Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

repair the gable wall again. Instead he sat and watched Dylan from the shade. It felt as if they were slowly wasting away in this desert, that the sand and dust was smoothing all the edges off them, their lives now bland and uninteresting. A daily slog that was as monotonous as the sky overhead. Even a perfect blue became boring after a while. He missed the irregular beauty in a cloud, edges and colours that gave the eye something to focus on, something new to appreciate. It was as if they were in stasis, waiting for something to happen, something to spark them into action, living under the same – collapsed – roof but enduring separate existences.

He watched as another load left the mine and was delivered to the foot of the hill. He glanced down the road beyond the crossroads and wondered what was happening in the actual mine. They were raking it in, he was sure of it. There was no other reason for putting up with his bullshit.

Last night Nee had again told him to leave them alone. Out of nowhere. As if she had been peering into his innermost thoughts, some shred of some telekinetic connection remaining between them. She admitted that she was nervous of them. And that it should make him nervous too. But he was sick of being nervous. After fucking up so many times, something had to go right eventually. The law of averages said so.

‘Wait here,’ he told Dylan.

The boy looked up at him. ‘Where are you going, Daddy?’

‘To conduct some business.’

He waited outside the wooden building. He had plenty of time to wait today. Nothing was going to be built. Chalk it up as a rest day. Christmas leave.

He heard them before he saw them. Mike and Stevie.

‘Those women last night… dios mío… but that Naiyana…’ said Mike, letting out a long whistle followed by the familiar clack of gum.

‘I prefer my women larger,’ said Stevie.

‘I know you do,’ laughed Mike.

They exited the building out into the sun. Seeing Lorcan they paused, the chatter between them coming to an abrupt halt.

‘What about Naiyana?’ asked Lorcan.

Mike’s mouth clamped shut. Stevie averted his eyes. Lorcan knew they were discussing his wife. For which he supposed he should be flattered, considering that she was his wife and not theirs but somehow he felt cuckolded by the gossip.

‘Naiyana from yesterday,’ said Stevie. He looked at Mike. ‘A stripper at a place we went to.’

‘Then an all-you-can-eat and motel with clean sheets,’ said Mike, stifling a burp. ‘Still feeling the effects today.’

‘But still stuck down a hole in the middle of summer,’ said Lorcan, making a show of basking in the stifling sun.

‘We might be dirty,’ said Mike, ‘but we’re making money.’

‘I can get my hands dirty too,’ said Lorcan, making a subtle bid to help. One he could easily retreat from if prospects weren’t favourable.

‘And you should be,’ said Mike.

Lorcan’s hopes raised that maybe there was something. That the ice was melting.

‘By fixing that roof,’ added Mike with a laugh and an annoying clack of gum.

‘I mean down there,’ said Lorcan, arching his head towards the tunnel.

‘Barely room for three,’ said Mike, throwing another piece of gum in his mouth.

79

Emmaline

A wrong turn in a place they were unfamiliar with?

Oily’s words stumbled around her head.

She returned to the dirt road and the tyre tracks. The rest of the team followed.

‘Do we inform the press?’ asked Barker. In the near distance, Anand was babysitting the two amateur pilots.

‘Is it only those two?’ asked Emmaline.

‘They came straight to us.’ Barker pointed at the female. ‘Mrs Ullathorne was an officer in Kalgoorlie for ten years. That’s her son with her.’

‘You think they can keep it quiet?’

‘If we ask nicely,’ said Barker.

‘Can you do that?’ asked Emmaline.

Barker narrowed his eyes, affronted, and went to ask the witnesses to hold a moratorium on the information. For now. It was all they could do. They couldn’t lock them up or gag them. The remote nature of the scene would give them a few hours before word leaked out.

Emmaline returned to the tracks, studying the road and the patch of dirt.

‘What are you looking for?’ asked Rispoli.

‘What do you notice about these?’ she said.

There were a few shrugs, all eyes on the road and the tyre tracks that veered from it.

She put them out of their misery. ‘They don’t swerve off the track violently, do they? Something you would expect if the occupants were being chased. It’s more of a gentle arc. Adding to this is a lack of understeer. The front tyres haven’t washed out and pushed ahead. So the corner was taken slowly. And given the slow speed I think we can rule out a breakage or mechanical fault. This was by decision rather than accident.’

She returned to the tracks nearer to the cliff edge.

‘These are also clean, no sign of tyre spin.’

‘Which means?’ asked Oily.

‘Look at the road. The tracks are indistinct, tyres fighting the whole way, accelerating faster than the grip allows. Then here at the edge the tracks are clearer, no spin, as if the truck stopped and rolled over the edge gently.’

She looked at them. ‘How many people have been walking over the scene?’

‘Me, you, Oily, Barker and Anand,’ said Rispoli. ‘Though Anand was with the witnesses so you can probably count him out.’

‘Do you see these prints?’

Emmaline pointed to what looked like the heel of a boot, then further towards the edge, the toe of another boot print, faint but present.

‘Ours?’ asked Oily.

‘They move right between the tyre tracks, which suggests someone was pushing the ute. They attempted to sweep them away with a branch like raking a bunker after a shot but they weren’t thorough enough. They wanted to get away.’

‘So someone else was here?’ asked Rispoli.

‘Seems that way,’ said Emmaline. ‘Here’s what I think. Whoever did this drove the ute out here with the occupants already dead, or at least unconscious. They got out, placed the victims