Beneath the Skin

by Melissa James

  He’d almost lost faith then. But he’d forgiven her when she’d refused to give evidence. If she had, he might have been given a much longer sentence than thirty days in minimum, no matter what Granddad did to protect him. He’d frightened her—he really believed now he must have done that—but she still wouldn’t hurt him.

  Granddad was wrong. Janie wasn’t a faithless slut like all the others. He’d be gentler with her next time, come to her in daylight. He’d show her how a real man protects his woman.

  Thirty seconds—twenty—ten—

  The explosion came right on schedule—a freak accident in the kitchen.

  Tossing the bags into the back of the truck, the laundrymen ran out to discover the cause of the commotion.

  He looked up and saw the blinking light of the CC-TV camera wink off. Fifteen seconds until they turned it back on. He flitted from the shadows to the truck, diving in. When he was hidden from view, snuggled behind four huge bags of clean linen, he worked on the second device.

  A few minutes later the laundrymen returned, accompanied by the two guards his granddad had paid very well to smuggle in the ingredients for the explosive devices, make sure the camera was turned off for fifteen seconds, and overlook him when they checked the truck. With his impeccable sources, the old mongrel had found out which of the guards was neck deep in gambling debts, and which guard was being sued by his ex for defaulting on child payments after a nasty divorce.

  ‘You’re clear to go.’ That was the one whose gambling debts ensured a deadened conscience. The other’s eyes were troubled, but he kept silent, tossing in a marked laundry bag containing spare clothes, right on top of where he hid, following instructions to the letter—the guard would get the large bundle of unmarked notes Granddad would send via the usual channels on top of the two grand he’d sent as temptation.

  There were advantages to Granddad being an unscrupulous bastard with unlimited funds. Though Janie’s background guaranteed his misogyny had reached explosive levels, Granddad would do anything to get a legal heir who could stay out of prison. He was obsessed with getting another boy to own and screw over, all under the promise of inheriting Gundawin.

  He grinned. He could just imagine how Granddad would feel when he realised his omnipotence had failed him for once.

  The laundrymen threw the rest of the bags in the truck and closed the doors. Seconds later the engine fired, and they were through the gates.

  He put two tiny devices in place before they could reach the linen service in town. Moments later the first shattered the glass window of the cab behind the men. The truck careened across the rutted road on the outskirts of town, hit a wood and barbed-wire boundary fence, and came to a screeching halt.

  Seconds later the second device blew the back doors open.

  Hopping through the fragmented exit and walking around to the truck’s cab, he peered through the shattered glass of the windscreen. The driver’s head lay at an awkward angle on the wheel, a jagged blade of glass in his neck. Unlikely he’d live. The other wouldn’t stop screaming as he tried to pluck a shard of glass from his head—he’d pass out if he succeeded.

  Neither would know anything about him, nor would they see him leave. He’d be long gone before the cops knew the truth of the ‘accident’—and by the time they connected today’s events to him, connected the truck to him, he’d be safe in a non-extradition country with Janie.

  I wish this hadn’t been necessary. Janie won’t like it, won’t understand.

  Then she should be here to stop it, the other voice whispered, just loud enough to hear.

  She’d have risked her life to save them if she were here, he argued, with some defiance.

  Which only goes to show how much she needs protection. Charles Darwin was right. Life is the survival of the fittest. That means there’s no such thing as murder, or embezzlement, or fraud; there’s only the brightest outwitting the less intelligent. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Men like you are born to rule, while others obey or die.

  It was a persuasive argument.

  And if Janie doesn’t like what I do, she should be here to stop it. She knows she’s the only one who makes me go quiet. She shouldn’t have pushed the panic button in the first place!

  Shut up, he growled to the voice. I’m not supposed to listen to you. I have work to do.

