24

EYE-LEVEL WITH truck drivers, gliding towards Ouyen, a gloriously large window to look out of. Being on a bus in these parts seemed a sort of miracle. I’d managed to catch the once-a-day service and was feeling pretty good. From my vantage point, I saw recently cleared land stretching back to the horizon and a lone gargantuan agricultural machine in a distant paddock. The entire expanse would be sowed with barley next month. That barley was destined to become next year’s beer. I wiped a tear: circle of life.

Traffic was light, utes and delivery vans, trucks and campervans, the odd sedan. A RAV4 just like Kylie’s. Wait a minute. Kylie? Yes. I could see her through the sunroof, bopping her head and passing the bus at a velocity NASA thought impossible. The stupid ducks had not aligned. The simplest things were seemingly impossible. Strangely, I wasn’t that concerned. The bus had its consolations; at least I didn’t have to listen to Hall and Oates.

And I had time to think.

My time at the Woolburn Information Centre had been productive. Detective Sergeant Jason Costa’s earful had dispelled the myth of the easy-going country copper, but he had given me information about Brahman gone astray from more than one cattle station.

For the hell of it, I’d googled ‘cattle’ and ‘stolen’ and ‘Al’, as well as all the names starting with Al- that I could think of (Alan, Allen, Allan, Alistair, Allison, Alana, Alexandra …) and got nowhere.

I’d been deep in internet worm holes when Bunny Slipper phoned.

‘Sorry it took so long to call you back. Middle of fucking nowhere here. No reception till we got back to Fitzroy Crossing. What’s up?’

That was Bunny, social niceties were a waste of time. ‘Rural Life, is it now?’

‘Yeah,’ she’d said, a little ruefully. ‘I burned out on the hard-core investigations. The bikies thing was intense. And dangerous.’

‘That’s a shame. I’ve got a story here. Danger is involved.’

Background noise on the line, shouting voices, machinery. ‘A story?’

‘Yep, it’s a got a Rural Life angle, too.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Cattle-tag technology.’

‘Done it. Not sexy. I’m not feeling it.’

‘Tags and a racket involving the company BS12. A prisoner who had proof was murdered.’

‘The prisoner at Athol Goldwater? I heard about that.’

‘I believe the murder is related to the execution-style hit on a rock-climbing computer hacker called Velvet Stone, also goes by Foxy Meow.’

‘Okay, yes, that is sexy.’

‘And I have a secret recording of a Victorian government minister alluding to a theft.’

‘Oh baby, that’s sexy as hell. Theft of what?’

‘A record-breaking prize bull.’

Pause. Breathing. ‘Stella. Are you okay? Taking your medication?’

‘If you don’t want it, I can go to commercial television — that Herald-Sun-for-TV current affairs show.’

‘No, don’t do that. I’m interested. Email me with everything you’ve got.’

I had, and Bunny had replied almost immediately:

Started digging. Meanwhile, since you’re intent on looking into cattle tag and prisoner monitoring tech, get a load of this.

The attached video file had opened with an ABC logo and titles: RURAL LIFE. EP 24: The Future of Mustering — Satellites.

A shot of Bunny in the pink Akubra. ‘The future is here, now,’ Bunny said, and held up a large round object, similar to an old-fashioned leather harness for attaching a beast of burden to a plough, except it was made of plastic and had a small solar panel and an antenna.

Bunny to camera: ‘This collar allows a farmer to be confident of the exact location of every steer, every cow, with the touch of her smartphone.’

Her smartphone. Nice one, Bunny.

A fly crawled up her nose. She put a finger to a nostril and violently snorted it out. Someone laughed off camera. Cut to another take, saying much the same thing.

‘It’s called iDrover,’ she said. Flies tried to crawl into her mouth, but she continued to look down the barrel, like a pro. ‘It’s part of a complete system of cattle management and high-precision farming. It uses satellites to keep track of cattle’s whereabouts, feed access, the water levels in dams, and they can even open and close gates. The device is solar-powered with a built-in GPS. It lets the grazier know exactly where each individual cow is, and, using sound, it can direct them in any direction you desire. No fences required.’

