9

ALICE

It was quiet on the road. Alice was on a dull stretch of the highway, newly repaved, covered in signs about overtaking lanes ending and beginning on repeat, with nobody around to overtake. The flat surface was heaven for Valkyrie’s suspension, but too sleek for Alice – like it was smoothing her brain.

She asked her phone to put on her long-drive playlist: it went from classical to acoustic into funk, then a little surf rock at the point where she might get tired. Valkyrie filled with an orchestral soar, and Alice straightened her back, checked her posture, took some deep breaths, popped a mint.

There were broad fields all around, the grass struggling to be green. Occasionally, an animal would come into view, and Cherry’s voice would call out in her head: sheep, cow, horse. It had only been a few days since they’d driven down the coast and seen a similar landscape, and decided to spontaneously pull over and pat a horse’s nose. It bit Jun on the hand, and Cherry had reminded him sternly we didn’t pat pets unless their adults were around to say it was okay. Alice ate another mint and tried not to think about them.

Bach’s Concerto in A minor cut off abruptly. A message. Alice asked her phone to read it out to her.

‘Message from Choker Wharton: Alice, you should be well on your way to the lakes by now. There’s been a change of address. Pull over and call me when you can.’

And Alice thought: fuck.

~

It took ten minutes before she found a layover to park in. She got out of Valkyrie, stretched, and pulled out her phone.

‘Choker,’ she said, ‘what is this?’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘They’re just being overcautious.’

‘They?’

‘The people paying you three thousand dollars to go for a drive in your favourite car.’

‘And how much are you getting paid?’

He sighed. ‘Remember how you’re being paid not to ask questions?’

‘I remember,’ she said, looking inside the car at Darwin’s coffin.

‘We lied about the hotel address in the note,’ Choker said. ‘In case fucking Sadie looked at it after all. You’re actually going to be in a hotel in Tomb Creek; it has a lock-up garage we’ve already booked.’

‘Tomb Creek? Jesus, Choker.’

‘The town’s named after a coloniser, Alice, not a bunch of dead bodies. The hotel’s legit – the people hiring you trust it. The doors are sturdy and lock properly. Chetna is the name of the woman who runs it.’

‘Okay,’ she said, then turned to the sound of tyres crunching on gravel. A bronze, late-00s Kia pulled into the lane behind her. She got back into Valkyrie’s front seat and said, ‘Anything else? I gotta go.’

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘But look after him.’

Someone rapped on her window.

‘Choker,’ she said, ‘actually, could you stay on the line?’

‘Always,’ he said.

She rolled down the window and flinched as the man outside leaned in, his elbows on the door.

‘Wow,’ he said, ‘nice wheels.’

He was maybe mid-sixties, bald, with clear horn-rimmed glasses and a crisp blue polo shirt.

She said, ‘Thanks.’

‘These old beauties, they break down a lot, right?’

‘She’s not broken down,’ Alice said. ‘But thank you.’

She turned the key, and Valkyrie puttered for a moment, but didn’t catch. Alice tried not to scream at her.

The man laughed. Then – Alice couldn’t believe it – opened her goddamn door. ‘Hop out, I’ll see if I can—’

She turned the key again, and Valkyrie roared to life. He took a step back, finally, and she wrenched the door shut out of his hand, locked it, and took one brief moment to remind herself she was driving a nearly seventy-year-old show car and not her Volkswagen Golf before hitting the accelerator just enough to get the fuck out of there and maybe spin some dirt on that asshole’s chinos. She was two minutes down the road before Choker called out from the phone beside her, ‘You all right?’

‘I’m okay,’ she called back.

‘Did you get his numberplate? I can pay some kids ten bucks to key his car.’

‘I did,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll tell you later, if I’m still mad.’

It was twenty minutes to the next town. There, she turned down the first street she could, and then took a right and a left until she found an empty block of land to park in front of. She got out of the car and checked to see if he’d left any fingerprints on Valkyrie’s paintwork, then rubbed the door shiny with a cloth.

She got out her phone and checked to see where Tomb Creek was. They really had tried to lead her astray; she was too far north by a long shot, with no road to link her easily to where she needed to be. Now she’d have to head south a while, then south-east, hit the lakes, follow a road up north; two and a half hours, maybe. Tomb Creek was the smallest kind of dot on the map, but easy enough to find. She had wondered about her schedule – only a deserted shack and a hotel today, then three stops tomorrow – but, she supposed, today needed to be the day she threw everyone off her tail. She would no longer be at the hotel in the bright afternoon, but just before dusk.

Before she put her phone away, she called Teddy one more time, who finally picked up and asked, ‘You okay?’

‘Are you alone? Can I tell you who I have in the car?’

‘Can we play twenty questions? Animal, mineral, politician?’

‘I’m not in the mood,’ Alice said, then, ‘Animal. Specifically, Darwin Weiss.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Don’t breathe a word. I’ve already spent hundreds of kilometres working through this; you can too. Right now, I’m more annoyed that Choker just called. Turns out they changed the address of my last destination for today. Choker knew, but I did not until now.’

‘Are you feeling okay about it?’ Teddy said. ‘Do you want me to come?’

‘No,’ Alice said. ‘I’ll be okay. Choker left me the gun.’

‘Alice!’

‘I’m just saying! I’m not going to shoot anyone. But I do have it. In case that makes you feel better.’

‘If anything, I now feel infinitely worse. Don’t keep it under your pillow and shoot yourself in the head.’

‘You’re no fun.’

‘Don’t joke about it,’ Teddy said, her voice dark.

‘All right,’ Alice said. ‘I promise I’ll be careful. Not under my pillow, not loaded, all that shit. I’m just saying. I’ll be safe.’ She got out another mint – she was running out – and crushed it between her teeth. ‘What are you guys doing now?’

‘We’re on our way to see Cole’s girlfriend,’ Teddy said. ‘I’m wondering if we’ll eventually meet somebody who gives a shit about him.’

‘Well,’ Alice said, ‘good luck.’

‘You too, buddy.’

Alice got back in the car. The road around her was mercifully quiet.

‘Tomb Creek,’ Alice said. ‘Well, Darwin, sounds like an apt place to be dead, so I guess we’d better start driving.’