32

‘THE VAN made it,’ I said.

Brophy rubbed his neck and moved his head from side to side. ‘Yeah.’

‘You alright?’

‘Yeah.’

Marigold hugged me around the waist the way Loretta did, with an intensity that was a little desperate, almost fearful.

‘How are you?’

‘Sick of the van,’ she said. ‘I hate long drives. My stomach feels bad. But Dad’s grumpy, and he won’t buy me a Coke.’

She’d dropped her usual American manner of speaking, and the bogus swagger that went with it, and appeared to have passed into a new phase, the miserable teenager.

‘I bought you chips,’ he said. ‘And ice cream.’

‘Lucky you,’ I said.

She effected a long, slow eye roll with only the whites visible. It was quite disturbing.

‘Why aren’t you at the farm? Dad told me we were going to a farm. And now we’re not.’

‘We can go there, if you want. It’s not far.’

Brophy groaned. ‘We both need a break from driving,’ he said. ‘Let’s go for a walk. Stella, show us the Woolburn sights.’

I didn’t want to let on to Brophy that I was in any danger. So I led the way and we walked out in the open, down the main street. I was thinking how tired he looked. And at the top of his shirt, his collar bones jutted through the skin, and a couple of ribs showed. His skin was a shade of ashen.

‘Your town is weird,’ Marigold said.

Brophy looked at his phone. ‘No network.’

‘Let’s go to the pub,’ I said. ‘I’ll get in touch with Kylie. If she’s home, maybe we can visit the farm this afternoon.’

Marigold made a scrunched-up face. Pubs, she knew, were boring places for kids.

‘I’ll buy you both a Coke,’ I said, then instantly remembered that Brophy had forbidden it.

Our eyes met. I cringed with remorse. He turned away. Oh boy, did I regret it. It didn’t matter that I’d tried to lift Marigold’s mood and make her less difficult, not only for my sake, but also for his. I’d stumbled into an area full of landmines: the real parent doing the hard parenting, and the step-parent, or ring-in, or whatever I was, trying to be helpful and liked, and therefore breaking rules and creating all sorts of unintended confusion and conflict.

He was walking ahead of us, towards the pub. No discussion, just cold fury radiating from him. This was one of those watershed moments in our life together, I felt it in my bones. His first visit to my hometown, meeting my family. It was supposed to be our romantic weekend away, the one I had planned and longed for, for so long. This was it. Yet it was this mess, me floundering, his coldness, my heartbreak, this heavy sense of failure.

I trudged behind him, seeing our recent past clearly for the first time. I’d been preoccupied. Those times we were together, we rarely really talked. He’d visit, but rarely stayed over. We’d watch a screen, then go our separate ways.

I didn’t need to ask him if he was using. He probably was. Of course he was. And it didn’t matter. Because he didn’t care anymore. And he couldn’t hide it.

Brophy had reached the veranda and was waiting for Marigold and me to catch up to him before going in. Our eyes met again. It was over.

We both knew it.

We took turns playing pool against each other. When it was Brophy and I, we played in silence. Marigold climbed up on a bar stool, dangling her legs and calling out helpful instructions. Urging us on to the mystery of those odd angles where balls would connect in just the right spot and shoot into a pocket. That was the theory. The reality was a desultory back and forth in which we both either missed or made half-hearted shots that sent the ball rolling slowly across the soiled green felt only to fall far short.

Between shots, Brophy stood with his legs apart, with the cue resting on the ground between them, holding a point in two hands, close to his chest. He had a frozen, inscrutable expression on his grey face. He made some effort to smile from time to time, but the atmosphere was thick with unease. If I asked him straight out if he was using again, it was possible he would give me an honest answer. Did I want it said out loud? What would be the point of that?

I brooded over these thoughts, playing the worst pool of my life, until Phuong walked into the bar.

She wore skinny jeans and a black t-shirt, and her hair was still salon-perfect. The pixie cut accentuated her long neck and the flawless symmetry of her head. A few locals did double takes. It wasn’t often someone so extraordinary entered their out-of-the-way establishment. Long legs, high-definition arm-muscles, angular cheekbones. On me, these structures were hidden under layers of cheese pizza. Against the backdrop of the public bar, with the framed photos of sporting history, postcards, foreign currency, and memorabilia on the wall, the contrast of Phuong’s presence raised the glamour levels to dizzying, like a celebrity photo shoot in a derelict location. In years to come, strangers would make pilgrimage to this site, take selfies at the spot where she now stood.

She and Brophy greeted each other with a wary nod.

‘Just going to have a quick word. We’ll be back in a sec,’ I said to Brophy. ‘Marigold, you take over from me.’

She jumped down from the stool and gripped the cue with ferocious glee.

Phuong and I went up the stairs to my room. I fumbled the key in my haste.

‘Stella —’

‘Wait till we get inside,’ I said, still fumbling.

