White Throat

by Sarah Thornton

  ‘Now.’

  Finally, he turned around, leaned against the sink, drying his hands on the hand towel. The width of him nearly blocked all the light from the window.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  Asking her. Proud, but still asking. A lump formed in her throat. She couldn’t speak.

  ‘Coach…’ He didn’t go on with the sentence. Just the word was enough. Loaded. He stood to his full height, threw the towel onto the bench. ‘You’re everything that’s any good in Katinga. There’s nothin’ there without you.’

  He wore a black singlet and his shoulder was heavily dressed with white tape. The navy blue sling hung like a sash across his chest.

  ‘I mean. I just…’ He looked away, his face in profile, turned his gaze back on her, every inch of his skin preparing for the words that he wished he didn’t have to say. ‘I just…Well…Can you just come home, Jonesy?’

  Oh God. Don’t. Don’t fucking cry, Jones.

  She pulled out a chair and sat down, quietly, as if to pretend she wasn’t there. She slipped her legs under the table. Pocket gave up, turned on his heel and barged out through the dog door. The flap swung on the hinges, squeaking.

  Her mind was clicking over. Messy, unfocused thoughts. The kind of thinking she hated, flashes of emotionally charged reason, dis-reason because it’s not reason, un-reason. She could go. With Torrens. Noel would be home in two days. Sarge would be fine. She picked at the aluminium edge on the table. She was still holding the football in her other hand, the leather warm in her palm. Torrens reached out and grabbed it, his huge mitt instantly shrinking the ball to the size of an orange.

  ‘Ha. Getting slow Jonesy,’ he grinned, taking two steps back, his backside up against the flyscreen door, ‘You need to get back into training.’ He dropped the ball neatly onto his boot, kicked a tiny little high floater, spinning end on end, just missing the ceiling light. She reached up and caught it cleanly, smiling, despite herself.

  She imagined herself at training, the sweet slap of leather on leather, the smack of the physical contest, skin on skin, the inky sky and the stars as the men jogged their warm-down lap. She could be their coach again. They would defend their trophy with everything they had. And win or lose, she would be there to celebrate or console, it didn’t really matter which—it was only the quest that mattered.

  But what about Helen? Didn’t she matter? The silence was growing. She must give him a response.

  ‘I need a drink of water is what I need.’

  He smiled, grabbed a glass from the overhead cupboard, tap full bore, placed it gently before her on the table. Then he rushed outside, came back with a lemon from the tree, cut off a slice and dropped it into her glass with a splash. Big grin.

  God, the hope in his eyes. Oh Christ.

  ‘I heard from Dad,’ he said. ‘He’s coming back from the Territory, got a job in Earlville.’

  ‘That’s great news.’ She was speaking to the table, unwilling to risk tears if she looked at him. Rude. Gutless. Pull yourself together. ‘Excellent, bloody excellent news, mate.’

  ‘He asked me when training’s starting.’

  She nodded. There was some sort of emptiness in her chest, breathing didn’t seem to fill it.

  ‘Jackson’s going to slip the net,’ she said. ‘Doncaster’s going to get off.’

  His smile faded.

  She stared at the floor. ‘Helen’s nothing but a statistic. Doncaster’s building a resort at Turtle Shores, on her sanctuary. He killed her. Now he’s going to screw what’s left of her.’

  After Torrens left she lay on the bed for a while, the rusty fan busting its guts against the heat. The air in the shanty felt stale. They hadn’t said anything more until she tried to give him the footy back as he walked to his car. He waved her off; said he wouldn’t be needing it.

  ‘Aren’t you going back to Katinga?’

  ‘Dunno,’ he’d said and wouldn’t tell her any more. If he wasn’t taking the footy he wasn’t returning to the new life he’d begun. With Membrey gone, it should have been so different. He should have been going to work, buying a place in Katinga, taking his mum on a trip to Hawaii.

  Her phone rang. Brady.

  ‘You all set for the working bee this arvo?’ he said, in his raspy smoker’s voice. She’d forgotten about the working bee. They’d planned to make new banners and posters for their next protest in Noosa. Gaylene was hosting it at her house.

