Marked (17 page)

I shook my head. “No. But we can’t stay here. Those bastards could be coming back anytime.”

She was right about the hiding place. It had been built for the job, like a secret cellar. “There’s an old still in here,” whispered Kat, pushing aside a section of shelving. A false wall with a dimly lit space behind it.

“A what?”

“A still. For making whisky.”

We were inside the old stone hut that Jed used for storing his home-brew. It was nestled into the bank behind his shack, a dank, gloomy lean-to, stinking of cannabis and stale beer. But I was glad of it. Coming down that last bit of track had been really frightening, and I was jumpy as hell. We’d made it. Nobody had shot at us, no sign they’d even caught sight of us. We’d eased ourselves through the opening, into a tiny hiding place. Not much more than a cupboard. It was less than a metre deep by about two metres, stretching across one end of the shed. The only light seeped in through a tiny panel of frosted glass set in the roof. Even smaller than a cupboard, because one end was completely taken up with a copper tank and a weird spiral of copper pipe rising to the ceiling. Kat slid the wall section shut.

“Bloody hell,” I whispered. “How did you find out about this?”

“Jed showed me. The old codger who used to live here. He made whisky in it, way back in the old days when alcohol was illegal. That’s why it’s all so well hidden.”

“Wow. They’ll never find us in here. We could stay put till they go away.”

“Yeah. But first chance we get, we ought to make a move. Need to think about Blissy.” Kat eased herself to the floor and sat leaning against the wall, arms around her knees, drawing them to her chest. I sank down beside her. She mumbled something to herself, and I missed it.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking I haven’t done too well lately. Not to the people around me.” She swallowed, but it might’ve been a sob.

“What d’you mean?” I whispered. “I reckon you’ve been bloody marvellous.” I looked at her, but in the gloomy light, I couldn’t work out what she was thinking. Something was rustling inside the wall. Rats, I guessed. I wiped the remains of a spider’s web out of my hair and shuddered.

“I never trusted Jed,” she muttered at last. “Not really. When he showed me this cubbyhole, I wouldn’t come in here with him – scared he’d try it on. Blissy reckoned he was a good mate, but even she had a few doubts. She’d heard stories about him. And when you told me he’d been in my bedroom, I could’ve killed him!” She lapsed into silence, and I could feel her trembling. Then she turned her head, her eyes shining in the dim light. “He didn’t have to go for that bastard!” she said, her voice cracking.

“Shh!” I gripped her arm, whispering. “Keep it down.”

“Sorry.” She laid her hand on mine, and then took it away, lowering her voice. “But he didn’t. He could’ve made a run for it. He knew that creep had a gun, but he went for him anyway – and all he had was a jack handle. Trying to protect
me
– and that bastard shot him.”

“Bloody hell, Kat, you can’t blame yourself.”

“No, I didn’t shoot him. But I could’ve
trusted
him. He was always good to me – and I should’ve had a bit more faith in him. He deserved that.” She took her face in her hands.

I didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t think of anything that would help. I shuffled around to face her and took her arms in both hands. “Cut it out, Kat. He reckoned you were wonderful.”

She sniffed. “Just makes it worse. And it’s not just Jed. What about the way I treated Kreigler? Wouldn’t do anything he said. Treated him like shit. But he was really good to us too. He’d have done anything for us, and they killed him.” Another sniff. “Don’t put yourself out for me – you’ll end up dead.”

I slid my arm right around her shoulders and held her against me. She didn’t object. I’m not sure if she even noticed. “You did try to warn me,” I said softly. “You did tell me to keep my nose out of your business.”

We stayed like that for quite a while. Huddled together on the floor of that cubbyhole, Kat with her thoughts, me with mine. How the hell had I got into this? Caught up in something I didn’t understand – something much too big to get my mind around. And was Leatherman right? Was I just a sex-crazed kid chasing a good-looking girl? Would I be here if Kat had been fat, feeble and frumpy? Didn’t like that idea. Too many questions, mostly with answers buried deep in a nightmare. None of my thoughts was any help, and eventually I had to move. My swollen knee was aching in that cramped position, and I needed to stretch it. I stood up, gently flexing my leg. And then froze. Voices.

Kat scrambled to her feet beside me, and I understood how she felt. Somehow you don’t face this sort of danger sitting down. We stood there together in that tiny space, listening. Two men talking, but they were some distance away. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and then they faded altogether.

“I think they’ve gone into Jed’s shack,” whispered Kat.

Moments later, a door slammed somewhere, and I felt Kat tense, breathing in sharply. Footsteps. Right outside. “You checked in here?” A loud voice with an Aussie accent, almost on top of us.

“Yeah, nothing.”

The outside door scraped against concrete as someone pushed it open. I could hear them moving around inside, but the blood thumping in my ears seemed even louder. Our tiny cubbyhole was suddenly like a coffin, dark and suffocating. Dust-laden air tickling the back of my throat.
Am I going to cough
?
What if I sneeze
? Kat clutched my arm, and I swallowed, fighting the urge to clear my throat.

“What’s all this shit?” The clinking of glass.

“Home-brew. Seems our friend was a hophead.” A much softer voice, English, and now I recognised it. Last time I’d heard it, he’d been standing on the track just above us with a radio.

“Yuck!” A bottle smashed against the floor and then the door scraped again as they pulled it shut. But they were still right outside the shed.