Phuong turned the handle and swung the door wide. The bedding had been stripped, the mattress lifted up propped against the wall, pillowcases were off the pillows, and the rug was in a heap in the corner. The drawers of the dresser were open.

‘You are a woman of trashy habits, Stella Hardy,’ Phuong said.

‘Habits, mind, all trashy. Give me a hand to get this mattress back on the bed.’

Phuong did most of the lifting, I helped guide it into place. Then we both sat on it.

‘Well, Stella. Are you going to tell me what they were looking for?’

This is it, I thought, I’m going to tell her everything.

A knock on the door. She gave me a quizzical frown. I shrugged and opened it.

‘Fresh towels?’ It was Freya.

‘No, thanks.’

She glanced in at the room, paused for a moment, looked puzzled. ‘Fresh sheets, then?’

‘No, I’ll fix this up. Don’t you worry about it.’

She turned to go.

‘Wait a second, Freya,’ I said. ‘I’ll have my phone back now, if that’s okay.’

‘Oh, sure. I’ll go get it now.’

Phuong raised her eyebrows. ‘What phone is that?’

‘The phone. The one the person who turned over my room was looking for. The one that Marcus Pugh and the rest of them are so paranoid about.’

She moved her head a quarter-turn to the window and was quiet for a moment. ‘Stella —’

‘I know.’

‘This is all very —’

‘I know.’

She stared out through the milky window at the blue Wimmera sky. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, finally, ‘I owe you.’

‘What? No, you don’t.’

‘Shut up and let me say this.’ She faced me. ‘It’s precious to me, our long history, and the many times we stretched the limits of legality together.’ She smiled. ‘Remember when we broke into that meth lab in Diggers Rest together?’

Of course I remembered. We’d found my young neighbour in there, dead. The trauma still haunted my nightmares. Gore didn’t affect Phuong, she was a professional. But she had made many concessions for me, and there’d been many lapses of that professionalism over the years. I understood the sentiment. ‘Yes, you wore your breaking-in outfit.’

She laughed. ‘That black tracksuit? A breaking-in outfit?’

‘My God, yes. Very sleek. Very Diana Rigg in The Avengers.’

She blinked. Sometimes my pop-culture references were too obscure even for Phuong. ‘I’ve aided and abetted you,’ she said with a smile. ‘And Stella, you’ve done the same for me. Every time I needed you, you were there. Even when you had to go against your better judgement.’

‘If you mean the time I helped your ex-boyfriend, then don’t mention it. It all worked out for the best.’ The best being that they broke up. He was an utter bastard.

‘So in that light of loyalty and history …’

‘Phuong, what is it? Are you okay?’

‘I … have … er … lost the DNA evidence from the Sunshine dope-house crime scene.’

‘You lost the hair they found?’

She nodded.

In my frantic life, the living in fear, the panic, and the calculating, I sometimes forgot that there are good things in this world. That a friend was a wonderful force for good. All it took for friendship to work its power was a simple phone call, or a hand on your shoulder, or the destruction of incriminating evidence.

I was lost for words. We embraced. There were tears.

Phuong got up and walked to the window. ‘Homicide is investigating a body found in the Murray-Sunset National Park. He’d been tortured before being killed. And the word is that the deceased is a match for Velvet Stone’s murderer. You were right about the Navara showing up on CCTV footage.’

She glanced over at me, scrutinising my reaction. I shrugged. It was old news. I knew Brash had murdered Slade. And Slade had admitted to me that he’d killed Velvet Stone.

‘They don’t have an ID yet, but they’re working on it.’

‘It’s Colin Slade. British national. He worked for BlackTack, a private intelligence agency. He was on assignment for a syndicate — his contact was a client who called himself Paul.’

‘Are you serious? There’s a private Blu-tack?’

‘BlackTack.’ I told her about my encounter with Slade: the accident with the mob of kangaroos outside Sea Lake, the fire, and his confession that he’d killed Velvet Stone, but that he didn’t know who killed Joe Phelan.

She stared at me with her mouth open. ‘Go back to the beginning.’

So I told her about Joe Phelan’s death, and my meeting with Pugh and his bogus prison inspection team. I said some things about Mrs Phelan and the awful Brash and his threats, but I left out what he had over me. I told her how I’d found Joe’s phone, and that I’d met with Velvet Stone. How Velvet had drugged me, and how Loretta, who was pregnant by Ben and staying with me, had done the phone switcheroo on Colin Slade. The phone, I said, contained a recording of Marcus Pugh, talking about his daughter and losing out on a bull at auction. And then I told her that the bull, Van Go Daddy, had since been stolen. I gave her my theory about the cattle tags and BS12 and Allyson Coleman.

‘They claim to be developing their own version of the new GPS-based cattle tracking system called iDrover, but in reality, I think Enrique Nunzio, their agricultural tech expert is working on hacking into that system. That is what the syndicate is planning: stealing cattle by hacking.’

