Free The Courier's New Bicycle by Kim Westwood Page B

sitting, breathing, watching.
    The land outside is limned by moon. A sign glimmers on the left, an uninspired combination of a cow and a green gate. We kill the lights then drive across the cattle grid, stopping so Lydia can get out and cover the numberplates, front and back. If it all goes pear-shaped, we don’t want to be traced via something as simple as rego.
    Two hundred metres beyond the cattle grid is the caretaker’s cottage, all dark. A couple of dogs set up a frantic barking on the ends of their chains, but there’s no light or movement from the house. This, we assume, is because its occupant is at the pub as usual, and James is keeping him company there. While Cicada communes with the dogs, we double-check. No one wants to resort to the contingency plan, which consists of six balaclavas, a length of rope, and tying Russ Stefanovic to one of his kitchen chairs.
    We return to the van. Moonlight stipples paddocks cropped back to nothing, the stony ground transformed into a patchwork of silvery greys. The dark hulks of dairy cows loom both sides of the unfenced track. A couple wander into the beam of our headlights and stop, their heads turned towards us, benignly looking. Nagid brakes hard. The last thing we need is a vet emergency of our own making.
    The cows move off slowly. It looks like Greengate uses Jerseys for their milkers. I’ve always felt sorry for any farmanimal having to endure the harsh realities of Australia’s heat-stripped terrain, and somehow it seems wrong to have cows from Jersey grazing in anything other than lush, undulating fields protected by copses.
    Chill air blows in as Max rolls down his window to listen. There’s the occasional lowing of an adult, but no calves. They’d have been taken off their mothers’ teats on day one and sent to slaughter.
    The track climbs gently. We summit the rise. Beyond it, the land drops away to river flats and the dairy hunkered in its protected valley, invisible from the road. A single floodlight illuminates the empty car park at the front. We pull up outside the pool of light, Inez busy at her palm computer. If her hacking program hasn’t worked, or something’s happened with Lars, then shortly we’ll be walking within sensor range of a back-to-base alarm and bank of floods, our arrival recorded for posterity.
    She lifts her head to the rest of us. I give her an enquiring look and she responds with a decisive tap on the pad. Balaclavas and gloves go on. From now we’ll hold to silence as much as possible.
    The dairy is a large hangar-like space beneath a slanted corrugated-iron roof. To the left is the administration area and visitors entrance; to the right are the yards and races that funnel into the milking shed. Even from here the smell of shit and milk is strong.
    I step into the illuminated area, testing. No alarm. No bright lights.
    We hurry together across the car park, our breaths puffing out little white clouds, then huddle around the entrance for the moment of truth. Ignoring the number pad below the doorhandle, I push and hear the snib release. The door swings open. High five for Inez.
    Head and wrist torches flick on in succession, a corridor illumed. Shed-side, the wall is half glass to give a view of the milking operation from a nice clean distance. A couple of energy-saver lights cast a ghoulish glow on the race that leads to the carousel-style milking parlour and its monitoring equipment. The cows’ lactation rate boosted with growth hormones, the animals soon learn to take themselves to the milking shed to relieve the bursting pain in their udders. It’s short-term gain for the dairy and agony for the cows, their lifespan reduced from twenty to about three years.
    We begin our check of every room, in case anyone’s decided to stay at work to cook the books or cosy up with a special friend instead of going home. I adjust the rope looped across my shoulder, the same contingency plan for