by Peter Temple
I swallowed, full of fear. ‘Who says that?’
He looked at me, the sallow, impassive face, Australian minestrone of genes, dark and dangerous broth. ‘The livin, they’d know. Put a few into the doorway. Anywhere. Make a noise.’
He got out, put on his nubby sportscoat, adjusted his collar, took his time, gave an exaggerated shiver, went through the open gate and onto the concrete path bisecting an abandoned garden once loved by someone.
I pressed the button. The window slid away. Astringent polar air came in, wet, stung my lips, my eyes. I had the automatic in my hand, deadly and comforting extension of the arm, pointing at the floor between my knees, unsteady knees, the weapon perfectly balanced, silky smooth and sexual to the hand, to the web between thumb and forefinger.
Cam was at the front door. He knocked.
I turned my body, brought the automatic up to just under the windowsill. Why should Cam do things like this? What made me think it was acceptable to drag him into my sordid affairs? How was it that I could accept his offer to go to the door with only a whimper of protest?
Waiting. I’d forgotten to pull the slide back, Jesus Christ. I pulled it, precise slippery sound of oiled metal parts machined to impossibly small tolerances.
Cam knocked again.
Waiting. Cold. A tractor far away, sound borne on the winter wind.
Cam scratched the back of his neck and knocked again.
Waiting.
He turned his head, put up his right hand and beckoned me with the index finger.
Relief.
I got out, walked up the path, pistol behind my back. Cam was putting on thin black gloves. At the front door, I handed the weapon over.
Cam held the killing wand at the end of a slack arm. ‘Don’t think there’s a party on here,’ he said. ‘Want to go in?’
I nodded.
Cam tried the doorknob. The door opened, unhappy on its hinges.
Passage, dark, narrow, faded peeling wallpaper, doors right and left. The smell was of damp, of decay, of the secret earth beneath the house deprived of sun for a hundred years, of the smoke from trees beyond number reduced to ash, of meat roasted, boiled, fried.
We went from room to frayed room. Everything of value had either been sold or pilfered. Deep impressions on the carpets showed where a double bed, wardrobes, chests of drawers or dressing-tables, armchairs had stood. There was no fridge, two mantelpieces and cast-iron fireplaces had been ripped out, even the bath in the lean-to bathroom was gone. All over the house, cigarettes had been ground into the carpets, empty Vic Bitter stubbies lay in corners, broken in the fireplaces.
I went over to the kitchen window over the sink and looked out. Rain, wind lifting the corrugated iron sheets on the roof of a shed. On the highest point behind the outbuildings, a grey fibreglass tank stood in a space cut into the hillside. Presumably to stop it being blown over when empty. Rainwater would be pumped up to the tank, flow back by gravity. I turned on the sink tap. A rusty trickle came out.
Out the back door, a relief to get into the light, the wind. In the open space behind the house, water lay in pools reflecting the moving sky. We inspected the big shed first. It was the milking barn, concrete floor, milking stalls, wide gutters. The back door had blown off and the wind was threatening to lift the roof.
Next door had old oil stains on the packed-earth floor, probably the machinery shed, empty now except for unidentifiable bits of metal lying around.
Two smaller sheds, one too dangerous to enter, had no obvious purpose. The large feed barn was holding up reasonably well. Inside, two stacks of hay bales down the sides had toppled inwards, obliterating the central aisle.
I looked around for tyre tracks. Hopeless. It had been raining here for weeks. No track would last more than a few hours.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it had to be done. Let’s go.’
We walked around the house, through a grove of dying fruit trees, packed the pistol away and left Gary’s aunty’s farm.
Twenty minutes later, on the highway, Cam said, ‘Locals picked the place pretty clean.’
‘Probably the neighbours,’ I said. ‘Surprised they didn’t take the fibreglass water tank. Newest thing on the property.’
‘Good stuff fibreglass,’ Cam said. ‘Doesn’t rust. Poisons you but it doesn’t rust.’
‘Turn round, let’s get back there,’ I said.
