A Certain Malice (28 page)

“Yessir!” she saluted.

“I also need to see receipts for the chemicals you purchased for the re-stocking of the lab.”

“Congratulations, Cam, that is a much more plausible request, though again, you’re out of luck. I gave them to Jeffrey the other day; he needed them for the accounts. I believe he and Anne are at home now, why don’t you go and pay them a visit?”

Still smarting from his unsatisfactory confrontation with Ruth, Cam decided to leave the ute in the car park and walk to the Smithsons’ across the school oval. It would take a few extra minutes, but he needed a walk in the fresh air to calm down. The sky was a perfect blue, the grass lush and emerald green, conditions that usually brought back memories of Aeroguard-flavoured sandwiches, victorious football games and drunken parties. But close as he felt he was getting to the end of the case, he felt no adrenalin rush today, and he proceeded to the Smithsons’ house, his steps weighted with caution.

He rapped on the door, straining for sounds from within. When there was no response, he stepped off the veranda and walked around the side of the house; no car in the garage, no washing on the line, the windows all heavily curtained. He tried the back door and found it locked. With a string of expletives and a savage kick, he propelled the Smithsons’ empty garbage can down their driveway.

Back at the ute he almost missed the flyer fluttering under the windscreen wipers. Damn this layback country town he thought, slapping his hand down hard on the bonnet, there should be zero tolerance for this kind of thing.

But when he ripped the paper from the wipers, about to ball it in his fist, something made him stop. He knew what it was before he’d even unfolded it.

His heartbeat sped to join a nightmare rhythm of buzzing in his head. He had to fight his tingling fingers for the control needed to open the note. And when he did, all his fears were realised.

His legs felt as if they’d turned to wet newspaper. He had to lean against the ute. He rubbed his face, pressing his fingers into the sensitive scar tissue of his neck. The sharp pain restored his senses enough to focus on the note. It was just like all the others, same paper, same strange mirror image lettering, but the contents were unlike anything he’d ever received; this wasn’t just a threat, this was a fact:

We have your daughter. Come to the house indicated on the map if you want to see her again. If you are not there by 2 pm she dies. Come alone or she dies. Bring other cops, she dies.

There was a mud map beneath the writing. He had to travel about ten kilometres down a dirt track to an abandoned farmhouse. He knew the road; the turn-off was just before Glenroyd. It would take a couple of minutes to get there, but he’d no idea how long it would take to get down the rutted track.

He looked at his watch: 1.35.

He took some deep breaths, slow is fast, he reminded himself. As the engine turned over he reached for his mobile phone. Ruby was at home packing; this had to be some kind of horrible hoax.

The phone flashed no service.

He hurled it at the passenger side door and grabbed the radio mike. It came away in his hand; someone had cut the wire. He slammed his hands on the steering wheel and looked at his watch again: 1.37.

After one last look at the note, he got out of the ute and scanned the deserted car park. Ruth’s car was gone. There was no one left at the school. He spied a rock lying close to the curb and secured the note under it, then kicked at the dirt and gravel until he had drawn the shape of a large arrow. With all his communication systems down, it was the best he could do.

Cam cut the corner too fast from the bitumen to the dirt road and fishtailed across its width, skidding up clouds of red dust. Slow down, the voice inside him said, but his body wouldn’t listen; his foot was an immovable weight on the accelerator.

Soon, the leviathan shape of a hay truck loomed ahead. Large cylindrical bales of hay bulged from its barely visible sides through a smokescreen of dust. He gripped the steering wheel tight, edging close enough to be seen in the driver’s side mirrors.

Nineteen minutes left. He’d never get there at this rate. He hesitated before switching the siren on. Would the sound carry all the way to the farmhouse? Would the bikies hear it and presume he’d brought a mob of cops with him? He risked a short blast. The truck driver gave him a cheery wave, but the road was too narrow for him to pull over and he was forced to drive in the spewing wake of the truck for a full minute before it pulled into a farm gateway and he could overtake.

With fifteen minutes to go, he hurtled passed the truck, sweat stinging his eyes. He took off his cap, wiped his face with it then tossed it on to the floor on the passenger’s side.

Which was when he caught the movement in his peripheral vision.

