Blood Junction (17 page)

Elizabeth jerked away, picked up the empty bread basket. “Where’s Billy?” she said again, anxiously. “First time he’s missed
his garlic bread.” She strode outside. “What’s wrong with him? Must be something … Never known him to miss a treat.”

After the dimness inside, the shimmering brightness made India squint. She followed Elizabeth, who was striding urgently between
the tin sheds, calling, “Billy! Come on, Billy, there’s a good boy.” She checked that the gate was latched. They skirted the
perimeter of the fence, its posts irregularly spaced, cracked and twisted from years of torturing heat.

India found a deeply scuffed area on one patch of dirt near the fence, spotted with dots of blood. She followed the bloody
track to the back of the feed shed where she saw something dangling from a scrawny tree.

It looked like someone hanging.

Slowly, she approached.

A kangaroo, noose around its neck, looked at her helplessly through liquid brown eyes. Blood, still red and moist, seeped
from its nostrils.

Behind her she heard Elizabeth’s horrified exclamation.

“Billy!”

I
T WAS INDIA WHO FETCHED A LADDER AND RELEASED THE
dead animal. She didn’t bother trying to unknot the rope but simply hacked through it with a saw she’d found in the garage.
She had to twist the animal’s head around until it was jammed beneath her left armpit to expose enough rope to saw successfully.
Tiny black flies swarmed through the kangaroo’s coat, and each time the corpse moved they buzzed briefly into the air before
settling once more. India had to keep blowing sharply upwards through her mouth to dislodge those on her lips and nostrils,
but they returned seconds later.

Finally the rope gave way and the kangaroo crumpled with a soft thump to the ground. The two women dragged it outside the
corral, Elizabeth hauling on the tail and India a hind leg. Their progress was slow because the body was surprisingly heavy.
India felt sticky with sweat and disgusted at the flies swarming all over her and the blood on her shirt. Elizabeth was in
tears. “How could they?” she kept saying. “Oh my God, how could they do such a thing?”

They laid the dead kangaroo to rest beside one of the outbuildings. Elizabeth knelt down and took Billy’s head in her lap,
stroking his ears and nose, shaking her head back and forth. “Poor little mite.” She started to sob in earnest.

India stared down at her, too appalled to say anything.

After a while she fetched the saw and rope, and laid them in front of the garage. She returned to Elizabeth and suggested
they go inside.

Elizabeth stood but her legs were so unsteady that India had to help her. She searched the kitchen for brandy and eventually
found a bottle in the medicine cupboard. She slopped the liquid into two glasses.

“Drink this.”

They both drank.

“I can’t believe it,” said Elizabeth. Her voice had regained some strength. “How could they!”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

Elizabeth wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I can’t say.”

“Killing Billy was a warning.”

Elizabeth got up and poured herself some more brandy. “I wouldn’t know.”

India took a deep breath. “I think you know who killed my friend. I think it was your husband that Tiger and Lauren went to
meet at Nindathana. He had some information on Karamyde Cosmetics he wanted to share.”

“I’d like you to leave.”

“No. Not until you tell me what happened.”

Elizabeth was moving all the time, unable to keep still. She stood beside the tiled fireplace and toyed with a photograph
frame on the mantelpiece.

“I stayed in the Suzuki,” she finally said. “I didn’t see anything. Not really. Just your friend. And Tiger. Waiting at the
Nindathana turnoff. Peter told me to stay where I was. They all went together, in Tiger’s car. It wasn’t much later when I
thought I heard a shot. I didn’t think much of it, I assumed it was Ken’s mob. They’re always after the ’roos. We’ve had three
wounded ones come in here, all messed up because of those blokes.”

India remained still, silent.

“Peter was only gone fifteen minutes or so, but he was running when he returned. Really scared. Shaking. He shouted at me.
Wanted me to get out of there as fast as I could. He didn’t tell me what had happened. It was only when I read the papers
that I realized he’d been in terrible danger.”

“Did he tell you why he was seeing Tiger and Lauren?”

“No. At the time I was upset he wouldn’t talk about it, but now I see he wanted to protect me.”

“Do you believe he was bitten by a snake?”

Elizabeth’s skin turned ashen. She shook her head.

“Me neither.”

The two women stared at each other in silence.

Elizabeth turned and crossed the room to a chest of drawers, pulled out the bottom drawer. She took out a folder and opened
it. India saw newspaper clippings and letters and Christmas cards. Elizabeth pulled out a photograph. She stared at it for
a long time, then held it out to India.

“Take it.” She didn’t say anything else, so India took the photograph. It was black and white, of four men standing around
an enormous dead shark. Three of them looked to be in their late teens. One of the boys was a full head shorter than the others
and his legs were spread aggressively wide, as if to compensate. An older man, about fifty or so, was holding a rod out towards
the camera. They had the look of a father and sons.

“Who are they?”

Elizabeth shook her head several times. “Peter took … Peter took a similar photograph with him. He also had a disc. A computer
disc. It was in his pocket. He kept patting it as we drove. I don’t know what’s happened to it.”

“Did he make a copy?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Did he return with it?”

Elizabeth shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps he left it with someone? Hid it somewhere?”

Silently, Elizabeth started to cry again. What was left of her eyeliner seeped green-blue with her tears down her cheeks.
“I want you to go,” she choked. “Please.”

