Return to Moondilla

by Tony Parsons

  ‘But you don’t want to marry me?’

  She turned to give him a warning look. ‘Remember your promise not to try anything, Greg.’

  They stared at each other until Baxter looked away.

  ‘What’s with the fellow I dropped?’ he asked. ‘Still in a coma?’

  ‘Yes, with a police guard.’ Julie’s voice had turned professional. ‘He could be out for days, weeks or months—or he might not recover at all.’

  ‘The police will be crooked on me for causing them to use up valuable resources.’

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ she said, her expression softening. ‘Well, I’d better head back to the clinic.’ She picked up her handbag. ‘Thanks for the bonzer lunch. You know, a sandwich would have been enough today.’

  ‘My mother would never forgive me if I gave you a sandwich.’

  Julie grinned, her true warmth breaking through. ‘Nothing wrong with a good sandwich, especially if it’s multigrain bread.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  On one of his long evening walks with Chief, Baxter decided to head across to the old dairy building. This dated back to Riverview’s origin as a dairy farm with a noted Jersey herd. When the farm had been subdivided, decades ago, Harry Carpenter—who’d married the daughter of the adjoining dairy farmer—had acquired fifty acres.

  The old dairy building was still quite sound, with a solid concrete floor and its roof in fair condition. Possums played in the building at night, and it was occasionally visited by a masked owl in search of mice.

  Baxter climbed the small rise between his house and the dairy building. From this vantage spot he scanned the river and the surrounding countryside with his binoculars. There was another jetty farther upriver that he picked up clearly, but he couldn’t see a single boat out on the water—well, not unusual for this time of night.

  He left the rise and walked across the paddock towards the old building. He’d inspected it a couple of times and had been pondering how he could utilise it. He decided to take another look, but Chief’s low growl checked him.

  Baxter stiffened. He knew for certain now that Chief never growled for nothing. The shepherd was infallible. Baxter looked at his dog, whose eyes were fixed on the old dairy. ‘Steady, Chief,’ he muttered under his breath.

  The dairy was divided in two: a long room where the cows had been milked, and an adjoining room where the milk had been treated and stored in big vats. When Baxter stepped into this room, he saw that someone had been using it—a swag, a portable stove and a lamp sat in one corner, and the windows had been bagged over.

  Chief growled again, louder now, as a tall, dark-haired man stepped through from the other room. He put up his hand and smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s okay, Mr Baxter. I’m with Ian Latham. The name’s Lester. Tell your dog I’m on your side.’

  Lester was dressed in dark jeans and a khaki shirt, and he too was carrying binoculars. Baxter took him to be a fellow not much older than himself.

  ‘It’s okay, Chief,’ Baxter said, rubbing his dog’s ears. ‘So you’re the one keeping watch over me?’ he asked Lester.

  ‘That and other things. And there’s two of us—we take it in shifts. Ian reckoned you wouldn’t mind us using the old dairy.’

  ‘It’s all right, though I would’ve preferred to be kept in the loop. So what’s doing?’

  ‘Things are finally coming to a head.’ He sounded optimistic. ‘We reckon they’ll transfer the big drug shipment in three or four days. What we don’t know is where they’ll drop it. We do know that it won’t be at your place, and now we’re thinking it may not be anywhere along the river.’

  ‘I noticed there’s a jetty farther along.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got them all pinpointed. The road in to that one is bad—virtually unusable in wet weather.’

  Baxter nodded, relieved. ‘But have they got anyone watching my place?’

  ‘Not that we know of, and I doubt they could do it under our noses. But there’s other things on their minds right now . . . like several million dollars’ worth of drugs.’

  ‘I hope you can keep those bastards from getting their hands on a cent.’

  Lester grinned. ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘You need anything?’ Baxter asked, casting his eyes around the room again. ‘This is a pretty rough camp.’

  ‘It goes with the job,’ Lester said and smiled thinly. ‘I’ll manage. I don’t expect to be here much longer.’

  ‘You could always come to the house and I’d cook you a decent meal.’

