Free Novels 02 Red Dust by Fleur McDonald Page A

she'd gone on a farm tour with her dad, and Gemma could see that things had gone downhill in the last few months. Fences weren't as tidy as usual, calves not marked when they should be, and it seemed that there was some work to do on the catchments of the dams. It was important to keep catchments up to scratch so any little rain that fell ran into dams to keep the precious water supplies up. Cattle drank a lot more than sheep. Gemma was lucky not to have water problems on Billbinya as she had underground water. Her main problem in dry times was feed for the animals.
    It was quite strange to see Hayelle a bit rundown. Jake was a perfectionist, especially when it came to his stud bulls, and Gemma knew there was definitely something wrong when she came to the young bull paddock and saw there weren't any tags in their ears. There wasn't anything to say who the sire or dams of the young bulls were, and no identification numbers.
    'This is a bit weird, Pat,' remarked Gemma. 'Dad is usually a bit more on top of things than this.'
    'Yeah,' agreed Pat. 'I wasn't expecting this. There's a fair bit of work to do here.'
    'Well, let's go back to the house and have a cuppa, and make a plan.'

    Gemma drove back to Billbinya wondering what fresh horrors she might find waiting for her. But there weren't any messages on the answering machine, no new emails and no notes from Bulla or Garry to say that anything had gone wrong. Gemma sighed with relief, made herself some toast for tea and went to bed.
    What a wonderful weekend, she reflected. No pressure, no back-breaking work. She wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to be able to farm a smaller place without any debt and pressure.
    She also wondered why Hayelle was as far behind in the stock work. Couldn't her dad manage anymore? Was he sicker than she had been told? It was all a bit strange. The other strange thing was that the police had never returned her call. It looked like the whole problem was going to go away.

Chapter 11

    At the Port Pirie police station, Ian Paver and Geoff Hay had just returned from Adelaide, where they had picked up Dave Burrows and Craig Buchanan from the Western Australia stock squad. They talked all the three hours back to Pirie and continued the conversation when they arrived at the police station, discussing what had happened with the wethers, the rumours that had come to the attention of Ian and Geoff when they had undertaken their initial investigation, and the anonymous phone call that had been made to Pav shortly after the investigation had started.
    'I think we have an organised stock-stealing ring happening here, fellas,' said Geoff. 'We have unconfirmed reports of stock missing over the past two years, all in the same area. The disappearances seem to follow a similar pattern. One night when the owners aren't home someone goes in with a truck and pinches the stock. Mainly sheep but there have been reports of cattle. Has to be premeditated and researched – the use of a truck confirms that. I can't see anyone taking a truck into a property that wasn't theirs without prior knowledge of the farm's stock and knowing for sure the owners weren't going to be there.'
    'Absolutely. I couldn't agree more,' Dave Burrows said. 'You mentioned that you have a suspect. Have you got a profile on him?'
    Geoff passed over a red folder. 'Yeah, although we've got a bit of a problem. The guy we had in mind is dead – but it's too big an operation to be the work of one man. Adam Sinclair – or Sinny as he was known to his friends – crashed his plane on the twentieth of January this year.' He referred back to his notes. 'His wife, Gemma Sinclair, is still running the family station, and we're not yet sure if she is involved or not. When we made some initial inquiries, we went to Billbinya – the Sinclairs' station – and she seemed to be genuinely shocked when we questioned her. Since then, we have interviewed a few other neighbours and found that they