‘How was this planned?’ Harold asked. ‘Did they know you were coming here yesterday?’
‘They couldn’t have known beforehand. Once I left the city, they had the means to track exactly where I was going.’ Harrigan grinned. ‘He wasn’t following me, he was in front of me. I wasn’t looking for him there. But that means they organised this demolition separately to me coming here. They must have put this in motion as soon as they heard those people at Pittwater were dead.’
‘How am I going to get all this fixed? I don’t have that kind of money.’
‘Can you borrow it?’ Harrigan asked.
‘I don’t dare do that, mate. Stewie’s been trying to get me to raise a mortgage on Yaralla ever since Dad died. We both have to agree to it. I won’t do it. Because I know as soon as I do, he’ll take the money and run and I’ll never see a cent of it again. I haven’t been able to do any improvements for years because I can’t trust him enough. I could lose everything. I used to think having the property was better than nothing. That was before the drought.’
They drove back to the farmhouse in silence. About halfway, Harold asked Harrigan to stop.
‘What is it?’
‘Just about here, I’d stop and let Rosie off the ute. She’d race me back to the house. She was quick.’
‘Did you get her buried?’
‘I had to burn her. I’ve got a pit where I put my carcasses. I did it there.’
‘I’m sorry about what’s happened, Harry.’
Harold shrugged. ‘It’s not your fault. Do you want to get going now?’
Harrigan glanced at his passenger but there was no sign of emotion in Harold’s face. He drove on.
At the farmhouse, more people were waiting for Harrigan. Members of the task force and the forensic team who had just arrived on the early plane from Sydney; the local police who wanted to know what they were expected to do next.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Harold said. ‘I’ve got to organise for someone to come up here and feed my stock.’
He walked back inside the house. Surrounded by demanding people, Harrigan watched him disappear almost with envy.
Harrigan most wanted to see what his people had found in Naradhan Creek. As soon as he’d given his orders, he asked to be driven down to the Creek Lane. Several kilometres along the dirt road, he stopped to look over the remains of Ambrosine’s cottage. Surreal in the sunlight, a bathtub with a shower attached and the kitchen stove stood upright in the ash and ruins. Next to them, an old shed was also a pile of ash and burned boards. They drove about half a kilometre further on. After climbing down a steep incline into the creek bed, he was shown a shallow and narrow grave dug into sand.
Harrigan looked into the open trench and then at the cracked and eroded banks around him, which exposed a tangle of tree roots to the air. In the creek bed itself were young trees and scrub, stressed in the drought. In the early afternoon heat, he heard the sound of insects, the occasional bird call. Otherwise, it was deeply quiet. He imagined a human scream falling into a silence much deeper and more intensely still than this one. If the gunman had got the better of him last night, this could have been his grave and his scream falling into silence. This time, that wasn’t his fate.
Harrigan went back to the farmhouse. He wanted to talk to Ambro about what to do with her and her children. When he arrived, the kids were playing through the house while she was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Fucking cooking tea. What does it look like?’
‘I didn’t know you did that sort of thing.’
‘Everyone’s got to eat, mate. Talking of which, help yourself to what’s on the table. That was brought in for your mob.’
She was referring to a spread of food set out on the kitchen table. Famished, Harrigan sat down and took a sandwich.
‘We’ve got to talk about your safety,’ he said.
‘What? You’re going to put me and my kids back on the witness program. Forget it.’
‘You can’t stay here.’
‘Why not? You think that guy is coming back again? What the fuck for? He must have worked out by now that everything I know, you know. Didn’t you send my drawing out? He’s got to know he can’t hide any more. No, we’re staying here. Harry’s said we can, and I’m going to give him something out of my pension for our keep. We’ve got nothing now, so if we do go somewhere else, what’s going to be there for us? Like he said, there’s plenty of room. Laurie and Jen can have their own rooms. They’ve never had that before. The kids like Harry. He said he’s going to teach Laurie to ride.’
‘Do you want to stay here?’ Harrigan asked.
‘Oh, you know. I get fucking lonely out here sometimes, even with Harry. But the kids like it. They like the school. They fit there a bit better. They’ve made friends, you know. I don’t want to shift them again. Maybe now we can stay in one place for a while. There’s something else as well. Harry’s not showing it but he’s on the edge. He fucking needs someone to talk to, mate. We’re going to stay and keep him company. Because I don’t know what he might do if he’s left alone. I don’t want to hear he’s blown his head off.’
‘And what about if someone comes looking for you here? It’s going to get out now that this is where you are. It has to, with all these people crawling over the place. What if Little Joe turns up here with a shotgun? Is he going to take Harry out as well as you?’
Ambrosine was frowning, staring at the pile of potato peelings. ‘I’m going to find out if that’s going to happen,’ she said. ‘You never know. Things might have changed because of what’s gone on this last week.’
‘How are you going to do that?’
‘I’ve got my own contacts. I know who I can ring safely. If we have to go, we’ll go. I’m not putting Harry in danger. But until I know that, we’re staying.’
‘Okay, you make your contact. You find out what’s going on and you tell me what happens. All right?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ She shrugged him off. ‘Are you going to stay for tea? Harry’s got this leg of lamb.’
‘No, I’ve got to get back to the city. Where is he?’
‘Out the front.’
He found Harold sitting on the edge of the veranda, drinking tea and smoking.
‘Come and sit down,’ he said. ‘Want a cuppa?’
‘Thanks,’ Harrigan replied, although he rarely drank tea. He accepted a cup of the powerfully tannic liquid. Tattoos of Naradhan Creek were curled around Harold’s muscular arms, much the same way as the dry creek twisted its way through the landscape.
‘You’re the tattooed man, mate,’ Harrigan said.
Harold glanced at his forearm. ‘She’s a good tattooist. She and the kids are staying on here. They’ll be company.’
Harrigan looked out at the blasted landscape. The only line of green was Naradhan Creek.
‘Sorry we’re marching all over your property like this, mate,’ he said.
Harry shrugged. ‘That started with old Stewie. It hasn’t stopped.’
‘Harry, there’s something you’ve got a right to know. The same man who tried to kill us last night killed another man in Ambro’s cottage back in September. He buried him down in the creek but the body’s not there any more. It was dug up and transported back to Sydney about a week ago. It was one of the bodies found at Pittwater. You’ll know the name. He was an ex-policeman called the Ice Cream Man. I’ve got a forensic team down there now checking out the gravesite.’
Harold looked at the line of trees and scrub bordering the creek.
‘I had my first fuck down there,’ he said. ‘I was fifteen. She came out here one year with her father, he was working on the property as a fencer. He was a bastard to her. He used to say he was stuck with her because no one else wanted her. She asked me to meet her down there one night, then she turned up with a blanket. After that, I saw her every night until they went away. I guess she wanted a bit of comfort. I liked her, she was nice. I still think about her sometimes. Hope she’s okay.’