CHAPTER 21

The Commodore smelled musty. So much rain, so much damp heat. How do you get the smell out? Domestos? Bicarb? Anything but one of those sickening cardboard cologne things you hang off the mirror.

Pine plantations lined up either side of the road—their tidy rows an affront in this chaos. No order, no justice anywhere except these stupid rows of trees.

Clem’s thoughts remained mushy with fatigue and disappointment. She was hungry, too. It was two o’clock in the afternoon and she still hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. She pulled into the last service station on the crumbling concrete fringe of Barnforth and ordered a yellowish sausage roll from the pie oven, looking over her shoulder every few seconds as she waited.

Stupid. Jackson wouldn’t be anywhere near Piama or Barnforth. He’d be lying low, laughing at the cops somewhere. Wake up, Jones.

Back in the car she switched on the stereo, set her LOUD playlist on shuffle and hit the road again, gripping the greasy paper bag with one hand and steering with the other as the Hilltop Hoods thumped out ‘Hard Road’. She screwed up the paper bag and threw it on the floor. Cee Lo Green came on and she wound the window down, shouting the chorus to the pine trees, every one of them, individually: ‘Fuck you-oo-oo—WISEMAN!’ her hair flying back off her face as she sped along the hundred-k stretch towards Piama. A stream of humidity rushed inside the car and she wound the window up.

The fuzziness in her head was beginning to clear. She breathed sharply—three hard breaths, like a sprinter at the start line. Alert, stomach satisfied, pelting down the straight road as the pine plantations gave way to a crowded mess of gum trees and scrubby undergrowth.

Jackson was on the loose and dangerous. She had his photograph but she didn’t know what good that would do. At least the cops were looking for him. It was Doncaster that enraged her though. It was as if he was a figure skater, skimming across the surface with a sparkling white toothy smile, and getting away with it. Wealth without consequence. Power and privilege like a screen around him. She had nothing substantive on him and as much as she hated to admit it, neither did Wiseman. And what was worse, he was going to get his slimy hands on Helen’s land, her sanctuary. Turn it into some sort of theme park, desecrate Turtle Shores with concrete and artificial light and fairy floss and noise.

The land. There’s a contract on foot—he’s going to own the land. Come on, Jones, think! This is why Helen wanted you on board in the first place. You’re a lawyer, for Christ’s sake.

An idea started to form in her head, the legal elements lining up, like planks in a tower, rickety but gaining height. She wrenched the wheel left, pulled onto the gravel shoulder in a cloud of dust and a fishtail flourish, picked up her phone. Scrolling through her contacts, she tapped one and pressed the call button, waited as it rang.

‘Clementine, what a delight to hear from you. How are you?’

Hamish Doncaster always sounded like he was lying on a banana lounge with a cocktail in his hand.

‘Yeah, had better days. Did you see my text message?’ He hadn’t. She filled him in, the summarised version she’d given to the cops. He punctuated the story with shocked gasps and outrage at his father’s role in all this.

‘Oh my God, this is insane,’ he said at last.

‘Yep, a real life Loony Tunes. So tell me, do you know who the executor is for Helen’s estate?’

‘What? No. Why would I know? And what’s that got to do with anything?’

‘You bid at the auction, didn’t you? You would have reviewed the contract beforehand.’

‘Pfft. I was never going to buy, why would I look at the contract? I dealt with the agent and signed the stupid stat dec as I walked in, that was it.’ She heard liquid being sucked up a straw. He had a cocktail. He had a friggin’ cocktail.

‘So the agent never mentioned the executor’s name?’

‘No. Why do you ask?’

There was a pause while Clem collected all her rage and funnelled it down into one simple imperative. ‘He can’t get Helen’s land.’

‘What? You mean my father? You’re referring to my father?’

‘Yes. We’ve got to stop your father getting his hands on Helen’s land.’

‘Oh dear. You’ve had a rough day, Clementine, and you’re probably exhausted. Let me spell it out for you: he has a binding contract, the executor is obliged to complete, the transaction will settle and he will be the owner of that parcel of land.’

‘I think I might have an avenue—’

‘But Clementine, don’t be foolish. Whoever the executor may be, he can’t just pull out of the contract. Big Red will simply commence proceedings against him for specific performance and the court will agree and the land will be transferred to him. Doesn’t the thing settle tomorrow anyway?’

‘Yes, but I think there’s a chance the contract could be validly rescinded.’

