Fossicker's Gully

By Noelene Jenkinson

A crime, new love and a stunning family revelation.

Afraid for her life, journalist Amy Randall goes into hiding to uncover the truth behind a shocking crime and struggles to solve the family mystery.

She seeks the help and protection of local policeman, Alex Hammond, her childhood crush and her brother's lifelong friend.

Set in a small town in the central Victorian goldfields, Fossicker's Gully throws old friends together, brings new love and reveals a heartwarming family secret.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noelene Jenkinson
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393277408

Noelene Jenkinson

As a child, I was always creating and scribbling. The first typewriter I used was an old black Remington in an agricultural farming office where my father worked. I typed letters to my mother and took them home. These days, both my early planning and plotting, and my first drafts, I write sometimes by hand on A4 notepads or directly onto my laptop, constantly rewriting as I go. I have been fortunate enough to have extensively travelled but have lived my whole life in the Wimmera plains of Victoria, Australia. I live on acreage in a passive solar designed home, surrounded by an Australian native bush garden. When I'm not in my office writing (yes, I have a room to myself with a door - every author's dream), I love reading, crocheting rugs, watercolour painting and playing music on my electronic keyboard.

Book preview

Noelene Jenkinson

CHAPTER 1

Amy Randall sped in her silver compact SUV away from the main street of Fossicker’s Gully, one of many small country townships founded upon the discovery of gold in central Victoria.

Chinese had puddled here, Californians had sailed across the Pacific from their own gold strike fields and Europeans of every nationality all came hoping to make a fortune.

She turned onto the boundary road at the edge of her hometown, fondly known by locals as The Gully, and the familiar gravelled track that led to her cabin. Edged by the region’s box ironbark eucalypts that characterised the many nature reserves in the district, she loved the peppermint scented bush and had bought her little home sanctuary for its privacy and seclusion amid nature.

Amy savoured her regular runs along the forest trails through the understorey of wattles, small shrubs and grasses, each pocket of bushland known by the locals with such names as Deadman’s Gully and Nowhere Creek, relics of bygone mining days.

Where once the air had rung with the sounds of pioneers and gold diggers, it now echoed only with the calls of birds and animals, the woodland ecosystem producing nectar and pollen all year.  It was an especially important feeding habitat for the green swift parrots with their red face and purple tail that bred in the Tasmanian summer before migrating across Bass Street to the mainland in autumn. Over winter they nested in tree hollows and feasted on the nectar of the large flowering ironbark blossoms.

A local survey had identified the species as critically endangered but one would never guess as they noisily screeched, swooping and weaving through the treetops.

Today, Amy was keen to get home. Not only because it was Friday and a weekend stretched gloriously ahead, although as always she had nothing specifically planned, but because the weather forecast predicted a cold change with rain so she needed to shut the windows she left open before leaving for work this morning in the newspaper office of the Gully Standard.

Besides, she had agreed to an unexpected meeting and needed to be early to emotionally prepare. Amy and her sister in law, Kelly, simply did not click. Nursing a healthy dose of instinctive mistrust for the woman until someone proved otherwise, she knew they never would.

She relaxed as she glimpsed her weathered timber cabin, sitting casually square and low, nestled perfectly into its surroundings. It had taken over a year but the rusting roofing iron had been replaced and indoors was now lovingly scrubbed, painted and restored into cosy bachelor girl digs appropriate for the climate and her busy single lifestyle.

And Kelly’s vehicle was nowhere in sight. Good. She had time to breathe.

But as Amy drove around the cabin to park in her garage at the back, her mood deflated. Kelly’s sporty pink car, always totally recognisable around town, was already here. Odd. The rare times she visited, she usually parked out front.

Amy sighed. Stephen sure indulged his petite trophy wife. Maybe it was because they didn’t have any children. Her brother hid his disappointment but before marriage had always talked of sons to inherit and continue the family transport business.

Although Amy believed her sister in law came with baggage, she hadn’t come with a fortune. She had married money instead. Compliments of their Randall ancestors, early carters to the goldfields, the transport company now transformed into a trucking empire, capably co-managed by her lawyer brother, Stephen, but fiercely controlled by their dominant father, David.

Amy drew in a deep breath for strength as she stepped from her car, dragged her shoulder bag and laptop case off the rear seat and strode for the house. She climbed the back steps and with a forced smile across her face walked inside to bear up against this surprise unwelcome visit. It occurred to her that she really should start locking up the cabin. Maybe she would do that from now on.

‘Hi,’ she greeted her sister in law as she dumped her belongings on the kitchen bench.

