A stringy, dark-skinned teenager emerged from the brush. I noticed others scuttling off through the trees, a couple of girls and a tall, lanky young man in a huge black trench coat that was ridiculous in the heat. Zac must have known we’d come looking for him after hearing about Theo Campbell’s death. There was laughter on the wind as the teens took the back route into the bush, a couple of defiant cries of ‘Fuck the Po-lice!’
Zac had a practised surliness well beyond his fifteen years. I might have wondered what it took to become this angry at life so young, but I had been exactly the same kind of kid. I never slept. I smoked like a chimney. I swore at strangers and hung out in the wrong places. One of my foster dads had nicknamed me ‘Bitch face’ because he said I always looked like I wanted to scream at someone. This kid thought nobody cared about him, and he was probably right.
‘You got some friends, Vicky?’ the teen asked, eyeing Kash and me. ‘That’s a first.’
‘We need you to come with us, Zac,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to get your parents so we can chat about an incident yesterday morning.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Oh yes you are.’
‘Suck my dick, bitch,’ he snapped at me. ‘I don’t know anything about what happened yesterday. So you can go and annoy someone else, because I ain’t no terrorist, and I don’t keep a diary. Diaries are for little girls.’
‘We just want to talk,’ Snale said. ‘Maybe you can tell us something that will help. You and Soupy were … well acquainted. You might know someone else who had a major grudge against him.’
‘ Whoever it was deserves a fucking medal.’ Zac drew a cigarette packet out of his jeans. ‘Dude was an A-grade fucktard. I heard the bomb blew his head right off. Is that true?’
‘We don’t have time for the tough-guy games.’ I strode forwards. ‘Get in the car.’
‘Should I resist?’ He jutted his chin at me, grabbed a handful of his junk. ‘Would that be exciting for you?’
‘That’s it,’ I heard Kash mutter as he came up behind me. He pushed me aside and grabbed Zac, slamming the kid into the dirt.
‘Stop! Stop!’
Zac was squealing with terror, all his bravado gone. Kash had a knee in the kid’s back and both hands in his pockets, scooping and dumping detritus on the ground around us: cigarettes, joints, condoms, a pocketknife, scraps of paper. Kash got the boy’s phone and let Snale and I drag him off the wailing teen.
Zac rolled in the dirt. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you, po-lice piece of shit!’
‘Let’s have a look,’ Kash was saying, swiping through Zac’s phone. ‘Recent photos.’
‘Stop, Kash.’ I grabbed at him, just missed the phone. ‘This is an illegal search. Anything you find on there is going to be tainted.’
‘Says who?’ He held me back with a massive arm, worked the screen with the thumb of his other hand. ‘I see … naked teen girls. I see kids sucking on bongs. What’s this?’ Kash showed me the phone screen. I glimpsed a mess of wires and tools and glass jars on a sprawling, cluttered table. ‘Bomb-making in progress?’
‘ Give me the phone,’ I told Kash. ‘Or I’ll take it from you.’ He was trying to zoom in on the photographs, backing away from me. I gave Kash a few seconds to comply, then strode forward, lunged and grabbed the hand that held the phone. He was fast, catching my other wrist as I went for an open-handed slap to the side of his head. I dropped and hooked a leg around his, pulling him off balance. He let go of my wrist to save himself from hitting the dirt and I got my slap in, wrenching the phone from his fingers as he was distracted by the blow.
‘Oh shit!’ Zac was laughing, pointing at me. ‘Bitch has got some moves!’
I threw the phone at the boy, who only barely caught it against his chest. ‘Call me bitch one more time,’ I seethed, ‘I’ll shove that phone so far up your arse you’ll be able to Skype your spleen.’
Kash watched the teen run off into the bush. His face was slowly flushing with colour, one hand steadying himself against the ground.
‘That was a big mistake,’ he told me. ‘Assaulting a federal agent is a minimum two years’ prison.’