‘Oh dear. Oh dearie, dearie me. You can’t be serious.’

‘Hear me out—’

‘No, no, no. I don’t care what crazy theory you’re working on, you’re talking about my father. You cannot take on His Redness. The last person who did that is now bankrupt and living in a disused fridge somewhere in Dubbo. Anyway, didn’t you just say he hired someone to kill Helen? Not to mention you.’

‘Forget that, focus on the transaction, the sale of Turtle Shores. That’s all I care about right now. Your father participated in the auction fraudulently.’

‘You don’t mean that silly little statutory declaration? Surely not?’

‘Yes,’ she said, starting a Google search for Queensland courts on her iPad.

‘But you know that’s just a sideshow. The seller will still be bound.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Where are you, anyway? A resort somewhere?’

‘Port Douglas. Why don’t you come up?’

She ignored him. ‘Here we go,’ she said, typing in Helen’s name and then selecting Deceased in the party field.

‘He would have used one of his companies anyway,’ said Hamish.

‘He’ll be the beneficial owner. The stat dec applied to the legal owner and the beneficial owner. It’s misleading and deceptive, Hamish, and anyway, if someone or some entity was acting as his agent, we might still be able to sheet it home to him as principal.’

‘Holy snapping subpoenas, Batman. You might be onto something there,’ he said sarcastically. ‘But what damage has the vendor suffered? Let me think…’ She imagined him in his poolside outfit: black budgie smugglers, tanned abs, designer sunglasses… perhaps a white Panama hat—the whole box and dice. ‘Oh yes, perfect! You could argue on behalf of the possums—as interested third parties, Your Honour—that they’ll be disadvantaged if he concretes the place over.’

‘I’m not saying it’s watertight, smartarse, I’m just saying we might have a chance.’

‘But it’s all a pipe dream. Imagine the legal fees. His Redness will be literally throwing money at it. What executor would allow the estate to be whittled away to nothing like that? God, there won’t be any estate left by the time my father’s finished with them.’ He drew a sharp breath. ‘And can you please just stop saying “we”?’

‘Yeah, yeah. It was the royal “we”. Don’t worry, you won’t be receiving any instructions to act.’

‘My dear Clementine—Charlie’s Angel, Arya of Winterfell—you must let this slide. There is absolutely no point in taking on a legal battle with my father. I know this, you know this. You will be squashed like a pea, you will be roadkill. What you must do is get your barge pole out and push away. Get as far from his vile vessel as you can.’

Clementine was hardly listening at all now as the search result came up on her screen. ‘Margaret Jeppeson,’ she said.

‘What? Who…’

‘I have no idea. But I’m going to find out.’

The plastic ribbon of crime-scene tape had gone and the yellow fibro shanty looked different—a cold prickliness about it, as if it no longer trusted her.

Torrens’ Patrol was in the driveway and the shed door hung open. Pocket trotted over as she got out of the car, tongue lolling. He seemed nervous and the tail wag was faltering. ‘Come here, boy,’ she said, fondling his ears with both hands. ‘You’re okay. We’re all okay.’ Sarge came over looking lost. She gave him a pat and a cuddle. ‘You’re a brave, brave boy.’

She shut the car door and peeked in the back window of Torrens’ Patrol, cupping her face against the glass to neutralise the reflection. It was packed, ready to go. Esky, camp stove, duffel bag.

She poked her head in the shed. Silent and empty but for his footy, sitting forlorn under the bench in the shadows. She picked it up, flipped it twice from hand to hand, smoothed down the tiny tear near the lace. Bouncing it as she walked up the front path, it hit the pavement close to the point, yoyo-ing back into her hands. She liked the certainty of it and the comforting slap as it hit her palms. Memories of Katinga flooded in. The boys, Clancy, Wakely, each of them. She thought of the nine-strong Flood family; Bob Nicholls from the IGA and his man of the match award. Mrs Lemmon and her beanies and her Tom, ‘smiling down from heaven’.

And Rowan. Oh God, Rowan, who’d saved her life when she didn’t feel like it was worth saving. Who’d slipped, effortlessly, seamlessly, under her skin.

She stopped on the path. He was the one person to whom she’d told everything, weeping, distraught, his arms around her. Rowan was the one person in the world who knew her. And still he wanted her.

As if on cue, her phone rang. Rowan’s name lit the screen.

