Gunshot Road (3 page)

Motors and wheels

IT WAS MAGPIE ALL
right, standing alongside his wife, Meg Brambles. She was crouching, holding a rag to the injured man's face.

With them was a teenage boy: Danny. Their grandson—and Rambling Rosie's son. My second encounter with the Brambles, and the sun no more than a finger's breadth above the horizon.

The grandparents appeared anxious, but Danny looked positively traumatised. He was staring at the wreck, his elbows clenched, his face an echo of the mess of shattered metal and debris among which he stood.

A mob of dogs—Magpie's no doubt, he was always a big one for the dogs—skulked around, looking for a chance to score.

Magpie spotted me, seemed relieved. He was a nuggetty fellow, sprightly and spry, wearing patched pants and a pencil-thin mustache that made him look like a short black Errol Flynn. He shook my hand, muttered a greeting.

Before I could respond we were bustled out of the way by Cockburn, cruising in to take control. He was on his home turf now, assessing damage, issuing orders, despatching lackeys. Competent, I had to admit. More puzzling was the flash of irritation when he glanced at me.

What now? I wondered. Would you rather we'd just driven past? Whoever was dead out on the Gunshot wasn't going to be needing us in a hurry. I was beginning to see what Tom meant about the burr up this guy's arse.

Harley came bustling in with a first-aid kit. Meg, no longer needed, came and stood with us.

‘How's the whitefeller?' I asked.

‘Reckon this one'll be okay; bit of a bump on the head. Wanted to get up, but I made im stay down. Stop the blood.'

Meg spent much of her life patching people up. Out at Stonehouse she was the health worker. And the teacher, come to think of it. And foster mother to half the dropouts and delinquents in the district. She'd done a bit of patching in her time.

The crash victim drew himself up onto an elbow, took us in, nodded his appreciation. He was red haired, with a soft, white face, hooded eyes, a blue denim shirt. He turned away when Harley offered him a swig of water, drank gratefully.

‘Nother feller bin finish, parnparr,' she added.

‘What other feller?'

A sudden oath, followed closely by a pistol shot, rang out from the far side of the vehicle.

I darted around. A dog lay on its side, splattered. As was the poor bastard who'd been driving the Range Rover. His upper body, half out the window, crushed by a ton of flying metal. His head a mess of ruddy gore and crushed bone.

‘Bloody mongrel.' Cockburn was holstering his pistol. ‘Licking this bloke's brains.'

‘They normally go away if you say “Go away!”'

Just for a moment he looked as if he'd like to give me the same treatment he'd given the dog.

‘Bunter!' He turned and barked at the red-haired copper. ‘Cover him up.'

I went back to Danny and Meg. Magpie was moving around the crash site, gathering up debris and laying it alongside the path. Trying to be of some use, now that the professionals had taken over.

‘You don't have to do that,' I told him. ‘Ambulance'll be here soon. Tow trucks. More cops. Their job.'

‘That feller bin lose 'is mate,' he said by way of explanation. ‘I give im a hand.' He picked up a waterbottle, some scattered tools, a leather satchel and a tyre iron, laid them alongside the track.

‘You did well, the three of you. Might have saved this bloke's life. Could have laid out here for days if you hadn't spotted him. Heading for town, were you?'

‘Yuwayi. Comin in from Stonehouse.'

I turned to Danny. His eyes were hopping about like startled finches.

When I first came back to Bluebush a couple of years ago, Danny had struck me as the sweetest and freest of the town's teen spirits. He hardly ever went to school; few of his peer group did. But he cruised around town as though it was his own little playground, a quick smile and a cheeky word for everyone. He'd clip you on the arse and laugh as he sprinted by; flog a chip from your carton.

He must be fifteen now, a slender boy with a glorious jungle of flashing dreadlocks tightly coiled. A broad mouth, slightly random teeth, a wisp of bumfluff on his chin. His feet were dust covered, bare, ready to run. Lately, I'd heard, the running had turned to riding in hot cars and the chip habit to drink and drugs. Fun for a while, but the long-term prospects were poor. Non-existent, really.

‘So Danny—you staying out there too? Stonehouse?'

He settled, ever so slightly. He'd always seemed somehow comforted by my presence. God knows why: I had the opposite effect on everybody else.

‘Yuwayi.' A low voice. ‘Quiet place.'

