The infant grizzled. I lifted him higher against my chest and patted his nappy-covered backside. Put my cheek on his head.
‘It’s not the best place in the world,’ Jed said, looking at the walls, still stained from years of neglect, the blazing desert sun rolling by the windows. ‘But it’s a solution to a problem.’
Jed stood. I guessed it was the signal for me to go. I didn’t seem capable, at first, of giving the child back. Some ludicrous part of me saw this place as a solution to my problem. To every problem.
I handed back the child. He held the tiny boy and looked at my eyes. Seemed to know I wanted to stay. Here was a safe place, deliberately constructed on the edge of nowhere, too far into the wild for problems to reach. The kind of place they sang about in sad songs. All the hurt, all the badness, all the worry a person had could be sent here to be swallowed up by this man.
I felt the cruel sense that I belonged here tugging at my chest, even as I headed for the door.
Chapter 96
IT HAD ALL happened so quickly. Love stories were like that, so Regan had heard. He’d got chatting to the teenage Sam Blue at the Christmas party and discovered the gangly, shy, black-haired boy was living with a family in Panania, not far from where Regan was in Picnic Point. Their foster parents knew each other. Sam had only just arrived, having been separated from his sister after their last placement fell through. The boy missed her. Regan had listened, marvelling quietly at his gentle voice.
There was no way Regan could have told Sam what he felt back then. The obsessive thoughts, the dreams about Sam. He wondered if his friend ever suspected. It was a struggle to stop himself from bringing Sam gifts at the house in Panania, turning up too often, staying too late to talk and giggle in the small blue room his foster parents had put him in. Everything Sam said stuck with Regan. He’d shown Regan a picture of a red racer bike in a catalogue, and Regan had begun to see red bikes everywhere deliciously displayed on street corners and in bike racks, unlocked. Regan closed his eyes sometimes and thought about what Sam would say if he brought him one of those racers. Imagined him in awe, crying with gratitude, throwing his arms around Regan, the press of his thin, hard body against his own. Bliss. But it was far too risky. Their bond was one perfect thing he wasn’t going to ruin. It was pure, untouchable, beautiful.
Joyous months passed. Sam and Regan would meet on the roadway down to the river. Firelight and smoke in the air, the heady scent of dope near the rock wall or on the grey sand. Circles of other kids laughing, whooping. Regan remembered sitting on the edge of the pier with his feet in the water and some nameless girl’s face in his crotch, smoothing back her hair as she bobbed up and down on him, looking over and meeting Sam’s eye as another girl worked on him. The stab of pleasure deep in his guts, making his legs twitch. They’d lain with the girls afterwards, whoever they were. The girls were easy to ignore. Regan closed his eyes and felt Sam’s elbow touching his, listened to the other boy’s breathing. It could have been just the two of them under the stars. He suddenly felt free.
And then, before he knew it, Child Services was there at the door in Picnic Point. His foster parents had decided to travel Italy and couldn’t bring him along. Another placement had been arranged. The couple told Child Services to handle telling Regan, because they were too emotional about it, and they knew he was an emotional boy, too.
They’d meant difficult. But they couldn’t possibly know that Regan was slowly graduating from difficult to dangerous.
Chapter 97
NOW, REGAN STEPPED silently down onto the toilet in Harriet Blue’s apartment and turned around, sliding the bathroom window closed behind him. The gentle click as the latch caught was the only sound in the apartment. He stood in the dark looking at the things on her vanity, feeling sick little zings of excitement at the sight of them. Comb. Pill packets. Creams.
He went into the short hallway and gazed at the gold light falling on the polished floorboards from the living room. This was a good apartment. A solid investment for someone who worked hard and spent little on their social life. Regan knew that the place had been sold, probably to fund Sam’s legal defence. In mere weeks, all of this would have to be packed up and shipped out. Regan was glad that he could see it as it was, Harry in her natural environment, the girl Sam had talked so much about.
There was no one home. He was sure of it. The lights must have been a tactic by Harriet to appear at home, something to drive away the press or curious gawkers who might try to take advantage and sneak in.
