by Peter Ralph
“Slow down and hold back when you’re on the other side of the bend. About thirty seconds.”
Leon gunned the Harley over the double lines and into a sharp right bend, cutting it tight at nearly one hundred and forty. He stole a quick glance in the rear-view mirrors, and saw the lights of the Audi eighty metres behind. I’ve got you now, you bastard.
As he turned back to the road he caught a glimpse of dull metal looming towards him. He tried to swerve, but it was too late. The bike slammed into the steel bumper bar of the Kenworth coming slowly down the hill, towing a timber jinker with twenty tonnes of logs neatly stacked on it. One of his rear-view mirrors flew up into the air, catching the early morning sun before it fell into the grass.
He never had a chance. The doctors said he’d died on impact.
The driver of the Audi didn’t stop. He saw the wrecked Harley but could see no sign of its rider. He didn’t look at the driver of the Kenworth but slowed to a leisurely speed and drove on towards Olinda. He drove the loop and came out the other side without passing the scene of the accident again. His job was done.
Bob Parry was sitting in his study late on Sunday morning when the phone rang.
“Yes,” he said, in the same tone he used at J. D. Ford & Co.
“It’s Leon—he’s dead!” the frantic voice yelled.
“Suzanne, is that you?”
“Bob, he’s dead, Leon’s dead,” she sobbed.
“What happened, Suzanne?” She was crying and gasping for breath.
“He had an accident on his bike. A dreadful accident,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably. “The police said he was speeding on the wrong side of the road when he hit a truck. I told him not to go out today. I told him…”
“When? When did this happen?”
“About…about three hours ago.” Suzanne’s voice broke. “I…I need you…here,” she stammered.
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” he said, not knowing what else to say.
As he got into the Merc he thought about Leon and Suzanne. They’d been together for more than thirty years, and her drive and encouragement had been critical to his success. He thought of the useless condolences he’d offer, and what she’d said, and the word she had used twice in one sentence—‘accident’. He’d heard that word used earlier in the week when he listened in on a dreadful argument Leon Hill was having over the speaker-phone with the firm’s silent partner. He couldn’t remember the context in which it’d been raised, but he knew it hadn’t been Leon who’d used it.
As he drove through the tree-lined streets of Toorak, oblivious to the luxurious mansions, he felt increasingly uncomfortable and parts of that conversation kept coming back to him. Was there a connection to Leon’s death? He was relieved to see a police car parked out the front of the palatial Hill residence. He wouldn’t have to console Suzanne alone.
Monday’s newspapers were full of reports about the accident. The headlines screamed merchant prince killed, finance giant dead, broking industry mourns. There were stories about his brilliant career: how he’d worked his way up from an office boy to heading the most powerful brokerage in the land. Details of the accident were respectfully brief, but the tabloids reported that Leon Hill had been travelling at over one hundred and sixty kilometres an hour and had hit a prime mover head-on while cutting a blind corner. The poor truck driver had been too distraught to talk after the accident, but it was reported that the police had determined that he was not at fault. The industry was cruel, and by midday on Monday the jokes were doing the rounds: that he’d been splattered like a fly on a windscreen, or had been decapitated and his head had ended up on the bonnet of the truck as an emblem.
Two weeks before the inquest into Leon Hill’s death, the truck driver drowned while scuba diving in Port Phillip Bay. Police reported that there were no suspicious circumstances. The newspapers collectively devoted about twenty lines to his death, close to the middle pages. After all, this was a mere truckie, not a broking magnate. One tabloid mentioned that the truckie had been the driver of the vehicle involved in the death of Leon Hill, and noted the terrible coincidence.
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The right of Peter Ralph to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions and organisations in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe their actual conduct.