  ‘Mate, I can’t make it, sorry. There’s been a bit of trouble. A bloke died today, here in my kitchen.’

  ‘What? Man, that’s terrible.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s been a nightmare. I’m just not up to the working bee today.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know him. A visitor. He wasn’t from round here. Listen, there’s more bad news. Doncaster’s going to turn Turtle Shores into a bloody resort.’

  ‘Oh fucking hell, no way! If the mine doesn’t kill off the turtles a resort sure will! What the fuck’s wrong with him? The bastard’s supposed to be supporting us!’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s…I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s just shocking. We’ll have to get ourselves organised with a new strategy for him now. And get some new donors. That’s why Noosa’s important. We need some wealthy holidaymakers on board. Can you look after the working bee for me? Make sure we get everything we need done?’

  ‘Bloody working bee. I just want to go over and cut his lily-white throat.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Brady, just cool it for now. We need to meet next week and sort out a plan. It’ll be all about that covenant. We’ll need the lawyers to get onto it. So get ready for Noosa—we’re gonna need that money.’

  Brady was disappointed. A legal campaign sounded insufferably tame.

  She ate a can of tuna at the kitchen table, trying to work through the angles. How had Jackson got Helen up to the top of the cliff? Why had he removed her sandals before he’d thrown her over? The police had failed to do a proper search for tracks so no one could be sure she hadn’t been marched up there at gunpoint. But what were the alternatives? Were there any alternatives?

  She opened the fridge, crouched down and took out a can of Coke from the bottom shelf. Stayed down there for a while, letting the cold air envelope her, wake her up.

  It came to her quickly. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

  She rang Wiseman. She was investigating a shooting, a murder, if you don’t mind. A myriad of details to cover, not enough staff, most of them manning roadblocks, the homicide guys from Brisbane hadn’t arrived yet…She didn’t have time to go chasing theories about a suicide.

  Clem hung up, pacing the kitchen.

  Jackson was on the loose but he wouldn’t come anywhere near Piama or Barnforth. Not with all the roadblocks. But she needed to get to the airport. It was an hour away from Piama, less than twenty minutes from Barnforth. Could she risk it? He’d be keeping his distance, surely.

  She took the small cardboard box from the dresser in the bedroom and put it in the front zip pocket of her backpack. Then she turned her laptop on. While it was powering up she gazed out the sliding door into the backyard. An older couple strolled along the track between the yard and the beach, hand in hand. No one she knew—grey nomads from the caravan park, most likely. Pocket was up and giving them the usual over-the-top reaction, running up and down, barking himself stupid. Sarge raised his big head, blinked, lowered it again into the thick grass—the dog equivalent of an eye-roll. Pocket was a great little dog: smart, obedient and easy to train. But with Sarge you got a sense of worldly wisdom that meant he’d only engage if there was a real threat.

  She stuck her head out the door and called him over.

  Pocket got there first. ‘No, not you noisy. The other one.’ She shooed him away and let Sarge inside, closing the sliding door behind him, and went to get his lead.

  She printed off a copy of the sneaky photograph she’d taken in the interview room, then
she did a search on the laptop, found the image she was after and printed that off too. She typed in the name Margaret Jeppeson. It took a moment but then there it was, on the screen in front of her—a LinkedIn profile. A photograph of a woman with an immaculate silver bob and a job title displayed in the text underneath:

  Press Secretary and Head of Media, Office of the Premier, New South Wales

  It was Helen’s friend. Margaret Jeppeson, the executor of Helen’s will, was Maggie from the funeral: ‘Noosa Darling’ herself.

  Clem was tense throughout the drive to the airport, but it was uneventful. Sarge stuck his head out the window for most of it, his gums ballooning like parachutes in the wind. Pocket, much aggrieved at being left behind, had whined at the door. But the last time she’d had them both in the car it had been Circus Oz in a shoebox.

