The Girl in the Hard Hat (33 page)

‘What a good fuckin’ idea,’ Carl said immediately. ‘Lena, give Wendy a report on what happened and email me a copy. We’ll go with Wendy’s opinion.’

It was apparent that all he wanted to do was take the decision out of Gavin’s hands.

‘If you say so, Carl.’ Gavin kept his voice level, but over the top of the phone he winked at Wendy – clearly unabashed by the usurping of his power. She sighed with relief. All she had been trying to do was help him avoid another fight with Carl, after all.

There were a couple of sniggers that echoed around the room.

‘Who’s fuckin’ laughing over there?’ Carl’s voice cracked.

The sniggering degenerated into coughing.

‘All right, then,’ Carl’s voice was indignant, ‘I think we’re done here. You boys and ladies should get back to work!’

The men looked to Gavin and he nodded silently around the room. There was the scraping of chairs as they murmured their goodbyes and Carl rang off.

When it was just Wendy and Gavin left in the room, his eyes twinkled at her, making her heart do flips. ‘You know, Sarge, I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself.’

‘I know,’ she shrugged, ‘I just don’t want you and Carl to become enemies over this. It’s not worth it. His isolation isn’t going to be for much longer.’

He leaned his hip on the desk. ‘It doesn’t mean you need to jump between me and Carl every time he throws a punch my way.’

She blushed as his eyes ran over her body.

He frowned. ‘How’s your arm? I see you’ve taken it out of the sling.’

‘Oh yeah,’ she agreed, glad for a change of subject. ‘It feels much better. I don’t think I need the sling any more.’

‘The doctor said two weeks.’

‘
One
to two weeks,’ she corrected him. ‘And I’d rather not make a spectacle of myself. It’ll just be more fuel for the rumours that you and Carl aren’t getting on.’

‘So it’s about protecting me again?’

She crossed her arms and grimaced, wishing that for once she could be as unreadable as he was. Instead, she attempted damage control. ‘It’s not anything to do with you, Gavin. I just want what’s best for the project. Isn’t that what you want too?’

He gathered up his memos and files and said grimly, ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

Gavin returned to Carl’s office, closing the door and slamming his files on the absent project manager’s desk. It would help if there were a pill or something he could take for unwanted feelings. A special antibiotic for bugs of the heart.

It had been so good while she was gone. Things had been back to normal. He’d started to enjoy his new role. The threat of Peter Marshall was a worry at the back of his mind but not a debilitating fear.

Okay, so maybe he’d thought about her every day. But at least her presence hadn’t been a constant drain on his emotional reservoir. He didn’t have to be concerned that she was too close to him – that she might get caught in the crossfire – that his feelings for her might grow in ways they just shouldn’t.

Seeing her again for the first time today had been like a shot of adrenaline to the temple. And then when she’d jumped in like that at the meeting as though to ‘rescue’ him again, it seemed like proof she felt the same way.

You need to get a grip, man. You don’t
want
her to feel the same way, remember?

He glanced at the wall clock. Nearly time to speak to Janet. He got his phone out of his pocket and placed it on the desk. Sitting down in Carl’s chair, he willed the bloody thing to ring.

All things said and done, it was kind of nice having his own office. At least he didn’t have to take these calls outside any more. Of course, things with Carl were deteriorating at a rate of knots. He wasn’t quite sure how to fix their relationship or assure the guy he wasn’t trying to take his job. Carl had always been a good boss. Fair to a fault. But even sometimes the tallest of giants suffered a fall that took them a while to get up from.

The phone rang, jolting him from his reverie, and he snatched it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Gavin. It’s Janet.’

‘Any news?’

‘Not good I’m afraid. There’s been a leak in the department. We think your alias and Perth address have been compromised. Now would be a good time to take your R and R.’

‘That’s just not possible.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve been put in charge of the project.’

‘I thought I told you to keep a low profile. Peter Marshall has been seen at your house in Perth. In fact, he’s stealing your mail.’

‘That’s all right.’ Gavin shrugged. ‘I don’t have anything of importance sent there. He’s not going to get anything from that.’

‘All the same, we do feel he is narrowing his search. I’ve alerted the authorities in Wickham and would like you to call this number if you feel you’re in trouble.’

He took down the number she read out.

‘In the meantime, we will continue to keep our people on him and will let you know if there are any movements in your direction. Are you sure you can’t go on R and R? Somewhere that’s neither Perth nor Wickham.’

‘I was actually thinking of Exmouth . . .’

‘Perfect.’

‘But like I said, it’s just not possible right at the minute. I’ll leave when you tell me he’s on his way here.’

‘Cutting it fine, Gavin.’ Janet sounded worried. ‘Cutting it very fine.’

The following day, Wendy came to see him about Lena’s report. He didn’t really need her to brief him on what had happened because he’d already heard the story from various sources. But the temptation to have some alone time with her was a little more than he could resist.

‘So apparently the tide came in a little early, soaking the ground under the jetty,’ Wendy explained. ‘They had two cranes parked there, one almost in the water, when the semi-trailer turned up with an eight-tonne truss on the back of it.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You know what happened, don’t you?’

He grinned. ‘It got bogged.’

‘So they thought they’d use one of their cranes to pull it out of the mud.’

Gavin already had an image of the scene in his mind’s eye. Fieldmouse and Radar chattering away like two little monkeys with a plan. Lena had been on the skids frames. She had no idea they were going to attempt a lift without her advice or her input. His mouth twisted. ‘They attached to a weak point.’