Regan had the distinct sense of her abandonment of the place as he walked into the study. He looked at the work of the Georges River Killer on the corkboard behind the desk. Pictures of his victims, both alive and as he’d left them, lolling dead on the grey sands like washed-up sea creatures. There were forensic reports here. Criminal profiles. Harry’s notes. Regan had seen some of these things already in the briefcase he stole from Edward Whittacker. They were close behind him. But it wasn’t over yet.
If only it had all gone the way he’d planned. It would have been so perfect. He’d come across Sam for the first time after leaving prison, and it was there that he’d got his idea. Sam had been standing at the edge of the hall outside a computer lab on the Sydney Uni campus, talking to one of his pretty little students, her long chocolate hair awash in sunlight. Regan had followed and watched and realised that Sam was surrounded by these gorgeous creatures. They waved at him from cafe tables and touched his arm as he went by, smiling, asking about some assignment or another. Sam was so happy. Regan could see it in his stride as he walked home, as he climbed the stairs to his neat, bright apartment. Wasn’t Sam just the perfect ‘fuck you’ to all those care workers and all those families shuffling him here and there, the raggedy, hollow-eyed urchin Regan knew so well playing tricks in the dark by the riverside. Bad boy. Difficult boy. Unwanted boy. Sam’s beautiful world was choreographed as joyously as the opening of a Broadway show. People swinging on lampposts, arms out, soaring voices.
Regan had entered Sam’s world like a dark cloud creeping, billowing up over the horizon. He’d wanted to stay longer. It had all been going too well.
He moved out of the study, back into the hall.
And heard a sound in the kitchen.
Chapter 98
I PICKED UP Kash. He’d stayed by our surveillance spot, lying on his belly at the edge of the ridge, watching the sun go down, sweeping the valley with his binoculars. He didn’t speak as he got in to the car. There was an icy feeling in the pit of my stomach, that he’d call me out for walking off instead of standing my ground and defending my brother. But my ability to stand my ground was waning. Two more days and the AVO would be lifted, and I could be by Sam’s side again.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Kash said, breaking me out of my reverie.
‘What?’
‘Dez spread the word around town that people aren’t to congregate, that we want the pub closed and the main street clear. This seems to have had the opposite effect. People are angry. Defiant. There’s talk they’re going to gather tonight in the main street as a show of strength.’
‘Oh, brilliant!’ I snapped. ‘What a fantastic idea! We’ve told them it’s dangerous to gather in groups, and what do they do? They decide to throw a party.’
‘They’re Australians,’ Kash sighed. ‘We told them to stay away from their local pub. We might as well have waved a red flag in front of a bull.’
There were already people in the main street as we drove through, standing outside shops, talking. Only twelve or thirteen in total, but more would come. There was a strange excitement in the air, the feel of Christmas or New Year’s Eve, of community. It didn’t seem to matter that someone wanted to kill them all. The mob was stronger than a single killer.
They were wrong. I knew they were wrong.
I spied Mary Skinner, the mother with the young children, walking along the road back towards her house, her two kids running ahead. At least someone was being se
nsible.
Kash and I parked by the bracken just beyond Jace Robit’s property again. At precisely seven-thirty, the man emerged, taking long strides to his ute. Through the growing dark, I could see lights on in Frank Scullen’s garage. Headlights swept us as the two men pulled out.
‘Come on, fuckers,’ I said, starting the engine. ‘Show us your big plan.’
Chapter 99
WE PLOUGHED INTO the night. Kash became pointed beside me, squinting into the dark ahead. I left the longest possible distance between Frank’s truck and our own, trying not to spook him with my headlights. The trucks disappeared over ridges and hills in the desert.
We were well out of town when the headlights ahead stopped moving. I turned ours off and rolled slowly towards a huge eucalypt surrounded by bush. As Kash and I got out of the car, a group of dingoes somewhere in the vast empty wilderness nearby sent up a howling song.
Here is where I could meet my end, I thought, as I always do when I find myself in situations like this. Rushing into a home where a child is suspected to be in danger, storming the doors of porn studios, dungeons, makeshift brothels. I have plenty of police training to try to combat the dangers of the sniper in the upstairs window, the man with the shotgun behind the door, the tripwire in the hall attached to a grenade. I know to look out for these things. But there’s always the chance of a wildcard. A new strategy by the bad guys. Cops die every single day. This could be the day that it’s me.
