The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne

by Barry Jonsberg

  “I'm not going anywhere near the Pitbull, Kiffo. No way.”

  “You don't have to, Calma!” Kiffo was so excited by the implied agreement of my last statement that he was almost shaking. “You don't have to. We go after what's-his-name, Collins, the Ferret bloke. One day. One day, Calma. We get nothing, that's it. Finished!”

  “One day? Daylight? No messing around at night?”

  “Swear! It gets dark, we're done.”

  “When?”

  “Saturday.”

  I pretended to consider it. In fact, I knew immediately that I couldn't refuse him. He was so desperate for the game to continue that I couldn't bear to be the one to call it off, to take my bat and ball and go home. This way it was a shared, negotiated ending. Anyway, to be perfectly honest, I felt reluctant to give up myself. What I had said to Kiffo about the sense of waste wasn't just words. I felt it acutely. That there was something shameful in surrender. Just one more go? I had little to lose, particularly since it was extremely unlikely that the Ferret could dob me in to the police for stalking after just one day. And maybe, just maybe…

  “All right, Kiffo. Saturday. But that's it.”

  Kiffo beamed. I had rarely seen him look so pleased about anything. He was lonely too. He needed the warmth of shared experience.

  “I'll pick you up, Saturday morning, at eight,” he said, looking like he wanted to hug me.

  Chapter 21

  One last go

  Mum left the house at seven on Saturdays, so I was showered and ready by a quarter to eight. I had had a day to think about things and I was feeling excited as I got dressed. Something would happen today. And if it didn't, at least it would signal a finish. One way or another, this was going to be an important day.

  Kiffo knocked on the door right at nine o'clock. I opened up and did a double take. He was dressed in leathers and had a crash helmet on. The only way I could tell it was him was a telltale tuft of red hair poking out the side of the helmet and the shape of the leather trouser legs, which curved away from each other alarmingly. Kiffo couldn't stop a pig in an alley. In his right hand, he carried a spare helmet. He stood for a moment, allowing me to take in his full splendor, and then flipped up his visor in triumph.

  “Surprise!”

  I was about to give him heaps for being late when I looked over his shoulder. Parked outside the house was a very large red motorbike. Now, don't expect me to get technical here. I've no idea what type of an engine it had. No idea if it was two stroke, four stroke, or breast stroke. It could have been fueled by coal, for all I know. Nor do I know if it was a Yamaha, a Mitsubishi or a Mount Fujiyama. It's best in these matters to stick to what you know. I know that it was red. And big.

  Kiffo unbuckled his helmet and took it off. He really did look ridiculously pleased with himself. It was kind of disarming. I mean, he looked like a complete loser and, in other circumstances, I wouldn't have hesitated in telling him so. But right now I didn't have the heart.

  Okay, call me stupid if you like, but it took a few moments before the significance of the second helmet hit home.

  “Kiffo,” I said, “you aren't expecting me to get on that bike, are you?”

  He looked instantly crushed.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “I borrowed it specially. You know, get around quickly and that.”

  “You can forget it.”

  He grabbed my arm.

  “Aw, come on, Calma. Don't be such a wuss. Look, what are we supposed to do? Grab a number five bus and ask the driver to follow the small guy in the business suit? Come on, Calma. Be reasonable.”

  I could see his point, but I was far from convinced. There were a few little objections that sprang to mind.

  “And the fact that you haven't got a license, Kiffo? That it isn't your bike?” A sudden thought occurred to me. “It's not stolen, is it?”

  Kiffo looked horrified, as if the thought of taking something that didn't belong to him was deeply offensive to his sense of morality.

  “No, it isn't,” he said, his voice thick with righteous indignation. “It's a mate's bike. He knows I've got it!”

  “All right,” I said. “But that still doesn't mean you can legally take it out on the road. Come on, Kiffo. What if there's an accident? What if the police stop us?”

  “What if, what if! Give it a break, willya? We haven't got time for this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I know where he is! I'm already on the trail, Calma. I have been since seven this morning. But I tell ya, if we don't get moving soon, he'll have gone. Come on. I'm a good rider, honest. I've been on bikes since I was seven. There's nothing to worry about.”

