Dark Country (16 page)

That memory had stayed with Gil, but distanced, as though the small boy was someone else, because then Aldo had died fighting
a bushfire, and not long afterwards the boy’s mother had left, and there had been little kindness in his life after that.

‘She’ll be grateful to have it. So I might almost forgive you for scaring the hell out of me, Gillespie.’

Jeanie
would
be grateful – if she made it. Beth didn’t look quite so worried now, but she hadn’t budged from Jeanie’s side, and the small
figure under the blanket remained motionless.

Jeanie had to be okay. He wouldn’t dare imagine any other scenario. She’d come around any minute now, and although she might
spend a day or so in hospital for precaution, she’d be fine, and he’d buy her a beautiful house wherever she wanted it, and
she’d never have to cook another meal, or pump petrol, or do anything for anyone else again.

Sirens were approaching, their wailing eerie in the night. Soon two ambulances pulled up, and a police car, and the area began
filling with people. Gil helped Kris to her feet, worried when she wavered, and led her straight over to an ambulance.

One pair of paramedics were already beside Jeanie, and the other pair, eager to work, took charge of Kris and Gil. Before
he knew it, he had an oxygen mask on his face, and some sort of monitor pegged on his finger. They’d pulled out a gurney for
Kris, and she was sitting on it, a blanket around her shoulders, giving instructions to two uniformed cops while the paramedics
attached monitors to her and checked her over.

Adam appeared, and Steve Fraser, but Gil couldn’t concentrate on their conversation with Kris because one of the paramedics
assessing Jeanie came over to him. An older man, with an air of calm and experience.

‘Can you tell me how you found her? Did you see what gave her the head injury?’

Gil slipped the oxygen mask down so he could answer. ‘In the kitchen, lying on her front. I think she must have got caught
by the explosion, because the wall behind her was mostly gone, and there was debris around her.’ He thought back, tried to
remember what he’d taken in of the scene in the rush to get
her out. ‘There was a cupboard door open near her head. She might have hit that when she fell.’

‘Any idea how long she’d been there?’

‘We heard the explosion from the police station. I ran straight there. So, I guess four or five minutes, maybe.’ It had seemed
like hours, but logic said it couldn’t have been. ‘I tried to cradle her head when I could, but there wasn’t much time.’

‘Fire usually doesn’t leave many choices. But you got her out alive, mate. That’s what matters.’

‘How is she?’ He didn’t expect much of a detailed answer, and he didn’t get one.

‘She’s holding her own. We’ll know more when she’s been assessed by the docs. Birraga hospital only has basic facilities,
so we’re calling in the rescue helicopter to take her to Tamworth.’

He could go back to Sydney tomorrow via Tamworth, Gil figured quickly. Make sure that Jeanie had the best care, and everything
she needed.

‘Put that oxygen mask back on, mate,’ the ambo told him, as he headed back to Jeanie.

He hated the feel of the mask on his face, but took the advice anyway, taking a moment to adjust the straps to make it more
comfortable. His head down, he saw legs in neat trousers passing, and he jerked his head up to see the back of a man, making
a beeline straight for Kris.

Adam and Fraser both stepped aside when he approached, and the man put his arms around her, drawing her in close, and she
rested her forehead against his shoulder.

When he turned his face to speak with Adam, Gil recognised him, and his lungs constricted again. Mark Strelitz.

Mark Strelitz, Dungirri’s golden boy, who had almost died with Paula in the car accident all those years ago. Now a federal
politician, highly respected on all sides of politics, and heir to one of the wealthiest grazing properties in the region.
Rich, popular, intelligent and influential – the kind of man who could have anything he wanted. Including, it seemed, Kris.

Before Mark could notice him, Gil tossed the oxygen mask aside and walked away into the shadows.

For a couple of blissful seconds, Kris allowed herself to lean on Mark. He knew her well enough that she didn’t have to pretend,
and his sympathetic, supportive presence gave her the brief space she needed to regroup, to clear the buzzing in her head
and focus on what needed doing.

