by Joy Dettman
From his hill, he’d watched a mud-brick creation rise on an acreage to the east of his land, not close, but too close for his comfort. He glanced at it as he braked well back from the trucks shemozzle. From this distance, the new house appeared habitable – and by the look of what had spilled on the road, it appeared that he was to have a second neighbour.
Two burly males were out of their truck, one smoking, one mouthing off into a mobile. It may have been possible to drive around them. The sides of the road were relatively flat but may not be dry. He didn’t chance it – or chance being seen too close to his lair, so he made a U-turn and drove back the way he’d come, annoyed by the delay but more annoyed by the city’s invasion of his privacy.
He’d visited his prize briefly on Tuesday night. She’d been noisy, which was to be expected. Given time, she’d settle. The take had gone like clockwork. What he’d believed would be his most difficult had been his easiest. Put that down to planning. He’d put himself to sleep at night in the planning of this one. He’d chosen his space in the lower car park weeks ago, aware that the positioning of his vehicle was integral to a successful take, then, when he’d cruised by on Friday afternoon and seen the tail-lights of a sedan backing out of that space, he’d known he’d have her.
He’d found her at the supermarket, not alone, but he’d kept an eye on her until she was alone.
Anonymous places, car parks, drivers only intent on putting their cars down, buckling in offspring, lifting offspring out. He’d done it swiftly as she’d reached in to place his shopping bag down. A swift tap behind the ear, sufficient to stun, unlikely to cause serious damage, and as she’d begun to crumple, he’d tumbled her in on top of the shopping.
Several cars had cruised by while he’d taped and bagged her. If a driver had glanced his way, he would have seen little of the action between the vehicle and the wall, and it had been over in less than a minute. It had taken longer to get out of the car park.
During the planning stage, the time of day, the after-school crowd looking for a space to put their cars down had been his greatest concern. In the doing, it had offered privacy.
A rank amateur the night he’d taken his first, he’d had no plan. She’d fallen into his hands. He’d had no bag, no duct tape, no pills, and she’d put up a good fight for her size. Mistakes are only mistakes when we don’t learn from them. With the second, he’d been well prepared. Another small one. He’d slid her into a floral quilt cover.
His third had been his most difficult. He’d had limited space in which to work, and limited time. Had to hit her twice, and, afraid she’d come around before he’d got her out to his car, he’d placed two pills into her mouth before gagging her with duct tape, folding her into a travelling case – then travelling.
A busy shopping centre with its multiple security cameras was not the optimum taking place. He may well have been trapped on a few of those tapes, but at no stage had he walked at his pretty gazelle’s side, and when you have no choice there is no choice to be made. Since the day he’d seen her near the carousel, that pink plastic bow day, he’d known she was his, and at each sighting since, the wanting had grown stronger. Done now, and he had today and tomorrow morning to spend with her.
He made a second U-turn and drove back. The truck was still there, and what the hell were they waiting for? A forklift? Loading timber not in their job description? Probably. A month or two back, he’d watched eleven men stand around for an hour while a twelfth, up a cherry picker, cut limbs from a tree.
How many men does it take to change a light globe, Daddy?
He swung the car around again and drove back to a supermarket where he picked up a packet of latex gloves, a freshly roasted chicken, a tub of coleslaw and a bag of frozen chips. He’d serve himself a hot meal tonight and have chicken left over for tomorrow.
Third time lucky! The truck was gone and the road cleared. He made his left-hand turn onto a narrow road capped with bitumen. It meandered for some distance through forest land, uphill and down dale. Land aplenty along its route, and he was wondering how far that truck had meandered along it when he saw a dog guarding a new gate.
His neighbours had moved into their arty creation, which to his less than arty eye appeared more sprawling shed than conventional dwelling. He saw a car but not its driver.
His own gate, well distanced from its neighbour, wasn’t new. He left the car running while he opened it and drove through.
