‘I can see to the camp stuff myself,’ Tilly volunteered. ‘I’ve got it down pat now. Clean the ablution block, rake out the ash beneath the donkeys, light the fire, restock the wood supply, empty the rubbish, check the tank and the pump . . .’
‘Okay,’ Sophie said, nodding. ‘But be careful at the river, won’t you? I noticed the supply of leaflets was low in the box too, so take a few extra. My turn to cook tomorrow – where are you up to, Matt?’
‘I’ll be getting back to the grader.’ He frowned. ‘Just hope no buggers been at it. Ain’t much of a step from stealing wildlife to nicking a battery or damagin’ something. I’d’ve brought it back if I’d known.’
‘Let’s hope they were too concentrated on getting away,’ Sophie said heavily. ‘They’d have come in and left on the old mining tracks, I expect. Right, I’d better report it to head office. Is it worth asking them for special parrot-chick feed, Luke? They could contact a zoo, I suppose, find out if such a thing is available.’
‘It’s a nice thought, but not unless there’s a private jet involved. The chicks’d starve before it got here. I’ll see what I can do with what we’ve got. Is there a rolling pin, Tilly?’
She raised her brows at him. ‘Uh-huh. Why on earth—?’
‘I thought maybe if I crush the seed, mix it with something – got any ideas? It needs to be sort of sloppy, but not too much so.’
Mentally running through a list of the cupboard contents, Tilly said doubtfully, ‘You could try glucose syrup, perhaps. It’s sort of gluggy, and isn’t it used to rehydrate patients? It works for the glider, after all.’
‘Worth a try,’ he decided and she went to find it for him.
Both chicks survived the night. The following morning, Tilly, carrying her lunch and thermos, stopped in at the animal enclosure on her way to the shed and found Luke bent patiently above the new arrivals, using the finger and thumb of his right hand to simulate a beak, while the other held a pellet of food ready to poke down the chick’s gullet if and when it opened its mouth.
‘Getting anywhere?’ she asked.
‘Morning.’ He looked tired and unshaven. ‘Let’s just say it’s a battle. The smaller one’s fairly weak, but I think this chap’s starting to get the idea. You off, then?’
‘Yes. Do I need to fuel up?’
‘Always,’ he said definitely. ‘Never take a vehicle out unless the tank’s full. You dunno where you might end up, and you don’t wanna walk the last twenty kay. And watch yourself at the river. Remember the big salty’s still in there.’
‘I will,’ she promised. ‘Good luck with your babies, Luke. Don’t forget to feed the little glider, will you? I’ll see you tonight.’
By now Tilly was practised at the domestic part of the job. She parked beside the ablution block and began methodically on the chores, scrubbing the concrete floors with a stiff brush, cleaning toilets, heaving the day’s allocation of wood off the vehicle’s tray and spading yesterday’s ash into the bucket, before starting a modest fire beneath the donkey. She replaced the shovel and broom in their simple cabinet, slid the padlock closed and turned to heft the bucket of ash onto the vehicle. Movement behind her caught the corner of her eye, and she swung quickly around to see Connor approaching.
‘Here, let me get that,’ he said. He swung the receptacle into the circle of the spare tyre. ‘Morning, Tilly. Where’s Luke today?’
‘Busy.’ Dusting her hands off on her jeans, she eyed him, her dislike palpable. ‘So who are you really, Connor Doyle?’
His gaze flickered for an instant, the easy smile momentarily frozen in place. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I mean, seeing that you aren’t a botanist and there isn’t a research grant, we’d really like to know who exactly the WPA has been housing and feeding. And by the way, there are camp fees due before you push off.’
Connor held still with only that betraying flicker of the eyes; she could almost sense his mind scrambling for a plausible explanation. ‘Listen, there’s some mistake—’ he began, but she cut him off contemptuously.
‘Don’t bother. I’ve spoken to the uni who, you won’t be surprised to learn, have never heard of you – or your research. It was a nice touch, I must say, carrying an orchid handbook in the glove box. Very professional! You lied to us, wormed your way into our lives and you searched our rooms. You even went through the sheds, Matt said. For all I know, Doyle’s not even your real name.’