But by then it was too late.

36

My God, has she been raped? was the first thought that sprang to Cecelia’s mind when she opened her door to the distraught figure. She took in the tear-stained face and dishevelled clothes, the whooping gasps for air.

“Ruby, what’s the matter?” she said, slipping her arm around the girl’s shoulders and guiding her into the house. “You go into the bathroom and wash your face. I’ll fix us some lemonade.”

Ruby shuffled into the bathroom, returning in a few minutes to sit on the lounge. Cecelia watched as she took a sip of lemonade, glad to see some of the colour had returned to her face.

“Has Angelo done something to hurt you?” Cecelia prompted.

Ruby swallowed and shook her head. She latched on to the hem of her red tank top and twisted it in her hand.“No. Yes. Not exactly. He doesn’t know I’m here. I promised I wouldn’t tell, but I have to. Please, Cecelia…” She looked up from her lap. “You mustn’t tell Dad how I found this out, he’d kill Angelo if he knew.”

The snake shot from the floor of the passenger’s side as if loosed from a bow, sinking its fangs into Cam’s forearm and injecting him with streaks of red-hot pain. He screamed, shook his arm and felt the cool of its thick, muscled body brush against his side as it slid back to the floor. Somehow he’d managed to keep the hurtling ute on the road; now he eased his foot off the accelerator and gently applied the brake. He had to think past his fear, be rational. He’d pull to the side of the road, shoot the snake then apply a tourniquet to his arm. He was a big man; the venom would take a while to take effect. There was still a chance he could get to Ruby in time.

But the clutch put up a resistance to the pressure of his foot. He looked down, to see the snake twining around the pedals.

The fangs found their mark upon his calf a second before he could react. Despite the rapid jerk of his legs, it struck again, this time at his thigh, sending molten ribbons of pain into his groin. When the ute petered to a stop on the roadside, Cam tumbled out, acutely aware of the venom throbbing through his veins with each beat of his racing heart.

His left arm seemed to be encased in a sleeve of red-hot lead; even looking at his watch was a struggle.

Ten minutes to go.

Ten minutes to get to Ruby.

He realised he was hyperventilating and tried to slow down his short, sharp gasps with positive thoughts. The hay truck would be along any minute, he told himself. He would flag it down and get the driver to take him to the farmhouse. Meanwhile, he had to attend to the snakebites. Inside the cabin with the snake, the first aid kit was unreachable. He’d have to improvise a couple of tourniquets before attempting any vigorous movement.

He took off his belt and tied it around the top of his arm, tightening it with his teeth. Then, keeping his arm low he eased on to his side to work on his shoelaces. They weren’t ideal, but they’d be better than nothing.

The sound of an engine in the distance made him stop. He squinted into the growing cloud of dust, unable to make out what was creating it. One moment there seemed to be two vehicles, the next moment they’d blurred into one – a hay truck, a car, a couple of motorbikes? As he shook his head to clear his blurred vision, the gravel beneath him began to vibrate.

Cecelia put her elbows on the counter and leaned towards Derek, mustering all her willpower to stop herself throttling the obstructive little man.

He said, “I’ve already told you, Ms Bowman, his radio doesn’t seem to be working. Last I heard he was calling in at the school.”

Cecelia thumped her fist down on the counter. His teacup rattled and a tide of tea slopped into the saucer. “Then you have to send someone to the school to get him. He’s in danger!”

Derek let out a long slow breath. He picked up his cup and began mopping up the drips with a tissue. “Ms Bowman, this is Glenroyd we’re talking about, not some outer suburb of Los Angeles. Things like you described just don’t happen here.” He shrugged. “Besides, there’s no one available to follow up on these bizarre claims of yours. Pete’s on rostered days off, Leanne’s on traffic and I have to stay here at the station.”

He looked at Ruby with a smile of forced benevolence and clasped his hands on the counter. “I think that someone’s taken this whole situation out of context. I think that someone will be in big trouble with Daddy if we start out on this wild goose chase.”

Ruby’s eyes bulged.“It’s not just me who knows. Cecelia has proof too. Someone’s out to get my father you stupid, motherfucking —” Her hand shot out to Derek’s teacup, and before Cecelia could stop her, she’d tipped the contents over his balding head.

