by Bev Robitai
A pick-up truck ground to a halt beside her.
‘Hey there, you need a ride?’ asked a frizzy-haired middle-aged woman, leaning across to call through the open window.
‘Yes, that would be great, thanks!’ Robyn hopped into the cab and buckled her seat belt. The woman stamped on the accelerator and the truck shot forward.
‘My name’s Ruth. Where you headed?’
‘Hi Ruth, I’m Robyn. I’m hoping to get back to Toronto. I don’t suppose you’re going that far?’
‘Toronno? Wouldn’t go near the place, too citified for me. I can drop you at Peterborough and you can catch a bus from there, how’s that?’
‘That’s just fine. They’ll have money machines at the bus station, won’t they?’
‘Either there or right around the corner at the bank. Out without much cash are you? What happened, boyfriend got fresh with ya and you bailed out on him?’
Robyn laughed. ‘No, I haven’t had a boyfriend get fresh with me in a long time! I was with a friend and his van got stolen. He went chasing off after it and the silly idiot forgot to take me with him. I’ll have a few words to say to him later, I can tell you!’
‘Must be a mighty single-minded fellow to leave a girl like you by the road. Better try wearing some shorter skirts and get him to notice you a bit more, eh?’
Robyn agreed politely, but fumed inwardly. Apparently she wasn’t sexy enough to keep Mike’s attention. That stung.
They went through a small town and the place name caught her attention. ‘Is this place called Havelock?’ she exclaimed. ‘I come from just near Havelock in New Zealand! Wow, that’s so cool!’
‘I was wondering where your cute accent was from. New Zealand, eh? That’s part of Australia, eh? I loved Crocodile Dundee, that was a great movie.’
Robyn refrained from groaning and tried to phrase a tactful reply.
‘No, actually Crocodile Dundee was Australian. We’re a country all of our own. We like to think we’re not like Australians at all. Maybe you’ve seen Lord of the Rings? The Piano, or Once Were Warriors? They’re all New Zealand movies.’
‘No, must have missed those. What was that other one I liked? Oh yeah, that desert thing, Priscilla something or other. Roy hated the fags but I thought it was great.’
‘So, Ruth, do you live round here?’ Robyn gave up the struggle to assert New Zealand’s national identity and sought safer conversational ground.
‘Yeah, Roy and I have got a little place just past Marmora. Pretty much a hobby farm really, but we raise a few thousand head of mosquito!’ Her cigarette-roughened voice cackled with laughter.
‘I must remember that one,’ said Robyn. ‘We run a few hundred sheep and cows on our place, but there must be a couple of million sandflies that come out after the rain.’
They chatted inconsequentially until Ruth announced their arrival in Peterborough, and threaded through shabby side streets to the bus depot.
‘You sure you’ll be all right, honey? I can wait till you’ve bought your ticket if you like?’
‘Oh that’s all right, Ruth. I’ll be fine. Thanks for the ride, it was a pleasure talking to you.’
‘You take care now. Hope you catch up with that friend of yours and his van.’
Robyn rolled her eyes.
‘Yeah, if he remembers where he lives! Bloody idiot. See you!’
She braved the seedy interior of the bus depot to book her ticket, stepping uncomfortably around sprawling scruffy bodies that occupied the few worn benches. Rubbish was thick on the floor, with gobs of chewing gum and pools of spilt soft drink beside the seats. The few litter bins were dented and overflowing, scattering their sticky contents every time another piece was added.
Robyn bought her ticket hurriedly then went outside into the fresh air to wait for the bus. She had a brief flash of guilt about Mike who might go chasing across the Ontario countryside looking for her, but decided that if he was thoughtless enough to leave her behind at the Marmora Store, he deserved to spend a bit of time searching for her afterwards as a fitting punishment.
CHAPTER 8
Colwyn Symons looked at his watch. At this time he normally went to the gym, but he’d been avoiding it since the boxing episode, unwilling to face any possible unpleasantness about the young man he’d pounded. He’d had Harry take care of the immediate aftermath, but perhaps he’d ask him to deal with the problem on a more long-term basis. He punched his number and asked him to come up to the apartment.
Harry arrived minutes later, breathing wheezily as he waited for Colwyn’s instructions. Colwyn allowed him to stand there awkwardly while he finished sending a text message. He looked up, barely masking his distaste at Harry’s greasy appearance.
‘Harry, thank you for coming up so quickly.’
‘No sweat, Mr. Symons. What can I do for you?’
‘That young fellow in the boxing room yesterday - is he still around?’
‘Yeah, but he hasn’t been back to the gym yet. I think he’s a bit sore.’ Harry grinned, revealing stained teeth that made Colwyn flinch.
‘I expect he would be.’ He looked down at his hands briefly. ‘Harry, I’d prefer not to run into him again. Can you arrange that, do you think?’
‘You want me to like, arrange a bad accident for him? A real bad one?’ He stopped just short of winking.
‘No! Nothing fatal, just frighten him off so that he leaves the building. I don’t want him dead, just out of my life, OK? That’s not too hard, is it?’