Kelly’s bleached blonde hair, makeup, jewellery and matching clothes were all in place. As usual. But she didn’t normally wear gloves. Weird, although the weather had already turned unseasonably colder and would no doubt grow worse after the icy blast from a forecast weekend front swept across the State in this notoriously chilly inland region. Which only meant the milder seasons were all the more warmly greeted when they arrived.

‘You’re early.’ Amy tried to sound pleased about her guest’s early arrival.

‘Yes. Thought I would surprise you.’

Amy frowned. ‘Not really. I was expecting you.’ Something was even more off than usual in her attitude. ‘Okay,’ Amy said slowly, ‘give me a moment, I need to close some windows.’

The ground floor was protected by its fully surrounding veranda so Amy only needed to dash upstairs, close the sashes and return below. Because her mind was distracted and churning over the possible reason for the impending conversation, Amy halted in shock as she descended and reached the bottom step a few minutes later.

To face her visitor pointing the barrel of a handgun directly at her.

Amy recognised the gun. It belonged to her brother. A sporting shooter who took part in monthly competitive target shooting, the only way a private person could legally own such a firearm.

Her heart skipped a beat with dread and sank with fear at the same time. ‘What the hell is this?’

‘Revenge.’ Kelly’s ice blue eyes glared with excitement, both gloved hands on the gun alarmingly steady.

Amy considered the situation beyond scary. It was lethal. And yet she had always forced herself to be abnormally polite to the woman if only because she was her adored brother’s wife.

‘Why? What have I ever done to you?’

‘You are so ignorant,’ she scoffed, shaking her head. ‘Your stupid family has been so blind and trusting.’

So, this was about the Randalls then. Clearly serious stuff and well planned.

‘To what?’ Amy swallowed over her dry throat, not daring to move, clenching her fists at her sides.

‘You’ll never know because you’re first.’ She waved the point of the gun toward the door. ‘Get your keys and out to the car.’

Did she intend shooting her out in the bush? And then she was going after someone else in the family? Who? Stephen? Her parents?

‘Move! Before it rains.’

Amy’s mind buzzed. Right. To hide tracks. This woman was driven and smart. All nicely hidden beneath that helpless female exterior that had fooled the whole Randall family for years. Ignorant of the reason behind this sinister intent, no way would she be an easy target. She was fit and would pick her moment.

Annoyed at Amy’s hesitation, Kelly snapped, ‘Now!’

Amy walked to the kitchen bench, the hairs all over her body standing on end, aware a gun was pointed at her back. She fished out the car keys from her shoulder bag and headed for the door.

‘Slowly!’

Treading carefully as instructed, Amy moved outside toward her vehicle and slid behind the wheel while Kelly sat in the back seat.

‘Drive to the tunnel.’

Shit. She was going to be murdered in the old mine drive? Well at least she knew she would be alive until then. It didn’t take long. The tunnel was nearby in the heart of the nature reserve.

‘Out!’ Kelly demanded as they pulled up.

From her voice and skyward glances, Amy sensed her captor was growing antsy. She was really relying on that rain. Amy hoped it didn’t come. She might be killed but at least there would be tracks. Evidence.

With the gun still pointed at Amy, Kelly halted before the grated tunnel gate. ‘Open it.’

‘It’s locked.’

‘No it’s not.’

Peering closer, Amy noticed the lock hook had already been released, still marvelling amidst her growing terror that pretentious chic Kelly was hard and cool enough to plan all this. Her mind whirled only for a moment over how she had obtained a key to unlock the tunnel gate. Then remembered Kelly had joined the local historical society and helped lead occasional mining tunnel tours here so she would have legitimate access to this off limits and padlocked abandoned site.

All for this purpose? Brilliant strategy if it wasn’t so alarming in its premeditated purpose. Stalling, Amy pushed the gate barely ajar.

‘Wider!’

Amy heaved, the hinges stiff and rusty with age. When it was half open, Kelly stepped closer, shoved her from behind and she stumbled through. Ahead lay only darkness.

‘Walk!’

‘I can’t see a thing.’ Amy paused, hedging for time.

‘Move!’

Amy gingerly trod one careful step at a time, one foot in front of the other, focusing so heavily on not falling over or breaking an ankle on fallen rocks or holes in the ground that she didn’t realise Kelly hadn’t followed until she heard her voice from a distance behind.

‘Stop!’

Amy wondered if she dared run. If she couldn’t see Kelly, Kelly couldn’t see her. But she would need to turn around to distinguish that. So she did.

‘Stay there!’

Kelly’s dark silhouette was outlined against the tunnel entrance further behind and her arms were raised to fire the gun. Amy began to tremble. Was this it?

The gun fired, the noise of its resounding blast bouncing back off the walls. Amy instinctively ducked but felt nothing. Kelly had missed! But before she could react and move, another shot rang out and this time it hits it mark.

