Dark Country (Dungirri)

by Parry, Bronwyn

  ‘Do you still have the package?’

  ‘I hid it out at the old man’s place. It should still be there. But it’s close on twenty years old, Blue. Not much good then, to be honest, as anything more than a bluff, and even less use to the police now. I doubt the photos and tapes will have lasted.’

  She pushed herself to her feet. ‘Let’s go and find out.’

  TWELVE

  Gil wanted to give the new bike a decent run, so he rode out on it, Kris following in her own car. The Birraga road was quiet, only a single vehicle, a dusty white ute, heading into Dungirri. Not anyone he recognised.

  Three kilometres out he signalled the right turn, taking the sharp corner onto the dusty track carefully.

  Eighteen years since he’d been along this road. Anywhere else, it might have been a pleasant country lane. With eucalypts on either side, their branches reaching out to form archways above, shadowing the road, and between the trees the native bushes a mass of small spring wildflowers, white and pink and yellow.

  But the track led past the old shack he’d grown up in, and he’d trudged along it too many times as a kid, desperately dredging up the courage to face the old man, never sure whether he’d meet violence or the hard stone wall of silence.

  Even when he’d grown taller than him, filled out with some muscle, the violence hadn’t ended, just changed. The old man gave up belting him, but he’d lash out sometimes, unpredictable and irrational, using anything to hand – timber, steel bars, tools. Gil had learned to be constantly aware, on edge, even in his sleep, listening for the rough catch of breath that heralded a swing.

  Between those episodes, there’d been only silence. No conversations, no arguments, no acknowledgment of his existence beyond a sporadic growled order.

  If it made a man a bastard to be glad his father was dead, then so be it – he’d wear the label. To pretend anything else would be hypocrisy.

  He steered the bike cautiously along the track at a moderate speed, the corrugations in the dirt hazardous enough for four wheels, let alone two.

  A kilometre or so along, a sharp bend followed old property boundaries, and the place came into view. On one side of the road, the large paddocks were cleared for grazing, only a scattering of trees here and there. On the other side, the old shack, more decrepit than he remembered it, stood shadowed by trees; beyond it lay two hundred remnant acres of the native bush. Land he technically owned, now, since the old man’s death. Other than having his accountant pay years of overdue council rates, he’d scarcely given it a thought.

  He parked the bike in the shade of a tree, outside the fence. Kris wasn’t far behind him, and he waited for her, unbuckling his helmet, welcoming the fresh air on his face.

  The gate swung open in the breeze, one hinge twisted off the gatepost. The shack seemed smaller than it had been, with more corrugated iron and rough timber patching up the old slabs. The junk around it had increased, though – a second ancient truck rusting away in the scrub, broken machinery, boxes of empty bottles and other rubbish. The outdoor dunny had collapsed on itself, and the corrugated-iron shed tilted drunkenly towards the tank stand, itself developing a definite lean.

  The car pulled up, the door slammed, and he heard Kris’s footsteps, felt her beside him.

  ‘Is this the first time you’ve been back?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Miserable place.’

  He agreed, but to admit it aloud might give the memories too much power.

  The old lines appeared in his head again: The wheel has come full circle; I am here.

  Here, but an adult now, not a kid. Strengthened by the lessons he’d learned, the hard knocks he’d survived, the life he’d built for himself through hard work and guts.

  And he’d not only survived but succeeded, when all the old man had ever done was fail.

  The last part of the quote echoed in his mind, but this time as a statement, and a challenge: I am here.

  Kris beside him, he went through the gate and walked across the dry ground to the shack.

  The corrugated-iron door, too, was already open, squeaking in the light breeze, and she hesitated, falling a step behind him.

  ‘Were you here? After they found him?’ he asked.

  From what they’d told him, he could imagine what she’d seen; the man on the bed, rifle in his mouth, blood, bone, and brains spattered across the wall. Murder set up to look like suicide.

