18

I DROVE down the hill, parked the Mazda behind the monster ute, and took a photo of the number plate. The paramedics had the SAS guy on the gurney. He was conscious and belligerent, but weak, taking sloppy punches at them. They restrained him with straps, packed him away into the back, and made a quiet exit.

A crowd of neighbours milled about on the footpath like Brown’s cows. These were good people, who liked a chat, but were usually too busy to stop and talk. The arrival of an ambulance was the perfect opportunity to stand in the street and discuss important local matters. A recent house sale, what was paid, what they’d done to the bathroom. What was not being done about speeding drivers, cracked footpaths, tardy rubbish collection. I acted calm, smiled at some of them, and using slow movements locked the car door with the key. Someone waved. I waved back, but kept going, slipping into the foyer and taking the stairs two at a time.

Loretta came away from the window as I entered.

‘Electric shocked him! Sick!’

‘Grab Nigel, get your stuff. We’re going to Woolburn. My car’s out the front.’

Without hesitation, she opened the tartan case and started to stuff dog toys into it. A seasoned practitioner of the midnight flit. In the bedroom, I fed clothes into my wheeled case. I grabbed the folder with Kylie’s papers in it and shoved that in as well. We bumped into each other in the bathroom as we scrambled around.

Minutes later, the dog, the girl, and I flew down the three flights and ran to the car. I popped the Mazda’s boot, threw in my suitcase, and then I unlocked the front passenger door and the dog leapt in. I shoved him between the seats and into the back. Loretta dumped the trolley in the boot, slammed it shut, and jumped in. I chucked a screaming U-ey, drove like a hoon through the backstreets, then turned onto Mount Alexander Road, then the freeway, then the Calder.

It was twenty minutes before one of us spoke. Then I grabbed my phone. ‘Here,’ I gave it to Loretta. ‘Ring Brophy.’

She found the number and called. ‘Hi, this is Loretta, Stella’s sister-in-law.’

I emitted an audible breath, but didn’t correct her.

‘She says to tell you there’s been a change of plan. We’re on our way to Woolburn. Like, right now.’

I could hear his voice, but not the words. He sounded confused rather than disappointed.

‘He wants to know why.’

‘Tell him it was unavoidable, and I’ll explain later.’

I waited. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said, “Fine, okay, see you when you get back.”’

The thought of days at the farm with a bunch of Hardys and future Hardys and no Brophy was almost too much for me. ‘Tell him to drive up with Marigold on Saturday as planned.’

‘Who’s Marigold?’

‘Tell him!’

She told him, and she listened. Then she relayed. ‘Drive up in what?’

‘In the van,’ I shouted, so she didn’t have to repeat it. Brophy’s beaten, rusted, barely roadworthy ex-telco van still functioned. Surely that would do?

She listened. He spoke for a long time.

‘Okay,’ Loretta said and ended the call.

‘Well?’

‘He said he’ll see.’

He’ll see? That meant no. Instead of quality time with Brophy, I could look forward to junk time with stupid. The one thing, the only fucking thing I wanted, was slipping from my grasp. In lieu of leisure and love, I had a pile of steaming cow poo.

We travelled in unfriendly silence, me with my head in a dark cloud of resentment, Loretta staring ahead with who knew what wheels turning in her elfin noggin.

We were two hours out of Melbourne on the Western Highway. Nigel was in the back, nose poking through a narrow window gap, happily cataloguing all manner of airborne odours. And I was ruminating on why an SAS soldier wanted to kill me. If he was connected to BlackTack to whom Enrique Nunzio had paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for ‘services’, then why was he working to recover Joe’s phone? What did Nunzio care about Marcus Pugh and that recording? It did not fucking add up.

It was Nunzio I should have been focussed on, not Velvet Stone. I should have gone back into that tech shed for a proper look. Damn, I regretted deleting the photos I’d taken of the invoices. And of something else … Oh my God, yes! I hit the steering wheel and cursed. Loretta glanced up, but said nothing. The email on Nunzio’s screen in the shed — it had been from an ‘Al’ someone. Al! Could that be Pugh’s Al — ‘I’ll talk to Al’ — the one who was going to fix everything for him? I was willing to bet the whole fund that it was. Al who, though? I couldn’t remember the surname. There was nothing I could do about it now, in the middle of driving Loretta to Woolburn. Not to mention, time was running out with Brash, and it wouldn’t be long before that thug came looking for me again.

Loretta suddenly broke our long semi-hostile silence. ‘I have a right to know what’s going on.’

She had a point.

‘Truth is, Loretta, even I don’t know exactly what’s going on.’

‘You know something.’

Again, that was a valid argument. I gave up. She already knew too much, and she was bright and tech-savvy — maybe she could help me. And, as she said, given her life had been at risk and I was now hooning her up to Woolburn a week early, she had a right to know.