  She drove past the airport and followed the General Aviation sign as the road skirted all the way past the airfield, around the back of some hills and then cut back in on the other side of the runway. She passed a number of hangars and other big sheds on industrial paddocks, and a tiny takeaway shop on the corner. She parked the car in the shade and left Sarge tied to the tow ball with a thin piece of string. The tug on his collar was enough to persuade him to stay put and settle himself in the long grass near the bowl of water she’d left. He’d bust through the string easily enough if she needed him.

  She entered the hangar, stood at the counter and rang the bell, waited for the aircraft noise from the runway to subside and rang it again. There were a couple of notices taped to the counter, along with a cardboard box full of pencils and a grubby notepad. A helicopter sat dormant in the shadows at the other end of the hangar and another stood outside on the tarmac, shiny in the sun. To the right was a Colorbond office the size of a garden shed with one grimy louvre window. The office door opened and a man walked over briskly.

  ‘Sorry to keep you,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘No problem.’ Clem smiled back.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  She reached into her backpack, pulled out Jackson’s photograph and placed it on the counter.

  ‘I’m looking for this fellow, wondered if you might know him?’ The man looked at the photograph, squinting. ‘Ummm, I don’t think…Why do you ask?’

  ‘I found his wallet. He bought a cake from me at the school fete and left it behind,’ she lied. ‘I didn’t realise it was there until I was packing up but it had a little helicopter key ring inside it. I just thought maybe he might be a pilot.’

  He looked at her, sceptical, apparently weighing up the privacy implications. ‘Oh, right. Wasn’t there a drivers licence or a credit card in it?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing, there was a drivers licence, that’s where I got this photo, but his name and address were blacked out with Texta, which was odd. And there was a fair bit of cash, so…’

  ‘I guess you could hand it in to the cops, though?’ said the man, obviously uncomfortable.

  ‘Oh yeah, first place I went to, but the station was closed. I heard they’ve got their hands full with a murder, not to mention the usual protesters and druggies and whatnot. Anyway, this guy said he was moving to Sydney, so I thought I might be able to return it to him before he left.’ Clem put on what she hoped was a concerned-citizen look, tugging at the back of her neck and grimacing with the burden of it.

  ‘Wouldn’t he go see the cops though? See if someone had handed it in?’

  ‘Hmmm, not sure he would actually. See I think maybe that’s the reason he’s tampered with his licence…you know, lying low or something. I don’t know, I sort of got the feeling when he said he was going interstate…the way he said it…well I just thought he might be trying to avoid the cops, if you know what I mean.’

  The guy hesitated and she didn’t blame him. This was sounding thinner and thinner.

  Did he think she was the police? Did he think if the guy wanted a low profile then she should respect that? Maybe he just felt the man shouldn’t be assisted in whatever criminal activity he was engaged in. Too many reasons for him not to help her. Time to give him a reason.

  ‘This was in the wallet too,’ she reached into the front zip of her backpack, pulled out the printout from Noel’s printer. It was a photograph of a young boy, the words ‘In loving memory’ across the top, dates at the base—a six-year-old’s funeral program.

  ‘I saw this and I just thought, man, what if this is the only photo he has of his son or something. I mean, I wouldn’t know, of course, but still, if it was me, I’d want it back.’

  She hoped the manager guy had kids, hoped he knew someone who’d lost a child. She bit her lip as he stared at the picture of the boy—blue eyes, red fireman’s hat, messy dark hair above a cheeky grin. The man sighed and his eyes darted another quick look at Clementine and then he picked up the photograph of Jackson again.

  ‘Yeah…might be the guy who hired the R44 a few weeks back, now I come to think of it.’

  The GPS he’d fixed to her front grille was transmitting perfectly. She’d been into Barnforth cop shop, then she’d gone home and the movement alert had pinged on his phone again just before three. Since then he’d tracked her on the app as she headed north-west up the main road from Piama and taken the turn-off that led due west.

  It was an opportunity, perhaps his last. It was risky, after all the cock-ups, but the client wouldn’t pay until the job was done. He should have insisted on more money up front; it’d been a while since he’d had any decent cashflow.

  And now it was turning into a clusterfuck, a complete and utter disaster. But the job had to be done. If nothing else, his reputation was on the line.

