Dark Country (30 page)

Dawson came first, barrelling in with a shout, trying to ram him down. More courage than sense, Gil thought, as he caught
him by the shoulders, heaved him upright, and slammed his fist into his gut. The kid crumpled into a heap.

‘Did you learn that in prison?’ Barrett taunted.

‘I learned a lot in prison,’ Gil replied. ‘Maybe you’re afraid to find out how much, since you sent the boys in first.’

Barrett’s hand clenched on the knife, but he didn’t take the bait. ‘You shouldn’t have interfered in what doesn’t concern
you, Gillespie. We were just having some fun with the little slut. It’s not as though she hasn’t done it before. She’s been
on the streets.’

Gil saw red before his eyes, rage threatening to blast a hole through his head.

‘Don’t go near her again,’ he ordered, through gritted teeth.

‘Why? Cause you want to screw her? Sorry, Gillespie, but there’s not much talent around here these days so I’m claiming her.’

He could hear movement behind him, braced to deal with an attack, but he kept still, studying Barrett, watching his eyes.
Dawson went for Gil’s legs, tackling him, and he couldn’t stop toppling, but he struck out as he fell, landing a hard kick,
twisting so that he landed on his side and not his face, ready to take on Barrett as he leapt on him. Barrett slashed at his
face with the knife, but Gil jerked his head away in time and caught a slice on the shoulder instead. A street-fighter would
have plunged the knife in for the kill, but Barrett wanted to best him, to punish him, and thought he could. His mistake.

They rolled on the ground, wrestling for the knife. Gil had a grip on Barrett’s wrist, keeping the knife at bay, until Dawson
joined in, wrenching at his arm, giving Barrett the control for a swipe at his chest. The blade burned on his skin, even as
he pushed back hard at the weight of both of them on his arm.

There was a dull thud, and the kid’s grip vanished. Barrett started, and Gil took the advantage of the split second of distraction
and threw him, slamming a punch to his gut as he went over, disabling him long enough to get his knee on the knife arm and
the blade out of Barrett’s grip.

Pinning him down, finding his own breath again, Gil discovered he didn’t need to keep the knife to Barrett’s throat to hold
him still. Barrett’s eyes were on Megan, standing beside his head, a stout branch held aloft in her hands, ready to strike.

An absurd sense of pride mixed with anger in Gil’s mind at the sight of her. Such a slight build, her loose, goth tunic top
ripped at the shoulder and a mark on her face where one of the bastards had hit her. Yet she held her weapon like a young
Amazon.

‘I told you to run,’ Gil growled at her.

‘I did. The police are coming. But you needed help.’ Still holding the branch steady, she glanced at the lad lying on the
ground, clutching the back of his head. He groaned and moved, rolling on to his other side, and Megan breathed an audible
sigh of relief.

They could hear cars pulling up out on the road, doors slamming. Two of the attackers – the first two down – headed off on
unsteady feet across the playing fields. There was a shout from the road, and someone set off after them at a sprint.

Barrett started to shift, but Gil moved the knife back to his throat. ‘Don’t try it,’ he warned. ‘Between me and her, you
don’t have a chance.’

Barrett’s glance flicked from one to the other, then back again. He took a long look at each of them, and grinned. ‘Well,
holy
fuck, hey?’ He started to laugh. ‘Jeez, Gillespie, so it was you who laid the princess. What a fucking joke.’

‘Shut it, Barrett,’ Gil warned, but it was already way too late. People were there, had already heard. Someone gently shifted
Megan aside, and Gil looked up and passed Fraser the knife.

He levered himself to his feet and stumbled a few metres away, out of the glare of the security light. Blood dribbled down
his arm, and when he put his hand to the stinging on his chest, it came away covered in it.

He could hear Barrett playing the innocent, proclaiming they’d just been chatting when ‘Daddy there came in swinging like
a mad man, raging about us talking with his little girl’. Gil gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to go and slam a fist
into Barrett’s face, wishing he’d had reason to use the knife earlier and shut him up before this.

