Shoot Through

by J. M. Green

  The phone told me I’d arrived at my destination. I looked around the street in confusion. Checked the number again.

  Ted had called it a unit, and I’d pictured a tiny two-room affair. But my mother didn’t buy a unit. It was a house. I had to adjust my expectations upwards.

  It was a grand weatherboard residence on a huge block, with a green lawn and the garden of her dreams. Less attractive was the corflute sign hammered into the front yard featuring a rubicund male in a National Party hat, with a smirk that said safe seat. Under this fetching portrait were the words Kelton McHugh: a steady hand. I loved my mother, but, boy, I didn’t get her. And her retired real-estate-agent life partner, Ted, was even more unfathomable.

  A path lined with standard roses led to the house, where they both waited on the veranda.

  ‘Hello, love. How was the trip? We’re just back from bowls. Come in. Mind how you go, we’re still unpacking so the place is in a state, but I’ve got scones in the oven.’

  Bowls then scones. She was more robot than human. But something about all this was wrong. She’d not criticised my appearance, my dead-end job, my lack of a wedding band.

  I could only conclude that Delia was happy, content with her new life here, and no longer burdened by the years of weather and market unpredictability on the farm. And so was Ted. He gave me the tour and used words like ‘character’ and ‘street appeal’. I didn’t object because, well, this house had those things.

  ‘And out here,’ he real-estated, ‘is a marvellous covered outdoor entertaining area.’

  A cane outdoor dining setting near a matching lounge suite upholstered in a tropical print, a well-stocked bar, a vast wall-mounted TV, ceiling fans, and an open fire place. By the time he showed me the in-ground pool, I was considering tossing in my flat for street appeal like this.

  When we were settled on the cane settee, with tea in a pot and a warm autumn breeze gently lifting sheets on the washing line, and with Delia slopping tablespoons of cream on my scone, I cleared my throat.

  ‘I have a bit of news.’ I smiled to reassure them that it wasn’t of the bad variety.

  Nonetheless, Delia’s face hardened, lips pursed, eyes staring faraway. After my father died suddenly — his plane crashed while crop dusting when I was sixteen — she’d had that frozen look for years. A way of bracing herself, I imagined, against any further shocks that life might throw at her.

  Ted chuckled. ‘Here we go,’ he said, stirring his tea.

  ‘About that boyfriend of yours?’ she asked.

  ‘No. It’s about Ben.’

  ‘What’s he done now?’

  ‘He has a girlfriend. He was seeing her before … well, before.’

  ‘Before he got chucked in the clink!’ Ted said. He may have been drinking.

  ‘Let her finish.’ Delia slapped him playfully on the knee. Eww.

  ‘She’s pregnant with his baby.’

  Ted was quiet, and Delia paused with her cup near her lips. ‘Can’t be,’ she said.

  I didn’t want to have this part of the conversation but there was no choice. ‘During a prison visit. There’s places prisoners can go, apparently, and the guards aren’t too vigilant.’

  Phew, with the nasty part out of the way, I told them about Loretta, starting with the fact that she was a country girl. Ben wanted to take care of her and the baby when he got out. She was staying at the Hardy farm in Woolburn with Kylie’s blessing — I exaggerated that part.

  Delia drew a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed an eye. ‘I hope it’s a girl.’

  Ted was up and shaking my hand, though I assured him it was none of my doing. ‘I’ll ring Kylie,’ he said. ‘Tell her and Tyler to come for dinner, bring the girl.’

  ‘Loretta.’

  ‘I’ll fire up the barbie.’

  Delia was laughing. ‘Sit down, you’ll do your back again.’

  They really were disgustingly happy.

  Later, I heard Delia on the phone to Kylie. She’d heard the wonderful news, and she thanked Kylie for putting Loretta up, offered to help with anything, and invited them all to dinner.

  Ted had his apron on and gave Delia a shopping list. ‘Might as well pick up Kelton’s letters while you’re out, Del.’

  Delia agreed and grabbed her keys. ‘Stella, come with me. We can have a chat.’

  A chat? Good. I clipped on my seatbelt. ‘Did you and Dad use NLIS tags on the sheep?’

  She adjusted the mirror. ‘Of course. You have to. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Kylie will need to do that for the cattle, won’t she?’