‘Exactly.’ Wendy flicked Lena’s report against her palm. ‘Radar looped a sling around the roo bar of the bogged semi-trailer and when the crane started pulling the thing just popped off the truck like done toast, only it was accompanied by this almighty
bang
! They basically created a sling shot with the roo bar as the cannon ball. I am gobsmacked that the bar landed safely in the dirt without hitting anything.’ Wendy folded her arms. ‘You know, I leave you guys for a week and you forget everything,
everything
I say to you. You know, what’s a girl got to do to get noticed around here?!’

A slow grin spread across his face as he thought of myriad possibilities, all wholly unsuitable to voice in a place of business.

She seemed, however, to be aware of the direction in which his thoughts were travelling because she lifted her index finger and choked out, ‘That was a rhetorical question. Don’t you
dare
say anything.’

He gave his most innocent shrug. ‘Whatever you say, Sarge.’

‘Well,’ she sighed, finally pulling back the chair in front of his desk and sitting down in it. ‘The roo bar incident aside, I did a JSA on just installing trusses from the land. Assessing the risk with our matrices, I don’t think with the weather turning that it’s safe any more.’

‘Hey,’ he spread his hands, ‘I’m on your side. Have you forwarded your opinion to Carl yet?’

‘No, I thought I’d run it by you first.’

‘Well, go ahead.’ He nodded. ‘I’m sure he’ll have exactly the same verdict when he hears what you have to say. As long as,’ his lips twitched, ‘you don’t tell him what I said first.’

‘Gotcha.’ An awkward silence fell and then she leaned forwards as though about to stand up again to leave. After all, there was nothing more to say. She should go, right?

‘How was your R and R?’ he quickly burst out, stalling her.
You fool.

Her brow furrowed. ‘Er, good.’

‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’

She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Oh you know, I just had a lot of family stuff going on.’

He remembered she had told him that it was her father who’d had the crippling effect on her private life. His imagination began to create scenarios. All of them angered him.

‘Did you see your old man?’

‘Huh?’ Her eyes widened.

He hesitated. ‘Perhaps it’s none of my business. It just seemed from your expression that maybe he might be giving you a hard time again.’

‘I wish.’ She turned her face away. ‘The truth is, Gavin, I don’t know where my father is. I’ve never met him.’

He did a double take. ‘But I thought you said –’

‘His crime was abandoning me before I was born. I didn’t find out about his existence till about a year ago. And I know this might sound lame, but it’s really screwed up my sense of identity. I’ve been searching for answers ever since . . .’

‘It doesn’t sound lame,’ he said quietly. ‘I can see how something like that can be a real betrayal of trust.’
It’s no wonder you won’t rely on anyone.

A few other puzzle pieces clicked into place for him. ‘Oh shit, you thought Yabber was your father?’

Her grin trembled on her lips. ‘For a little while . . .’

‘If you’d confided in me I could have told you he wasn’t.’

‘I didn’t trust you.’

You don’t trust anyone.
A fist squeezed his heart tight and he licked his lips. ‘But apparently, you trust me now.’

She seemed amused at her own weakness. ‘I guess so.’

‘What do you know about this guy?’

‘My father?’ She blinked. ‘Nothing much. He was a drifter who liked the outback, a welder by trade, he has an injury on his right foot that scarred him for life, he’s married . . . I thought his name was Hector too but that turned out to be wrong. Anyway,’ she slapped her palms briskly on her lap and stood up, ‘it doesn’t really matter.’

‘It clearly matters to you.’

‘It did.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘But when I look back on what I’ve been through this last year – all those ups and downs, broken relationships, fighting with my family, unable to work because of this obsession – I think this search has taken more from me than it has given.’

She walked towards the door, indicating that the time for confidences was at an end. But then, like a druggie addicted to the one poison, he stalled her again. ‘You going to the shindig Lena’s planned at Point Samson next week?’

Wendy rolled her eyes. ‘I think she’d kill me if I didn’t.’

‘It’ll be good for you. Get away from all that family stuff and just focus on friends. There are many people who like you, Wendy.’

‘Yeah right,’ she scoffed. ‘I’m the TCN spy, remember? I’ve got a long way to go around here.’

‘You’re also the girl who pulled Sharon out from under that bus, the woman who protected everyone’s jobs by getting us through the audit – and the only reason we’re prepared for cyclone season is you. Don’t sell yourself short.’ He looked down at his hands and said tightly, ‘You bring a lot to this project.’
And to me.

Her hand had been resting on the knob of the door and she turned a gorgeous shade of pink that made him want to kiss her silly. ‘I do huh? That’s certainly a compliment coming from you.’

He looked up and grinned. ‘You’ll only hear it once, Sarge, so don’t let it fatten your ego.’

She cocked her head to one side as she looked at him – a strange, wistful expression staining her features. ‘I’ll get that report to Carl,’ she said huskily and let herself out.

He stared at the closed door probably far longer than necessary. It was the most honest he had ever been with her and it felt good.

After that, it was off to the wharf. The difficulty with being project manager was he still had to hold down his other role as piling engineer as well. Sometimes there just weren’t enough hours in the day.

But he was resolved to keep a low profile from then on. And he did, staying out of Wendy’s way and focusing as much as he could on the project.

Another week passed and this was working out quite well for him until on Wednesday evening when he opened his donga door and noticed that someone had pushed a newspaper under it so that it rested on the floor of his quarters.

The sight wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the newspaper hadn’t been pre-opened to a particular page and story. The headline read:
Peter Marshall Seeks Revenge for Deaths During Gang War
. He hastily crouched and picked it up.

Closing his door behind him, he turned on the light and looked around the messy room to see if anything had been taken, moved or touched. The disarray, however, seemed to be a result of his own untidiness rather than invasion. Also his window was locked and the knob on his door didn’t appear to have been tampered with.

He looked at the paper again. What was this? A warning? Was Peter here?

He grabbed his mobile and headed to the car park for good reception. When he was sure no one was watching him, he dialled the emergency number of his case officer.