India let her walk her to the front door. She stepped outside. The BMW was still there. “Do you know who owns the Beemer?”

Elizabeth glanced at it. “No. Never seen it before.”

“Will you be okay?” India was reluctant to leave Elizabeth in such a state. “I’m happy to stay—”

“I’d rather you went.”

India said goodbye. She looked down at the photograph and then back at Elizabeth. “Thank you,” she said. But in Elizabeth’s
eyes she saw an expression that chilled her. It was fear. Pure fear.

India walked down the driveway. A woman was coming towards her, with what looked like a small milk churn in her right hand.
She gave a friendly wave, India waved back.

The woman looked at India as she passed. Her eyes widened. She gave a muffled gasp.

India tried a reassuring smile. The woman backed away.

India glanced down at her bloodstained shirt and jeans, then back at the woman. “It’s okay. It’s from one of the kangaroos.
He got hurt …” But the woman was blundering back down the driveway and India wasn’t certain if she’d heard. Pushing back her
hair, she wiped her face free from sweat and climbed into the VW.

She drove to Whitelaw’s, where she showered and changed. She put her clothes in the washing machine with half a bottle of
washing liquid and programmed it for cold super wash to loosen the bloodstains. After a coffee and a cigarette, she called
inquiries and then rang Arthur Knight, Geelong. A monotone announced the number was no longer in operation.

India replaced the phone and stood there, thinking. The number had to have been operational when Arthur stumped up her bail.
From what Whitelaw said, the police would have checked pretty closely to ensure the money was clean. She resolved to write
a letter to Arthur that evening. She grabbed her keys and got into the VW, drove into town and checked in at the police station.
Then she climbed back into the VW and took the right branch off Main Street onto the country road signed to Jangala. She passed
Elizabeth Ross’s kangaroo sanctuary and, about three kilometers on, shot past a discreet sign carved out of wood:
KARAMYDE COSMETIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE
. She had to reverse in order to pick up the gravel road east.

Three minutes later the air was thick with a sickly smell, slightly perfumed, like baby powder. Gravel and dust plumed like
a cockscomb behind the VW. Five minutes on she came to the Institute. The first thought that crossed her mind was that the
windows were shaped like coffins. The blushing pink paintwork did nothing to detract from the air of morbidity. It reminded
her of a piece she had done on the ancient Chinese art of feng shui, and how buildings designed a certain way could enhance
or diminish a home or business. She might not be in China, she thought, but this building gave her the creeps.

She eased the VW towards the electronic gate and glanced at the low ridge behind the building, sparsely dotted with trees.
She wondered whether Mikey was hiding beneath one today, but her thoughts were interrupted when the security guard came out.
India gave him a warm smile. “Hi,” she said, and turned off the ignition.

“Why, hello,” said the guard, raising his sunglasses to get a better look at her.

“I’m from a national English newspaper,” said India, and showed him one of her old business cards from
The Courier
. “I was just doing a recon to see if what I was told about the place was true.”

He took the card and studied it carefully. Usually people barely glanced at it. Good security.

Then he checked her against the photograph on the card. India prayed he wouldn’t recognize her.

“And what did they tell you?”

“That it looks like a big lump of candy, being so pink.”

“Well,” he said, glancing over his shoulder, “I guess you could be right.”

“Smells like it too. Is it always like this?”

“I guess. I don’t notice anymore.”

“Look, can you tell me if you have a PR manager here? I’m doing a series of articles on the cosmetics industry and would love
to talk to someone here about it.”

“I’ll ask.” He took her card with him into his booth and returned a few minutes later. “Yeah, she’s interested all right.
Her name’s Glynnis Coggins, and she’s asked you to ring her.” He passed her a card with the company’s details. “That okay?”

“Great. I’ll call her this afternoon and make an appointment.”

India watched Mikey sink down beside her on the verandah steps and stretch out his legs. He held a bottle of bourbon in one
hand and a half-full chunky glass in the other. She checked his expression for any signs of overt hostility. Seeing no more
than usual, she lit a cigarette and let her hands hang between her knees.

He put the bottle between his feet. “Why show yourself to the dragon?”

She didn’t answer.

“Don’t you think it was a rather stupid thing to do?”

“I wanted to gauge the enemy.” India told him about Elizabeth Ross and the dead kangaroo, Peter Ross’s computer disc and the
BMW. “I didn’t dare go look at it any closer in case someone was inside.”

“I’ll ask Jed to get a run on the plate,” he said.

His eyes met hers. For the first time she saw they were a bright, iridescent green. They were such an unusual color she wondered
why she hadn’t noticed them before. She put it down to their being bloodshot most of the time.

She looked away. “I’m seeing their PR woman in a couple of days; maybe a direct approach might reveal something. In the meantime
I’m going to see if I can’t track down Bertie Mullett.”

“You’ll be lucky. Bertie’s like a will-o’-the-wisp. You’ll only be able to track him down if he wishes you to.”

India reached into her rear pocket, pulled out Elizabeth’s photograph and passed it to him.

Mikey frowned. “Know these guys?”

“No. Do you?”

“No,” he said, far too quickly.

She was tempted to let it pass, perhaps turn it to her advantage later, but the photograph was obviously important. She ground
out her cigarette under her boot.