  ‘Obviously.’ She reversed down the driveway and fanged down the road.

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘Each farm has a code, and the tag has information about the animal and the farm. They keep track of the animal’s history. Handy if there’s an outbreak of disease. Exporters have to for the quality standards. But, even for local abattoirs, they want to know everything.’

  ‘And they get that info with a scanner?’

  ‘Yep. Same as they use in supermarkets. Info stored on a big database.’

  ‘So someone could hack into that?’

  She laughed. ‘Who’d want to hack stock information?’

  ‘I just want to know if it’s possible.’

  ‘Probably, love. I don’t know, to be honest.’ She parked in front of an empty shop.

  ‘What’s this place?’

  ‘Kelton’s campaign office, one of. Saves us driving up to Mildura all the time.’

  This electoral district was big — thirty-five thousand square kilometres. Current incumbent Kelton ‘a steady hand’ McHugh had his office in Mildura, over an hour away. This little outpost made perfect sense. A state election was looming, and even the safest of seats could be lost to a cleanskin independent with an ability to speak, remain sober, and refuse money from nefarious mobsters. McHugh was not going to let power slip, not for a moment.

  ‘Wait here,’ Delia said. ‘I need to whiz in for some leaflets.’

  I unbuckled my seatbelt. ‘I’ll come, too.’

  She looked askance at me. ‘Promise you won’t say anything.’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  21

  A WOMAN in a floral dress and pearls stood behind a counter. My mother called her Penny, she called my mother Del.

  ‘Out the back, Del. Your name’s on the box. Got you a map. If you like door-knocking, knock yourself out. Otherwise just letterboxes.’

  Penny hit a buzzer, and the door made a mechanical click. High-tech security for a temporary election hub. McHugh obviously wanted to screen unannounced visitors. Delia pushed it open and went through to a back room. I smiled at Penny, who responded with a blank look.

  ‘Is that your handbag?’ I asked Penny, pointing at an object with a shoulder strap sitting on the counter. A slice of peach, but made of plastic, and yet it seemed real — except for being four times the size of an actual peach. The colours were beautiful: the orange flesh, the flush near the pit, which, with its Velcro flap, was a handy spot for a mobile.

  She immediately moved the bag to a spot under the counter and out of my view. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’d you get it?’

  Penny shook her head. ‘A gift, from my cousin.’

  She didn’t want to say. So be it. But the proliferation of fruit handbags had me feeling inadequate. What did my dull, utilitarian handbag say about me? Nothing whimsical, that was for sure. And whimsy was, all of a sudden, crucial.

  Next minute, Kelton McHugh himself came in from the street holding a briefcase and jiggling a set of keys with a BMW logo tag on the ring.

  ‘Tell me, Penny, who might this young lady be?’ Kelton said, looking me up and down.

  Young? He was a skilled flatterer. Or lecherous old creep. Either one.

  ‘De
lia’s girl. From Melbourne.’

  ‘Kelton.’ He held out a soft hand. This was no farmer. No tractor-driving, hay-bailing, sheep-wrangling, dam-building, caked-in-dirt type. Kelton wrangled numbers, was good on the phone.

  ‘Stella Hardy. How’s the campaign going?’

  ‘Tremendous, Stella. Getting ready to do a doorstop. Keep these greenies in their place, with their claims about environmental destruction of rivers. Ordinary blokes need water-rights certainty, the system’s unmanageable otherwise — honest farmers can’t guarantee the land will produce. Entire community suffers. That kind of thing. Like it?’ A show of white teeth.

  ‘But most of those farms are run by overseas corporations, and the rivers are nearly dead.’

  ‘Oh nearly dead, but not quite. Besides, cotton farmers draining water from rivers is perfectly natural.’ He pulled out his mobile and started to read.

  ‘Natural to drain rivers? Okay, I’ll be sure to tell the voters you said that when Mum and I door knock for you.’

  Penny gave me a sceptical look, but McHugh put the phone in his jacket pocket and seemed ecstatic. ‘Hardy women are top quality. Your mother’s a godsend.’

  ‘Oh my word, Kelton.’

  ‘What do you do, Stella?’

  Delia interrupted, shouting from the back room that she couldn’t find the right box. Penny hit the buzzer and went through.