‘Joe Phelan, a prisoner at Athol Goldwater where Ben is, was found dead two weeks ago. It was a suspect way to die, but it’s being treated as an accident by both the department and the private prison operator. I’m helping the family look into it.’

‘Why are you helping them?’

‘Let’s say, I’m obliged to. Anyway, his dual-SIM phone contained text messages with a woman called Velvet Stone who could hack those ankle bracelets they use for home detention. I spoke to Velvet, and she said Joe Phelan asked her if she could hack cattle tags.’

‘Okay. Good …’ She sounded unconvinced.

I glanced at her in the dim interior. ‘Any idea what tags he might be talking about?’

‘NLIS tags maybe.’

‘And they are?’

She shrugged. ‘Just the usual cattle ID.’

‘Cattle tags use a different network, right?’

‘NLIS uses radio signals.’

That sounded like she knew what she was talking about. ‘How does it work?’

‘When the cattle leave a farm, their tags get read. There’s a device you use to read them, tells you the breeder and that. Keeps track of them.’

I’d have to look into the NLIS tags myself. She might be right. But it seemed unlikely.

I suddenly realised I was exhausted, it was late, and we were only halfway to Woolburn. We pulled into the small town of Beaufort, and I paid cash for a twin room in a motel. The owner was a fan of the Alaskan Malamute and allowed us to keep Nigel tied up outside with one of our own blankets and a bowl of water.

‘Look at his eyes. Alert, intelligent, loyal. Better than most people you meet,’ she said appreciatively.

The local Chinese was still open, and we consumed passable takeaway while watching mindless reality TV in our room. Loretta worked her way through the soft drinks in the minibar. Coke, Fanta, anything sweet. I finished two bottles of Crown Lager and went outside for a breath of fresh air. I walked the length of a few blocks to stretch my legs. It was a quiet town. Not dead, but not living up to its full potential. I saw possibilities. Country life, would that be so bad? Friendly folk, traffic flowing freely, birds, trees. I shook myself out of it. Tropical islands, country retreats, my fantasies were escapist drivel. Marigold’s mother would never allow her to leave, Brophy wouldn’t go anywhere without her. I had to give it up.

Back in the room, Loretta was changing channels.

‘Wait, stop,’ I said. ‘Go back.’

A woman in a pink Akubra in a dusty outback location was doing a piece to camera. ‘Imagine you’re riding a horse at the head of a herd of cattle. Not a few hundred head, but thousands and thousands of cattle.’

I knew that journalist. Bunny Slipper. She used to cover organised crime in Melbourne.

Background guitar music played over aerial shots of vast herds of rust-brown cattle moving across a desert landscape. The reporter’s voiceover: ‘You’re watching Rural Life, an outback series on real Australia. This week: people.’

Back to Bunny, standing in a sea of red dunes. ‘Here in the Kimberley, there’s cattle stations that are too big to imagine. All across Australia’s north there are stations bigger than most countries — Belgium, for instance. These are farms with more than fifty thousand head of cattle, and it can be hard work for station managers to keep track.’

Slide guitar over shots of a shed, a rusted windmill turning against a blue sky, water pumping into a trough, helicopters hovering, then flying directly at herds that scattered in panic, clouds of red dust pluming behind them.

‘We’ve come a long way since the days of jackaroos on horseback droving cattle hundreds of kilometres to new pastures.’

Cut to Bunny, now wearing headphones inside a helicopter. ‘Graziers swapped the horses for motorbikes, and then the motorbikes for helicopter mustering,’ she shouted.

Shot of thousands of cattle crossing a shallow river.

‘Some of the romance of the golden age of Australian cattle farming might be lost — the campfires, the long cattle drives — but the characters remain. Today, I speak to some of the people who live and work out here in the outback.’

Loretta threw the remote on the bed. ‘This is boring.’

‘Yes, it is. Turn it off.’

She went to the bathroom, and I heard the shower running.

I turned the TV back on.

A caption said Station owner under a shot of a woman in moleskins, boots, check shirt. ‘It’s a special part of the world up here, and the cattle trade is viable again. Live export will continue. I want the industry to be as viable as possible, and one day the people down south will understand that we love our cattle. Our cattle are our life, and we bend over backwards to look after those animals day in, day out. It breaks my heart when you get these people down south thinking otherwise, because we are our cattle, and that’s all we do, that’s all we live for.’

Cut to a shot of Bunny Slipper, as she tilted her pink Akubra and nodded.

Bunny and I had history. She’d given me valuable information to help me in that tricky situation involving the bikies. And I’d given her the scoop of the century. She was a hard-core investigative reporter. This Rural Life gig seemed pretty soft for someone of her calibre. I wondered if she would be willing to join forces with me again.

