Dark Country (Dungirri) Read online

  So she’d handle this her way, because she was one of them now and she knew them and this wasn’t just a hot-tempered pub brawl. And she’d damn well make sure that this lot contemplated – sweated over – the possible consequences of their idiocy.

  It had to be the blows to the head that were making him feel dizzy, because the physical proximity of the fiery sergeant shouldn’t be doing it. Not when she was as seriously pissed off as she was.

  This close to her he could see the anger, tightly controlled, but the intensity of it almost made him take a step backwards. The sort of anger with its roots in deep emotion, not some mere bad mood.

  Make it look good. She wanted him to limp away from this as though he’d been really hurt.

  Ryan Wilson wheeled his chair a little closer and studied him. Ryan, the only one of the lot of them who’d tried to help him. Gil’s irregular school attendance had become even more irregular when high school meant having to get into Birraga each day, but on the rare occasions he’d been, he’d hung around with Ryan and the other rough-edged Birraga larrikins. Time and circumstance might have smoothed Ryan’s roughness slightly – he’d apparently ended up marrying one of the shyest, nicest girls in Dungirri – but there sure as hell was nothing meek about the man.

  ‘He’s not actually looking too good, Kris,’ Ryan said. ‘I think we should call the ambulance after all.’

  Gil started to object, but the words halted in his throat when he caught the conspiratorial gleam in Ryan’s eye. He choked his objection into a cough and winced as the movement sent searing pain across his ribs.

  The sergeant, hands on her hips in typical cop stance, didn’t look in the slightest bit amused. ‘Yeah, that cough doesn’t sound good. He could have broken a rib and punctured a lung. In which case the ambulance will take too long to get here. I’d better get him in the car and meet it half-way.’

  She was beside him in two strides, her arm around his back. ‘Can you make it as far as the car, Gillespie?’

  ‘I don’t …’

  She cut off his protest. ‘Lean on me.’

  A flare of masculine pride warred for a moment with pragmatism, and lost. It didn’t matter to him what these blokes thought – he couldn’t fall any lower in their estimation, anyway – but getting an angry police sergeant any more off-side would not be a good move.

  He put his arm around her shoulder and pretended to lean on her as they walked slowly across the courtyard, as if he were dizzy. And he did his damnedest to ignore the very female feel of the woman beside him, which walking hip to hip with her reminded him with every step.

  ‘Adam, get the rest of these bozos inside,’ she instructed the constable. ‘If any of them try to leave before you have their statements, arrest them. Or shoot them. I don’t particularly care which.’

  Ryan followed them out, swinging the gate shut behind him.

  Gil began to draw away from Kris as soon as they reached the street, but her firm grip around his waist didn’t budge. ‘Keep going. They’ll still be watching.’

  ‘I don’t have any broken ribs,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been there, done that before, and I know they’re not broken this time. And my head’s fine.’

  ‘Good. Because if I have to drive to Birraga again tonight, I’ll be seriously pissed off.’

  She didn’t drop her arm from around him until they’d crossed the road to the police vehicles.

  ‘Get in. You’re coming up to the station for first aid and questions.’

  ‘Do you want me to ask Beth to come and check him over, so you can go back and help Adam with the statements?’ Ryan offered.

  ‘No. She’s busy with the meeting. And if I go back in there just now my blood might boil.’ She exhaled an exasperated breath. ‘If you can give Adam some moral support, I’d appreciate it, Ryan. Feel free to tell gory stories from your boxing days and scare the shit out of them. I want them worried sick, because then they might get the damn message that mob violence is not going to happen again in this town.’

  ‘I suppose I should thank you,’ Gil said into the silence as she drove the two blocks up to the station.

  ‘You should grovel and beg forgiveness for ruining what was supposed to be my first quiet evening at home for a week.’

  ‘Would it work?’

  ‘No.’ She rammed the vehicle down a gear to pull in at the front of the police station. ‘What were you thinking, Gillespie, letting them at you like that? You don’t strike me as a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy.’

