Croc Country

  About the Book

  Why would the police come looking for a dead man?

  Young widow Tilly is making a new life for herself, keeping house for the rangers at the Binboona Wildlife Sanctuary in the isolated wilderness of the north-western Gulf Country. Caring for injured wildlife and helping to run the popular tourist campsite are just the distraction she needs from everything she left behind when her husband, Gerry, and young daughter were lost at sea.

  But when the police show up asking questions about Gerry, the peaceful routine she’s built is disrupted as she begins to question what really happened to her family. The arrival of botanist Connor stirs up even more emotion and has Tilly questioning who she can trust. When she and young ranger Luke stumble across evidence of wildlife smugglers on a visit to the local caves, suddenly her sanctuary is no longer safe and it becomes clear the past has well and truly come back to haunt her.

  Set against the lush backdrop of the Northern Territory with its vibrant birds and deadly wildlife, this is a chilling and highly evocative novel about the wild and dangerous things that can happen in the most remote and untamed corners of our country.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by the author

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  This one is for Bill and Judy Bandidt, for friendship above and beyond. Thanks heaps, guys!

  Chapter One

  Tilly Hillyer woke with a jerk and a small cry, her heart in overdrive. It didn’t happen so often now, but on occasion the dream still returned, making a peaceful night’s sleep something of a lottery, with horror the consolation prize. It was so vivid and immediate even after the passage of two years – the tiny falling figure, bulky in its life jacket, tumbling endlessly through space into the rushing darkness and the waiting water.

  An old tag of poetry, from schooldays or something she’d once read, popped into her mind as she panted for breath . . . at one stride comes the dark. Yes, she thought, it had been like that. As if the night had roared out of the mangroves to devour—

  ‘Enough!’ Tilly sat up, thrusting the cotton blanket aside. Once upon a time the world had been a different place but life had folded in upon itself, leaving her apart and separate from the then. Now was where she was at and the rest was a fairytale whose happily-ever-after ending she had been denied. She was suddenly aware of the bird calls beyond the window, as if her present life, which the dream had temporarily pushed aside, was demanding attention.

  It was daylight then, time to rise. Life didn’t stop for anyone’s tragedy. Gerry and Francie were gone, and Tilly had passed through all the painful stages of grief that survivors suffered and it was unhealthy – and pointless – to let that nostalgic once drag her back into the depths through which she had already lived. Sophie, at any rate, would tell her so.

  The thought forced a wry smile from Tilly. ‘Pointless’ was her cousin’s favourite maxim. Anything deemed so was best ignored in her view, be it unnecessary directives from head office in Adelaide or fretting over the weather. What is, is, Till, and you just have to live with it. You could call it tough love but by whatever name, Tilly couldn’t deny that Sophie’s brisk, can-do attitude had been the lifeline she needed to raise herself from the nadir of despair. And the same woman would soon be wanting breakfast, as would Matt and Luke, the other two members of the ranger station for which Tilly cooked and house-kept here in the isolated wilderness of the north-western Gulf Country.

  It was Sophie who had wangled the job for her when her world had collapsed. ‘You need peace and space and somebody to look out for you, Till,’ she had said. ‘That’ll be me. And you need a job. You’ve got to eat, girl. So take it. You’ll get through this, love.’ Her brown, blunt-fingered hand had clasped Tilly’s own. ‘Not in a month or a year, or maybe even two, but someday, I promise, you will be happy again. Losing a child must be like losing part of yourself but things will get better. It’s a long road you’ve embarked on and the only way to get to the end is to just keep moving, one step at a time.’

  The dull anger – at life, at fate, at Gerry – that had simmered deep inside Tilly ever since the tragedy had made her snatch her hand away. ‘How would you know? You’ve never had a child to lose.’

  Sophie hadn’t taken offence. ‘Because you’re strong, love,’ she had said. ‘You were out here living in a fisherman’s shack with no mod cons – how many town girls would pull that on? You’ll make it, Till. Trust me.’ She had encircled Tilly’s tense shoulders in a brief hug. ‘And I’ll be there every step of the way to help you along.’

  Showering, Tilly reflected that her cousin had been true to her word. She owed Sophie everything from her sanity to the roof over her head, for she had lost more than her husband and baby daughter in the tragedy. Her home had gone, along with Esmerelda, the fishing boat Gerry had operated from their base on the McArthur River, whose waters emptied into the Gulf of Carpentaria. She had never returned to their humble building of concrete and tin or the wide reaches of the treacherous river. Sophie had packed for her and organised the move to Binboona, the conservation park run by the Wildlife Protection Association, which lay well to the east of her former home, on the Territory side of the border in the rocky escarpment country of the western Gulf. The property of Binboona, eight hundred and fifty square kilometres in area, ran from the ranges to the coastline. The wildlife reserve had once been a cattle station but was now managed by Sophie and overseen from head office in Adelaide. Dedicated to the preservation of wildlife and the natural habitat, the WPA sanctuaries were dotted across the continent from the deserts of Central Australia to Western Australia’s wild Kimberley coast, precious oases in the struggle against the growing wholesale extinction of species.