I jogged behind Kash across the dirt, head low, drawing out my gun.
The trucks were parked at the base of a high cliff, a split in the Earth’s crust cleaved vertically through the enormous rock shelf, only a metre wide. I knew there was probably a lookout just inside the entrance to the cave. Kash took the other side of the entrance. I crept forwards and looked in, saw a pair of stubby legs splayed on the warm earth. John Stieg was just settling in to his position, still tapping through his phone, checking the things that needed to be checked and sending the things that needed to be sent before a long stretch of guard duty. I leapt forwards before he could look up from the phone, knowing his night vision would be ruined by the bright screen.
He put a hand to the gun sitting on the ground by his hip. ‘Don’t,’ I said. I put a hand out. He paused, finger sideways, loose, on the trigger guard.
The man gave in and took his hand off the weapon. He rose reluctantly, rubbing his short beard. Kash’s breath was on the back of my neck. It was tight here. Tight enough that in a struggle, I might lose this man. Stieg twisted and I poked him forwards with my pistol, away from the gun on the ground, which Kash swept up into the back of his jeans.
‘Make a noise, and I’ll fire,’ I said.
We walked through the darkness. Ahead of us there came the clattering and crashing of things being set up, men talking, their voices echoing off the walls of the narrow cave. I spied wires on the ground. My breath was coming in short, hot blasts. Tanks. Cables. The sickly glow of headlamps trying to cut through airborne dust. It was hard not to cough.
The crevice widened and we were suddenly upon the other three, Jace Robit nearest to me, tugging a cotton mask up over his nose and mouth, a small jackhammer hanging from his fist. I shoved Stieg and he gathered with the rest of them.
‘Police!’ I shouted, my eardrums pulsing as the sound ricocheted off the close walls. ‘Tools down! Hands up!’
No one complied. It takes a leader, not a stranger, to get them moving. They all looked at Jace.
‘I said hands up, fuckbags!’ I kicked the jackhammer out of Jace’s hand. It clanked to the ground. The man gave a short, hard laugh, raised his hands and interlocked them at the back of his head. I checked Kash’s gun was on them all and lowered mine. I walked around them and looked into the black depths of the crevice beyond where we stood. It seemed to narrow then turn away into pitch blackness.
‘Is there anyone else?’
‘No,’ someone said. I kicked the nearest man’s knee out. He took the hint and knelt. The others followed. There was a lot of equipment here. Plastic and duct tape, buckets of water. I couldn’t get my heartbeat down. My thoughts were racing. Whatever this was, it wasn’t bomb-building paraphernalia. That was good. My hands were shaking on my gun. ‘What the fuck is all this?’
The men didn’t answer. Kash kicked over a bucket of rocks near his foot.
‘Gold,’ he said. ‘They’ve found a gold deposit.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ I glanced at the rock wall beside us, only just now realising that it was covered in indentations only visible in the light of the headlamps. ‘This is where it came from. The package we found at Chief Campbell’s place. Did he confiscate that gold from you? Did you kill him because he found out what you were doing here?’
Jace Robit was watching me. His eyes were fierce above the hem of the cotton mask covering his nose and mouth. I felt like smashing his face with the butt of my pistol. If there’s one thing I can’t stand from suspects, it’s the silent treatment. But I was working through things in my mind. Trying to fit the pieces together.
‘It wasn’t drugs you were all into. It was this. Gold. Theo Campbell shook you down. It’s just like we said.’ I looked at Kash. ‘But he knew there had to be more. So you killed him. You blew him up.’
‘We didn’t kill anybody.’ Frank Scullen shook his head, glared at me. ‘This is bullshit. I’m not wearing a fucking murder charge.’
‘Which one of you wrote the diary?’ My voice was quivering. ‘You wrote the diary to distract us, didn’t you?’
‘We didn’t kill nobody, and we didn’t write no fuckin’ diary!’ John Stieg snapped.
‘Then why the secrecy?’ I looked at the gold on the ground by Kash’s foot.
The men glanced at each other, all but Jace, whose eyes were locked on me.