‘Well, it is,’ he said flatly. ‘And I did study botany, though I admit I didn’t come away with a degree. And I’m sorry about going through your things, Tilly. I felt bad about that. I had no right but it was necessary at the time. I—’
‘You certainly hadn’t,’ she said fiercely. ‘What are you, some sort of pervert that gets off on sneaking into women’s panty drawers? I should—’
He raised his hands. ‘Please! It wasn’t like that. I would never . . . If you’d just give me five minutes to explain.’
‘And I’d do that so, what? You could spin another lie? I haven’t the power to throw you off the place, more’s the pity, but I can report you to the police, so maybe that’s just what I’ll do—’
‘Wait!’ He’d raised his voice into a bark of command and Tilly stiffened, casting a rapid look behind her. It was still early but there must be somebody stirring in the camp. She’d scream if he took a single step towards her, she promised her suddenly thudding heart.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Connor must have sensed her unease for he made dampening motions with his hands. ‘I didn’t mean to yell, only you mustn’t ring the police, or tell anyone. I mean it, Tilly. Please, just let me explain. I’m not a crook, if that’s what you’re thinking, but it’s important that nobody else tumbles to the truth.’
‘Oh yes.’ She folded her arms. ‘I expect this is where you disclose that you’re ASIO or something, chasing a spy who’s made off with the blueprints for a new superweapon or a better set of pram wheels, maybe. If that’s the case, save your breath.’
His lips twitched involuntarily as he shook his head. ‘Nothing like that. I’m a Customs officer working with Sergeant Burns and a handful of other coppers trying to break a drug ring. We know the stuff’s coming in across the Straits, so there has to be boats involved, but it’s not being funnelled through the port of Darwin. Which is why we’re checking other options. Like Binboona.’ He took a breath and finished with a blunt pronouncement. ‘We have reason to think your husband is part of it. That’s why I’m here, because we have never believed that he’s dead. Now please, just let me explain.’
‘No,’ Tilly said vehemently for the third time. ‘Not drugs. Gerry wouldn’t do that. All right, he’s lied. I know that. He’s alive and hiding out, and he’s obviously involved in something clandestine’—she couldn’t bring herself to say criminal—‘but not drugs. I’ve never known him to touch them.’
They were sitting on folding stools under the flyrig at Connor’s camp. A small double-handled tin sat next to the fire, the edges of the water within it just beginning to bubble. Connor rose to drop tea leaves into it and lift it from the flames.
‘What is that thing?’ Tilly asked, distracted.
‘Quartpot. Stockmen carry them on their saddles. Quicker than a billy.’ He tapped the side with a stick, waited while the leaves settled, then poured half the contents into a tin mug. ‘There you go – sugar?’
‘I don’t want tea.’ She took the cup and immediately set it aside. ‘I want to know what your coming to Binboona to spy on us has to do with running drugs.’ The moment the words left her mouth, she made the connection and her hands flew to her mouth. ‘It was me, wasn’t it? You thought that Gerry – that I . . .? That’s why the police came that day. And then you turned up, after.’ Her eyes went wide as she remembered.
‘Burns got impatient. He wasn’t willing to wait. Once he’d got you offside, though, he had to leave it to me. He came back only because we couldn’t think of any reason for me to have those photos you l
ooked at.’
‘I was going to refuse,’ Tilly said contemptuously, ‘only you turned up to play the good cop and convinced me to do it. That was well orchestrated, I must say.’
He said quietly, his words confirming her guess, ‘I haven’t liked deceiving you. And strictly speaking, I’m not a cop. But Customs play an important role in the country’s defence, so I’m not ashamed of the job I do. And in fact, I’d exonerated you of any involvement only a day or two after we met.’
‘So why were you still searching? Matt said you were in the sheds and you can’t have suspected Sophie of importing drugs, for God’s sake!’
