Tim sat down on the edge of the single camp bed, made with nothing but a sleeping bag and mozzie net over the top. From under the grimy pillow he pulled a small notebook.
He looked at the cover, running his hand over it, trying to decide if he wanted to open it or not. Didn’t need to because he knew every word written in Mari’s hand.Really, he asked himself, do you want to feel the raw grief all over again?
Apparently he did, because without consciously opening the notebook he found himself looking at the beautiful cursive writing and reading her lyrical words.
Tonight the sun has kissed the leaves of the eucalypts as it has slowly sunk below the horizon. The fire is burning and I can hear the joyful laughter of the children as they duck and weave beneath the branches and bushes.
I asked the bush today about its secrets. But the land, it holds its mysteries close and you can be sure it will never tell. For a footprint which is once embedded in the soil disappears with a gust of wind and at once it was never there. You were never there.
The finches may flit from tree to tree and see every small thing that occurs, but they will never tell, neither will the broombushes even though they try. They rustle with the wind and try to talk, but are never understood.
This is why the land is the only one to confide in, for it will never tell.
Tim was never sure about this passage. What secrets did she think the bush knew? Was it her own or another’s? Or perhaps she just understood so much good and bad happened out here and the only witness was nature.
He put the book down, refusing to let the melancholy get any worse.
In the kitchen he lit the fire in the bricked-up fireplace and waited until the pan was hot enough. He cracked two eggs and opened a can of beans. When they were nearly cooked, he took his fork and stuck it through a piece of bread, holding it up to the coals so it toasted.
Chief pretended he was asleep in the doorway, but Tim knew he was waiting for a titbit or for him to spill something.
He piled his dinner onto a tin plate, got himself another beer, then went outside and sat in his chair, this time to eat and watch the moon rise.
Chapter 18
Dave gathered the piece of paper he’d found in the motel room and the forms Glen had filled out at the Avis counter and sent them to forensics for fingerprinting.
He had woken in the middle of last night convinced the man down the mine was Glen Bartlett. He wasn’t sure why, but he was absolutely convinced. One of the older detectives he’d worked with had always told him to trust his instincts. He’d always tried, but sometimes, without the evidence to back him up, it was hard. Especially when he had to put a case together with the prospect of going to court and a lawyer tearing his work to pieces.
If John Doe and Glen Bartlett were one and the same, it was Dave’s job to link them with hard evidence, not his gut feeling.
Fingerprints seemed the obvious way, although Shannon had only managed to lift partials from the body. Claire had helped him print off two full facial images from the security video and he had faxed them through to Shannon to see if she could help with cranial or body recognition, but she had a backlog of post mortems to do and couldn’t look at the case for at least two days.
That was the trouble with policing: relying on other departments to get the necessary information. Everyone always thought their case was more important than anyone else’s and tried all sorts of tricks to get the information more quickly.
So much of investigative work was gathering evidence. Right now, all he had was a body, some small gold nuggets in a pocket and a missing hire car. From the outside, there was no reason for them to be linked. But in Dave’s mind they had to be connected.
‘Spencer,’ Dave said, turning to his partner, ‘just say the body we have down the mine is in fact Glen Bartlett. We need to match the two somehow. What would be your plan of attack?’
Spencer put down his pen and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I was thinking about this last night. That number you found on the piece of paper in the motel room, I’m sure there’s something important about it. Maybe a numberplate from the eastern states or a bank account number…’
Dave got up and paced the length of the room before stopping in front of the map. He placed a finger on the pin where the body had been found. His eyes flicked from side to side, looking for places where a car could have been hidden. There was plenty of bush around but a cave or large hole marked on the map would be worth investigating.
Then he saw it.
Going back to his desk, he grabbed his jotter where he’d written down the number: 7008-0514. His heart began to pound. ‘Yes,’ he whispered, hurrying back to the map. ‘Here. These numbers are the same as this lease. Are they an ID number like farms have location numbers? Is that it? Did he come to look at buying a lease?’
Spencer got up and came over. ‘That’s next to Tim’s place,’ he said. ‘Fractured Hill, it’s called. The old man who used to own it is dead. Need to get on to the Department of Mines to confirm who the owner is. I’ll ring. I’ve got a contact there.’
Spencer picked up the phone while Dave bounced on his toes, the thrill of the chase running through him.
He
