Dave felt a warm glow in his stomach as he heard his wife say, ‘Daddy’s home!’
It had taken time to get used to being called ‘Daddy’. Even now, sometimes when he heard the word he looked around and wondered who they were talking to. He’d been unprepared for the powerful love he’d felt as his daughter had entered the world, at the insistence of a doctor with a pair of forceps. A beautiful red bundle of wriggles and screams. As he’d held her for the first time, he’d promised never to let her down and to keep her safe always.
It had taken a while but the three of them had settled into a routine. Bec slept and ate, Melinda and Dave took turns at caring for her and spent a lot of time watching her as she was asleep. They took lots of photos, mostly of Bec in all sorts of funny poses: her first smile that wasn’t wind, while she was sleeping and had her little fists curled up in balls, and laughing in her bassinet. As she got older, there were pictures of her lying outside on a rug in the park, or up on Dave’s shoulders.
Every time Dave went to the chemist to get the film developed, he had three copies of each photo made: one for his mother, one for the in-laws, and one for himself and Melinda. The photo album was filling up quickly.
Melinda had taken his favourite photo. He’d been on the floor next to Bec, who was sitting by this time. She was craning her neck to look up at him, and the expression of adoration on her face was enough to take Dave’s breath away every time he looked at it. The special picture took pride of place in the window pocket of his wallet.
The narrow hall was also lined with photos of Bec, along with their wedding photos. He looked at each of them as he walked down to the bathroom.
‘Hey,’ he said, bending to kiss Melinda, who was sitting on the floor next to the bath. ‘How was your day?’
‘Da!’ Bec excitedly slapped the water with her hands and Dave grinned. ‘Da!’
‘You’re late again,’ Melinda answered by way of a greeting. She handed him a face washer. He bent down and kissed the top of his daughter’s head then dipped the face washer in the water and dribbled it over Bec’s hair. ‘You can finish bathing her. I haven’t had time to put tea on yet.’
Inwardly, Dave sighed at her words, then he looked down at Bec. ‘Hello there, water baby! What have you been doing today? Being nice to your mummy, I hope.’
Bec giggled and her hands flew over her head, trying to stop the water, and she laughed harder.
‘She’s been a good girl, haven’t you, sweetie?’ Melinda said as she got up from the floor. ‘Was your day busy? Is that why you’re late?’
‘Not too bad. Couple of things came up. Did you get a rest?’ He groaned silently at the second reference to being late. That was also something that had happened a lot in the last few months. He couldn’t help it if a case made him late. It was the job and he’d thought Melinda understood that.
He recognised the rumblings of uncertainty again: Melinda wasn’t happy. And she was tired, which didn’t help.
With her molars coming through, Bec hadn’t slept well for the last few weeks and Melinda had been getting up to her three or four times a night. Dave had wanted to help but Melinda hadn’t let him.
‘Slept for an hour just after lunch. I really needed it.’ She rubbed her face tiredly but smiled. ‘Do you want a beer?’ ‘I can get it. I’ll finish up here and get her dried and dressed, then I’ll have a drink with you.’
‘Da!’ Water splashed up from the bath, wetting Dave’s shirt.
‘Attention seeking already,’ he said fondly.
‘Her pyjamas are in the cot. There’s a load of washing that needs to go on too.’
‘Easy. Isn’t it, little Miss Water Baby?’ He squirted some baby soap into his hands and ran it over Bec’s back. He was always amazed at how his hand was almost as large as her back and how her tiny fist fit around his little finger.
After washing her thoroughly, he picked Bec up in a towel and took her into her bedroom. He placed her on the bed and towelled her dry, all the time talking and cooing to her. Bec laughed and flapped her arms around, making it hard to get her jumpsuit on.
‘Hey, have you seen the news?’ Melinda called from the kitchen.
Picking Bec up, Dave threw her little body onto his shoulder and was rewarded with more laughter. ‘Nope, what’s got your attention?’ He put Bec on the floor in front of a play gym.
‘Abandoned car out on Clydie Road.’