There was B-roll footage of a cow displaying the collar. It walked one way, then abruptly turned its head, as if shocked, and began to run in the opposite direction. The video ended.

I’d had a little more time before the bus was due, and had spent it looking up the iDrover system, the little that was publicly available information, and learned that the collars featured small solar panels to power them, and that, once locked, they were almost impossible to unlock without a keyless mechanism unique to each farmer. The iDrover system had been tested at several sites, including in Victoria, at a BS12 facility. The system had already been rolled out across hundreds of cattle stations in Queensland, the Northern Territory, and the Kimberly. Enrique Nunzio, the tech genius at Athol Goldwater was using facilities at the prison to test and trial agricultural technology. Was that technology like the iDrover? And was that what Joe had meant when he discussed hacking ‘tags’ with Velvet Stone. Tags or collars or both?

I mused on these things as the bus barrelled along the narrow strip of bitumen they called a highway. It cut a straight line through dry pastures full of dusty sheep and in and out of small Mallee towns full of dusty people. It was the perfect opportunity to simply take it all in.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too wound up. Instead, I used the time to look over a mental smorgasbord of facts. And the combinations were whacky. For example, Nell Tuffnell, prison worker, lending her car to the tattooed man who murdered Velvet Stone. Or Marcus Pugh’s daughter turning out to be a Victorian farmer obsessed with Van Go Daddy, a bull from Queensland. Then there was the presumed theft of that bull by Pugh’s mystery fixer, Al.

Joe had been killed. And Velvet had been killed. And I … I was on a bus headed for Ouyen, which was undeniably very similar.

Delia was waiting for me, standing by her car, which was parked near to the bus stop. When I stepped down, she embraced me. An actual hug. This was so unprecedented that I was tempted to pull at her face to see if it was a mask. Ted was out for the day, she told me, and Kylie was waiting for us at her place.

‘Morning tea. Just us girls,’ she said, smiling happily, as though this was the highlight of her day. Whatever she was taking, I wanted some.

But first, she said, she had to whiz in to the bank, the newsagents, and the bakery. Her whizzing was becoming exhausting. When we finally arrived, Kylie had made tea and set places for us outside. We ate vanilla slices and apple pies. When we were finished, I poured a second cup of tea, and Delia went inside to top up the milk jug.

‘Saw you drive up here this morning,’ I said to Kylie. ‘From the bus.’

She shrugged. ‘I rang the pub, and they said you’d left.’

I sipped, nodding. Why had she not called my mobile? She was frustratingly stubborn.

‘No, honestly, I did. The woman who answered said you were popular. I go, what do you mean? She goes, two other people were looking for you.’

I gasped. ‘Who?’

‘A bloke dropped in for a visit, a Mr Shane Farquhar.’ Her eyebrows rose to her hairline.

‘I can’t imagine why.’

The brows came down and knitted to become one. ‘Really. You can’t imagine?’

‘If you think I fancy that ape, you are gravely mistaken. Who else?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, some bloke called from Melbourne. She said he had a British accent.’

The SAS hitman. I gasped again.

Delia returned with the milk and a newspaper under one arm.

‘What’s with you?’ Kylie asked. ‘You’ve gone pale.’

‘Yes, pale green, actually,’ My mother said. ‘Was it the vanilla slice? The custard might have gone off.’

‘I … I’m fine,’ I stammered.

‘You’re all sweaty,’ Kylie went on, pretending to care. ‘Could it be early menopause?’

‘Yes. Probably that’s all it is.’

‘Got The Weekly Times,’ Delia said. ‘There’s a lift-out on the Beef Expo in Queensland. Thought you might want a read, Kylie.’

‘You don’t need an expo, you’ve got Loretta,’ I said. ‘She’s an expert. By the way, where is she?’

‘She’s gone,’ said Kylie and picked up the glossy magazine.

‘Gone where?’

‘Dunno. Said she wanted to go. Tyler took her and the wolf to Horsham, dropped them off this morning.’

I was stunned. ‘But she’s alone and pregnant and —’

‘She wanted to go, Stella,’ Kylie said. ‘I can’t keep her against her will.’