So much to do, to organise. Mark dropped his arms as she pulled away.

‘You shouldn’t be here, Mark,’ she told him. ‘Emergency personnel only in this area. But if you could go up to the hall, and
keep everyone there calm, I’d really appreciate it.’

She could rely on him to do whatever was necessary. He’d proved that, again and again, through all the traumas of the past
few years. A natural leader, people trusted him because he cared about the community and he was one of them.

‘Of course. What do you want me to tell them about Jeanie?’

‘They’ll hear the helicopter when it comes, so tell them she’ll be flown to Tamworth. Serious but stable is probably the best
descriptor for now.’ She hoped. She’d worked with Beth and these two ambulance crews frequently enough over the years that
she could tell the difference between worried and desperate. They were monitoring Jeanie closely, but her vital signs seemed
to be holding steady.
If the
head wound wasn’t severe,
if the
heart problem wasn’t bad, she could still have a full recovery.

Kris concentrated on believing that. She’d seen any number of people who’d been seriously injured survive and heal. Steve
had had a bullet in his thigh last summer, and now he walked with barely a limp. The summer before that, she’d endured the
long ambulance ride to Birraga beside her friend Bella, attacked by a mob gone mad, and now Bella was fine, happier and healthier
than she’d been for years.

So it would be all right, as long as she got off her butt and organised everything so the helicopter could get Jeanie safely
to hospital. The oxygen mask still dangled around her neck, and she took it off, waving away the paramedic’s protest as she
hopped off the gurney.

With thick smoke blowing to the south, and a fire site still not totally secured, two of the best landing sites – the school
oval and the showground – were too dangerous to use.

‘Gary,’ she called over to the senior ambulance officer. ‘Tell the chopper to land in the stock reserve on the north side
of town.’

Karl Sauer and a couple of other SES volunteers waited nearby, not needed now that the ambulances had arrived, but keen to
be useful. She asked them to arrange a couple of
vehicles to light up a safe landing spot in the reserve. She’d already sent the two Birraga police officers to block each
end of the main street.

‘Adam, can you liaise with the RFS? As soon as it’s safe, that whole site needs securing and guarding.’

‘You suspect arson?’ Steve Fraser asked.

‘Yes.’ She hated saying the word, acknowledging aloud that someone might have deliberately targeted Jeanie. ‘There’s been
a few developments since this afternoon.’

‘Adam just mentioned that you’d run into some strife on the way home. Or that it ran into you.’

‘Close enough.’

‘What about Gillespie? Is this his doing?’

‘Hell, no.’ She glanced around, having lost track of Gil, but she saw his figure not far away, dark in the shadows, leaning
a shoulder against the back corner of Ward’s, silently watching.

Alone. On the outer. She guessed he’d probably spent most of his life that way. Not the kind of guy comfortable in a group.

‘Gillespie was with me when the fire started,’ she told Steve. ‘And he saved Jeanie’s life.’

‘So you’re his alibi. Again. Mightn’t be wise to make a habit of that, Kris.’

She felt her face harden, and studied him coldly. ‘Is that a threat, Steve?’

‘No.’ He didn’t shy away from her straight gaze. ‘It’s an expression of concern. Gillespie’s involved with some hard types,
who could make things difficult for you.’

‘They’ve already tried. With a text message threat after the run-down-the-copper episode.’

‘Fuck.’ The vehemence of the swear word seemed genuine. ‘You should have phoned me, Kris.’

‘Yep, that was on my to-do list,’ she said dryly, ‘but other things intervened. I reported it – still waiting on the trace.
So, have you got any contacts in arson investigation? I want somebody good on their way here right now.’

‘I’ll make a phone call or two. You seem pretty sure it’s arson.’