He’d seen the news, shooting death in Piama, recognised the shanty…Yes, she was okay…Yes, it was linked to Helen…No, nothing to do with her. Then why the shanty? Well, okay, yes it was linked to her…

‘You’ve found something and they’re after you.’

She assured him the police were onto it…no, there was no police guard for her…it was all hands on deck to find the killer… no, nothing he could do…

There was a long pause. She watched a pale-headed rosella land on the roof of the shanty, its mate arriving just after— the brilliant yellow, the breathtaking violet.

Then his voice, distant. ‘You can’t pursue this. You have to leave it to the police.’

‘I am leaving it to the police.’

‘Yeah but, I mean…’ He searched for the right words. ‘You need to look after yourself…really look after yourself.’

It was not how she thought of herself—something to protect, safeguard. Not since the accident.

‘Yep.’ It was a brush-off and he picked it.

‘No, I mean it. You…you’ve got to…’ he fumbled for words. The rosellas spun around to face the yard with a quick glance at her and a nod, then took flight in a burst of colour, disappearing together into the bush next door.

‘I have to go now,’ she said.

‘Wait. No.’

She sighed.

‘I want to tell you something.’

A wave of exhaustion washed over her—nothing left in the tank. ‘I don’t think this is the time,’ she said.

‘No. It is the time. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s to say the stuff you need to say when you have the chance.’

‘It’s okay, Rowan, really, it’s okay.’ Oh God, how to end this?

‘I’m not good with words. But Clem, I’ve thought about it a lot and I was going to tell you when you got back, and…’

‘No, no. Rowan, don’t, it’s going to be all right,’ she said softly. She simply couldn’t deal with this. Not now.

‘…I need to tell you.’ She closed her eyes for what was coming. ‘I didn’t…I wasn’t looking for anything.’ He paused, struggling to summons the courage or inspiration or something. ‘But somehow when you arrived…’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m just gonna say it, Clem…you arrived and it was like the rising sun on a clear blue day.’

Beautiful. Terrifying. Just his breathing and the waves collapsing on the beach in the backyard.

‘And suddenly I felt like…I felt like I could live again. Like really live. Something I hadn’t felt since Kate.’ The breeze sweeping across her shoulders and rustling through the branches of the palm tree and Rowan’s voice speaking these impossible things. ‘And I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but it seemed then, with you, like anything was possible again. I mean it, Clem, anything…even love.’

Her hand began to tremble on the phone.

‘I know this is a lot. I never intended to say it over the phone. But there’s a time and a moment and if you miss it, it’s gone, and I learned that lesson once.’ His voice cracked the slightest bit. ‘And oh God, you make me do crazy things, you make me say crazy things.’

He’d driven five hours to save her. He’d gone and spoken these words—words that he’d prepared and crafted and lovingly packaged up for her like a gift for her return.

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ he said.

‘I can’t say anything. I’ll cry,’ she whispered.

‘Oh. Sorry. I mean, no. I’m not sorry. Just…just be careful, okay?’

‘I will,’ she said. She could not find the strength to say anything more.

She stood outside for a long while, hugging the football to her chest, then wiped her eyes and took the steps up to the verandah. The flyscreen door slammed shut behind her as she entered the lounge room, stuffy with heat. In the kitchen, Torrens was at the sink, his back to her, filling a bottle of water from the tap. He had a sling around his neck but both arms free.

‘Hey mate,’ she said. ‘How’s the shoulder?’

‘Yeah, I’ll live,’ he said, without turning around.

‘Not bothering with the sling?’

‘Nah. Pain in the arse.’ He spoke to the sink, couldn’t bear to look at her.

There was an uncomfortable silence, just the sound of the running water. Pocket came into the kitchen, sniffed the spot where Membrey had lain. It was scrubbed clean.

‘Did the cops…?’ she said, pointing at the floor.

He turned to face her, following her hand, shook his head and took an aggressive swig at the bottle of water.

‘Oh geez, Torrens, you didn’t have to clean up. You’re injured.’

‘I enjoyed it,’ he said coldly. ‘Membrey bled, a lot.’

She felt slightly ill. This side of Torrens was still a shock. He turned back to the sink and began filling another water bottle. Definitely leaving. Preparing for the long road trip. At least it wasn’t bourbon.

‘Hey, Torrens, nothing wrong with your legs, how about a kick?’ she said, handpassing the ball to herself. The words hung in the air, flat and leaden. He didn’t even give her the courtesy of an answer.

