The clouds, wind and rain stayed with them for three hundred and seventy kilometres east into the Big Empty until just before Southern Cross, then sunshine took over. Cato felt guilty about his subterfuge with the camping trip and his real intentions about Laverton, but he wasn’t game to leave Sharon and Ella on their own in Fremantle and he feared the consequences of telling the truth. Why? Sharon was meant to be his new soulmate. No more lies or secrets, she’d said. And, by taking Sharon and Ella with him, was he actually putting them both in more danger? Had he learned nothing from his experience with Jake? Maybe not. All he knew was that he wanted to keep them close.
‘Penny for them?’ Sharon said.
Ella was snoozing in the capsule in the back and he’d thought Sharon had also been catching up after a restless night. ‘Thinking maybe we should pull in soon for some coffee and food?’
‘Sure. You looked deeper in thought than that though.’
‘Yeah, well.’
He thought he detected a flint of anger or frustration there before she smiled and said, ‘So tell me about Laverton.’
‘It’s an old mining town.’
‘Like Bendigo?’
‘Smaller and without the vibrancy and culture.’
‘So why are we going there?’
‘Beautiful countryside surrounding it.’ Although, for the life of him, he hadn’t a clue where it might be.
‘Bushman Phil, huh?’
He smiled. ‘Got it in one.’
Her hand slid over his thigh. ‘It’s nice to get acquainted again.’
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘It is.’
She leaned her head on his shoulder. ‘We’ll get through this, love.’
‘Yeah.’ A road train roared past, a crosswind buffeting the Volvo and sending a jolt through Cato’s jangled nerves. Up ahead lay the Southern Cross townsite. Cato smothered a yawn. ‘Time for some caffeine.’
Tess Maguire found herself thinking about Cato. Through news media she’d read and heard about what had happened to his son and could only begin to imagine what Cato must be feeling. Her calls to him had gone unanswered and, to her shame, there was a degree of relief there. Besides, now he had that new woman in his life to share the burden, Tess no longer had any claim over him. Perhaps she never had; after all it was a good twelve or more years since they had been an item. Her visits to Bill Jenkins had been her way of helping in whatever small way she could: put the evil old bastard back in his box and give Cato one less thing to worry about. A call from his colleague, Chris Thornton, had wrapped up the last thing old Bill had been holding back. She’d paid him one more visit.
‘Three people burned to death so you can double your investment? What a piece of work you are.’
Eyes glued to the view out the window. Voice barely a whisper. ‘Accidents will happen.’
‘And Johnny-boy continuing the good work for you in Fremantle. Moving people on. What do they call it, vacant possession?’
‘You done?’
‘No brainer for him, he gets to bully vulnerable people and get paid, by you and the council. Win-win.’
‘Need to piss.’
‘Use your bag. Why keep on employing him if you think he’s so weak and useless?’
‘His mum loved him.’
‘Nice to be able to still help the kids out, isn’t it? They’ll always be our babies, come what may. Unconditional love.’
‘Get lost and don’t bother me here anymore or I’ll have you up for harassment.’
‘My pleasure, you vicious old bastard.’
It was getting close to lunchtime and the main drag in Albany was bustling. The rain had moved on and the miscreants were strangely inactive. She’d pulled over a couple of speeders, served some warrants, caught up on her reports and allocated some uniform support to a drug raid set for tomorrow. She thought she might even go along herself to keep her hand in. She had one more warrant to serve and then she’d call it a day. She was on the early shift, so this and a bit of paper-shuffling back at the office would take her through to two o’clock and home time. She climbed the hill to Mount Clarence and pulled into the driveway of a dilapidated weatherboard house. The front lawn could have done with a mowing and the rubbish needed to be taken out. A ute sat on three wheels in the driveway, fourth one propped up on bricks. The blinds were still drawn, the Eureka flag in the window along with an empty tinnie of rum and Coke. She knocked on the front door and some flakes of paint drifted down. It was like being in a bogan snow dome.
A hacking cough and the door opened to reveal bleary eyes and Bundaberg breath.
‘Travis Grant?’ said Tess.
‘Yeah, who’s askin’?’
