by Peter Corris
The voice again. 'That is the end of the communication from Mr McKinnon.'
Bright lied. 'I've recorded you, whoever you are.'
'Excellent. No more than I would have expected from such an enterprising young man. I suggest you play the recording several times so that its meaning becomes perfectly clear.'
Marsha said, 'Is there any way we can contact you?'
After a pause the voice responded. 'You will be communicated with as occasion demands. I wish to stress that neither of you, nor Mr McKinnon, Mr Randolph Craft or Mme Benoit is in any danger providing you follow the instructions you have been given.'
'What if we don't?' Bright said.
The line went dead.
Marsha dashed into the bedroom to find Bright hanging on to the silent phone. 'Where's the recorder?'
'I was lying.' He put the phone down and sat on the bed where Marsha joined him.
'What're you thinking?' she asked.
'Andy must've started looking into those hints in the Craft book. Maybe he made some sense of them and got too close for comfort.'
'To what? To who?'
Bright shrugged and pointed to the telephone. 'To them.'
'What're we going to do?'
'What they say. What else?'
Marsha's eyes narrowed as she examined Bright's stubbornly set face. 'Do what they say,' she murmured. 'For the story's sake or for Andy's?'
'For everything,' Bright said.
27
Bright had not been in Australia for years and he had never been to Perth. He found the place strange and became irritable when Marsha expected him to take charge.
'Do you ring for a cab, hail one or go to a rank?' she asked.
'Rank, I think. Don't ask me.'
'What's the matter?'
'I don't want to be here. I got out of this fucking place to grow up and I'm afraid it'll turn me back into a wet-behind-the-ears colonial.'
'Watch yourself, mate,' Marsha said. 'I think it already has.'
Bright laughed and the mood was broken. They took a taxi to the Hibiscus Hotel and he spent an hour on the phone checking on the arrangements McKinnon had made before his disappearance. When Vic finished the last call he accepted the can of beer Marsha handed him from the minibar. 'We fly to Roebuck,' he said. 'Andy's arranged things.'
'Bugger that,' Marsha said. 'Who can we talk to?'
Bright consulted his notes. 'Colin Hawke.'
'Any relation to the ex-prime minister? He's a Western Australian, isn't he?'
Bright raised an eyebrow.
'Trivial Pursuit,' Marsha said.
Bright grinned. 'No relation. This guy's some kind of tour guide. Andy got on to him through a TV connection. He knows the Gibson Desert, apparently.'
Marsha was drinking a gin and tonic. She sipped and looked out across the expanse of parkland towards the river. 'It'd be more to the point if he knew some Aborigines.'
'He'd have to.'
Marsha sniffed. 'I don't see many around here.'
They flew to Roebourne the next day in a six-seater that travelled low enough for Marsha to gain an impression of the vastness of the coastline and the land mass behind it. After passing the North West Cape she fell silent and stared out at the muddy brown land that stretched away forever.
Bright sensed a tension in her and touched her arm. 'What's the matter? Are you sick?'
'No. It's so . . . big.'
'Come on, Marty. You've flown across Europe, been to Africa.'
'But this is all the one country. All Australia. And this is only a little corner of it. How d'you cope?'
'We don't,' Bright said moodily. 'Most of us never see more than I per cent of it, or less. It's got us beaten before we start. That's probably why we've fucked it up so badly.'
Roebourne airport was small, hot and dusty. The few passengers were greeted by people waiting for them and Vic and Marsha stood about hopelessly as the last of their vehicles drove away. Bright asked the clerk at the Westair counter if there was a bus service to the town and was informed there was not. He could phone for a taxi, 'But she'll take a while, mate.'
'Will anyone from here be going into town?'
'Naw, mate. Bar's open. We've got everything we need right here.'
'We were expecting to be met,' Marsha said. 'By Mr Colin Hawke.'
The clerk rubbed his cropped head. There was an indentation on the top of his right ear where he habitually stowed a ballpoint pen. 'Hawkey? He'll be here if he said so. Could be a bit of a wait, but. He's a busy man. No, here he is.'
A tall, thin man bustled through the doors. A few long strides brought him close enough to the counter and to Marsha to cause him to snatch off his hat. He was completely bald, the top of his head as tanned and weatherbeaten as his face.