Cam didn’t blink, braked gently, changed down. Inside twenty seconds, we were heading back to Gary’s aunty’s farm.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Cam said. ‘I like surprises.’
As we went down the track to the farmhouse, I said, ‘Around the back. Got a torch?’
Cam pointed at the glovebox. I opened it and found a slim black flashlight. We got out.
‘Up there,’ I said. Cam’s eyes followed mine to the water tank.
We climbed the small hill, buffeted by the wind, getting wet. A path led up the side of the cutting, taking us to a position above the tank, looking down at its slippery top, at the manhole cover.
‘Why?’ Cam said.
‘Rusty water coming out of the kitchen tap,’ I said.
‘Could be coming from somewhere else.’
We looked down on the farmhouse. There were two corrugated-iron rainwater tanks, one on either side of the house.
‘No gravity down there,’ I said, stepping gingerly onto the tank, taking careful steps to the cover.
I put the flashlight in my mouth, knelt on the wet surface. The cover had a moulded handle. I pulled at it and it came off easily, almost causing me to slip sideways.
I put my hands on the tank, leant forward, looked into the opening.
Pitch dark. Smell of decay.
I took the flashlight out of my mouth, found the button, switched it on, pointed into the tank.
‘Christ.’
He was looking at me, lying on his back in a few centimetres of dark water. His mouth was open. Part of his lower jaw was missing, a congealed mess with pieces of white bone showing. His shirt was dark, the colour of the water he was lying in.
He’d been standing in the tank when he was shot. Shot several times from above. By someone who had walked him up to the tank at gunpoint, made him climb into it, leaned over the hole and shot him.
Gary Connors?
No. I could see his top teeth, good set of top teeth, no gold canine.
‘Nasty?’ asked Cam.
I nodded, got to my feet, took the steps back to land.
I had the photograph in my wallet. I got it out, handed it to Cam with the flashlight. He stepped over to the manhole, casual, confident steps, knelt, shone the torch into the tank.
He coughed, looked over his shoulder at me, non-committal look, examined the photograph, looked into the tank again.
‘Him, I’d say,’ he said. ‘Rings on the little fingers.’ He put the cover back, found a handkerchief, did a careful wipe. ‘Your bloke?’
‘No. Dean Canetti.’
We went back to the car. ‘Kitchen tap,’ Cam said, offering his handkerchief. ‘And anything else.’
I went inside, uneasy, wiped the kitchen tap, the back door doorknob.
Outside, Cam was leaning against the car, smoking, looking at the outbuildings. There was an air of menace about the place now: a man had been murdered here. Executed.
‘Bloke shot in a tank,’ he said. ‘Changes the way you see a place.’
We looked at each other. Without saying anything, we walked over to the feed barn, skirting the pools.
The big door came open under protest.
Walls of hay bales fallen, come apart. A mound where a broad aisle had been.
Cam went over to the pile, took a broken bale, pulled it off the heap, another, another.
I joined him, pulling hay away, getting hay all over my clothes.
Cam stopped.
I stopped.
Cam took his right foot back and kicked the hay.
Something solid.
Another grab
of hay.
The tail-lights of a car, a dark-grey car.
In seconds, Cam had uncovered the back door, tried it, locked.
The front doorhandle, more scrabbling, Cam pulled it open.
The body came out sideways, falling into the hay, bringing with it a powerful smell of putrefaction.
For a moment, I thought I was going to be sick, swallowed, stood back.
Cam looked into the vehicle.
‘Another one in there,’ he said. ‘Head shot.’
‘Going bald?’
‘No.’
I kicked away some more hay from the back of the car, stood back, found a pen and wrote the registration on the palm of my left hand.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Put the hay back first,’ said Cam.
Heavy rain, sheets of water, began to fall as we turned into Sligo Lane. ‘Nice rain,’ Cam said. ‘Hate to have to change these tyres. Japanese tyres.’
I sat in silence, trying to think calm thoughts, until I felt my heartbeat return to normal. Then I took out the tiny mobile, looked for the On button, found it, paused.
No.
I put the phone away.
