Dark Country (Dungirri)

by Parry, Bronwyn

  ‘No.’ He’d been too focused on her, landing hard on the road, to even think of looking at the damned rego. He’d probably relive the moment a hundred times over the next few days. ‘Now, get in the car, out of the wind. You can phone Adam while I’m taking that tree trunk out of your arm.’

  She sat in the passenger seat, and he crouched beside her, using the open door as a small protection from the wind as he took out the wipes and bandages from the first-aid kit.

  Her conversation with her constable distracted both Gil and her from some of the discomforts of the task. While she briefly related what had happened, Gil inspected the damage to her skin. Her uniform had protected the rest of her body from significant abrasions and splinters, and the adrenaline and shock were probably masking the pain, but she’d be aching before too long.

  He decided he’d just deal with the main sources of bleeding now – a large splinter, and a cut – and do the rest in Dungirri, with better light and some warmth and water. Or better yet, get someone more qualified than him to do it.

  ‘Don’t try to stop the vehicle, Adam,’ she was saying. ‘He tried to run me down, so it’s too dangerous when you’re on your own. I just want the rego number, vehicle type, and if you can get any idea of the occupants.’ She winced as Gil eased a three centimetre-long sliver of wood from above her elbow and pressed a dressing against the wound. ‘No, it’s okay.’

  Gil caught her eye. ‘Is there a nurse or a doctor in town? Someone who knows the proper way to do this stuff?’

  She nodded. ‘Adam, could you ask Beth if she’s free? I’ve got a couple of scrapes she could look at. Thanks.’

  She finished the call, dropped the phone on her lap, and Gil felt her watching him as he swabbed the cut on her forearm.

  Her attention unnerved him, making him too conscious of his fingers on her skin. Touching her should have been impersonal, detached. But there were parts of his brain that had missed that message, parts noticing the pale smoothness of her skin, the slimness of her wrist, and taunting him with impossibilities.

  ‘We’ve got to stop doing this to each other, Gillespie,’ she said.

  He swallowed, pretended to hunt for another swab without seeing a thing in the kit. First aid. Patching each other up. That’s what she meant. Not …

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Definitely gotta stop it.’

  Kris dropped her head back against the headrest while Gil put the first-aid kit away. She was cold, tired, aching all over, and struggling against the effects of shock. On top of a god-awful day that wasn’t finished yet, it was enough to make her want to curl into the foetal position and howl.

  Tempting though the idea was, it wouldn’t solve a damned thing. She pulled Gil’s jacket closer around her shoulders. In the rush this morning, she’d left her own uniform jacket at home, but she found the bulk of Gil’s and the subtle male scent of him oddly comforting.

  Comforting? She almost laughed at the thought. It definitely wasn’t the first word that came to mind when contemplating Gil Gillespie.

  And yet … he’d automatically gone to help clear the road when they’d first stopped, before she’d either asked or suggested. Even now he was kicking away the pieces of wood on the road, getting rid of the worst of the debris. Simply doing what needed to be done, capable and practical, without any grandstanding or complaining. Lifting a little of the weight of responsibility from her shoulders, or at least sharing it, for a short time.

  She should get out and help, but her body rebelled against the idea of movement. He’d almost finished, anyway.

  Cold air swirled into the car when he opened the driver’s door and got in, sliding the seat back to accommodate his height. Turning on the ignition, he glanced over the dashboard, found the heater and turned it up to maximum.

  He adjusted the rear-view mirror, and the side mirror, and she had to respect his caution.

  ‘Anything I should know about driving this thing?’ he asked.

  ‘Just go lightly on the accelerator. There’s a fair amount of power behind it.’

  He nodded. ‘How do you turn the emergency lights off?’

  ‘Isn’t it every guy’s fantasy to drive a cop car with lights flashing?’

  She’d been trying to keep it relaxed between them, but she heard his teeth grind.

  ‘It’s not my fantasy.’ There was nothing relaxed at all in his growl, and she sensed his withdrawal from her again.

  Shit. Wrong words. Gil, with his obvious distrust of police, wouldn’t get a thrill from that kind of thing.

