‘Just do it,’ Tilly said. ‘I can’t imagine what it could be – and that’s worse than not knowing.’

The heavy plastic yielded grudgingly to the knife blade as Connor sawed at a spot below the shoulder of the square drum. ‘The whole top’s been removed, then replaced – see the welded seam here? Which means the contents didn’t go in through the bung. Can’t be pills or powder – he could’ve just poured those in.’ He paused to flex and rest his hand before resuming his labour.

Tilly forced her lips to silence and waited tensely on her camp stool until the last bit of plastic was cut. The top of the drum fell away and Connor let out an astounded whistle.

‘What? What is it?’ She was on her feet, staring, her mouth dropping open. ‘My God! Is that all money?’

‘Looks like it. Here, better get it out of sight.’ Hoisting the drum up, he kicked the tent flap aside for her to enter and followed her in. A camp stretcher filled the back of the space and he dumped the drum’s contents onto the grey blanket covering it. It tumbled out in thick stacks, each individually wrapped in plastic. They fell helter-skelter across the stretcher and a few onto the canvas floor. Tilly stooped automatically to retrieve them.

‘God in heaven!’ she said faintly. ‘There must be hundreds, thousands of dollars here.’ She turned one of the bundles in her hands. ‘These are all fifties. Are those the same?’

Connor squatted by the bed and examined the bricks of money. ‘Looks like it. Okay, Tilly, you’re my witness. Just wait till I grab my camera. I’ll document it, count it and get you to sign something to verify the amount. Jesus! Looks like I was right. There’s more than a bit of poaching going on around here – you’d need a bloody zoo of animals to make half of this little lot!’

It took a while to reach a total, but once the bricks had been stacked up on the stretcher, photographed, and one of them opened to ascertain its value, the counting began, with Tilly keeping a running total on the back of a flyer advertising pizza.

‘I make it sixty thousand.’ Connor straightened his back. ‘Some of ’em are hundred-dollar bricks. Wouldn’t have fit otherwise. So the racket pays – in spades, I’d say! And it tells us something else about Mercer too.’

Mercer, Tilly belatedly remembered, was Matt. ‘What’s that?’

‘That he’s not casual help. Remember I said they’d need a man on the ground to keep track of the rangers’ movements? I was thinking of hired help, but no way – Mercer’s running the show. He’s the boss.’