  Living at Binboona was not as easy as at their comfortable home in Cairns, but she had grown accustomed to the differences: partial power, a weekly mail service, a hot water system that relied on one stoking a fire . . . The isolation didn’t worry Tilly, while the injured and orphaned animals she helped care for had been a blessing in disguise in those early weeks, her empty hands and heart touched by their suffering and helplessness. And as time had passed she had come to know and like her three companions. At the beginning, Sophie had been little more than an acquaintance. A generation separated them: Tilly was twenty-eight and Sophie in her early
forties. Matt Mercer, the older of the two men, was quiet and diffident, giving away little about himself though she guessed him to be somewhere in his late thirties. Luke Aldyce, with his wild head of hair and university education was a mere boy of twenty-two, in love with his vocation, endlessly enthusiastic about the country and its native creatures, both feathered and furred.

  Gathering up her dark hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, Tilly tidied the bathroom and then went through to the kitchen to start the day. It was a large room, bearing the old-fashioned stamp of its 1960s origin in its furnishings; Binboona’s available funds were spent on the land and the fauna they protected, not the lifestyles of those doing the protecting. Thirty years on from its inception, the large double-ovened wood-burning range still dominated one end of the room, while the original kitchen cabinets and the long pine table, whitened from years of elbow grease and sandsoap, served the rangers as it had the stockmen of earlier years.

  Some things had changed, of course. The kerosene fridge had been replaced by a coldroom and freezer, and Tilly cooked with gas. These days the old stove served as a planter stand and a place to stack the nature magazines Luke was addicted to. The homestead held five bedrooms and quite a comfortable living room where the television lived, but, especially in the cooler months from now, May, through to September, everybody tended to spend their free time in the kitchen.

  At first she had wondered if Sophie was behind this, an organised effort to keep her from brooding on her loss, but she had come to see that the banks of louvred windows above the sink and either side of the door provided a good view of both the Nutt River fronting the homestead and the bird basin that Luke had erected near the old gate posts. A pair of binoculars rested permanently on the rickety cane table next to its matching chair, and her own idle moments were frequently passed there absorbed in the avian life of the area.

  Placing the kettle over the gas ring, Tilly peered through the window at a cluster of tiny finches flitting about the basin’s rim. They took off as the screen door slammed behind Sophie.

  ‘Morning, Till. I was up early, thought I’d do the joeys for you.’ She set the empty feeder bottles on the sink, then removed the long thin teats to rinse them under the tap. A quick sideways glance and she frowned. ‘You look a bit peaky. Bad night?’

  Tilly’s hands stilled on the bacon packet. ‘Not really. I had the dream again, that’s all.’ It embarrassed her to admit it; she wasn’t to wallow, Sophie had said, but who could help their dreams? ‘But listen, I just now saw a Gouldian finch on the basin! It was only there for a second or two among the others, then your coming scared them off.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Sophie peered in turn. ‘You couldn’t have been mistaken?’

  ‘Not unless there’s a thumb-sized parrot out there. What else is that colour and size?’

  ‘We’ll count it as a sighting then. Mind if I borrow your kettle to scald these bottles?’

  ‘Go ahead. How are the joeys this morning?’

  ‘Doing really well.’ Sophie smiled with satisfaction. Hers was a round, weather-beaten face with a dimple in one cheek and hazel eyes, their corners much creased from squinting into strong light. Solidly built and of average height, with grey strands beginning to show in her brown hair, she was capable, self-sufficient and a dedicated conservationist. Over the last two years Tilly had come to love her dearly, and not just for her unstinting support. Her cousin had filled the void left by the absence of Tilly’s mother and her closest friends from whom she’d drifted apart, separated by the length of the continent.

  ‘That’s good,’ Tilly responded and nodded at the margarine container thawing on the sink. ‘There’s Mickey’s meat. I forgot to get it out of the freezer last night. Just slipped my mind, sorry.’

  ‘He can wait a bit.’ Sophie finished with the bottles. ‘You realise we’ll never get rid of him now – butcherbirds aren’t stupid. Why hunt their own tucker when it comes free from the humans?’

  ‘His song’s worth it,’ Tilly protested. Luke had brought home the injured bird some weeks beforehand and he’d settled in well. ‘You think he’ll fly again?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. The bones have mended. When his feathers regrow he’ll be right. Shall I ring the bell for the boys? I think Matt’s down the river checking the trap. I haven’t seen Luke yet.’

