Vanished

by James Delargy

  Lorcan left the note pinned to the cupboard. Although wary of this plan he didn’t have an alternative. Other than running. Which he still considered the best option.

  They then drove out of Kallayee, on to the small hill that overlooked the town, parking behind some trees, obscured from view as the sun went down.

  When Dylan had asked what they were doing he had told him that they were stargazing. And in fact, the clear night and arrangement of stars took his mind off what was going to take place below.

  But as the night pushed on, his focus turned from the sky to the tunnel to his own house, expecting to see it ransacked or go up in flames. The best-case scenario was that the miners got spooked and fled. But why would they? To them they were the intruders. And if they burnt the house down? Maybe that would be for the best. It would mean Nee had to agree to leave.

  At eleven, the men rolled into town, lights off, just a shadow crawling along the street. They alighted as before. Lorcan waited for the explosion of movement. He didn’t have to wait long. The flailing torches and hurried exit from the building were a huge contrast to the military precision he had witnessed previously, suggesting discovery of the note. From this distance he couldn’t hear anything, but the waved arms and furious pacing indicated alarm. And that was troubling. Riling up the neighbours was a bad idea. Especially if you didn’t know them. And they had access to tunnels to bury you in.

  Lorcan glanced over as his wife and son slept in the passenger seats. He wondered how she could be so at peace with this.

  57 Lorcan

  He had watched the men intently as they eventually returned to the tunnel. He forced himself to stay awake through the small hours before finally, just before dawn, the men had reappeared and left as normal.

  He watched the sun cast a warming yellow glow over the buildings, his eyes closing, nervous energy replaced by lethargy. It was over, time to shut down for a while. His eyelids felt like stone.

  ‘Are you going to check?’

  It was Nee’s voice, speaking in a whisper. For a second he convinced himself it was a dream but the hand on his leg shook him back to full consciousness.

  ‘Why me?’ he said in a forceful whisper.

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘You can think again. It was your idea.’

  He watched her try and come up with a reason not to. And fail. He had won the argument. But as she crawled into her jacket and left the ute, he felt like a coward. But it didn’t make him call her back.

  He watched as she scrambled down the hill and back into town, tracking her progress all the way. He waited for the surprise attack. That somehow one of the men had stayed behind. He wondered what he would do in that instance, convincing himself that he would help but also recognizing that the presence of forethought revealed his true nature.

  She entered the tunnel house and disappeared. His toes itched to move, to start a chain reaction that would force him out of the ute and down to help her, but the rest of his weary body refused to comply. He stared at the building, willing her to come back out.

  A head appeared from the door. Then a body. His wife, waving at them. Lorcan allowed himself a breath but didn’t move for another full minute, making sure it wasn’t a wave indicating trouble.

  Easing down the hill, he pulled up outside the tunnel house. The bumpy descent had woken Dylan. Naiyana got into the vehicle and held up the note. There was writing scribbled below theirs.

  ‘They want to meet. Here. Tonight,’ she explained.

  ‘Why not somewhere more public?’ asked Lorcan. ‘Like Hurton. It shows they have something to hide.’

  ‘We know that already,’ said Naiyana. ‘We’re all hiding.’

  ‘But if we meet them here, what would stop them from killing us?’

  ‘They could have killed us anytime in the last ten days.’

  Lorcan shook his head but knew when he was beaten. ‘I preferred it when you were cynical.’

  58 Lorcan

  Not much got done during the day. How could it with the meeting hanging over their heads? Like a date with the electric chair. Lorcan fiddled with constructing a box bed for Dylan – they were hoping that it would help him sleep better – and when the pressure inside the house grew too much, he had tinkered with the ute. Checking the oil, water and tyres. Just in case they needed to leave in a hurry. He had all but given up on the well, at least until a time they might be alone in town again. But Kallayee as a permanent residence was looking less and less appealing. Too crowded.

