11.30 a.m.
Walker pulls the ute to a stop in a spray of dust and stones outside the Charles brothers’ home, Wilson’s temporary abode. Discovering that Wilson has a twenty-two had invigorated him and Stones. They had cause to confiscate his gun for testing against ballistics and they’d applied to search the Charles house at the same time, hoping to find a reason to pull the brothers and Wilson in for an interview. They’d had to wait in the incident room, both of them humming with impatience, for the search warrant to come through. They’d spent the time honing a theory, working out how it might have gone down.
Walker has doubts that Wilson is responsible for the killings. He finds it difficult to imagine the pudgy buyer as the kind of bloke who could effectively stalk the cabin late at night, let alone hack Mark and Karen to death. But perhaps he was high on drugs, or more desperate than Walker’s realised. Or, more likely, he’s inspired the Charles brothers to act in the first murders and then lent his gun to one of them last night. Brett Charles knows the layout of the cabin, so every chance it was him stalking them. The thought enrages Walker. Brett has befriended Grace, charmed her and then tried to kill her in cold blood.
As they walk up the drive, Walker sees that it’s Wilson’s ancient 4x4 that’s parked in the carport. Stones hammers on the door.
‘Fucksake,’ says Wilson as the door swings open, ‘impatient bastard, aren’t ya.’ He clocks Stones and Walker and takes a small step back.
‘Expecting someone else?’ says Stones.
‘Yeah, nah …’ says Wilson. ‘But if you’re after Stewie and Brett, they’ve gone.’
‘Gone where?’ asks Walker.
Wilson shrugs. ‘They don’t tell me nothing,’ he says. ‘Fucking miners. Had it up to here with the lot of ’em.’ He raises his left hand above his head.
‘Actually it’s you we want to talk to,’ says Stones. ‘Mind if we come in?’
‘Me?’ says Wilson. ‘What do ya want from me?’
‘Let us in and we’ll tell you.’
Wilson steps aside and they walk into the living room. It reeks of sweat, stale smoke, grease and booze. Walker glances into the kitchen. A pile of dishes in the sink, flies buzzing around a manky electric frying pan lined with grease. A sports bag, bulky with badly packed clothes, is sitting in the hallway.
‘Christ, it stinks in here. You blokes are disgusting,’ says Stones.
Wilson shrugs. ‘Youse can fuck off anytime you want,’ he says.
‘That your bag?’ asks Walker, nodding down the hall.
‘Yeah.’
‘You about to leave as well, then?’
‘Road’s finally open. Been here too long already.’
‘Mind if we have a look through the bag?’ says Stones.
‘Yeah, I fucking do. You got a warrant?’
‘Yes I fucking do,’ says Stones, pulling out the warrant and flashing it at Wilson.
Wilson blanches. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Never mind, but we’ll start with your luggage …’
‘Nah, look, mate, there’s nothing here. What are you looking for? I can’t help you with nothing …’
He’s still talking as Stones shakes the clothes out of the holdall, rifles through and fishes out a small bag of white powder, which he holds up high. ‘Nice one,’ he says with satisfaction. ‘We can bring you in on this – maybe it’ll help aid your memory on some other stuff.’
He waves the bag in the direction of Wilson, who has stopped talking, is moving anxiously from foot to foot. ‘Look, that gear, it’s personal use, nothing more. I can tell you where I got it, give you the name of the bloke that supplies …’
‘Go on, then,’ says Stones.
‘Warren Harris. He deals whatever you want. Puff, coke, meth, whatever you need. He’s the bloke you want to talk to.’
‘Good to know,’ says Stones, ‘but I’m bringing you in anyway.’
Over Wilson’s protests, Stones cuffs him and sits him on the sofa, while he and Walker search the house. It’s over fairly quickly; the house is sparsely furnished and there are few belongings. They don’t find any other drugs and no sign of any opals, big or small, either. They also draw a frustrating blank on anything that might prove Wilson or the Charles brothers were involved in Mark Bailey’s murder – no weapon, no bloodstained clothes, no obvious sign of any blood in the filthy bathroom. ‘We maybe need to get an ultraviolet light in here,’ says Stones.
Wilson, on the sofa, doesn’t stop whingeing, his plaintive voice following them around the house as they search. ‘Look, what are youse after? Let me know and I can help you. I can tell youse if you’re wasting your time.’
There’s a shed at the end of the overgrown back garden. They go through it carefully but find no sign of an axe or machete, nor anything that might have been used as a fire starter on Blair’s place. It’s close to an hour before they call it off.
‘Righto, mate,’ says Stones, hoisting Wilson to his feet. ‘How about you show us your twenty-two?’
Wilson looks surprised. ‘That’s licensed. That’s fully legit,’ he says.
‘Let’s see it, then,’ says Stones, undoing the handcuffs.
Wilson leads them outside to his car, fishes his keys from his pocket and opens the boot. There’s a long metal box, padlocked, lying on top of the slice of carpet that covers the spare tyre. Walker notes that Wilson is at least meeting one of the conditions for owning the rifle by keeping it under lock and key. Wilson finds the key for the padlock and clicks it open. Inside is a Ruger 77 twenty-two-calibre rifle. It’s in good condition but not new; Wilson has clearly owned it for a while.
‘Got ammunition for this?’ asks Stones.
‘Yeah, there.’ Wilson points at a gold cardboard box labelled 22LR bullets, 40 in number. Walker opens it, does a quick count: about a dozen are missing.
‘When was the last time you used the gun?’ he asks.
‘A while ago. Went out hunting, shot a few pigs up Winton way – must have been three weeks ago, maybe four.’
‘You a good shot, then?’
‘Not bad, nothing special. Do a bit of huntin’ on the weekend sometimes. Roos and pigs, you know …’
‘You ever lend this gun to anyone else? Stewie or Brett or Warren or anyone?’ asks Stones.
‘Nah, mate, not that bunch of mad bastards, I wouldn’t give it to them.’
‘Righto, we’re going to have to confiscate this and run some tests on it,’ says Stones.
‘What’s going on?’ says Wilson. ‘That rifle is totally legit, I promise you.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ says Stones. ‘Meanwhile, you better come with us and answer a few questions about this gear we found.’
‘Mate, please,’ says Wilson. ‘I got to get going, I got places I need to be. I wanna help but, like I said, it’s Warren Harris youse need. I don’t know where he gets the gear from …’
‘I’m not your mate and I’m booking you for holding schedule-one drugs,’ says Stones, ‘so all your plans are officially on hold.’