FADE IN:
EXT: CONCRETE STAIRS UNDER STORY BRIDGE—LATE NIGHT—CITY LIGHTS REFLECTING ON THE WATER
By the graffiti-covered wall of a bridge pylon beside the Brisbane River, TYSON JONES and DETECTIVE LANA SAACHI are seated on cement steps. LANA is holding an ice pack to her head. Paramedics are loading a patient on a gurney into an ambulance, closing the rear door and preparing to drive off. A party boat travels downstream on the river, dance music blaring.
LANA:
Well, that drug bust didn’t go the way I thought it was going to.
TYSON:
I wish you’d let those paramedics check you were okay.
LANA:
I’m fine. I’m just a bit dizzy. Pozziano needed them more than I did.
TYSON:
You were knocked out cold, you’re limping, your hand is bleeding and you’re going to have a black eye tomorrow.
LANA
Whatever. Pretty sure I must be concussed or something, too, because I can’t for the life of me work out why I called you.
TYSON:
[smirking]
You’ve got the hots for me. Admit it.
LANA:
I’ve got the hots for a free ride home. Where’d you park that piece of junk you call a car?
Hux read over the pages of script he’d revised in the early hours of the morning after a colony of ants decided to march over him and leave him with itchy ankles and an inability to sleep. The sappy comments were gone, the idiotic idea to have Tyson ask Lana about ‘her feelings’ was gone, the hand-holding in the back of the ambulance was absolutely gone.
He’d scan his changes and email them over to the production team as soon as he was back in town someplace with a decent amount of wifi. Seven episodes down. Just one—the final one—to go. Assuming, of course, that the screenwriters didn’t give him any more grief over his edits.
He heard a snuffling—the sound of a dog muzzle at a zipper—and looked up to see a small lump pushing at the entry to Luke’s swag. Setting his clipped wad of manuscript down next to the mug of coffee he’d made himself, Hux walked to the swag and opened the zip a few inches.
His dog popped out, thrilled to see him, the way Possum was always thrilled to see anyone, and proceeded to bow and stretch and generally cavort about like a lunatic.
‘Keep it down, mate,’ he said. ‘Not everyone wants to listen to your zoomies at dawn. Here, come and have some water.’
He filled the dog’s bowl from a water bottle and set it down away from the swags, near the camp kitchen set up under a canvas lean-to. Another coffee? Why not. He lit the flame under the saucepan and switched on the little portable radio that was stashed in a crate with a fire blanket and a snake kit. He smiled, imagining the list Jo must have in one of her notebooks. ‘Camp Safety 101’.
A local station was already tuned, and Hux recognised the broad vowels of Barry ‘Bazza’ McFarlane, who’d been the voice of Central West FM for more years than Hux could count.
‘Have a think, folks, if you know someone with a black Ford Ranger who might’ve collected a hitchhiker somewhere along the Matilda Way Friday last week—’ Barry pronounced it ‘Fridee’ ‘—on the stretch between McKinlay and the turn-off to Yindi Creek and dropped ’em off at the Amstrol servo. Not sure if it’s got to do with this missing bloke we’re hearing about, but give the coppers a call if you’ve got any news, will ya? Now settle in for some music and we’re gonna kick off the breakfast show with Baker Boy …’
Hux turned the volume low so he wouldn’t disturb the sleeping campers, and rummaged in the esky for a leftover sausage from last night for Possum. He fed it to him and drank his coffee as he waited for the first fingers of dawn to spill across the campsite. Soon enough, the light was good enough for him to continue with that looksee he’d meant to get done yesterday afternoon.
Killing the radio, he gave the dog a quiet whistle, then set off for the jump-up. The air was still cool enough to make the uphill hike of some two hundred feet seem like a doddle. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he hoped he’d know it when (if) he saw it. Anything man-made. Anything not yet eroded by the sun or weather. Anything that might point to why a guy would want to come out here with no gear other than what was listed on the murder board back at the donger.
TYSON: Interesting choice: a duffel bag, not a backpack.
Yeah. You could walk a long way with a backpack. With a duffel? You’d be fed up lugging it before a kilometre was done. Unless it had long straps that the guy could sling over his shoulders somehow. He made a mental note to check if Charlie could remember what sort of duffel it was.