  Yeah, she had that right. He’d have merrily ground Jim Barrett’s face into the ground when he and his sons had joined the fight. But he’d learned over the years to pick his battles. It had happened – shit, it had been almost inevitable, once he’d set foot back in town – and he understood the reasons why.

  ‘I figured if swinging a few at me helped Mick Barrett get some long-held anger out, I could deal with an old man’s punches.’

  She switched off the ignition and yanked the keys out. ‘Yes, well it wasn’t just Mick, was it? Were you going to let the four of them continue to use you as a punching bag?’

  ‘No. But I read the crowd, just as you did. If I’d fought back it would have been a dozen rather than four. Four I can handle. More than that and the odds aren’t great.’

  And as he said the words, he remembered the news he’d heard a couple of years back, and her anger and reaction to what had happened suddenly began to make sense. A mob of locals had bashed an old guy to death when they’d thought he was responsible for the abduction and murder of the little Sutherland girl. It had been the first in a string of deaths that had haunted the place while a killer played his twisted games.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ she muttered, with a soul-weary sigh. ‘Come inside and we’ll do something about your face.’

  She led him not into the station itself, but into the residence behind it. Her personal space. Her home. Flicking on lights in the kitchen, she shoved a pile of books and papers on the pine kitchen table to one side and motioned for him to sit at the end.

  ‘I’ll get the first-aid kit,’ she murmured and disappeared down a corridor. He took the chance to glance around the room. The place was lightly cluttered with the signs of a busy life. The books and papers she’d shoved aside, a small pile of unopened mail, a coffee mug with remnant grounds in the bottom, a handful of dishes piled in the drainer.

  One bowl, one plate, one mug, he noticed. If she shared this place with anyone, they didn’t eat much. Like it was any of his business, anyway.

  He was only here because … because cooperating with the police made for less trouble, that was why. Not because she’d come raging in like some damn Valkyrie to break up the fight, outnumbered but undaunted, dealing with the situation without resorting to any of the weapons on her belt. Packing all that power and authority into her slight five-foot-six frame.

  She came back into the room, dropped a police service first-aid kit on the floor beside the table, and rummaged in the freezer for an ice-pack. Sliding a chair around in front of him, she sat down and began to check his face.

  She was all professional and impersonal, but underneath her competent composure he sensed she was distracted, on edge, distant – as though only her professional self paid any attention to him. He, on the other hand … well, it had been a while since he’d been up close and personal with a woman, and having this one only inches from his face was reminding him of that fact, in no uncertain terms.

  Cool, deft fingers swiped antiseptic over the cut on his lip, and under his cheekbone where he’d caught one, hard. The sting contrasted sharply with the light intimacy of her touch.

  ‘You said you weren’t staying,’ she said, and he grabbed on to the opening to reel his thoughts away from dangerous ground.

  ‘I didn’t plan on it. The person I came to see is out tonight.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jeanie Menotti.’

  ‘Oh.’ Surprise registered in the single syllable, as if s
he’d been expecting him to meet with one of Dungirri’s more dubious characters, instead of an elderly widow. She raised a wary eyebrow. ‘She never mentioned you were coming.’

  ‘She isn’t expecting me.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ She finished with his face, and he breathed a little easier when she moved away from him to toss the wipes in the rubbish bin. But the ease lasted only a few seconds before she said, ‘Take off your jacket and T-shirt.’

  After a moment’s hesitation he complied, although agreeing to sit there half-naked while she put her hands on his body probably ranked up there with crossing the Russos on the danger stakes.

  She leaned forward, and he caught the scent of damp, sweet-smelling hair as she ran her hands over the reddened skin where the Barretts’ blows had landed. Surprisingly gentle for such a fiery, strong personality.

  ‘When was the accident with Mick’s daughter?’

  Oh, yeah, that question sure dragged his thoughts away from inappropriate territory and back into cold reality. Of course she’d ask about it. She was a cop, doing her job.

  ‘Eighteen years ago in December.’

  ‘You must have been young.’

  He shrugged. ‘Eighteen.’