  ‘Yes. I secured the scene, waited while forensics examined it, and until the Deputy Coroner came. And I returned later, with Jeanie, when she checked to see if there were any belongings or papers that you should have. There wasn’t much at all.’

  ‘I know. She wrote and told me. You don’t have to come in, Blue,’ he added.

  ‘No. It’s okay. It’s just that – somebody’s been here recently, Gil. We made sure the door was latched, wrapped the chain around it. And the table was upright.’

  His eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light inside, and he saw it wasn’t only the rough table overturned; the old chair lay on its side, the ancient newspapers that had lined the walls were ripped in shreds on the floor.

  ‘It’s out in the bush, Blue, and the place has been empty for months. Between possums and hoons, I’m surprised it’s not more beat up.’

  ‘I know. I drive past every now and again, keep an eye on it. But the door open – the gate open, come to think of it – it wasn’t like that a few days ago.’

  Just a few days … that put a more sinister light on it. ‘You stay here, Blue. I’ll take a look inside.’

  She placed a firm hand on his shoulder, stopped him moving forward.

  ‘I’m the cop, Gillespie,’ she reminded him.

  If he’d thought there was imminent danger, he’d have ignored her and gone in first, but all was quiet within, so out of respect for her – more so than for the uniform – he stood aside and let her go inside first.

  The main room was a mess, its few pieces of furniture scattered, coals raked out of the fireplace, the rags that had covered the food shelves torn down.

  In the small sleeping space behind the partition, the camp bed was overturned, the mattress slashed open, its kapok stuffing strewn on the floor. The drawers and doors of the cupboard that had once held their few clothes were pulled out, exposing the empty interior, and the filthy piece of lino under the iron washstand was ripped up, the chipped enamel basin tossed to the floor.

  He followed Kris back in to the main room.

  ‘Wanton vandalism? Or were they looking for something?’ she mused.

  ‘No grafitti,’ Gil observed. ‘Vandals usually like to leave their mark somehow. Which suggests a search.’

  He scanned the dingy room again, his gaze focusing on the food shelf against the wall. The contents had never amounted to much, and now there was even less. The vintage flour tin that he remembered was upside down, lid off, weevils rummaging in the flour tipped out from it. A lone ant nibbled around the edge of the treacle, dripping from the toppled jar.

  Treacle … one ant …

  ‘Blue,’ he said, keeping his voice low, pointing to the sweet, sticky mess. ‘There’s only one ant. They were here not long ago. Less than an hour. Maybe only minutes.’

  She glanced at the treacle, and agreed with a brisk nod.

  ‘Okay. Don’t touch anything. We should go straight out. My phone’s in the car. I’ll report it.’

  Outside, the bright sunlight hit his eyes hard. He paused in the yard, studying the rest of the place, noticing now the jemmy marks on the shed door, the old seats dragged out of the dead trucks, green weeds poking out underneath them.

  Not long ago at all.

  In the distance, he heard a faint sound, what might have been a metallic clang, and he whipped around to look at the overgrown track behind the shack – and saw recent tyre tracks bending the grasses.

  ‘Get out of here, Blue.’ He grabbed her hand and started running towards the car. ‘They’re up at the other shed. They
can’t see us from here, but they will when they come back. We don’t want them to see your car or they’ll know we’re onto them.’

  She stopped by the fence, hauling him to a halt. ‘I can’t just run away, Gil.’

  She was out of uniform, without her belt or any sign of a weapon under her light shirt.

  ‘Neither of us are armed,’ he argued, ‘and we don’t know how many there are.’ He thought quickly, offered a solution, hoping things hadn’t changed since he’d left. ‘Go up the road half a kilometre or so. There should be a grid, and a track along the fence line among the trees. We can leave the car and the bike there, out of sight, and go in that way; there’s a slight rise, overlooking the shed, that should give us cover.’

  She considered it briefly, and agreed. ‘I’ll call for backup on the way.’

  The sound of the engines couldn’t be helped; they’d probably be heard by whoever was at the shed, but if they were lucky the intruders would be distracted enough not to register the distant noise, or at least think it was coming from the main road. The fact that they hadn’t come to investigate it yet was a good sign.

