Dark Country (11 page)

She finished the call, dropped the phone on her lap, and Gil felt her watching him as he swabbed the cut on her forearm.

Her attention unnerved him, making him too conscious of his fingers on her skin. Touching her should have been impersonal,
detached. But there were parts of his brain that had missed that message, parts noticing the pale smoothness of her skin,
the slimness of her wrist, and taunting him with impossibilities.

‘We’ve got to stop doing this to each other, Gillespie,’ she said.

He swallowed, pretended to hunt for another swab without seeing a thing in the kit. First aid. Patching each other up. That’s
what she meant. Not …

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Definitely gotta stop it.’

Kris dropped her head back against the headrest while Gil put the first-aid kit away. She was cold, tired, aching all over,
and struggling against the effects of shock. On top of a god-awful day that wasn’t finished yet, it was enough to make her
want to curl into the foetal position and howl.

Tempting though the idea was, it wouldn’t solve a damned thing. She pulled Gil’s jacket closer around her shoulders. In the
rush this morning, she’d left her own uniform jacket at home, but she found the bulk of Gil’s and the subtle male scent of
him oddly comforting.

Comforting? She almost laughed at the thought. It definitely wasn’t the first word that came to mind when contemplating Gil
Gillespie.

And yet … he’d automatically gone to help clear the road when they’d first stopped, before she’d either asked or suggested.
Even now he was kicking away the pieces of wood on the road, getting rid of the worst of the debris. Simply doing what needed
to be done, capable and practical, without any grandstanding or complaining. Lifting a little of the weight of responsibility
from her shoulders, or at least sharing it, for a short time.

She should get out and help, but her body rebelled against the idea of movement. He’d almost finished, anyway.

Cold air swirled into the car when he opened the driver’s door and got in, sliding the seat back to accommodate his height.
Turning on the ignition, he glanced over the dashboard, found the heater and turned it up to maximum.

He adjusted the rear-view mirror, and the side mirror, and she had to respect his caution.

‘Anything I should know about driving this thing?’ he asked.

‘Just go lightly on the accelerator. There’s a fair amount of power behind it.’

He nodded. ‘How do you turn the emergency lights off?’

‘Isn’t it every guy’s fantasy to drive a cop car with lights flashing?’

She’d been trying to keep it relaxed between them, but she heard his teeth grind.

‘It’s not my fantasy.’ There was nothing relaxed at all in his growl, and she sensed his withdrawal from her again.

Shit. Wrong words. Gil, with his obvious distrust of police, wouldn’t get a thrill from that kind of thing.

She reached to the centre console, flicked a button and turned of the flashing lights. Now only the headlights shone into
the blackness.

Gil kept a good ten kilometres under the speed limit all the way back. He’d left Dungirri this morning as a prisoner; having
to drive a police car back in to town less than twelve hours later verged on bizarre. Despite the justification of the situation,
Kris suspected her superiors might not look lightly on an ex-con under suspicion of murder being at the wheel of a police
car. She hoped she wouldn’t have to mention it.

On the edge of Dungirri, Adam’s utility was parked by the side of the road, and the headlights picked him up standing near
it, a dark jacket obscuring his uniform. She noted his sensible thinking in not using the police car, alone and without backup.
If the thug who’d tried to run her down had a thing against police, at least Adam wouldn’t be an obvious target.

‘That’s Adam,’ she told Gil. ‘Can you stop?’

Sparing barely a glance for Gil, Adam came straight to Kris’s window when they pulled over, his usually cheery face creased
with concern.

‘You’re really okay, Kris?’

‘Yes. Any sign of the idiot?’

‘Nothing. It’s been dead quiet. He must have turned off on to one of the tracks. I’ll stay out here a bit longer, though,
in case he’s lurking until after you’ve passed.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Beth is on her way to your place. I’ll give it fifteen minutes or so here, then meet you up there.’

The town was quiet as Gil drove through the few blocks. Lights from the Truck Stop and the pub were about the only signs of
life, a few cars parked here and there, but the main street was even quieter than usual.

Kris doubted the black vehicle would come through town. It could have taken any one of half a dozen side tracks through the
bush surrounding the town, might be almost back in Birraga by now, or miles away in any other direction. Their chances of
tracking it down and charging the driver amounted to near-zilch, and that fact did nothing to improve her mood.

Her mood worsened still further as they approached the police station, and she saw the cars out in front of the Memorial Hall
next door, its doors wide open and people milling around, inside and out. Of course, that’s where a fair few town residents
were tonight, decorating the hall for the ball tomorrow night – and now watching Gil Gillespie park the police car in front
of the station.

‘Shit. The working bee tonight. I’d forgotten about it.’

His mouth a hard line, Gil didn’t say anything.

Kneeling on the veranda of the hall, Jim Barrett paused in the act of hammering in a floorboard, and slowly stood up. Karl
Sauer and a mate, loading paint tins into the back of a ute turned and stared, Karl taking a few steps forward, and from the
window of the kitchen several female faces watched, new lace curtains pulled back for a better view.

‘Maybe it’s for the best that they’ve seen us,’ she said quietly. ‘Most people have enough sense to know that if I thought
you were a murderer, you wouldn’t be driving me around the countryside.’

He still didn’t respond. Staring at the hall, he unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door slowly.

Kris climbed stiffly out of the car.