‘I’d much rather that it was an accident, and not connected to Marci Doonan’s death,’ she answered, ‘but since the place contained
two sources of evidence that might have helped us to identify who murdered her and dumped her, an accident is pretty damned
unlikely.’

No-one was paying Gil any attention, and he could have just left – but to go where? With the cabin probably destroyed or at
least out of bounds, he had nowhere to go. Besides, his main priorities now were there in front of him – Jeanie and Kris.
He couldn’t do anything for Jeanie, but he worried for Kris’s safety. So, for the moment at least, he stayed on the edges
of things and observed.

The paramedics hauled a gurney out of the back of one of the vehicles, and wheeled it towards Jeanie. Beth stepped aside,
and the ambos carefully moved their patient on to the stretcher, arranging the oxygen and monitors around her.

Activity buzzed around the informal control post the area had become. There were brief discussions, hurried phone calls, and
a few people came and went. One of the firefighters came to report, and Karl Sauer returned, then both of them went straight
to Kris. Even with Fraser there, even with the ambos
and each of the emergency services having their own senior officer, she seemed to be at the centre of everything. They all
reported to her, or consulted with her, and she handled it with a down-to-earth efficiency.

And all the while she didn’t forget him. With the light behind her, he couldn’t see her face as she approached. But when she
stopped beside him, her tired attempt at a smile came naturally enough.

‘Would you like to see Jeanie before she goes? The helicopter’s only ten minutes or so away.’

The considerate gesture threw him for a moment. With so much else to attend to, she’d thought of him.

Did he want to see Jeanie? No, not lying still and helpless, instead of bright and healthy as she’d always been. But he owed
her, and with the future so uncertain for both of them, he couldn’t just let her go.

‘Yes. Thanks.’ The words scraped in his raw throat.

Jeanie seemed tiny under the white blanket on the stretcher, her head and neck encased in a padded immobiliser, her face obscured
by the oxygen mask.

‘You’re strong enough to get through this.’
They were her words, after the committal hearing all those years ago, when they were about to take him to prison.

He wanted to tell her the same thing, but the senior paramedic hovered nearby, and he didn’t know if it would be stupid to
talk to an unconscious woman.

He laid his hand carefully on the bony shoulder under the sheet, and spoke to the paramedic instead. ‘Tell them to look
after her. She’s tougher than she looks. She’s strong enough to get through this, and she won’t give up.’

‘Yep, mate, she’s a fighter.’ The paramedic grinned. ‘I’ve known her a few years. Bloody stubborn when she makes up her mind,
our Jeanie. They’re a good team at Tamworth, and they’ll give her their best.’

Gil took one last look at Jeanie, then went and found Kris, waiting while she finished giving instructions to one of the coppers.

‘Is someone going with Jeanie?’ he asked her. He hated to think of Jeanie going alone to a strange hospital, in a strange
town a few hundred kilometres away. And he couldn’t just leave the photo with her – it could too easily be lost, with no-one
to look after it.

‘There’s no room in the chopper for an extra, but Dave Butler from the pub is going to drive his mother to Tamworth tonight.
Nancy will stay with her.’

Gil vaguely remembered Nancy, an older woman who’d spent most of her time in the pub kitchen, while her husband Stan manned
the bar. Last night he hadn’t picked Dave as their son – but when he’d left Dungirri, Dave had been just a kid of six or seven.

Kris touched a light hand to his arm. ‘Do you want to give her the photo, for Jeanie? They’re close friends, and since Nancy
lost her husband a few months back, she’ll understand its importance and take good care of it.’

Her perception, the way she answered questions before he’d formed them, despite all the other matters demanding her attention,
impressed him yet again.

‘Nancy’s place is two doors down from here.’ She pointed back down the road past Ward’s. ‘The fire’s almost out now, so I
let her go home to pack a few things. You can go and give it to her.’ About to turn away to where Steve waited to speak to
her, she added, ‘Don’t disappear, hey? We need to go over a few things later.’