  The side track, an old closed road, was still there, the grid overgrown but passable. Kris’s compact four-wheel drive eased over it, and she bounced her way about thirty metres along the rough trail before a fallen tree blocked the way. Gil pulled up beside her, turning the bike and leaving it where the car blocked it from view. If they needed to escape fast, the bike might be their best chance.

  ‘Backup coming?’ he asked.

  ‘It will be a while. There’s nobody closer than Birraga. We’re on our own for now.’

  He led the way through the trees, the bush dry underfoot. They had to curve around to view the shed from the rise behind it, and it took some minutes of steady walking, the way hampered by pockets of undergrowth. Kris easily kept pace with Gil.

  They didn’t speak, but as they approached the slope, he signalled her to stay silent. Here, there was less undergrowth but more rocks, and they kept low, picking their way up the small hill, careful not to dislodge rocks or stones. Every now and again, the sound of voices drifted to them, the words indistinct, but definitely from the direction of the shed.

  A few metres from the top of the slope, he dropped to the ground, scrambling the last part on all fours, crouching behind a huge tree stump for cover. Kris slid into place behind him.

  The tree cover provided a patchy view of the clearing below the rise, two hundred metres away, where a dusty blue ute and a large black four-wheel drive stood in front of the wooden, double-bay machinery shed. The truck his old man had driven sat under the awning, the doors of the cab open and the seat on the ground beside it. Whatever they were looking for, they were going to some effort to find it.

  A couple of guys emerged from the side door of the shed. One in black trousers and a dark sports jacket over a dark T-shirt, the other in jeans and a T-shirt, carrying a crowbar.

  Two guys, two cars – but there’d been two in the four-wheel drive last night, and he’d be willing to bet there was at least one more man inside.

  He pulled out his mobile phone and started taking photos. He didn’t expect them to be clear at this distance, but anything was better than nothing. Kris took photos with her phone around the other side of the stump, her free hand leaning lightly against his shoulder for balance.

  A clatter on the hill a short distance away startled all of them. The men whipped around, and as Gil hauled Kris closer behind the protection of the stump, gunshots cracked through the air.

  Gil breathed again when he recognised the sounds of a wallaby or a ’roo racing across the slope not far below them. He heard laughter from the men, and another couple of shots, rowdy voices yelling encouragement.

  Whoever was firing was both quick to draw, and took pleasure in shooting. Not the kind of thug he wanted to be caught by. He tightened his arm around Kris, shifting his kneeling position so that she was pressed between him and the tree stump, keeping her close into the cover it provided, protecting her. Her white shirt made too much of a contrast against the dull greens and browns of the bush; even an inch or two showing might attract the attention of the men in the clearing.

  Tension in her body and the frown she directed at him told him she was not pleased.

  When he dared another glance out, there were two more men in jeans and work shirts near the shed, conversing with one of the first two, and the guy in the jacket stood slightly apart, talking on his phone.

  Gil recognised only one of them. He eased up on Kris, and she peered cautiously around, her arm snaking out with her phone, thumb busy on the key.

  He leaned forward, whispered in her ear, ‘Far left. He was one of the truck drivers. Know him?’

  She shook her head and mouthed, ‘Need number plates.’

  At this angle, they were side on to the vehicles, their rego plates not visible. But rego numbers might be a lot more useful for tracking down these guys than photos of unknown people.

  ‘Stay here,’ he whispered.

  He backed down the ridge a short distance, out of their sight, and made his way a couple of hundred metres along the slope, to overlook the vehicles from behind. There were no handy large tree stumps or rocks on top of the ridge here for cover; a low-growing, straggly shrub would have to do.

  A car door slammed, and he hastened up the last few metres, silently cursing the thorns and spiders’ webs as he crouched into place. Another door slammed, an engine started. Too many damned trees obscured his view. He had to get closer and quickly.