‘No problemo, Mr. Symons. I’ll have a quiet word with him in the back alley, he won’t even know who I am, he’ll just know he has to leave. I’ll take care of it.’
‘Thank you Harry. There’ll be a bonus for you when he’s gone.’
‘It’s my pleasure!’ Harry’s eyes creased in a nasty grin. ‘Anything you want done, just say the word. It’s real good working for you, Mr. Symons - a lot better than being a janitor.’
‘All right, thank you Harry.’ Colwyn cut off his fawning pleasantries. ‘Off you go and see to our young friend, will you? It’s time he learned not to linger where he’s not wanted.’
Colwyn ushered Harry out, then crossed the room to gaze out towards the lake. It shimmered a hazy pale blue in the midday sun, with broad swells etched by the wakes of a thousand boats that were enjoying the freedom of a summer weekend.
‘What a great idea,’ murmured Colwyn. ‘Who needs a sweaty gym, anyway? Let’s give the Angel Lady a bit of a spin instead.’
He sauntered down to the marina, pleased by the number of attractive people he saw on the way. It had been a concern to him lately that he’d seen tramps hanging around the dock, probably scavenging for food in the rubbish bins. That was something else he could get Harry to fix for him, if the problem returned. What was the point of being one of the beautiful people if ugly ones were around to spoil the view?
He sprang lightly aboard the Angel Lady, running his hand caressingly along the teak deck rail. All that stress he went through at work was worth it when he could buy such a beautiful toy. It marked him out as a man of taste and discernment, a success in the business world, and someone to be envied. When you owned a boat like that you were one of the ruling classes, a person who had control over his life, unlike some poor factory-working peasant who struggled forty years to pay the mortgage and never made anything of himself.
An unpleasant sneer marred Colwyn’s features as he dropped the mooring ropes and opened the throttle, but it faded to a smile as he surged away from the dock and out towards the open lake.
The smile faded to a frown as the engines sputtered and died after running at full speed for about ten minutes. Nothing he tried would bring them back to life as the boat wallowed helplessly in the swell. He cursed and fumed, unable to figure out what had caused the problem.
The boat lurched and rolled, adding to his discomfort.
He tried again to restart the engines, but every attempt was futile.
When he realised he
had no chance of fixing the breakdown, he looked round for a nearby boat to signal for help. There were no other craft within hailing distance so he finally resorted to his cell-phone and called the marina for assistance. They regretted that it would be at least an hour before they had a launch free to come to his aid, and advised him to sit tight and not to panic.
He ground his teeth and waited.
For three gruelling hours he clung, more and more wretchedly, to the side of his lurching boat. He had lost the last of his breakfast twenty minutes ago; the eggs and croissant were currently feeding the underwater inhabitants of Lake Ontario. At any moment the previous night’s drinks and nibbles were due to follow. The swell had increased in the last hour as the wind grew stronger, and now the boat was tossing like a cork. Nearer the shore, several sailing boats had capsized and were being assisted by passing launches.
Colwyn heaved over the side again and reflected bitterly that he would no doubt have to wait until all the yachtsmen had been plucked from the water before the marina launch would bother to come and tow him to shore. He briefly considered firing an emergency flare, but decided that the repercussions for its unwarranted use would be even more unpleasant than his present predicament. If his current run of bad experiences with the boat continued, it might be time to arrange its loss and put the money into something more enjoyable.
A string of spittle fell from his lower lip, staining a damp patch on his designer pants.
At last, when the horizon of his world had reduced to the stretch of teak railing under his chin, there was a shout from alongside.
‘Hi, Angel Lady, do you need some help?’
Colwyn raised his head.
‘Yeah. Engines failed. Can you tow me in?’
‘Sure, throw over a towline and we’ll get right to it. Been a bit rough for you out here, eh?’
Colwyn managed a sickly smile as he threw the rope.
‘I’ll be glad to get to shore, I can tell you that.’ He checked the knot. ‘OK, it’s secure at my end. Just get me out of here, would you?’
Once the boats were under way the tossing motion eased, and Colwyn’s discomfort faded. In its place grew angry questions about why the engines had failed at all. The fuel gauge read over half full, the engines had been serviced recently, and Harry hadn’t mentioned any difficulties the last time he’d started them up. Colwyn’s eyes narrowed. It was probably one of those filthy tramps who’d been hanging round the marina, slipping something in the petrol tank as a protest against unfair distribution of wealth or some such nonsense. He’d have Harry look into it.
Harry was at that very moment carrying out Colwyn’s previous order to have a word with the young man from the boxing room. He was following him up the street, equipped with a black ski mask in one pocket and a number of weapons hidden about his person.
When the young man paused to look at a shop window display, Harry saw his chance. He moved past him quickly, and ducked into the shop’s service alley where he pulled on the mask and waited for him to come past. With practised ease, he caught him by the elbow and steered him into the dim, quiet recess between the buildings.
‘Hey buddy, you and me need to have a talk. I’ll talk, you listen, got it?’
He twisted the man’s arm viciously to get his point across, and pressed him hard against the wall. The man nodded, eyes round and afraid, acrid sweat already staining his shirt. Harry leered behind his disguise, smelling the man’s fear mixed with the raspy wool of the mask.