‘Think of anythin else,’ Cam said, ‘don’t tell me. Goin home now.’
The trip home was sedate, just under the speed limit all the way. I got Cam to drop me two blocks from Taub’s.
‘Thanks for the company,’ I said. ‘Not the best sort of outing.’
‘Could have been worse,’ said Cam. ‘Last outing like this I went on with you, a bloke hit me with a shotgun. Often. Kicked me too.’
‘There’s that,’ I said.
‘Anyway, I never went on this trip.’
‘Unless you went alone,’ I said.
35
Charlie was back, hobbling around. I did an hour’s work on the Purbrick construction, then stepped out of sight, switched on the tiny mobile and punched one-two.
It rang three or four times.
‘Yes.’
‘Dave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Recognise the voice?’
‘Yes.’
‘Use names on this thing?’
‘Yes.’
‘I found Canetti. Dead. Shot in a water tank on a property belonging to Gary near Warrnambool.’
‘Oh shit,’ said Dave.
‘Two others dead there too, two blokes in a grey Camry.’
‘Jesus. Not Gary?’
‘No.’
‘Look for ID?’
‘I’m averse to sticking my hand into the jackets of people who’ve been dead for a fair while. What about you?’
‘Point taken. Get the registration?’
I read it off my palm.
‘Possibly hired talent,’ he said. ‘From far away. Didn’t think Gary had it in him.’
‘Gary? All of them?’
‘With help maybe. Don’t know who. You shouldn’t have gone without someone watching your tail. Very risky. Keep an eye out?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Dealing with pros here, Jack. You haven’t been putting the mobile on.’
‘Busy.’
‘Had something to tell you. Dean hired a car on April 3. Firm in South Melbourne. Phoned for it. It never came back. Turned up yesterday. April 5, some bloke had it parked for him at the Hyatt. Same day it got nicked from the carpark. Yesterday, the cops find the shell, stripped, in a shed out in Brooklyn.’
Pause.
‘Anyway, the bloke who parked it never came back. I showed the car parkers some faces yesterday. Probably our friend. There’s also the trip mileage. Bit more than the round-trip down to where he parked in the sea.’
Canetti had hired the car. Two days later, Gary had dumped it in Melbourne.
‘This is getting urgent,’ said Dave. ‘The worry is the other side gets nervous about you now, decides to do something.’
‘What about the casualties out there in the sticks?’
‘Don’t expect to see it on the news. Gary. Work on Gary. And put the mobile on.’
I put the phone away. But not quickly enough.
Charlie came around from behind the pillar, wiping his hands on several metres of paper-thin, fragrant plane shavings.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Mr Important Lawyer, got a new walkie-talkie. Smaller even. Should be getting on with a simple piece of work, three days late. No. He hides behind the pillar for a talk on the little phone.’
‘Legal business,’ I said. ‘An important client.’
He looked at me sadly. ‘Hah,’ he said. ‘Horse business, that’s what I think.’ Muttering, he limped off.
I wished it was horse business.
36
She came to the door in a towelling dressing-gown, knee-length, long, lean legs showing, hair damp again.
We stood in the hallway, both awkward.
‘This is better than ringing,’ Lyall said. ‘I was just thinking about setting off on a stalk.’
‘No need to approach me with stealth,’ I said. ‘I respond well to the full-frontal approach.’
She smiled the crooked smile, took my jacket lapels in her hands. ‘I’m not terribly full in the frontal,’ she said. ‘A source of humiliation to me as a teenager.’
She loosened my tie, pulled it off, hung it over a peg on the hatrack.
I slid my right hand into the front of her gown, felt ribs, moved upwards to the lower curve of a breast. ‘Beautifully adequate in the frontal,’ I said. I was having difficulty speaking.
Lyall looked me in the eyes, unblinking, unbuttoned my shirt, got to the waist. Her right hand kept going south, slowly, deliciously south, stopped, began to explore.
I loosened the belt of her gown. It fell open, flushed chest. I bent to kiss her breasts.
One hand in my hair. ‘Why do you always find me with wet hair?’
