Blood Junction (13 page)

“See you at six,” he said, and with a spurt of gravel, drove off.

The Beetle looked as if it had been used for log-chopping practice. The body was dented in a dozen places and both bumpers
hung precariously. Even the license plates were battered, as if someone had put them on the ground and repeatedly stamped
on them.

The seats were split with the stuffing poking out and the steering wheel was cracked, but the engine started first time with
a burbling roar. “You little beauty,” she said out loud, and glanced at the space where the rear-vision mirror should have
been. Shrugging, she reversed into the road and headed for town, to top up the fuel tank—which read zero—and pick up the road
to Benbullen and the Goodmans’ house.

It was half-past eleven when Mikey saw a dark green Bentley pull up at the gatehouse of the Karamyde Cosmetics Research Institute.
The binoculars he’d brought were powerful and he could see the number plate clearly but not the driver; the windows were tinted.

Mikey brushed a fly from his face and studied the Institute again. It was a big semicircular building, dense and ugly, built
of concrete and painted pink, which made it look like a cooked crab. It had two floors with close ranks of windows set deeply
in the concrete. A high wire-meshed fence topped with razor wire circled the complex, and the only entrance appeared to be
the electronic iron gates. They swung shut behind the Bentley and Mikey tracked the vehicle until it was lost from view behind
the semicircular curve of the building.

He scanned the area around the Institute. Although the complex was quite large, it was still only a dot on the broad expanse
of bush surrounding it. It sat at the end of a three-kilometer private gravel road, which was immaculately maintained all
the year round. Well tucked away, Mikey thought, but not too far for the commuters of Cooinda at just twenty minutes door
to door. As usual, he had parked along the Jangala road, outside the kangaroo sanctuary where his car wouldn’t be conspicuous.
He’d then walked two kilometers or so across the bush to the low ridge of hills overlooking the Institute.

He swung his binoculars to the sandy airstrip, empty of any aircraft, then to the loading bay. Two men were rolling a large
white tub into the back of an unmarked white transit van. The tub was marked:
CAUTION—TOXIC WASTE
. He hadn’t discovered where they dumped the stuff. They flew it out by plane, and since he couldn’t fly …

He scrutinized the van and noticed it had a crumpled fender on the driver’s side. They’d probably hit some wildlife, a kangaroo
or perhaps a wombat.

Mikey switched his focus to study the gate. There were two security guards smoking in the gatehouse. He watched them for a
while, and eventually shifted to check the road. All was quiet aside from the tapping calls of birds and the odd rustle of
a lizard in dead leaves. The Institute appeared totally innocent.

He threw his binoculars on top of his pack. He didn’t care how long it took, he was going to sit and watch the bastards until
they made a mistake. Flipping open the front of his pack, he withdrew a battered photograph. Carefully, he smoothed it between
his fingers. Four policemen in uniform stood in the sun, grinning at the camera. Whitelaw was on the right, Mikey the left.
Between them were Tiger and Sergeant Brian Patterson, both now dead.

Everything stemmed from Alex Threads murder six months ago. Thread was from the Australian Medical Association, and had been
asking questions about the Karamyde Cosmetic Research Institute when he was shot.

Sergeant Patterson, six foot three of balding bean-pole from Wollongong, had been investigating the murder of Alex Thread,
when he was found drowned in the public swimming pool.

Mikey took up Patterson’s investigation and the day after he’d met the Institutes owner, Roland Knox, a five-year-old girl
went missing after school.

Mikey had pulled out all the stops to find her, and fast. He’d quickly ascertained she wasn’t staying with friends, that there
hadn’t been a mix-up within the family about collecting her from school, then he put every cop available on the street to
continue the search.

Come midnight they had nothing, but Mikey wouldn’t stop searching.

He’d been in his patrol car, scouring the streets in the faint hope of spotting the little girl, when he received an anonymous
call on his mobile. It had been six
A.M.
He’d spun the car around and raced to the local rubbish dump, another squad car close behind. He leaped out of the car to
see a bloke bent over a cut-off piece of sewage pipe in the center of the dump. Saw the bloke trying to force something into
the pipe …

When Mikey had pulled the little girl free from the pipe he thought she was still alive. Her body was soft and pliant in his
arms. He heard a groaning sound and realized it was himself.
She’d still been warm
.

Mikey hadn’t hidden his feelings for the suspect, Norman Harris. He had told everyone he’d be glad to see him dead. Harris
violently protested his innocence, saying someone had called him about where the find the little girl, but he couldn’t give
a name and nobody listened. He was the child’s uncle and they were all sure he’d been abusing the little girl and then killed
her for any number of reasons.

The morning after the arrest Norman Harris was found strangled in his cell.

Even now, Mikey found it hard to swallow the fact that his own team had believed he’d popped the perp. Christ, he may have
said
he wanted to, but actually
killing
him …

Mikey was suspended that same day, but not before he found out that Harris was an ex-employee of Karamyde Cosmetics and was
in the process of suing Karamyde for wrongful dismissal. Harris, Mikey belatedly realized, hadn’t been trying to hide the
child, he’d been trying to pull her body free.

Karamyde Cosmetics had murdered a five-year-old girl in order to kill two birds with one stone—Mikey and Harris—but nobody
had believed either of them, or wanted to believe them.

So Mikey went to Tiger, his friend. And two weeks after Tiger had reopened the investigation, he’d been killed. In the cold
light of day Mikey knew now that India Kane hadn’t killed Tiger out of jealousy. She, and her dead friend Lauren, were something
to do with Karamyde Cosmetics, he was sure of it.

