The Girl in the Hard Hat Read Online Free PDF Page B

was told there were five women there.’
    ‘Idiots, all of them,’ he retorted. ‘Don’t be a young fool.’
    She gasped. ‘I’m nearly thirty. I think I can take care of myself.’
    ‘You look too much like your mother.’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, since I last checked being blonde isn’t a health hazard. Is it really that much of a problem for you to be seen with me? I mean, I’m sure we won’t come into contact that often.’
    He grunted.
    She stared at him.
    He was the distant relative who had never been around. Not even at Christmas. She hadn’t thought that was his fault. His wife was a dragon and she’d had a theory it was Patricia who had prevented him from attending anything but weddings or funerals. But maybe not. Maybe Uncle Mike was the cold-hearted bastard everyone reported him to be.
    So then why had he helped her? Why had he told her to go to Dan Hullog for a job?
    He seemed to read her thoughts and sighed. ‘Look, it’s not that I have a problem with you or anything. I know Parry would have wanted me to help you. But you walked into the job wearing a TCN uniform. There’s enough gossip surrounding you already without dragging me into it.’
    ‘Relax,’ she responded cynically. ‘This sinking ship isn’t taking you down with it.’
    His face hardened. ‘I think that remains to be seen.’ He opened the door of his vehicle. Just before he stepped in, however, he looked up at her.
    ‘There’s a female engineer called Lena Todd who lives in the camp and works for Barnes Inc. She’ll help you.’
    ‘What? Help the TCN spy?’ she snapped sarcastically.
    ‘Lena won’t care about that. Like I said, she’s an idiot. You’ll probably get on.’
    She didn’t know whether to be grateful or affronted as he finally slid into his ute and sped away in a cloud of dust. She shook her head and turned around to enter her hotel room. The familiar smell of musty carpets and empty ashtrays assailed her nostrils.
    No matter how bad the camp was, it would be fantastic to get out of here.
    Wendy got her first taste of her new accommodation the following morning. The Cape Lambert Work Camp was located on the outskirts of the small town of Wickham – a maze of dongas sitting on unkempt weed-ridden dirt. The central brick building, which housed the reception, a gym and the mess hall, had seen better days. It was past eight am when Wendy arrived, so the place was like an eerie ghost town of aluminium bedrooms-for-one. The only sounds were the clicking of insects and the scrape of her boots on red pebbles.
    A bell attached to the door rang as she walked into reception and a woman in her late forties, with her feet on the desk, looked up from her nail file. She had knotty hair and a rather unfortunate face that settled into a resigned expression around her dry cracking lips.
    ‘Oh great! Another one.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘There’s no sense in apologising. You can’t help what you are.’
    ‘My name is Wendy Hopkins. And I’m here to organise a donga for myself. I just started with Barnes Inc.’
    ‘So you’re the TCN spy everybody’s been talking about. Don’t look like you’ve got much gut in you, do ya?’
    By now Wendy was finding it impossible to ignore the fact that this woman was being a bitch simply for being a bitch’s sake. ‘I’m not a spy.’
    The woman grinned, exposing her bad teeth. ‘He said, she said. It’s all about credibility, isn’t it?’ She went back to filing her nails, the scratchy sound grating on Wendy’s last nerve. ‘The name’s Ethel, by the way, girlie.’
    Girlie?
    It was clear this woman was the resident bully. Wendy put her hands on her hips. She’d had enough stress, rude remarks and wisecracks the last couple of days to last her a lifetime. She was over it. ‘Just so you know, Ethel , I’ve been around the block a few times and I don’t take shit from anyone. So get your feet off the desk, put that nail file away and get me a bloody donga