There were at least half a dozen people there now, another car arriving, and they’d all hear it. Barrett would make sure of
that, and Gil knew how quickly the juicy gossip would spread through town. They’d brand Megan with the Gillespie stigma, and
make her life hell.

And as soon as word got back to Flanagan and Russo, they’d regard her as the perfect way to get to him. He couldn’t let that
happen.

Kris arrived at the scene about three minutes after Steve, Adam and Mark, her evening dress replaced in those minutes by jeans,
sweatshirt, boots and her uniform belt – far safer for active police work than a long gown.

The men had taken extra help from those still at the hall. Near the senior classroom, Steve held Sean Barrett against the
wall, and Karl knelt beside Trent Dawson on the ground, his first-aid bag open. Adam and Mark were walking back across the
grass, with two more between them. Outside the circle of the security light, Gil watched from the shadows.

Megan stood to one side, arms clutched around herself, her top torn, and Kris went straight to her. The girl buried her face
against her shoulder, and Kris held her close, letting her take her time.

‘Can you tell me what happened, Megan? Didn’t Beth take you home?’

Megan straightened, wiped a shaky hand across her eyes, bravely trying not to cry. ‘Yes. But when I got up the drive, I realised
that my keys were in my jacket, which I’d left in the pub kitchen today. I didn’t want to wake the grands, so I decided to
go and get it. It’s only a block. But then Trent and Sean and the others came, and …’ Her voice wobbled. ‘They’d been drinking,
and I couldn’t get them to leave me alone. And then Sean pulled out a knife.’ A sob escaped her, and Kris tightened her arm
around her. ‘I was scared, Kris. I tried to get away from them but I couldn’t. But then Gil arrived. I ran across the road,
got Mr Trevelyn to phone you, and then I looked for a big stick, so I could help Gil. There were four of them against him,
and I didn’t know how long you’d be.’

Long enough, thought Kris, with a sick wrench in her stomach. Four against one. Gil could have been seriously injured, or
killed, in those few minutes, but for Megan’s help.

‘I hit Trent on the head. I had to. Sean and Gil were fighting, and Sean had the knife. And then Trent joined in and Gil got
cut and … he couldn’t hold off both of them.’

Kris was focused on Megan, listening to her, putting together what had happened, so although she heard Sean’s shout in the
background, it took a moment for his words to sink in.

‘Hey, Gillespie, I reckon I know someone who’ll love to hear about your little girl.’

Gil’s little girl? It didn’t make sense … until she remembered Jeanie, the other morning, worrying about Gil going off without
a word, saying,
‘… he was upset, shocked, about something I’d told him
…’

A hitherto unknown daughter? That would have been a hell of a shock, enough to send a man like Gil off for some thinking time.
And Megan had just turned seventeen, the right age for her conception to have occurred prior to Gil’s abrupt departure from
town.

He hadn’t said anything … but then, Kris realised, when would he have had a chance? If he’d only found out yesterday morning,
the time since then had been packed with other, more urgent concerns. No wonder he wore that cautious emotional armour; Dungirri
had dumped one blow after another on him ever since he’d arrived.

Megan had heard Sean, too. Maybe she’d heard more than Kris, or there’d been things said earlier, during the fight, as she
drew back to see Kris’s face and asked, ‘Is it true? Is he … my father?’

It was all there, in front of her – straight black hair, with the widow’s peak point at the centre of her forehead, dark eyes,
the Saxon cheek bones, softer on Megan but still evident.

How the heck could she answer that? Paternity was a damned delicate matter, and with only guesswork and not knowing the full
story, she had to tread carefully. ‘He hasn’t said anything to me, Megan. Let’s wait until this situation is sorted out, and
you can ask him later, okay?’

She’d make darn sure she had a word with Gil to prepare him before ‘later’ came.

Beth arrived, called in by Karl. Satisfied Megan was unharmed, just shaken, Kris left the girl in Beth’s care.

Steve and Adam, with help from Mark, had Megan’s attackers under control and were going through their stories. Kris looked
over at the four of them: Sean Barrett, Zac and Trent Dawson, and Luke Sauer.