Pocket was sitting at Torrens’ feet, looking up, hoping for a scrap. Her fluffy friend would be the only one left once Torrens had gone. She felt like crying again.

‘When are you heading off then?’ she said at last.

‘Now.’

Finally, he turned around, leaned against the sink, drying his hands on the hand towel. The width of him nearly blocked all the light from the window.

‘Come with me,’ he said.

Asking her. Proud, but still asking. A lump formed in her throat. She couldn’t speak.

‘Coach…’ He didn’t go on with the sentence. Just the word was enough. Loaded. He stood to his full height, threw the towel onto the bench. ‘You’re everything that’s any good in Katinga. There’s nothin’ there without you.’

He wore a black singlet and his shoulder was heavily dressed with white tape. The navy blue sling hung like a sash across his chest.

‘I mean. I just…’ He looked away, his face in profile, turned his gaze back on her, every inch of his skin preparing for the words that he wished he didn’t have to say. ‘I just…Well…Can you just come home, Jonesy?’

Oh God. Don’t. Don’t fucking cry, Jones.

She pulled out a chair and sat down, quietly, as if to pretend she wasn’t there. She slipped her legs under the table. Pocket gave up, turned on his heel and barged out through the dog door. The flap swung on the hinges, squeaking.

Her mind was clicking over. Messy, unfocused thoughts. The kind of thinking she hated, flashes of emotionally charged reason, dis-reason because it’s not reason, un-reason. She could go. With Torrens. Noel would be home in two days. Sarge would be fine. She picked at the aluminium edge on the table. She was still holding the football in her other hand, the leather warm in her palm. Torrens reached out and grabbed it, his huge mitt instantly shrinking the ball to the size of an orange.

‘Ha. Getting slow Jonesy,’ he grinned, taking two steps back, his backside up against the flyscreen door, ‘You need to get back into training.’ He dropped the ball neatly onto his boot, kicked a tiny little high floater, spinning end on end, just missing the ceiling light. She reached up and caught it cleanly, smiling, despite herself.

She imagined herself at training, the sweet slap of leather on leather, the smack of the physical contest, skin on skin, the inky sky and the stars as the men jogged their warm-down lap. She could be their coach again. They would defend their trophy with everything they had. And win or lose, she would be there to celebrate or console, it didn’t really matter which—it was only the quest that mattered.

But what about Helen? Didn’t she matter? The silence was growing. She must give him a response.

‘I need a drink of water is what I need.’

He smiled, grabbed a glass from the overhead cupboard, tap full bore, placed it gently before her on the table. Then he rushed outside, came back with a lemon from the tree, cut off a slice and dropped it into her glass with a splash. Big grin.

God, the hope in his eyes. Oh Christ.

‘I heard from Dad,’ he said. ‘He’s coming back from the Territory, got a job in Earlville.’

‘That’s great news.’ She was speaking to the table, unwilling to risk tears if she looked at him. Rude. Gutless. Pull yourself together. ‘Excellent, bloody excellent news, mate.’

‘He asked me when training’s starting.’

She nodded. There was some sort of emptiness in her chest, breathing didn’t seem to fill it.

‘Jackson’s going to slip the net,’ she said. ‘Doncaster’s going to get off.’

His smile faded.

She stared at the floor. ‘Helen’s nothing but a statistic. Doncaster’s building a resort at Turtle Shores, on her sanctuary. He killed her. Now he’s going to screw what’s left of her.’

After Torrens left she lay on the bed for a while, the rusty fan busting its guts against the heat. The air in the shanty felt stale. They hadn’t said anything more until she tried to give him the footy back as he walked to his car. He waved her off; said he wouldn’t be needing it.

‘Aren’t you going back to Katinga?’

‘Dunno,’ he’d said and wouldn’t tell her any more. If he wasn’t taking the footy he wasn’t returning to the new life he’d begun. With Membrey gone, it should have been so different. He should have been going to work, buying a place in Katinga, taking his mum on a trip to Hawaii.

Her phone rang. Brady.

‘You all set for the working bee this arvo?’ he said, in his raspy smoker’s voice. She’d forgotten about the working bee. They’d planned to make new banners and posters for their next protest in Noosa. Gaylene was hosting it at her house.

‘Mate, I can’t make it, sorry. There’s been a bit of trouble. A bloke died today, here in my kitchen.’

‘What? Man, that’s terrible.’

‘Yeah. It’s been a nightmare. I’m just not up to the working bee today.’

‘Who was it?’