  ‘Thanks, but you can’t watch things from inside a house. Ian would have my hide if I slipped up on this job. We hope to put Campanelli away for a good long stretch.’

  ‘That’s a worthy goal, but he and his ilk exert influence even from inside prison.’

  ‘True enough. The Mr Bigs are a constant concern for us, and the lure of big money will always ensure that there are Mr Bigs. But we do what we can.’

  ‘Too right. And I appreciate you looking out for me.’ Baxter glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better be getting back. Ian calls me every night.’ He grinned fondly. ‘He can be a bit of a mother hen, but he’s all right.’

  ‘He’s a top man,’ Lester said with an answering grin. ‘One of the best. And you know, he’s got a personal stake in the drug business.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Baxter couldn’t remember Latham mentioning anything.

  ‘He might not like me telling you this, but I think it’ll help you fully trust him. When he was a boy, his older brother died from an overdose. It nearly killed Ian’s parents. Cost them their marriage, too. So Ian’s real crooked on drug pushers.’

  Another tragedy caused by the rotten stuff. Baxter felt sick to his stomach. ‘How awful. What a great bloke he is to be taking them on like this. And of course I’ll keep it in confidence—no worries on that score.’

  So many lives lost to drugs: Julie and Jane’s brother, Andrew. Rosa. The undercover policewoman and her sister. Latham’s brother. Then there were the lives of their loved ones, forever marred by their deaths.

  Just as Baxter was about to say his goodbyes and go, he turned back.

  ‘Something else worrying you?’ Lester asked.

  ‘Did they do any good with my boat? I mean, did they lift any fingerprints?’

  ‘One good set. They belong to Yat Lee, one of Campanelli’s hoods.’ Lester crooked a smile. ‘He wasn’t too careful. I suppose he reckoned that when the boat blew up, there wouldn’t be any fingerprints to lift. So we now have clear evidence of his involvement in a crime, and it’s unlikely he can slip through our net, whatever happens.’

  ‘Yat Lee, eh. I’ll remember that name,’ Baxter said grimly. He looked forward to the day when he could meet up with this creep.

  ‘He’s a bad egg, Mr Baxter.’

  ‘Aren’t they all?’

  ‘No, really,’ Lester insisted. ‘If you meet up with him, don’t give him any slack. He’d shoot or knife you and not think twice about it.’

  Baxter nodded. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ As he walked out the door, Chief at his heels, he said, ‘When this is all over, you should come and have a meal with me.’

  ‘I’ll keep you to that. See ya, mate.’

  Walking back to the house over the lush paddocks of mixed grasses, Baxter took deep breaths of the fresh night air. It felt very strange that a member of a massive police investigation was living in Riverview’s old dairy.

  Baxter remembered Latham’s words: You’re going to cost me a lot of money, Greg. That made him think about what it was costing taxpayers to try and control the drug problem. It seemed no matter how much effort the authorities devoted to drugs, they would never eliminate them. Human inventiveness knew no limits, and Australia’s vast coastline made things even more difficult.

  But this time, at least, the police appeared to have the upper hand. That creep Yat Lee had incriminated himself, and he and Campanelli and all of their associates would soon be going down.<
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  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Between six and seven a few evenings later, Baxter was fishing from his jetty. In case someone managed to get past Lester and take a shot at him, he wasn’t sitting right on top but on the loading ramp to one side—he didn’t feel in danger, though. The sun was going down behind the mountain range to the west, and everything was very quiet along the river. It was the best time of the day for fishing, and Baxter had two good flathead in his sugar bag, tied to a pylon.

  Chief was lying quietly behind him. The shepherd was exhausted after a day of excitement—Steve Lewis had come by around noon and dropped off Baxter’s magnificent new boat. Chief had run aboard, barking excitedly at all the new smells. She was now tethered to the jetty, gleaming in the fading sunlight. Baxter hadn’t decided what to call her yet. He knew it was sentimental, but he missed old Flora Jane.

  Presently, Chief growled, stood up and pointed his nose towards the track that led down to the main road. ‘Surely not someone at this hour,’ Baxter muttered.