  He headed north on the highway from the safe house, keeping an eye on her track. He was about fifteen minutes behind. She took the turn towards the airport. Wouldn’t be a bad option for her, flying interstate, he thought. This road would also take her to the highway south to Brisbane which might be easier for him than the airport. Small country terminal, it wouldn’t be straightforward, but there was still a chance he could hustle her into the car, take her out bush and dispose of her there. Just needed the right set of circumstances.

  He took the stolen Hilux up to 119 kph, less than ten per cent over the speed limit—didn’t want to attract any more heat from the cops.

  After the first airport turn-off, where she kept going, he started getting nervous. He watched to see if she took the second one but she sailed straight past that too. Okay, so she was heading south on the highway to Brisbane.

  He watched as the blip on the screen went straight past the highway turn-off and followed the road around to the other side of the airfield and…

  Fucking bitch!

  She wasn’t going to Brisbane and she wasn’t flying out, she was going to the fucking helicopter company! He stepped on the accelerator and roared the Hilux up to 180.

  CHAPTER 22

  Clem made the excuse of going outside to check on the dog while the manager went into the office to look at his records. She made a call to the police station.

  ‘Jackson hired a helicopter…Turners Aviation…other side of the airport.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘The manager’s checking now, but he said a few weeks ago. Seems to line up.’

  ‘Shit a brick,’ said Wiseman under her breath.

  At least she was quick on the uptake, Clem thought. She could see the manager walking back to the counter, a large hard-covered ledger in his hand. She started making her way back in. ‘And the sandals—I reckon he took them off her feet so he could make the tracks himself…had Helen tied up or unconscious or whatever in the chopper, walked around the rocky plateau to the bottom, then put them on himself for the walk up in the sand.’ There was a long pause at the other end of the line. ‘You still there, sergeant?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Ah, Clementine…this is…bloody hell…have you confirmed the date?’

  The manager had the book open on the counter—‘Just a sec.’ He was pointing at
an entry dated 12 November, a date etched forever in Clementine’s memory. She swallowed hard, turned away and walked out of earshot. ‘Same day Helen died. It’s him, Wiseman, it’s him.’

  ‘Fuck. Fucking hell.’ Wiseman let out a groan. ‘Yeah…well… that changes things, I think.’

  ‘Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?’ Clem detected the note of remorse in her voice—this was not the time to dig the boot in. ‘Look, just get out here, will you?’

  Wiseman was out the door and on her way before the call had even ended. Clem heard her tell Griffin to hold the fort and brief the Brisbane cops when they arrived.

  ‘Okay, here you go,’ said the manager. ‘His name’s Peter Anderson and I’ve got a mobile number for him if you want to write it down.’

  ‘That’s great, thank you.’ She typed the fake name and number into her phone, feeling fresh hope, a lightness and a tremendous burst of energy now that Wiseman was on her way, now that something would finally be done for Helen. ‘My brother always wanted to be a helicopter pilot,’ she said. ‘So once you have your licence, you can just hire a helicopter?’

  ‘Yeah, some mobs won’t do it—they’ll only charter with their pool of pilots. We’re okay with it if they’ve got a clean record. Especially if it’s just for one person, not some sort of joy ride or party thing.’

  She felt a chill down her spine. He’d hired it for one person but Helen had been there too. Forced at gunpoint? Drugged and carried on?

  She chatted with the guy—his name was Mike—for a while longer about the cost of pilot training, the best way of going about it, until she heard the sound of car tyres on gravel. Too soon for Wiseman, surely? She turned and saw a white ute roll past the wide-open hangar doors into the carpark. She turned back to Mike, continuing the conversation. She heard a car door open and then the barking started—that low, throaty boom. Sarge’s danger bark. He must have recognised the driver’s smell.

  A spark fired in the back of her brain. It took a microsecond for the realisation to kick in. ‘Oh God, quick,’ she said, fumbling as she scooped up the photograph and the helicopter hire record on the counter, shoving them in her backpack. ‘We have to hide!’ She rushed around to his side of the counter.