Page 43 of Down the Track

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‘Hux. Are you listening? A lawyer.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Have you got one? You know, some scumbag in a suit with a gold tooth and a European car, who reads your publishing contracts and whatever before you sign them.’

He snorted and Possum, who had been dozing on the floor under the whiteboard, must have mistaken the snort for the word ‘treat’, because he looked up with hopeful eyes.

‘You’ve been watching way too much American-made TV, Phaedra. Yes, I use a lawyer from time to time. No, she doesn’t have a gold tooth as far as I’m aware. She’s got six children and even a grandchild or two, she wears floral dresses, and she has pictures of horses all over her office. I have no idea what car she drives. Why do you ask?’

‘Because we’ve got company.’

He looked up just as Possum shot to his feet and roared off to the sliding door as fast as his three little legs could carry him. A police four-wheel drive had pulled in to one of the visitor parking bays and the woman who’d waved him off the Corley property on Tuesday morning was getting out of the driver’s seat. Two men were with her, one of them a wiry little guy with a head shinier than a new hubcap, and the other a big bloke who would fill a Santa suit nicely at the Longreach Police Station Christmas party, which was where Hux assumed he’d come from.

Hux saw Charlie emerge from the storage shed behind the donger and mooch over to greet them with all the enthusiasm of a sheep whose turn had come to lose his dags.

‘Shit. Charlie’s in no fit state to talk to the police,’ said Phaedra, who had come up beside him and pressed her nose to the window.

That was definitely true. The guy had been in the shed since Hux arrived, stress-sorting his tools on his pegboard. Hux had taken him a bottle of water and suggested Charlie and Sal take the kids off to Coolum for a couple of weeks for some fresh air (and fresh perspective) and Charlie had said, ‘What, with a baby on the way? Thanks but no thanks.’

‘I’ll go see what’s going on,’ he said.

Phaedra picked up Possum, who was quivering with suppressed joy and making littleyip yipnoises. ‘What’s up, buddy?’ she said. ‘You want to go outside and sniff some cop boots? Pee on a cop tyre?’

As though to answer her question, the Santa-sized cop hauled open the back door of the four-wheel drive and a police dog that looked capable of rending the entire population of Yindi Creek limb from limb soared out like a four-legged bird of prey.

Crikey. Where had he put Possum’s lead?

Hux found the lead on the floor by the water bowl and retrieved his still-yipping dog from Phaedra. He tied Possum to a table leg. ‘You stay here and guard your water bowl or something while I’m gone,’ he said.

‘No need,’ Phaedra said. ‘Looks like they’re all coming in here.’

Charlie entered first, a piece of paper in his hand that turned out to be a search and seizure warrant. The police—all three of them plus dog—followed.

‘This is Acting Senior Constable Clifford,’ Charlie said, nodding his head at the female officer. ‘You need introductions?’ he asked her.

‘I have some questions,’ she said. ‘Which I will take care of while Officers Harvey and Lang conduct a search. Stay in the office, touch nothing without our say-so, and can somebody shut that terrier up before I lose an eardrum?’

Possum had taken umbrage at the entrance of the police dog and was straining at the end of his leash, barking at full throat. Hux picked him up, unclicked his lead and tucked him under his arm. ‘Quiet,’ he said in the no-nonsense tone that Possum sometimes respected.

‘Gavin Huxtable,’ said the policewoman. A statement, not a question. She held a notebook in her hand and fiddled with a device strapped to her waist with a host of other gadgets that included a taser. A recording device, he guessed. Legal for police to use secretly without consent, but illegal for anyone else.

‘That’s right,’ he said. He’d seen her at Corley Station, but the SES fellow had been the one to tell them to clear off. ‘I’m part owner of the business.’

‘Just returned after an absence, I believe.’

‘That’s right.’

She flicked a thumb in the direction of the door. ‘Let’s take this outside.’

He tucked Possum under his arm and headed out. Charlie gave Hux a long look as he passed him and Phaedra’s eyes were bulging with curiosity. If she hoped he was going to get aggro enough to warrant a taser coming out, she was going to be disappointed. Calm and helpful, that was him. Besides, he and Acting Something Constable Clifford were partners in crime, in a roundabout way: he invented them, she solved them.

‘Where were you on the Sunday that Dave, surname unknown, was due to be collected?’ she said without preamble once they were standing in the doorway of the shed where the shade brought the temperature down from deadly to intolerable.

‘At my place on the Sunshine Coast. I take the summer off each year when business is quiet.’

‘And how long had you been there?’

‘A few weeks, maybe. Since the end of November.’