  His final act was to load the rifle, making sure the coast was clear before going to their bedroom and reaching high up into the space between the eaves and the wall and pulling it down. He didn’t want to be fiddling around with shells if the time came.

  Dinner was unappetizing, the conversation stilted. Nine p.m. rolled around. Meeting time. At the crossroads like in an old western. Lorcan wasn’t keen on that. People got shot in westerns. The Good guys as often as the Bad.

  Despite it being only a couple of hundred metres away, he insisted on driving. For easy escape if needed, which Naiyana accepted.

  They pulled up to the crossroads at quarter to nine and waited.

  At almost nine on the dot, the rusted ute pulled into town, its lights off as it sidled down the moonlit dirt street like a cowboy, stopping on the far side of the crossroads, thirty metres away, laying claim to its side of town.

  Neither side exited their vehicle.

  Nothing happened for a few seconds. Lorcan glanced out the side windows checking for any ambush. Then the leader got out of the rusted ute followed by his two companions. Lorcan performed a visual check for weapons but realized he didn’t really know what he was looking for. Bulges? Awkward stances? He turned to find Naiyana glaring at him. She obviously wanted him to get out first but that wasn’t part of his plan, so he watched as she opened the door and stepped into the night, taking Dylan with her.

  Now he moved, sliding the Browning rifle out from under the driver’s seat, stepping out and, using the door as cover, quickly sliding it down his pants leg, shuffling to catch up with his family. He ignored Nee’s look of disgust. She was unaware of the reason he had to stall. Best that she didn’t know, given her stance on guns. He focused on the three men, keeping his hand close to the butt of the rifle, ready to draw.

  ‘Nice of you to meet us,’ said the lead guy. His accent had a hint of Queensland about it. Lorcan had worked with a few guys from Brisbane but had never actually been. ‘We’ve been neighbours in town for a while, so I suppose we should meet.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Lorcan.

  ‘We don’t need names, do we?’

  ‘Neighbours normally exchange names.’

  The bearded man smiled, teeth shining. ‘I’m Ian.’

  ‘We really doing this?’ sneered his stocky, bald companion. Again a Queensland twang, but with a staccato caused by the persistent chew and clack of gum.

  ‘Let’s be friendly, Mike,’ said Ian.

  The third man introduced himself. Of Indigenous descent as Lorcan had thought. ‘I’m Stevie,’ he said, looking to Ian for reassurance. Another Queenslander. An invasion of them.

  ‘I’m Naiyana.’

  ‘Not your real name,’ said Lorcan.

  ‘And this is Dylan,’ she continued, twisting sideways to reveal Dylan cowering behind her.

  ‘And you?’ asked Ian, looking at Lorcan.

  Lorcan grit his teeth. ‘Lorcan.’ He felt exposed now. Despite the rifle.

  ‘These are the men who are digging. That made that tunnel,’ said Dylan, looking up at his dad.

  The focus switched to the boy. There was a look of bewilderment on Ian’s face and concern on the others’.

  ‘Perceptive child,’ said Ian, but there was no congratulations in his tone.

  The tension was almost unbearable. Lorcan’s hand moved further down the butt of the rifle. How quickly would he be able to draw it? He still felt they should have remained in the ute and conduct
ed the meeting from there.

  ‘Why are you here?’ asked Naiyana.

  ‘Mineral analysis.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Lorcan, nerves causing him to unwittingly externalize. All eyes were on him now. Shit. He went all-in. ‘If it was mineral analysis you wouldn’t be sneaking in and out at night. Plus, it would be a bigger operation.’ He wasn’t sure what he was doing provoking them like this. From the look on Nee’s face, she wasn’t sure either.

  ‘It’s an exploratory concern,’ said Stevie, calmly.

  ‘And do you have a permit?’

  ‘Do you?’ asked Ian. ‘Kallayee is off-limits without one.’

  Ian delivered this with charm, every word, be it a threat, accusation or general conversation, bound by a casual bonhomie. He continued.

  ‘Look, we are all here together. Attempting similar things. You are here to make something above ground and we are trying to make something below ground.’

