Pay Dirt

TWENTY-SEVEN

Trigg hadn’t been one hundred per cent sure that Tub Venables would do it. He knew Venables wouldn’t take his regular route, not after he’d learnt that a hold up team was waiting for him, but what if the fat driver chickened out and went the long way around to Belcowie?

He’d been wondering what he’d do if that happened when Happy’s voice crackled on the two-way radio. ‘Boss? He just turned in.’

Trigg sat up, peering down the long bonnet of an XJ6 he’d been trying to sell for the past six months. Probably it wasn’t a good idea bringing an XJ6 onto a road like this, but he hated the thought of driving some tin can. ‘Okay. Put the sign up and follow him in.’

Trigg reached into the back seat, slipped a.303 rifle from its zippered bag, and got out to wait. He heard the Steelgard van, then saw it, pitching on the rough track like a ship in mountainous seas.

Venables stopped the van a few metres short of the big car and stepped out. He looked at the rifle, then at Trigg, his eyes bulging a little, the lines on his face loose and deep. For the moment, they were alone. There were only the empty paddocks and distant razorback hills.

Trigg nodded his head at the rear compartment of the security van. ‘Is he out?’

Venables’s face knitted in worry. ‘He’s on the floor. You sure he’s okay?’

‘He’ll have a headache when he wakes up. Apart from that, he’ll be fine.’

They heard footsteps thudding in the grass at the edge of the track. Happy appeared, his gloomy face showing the strain. ‘Okay?’ Trigg asked.

‘Yep.’

‘Good,’ Trigg said. Then, to Venables: ‘It’s time you called in again.’

Venables’s prominent eyes were watery and troubled. He reached into the cab of the Steelgard van for the radio handset. His voice rasping a little, he reported to the base in Goyder: ‘Steelgard One; nothing to report; ETA Belcowie fifteen minutes.’

‘Good,’ Trigg said again, and he tucked the front sight of the.303 under Tub Venables’s chin and pulled the trigger. There was a spurt of blood and bone chips and Venables seemed to spring up and back and smack to the ground. For several seconds afterwards, tremors passed through his arms and legs.

‘Dump him in the ditch,’ Trigg said. ‘We don’t want him found yet.’

He wasn’t worried about a ballistics test. The slug would have gone right through Venables’s head. He wasn’t particularly worried about the rifle. A drifter had given it to him five years ago in part payment for a clapped out VW. There was no paperwork linking him to it, and he didn’t intend to hang onto it.

He watched Happy haul the body off the road. Then he got into the XJ6 and Happy into the Steelgard van and they drove along the track for three minutes. Tobin was waiting for them next to an earthen bank thick with tall Scotch thistles and reeds that screened them from traffic passing along the Belcowie road a short distance away. Tobin had just arrived. He was dropping the ramp at the back of the breakdown truck. No one spoke until Happy, guided by Tobin’s hand signals, had the van aboard the truck.

‘Where’s the drivers?’ Tobin asked.

Trigg stared moodily into the distance. ‘He couldn’t make it. Help Hap get the tarp over the van.’

While they were doing that, Trigg went back to move the first sign. The signs would attract attention when the panic started, and he didn’t want Venables found just yet. He hid the sign in the grass and drove back to the truck. The van was completely concealed now, the tarpaulin covering it on all sides. The paint job, the logo on the side-Wyatt’s team had done a good job.

They pulled out. Trigg went first, to drag the second sign into the grass, and Tobin and Happy followed in the truck. At the intersection they turned left, away from Belcowie. There was no traffic.

Trigg led all the way, keeping in radio contact with the others. He didn’t think there would be a roadblock this soon, not until the cops had searched and scratched their heads for a while, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If there was a block, he’d have time to warn the others. He imagined the confusion when the police did find something. When they found Tub Venables but no van, they might be inclined to blame the guard. If they found the hideout, found Wyatt and the woman and the other man, they’d think they had it solved.

There were no roadblocks. In fact, the bogus Brava truck and its cargo were locked in the long panel-beating shed at the rear of Trigg Motors in Goyder two minutes before the first Goyder patrol car had even left the city.