Beyond Fear (33 page)

She took a single pace through the door to the main room and propped. The way she did it, like she’d been halted in her tracks, made his heart beat faster. He reached the door, stepped quickly around her, looking for Kane. Then stopped and stared.

There was a huge hole in the floor. Boards had been smashed, ripped up, tossed aside. It explained the crashing sounds. Bearers and joists had been chopped out, leaving a jagged-edged, rectangular gash big enough to drop one of the sofas through. It was about halfway between the front door and the kitchen, just to the left of one of the old tree trunks supporting the ceiling.

‘Get over there,’ Travis said.

He shoved Matt between the shoulderblades with the pistol, kept on his heels until Matt was on the edge of the hole beside Jodie, looking down on bare earth. It was dark as pitch down there and the smell of dirt and damp wafted up like cold, foul breath. Jodie’s arm shuddered against his. Yeah, I’m with you there, he thought. He put an arm across her shoulders, pulled her to him. Her body was rigid with tension but she leaned into him a tad – not letting go of her fear, just taking comfort.

‘Climb down,’ Travis said.

He was standing opposite them now on the other side of the hole, gun pointed at their midsections. It was the first chance Matt had had to take a good look at the older Anderson. He’d forgotten how much he was like Kane. Except for the hair and eyes, they were cut from the same chunky slab of rock, heads like boulders, all rough lines and angles. Both as tough and hard as they looked. But Travis wasn’t crazy like his brother. He was no brain surgeon either but he was calculating and cold. Seven years ago he was somehow involved in the disappearance of that girl and he’d kept his cool, kept his brother in line, stayed out of prison, joined the army when it was time to get out of the way. He’d made corporal, worked in the armoury. He didn’t have the smarts to organise that weapons racket and the lack of evidence against him suggested he was only a low-level grunt on the job – but he was cunning enough to be involved. Whatever he’d done with his cut of the proceeds, he hadn’t attracted undue police attention since then. He’d been getting work and making like an average Joe.

Back there in the wardrobe, he’d barked out orders like a drill sergeant on a power trip. Out here, the smugness was gone. Now he just seemed ticked off. And Matt was acutely aware that standing over a hole at the messy end of Travis Anderson’s gun was not a comfortable place to be.

‘Move it, for Christ’s sake. Are you both fucking deaf?’

Matt dropped his eyes to the hole. He didn’t want to get down there. Instinct and training were in sync on that. It was probably the only way in and out. Why bother smashing through the floor if they could get under the barn any other way? It must be why they checked the garden earlier, for a way in under the verandah. Which meant any chance of escape would have to be through a well-lit hole in the middle of the floor. It was the wrong way to go but Travis had the gun and Matt didn’t.

He moved first, dropped his legs into the hole, lowered himself down. He ducked under the timber boards and felt the drop in temperature as he took a quick look around. He thought there’d be some sort of lighting – a gas lamp or an electric bulb strung up – and Kane waiting for them. He thought wrong. Light from the room above illuminated a circle of earth directly under the hole. The rest was a solid mass of blackness.

He stood up again, his head and shoulders above floor height. ‘Come on,’ he said to Jodie and held out a hand.

She squatted on the edge and sucked in a deep breath like she was planning to swim underwater. Her fingers were icy and shaking, and as she dropped into the hole, she kept a hold on his hand – not a lightweight finger grip but a solid, full-fisted grasp. It seemed to settle the shaking. It didn’t hurt him, either.

As Travis climbed down, Matt ducked under the floor again, pulling Jodie into the darkness with him. He wished she wasn’t there. Wished she was somewhere safe. The moment they’d stepped into the hole, Jodie and her friends’ chances had taken a dive. The hostages were separated and that made getting them all out a whole lot more complicated. Doing it from under the barn with a gun to his back and Kane God knows where, was a major setback. Worse still, if Travis had brought them down here to kill them, or if he just lost his cool and killed them anyway, the hostages’ chances were zero. And Matt would have failed four more innocent victims.

