Page 66 of Down the Track
Lance shrugged. ‘Just a friend. Met her at the bingo over at Winton last month. You never know, though, right?’
Hux chuckled. ‘You never do.’ He scribbled his name on the title pages of the others then found the papers Lance had displayed below the magazines and gift cards and licorice near the doorway to the street. His face was plastered over theLongreach Leaderand theCourier-Mail.The Australianhad gone lower key … he had to rifle forwards three pages before he found a column that had his name in it.
‘I’ll take these,’ he said, handing over his debit card.
‘One job down, one to go,’ he told Possum as the little dog hop-skipped along beside him once they were back on the street. ‘That was the easy one, so brace yourself.’
He was in luck; the big police cruiser was parked beside the cop shop under its galvo lean-to and the front door was unlocked. Looked like Acting Senior Constable Petra Clifford had started her day early.
‘Officer,’ he said, nodding to her as he went in.
‘Gavin,’ she said. She was standing on the far side of the counter, a coffee cup in one hand. Her hair was wet and scraped back into a no-nonsense ponytail and she looked younger without her sunglasses. Spread out in front of her was theCourier-Mail.
‘Oh,’ he said.
She gave him a look that was half-smirk, half-frown. ‘Yeah, that’s what I said when I opened the paper this morning. “Oh”.’
Maybe this was going to be easier than he’d anticipated. Maybe fame did count for something after all, and Clifford would be so impressed she’d fill him in on what the police knew.
‘I’m hoping to use the R22 for a charter this morning,’ he said. ‘Have the police finished with it?’ There was nothing in the world stopping him from using the R44, of course, but this gave him the opportunity to talk to Acting Senior Constable Clifford.
‘I’m not at liberty to discuss—’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘No way did that dog actually find anything incriminating. Have you got the forensic results back?’
She rocked back a little on her heels. ‘I’m sorry, is this Gavin Gunn, crime writer, asking me?’ She waved her hands a little when she said his pen name, as though she was a circus ringleader calling out her star act.
It pissed him off.
‘This is Gavin Huxtable asking. Business owner. One who is willing to sue the pants off the Queensland Police Service for ruining his business if they continue to impound his very expensive helicopter with no due cause.’
She blinked. ‘All righty, settle down. As it happens, the results from the forensics team are in.’
He waited. She was playing with him, he gathered, in some sort of pissing contest he had no interest in playing.
‘The sniffer dog results have been confirmed by fibre analysis from samples taken from the R22.’
‘Confirmed,’ he echoed. ‘So our guy Dave did have crystal meth in his duffel bag.’
‘Someone did.’
‘Well, it wasn’t Charlie.’
‘That’s your opinion, Gavin. We’re not interested in gathering opinions, we’re interested in gathering facts.’
Fair enough. ‘So what now?’
‘You are free to remove the police tape and use the helicopter. Our investigations into Dave’s true identity and his purpose in travelling on your helicopter are ongoing. As is our investigation into Charlie’s—and yours, for that matter—role in the transportation of crystal meth.’
‘Okaaay.’
Clifford looked at him as though she was expecting him to disappear now he’d got what he wanted, but he had some time yet before he needed to hightail it back to his power cable contractor.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Charlie’s hired a lawyer,’ he said, unsure whether this was a good strategy or not, but he’d started talking now, so he’d best keep going.
‘Has he indeed.’
