25

A CASCADE of hits for ‘Allyson Coleman’ flowed onto Ted’s iPad screen. One profile in The Weekly Times covered her life in business. Ms Coleman had grown up on a farm in Inglewood, Queensland, and had attended the prestigious boarding school Willowbrook Girls Grammar in North Sydney. Her mother, Harriet Marie Wills Coleman, was a patron of the arts. Her father, Gideon Coleman, was a cattle grazier and politician who served in the Australian Parliament and was renowned for his military feats in Africa during the Second World War. In the fifties, Gideon Coleman diversified the business and went into coal mining, creating a large family fortune.

Divorced twice, currently single, Allyson Coleman had been through good times and bad. She’d struck out on her own in a mining venture in the seventies, went bankrupt in the eighties, and then recovered and went on to found Oz Macadamia in 1997 and raise millions to launch a range of nut products. But the business never took off, leaving a lot of angry creditors. She went overseas for a while, then returned to Australia and to the BRW rich-list, with renewed vigour and foreign money, this time, in the cattle industry. She was a director in numerous companies: transport, agri-tech, private security. She divided her time between Jakarta and Darwin. She drove a powder-blue Karmann Ghia in town and a top-of-the-range Range Rover in the bush. She had ships and helicopters and land.

There was a piece in Stock and Land on her recent purchase of three large cattle stations, on behalf of an international consortium.

‘Cool Runnings and Patricia Creek stations acquisitions are part of a strategic plan by Taurus Beef Trust, allowing us to continue to export healthy Australian-bred and -produced cattle into the expanding Asian market,’ Ms Coleman said.

Two of the properties, Cool Runnings and Patricia Creek, are large-scale breeding properties situated within commercial proximity of multiple market facilities including feedlots, abattoirs, saleyards, and ports of the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Queensland.

A third property, Fly Hole Station, stocked with sixty-five thousand Brahman, is a quality finishing property located near Mount Isa, Queensland.

‘The superb pastures Fly Hole provides improved our fattening base,’ Ms Coleman said.

‘The three properties, and the purchase of the ships, provide a continuous, efficient, and reliable supply of young cattle to live-export markets in key trading nations.’

Some articles were flattering, highlighting her charity work. Others were less so. Verity Savage of The Australian Financial Chronicle wrote, ‘Ms Coleman, 63, best known as a disastrously unsuccessful nut farmer, bought the properties last September.’

The last line took the vanilla-fucking-slice:

Youngest daughter of Sir Gideon Coleman, Allyson is known to keep influential company. She co-owns a horse with Victorian Justice Minister, Marcus Pugh.

Melbourne to Ouyen by car, without stopping, was more than a five-hour journey. If the British hitman had left the city this morning, he’d arrive in Woolburn around two in the afternoon. People needed to eat and relieve themselves, so more likely, he’d arrive around three. But that was fine, because I would be otherwise occupied; I had to see a woman about a stolen bull.

It was one in the afternoon when I left Ouyen for Dougal Park, the Redbridge stud farm. A pleasant three-and-a-half-hour drive down along the western side of The Grampians. I’d be there, if all went well, by late afternoon. Instead of the most direct route, via Woolburn, I detoured through Sea Lake, adding thirty minutes to my travel time. I figured it was worth it. Since people were looking for me in Woolburn.

I stopped at a service station on the outskirts of Sea Lake to fill the tank.

As I stood at the bowser, pulling the nozzle’s trigger, I thought about Allyson Coleman. She and Pugh co-owned a race horse, she was the only ‘Al’ on my list of likely Als. Could she yank Van Go Daddy, a large and distinctive bull, from his paddock in Meandarra, Queensland, and send him to Pugh’s daughter, whose farm was — I checked the map app on my phone — seventeen hundred kilometres away in Victoria?

Someone called my name. I glanced up. It was Tyler, Kylie’s long-suffering husband. He was getting into his ute and gave me a wave and a sad smile. Poor man, I thought, as I waved back.

Petrol splashed from the tank. I grabbed some paper and wiped the side of the Mazda and my jeans. I had no change of clothes, since I was planning to return to Woolburn the same day. A bell jangled on the shop door when I went to pay, summoning a youth. He asked me how I was, I replied I’d never been better and went to peruse the beverage options in the fridge. Copies of Stock and Land, The Weekly Times, The Age, and The Australian Financial Chronicle were stacked up near the counter. I picked up the Chronicle. Verity Savage had a front-page story about tax avoidance by major Australian companies.

‘Petrol, the Chronicle, and this can of Coke.’ I needed sugar and caffeine and denial.

