by Garry Disher
'Terrific,' she'd said. 'They've found me already.'
'Wait here.'
She watched him walk to the desk and show his warrant card. For a while it looked like a no-go, but then the reservations clerk turned sulky at something the cop said and punched a few keys and stared at his screen.
Meanwhile one of the men had spotted her. He nudged the other, whispered in his ear, and now both were staring hard across the dismal green carpet at her. She saw hatred and hunger in their faces. One of them enacted a pantomime of what lay in store for her when they caught her: a bullet to the head, a blade slicing across her windpipe. She hauled her bag onto her lap, got to her feet.
A hand tightened on her shoulder. The cop said urgently, 'Clara, come with me.'
She pulled away. 'You must be joking. I'm pissing off.'
'No. If you leave here they'll track you and you'll be dead meat.'
'They've already tracked me down,' she said. 'Fat lot of good you people are. Look at them sitting there, large as life.'
'Coincidence,' the cop said, forcing her to go with him.
'Yeah, sure.'
I checked. They're both getting off in Auckland.'
'But they'll know I'm going on to Australia,' she said. 'They'll come looking.'
'Australia's a big place.'
'Not big enough.'
'Look, for all they know, you're going on to Europe.'
She had glanced back. One of the two men was standing now, watching her. She saw him tap his temple, grin, and flap open a mobile phone with a neat gesture of his wrist. He was flashily dressed, like they all were from that corner of her life: shirt buttoned to the neck, no tie, expensive baggy suit, costly Italian loafers, oiled hair scraped back over his scalp.
'He's calling someone,' she said.
'Let him.'
'Where are you taking me?'
'We've got a backup seat reserved for you on another airline. It leaves in fifteen minutes.'
Six-thirty, early evening, a dinner flight, a seat in first class. Clara ate steak and salad, and palmed the knife and the fork. They weren't much, but at least in first class they were stainless steel, and they'd give her an edge if she needed it, the kind of edge she'd come to rely upon in her short life.
That had been eighteen months ago. She had herself a new life in a quiet corner of south-eastern Australia, close to the sea on a peninsula where nothing much happened. The locals accepted her. She had answers for their questions, but there weren't too many of those. Her nearest neighbour in Quarter horse Lane was half a kilometre away, on the other side of a hill, a vineyard and a winery separating them. If she walked to the top of that hill she could see Western port Bay, with Phillip Island around to the right. She lived on a dirt road that carried only local traffic and half a dozen extra cars to the little winery on days when it was open, the first Sunday of the month. No-one knew her. No-one much cared.
So how had she been found? Was the fire a signal? And why a signal in the first place? Why not just barge in and finish her off? Unless they wanted to wind her up first, a spot of mental cruelty. Her hands were shaking. God, she could do with some coke now, just a couple of lines, enough to ease the pressure in her head. She stared at her fingers, the raw nails. She clamped her left hand around her right wrist and dialled the number of the Waterloo police station. Above her the ceiling fan stirred the air. God it was hot; 35 and not even Christmas yet.
Danny Holsinger, twisting around in the passenger seat, peering back along Quarter horse Lane, said, 'Burning nicely.'
Boyd Jolic felt the rear of the ute fishtail in the loose dirt. 'Baby, come and light my fire,' he sang.
Danny uttered his high, startling, whinnying laugh. He couldn't help it. He swigged from a can of vodka and orange, then stiffened. 'There's one, Joll.'
Jolic braked hard, just for the sensation of lost traction, then accelerated away. The mailbox outside the winery was a converted milk can, all metal, not worth chucking a match into. Not like that wooden job back down the road.
They came to an intersection. 'Left or right, old son?'
Danny considered it. 'Left, you got a couple of orchards, couple of horse studs. Right, you got another winery, a poultry place, some bloke makes pots and jugs and that, let's see, a woman does natural healing, some rich geezer's holiday place, then you got Waterloo and the cops.' He giggled again. His day job was driver of the shire's recycle truck and he knew the back roads like the back of his hand.
'Left,' Jolic decided. 'Right sounds too fucking crowded.'