  He picked up two long, thin shards of glass from the broken windscreen, wrapped them in towels from the linen service and packed them in his new backpack. Zipping the pack up, he walked to town in the purplish-red haze of a gathering outback evening. His genius lay in the creation of simple explosives he’d made from basic chemical and household ingredients, checked by the prison officials on their arrival at the prison and sent on to the laundry. Three explosions that seemed so much like unrelated accidents; they wouldn’t be connected until he was long gone. A homemade peroxide dye applied in the truck to his hair and green-tinted contacts—you really could buy anything in lockup, if you had the money—and he was a new man.

  Five kilometres northeast of the accident, off the coastal highway and on the road to Tom Price, he thumbed a ride with the next empty miner’s truck. He was on the way to diamond country: the remote Kimberley region, where the diamonds were as magnificent as the heat and dust and rock formations. Where women were as scarce as fresh water, the fights as plentiful as the beer, and doctors flew in from far away to sew the locals’ crazy heads back together.

  The air grew drier, the heat intense. The road became red and rutted; choking dust filled the cab of the truck. The town names changed from Anglo-Saxon to Indigenous. Moonyoonooka. Yalgoo. Meekatharra. Finally the sign flashed before his eyes. Mullalabuk—58 kilometres.

  He was on his way to find Janie. And this time, they’d be together for life.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Coming into the station from the sun blinded Rick for a moment. The old house, with its mullioned, stained-glass windows, cool and dark, could be refreshment from the heat, or a shock to the system.

  Today was a day of shocks.

  With a single look at her, a sense of belonging had overtaken him, so strong it was almost terrifying. He hadn’t known love could be like this. One look, and he’d do anything for her. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she was perfect to him. One look, and she was everything he’d never realised he’d been searching for all his life.

  But he’d frightened her off. He had to slow it down, take it easy, show her how special it was going to be for them. Then, when she was comfortable with him, he’d tell her. She didn’t know yet how much she was going to need him in her life.

  ‘Your friend’s in trouble,’ he said to announce his presence in his mate’s office. Unless Adam had someone in with him, Rick knew he never had to knock. The two of them had hung out after work and at lunchtimes since Rick’s first week in Macks Lake. With his cloak of isolation shrouding him and the coldness scaring most people off, Adam had needed a friend more desperately than he’d known. Rick, alone in town and wanting a friend, had taken up the challenge—and he’d found a mate unlike any he’d ever known.

  The words shook Adam from a reverie. He waved Rick into a seat. ‘I know.’ After a moment, he spoke again, with a thoughtful frown. ‘What do you know? What did she say to you?’

  ‘Nothing. She didn’t have to.’

  A searching look. ‘You like her.’

  More blunt perception. Usually he liked it, since it saved his needing to answer, or search his own emotions, but this time he felt the wrong kind of examination beneath, and it stopped him from telling the truth, or making the obvious retort, So do you. Was all he felt so obvious? He didn’t mind Elly sensing it, since it was their private business, but it was none of Adam’s, mate or not. He made himself shrug. ‘She’s a sister. I’ve been the Aboriginal liaison officer too long not to have seen the look before.’

  Though Adam nodded, he didn’t relax.

  ‘If nothing else, the look on your face—and hers—told me,�
� he said. ‘She was like a rabbit at the dingo fence from the moment we left here. She bolted into the pub as if she expected me to attack her.’

  He waited for Adam to speak, to explain why; he knew his friend well enough to know he’d already looked Elly up on the database. Adam had knowledge of her that Rick could never have, though admitting it galled. But he could make use of it, if he didn’t push too hard.

  Adam didn’t answer, just kept watching him with eyes that showed no emotion, though the challenge was there. So it was going to be like that?

  He stood to leave the office. Then Adam said, ‘Look at this.’

  The relief felt like finding cold water in the desert; he wouldn’t have to force the issue by using his position as Aboriginal liaison officer. Adam still trusted him. He walked around the desk, leaning over Adam’s shoulder as he brought up her page. It was a long report, but two sentences were enough to get the gist.

