21

ALICE

The trees were getting closer to the road. The inland highway was something carved narrow as possible out of a wild place – humans forcing their way through nature to make a somewhat straight path from coast to city. It made it hard for Alice to breathe, those walls of eucalypts, with stringybark that hung from the branches and moved cautiously in the wind like somebody was stepping out from behind to watch her drive by.

Alice steadied her mind. From Elinor’s house to Darwin’s final resting place, his childhood home inland: a two-and-a-half-hour drive, give or take. Eddie had stolen all her goddamn biscuits, and Alice had not eaten lunch, but she had threatened a journalist with a knife she’d already used that morning, and watched an old woman shoot at a man until he ran. Her appetite was low, drowned out by the rattle of disquiet and fear at the back of her brain, something she couldn’t examine until later, when she was safe and home and no longer part of this. It had to wait for Teddy, who would listen and validate it all, hold her hand and tell her this wasn’t normal, she had done her best, did she need to speak to the company psych again, like after the time someone she was chasing tripped and fell headfirst into a brick wall?

Maybe she did. Maybe she needed to tell Choker all of this to see if there was any kind of danger fee, unless the three thousand had already been the danger fee. At the very least, she deserved a perfect regional pie on the company card or something. But she needed to keep moving, and by evening – God, Valkyrie and time willing – she would be by the Southern Ocean with her girl and a nice little bump to her bank account.

It was quiet on the road. No shimmering Lexus with a business partner inside it behind her; just an everyday red SUV, the kind all the other parents at kinder had, because they all had or were attempting to have more children. She and Jun had discussed it once, and came to the thrilling conclusion that they were on the same page: Cherry was unexpected, wonderful and enough. They were already pretty skint, and another baby wouldn’t help that. They could either give Cherry everything she needed or give two children slightly less than enough. Plus, Jun had said, it was hard enough agreeing on one name for a kid.

The SUV stayed behind her, sometimes coming closer, sometimes slowing down. Out here, people sped up and slowed down out of boredom, so it was likely nothing. They weren’t close enough to be anything. Alice tried not to think: how would you even know if anybody was following you on a road out here, when there was nowhere else to drive?

Time went by, along the road, beside the bush. She passed through a small town, thought about stopping, decided against it. Maybe they would have something for her to eat at Darwin’s final resting place. She visualised it: a warm pot of olives, a fresh loaf of bread from an oven. If you lived somewhere big enough to bury a body in a family plot, surely you had an in-house chef. Surely—

In her rear-view mirror, now that the highway had split into two lanes, she saw it: the Subaru was back.

Nick. Fuck. She had already spoken to him. His camera smashed, his phone hacked, and now he was here, anyway. She should pull over, but there was nowhere nearby with enough space, and if she did, and he stopped with her, she didn’t know what he was capable of now. Not if he’d already dismissed her threats.

The SUV was speeding up again. Maybe they were working together. Two against one were odds she didn’t like. She reached under the seat, pulled up the gun and lay it in her lap.

Alice moved to the right lane, and the SUV stayed to the left, hanging back. The Subaru crept up behind her, and she leaned into the accelerator, feeling Valkyrie rumble underneath. The SUV sped up level beside Nick’s car, swerving a little, and Alice changed her hands on the wheel and took a breath.

She didn’t usually like involving civilians in things like this. They were unpredictable, and didn’t deserve what could happen, but the odds could change to her favour. Up ahead, she saw two cars coming towards her, and thought, Time to get Nick out of the shadows.

She slowed down. If they wanted to corner her, they could do it with witnesses. She could honk, holler, and people might think she was about to get carjacked and get involved. The Subaru pulled up behind her, but not tailgate close; the SUV followed suit, stayed next to Nick. She slowed down further, but neither car overtook her. She was close enough, at least, to finally get a look at the new driver: somebody she didn’t recognise, who was waving his arms at Nick. Not recognising him didn’t mean anything. All she knew was that they needed to stop tailing her.

She reduced her speed all the way down to forty. The two cars behind kept pace, and the oncoming cars – two of them – were closer now. She pulled Valkyrie to a standstill, and flashed her headlights.

In a perfect world, this would have led to the oncoming cars stopping, getting out, and Nick and his accomplice chickening out. One of the oncoming cars flew by them at speed, and the other – a scratched-up white ute – slowed down and paused just as the door of the SUV opened behind her, and a tallish man with messy grey hair stumbled out of it, hollering, ‘I’ll help you!’

