Chapter 29
RUSSELL
We walked towards the front of the property, past the cracked-open gates.
I was almost certain we were walking under the gaze of cameras, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.
If Stephen Branch was the kind of weirdo who would grow twenty-foot walls of impenetrable hedge laced with razor-sharp blackberry, he was the kind of weirdo who would put cameras not only at his gates but throughout the surrounding bush.
Dodge was quiet. I didn’t realise I already had my gun out, pulled from the holster at the back of my belt, until Dodge cleared his throat beside me.
‘I think I’m gonna pull my gun, too,’ he said. I glanced over. He was actually watching me for approval. I guessed I was witnessing a cop pull his weapon for the first time in his career.
We rounded the corner of the property and I saw that same hedge running up the mountain for maybe three acres. The big moon lit the adjacent field. It was still, and wet, and silver. I smelt cow shit and saw black shapes as big as cars lying in the shadow of a tree.
‘Let’s just walk along here to the corner,’ I said. ‘See if we can see anything at all before backup gets here. We should have got radios.’
‘Should we go back and radio up?’
We were a quarter of the way along the hedge towards the hilltop. ‘Yes. We should.’
‘Do you reckon we’ll end up going in?’
‘It’s one guy sneaking around his own property wearing army fatigues,’ I said. ‘That’s not a crime. But I trust Fry’s intuition about the vibe.’
‘You do?’ Dodge couldn’t hide the disbelief in his voice.
‘Fry’s saying something’s not right. He’s one of our guys. So until we check him out, we’re not leaving,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping this ends up as a big hoo-ha over nothing.’
‘But what is he doing?’ Dodge’s voice was too high, thin. ‘Is he alone in there? Is he playing like … war games? Why creep up on a cop when you’re fucking armed? Are you trying to get shot? Branch, mate, what the fuck?’
‘Dodge.’ I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘It might be time to accept the fact that you don’t really know this guy at all.’
Dodge walked on, eyes and pistol pointed at the ground, darkly contemplative.
I felt bad for him. He had the rural cop’s good heart, the one that liked to believe that the person you knew from playing darts and laughing and sinking schooners down the pub was the same person in their private life.
Dodge’s was a world in which there were no secrets or lies.
A nice world to fantasise about. But city cops came to understand soon enough that the charming businessman could well be a violent paedophile.
The doe-eyed mother of four could be a life-destroying fraudster.
The guy playing darts and entertaining his mates with impressions was also the guy who would spend his spare time doing …
whatever the hell we had interrupted Stephen Branch doing tonight.
I knew humans were liars by nature. Expected it.
I’d hidden the fact of who I really was from my wife for almost two decades.
A hiss stopped us in our tracks. I saw a shape moving through the hedge and raised my weapon, my pulse thumping in my neck. The black shape was crouched low, around three metres from where I was standing, an indistinguishable blob.
‘Hey!’ The voice was soft and trembling. ‘Hey, is someone there?’
‘Hello?’ Dodge hissed back.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ The voice rose above a whisper, only barely. ‘Hi. I’m here. I’m here! My name is Ashley Wilson. I-I-I’m trapped in here. I’m trying to get out!’
Dodge and I looked at each other.
‘Ashley?’ Dodge ducked his head, trying to see. ‘Is that your name?’
‘Yes!’
‘You’re trapped in there?’
‘Do you have a phone?’ the girl asked. ‘Can you call the cops? Please. I’m not supposed to be here. I can’t get out.’
‘Who are you?’ I demanded, tried to pull Dodge away. He was pressed against the hedge now, already getting himself caught in blackberry vines, trying to tug his sleeve free. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m okay. I just need to get out of here.’ The girl’s voice broke into sobs. ‘Can you please just call the cops, please, before he comes!’
‘Just wait right there.’ Dodge’s words were fast, frantic. He dropped down, tried to see if he could squeeze beneath the hedge. Must have caught a razor-sharp strip of it against his cheek and reeled back. ‘We’ll get you out. There must be a gap somewhere.’