White-faced under the rivulets of tepid tea, Derek sprang back from the counter in a way that made Cecelia thankful he wasn’t wearing a gun.

“Ruby, that’s enough,” she reprimanded without much conviction. “We’re obviously getting nowhere. We’ll go to the school ourselves and hopefully catch your father there.”

She grabbed Ruby by the hand, leaving Derek slack-jawed and dabbing at his head with a handkerchief, staring at them as if he’d just seen horns sprout from their heads.

They almost collided with Leanne at the station door.

His heart dropped when he recognised Ruth Tilly. Of all the people in Glenroyd, why did it have to be her? And where was the hay truck? Had it turned into the farm and stayed there?

Ruth ran from her car to where he sat leaning against the side of the ute. She surprised him with a look of genuine concern.

“My God, Cam, what happened, have you had some kind of an accident?”

“Snake bite,” he said, wondering if he’d lost the ability to make sentences; it was such an effort to get out the words. His mouth was as dry as desert sand and the beginning of a headache taunted the back of his eyes with tight jabs.

Ruth took in his crude tourniquets.“Bandages would be better. I have some in my car, I’ll get them. And you should be lying flat.” She gently pushed him down. “Have you called for help?”

He shook his head, regretting the movement as spears of pain were unleashed behind his eyes. “Phone and radio stuffed.”

Ruth moved towards her car.

“Wait,” he cried.“The bikies have Ruby. They’re going to kill her if I’m not there by two. The note said she was at the farmhouse at the end of this road. You have to go and tell them what happened, please. It’s me they want anyway…”

She hushed him with a finger to her lips. “My phone’s long range, it should work. I’ll get help, don’t you worry about a thing.”

Shit, how often had he heard himself say those very words to some beleaguered victim lying by the roadside? As he waited for Ruth to return, he tried to ignore the changes he could feel in his body. He focused his thoughts on Ruby. They’d have to let her go, he told himself. Even bikies wouldn’t kill a fifteen-year-old girl, though there were other things they might do. He screwed his eyes tight against the image until a shadow blocked the red. When he opened them again, Ruth was kneeling beside him. She leaned towards his hip, probably to replace the shoelace tourniquet with a bandage.

Then he felt a tugging sensation at his holster and heard the pop of the stud. His eyes widened when he saw what she was doing.

“Help’s on its way, Cam,” she said with a smile that chilled his blood. “But help for me, not for you. My assistant is as keen to observe the effects of a tiger snake bite as I am, he should be along shortly.”

She backed away and sat on a rock, watching him with the clinical coldness of a vivisector. Cam couldn’t believe what he was seeing; he had to be hallucinating. She removed a notebook from her pocket, rested it on her knee and wrote something in it; careful to keep the gun in her other hand trained on him. After a while, she spoke.

“I never pass up a research opportunity, Cam. I’m documenting your symptoms for a paper I’m writing on the
Norechis Ater Occidentallis.
Tiger snakebites can take up to twenty-four hours to kill if not treated. You were bitten three times. They often strike more than once, though of course there would’ve been little venom in the other bites. It will be interesting to see if your death will occur any sooner.” She let out a burst of staccato laughter. “I put the snake in the freezer after you left the lab so it would be sluggish and stay put under the front passenger mat. It must have been good and aggressive when it warmed up. Tell me, how are you feeling – headache? Blurred vision? I believe a victim can also experience severe abdominal pain. Perhaps you won’t reach that stage. Maybe you’ll just go straight to internal haemorrhage or paralysis.”

Cam said nothing. He closed his eyes against the pricking tears of helplessness. When he opened them again, Ruth was leaning over him, very close. Her breath felt like dry ice upon his burning cheek.

His tongue felt stitched to the roof of his mouth; he had to struggle to release it. “Please, Ruth. You have to help Ruby.”

“I don’t want to make your dying any easier, Cam, but never let it be said I’m inhumane. Ruby was never in any danger. I wrote the note. She’s probably in the back room of the workshop screwing her boyfriend or smoking dope as we speak.”

Cam murmured a prayer of thanks. The wave of relief washing through him brought with it some lucid thought. “The notes, they were from you, all along?”