Cold in the night with the breeze. There was another car before them. Normally it would be strange to see a car parked on the side of this road at this time of night, but Sharon knew why it was here. Though this wasn’t the right car. No people about, or within, it seemed. She got out, took the torch from Martin and peered at the plates, the registration. Judah remained smoking happily in the ute.

Martin kicked at a tyre on the car.

‘This isn’t the car we were told would be here. None of the product in the back. So something’s gone on. Then, that idiot Judah,’ he said, nodding in the direction of his colleague, ‘slashed the tyres before I could stop him. Doesn’t give things a second thought. Just does what enters his head at any given moment.’

‘This is Vernon Moore’s car,’ Sharon said.

‘Yeah?’

Sharon nodded, looked closely at the tail-lights. Knew the car, had seen it when she’d interviewed him about his son. ‘Yeah. Pretty sure.’

‘Who’s Vernon Moore?’

‘He’s nobody,’ Sharon said. She looked at the trees surrounding them and into the darkness of the forest. If there were creatures other than kangaroos, their eyes were dimmed. Sharon let the torchlight drift over the trees, the trunks. ‘He lives out at Port Napier, I think. He’d be well into his sixties now, I reckon.’

‘You know why his car would be here?’

‘I’m assuming the trade-off didn’t happen?’

Martin nodded. ‘We drove up here and this was all there was. Supposed to be quick and easy. We were supposed to be back in the city tonight. When we got here this was it.’

‘Did you drive up further?’

‘Didn’t realise the Cahills lived near here. They just told us they had a farm, didn’t say where.’ Martin scratched his shorn hair and his half-good eye looked all about as the other focused on Sharon. ‘Why? You think he’s done something?’

‘No. He’s too old.’

Martin asked, ‘So you reckon he’d have the stuff then?’

‘No idea.’

‘Just some mix-up?’

‘I hope so.’

Martin laughed and the sound was ugly. It was swallowed up in the forest. ‘We thought we’d been done in by our competition. Hey, Judah,’ he said. The larger man’s head appeared out the window. ‘Sharon here reckons this car’s some sixty-year-old’s.’

‘Right. Well, we’ll sort him, won’t we?’

‘What do you mean we’ll sort him? He’s over sixty.’

‘Stealing’s stealing.’

Martin shook his head. ‘You’re not telling porkies, are you Sharon?’

‘Why would I?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’

‘Take it easy.’ Martin held up his hands in mock alarm. ‘Everybody in this town’s as testy as cow’s balls.’

Sharon started walking back to the car. ‘So I guess we’ll keep going?’

‘Sure.’

The car was full of cigarette smog. Martin turned the key in the ignition and drove up the gravel track and they re-emerged from the shadows, back onto bitumen.

Sharon said quietly, ‘Cows don’t have balls.’