‘No, no, no.’ I tried to grab for my partner, but my fingertips brushed fabric and nothing else. Dodge had already taken off, close to the hedge, looking high and low for a gap. ‘Dodge, wait, will you! Wait! We’re not going in!’
‘Ashley? Ashley?’
‘I’m here!’
‘Follow my voice!’
‘Dodge, for fuck’s sake! Stop!’ I was running now, Dodge’s shape moving fast through the moon shadow. My boot caught on a rock. I felt the sandstone cut straight through my jeans into my shin. I went down, was up again fast, barely maintaining a grip on my weapon. ‘Dodge, wait!’
I looked up and saw Dodge dart through a gap in the hedge.
I was seconds behind him, but wasn’t there to see the fall.
I heard the sickening crunch of a large metallic thing as it snapped shut on something soft.
Dodge let out a howl that was stifled by another massive crunching, crashing sound, louder than the first, an explosion of bracken and leaves and the sound of a body thudding onto hard earth.
My brain said that a mighty tree had fallen.
But I rounded the corner to find Dodge had been swallowed by the ground itself.
I came into the gap in the hedge and, through the mottled moonlight, I saw a great hole in the earth and no sign of my partner.
Or anyone. I wanted to call out, to go to the edge of the deep pit, but my training had taught me to go quiet and still in the face of uncertainty.
I froze there in the gap, then remembered the silvery, moonlit field behind me and stepped sideways and pressed into the hedge, winced against the pain as a thousand shards of blackberry immediately stabbed at the back of my neck and arms. I knew I was bleeding.
The vine gripped every piece of fabric available.
I felt it plucking at the back of my shirt as I breathed.
‘Oh, fuck.’ Dodge huffed a low moan, sounded like he was stifling another howl of pain. ‘Russell? Russell?’
‘I’m here,’ I called, watching the blackness. There was only bushland around the hole Dodge had fallen in. Dense and unmoving. No sign of ‘Ashley’ or anyone else. ‘You hurt?’
‘Fucking bear trap,’ he huffed. ‘It’s clamped on my leg. You okay?’
I didn’t answer. Thought I saw movement to my right. The darkness was swirling in my vision, ink-black and emerald-green, my eyes struggling to assess depth, failing. Another movement. A twig snapping. I raised my gun and pointed it at the blackness.
‘Police!’ I barked. ‘Put your hands—’
A thunderous noise, like a hundred heavy doors slamming.
The bush was set ablaze with white light that exploded into my vision, as painful as a punch, blinding me instantly.
The floodlights were attached to trees that stood all around the hole Dodge was in, a dozen shining suns pointing downward, humming with electricity.
The lights were on for a second, no more, before they snapped off, and any night vision I’d managed to gain was completely destroyed.
Green and red fireworks swirled and billowed before my eyes.
I heard the crack of a rifle, felt the breeze of the gunshot passing my right temple, the sonic whine of a bullet that had just missed me.
Branch. It took strength to take my hands down from my blinded eyes, to form a plan.
My body wanted to freeze. But a thought came to me clearly, panicked and fear-riddled but clear: Do the unexpected.
I bolted forward. I knew the blinding lights, the bear trap that had taken Dodge and the mimicked voice that Branch had used to lure Dodge and me onto his property were all carefully planned aspects of some sick game, and, whether I liked it or not, I was now on the game board.
I figured I was supposed to run back out the gap, into the moonlit field or down the side of the hedge, where there was no cover, and Branch could fire at me at will.
Instead I ran forward, skirting where I remembered the edge of Dodge’s hole was and went onward into the maze.
I hit a tree, bounced off it, kept running, hit another, felt blackberry or razor wire slash at my arms and neck and face.
The lights came on again with a deafening ca-thunk, not exactly around me as they had been the first time, but close enough.
I found the nearest tree and put my back to it, slid down, my breath hammering in my chest.