‘But why meet all the way out there?’
Emmaline pursed her lips. ‘A negotiation.’
‘Over what?’
That she wasn’t sure. ‘Maybe over how to live in town together.’
‘Again, why out there?’
‘If the miners and the family knew of each other’s presence then there would have been tension. They needed a neutral place. Away from prying eyes. They needed to negotiate to keep each other’s secrets and keep the peace.’
Given the three bodies, however, it seemed that negotiations had broken down.
90 Lorcan
There was silence. Not even Dylan was talking. He was just staring. In silent judgement at his father letting his mother go. With Ian.
Lorcan toyed with following them. He could have tracked the dust cloud. But what if they veered onto the main road? That was harder to answer.
‘Can we go?’ pleaded Dylan.
‘They might be gone,’ said Lorcan, failing to hide his dejection at the situation. At his own ineptitude. He felt sick with shame.
‘I only want to go out and play.’
Dylan didn’t seem one bit concerned that his mother had left. She had gone and she would come back. The boy was living in perfect innocence and ignorance. But if he wasn’t going to follow Nee then neither of them were leaving the house.
‘We’ll stay inside until Mum gets back,’ said Lorcan, resting the gun on the floor beside him.
‘When will that be?’
Lorcan squeezed his eyes shut to avoid a question he feared the answer to.
91 Mike Andrews
Like Pavlov’s mutts they were cleaning the machines. Ian says jump, they say how high. The sweat that rolled off his forehead wasn’t just from the sweltering heat. It was also from the anger.
‘So he fucks up and we get stuck doing the heavy labour?’ said Mike. Without the machines drowning out all and sundry, Stevie would be able to hear his invective. Not that he expected anything back other than some watered-down ‘let’s keep the peace’ bullshit.
‘Is this worth the hassle?’ asked Stevie, his fingers oily from poking inside the grinder. ‘We could go back home and find other jobs. They might be shit but the thrill of this has gone, hasn’t it?’
It was accompanied by the same look of despondency Mike had last seen when they were given the heave-ho from Skyline. All lumped together as one. Stevie was a good employee. Not an agitator like he was. He was also a good friend.
‘We shouldn’t be kicked out of this, literal goldmine, because of one guy, Stevie. If we were alone in this town…’
Mike glanced at his friend to see if he was receptive. Stevie shook his head.
‘Ian isn’t here to stop us,’ said Mike. ‘Neither is Naiyana. You could take care of the boy while I talk to that bastard father.’
92 Emmaline
The atmosphere in the caravan was as thick as the stench of cigarettes. She didn’t dare leave the windows open during the day in case of scaly intruders or coming back to find everything layered in sand. Out the window a few TV lights still glared, reporters barking into microphones like dogs throughout the night, the outskirts of Kallayee remaining the defacto base for the press coverage. Still the town was roped off, a few trespassers forcibly removed and given a night in the cells. She considered going to Hurton and the Rack. She might not have been exactly welcomed but there was a chance of bumping into Matty and coming back here. Which wouldn’t contravene the security of the scene. Nothing untoward had taken place in this caravan. It just smelled like it.
The temporary booster also meant phone coverage. Rispoli and the others had left twenty minutes ago. They would barely have made it to the main road. She could call Rispoli and get him to return. He was a police officer. That certainly wouldn’t contravene security.
So she did. He didn’t take much persuading.
Hearing the vehicle approach, she waited in the doorway of the caravan, striking what she hoped was a seductive pose, truly feeling like a black-and-white movie actress now, beckoning her strapping co-star into her on-set trailer. The movie was murder.
What happened between them wasn’t acting.
* * *
The morning brought a search for clean clothes in the fetid air of the tiny caravan, then a trip to Hurton for breakfast, and reviewing a burst of new forensic information that was as exhilarating as the double espresso.
The lab had been working overnight. Fingerprints and DNA had been identified from the empty beer cans found at the crash site. Lorcan Maguire’s. Putting him in the vicinity of two murders. Or at least the disposal of the bodies.
‘So Lorcan killed them before he himself was killed?’ said Rispoli, finishing off his breakfast. Not letting the morass of information affect his gut.
Emmaline was still trying to process the information. She had been expecting Ian Kinch’s DNA on the tins. Even Mike Andrews or Stevie Amaranga. Nikos Iannis at a stretch.
She recalibrated the timeline. ‘If it was Lorcan it means that he killed JDD and JDP, transported the bodies, prepped the truck and burnt it to destroy evidence.’
‘Which is what you would expect from a career criminal. Like Ian Kinch.’
‘Or Nikos Iannis. Or someone who could outsource it.’
‘To professionals.’
‘Yeah. But an amateur would make mistakes. Like leave his DNA near the site,’ said Emmaline.
‘Maybe he needed to have a few to calm his nerves. Before or after.’
‘But someone helped him do this. He couldn’t have done it alone.’
‘The same person that then killed him and took his son?’
‘It would seem to link.’
‘But why?’
‘I think something went badly wrong between the family and those miners. I also think that Nikos, and even Chester Grant, found out where the family were living,’ said Emmaline. ‘Plus the desert can do some crazy things to people.’