The ute driver, a woman with long hair in a high ponytail, saluted, waved them off, and stepped on it down the road. Alice thought: fuck.

The SUV guy was walking towards Nick’s car, and Nick hadn’t come out yet. Alice took the kind of breath she needed to remind herself that she wasn’t driving a rally car, checked her grip on the gun, and eased down on Valkyrie’s accelerator, then floored it.

Nick followed suit. In her rear-view mirror, the guy waved his arms and shouted, then got back into his car.

Fine. She couldn’t do this – whatever was next – in public. She drove fast, waiting for a dirt road or driveway, one with enough space, grass or gravel, for two cars. It took too long, and Nick was gaining, the SUV behind him, honking and swerving. Nick needed to hire better backup, she thought, if he survived this. If any of them did.

She saw the driveway, finally: a perfect size, coming up fast. ‘I’m sorry, Val,’ she said, and slammed the brakes, rode down the gears, and fishtailed into it.

The others were slower – better cars but less defensive driving courses – but she was already peeling towards a copse of trees, trying to get shielded from passing cars. She thought it was about time to shoot out some tyres, maybe a kneecap or two. Hopefully they didn’t have guns, or she was a better shot. She was good – incredibly good – at separating her work and home lives, but for a brief moment, as Valkyrie bucked underneath her, she imagined Cherry hearing about her mother dying in a highway shootout, and her face when she did. Then the moment was gone, and she was in the trees, looking for space to turn around, when something hit Valkyrie.

It was a thunderous sound, the tearing of Valkyrie’s paintwork – Pia, I’m sorry – the crunch of metal bending under the collision, her tyres sliding over the gravel. Valkyrie reeled sideways into a tree, the impact of the passenger side against the trunk shuddering everything to a stop.

The other car – the Subaru, Alice realised in a daze – careened into a different tree across the drive, and stopped with a solid, definitive bang. Alice wiped her eyes, shook out her body – everything there, some things sore, nothing broken – then got out of the car with the gun in her hand and screamed, ‘Fucking put your hands up!’

She ran at the Subaru and tore open the driver’s side door. The airbag had deployed, and Nick was sitting back in his seat, staring at her, his arms loose by his sides. Not dead, but figuring shit out. The other car – the SUV – was not far back down the road, the front headlight and bumper smashed in, and the driver had already got out and was standing with his arms right up like a scared schoolkid in class.

‘Where,’ Nick said, pushing the airbag down, ‘did you get this fucking guy?’

‘I didn’t get him anywhere,’ Alice said, then turned to the guy again.

He looked terrified, but determined, and said, trembling a little, ‘You’ve got a gun.’ He paused. ‘I’ve never seen one before.’

‘Lucky you,’ Alice said.

‘He was following you,’ the SUV guy said. ‘I could tell. He was being real creepy and I don’t like creepers, and so I thought I’d make sure you were okay and—’

‘I’m fine,’ Alice said. Jesus, she thought. I’ve found a hero. ‘Just trying to get away from him, actually.’

‘Can I put my hands down?’

‘Soon,’ she said, ‘maybe.’

She went over to him, still half-watching Nick in his car. She patted the SUV guy down while he shook under her hands, then checked out his car. There was an open bottle of whisky in the centre console.

‘Bit of liquid courage?’ she asked.

‘Don’t tell the cops,’ he said.

It explained the bad driving. ‘I don’t think we’d like them involved. What’s your name?’

‘Kiran.’

‘Kiran, my friend, can you keep an eye on this dickhead in the Subaru and tell me if he moves?’

‘You’re not going to give me the gun, are you?’

‘Fuck no.’

She left Kiran to it, and went to look over Valkyrie. Alice guessed that Kiran had nudged Nick, who’d hit her; Valkyrie’s rear right-hand side was dented from the front of Nick’s car. The damage on the side that hit the tree was worse, but not as bad as she thought. Those old cars were tough as fuck, and her girl looked the most solid of the three. There was a chance – a minor one – that she could drive her away.

‘I’m going to see if my car starts,’ she said to Kiran, ‘but I’m not leaving.’

She got in the driver’s side. Darwin was still in his rails – they were very secure – but the flowers had been thrown off. She fixed them and looked back outside.

‘He’s getting out of the car!’ Kiran yelped from outside her window.