I went in the house and called Loretta’s number. No answer. I left a message.

When I returned to the garden, Kylie was in the midst of a low-grade tantrum. She threw the lift-out onto the table. ‘Can’t go to Queensland now, Mum. I’m flat out at the farm.’

‘Flat out having lunch,’ I said.

My mother cuffed the back of my head. ‘Kylie’s doing a great job.’

‘Ignore her,’ Kylie said. ‘She’s just jealous.’

Despite my anxiety, I chortled.

‘You won’t be laughing when I bring in ten million in the third year.’

That was hysterical. I hooted, held my sides. ‘How will you do that? With the Dexters?’

Kylie cleared her throat. ‘With our current purchasing and breeding program, we expect to have ten thousand head of cattle across both farms in that time frame.’

‘Both farms?’ I was stunned. ‘Tell me you’re not in league with Shane-fucking-Farquhar.’

My mother biffed the back of my head again. ‘Language.’

Kylie ignored the question and carried on with her address to the nation. ‘In the current live-export market, that’s ten million Australian dollars.’

I did a quick calculation. Those missing fifty thousand Brahman in Middleton were worth fifty million dollars. A lot of money if you sold them on the export market. It was a big if.

Delia ate another vanilla slice and pulled the glossy lift-out from the paper. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t concerned about this. The partnership with another farm, the plans for live export. The ridiculous ambition of a ten-million-dollar payoff. I watched her turn the pages as she chewed vanilla custard in her new serene fashion. She appeared to have completely renounced her emotional connection to the Hardy farm. My mother, I realised with a start, was Zen. A rural, conservative, church-going version of Zen. The judging, suspicious person was gone. She was happy, relaxed, easygoing. At least my cursing had brought out the old Delia. I made a mental note to say something obscene in her presence on a regular basis.

I looked at Kylie. She was on her phone, sending a furtive text.

I stared into the distance and made up my mind. It was time I gave up worrying about the farm, too. If my mother no longer cared, why should I? What I needed to do was prepare for the threats to my existence. Like tattoo man. It would seem he’d tracked me to Woolburn. He was probably on his way to the Wimmera right now, while I was sitting around eating cakes. If he was in Nell Tuffnell’s car, the Nissan Navara ST-X, I would know what to look out for. No. Every second car here was a four-cab monster.

Next threat, Farquhar. The testosterone-soaked Neanderthal wanted something from me.

I needed to get away, and I knew just the place. Dougal Park, Skye Redbridge’s property. Did she have any unauthorised bulls in her paddocks? The plan was sound. I’d leave now. Well, after a vanilla slice. If I was going to die, I had no reason to worry about carbs.

I ate a slice and turned a page of the paper. Rural news from across the country, with syndicated stories from the major dailies. Most were puff pieces about a kid’s first medal in show jumping, or cheesy profiles of a farming family’s triplets who scored blue ribbons for their pigs. I took another bite of custard, turned another page, and paused mid-chew.

Allyson Coleman Buys Green Ships for Cattle Export.

Coleman. That was it. Coleman. I was sure the name I’d seen on the email on Enrique Nunzio’s computer screen in the Athol Goldwater shed was ‘Al Coleman’.

Allyson with a y. Hadn’t thought of that.

Well-known entrepreneur Allyson Coleman announced today that she acquired a number of ships known as ‘green’ that are cattle-friendly for the live trade. Ms Coleman is acting in partnership with a consortium of overseas buyers, and has paid a $3.2 million deposit.

She has worked as a deal broker for major cattle station acquisitions in recent years and is director of Taurus Beef Trust. She made the announcement from a Jakarta teleconference to journalists in Australia and overseas.

Pugh’s accomplice. I needed to do research on Allyson Coleman. ‘Where’s Ted’s iPad?’

Delia cackled. ‘What’s unravelled your knitting?’

‘Mum, this is important.’

‘Everything’s important.’

‘Just fucking tell me.’

She tried to strike me with the rolled-up supplement. I dodged. ‘Please.’

‘In the bedroom, top bedside-table drawer on his side. And mind your damn language.’