‘You wouldn’t know him. A visitor. He wasn’t from round here. Listen, there’s more bad news. Doncaster’s going to turn Turtle Shores into a bloody resort.’

‘Oh fucking hell, no way! If the mine doesn’t kill off the turtles a resort sure will! What the fuck’s wrong with him? The bastard’s supposed to be supporting us!’

‘Yeah, I know. It’s…I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s just shocking. We’ll have to get ourselves organised with a new strategy for him now. And get some new donors. That’s why Noosa’s important. We need some wealthy holidaymakers on board. Can you look after the working bee for me? Make sure we get everything we need done?’

‘Bloody working bee. I just want to go over and cut his lily-white throat.’

‘Fuck’s sake, Brady, just cool it for now. We need to meet next week and sort out a plan. It’ll be all about that covenant. We’ll need the lawyers to get onto it. So get ready for Noosa—we’re gonna need that money.’

Brady was disappointed. A legal campaign sounded insufferably tame.

She ate a can of tuna at the kitchen table, trying to work through the angles. How had Jackson got Helen up to the top of the cliff? Why had he removed her sandals before he’d thrown her over? The police had failed to do a proper search for tracks so no one could be sure she hadn’t been marched up there at gunpoint. But what were the alternatives? Were there any alternatives?

She opened the fridge, crouched down and took out a can of Coke from the bottom shelf. Stayed down there for a while, letting the cold air envelope her, wake her up.

It came to her quickly. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

She rang Wiseman. She was investigating a shooting, a murder, if you don’t mind. A myriad of details to cover, not enough staff, most of them manning roadblocks, the homicide guys from Brisbane hadn’t arrived yet…She didn’t have time to go chasing theories about a suicide.

Clem hung up, pacing the kitchen.

Jackson was on the loose but he wouldn’t come anywhere near Piama or Barnforth. Not with all the roadblocks. But she needed to get to the airport. It was an hour away from Piama, less than twenty minutes from Barnforth. Could she risk it? He’d be keeping his distance, surely.

She took the small cardboard box from the dresser in the bedroom and put it in the front zip pocket of her backpack. Then she turned her laptop on. While it was powering up she gazed out the sliding door into the backyard. An older couple strolled along the track between the yard and the beach, hand in hand. No one she knew—grey nomads from the caravan park, most likely. Pocket was up and giving them the usual over-the-top reaction, running up and down, barking himself stupid. Sarge raised his big head, blinked, lowered it again into the thick grass—the dog equivalent of an eye-roll. Pocket was a great little dog: smart, obedient and easy to train. But with Sarge you got a sense of worldly wisdom that meant he’d only engage if there was a real threat.

She stuck her head out the door and called him over.

Pocket got there first. ‘No, not you noisy. The other one.’ She shooed him away and let Sarge inside, closing the sliding door behind him, and went to get his lead.

She printed off a copy of the sneaky photograph she’d taken in the interview room, then she did a search on the laptop, found the image she was after and printed that off too. She typed in the name Margaret Jeppeson. It took a moment but then there it was, on the screen in front of her—a LinkedIn profile. A photograph of a woman with an immaculate silver bob and a job title displayed in the text underneath:

Press Secretary and Head of Media, Office of the Premier, New South Wales

It was Helen’s friend. Margaret Jeppeson, the executor of Helen’s will, was Maggie from the funeral: ‘Noosa Darling’ herself.

Clem was tense throughout the drive to the airport, but it was uneventful. Sarge stuck his head out the window for most of it, his gums ballooning like parachutes in the wind. Pocket, much aggrieved at being left behind, had whined at the door. But the last time she’d had them both in the car it had been Circus Oz in a shoebox.

She drove past the airport and followed the General Aviation sign as the road skirted all the way past the airfield, around the back of some hills and then cut back in on the other side of the runway. She passed a number of hangars and other big sheds on industrial paddocks, and a tiny takeaway shop on the corner. She parked the car in the shade and left Sarge tied to the tow ball with a thin piece of string. The tug on his collar was enough to persuade him to stay put and settle himself in the long grass near the bowl of water she’d left. He’d bust through the string easily enough if she needed him.

She entered the hangar, stood at the counter and rang the bell, waited for the aircraft noise from the runway to subside and rang it again. There were a couple of notices taped to the counter, along with a cardboard box full of pencils and a grubby notepad. A helicopter sat dormant in the shadows at the other end of the hangar and another stood outside on the tarmac, shiny in the sun. To the right was a Colorbond office the size of a garden shed with one grimy louvre window. The office door opened and a man walked over briskly.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ he said, smiling.