  ‘Yes, please. I heard him go out earlier.’ Tilly piled the toast onto a plate and pulled the milk jug from the fridge. ‘It’s ready. Will you be wanting lunches today?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Sophie took a piece of toast to the door and clattered the donger against the steel pipe that served as a dinner bell. ‘The boys will. I’ll be in the office all morning. Mail day tomorrow. You need anything in the tucker line? I’d best order it today if so.’

  Tilly sipped her tea, putting down the cup as the screen door opened. ‘Morning, Matt.’ To Sophie she said, ‘I’d better have a tin of yeast.’ Air freight was expensive, so ration orders came by truck from Darwin, but small items could be got out on the weekly mail plane. Tilly tried not to let the place run out of essentials, but yeast was a perishable product that one couldn’t order in large quantities. At Binboona they had their own hens, a plentiful supply of fish, meat from the neighbouring Spadgers Creek Station, and the garden supplied them with most of their vegetable needs. The bush provided a few more: Luke, in particular, was an enthusiastic promoter of bush tucker, some of which Tilly had forcefully rejected, declaring, ‘Anything slimy, muddy or weird from the mangroves is not coming near my stove! You want to cook that, you can build a fire outside.’

  ‘Morning.’ Matt rinsed his hands at the sink before taking his place at table. ‘No fish, Tilly. Couple of young terrapin got in and took the bait.’

  ‘Oh well, a tinned-tuna bake dinner instead, then,’ Tilly said philosophically. ‘What would you like in your sandwiches?’

  ‘Anything.’ His ginger head settled lower over his plate as he added quietly, ‘They always taste good.’ He wore his usual jeans and longsleeved shirt, and she could smell the suncream on his exposed skin. A redhead, she reflected, really had no business in an outdoors job, but he was vigilant about sun protection.

  ‘You’re easily pleased,’ she said as the door opened. ‘Ah, Luke – morning. Any preference in sandwiches?’

  ‘Hi, Tilly, boss, Matt. Oh, let’s see. Roast beef and pickles?’

  ‘Uh-uh. No meat. How about cheese and pickles, or egg and lettuce?’

  ‘Whatever. Good-oh, bacon.’ He helped himself liberally, adding tomato and mushrooms before piling three slices of toast on the side.

  Sophie eyed his plate with amusement. ‘You sure that’s enough? I wouldn’t want you starting the day hungry.’

  He grinned, his narrow face alive with the mischief that twinkled in his eyes, brilliant blue against his dark hair and smudge of beard shadow.

  ‘Growing boy, boss. So, Mickey flew this morning. Not far, just from his perch to the ground. He flapped his wings a few times – bit doubtful, like – then spread ’em and wobbled down. He needs a few more feathers still.’

  Sophie beamed. ‘That’s great news. Right, so, today. One of you needs to go across to Spadgers Creek to pick up some meat. You’d better do that, Matt. And Luke, you might take a swing down along the coast road, check things out. The station rang last night. Bruce Hansen says there’s a fire burning somewhere along it – he thinks it might be on our country.’

  Tilly was surprised. ‘How? It couldn’t be a lightning strike, not in May!’

  ‘No,’ Sophie agreed. ‘Has to’ve been lit. Fishermen, illegals, tourists even. What matters is stopping it before it spreads. Bit hard to pinpoint from eighty-odd kilometres away. Give me a call on the radio once you know. Bruce said he’d send the grader across if we needed it. Oh’—she looked at Tilly—‘and I almost forgot. We’ve got a guest coming sometime this week. A botanist from the uni in Darwin. He’ll be staying for a bit, camping round the sanctuary and making the homestead
his base, so he’ll need the spare room, Till.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll get it ready for him. You don’t know what day he’s coming?’

  ‘It was a message on the answering machine. Bit light on details. His name’s’—she wrinkled her brow—‘Colin . . . Carl? Something starting with a c. We’ll find out when he gets here.’

  ‘Okay.’ Tilly piled cup and plate together and carried them to the sink. ‘Your lunches will be ready in ten, boys. Luke, you didn’t bring your thermos back.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll get it. It’ll be in the vehicle.’ He folded his last slice of toast about the rest of the bacon and took a large bite as he left the room, calling, ‘Back in a tick, oh slave driver.’

  When they had all dispersed, the men to the vehicle shed and Sophie to the office, Tilly cleared away and washed up, then moved on to the morning’s tasks, the first of which was feeding the injured animals. Mickey’s mince had thawed by then. She had a margarine container of diced carrot and apple for the possum, and another of cubed meat for Harry the brolga, whose injury was permanent in that he had somehow managed to snap off the front half off his top beak.

  ‘Like he’d stuck it in a dog trap,’ Luke had said angrily when he’d brought the young, malnourished bird back to the homestead soon after Tilly’s arrival. ‘I can’t see how else it could’ve happened.’