  As far as I could see, there was plenty to worry about. I had visions of a police car pulling us over, Constable Ryan getting out of the driver's side and walking toward us. Or being hit by a trolley and ending up as road pizza. And for what? Just so we could spend a day following an innocent businessman around? No. The whole idea was absurd, impossible. There was no way I was getting on the back of that thing.

  “All right,” I said. “But you'd better drive slowly, okay?”

  Kiffo grinned. I took the helmet and he showed me how to put it on. I checked myself out in the mirror and I have to confess that I looked pretty damn good. Sort of cool and tough. It was comforting, also, to know that with the visor down, there was little likelihood of anyone recognizing me. Listen, to tell you the absolute truth, the whole idea was quite exciting! I got on the back of the bike, planted my feet firmly on the footrests and grabbed hold of Kiffo round the waist. I was ready.

  I wasn't ready. For one thing, when Kiffo started the bike up it felt like there was a small earthquake under my backside. It was like sitting on top of the space shuttle. For another thing, when Kiffo let out the clutch we shot away like crap off a stainless-steel shovel. I could feel my feet rise off the pedals. I had to struggle, pulling at Kiffo's waist, before I could stop my legs from tilting toward the sky in an absurdly undignified fashion.

  Even though we had been traveling for about one point two seconds, all my muscles had locked up. I could feel my fingers digging into Kiffo's leather jacket with such intensity that it would have taken a cold chisel to loosen my grip. The wind tore at my clothing and I could see the pavement blurring past under my feet. I risked taking a peep over Kiffo's shoulder and then wished I hadn't.

  At the end of my street, there is a sharp bend to the right. We were approaching this at what seemed like two hundred miles an hour. Suddenly Kiffo leaned to his right and the bike tilted at an impossible angle. There was only one thing to do. If Kiffo was determined to hurl us to the ground, then I must compensate. That's common sense, right? And, if I remember my physics classes correctly, in perfect keeping with one of those laws that Newton used to formulate for the sole purpose of making schoolkids’ lives a misery. So I leaned sharply to my left.

  Three things happened. Firstly, the bike wobbled crazily, an event that did nothing for the already fragile state of my bowels. Secondly, Kiffo started swearing in a fashion and at a volume that surprised even me. Thirdly, we slowed and then stopped. Well, how was I to know that when you went round a bend on a motorbike you were supposed to lean into it? I tried to point this out to Kiffo after he had calmed down, but I didn't get the chance. I had the first two words of a sarcastic retort framed when he screamed off and I went through the whole business of the tilting legs again.

  Credit where credit is due. Kiffo knew how to handle the bike. He seemed confident in traffic and, once I had forced myself to lean with him round bends, I began to relax a little. Only a little, mind. My fingers still felt as if they had been set in quick-drying concrete, but at least my bottom was no longer trying to eat the seat upholstery. In fact, after a while, I began to enjoy myself. I even felt a sense of freedom, particularly when we were traveling down broad main streets. I could feel the wind whipping at my neck and shoulders. It was so refreshing I thought it would be nice to lift the visor up on
my helmet and let the air get to my face.

  Unfortunately, no sooner had I done so than a small insect, clearly suffering from acute depression, decided that my open mouth was the ideal route for a suicide mission. With kamikaze-like determination, it rocketed down my throat and splattered against my tonsils. Have you ever tried to cough up your esophagus while traveling at over sixty miles an hour, with the wind rushing down your throat? Trust me on this one. It's difficult.

  I suppose it had one benefit, however. I was so busy trying to get rid of the insect that I had no chance to see Kiffo's road maneuvering. All I was aware of was the bike swerving from side to side and cars flashing past me to the right and the left. By the time I had recovered and got the visor back down, we were slowing down on a quiet residential street. Actually, a rather familiar residential street. In fact, a totally bloody familiar residential street. It was with a sense of rising desperation that I found my voice as we came to a stop under my casuarina tree.

  “Just what the bloody hell do you think you are doing, Kiffo?”