He planted his foot and with some fancy work on the brake and wheel, allowed the ute to spin around full circle in the middle of the intersection, then headed left, away from Waterloo.
The first mailbox was another solid milk can, but the next two were wooden. The first didn't take, kept starving of air or something, but the second went up like it was paper. Sparks shot into the sky, spilled on to the other side of the fence. Soon they had themselves a nice little grass fire going.
'Where to now, Joll?'
Jolic blinked awake. He realised that his mouth was open, all of his nerve endings alive to the dance of the flames.
'Joll?' Danny tugged him. 'Mate, time to hotfoot it out of here.'
They climbed back into the ute, slammed away down the road just as torchlight came jerking down the gravel drive from a house tucked away behind a row of cypresses.
'Mate, where to?'
'Other side of the Peninsula,' Jolic decided. 'Well away from here. New territory.'
Danny settled back in his seat. This was ace, out with his mate, a bit of damage by night—but that's all it was. He couldn't say the same for Jolic. The bastard was pretty flame happy. Maybe it came from being a volunteer fireman for the Country Fire Authority.
The Peninsula was deceptive. There were places, like Red Hill and Main Ridge, where the earth was composed of wave after wave of deep gullies and folds and knuckles of high ground. Later on in the new year the vines on the hillsides would be encased in fine bird mesh, like long, slumbering white slugs at night. Jolic drove them to a twisting road above the bay. Suddenly pine trees swallowed the moonlight, the headlights boring into funnelling darkness as they roared down the hill toward the coast highway.
At the roundabout inland from Mornington they turned right, into a region of small farms, then right again, on to another system of back roads.
'Check this.'
A large wooden mailbox, mounted on an S-bend of welded chain, the number 9 on it in reflective enamel. Jolic slowed the ute. Glossy black paint job; small brass hinges; a sticker stipulating 'no advertising material'.
'Fucken A,' Danny said.
They got out, stood a while in the windless lane, listening. Only the engine ticking. It was a long night, and very hot, and Danny began to wonder why he was out here with this mad bastard and not slipping one to Megan Stokes, in her bed or in among the ti-trees down the beach, with a plunge into the sea to cool down after. Well, he did know: she was pissed off with him because he'd forgotten her birthday and it was going to take plenty of sweet-talking and presents to bring her around. 'Mate, let's just pack it in, call it a night.'
It always caught you unprepared, the way Jolic could explode, if explosion was the right word for a fist gathering a clump of T-shirt, choking you, and a face hissing in yours, so close you got sprayed with spit.
'You're not wimping out on me, are ya?'
Danny coughed it out: 'It's just, I've got work in the morning. Start at five. I need sleep.'
'Piss weak,' said Jolic, shaking him. Danny was small, skin and bone, and felt himself rising to the tips of his runners as Jolic absently lifted him by the bunched T-shirt. Jolic was built like a concrete power pole, slim and hard. He wore grease-stained jeans that looked as if they'd stand unaided if he stepped out of them, a red and black check shirt over a blue singlet, and oily boots. Tattoos up and down his arms, and a bony skull under crewcut hair. Danny had been hanging around Jolic ever since
primary school, needing—so Megan reckoned—the big cunt's approval all the time.
'Mate, I can't breathe.'
Jolic released him. 'Piker.'
Danny rubbed his neck. 'Gis the matches. I'll do it.'
He opened the little flap on the front of the mailbox, stuffed it with petrol-soaked paper towels, tossed in a match, stepped back. The flap swung down, choking the flames. They waited. Danny raised the flap again. The interior of the box was scorched, still glowing red in places, but it wasn't alight. He leaned close, blew. God, what a stink, varnish, wood preservative, whatever.
'Come on,' Jolic said. 'Better take you home to your mum.'
Home was a new estate on the outskirts of Waterloo, houses crammed together but facing in all directions because they sat on madly looping courts and avenues, not a straight road in the whole place. Danny watched Jolic leave, the ute booming to wake the dead, the brake lights flaring at the turn-off. He lit a cigarette. He didn't want to go inside yet, hear his mother yell at him.