‘It is.'

‘No machines.'

‘Machines?'

‘All em Bluebush motors and wheels. Generator wind, clockin time. Sometimes you gotta get away.'

I paused. There was an edgy timbre to Danny's voice, and the words didn't make a huge amount of sense. I hadn't seen him for months. Maybe the drugs I'd heard about were catching up with him. With Rambling Rosie for a mother it was a miracle they'd given him any start at all.

Meg touched his elbow. ‘Good boy, this one. Just worry too much for nothin.'

Typical Meg. She was one of the strong women of our community, the ones who took up the slack, who cared for the wasted and the wounded. That was why she and Magpie had set up Stonehouse Creek: as an antidote to the town. At any given moment, you'd find them out there: the petrol sniffers and meth-heads, broken-down cowboys and motherless children, drinkers and dreamers. She and Magpie would pick them up, take them out bush, give them a bit of breathing space. Show them their country.

All three of them looked nervous: the police, I assumed, or the accident, or both. ‘Come on,' I said, ‘no need for you to see this.'

I began to lead them back up to the road, but we'd only taken a couple of steps when a stern voice stopped us in our tracks.

‘Emily!'

Cockburn.

We halted. Danny looked around, anxiously. Having a cop within striking distance—particularly one of the Cockburn stamp—obviously rattled him. Nothing surprising there: in his world, when there was a cop within striking distance, generally you got struck.

‘Where do you think you're going?'

‘Back to the car.'

‘I need you to get a statement from these people.'

‘Magpie and Meg.'

He hesitated. ‘What?'

‘That's their names. Magpie Jangala and Meg Brambles. And their grandson, Danny. He's not much of a talker—won't give you a word if you hassle him.'

We carried on up to the road. I could feel Cockburn's eyes burning into my back.

Their stories, when I did eventually get them down, confirmed what I'd surmised: they'd been travelling north; like me, they'd seen signs of an accident, gone to help. The passenger had been thrown clear. The driver had had his last rites delivered by a camp—now dead—dog. Both men, like most other whitefellers in the district, worked for Copperhead Mines.

The paramedics arrived, took away the passenger, name of Craig Flint, on a stretcher and Alan Feik, the driver, in a bag.

A tow truck rocked up. A cheery young bloke jumped down from the cab, took a look at the dead dog and the bloody mess a few feet from it.

‘All that from the dog?'

‘The driver.'

‘Erk.'

A back-up van arrived from town, Griffo at the wheel. The senior sergeant gathered us together. Bunter and Griffo would wrap up here, Cockburn, Harley and I would head on down to the Gunshot Road.

The Gunshot Road. He made it sound like a punishment detail.

As we climbed into the car, I realised how sticky with sweat I was. The heat was working itself deep into the contours of my body, down between the follicles. I checked my watch. Still only seven-thirty. That heatwave was coming in fast, a simmering, vicious bastard of a thing.

I ran a finger beneath the collar of my shirt. At least we'd have air-conditioning.

Five minutes later it broke down.

Green Swamp Well

I PEELED MY SWEATY
thighs off the vinyl and climbed out of the Tojo, grateful for the change of scenery. The main scenery to date had been the back of Harley's head. His neck a sweaty sausage, his scalp raw with a fine display of dandruff. He had twenty-two freckles and sunspots, numerous flakes of something white, possibly dried soap, teeth marks on his right ear and a skin cancer I would have warned him about if he'd been nicer to his dogs.

Cockburn must have had internal air-conditioning: still razor-creased and groomed, his healthy sheen not a degree ruddier. He looked like he was stepping out for a night at the casino.

Green Swamp Well was a collection of ramshackle whitewash buildings scattered around your typical outback pub. Wide verandas, shaded windows, gangrenous roofs buckling under the relentless Territory sun; denizens ditto.

‘Population density greater than I expected,' remarked Cockburn.

He had a point: the car park was chockers. Everything from the ubiquitous bush utes to a motor bike, from a Transit van to a mini-bus—the latter full of Asian tourists, judging by the agglomeration of skinny legs and spectacles visible under the kurrajong tree. One beige Toyota was charmingly adorned with a stuffed pig's head lashed to the bull-bar. Most of the other vehicles were indistinguishable under a topcoat of red dust and amateur panel-beating, except for a stretch campervan labelled
Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship
and a hearse. Behind that, a cop car.