  Kiffo pushed his visor back. “It's the Pitbull's place.”

  “I know it's the Pitbull's place! I have every reason to know where we are. What I want to know is what we are doing here!”

  “He's in there. The Ferret. That's his car in the driveway. I followed him this morning and he came here. Parked up, so I figured they wouldn't be leaving immediately. Took the chance that I would have enough time to pick you up.”

  I felt like screaming and beating him round the back of the head with my crash helmet. In fact, I did start beating him around the back of the head with my helmet.

  “You bastard, Kiffo. You complete bastard! You knew I wouldn't come if I knew that this is where we would end up. The one place I swore I would never come back to. What are you trying to do? Get me in jail? Let's leave. Now.”

  Kiffo did his conjuring trick with a cigarette and blew a plume of smoke into the air.

  “Yeah. I knew you wouldn't come, so I didn't tell you. But I didn't lie to you, Calma. I just told you I knew where the Ferret was. And I do. He's in there with the Pitbull. Relax. There's no way she'll recognize you in that helmet. So stop hitting me with it and put it on, eh? Stay cool. Anyway, it's pretty interesting that he came here so early on a Saturday morning.”

  “I'll tell you what would be pretty interesting, Kiffo. My foot disappearing up your arse. Now, for God's sake …”

  But I didn't get any further. The front door of the Pitbull's house opened and she and the Ferret walked out to the car. They seemed in a hurry. I scrambled to get my helmet back on and Kiffo kicked the bike into life. The car, a beautiful sleek black job—might have been a BMW, but I'm not crash hot on cars either—reversed down the driveway and swept off down the road. The occupants didn't even look in our direction.

  Kiffo spun the bike round and we accelerated smoothly after the car, which made a right turn at the end of the street. The anger I was feeling started to dissolve and that sense of excitement infected me again. Maybe Kiffo was right. There probably was little chance of them seeing us. To hell with it. Let me be honest here. I really was doing this only for Kiffo. I knew, after what Jonno had told us, that there was nothing in the way of a mystery left. But we needed to see this through. Just this one last day. Anyway, this whole thing was like a movie. A car chase. Bloody oath. It was the only thing missing from our little fantasy and here was the chance to live it. All we needed was to be in radio contact with a helicopter and it would have been perfect.

  “Roger, Foxtrot Tango One. We have visual on the target. Confirm. We have visual.”

  “Roger that, Delta. Proceed down Main Street on a one-zero-three.”

  It didn't really matter that we were just following a doctor and a drug counselor, probably on their way to a drug rehabilitation meeting or something. I still got an adrenaline rush.

  Kiffo caught up with the car quickly and then dropped back a little, keeping a few car lengths between us and them. Traffic was still light and we had no trouble keeping them in view. The only problem was that there were so few cars on the road that I felt we must be really conspicuous. I had to tell myself that innocent people wouldn't ever think that someone might be following them, that a motorbike in the rearview mirror would scarcely cause anyone to panic. Still felt strange, though.

  After about five minutes, it was clear that the route we were following was taking us out of the city. I could only hope that they weren't going interstate. I had visions of us following them through the outback for days.

  Farther along, we hit heavier traffic and it was easier to stay hidden behind cars. Kiffo said something to me over his shoulder but the wind swept the words away. I tapped him on the back and yelled “What?” into the side of his helmet. He turned his head more acutely.

  “I think they might have spotted us,” he yelled. “Look how he's slowed down.”

  It was true. Before, we had been going at about sixty, but now the car had slowed to just over forty. Of course, it probably had something to do with the increased traffic, though most other cars were still going at speeds in excess of ours. Perhaps they were just enjoying the view. We were edging closer and closer to the rear of the car now and I could make out, through the tinted windows, the bulky silhouette of the Pitbull. She might have been looking behind her. I couldn't be sure. Even now, I'm not sure.