Dave looked at the TV and saw footage of the crime tape, the forensics team dusting the inside of the vehicle and then the ute being towed away on a trailer. He shook his head.
‘Unreal. We only found that car this morning and worked out it might be a missing person’s case. I don’t know how the journos find out so quickly.’
He went into the kitchen and picked up the knife on the bench before starting to slice the onion Melinda had sitting there.
‘Local?’
‘Unfortunately, yeah. We filed the report late this afternoon after we’d spoken to his wife and friends. I guess someone tipped them off.’ He changed the subject. ‘Did you get out at all today? Wasn’t playgroup on?’
‘Yeah, but I couldn’t face it. Taking Bec out is hard work sometimes.’
Dave looked at her with a frown. ‘I would’ve thought playgroup would’ve been the perfect place to take her with all the other bubs.’
Melinda didn’t answer. She turned back to the TV and Dave stared at her back for a couple of seconds, then started dicing the onion again.
‘I had lunch with Kathy, though.’
Kathy had been a good friend to Melinda since she’d allowed her into their life not long after moving to Barrabine. Dave had been continually thankful for Spencer’s wife’s calming and practical presence, especially given his wife had taken a while to adjust to life in a remote town.
‘That’s great. Where did you go?’
‘She came here. Oh, and Dad rang this afternoon too,’ Melinda went on.
‘Hmm?’ Dave added the onions to the sizzling butter in the saucepan. He wasn’t especially interested in hearing what his father-in-law had to say and that was a constant source of annoyance to Melinda.
‘They’re wanting to come and stay on the long weekend.’ Dave stirred the onions with a little extra force than needed. ‘Right.’ That would be the first time since Bec had been born. Every time he’d been able to put them off by either buying Melinda and Bec a plane ticket back to Perth or driving them the seven-hour journey to Bunbury. With the work he had on at the moment, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get away and he didn’t have an excuse for his parents-in-law not to visit.
‘That’ll be okay, won’t it?’
‘You don’t need to ask me, sweetie, although I’m not sure there’s the room for them to sleep here. Do you think they’d want to anyway, with Bec waking up so often?’ He really hoped they didn’t want to stay. ‘Maybe a hotel would be more comfortable for them.’
‘We do have a spare room,’ Melinda said. ‘And they have had kids themselves.’
‘Whatever suits them,’ Dave answered. As much as his father-in-law was a thorn in his side—even after nearly three years of marriage he didn’t think his son-in-law was good enough for his daughter or made enough money to keep her in the way she’d been raised—Dave refused to let him upset him.
Mark’s high-handedness was wearing and Melinda never saw it because it only happened when Dave and Mark were by themselves. He’d never told Melinda her father had met with him before the wedding and offered him money to call it off. Dave had been so affronted at the time, it had taken all his self-restraint not to belt the self-righteous git.
With any luck, this missing person case would keep him busy and he wouldn’t be home much.
The phone rang and Dave leaned over the counter to pick it up. ‘Burrows.’
‘Got some info on the MP,’ Spencer said without preamble.
‘Oh yeah.’ Dave tucked the phone in between his shoulder and chin and kept stirring while Melind
a added the mince.
‘Bill Keogh, the mate we couldn’t track down, called me back. He said he saw Jeff around six-ish yesterday afternoon as he was leaving work. Seemed in a normal mood—nothing stood out to him.’
‘Same as the other two.’
‘Yeah. I asked if Bill knew that Jeff owned a gun, said he didn’t. To quote: “Jeff is a just a nice bloke. He’s good to his family, never seems to get upset—well, not that I’ve seen anyway. I know things have been a bit tight for them money-wise, and he was looking for a second job. His missus can’t do too much with all the kids. I did suggest she took in a bit of ironing or something that would help, but Jeff didn’t think that would work.”’