Beside him, Jodie slid a hand inside his jacket and gripped the back of his shirt. She was cold and there was trepidation in the way she held him but there was also a fierceness about her. Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe he needed to for his own resolve. But he hoped he wasn’t because if they had even the faintest chance of getting out, they’d need every ounce of fierceness they could get. If she fell to pieces, neither of them would make it.

Travis reached into a well between the floor joists, pulled out a torch and flicked it on. The beam cut through the dark, revealing uneven bare earth that sloped away towards the back of the barn. Square towers of brick piers stood in rows all around them, at least four bricks too short for standing room.

‘Over there,’ Travis said. He had the gun in one hand, the torch in the other, lighting the path he wanted them to take.

Matt had to bend almost double to avoid knocking himself out on the overhead beams. He limped awkwardly, picking his way in the dark, following the light, only sure Jodie was at his back by the hand holding his jacket. ‘So where’s your low-life brother?’

‘Just shut up and walk.’ Travis was breathing hard. And not from exertion. The kind of breathing you do when you want to hurl something.

‘Left you to handle the hostages on your own, huh? Jesus, I don’t know how you put up with him. He’s an arsehole.’

‘Don’t get cocky, Wiseman. He’ll be back.’

‘Left you to clean up his shit again, right?’

The light swung around, hit Matt in the eyes. He couldn’t make out Travis in the dark behind it, could only see his hand on the end of the torch, but his reply came out loud and clear. ‘Keep your fucking mouth shut, Wiseman. And
walk
.’

Matt put a hand in front of his eyes. ‘Can’t see where to go with that thing in my face.’

Travis did some more heavy breathing, let the light hang on Matt for a couple of seconds, then pointed it ahead again.

They moved further into the darkness, grit and stones scuttling about as their feet slipped on the loose dirt. Behind him, Jodie’s breath sounded loud and forced.

‘Okay, stop,’ Travis said. The hole in the floor was twenty metres behind them. They were well under the centre of the barn, heading towards the back. Travis held the gun on them as he waved the torch left and right looking for something. Then the light illuminated a pile of dirt beside a freshly dug pit.

It was too dark to see Jodie, but Matt heard her. Her feet scrunched on the dirt as she moved around him. She gasped. There was a thud on a beam overhead and she stumbled into him. It must have hurt but it wasn’t the whack on the head she reacted to.

‘No. No way.’ Her voice was loud, a yell. ‘If you want to put me in a damn hole, you can do it yourself, you
bastard
. I am not digging my own grave.’

29

Travis swung the torch around. ‘Not yet, tough bitch. I’ve got another job for you.’

Matt squinted at Jodie in the sudden glare. She was wild-eyed, breathing hard.

‘Get over there,’ Travis ordered and they were in darkness again, the torch pointing to the pit.

Even as Matt found Jodie in the dark and wrestled hold of her arm, his brain was ticking over. She tried to pull away but he held onto her. If she didn’t come with him, he’d never find her in the dark. And he wanted to see what was in that pit. Travis and Kane came here to dig it. They were either burying something or digging something up. And they’d gone to a lot of trouble to do it. More than a lot. They’d shot a woman, locked five people in a wardrobe and smashed a hole in the floor.

Why do that to bury something? The barn was surrounded by bush. They were in the middle of farming land. They could bury something anywhere out there.

He remembered Louise quoting them.
We’ll get our stuff and get out of here.
So they were digging something up? They’d lived here, they’d both been back in Bald Hill for a few years, they had plenty of opportunity to bury a bunch of stuff. If Matt was right, and Travis and Kane had killed John Kruger, what was important enough for them to hide from the cops for a day waiting for a chance to dig it up?

As he and Jodie moved past a brick pier, Matt saw where the torchlight extended beyond the pit. Saw there were two more freshly dug pits. They looked just like the first one – about the size of your average backyard barbecue, maybe knee-deep. He hesitated a moment. Cold fear stiffened his spine.

Jesus, maybe they were graves.

No, they weren’t big enough. He straightened a little, looked at Travis and Kane’s handiwork. Three piers in a row, three rectangular pits in front of them. Travis pointed with the torch to the next row of piers.