Her number was still in my phone. It went straight to her voicemail. I said I had another amazing scoop.

At dawn, we set off again. It was a typical superb March morning; delicate pink wisps on mauve clouds made the world seem benign.

Loretta had woken up in a talkative mood. She prattled on about her childhood, travelling from farm to farm with her grandfather. He’d been a stockman, a shearer, a drover. He’d done branding and tagging. It explained a lot.

He’d been a station hand on a government farm when one of the workers there had shut the stock in a paddock, chained the gate, and knocked off without telling anyone. The cattle were cut off from their water trough and had died of thirst.

‘That’s horrible.’

‘Grandad was ropable. Swearing and carrying on, but I reckon he was traumatised.’

‘But they weren’t his.’

‘Didn’t matter. It was the stupidity, the carelessness. And the poor cows suffering.’

I knew some farmers cared, some didn’t. Most would have hated to see that.

‘After the cattle died, that was it. We packed up one night. Went to Yuleba North.’

‘Where’s that? And don’t say near Yuleba.’

‘Near Wallumbilla.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Roma, on the stock route. Drover reckoned his calves got stolen. Grandad found them.’

My phone chimed, and I glanced at the screen.

Phuong: Bit of commotion at your place last night!

The small town of Great Western was coming up. I stopped in the main street, outside the general store. Loretta and Nigel walked to the public facilities.

I called Phuong, and she picked up straight away. ‘No big deal,’ I said. ‘A bloke had a heart attack. He’s fine now.’

‘Not cardiac arrest,’ said Phuong. ‘Doctors are speculating about taser exposure. If that’s true, it’s lucky he wasn’t killed.’

She’d spoken to doctors at the hospital. She was super cop. ‘What? That’s weird.’

‘Superficial burns to the neck, with small puncture wounds, consistent with taser-related injury. The guy wasn’t cooperating, refused to give his name. Staff called police.’

That was good news. ‘Was he arrested?’

‘No, why would he be?’

‘I mean, interviewed. Polite questioning.’

‘No. He left before we arrived. Nothing the hospital could do.’

‘You should follow that up. I took down his number plate, if you want it.’

A pause. ‘You took the number plate?’

‘As a concerned citizen, yes. Definitely his car. I saw him park it there.’

‘You saw him?’

‘That’s right. I happened to be looking out the window. He parked in front of my building, next thing the same guy is strapped to an ambulance gurney.’

‘Did you see anyone approach him? Who else was there?’

‘No one.’ I checked my photo. ‘Nissan Navara ST-X, silver.’ I read out the registration.

‘Stella. Tell me the truth. Are you in trouble?’

‘Trouble? Of course not.’

‘Meet me for a drink later?’

‘Can’t today. I’m on my way to the farm.’

‘Great! I’ll see you up there. I’m going rock climbing near Woolburn on Saturday —’

Luckily another call sounded. ‘Sorry Phuong, got another call. Talk to you later.’

I was so relieved to have her off the line that I swiped the other call without looking at who was calling.

‘Stella? It’s Thursday.’ It was Fatima. What did that mean? Thursday was a workday, sure. ‘Where on earth are you?’ Fatima said, concern in her voice.

Where? In the vast splendour of the Wimmera, where glorious autumn sun shone on the golden landscape, and the majestic peaks of The Grampians rose up in the west. A magpie in a tree let forth a complex morning warble. In spite of the seriousness of my situation, a burst of happiness exploded in my heart.

‘I’m at home,’ I said.

‘Everyone’s here. The other agencies are all here. We’re waiting for you.’

‘Waiting for what?’

‘… I can’t believe I have to say this, Stella. For the presentation.’ Her words were an ice-cold slap.

The presentation. Thursday. Today. I started to cough. ‘I’m very sick. It’s a bad cold. I think it’s the flu.’

‘You’ve already had one warning, Stella.’ I’d never heard Fatima so angry. ‘Consider this your second. One more stuff up like this and —’

‘I know, I know. Can you reschedule?’

I heard a kind of hiss. That was not a good sign. ‘For when?’

‘Tuesday — after the long weekend. I’m sure I’ll be right by then.’

She hung up without a word.

I went into the general store and bought two chocolate Big M’s and two pineapple doughnuts. I ate mine waiting for Loretta and Nigel to return. I should have been worried about work. But I wasn’t. I was having a moment.

This was the land of my childhood, and I almost didn’t recognise it. The familiar was new again. I’d never noticed these subtle colours before, or experienced this feeling of an ancient land humming with truth. I’d driven on this road at Christmas, without a hint of possible communion, or sensing the danger of imminent transcendence. Yet now I finally understood this place was miraculous. The immensity of the sky, the waft of fragrant breeze. The magpie finished her song, and I almost burst into applause.

I resolved to lay off the doughnuts.