‘Conducting a search without a warrant is a serious service violation,’ I said. I was rolling up the sleeves of my shirt. ‘But neither of us is going to make a report.’
‘We’re not?’
‘No.’ I set my feet apart, cracked my knuckles. ‘We’re going to sort this out right here, right now.’
Chapter 27
‘OH, COME ON,’ Kash snorted, rising to his full height. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Harry.’ Snale put a hand on my arm. ‘This isn’t a good idea.’
‘Victoria, our special agent friend here thinks in very simple terms.’ I kept my eyes on Kash. ‘He’s not a complex man. He understands strength and weakness. Good and evil. Winning and losing. He needs to be shown that he isn’t the alpha dog here, and when he knows that he can fall the fuck into line.’
Already I could see Kash’s interest in my challenge piquing, the way it had the night before when I ragged on his workout. A smile was playing about the corners of his mouth.
‘I don’t hit women,’ Kash sneered. ‘So you can back down right now before you overexert yourself.’
‘You don’t have to hit me. You just have to pin me.’
‘And what exactly will that achieve?’ he asked.
‘Whoever gets their face pinned against the dirt loses all jurisdictional authority over this investigation.’
‘ Oh, bullshit,’ Kash snorted. ‘I’m SAS–combat trained, sweetheart.’
‘Then this should be over quickly.’
‘I’m not involved in this.’ Snale backed off towards the truck, her head down.
‘I need you as a witness!’ I called.
‘So, what? I pin you against the dirt, and I’m the boss.’ Kash’s eyes wandered over my body, measuring, underestimating, the way everybody did. ‘And you’ll fully accept that. It’s my investigation to run from start to finish.’
‘It’s got to be the face.’
‘Right,’ Kash said. ‘I put your face in the dirt and your arse is mine.’
‘You put my face in that dirt and I will trawl this town for Islamic terrorists until the cows come home.’ I put my hand on my heart. ‘I will speak operational jargon so pompous and ridiculously over-official that not even you will be able to understand me.’
He didn’t even ask me what I wanted him to do if I won. The possibility never entered his mind. He rushed towards me, huge hands out, ready to break me.
Chapter 28
KASH FAKED LEFT, swept to my right and gathered me up in a chokehold, his hairy arm wrenching me backwards. I let him take me, pushed off the ground and rolled over him, shocking him with how fast I had him on his back.
We both twisted, righted, kicking red sand. His glasses had been knocked off. He ignored them. My heart swelled with a sick kind of joy. I liked to fight. I’d been fighting since I was a kid. Trying to claw some corner of existence for myself in houses where I was the cuckoo invading the nest.
Kash was eyeing me, trying to decide his next move. I didn’t give him time to go on the offensive again. I rushed at him, caught his arm and tried to twist it as we danced in the dirt. He grabbed the back of my neck and shoved me downwards, using my own momentum as I’d used his. I was pinned on my back, the wind knocked out of me. Most people panic when they can’t breathe in a fight. But I knew the air would slowly return. I kicked out and he overbalanced, fell on me. I shoved his jaw upwards.
Snale was watching us from the truck. I locked eyes with her, my neck and shoulders and arms on fire as the incredible weight of Kash’s body came down upon me. She grimaced as Kash leaned on me. It was clear who she was rooting for.
I kicked again, got him in the hip. I twisted and scrambled out from beneath him, got him in my own chokehold, a knee in his spine. He stood and I went with him, absurdly hanging off him like a monkey trying to wrestle a bear. He tried to shake me off, gripping at my arms, but I locked my legs around his waist. And then he did what I hoped he’d do.
Kash sank to his knees and fell backwards, trying to crush me against the ground. I slid sideways before I could hit the dirt, let go of his neck and scooped up his arm. I wrenched it high against his back. He yowled, shocked by the sudden pain, and I shoved the back of his head down so that his cheek hit the red earth beneath us.