‘No problem.’ Clem smiled back.

‘How can I help you?’

She reached into her backpack, pulled out Jackson’s photograph and placed it on the counter.

‘I’m looking for this fellow, wondered if you might know him?’ The man looked at the photograph, squinting. ‘Ummm, I don’t think…Why do you ask?’

‘I found his wallet. He bought a cake from me at the school fete and left it behind,’ she lied. ‘I didn’t realise it was there until I was packing up but it had a little helicopter key ring inside it. I just thought maybe he might be a pilot.’

He looked at her, sceptical, apparently weighing up the privacy implications. ‘Oh, right. Wasn’t there a drivers licence or a credit card in it?’

‘Well, that’s the thing, there was a drivers licence, that’s where I got this photo, but his name and address were blacked out with Texta, which was odd. And there was a fair bit of cash, so…’

‘I guess you could hand it in to the cops, though?’ said the man, obviously uncomfortable.

‘Oh yeah, first place I went to, but the station was closed. I heard they’ve got their hands full with a murder, not to mention the usual protesters and druggies and whatnot. Anyway, this guy said he was moving to Sydney, so I thought I might be able to return it to him before he left.’ Clem put on what she hoped was a concerned-citizen look, tugging at the back of her neck and grimacing with the burden of it.

‘Wouldn’t he go see the cops though? See if someone had handed it in?’

‘Hmmm, not sure he would actually. See I think maybe that’s the reason he’s tampered with his licence…you know, lying low or something. I don’t know, I sort of got the feeling when he said he was going interstate…the way he said it…well I just thought he might be trying to avoid the cops, if you know what I mean.’

The guy hesitated and she didn’t blame him. This was sounding thinner and thinner.

Did he think she was the police? Did he think if the guy wanted a low profile then she should respect that? Maybe he just felt the man shouldn’t be assisted in whatever criminal activity he was engaged in. Too many reasons for him not to help her. Time to give him a reason.

‘This was in the wallet too,’ she reached into the front zip of her backpack, pulled out the printout from Noel’s printer. It was a photograph of a young boy, the words ‘In loving memory’ across the top, dates at the base—a six-year-old’s funeral program.

‘I saw this and I just thought, man, what if this is the only photo he has of his son or something. I mean, I wouldn’t know, of course, but still, if it was me, I’d want it back.’

She hoped the manager guy had kids, hoped he knew someone who’d lost a child. She bit her lip as he stared at the picture of the boy—blue eyes, red fireman’s hat, messy dark hair above a cheeky grin. The man sighed and his eyes darted another quick look at Clementine and then he picked up the photograph of Jackson again.

‘Yeah…might be the guy who hired the R44 a few weeks back, now I come to think of it.’

The GPS he’d fixed to her front grille was transmitting perfectly. She’d been into Barnforth cop shop, then she’d gone home and the movement alert had pinged on his phone again just before three. Since then he’d tracked her on the app as she headed north-west up the main road from Piama and taken the turn-off that led due west.

It was an opportunity, perhaps his last. It was risky, after all the cock-ups, but the client wouldn’t pay until the job was done. He should have insisted on more money up front; it’d been a while since he’d had any decent cashflow.

And now it was turning into a clusterfuck, a complete and utter disaster. But the job had to be done. If nothing else, his reputation was on the line.

He headed north on the highway from the safe house, keeping an eye on her track. He was about fifteen minutes behind. She took the turn towards the airport. Wouldn’t be a bad option for her, flying interstate, he thought. This road would also take her to the highway south to Brisbane which might be easier for him than the airport. Small country terminal, it wouldn’t be straightforward, but there was still a chance he could hustle her into the car, take her out bush and dispose of her there. Just needed the right set of circumstances.

He took the stolen Hilux up to 119 kph, less than ten per cent over the speed limit—didn’t want to attract any more heat from the cops.

After the first airport turn-off, where she kept going, he started getting nervous. He watched to see if she took the second one but she sailed straight past that too. Okay, so she was heading south on the highway to Brisbane.

He watched as the blip on the screen went straight past the highway turn-off and followed the road around to the other side of the airfield and…

Fucking bitch!

She wasn’t going to Brisbane and she wasn’t flying out, she was going to the fucking helicopter company! He stepped on the accelerator and roared the Hilux up to 180.