‘Good idea,’ Robbo said. ‘And I’ll think about a meeting. We can hold a rally in the main street and block it off to traffic. Get a loudhailer. Tip off the media and get some coverage.’

‘“Loggers Strike Back”!’ Shane said. ‘I can just see the headlines. We’ll be a household word.’

The men guffawed then looked glum.

Miki lost the thread of their conversation while she checked the chips in the fryer. When she glanced back, she noticed the men had fallen silent. Then Mooney spoke, a hint of menace in his voice. ‘Who do you reckon dobbed us in?’

The silence lengthened, and Miki accidentally locked eyes with Robbo. The men were looking at her. Did they think it was her, or did they think Kurt was guilty? She tensed.

Mooney started pushing back his chair. ‘If you think it was him, I’ll have him now. Take the fucker down on his own territory.’

Miki edged towards the rear door in case she needed to warn Kurt, but Robbo had placed a restraining hand on Mooney’s arm. ‘Calm down, you crazy bastard. We don’t know who it was.’

‘Who else goes up there?’ Toby asked. ‘Didn’t you say you saw the two of them driving through a few days ago?’

‘Yeah, but I’m not convinced it was them. The girl’s not a troublemaker, and neither is he. Apart from being a bastard, have we had any issues with him this past year? No.’

‘Who then?’ Shane asked. ‘Parkie?’

Miki was worried she might have got Leon in trouble, but Robbo was shaking his head. ‘Nah. He doesn’t do much more than track maintenance and toilets, from what I’ve heard, all up in the park. Nobody’s seen him snooping around. It was probably greenies, or a tourist having a poke around off the road. Maybe some birdwatchers.’

‘What do we do then?’ Toby asked.

‘Nothing for now.’

‘We could keep cutting the forest,’ Shane suggested.

‘Then we’d have greenies on our backs and a big fucken demo on our doorstep,’ Robbo pointed out.

‘Since when has that stopped us?’ Mooney said.

‘Never,’ Robbo agreed. ‘But I say we should let sleeping dogs lie for now. It’s the department’s job to find us somewhere else to log and they have to do it fast. Maybe they’ll set out a buffer round that tree and let us back in.’

‘Not likely,’ Shane said gruffly. ‘There’s a lot of big trees in there. When they have a closer look, they’ll pull us out for sure.’

‘You reckon it’s a breach?’ Robbo asked.

‘Could be.’

‘Why can’t you just knock the trees down?’ Mooney said. ‘You’ve already skittled heaps of them so they won’t know what was there.’