  Her fingers touched a painful spot. He gritted his teeth but didn’t flinch. He’d have a whopping bruise by tomorrow, might even have cracked a rib, but he wasn’t letting her know that. There wasn’t much she could do, anyway, other than assure herself that he wouldn’t become a corpse on her watch. And since he’d be heading straight back to Sydney in the morning, he’d be out of her way before long. Compared to Tony Russo’s probable plans for him, a few bruises from the Barretts were the least of his worries.

  ‘Was Ryan right? Did someone tamper with the blood-alcohol report?’

  ‘Tampered with’ wasn’t the description he’d use. More like ‘created an entire bloody work of fiction’. But as he had no intention of going over any more old history than necessary, he merely answered, ‘Yes.’

  She shot a cutting glance his way. ‘Full of details, aren’t you, Gillespie?’ She frowned suddenly, sat back and regarded him, her eyes shadowed. ‘Oh, shit. Gillespie. Des Gillespie was your father, wasn’t he? I’m sorry about his passing.’

  Gil reached for his T-shirt, yanked it over his head and thrust his arms into it, ignoring the sharp pain just as he ignored her sympathy. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘We’d met a few times,’ she acknowledged.

  ‘Then don’t pretend you’re sorry he’s dead.’

  His eyes had turned dark and cold, a universe of emptiness in their chilling depths.

  ‘Not even a mean, vicious bastard, like he was, deserves to be murdered,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Just a “mean, vicious bastard”? He must have mellowed in his old age.’ He spoke carelessly, without emotion, as if it weren’t his own father he spoke of.

  And if she hadn’t known Des Gillespie, that disconnection would have worried her. But she had known Des, and Gil would have had to have emotionally disconnected to have survived a childhood with his father, then three years in prison, and whatever else life had thrown at him. He carried the hard-edged wariness of a man who knew what it was to fight for his life, and the scar on his face wasn’t the only one – she’d seen two more long, ragged scars on the side of his chest.

  Yet he’d let a grieving old man throw punches at him, without striking back. Not an easy man to understand, this one. Layers and complexities and too much hidden under that cool exterior.

  He picked up his jacket, hooking it over his shoulder with a finger.

  ‘If you’ve finished your questions, I’ll head off.’

  ‘Oh, sit down, Gillespie, and put the ice-pack on your face. Otherwise you’re going to have one heck of a shiner before too long. You’re not going anywhere until I say so.’

  He didn’t sit. Not that she’d expected him to. Just stayed where he was, narrowed eyes watching her. ‘Am I under arrest?’

  She cocked her head to one side and gave him back look for look. ‘For being a pig-headed, stubborn, pain in the neck? Unfortunately, it’s not against the law. Nope, you’re just staying put until I’m sure you don’t have concussion or worse, and to make sure that anyone else who wants to punch you doesn’t get the chance tonight. Since there aren’t any other options, that means that you’re sleeping in my guest room, and I’m checking on you every hour for the next eight hours.’

  ‘That’s not necessary.’

  ‘In my judgement, it is. Humour me, Gillespie. Otherwise I’ll spend the whole night imagining you dead or brain-damaged, or standing guard over the Barretts, to make sure they don’t go after you again.’

  He made neither comment nor move, and his guarded expression gave no indication of his thoughts. But at least he hadn’t walked out.

  She snapped the catches on the first-aid kit and rose, picking it up with one hand, tossing him the ice-pack with the other. He caught it deftly.

  ‘Look, I’m not going to jump your bones, if that’s what you’re worried about. Even if I was interested, I’ve been working double shifts for two weeks and I’m too frigging tired to remember how. So you’re quite safe here.’

  She caught a flicker of something – amusement, maybe – on his face. Yep, underneath the layers of granite, there definitely lurked a human being. A physically attractive one. Possibly even a decent one. Not that a guy like him was likely to admit it.

