We edged forward, now side by side. The fencing was just past my fingertips. I levered one foot up on the windowsill, found purchase, and tensed my legs.
“I’m going to jump!” I yelled to Lisa. “Keep it steady.”
Her mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear her reply above the wind and the train. I hoped she’d heard me. I reached an arm out toward the railing, took a deep breath and . . .
. . . the car jerked wildly underneath me, braking and swerving at the same time. I tilted dizzyingly sideways, face down to the blur of red dirt underneath me, before snapping back the other way, crunching a rib into the door frame. And then the back of the Ghan was rapidly approaching. We were going faster than it was, and I whipped my head inside just in time for the whoosh of the carriage to rattle past the window, shearing off the side mirror in an explosion of glass.
“Sorry. Telegraph pole,” Lisa said.
I looked out the back window to see a large column, shrinking behind us, by the tracks: she’d had to swerve around it. “Bit of a heads-up next time?”
“I did say not to jump.”
I looked at the train beside us. Lisa eased off the gas and drew back to the smoking deck again, this time a little behind it. I snuck a look at the speedometer. Fifty now. The train had slowed down slightly. “We might need a new plan. These heroics are a bit beyond me.”
Lisa thought for a second and then wrenched the wheel hard toward the tracks. We bounced over the rails, a shower of sparks flew out behind us, and then just as quickly she pulled the steering back, settling us exactly in the middle. The tracks ran between the wheels; we were now directly tailing the train.
I nodded, impressed. “That’s a better plan. Keep an eye on the speed. It seems to be slowing down slightly.”
“Thirty-eight,” she said.
I levered my way out of the window again, except this time instead of trying to jump sideways, I grappled my way around to the front until I was crouched on the bonnet. It’s not exactly the high-speed stuff of action films, given that we would have been able to perform this stunt in a school zone. My legs were jellied all the same. If I fell, the fall might not kill me. But if I went underneath the Land Cruiser, or if I got jammed between the car and the train, or if I went under the train itself, I figured I’d be a goner no matter the speed.
Lisa nudged forward. I heard a satisfying crunch of metal on metal; this was as close as we were going to get. It wouldn’t be as simple as walking across: it was hard for Lisa to match the speed, so the gap varied from nonexistent to terrifying as the Land Cruiser wavered forward and back. I adjusted myself to a runner’s starting position, keeping one hand in touch with the windscreen.
That was when my phone rang.
More specifically, I felt it buzzing in my pocket. We must have hit a sliver of reception. I dug the phone out and answered without looking. “Juliette?” I yelled.
“No, mate. Andy. You busy?”
I considered the crumpled front of the Land Cruiser, nose to tail with a speeding train, the wind whipping past as I hunched on the bonnet. The Ghan sheltered me from much of the wind’s noise, so I could just hear Andy over the chaos. “It’s not a great time,” I said. “If I’m honest.”
“I’ll be quick. It’s about Margaret.”
A car horn beeped, and I saw Lisa’s exasperated and incredulous expression, two hands thrown up in the universal gesture for What the hell?
“Who’s Margaret?”
“The robbery I’m working.”
“I thought you said her name was Poppy.”
“No. I said she sold poppies.”
“You didn’t. I told you that specifics are important here, Andy.”
Lisa beeped again, long and slow. I held up a finger. Her mouth formed a word that’s not fit for print. Turns out Andy’s actually quite important. I told you that’s a thing in these kinds of books: two disparate cases coming together.
“Jesus, Andy. You and I are working the same case.”
“Huh? You’ve got a case?”
“Couple of murders.”
Andy tsked in annoyance. “You’ve always got to have one better, don’t you?”
I ignored that. “Your robbery. You think it’s a junkie, right?”
“Yeah! That’s what I wanted to tell you. Break-ins are like a thing in the flower industry. Because some of the plants, you know, they have opium in them. Which is basically heroin. You can boil it out.”
“Poppies,” I said.
“No, her name’s not Poppy. I told you, it’s Margaret.”
“Poppies have opium in them, Andy.”
“Yes, that’s what I was saying. It’s this place’s specialty—” He dropped out, then came back on. “Weird, huh? What’s this got to do with your murders?”
“I think your thief is my killer.”
“Bit of a leap?”
I looked at the smoking deck, where I’d have to jump. “Tell me about it.”
“No way.” Andy’s enthusiasm accelerated from slow dawn to shouting. “Did I solve it for you? Did I?”
He hadn’t. I already had most of it worked out after my chat with Lisa, but I was in a generous mood. Maybe it was the adrenaline. And he had given me a great clue last night. So I said, “Yeah, Andy. You solved it.”
“Yes! That’s going on the websi—” He cut out.
Lisa beeped again, this time two sharp bursts—bip-bip—and I turned my attention back to the train in front. The noise of the wind was even less now. Lisa honked again, I assumed to hurry me up. The gap between the bonnet and the railing wobbled but stayed small. This was my chance.
I stood up, strode across the hood and jumped.
I overcooked it.
I had expected my jump to take a half second longer given the speed, but I crashed into the railing immediately. Stunned, I slid a little before I found purchase on the fencing, clutching it tightly while I caught my breath. The wind buffeted me less here; it was quieter. I actually laughed. A spasmodic response to surviving. Who’d have thought, when I started this journey, that I’d be hanging off the back of a speeding train? Now all I had to do was pull myself over the railing.
I didn’t dare look down, as I didn’t think I could stomach seeing the ground blur past, but I shot a look back at the Land Cruiser, expecting it to have peeled off in a cloud of dust, Lisa and the manuscript for Life, Death and Whiskey free.
The Land Cruiser was still behind the train. But that wasn’t the most surprising part. The most surprising thing was that Lisa was no longer in the driver’s seat. Neither was she clambering over the bonnet. She was standing beside the car, in the dirt.
Wait. Standing?
I looked down. The ground was there all right, but it wasn’t moving.
So much for clinging to a high-speed train. No wonder my jump had slammed me into the railing, that the wind had lessened. Lisa’s beeps had been telling me not to jump, that the train was coming to a stop. I must have made the jump when we were at walking pace. Now here I was, clinging on for dear life, and the Ghan was completely stationary.
Sheepishly, I clambered over onto the smoking deck. Lisa grabbed a satchel from the backseat and followed.
The back door opened, and Aaron stepped out. “What the hell are you two doing out here?” he asked.
To both my surprise and his, I hugged him. “Thank you. Thank you. You stopped for us.”