Blood on the Rocks Chapter 18
Frank Diamond sat in the dark in the borrowed car, weighing up his options. A missing gun is like an omen, Frank thought. But too late to go back. Frank continued along the street slowly, dimming the headlights as he drew closer to Dalton’s property. There was no activity on the road. He parked in Clyde’s front yard and took the track through the backyard, the same path he’d walked just that afternoon, although it felt like two lifetimes ago: a life for each death he’d avoided? So far.
Frank checked his phone: no reply from Mac. Was that a bad sign? Was she a diligent text returner? He didn’t know. He realised that he knew so little about Rebecca McFadden, but he trusted her, and he enjoyed working with her, which was rare. Frank had always preferred working alone, but Mac didn’t slow him down or cramp his style. She got the job done, no matter what it took. Frank quickened his pace down the track, easing through the bushes towards Dalton’s place as quietly as he could.
Which was a good strategy because the shed was lit up, with two trucks being loaded with barrels and boxes by three blokes, including the Gasman, hurried on by Gaz. Tools and machinery lay scattered across the clearing, abandoned in disorder. All the men were too busy to notice Frank, who managed to creep up the fence line to a better vantage point, but the blue-heeler pup noticed him, straining on its rope, tied to a tree. It started to whine and received a boot to the belly for its troubles. Frank pulled back into the bushes.
‘Gaz,’ said Gasman, dropping the crate he was carrying to console the dog. ‘It’s just a pup.’
‘It’s a bloody nuisance. Don’t know how you talked me into it. How they going in there?’
‘This is the last one.’
Gaz closed and padlocked both trucks, while the Gasman screw-gunned new licence plates onto each. Then the two other blokes jumped into the drivers’ seats and took off, leaving Gaz and the Gasman in the comparative quiet of the clearing. Once the roar of the trucks disappeared, the cicadas started up.
‘Why we gotta do this one?’ asked Gasman. ‘I don’t like it, it’s too many.’
‘She got in the way. Plus, she got a text from Diamond, which means he’s not dead.’ Gaz swore. ‘And we still gotta sort Karen out. Dalton’s bloody psycho about it all, so we do this or he does us and you know he will. C’mon, she’s a cop.’
‘She’s a kid,’ said Gasman.
‘She won’t feel a thing – it’s like going to sleep.’
Frank watched as Gaz stepped close to Gasman and put his arms around him. The Gasman slumped against Gaz, with his head on his shoulder.
‘Why do I have to do this?’ Gasman asked.
‘You have the skills. An electrical fault, remember: slow burn start, then big bang when it hits the fuel – could happen on any farm.’ Gaz kissed him on the cheek. ‘Just one last job. Dalton owes us big, enough to get away from here: Bali, Spain, wherever you want babe, that’s where we’ll go. Yeah?’
The other big bloke nodded. They kissed and broke apart. Gaz watched as Gasman headed into the shed; the puppy also watched him go, whining. Gaz swore at it as he started to tidy the yard, stacking away the tools like any farmer after a hard day in the field – Frank could only admire his attention to detail. The dog was making a terrible racket. Gaz came out of the shed, picked up a metal feed bucket and threw it at the poor little creature, who twisted away, breaking out of its collar and taking off up the track, tail tucked down. Gaz laughed and followed.
Now the quiet was broken only by the whine of the mosquitoes who had found Frank. He sat and waited, weighing up his chances of taking down the Gasman if he surprised him. Not that great. Hopefully Henderson would have back-up here soon, so Frank figured his best bet was to follow them to whichever beach they took Mac and try and haul her out. Frank shivered at the thought. Gaz’s offhand comment, that drowning was just like going to sleep, was so inaccurate.
The Gasman came out of the shed, closed the big double-doors, slid the bolt across, padlocked it and disappeared up the track. Frank gave him a minute before climbing through the fence and making his way cautiously across to the shed. He was about to follow Gasman when the young pup came running out of the bushes towards him. The pup went straight past Frank and started running up and down the side of the shed, whining. Frank ducked behind a tree, cursing the dog’s bad timing, hoping that it’s distress wouldn’t bring the Gasman back down. He watched as the dog scrabbled at the ground beneath the locked doors; what was it looking for?