His vision blurred as he stared at the photograph.

A little girl, an innocent man, and two good friends had died because of Karamyde Cosmetics.

He would nail the bastards if it was the last thing he did.

It took India forty-five minutes to get to Benbullen from the BP garage. A shiny bay horse with two white socks stood hitched
to the front verandah. It swung its head around sharply as she approached, and reared a little, jerking against its head collar.

A wiry man in jeans and checked shirt came out.

“Nice horse,” she said.

“You want the missus, she’s over there.”

“Over there” was the stables, where Mrs. Goodman was in a loose box, grooming a large dusty brown horse. Like her husband,
she was thin and well muscled, and although her face was worn and deeply creased from the merciless Australian sun, her eyes
were bright.

“Don’t mind if I carry on,” she said, brushing the curry comb in quick, circular movements behind the animal’s left ear. Dust
and horse hair floated in a shaft of sunlight. “Got Freddo coming around with the thought of buying this feller. If he’s valeted
properly Freddo might go an extra couple of hundred.”

India gave a nod and watched the woman work her way briskly down the horse’s neck.

“I wanted to ask about your son, Frank,” said India. “And my friend Lauren Kennedy.”

“Yes. I recognize your face from the papers.” She flicked a hank of mane aside, looked at India. “Your friend talked about
you. Can’t say as I know what happened, I’m no judge, but I believe she’d want me to talk to you. She was here almost a week.”

India wasn’t sure what to say next, she was flooded with so much relief at the woman’s kindness. “Thank you,” she managed.

Mrs. Goodman was nodding as she spoke. “Jeremy says your alibi hangs on our Frank,” she said. “All the stops are out trying
to track him down.” She looked proud.

“Without Frank’s testimony,” India told her, “I’m completely scuppered.”

The woman chuckled. “He’ll be back in the New Year, no worries.”

“Will he be straight, do you think?” she asked.

Mrs. Goodman sent her a sharp look. “What do you mean?”

“Well, his friends in town say he was with them at nine o’clock. But he was with me then. Here. He didn’t leave for town until
nine-thirty.”

The woman’s eyes renarrowed. “You’re calling them liars?”

India looked at her straight, and nodded.

Mrs. Goodman made a
tsk
ing sound, said, “Well, I don’t know nothing about it, but whatever happened, Frank’ll tell the truth. I’m sure as eggs are
eggs he’ll do that.”

“I certainly hope so,” India murmured. “Could you tell me what you remember about my friend Lauren? Any order. It doesn’t
matter.”

The dust-covered woman seemed to think for a moment, then she made a face. “She arrived bloody late. We’d been in bed for
half the night before she rocked up. Made us all a hot chocolate though. Charlie took quite a shine to her but for her smoking.
Smoked like a Trojan, your friend did, and barely ate a bloody thing.” As she talked, Mrs. Goodman moved expertly around the
horse, deftly shifting his great bulk with a soft touch of the hand, a gentle click of the tongue. India learned what Lauren
didn’t eat, what time she’d woken, when she went to bed and, finally, that Lauren had only planned on stopping over for two
nights but had extended her stay. “She wanted to find Bertie Mullett, but he’d gone walkabout.”

“Ah,” said India, and Mrs. Goodman rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

“Bloody Abos. Love ’em, hate ’em too. Wish they had blood in their veins, not bloody wanderlust. Upping sticks like they do
drives us mad, and we try not to depend on them, but what can you do? Not many white folks want to work way out here, and
we can’t afford to pay much.”

“Why did Lauren want to meet this Bertie Mullett?”

With a flourish, Mrs. Goodman put down the curry comb. She picked up a wide-toothed metal comb and started untangling the
horse’s forelock. “She never said, but she threw a complete wobbly when she learned he’d gone, just the day before she visited
the camp. She went off to find his family instead. That was the last we saw of her. We had to go to Malparinka.”

Mrs. Goodman seemed to have supplied an answer for every question that India could have asked, but she tried one more. “Has
anyone been up here asking questions about Lauren?”

“Oh, two blokes turned up the day before yesterday to collect her things. Covered the expenses on her room. She hadn’t paid
up, you see.”

India felt as if a cockroach had scurried down her spine. “What were their names?”

Mrs. Goodman paused in her grooming. “Well, bugger me, I’m not sure they ever said,” she commented, looking surprised.

India asked her what the men looked like: neat trousers, shirts and jackets, sunglasses, she was told.

“What make of car did they drive?”

“One of those Beemer things. Haven’t seen one before. Don’t get them out here, that sort of city car.”

“A BMW?”

“That’s right. Black it was, with tinted windows.”

India was back on the hot dusty road, watching a black BMW dwindle into the distance.

“It looked bloody expensive,” Mrs. Goodman added.

And very suspicious
, thought India. She asked to see Lauren’s room.

“I’ve cleaned it, changed the sheets and the rest. They said it was all right.”

“Who did?”

“The two blokes.”

“Not the police? Didn’t they come out?”

“They
were
the police. Well, sort of. A special branch, they said. They showed me their badges, they looked official enough.”

“Not from Cooinda, then?”

“Oh, no. I know everyone at Cooinda PD. Stan was here all last week. Jeremy popped in too. To collect your things.” She gave
the horse a brisk pat before leading the way to the rear of the house.