His lair, set well back from the road, midway up a timbered hill, was barely visible from the road. Scraggy grey wattles, gums and native scrub surrounded it. A tin garage was highly visible. Prior to its construction, the ground to the east of the house had been cleared and gouged level, leaving rock and greasy grey clay behind, a discouragement to windblown seed. That garage sat on its clay-pan like a solar-powered lighthouse on a rock, flashing its warning to those passing by. If the sun was in the sky, it found the galvanised roof, wall, or door, and as he drove on up that slope, its door flashed a warning. Once upon a time he’d promised it a coat of camouflage paint, but had found better things to do with his time.
He didn’t stop before that flashing door but swung the car to the right and drove across to a crumbling timber shed which required no camouflage. The native scrub of this land leaned on its wall, branches of gums brushed its rusting roof and did what they could to hide the fact that the shed had no door. It contained nothing worth stealing, or hadn’t since February, when he’d decided the shed may not be the best place to park his Kingswood.
Until February he’d driven that old wagon about at weekends, had filled its tank at service stations, checked the air in its tyres, had long discussions with other Holden enthusiasts who’d patted its panels, commented on its condition as they may have commented on the condition of a retired Clydesdale workhorse.
Not any more. It was locked behind that flashing door, and for the first time since he’d sighted that eyesore garage he’d been pleased it was there.
He’d made a mistake with his last delivery. From the start, it had gone wrong. He had to get rid of the Kingswood, give it a quick coat of paint, then take it for a long drive – though not today. Today was spoken for, and hot.
He parked the car, then walked outside to look towards his new neighbour’s dwelling, barely visible from this angle. He turned to the west to look beyond the eyesore to one man’s dream of a fine family home, back at the turn of the old century. Its walls, which hadn’t seen paint in fifty years, blended in well with the dirty browns and greys of this land. It had a metre box, a power wire connected to it, but no power. He managed without it. He paid no city water bills, not for this place. A big old tank supplied water to the house. He didn’t drink it. He brought his drinking water from home.
The Hyundai’s hatchback lifted, and he began his weekend unloading supplies into an ancient wheelbarrow. He’d bought two plastic-wrapped packets of firewood from a service station, at a premium price. There was fallen timber enough on his land, but the weather was not conducive to axe work, and the noise it made advertised his occupancy. He preferred not to.
He tossed a bag of ice into his barrow, also service station supplied. He stacked six large bottles of drinking water around the load, then peered into a plastic Target bag before adding it. He’d shopped yesterday for his pretty gazelle, bought her a pair of pretty pink pyjamas.
The barrow was necessary. The shed had been built at a distance from the house. A narrow path led between low-hanging trees to his back door, and he and his loaded barrow trundled off towards it.
No lock on the flyscreen door. A snib. He opened it, positioned the barrow to hold it open while finding the right keys for the two locks on the main door, one old, one new. He’d fitted the new twelve months ago, a deadlock. He was inserting the second key when he heard that dog barking and it sounded close.
He didn’t use the second key, but walked back down the path to look for the dog. No sign of it.
Noise carried out here. It hi
t the hill and bounced back. He glanced at the hill. From its peak he had an overview of the area, and might be able to see where that truck and its load had ended their journey. The keys dropped into his pocket, he started up the bush-covered slope.
From a distance it looked like a hill. From his back door it was little more than a pleasant stroll to its peak, where a convenient rock offered him a seat, or today an extra half-metre of height from which to look down on his neighbour’s elongated, flat-roofed barn which an architect had no doubt charged a fortune to blend into the natural surrounds. Given a year or two, it might blend, though its paved driveway wouldn’t. He’d sat on this rock the day they’d come in force to level and pave it and had wondered at the mentality of the owners, who’d done what they could to hide their house then advertised its presence with that driveway.
And he sighted a female on it, her colours raw against the land. Saw that dog too, and it looked as big as its handler. It was some yellow-brown breed. He watched them to their gate, out their gate, willing them to walk east. They turned west, and he’d left his gate open. Had she seen him drive by? Had she seen where he’d driven and decided to do the neighbourly thing and introduce herself?
