Jaymee cringed. ‘They were off. Like, completely off.’
‘I think I get it. That’s a big calibre weapon,’ I said.
‘I don’t know much about that. But we were all pretty grossed out. Then Linebacker appears carrying his huge gun and laughing, and he just lets it crawl and howl for its life,’ Beth said. ‘We told him to finish it off but he wouldn’t. He thought it was funny.’
I looked around, excited to tell Whitt about the lead, and realised he was still gone. Through the window I could see the news on the television screens had moved away from Sam. The next story was local news, a bulky, moustachioed man in a police uniform receiving an award on a stage. The headline bar beneath the images read ‘Detective Ishmael Carmody and partner of fifteen years Detective Matt Horner receive bravery awards’.
As I watched my new partner’s cover story being obliterated on the television, the liar walked out of the bathroom and smiled at me through the windows.
Chapter 25
OUTSIDE THE PUB, a group of young people was huddled. They were a very different crew to the miners; many were dreadlocked and tattooed, their skin deeply brown. They might have passed for gypsies in their colourful clothing, but for their high-tech four-wheel drive. The vehicle’s top was cluttered with satellite and solar equipment, huge fog lamps sitting atop custom scaffolding. Along the side of the truck someone had skilfully airbrushed the name ‘EarthSoldiers’.
I decided to keep my knowledge about Ishmael Carmody to myself, to use it at the right moment to catch Whitt out. I stood beside him, watching the EarthSoldiers.
‘Who do you reckon these jokers are?’ I asked.
‘Those are the activists,’ Richie said. His crew had materialised out of nowhere by our car. He leaned against the driver’s door, arms folded. ‘Don’t you go messing around with them, Bluebird. They’re weirdoes.’
The activists unfurled a huge banner on the side of the truck that read ‘Money means nothing in a nuclear holocaust’. Black and white pictures from Chernobyl.
When I turned back around Richie was closer to me, his shoulder almost touching mine. His men had surrounded Whitt. ‘Thanks for the tip, Robin Hood. But if you’re going to answer any more questions, you’re going to need a mint.’ I waved my hand in front of my nose.
‘Your mama never teach you any manners, police lady?’ Richie said.
‘She was a prostitute and a junkie. Manners were thin on the ground.’
‘See, this is what I want to hear,’ Richie said. ‘My mother was a pro, too. We got stuff in common! Tell me more.’
‘Actually, if you want to chat, I’m up for a chat,’ Whitt said. I was surprised at his sudden assertiveness. He strode over and slipped between Richie and me.
Richie smiled widely. Two of his bottom teeth were solid gold. He jerked a thumb at Whitt. ‘Get a load of this pussy, would you?’ The smile disappeared. ‘Mate, you’re funny, but you need to back the fuck up out of my space.’
Richie shoved first. Whitt shoved second, harder. I backed out of their circle and let them scuffle.
‘Richie, I really hope you don’t hurt that fucking guy,’ I said. ‘He’s with me.’
‘You’ve got some big talk, Bluebird.’ Richie turned to me. ‘Lady cops get like that. You manhandle a few city slickers and suddenly you think you’re the big bitch in town. Well, what if I do this?’ He grabbed the back of Whitt’s neck.
The two twisted into each other, then Whitt took a solid punch to the stomach. He sank to the ground, coughing.
Richie was advancing on me now, sweeping his lanky hair back. He moved into the imaginary boxing ring I had drawn around myself. I loosened my shoulders and cracked my neck on the left side, where it was always tight.
Hands up, head down. Breathe, Tiger. Remember to breathe.
I put my hands up, ducked my head low behind them and slid into a fighting stance.
‘Look at this, would you,’ Richie said, laughing. ‘It’s Rocky.’
Singing the Rocky theme, he came towards me, making all the big mistakes at once – face unshielded, body tall, feet set wide apart. His hands were open, ready to slap me. The underestimation was his worst mistake.