‘Everything all right, Kris?’ Jim called out.

‘Yes. Had a close encounter with a road, at some speed. Some bloody moron tried to run me over. It’s just scratches and bruises,
though.’ Including a holster-shaped one on her hip that was now making its presence felt as she put weight on her leg.

Loud enough for the spectators to hear, she turned to Gil and added, ‘Thanks for everything, Gil. I really appreciate all
your help today.’

She couldn’t exactly apologise for his arrest – that might get her into legal hot water – but she figured her words might
convince the audience that he’d cooperated fully and was not under suspicion.

Beth emerged from the hall, her large first-aid pack weighing down one shoulder. She raised her hand in a casual wave to someone
inside, carefully stepped over the floorboard Jim was fixing, and strolled across the grass to them.

‘Walking wounded, I see,’ Beth said cheerfully. ‘I’m glad it’s not worse.’

‘So am I,’ Kris answered dryly.

Gil came around the side of the car and, with a nod to Beth, opened the back door to retrieve his bag.

‘Hello, Gil,’ Beth greeted him with quiet warmth, with none of the tension that was emanating from the hall. ‘It’s good to
see you again.’

Of course, Kris thought, they’d both grown up in Dungirri, must have known each other as kids. Kris would have to ask Beth
what she knew about him; although she couldn’t really imagine sweet, quiet Beth and the hard-edged Gil having had much in
common.

Gil didn’t smile, but the wariness in him seemed to relax a little.

‘Hi, Beth.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Kris saw that the curtain in the kitchen had fallen back into place, and she heard Jim’s hammering
start up again. Good. The odds of another lynching tonight had just reduced. Maybe the renaissance of community spirit, led
by the Progress Association, was having a positive effect.

With some reluctance, Kris shrugged off Gil’s jacket and handed it back to him, the chill without it adding to her discomfort.
She should get inside, turn the heater on, but he stood there with his bag, about to leave, and for reasons she didn’t try
to comprehend she wasn’t ready to let him walk away for good just yet.

‘It would be useful to have a witness statement from you, Gil, if you’d be willing to give one.’ A logical request. She hoped
he wouldn’t refuse.

He might have considered it for a moment, but eventually said, ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

‘Can you come back after you’ve taken your things to Jeanie’s? Beth should be finished with me by then. If I can get the incident
report finalised tonight, then Steve Fraser can get onto it first thing in the morning.’

He slung his jacket over his shoulder. ‘Sure. If that’s what you want.’

The lack of enthusiasm in his voice spurred her to convince him. ‘I want to arrest him, Gil, and charge him. It could have
been any one of my officers out there tonight. Half the time we’re travelling alone, because we cover a huge region and there’s
not many of us. The sooner we get the information together and circulating, the better chance we have of finding him, and
the safer my staff will be.’

She paused to take a breath, a little surprised at her own passion and anger. Coming on top of such a tense day, maybe the
near-miss had made her more on edge, more shaken than she’d realised. Yet he’d had to face more than she had – the brutal
death of a woman he’d known, his arrest and hours of questioning.

She slowed her breathing and continued more calmly, ‘Gil, I can’t do much about finding Marci’s killer. That investigation
is out of my hands. But I do want to find that driver, before he does someone real harm.’

Gil seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. He nodded, and said simply, ‘I’ll be back in a while,’ before he
turned and walked off down the road.

From the looks he’d been getting from Jim Barrett and others at the hall, Gil half-expected to hear shouts or footsteps racing
up behind him, but the only voice he heard was Beth’s, urging Kris inside and into the warmth.

He’d probably never spoken more than a few words to Beth in his life, but from the little he knew about her, Kris was in good
hands. Painfully shy and bookish as a kid, Beth had overcome her reserve enough as a young teenager to join the St John’s
volunteer ambulance in Birraga as a cadet. Hanging around the fringes of events in Birraga and Dungirri – football matches,
the Birraga show, the Christmas festival – he’d seen
her, always neat in her black and white uniform, part of the community in a way he’d never be.

When Dungirri had first hit the news, almost two years ago, he’d felt little more than a flicker of connection, only what
he might have felt for any town facing such a tragedy. When it had made the news again last summer, with a second little girl
abducted, it had been harder to put from his mind. Not because of the fact that his old man had somehow been in the wrong
place at the wrong time – he still felt no sorrow about that – but because the child’s parents were Ryan and Beth. Ryan was
the closest thing to a mate he’d ever had in his youth, and Beth, with her shy nature and huge doe-eyes, the kind of girl
any half-way decent guy would want to protect.

The shadow of what had happened the previous time a kid was taken had hung over the long days of waiting, and Gil had found
himself tuning in to almost every radio news bulletin. When he’d heard that the child had been found alive and unharmed, he’d
done what he rarely did – poured himself a Scotch and drunk it, straight.

He’d never expected, all those months ago, that he’d ever set foot in Dungirri again. Until that lawyer had pulled a stool
up to the bar a few weeks back and he’d discovered how much he really owed Jeanie, the idea of returning had never crossed
his mind.

But now he was here, and what should have been a simple, fleeting visit to Jeanie had become as complicated as all hell. Maybe
that’s why his mind had strayed to things done and past rather than working on the present problems – Marci’s murder, his
arrest, the sergeant’s near-miss. He had no answers yet, for any of them.