  Naiyana turned to Lorcan. ‘It might be useful to have someone else here watching our back.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Ian. ‘We can work separately and in collaboration with each other.’

  Lorcan didn’t know what to say. He had assumed that as soon as the meeting happened – and assuming they weren’t murdered – that Nee would join him in jumping on the first train out of here. But she seemed to be in full agreement with Ian’s plan.

  So the six of them stood there, facing each other in the waning heat of the evening with a tentative arrangement in place. But how much could he trust an agreement with strangers?

  They were probably thinking the same thing.

  59 Emmaline

  After a breakfast with Matty that she paid for – and a bunch of gawping stares and reporters’ questions that she didn’t – Emmaline had spent the rest of the morning looking for anyone in town who might be able to corroborate what Bobby Marley had said and provide her with a better description of Naiyana’s acquaintance.

  Nearing the end and having the square root of bugger-all to show for it, a call came through from HQ. Queensland police had a name for the voice on Lorcan’s phone.

  ‘A Mike Andrews. Originally from Brisbane. Forty-five years old. A scientist.’

  ‘How sure are they?’

  ‘Pretty sure,’ said Zhao.

  ‘Who ID’d him? A relative?’

  ‘No relationship as far as we can tell. They recognized it from television. I’ve sent you the link.’

  Confused, Emmaline clicked the link on her phone. It was a news report from a local channel in Queensland. Late September last year. A balding man was standing in front of an office block, clearly enraged. He was in his mid-forties but looked older given the angry furrows across his brow. He was protesting his lay-off vehemently, his excessive chewing causing a clack every few seconds that the microphone thrust close to his mouth only exacerbated.

  The accent matched. The gum chewing as well. His name flashed up in the ticker at the bottom of the screen. Mike Andrews.

  ‘Find out what you can—’

  Zhao interrupted. ‘Already done.’

  Emmaline should have expected as much.

  ‘Let go from Skyline Industries in late September.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Act as consultants to everyone from mining companies to property developers to government agencies. Using satellite data to image the land.’

  ‘Sounds…’ She wanted to say boring but couldn’t. She was currently in the midst of a fruitless door-stepping campaign.

  ‘His family – parents only as he is a bachelor – say he upped sticks and left last November. Didn’t tell anyone where he was going.’

  ‘Good work, Zhao. Inform the rest of the team.’

  Another question materialized.

  ‘He mentioned “lay-offs” in the clip. That suggests more than one. Find out who else might have been laid off. I doubt he would work the tunnels alone.’

  With that she let Zhao go do his thing. They had a name now. And an occupation. But not a reason why. And nothing to suggest a link between Mike Andrews and the Maguire family.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Anand shouting, ‘We got one,’ from across the street.

  * * *

  Anand was right. They did have one. But Jacob Inglot had less information on the matter than Bobby Marley had. He informed them about seeing Naiyana Maguire parked just off the road out of town as he headed west towards the arid patch of dirt he called his farm. Out past the goldfields and just short of Dredger’s Gully. She was alone but obviously waiting for someone. Jacob hadn’t stopped to find out who as he was about to run out of gas and needed to get the twenty kilometres to his place and fill up with the jerry can.

  ‘How did she seem?’

  ‘Hard to tell. She kinda turned her face as if she was obscuring her identity, but as I was being tracked by a cloud of dirt the size of Mount Augustus, she might have been protecting herself from the onslaught. Certainly not distressed. She didn’t even attempt to flag me down.’

  ‘No other vehicles?’

  ‘Nope. I didn’t pass any either.’

  ‘And when was this?’

  ‘Around Christmas.’

  ‘Date?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m married,’ grinned Jacob revealing more than a few missing teeth. ‘Twenty-third maybe. Is that helpful?’

  Emmaline was considering that. It didn’t confirm who Naiyana Maguire might have been waiting on, if she was indeed waiting on someone. But what was strange was to be west of Hurton, on a road that eventually led to nowhere. An odd place to meet a work colleague who would have to drive all the way from the highway through Hurton and out the other side.

