Dark Country (24 page)

The side track, an old closed road, was still there, the grid overgrown but passable. Kris’s compact four-wheel drive eased
over it, and she bounced her way about thirty metres along the rough trail before a fallen tree blocked the way. Gil pulled
up beside her, turning the bike and leaving it where the car blocked it from view. If they needed to escape fast, the bike
might be their best chance.

‘Backup coming?’ he asked.

‘It will be a while. There’s nobody closer than Birraga. We’re on our own for now.’

He led the way through the trees, the bush dry underfoot. They had to curve around to view the shed from the rise behind it,
and it took some minutes of steady walking, the way hampered by pockets of undergrowth. Kris easily kept pace with Gil.

They didn’t speak, but as they approached the slope, he signalled her to stay silent. Here, there was less undergrowth but
more rocks, and they kept low, picking their way up the small hill, careful not to dislodge rocks or stones. Every now and
again, the sound of voices drifted to them, the words indistinct, but definitely from the direction of the shed.

A few metres from the top of the slope, he dropped to the ground, scrambling the last part on all fours, crouching behind
a huge tree stump for cover. Kris slid into place behind him.

The tree cover provided a patchy view of the clearing below the rise, two hundred metres away, where a dusty blue ute and
a large black four-wheel drive stood in front of the wooden, double-bay machinery shed. The truck his old man had driven sat
under the awning, the doors of the cab open and the seat on the ground beside it. Whatever they were looking for, they were
going to some effort to find it.

A couple of guys emerged from the side door of the shed. One in black trousers and a dark sports jacket over a dark T-shirt,
the other in jeans and a T-shirt, carrying a crowbar.

Two guys, two cars – but there’d been two in the four-wheel drive last night, and he’d be willing to bet there was at least
one more man inside.

He pulled out his mobile phone and started taking photos. He didn’t expect them to be clear at this distance, but anything
was better than nothing. Kris took photos with her phone around the other side of the stump, her free hand leaning lightly
against his shoulder for balance.

A clatter on the hill a short distance away startled all of them. The men whipped around, and as Gil hauled Kris closer behind
the protection of the stump, gunshots cracked through the air.

Gil breathed again when he recognised the sounds of a wallaby or a ’roo racing across the slope not far below them. He heard
laughter from the men, and another couple of shots, rowdy voices yelling encouragement.

Whoever was firing was both quick to draw, and took pleasure in shooting. Not the kind of thug he wanted to be caught by.
He tightened his arm around Kris, shifting his kneeling position so
that she was pressed between him and the tree stump, keeping her close into the cover it provided, protecting her. Her white
shirt made too much of a contrast against the dull greens and browns of the bush; even an inch or two showing might attract
the attention of the men in the clearing.

Tension in her body and the frown she directed at him told him she was not pleased.

When he dared another glance out, there were two more men in jeans and work shirts near the shed, conversing with one of the
first two, and the guy in the jacket stood slightly apart, talking on his phone.

Gil recognised only one of them. He eased up on Kris, and she peered cautiously around, her arm snaking out with her phone,
thumb busy on the key.

He leaned forward, whispered in her ear, ‘Far left. He was one of the truck drivers. Know him?’

She shook her head and mouthed, ‘Need number plates.’

At this angle, they were side on to the vehicles, their rego plates not visible. But rego numbers might be a lot more useful
for tracking down these guys than photos of unknown people.

‘Stay here,’ he whispered.

He backed down the ridge a short distance, out of their sight, and made his way a couple of hundred metres along the slope,
to overlook the vehicles from behind. There were no handy large tree stumps or rocks on top of the ridge here for cover; a
low-growing, straggly shrub would have to do.

A car door slammed, and he hastened up the last few metres, silently cursing the thorns and spiders’ webs as he crouched
into place. Another door slammed, an engine started. Too many damned trees obscured his view. He had to get closer and quickly.

If the trees obscured his view, he’d just have to trust that they’d also block any view of
him
. If the men weren’t looking this way – and he wasn’t directly behind them so shouldn’t be caught in their rear-view mirrors
– he might just make it.