Or who was it looking for? With a horrible jolt Frank realised the other way people can go to sleep dying: fire. Rebecca!
He ran towards the shed. The doors were padlocked shut – there must be another way in. The pup took off around the far corner and Frank followed. On the back wall there was a long, narrow window about two and a half metres up, closed. Praying it wasn’t also barred, Frank raced around, looking for something big enough to chuck through it. There’s always a pile of old bricks somewhere he thought, on every farm, even if the farm is actually a meth lab.
He found the pile in the grass at the back of the clearing, but it cost him time. Already he could smell smoke.
It took three bricks to break the window. Then Frank used a wheelbarrow, left against the front wall by the men, as a leg up. Balancing precariously, he reached in and found the lock, sliding back the broken pane to make an opening he could slip through. He hauled himself up, got a leg over the sill, swung the other leg in and dropped down into the shed on to what felt like a dirt floor.
The air stank of smoke and fuel. The Gasman had started the blaze near the door, in a hay bale stack, piled up against a blackened power box. The stack was on fire, lighting the shed in flickering patches, illuminating a line of glistening straw that ran diagonally across the dirt floor, from the hay to a collection of fuel barrels in the corner to Frank’s left.
Otherwise the shed was empty – no Mac. Had he got it wrong? Damn! Where was Mac and had he blown his chance to find her?
He was turning to climb back out the window when something brushed against his leg. He swung the torch down, ready to kick out. It was the pup. Before Frank could grab it, the dog ran towards the fuel barrels, disappearing behind them.
‘Here girl, come on,’ he called, to no response. Frank swore out loud, torn. A new burst of flame lit up the room. Frank could see the pup’s butt as the dog worried away at something behind the drums. Without thinking Frank rushed forward to grab the pup, who ducked and ran off. But Frank found something else.
‘Mac,’ he cried, crouching down to where she lay unconscious, curled up behind the barrels like she was asleep. He shook her and she groaned, but did not wake. At least she was alive.
Frank hauled her towards him, pulling her over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. He rose unsteadily and almost dropped her as the smoke caught him and he choked. But Mac did not stir. Frank carried her to the window. How to get her up? It was too high to push her through and god knows the fall on the other side could kill her. He dropped her gently to the ground and scanned the shed for something to stand on. Nothing. The hay bales were burning fiercely, the flames already half way across the shed. Frank returned to the fuel barrels, straining to shift one. Unsuccessfully. Nor could he risk spilling fuel into the already burning shed.
The pup was licking Mac’s face. The pup. How the hell did the dog get in, anyway? Frank reached to grab it but it evaded him again, disappearing off into the darkness in the other back corner. Frank shone his light after it: no dog. Then its face appeared under the shed, through a small hole dug into the dirt floor.
Frank raced to the front of the shed, jumping over the line of fire. At the entrance he dropped to his knees, eyes streaming, choking for air. He reached out blindly, hands finding what he was looking for: the tools Gaz had stacked away so carefully. Frank fumbled among the stack until he found a pick-axe and a spade.
Clamping one firmly under each arm he ran back through the fire line, to the dog hole. Gasping for breath in the thickening smoke, Frank started swinging at the hole with every bit of strength left in him, one eye on the fire line, now only a few metres from the barrels. Once the hole was big enough he crawled over to where Mac lay and dragged her to the hole, worming through himself before reaching back to haul out her by the arms.
Safely on the other side he was about to hoist her to his shoulders and run when he heard a loud yelping from inside the shed. The pup! Frank carried Mac to the shelter of the bushes and, cursing his soft heart, returned to the shed.
The yelping was coming from the wrong side of the fire line. Squatting low just inside the hole, Frank took a deep breath of what little air was left in the room, then took a running leap and cleared the flames, stumbling and falling on landing, right on top of the pup. He clamped his arms around the frantic animal, turned and leapt back, running the last three strides to hurl the pup through the opening before scrabbling through himself.
Outside, the pup took off. Frank gasped in the clean air and ran to Mac, hoisted her onto his shoulders and plummeted into the bush, shouldering through branches that whipped and cut. In the last few seconds his feet lost grip and he was falling through air, as the fire finally found the fuel and the night was torn apart by a fireball that lit up like the end of the world.