  He stood up as a car pulled to a stop beside the house. Then his eyes widened when Liz Drew got out and came walking down to the jetty. She lifted her hand in a wave, which he returned. Immediately his annoyance left him. He wound up his handline and went to meet her.

  ‘Hi, Greg,’ Liz said as he came up close to her. She gave him a dazzling smile, put her arms around his neck, and then kissed him warmly on the cheek.

  ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Liz,’ Baxter said, stepping back and scrutinising her. ‘You look very well.’

  She was dressed in blue jeans and a red blouse, and wore a grey Akubra pushed back on her head. She looked about eighteen. For a moment Baxter had a picture of her as he reckoned she might have looked when she first came to Moondilla with the country and western troupe.

  ‘Thank you. I feel well, too. I’m going home, Greg. Home. Back to the cattle property Dad left me.’ She beamed. ‘I sold my house and I’m packed and on my way. Can I stay here with you tonight?’

  Baxter looked at her. What Liz wanted didn’t have to be spelt out.

  His heart leapt. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said.

  She didn’t say anything—she just smiled.

  Baxter walked back along the jetty and stowed his handline in his fishing basket. He pulled the sugar bag out of the river, untied it from the pylon and let the water drain from it. As he worked, he cast a glance in the direction of the old dairy, wondering what Lester or the other bloke was thinking of all this.

  When Baxter re-joined Liz, she took his arm and they walked up to the house. He paused beside her car and smiled—it was packed to the roof with boxes and suitcases. A guitar case lay on top of the pile.

  ‘You really are going home,’ he said.

  ‘I really am.’ She sighed, then she shot him a wicked look. ‘But not yet.’

  He laughed. ‘Let me carry your bag, Liz.’

  She dug about among the cases on the front seat and came up with a small overnight bag. ‘That’s all I’ll need tonight,’ she said, and they went up to the verandah, his arm still in hers. Chief was walking beside them, and Liz looked at him and shook her head. ‘I’d like a dog same as Chief. Would there be one, I wonder?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not, but I think he’s exceptional. If I own other dogs they’ll all have to stand comparison to him. He’s a fantastic mate and a tremendous watchdog.’

  ‘Well, Chief is going to have to share you with me tonight,’ Liz said. They walked inside. ‘Where’s your bedroom?’

  He grinned. ‘Down the hall and to the left—if you’re sure that’s what you want.’

  Liz stopped and dropped one hand to a well-shaped hip. ‘Don’t you?’

  The look in his eyes gave her the answer, and she smiled and turned away.

  •

  When she came out of the bedroom, he asked if she’d like a drink.

  ‘A gin and tonic would be nice, if you run to such things. I mean, I know you don’t drink. Orange juice would be fine too.’

  ‘Mum brought me some drinks on her last visit. She thinks its inhospitable not to have an array on hand for visitors, especially for—in her words—modern young women who expect such things.’

  ‘Some mother,’ Liz said, laughing.

  ‘You can say that again. Did you notice my new boat?’

  ‘The one tied to the jetty? It looked very impressive.’

  ‘Well, it’s an early birthday present from Mum.’

  ‘Some present!’

  He fixed Liz’s drink and handed it to her. ‘I’m off to the kitchen now. Would you like to have a shower or watch some TV while I cook?’

  ‘I’d prefer to watch you,’ Liz said and smiled.

  Liz’s smile was something else, Baxter thought. It promised a lot—a hell of a lot.

  She followed him into the kitchen, perched herself on a stool, and watched him while she sipped her gin and tonic. ‘Tell me if I can help,’ she asked after a little while.

  ‘Thanks. You can take some plates and cutlery from these cupboards and set the table. There’s tablecloths in the drawer beside you.’

  ‘That all?’ she asked and laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘For now,’ he said, his voice low.

  She smiled and followed his instructions. ‘What are you preparing?’ she asked when she returned to the kitchen.

  ‘A bit of this and a bit of that,’ he answered. ‘I hope you like it.’

  ‘You couldn’t do anything I wouldn’t like.’