  If the trees obscured his view, he’d just have to trust that they’d also block any view of him. If the men weren’t looking this way – and he wasn’t directly behind them so shouldn’t be caught in their rear-view mirrors – he might just make it.

  The second engine started, the driver’s foot heavy on the accelerator, the noise loud enough to let Gil risk making a quick dash three-quarters of the way down the slope. Stopping by a large tree, a hundred metres or so away, he kept taking photos as the cars moved off, glad he’d bought a high-end phone, hoping the zoom function he’d never had reason to properly test would be sufficient to capture enough detail.

  As they disappeared around a bend and into the trees, Kris stepped out from the bush, below where they’d taken cover, phone to her ear.

  So much for staying put. Not that he was surprised – she was capable, and took her responsibilities seriously. She had been careful; he’d seen no flashes of white.

  She finished one call and dialled another while she crossed the clearing to meet him by the shed.

  ‘Delphi? It’s Kris. I need your help. Can you go to your front fence, see if you can get number plates and descriptions on a couple of vehicles that might be going past? Black Land Rover and blue Ford ute. They just left Des Gillespie’s place. I don’t know which way they’re going, but they could head to Birraga, past your place. At least one of them’s armed, so be very careful – don’t be obvious. Thanks, Delphi. I’ll call you back soon.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he said as she disconnected. Delphi O’Connell’s farm was about three k’s further along the Birraga road, the farmhouse close to the road. If the men turned right at the end of the track, for Birraga, instead of left to Dungirri, then they’d drive right past her front yard.

  She grinned wryly. ‘Delphi’s as independent as ever, but you can always count on her when it matters. There’s a patrol car coming, but it’s on another road.’ She nodded over at the shed. ‘I want to take a look inside.’

  ‘Me too.’

  She seemed about to refuse, but changed her mind as if she knew it was fruitless. ‘Don’t touch a damned thing in there, Gillespie. The guys in the Land Rover wore gloves, but the other two didn’t. I want every fingerprint and scrap of evidence they left.’

  The men had used the side door, not the rusted roller doors at the front. Boltcutters had made short work of the rusty latch padlocking it. Kris used a handkerchief over her fingers and gri
pped the frame well above the broken latch to drag the door open.

  Inside, it was initially hard to tell what was the old man’s normal disarray, and what had been searched. Sunlight came through the grubby windows on the north side, dust caught drifting in its beams, the light casting a grid pattern from the wooden window frame onto the floor.

  The workbench along the side wall was covered in tools and other junk, as well as possum droppings, dust and cobwebs. But a second glance showed the dust disturbed, the bigger pieces of junk moved aside, and the stuff from the shelves beneath the bench had been shoved up one end, some had fallen to the floor. The cupboards on the back wall were in similar shape. Beside them, vintage saws hung on nails on the wall, including the large crosscut saws Gil knew, too well, how to use.

  The trailer with the portable sawmill his old man had eventually bought had few hiding places, but they’d been through the tool box. The other bay held a huge stack of cypress planks, the canvas tarpaulin that had covered it crumpled on the floor, the wood aged to a deep gold.

  Gil surveyed the pile. It didn’t look like there’d been much change since he’d laboured to stack every damned plank of it, years ago. At today’s prices, that made thousands of dollars worth of timber sitting idle.

  Kris gave a low whistle. ‘I’m surprised no-one’s been in to steal this lot. Wonder how long it’s been here, and why Des didn’t sell it. I’m sure he could have done with the cash.’

  Gil didn’t wonder. He’d long ago given up trying to make any sense of the old man’s actions, and there’d always been plenty of rumours to discourage people from trespassing, most of them gruesome. Like the one about the old bastard murdering someone with the sawmill. As far as Gil knew, it wasn’t true, but he didn’t doubt the crazy sonofabitch could have been capable of it.

  ‘Not many people know the shed is here,’ he told Kris. ‘It’s a long way from the shack, out of sight. And he didn’t ever invite anyone in.’

  ‘No, definitely not the welcoming sort,’ she agreed.