by Peter Corris
‘Okay’, he said. ‘Okay. Get off me.’
We all stood up and Parker covered him carefully. I picked up my gun and flicked sand off it.
‘Bloody fool’, Parker said.
I grinned at him. ‘No risk. This thing shoots high and a mile right. If you don’t know that you can’t hit a house with it.’
21
I stood guard over Collinson and Ray Guthrie, although they didn’t need much guarding. They talked quietly the whole time. I caught snatches of the conversation-the topics included boats, Chris and Pat Guthrie and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. I got Ray aside briefly and he told me that he’d followed the same route to Hacking Inlet as me-via Ian Style and Joshua Phillips. It’d been a good day for Phillips, because Ray had given him forty dollars. A stolen car had brought him from Sydney and he’d spent most of the night in the scrub wondering at the goings on.
‘Ray, Catchpole and Dottie were working on you to get at Collinson.’ We were in the front room and Collinson was in the easy chair. I jerked my head at him. ‘You see that, do you?’
‘Yes. I just couldn’t get along with Dad… Guthrie. I tried, but it just got harder. I felt as if I’d been born aged ten or something. Couldn’t stand it. But he hired you to look out for me, did he?’
“Paul Guthrie did, yes.’
He shook his head wearily and I left him to chew on it.
Frank spent more than an hour on the telephone. Between making calls and answering them, he explained the problem. For everyone who wants him alive and talking, there’s one who wants him dead and quiet.’
‘His chances don’t sound good.’
‘They’re only fair. He’d know that.’
‘Are we going to have to go back to town incognito-disguises, all that shit?’
He laughed. ‘No. Not if the right word comes through.’ He rattled the telephone. It rang again soon after, and he listened and grunted by turns. It was boring to listen to and I wandered off after a while. After the tension and drama I felt flat and let-down. It was only to do with money after all- big money, but just money.
The day got started and promised to be a spectacular one. The water outside the house rippled and shone, and Collinson’s boat tossed gently at the rope’s end. If you could forget that there was a man with flies on his face twenty metres away, it looked like a cheerful scene.
‘Hey, Frank, did you cover Hayes?’
He waved me to silence. He was on the phone again, intensely responding and high strung. He nodded, said ‘Yes’ several times, and put the phone down. He sagged back against the wall and scraped at the commando marks on his face. ‘It looks okay’, he muttered. ‘Cross your fingers, but it looks okay.’
I never did learn the full details-just which Deputy Commissioner said what to who; which Attorney General’s department man spoke to which judge. But men and vehicles started arriving; Collinson was taken away and Parker went into several huddles with men in suits. There was a little shouting. I was starting to recover my pragmatism and I insisted on informal custody of Ray Guthrie, and no one objected. Paul Guthrie had spoken of a bonus, and the fine, bright day brought fine, bright thoughts of Helen.
I phoned her and her deep, controlled voice seemed to be coming from another world after the male, near-hysteria I’d been witness to.
‘How’re you?’ she said-ordinary words, but they sounded as though she really meant it.
‘I’m fine, and it’s over. Hope you didn’t mind me putting Jess on you.’
‘I’m glad you did. She’s a good kid. Is her bloke all right?’
‘He’s okay, been through a bit. He’d like to talk to her.’
‘Put him on.’
I kicked my heels impatiently while Ray got all post-adolescent on the phone for ten minutes. He was smiling when he handed the receiver over to me.
‘Hurry back’, Helen said.
After that, Ray flaked on Collinson’s bed for a while. I got a bottle of white wine out of the fridge, and went out with Frank on the jetty for a late morning bracer. He rinsed his mouth with the wine and spat it into the water. It was no way to treat good riesling, but he’d had a hard night. He was favouring his left side, but it hadn’t bothered him during the action.
‘Wonder what happened to Liam and Dottie?’ I said.
‘Still going south if they’ve got any sense.’
‘I was supposed to drop the tail at the park entrance.’
‘Child’s play, spotted it easy.’
‘What about at the turn-off the park road?’
‘Old cop trick. Keep going and come back.’
‘Are you back where you want to be?’
‘Looks that way. How’s your employer going to take all this?’
I drank some wine and considered the question.
‘He’s got a few knocks coming, but you saw him; he can take it. He won’t like Collinson surfacing too much.’
Parker sipped, and swallowed this time. ‘I held out on you, Cliff. I’ve got a crumb you can throw Guthrie.’
I looked at him and didn’t speak.
He drank another mouthful. ‘Better stuff than at your place. Well, according to the file, Collinson went through a form of marriage with Patricia Ramsay. He was married before, and that second marriage was bigamous. That means Guthrie’s marriage is valid.’
‘So it does. Well, that could be worth something.’
When the last official had gone, and the house had been sealed and all the evidence collected, I shook hands with Parker and watched him climb into an official car. There was activity on the hill above the house; I saw the flash of field glasses and a few brave souls had even come down the lane to ask what was going on. Nobody told them anything. A couple of boats cruised around in the cove and one pulled up at Collinson’s landing. I walked halfway down the jetty, made shoo-ing motions and the boat puttered off. Collinson’s flash motor boat was still tied up; when the tide went out it’d sit stranded on the mud like a car with two flats.
Ray was waiting for me and we got into my car and drove back to Elizabeth Bay. We didn’t talk; I was tired from the sleepless night and a bit light-headed from the wine. I felt the city drawing me, but the miles went by slowly as if each was a bit longer than the last.
Jess Polansky was still at Helen’s place. She and Ray thanked Helen and thanked me, and took themselves off.
Helen stood at her window and watched them walk down the street. I came over and kissed her. She was wearing a black silk shirt and white pants. She winced when I put my hand on her back to pull her closer.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Sunburn, from the skinny dipping.’
‘Sorry.’
She touched the cut on my ear which had a sticking plaster over it and it was my turn to wince.
‘Sorry’, she said.
We did some more kissing, and moved away from the window and the bright street and sea to the cool dimness of her bedroom.
After, she sat up in bed and pulled the sheet up over her breasts. I looked up at her shapely back which was just slightly red where the newly exposed skin had been burnt.
‘What?’ I said.
‘You know I said my year off was coming up for its half-yearly review?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve decided. I’m taking the second half.’
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