  What happened next wasn't in doubt, though. The car suddenly jumped forward as if something had been injected into its exhaust. It went from about forty to eighty in a matter of seconds. One moment we were tootling along a couple of car lengths behind, the next moment the car was dwindling to a speck in the distance. Kiffo twisted his wrist and the bike surged forward. Once again, I felt that familiar force trying to push me off the back of the bike. I glanced at the speedometer and was alarmed to see the dial creep over the eighty mark and continue to rise. We were flashing past other vehicles now, but the black car wasn't getting any closer. We seemed to have stopped it increasing its distance from us, but we weren't making much of an inroad in decreasing the gap. I wanted to yell into Kiffo's ear, tell him to stop, that it wasn't worth getting ourselves killed for something so stupid as catching up, but I doubted if he would have heard me. Even if he had, I knew that he wouldn't stop. It's that old macho crap, I guess.

  We were on a long, straight section of the highway, but pretty soon the road started to curve. Kiffo barely slowed down as we approached the bend. He threw himself first to one side and then the other. I gritted my teeth and hung on grimly, keeping my body molded to his as we cornered. The rushing asphalt seemed millimeters from my trailing knee, and I had visions of us both being scraped across the road. But we were getting closer to the car. There could be no doubt that the bends were favoring us. Then we hit another straight that led up to a roundabout. I could see the brake lights of the cars in the distance as they slowed. The Ferret's car barely braked at all, just a flicker of lights as it swept round the roundabout and continued straight on. Kiffo took the inside lane, swerving onto the bicycle path on the inside of the short line of cars. We both glanced to the right, saw that the way was clear and Kiffo accelerated into the roundabout.

  It was then that I noticed the white car on our left. It was coming up to the junction to join the roundabout and I knew, I don't know how, that it wasn't going to stop. There was something about it that screamed danger. I could almost follow the driver's movements as he or she came up to the yield sign. Look to the right. Everything clear. No sign of any traffic. Not even a large red motorbike accelerating rapidly round the inside lane. Just looking for cars. If it's not a car, can't see it. Foot on the accelerator. Pull out.

  Kiffo reacted quickly, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to swerve around the front of the car, but in those few, long seconds I knew that we were going to hit. I could see the face of the driver then. It was a woman and her eyes were widening in horror. I could hear her thoughts. Where did that come from? That wasn't there a moment ago
. Her mouth was turned down, so that she looked irritated. I could see her knuckles whiten on the steering wheel and her arms bunch as she slammed her foot on the brake. The car nearly stood on end. I was aware of the screech of brakes, a smell of burning rubber and then a jolt and a crunch of metal.

  Year 6, Fourth Term

  You sit in a corner of the schoolyard. Your head is slumped on your knees and you sob so much that it feels like your body is tearing itself apart. In your head are images. You see yourself sitting on the stairs, late at night, hands over your ears. Shouting comes from a room beneath you. Something smashes. There is a whole sea of pain and you sit on the seawall, letting the waves wash over you. A door opens and slams. Your father, drunk with anger, crashes past you and into his bedroom. Your mother stands at the foot of the stairs, looking at you. Her face is twisted as if something dark is forcing itself through. Her eyes are red, marinated in misery.

  It is the last time you see your father.

  You feel a hand on your knee. You lift your head and it is the red-haired boy.

  “Are you okay?” he says, gently.

  You put your head on his shoulder.

  Chapter 22

  Picking up the pieces

  I was told later that I cleared the hood of the car by about two yards and then slid along the grass for another twenty before coming to rest. I have no recollection of it. All I can remember is the sense of falling, a swirl of sky and grass and the not unpleasant thought that I was going to die. It's strange. When I was on the bike, I was so tense that you could have stuck a pin in me and it wouldn't have broken the skin. Once I was off it, in the air, I felt relaxed. Liquid, almost. Maybe that's what saved me. When I got to my feet, and that was almost instantly, according to witnesses, I wasn't aware of any pain. I felt fine. It was only later that I found that my legs and arms had friction burns, but even they weren't bad and disappeared after a few days. My jeans and top were never going to be the same, though. I reckon they took the main force. If we'd been going much faster, if Kiffo hadn't braked so violently, then they couldn't have absorbed the impact. I doubt if there would have been too much flesh left on my right side if we'd been going an extra ten miles per hour.