The Aussie was clearly in charge. “Rastas’ll be here soon. He’s got Bruno with him – take one of them with you and search the track, properly this time. If you can find the bike, they shouldn’t be too far away.” He paused, as if listening. We could hear it too, an outboard motor. “That’ll be him now. We’d better get down to the beach. And don’t forget, mate, we haven’t got time to piss about. Not with the court hearing being brought forward. We need that girl, and we’ve only got about forty-eight hours. And we want her alive. She’s no use to us dead.”

“What if things go wrong? If she ends up dead?”

“Let’s make bloody sure she doesn’t. But … if she
does
get wasted, we’ll have to keep it quiet – keep the body hidden till it’s over. Her old man won’t nark on us if he doesn’t know where she is. Just remember, if she gives us the slip, we’re in deep shit, mate. Deep shit.”

“And the other kid?”

“If he gets in the way, take him out.”

I listened to their footsteps fading away towards the beach.

If he gets in the way, take him out …

The murmur of the outboard grew louder and we could hear waves swishing beneath the hull as it approached the beach. Then it throttled back and a few moments later died altogether. Rastas and Bruno had arrived.

I knew things were happening down there, but I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking about the Aussie’s last words – the bit about what to do with the kid if he got in the way.

“Did you hear that?” Kat whispered. “The court case must be in the next couple of days. After that it’ll all be over. Dad won’t testify if he thinks they might’ve snatched me. Got to get away. Got to get word to him. Let him know I’m okay.”

“Jeez, Kat. It’s only a court hearing. Not worth dying for.” I just wanted to stay hidden in that cubbyhole – wanted to wait safely until it was all over.

“Tell that to Mum,” she whispered bitterly. “A bit too late for her.” Her grip on my arm tightened, fingers digging into my flesh. It hurt more than it should’ve, and I remembered Burger had been hammering away at me. Same day, but a lifetime ago. “I want those bastards to go down,” she hissed. “If Dad doesn’t testify, they’ll get away scot-free. But it wouldn’t end there – he knows too much. They’d get him in the end just to shut him up.” She slid her hand down to my wrist, squeezing it urgently. “Come on, Cully. We can’t stay here. Got to get help.”

I didn’t know what to do. The idea of leaving this safe little hiding place terrified me, but I knew if I didn’t help her, she’d try something on her own. And if I let that happen, I didn’t think I could live with myself. Jed had died because he cared – and I needed to show her that I cared too. Prove Leatherman wrong. But I didn’t want to die.

I placed my other hand over hers and pressed. “We’ll get away,” I muttered. “We’ll make it.”

But how? Enough light filtered in from above to tell us it was still light outside, and there were at least four men out there looking for us. All of them probably armed. It seemed hopeless. Finally, we agreed to wait for darkness. She wasn’t happy, but really, we had no choice.

We settled ourselves as comfortably as we could on the floor. When you’ve got nothing to do except think, time passes like a dead hedgehog on the road. Every time you look it’s still there, unpleasantly, in exactly the same place.

The silence got to me in the end. “What did you mean when you said Blissy’d heard stories about Jed?”

Kat turned her head, and in the gloom I could see her looking at me. “Nothing,” she whispered at last. “Forget it. I was just being silly.”

“Come on, you can’t leave it there. He was my friend too, a bloody good mate. And I want to know what people were saying about him. Don’t have to
believe
it, but I want to know what they’re saying.”

There was a long silence while she thought about it and I waited. “It’s mostly what Blissy told me,” she said eventually. “Kreigler knew about it too.”

“Knew what?”

“Well, when he was at Cooksville High, as a teacher, he got into a bit of strife.”

“Yeah, he told me there’d been some trouble, but I didn’t think it amounted to much. D’you know what happened?”

Another pause. She didn’t want to badmouth Jed, and I could understand that. Then she sighed. “They reckoned he was too friendly with some of the kids … some of the older girls. And sharing weed around. Things like that.”

“And was he?”

“Sharing weed? Wouldn’t surprise me. You could get high just by sticking your head inside his shack.”

“Okay, but what about the girls?”

“Don’t know. I think it was only one girl, but–” She stopped, tilting her head, listening.

Someone was coming up the path towards us. Voices again. Footsteps passed the shed and carried on, but one of them must’ve paused, because he called to the others. “I’ll take the wagon back up to the top. Then I’ll meet you on the track. And stay awake – you know roughly where the bike went over. Reckon they’ll still be somewhere near there – probably hurt. But don’t forget they could have the gun.” The footsteps from the track faded. “Bloody kids,” muttered the voice just outside the hut. It was the Australian. We heard him making his way back to the beach, and a minute or two later a car door slammed. A murmur of voices, and then the engine coughed into life. The shrillness of gears screaming, and I pictured the heavy Pajero wheels spinning in the soft sand. But then it began grinding its way up past the shack towards the road.

“Shit,” I said. “They found the bike. It must’ve gone right down to the beach.”

“Yeah.” We were talking quietly, but we weren’t whispering any more. Pretty sure no one else was in hearing distance. “There must be more of them out there than we thought. You heard that bit about the gun? They must’ve sent someone back to my house. Must’ve found the guy you clobbered and seen his gun was missing.”

We crouched together in silence for a few moments. Trying to make sense out of what we’d heard. “D’you think there’s anyone still around outside?” Kat asked at last.

I thought about it. “There’s gotta be. We didn’t hear the boat go out again and they wouldn’t leave it on the beach by itself.”

“But what if they did? What if they’re sure we’re lying mangled somewhere up there in the bush?” She gripped my arm, facing me. “We’ve got to check. If there’s no one down there …”

I stared at her, trying to control the slipperiness squirming heavily through my gut. She was right. “Yeah,” I said hopelessly. “I suppose we’ll have to.”

At least it was starting to get dark.