'Mr Bright, Miss Prentiss? I'm Colin Hawke.'
Marsha realised with a shock that Hawke wasn't old as she had at first thought. He was no more than thirty and on closer inspection she saw that he wasn't tanned. His features were Asian in cast but no Asian she'd ever seen had a skin that dark. He nodded to the clerk and shook hands with Marsha and Bright. Their confusion brought a smile to his face. He showed amazingly white teeth. 'Didn't Mr McKinnon tell you I was black?'
Bright shook his head.
'Any objection?'
'Of course not, Mr Hawke,' Marsha said quickly. 'In fact I was saying . . .' She stopped, not knowing how to go on.
Hawke laughed. 'I'm a real Territorian, bit of this, bit of that. Grab your bag, Mr Bright. I've got a Land Rover outside.'
Hawke picked up Marsha's heavy case as if it weighed nothing and shepherded them towards the door. They climbed into the dusty four-wheel drive, Bright in front, Marsha behind, and Hawke started the engine. Bright carefully placed his computer on the floor between his feet and gripped it. Hawke noticed.
'Computer is it? Bit bumpy this ride. Will it be all right? Can strap it down if you like.'
'It'll be fine, Mr Hawke,' Bright said. 'You're a tour guide we're told.'
'Among other things. Call me Col.' Hawke shoved the Land Rover into gear and took off quickly.
'Where're we going, Col?' Marsha said.
Hawke had to shout above the noise of the engine and the bouncing and rattling as the vehicle headed along the rutted road. 'To the bank. There's a draft from Mr McKinnon waiting for me there. Needs two countersignatures. Get that done and we'll talk business.'
'That sounds like Andy. He's a careful man.' As he spoke, Bright thought of the polaroid photograph he'd received in the mail the day before they left England. It showed McKinnon seated at a table with a glass of scotch in his hand. The copy of the Times on the table carried the previous day's date. Careful, Bright thought, but not careful enough.
Hawke said, 'Take a look around you. Get the feel of the place. Mind you, this is all pretty soft 'n' easy compared with where you're going.'
'Do you know where we're going? I mean specifically,' Bright said.
'Could be. First I'll get the money, then I'll tell you a story and then I'll take you to meet someone. Okay?'
Bright leaned back against the hard seat. It was difficult not to feel confidence in Hawke. He handled the bucking 4WD like an artist and he seemed to have worked things out a few moves ahead. Ordinarily, on meeting a local contact, he'd have asked how thorough his briefing had been and whether he had any questions. With Hawke it seemed unnecessary. Bright twisted around to look for Marsha's confirmation but she was staring out at the rugged landscape—the iron-red hills, the green-grey plain, the red gums growing twisted and cranky along the edges of the river.
Vic pointed to the east. 'They went that way, over the Hamersleys?'
Hawke swung the Land Rover around a pothole. 'S'right. We can do the same if you like, but I wouldn't advise it.'
Marsha jerked out of her mesmerised survey of the country. 'Why not?'
'Look,' Hawke said. 'I dunno how your McKinnon got onto me but he picked the right bloke. When I told you
I was a mongrel I meant it. I'm part Abo, part Afghan, part Jap, part Malay, part Irish.'
'What's the point?' Bright said.
'The point is, I've heard stories from the blacks and the Afghans about this Craft expedition most of my life. And because I can read I've picked up other stuff about it in magazines and papers. And because I'm Irish I know bullshit when I hear it.'
'What about the Malay part?' Marsha said.
'That's irrelevant.'
Vic and Marsha laughed. Hawke eased a tobacco pouch out of his shirt pocket and rolled a cigarette with one hand as he drove. He lit it and drew in a lungful of smoke. 'Let me get to it in my own way, okay? You won't be disappointed.'
The call at the Roebourne bank was quick and uneventful. Bright and Marsha signed the authority and Hawke's account was swelled by a deposit of $8,000.
'That feels a hell of a lot better,' Hawke said as they left the bank. 'Now, most people around here'd head straight for the pub after a piece of good business like that.'
Bright looked up the broad, hot street. There was little movement along the pavements under the awnings. A few dusty trucks and 4WDs parked and unparked. 'Not a bad idea,' he said.
