Chapter 28
EVAN
Russell emerged from the bush and walked back towards us, Fry trailing behind him.
Fry’s head was down and shoulders were up like he’d just been smacked and told to get a hold of himself, which I wouldn’t have put it past Russell to do.
Dodge and Lee and I were standing between the Hilux and the cruiser, lit by a big, white full moon.
‘Where’re Kalowski and Knowles right now?’ Russell asked Dodge.
‘They’ll be here in a sec,’ Dodge said. ‘I told them to go lights and sirens off. What’s going on in there?’
Russell explained what Fry had told him. We all stood on the road in silence for a second or two, coming to terms with it.
‘He was just standing there in the dark?’ I asked.
‘Maybe two metres away,’ Fry nodded.
‘But he didn’t point the gun at you.’
‘No. But it wasn’t … he wasn’t carrying it down by his side. It was up in his hands. Ready to use.’
‘He didn’t say anything threatening?’ Lee asked.
‘His face was not right,’ Fry insisted. ‘The smile. The eyes.’
‘That’s not …’ Dodge began to say.
‘He had cammo on,’ Fry added.
‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Russell said.
‘It’s only just coming back to me,’ Fry was trembling hard. ‘Face paint. Like he was doing a … an army operation. I’m telling you that he didn’t … he didn’t come down the road a-a-and say “Hi” like a normal person would. He was off the road. He’d snuck up, and when I spotted him he smiled, and …’
Fry’s voice trailed off. Russell shot me a conspiratorial look of concern.
For a half a second, we were on the same team.
Two brothers, trying to discern if our shaken colleague was adding new details into his strange story about a man sneaking around on his own property to justify the terror that had incapacitated him, or if this was a real account we should accept with grave seriousness.
I waited for Russell to fire-breathe Fry to ash for being overly dramatic, but he didn’t.
‘It’s him,’ Fry said.
‘That’s a big call,’ Dodge said gently.
‘I want to get this guy in hand,’ Russell said. ‘I don’t like him. Not the stuff the people are saying about him down the pub, or this weird-arse shit tonight; sneaking up on the local coppers. I want to snatch Branch up and have a proper look at him. What do we know about the property?’
‘That’s just the thing …’ Dodge worked the back of his neck, embarrassed, eyes restless. ‘I’ve never been in. And from what Lee’s just been telling me—’
‘No one’s been onto the property,’ Lee cut in. ‘The talk at the pub tonight was that, you know, that’s just something about Branchy. He doesn’t let people onto his land.’
‘Oh, and I wonder why that is?’ Russell said. ‘Because he likes to run around dressed like he’s at war? Is this guy your garden-variety weirdo, or does he have sovereign citizenship delusions, or what?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘So he could have anything going on in there,’ Russell said. ‘Anything from sex slaves that he’s farming to make skin suits, to a cache of weapons he’s stocking up for the apocalypse.’
‘Nobody knows,’ Lee said.
‘And it’s not their fault that they don’t know,’ I said. Russell turned his dark eyes on me. The moment we’d been on the same team was a distant memory now.
‘You’—he pointed at me—‘go back to the pub. Round up the officers that are embedded in the crowd.’
‘They’ll have been drinking,’ I said. ‘They’re no good to us. The nearest backup we have is in Gosford. That’ll be a half hour at least. And you’re not sending me off to do busywork, Detective Inspector Powder. I’m the second-most senior officer here.’
‘So I’ve got you lot to work with for a half an hour.
’ Russell huffed a sigh, the disappointed army captain lumped with the last platoon to go over the trench wall.
He turned his fiery eyes on Dodge. ‘You know, I just don’t get this.
You’ve got a senseless stabbing murder in town, and this guy out here, Branchy—he doesn’t spring immediately to mind?
Everybody’s falling over each other to say what a great guy he is, yet he’s been living out here in this Fortress of Solitude’—he jerked his thumb towards the property behind him—‘and nobody’s blinked at that?
Have you seen the hedges? They’re twenty foot high! ’
‘That’s not so uncommon.’ Dodge shook his head. ‘Living like that. These guys, they come out here because they like their own space. Branchy has obviously been … he’s been a certain type of person down at the pub. Friendly and what-not. But out here, he’s …’
‘He’s his real self.’ Fry’s mouth was a thin line. ‘And he’s just never showed anybody that, I guess. And nobody’s gone looking.’
‘We’ve got all types out here,’ Dodge went on. ‘Religious types. Doomsday preppers. Sometimes guys just don’t let people in because they’re embarrassed about how hoarded the place is.’
‘Lots of hoarders,’ Lee confirmed. ‘To know a guy for twenty years and never go onto his land is pretty standard.’
‘The hedge,’ Russell said. ‘Does it go all the way around like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Dodge said.
Russell pointed at me.
‘You,’ he said. ‘Take Lee. Check the boundary that way. I want to know if there are routes in. We’re not going in, though, Evan.
Understand? We’re not going in. We’re scoping out the situation and we’re meeting back here to form a plan.
Dodge, come with me. We’ll take the other side.
Fry, stay with the cars and call Gosford for backup. ’