I disengaged my lips. ‘Just lucky,’ I said. ‘I like your hair wet.’
‘Feeling damp all over,’ she said. ‘For some reason. Let’s talk upstairs.’
‘I’m not clean,’ I said.
She took my hand. ‘I could stand another shower.’
‘Standing is what it may come to,’ I said.
It was after 9 p.m. before we got around to eating at the table in the warm kitchen: scrambled eggs made with cream and Roquefort cheese and tarragon, dash of Worcestershire sauce.
‘You have many talents,’ I said, drinking some of the riesling I’d fetched from the car. ‘Culinary, amorous, photographic. I’ve never quite understood photography. It chooses you, does it?’
Lyall combed her hair with her fingers. She was wearing a big grey cotton sweatshirt and trackpants, hair pulled back, no makeup.
‘You mean I can scramble eggs and I’m randy? Photography just happened to me. My mother was a painter, quite good, I think. She stopped when she got married, had my brother. Women did that then. Still do, probably. Just stop, turn it in. As if it were nothing, something you’d outgrown. You got down to the real work, the husband, the kids. Anyway, she pushed me to paint. It didn’t take much pushing. I ended up besotted by art, the whole thing, painting and painters, went to art school in Sydney, won a scholarship to go to the Slade in London.’
She forked up some scrambled egg, chewed, drank some wine. ‘Nice wine. I was very intense. Art is all. I blush to think about it now.’
‘Blushing becomes you. The chest blush is particularly attractive.’
She hooked her ankles behind my right calf, squeezed. ‘Anyway, the intensity didn’t help me eat. I was on the breadline when I got a part-time job with a portrait photographer. A man called Rufus Buchanan.’
‘An explorer’s name,’ I said. ‘First man up the South-West Passage.’
She laughed, moved her head from side to side. ‘That’s right. I don’t know about the south-west. But show Bucky a passage, he’d attempt to explore it. I was the darkroom assistant. All the customers were people making a big quid out of London real estate. Did you ever see those S
nowdon pictures of the Royals? Misty, airbrushed to buggery.’
‘I have them in a scrapbook,’ I said.
‘That’s what Bucky’s customers wanted. Misty pictures, all imperfections gone. The women used to ask: “Can you make my neck look longer?” or, “I say, any chance of getting more space between Julian’s eyes?”, that sort of thing. Bucky was good at it. Randy little snake, real name Colin Biggs. From Liverpool. You had to beat him off with a stick two or three times a day. It was very tiring, but I’d worked in Aussie pubs, I could handle that. The good part was that he hated the darkroom, except for groping, so he wanted me to do that, taught me the trade. And he knew his stuff, he’d had a real arse-kicking apprenticeship.’
She added some wine to the glasses. ‘That’s the long answer to a short question,’ she said. ‘Less about me. Tell me about why you shoot ex-policemen.’
‘No. More about you.’
‘Well, the awful thing about my career,’ she said, ‘is that it begins in a dramatic way. I could process film, so I started taking pictures. Then I went on holiday with a boyfriend. We were in a little place in Belgium near the German border. Pretty fountain, people around it. I was taking pictures when a car pulled up on the other side, outside the bank. Then two men came out of the bank and two men got out of the car with machine pistols and shot them both. I got, oh, seven or eight pictures. Full sequence. IRA revenge killing. British Army officers, the dead men. The guy I was with, he was an operator. On the phone to a photo agency in London, they ran a quick auction of my pictures. After commissions and giving the guy his cut, I ended up with what looked like an enormous sum then. Still looks pretty big, actually.’
‘And you had a new career?’
‘I hadn’t even been paid for the IRA pictures when the agency rang, did I want to go to Beirut? Well, yes. I was so astoundingly green and naive. They didn’t tell me that my predecessor had been kidnapped and murdered and no-one else would go near the place.’
She ate and drank. ‘Anyway, I survived Beirut, utterly terrified at times. You get used to it. Get used to anything. Took some not bad pictures. And it went on from there. For a long time I kept saying: just one more job, then it’s back to painting.’
