Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(3)

Falk put his phone on loudspeaker and pressed a button. Static filled the car. Five, ten seconds of nothing, then the two words emerged, tinny and thin. A few more muffled seconds, and the call cut out.

Carmen frowned. ‘Once more.’

She closed her eyes and Falk watched her face as she listened. At thirty-eight, Carmen outranked him by only six months both in age and experience, but it was the first time their paths in the Federal Police had crossed. She was new to the financial investigation unit in Melbourne, having moved down from Sydney. Falk couldn’t work out if she regretted it. Carmen opened her eyes. Under the orange glow of the streetlight, her skin and hair both looked a shade darker than usual.

‘“Hurt her,”’ she said.

‘That’s what it sounds like to me.’

‘Could you hear something else right at the end?’

Falk turned up the volume to the maximum and hit replay. He found himself holding his breath as he strained to hear.

‘There,’ Carmen said. ‘Is that someone saying “Alice”?’

They listened once more and this time Falk caught the faint inflection in the muffled noise, a sibilant hiss.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It might be static.’

Carmen started the engine. It roared loud in the pre-dawn. She pulled away and onto the road before she spoke again.

‘How confident do you feel that that’s Alice’s voice?’

Falk tried to recall the timbre of Alice Russell’s tone. Her voice was fairly distinctive. It was often clipped. Always decisive. ‘There’s nothing to say that it’s not her. But it’s hard to hear.’

‘Very hard. I’m not sure I could even swear that was a woman.’

‘No.’

In the side mirror, the Melbourne skyline was growing smaller. Ahead, in the east, the sky was turning from black to navy.

‘I know Alice is a pain in the arse,’ he said, ‘but I really hope we haven’t landed her in the shit.’

‘Me too.’ Carmen’s engagement ring caught the light as she turned the wheel to join the highway. ‘What did the state cop have to say? What was his name?’

‘King.’

Falk had hung up from Alice Russell’s voicemail the previous night and immediately dialled the state police. It had been half an hour before the senior sergeant leading the search had called back.

‘Sorry.’ Senior Sergeant King had sounded tired. ‘Had to get myself to a landline. The weather’s stuffing up the reception worse than usual. Tell me about this voicemail.’

He’d listened patiently while Falk spoke.

‘Right,’ King said, when he’d finished. ‘Look, we’ve run a check on her phone records.’

‘Okay.’

‘What did you say your relationship was with her?’

‘Professional,’ Falk said. ‘Confidential. She was helping me and my partner with something.’

‘And what’s his name?’

‘Her. Carmen Cooper.’

Falk could hear the rustle of paper as the man wrote it down.

‘Were either of you expecting her to call?’

Falk hesitated. ‘Not specifically.’

‘Are you particularly skilled at bushcraft?’

Falk had looked down at his left hand. The skin was still pink and strangely smooth in patches where the burns hadn’t healed quite as well. ‘No.’

‘Is your partner?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Falk realised he didn’t really know.

There was a pause. ‘According to the phone company, early this morning Alice Russell attempted to get through to two numbers,’ King said. ‘Triple zero and you. Can you think of a reason why that would be?’

It was Falk’s turn to pause. He could hear the sergeant breathing down the phone.

Hurt her.

‘I think we’d better come up there,’ Falk said. ‘Speak in person.’

‘I think that’d be a wise move, mate. Bring your phone.’





Day 4: Sunday Morning


The woman could see her own fear reflected in the three faces staring back at her. Her heartbeat thumped and she could hear the others’ rapid breathing. Overhead, the pocket of sky carved out by the trees was a dull grey. The wind shook the branches, sending a shower of water down on the group below. No-one flinched. Behind them, the rotten wood of the cabin groaned and settled.

‘We have to get out of here. Now,’ the woman said.

The pair on her left nodded immediately, united for once by their panic, their eyes wide and dark. On her right, the briefest hesitation, then a third nod.

‘What about –’

‘What about what?’

‘. . . What about Alice?’

An awful hush. The only sound was the creak and rustle as the trees watched down over their tight circle of four.

‘Alice brought this on herself.’





Chapter 3



When Falk and Carmen stopped after a couple of hours, the sky was fully light and the city lay far behind them. They stood by the side of the road and stretched as the clouds threw shifting shadows across the paddocks. The houses and buildings were few and far between. A truck carrying farming supplies roared past, the first vehicle they had seen for thirty kilometres. The noise startled a flock of galahs, sending them scattering from a nearby tree, flapping and screaming.