  She reached to the centre console, flicked a button and turned of the flashing lights. Now only the headlights shone into the blackness.

  Gil kept a good ten kilometres under the speed limit all the way back. He’d left Dungirri this morning as a prisoner; having to drive a police car back in to town less than twelve hours later verged on bizarre. Despite the justification of the situation, Kris suspected her superiors might not look lightly on an ex-con under suspicion of murder being at the wheel of a police car. She hoped she wouldn’t have to mention it.

  On the edge of Dungirri, Adam’s utility was parked by the side of the road, and the headlights picked him up standing near it, a dark jacket obscuring his uniform. She noted his sensible thinking in not using the police car, alone and without backup. If the thug who’d tried to run her down had a thing against police, at least Adam wouldn’t be an obvious target.

  ‘That’s Adam,’ she told Gil. ‘Can you stop?’

  Sparing barely a glance for Gil, Adam came straight to Kris’s window when they pulled over, his usually cheery face creased with concern.

  ‘You’re really okay, Kris?’

  ‘Yes. Any sign of the idiot?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s been dead quiet. He must have turned off on to one of the tracks. I’ll stay out here a bit longer, though, in case he’s lurking until after you’ve passed.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Beth is on her way to your place. I’ll give it fifteen minutes or so here, then meet you up there.’

  The town was quiet as Gil drove through the few blocks. Lights from the Truck Stop and the pub were about the only signs of life, a few cars parked here and there, but the main street was even quieter than usual.

  Kris doubted the black vehicle would come through town. It could have taken any one of half a dozen side tracks through the bush surrounding the town, might be almost back in Birraga by now, or miles away in any other direction. Their chances of tracking it down and charging the driver amounted to near-zilch, and that fact did nothing to improve her mood.

  Her mood worsened still further as they approached the police station, and she saw the cars out in front of the Memorial Hall next door, its doors wide open and people milling around, inside and out. Of course, that’s where a fair few town residents were tonight, decorating the hall for the ball tomorrow night – and now watching Gil Gillespie park the police car in front of the station.

  ‘Shit. The working bee tonight. I’d forgotten about it.’

  His mouth a hard line, Gil didn’t say anything.

  Kneeling on the veranda of the hall, Jim Barrett paused in the act of hammering in a floorboard, and slowly stood up. Karl Sauer and a mate, loading paint tins into the back of a ute turned and stared, Karl taking a few steps forward, and from the window of the kitchen several female faces watched, new lace curtains pulled back for a better view.

  ‘Maybe it’s for the best that they’ve seen us,’ she said quietly. ‘Most people have enough sense to know that if I thought you were a murderer, you wouldn’t be driving me around the countryside.’

  He still didn’t respond. Staring at the hall, he unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door slowly.

  Kris climbed stiffly out of the car.

  ‘Everything all right, Kris?’ Jim called out.

  ‘Yes. Had a close encounter with a road, at some speed. Some bloody moron tried to run me over. It’s just scratches and bruises, though.’ Including a hol
ster-shaped one on her hip that was now making its presence felt as she put weight on her leg.

  Loud enough for the spectators to hear, she turned to Gil and added, ‘Thanks for everything, Gil. I really appreciate all your help today.’

  She couldn’t exactly apologise for his arrest – that might get her into legal hot water – but she figured her words might convince the audience that he’d cooperated fully and was not under suspicion.

  Beth emerged from the hall, her large first-aid pack weighing down one shoulder. She raised her hand in a casual wave to someone inside, carefully stepped over the floorboard Jim was fixing, and strolled across the grass to them.

  ‘Walking wounded, I see,’ Beth said cheerfully. ‘I’m glad it’s not worse.’

  ‘So am I,’ Kris answered dryly.

  Gil came around the side of the car and, with a nod to Beth, opened the back door to retrieve his bag.

  ‘Hello, Gil,’ Beth greeted him with quiet warmth, with none of the tension that was emanating from the hall. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  Of course, Kris thought, they’d both grown up in Dungirri, must have known each other as kids. Kris would have to ask Beth what she knew about him; although she couldn’t really imagine sweet, quiet Beth and the hard-edged Gil having had much in common.

