Four

Pip glared as the cursor on the blank screen blinked at her, taunting her to type something, anything.

A loud clunk, followed by a bone-jarring bang, sounded once more as another barrel or engine or old tractor part was dropped onto the steadily growing pile of scrap out in the paddock.

Pip plugged in her USB and searched for the file she needed, her gaze once more falling on the one titled ‘Guardian’ followed by a string of seemingly random numbers and letters. This was the only file on the drive she hadn’t been able to open. It was encrypted, and not with your average find-a-tutorial-video-and-open-it-yourself kind of encryption. This one was high tech, and after exhausting her skill she had sent it to the computer geek she’d worked with a few times over the years with a brief to do whatever he needed to in order to open the file.

He called himself The Warlock, due to his magic touch when it came to doing all the illegal things people weren’t supposed to do with computers. Pip humoured him because despite the fact the guy was clearly delusional and had a questionable police record, he hadn’t failed her yet.

The hard drive had been given to her by Tony Vesco, her number-one source in the Lenny Knight investigation. Tony was an insider who gave key evidence in the trial—then suddenly went missing. A shiver ran through Pip despite the heat of the day. She’d spent countless hours interviewing Tony in a number of shady places, probing him about Lenny’s connections to the underworld. It had taken a long time to gain his trust, but she’d persevered, knowing that Tony was the only man still alive who had the kind of intel on Lenny Knight that could put him away. Tony may have been a criminal himself but he didn’t condone the lengths Lenny Knight had been willing to go to in order to make his money. It never ceased to amaze Pip that even in the murky depths of the criminal world, there were still some boundaries that just didn’t get crossed—and once Lenny had overstepped those boundaries, he’d gone too far.

She’d taken precautions in order to protect Tony’s identity, always mindful that if she revealed her source, even to the police, his life would instantly be in danger; the responsibility weighed heavily on her shoulders. In the end, however, it had all been for nothing when police arrested Tony on an unrelated matter and offered him a plea bargain in exchange for his testimony in court. It was after the trial that Tony had secretly managed to send her the USB and told her about the file. He hadn’t revealed its contents to the police and he didn’t say what was on it—only that it was important. That was the last contact she’d had with him.

Standing here surrounded by the beauty of the bush, it was easy to forget the dark and dangerous world she’d lived with one foot inside of for the better part of four years. People went missing all the time—and if they did turn up, it was rarely alive.

Once the book was done, Pip was getting out of the game. She was tired of the greed and violence that went hand in hand with power, and despite the fact she believed passionately that corruption needed to be exposed, she knew she’d done her part and it was time to step away and hand over the reins to someone else.

Her thoughts returned to the hard drive. She really needed it, but contacting The Warlock wasn’t as easy as picking up the phone and calling him. Due to his hyper paranoid state of mind, contact was made by a series of forwarded messages, and the rule was that once he agreed to do the job, you waited for him to call. The only reason she put up with his over-the-top secret-agent drama was because he was the best at what he did.

It wasn’t like she didn’t have plenty of material she could start with. But she thought about that file often, wondering what it hid. She had a lot riding on whatever was in there. It was her pièce de résistance, the secret information that would shoot this book to instant bestseller rank before it was even released. At least that’s what her publisher reckoned. She did try to warn them that the file might not contain anything exciting—but her rather substantial advance was banking on it being something juicy.

But first, she needed to get the bloody manuscript written. Pip gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, breathing out slowly. She could do this. Just focus.

Thank goodness for peace and quiet, she thought, then stopped, looking up from the kitchen table with a small frown. It was quiet. Too quiet. She glanced at her watch, but it seemed a bit early for lunch. Surely they hadn’t already finished? She chewed her bottom lip a little as she eyed the computer screen. She was finally on a roll, but she couldn’t shake the feeling something might be wrong. With a frustrated huff, she got up from the table and headed out the back door.

She spotted the large, now blessedly silent excavator at the edge of the bank and saw that both men were down in the dam.

‘Is everything okay?’ Pip called out, making both men jump slightly as they spun around to face her.

‘Scared the living bejesus outta me, missus,’ Bob said, splaying a hand across his chest.

‘It’s Ms,’ she corrected, picking her way down closer to the edge.

‘What?’ Bob called back.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she yelled, then waited until she got closer and tried again. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We gotta stop work,’ Bob said, taking off his floppy hat and wiping a hand across his bald head.

‘Why?’ she asked cautiously. Was this some kind of workers’ strike? Had she been supposed to supply them with tea and cakes or something?

‘Copper said to.’

‘Excuse me?’ Pip blinked.