Dave raised an eyebrow at that last piece of information. He could well imagine how a suggestion like that would go down in his household. Melinda wouldn’t want to do anything except what she was trained for—being a paediatric or childcare nurse. Even if it meant the extra money would make things a little more comfortable. Nope, an idea like that would probably mean a tongue-lashing and at least a week of not being spoken to. In a way he couldn’t blame her—she’d studied hard for years to become a skilled professional.
‘Okay, so we’ve really got nothing to go on?’
‘Not yet. I’ve requested a warrant for his bank account and phone records, and tomorrow when you get in we’ll go over to his work—Strictly Agriculture—and speak to Dylan Jackson and see what he’s got to say about him.’
‘What do you know about Strictly Agriculture? I’ve never been in there.’
‘Dylan started it up about twenty years ago. Supplying rural merchandise to station owners. They don’t need a lot—not intensive like the blokes down south. So not a lot of chemicals for cropping or anything like that. More poly fittings for waters, fencing gear, stock licks for the cattle. That type of thing. And a heap of horse feed for all the racehorses round here. Plus the ones out on the station.’
‘And Jeff has worked there for how long?’
‘Funny, they’ve only been in town eight months. He’s been there all that time.’
‘Are the SES still out searching?’
‘Yeah. If he doesn’t want to be found, though, he won’t be.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘A bloke that doesn’t want to be found can disappear into the bush and come out when he’s ready. I don’t think he’s hurt himself. The gun’s still in the car. I think he either wants some time out or doesn’t want to be found at all.’
‘Agreed.’
Dave heard Spencer let out a sigh, then there was a loud bang and Bec started to cry.
Whipping around he saw she’d pulled over the coffee table and had landed on her bum, with the table over her legs. It wasn’t disastrous. Melinda swooped down to pick her up and give her a cuddle while Dave chuckled.
‘You got a problem on your hands?’
‘Nah, sounds worse than it is.’ He pressed his finger to his ear to block out the noise and made a mental note to buy a cordless phone.
‘How about I go and talk to the wife again—see if she can give me any more details—while you go to Strictly Agriculture and chat to Dylan.’
‘Yeah, no worries,’ Dave said. ‘I’ll do that first thing. In the meantime, let me know if the SES find anything.’
‘You’ll be the first one I call,’ Spencer promised and hung up.
Dave gave the bolognaise sauce another stir. While he hadn’t been watching, Melinda, with Bec on her hip, had added the tomato base and herbs, and the aroma was making his stomach rumble.
While Melinda placed Bec in the high chair and fed her dinner, Dave put the spaghetti on to boil and took two bowls out of the cupboard.
‘Sounds like you’re going to have a bit going on,’ Melinda observed. Her voice was bitter and the thought she was missing her work flashed into Dave’s mind. Maybe it was time she went back to community nursing. Bec would be old enough to go into daycare once a week, wouldn’t she? He didn’t know if there were rules about that sort of thing. Maybe he’d ask Spencer tomorrow.
‘Yeah. Got to find out what would make this guy walk away from his family.’
‘What makes anyone do anything?’ she asked.
‘There’s always a reason.’
‘Yeah, but sometimes even those closest to you wouldn’t know what that reason was.’ Melinda picked up Bec’s empty plastic bowl and put it in the sink. ‘You put her to bed and I’ll finish dinner,’ she said.
Dave stood for a minute, undecided whether to ask what she meant. There was a hidden message there, he was sure. Quickly he reached the conclusion he didn’t want to know, so he picked Bec up and carried her to the bedroom.
Chapter 6
A convoy of two Toyota Landcruiser utes and a small truck followed Bulldust down the graded gravel road and out onto the bitumen.
Being the leader of the pack, he wasn’t towing anything but was loaded with the swags, tuckerboxes and beer. Bill had a trailer with two bikes strapped onto it and George was driving the small truck with a bull buggy and panels from the transportable yards on the tray. The hessian, which had acted as wings to guide the cattle into the yards, had been folded neatly and strapped in the trailer with the bikes. There were hundreds of metres of the material and it took all four of them to fold and lift it.
Chris had flown the helicopter back to the depot and would meet them there. In three days they had a legitimate mustering job to go to.