  Gil didn’t smile, but the wariness in him seemed to relax a little.

  ‘Hi, Beth.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kris saw that the curtain in the kitchen had fallen back into place, and she heard Jim’s hammering start up again. Good. The odds of another lynching tonight had just reduced. Maybe the renaissance of community spirit, led by the Progress Association, was having a positive effect.

  With some reluctance, Kris shrugged off Gil’s jacket and handed it back to him, the chill without it adding to her discomfort. She should get inside, turn the heater on, but he stood there with his bag, about to leave, and for reasons she didn’t try to comprehend she wasn’t ready to let him walk away for good just yet.

  ‘It would be useful to have a witness statement from you, Gil, if you’d be willing to give one.’ A logical request. She hoped he wouldn’t refuse.

  He might have considered it for a moment, but eventually said, ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

  ‘Can you come back after you’ve taken your things to Jeanie’s? Beth should be finished with me by then. If I can get the incident report finalised tonight, then Steve Fraser can get onto it first thing in the morning.’

  He slung his jacket over his shoulder. ‘Sure. If that’s what you want.’

  The lack of enthusiasm in his voice spurred her to convince him. ‘I want to arrest him, Gil, and charge him. It could have been any one of my officers out there tonight. Half the time we’re travelling alone, because we cover a huge region and there’s not many of us. The sooner we get the information together and circulating, the better chance we have of finding him, and the safer my staff will be.’

  She paused to take a breath, a little surprised at her own passion and anger. Coming on top of such a tense day, maybe the near-miss had made her more on edge, more shaken than she’d realised. Yet he’d had to face more than she had – the brutal death of a woman he’d known, his arrest and hours of questioning.

  She slowed her breathing and continued more calmly, ‘Gil, I can’t do much about finding Marci’s killer. That investigation is out of my hands. But I do want to find that driver, before he does someone real harm.’

  Gil seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. He nodded, and said simply, ‘I’ll be back in a while,’ before he turned and walked off down the road.

  From the looks he’d been getting from Jim Barrett and others at the hall, Gil half-expected to hear shouts or footsteps racing up behind him, but the only voice he heard was Beth’s, urging Kris inside and into the warmth.

  He’d probably never spoken more than a few words to Beth in his life, but from the little he knew about her, Kris was in good hands. Painfully shy and bookish as a kid, Beth had overcome her reserve enough as a young teenager to join the St John’s volunteer ambulance in Birraga as a cadet. Hanging around the fringes of events in Birraga and Dungirri – football matches, the Birraga show, the Christmas festival – he’d seen her, always neat in her black and white uniform, part of the community in a way he’d never be.

  When Dungirri had first hit the news, almost two years ago, he’d felt little more than a flicker of connection, only what he might have felt for any town facing such a tragedy. When it had made the news again last summer, with a second little girl abducted, it had been harder to put from his mind. Not because of the fact that his old man had somehow been in the wrong place at the wrong time – he still felt no sorrow about that – but because the child’s parents were Ryan and Beth. Ryan was the closest thing to a mate he’d ever had in his youth, and Beth, with her shy nature and huge doe-eyes, the kind of girl any half-way decent guy would want to protect.

  The shadow of what had happened the previous time a kid was taken had hung over the long days of waiting, and Gil had found himself tuning in to almost every radio news bulletin. When he’d heard that the child had been found alive and unharmed, he’d done what he rarely did – poured himself a Scotch and drunk it, straight.

  He’d never expected, all those months ago, that he’d ever set foot in Dungirri again. Until that lawyer had pulled a stool up to the bar a few weeks back and he’d discovered how much he really owed Jeanie, the idea of returning had never crossed his mind.

  But now he was here, and what should have been a simple, fleeting visit to Jeanie had become as complicated as all hell. Maybe that’s why his mind had strayed to things done and past rather than working on the present problems – Marci’s murder, his arrest, the sergeant’s near-miss. He had no answers yet, for any of them.