  And yes, if she had any libido left he’d quite probably tickle it, but she was too tired to even follow that train of thought, and he’d be gone in the morning. A quiet night with no more worrying was all she wanted, and Gillespie had given no sign he’d even think of trying anything. And if he did, well, he’d find out quickly enough that years of policing in the rugged, masculine environment of the bush had given her a whole lot of skills that made the police self-defence training redundant.

  As she headed towards the office, she tossed over her shoulder, ‘Did I mention that the guest bed is extra long, and the mattress is at least a decade newer than the ones at the hotel?’

  Two seconds passed before his laconic drawl floated down the passageway after her. ‘Well, you sure know how to tempt a man, Blue.’

  Gil jammed the ice-pack against his aching face and mentally kicked himself. Hard.

  No. That’s what he should have said. No thanks, I can sleep in the car out in the scrub.

  Instead he’d not only called her by the traditional bush nickname for anyone with red hair, he’d made a damn stupid comment that could well add bruised balls to the rest of his injuries.

  There had to be a law against flirting with cops. And if it wasn’t in the statute books, it definitely was inscribed in his personal rule book, up there on page one, right next to ‘Thou shalt not let the Sydney mafia rule your business’.

  He heard a door close, then the firm tread of her boots back along the wooden floor.

  But when she appeared in the doorway, she didn’t look pissed off, just bone-weary. Like a woman who’d been working too many hours, and caring too much, for way longer than just a couple of weeks.

  Guilt twisted in his gut. If it weren’t for him, her day would have ended at least an hour ago.

  ‘So, this is where you tell me that the guest room is the one with the bars on the windows and the steel door, right?’

  She leaned against the door frame, arms folded, her strained smile hardly touching her eyes. ‘It’s only used for storing old files these days. Just don’t make me cram you into a filing cabinet, okay, Gillespie?’

  ‘I won’t cause you any trouble, Sergeant.’

  ‘You already did,’ she said simply, without any rancour, but the truth of it still made him feel like a bastard. ‘Adam’s walking the Barretts up from the pub now, so I’d better go and deal with them.’

  ‘What will happen to them?’

  ‘Since you won’t pursue charges, they’ll get the thermonuclear death-glare. They’ll be reduced to piles of radioactive dus
t on the floor within minutes.’

  She didn’t smile, and he almost felt some sympathy for the four Barrett men.

  ‘Sounds like charging them might be kinder.’

  ‘For them? Probably. For me – a heap more paperwork.’ She shrugged, a pretence of uncaring that he didn’t fall for. ‘Help yourself to any food if you’re hungry. You might be lucky and actually find something in the fridge that hasn’t mutated into an alien life-form.’

  She shoved her hands into her pockets, about to go, and without thinking he asked, ‘Have you eaten?’

  She paused, a frown lacing her features as if she was trying to remember. ‘I’ll make a sandwich later,’ she muttered, then turned on her heel and was gone again.

  Not a good sign when someone couldn’t remember when they’d last eaten. Maybe he should make something for her …

  He shoved the ice-pack against another ache on his face and wondered what – other than the Barretts’ fists – had hit him and scrambled his sanity so thoroughly.

  If he had any sense, he’d leave a note on the table and disappear out the back door. Except then she probably would be awake all night, worrying about him, and that was one thing he didn’t want to add to his conscience.

  He pulled a chair out with his foot and sat down, leaning his head against the wall, shifting the ice-pack to his jaw, and closed his eyes, resigned to a night under the sergeant’s roof. With a headache the size of Mount Kosciusko. And knowing that in a few minutes he’d get up, raid her fridge, and see what sort of meal he could fix for them both.

  The alarm beeped its way into her consciousness, and Kris dragged herself awake with a groan and fumbled for the off button. Early daylight dulled the glare of the electronic numbers. Six o’clock. For the sixth time in as many hours, she dragged herself out of bed, yanked her robe on, and stumbled to the spare room next door.

  He was already up, rummaging in the bag that Adam had brought from the hotel last night, and he must have heard her footsteps because without turning, he said dryly, ‘It’s Friday, I’m Gil Gillespie, this is Dungirri, and I don’t have concussion, Sergeant.’