Blood Junction (20 page)

Feeling optimistic, he pulled three free and set the rest back in the fridge. He crushed a handful of peppercorns with the
blade of a knife and pressed them into the steaks. Next he mashed four cloves of garlic. He put two dried bay leaves on the
board along with a sprig of thyme and poured some olive oil into a frying pan and set it on the stove. He brought out a tub
of soured cream from the fridge, and some salad.

Stan entered the kitchen. His face was brick red and he was sweating profusely.

“Stan,” said Mikey, “please don’t have a heart attack or I’ll get accused of murdering you, and since I really don’t like
prison food—”

“If you hadn’t farted us about for so fucking long …”

“I’m sorry, Stan. What was I supposed to do, not ask any questions at all? I’m a citizen in your precinct and have every right—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Stan radioed for backup, torches, dogs and four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Mikey checked his ingredients. Something was missing. What was it? He couldn’t remember. He crossed the kitchen for the pile
of recipe books and paused.

India’s backpack had gone.

He walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. The backpack was on the sofa and all of India’s belongings lay in neat
piles on either side of it. The fed had his back to him and Mikey watched as he picked up what looked to be a used shirt the
color of terra-cotta and held it to his face.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The fed folded the shirt, put it to one side.

“Thomas, isn’t it?”

The fed glanced at Mikey, and gave a little smile.

“You think she’s left her forwarding address in there?”

The fed picked up a teddy bear the size of a pack of cigarettes with a tartan bow tie. He surveyed it for a few seconds before
placing it on top of a frothy pile of lace and cotton. India’s underwear.

Mikey strode across. “You can put that lot back where it came from.
Now
.”

Seemingly unperturbed, the fed meticulously repacked India’s backpack. He folded each item of clothing around a book or shoe
to avoid creasing and replaced the teddy bear on top with a little pat.

Mikey didn’t look at the fed as he grabbed the backpack and lugged it back into the kitchen. He propped it against the divan
where it belonged and reached for the cookery book.

The manhunt gathered half an hour later. Mikey leaned against the screen door and watched lights fill the front drive as cars
arrived. The sun had set and the night sky was clear. He saw a Nissan Patrol park with a leisurely spurt of gravel and Whitelaw
hopped out, crossed to Stan and asked a question, then walked over to the fed. They shook hands, came inside. Mikey followed.

“We need all the firepower we can get,” said Whitelaw to the fed. “Not for the woman, but for that trigger-happy lot outside.
They’ll start shooting one another out of sheer excitement if we’re not careful.”

Whitelaw unlocked his gun cabinet and withdrew two shotguns. The fed expressed an interest in one of Whitelaw’s pistols and
handed the detective his own .45 to handle. Mikey left them discussing the merits of each and went to pour himself a bourbon,
which he took outside.

He saw Donna, Cooinda PD’s desk sergeant, climb out of what appeared to be a brand-new white Toyota four-wheel-drive Amazon.
She gave him a little wave and came towards him.

“So, what’s it been like, living with a killer?” she asked.

Mikey nodded at the Amazon. “What’s it like winning the lottery? That must have cost you a fortune.”

“It’s Ed’s.” She turned her wedding ring around. “He bought it with his Christmas bonus. Mind you, it didn’t cost as much
as you think; he knows a bloke who knows a bloke, et cetera. Ed never pays full price for anything.”

“Maybe I should become a rig driller,” Mikey mused. “I like the idea of getting forty grand every Christmas.”

“Yo, Mikey!” It was Reg Coffey, who’d donated half a side of beef after Mikey had chased a bunch of rustlers from his land
two weeks ago. He held his broken shotgun over one arm and waved with the other. Mikey offered a half-hearted salute with
his glass. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Donna wave her fingers at him before she returned to her husband’s new car.
“Not joining us then?” Reg asked.

“I’ll leave you cowboys to it.”

“Jimmy’s with us,” Reg said encouragingly. “He’s brung his dogs.”

Mikey laughed, earning himself a few frowns. Jimmy’s dogs weren’t trackers but hunting dogs; four Labradors, one spaniel and
a raggedy Airedale. They had good noses but they spent most of their time running around enthusiastically chasing rabbits.
Mikey recalled the Airedale, during a hunt for a psycho the year before, charging full speed after a dingo he’d flushed and
not returning for twelve hours.

“I take it you’re not planning on finding your quarry,” Mikey said wryly, and took a slug of bourbon.

“What can we use to scent on?” asked Jimmy, a thickset man wearing a black cap emblazoned with the logo of the Melbourne Grand
Prix. Six dogs were barking as they leaped excitedly around him.

Whitelaw handed over a plastic bag. “Shirt, socks.”

“What, no skivvies?” Jimmy scowled into the bag.

“No skivvies,” was all Whitelaw said, and Mikey thought:
He really likes her
.

“C’mon, how are my boys to find her without her undies?” Jimmy protested. “Everyone knows they give the best scent.”

Another man, scrawny as a chicken, stepped forward. “Say, I heard mention of a five thousand reward. This right?”

“Five grand from the Crime Stoppers Division,” Stan confirmed. “You collar her yourself, Ray, and you’ll get your money. No
one gets a fee for tracking, but there’ll be hot coffee and sandwiches in the backup vehicles following.”

“Is she dangerous?” Ray asked nervously.

Stan looked into the sky as if debating. Silence fell as they waited for his verdict. Even the dogs had quietened down. Finally
Stan said, “Any cornered human being can be dangerous, so keep your eye out.”