  One man is dead, another fighting for his life in hospital in a truck bombing. Prime suspect is Danny Spencer, who has escaped Mackleton Minimum Security Prison.

  ‘So what are we doing about it?’ he asked, grim with fury. ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘I was about to talk to Sarge about calling in backup. We can’t do this alone.’

  It was what he’d known Adam would say; it was procedure, it was right. And what else was there to do? Yet it was as if his life went into slow motion. The whole situation was unreal, like snow falling in the outback, and just as confusing. Only one thing stood out, in shining clarity. As Aboriginal liaison officer, he knew how few times women made formal complaints, and how often the trickle of complaints that were made were shelved in a computer file that went nowhere.

  Like Elly’s case. For almost two years her complaints had been shelved. Now a man had died, the case couldn’t be overlooked any longer, and heads were going to roll. Like a confused mystic he saw the future: dead bodies scattered across Australia, from the Kimberleys to here. Every plan they made wouldn’t be enough, because they’d all look at Spencer’s history, his problems, his family. None of them would think to research why he’d fixated on Elly.

  That’s why she came to Adam – the only cop likely to actually listen to her.

  Elly was the heart of this case, far more than any woman in a case he’d taken part in. And ignoring that fact would be a disaster not just for her, but for the entire town.

  He had to keep her safe.

  ‘Go,’ he said to Adam, because there was no other choice. And because it was expected of him, he added, ‘I’ll check out the networks.’

  After a relieved and somewhat embarrassed smile, Adam shoved back his chair. ‘Thanks, mate—talk to her family, too, if you can. I didn’t even know Elly was Indigenous until today.’ A difficult sentence for Adam, he could tell, with the air of confession. How could you not have known? he wanted to ask. He again felt Adam’s background rising like a horror-movie villain to strangle his mate. He had a feeling that particular monster had already done all the damage it could do to Elly, or she’d have gone to Adam when Danny Spencer first began stalking her.

  He didn’t have to ask how Adam felt about the discovery of Elly’s heritage. The way his mate had helped him with local kids of all backgrounds, forming a football team and raising money for shirts, the way he let Zoe be the boys’ mascot, the laughing references to Zoe’s massive crush on him all screamed Adam’s creed in flaring red letters: I am not my family.

  Or was it: I am not my wife? There was no way he could ask. After a year, he didn’t even know Adam’s dead wife’s name—and with no mention of her to guide him, he’d decided to let that particular ghost rest in turbulent peace.

  But on one matter, he had to speak. ‘Do you think you should have sent Elly to stay at the pub, mate? Isn’t she going to think …?’

  At the door, Adam shook his head. ‘She understands about Zoe, probably more than I do. She lost her mum when she was ten. That’s how she became part of my family.’

  Another phantom pain he’d seen in his Adam’s eyes from the start. Now he’d pinned the tail on that donkey. The knowledge of Elly’s family loss filled him with a mixture of pain and sadness, and a resolve to call his mum that night. He’d been one of the lucky ones. ‘But checking into a pub leaves a trail Spencer can follow.’

  Adam swore. ‘Why the hell didn’t I think of that?’

  He decided not to ask what had brought Elly to the Jepsons—or what had made Adam forget her so thoroughly he hadn’t even recognised her today. He’d learned his friend offered information in tiny bites he could put together in time—but given the urgency of the case, he had to push in another direction. ‘Go and talk to Sarge, mate. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.’

  ‘A very bad feeling,’ Adam agreed quietly, and opened the door.

  Left alone, Rick read the open case file on Adam’s computer one more time.

  After a minute, he took out his phone, and began taking shots of the screen – just in case. Given Elly’s panicked response to his slightest push today, he had two choices: to back right off and wait for the right moment, or go deeper, harder, and find the information she wasn’t telling, even if he had to push her buttons to do it. And if he did find the info he sought—which might just save her life—he had a feeling she’d make sure he was locked out of the case altogether.