‘It’s time you left this neighbourhood, bud. Move away. There are people here that don’t want to see you no more. If they do, you might not get a second chance. You getting the message?’
He jabbed the point of a narrow-bladed knife into the man’s neck, making him jerk his head back against the rough brick wall behind him. A smear of blood darkened the bricks, while a fine bead welled up at the puncture point. Harry reached out and touched it with his finger, then held it up in front of the man’s face.
‘Your blood, see? You want to keep the rest of it inside you, you do as I say. Move on out of here.’
‘How - how far?’ The young man gulped.
‘Oh, a couple of blocks,’ said Harry reasonably. Then he gripped him by the throat and put his fat wet lips close to the man’s ear. ‘Far enough that nobody round here sees your face ever again, all right? Otherwise we’ll just have to peel it off you strip by strip.’
He ran the knife delicately from forehead to chin, leaving a faint line of blood oozing along its path.
‘And you tell nobody about this little meeting we’ve had here, OK? Any talk to the cops, and it’s not just your face that will disappear. You understand me?’
The man nodded in a small, careful movement, trying to evade the knife blade poised in front of his eyes.
‘That’s good. Now get the hell outta here, go home and pack up your stuff. If you take too long, I’ll be coming by to hurry things up, so get moving!’
Harry pushed him roughly towards the street and watched him stumble away. When he peeled off the mask, he was smiling.
Robyn woke from a troubled sleep. It was three in the morning, and although she’d been tired out by her day in the country, images of Colwyn kept hovering in her dreams, and as she sat up she almost thought she could smell his sickly cologne.
Outside her room there was a noise.
The sound of the front door opening. Movement inside the apartment. She sat up suddenly, straining to hear what was happening.
Footsteps walked past towards the kitchen. She heard water running.
She blew out the breath she’d been holding and relaxed, realising it was Mike returning home. She heard him making coffee in the kitchen, then he walked into the study and flicked on the light. His jaw dropped when he saw her sprawled on the sofa bed, blinking at the sudden brightness.
‘Robyn! How the hell did you get here?’ He came and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her with undisguised relief in his eyes. ‘I’ve been searching for you halfway across Ontario. I was just about to phone your brother and tell him you were missing!’
‘No, don’t do that, he’d worry that you weren’t taking good care of me.’
‘Well I didn’t, did I? Why do you think I’ve been looking for you all night?’
‘Oh, don’t sweat - you’re not responsible for me, I’m a big girl now.’
‘Of course I feel responsible - I left you stranded in a strange place with no transport!’
‘And you didn’t check whether I had enough money to get home,’ she prompted.
‘Oh God, I didn’t, did I? But you got here somehow, obviously. What did you do?’
‘Mike, it’s really late, can we talk about this in the morning?’ She yawned elaborately, only half acting.
‘Yeah, of course, sorry.’ He ran his hand through his hair in a distracted gesture. ‘Go back to sleep, I’ll catch up with you later. I’m glad you’re safe. Sorry.’
He backed out of the study and turned off the light.
When she surfaced near midday and padded out to the living room he was nowhere to be seen.
She fixed herself some breakfast, and was just finishing her toast when he came in, looking utterly exhausted.
‘Gidday mate,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How’s it going? God, you look rough.’
‘Thanks a bunch.’ He sat down heavily and rubbed his eyes. ‘I’ve just been down at the police station, not that it did much good. They seem to think that the van was an open invitation to thieves and that I’ll have no chance of getting it back.’
‘Oh what a load of rubbish! You locked it, I saw you. You’re always really careful about that sort of thing.’
‘I know. There’s a lot of valuable equipment in the van so I take good care of it. But the police think the thieves saw the wires sticking out from the dashboard and figured it would be an easy job, so they just smashed the window, jumped in and drove off.’
‘And that was when you saw them? Is that why you
hared off and left me behind?’
‘Yes, pretty much. I saw the van disappear up the road and all I could think of was chasing after it before they got clean away.’
He looked at her apologetically. ‘I didn’t have time to wait around for you, I’m sorry.’
‘So you bloody should be! I came out of the loo and you were nowhere in sight, so I sat waiting for ages in the store, then I asked some poor bloke to look in the guys’ toilet for you but you weren’t even there. Finally the woman at the counter told me you’d gone over the road to get a rental car and I thought you’d come and get me but no, you’d taken off like a bloody Grand Prix Champion racer and left me in the dust!’
‘Look, I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want me to do?’ He glared at her. ‘And remember it was you that hot-wired the van. If those wires hadn’t been sticking out it probably wouldn’t have been stolen. So don’t make me feel guilty, lady - it was as much your fault as mine that you got stuck.’
‘Aw bullshit! If you had half a brain you’d have waited for me - I’d have jumped in the rental car with you and we could probably have caught the bastards with me there to help you. Don’t tell me it’s my fault your cruddy old van got nicked.’
‘Cruddy? That was a damn good vehicle, customised for my work, and it had a lot of gear in it that will be next to impossible to replace. You’ve cost me a lot of expense and inconvenience with your damn silly tricks. Perhaps you should just grow up or go home!’