Hawke shook his head. 'It is a bad idea. Start drinking before teatime in this country and you're finished. It's something about the air or the bloody water or I don't know what. But if you want to get anything done, stay off the grog until teatime. That's my motto.'
'What about a cup of tea, then?' Marsha said.
'I've got a thermos in the Rover. We can have a cuppa as we go.'
Hawke waved to a few people on the street and in vehicles as they left the town. Marsha poured the tea into two enamel mugs and the cap of the thermos. When she tasted hers she almost gagged. It was very milky and very sweet. 'God,' she said. 'I've never tasted tea like that before.'
'It's great,' Bright said. 'Reminds me of when we used to go up the Blue Mountains for picnics when I was a kid.'
Hawke laughed. 'I thought you were a Pom.'
'No fear,' Vic said. 'I'm an Australian.'
The camp was twenty kilometres out of town along the east bank of a sluggish, muddy creek. It consisted of a dozen shacks, most of them built of flattened kerosene tins, galvanised iron and masonite. Two decayed caravans and the shell of a Kombi camper were the solidest structures in the camp. Hawke stopped the Land Rover near one of the caravans and distributed sweets to a hoard of children who clustered around.
Bright and Marsha sat in the 4WD looking at the Third World poverty around them. 'I thought this sort of thing had gone,' he muttered. 'These people'd be eligible for government housing and welfare for Christ's sake.'
Marsha brushed away the swarming flies and said nothing. The children stared at her. They were dirty but happy-looking despite many sores, running noses and infected eyes. A few adults appeared from the dark interiors of the shacks. They leaned against uprights as if too weary to take independent steps. Hawke shouted a few words and got grunted responses. He led Marsha and Bright into the nearest caravan, a tiny two-berth model from which almost all the interior fittings had been ripped away. The inside was dark; the windows had been broken long since and boarded up. The air smelled sickly sweet.
'Opium,' Hawke said. 'Sorry to put you through this but I wanted you to see this man here.' He pointed to what looked like a bundle of rags lying on the one remaining bunk.
As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, Bright and Marsha made out the figure of an old man, painfully wasted and curled up in a fetal position. One hand hung over the side of the bunk; several fingers were missing and what remained of the hand was a fragile arrangement of stick-thin bones protruding through papery skin.
'What's wrong with him?' Marsha said.
Hawke took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He left the handkerchief close to his face. 'Everything—tuberculosis, leprosy, cancer.'
'He looks half dead,' Marsha said. 'Shouldn't he be in a hospital?'
'He's been in hospitals. Hates them.'
Marsha said, 'But this . . .'
'He doesn't feel anything,' Hawke said. 'They give him some opium from time to time. Pretty soon they'll take him down by the creek and he'll die in the open the way he wants to.'
'Col,' Vic said. 'What's the point? I'm sorry for the old man, but who is he? What's he got to do with us?'
Hawke stepped away from the bunk and gestured for them to leave the caravan. When they were in the open he put the handkerchief away and fumbled for his tobacco. 'That old man,' he said, 'goes by the name of Boolil. He'd be, oh, about fifty-one or two. I think he's the last person to see Basil and Richard Craft alive.'
28
'Few years back,' Colin Hawke said, 'there was an enquiry into the British atom bomb tests in South Australia. You ever hear about that over in Pommyland?'
Bright nodded. He, Marsha and Hawke were sitting, drinking beer, on the verandah of Hawke's house on his small cattle property a hundred kilometres out of Roebourne. 'There wasn't a lot published over there. But I know about it. The place was Maralinga. The findings went pretty much against the British.'
'Yeah,' Hawke said. 'They were supposed to clean it up. I doubt if they did. Anyway, I had a sort of spin-off job looking for Abos who'd been in the area when the bloody things were let off.'
Marsha said, 'Surely they'd have cleared everyone out?'
Hawke shook his head. 'Not by a long shot. This was nearly forty years ago. Still plenty of people stayed clear of the white man in those days. I found a good few who'd seen the flashes, plenty who'd lived and hunted in the contaminated area for years afterwards. I saw some horrible sights I can tell you. Kids with feet for hands . . . that sort of thing.'