Alice got back out and shot the ground at Nick’s feet. He froze, halfway out of his car, and Kiran jumped backwards.

‘I will shoot you,’ she said. ‘I’m not fucking around.’

‘Just one picture,’ he said. ‘It’s all I need, and then I’ll leave. Come on. If I don’t get it, I’m fucked. Can’t publish anything. It’s my job, Alice.’

He held out his phone, pleading. She walked over, took it from him, dropped it on the ground, and put a bullet through the screen. Kiran covered his ears. Nick wailed in frustration.

‘No pictures,’ Alice said.

Alice got back in the car and started the engine. It didn’t catch, and she sighed.

‘Miss,’ Kiran called, ‘can I go back into my car and have a drink?’

‘Sure,’ Alice said.

She kept the gun on Nick’s despondent face and waited until Kiran returned. ‘All right,’ he said to her. ‘You try again.’

She did, and this time the engine caught. Kiran slapped Valkyrie’s roof in delight, and Alice flinched, but said, ‘Thank you.’

She pulled away from the tree. The sound was bad – a twist of metal and pain – and she whispered apologies to Valkyrie. She drove up, past Nick’s smashed car, and turned around in some soft grass. Valkyrie was bearing to the left a little, and there was a rattle Alice didn’t like or understand, but she moved, at least. Alice went forward, past Nick’s car and Kiran’s, then pulled the brake and got out of the car.

‘I’ll send somebody to help you,’ she said to Kiran, ‘but I have to go.’

Kiran nodded. ‘Do I have to hurt him?’

‘I’m not going to fucking hurt you,’ Nick said. ‘Jesus.’ He had a little blood on his nose, she saw now.

‘Just lock yourself in your car,’ she said to Kiran. ‘You don’t have to beat up anybody, but I don’t think he’ll be driving his car, so he might try to take yours.’ She leaned in and said, ‘Just keep yourself safe, all right? I’m not worth you getting your ass kicked.’

Kiran said, ‘I think I might have a nap.’

‘Shock will do that to you,’ she said.

Valkyrie rattled down to the highway. There was nobody in either direction. She pulled left, and drove.

~

Over the next few kilometres, Valkyrie slowly, painfully rumbling along underneath her, Alice’s thoughts had time to even out, order themselves in a neat little row, and present her with the question: what had Darwin’s business partner Eddie wanted from her, all the way on the eastern side of the state? What did he have to gain from seeing Darwin’s body, if that’s what he wanted? And how did he get there at the same time as Alice – earlier, even? Violet had told Alice he had arrived only around ten minutes before she had. It was a wild coincidence, really, unless it wasn’t strange that she could shake a journalist’s tail in the suburbs of Melbourne and then be found again on Victoria’s south-eastern coast, then be met almost to the minute at a sweet little cottage north-east of everything. And found again, as she drove to Darwin’s final resting place.

Unless, of course, she was being tracked.

It wouldn’t be Valkyrie, of course – she had picked her up from Pia clean. It could have happened at Chetna’s motel, in their garage, she supposed – the only time Valkyrie was out of sight for such a long time – but they didn’t have a key to her. More likely, she thought, it was with Darwin himself.

She had been found three times so far. Valkyrie wouldn’t survive a fourth.

She wasn’t looking forward to the call to Choker telling him what had happened, but he had seen worse. Her brief had been to deliver Darwin, and, so far, she was still on course for that.

She would never have opened a coffin she wasn’t told to, especially not one so off-limits it was bolted down so nobody could get inside. But what, she wondered, had become of the body in the accident? His coffin was intact, but what if his body wasn’t, and those waiting for him pried it open only to see him contorted, ruined by the crash?

Two reasons: that was enough.

The next town was called Mount Jasper, even though she couldn’t see any mountains nearby. The main street was long, made up of farming and industrial businesses, then a cluster of buildings with a supermarket, a handful of restaurants, two pubs, a hotel. Petrol was unbelievably expensive, but she pulled up at the service station and refilled the tank to the top. In the store, she bought a jerry can, gaffer tape, superglue, a hammer, nails, three bottles of water, four Snickers bars, an egg sandwich, and two iced coffees. She went outside, filled the jerry can, went back in, and paid.

‘Your car all right?’

‘Taking her to a panel beater,’ Alice said. ‘Poor little thing.’

‘You worried about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere?’ the attendant asked her, when she put two more Snickers on the counter.