He noted the petrol stain on my jeans, and suggested I take care when next I light a smoke. I laughed. Accidental self-immolation was not even in my top five most likely deaths.

Back on the highway for a while, then a detour through Birchip, population six hundred and sixty-two, going slow and checking the road behind me. The statue of a bull in the main drag was a highlight of this particular scenic route.

Out on the open road again, I put on my speed-dealer sunglasses and found a radio station playing classic soul. Sam Cooke and I passed a pleasant half-hour, crooning and cruising through a landscape of dry scrub under a clear sky. A warm northerly carried the familiar acrid smoke from a distant burn-off. All being well, I’d hit Warracknabeal in twenty minutes.

Brophy would love this: the quality of the light, these colours. I pictured us relaxing in some quiet rural shack around here. He’d be sceptical at first after all the unenthusiastic things I’d said over the years about growing up in this part of the world, but I’d win him over.

A large furry roadkill blocked half the road ahead. I swerved to avoid it and checked my mirror. A small white car was coming up fast. Not unusual, I told myself, the locals were impatient, and kids were outright reckless. Tourists could be a problem — stopping in the middle of the road to photograph sheep, driving on the wrong side. I decelerated and kept to the left of the lane, inviting it to pass me.

The car came close, slowed and kept a ten-metre gap. No one in the passenger seat. The driver a dark blur behind the tinted glass.

What fuckery was this?

I thought about stopping. Bad plan. Middle of nowhere, between towns, no one but sheep to witness whatever this was. What to do? Get to Warrack’ as quickly as possible. No, that town was still a long way off. I crested a hill, the white car kept pace. On the other side, there were two vehicles coming up the other way. I waved at them, but the first, an old falcon just sped by. Behind it, a ute with a roll of hay tootled up the incline. I waved frantically. The old bloke at the wheel, elbow on the open window, just lifted a finger off the steering wheel and carried on. Once it passed, I whacked the Mazda into third, hit the accelerator, and gunned it. The white car took a moment to respond, a second later it had matched my speed.

All of a sudden the white car was right beside me, driving in the oncoming lane. Without warning, the driver swung the wheel left. I slammed down on the brakes, a centimetre between the cars. I slowed, panicked, trying to think. The white car slowed in front of me, moved to the left lane. I went right, accelerated, and sped by as it swung out at me again. No collision — a whisker in it. The white car swapped lanes once more, and came up fast.

Ahead, an old sign post pointed to a possible left turn.

I braked at the very last moment and took the turn doing fifty, back tyres skidding on the bitumen. Dust clouds billowed up behind me, and no white car appeared through them. I exhaled for what felt like the first time in a while. It wasn’t a road, but a narrow dirt track with shallow channels on either side, close to the fences. I rocketed down the middle, lurching in every dip and crack, engine roaring, steering wheel shaking. I checked the surrounding paddocks for a driveway or a track — anything to escape down — but the fences on both sides continued to infinity. What I did see was a dark mass ballooning, coming across the scrub fast. The burn-off.

I checked the mirror. The white car was coming, flat stick, rebounding off the potholes.

The north wind was pushing the smoke across the paddock, and it started to blanket the road. A blur of dark shapes moved inside the smoke. What the heck was that? Then I knew. A mob of eastern greys were thundering away from the fire.

In a panic, I made a quarter-turn left, then swung the wheel hard to the right and stepped on the brake. Time seemed to slow. The Mazda slid sideways in the sand until a front tyre found purchase. It spun in a 180-degree arc to face back the way I’d come, and then continued skidding sideways down into the ditch. The passenger side of the Mazda slammed into fence posts and the windows cracked. A second later, the white car went past. A second after that, a sickening boom of impact, and the sound of shattering glass.

A moment passed. The Mazda had stalled. I sat, stunned, covered in glass and grit.

The radio was still on: ‘Yeah, nothing can ever change the love we feel for you, Sam.’

I moved my arm, put my foot on the clutch, turned the key: it started. I tried to turn the wheel, but the wheels were jammed. I turned it off and unbuckled my seatbelt.

I seized my handbag and climbed out on unsteady legs. I walked twenty metres down the road. The white car was on its side in the opposite channel. The front was smashed in, red smears on bonnet. I watched the car for a moment, no movement inside.

Nearby, a tangle of grey fur was motionless on the track. Blood pooled under it. The rest of the mob had continued to move on to the next paddock, except for a joey. It hung around the body, sniffed the blood-soaked fur, lifted its head, and looked around. Slowly, it moved off, then in a rush, it caught the rest of the mob.

A groan from the white car. The crack of the door opening. I put my hand in my handbag. Through the smoke, I saw the driver door lifted upward. Heart racing, I took out the taser.