  And though she’d regret that decision one day soon, it wouldn’t help if she was dead.

  In the hazy heat of late afternoon, Elly wandered around the pretty little riverboat town. Most of it was preserved in Federation style. No mall dominated any street corner or block, and the new housing estate on the western edge of town had been kept right away from the town centre. The police station was a big old red-brick house with leadlight windows, carved door and lintels, and the school had the solid look of having been built well before the prefab box-shaped buildings of the sixties and seventies. Even the hospital had a semi-disused wing that dated back to Edwardian times, with leadlight windows over the doors, which gave a harlequin-like effect in the hallways when the sunlight hit them.

  But five years of El Niño, just reversing with a recent cycle of heavy rain, had halved the oval-shaped body of water that gave Macks Lake its name. Twisted tree roots and dead branches poked like broken hands reaching for help from the muddy water; half-withered mangroves sagged around its banks, bowing down as if in defeat. The orange and olive trees that had been the town’s livelihood for a century had green shoots and new leaves twisting up, reaching for the sun from sad-looking branches: a smiling defiance after a long dance with death-dealing drought. A shopkeeper had told her—with an air of warning, as if she was a developer looking at their land—that a dozen or so farmers who’d left their land fallow to find work and pay staggering mortgages were returning. But with so many of the next generation gone to Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide for university or work, the town was fighting to stop a century-old way of life from disappearing.

  She turned from the lake, heading back towards the police station. It was almost time to meet Adam. She dreaded the questions she couldn’t postpone much longer. I can’t lie to him. He already knows I’m in trouble.

  So does Rick.

  She shut the thought down. She’d met brothers before who’d claimed instant knowledge of her, or the right to attraction or even a relationship, based on culture or DNA, but she’d come to her heritage too late in life to believe in that kind of thing. She respected the culture, as she tried to for all people, but she didn’t know if she believed in it.

  So what do you believe in? Or, who do you believe in? a little voice taunted.

  The song of her life. She wished it—she—was different, but she’d have to be hatched over again to achieve it. She cared for people—it was her vocation—but she loved very few. Liked even fewer. She hated that she couldn’t open her heart to strangers, couldn’t bring herself to trust them … and she hated still more that those who managed to break the chains around that stubborn or
gan snuggled right in for life. She couldn’t let people into her heart, and she couldn’t let those inside get out.

  Like Adam. Though it was the last thing she wanted or needed, he was still in her heart—still the friend she’d never found anywhere else.

  Liar.

  She’d known long before his marriage that he was far more than her best friend; but since she’d been only fourteen when he met Sharon, of course he hadn’t felt the same way. Never had, to judge by the way he’d forgotten her. And yet she’d never met a single man that even began to fill the vacuum he’d left in her life.

  And now she’d met him again, she doubted any ever would. A taut bowstring of a man, with a stern face softened by a mouth that always seemed to be fighting a smile, and eyes like a eucalyptus forest touched by sunshine. She’d adored him as a girl, but as a woman, the child’s yearning to have someone special to love had become something big and deep and wide—an endless abyss created with a single look.

  What was wrong with her? All these years, she’d been unable to give up the dream, though he was long gone. Why couldn’t she just let go, move on, find another man?

  A feminine voice floated out from the open window of the rowdy pub. ‘We’d better get back, or the boss’ll sack us.’

  Elly’s head snapped up.

  ‘Yeah, I s’pose,’ a male voice muttered. ‘What great jobs—stockman and ringer and you, a kitchenhand instead of head cook. That’s worth keepin’, after what we had.’ The door to the pub slammed open. ‘We should just go home and go on the dole.’

  ‘And let that bitch win? It’s what she expects. Bloody browngubba with her degree and her scholarship, lordin’ it over us,’ the woman snapped. ‘This gig’s well paid, at least. And if she ever comes here …’