re serving for the rest of the night is strong coffee while they give their statements. And if I hear of any of you talking together to concoct some story, I’ll have you up on a charge of conspiracy so quickly you’ll be in the Birraga lock-up before you know it.’

  ‘I won’t press any charges, Sergeant.’ Gillespie spoke from behind her, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Damn the man. She wasn’t in the mood for heroics, or for letting anyone off the hook.

  She snorted loudly. ‘You’ll change your mind when the bruises start hurting. And if you keel over and die from a brain haemorrhage, your body will be sufficient evidence to charge the Barretts with murder and the rest of these bloody idiots with being accessories.’ She dropped her voice to a barely audible hiss. ‘So shut up and make it look good and let this lot stew on their frigging stupidity.’

  Community policing as it wasn’t written in the manual, but she didn’t give a damn. The people who wrote the manual hadn’t worked for five years in an outback town that had been disintegrating long before a psychopathic resident had begun abducting local children and murdering witnesses. Nor had they seen what a frenzied mob could do to an ageing, defenceless suspect, or ridden in the back of an ambulance with the critically injured colleague – and friend – who’d tried to protect him.