I stepped in, reached up under his arms and cracked him hard in the jaw with my right fist, my left clenched tight at my eye and my chin tucked against my chest. I stepped back again and bounced. He felt the pain before he saw me move.
‘What the fu–’
His words were cut off as I stepped in for a couple of left jabs to the nose. I stepped out and bounced as he stumbled backwards.
There was blood in his nose, clogging it. I sidestepped and whacked him hard in the ribs.
Just play, I told myself. Keep cool, and don’t hurt him. He’s just an idiot.
I could kill this man with a single punch. I needed to hold back. His crew was cheering him on. He swung wildly at me, a full arm throw that, if it connected, would have sent me flying onto the ground.
I ducked, shifted right, came up and love-tapped him on the chin. I heard his teeth crunch. I was back in the ring. I was losing my sense of time and place. I drifted, the way I did when I fought Pops, my movements becoming mechanical. He swung. I ducked. He jabbed. I leaned. I was hitting harder and harder all the time. I knew I needed to hold back, but my mind was elsewhere.
I was thinking about Sam.
Please tell me you didn’t do it, Sam. Please say those words.
There was shouting, and I was jolted back into the present by people wrenching at my shoulders. The activists had stepped in, and so had Richie’s people, dragging us apart. Richie was on the ground, blood running into his eyes and sand in his mouth.
‘Fucking bitch!’ he was howling. ‘Someone get that fucking bitch!’
The windows of the pub were full of eyes. I fought through the crowd and got to Whitt.
‘Might be time to call it a night,’ I said. His face was dark with the disappointment of a man shown up by a woman. I’d seen it plenty of times in my career. He climbed into the driver’s seat and I piled in beside him as Richie’s people started kicking the doors and beating on the windows.
As we pulled away, I saw a light flashing out in the desert, a tiny pinprick in the blackness. I tried to judge how far away it was, but we were travelling too fast. The light blinked and disappeared as we drove off into the night.
Chapter 26
THE SOLDIER OPENED the door to the detectives’ donga and stepped into the darkness. The moon was high. He’d stood outside the demountable building at 2234 hours and listened to the noises within for a couple of hours, learning the individual creaks of the two bunks in the far left section, the rhythms of their breathing. His body remained still as a stone in the shadows beneath the open window, until the whispers inside gave him cause to smile.
‘So your mother was a junkie, then?’
‘Shut up, Whitt. I’m tired.’
‘It’s just a weird thing to volunteer to such a bad guy. Kind of . . . personal.’
‘Who knows who the bad guys are anymore?’
‘What?’
‘Forget it.’
‘People like that could use your secrets against you.’
‘He probably will. They all will.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean if you don’t shut up I’m going to smother you with your own pillow. I’m tired. Go to sleep.’
The Soldier knew what she meant. He’d watched her striding across the bar, her eyes flicking briefly to the television screens, her face set as her personal heartache was served up for the hungry mob.
Humiliation was an excellent tool for personal growth, a sort of ritual that could harden even the weakest soldier. There were countless opportunities for the young recruit to let their team down, whether it was by arriving last to the checkpoint on deployment, or by being discovered with an unsatisfactory bunk on the base. His squad had participated in the ritual humiliation of repeat offenders, of weaklings who couldn’t fall into
line. The soldier who couldn’t keep his uniform straight was dragged naked into the accommodation square and beaten. The soldier who didn’t keep himself clean was doused in disinfectant chemicals and scrubbed with a broom. The soldier who couldn’t arrive on time was branded with a cigarette burn for every minute he was late. If he was of sufficient character, the humiliated soldier took his punishment with the pride of a man who had been taught something and who would never forget it.
What would her brother’s sins teach Detective Blue? What would she do when her ritual was complete?