‘Now I could survive for a week,’ Alice said, holding up the bars.

‘Good luck,’ he said, and she waved back, smiling hard, in case this was it: the last time somebody saw her alive.

~

She had driven a lot of bodies, but none of the jobs had been like this. Once, she had been followed by the mistress of the dead man she was driving, a woman not invited to his funeral. The mistress had tailgated Alice the whole time, hunched over the wheel, crying streaks of mascara down her face, her gaze resolutely on her dead love’s ride. A street away from the funeral, she had taken both hands off the wheels to blow her nose and run directly but gently into a parked car. Alice heard her wail through the windows.

On the maps, Alice had found a dirt road that looked like it could be all right. She just needed to be fast; fast enough to not seem like she had stopped for long to anybody watching. A bathroom break; time for a sandwich.

She ate a Snickers with one hand and was done with it by the time the road came into sight. Nobody else was around when she pulled in, then turned right almost immediately, onto another track, shielded by low trees. It was unpaved, rocky dirt. Valkyrie would not be happy.

Alice left the car running. There was no phone service here; she was on her own. She put the gun in her waistband and took the toolkit from under the driver’s seat. She rounded Valkyrie’s rear doors and opened them. Darwin’s coffin was regal on the rails, and Alice realised she hadn’t put any music on for him all day.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll put on some Nick Cave to make up for this. Don’t tell anyone what I’m doing.’

She took the flowers off and looked through them for a tracker, then ran her hands all along the wood to see if it was stuck to the side, or under the gold fixings, but nothing. Of course it wouldn’t be so easy.

The screws were glued in. She put the toolkit on the ground and went back around the front for her crowbar. She waited for a moment, listening beyond Valkyrie’s rumble for any other sounds, but there was nothing. She had scared off any birds.

Alice pulled along the coffin lid’s rim until she found a place halfway along, between screws, with a little give. She wedged the crowbar in and lifted it, just a little. Splintering the whole thing would not work out: when you were delivering a son to a mother, you needed him to be in one neat piece. When the gap expanded, she found her string saw in the toolkit and looped it through, with effort, then put on her gloves and sawed through the screw. It took too long, but there was nothing else to do for it. She made it through the first one in four minutes.

The rest took longer. Twenty minutes, she calculated, from start to end of sawing open Darwin’s coffin. A long time to be pissing on the side of the road, for anyone watching. She made it through the last screw with a satisfied twang and then stood to lift the coffin lid. She braced herself first, thinking: you don’t know what he’ll look like under there. It could be bad.

She screamed when she lifted it up anyway. It wasn’t bad; it was worse than that. Because the body in there wasn’t Darwin at all.

It was Cole.

~

The tracker had been in his pocket. She put it in her own, and kept her eyes away from his when she replaced the lid, supergluing it down in spots so it wouldn’t come off easily. She dusted off the metal shavings from her saw and gently arranged the flowers back on top. Without phone service, she could not tell Teddy, or Choker. It was just Alice left to hold the vision of Cole’s embalmed body, his face thick with makeup hiding the damage underneath – more damage than the crash could have done. The impact had rolled him over, so that the tip of his nose touched the side of the coffin. When she’d moved him onto his back, a patch of foundation had been left on the silk pillow, which she wiped away with her hand. He was in an oversized long-sleeved shirt and loose pants; any other damage to his body was out of sight.

She drove along for a while, the tracker on the seat next to her. No point in leaving it on the side of the only road for miles around; someone would notice it had stopped, right on her path.

Twenty kilometres down the road, there was an intersection. She turned left, rolled a few hundred metres down, then pulled over again, lifted Valkyrie’s bonnet, and waited.

It didn’t take long. A B-double truck passed her slowly and then stopped a way beyond her. She ran up to the passenger side of the cab before the driver could get out and swung herself up onto the step. He blinked at her, and then leaned across and wound down the window.

‘You need some help, there?’

‘Thank you for stopping,’ she said. ‘You’re a gem. I don’t need a ride, but can I borrow your phone to send a message?’

‘No problem, but it’s not working here. If you write up a message, I can send it when I hit service again? Shouldn’t be far up that way.’

‘That’d be great.’

She opened the door and took the phone he offered. The driver was older – grey, lived-in, kind eyes – and tried to be discreet when he looked at his watch. She said, ‘I’ll be quick, but you don’t have to worry. I have a friend just down the road, but I might get the old girl fixed enough to drive to our panel beater before they get here anyway.’

