The Island(18)

Ivan grunted and put his hands on his pockets. “I’d have to make two trips…”

Heather reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, and examined it to make sure there was no blood on it.

“That would be a big hassle for you. Perhaps if I made it worth your while?” she asked, holding the bill out the window.

Ivan grinned and snatched it. “Let’s get going.”

He raised the ramp and closed the gate at the back of the ferry.

Heather looked behind her to see if she could spot any other cars coming down the road.

So far, so good.

Ivan unhooked the ropes that attached the ferry to the shore and jumped back onto the boat. He started the diesel engine.

“Should we tell him about the woman?” Olivia asked.

“No one says anything until we’re on the other side,” Heather hissed.

“Mainland Australia, here we come!” Ivan announced. “You can get out of the car if you want.”

“We’re OK,” Heather replied.

A white wake boiled behind the ferry, and Dutch Island slowly began to recede into the distance.

Heather found that she had been holding her breath.

Ivan walked up to the car window.

“Anyone tell you about the foxes? Me and Kate have been trapping the little bastards. Invasive species. Kate’s got quite the collection of skulls. They pay us for them. The state.”

“We didn’t see any foxes,” Heather said, putting her hand over the blood on the steering wheel.

“All right. Well, look, if I see any sharks I’ll let you know and you can take a pic,” Ivan said and went back to the tiller.

“I think we—” Tom began and stopped as Ivan snapped the walkie-talkie off his lapel.

“What?” Ivan was saying. “I can’t hear you. I can’t bloody hear you.”

He put the diesel engine into idle. He banged the walkie-talkie and fiddled with its dial. “I can’t hear you, mate,” he said.

Heather’s knuckles were white as she gripped the Porsche’s steering wheel. Sweat drenched the back of her T-shirt. She knew she looked like shit. Police-lineup-guilty.

“Maybe we should—” Tom began.

“No,” Heather said.

“I think I got you, mate!” Ivan said. “Speak up.”

Ivan walked to the back of the ferry and had a conversation on the walkie-talkie that Heather couldn’t hear.

She didn’t like this at all. She took out her phone and thumb-typed Help to Carolyn, the last person she had texted.

Unable to send. No wireless signal, the report came back.

Ivan clipped the radio back onto his lapel.

He picked up a sports bag, unzipped it, and removed an object.

Heather leaned over the steering wheel to see what it was.

“What’s he doing?” Olivia asked.

“I don’t know.”

Ivan walked slowly back to the driver’s-side window. He pointed an ancient-looking revolver at Heather’s face. “Hand me all your phones and then get out of the car nice and slow-like. If you do any monkey business, anything at all, I’ll shoot one of the kiddies. Do you understand me?”





6



The Toyota Hilux was waiting for them at the Dutch Island dock. They were bundled into the back by a fierce blond woman with a pump-action shotgun.

This, they learned, was Kate, the youngest of Ma’s children.

“No talking,” Kate said.

The road from the ferry to the farm was bleak. Empty heathland punctuated by maybe a dozen abandoned burned-out vehicles dumped and left to rust. The farm itself was a motley collection of barns, sheds, frail Buster Keaton houses, two smaller homesteads, and a large farmhouse facing a yard. The buildings had corrugated-iron roofs in a state of disrepair. Children in dust-bowl overalls watched the car arrive.

They were marched into the farmhouse.

The kids, Heather saw, were wilting fast. Olivia was wearing her jeans and a Grimes T-shirt. Owen was wearing heavy green cargo shorts with his usual red hoodie and Adidas sneakers. She’d pulled on DL 1961 jeans and a black T-shirt. Tom was in thick chinos and a white long-sleeved button-down oxford shirt. All of it was sartorially appropriate for Washington State heat but not Australia heat.

“Over here!” Kate said and forced them onto a sofa.

The room began to fill up with people.

Matt, Ivan, Jacko, and another brother, Brian, squeezed onto an opposite sofa. Matt had taken off his cowboy hat. He and Jacko and Brian had all gotten rifles. Kate was standing by the window with her shotgun. No one was speaking. It was a large space diminished by the accumulation of generations of furniture and knickknacks. There was a fireplace with a fire actually burning in the grate, in this heat. On a mantel there were dozens of family photographs; more on the wall with ancient yellow wallpaper that was peeling in the corners. Pictures of the farm in better days. Pictures of Ireland. Postcards from Sydney and London. Years of baking summers had cracked the floorboards and filled the cracks with dead bugs and garbage. The sofas were leather, patched with duct tape, covered with blankets. Seemingly the whole O’Neill clan had come in here to gawk at them. Men and women with guns. Kids who had been giggling now hushed. A dog sitting between Matt’s legs looked nervously up the stairs.