What was Sean doing, hanging around with youths fifteen years his junior? Zac and Luke were around nineteen or twenty, Trent
barely eighteen. She could bet who’d been the ringleader in this crime; but there’d be time enough to sort that out later.
Adam was already on the phone, calling in backup from Birraga, and Karl had moved on from Trent, and was now giving his cousin
hell even as he mopped blood off his face.

Thirty metres away, in the shadows, Gil stood looking out over the playing field instead of watching the others. He didn’t
turn around as she approached.

‘What happened, Gil?’ she asked from behind him.

He took a little time answering, his back still to her. ‘I heard
voices, then she cried out, and I came round here and found the four of them attacking her.’

‘So you fought them?’

‘No other choice.’

No, she figured, there probably hadn’t been – for him. He wouldn’t leave a girl alone, undefended, no matter the risk.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘Not much.’

Uh-oh
. She put a hand on his arm. ‘Define “much”.’

‘A scratch. Or two.’ He turned, and she saw the ripped T-shirt, the wet cloth sticking to his chest, the blood on his arm,
but as she gasped and moved forward to inspect the wounds, he stepped back abruptly. ‘Don’t!’

He might still be on edge from the fight. From the wounds. From seeing Megan attacked. And was likely in pain, perhaps even
a touch of shock.

She purposely played down her concern. ‘Really, Gillespie, if that’s a scratch I’d hate to see a gash.’

‘It’s not deep. Look after Megan. She needs to get home.’

‘I’ll get her there, very soon. But you need that cut looked at.’

He attempted to dismiss her worry with a wave of his blood-smeared hand. ‘It can wait. I’ll wipe the blood up with something.’
He lowered his voice, spoke urgently, without any trace of confusion from his injuries, ‘Blue, she isn’t safe. When word gets
out, they could go for her.’

‘It’s true then? You’re her father?’

‘Yeah.’ He nodded wearily, as if still trying to convince himself.
‘Dates are right, circumstances right. And the resemblance is strong.’

Police training didn’t cover what to say to a man who’d recently discovered an almost-grown daughter. ‘Congratulations’ didn’t
exactly cut it, and sympathy could be awkward, not knowing the circumstances and never having met Barbara Russell. So she
gave him what she could, and what he needed – some knowledge about the girl.

‘She’s a good kid, Gil. She’s had a tough ride these past couple of years, but she’s trying damned hard to make things work.’

‘I know.’ He stared down at his hand for a moment, then wiped it on the bottom of his T-shirt. ‘I don’t know any fucking thing
about being a father, Blue. I grew up feral …’ Self-disgust loaded his words. ‘I scrounged, stole, hunted, did whatever I
needed to survive. I stayed with the old man because I didn’t belong anywhere else. How can I be any good for her?’

The fact that he trusted her enough to reveal his self-doubt made Kris’s heart strangely tight. ‘Maybe the same way you’ve
been good for Deb and Liam, Gil. They respect you, think the world of you. Seems to me you’ve already got some experience
in building a family of sorts.’

He snorted. ‘I didn’t do much for them. And now I’ve dragged all of them, including Megan, into danger.’

‘That’s not your fault. But I agree – there is a risk. Gil, the guy in the black jacket this afternoon … You didn’t recognise
him?’

Instantly suspicious, he stared at her. ‘No. Why?’

‘Alec Goddard knows of him.’ She briefly explained Alec’s revelations about Sergio Russo.

‘Fuck.’ He repeated it a few more times, anger and self-disgust loading it. ‘I’d heard a few rumours, but I’ve been too busy
these past few months to check into them.’

He stared up into the night, fingers rubbing his temple while he thought. ‘I have to get them away. Deb and Liam were going
to go in the morning, but they need to take Megan. Now. Tonight. Take her home, Blue, and pack some clothes for her. I’ll
be there shortly.’

She caught his arm as he started towards the pub. ‘Gil, you can’t just take off with her like that. You need those gashes
seen to, and I need to get statements from both of you, so we can charge those louts with assault. And we need to think this
through, work out the safest course of action for all of you.’