‘But the logistics of something like that are impossible. How can they pull it off?’

‘Another member of the syndicate is this bloke “Paul”, who I think is actually Mark Lacy, the contract manager for Corrections Victoria. BS12 provides a diverse range of industrial solutions, including transport services. Lacy signs off on contracts for cattle haulage, all on the Corrections budget. BS12 makes a profit on the haulage, and BS12 company management don’t ask questions.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Phuong said. ‘Isn’t there some oversight? In the government or in the company?’

I told her what Father Baig had said — that BS12 had a history of corruption. And their contracts were lightly managed. There was minimal oversight.

‘The cost of mounting this heist,’ I said, ‘has been paid for by the Victorian taxpayer.’

She considered that last remark for a moment, then frowned. I got the impression she found it credible. ‘So, the syndicate is comprised of some rogue BS12 people, plus the minister and a Corrections Victoria loose cannon, and this Allyson Coleman. Do I have that right?’

‘I think so, there may be more.’

‘So who is Allyson Coleman?’

‘She’s been described as a disastrously unsuccessful nut farmer.’

Phuong looked askance. ‘That’s not a crime.’

‘She’s a scam artist who recently bought a couple of properties in the Northern Territory. Plenty of space for stolen cattle to roam around on until they’re herded onto ships.’

‘And they’ve all joined forces to steal cattle and export it?’

‘If they can get them out of the country quickly enough, they stand to make millions. Like, over fifty million.’

‘And why did the syndicate, or whoever, want to kill Joe Phelan?’

I stood up and paced around, telling her what Ben had told me yesterday. All about how Joe Phelan and some unnamed accomplice had found out about the planned hack at Athol Goldwater. And about his cack-handed attempts to blackmail Pugh.

Phuong frowned again in concentration. ‘So, Joe Phelan had a recording of Pugh talking about the scheme — not in relation to the larger plot to make millions on the theft of thousands of cattle, but regarding a smaller and, it would seem, quite stupid plot to steal a single bull for his precious little girl because she’d set her heart on it at an auction and missed out?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pugh. The Victorian minister for justice?’

‘Yes. Marcus Pugh is involved in this massive cattle duffing racket. He owns a horse with Allyson Coleman. Presumably he smooths the way for Lacy. It was all going swimmingly, but Pugh’s privilege got the better of him, and he had a careless conversation that implied he had a way to obtain a bull that was no longer for sale. It was enough for a prisoner to blackmail him.’

‘So they brought in some British contractor to murder anyone who found out about it?’

‘Yes, but Colin Slade said he did not kill Joe. I believe him. My problem is, I don’t know who did, and Brash is getting impatient.’

‘And your brother fears he might be next, and that’s why he absconded.’

‘No, well, yes. I don’t know if he was in any danger, but Loretta convinced him to escape. She and the grandfather have taken Ben to some off-the-grid place. I’m not sure what she’s up to. Something is up — she’s a schemer. Claimed she’d been sleeping rough, but who knows where she’s been and what she’s been doing. I think, possibly, she wants to take over the farm.’

‘Your family farm?’

‘The Hardy family farm. Yes.’

I sat down on the bed. That was it. I’d told her everything.

Phuong frowned. ‘I’m sorry, Stella. I can’t quite believe it.’

Before I could respond, there was a knock at the door. Phuong stood by the door, ready to do some sort of karate chop, I assumed, and I cautiously opened it. It was Freya returning with her Tardis pencil case. She unzipped it and pulled out Joe Phelan’s phone. I thanked her and waited until she left.

‘Exhibit A,’ I said and played the recording. ‘Skye is Skye Redbridge, Pugh’s daughter. Al is Allyson Coleman. Vincent is the bull called Van Go Daddy.’

Her eyes narrowed as she listened. I played it a couple more times.

‘It’s Pugh,’ she said, incredulously.

‘That is what they were looking for in here. He’s desperate to prevent it from becoming public. Slade believes they’ve hired another BlackTack operative to find it.’

‘Why not go public?’

‘I can’t yet. I need to find Joe’s killer.’

‘My God, Stella. You’re not serious.’

‘Believe me. I have no choice.’

She shook her head. ‘Let me help you.’

She had a mountain to climb, death to defy, gravity to disrespect. I had to work things out with Brophy.

‘Yes, please. But not today. Go do your thing, climb the rock, I’ve got stuff to do here.’

‘It’s not safe for you here.’

‘I know. I’m getting out of Woolburn. After that, I’m not sure.’ I handed Phuong the phone. ‘You take it,’ I said to her. ‘Keep it safe.’

Phuong put the phone in her back pocket. ‘Call me.’

We embraced again. Phuong was a complicated person. Maybe I was, too — probably not as much as her. Over the years we had let each other down, and also supported each other fiercely. Each time, in each case, we understood each other a little better. And it was true that some things were worth so much more than money or status. This mad loyalty was one of them.