93 Naiyana
She stared across the seat at him as he veered off the road out of Kallayee, down the highway for a short spell before deviating again long before Hurton. He navigated a kilometre to a spot behind the hill, out of sight of anything but satellites and wild animals.
He looked serious and there was a smell of desperation in the dirty sweat that clung to his face. The relaxed cunning had gone. There was no playfulness in his voice, no overarching control. Lorcan was probably right in not volunteering to come. The coward.
‘Something needs to be done about him,’ said Ian, staring into the trees beyond.
‘I’ll try to keep him under control.’
‘Try harder. As things stand this is beneficial to both of us. It needs to be kept that way.’
Naiyana nodded. Two kids to keep in order. And a set of unruly neighbours.
94 Mike Andrews
The heat and the pressure had become too much. He needed to get away from this dark prison cell. But on stepping into the searing air there was only one thing on his mind. Find Lorcan. Warn him. Make him leave.
Seeming to sense this, Stevie had followed him.
‘Don’t do anything stupid, Mike.’
‘Like let them hang around here?’
‘Let Ian do his bit.’
‘By talking to her? We know she can’t control him.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m not grabbing that kid,’ warned Stevie.
‘Maybe it won’t come to that,’ said Mike, as he approached the family’s house. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to do. Something. Anything. Lorcan had become the focus of all his anger and frustration.
Unexpectedly the front door opened. Lorcan was standing in the doorway, the kid nowhere to be seen. He looked pained and drawn, worried. Mike was determined to make him very worried. Using words only. Despite this self-assertion, he could feel his hands balling into fists. As Ian had said, ‘Be prepared for anything.’
; From the direction of the crossroads came the rattle of an engine. It pulled up outside the house, Ian and Naiyana exiting the vehicle.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked Ian.
Mike stared at him, then Lorcan, before turning and marching back towards the crossroads without another word. Lorcan had earned a reprieve for the time being.
95 Emmaline
She drove everyone out of Kallayee for the rest of the morning. All distractions kept outside the caravan. She needed solace to feed her thinking.
Who were the bodies in the truck? The only people she could rule out were Lorcan and Dylan Maguire. So if it was two of the other people in Kallayee – likely, given the location of the scene and the fact that none of them had been seen since 30 December – then it was likely one of two groups. Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga, as they were friends before Ian Kinch became the third wheel, or Naiyana Maguire and Ian Kinch. Mike and Stevie might have developed some anger towards Ian over the gold, shot him, then went about killing the family. Naiyana first, then a fleeing Lorcan. But that was unlikely. They were scientists, not killers. And what would they want with Dylan? But the desert can do some crazy things, as she herself had said. Here she was debating with herself in the middle of a tiny caravan, being serenaded by dingoes and having to wash in a basin. She was one step away from becoming certifiable.
Her thinking edged towards the miners. Mike and Stevie. Both friends and both shot. Possibly at separate times. Then again possibly not. Ian could easily have killed both in the tunnel to carry on mining alone. But why drag them out and fake the crash? Or had he killed them and taken on Lorcan Maguire as his partner until something else went wrong?
They had worked the mine for at least three weeks. Three weeks trapped in the same confined space trying to avoid the Maguire family. Add to that the possibility that their gold return was dwindling. Her strong suspicion was that Ian had been fleecing Mike and Stevie and they had found out. After a confrontation Ian shot them. But the sound carried. The family heard. They tried to bolt but were hunted down.
But that still left Dylan and Naiyana. Did he not have the heart to shoot them? Was he swayed by her beauty? Or were their bodies still out there to be found?
She may have been taken along with Dylan. A contract put on her or her husband’s head by Nikos Iannis or Chester Grant. Maybe the guy in the suit in the wrong place for an interview. Or the salesman who had come to Hurton. Used as cover to ask questions.
Emmaline rested her head against the thin lining of the seat, the plastic edge putting pressure on her skull, forcing her to stay alert. With all possibilities under careful consideration, she believed that the bodies in the truck would turn out to be Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga. In fact, she would stake her house on it. But given that this was currently a second-hand caravan with nicotine stains on the roof and a toilet door that didn’t shut properly, she wasn’t staking a lot.
* * *
Confirmation arrived in the early afternoon. The benefits of overtime and a now nationwide news story bearing fruit, everyone under pressure to produce results. The bodies in the truck had been identified.
Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga.
Emmaline called her team back to Kallayee. They convened outside the caravan, their lunches interrupted.
‘Not a pleasant way to go,’ said Barker, sipping coffee that Rispoli had brought back. He had dodged pulling sentry duty keeping the press back. Anand hadn’t been so lucky. The disadvantage of being the junior member.
‘No,’ said Emmaline, ‘but we’re still not sure exactly how they did go.’
‘Or why,’ added Rispoli.
‘What we do know is that of the six people in town, three are still missing, Naiyana Maguire, Dylan Maguire and Ian Kinch.’
‘That I do have information on,’ said Oily, making his way over from the huge Comms truck that had been added to their team, driven from Perth and now beached on the sand.
