He picked up the chainsaw and pulled the cord and when it didn’t start I let out the breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding. He rooted around under the shack, found a tin of petrol and poured some into the chainsaw. When he pulled the cord again the machine sputtered. I had a brief moment of hope before he tried again, and the chainsaw buzzed into life. He walked back, saw held high, and I realised I was as wet as if someone had just poured a bucket of water over me, sweating uncontrollably: forehead, underarms, every goddamn pore. I could hardly see and I didn’t know if it was from tears or perspiration.
I tried to speak, but my mind was blank, my tongue sandpaper. I knew I should move, but I was inert with terror. He tested the saw out against the veranda railing and it chewed right through the wood, chips flying, giving off a burnt smell. I imagined the searing pain of it eating into my arm, visualised bone flecks, arterial blood spray, dabs of my own mangled flesh hitting me in the face.
Something clicked in the connection between my mouth and my brain.
‘Help! Somebody help me!’ Even as I yelled I realised it was useless. No one was around, and if they were they wouldn’t hear anything over the rumble of the saw. Watto, aka Elvis Mask, turned and started coming towards me and I managed to get to my feet, but it was only for a second. I was hobbled; my ankles banged together, and I fell to my knees.
Watto was laughing like a madman, his small eyes black with pupil and the corners of his mouth clogged with dried-up spit. I squeezed my eyes shut, anticipating white-hot agony, but opened them when I heard a shout.
‘Hey—fucktard!’
Watto was blocking my view, so I couldn’t see who was yelling.
A gunshot fractured the air, the clang of a bullet striking metal, and I watched as the chainsaw arced out of Watto’s hands and fell towards me. I threw myself to the side and rolled as hard as I could. The saw hit the ground near my face, still roaring, digging up dirt and flinging it in my eyes. I rolled again and heard another shot. Watto sprinted into the bush as a guy wearing shorts and nothing else chased him as far as the edge of the clearing. The topless guy turned and walked towards me. He was thin, with bleached blond hair and a swatch of gauze taped to his side.
It was Nick Austin.
chapter forty-three
Nick switched off the saw and ran over to Geddes, tried to roll him and jerked his hands back in horror. They were covered in blood.
‘Oh Jesus. Oh fuck,’ he said.
‘I told him to shoot.’ My voice hitched up in my throat. ‘Why didn’t he shoot?’
Nick got up and stepped backwards from the body.
‘It’s a replica. I’ve got the only real gun.’ He turned and threw up into the dust.
I heard an engine; it sounded like a car coming down the drive. Nick heard it too. He looked like the dog had: tensed up, ready to bolt.
‘Untie me!’ I yelled.
He ran into the house instead.
I shimmied over to the knife Watto had used to kill Geddes, fumbled the blood-slicked handle with my bound hands and sawed through the tape around my ankles. I stood, nearly fell, and followed Nick into the shack.
‘Get this tape off my wrists.’
He didn’t respond. He’d chucked on a t-shirt and was stuffing things into a sports bag.
‘Please,’ I pleaded. ‘The car could be that psycho coming back.’
He zipped the bag, slung it over his shoulder and took the knife. He’d just started to cut when he looked over my shoulder and stopped.
‘Fuck.’ He threw the blade to the floor and spun me around, arm circling my waist, gun to my head. I looked out the dusty windows and saw why. A police car had pulled into the clearing, and a fat uniformed cop got out of the driver’s side, gun drawn, making a beeline for Geddes’ body. The passenger door opened and a woman with a brown bob emerged. Detective Talbot, talking into her radio. The uniform kneeled by the body, shaking his head. Talbot and the uniform squinted at the windows and pointed their guns.
‘Come out with your hands where we can see them!’ she yelled.
Nick dragged me onto the veranda.
Talbot’s eyes widened as she realised who we were.
‘Put down the gun, Nick,’ she said. ‘It’s all over.’
‘Back off or I’ll shoot her.’
‘Nick didn’t kill him.’ I pointed at Geddes with my tied-up hands and jabbered, trying to get it all out before it was too late.