‘That'll be Jerker,' said Harley.

‘Jerker?' Cockburn raised a brow.

‘Brad Jenkins, from the Break. This is his crime of the century—he won't want to stuff it up.'

The copper in question came marching out to greet us. Jerker was a large, goofy-looking guy with shire-horse feet and bloodhound jowls. So this was the poor bastard in charge of the cop shop at Breaking Point, eighty k's down the highway. I wondered who he'd pissed off to get banished to the Break, but as the introductions approached I began to suspect it was an occupational health and safety issue for the boys in town. From five paces his breath smelled like refried sump oil.

Whatever energy Jerker saved on flossing, he put into his enthusiasm for the job. As Harley had suggested, he'd refused to let anybody leave the roadhouse until the investigating team arrived.

Not that there was going to be much of an investigation. By Jenkins' account, two of the old drunks who hung around the pub had had a booze-fuelled brawl in the shack across the road; one of them had woken up dead.

Cockburn didn't sound impressed; an eyebrow flickered, a lip twitched. ‘You kept this crowd here for that?' he asked, nodding at the veranda, where a motley mob of travellers looked keen to be on their way.

Jenkins flushed. ‘Knew you'd want statements from everyone here.'

‘You had it figured for a yakuza hit?' The senior sergeant glanced at the Asians under the kurrajong.

‘No sarge.' He looked puzzled. ‘Figured it was the other feller in the shack.'

Cockburn sighed. ‘We'll get to that. Victim's name?'

Jerker had to consult the notebook. ‘Albert Ozolins…'

A tall fellow in a clean white shirt wandered out of the pub. Another redhead, mostly freckles and spaghetti legs.

‘Thought you bastards'd never get here,' he grinned.

Cockburn wasn't joining in the conviviality. ‘Who are you?'‘Undertakers.'

‘We were held up,' Cockburn responded sharply.

‘We heard. Rush hour on the road to Bluebush. Stiffs everywhere. Appreciate it if you could get this one out of the way as quick as possible. Longer we hang around…' He waved an arm; the heat, perhaps, or the flies; maybe it was tai chi.

‘Forensics up from Alice yet?'

‘Been and gone,' said Jerker. ‘Didn't hang around—another customer at Saddler's Well, reckoned this one was a picnic by comparison. Said the report'll be in your office before you are.'

‘Right,' said Cockburn, also waving. Definitely a fly. The sticky little insects were something chronic. We were swinging and swishing for all we were worth but they still ended up in every orifice imaginable.

He turned away, began leading us in the direction of the shack. ‘Nobody's touched him?'

‘Just forensics,' said Jenkins. ‘Oh—and the priest.'

Cockburn stopped. ‘Priest?'

Jenkins tugged at an ear lobe, sensed danger. ‘Missionary feller. Wanted to give the last rites. Or whatever.'

I glanced back at the campervan. Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship. Not exactly a priest, but Jenkins didn't strike me as an expert on matters ecclesiastical.

Cockburn gave him the granite stare.

‘Nobody goes near a crime scene until I give the all-clear. Is that understood?'

Jenkins studied the ground. ‘Sorry boss.'

‘This one sounds clear cut, but even so…'

The constable led us out in the direction of a hovel at the foot of a craggy red bluff, a couple of hundred yards south of the pub.

The shack was constructed, appropriately enough, of blood-wood beams and rusty corrugated iron, its starkness a sharp contrast to the firebright cliffs behind. Alongside the building was a carport made of steel rails. Scrap metal, perhaps, from the old Gunshot Mine. In the carport was a battered blue jeep.

The cabin seemed to be vibrating. A disturbing hum rattled my eardrums. As we drew closer I realised it was an effect generated by the cloud of flies cutting through the air. They crashed into the screens, ripped in and out of the open door. I spluttered and spat one from my mouth. Wondered where it had been.

I went up the steps, then paused, a peculiar chill stealing over my heart. I remembered my ominous feeling on the way down, the sense of something dangerous beyond the horizon.

Cockburn noticed my discomfort, showed a glint of cold pleasure. ‘Better get used to it, Emily. Won't be the last body you have to look at.'

‘Won't be the first, either.' I pushed my way past. This bloke was getting on my goat.