Ash Island

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Perhaps she forgot. It was over three years ago.’

  ‘No, she recognised Jenny all right, then denied it when she realised Jenny couldn’t see her.’

  Marshall shrugs. ‘Didn’t get her name, did you?’

  ‘Amber. Mean anything to you?’

  Marshall smiles suddenly. ‘Look at that.’ He points with his knife at a table further down the room. Harry turns and sees a familiar profile, a flushed cheek, thick waves of silver hair.

  ‘That’s Dalkeith, isn’t it? The former premier?’

  ‘Retired but still wheeling and dealing. Recognise the bloke he’s with?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Most people wouldn’t, but he’s one of the most powerful people in parliament these days—Lucan Abandonato, cabinet secretary. I wonder what they’re cooking up. I’d love to bug that table. Between them they can cause more mischief over lunch than we can manage in a lifetime.’ He chuckles. ‘There are rules, of course. It’s just that we don’t all get to play by the same ones.’ And then, as if on the same subject, ‘No, I can’t help you there, Harry. If you’re going to annoy the Nordlunds you’re on your own, mate.’

  He wipes his mouth and checks his watch. ‘I’d better move on. Been good talking to you, son. Take my advice and let the boys up in Newcastle take care of whoever bombed your place. I know they’ll do a thorough job. Deb’ll see to that.’

  On his way out, Harry thinks, But I never mentioned the Nordlunds, Bob. He wonders just how many coded messages Marshall managed to squeeze into their conversation.

  30

  When they’re on the freeway and clear of Sydney, Harry tells Jenny about Bob Marshall’s offer of witness protection.

  ‘So I’d have to cut myself off from my family?’ she says. ‘My mother would never get to see her grandchild? No thanks. We can do better than that.’

  He wonders if that’s true.

  After an hour they turn off the highway and follow the road up past the Mardi Dam and into the Yarramalong Valley. At first the route is lined with hobby farms and smallholdings, but as they penetrate further, following the winding course of the Wyong River, woodlands close in around them. The sat nav tells Harry to take a small unmarked turning onto a narrow track. It climbs up the side of the valley and into a secluded hollow where a cottage lies tucked among the trees. A small dog comes bounding out onto the veranda as the car draws up, followed by a silver-haired woman wearing an apron. There is a smell of baking bread in the forest air. Beyond the house Harry catches sight of long-necked alpacas in a paddock.

  Later, listening to the voices of the two women in the kitchen, Harry thinks Jenny will be happy here. Felecia has immediately settled in, lying on the fireside rug next to her new friend. Harry goes out to the car and brings in the suitcases, the dog’s harness, Jenny’s computer and a case of wine for Meri. He tries to persuade himself that this is a good idea.

  Harry leaves late the following afternoon. He gives Jenny one of Ricsi’s mobile phones and offers the pistol to Meri, who looks startled. She says, ‘No, dear, I have a shotgun—for the foxes. I’ll stick to that. Don’t worry, I’ll use it if I have to.’

  31

  Harry returns to the freeway and presses on to Newcastle, the twilight fading as he reaches the suburb of Mayfield. He parks on a side street with a long line of sight to the McGilvray house, where a light is showing in the front window. After half an hour Logan McGilvray emerges and walks out to the white ute parked at the kerb. Harry follows at a distance as it makes its way into the west end of the city centre, slowing at a pub around which people are milling. The ute circles the block and eventually finds a park. Harry does the same, keeping a view of McGilvray’s car. He checks that there are no cameras in the street, then settles down to wait. Four long hours with the radio.

  Some time after 1:00 a.m. a figure emerges from the shadows into the pool of light under a street lamp. The hunched bulk of Logan McGilvray is recognisable, lurching off the kerb, swaying towards the ute. Harry switches off the radio and gets out of his car. McGilvray fumbles his keys in the lock, finally opens the door. As he stoops to get in Harry heaves him across to the passenger side and gets in behind the wheel. McGilvray yells, twists around and focuses on Harry’s face, then the gun in his hand. ‘Oh fuck.’