‘The guy who murdered Isabella and stabbed Victoria Hitchens did. Crack addict. Five nine, receding brown hair, wiry build, hollowed-out face, teardrop tattoo under each eye.’
But all her attention was on Nick.
‘Put the gun down, mate. We know you didn’t do it. If you come in with us we can sort out the whole mess, yeah?’
Nick sagged for a second, and I thought he was going to surrender. Instead he moved his hand to the back of my head, grabbed my hair and cocked the gun. The click echoed in my ear. Were there any bullets left? He’d only fired off two shots so I didn’t see why not. Just how desperate was he?
‘Step the fuck away from the cop car and throw your guns over here.’
‘We can’t, Nick.’
‘Just fucking do it!’
They stood there, pointing their guns at him, while he pressed his pistol into my temple.
‘I said, throw down the guns or I’ll blow her fucking brains out!’
Uniform looked at Talbot. Talbot waved her hand as if to say, stay where you are. Nick breathed heavy, pulling my hair out by the roots.
‘Nick,’ she said.
He let out a sigh, shifted behind me and jerked the gun. There was a blast of hot air and a bang so loud it altered the pressure in my left ear and I thought I’d been shot until I saw the uniformed cop crumple to the ground, a dark stain spreading on his navy trousers.
‘Shit,’ the cop said. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
Talbot threw her gun towards Nick, ran to the moaning copper and tossed his gun over too, before taking off her jacket and holding it to his leg. Nick marched me down the stairs, forced me to pick up the guns and pushed me towards the police car.
I turned to Talbot. ‘There’s an injured dog under the house!’
Nick shoved me into the passenger seat, grabbed the cop’s revolvers out of my hands and slammed the door. He slid into the driver’s seat, thrust the weapons in his bag and chucked it on the floor. After a jerky three-point turn, he tore up the driveway, bumping over rocks and ruts in the road. The radio babbled. Nick shut it off. Finally he spoke.
‘How’d you get here?’
‘Huh?’
‘You drive? Got a car?’
‘Yeah. Fire trail, five hundred metres up.’
I half expected to run into a phalanx of cop cars when we emerged on Collers Road, but it was deserted. Wouldn’t be long. Nick found the fire trail and parked the police car next to my Ford. We got out. Nick was so jumped up he looked like he’d had a hit of the crack pipe himself. He stood at the driver’s side.
‘Gimme your keys.’
I dug in my pocket and used them to open the passenger door first.
‘You’re not coming,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘There’s some shit I’ve got to take care of. It’s dangerous. Nothing to do with you.’
Everything hit me then. The chainsaw, Sean, my father’s brush-off and Mum refusing police protection and telling me I was evil. A righteous anger seemed to spring from the earth and stream through the soles of my feet. I tingled with it, felt like I was going to spontaneously combust.
‘Nothing to do with me?’ I yelled. ‘My whole life turned to shit since you walked into my office and I don’t know why. I lost my job, my flat, my boyfriend and almost my life. That fucking psycho has been after me and my family—’ ‘Your family?’ Nick frowned, confused.
‘And you, you fucking cocksucker, say it’s nothing to do with me? Either you tell me everything that’s going on, right now, and take me with you,
or I chuck these fucking keys as far as I can and leave you to shoot it out with the police!’
Even though he was holding three handguns, Nick had the freaked-out look guys got when a formerly compliant woman went ballistic. Nice guys, at least. Not-so-nice guys tended to smack you in the face.
‘Okay, get in the car.’
‘It’s my car and I’m fucking driving.’
‘Alright. But can we leave, now?’
We swapped places and I slid into the driver’s seat, reversed down to the road, did a U-turn.
‘I can’t believe you brought this car.’ He looked around, disgusted. ‘What real-life PI drives such a conspicuous car? We’re gonna have to ditch it. It’s ridiculous.’