Amy screeched and clutched her shoulder as she was gripped with biting pain while the second boom echoed back through the underground space. Disoriented and with her ears ringing, she saw Kelly turn and run but heard no sound of her footfalls on the ground. Amid the stinging pain and strange echoed sensations in her head, she suddenly realised she was deaf.

Dazed, Amy stumbled against a wall, wincing at her searing shoulder, confused in her now silent world. All of her resistance collapsed, she felt sick and her world faded.

Much later, as Amy slowly emerged from her dark unconscious place, it took a moment for her senses to gather. Then she remembered she was in the old abandoned gold mining tunnel, forced here at gunpoint by Kelly, with its iron gate presumably securely locked again and no way out.

The agony in her left shoulder took her breath away. At such close range, Amy was astounded that even a city person like Kelly would miss a sure shot. Which only got her thinking, maybe it was intentional. To make Amy suffer?

Had Kelly left her here to die, perhaps believing if the gunshot didn’t do the trick, exposure to the elements surely would? She had underestimated Amy’s physical fitness and resilience. For a time, she rested, gathering strength, pressing hard on her wound. No point looking to investigate the extent of the damage. She could barely see a thing.

Later, Amy tried to heave herself to her feet but grew light headed and faint forcing her to sink to the hard cold tunnel floor before the world went dark again.

As she once more slowly became conscious – how much later she had no idea - and shivering with cold, she heard trickling water. From a thin shaft of light somewhere much higher above filtering down she saw small glistening rivulets curving their way down over the tunnel sides to the floor. Run off from the forecast rain against which she had shut the cabin windows.

Keeping to dry ground Amy shuffled closer to the mini stream, straining out her good arm. In agony she strained her injured shoulder as she reached out leaning forward to awkwardly cup and slurp up small handfuls of cold refreshing rainwater.

When she mustered the strength to stand, balancing against the wall and pushing through her pain, Amy slowly hobbled toward the locked tunnel entrance gate, the only other faint light. Even as she began to cry out, she knew it was useless. In an isolated bush reserve only used by a few locals, tourist bush walkers or gold panners in the creek even on a sunny day, certainly no sensible human would venture out in this foul weather.

But Amy, ever the optimist, kept calling out at intervals anyway in-between bouts of nausea and drifts of dizziness.

Barely aware and shaking, whether from shock or the tunnel’s icy cold, she knew she desperately needed to get warm. A pipe dream like the heady thought of a good long sleep.

She considered using one of the many small rocks to try and bash at the tunnel entrance gate lock but simply couldn’t gather the energy. She felt bruised and weak all over from the fall when she fainted after the gunshot.

In her state of semi consciousness and foggy brain, Amy’s thoughts turned to who might realise she was missing. Her social life was non-existent and she had made no plans. Apart from leaving work and her fateful arranged meeting with Kelly, no one would be looking for her until she didn’t show up for work on Monday.

Monday. She might survive till then, despite the cold and damp, but she worried over her injury that surely needed attention.

The heavy rain clouds covered any possible moonlight and Amy presumed it was long since dark anyway. So, apart from faint half-light at the tunnel entrance, she finally gave up on calling for help. No one would be about.

Feeling her way along the walls, groaning with pain and the weakening sickness of shock, she settled further back in the tunnel and just around a small bend away from the wind gusting in through the grilled gate opening. Huddling herself into a ball and uncovered against the bitter night, attempting but failing to keep warm, Amy tried to sleep.

Moments of shooting pain dragged soft moans from her, keeping her mostly conscious but she only managed to doze in short bursts, waking with sharp bouts of coughing. Whether from her injury, the biting cold or the hard ground beneath, Amy neither knew nor cared. The long uncomfortable night stretched out like a bad dream and became a nightmare.

Kelly Randall smirked to herself as she drove Amy’s car back to the cabin, parked it in the garage and drove her own car home. Too easy.

Her bitch sister in law was never getting out of that hole alive. If she didn’t bleed to death from the gunshot wound, she certainly would from exposure in the icy unprotected passageway over the weekend.

As lightning flashed across the threatening sky and thunder rumbled overhead, Kelly mentally rubbed her hands together, speeding back through the darkening dusk to the luxurious townhouse she shared with her loving insipid husband.

Such good fortune that the weakling man was an enthusiastic sporting shooter. His pastime had sown the first seeds of her plan. Kelly appreciated he went through a lot to secure his licence. To her benefit. Lots of safety training and probation with his local club, police approval and registration. If she remembered rightly, the whole process took almost a year. Handy that he chose a revolver instead of a pistol. It had been so dim in the tunnel, as soon as she squeezed the trigger, she knew her aim had been slightly off and she would need a second shot.

Her first priority back at home was to return