‘Somebody is, Tilly.’ He looked at her across the blackened quartpot, and she absently picked up her own cup and took a sip. ‘But it’s not just Binboona we’re checking out. There’s a young Stock Squad copper in the camp at Spadgers Creek, keeping an eye out there. They have coastal access too, so theoretically the drugs could be run ashore on their country. Somebody at the station could be involved. That, by the way, is classified information, so I’m trusting you to keep it between us – all right?’
‘I suppose,’ she muttered. ‘Did you say you had sugar?’
‘Here.’ He reached behind him and handed her a lidded tin. ‘There’s a spoon it it. So do the other rangers know about me being a ring-in yet?’
‘Not yet. I only rang the uni yesterday while they were all out, then Luke and Sophie came rushing back for the ladder, and everyone was so upset about the birds it didn’t seem important—’
Connor looked bemused, his tea forgotten. ‘Ladder?’
She told him about the birders and the rescued chicks, and he nodded.
‘Yeah, that’s something else we watch for. Look, I’m going to ask you not to say anything about me. To anybody at all, and that includes the police.’ He hesitated, ‘You’re going to ask, so I have to tell you. Burns suspects that some of his fellow cops are dirty, and if they catch even a hint of our operation it will fail and months of work will be wasted. Also your life could be at risk. In this case, ignorance is the safest path. I’m serious, Tilly. Drug runners are ruthless bastards. If there’s a loose end, a thread that could lead to their capture – like, for instance, you knowing that your husband isn’t dead . . . Well, they won’t hesitate to kill.’
Ice seemed to fill Tilly’s veins even as she protested vehemently. ‘I’ve told you Gerry isn’t . . . and anyway, he would never let me be harmed!’
‘He mightn’t have a choice,’ Connor said grimly. ‘There’re billions at stake here and at best he’s a foot soldier, as expendable as any frontline trooper. So will you promise me, Tilly, please? For your sake? Not a word to anyone.’
She rocked forward on the stool as if she were in pain, closing her eyes as the gravity of his words and manner sank in. Once . . . there was a time when she had a child and a man she loved and thought she could trust. When she had a future and believed in happily ever after – and see what had come of it! She wanted to howl her loss for fairytales that weren’t true, for faith smashed on the anvil of reality. Gerry had done this to her, had tossed a grenade of lies and deceit into her life and then vanished, leaving her alone in the wreckage.
‘Tilly?’ A tentative hand touched her shoulder and was withdrawn. ‘Are you okay?’
She straightened, blurred eyes blank and dark with grief. ‘No,’ she said bitterly. ‘I’m not. And yes, I won’t tell.’ And with that admission of belief in his warning, she felt the last vestige of her love for Gerry die. Now she truly was the widow the world believed her to be.
Chapter Seventeen
Over the following week the smaller of the two black cockatoo chicks grew gradually worse, then, just when Luke had pronounced that it couldn’t live, made a remarkable recovery. The sugar glider too, having thrived on its diet, was to Tilly’s secret regret returned to its habitat, disappearing up a tree with a whisk of its extraordinary tail.
‘It’s so cute,’ she lamented to Luke, as she watched it vanish. ‘Another week and it’d be as tame as a kitten.’
‘Which is not what we want,’ he reproved her. ‘They’re wild animals, not pets.’
‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘Only we can’t have pets at Binboona. Not cats or dogs, anyway.’
‘There’s Harry and Mickey – they’ll never leave.’
‘Oh, birds.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘They’re not exactly cuddly. I know, you think they’re God’s greatest creation, but I prefer the furry things. So, what next?’
‘We’ll take a run out to the springs. I want to check the track. Seeing Matt’s got the grader halfway there, it might be worth his while to grade into ’em – if it’s dry enough. We’ll head back first, make our lunches, grab a cuppa and go. Maybe the mail’ll be in before we leave.’
Tilly nodded. ‘How’s Jane these days?’
‘She’s good, thanks.’
‘You’re still counting the days to the Wet?’ That was when they took their breaks away, with Binboona’s staff reduced to care-taker mode for the monsoon.
‘Yep, can’t wait.’ He looked so young and hopeful that Tilly felt a momentary ache of anxiety for him. Dreams were so easily crushed. She hoped that Luke’s would last. It was hard for her to view him objectively because he was so like a younger brother, but surely most girls would think him quite a dish, especially with the added allure of being a rugged outdoor type. Though could you really call his beanpole frame rugged?