The second engine started, the driver’s foot heavy on the accelerator, the noise loud enough to let Gil risk making a quick
dash three-quarters of the way down the slope. Stopping by a large tree, a hundred metres or so away, he kept taking photos
as the cars moved off, glad he’d bought a high-end phone, hoping the zoom function he’d never had reason to properly test
would be sufficient to capture enough detail.

As they disappeared around a bend and into the trees, Kris stepped out from the bush, below where they’d taken cover, phone
to her ear.

So much for staying put. Not that he was surprised – she was capable, and took her responsibilities seriously. She had been
careful; he’d seen no flashes of white.

She finished one call and dialled another while she crossed the clearing to meet him by the shed.

‘Delphi? It’s Kris. I need your help. Can you go to your front fence, see if you can get number plates and descriptions on
a couple of vehicles that might be going past? Black Land Rover and blue Ford ute. They just left Des Gillespie’s place. I
don’t know which way they’re going, but they could head to Birraga, past your place. At least one of them’s armed, so be
very careful – don’t be obvious. Thanks, Delphi. I’ll call you back soon.’

‘Good idea,’ he said as she disconnected. Delphi O’Connell’s farm was about three k’s further along the Birraga road, the
farmhouse close to the road. If the men turned right at the end of the track, for Birraga, instead of left to Dungirri, then
they’d drive right past her front yard.

She grinned wryly. ‘Delphi’s as independent as ever, but you can always count on her when it matters. There’s a patrol car
coming, but it’s on another road.’ She nodded over at the shed. ‘I want to take a look inside.’

‘Me too.’

She seemed about to refuse, but changed her mind as if she knew it was fruitless. ‘Don’t touch a damned thing in there, Gillespie.
The guys in the Land Rover wore gloves, but the other two didn’t. I want every fingerprint and scrap of evidence they left.’

The men had used the side door, not the rusted roller doors at the front. Boltcutters had made short work of the rusty latch
padlocking it. Kris used a handkerchief over her fingers and gripped the frame well above the broken latch to drag the door
open.

Inside, it was initially hard to tell what was the old man’s normal disarray, and what had been searched. Sunlight came through
the grubby windows on the north side, dust caught drifting in its beams, the light casting a grid pattern from the wooden
window frame onto the floor.

The workbench along the side wall was covered in tools and other junk, as well as possum droppings, dust and cobwebs. But
a second glance showed the dust disturbed, the bigger pieces of junk moved aside, and the stuff from the shelves beneath the
bench had been shoved up one end, some had fallen to the floor. The cupboards on the back wall were in similar shape. Beside
them, vintage saws hung on nails on the wall, including the large crosscut saws Gil knew, too well, how to use.

The trailer with the portable sawmill his old man had eventually bought had few hiding places, but they’d been through the
tool box. The other bay held a huge stack of cypress planks, the canvas tarpaulin that had covered it crumpled on the floor,
the wood aged to a deep gold.

Gil surveyed the pile. It didn’t look like there’d been much change since he’d laboured to stack every damned plank of it,
years ago. At today’s prices, that made thousands of dollars worth of timber sitting idle.

Kris gave a low whistle. ‘I’m surprised no-one’s been in to steal this lot. Wonder how long it’s been here, and why Des didn’t
sell it. I’m sure he could have done with the cash.’

Gil didn’t wonder. He’d long ago given up trying to make any sense of the old man’s actions, and there’d always been plenty
of rumours to discourage people from trespassing, most of them gruesome. Like the one about the old bastard murdering someone
with the sawmill. As far as Gil knew, it wasn’t true, but he didn’t doubt the crazy sonofabitch could have been capable of
it.

‘Not many people know the shed is here,’ he told Kris. ‘It’s a long way from the shack, out of sight. And he didn’t ever invite
anyone in.’

‘No, definitely not the welcoming sort,’ she agreed.

She dropped to a crouch at the end of the stack. ‘Someone’s been down on hands and knees here, to see under the stack. I guess
they thought you could tuck some photos and tapes in the spaces.’

‘But I didn’t.’ He’d considered it briefly at the time, but deemed it too obvious, with not much point, since he’d expected
the timber to be moved.