‘We had to call in the cops, and they said to stop work immediately until they get here.’

Pips eyes narrowed in confusion. ‘Why would you call the police?’

‘’Cause of the body.’

‘The body?’ Pip wasn’t sure she was even hearing this right. ‘What body?’

‘The one we just found in there,’ Bob said, pointing at the rusted remains of an old ute that looked like it had been dragged from decades’ worth of mud in the centre of the dam.

‘A body!’ What the actual hell?

‘Well, what’s left of it. There’s a skull in there.’

Pip stared at the two men. They had to be kidding. Just then, the roar of an engine alerted them to a vehicle approaching, and Pip turned to find a police four-wheel drive bouncing its way across the paddock. The man she’d met a few days earlier climbed out and put his hat on before heading down the bank towards the two men. ‘Bob. Danny,’ he said before turning to look up at her. ‘Phillipa, wasn’t it?’ he said with a nod.

‘Pip,’ she corrected quickly, moving to climb down to join them.

‘Actually, just stay up there a minute, Pip,’ Erik cautioned and turned back to the other two. ‘Have either of you touched anything?’

Bob pointed at the vehicle and the excavator and explained how they’d uncovered the ute and been attaching chains to it in order to drag it out when they’d noticed the skull in the cabin.

‘Righto. Well, you’ll both need to move out of here, follow the same path you walked in on. We’re going to have to preserve the crime scene.’

‘Crime scene?’ Bob said. ‘Cripes—who would have thought, hey?’

‘I’ve got to tape the area off and wait until Homicide get out here. You’ll need to give them a statement about how you found it—where you moved it from, that kind of thing—before you go.’

‘Yeah, righto. No problem,’ Bob said, looking a little concerned now that it seemed to be all very official.

Pip studied the vehicle, critically. It was old, that much was obvious, caked in mud and sludge from where it had been buried, partially submerged for who knew how long. From her vantage point she could see a few holes rusted through the driver’s side and another along the back panel. It was impossible to tell what colour the ute had once been, now sporting various shades of rust and brown beneath the mud. The shape and design seemed distinctly old, but Pip was no car expert and had no idea what model and type it was. But she could find out.

Pip slid her phone from her back pocket and discreetly snapped a few photos.

The journo in her wanted details. What was a vintage car doing in a dam? How long had it been there? Who was inside it? She itched to get down there and have a look in the cabin. She’d given up worrying about morbid curiosity years ago. It was part of her job. She’d been a homicide reporter for a few years and knew her way around a crime scene—at least, the part from behind the taped-off area. She’d forged a friendly working relationship with a number of detectives and been kept in the loop with most investigations back then.

That was until she’d broken the story on a few heavy-handed cops, leading to an internal investigation into their actions. After that she’d been deemed a troublemaker and shunned. It hadn’t mattered that she’d only gone after a few bad cops, not the entire police force; her days of the inside scoop were over. It still annoyed her. Those cops were bad. There’d been a multitude of complaints and accusations, none of which had resulted in any kind of disciplinary action; victims were ignored or coerced into silence. It was her job to expose unlawful and unethical behaviour and make sure people were held accountable for their actions. However, by doing so, she’d made a name for herself among the local constabulary, and that was that.

Pip knew that journalists sometimes got a bad rap for doing their job—and there were journos who gave everyone in the profession a bad name—but she was fair. Pip was meticulous in her research and always fact-checked before putting pen to paper, but when she saw something that wasn’t right, she went after it with everything she had. She couldn’t stand injustice or corruption and wasn’t afraid to call someone out who was doing the wrong thing.

Over the years, Pip had developed a sixth sense for sniffing out a lie or a cover-up, and she prided herself on doing her part to ensure bad people were brought to justice. Like Lenny Knight, she thought absently. An image of his face twisted and reddened in outrage as they dragged him from the courtroom flashed through her mind.

A second police vehicle pulled up and a female officer got out, carrying a large tackle box as she scrambled down the bank to join Erik. Her brown hair was pulled back in a tight, no-nonsense bun and her serious face made it difficult to pin an age on her, but Pip decided she couldn’t be more than early twenties.

Bob and Danny stood close by, Bob scratching his chin as he watched the proceedings with interest while Danny stood hugging his elbows, looking on nervously. ‘You don’t think they reckon we had anything to do with it, do you, Bob?’ he asked, as he watched the officers wrap crime-scene tape around trees to secure the old ute inside.

Pip slid a curious glance sideways at the young man.

‘What? Nah. Course not. Why would they?’ Bob said gruffly, eyeing his young companion warily.

