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“Look, you seem like a nice fulla. If it’s a pretty camping spot to stay for the weekend you’re after, you’re best headin’ over to The Bay of Islands. Keri Keri, Russell; it’s beautiful out that way. And they’re much more geared up for tourists like yourself. Where you’re heading, it’s a bit… a bit wild. Not so many people, no police. Got all sorts livin’ up there.”
Shaun tapped his pin into the card reader.
“No. I’m going to the Lodge.”
It was a well-meant warning but he was more than capable of handling himself against a couple of wild men in the woods.
The shop owner shrugged and handed him back his card folded neatly in the paper receipt.
“Suit yourself.”
With groceries and his new sleeping bag, Shaun got back on the road, following the route planner on his phone.
He eased his car tentatively through a never-ending string of jersey cows crossing the road on their way to being milked. The man in the store was right, where he was heading was rural.
Gradually, as he headed further northwest, the farms petered out and the ancient fern trees and native bush began to close in again.
The roads were becoming rougher too and it took all of Shaun’s concentration to avoid the potholes and small heaps of shale that were more frequently littering the highway.
Heavily laden forestry lorries passed by. But it didn’t look like many people lived out here. Still, it was perfect for an embassy retreat. And a perfect hideout for him, a place to start over.
Maybe even farm?
Thinking about how Jac would laugh at that made him feel sad.
Finally, the map app told him to turn.
Shaun pulled up and checked the route. It was pointing him off the road, up a dusty track into the forest. It was rough gravel, but looking at the online map he didn’t have much choice.
The underneath of the car scraped disconcertingly against stones as he scrunched over the unsealed road, trying to avoid the deep ruts washed out by rain.
The BMW clanked again as he hit another hole. He prayed that it wasn’t the radiator. The BMW was holding out, but he’d be wise to trade it for an off-roader.
The track was taking him deeper into the forest and away from any sign of civilisation. He was certain there were no wild hoodlums around here, not with a road this bad.
Suddenly, after a twist in the road, he spotted a clearing and fields. And then, as he turned the next bend he saw it. A large, pristine turquoise lake lined with long stretches of white sand.
The pin for his destination was right on the lake shoreline. He scanned the edge of the lake for the embassy residence, but he couldn’t see any buildings.
Slowly, the road neared the lake and he followed the track around the shore, passing a sandy beach. There were two picnic benches there, though the place was deserted today.
His eyes combed the bush for the property.
You have now reached your destination.
Shaun turned another bend. And then he saw it. There, on the shoreline ahead of him, stood an impressively forbidding, almost gothic-looking dark timbered lodge.
It certainly didn’t look like a home. The windows on one side and the back door were boarded up with chipboard which someone had sprayed with graffiti drawings and tags.
Closer inspection didn’t make it look any more welcoming. The dark, rambling house was surrounded at the rear and the side by clumps of giant grasses and bushes that gave way to paddocks, once cleared, but now reclaimed by the scrub and weeds.
A large wooden barn to the side looked intact, but would it hold stock? And he didn’t even want to think about the state of the fences.
Stepping back, he examined the lodge. An additional wing on each side of the main building jutted out like a mad architect’s afterthought. Vegetation sprouted out from the ancient guttering, and even from here he could see a large hole in the rusty zinc-sheeted roof on the left-hand side.
He made his way onto the old porch that wrapped around the front, avoiding two perilous holes where the planks had rotted and given way.
There was no rambling rose. Or swing-seat to drink a cold beer and gaze out at the lake. The place needed a hell of a lot of work.
He couldn’t see in, the windows at the front were shuttered up from the inside. Across the boarded-up kitchen window, a magnificently paint-sprayed cobra reared up in attack, its forked tongue smelling him out as Shaun began pulling the chipboard free from its tacks.
The board came away in his hands revealing the glass-lined edges of a smashed-in window, big enough for someone to get in and out.
Peering inside, he could see that squatters had indeed been in there.
On the floor, there was a sizable collection of empty bottles and beer cans. This place may be deserted now, but it had evidently been vandalised and used as a camp at some point.
The store owner was right, this was a place beyond the law.
With some reluctance, he tried the keys in the lock, willing each one not to fit. But depressingly one did.
His heart sank. This was it.
This was what he’d been given for all his sacrifices for Queen and Country. A twenty-seven hour flight and a four-hour drive to the ends of the earth, to find himself the proud owner of a derelict squatters’ den.
Chapter 4
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“You again?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Shaun squirmed slightly as he felt the shop owner’s eyes on him. He’d driven the hour back to town to try and catch the shops before they shut, and now the camping store guy was making him feel like a naughty child.
He’d been right, though. It would have been better if he’d have gone east to one of the tourist towns.
“Seen Jake’s Place for yourself, did ya?”
Shaun nodded.
“Hmm. I’m gonna need a few more things.”
“Mess was it?”
“Yeah, you could say that. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It’s gonna take a few days to sort. Who exactly was this Jake?”
Was it something he said? Shaun looked on surprised as the man promptly turned his back to him and disappeared into the private area behind the desk, leaving Shaun alone at the counter.
Bloody rude.
Shaun shook his head and drifted over towards the camping stoves. He’d be needing something to cook on until he got the electricity connected. And pots and a kettle. A cup and a plate. He spotted a camping chair on special offer too that would come in handy.
“Right. That’s all sorted,” the shopkeeper announced, strolling up to him.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve squared it with the Team Leader.”
“Team Leader?”
“Celia. The Missus. You’re staying at ours.”
He stretched his hand out towards him before Shaun had a chance to respond.
“I’m Frank. Frank Plunkett, good to meet ya’.”
“Err…Sion. Sion Ed…” He coughed. “Sorry, I’m Shaun Cobain, pleased to meet you too.”
“Not often we ge
t Poms straying up to these parts.”
“I’m Welsh.”
Much to Shaun’s surprise, Frank slapped him on the back.
“Well, why the bloody hell didn’t ya say? We gave you guys a fair ole whippin’ last season.”
Shaun smirked. The universal language of sport. Wales had toured New Zealand last year and had gotten a thrashing.
“Best not mention the rugby. You guys were awesome.”
Frank’s face broke into a broad grin.
“Well, that’s settled it. A rugby fan. You’re coming back to ours, no argument. Celia’s making up the bed in the sleepout for ya and I’m sure I got some of them Lions games recorded.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly…”
“Nonsense. ‘Course ya can. It’s a damn sight better than staying up on yer own in the middle of bloody nowhere. We’re on the road to the lake about a half-hour north of here.”
The jet lag was starting to kick in and Shaun wasn’t going to fight it.
“Frank, it’s incredibly kind of you. Thank you.”
“No worries, mate. It’s how we are ‘round here. Celia’s making a pot roast, so I ‘spect you’ll be wantin’ a feed too.”
“That’d be great.”
“We’ll get ya sorted. Right now, seems to me you could do with a shower and an early night?”
Shaun wasn’t going to argue.
“I’m about done here.”
He winked at Shaun.
“Had more than my fair share of Pommy campers for one day.”
???
Irish shifted his feet as he queued in the line of visitors to see his brother. For a new prison, the security procedures were pretty rudimentary, lax even, with only a cursory sweep of a handheld metal detector over his body and the nebulous threat of a latex finger up his arse if they suspected him of concealing drugs.
But he was still taking a huge risk.
“You can’t take that in.”
The security guard at the front of the queue nodded towards the magazine in Irish’s hand.
“Ah, come on, Sir. It’s only a magazine,” he pleaded persuasively in a thick Liverpudlian accent he hammed up especially for the occasion. “Thought reading was good for ya la’, when you’re banged up behind bars.”
