The beat-up white Ford station wagon didn’t belong to anyone Alison knew. She would have hidden, but she was plainly visible standing there in the middle of the drive, with nowhere to go. The way allowed only one car at a time. She was trapped. There was nothing to do but wait and see. The car was ambling along, as if it were observing every detail of the trip up the drive. As it drew closer she felt her stomach flip, the sweat beading on her forehead drip down her temples. She tried to steady her breaths, the beats of her heart. The driver was close enough now that she could vaguely make out the shape of a man. Shorn of hair, with a beard, broad shoulders. Sunglasses too angular for a manufacturer to imagine them on a woman’s face. He looked familiar. Alison gulped back the acid in her throat. Forced herself to stand strong. As the car pulled onto the shoulder, crunching plastic under the tires, Alison began to feel furious.
“What are you doing here?”
Chris Waters leaned an arm out the open window affably, seemingly unaffected by the hostility in Alison’s voice. “G’day, Alison, must say I was hoping to find this spot unpopulated.”
“Get off my property.” She felt the burn on her cheeks as she spoke.
“Now, come on, you’ve no gate down the way, how can I be sure this isn’t Crown land, property of His Majesty, and by extension, any of us poor subjects who might happen past?”
“I’m telling you, that’s how. You a monarchist? King don’t own shit around here. If it’s not me, it’s the Wurundjeri people you need to clear it with.”
The journalist shrugged, tried to disguise the annoyance on his face with a forced smile.
“Did your grandparents ask or is that only required when it’s convenient? I’m gonna need to keep going up so I can find a place to turn back around.”
“You do that, Mr. the Age, but I’m going to use the time to call the police and tell ’em you’re here, and you’re not welcome.” Alison felt stupid, but she pulled her phone out of her pocket and thumbed around looking for Billy’s number.
“Hold up, hold up, no need to involve the local constabulary. I just wanted to get a sense of the place where it happened. I take it, from the way you’re scratching around in the dirt over there, that that’s where you found her.” He looked a little too pleased with himself. But Alison really didn’t want to ask Billy for help. She slid her phone back into her pocket.
“What do you want?”
“Why was she coming to visit you?”
“How should I know? I told you I didn’t know who she was.” Alison was irritated. “What are you doing focusing on this anyway? Plenty of other people died in this fire. Their lives are important too. Go write about someone else.”
Chris Waters squinted at Alison in a way that felt to her like he was peeling the flesh off her bones. “No one else is a possible murder victim.” He raised a calloused hand to his chin, scratched at a spot near his Adam’s apple. “Word is, no one in Cairns has seen your mate Gil for over a fortnight.”
“He’s not my mate.” Alison spat each word out slowly, poison in her tone. Chris Waters killed the engine of the Ford and cracked the door open. Alison heard the click of his seat belt uncoupling. He leaned into the door and a leg emerged below the chassis. One R.M. Williams–clad foot on the ground. They’re like cockroaches, Alison thought. You don’t squash one quick enough, and they run as far as they can.
“Do you think you might be able to point out where you found her, what it looked like, you know, while we’re both here? I don’t have to say you told me. It could be on background.”
“What the fuck is background?” Her dad never taught her that one.
“You tell me, I write about it, except I don’t say who told me or even that anyone told me, I just sort of let the information permeate the yarn, you know?” He winked at her.
“Don’t bloody wink at me.”
“Come on, Alison. You help me, I help you.”
“And how exactly do you help me?”
“I get your side out there, before the inquest, before Steve St. John from the Scum gets into it and you become a villain. He’s up here, you know, overheard him talking to some of the coppers on a smoko. One of them was telling a tale about you buttering up the police with your feminine wiles.”
“The Herald Sun can say what it wants. I don’t care. It’s hardly going to look good for the police if the story they go with is that I’ve avoided scrutiny by banging the boys. I doubt they’d be keen to help Steve St. John with any more tips on their smoko if that’s the angle he runs with. ’Specially since three-quarters of those blokes are married.”
Chris Waters looked pissed. Alison knew he hadn’t expected her to call his bluff. She was shocked the news about her and Billy had spread far enough to be flung back at her by a city journalist, but that was small-town life. It was one reason seventeen-year-old Alison, at her most awkward, most embarrassed by her parents, had longed so badly for the anonymity of Paris.
He held up his hands in a peace gesture. “All right, then, you help me, and maybe I owe you a favor.” Alison opened her mouth to dismiss him again, but she stopped. Chris Waters was a major name. She’d read his reports in the papers for years. In the nineties he’d broken some huge stories about Melbourne gangland types and followed those up with rank political corruption in New South Wales. He’d written so many big stories, he was almost a story himself. Her dad used to single his reports out for his highest praise. Knows how to work the shoe leather, that Chris Waters. He knew police, lawyers, politicians, all over the country. Alison didn’t know a thing about what she was getting into, what she wanted to do. But he might.
“What kind of favor?”
“Anything. You share information with me, maybe I can share information with you.”
Alison thought about it for a minute. She was in over her head. She didn’t know how to investigate something. She knew Gil and could maybe figure out where he was if she talked to the right people, but she didn’t have access to the kinds of people and information someone like Chris Waters did. That was what Alison wanted. Someone with skills she needed who owed her something. She thought of Billy and immediately dismissed him. Someone who owed her something, not the other way around. Billy wouldn’t help her now. Alison stuck out her hand and smiled at him.
“All right, Chris Waters of the Age, I reckon you’ve got a deal.” He took her hand in his and they shook, both gripping tightly.