  His steps slowed as he approached the Truck Stop. The teenage girl. Megan. Another complication. He still couldn’t get his head around her existence, his brain constantly shying away from the ‘d’ word.

  He paused on the driveway, his hesitation not so much because he didn’t want to see her, more that he didn’t want to be seen with her. Someone might notice the resemblance, and it had to be far better for her if she never knew who he was. He’d set up a financial arrangement with Jeanie so that the kid wouldn’t ever need for money, but other than that he’d steer clear of her. He’d made the decision on his walk this morning, and the day’s events had only confirmed the sense of it.

  A couple of empty cattle trucks were parked out front, and through the brightly lit café windows he saw it was Jeanie, not the girl, taking drinks to the drivers’ table. They were the only customers.

  He waited until she returned to the kitchen, then pushed the door open and went inside. The truck drivers gave him a couple of seconds of attention, but he didn’t recognise them, and their interest passed after he gave them a curt nod.

  Jeanie turned a couple of steaks on the grill, lifted a basket of chips out of the deep-fryer and propped it to drain before she saw him.

  ‘Gil! Thank God. Come on through.’

  In the once-familiar kitchen, he dropped his bag near the back door out of Jeanie’s way while she was cooking. She was reaching for a new can of pineapple, from a shelf almost too high for her, and he leaned over and got it for her.

  ‘Thank you, Gil,’ she said, with the same warm, sincere smile that had gentled the wild kid he’d once been. Even after all these years, her simple gratitude still had the power to affect him, with an unsettling mix of pride in her approval and fear he’d disappoint her. Whatever was decent in him he owed mostly to Jeanie.

  Busy putting together side salads, she cast a cautious glance across at the two diners and lowered her voice. ‘I was worried about you. I phoned Kris a few times, but she wasn’t allowed to tell me much. The woman – she was someone you knew?’

  ‘It was Marci Doonan.’

  Jeanie knew enough of his history to recognise the name. ‘Oh, Gil, I’m so
sorry. That must have been awful. And then to be arrested like that …’

  ‘It’s okay, Jeanie. They released me a couple of hours ago. The sergeant gave me a lift back.’ Keen to avoid discussing things any further, he switched subject. ‘Is that offer of the cabin still open?’

  She shot him a sharp look, but didn’t ask any questions. ‘Absolutely. I’ve cleaned it out, and it’s ready for you. The key’s in the door.’

  ‘Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.’

  ‘Take your stuff out the back. The grill’s hot – would you like a steak for dinner?’

  His stomach threatened to rumble. The sandwich Macklin had brought him at lunchtime seemed a long time ago.

  ‘I can’t stay just now. I have to go back up to the station. The sergeant … there was some trouble on the way back. Some bastard tried to run her down.’ He heard the roar of the engine again, the sound of her hitting her car, and swallowed hard, dragging his concentration back to the present.

  ‘She’s hurt?’ Jeanie’s hands were already reaching for her apron ties, ready to whisk it off to go and help.

  ‘Minor scrapes, nothing major. Beth Fletcher … Wilson,’ he corrected himself, ‘is with her at the moment. But she needs my witness statement.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  He almost said ‘no’, then remembered the state of Kris’s fridge. ‘Does she eat takeaway?’

  Jeanie’s frayed smile didn’t erase the worry in her eyes. ‘Works burger. She reckons it’s almost healthy.’

  ‘Better make it two, then. I’ll go and put my bag in the cabin.’

  She had the burgers and onion on the grill before he was out the back door.

  The cabin was a portable job of the kind used for accommodation in mining camps and the like. Two small rooms, each with a couple of single beds, on either side of a basic bathroom. It had been beside the Truck Stop, up against the fence, for as long as Gil could remember. Back when he’d worked there in his teens, it had only had occasional use – a family stranded by a car breakdown, an old guy wandering the roads on his bicycle seeking better shelter than his tent during rainy weather. People who, for various reasons, didn’t want to stay in the pub across the road. Like himself. The bloke at the pub would probably throw him out if he showed his face in there again.