  ‘You’ll give me a big head, Liz.’

  ‘Well, after that lunch you made last time, I have an idea of what you can do in the kitchen. And Julie keeps me informed about your other culinary masterpieces. Isn’t she the lucky one?’ Liz arched an eyebrow.

  Baxter didn’t want to talk about Julie—not tonight, anyway. ‘Mum taught me to appreciate food. She says that every meal should taste good enough to be remembered long afterwards.’

  There was a gleam in Liz’s eyes. ‘That’s true of so many things.’

  •

  Later, after complimenting him on the meal, Liz insisted on doing the washing up. She did it hastily: apparently she didn’t wish to dwell in the kitchen. As Baxter was putting things away, her hand rested lightly on his backside. Heat surged through his body.

  ‘What now, Greg?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to have a bath—I probably smell a bit fishy.’

  ‘All right, but you smell pretty good to me.’

  He was soaking in the bath when she appeared in the doorway, just as he’d hoped. She walked to the side of the tub and looked down at him.

  ‘My God,’ she breathed.

  He watched her unbutton her blouse and place it across the bathroom chair. It was followed by her bra and then her jeans and knickers. Free of her clothes, she stepped into the bath and sat down behind him. She bent forward and kissed him.

  He leaned back against her and felt her lovely breasts pressing against his back. She was soaping and kissing him simultaneously. ‘You sure have a great body,’ she said.

  ‘So have you,’ he said, and leaned his head against hers.

  ‘It’s not quite what it was.’

  ‘No, I’m sure it’s even better.’

  She laughed softly and put her hand to his groin. ‘You ready to get out?’

  He stepped out of the tub, then gave her his hand and watched her as she stood up. He handed her a big fluffy towel and she rubbed herself dry with slow, provocative movements. When she’d finished, she walked to the bathroom door and looked back at him. Every movement she made was unforgettable.

  ‘You won’t be long, will you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll be right behind you, Liz.’

  She nodded, smiled and then swayed away. She was completely at home in her nakedness.

  •

  Liz was lying on the bed when Baxter walked into his room. Her lovely body was outlined against the deep blue silk sheets his mother had insisted on buying him, and
her long blonde hair was spread like a halo across a blue pillow. She put her arms up to him. ‘Come here, you black belt maestro, and show me how you perform in bed.’

  A grey shape jumped up onto the foot of the bed and then made its way towards the pillows. Baxter watched in amusement as Chief put his head down and licked Liz on the face before retreating back down the bed.

  ‘That’s a first,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’ve never been to bed with a man and his dog.’

  Baxter was laughing too. ‘Chief’s just given you his seal of approval, Liz. He’ll get down when I get in. He always sleeps on the floor beside me.’

  When Baxter climbed in beside Liz, sure enough Chief jumped off the bed and lay beside it. ‘What a dog,’ Liz breathed as she reached for Baxter.

  ‘What a woman,’ he said and kissed her.

  He was to remember this night for a long time. He’d slept with a few women, all of them younger and some of them fitter than Liz, but none had come near her in bed. While they’d given him some memorable experiences, Liz eclipsed every one of them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Baxter didn’t get much sleep that night and was feeling very light-headed when he got up the next morning. Liz was sound asleep with a half-smile on her face.

  No wonder, he thought, that Jack Drew had been jealous if any man even looked at Liz. She was a sexual treasure.

  After having a shower and getting dressed, Baxter ate an omelette, then made another, filled a glass with orange juice and took breakfast in to his guest. She was still asleep and he hated waking her. He knew he should let her sleep on, but she had a big drive ahead of her.

  ‘Liz,’ he whispered and kissed her cheek.

  ‘What is it, honey?’ she asked and reached for him.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he said softly.

  ‘Already?’ She opened one eye and looked at the tray in his hands. ‘Breakfast in bed—I’ve never had breakfast in bed. I want to kiss you, Greg.’ She kissed him several times, then took the tray. ‘Feel better, honey?’

  ‘Considerably.’ It wasn’t the total truth, as he felt like going back to bed with her, but he did feel less tense.