Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(27)

I hung up, gripped my hair. I wanted to howl into the night. It was like my brother was sinking in quicksand. Every time I thought someone was coming along to help me free him, they only kicked more sand at him. The more he struggled, the deeper he got. I knew if too many people joined the crowd trying to bury him, I’d never get Sam out alive.





Chapter 38


IN THE MORNING we paid a visit to Theo Campbell’s friend David Lewis, to see what he thought about the former police chief’s death. The younger man had seen Theo that afternoon, climbed the roof of his little farmhouse with him and accepted his help in fixing some broken tiles. Lewis had of course heard the news already and seemed bewildered. The last person to see the victim before a tragedy is often haunted by what has happened. David repeated words I’d heard often, that Theo had seemed fine, that he couldn’t believe he watched his friend walk off so casually to what would be such a violent death.

The sun was high and blazing as we pulled in to the Campbell driveway. Olivia Campbell opened the door to us, her hands red from wringing and her eyes puffy. She had the reserved dignity of a cop’s wife, her outfit put together and her hair neatly pulled into a tight bun. A woman who carried on in the face of adversity, at least in terms of appearance, someone who never let the cracks show. There was a framed wedding photograph of the two of them just inside the door. Theo was broad-shouldered, tall and bushy-browed. I went to the doors that looked out onto the backyard, watched the family cat as it toyed with a dead locust by the edge of the lawn.

‘It’s drugs,’ Olivia said as she and Snale settled on the lounges. ‘People are saying it’s terrorism, or it’s related to the diary they found. But I’m telling you, it’s some drug gang that’s got him.’

Snale and I exchanged glances, shocked. I didn’t know what I’d expected. Some small talk about Theo, about how Olivia was coping. But she launched straight in. Kash looked sceptical. He stood at the bookcase, looking over the tattered paperbacks there. He zeroed in on a copy of the Qur’an like a hawk and seized it from the third shelf, as though he’d find the answer to Theo’s demise there.

‘What do you mean, drugs?’ Snale asked gently. ‘We’re on top of the drug situation in the region. We don’t have any gangs out here.’

‘Theo said was running an undercover sting,’ Olivia explained. ‘See, we went to bed one night, maybe a month ago, and I woke up at around midnight and Theo wasn’t beside me. I went to the front windows and looked out. I saw him talking to Jace Robit and his crew. I asked him what was going on when he came back inside. He wouldn’t tell me much about it. He said he thought there was drug activity going on. Ice production.’

Snale shook her head ruefully, disbelieving. I came and settled on the edge of the couch.

‘There is ice around here,’ Snale told me. ‘Softer drugs, too. Lots of weed. But any amphetamines are mostly brought through by the truckers heading to Bourke, about four hours out. Bigger town. People buy it at one of the local pubs there, we think, to keep themselves running until the next round comes through.’

‘It’s only small amounts?’

‘The kids use it recreationally. They’re bored. There’s nothing to do out here. We’d know if anyone in town was manufacturing it. Something like that would be difficult to hide. And there’d be no point in making it. You wouldn’t be able to sell huge amounts of it out here. Ice is made in the cities, where you’ve got a chance of blending in.’

I remembered the wonky-toothed, narrow-bodied man with the rifle, Jace. His little gathering of similarly sun-worn types.

‘Robit has a cattle property on the south side of the valley.’ Snale pointed.

‘Was Theo sure it was drugs they were manufacturing?’ Kash asked Olivia, who looked up, red-eyed. ‘Or was he just suspicious?’

‘I don’t know.’ Olivia wiped her nose on a well-used tissue. ‘I only saw them that one night, and I didn’t ask for any more details. I remember them all standing out there on the road. Their headlights were all on. The forensic officers, they told me that whoever killed Theo had been pacing around near him. Had him tied to a chair.’ She fought back tears. ‘Maybe it was some sort of interrogation, see whether he’d told anyone else.’

I wandered into the office while Snale comforted Olivia. This was obviously Theo’s domain. There was a cracked leather desk-chair and an old, dusty laptop, a collection of brass nautical navigation equipment on the desk in desperate need of a polish, more books. I went and sat in Theo’s chair, looked out the window onto the bare lawn. There were papers on his desk. A half-finished memoir of a rural police chief’s life. Zac Taby had said that diaries were for little girls, but Theo Campbell had spent hours upon hours reflecting on his long career, setting down his personal history in these pages. I flipped through and caught the occasional word. Honour. Evidence. Tragedy. Arrest.

‘He would have told Snale about an undercover operation,’ Kash whispered from the doorway. He was still holding the Qur’an like a much-loved teddy. I watched him go to the bookshelves here.

‘I agree,’ I said. ‘If farmers were making ice out here, there’d be no need to run an undercover sting. Just go raid their properties. Ice manufacture is expensive. Complicated. And it reeks. How on Earth would they hide the smell? Besides that, there isn’t a big enough market for it out here. I can understand how the truckers get away with it. Some city drug dealer gives them a package and they slowly sell it off, town by town, all the way across the country. But cooking it out here? It would be stupid.’