‘Have you gone into a trance, Tilly?’ he demanded then and she came back to herself with a jolt.
‘Huh? Oh, sorry. Ready if you are, then.’
Sophie was sorting the mail when they returned. She handed two letters to Luke, and Tilly, busy with their lunches while the kettle whistled, saw him tuck them into his breast pocket with a smile. He’d read them later, in private, where he could dream of their author, she thought. The shriek from the stove continued and she leant over to poke him with the handle of the bread knife. ‘Who’s in a trance now? Can you fill the thermoses, Luke?’
It was the first time that Tilly had been in the southern area of the property, and she was amazed at the tangle of old overgrown tracks leading every which way through the ridge country fronting the distant escarpment. She knew some, like the one they followed, were the original station tracks leading to old yards and watering points. Here and there the remains of fences still showed, or the rotted footings of a tank, but the rest of the tracks seemed a mad tangle with no discernable purpose.
‘Mineral exploration,’ Luke said when she asked. ‘The Mines Department had geologists crawling all over the north back in the fifties. They bulldozed their way through the country, and this is what’s left. You can still see their old camps dotted about.’
‘Didn’t the stations object? They owned the land, didn’t they?’
‘They leased it,’ he corrected. ‘It actually belongs to the Crown. And mining rights take precedence over grazing. It’s not all bad though, we use some of their roads – the station probably did too. On the other hand, they make it dead easy for the traffickers. Without these tracks they couldn’t get around half so well.’
‘So, a mixed blessing then.’ Tilly winced as the front wheel fell into a hole and her elbow banged against the door. ‘You sure you don’t want to go back? There’s bound to be bumps you missed.’
‘Very funny. We’ll collect ’em on the way home.’
The springs, Tilly learnt, were at the foot of the escarpment, in a gentle vale whose southern side rose to the rugged cliff face of fragmented ochre rock. Some time in the distant past, large sections of it had collapsed, forming a broken ridge of slabs and boulders through which a scrub of wattle, ironwood and grevillea had sprouted.
‘It doesn’t look awfully safe,’ she said, eyeing the rockfalls. ‘Isn’t this the same cliff we were working on with the path?’
‘Yeah, but that’s back where it parallels the river. Nobody’s got plans to scale this lot, and you’ll notice the track keeps well c
lear of it, mainly because the ground’s so boggy. The water spreads underground for hectares here. We’ll have to walk in. Basically, the whole area is one big spring, it’s just that the actual water’s only visible here and there.’
‘So why don’t we let the campers come here?’
‘Too difficult to set up facilities and control it. It’s fragile country. A lot of the vegetation is unique to the springs, and it’d be tramped down, the ground would compact under foot traffic because people’d want to swim . . . Sophie’s got plans for supervised day visits, but the road has to be upgraded first and some sort of fencing done, maybe a boardwalk to protect the flora. There’s all sorts of wildflowers too. The WPA mightn’t be willing or able to fund that much infrastructure. It’s not as if we get tens of thousands of visitors to pay for it.’
‘We got over four thousand last year,’ Tilly pointed out.
‘Mmm, and what do you reckon a kilometre or two of boardwalk would cost? Not to mention labour and the freight involved getting it here.’
‘I see what you mean. With that and the road . . .’ As she spoke, they encountered another fallen tree across their path. Luke pulled up. ‘No way we can drive around with that gully blocking the side. We’ll have to clear it.’
‘I’ll get it.’ Tilly hopped out, grabbing the hook from the bullbar’s winch, and towed the line out and looped the steel cable about the trunk. She stuck her thumb up at Luke, who engaged four-wheel drive and then, chin on shoulder, backed up until he reached a point where he could tow the fallen tree off the road.
‘That’s the second one,’ he said, shoving the low gear into neutral as she regained her seat. ‘Must’ve been a helluva big wind that came through here.’
‘It’s not a blow-down,’ she said. ‘I thought it had burnt through, but it’s been chainsawed.’
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