I shifted into drive.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ I said.
chapter forty-four
Nick directed me out of town and back down the Calder, which I didn’t think was such a good idea—wouldn’t be long before the highway was swarming with cops. He sat up straight, like he was looking for something, and when a service station appeared he told me to pull over before we reached it.
‘What the hell are we doing?’
‘Don’t want them to see the car, but I do want us to go in there and smile for candid camera. Makes us look like we’re on our way to Melbourne.’
‘Aren’t we?’
‘No. Adelaide. You got a mobile phone?’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll see. Put it on silent and give it here.’
I did as he said, handing him the phone.
Inside the store he clutched my upper arm while we walked around picking up energy drinks and plastic-wrapped sandwiches. I attempted to wriggle out of his grip, but he held on tight.
‘I’m not going to run away,’ I said.
His voice rasped in my ear: ‘Makes you look kidnapped instead of an accessory. I shot a cop, they’re gonna come down like a ton of bricks.’
Outside, Nick saw a truck driver climbing into his cab and hustled me over.
‘Hey, mate,’ Nick said, ‘where you off to?’
‘Sydney, mate.’
‘Not Queensland?’
‘Nah.’
‘No worries.’
If I hadn’t known what he was up to, I never would have seen Nick slip my phone under the driver’s seat.
‘Nice idea,’ I told him on the way back to the car. ‘They trace the phone as it goes past the signal towers.’
‘It’s in the next Zack book.’
We didn’t say much the first hour, both tense, expecting sirens and flashing red and blue lights. Nick slumped low on the bench seat with a gun in his lap and I sat straight, hands gripping the wheel. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to the car and concentrated on sticking exactly to the speed limit. Nick tuned the radio to a local station, but there was nothing about us in the news headlines. An hour later the newsreader mentioned a shooting in Castlemaine. No details. I relaxed a bit.
‘You going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘I stole some money.’ He sighed.
‘Whose?’
‘I don’t know. I thought I knew, but it turned out I didn’t.’
‘And . . . ?’
‘For your own safety, the less you know the better.’
‘Safety? It’s a little late for that. I almost got dismembered.’
He stared out the window, refusing to say more, so I forced him to listen instead. I told him everything that had happened, hoping it might prompt a reaction. No such luck. If anything surprised him, he kept it inside, and he refused to confirm or deny any of my theories. Frustrating, but I was sure I’d get it out of him later.
We took back roads and obscure highways through the Grampians National Park, passing craggy sandstone mountains, eucalypt forests and grassed valleys. In Hamilton we stopped for petrol, once more parking away from the station. I took a blonde wig from my stash of disguises in the boot, stuck on a cap and sunglasses, filled up a couple of jerry cans and bought another couple of Red Bulls. I was running on caffeine and adrenaline and nothing else.
By the time we crossed the border near Mount Gambier, Nick had fallen asleep. The sun was setting and the landscape had flattened, dense bush replaced by sheep runs and vast fields of wheat lit up peach in the afternoon light.
By the time it was fully dark we were on the coast road, had passed Robe and were ten k’s out from a place called Meningie. The Futura, which tended to shudder and stall in city traffic, was purring like a kitten. I was so tired I was hallucinating little creatures scurrying on the edge of my vision. The Red Bulls had well and truly worn off. I nudged Nick.
‘Dude, wake up. I’m rooted. You’re gonna have to drive.’
‘What time is it?’ He sat up and blinked.
‘Just past eight.’
‘Want to stop? Motel, few hours’ sleep?’
I couldn’t think of anything better, but I stalled.
‘Only if you tell me everything.’
‘I will, after a shower and something to eat.’ He sighed.
‘Reckon it’ll be safe?’
‘If we do it right.’
In Meningie I drove past a motel on the highway and parked down a deserted side street a few blocks away. I pocketed the keys, put the wig and cap back on, and left Nick in the car while I doubled back, cars and trucks rolling past, headlights forcing me to squint. The night was hot and crickets twittered in the nature strip. A park fronted a lake on the opposite side of the road and the water smelled brackish.