It was now 0227 hours. The Soldier stepped carefully into the section belonging to the two detectives and stood in the dark between the bunks, looking at them. Harriet slept the deathly slumber of the new recruit, dreamlessly, her lean body twisted in the sheets and one hand tangled in her short, dark hair. He leaned in close to her, breathed in her scent, making a memory of the smell of her that he would recognise on the desert winds. Already she wore the scent of her new environment, adapting as a true warrior would. Her hair carried the charred smell of the mine, the burning oils and ground steel, and her skin smelled of the land, baked sands and rains long gone. She’d be difficult to hunt, when the time came.
‘Sam,’ she whispered, a frown forming then receding as she returned to her dream. The Soldier smiled again, a secret stolen.
He saw a huntsman spider wander up the cork wall beside the sleeping detective, pausing in the dim moonlight. The Soldier reached out and plucked the spider up, set it carefully on her naked skin. He watched the delicate creature walking over the bare landscape of her neck.
Chapter 27
THE MOUTH OF the main mine was the epicentre of activity on the camp. In the bowels of a huge pit, the sides rippled with rock steps as wide as a four-lane highway, a tunnel had been cut deep into the earth. The tunnel was high and wide enough to accommodate a Boeing 747. Miners in hard hats walked in and out of the tunnel in groups of two and three, moving to the side now and then to allow orange trucks with tyres as tall as me to rumble through.
On our way to meet Tori King’s sister we spied a group of EarthSoldier activists beyond the main gates, brandishing their gruesome banner. Whitt and I stood and watched as they harassed individual miners walking along the fence line.
‘Excuse me? Excuse me! I was just wondering what you’ll be doing four billion years from now?’ one of them asked, following a pair of miners along the wire. ‘Because when they activate the uranium you’re digging up, that’s how long it’ll take to become safe again!’ As she followed the miners she held a placard that read ‘Fukushima: Never Again’. She was a petite girl with a head of long, thick, purple dreadlocks. ‘What are you doing to compensate the Indigenous peoples this mine has displaced? How much money is their lost cultural heritage worth? Hey! I’m talking to you!’
Another miner arrived and the activists dropped their hateful faces and gathered around to speak to him. When he carried on through the gate, I stopped him.
‘What’s the deal there, mate? Are you friends with them?’
‘Friends?’ he said. ‘Aww, nah. Not really. I just borrowed a lighter from Shamma last time I saw her and I was giving it back.’
‘I thought the miners and the activists were supposed to hate each other,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you guys “the enemy” to them?’
The miner squinted back at the EarthSoldiers, who had resumed their yelling.
‘It’s not like that,’ he said. ‘I mean, we’re all in this together, aren’t we? We’re all stuck out here. They don’t like what we’re doing but we help each other out sometimes for weed or cigarettes or whatever. They yell a lot but they’re just angry at us about our jobs. They don’t mind us as people.’
‘Do the mine bosses know you have such an easy relationship with them?’ Whitt asked.
‘I guess not,’ the miner said. ‘We try to keep a lid on it. They do cause us a lot of trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Well, they’re a pretty sneaky lot. They have raiding nights, when they get in and steal stuff. Like, they’ll steal parts from the big trucks, usually something that’ll take weeks to replace. Sometimes they lock bits of equipment together with massive chains. You’ll wake up in the morning and half the mine is chained together, and some of those chains take hours to grind off. If they’ve had a really good raid the activists can get the whole mine shut down for the day.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘How irritating.’
‘Well, to be honest, we kind of like that, you know? Secretly, I mean. Us miners get paid no matter what, so when the mine shuts down we all just go down to the pub.’ He laughed. ‘It’s the bosses who get cranky about it.’
‘So the fact that you’re friends with the activists is sort of a secret between the miners?’
‘I wouldn’t even put it like that, you know?’ The miner glanced off towards the EarthSoldiers. ‘I mean, they’re alright sometimes but their leader woman is batshit crazy. They’re kind of like the dingoes. You can interact with them a little bit, but they’re wild, mate. You can’t trust ’em.’
‘Where do these people live?’ Whitt asked. ‘Surely they’re not on the camp?’
‘Nah, mate,’ the miner said. He swept a hand over the desert. ‘They live out there, in the Never Never.’