Barely breathing, he watched their progress, her dog, unleashed, watering trees and fenceposts along the way and the woman not waiting while it watered – until she reached his gate, where she stopped to shade her eyes and peer up at the glare of the garage door. She didn’t walk up, and he heard his release of breath. Should have closed that gate, though a closed gate won’t stop some. He needed a lock. A chain and padlock would stop most.
The house and trees now blocking his view of the walkers, he stepped down from his rock and walked to his right until sighting her patch of colour again. Her clothing suggested youth. Her slow pace belied her clothing. He couldn’t see her dog.
Apparently she could. ‘Herod! Get back here!’
A humorist? he thought. Herod the great was barking like a pup. Had he caught a whiff of human habitation? Watched the animal, watched the arty woman leave the road and walk to where the fence crossed over a gutter.
‘Get out of there! Bad boy! Heel, Herod!’
Her bark the louder of the two, the beast emerged, then they both disappeared where the road curved into overhanging trees.
Was there a male half? Where there was a colourful female there was usually a male. He gave her a minute more before beginning his descent, slowly. Once he’d run like the wind down that hill, and if he’d tumbled, he’d rolled to his feet and kept running. Once, he’d run headlong at that gutter and jumped, determined to reach the other side – landed in it many times before his legs had grown long enough to make the leap across.
It had grown no deeper since his youth, wider perhaps. If enough rain fell on that hill that gutter became a muddy stream down to the fenceline, where it disappeared into a concrete culvert, or it did when the culvert wasn’t blocked by debris and topsoil.
He closed the gate, then considered the shed as a potential supplier of lock and chain. You name it, and it had been in that shed since Christ had been a carpenter. A few of Christ’s own tools may still have been in there. He’d found a large handcrafted padlock, its singular key attached by a length of twine – and found a use for it. He owned a small relatively modern padlock, last sighted on the kitchen mantelpiece, though too small perhaps to use on the gate. Bunnings would provide. He’d go shopping tomorrow.
Watchful then for his new neighbour, he followed his fenceline to the gutter, where he stood a moment, listening. He could hear her dog’s staccato bark, but at a distance. She too may have gone in search of that truck’s final destination, which hadn’t been visible from the hill.
A pile of brambles, washed down by the storm, had formed a beaver dam against the fencing wire. A convenient woodpile. Tomorrow morning, before the heat became intense, he’d bring the barrow down here and get himself enough firewood for next weekend. About to return to the house he caught a whiff of what that dog must have smelt. Something dead had washed down with that bracken.
Kangaroos liked this land, rabbits, possums, foxes. One hand on a fencepost for support he leaned over, sniffed, then stepped down, finding safe footing on clay and a branch. He was still thinking firewood when he saw yellow, bright yellow.
Windblown detritus? he thought. An item from the arty one’s clothes line blown in by the wind?
And buried. Her house had been unoccupied on the night of the storm.
The smell was intense in the enclosed area of the gutter. He reached for a length of bark and tossed it, followed it with half of a small dead shrub, and it stabbed him. He cursed it, glanced at blood welling in the web between his thumb and index finger, and instinctively sucked and spat.
And saw where his spit landed. Saw matted, soil-covered blonde hair.
Some bastard had been here! Some bastard had done the unthinkable.
Forgot the arty one and her dog. Unmindful of his hands, he tossed bracken and bark, scraped earth away with a sheet of bark, uncovered… uncovered not his pretty gazelle. A female, yes, but clothed in a yellow vest and unquestionably not his prize.
The dog bark sounded close, and like a rat peeking out of its hole, he peered out from the gutter. The walkers had not yet reached the curve in the road. Tossed back what he’d removed, covered what he’d exposed, then ran at a crouch along the gutter to a tree, its roots clinging to rock and clay, where he got down to his haunches, his back to the exposed roots, his heart pounding, certain the dog would come through the fence and uncover that thing, and find him cowering there.