'Jesus,' Bright said. He drank some beer and wished it were something stronger, but beer was all Hawke had offered. His house was a modest three-bedroom weatherboard. The cattle station, Hawke had explained, was really an experimental sort of place that didn't bring in much money. Hence the tour-guiding and other jobs.
'Point is,' Hawke said, 'I ran into Boolil. Someone had told me he'd seen the bombs go off. He was in a pretty bad way—blind, had leprosy, TB. Almost no English and bloody confused. He had this story about two white men out in the Gibson. I wasn't that interested at first because I was concentrating on the Maralinga stuff. But he kept jabbering away. Victoria Desert lingo. After a while I realised he could be talking about the Crafts. Like I say, there's been lots of stories about them.'
'We'd better tape this,' Marsha said. 'Do you mind, Col?'
'You're paying,' Hawke said. 'You could get a few more beers on your way back, Marty.'
Bright jumped up to head off Marsha's protest. 'I'll get the beer.' He went into the kitchen and got three cans from the refrigerator which was well stocked with fresh as well as frozen food. The kitchen was equipped with a microwave oven which explained Hawke's promise to 'whip you up something in no time'. He commented on this when he handed Hawke a can.
'Funny, isn't it?' Hawke said. 'Used to cook outside all the time when I was a nipper. Now when we do we call it a barbeque and it's something special.'
Marsha set up the tape-recorder. 'Just talk,' she said.
Hawke popped his can. 'Right. Well, the Afghans say one of their blokes got back to some station near the MacDonnells with a story of how his mate had got eaten by flies. He was just about dead himself and didn't live long after they found him. Bit of a search was got up. Found nothing. End of story.'
'That's a point,' Bright said. 'There doesn't seem to have been much interest in the Crafts at all. You'd have thought—'
'The old hands say they discouraged it,' Hawke said. 'And nobody liked Basil Craft. Everyone said he was a real shit, reckoned death in the desert was too good for him. In those days there were always people going off into the bush, looking for minerals, Lasseter's reef, you name it.'
'Mm. I still think it's a bit off,' Bright said.
Hawke shrugged. 'I dunno. I wasn't around then. I was up north doing so
me pearling.' He glanced slyly at Marsha. 'Part Malay, you see.'
Marsha smiled and pointed to the recorder.
'Okay. Well, Boolil reckoned he and another man and two women and a child wandered up into the Gibson. The child was born bad, that was his word. I suppose it was affected by the radiation. They all were, in one way or another. Anyhow, they were in the Gibson, minding their own business, when this madman attacked them.
He shot the other man and one of the women. Killed the kid, too.'
Marsha and Bright exchanged a look.
'What?' Hawke said.
Vic said, 'Tell you later, Col. Go on.'
'There were two white men who looked pretty much the same. Beards, ragged clothes, carrying a bundle. The one with the gun knocked the surviving woman out and sat on her. Boolil ran off.'
'Sat on her?' Marsha said. 'Is that some kind of expression for . . . had sex with her?'
'No,' Hawke said. 'Nothing like that happened. Boolil reckons he tracked them for a couple of days. They were trying to get the woman to find water for them and she could have, but she played it smart. She led them away deliberately into real bad country. She knew Boolil was out there and that he'd manage. She could get by, too. The white men just got weaker and weaker.
'Boolil waited until he reckoned they were just about done and then he crept up on them. The one who'd shot the blacks was in a bad way. He'd tied the woman up and been pretty rough on her. He was the one Boolil wanted. Boolil walked up and speared him through both legs. The other one had the pistol and could've shot Boolil but he didn't.'
'It sounds like the Crafts,' Bright said.
Hawke went on, 'Boolil got a knife from the white men's stuff and cut the woman free. They took the knife and couple of other things and pissed off back into the desert. Boolil says the whites had no water and couldn't have lasted more than a couple of days.'
Bright opened his mouth to ask a question but Marsha got in first. 'What happened to Boolil and the woman?'
'The woman died. She had bad burns on her face and body. Boolil buried her out in the Gibson and made his way west.' Hawke swigged his can. 'Mostly kept to the bush. He doesn't trust white men. People round here've looked after him for the last ten years or so. He was initiated, could tell them a few things they wanted to know even though he's from another country.'