‘Out there,’ I murmured, and looked at the horizon. In the daylight it was fairly harmless, but I knew that as soon as darkness fell, a landscape that could hide an entire community of people was somewhere a lost or wounded young miner would face a real fight for survival.
Chapter 28
AMY KING WAS carrying a wooden crate into a narrow mine tunnel. The tunnels spread deep into the ground, becoming less and less well constructed as Whitt and I followed directions to find her.
She was the spitting image of her sister. Freckled and orange-haired, she looked like a child in her oversized high-visibility shirt and helmet.
‘Amy King?’
‘That’s me.’
‘I’m Detective Edward Whittacker, and this is Detective Harriet Blue.’
‘Oh, finally!’ Amy set the heavy crate on the ground. ‘Took you long enough. Tori’s probably halfway to bloody Mexico by now! I been asking them to get some cops out here for days.’
‘Why would Tori be halfway to Mexico?’ I asked.
‘I don’t bloody know!’ Amy sighed. ‘You’re the police. You tell me. She’s got to be somewhere.’
‘Right.’ Whitt drew his notepad and pen from his pocket. ‘Why don’t you tell us all about it?’
‘Last time I seen her was in the rec room. That’s the last time anyone seen her,’ Amy said. ‘She was fine, mate. Bloody fine. People keep telling me she must have gone and thrown herself into some hole, or shipped off to Sydney, or whatever the hell. She ain’t done nothin’ like that. So you can cross that right off your list.’
We followed the girl as she took light bulbs from the crate and began replacing those lining the ceiling with the new bulbs. Every few metres she unscrewed a bulb and gave it to me. When my hands were full I walked them back to the crate.
‘Gabe Carter told us she just walked out and went off to bed?’ I said.
‘That was it.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘She said “Fuck you” to me. I was wearing one of her favourite tops. No big deal. Certainly nothing to go wandering off into the desert about like some people reckon.’
‘Where are all of Tori’s things?’ I asked. ‘Surely you got in there and saved them from being raided by the other miners?’
‘Surely!’ Amy snapped. ‘Like I didn’t try! Tori worked over on the west side. I didn’t know she was missing all the next day and night. I’d had the fight with her about the shirt the night she disappeared – the Friday. So the next night, when I couldn’t find her, I thought she was probably just avoiding me. Playing hide and seek so I couldn’t apologise for nicking her shirt. Sunday morning, I still hadn’t seen her. I asked a
round, and no one had! She’d been gone all that day. Without anybody telling me, they raided her stuff like she wasn’t coming back.’
‘Everybody seems like they’re just itching to get at other people’s things out here.’ I threw my hands up. ‘Why, when they have so much money on their hands?’
‘Because this place is a bloody island, mate,’ Amy said. ‘If you forget to pack your socks when you leave home back in Sydney or Darwin or wherever the hell you come from, that’s it – you’ve got no socks for three weeks. You can’t just go off the camp and buy more! If you want a fucking pack of cigarettes you’ve got to drive half an hour into town and half an hour back.’
‘But, wait a minute, I saw a vending machine at the admin office,’ Whitt said. ‘Wouldn’t there be cigarettes in there?’
‘Nope. If you leave cigarettes in the vending machine Richie’s crew buy every pack and mark them up fifty percent. So whenever the catering companies come out to restock the machines, everybody goes and buys them. The point is, stuff is precious here. You should see how much these girls sell tampons for when someone has forgotten their supply. I’ve seen them go for ten bucks apiece.’
‘It’s madness,’ Whitt said.
‘Do you know what stuff of Tori’s went missing? Was her wallet and phone still here?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, but I’ve seen a phone that looks a hell of a lot like Tori’s around. One of those Bilby bitches has got it. But she’s probably taken Tori’s sim card out. There’d be no proving it’s hers.’
Whitt went to the heavy wooden crate at the end of the tunnel and lifted it, saving me my third trip with blown bulbs. He carried it to where Amy was. So much for that back injury, I thought.