  Suddenly he is all movement, his whole ungainly body squirming as he paws at the handle on the far door. Harry reaches across and smacks him on the knee with the gun. He howls as Harry handcuffs his wrists behind him, slides back the seat and pushes him down into the well. Harry feels in McGilvray’s pockets and finds his mobile phone. He reaches across to the passenger window and throws it into a bed of shrubs beside the footpath, then starts the car.

  He sets off, out of the city, fast beneath the steady rhythm of lights until they come to the turning onto the Ash Island bridge. The electric dazzle of the highway fades as they cross the dark water, and McGilvray, twitching and restless until now, becomes very still. On the far side Harry kills the car lights and slows, feeling his way between the dark masses of mangroves beyond the river margin. His eyes adjust. He picks up speed as the space opens up and they reach the dirt road, a pale ribbon stretching away in the moonlight between sheets of black water. He follows it for a kilometre until they reach a copse of twisted trees. There he stops and switches off the engine. McGilvray stirs and groans. Harry steps out of the car into the cool pungent dark. He opens the passenger door and hauls McGilvray out onto his knees on the rim of the grassy bank. Watches him flinch as he sinks into the cold swamp, mumbling an incoherent protest.

  Harry squats beside him and speaks softly. ‘Tell me everything.’

  McGilvray makes a big thing of clearing his throat, then says, ‘You’re a dead man, mate.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Yeah, you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?’

  Fast and hard, Harry’s hand grabs the back of the other man’s head. Arcs it forward and down, pushing it deep under the black water.

  Harry is struck by a sudden bleak feeling as he counts silently to himself, holding the struggling man down. This has happened before.

  Finally he hauls him out and watches him. Glistening black from the mud, spewing dark liquid, choking, struggling for breath.

  ‘Now, Logan. Everything.’

  ‘Somebody…in Sydney…wants you dead.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  Harry tightens his grip on the man’s neck.

  ‘No! I don’t know who…They got people in Newcastle to bomb your place.’

  ‘You bombed my place, Logan. You tried to kill me and my wife.’

  ‘No, no, swear to God. I…These people, they made me get them a bag of nitrate and a detonator from the mine.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, I can’t…’

  Harry forces his head into the mud again. Holds it down longer this time. When Logan comes out he is barely conscious. Harry has to pump his back to get the fluid out and bring him round. When he is finally capable of speech the words come tumbling out.

  ‘There’s these blokes, call themselves the Dark Riders, like they’re bikies only they don’t advertise it…keep under the radar, cops don’t know about them. They bring drugs in from the ships. Work with the Crows in Sydney.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘The big boss is called Tyler…Tyler Dayspring.’

  ‘You talk to him?’

  ‘No, no, never seen him. My contact is just a little guy like me, a bloke called Sammy, runs a Chinese restaurant. I go there and he gives me drugs to sell for the Riders, and I take the cash back to him.’

  Harry makes him go through it again in more detail, the amounts involved, the outlets for the drugs, up at the mines and in the city. ‘How do the Riders get the drugs from the ships?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t ask.’ Either the cold or the foetid water in his lungs is getting to him and he’s shivering and panting. He coughs, hawks up something dark. ‘Jee
z, I’m sick.’

  ‘What about the bomb?’

  ‘Two guys, Sammy arranged for me to meet them, Riders. Hard men, real hard men, balaclavas. No names. They told me to get the stuff from the mine stores for them, show them how to make a bomb. I overheard them say a name, Belltree, and laugh. Meant nothing until that time you interviewed me in the cop shop. Then I realised.’

  ‘But you said nothing, Logan. You built the bomb and knew the target and you said nothing. That makes you as guilty as them.’ Harry draws the pistol from his belt. ‘My wife is four months pregnant.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything, mate, not really, I just pinched a bit of stuff from work and…’ Harry presses the pistol to his temple and the words are replaced by sobs.

  He puts his mouth to McGilvray’s ear and says, ‘There is only one way I will let you live, Logan. Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘We’ll drive back to your place, and you’ll call your contact on your other phone. You’ll tell them that you have to see the Dark Riders, tonight.’