  ‘I’m helping Marcus Pugh’s campaign.’ A quarter truth. ‘Trying to get this prison problem to go away, new narrative about transparency, independent inspections, all that.’

  ‘Is that right? Sounds like quite a challenge.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a challenge just trying to understand the man. You know Marcus — he’s so vague. He sends me these cryptic texts, voicemails that sound like a foreign language.’

  He nodded. ‘Busy man, Marcus. Not an easy portfolio, I can tell you.’

  ‘I wonder if I could ask you to clarify something.’

  He frowned. ‘I doubt it. Separate parties. Apart from cabinet meetings, the odd dinner, I barely talk to him. Why don’t you call his office?’

  ‘Yes, I will. But while you’re here … what does it mean if he said, “sky was antsy”?’

  ‘Antsy? Not familiar with that. Not a donor, is it? Some lobby group?’

  ‘No, it means fidgety or restless, something like that.’

  ‘Really? American, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know the origin,’ I said, getting antsy. What a dolt. ‘Why would the sky be restless?’

  He stared at the ceiling. ‘Could be the eldest girl, from his first marriage. She married some chap from Hamilton, can’t remember the name. Simon? Philip? Something like that.’

  ‘Of course! Skye was upset about an auction and … Vincent got away?’

  He shrugged. ‘A painting?’

  ‘Heavily muscled.’

  ‘A horse, perhaps? The husband’s Western District, grazier. Breeds things with muscles.’

  ‘Probably a horse.’

  Delia came out carrying two cardboard boxes.

  ‘Let me help you, Mum.’ I put my hands out to take a box.

  She looked from Kelton McHugh to me, and the sight displeased her. ‘Just get the door.’

  I swung the door and allowed Delia to pass. I said to McHugh, ‘Marcus said he’d talk to Al about it.’

  ‘Al? Doesn’t ring any bells.’ McHugh knitted his brow. ‘Blast Pugh, what’s the context?’

  I needed him calm and forgetful. ‘No big deal, Al’s probably an intern. I’d appreciate it if you keep this between us, don’t want them thinking I’m incompetent.’

  He was vexed now. ‘What’s Skye’s auction got to do with the election?’

  ‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to his office. Thanks, Kelton.’

  I ran outside to help Delia get the boxes into the boot. I began to manoeuvre the boxes around in the small space, and she swatted my hands away.

  ‘Told you not to say anything,’ she hissed at me.

  ‘He started it.’

  Delia exhaled through her nose. ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Something about a horse called Vincent.’

  Delia whizzed into the supermarket, then whizzed into the butchers, then whizzed into the bottle-o, then whizzed into the bakery. While she was whizzing, I called Brophy and left a message. I virtually begged him to come up. Then I booked a room at the Woolburn pub. And then I fell to contemplating what Skye wanted with a horse, and, once again, who Al might be.

  By the time Delia whizzed us both back to her place, Ted had made a marinade for the chops, produced two salads, and mixed a jug of margaritas. Quite the catch, Ted.

  My main objective now was decent wi-fi and a computer. My phone was an option, but I was over forty and preferred a proper keyboard and a full-sized screen. I knew Ted had an iPad, but there was no way I could use it and keep my enquiries private. According to my mother, the nearest computer with internet access was the public library a fifty-minute drive away in Red Cliffs.

  I downed an excellent margarita and announced that I had to see a woman about a horse. I leapt into the Mazda, promising to be back by dinner time. The dead-straight road was a bit much, and I scanned the radio. Christian broadcasting, no, flicked again. A country station, oh yes indeed. I sang along with Patsy. Top of my lungs, all of my troubles, no one the wiser.

  The library, when I found it, was a handsome single-storey art deco building named for an A.S. Kenyon. A portrait of Kenyon greeted me as I entered the building. A senior gentleman, with a white goatee and moustache, seated with one hand on a book and the other tucked into his waistcoat, he peered into the distance through round-framed spectacles.

  Evidently he’d established Red Cliffs, and his innovative engineering had supplied water to the arid Mallee for fruit cultivation. He resembled a less flamboyant Colonel Sanders. Dried fruit trumped fried chicken any day of the week.