Tess looked down at her uniform; no, she hadn’t forgotten to put it on. ‘Police.’ She handed him an envelope and held a clipboard his way for a signature of receipt. ‘Warrant. You failed to appear before the magistrate last week and didn’t give any excuse. Be there day after tomorrow or we’ll come and arrest you.’
He shrugged. ‘Okay,’ and signed the form.
He seemed familiar, and the name too, but then so did all the Albany dropkicks after a while. ‘Where’ve I seen you before, Travis?’
‘Dunno.’
Travis was Shane Warne before the strawberry milkshake and botox diet. The cigarettes and beergut glory days when he could rip through the England top batting order before lunchtime and his hangover had even cleared. Have a pie and a smoke and go out and do it again in the afternoon. Then it came to her, a dusty road on the outskirts of Hopetoun, the Stop–Go sign man working for the mine, directing the traffic and the 457 visa workers on the chain gang. She clicked her fingers in recognition. ‘Western Minerals, Hopetoun.’
He grinned. ‘Good job, that. Money coming out of my ears. Chicks too.’ He peered closely at her. ‘I didn’t …?’
‘No, you didn’t. Not my type, mate.’ She lifted her chin at the decrepit state of him and his house. ‘What happened?’
‘Job folded after the mine closed and the boss went to prison.’ He frowned. ‘String of bad luck, you know?’
Tess nodded. ‘Shame.’ She pointed at the envelope in his hands. ‘Be there day after tomorrow, ten on the dot, or we’ll come and get you.’
Half an hour before sunset they set up camp at a site just outside of Laverton. It had minimal facilities, a drop dunny and that was it. The landscape was unimpressive, some red dirt and low scrub and flies by the thousand.
‘Are we staying here long?’ asked Sharon. ‘Only I’m still waiting to be impressed by the natural splendour of outback WA.’
‘Wait until the stars come out,’ said Cato, swatting the blowies from his face. ‘Glorious.’
Sharon was rummaging around in the car, searching for insect repellent and a protective net for Ella. That’s when she found the Glock. She hoisted it. ‘Was this really necessary?’
A shrug. ‘Samuels is out there, he hasn’t gone away and he probably hasn’t finished.’
‘Fair enough.’ She watched him tightening the guy ropes and inspecting the pegs. ‘Why are we here, Phil? Truth. Now.’
He sighed in surrender. Then he told her about his enquiries with Street Angels, the reference from the pastor in New Zealand, and the real David Lance Samuels going missing from his job at a Laverton mine.
‘So this isn’t quality family time. It’s the Job.’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘Stop fucking saying sorry.’ She stepped up close to him. ‘I’m a cop too, remember? I can do this shit and I can do it with you. You need to trust me, share it with me. If we can’t do that then what’s the point of us?’
He nodded. ‘The Dragonfly mine is about ten ks down the road from here. That’s where the real Samuels worked before he disappeared. Tomorrow I want to try and talk to somebody about who he associated with, who he might have met, who took his name.’
‘Okay,’ said Sharon. Ella was getting fractious and hungry. ‘Dinner, and then you can show me these glorious stars of yours.’
‘Great.’ A smile of relief that the interrogation was over, then a clouding and sudden alertness.
‘What?’
‘A reflection, something glinted in the sun on that hill over there.’
They both looked over that way. Studied the red dirt landscape for a few moments more. ‘Nothing,’ said Sharon. ‘Probably somebody else out for a romantic camping trip in outback WA. Just waiting for that fabulous night sky to kick in.’ Sharon laid the gun back in its resting place. ‘This better be good.’
It was.
Cato and Sharon lay on their backs in their swags and stared at the millions of pinpricks of light above them and the cloudy path of the Milky Way.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Incredible.’
Satellites orbited, stars flickered and died in front of them, and Cato’s chest felt ready to burst. He recalled evenings in the backyard in Fremantle trying to pick out the constellations from a book from Jake’s school library but the light pollution of a city made it slim pickings. The Southern Cross was usually the best they could ever manage. And Mars. So Cato would make up constellations to compensate.
‘See over there,’ said Cato. ‘Spottus the Dog.’
‘Doesn’t exist, Dad. It’s not in the book.’
‘I can see Uranus from here.’
‘Yuk.’ A giggle and a nudge.
The sky blurred.
They both drifted off to sleep.