Heading back into town always gave the boys a sense of excitement. There were still things to do—service the bikes, check the chopper over and prepare for the next mustering job—but the pub was one step closer.
The depot for the Highwaymen, on the edge of Nundrew, was a large iron shed situated on eight hectares. A fence ran around the three edges of the property and was secured firmly with an electric top wire. The front fence line bordered the main road into town but was made of Colorbond so no one could see in. Two other boundaries were lined with thick trees, and the river was the boundary of the final side. The shed was in the middle of the depot and at one end there was a cement pad where all the bikes and utes were kept, while at the other was an enclosed area where Bulldust slept. He called it his shouse—a shed house. Inside there was a crude kitchen: a barbecue, a rickety table and a fridge. A camp bed was cordoned off from the toilet and shower by a blanket. It was basic, but all he needed.
Outside the helicopter pad was off to one side, with the fuel drums stacked in the shed. In a small paddock to the back of the place rested two horses—a dappled grey called Pepper and a bay named Gadget. They were mostly turned out to the long yard these days, unless they were needed on a legitimate mustering job where the country was so rough that the bikes couldn’t get over it.
These days Bulldust didn’t like to use horses. They were too slow when his team needed to get in and out of stations quickly. They never chose a place that was too difficult to muster. Flat ground was easier to find cattle on quickly, as well as to round them up.
On the gates and fences of the depot there were signs saying that trespassers would be prosecuted or, as Bulldust like to put it, ‘shot on sight’. It was highly unlikely anyone would visit unannounced anyway. Bulldust and his team were notorious for working hard, playing hard and hurting hard.
There were security cameras set up on the edge of every corner of the block and four covering the shed. If anyone were to get past the trip-wires and sensor alarms, which set silent alarms off in the shouse, the cameras would capture their presence. Bulldust would then send one of his team to pay the trespassers ‘a visit’. They didn’t trespass again.
The locals avoided the Highwaymen and the station owners loved them because they always managed to bring in even the wiliest of the scrubbers.
They parked and started to unload. Bill and George washed the bikes down and then gave them a once-over to make sure they were all in working order. Breakdowns cost money.
‘This one’s ready for a service,’
Bill said. ‘I’ll come in tomorrow and do it. We got enough oil here?’
Bulldust nodded. ‘New delivery’s over there in the corner. Need to check the fuel for the chopper and grab a couple more oil drums to take back out with us. The ute is using a bit too much. The rest of the crew will be arriving in a couple of days. We’ll head out to Green Hills Station Monday night. While we’re at it, the mobile fuel tanker needs topping up before we head out next.’
‘I’ll get onto that. Will Shane be back?’ George asked.
‘Yeah.’ Bulldust took his swag from the back of his ute and threw it in the corner of the shed, red dust clouding the air as it landed. He grabbed the eskies and tuckerboxes and took them into the kitchen to unpack later.
‘Did you check the equipment and toolboxes?’ George asked Bill.
‘Yeah, need to replace the wire and cable ties. We used more than normal with that hessian.’
‘How come?’ Bulldust asked, coming back into the shed.
‘It was windy when we were putting it up.’
He nodded.
‘Mighty glad we’ve got back to town on a Friday,’ Chris said. ‘I’m going for a tub, then to the pub. Who’s coming?’
George and Bill said they’d meet him once they’d done their jobs.
‘Not tonight,’ Bulldust muttered. ‘I got some things to do.’
No one asked what those things were.
The lukewarm water ran over George’s body and he watched as the blood-red liquid ran down the drain—the colour of the dust he’d been living with for the last couple of days. He rubbed his hands hard over his face then angled it up towards the shower spray and let it rinse him off.
His filthy clothes were in the corner of the bathroom and he knew Margs would come and get them and spray them off with the garden hose before putting them through the washing machine. Trouble with wearing the same set for a few days, they got filthier and filthier until he was sure they couldn’t get any dirtier, but they still seemed to. And they smelled.
Without a Doubt Page 4