‘We have confirmation that Ian Kinch left Queensland at the same time as Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga. We even have photos of them together on the website for Deluxe. A nightclub in Brisbane.’
The high-quality photos showed Mike and Stevie, faces awash in drunken pleasure, some random girl wrapped around Stevie’s slender waist. The only person who didn’t look pleased was Ian, trying to hide his face from the lens but failing.
‘He doesn’t look happy,’ said Barker.
‘No,’ said Oily. ‘Given we found no pictures of the three together on Mike’s or Stevie’s social media outlets, this seems to have fallen outside the scope of his control.’
She looked closer. ‘This is from the first of November. Anything more recent?’
Oily shook his head.
‘Which suggests he is either dead himself, or he’s gone to ground,’ said Emmaline. ‘And the only reason to go into hiding is…?’
‘Because he committed a crime,’ said Rispoli.
‘And he did. Mining without permits,’ said Barker.
‘True,’ said Emmaline. ‘But, if the murdered bodies of your mining partners and someone you were alone in a town with showed up, and you were innocent, you’d hand yourself in to clear your name.’
‘So we think Ian Kinch killed these three people and then took Naiyana and Dylan?’ said Rispoli.
‘Or he took them hostage, before murdering them,’ said Barker.
Emmaline added another twist to this supposition. ‘Or, best-case scenario, he took them hostage and is keeping them alive somewhere.’
There was absolute silence at this being the best-case scenario. That a triple murderer still had two hostages alive after eleven days on the run.
Emmaline grasped for positivity. ‘There’s nothing in Ian Kinch’s record that suggests he’s willing or capable of killing someone. Let alone four or five people.’
‘Unless things went awry,’ said Oily. ‘Whatever their original plan was it veered drastically when the Maguires arrived.’
‘Maybe he just took her for some fun,’ said Barker, raising an eyebrow. ‘She’s an attractive woman.’
That brought another hushed silence. Another scenario nobody wished to contemplate. But it gave Emmaline time to think.
‘We’re supposing that Ian Kinch would hand himself in if he was innocent,’ said Emmaline. ‘But what if you’d been threatened yourself, say by an associate with a criminal past like Nikos Iannis? Or by someone in power. Like Chester Grant.’
‘The MP?’ said Rispoli.
Emmaline nodded.
‘How’s he involved?’
Emmaline told them everything.
96 Mike Andrews
He despised being herded back to work like a dumb sheep. Using his penknife to work the dirt from underneath his fingernails helped ease his anger towards Lorcan. There was a wife and son – and Ian – to consider. He would see what Ian had come back with before contemplating a further move, though short of shackling and muzzling Lorcan Maguire he didn’t know what would appease him.
‘So what did you get?’ asked Mike.
Ian paced to the far end of the room.
‘She promised—’
‘Promised! She can’t deliver. Only handcuffs, a gag and a deep pit will stop that mutt!’
‘It’ll work,’ said Ian. ‘I know it.’
Mike enjoyed having Ian on the defensive. It was good to bark the orders rather than take them for once. At Skyline they shut up and did what they were told. And still got the boot.
‘We’ve an agreement,’ continued Ian. ‘A few bucks and they provide cover should anyone come sniffing around.’
‘I think we should call it quits and go,’ said Stevie.
Ian raised his voice. ‘No one goes. I don’t need anyone out there running their mouths about what’s going on here.’
‘I wouldn’t. I’m quiet.’
‘Compared to me,’ added Mike with a clack.
‘We’ve made enough for six or nine months, right?’ said Stevie. ‘If
we analyse the data for Murchison I’m sure there will be another sweet spot. Miles away from here.’
‘But if we stay we can make more,’ said Ian. ‘We have the find right here. I have them under control. We stick together. We get all we can and then dump the hangers-on.’
‘And if they have enough and decide to leave?’
‘Then I’ll deal with it.’
Ian stuck his hand into the middle like he wanted to initiate some schoolyard oath, hands on top of each other. Mike could see that Stevie was itching to leave. But Ian was right about one thing. Money was money. And Mike needed money. To start a company. To support himself. And his elderly parents. Plus he could rag Lorcan Maguire about the charity. He put his hand in the centre. He would play along for now. Stevie looked at them both, shaking his head even as he added his hand to the pile.
97 Naiyana
‘What was that about?’
‘What?’
‘Why were those two at the house? What did you do?’
‘What makes you think that I did anything?’ said Lorcan, exiting their bedroom. Dylan was standing in the hallway between them.
‘You didn’t go see them again, did you?’
‘I didn’t leave the house. Did we Dyl?’
Dylan shook his head. A long, frantic shake that told Naiyana that he was telling the truth, no glance towards his dad to confirm the appropriate answer, no chance to distort the truth.
‘What did Ian have to say?’
‘Nothing much. Just to keep our heads low. For you to keep your head low.’
‘I have to eat. We all have to eat.’
‘This will help.’ She under-armed the small bundle of notes towards him. ‘Three hundred. To help with the house.’
She watched as Lorcan let it drop, bouncing across the floor and nestling in the corner.
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