‘It’s just that I can’t have any trouble—not with my parole and stuff. I’m not allowed to be around anything illegal.’

‘Well, did you put that body in the dam?’ Bob demanded bluntly.

‘No.’

‘Then you’ll be apples, won’t ya. Look, I promised your mother I’d keep you out of trouble and that’s what I’ll do,’ Bob said with a confident swagger. ‘Besides, that skull was old. Probably been there years.’

‘How long do you reckon, Bob?’ Pip asked, her curiosity piqued.

‘Easy twenty years. Clean as, it was.’

She wasn’t sure what made Bob some kind of expert on remains, but he had a kind of confidence that suggested he knew what he was talking about. Regardless, the fact that there was nothing left on the bone did suggest that this was not a recent event. She’d seen enough bodies—in both murder investigations and, sadly, undiscovered elderly—to know that up until a certain point, a skull would still be somewhat gruesome, with tissue remaining attached, and this clearly wasn’t the case with the discovery in the ute.

‘Hey!’ Bob said, moving forward as the young female constable began wrapping the tape around Bob’s excavator. ‘What’s going on? I can’t have this thing tied up in some investigation. I got jobs booked tomorrow.’

Pip saw Erik hold a hand up in a reassuring gesture.

‘It’s just a precaution until the forensic guys get here and take a look. I’m sure it won’t be held up too long, but we need to secure the whole site until they’ve had a chance to check everything out.’

Bob frowned and continued to glare at the officer but took a reluctant step away as she went about her business taping off the scene.

Pip felt bad for the poor bloke. If it wasn’t for her hiring him for the job, he wouldn’t be tangled up in all this mess.

‘How about we head back to the house and I make us a cuppa?’ she suggested, and watched as Bob sent one final glance towards his machine before giving a brief nod. ‘Yeah. Righto. I guess I could do with one.’

She waited for the two men to walk ahead of her before turning and catching Erik’s eye as he sent her a nod of thanks. Neither of them looked away, and Pip felt that little spark of interest instantly flare back to life inside her. The constable called out to him and the moment was gone as he turned away.

As she walked back to the house absently listening to Bob complaining, her thoughts were once more back with the crime scene. There was no harm in poking about a little bit to see if she could find any info on the car.

Once she’d settled the two men outside on the verandah, Pip sent a photo of the wreck to a contact to see if he could work out the make and model, which might help give some kind of timeline. When the kettle boiled, she placed the cups on a tray and put the last of the Scotch Fingers on a plate before taking it all out to the verandah.

As she sat, her phone beeped in her pocket, and she surreptitiously took it out, eyeing the message with surprise.

Hi gorgeous. Looks like a Ford coupe utility 1934 model from the angle you’ve sent. Send me a couple more from front on and I can confirm.

Pip thought for a moment and then quickly dashed off a reply.

How positive are you on the make and model?

From the shape of the cab, wheel arches and tray, I’d say 99 percent positive. It’s in pretty shit condition though. Hey, you still owe me a beer from last time.

Thanks for the info. Take a raincheck on the beer.

I’m out of town for a couple of months.

Sometimes I think you only keep me around for my good looks and car knowledge. Ha.

Good looks are questionable, but your car knowledge is second to none. Thanks again for your help.

Anytime. Let me know if you need any more help.

Pip tucked her phone back into her pocket and sent a distracted smile across at Bob, who was still busy grumbling about the jobs he was yet to get to.

‘Have you always lived in the area, Bob?’ Pip asked.

‘Nah, the missus and I moved up from Adelaide a few years back. She wanted a tree change,’ he said with a slow drawl.

‘So any idea on who the mystery skull belongs to? Any local legends about missing people?’

Bob scratched the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. ‘Not that I can think of. Could be some kind of drifter, I s’pose.’

‘Wonder how they ended up in the dam?’ Danny mused.

That was a good question, Pip thought, her gaze moving back across in the direction of the waterhole. There wasn’t any kind of road or track leading to it; it was in the middle of nowhere.

‘I remember at school there were lots of stories about places around here that are cursed. Maybe this is one of them,’ Danny said.

‘Bloody typical. Had the excavator a week and now it’s stuck out here with flaming police tape all over it. Place has to be bloody cursed.’

A curse did not sound conducive to solving Pip’s problem of writer’s block.

She really hoped there wasn’t one here, though—she needed all the good luck she could find, not bad. Yet, the waterhole did feel different. She wouldn’t say it felt particularly cursed, but when she was down there it did feel as if she were somehow stepping into a bubble. It was peaceful … except for the excavator and the police combing the area.

So much for getting any writing done today.