‘Whose land is this?’ Kash asked. ‘Whose land are we on?’
No one answered. Kash pointed at the ground.
‘If this land isn’t yours, and it isn’t public, then this gold is being stolen,’ he said. ‘Are we on someone’s land right now?’
I heard a click right beside my ear. The unmistakable sound of a hammer drawing back on a revolver.
Chapter 100
REGAN GAVE THE corner of the kitchen a wide berth, walked around through the living room and looked in. There was a man standing there, leaning against the counter, his arms folded and his eyes following Regan as he stepped into view. This man looked disordered, crooked, roughed-up somehow. Like the survivor of some kind of natural disaster, emerging from the forest with windswept hair and hard features, dirty clothes, a starved look. He was big. Muscular. Enormous boots. This had indeed been a very big mistake on Regan’s part. Who was this man? Was he Harriet’s boyfriend? What else didn’t he know about Sam’s sister? Once again, his plans were being foiled. The game was changing. Regan felt exhilaration rush through him.
‘I really hoped you’d come,’ Tox said.
Regan tried to make sense of the words. He glanced towards the door. Was this a trap? No, of course not. He’d have been knocked to the ground by now, windows bursting in, SWAT teams thumping up the stairs. This man was alone. His black pistol lay on the counter, turned away.
The man in the kitchen looked Regan over, sniffed.
‘So you’re him,’ Tox said, eyes roving. ‘I’ve seen pictures of you. Seen the imprint of your hand on the bodies of your victims. Your punches. I guess I thought I knew what you’d look like. But you’re different.’
‘Different how?’ Regan asked.
The man in the leather jacket shrugged his folded arms.
‘I guess I hoped you’d be bigger,’ he said.
‘Bigger?’ Regan almost laughed.
‘Mmm,’ Tox said. He sighed. ‘Stronger.’ Tox’s eyes wandered up Regan’s body. ‘See, I don’t like men who hurt women and girls. I really, really don’t like ’em. So I hoped that when I finally caught up to you, I’d be able to hurt you for a good while before having to hand you over to
police. I’ve been looking forward to hurting you.’
Regan laughed. Oh, what an unexpected gift this was.
‘I’m sure I can live up to expectations,’ Regan said.
The man in the kitchen unfolded his arms, stood poised, his big hands loose by his sides.
‘You ready?’ Tox asked.
‘Oh yes.’ Regan smiled. ‘More than ready.’
Chapter 101
OF COURSE THERE were others. How had I thought something like this might be limited to five men? Theo Campbell, Jace Robit, Frank Scullen, John Stieg and Damien Ponch. Of course it had spread. Small towns aren’t equipped for secrets like this, life-changing secrets. Last Chance Valley was an all-consuming hole in the Earth. Everyone wanted to escape. A few men had found a way, and the others had been able to smell it on them. Their secret hope. I turned my head slightly and the barrel of the man’s gun touched the back of my ear. I caught a glimpse of a fat, bearded man. The bartender from Last Chance. Mick the Prick. I smelled body odour and bourbon.
‘Drop it. You too.’
Kash and I dropped our guns. Jace’s eyes had lost their fierceness now. The man was incredulous, mortified, all his plans crumbling before him.
‘Mick,’ he snapped at the man behind me. ‘What the fuck!’
‘Yeah, exactly,’ Mick the bartender said, smiling. ‘What the fuck. You lot find a fortune and you think you can just pick up and leave with it? You don’t think about sharing it around? What a bunch of selfish fucking pricks.’
‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ I murmured, my hands out by my sides. ‘We can all walk out of here if everybody just stays calm.’
He ignored me. ‘I wondered what you shitheads were up to,’ Mick sneered, pushing me forwards. I walked slowly towards Kash, turned, trying not to make any sudden movements. Mick kicked the two men nearest to him until they lay on their stomachs on the sand. ‘I seen you at the pub snickering and whispering like a bunch of old bitches. Knew you had something on the go, so I followed you out here. What a surprise. I thought I’d wait, let you do all the hard work for me. But then I seen these coppers were onto you. I had to swoop in before you got yourselves arrested.’ He gestured to Kash and me. ‘You two. On your knees.’