‘Get over there and dig. One hole each,’ Travis ordered.

Matt looked at the light bouncing off the piers and wondered about the positioning of the pits. He checked left then right. He couldn’t see a thing but he could smell the vague sandiness of the brick and mortar in the piers all around them. It was a big barn, it needed a lot of piers. After standing derelict for years, maybe the renovators had had to add a few more to prop up a sagging floor.

Matt felt his swollen lip turn up at the side. It would be hard to find one particular pier in the blackness. Especially if you hadn’t been down here in a while.

He started to move forward but Jodie pulled on his arm.

‘Matt, no,’ she whispered. ‘That’s five holes. There are five of
us
. I’m not digging a grave.’

‘Move it! Now!’ Travis shouted.

Matt caught her under his arm, hauled her forward. ‘It’s okay.’

She struggled against him, twisting her shoulders as she tried to break free. ‘No. We have to run. Now.’ Her leg banged into his bad knee and he grunted in pain but he held onto her. Travis had the gun and the torch. Now was not the time to run for it. The torch swung around, lit them up like a spotlight.

‘Get the fuck over there,’ Travis yelled, walking towards them.

Matt gripped Jodie by both shoulders and shook her. ‘Keep it together.’

‘We have to
do
something.’

‘We
do
what he says. Both of us.’

Then Travis was on them. He ripped Jodie away, flung her to the ground and put the pistol to Matt’s forehead. ‘I said dig, Wiseman.’ He looked down at Jodie. ‘Get up, bitch.’ Travis watched as she got to her feet then turned back to Matt. ‘Keep her under control or I’ll beat the shit out of her. Now
move
.’

Before she turned and walked, Jodie gave Travis one last glance, her eyes dark with loathing. When she looked at Matt, her mouth was a harsh line and her shoulders were rigid with hostility. Let it brew, babe, Matt thought, and warned himself to keep out of the firing line when she let it go.

He checked the first pit as they moved past. There was nothing in it. He guessed there was nothing in the others, either. Guessed that’s why they were starting two new pits. A couple of pickaxes were propped against the first brick pier.

‘So what’ve you lost?’ Matt said. ‘Your pocket money?’

Travis shoved him in the back with the gun. ‘Get a pick and dig.’

Matt lifted one, felt the weight of it in his hands. Nice hefty handle, chunky metal head. Gun still beat pick. ‘Your dad’s good citizen medals? Oh, that’s right. He didn’t get any. Used you for punching practice then beat up some other guy and went to prison.’

‘Shut up and dig!’

The floor was a little higher above their heads here but Matt still couldn’t stand upright. He raised the axe awkwardly over his shoulder and drove it into the earth. Pain stabbed his knee but he wasn’t going to let Travis know. ‘Or maybe you lost your best marbles down here, huh? Heard you were pretty good at those in juvie.’

‘Fuck you, Wiseman.’

Travis stood a couple of metres back from them, forming the top point of a wide triangle, holding the torch high to cast light near both piers. Jodie looked at Matt as she raised the pick to her shoulder. No surprise she knew how to swing it.

‘Or maybe it’s that mangy dog you used to drag around,’ Matt said. Rumour back then was that the father had taken to the mongrel with a brick. ‘You want to dig it up so you can buy it a nice headstone?’ As the last word left his mouth, the Old Barn flashed across his memory. How it was seven years ago. Broken windows, holes in the roof, an intact floor. No verandah. Matt’s pulse quickened. He lifted the pick, drove it deep. No, it didn’t make sense. Why would they come back for her? A sudden urgency made him attack the soil at his feet. The dirt was dark, friable farming soil but dry and hard packed. A sweat broke out on his back as he widened the hole, dug deeper. How many secrets had Travis and Kane buried?

One pier over, Jodie stopped digging. As Matt looked up, she straightened her legs and bent a little lower to peer into the pit. Her trench was maybe half the size of Matt’s, probably ankle depth if she was standing in it. She turned the pick head on its side, scraped away some dirt.