Danny gnawed his lower lip. The last thing Jolic had said was he needed help on another break-and-enter sometime after Christmas. 'I'm waiting for word on when the owners'll be away,' he'd said. Danny laughed now, without humour. Why should Jolic care if the owners were away or not? His idea of a break-and-enter was to smash the door down and bash the occupants before tying them up and rampaging through the house. Aggravated burglary, no fun at all if the law caught up with you. Danny had been with him on two such jobs. No fun at all, but he couldn't wriggle out, not without copping a lot of aggro.
He tossed his cigarette into the darkness. His own style was more scientific. He'd stake out a street for a couple of afternoons after knocking off work, getting a feel for the surroundings. Any dogs? Any neighbours about? Any lawns in need of mowing, mail mounting up in the box, newspapers not collected? Then, having targeted a house, he'd go around it, examining the windows for alarms. That was what he was good at. Using his head. He'd steal nothing big, no bigger than a camera, say. Rings, cash, watches, brooches, credit cards, CDs. Anything that would fit in his backpack, a fancy soft leather thing with some foreign name stamped into the black leather. He'd lifted it from a house on the outskirts of Frankston a few days ago. Almost new, lovely smell to it. He'd give it to Megan next time he saw her, tell her he was sorry he'd forgotten her birthday.
One o'clock in the morning. The bar was closing, and John Tankard had dipped out badly with that nurse, so he thought he might as well drive home.
He'd been chatting her up—not a bad sort, about a seven on the scale—and started by buying her a glass of riesling and telling her his name, 'John, John Tankard, except my mates call me Tank.' She'd looked him up and down and said, 'Built like one, too,' then her hand went to her mouth and her face went red. 'Sorry, I didn't mean you're fat or anything, I meant you're strong, you know, like you keep in shape and that.' She came out of the other side of the apology a little breathless and smiling and relieved to have turned a possible insult into a compliment, and he'd grinned at her kindly and they'd settled elbow to elbow on the bar and begun to talk.
But then came the moment. It was always there, hovering over everything he did when he was off duty:
'What do you do?'
He said flatly, 'I'm a policeman, a copper.'
Wariness and retreat were there in her eyes in an instant. An opportunity lost or failed, like hundreds over the years. Just once would he like to see approval or interest or curiosity on someone's face when he told them that he was a copper.
There was a time when he believed all of the bullshit, that he was there to protect and serve. Now he saw it as us against them, the police against the public. The public were all guilty of something, anyway, if you dug deep enough. And did they deserve his protection? They shouted 'police brutality' whenever he made a legitimate arrest. At parties they cringed comically and said, 'Don't shoot me, don't shoot me'. He'd had four malicious civil writs from people he'd arrested, just trying it on, giving him a hard time.
Over the years the hardness had grown. He was more suspicious than he used to be. The job was more violent now. You saw some ugly things, like dead people, like syringes or speed or dope on kitchen tables in full view of little kids. Tankard was full of frustration. Repeat offenders were forever getting off on a bond. Sergeant van Alphen tried to drill it into him, Don't take the job personally. Your responsibility is simply to present the case. It's not your fault if some dropkick gets off because he's got a good lawyer or a piss-weak judge or a good sob story—but it wasn't as easy as that.
He was no longer sure what was right and what was wrong, and nor did he care. He'd seen some pretty bent coppers in his time and some halfway decent murderers, rapists and thieves. Most people were on the take in some form or another. A nod and a favour here, a wink and a slab of cold beer or half a grand in an envelope there. Fuck 'em all.
And he felt tired all the time now, and ragged from sleeplessness. He ate and drank too much. His back ached to the extent that he could never get comfortable in any chair, and sitting for long in the divisional van or a car was sheer hell. The insides of his cheeks were raw from where he'd chewed them. Tension. You'd think, after all this time, that he'd never let the job get to him. But it did. He was surprised at the hurt he still felt, after his name had appeared in the local paper. 'Police harassment.' What bullshit. And now someone was flooding the town with leaflets, calling him a Nazi stormtrooper. Too gutless to say it to his face.