‘Well, they obviously didn’t feel like moving the lot of it to check.’

‘If that’s what they’re after. And if it is, they’ve taken their time coming to look for it.’ It still didn’t make sense to
him.

She rose to her feet. ‘Yes, but a lot’s happened in the last forty-eight hours, Gil. Perhaps they didn’t think you were a
threat when you were in Sydney, but now you are. Or they might be worried that with Jeanie’s place gone, she won’t feel there’s
any reason to stay silent. Could be a lot of reasons. And we’re only guessing until we find out for sure who “they” are.’
She scanned the rest of the shed. ‘So, where did you hide it? In here somewhere?’

‘No. Outside. I’ll show you.’

On the edge of the clearing, he found the tree stump he was looking for – a giant of an ironbark gum, most of it felled generations
ago, leaving only a metre-high stump of iron-hard wood. Picking up a small branch, he scraped away the few tough grasses growing
near the base, and the thin layer of soil, to get to the rocks and stones he’d used to cover the hole he’d dug.

It had been night when he’d buried it, a dark night with only a sliver of moon, the wind in the trees on the ridge sounding
ominously like distant vehicles, keeping him on
edge as he worked quickly to avoid discovery. Now the sun was hot on his back, and Kris crouched beside him, taking stones
from him as he levered them out. Yet despite the different circumstances, uneasiness wrapped around his spine as it had all
those years ago.

His fingers scraped on fabric, and it wasn’t long before he lifted the oil-cloth wrapped bundle out of the hole. He handed
it to Kris without unwrapping it, and began to push the stones back in the hole again.

‘See if it’s still any good. Water might have got in, ruined everything.’

He’d done the best job he could at the time, wrapping up the large plastic lunch box in plastic and then oil cloth, fastening
the wrappings well with electrical tape. He finished filling in the hole while she unwrapped the layers.

He sat beside her on the ground, resting his arms on his knees, letting his gaze wander over the scene in front of him while
she carefully took each plastic-wrapped packet out of the box. He knew what was in them, could still recall each photo, each
map, and the cassette with its green label, dated with three dates in Jeanie’s neat handwriting.

A swallow flew through a hole in the roof at the back of the shed, and he idly tried to remember whether he’d seen its nest
inside, while out of the corner of his eye he saw Kris open the photo bag.

‘Looks like the colours on the photos have faded, but the images are still clear enough,’ she commented, as she drew them
out.

‘Sorry. Archival-quality materials weren’t to hand.’

She flipped through a couple, then whistled low and long. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

He glanced at it to confirm which one it was. ‘Shipping containers being buried. For underground hydroponic marijuana crops.
There’s a pile of pipes there,’ he reached over to point, ‘for the watering system.’

‘Shit.’ She shook her head, still not quite believing. ‘Where is this? In this region?’

‘North of here, on the river. It’s marked on the map. Each photo has a date and code on the back.’

‘You ever consider espionage as a career, Gillespie?’ she asked dryly.

He tilted his head so he could see her face. ‘Jeanie took that photo.’

She stared at him for a moment, then broke into a laugh that held no humour. ‘I don’t think I wanted to know that. You’re
one thing, but Jeanie …’ She stopped abruptly, dragged her hair back behind her ear. ‘Part of me’s having trouble believing
that she knew all this, but never told me. But on another level, I can believe it’s all true.’

‘It was a long time ago, Blue. Long before you came here. Flanagan left her alone after this, and unless she had more recent
information, then there was nothing to tell you.’

He gave her a little time to think that through, knowing her perceptions and beliefs had taken a battering with his revelations.

The swallow flew out of the shed again, followed by another. He frowned, tried to picture the roof of the shed from inside.
The walls were timber but the roof was corrugated iron, on
wooden rafters. There’d been no nest in the rafters, he was sure of it. No fresh bird shit on the floor. No birds swooping
them when they went in.

He couldn’t recall any sign of birds anywhere. He stared at the shed, recreating the interior in his head, the unlined walls
and bare studs, the locations of the shelves and cupboards, the position of the windows, the way the sunlight had fallen across
the floor, near the cupboards at the back.