  ‘They won’t come, man.’

  ‘Yes they will. You’ll tell them that I’m with you and I know who they are, and I want to make a deal. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, yes, okay. I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you say.’ He is weeping, the pale track of tears visible on his black cheeks.

  ‘Get in the car.’

  They drive back onto the highway. McGilvray, arms still locked behind his back, sits slumped against the car door, coughing and spitting from time to time.

  When they reach his house McGilvray sits up with a start, looks around and croaks something.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The cops…They don’t like you. Sammy told me. You should watch your back too.’

  Harry unfastens his handcuffs and helps him out of the car, leading him up to the front door, taking his keys and pushing him inside. McGilvray staggers along the hallway, then lurches towards the bathroom door and collapses on the floor. Harry turns him over. He looks a mess, covered in black mud, face pale and sickly.

  ‘Come on, let’s clean you up.’ He hauls McGilvray into a sitting position and wets a towel to wipe his face. McGilvray makes a retching noise and reaches for the toilet bowl as a gob of black fluid spills out of his lips. ‘Water,’ he gasps.

  Harry looks around for a container. There’s nothing in the bathroom. ‘Hang on.’

  He goes outside, finds the kitchen and takes a dirty cup out of the sink, runs it under the tap, fills it and returns to the bathroom. McGilvray is gone.

  A couple of muddy footprints lead to the back room, where the glass doors stand open. Harry runs out, down the small yard to the rear fence, nothing, then back, around the house to the street. McGilvray’s ute is still there, no sign of him. Harry gets in and sets off through the streets, the side roads, searching for him.

  He widens the search, seeing only a lone couple, then a group emerging from a pub. As he passes the end of Dangar Park he thinks he sees a single dark figure crossing the far end, but when he turns up there he finds nothing. After an hour of fruitless searching, he gives up and heads back to the street where his own car is parked. He retrieves McGilvray’s phone from the nature strip and leaves it in the ute, which he cleans up as best he can, then sets off in his own car back to Sydney.

  32

  Kelly intended to arrive early at the nursing home, but there is an accident on the motorway up to Newcastle and long delays so it’s lunchtime before she arrives and no sign of David Suskind sitting outside. She gets a park not far away and settles down to wait, hoping Karen Schaefer has come to see her father again.

  Towards two she sees the white Nissan pull into the driveway. Kelly picks up the camera and takes pictures as Karen Schaefer gets out and helps her father down from the passenger side. She’s wearing jeans and a check shirt and there are streaks of mud down the flanks of the 4WD. She helps the old man to the front door of the home. Once Karen returns to her car Kelly starts her own.

  They follow the same route as before, across the Hunter River to the Bucketts Way and on to Stroud. In the town Kelly gets close enough for a clear sighting of the Nissan’s number plate and she puts a call though to Harry.

  ‘I’ve found her again, Harry—Donna Fenning, Karen Schaefer. I’m on the road north of Newcastle, following her. She’s in a white Nissan Patrol, and I’ve got the number.’

  She gives it to him and he tells her to be careful and he’ll get back to her. They continue out into the open country and on towards Gloucester. The humped silhouette of the Bucketts comes into view as Kelly’s phone rings.

  ‘Kelly? Harry. Are you still following her?’

  ‘Yes, we’re nearly at Gloucester.’

  ‘Listen, I want you to turn back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want you to follow her anymore.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Harry? What’s going on?’

  ‘Please just do as I ask. I can look after this.’

  ‘I’m not going to lose her again!’

  Harry begins to tell her again and she cuts in, ‘Okay, okay. I’ve got the message. The signal’s not very good here. I can hardly hear you. I’m pulling in.’

  She hangs up and comes to a stop on the hard shoulder. Ahead of her she sees the white vehicle reach the top of the next rise and vanish over the crest. She thumps the steering wheel, then mutters ‘Bugger it!’ and pulls back onto the road. She puts her foot down. Maybe Harry’s arranged for the police to stop the Nissan and doesn’t want her involved. But she can still follow and make sure.