“She’s not armed,” added Whitelaw sharply, his voice carrying easily above the crowd. “Not even a kitchen knife. And she’s
only light, maybe one-twenty, one-thirty. So take it easy.”

Growls and nods from the men and gradually they moved to the back of the house and headed for the low hills in the distance,
Stan in front with Jimmy, the dogs straining at their leashes, the twenty-odd thrill-seekers spreading out in a fan. The fed,
Mikey noticed, was in the center, positioned for maximum effect. He was looking at the sky as though thinking of nothing but
what a nice night it was for a walk.

India stood, barefooted and sweating, on a square of smooth flat rock, trying to catch her breath. Her hands gripped her waist
as she panted, and she stared in dismay at the sprinkle of lights bobbing before her. It hadn’t taken them long to organize
a posse; sixty minutes or so, quite impressive for such a hick town.

She had run all the way from Whitelaw’s to the midst of these hills, following the trail she had walked the previous day in
the hope she might be able to double back. Now that it was dark, she was stumbling and awkward and certain she had lost the
right track. Her feet and ankles were sore and bleeding, and she wondered if she shouldn’t give herself up.

Not yet
, she thought.
When I’m tattered and torn and dead on my feet, maybe, but not before then
.

She rubbed her feet briefly, removed a thorn from her left heel, then turned away and set off at a brisk walk, not following
a set course but heading away from the lights. After an hour, she reached the crest of some hills. Tussocks of spinifex hid
jagged rocks, and she continually scraped her ankles as she clambered to the top. Cooinda squatted way behind her, shaped
like a skittle. The moon was high in the sky and there were no clouds. The lights of the posse blinked and flashed below,
but between them and her it was dark, just a smudge of black and gray that was the bush at night.

She kept moving. Dropping to the other side of the hills, she found a watercourse, powder dry, snaking through the thick scrub,
and followed that at a smart jog for a while, but when the scrub ceased she was forced into the open. She made for a buttress
of rock that was a deeper shadow on a dark landscape. On reaching it, she sank to her knees behind a tree. Her breath was
rasping and she was conscious of her thirst. Where would she find water? Not out here. She’d have to sweep back now, making
a big loop, and try to sneak back to Cooinda, hitch a ride away from the area.

Somewhere close by, a twig snapped.

Her heart jumped.

Crouching even lower, she fought to control her breathing, and a minute later heard a soft call.

“G’day.”

She stayed quite still.

“You got no worries from me,” the voice said, very close now.

India shut her eyes, as if she could will the man away by not seeing him.

“You in trouble, eh? It’s a good place to get away from trouble. Middle of bloody nowhere.”

Heart pounding, she opened her eyes to see a pair of dark eyes staring straight back, glistening in the half-light. The Aborigine
was very old, and reed thin. He squatted with the ease of having squatted all his life, and surveyed her steadily. “No worries,”
he said, nodding, as if this would put her at her ease. He held a long, straight stick in his right hand and the hind legs
of a freshly killed rabbit in the other.

A breeze picked up, flowing from the hills she’d just crossed. A voice, faint as a whisper, called out and India stood up,
grunting with pain. Her feet were blazing and throbbing, but she started moving again, heading unsteadily away from the trees.

“You’re going the wrong way,” said the old man, and she stopped. She saw the outline of him against the sky; he had moved
through the scrub and up the buttress without a sound. “C’mon. Follow me.” And he beckoned with his stick.

She hesitated.

He jumped down, nimble as an eighteen-year-old. “Look, if you just go off like a frightened rabbit those blokes will get you.
I know this place. I can find you somewhere to hide ’til they’re gone.”

He was close to her now, and she could smell a musty smell, like dried mushrooms, rising from his skin. “Your clothes’ll have
to come off. They’re like wearing a bloody torch.”

She shook her head.

“We could use them to divert the scent. Jimmy’s dogs aren’t great, but they can still sniff a sweaty shirt a mile off. Besides
…” he gave a light chuckle “… travelling naked feels good. You should try it.”

India paused, then muttered, “What the hell?” and hastily stripped.

“Everything,” he insisted, and she looked into his eyes. They were enormous, but even in the darkness she could see they were
smiling. “I’m an old feller. I couldn’t even if I wanted.”

He rolled up her clothes and put them under his arm. “I’ll drop these off later …” He didn’t finish, for a string of lights
bobbed into view at the top of the ridge. The old man immediately turned and broke into a jog. India followed. They ran like
that for several minutes, passing the buttress and heading for a region of steep undulations, covered by sand and mulga bushes.
It felt peculiar running naked, her breasts and bottom bounced more than she’d thought they would, but the sensation of soft
night air on her bare skin was a strange relief against the pain of her feet.

When they reached a rise, the old man stopped and turned to study the pursuers. Two vehicles had skirted the main ridge and
were bounding towards them; they could hear the engines roaring. “Can’t outrun ’em,” he murmured, and loped away through the
dark, effortlessly avoiding bushes and clusters of ankle-tearing rock with the ease of a dingo. Occasionally they stopped,
to check on the pursuit, or to feel their way up a narrow gully. They were climbing, following a wild animal track up the
side of a steep hill, when the old man paused and dived behind a dense clump of bush.

She kept moving, then stopped, peering around, but the old man had gone. A bubble of panic popped in her chest. “Where are
you?” she hissed. A grunt sent her moving to the bushes where a hand was beckoning furiously. She forced some scrub aside
to find he was squatting in a shallow cave, barely five foot high but quite deep. An aroma of woodsmoke and cooked meat drifted
over her. India slipped inside on her haunches then sat up, brushing grit from her skin.