She had it on a lead. They walked fast by his fence, by his closed gate. He watched them. He watched them move out of sight before scuttling up the gutter to where the sides were low enough. And out. Hidden then amid the trees surrounding the house, he approached his back door via the western side.
Clay on the hand that reached into his pocket for the key, blood on it, and the hand inserting the key not steady.
The door scraped as it opened, the arc of its many openings worn into the floorboards. Stood for a moment, doorknob in his hand, thinking not of his prize but of what was in the gutter, aware that it was the stroke of luck his hunters prayed for.
Clay on his shoes, on his slacks, rage in his heart and head, directed at the one who’d dared to choose this land as a burial site. Rage was not good. It gave birth to rash decisions. Rash decisions led to mistakes. What was required of him was calm, cool-headed thinking.
He closed the door, and closing it stole his light. He pulled on the blind cord until it got the message to roll up, then by the window’s light, he looked at his hand, at a triangular rip in the web, a position constantly in use. It wouldn’t heal fast, and he had no medical supplies out here, no disinfectant, no bandaid.
Release the gazelle. She’d be unlikely to identify him.
That dog would be back. The neighbour would find that body and police would swarm this place and find the Kingswood.
They wouldn’t trace it to him.
Go, he thought. Drop the gazelle off on the way and keep on going.
‘Feed her,’ he said. ‘Think the problem through.’
He’d fed her on Tuesday night, left her a can of beans. She’d be hungry enough to eat whatever he gave her.
Such plans he’d had for his weekend.
‘Dispose of the problem,’ he suggested.
With disposal on his mind, he turned on his sink tap and washed his hands well with soap. It stung his wound, but he washed it clean, sucked it cleaner, spat what he’d sucked into the sink, then with one hand and his teeth, ripped his way into a four-pack of paper towels he bought in bulk. He went through a lot of them out here. He ripped off a length to wrap his wound.
He’d bought a bundle of newspapers with him on Tuesday night. They were on the hearth, his fire starters. Half a dozen pages crumpled and placed into the firebox of an elderly combustion stove, a handful of dry sticks tossed in, and he reached for th
e box of matches always on the mantelpiece.
Old mantelpiece, older than the stove, which had been sending up smoke signals for fifty years. It had a boiler tank beside the firebox with water pipes feeding in and out. Given time and fuel, that stove heated water in a ceiling reservoir where more pipes fed it down to sink and bathroom.
Lighting fires calmed him, the crackling of twigs, the creeping of flame to larger pieces of wood. He stood watching the flames until their heat suggested he close the firebox.
The iron kettle, older than the stove, he filled at the sink. Required two hands to carry its weight, and he lost his paper towel bandage, his blood on it. Paper burned. He ripped two more towels from the roll and this time fixed his bandage in place with rubber bands, then went out to unload his barrow. A familiar routine, it got his mind back on track. Ice in the esky, bottles of water on the table, small bottle of water on ice. The packets of firewood he dumped one at a time onto the hearth then slit each of them open with a kitchen knife.
Other than an elderly wooden table, an ancient wicker chair and his folding camp stretcher, the house was unfurnished. He tossed his overnight bag to the stretcher then stood staring at it.
One night. That’s all he had. If he was going to dispose of the gutter’s refuse, it would have to be tonight – and he couldn’t use the Kingswood.
He opened the door to his passage, a long and narrow passage, and he walked it, up to the eastern bedroom, turned on his heel and walked back. A hollow house, it echoed with its emptiness as backward and forward he went, walking the stress from his neck and shoulders to his feet, and away.
She must have heard him. He hadn’t heard her.
Knew he should release her. Didn’t want to. ‘Get rid of the problem and we’re back to square one,’ he said.
Burying it deeper was not an option – as the fool who’d made the poor decision of choosing this piece of land had learnt. Put a shovel into these acres and an inch down it struck rock and root.