He had a scanner in the car. He switched it on. Someone was setting fire to mailboxes. That just about summed up life, for him.
Sergeant Kees van Alphen, ashily damp from helping the Waterloo CFA unit put out the fire in the woman's pine tree, was shocked. He'd never seen anyone so distressed. First it was a job getting her to step outside and talk to him, and now she still couldn't get the words out. She was gulping, clearly terrified. He stood with her on the verandah, wanting to say, 'It's only vandals, only your mailbox,' but her fear was so acute that he put an arm around her, patted her on the back and said, 'Hush, hush,' something his mother used to say.
He felt awkward. He was no good at this sort of thing.
Then she twisted as if to get closer to him and grabbed his free hand. He screamed. He'd burnt himself somehow. The back of his wrist.
The woman sobered. 'Are you all right?'
'Got burnt.'
She looked distractedly at the open door behind her. 'I could dress it for you.'
'I'll be fine.'
Behind him the CFA truck was turning around in her drive. With a brap of the siren it was gone. The air smelt damp and smoky. The roof of his police car gleamed wetly, and there was enough moonlight for him to see steamy smoke rising from the charred mailbox.
He sighed, fished out his notebook. 'Did you see anything? Hear anything?'
'No.'
'Name?'
'Clara will do.'
He shrugged, noted the name and put the book away. New Zealand accent. He turned to go. 'I'll make a report and see that one of our patrol cars comes by here every night for the next week or two.'
She had another attack of hysterics. 'You're not going? You're not leaving me?'
'Miss, the fire's out, it was probably kids, they won't be coming back. There's nothing more I can do here. Would you like me to contact someone for you? A neighbour? Family? Friends?'
He saw her close down, as if she were suspicious of him. Who was she? What was eating at her?
'Why would you want to contact someone? Who?'
Bewildered by her mood shift, he replied, 'Well, someone who could stay with you, look after you. Family, perhaps.'
She looked away from him. 'They're all in Darwin.'
'Darwin? From your accent I'd have said New Zealand.'
She shot him a look. 'A long time ago.'
He didn't believe her, but didn't push it. 'A neighbour?'
'Don't know them. Besides, it's late. Can't you stay for a bit? I could put a
dressing on your burnt hand.'
'I'm on duty, miss.'
'Clara.'
'Clara. I'm on duty. I'll call in tomorrow, around lunchtime.'
He could smell wet ash and smoke, and see, in the moonlight, the pine-tree skeleton at the end of her driveway. He opened the door of the police car and at once she wailed, 'They're out to get me.'
'Who are? Why?'
I don't know why. They are, that's all. It's a signal.'
'A signal.'
'They're saying: We're coming back, and next time we'll get you.'
He shut the door and walked back to her. 'Clara, it was kids.'
I don't think so.'
'It's been on my radio. At least a dozen mailboxes torched between here and Mornington. No pattern to it, just any old mailbox on a back road somewhere. You're one of many.'
She wrapped her arms around herself. 'You're sure? You're not trying to make me feel better?'
I swear it.'
She laughed, unclasped herself and stared at the dim form of her hands in the half-dark. 'Look at me. Can't control myself, shaking like a leaf.'
'You need a stiff drink.'
'I'll say. Scotch, vodka. You want one?'
'I'm on duty, Clara.'
She stepped closer. 'What's your name?'
He said awkwardly, 'Kees. Kees van Alphen. It's Dutch, originally. There's a few of us on the force.'
'Kees. I like it.' She grinned. 'Justice never rests with Kees on your case.'
'I'm generally called Van.'
'Which do you prefer?'
'In the force, a name sticks. I'm used to Van. The wife called me Alf or Alfie, a kind of a put-down.'
Clara touched his chest briefly. 'Not very nice of her.'
'Not real nice, no. Still, old history now.'
'Just one drink. Or at least sit with me till I stop shaking.'
He found himself warming to her, to the notion that someone wanted to touch him, that someone needed him. 'I'll have to call in and tell them I'm still here.'
'Tell them you're following up clues,' Clara said, with shaky humour.