  Kelly spots the Nissan again in Gloucester, at the far end of the main street, turning left onto Thunderbolt’s Way. There are no police cars waiting on the other side of town and the road ahead seems clear, with very little traffic.

  Suddenly the Nissan slows and turns onto a side road. Kelly pulls to a stop at the sign to Cackleberry Valley, wondering what to do. If the cops are waiting up ahead on Thunderbolt’s Way they’re wasting their time. She has no option but to follow the Nissan.

  After a while she reaches a forest just at the point where the road becomes dirt. She has to slow down, avoiding potholes, but she can see the cloud of dust kicked up by the Nissan ahead. They emerge at last into a broad green valley dominated by the lowering grey dome of the mountain far ahead. She rattles across a cattle grid, hits tarmac once again between fields of grazing cattle, and sees a distant red roof nestling in a copse of dark trees. A sign says no through road. She pulls to a halt and calls Harry’s number again. No signal. She drives on.

  The road ahead ends in a circular driveway around an ornamental fountain in front of the homestead, but Kelly turns off before she reaches it, into a yard beside an old timber barn. She comes to a stop. No one seems to be around and there’s no sign of the Nissan. She checks the phone again without success and gets out of the car. There’s a strong smell of silage and horses and, from somewhere beyond the barn, the sound of hooves. She walks cautiously to the end of the barn and peers round the corner, then jumps as a voice close behind her says, ‘Ah, you must be my old schoolfriend, Laura King.’

  Kelly spins around. ‘Donna Fenning.’ There’s a man by her side.

  ‘And you are Kelly Pool.’ Karen Schaefer peers at Kelly in that mildly troubled way of hers that Kelly once found reassuring. ‘Craig?’ she says. The man takes hold of Kelly’s arm in a firm grip. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  They march her into the sudden darkness of the barn. Motes of dust float on the beams of sunlight that shaft through the ancient timbers. As her eyes adjust Kelly sees an old tractor and an even older sedan, covered in dust and the fine webs of bush spiders. Craig Schaefer pushes her roughly against the car and pats her down, finding her phone in the pocket of her jeans. He hands it to Karen, who flicks through to recent calls.

  ‘Who’s Harry?’ she asks.

  Kelly says nothing.

  ‘You called him on t
he way here. Who is he?’

  Kelly looks her in the eye and says, ‘He’s a police officer. He’s on his way.’

  ‘That’s crap,’ Craig says. ‘Cops don’t give out their mobiles. Anyway…’ He raises an eyebrow at Karen and taps his watch.

  ‘Yes, I know. We’ll have to continue this conversation later.’ She looks around, frowning, then nods at the boot of the ancient Holden. She strides over and fiddles with the latch and the hood swings up. ‘Put her in here.’

  ‘No,’ Kelly cries, and jumps away from Craig, desperate to get to the barn door, but he grabs her arm and swings her around hard against the side of the car, knocking the breath out of her. Before she can recover he hoists her up and tumbles her into the boot and slams down the lid. She screams and kicks, the sounds deafening inside the steel shell, until at last she forces herself to be still, and her world shrinks to the suffocating dark silence of a coffin.

  She reasons with herself. She has done this before, she can handle it. She must concentrate on controlling her breathing, she must think ahead. But when they’ve done whatever they have to do, what then?

  She begins to explore her coffin with her fingertips. She encounters an old piece of carpet, musty with age, and several nuts and bolts. No sign of a jack handle or a tyre lever. What else does she have? She feels in the pockets of her jeans: some coins, keys, wallet, a small notebook and a ballpoint pen.

  Then the silence is broken by the muffled sound of the barn door creaking open. She stiffens. I can’t let this happen again. And then, The pen is mightier than the sword. She grips it in her right hand as there is a click and a flood of light, a dark silhouette against the light and a figure looming down to take hold of her. She lashes up at it with her pen. Feels it sink into something soft and hears a shriek, a horrific shriek she dictates to herself, a howl cut abruptly short. She hauls herself upright and sees Craig Schaefer stretched out on the barn floor. His legs twitch and then are still. Kelly’s pen is buried in his left eye.