The place looked like every other motel in history: reception attached to a small restaurant and a long, single-storey L-shaped building enclosing a concrete car park out back. Eighty-five bucks, a false address and one fake American accent later I was inside an unpainted brick room with a double bed, a bar fridge and a television chained to the wall. I dumped the backpack I’d taken from the boot, walked back to the car and drove us into the centre of town where I bought McDonald’s, a couple of bottles of wine and a pack of cigarettes. Parking the car on the same side street we walked back to the motel, making sure there was no one at reception to watch Nick sneak in.
Soon as we were inside I cracked open the screw cap on a bottle of Geisen sauvignon blanc, poured it into two thick tumblers, and handed one to Nick. I finished the first in three gulps, poured another.
Nick looked at his.
‘I haven’t had a drink in six weeks.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Needed to stay sharp, couldn’t let down my guard. After what happened to Izzy . . . if I hadn’t been passed out drunk I could have saved her.’
‘You don’t know that.’
He stared at the glass.
‘One won’t hurt,’ I said. I wanted to get him a little tipsy, thought he might loosen up and start talking.
He took a tentative sip.
‘Nice. Tastes expensive.’
‘Yeah, well, I thought I deserved it. Besides, I’ve still got five grand of Liz’s cash.’
‘Huh?’
‘She hired me to find you. I’d say we’re gonna need it.’
We sipped our drinks and looked around the room, clocking the double bed at the same time. There was no additional single, no couch. Cosy. I looked at Nick and I swear he actually blushed.
‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked to get our minds off the sleeping arrangements. ‘Find JJ in Adelaide?’
‘First off I’m going to change the hair.’ He opened the sports bag and pulled out five packs of dye, all different colours.
‘Can I shower first?’ I asked. ‘I feel disgusting. I stink.’
‘Sure.’
I was out in ten minutes. Wet hair combed, wearing an old pair of shorts and a t-shirt I’d found in the backpack. I sat on the bed and Nick handed me another wine. It tasted a little different from the first—probably because I’d just brushed my teeth.
‘Should I go black?’ He held up one of the dye packs.
‘Sure. Just don’t forget to do
your eyebrows or you’ll look like an incompetent goth.’
He disappeared into the bathroom while I drank wine, watched some home improvement show on TV and lit a cigarette, ignoring the no-smoking sign. Hungry as I was, I didn’t want to scarf down the Maccas right away, because a full stomach would make me crash and I wanted to get some more information out of Nick first.
He came out of the bathroom half an hour later with black hair and very dark eyebrows. He’d dyed his beard and shaved it into a goatee.
‘You look like a stage hypnotist,’ I said and giggled a little hysterically.
‘Long as I don’t look like me.’
‘Tell me about this money that you stole.’ I got straight to the point. ‘Is that how you and Isabella could afford to go overseas, get married in New York?’
He raised his new eyebrows and looked like he was about to say something, but the late news came on so he turned it up and sat on the bed next to me to watch. We were the lead story.
‘Victorian Police have staged a massive manhunt for fugitive author Nick Austin after a shootout earlier today in the Victorian town of Castlemaine. One man is dead, a police officer was shot and injured, and a woman was taken hostage.
’ Our photos flashed up on the screen and I had to sit forward and squint to make them out properly. Exhaustion was really messing with my eyes. They showed an old publicity still of Nick, a mug shot, and an artist’s impression of what he looked like with blond hair and a beard. I got the bikini picture, of course. No one mentioned my car. I guessed no one had seen me drive it except for tattooed goatee guy, and he didn’t seem to be exactly law abiding himself. It was only a matter of time, though . . .
The report finished with a warning that Nick was armed, extremely dangerous, and not to be approached.
‘Oh god,’ I said. ‘This is huge. Maybe I should dye my hair, too? It’s too hot to be wearing that ratty wig.’
Nick didn’t say anything, just studied me for a moment. Freak. I riff led through his stash of dye, picked out a pack of blond and lay back on the bed and opened the box, trying to read the instructions. All the little letters danced in front of my eyes. I sat up and rubbed my face.
Thrill City Page 24
