The most likely place was a side road. He stopped and got out at the first two. There were tracks, but not the tracks he remembered seeing left by the van on the short cut a week ago.
He found the answer at the third side road. A detour sign had been tossed into the grass. The dirt was powdery, registering clearly the tyre tracks of a heavy vehicle. Wyatt remembered from the maps that this track came out four kilometres south of Belcowie.
He went in. He didn’t find the van, but he found where it had stopped. Found the fat driver sprawled in the ditch, the back of his head shot away.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Trigg hadn’t been one hundred per cent sure that Tub Venables would do it. He knew Venables wouldn’t take his regular route, not after he’d learnt that a hold up team was waiting for him, but what if the fat driver chickened out and went the long way around to Belcowie?
He’d been wondering what he’d do if that happened when Happy’s voice crackled on the two-way radio. ‘Boss? He just turned in.’
Trigg sat up, peering down the long bonnet of an XJ6 he’d been trying to sell for the past six months. Probably it wasn’t a good idea bringing an XJ6 onto a road like this, but he hated the thought of driving some tin can. ‘Okay. Put the sign up and follow him in.’
Trigg reached into the back seat, slipped a.303 rifle from its zippered bag, and got out to wait. He heard the Steelgard van, then saw it, pitching on the rough track like a ship in mountainous seas.
Venables stopped the van a few metres short of the big car and stepped out. He looked at the rifle, then at Trigg, his eyes bulging a little, the lines on his face loose and deep. For the moment, they were alone. There were only the empty paddocks and distant razorback hills.
Trigg nodded his head at the rear compartment of the security van. ‘Is he out?’
Venables’s face knitted in worry. ‘He’s on the floor. You sure he’s okay?’
‘He’ll have a headache when he wakes up. Apart from that, he’ll be fine.’
They heard footsteps thudding in the grass at the edge of the track. Happy appeared, his gloomy face showing the strain. ‘Okay?’ Trigg asked.
‘Yep.’
‘Good,’ Trigg said. Then, to Venables: ‘It’s time you called in again.’
Venables’s prominent eyes were watery and troubled. He reached into the cab of the Steelgard van for the radio handset. His voice rasping a little, he reported to the base in Goyder: ‘Steelgard One; nothing to report; ETA Belcowie fifteen minutes.’
‘Good,’ Trigg said again, and he tucked the front sight of the.303 under Tub Venables’s chin and pulled the trigger. There was a spurt of blood and bone chips and Venables seemed to spring up and back and smack to the ground. For several seconds afterwards, tremors passed through his arms and legs.
‘Dump him in the ditch,’ Trigg said. ‘We don’t want him found yet.’
He wasn’t worried about a ballistics test. The slug would have gone right through Venables’s head. He wasn’t particularly worried about the rifle. A drifter had given it to him five years ago in part payment for a clapped out VW. There was no paperwork linking him to it, and he didn’t intend to hang onto it.
He watched Happy haul the body off the road. Then he got into the XJ6 and Happy into the Steelgard van and they drove along the track for three minutes. Tobin was waiting for them next to an earthen bank thick with tall Scotch thistles and reeds that screened them from traffic passing along the Belcowie road a short distance away. Tobin had just arrived. He was dropping the ramp at the back of the breakdown truck. No one spoke until Happy, guided by Tobin’s hand signals, had the van aboard the truck.
‘Where’s the drivers?’ Tobin asked.
Trigg stared moodily into the distance. ‘He couldn’t make it. Help Hap get the tarp over the van.’
While they were doing that, Trigg went back to move the first sign. The signs would attract attention when the panic started, and he didn’t want Venables found just yet. He hid the sign in the grass and drove back to the truck. The van was completely concealed now, the tarpaulin covering it on all sides. The paint job, the logo on the side-Wyatt’s team had done a good job.
They pulled out. Trigg went first, to drag the second sign into the grass, and Tobin and Happy followed in the truck. At the intersection they turned left, away from Belcowie. There was no traffic.
Trigg led all the way, keeping in radio contact with the others. He didn’t think there would be a roadblock this soon, not until the cops had searched and scratched their heads for a while, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If there was a block, he’d have time to warn the others. He imagined the confusion when the police did find something. When they found Tub Venables but no van, they might be inclined to blame the guard. If they found the hideout, found Wyatt and the woman and the other man, they’d think they had it solved.
There were no roadblocks. In fact, the bogus Brava truck and its cargo were locked in the long panel-beating shed at the rear of Trigg Motors in Goyder two minutes before the first Goyder patrol car had even left the city.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The blood had begun to coagulate and flies were gathering but the body was still warm. The fat driver looked less fat now that he’d been shot and dumped in a roadside ditch. Wyatt wondered why Venables had taken this route, why he had stopped, why he had left the van.
He examined the tracks. Apart from Venables’s heel scrapes in the powdery dirt, there were two sets of tyre tracks- the Steelgard van and a narrower set belonging to a car. Both had stopped here, something had happened, and both had gone on again.
Maybe they wouldn’t be far ahead. Wyatt started the utility again and put his foot down, the elderly suspension complaining, the sump smacking against the hard-baked ruts in the road.
He got to the end and stopped. The main road to Belcowie was empty. There was only a shot-up road sign warning of the T-intersection and indicating that Belcowie was four kilometres to the north, Goyder seventy to the south. He got out to see if he could read the tracks. There weren’t any. Gravel had been spread around the junction, too coarse to register tyre tracks. But something had been dragged across it recently. Wyatt followed the scrape mark into the thick grass leading to a strainer post in the fence on the left-hand corner paddock. Someone had dumped a road-closed sign there. It was cruder than the ones Leah and Snyder had made.
He returned to the utility. The intersection was on a slight rise. He could see Belcowie clearly, the wheat silos glowing white, sunlight flashing on windscreens and rooftops.
He turned his head the other way. South, he thought. That’s where they’ll be.
He was about to head after them when something about the scope and intensity of the flashing windscreens made him pause and get out the field-glasses. At one point between the intersection and Belcowie the road curved broadly to skirt a large limestone reef. Within a few seconds he saw what the fuss was about. Four of the Brava Landcruisers were pushing fast out of the town. He guessed there would be more like it setting out from the other end of the town. Jorge was sending out search parties. His men were volatile and wanted their wages.
Wyatt spun the utility around, cursing himself. He should have thought of that, should have realised Steelgard wouldn’t be alone in wondering where the money had got to.
He threw the Holden into the bends and over the bone-jarring ruts and holes of the track. He had to get out and onto a main road before they squeezed him from both ends. If they saw him they’d know the utility wasn’t one of theirs. If they found Venables’s body, they’d assume he’d done it. They’d call each other on their CB radios and box him in. They’d call the cops. If they caught him they wouldn’t find any money but they’d find Snyder under the sleeping bags and plenty of evidence of a planned job. They’d find enough to put him away for life.