The pain in her knee was horrific.
She had to save Olivia, she had to keep going, this was the only— “I said stay still! Don’t you bloody move a muscle. This is a Lee-Enfield Number Four. Me granddad killed three men with this at Tobruk. At this range it’ll split your head in half. You get me?”
She nodded.
“Drop the blade!”
She dropped the machete.
“Take three steps back.”
“I don’t think I can get up.”
“On your arse, then, backward, away from the blade.”
She did as she was told.
“Now, you just sit there on the ground and don’t do nothing.”
Olivia groaned behind him and tried to move. She’d been hit hard and her mouth was bleeding. Jacko stepped on her back, shoving her into the sand. He took a little yellow walkie-talkie out of his pocket. “Ivan, are you there?”
Static.
“These things are terrible,” Jacko told Heather. “No range. Toys, really.” He pressed Talk again. “Oi! Ivan! Are you there?”
Static.
He gave the walkie-talkie a shake. “Oi, Ivan, are you bloody there?”
“We’re here…we were just checking the body of the Kraut woman,” Ivan said through a blizzard of hiss.
“You won’t believe what I done now,” Jacko said.
“What?”
“I’ve only gone and caught the Yank woman too, haven’t I.”
“No, you haven’t!” Ivan said.
“I have. She come running at me with a bloody great knife and I knocked her on her arse,” Jacko said, licking his lips and leering at her triumphantly.
“Serious?”
“Fair dinkum, mate. She tried to get the drop on me and I got the drop on her!”
“Well done, mate! And you got both kids too?” Ivan asked.
“Her and the girl.”
“Ask her where the boy is,” Ivan said.
“Where’s the lad?” Jacko said.
“We separated. I told them to hide somewhere. I don’t know where he is,” Heather replied.
“Bollocks! Where is he?”
“We separated. I thought we’d have more of a chance.”
“Balls you did. You wouldn’t leave the bloody kids.”
“They’re not really my kids. They’re Tom’s. We’ve been married less than a year. I told them to hide and I’d get help. I didn’t mind separating. The kids hate me,” Heather said.
She said this with such passion that Jacko went for it for a few beats but then smiled a horrible graveyard smile and shook his head.
“Nah. It’s not you. Is he in the bush over there?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Jacko put the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Listen, mate, she says the boy isn’t with her. If you send a couple of lads over in the Toyota and bring one of the dogs, we’ll soon flush him out. We’ll have all of them in one bloody swoop.”
“Did you really get them or are you pissing us about?” Ivan asked.
“I got them! I saw the girl and ran her down, clobbered her, and this one comes at me with a knife. I got ’em both!”
“Well done, mate. We’ll be there. Over and out.”
Jacko put the walkie-talkie in his pocket and lifted the rifle and looked down the sight at her. “Tell the boy to come out or I’ll blow your bloody tits off.”
The Lee-Enfield was pressed against his shoulder. He was squinting at her with one eye closed, his finger on the trigger.
She shook her head.
“Big mistake. You know what we’re going to do with you? We’re going to rut you. Every man and boy on this island. Me first. And then it’s Terry’s anthill.”
Heather caught her breath as she saw Owen stand up from the undergrowth. He was holding a long tree branch in his hands, one of those brittle, dry eucalyptus branches that looked as if they would snap in half if you gripped them too hard. He was going to try to use it as a club or spear.
She tried to catch Owen’s eye. She didn’t want to shake her head, because if she did, Jacko would almost certainly spot the gesture and spin around, and, startled, he might pull the trigger.
“Your life is worth nothing out here, Heather. Not after what you done to Ellen. I could bloody kill you right now and nothing would happen. No cops. No nothing. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I completely understand.”
Owen was walking closer. It was madness. That spindly branch would barely irritate Jacko if Owen got near enough to swing it.
She tried telepathy. Go back, go back, go back! Go back to the bush and run!
Owen’s chin was jutting out and he was biting his lower lip the way he did when he was set on doing something. Olivia was sitting up now. She was going to try to do something too.
Oh my God.
“OK, OK. Look, I’m sorry,” Heather said. “Please don’t shoot. I’ll get up. I’ll get up slowly and I’ll call Owen, OK? You were right. He’s in the bush waiting for me. I’ll get up now, OK? And I’ll yell for him to come.”
Jacko nodded and took a step back from her while keeping the gun pointed at her head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re quite the bullshit artist, aren’t you? But I saw through you,” he said in a snarl of triumph.
She stood up awkwardly, blinking in the sunlight, and stumbled two steps toward the machete lying in the sand. Jacko didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care. What could she do with death only a hair-trigger-pull away?
She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Get away, Owen! Run! I have a plan! Run!” she screamed.
Owen hesitated.
“Get away from here! Run!” she yelled.
Jacko turned and saw Owen vanish into the undergrowth. “You really are one stupid bitch, aren’t you?” he said. He deftly flipped the rifle, took half a stride forward, and clubbed her in the face with the butt. The brass cover on the wooden stock caught her on her left cheek and left eye.
She staggered backward, tripped over her feet, and collapsed.
Her forehead was bleeding. Blood was pouring out of her nose. The cut on her foot reopened.
“Come back, you fat little shit!” Jacko yelled and ran after Owen.
Heather tried to get to her feet. Her left leg responded but her right had a mind of its own. The landscape was swimming. Her head throbbed. She spit blood.
Swayed.
Two horizons. Two suns.
The day seemed to pulse its wings. The wind picked up.
Thick wool carpets of heat.
Unappeasable sunlight.
Olivia had risen and was scrambling after Jacko.
“No! Wait!” Heather said. She rubbed her eyes.
There was the sound of a gunshot.
Her heart missed a beat. She couldn’t breathe.
She stood on the machete handle. She picked it up and hobbled after Jacko.
The crow was still watching her from the lightning-struck eucalyptus tree. Still waiting for the body.
She reached the mangrove bushes.
“Little bastard. Won’t get far, I tell you that,” Jacko was saying into the walkie-talkie.
He was walking back toward the beach.
Walking through the trees.
The wind freshened even more.
Didn’t he hear that roaring?
What was all that noise?
Why couldn’t he see her?
She could see him.
He was holding the rifle vertically in his right hand, the walkie-talkie in his left. There was no sign of either Owen or Olivia.
Suddenly Jacko froze. “What’s that?” he said.