She gently pushed the tracker under the passenger seat with her left hand as she texted her own phone: Broken down near the junction, come soon xx

‘Seriously,’ she said to the driver, ‘thank you. Can I give you ten dollars for helping?’

He laughed. ‘Donate it to the RSPCA or something. It’s all good. You sure you’re safe?’

‘Don’t drive an old car with a flat phone,’ she said, keeping her voice light. ‘I’ll be fine. Have a good day. Where are you off to?’

‘Holton.’

‘Nice place,’ she said, and slapped the door as she left.

She got back into Valkyrie and watched him drive off. Holton: he would be driving almost all the way to Darwin’s mother’s house, and then he would go right past the turn-off. Nobody would notice anything amiss from now, as long as they didn’t think to look into why she had taken so long on the side of the road, one she needed to get off right fucking now.

She turned Valkyrie around and hooked a left at the intersection, then drove another twenty minutes before she was back in range and her phone finally had bars. She pulled over as soon as she could and called Teddy, who didn’t pick up.

‘Hey, Ted,’ she said, ‘I need you to call me as soon as you can. I’m all right, but it’s urgent and important. I’m coming home.’

She called Choker next, who picked up and said, ‘Alice! You made it early.’

‘I’m not there,’ she said. ‘Choker, I need you to help me.’

His whole voice changed when he spoke next: ‘What do you need?’

‘Advice. I’m sorry, but Valkyrie’s been in a crash, and I had to open Darwin’s coffin. Did you put a tracker in?’

‘Why would I put a tracker in the coffin? I have one on your phone.’

Of course he fucking did. ‘Well, somebody did.’

‘Sadie, that goddamn bitch.’

‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘but it also wasn’t Darwin in there.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘It’s Cole, Choker. Teddy’s missing guy. Cole is the body I’ve been driving around.’

He breathed out for a moment. She gave him the time, looking around. A few cars passed. It wasn’t far to town. Maybe two and a half or three hours back to Melbourne altogether by now, if she drove too fast and nobody noticed.

‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

‘You’re not fucking kidding,’ she said.

‘Well, shit,’ he said.

‘I can’t take him to Darwin’s family house,’ she said.

‘No, you can’t. That’s – if we get found out, that’s bad. Easy to trace back to us seeing as we’ve been talking to the kid’s whole fucking family. I think you need to come back. Wait – where are you? Can you drive?’

‘Val’s still going, albeit slowly. And aren’t you tracking me?’

‘Humour me.’

‘I’m just out of Jerilderie.’

‘All right. And the tracker’s gone?’

‘On a truck headed to Holton.’

‘Good. Good work. I think we need some help. I have someone in Bower. Head towards there, and I’ll keep you updated.’

‘Okay.’

‘Stay safe, Alice.’

‘Always,’ she said. ‘Can you get onto Teddy? She didn’t answer my call.’

‘I will,’ he said.

~

Choker called back when she was ten minutes away from Bower. ‘I’ll text you the address,’ he said. ‘We have a contact there called Luc, who’s going to meet you and take the car and everything inside it off your hands. This isn’t in the contract we signed, and is now above your pay grade – leave it with me. In Bower, you’ll get a new car to drive home. Don’t worry, Pia’s been briefed. Valkyrie will come back to us.’

‘What’s going to happen to the coffin? And to Cole?’

‘What did I just say?’

Alice stared down the road. ‘It’s above my pay grade.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Did you get onto Teddy?’

‘No,’ he said, but there was something in his voice.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, but he was so clearly lying that Alice finally broke: all that she had been holding on to these two days. She pulled the car over and said, ‘What is it?’

‘Alice,’ he said, and he was firm. ‘Get to Bower, go see Luc, and get back here. It’s all right, okay? You don’t have to speed – don’t get the fucking cops on you right now, whatever you do. Are you listening?’

‘I am,’ she said, her voice breaking.

‘Bower. Luc. My office,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in a few hours.’

He rang off, and she tried Teddy again. She didn’t pick up; it had now been forty minutes since she’d called Teddy by the side of the road, and not once ever since she’d met Teddy had it taken her this long to call back when she needed her.

‘Cole,’ she said into the back seat, ‘I don’t know what the fuck you did, but I no longer care. Let’s get the hell out of here.’