Watcher's Web

Watcher's Web Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The ute came to a screeching halt, scattering gravel and dust in a cloud that wafted past the open windows.

Brendan grinned. ‘There you are, Jess.’

Across fence and a section of desiccated grass, the tarmac spread out, a grey expanse of asphalt with white painted lines. On it waited a single-engine plane. A man in blue uniform sat on the folded-out stairs.

‘Is that it?’ asked Brendan.

Jessica glanced at the clock. Ten minutes late. ‘Bloody hell, I hope so.’

She grabbed her bag and opened the car door, stepping into the dust and late afternoon heat. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘No worries.’ He tipped his hand to the rim of his hat. As far as John Braithwaite’s farm hands went, Brendan wasn’t that bad.

She slammed the door and ran. The man in the blue uniform--the pilot, she now realised--pushed himself off the steps.

She called out, still running, ‘Is this Westways flight 265 for Sydney?’

‘Sure. You’re Jessica Moore?’

‘Yes.’ She stopped, panting. They’d waited for her. How . . . good of them; how . . . totally embarrassing. Stupid bloody bull.

Jessica handed her bag to the pilot, took off her hat and clambered up the stairs.

A man in a grey suit looked up from his computer, his expression vacant. What would he be seeing? An exceedingly tall girl with lanky black hair, in a dusty shirt and jeans, smelling of cattle shit. Wonderful.

‘I’m sorry.’

He grimaced and went back to his machine. OK, so he was annoyed. Missed a meeting, an important deadline. I bloody said I was sorry.

He looked up again, meeting her eyes. A slight frown.

The other passenger paid her no attention. Also a man, perhaps in his forties, he wore faded jeans and a black leather jacket that had seen better days. He had tied his greying blond hair in a ponytail, the end of which disappeared under the collar of his jacket. He looked, for all she could think, like an ageing hippie escaped from a commune up the north coast somewhere. Y’know--no pesticides, no poisons and no bloody crops either. He held a book on his lap and didn’t even look up when Jessica excused herself to squeeze between the seats. She slid sideways into the back, bumping her head on the ceiling. There sure wasn’t much room in a small plane like this.

Her phone beeped in her pocket.

She pulled it out. The screen displayed a message, please return my call when you can, from a totally unknown number.

The businessman glared over his shoulder.

Yeah, yeah, I’m turning it off.

She pressed the off button down and the screen went blank. Her mind churned. Who could that be? The only people she knew who would write in full words, not SMS language, were her parents and John Braithwaite. Both their numbers she knew off by heart. It wasn’t school either--she knew that number, too.

Suppose someone got the wrong number . . . or maybe she would just have to return the call.

She settled on the back seat, wriggled to find the seat belt while the pilot slammed shut the luggage compartment and climbed into the cabin, pulling up the stairs behind him.

A few flicks on the instrument panel and the propeller rattled into life.

Bloody noisy, it was. It was that John Braithwaite paid for her ticket, because otherwise, she preferred the train.