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The phone beeped again bringing her back to the present. She rolled her eyes and spotted a clearing on the other side of the creek at the bottom of the hill where she could pull over and check her messages. Wendy was being more persistent this afternoon. Violet knew it wouldn’t be anyone else because she had changed her phone number.

As she went down the slight descent, the car shuddered and the gear changed with a loud clunk from beneath the car. She frowned; it was the first time it had done that. She’d run the car around the city and the hinterland for 1500 kilometres before packing up for her trip, so the motor had been run in before she’d set off. Brian had gone to a conference in Sydney for the week, so as soon as Violet got home from work each afternoon, she went for a long drive. Two days before he was due back, her car was parked in a secure parking station, packed and ready to go. Her plans were made and she texted him the day he was due home.

Don’t call in tonight. I’m going to Wendy’s. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.

By the time she was due at work that day, she was over the border, with a new phone and phone number.

The descent levelled out, but the gearbox clunked again. This time, it made a grinding noise too. Horrendous noises continued to come from underneath the ute as she headed for the creek crossing.

Slowly entering the shallow water—it was crystal clear and easy to see the depth to the concrete causeway, Violet tried to ignore the grinding noise.

As she reached the middle of the wide creek, the car made one final loud clunk and then as she hit the brakes, the motor cut out. The water had got a little bit deeper and now came halfway up the tyres, and steam filled the air as the water lapped at the bottom of the engine.

“Great, just great,” she muttered. The water wasn’t flowing hard enough to push her vehicle over the causeway, so that wasn’t a worry. Her immediate concern was what was wrong with her car. She sat there for a minute and tried her usual trick. Her uni friends had laughed when it was her fix for a computer problem: shut it down, wait for five minutes, restart. Violet always said she had the magic touch because, no matter what had happened, the computer always used to work when she did that.

She tried that technique with the vehicle, rolling down her window, turning the ignition off, waiting for five minutes, and then restarting. The steam settled, but every time the water slapped on the bottom of the motor, she could hear a sizzle.

As Violet waited, she reached for her phone and picked it up. She suspected there was no service at all, but she knew that the message that came in a while ago would still be there. She clicked on the message, and sure enough, it was from Wendy.

Don’t forget to report in today.

She put the phone aside, put her foot on the brake and pressed the ignition. The engine turned over sluggishly but it didn’t fire.

“Well, I do have a problem,” she muttered.

No phone service, no access to the RACQ or whatever it was called here, and stuck in the middle of a creek. No way could she push the car herself.

She reached down and slipped her joggers and socks off; luckily, she was wearing shorts, so her clothes wouldn’t get wet when she got out.

Making sure the handbrake was on, she tried to put the car in park, but the lever refused to budge. She pulled the slide to release the bonnet; if something had come adrift under there it might be easy to spot and fix.

If I’m lucky.

However, Violet had her doubts about these new, computer-assisted engines. They were very hard to diagnose, unlike in the old days with her first car when she could tighten a cable here, top up the oil there, and keep her old Holden ute running.

Nevertheless, after walking around to the front of the vehicle in knee-deep water and pushing the bonnet up. she still peered over the array of shiny shapes and pristine cables. It all looked fine; even if something was out of place, she didn’t know this vehicle at all and wouldn’t be able to identify what was wrong. She’d been in such a rush to get away before Brian came back from his conference, this was the first time she’d even looked under the bonnet

With a sigh, Violet closed the bonnet, walked carefully around to the driver’s door and reached in for her joggers and socks. She hadn’t passed any houses for the past half-hour or so, so she knew there was nothing behind her, apart from that horse farm about ten ks back. By the look of the landscape, she was probably in the Akuna National Park.

She walked across the creek deep in thought; she’d check out the clearing and then retrieve her tent and swag from the back of the ute, and set up camp for the night.

She had plenty of fuel after filling up this side of Armidale, so it wasn’t a fuel issue. The ominous sound from the gearbox was obviously the cause of the problem, and the computer system had shut the engine down before anything was damaged.

Unless it already was.

At least whatever the problem was would be fixed under warranty.

The immediate problem confronting her was getting the damn vehicle somewhere where it could be repaired.

Chapter 2

Joe Rossiter’s farm.

Saturday, December 9th 3.00 p.m.

“Hello? Are you there, Joe?”

Joe Rossiter jumped and almost dropped the paint roller in his right hand. He leaned back and looked down the hall from the kitchen to the front door.