  She had just said ‘Thank you’ to Jacob Inglot when HQ called again. Mike Andrews wasn’t the only person let go at that time. A friend of his – confirmed as such by both families – called Stevie Amaranga had been let go too. And he had disappeared around the same time as Mike. Without informing anyone where he was going. Both had simply vanished off the map.

  She now had a voice and two names. One had definitely been down the tunnel and Emmaline now suspected the other had been with him. The gold dust residue found by the machines suggested they’d had some success.

  ‘Any more on why they were let go?’

  ‘Business downturn. Budget cuts.’

  ‘It seems to be a theme.’

  ‘It’s always the arse end of the tapeworm that falls away first when the nutrients dry up,’ said Zhao.

  Emmaline laughed. ‘How long have you been cooking that?’

  ‘A couple of hours. The pair were given two weeks’ notice and a month’s redundancy.’

  ‘Do you know what exactly they did for Skyline?’

  ‘Satellite imaging. On the data analysis side.’

  ‘For any particular region?’

  ‘Queensland. Surat Basin mostly.’

  ‘Not the Great Vic then?’

  ‘Seems not.’

  ‘So why go there?’

  ‘Beats me.’

  ‘Get onto someone at Skyline and get them to check what Mike and Stevie were researching before they left. See if they were scoping out other regions before they were let go.’

  The list of suspects was now increasing. Mike Andrews and possibly Stevie Amaranga the latest additions. More avenues leading from the barren desert and trailing off towards the horizon.

  60 Naiyana

  The tension was unbearable. Peeking outside regularly to check if any of the miners were in town, and if so where. The knowledge of each other’s presence hadn’t dispelled the suspicion. It had made it worse.

  Both sides knew that each were there illegally. The government would not look kindly on either of their activities but the worst that could happen to them as a family was that they’d be told to move on. Maybe accompanied by a slap on the wrist or a fine. They would be able to sneak away without too much fuss and before anyone in Perth could react. Ian, Mike and Stevie could be in worse trou
ble with the law. Minus a permit, they were effectively stealing from the government.

  Even Dylan kept asking where the miners were. He wanted to show off his own amateur mining operation. They had become his heroes, his allegiance hanging firmly in the balance. She had warned him not to talk to them. Not that Dylan would listen. After all he had seemed to know about their presence before they did. The people that he claimed to have seen in town, and that both she and Lorcan had scoffed at, had been all too real.

  With Lorcan loudly bolting together the box bed he had promised to do two days ago, Naiyana went vlogging. She needed some alone time. Just her, her phone and her thoughts.

  It was another day of azure skies, a single fleck of black interrupting the beautiful monotony, the wedge-tailed eagle flying solo on its way home. Following and filming it until it was out of sight, she found herself at the house with the tunnel, staring at it even though she knew she should maintain a business-as-usual approach.

  As she continued to film, the miner called Mike appeared from the house, startling her. His first reaction was to cover his face as if exposed, as surprised as she was.

  ‘Put that away,’ he said, with a clack like snapped bones.

  ‘It’s pointed upwards.’

  ‘Put it away,’ he insisted.

  61 Mike Andrews

  Regular fresh-air breaks had been sold as one of the positives about the family knowing of their presence. That and the fact they could work during the day now rather than just at night.

  But Mike Andrews wasn’t so sure. He preferred the anonymity. His appearance was too distinctive, what with his bald head and bulging gut. Now there were cameras. He tried to keep his calm. He unwrapped and threw in another stick of chewing gum. It usually helped.

  This was the first time he had bumped into any of the family members since last night’s meeting. He had hoped they would abscond after but here they were. Recording.

  At least it was her. Even with eyes adjusting to the brightness of the day he could see that she – Naiyana – was pretty. The kind of woman he was into. But he was ten years and fifty pounds too late for that, even if the mining work was drawing weight from him hand over fist.