  I signed up for a library card and logged on. Typing a search for ‘Skye Pugh’ produced a gossip website which told me that she had married Alistair Redbridge, a Geelong Grammar old boy. The piece included pictures of a ceremony in 2009 at Como House, a National Trust property on rolling green lawns in the heart of Toorak, Melbourne’s poshest suburb.

  ‘Skye Redbridge’ and ‘horse’ yielded a picture of a young girl, about ten, in equestrian attire, standing with a slim woman, mid-forties, wearing a cream blouse and fawn jodhpurs, and with blonde hair escaping a soft French roll. Caption: Arabella Redbridge with her mother, Skye, at pony club.

  The search for ‘horse’ and ‘Vincent’ and ‘Skye Redbridge’ came up empty.

  There was a lot of information about Skye and Alistair and their farm, a sprawling cattle stud called Dougal Park. Four hundred and seventy hectares, or eleven hundred and sixty acres in the old measure. I digressed briefly into searching for the size of Australian farms to satisfy my curiosity and to put the Redbridge holding into perspective. It was one of the largest privately owned farms in the state. Farms owned by private equity were larger, like seven million hectares across numerous farms in Queensland and the Northern Territory.

  The Redbridge farm’s official website featured photos by a professional photographer. Cute, freckle-faced children sitting on post-and-rail fences. Photo after photo, I flipped through images of the children on horseback or arranged around a bull sporting the blue sash for first prize at the Royal Melbourne Show.

  A bull. I sat back, wanting to shout, ‘Hey everyone, Vincent is a bull! Skye is Pugh’s daughter!’

  Maybe not. I searched ‘bull’ and ‘Vincent’ and ‘auction’ and ‘heavily muscled’.

  Noise. Nothing useful. A sad tinkle of piano keys disturbed the quiet ennui of the library. I’d forgotten I’d set a Tom Waits song as my new ring tone. The hooker’s sad words on her Christmas card came through. I wai
ted till the last minute to answer so I could hear more of the song and almost missed the call. She’d quit drinking whiskey when I snatched it up.

  It was Percy Brash. ‘Make it out of Melbourne okay?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I died in a hail of bullets.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Right now?’ Azerbaijan. Tierra del Fuego. Greenland … Lie, tell him anything. Oh, what was the point? ‘Red Cliffs, near Mildura.’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘We’re talking now.’

  ‘I’m coming up. Need to protect my investment.’

  ‘I’m not your —’

  ‘Give me an address.’

  I hesitated. The last thing I needed was a man who looked like Al Capone showing up at Delia’s. Or the farm. Or anywhere. ‘It’s a long way.’

  ‘SAS, Hardy. He’ll find you and kill you before you’ve had time to shit yourself.’

  He had a point. Until Phuong arrested him, the SAS guy was at large and hunting me, though I doubted he’d find me out here. Reluctantly, I gave Brash directions to the Woolburn pub.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Hardy. I’ll be expecting all the specifics.’

  Specifics? I had Skye Redbridge, daughter of Pugh, owner of Dougal Park stud, a vast tract of prime agricultural country near Hamilton. It wasn’t much. I had other dots like Nunzio and Pugh, the hacking, and the probably-bull called Vincent. But I couldn’t join them up into a clear picture. I wrote the address of Dougal Park stud on the back of my hand, and then used that hand to wave goodbye to the librarian and give a passing salute to Alfred Kenyon, dried fruit king.

  The barbecue was underway when I returned. It was a clear, warm evening, and the Hardy clan were dining alfresco. Half the fare on offer was not compatible with a vegetarian diet. Instead, I enjoyed a hearty salad feast — mainly Ted’s excellent potato salad. Kylie and Tyler had brought more meat and more salad. Their twins, Blair and Chad, had each added another five centimetres to their height since Christmas, and were bony, elongated teenage boys with skin stretched to the limit.

  And Loretta was there, freshly showered, hair combed, and wearing a check shirt I recognised as Kylie’s. The result fitted beautifully into Delia’s ideals. In the kitchen, I asked Kylie if the clothes were her idea. She touched her nose; I tipped my hat. Kylie could be an utter bitch sometimes, but she wasn’t stupid. She understood Delia had to be kept happy, because the deal was not fully done, and a grumpy Delia might pull the pin on Kylie and sell the place. It was one of those rare instances when her self-interest aligned with mine.