“What’ll we do?” Billy said.
“You don’t do anything. You’re staying put.”
The Englishman’s voice came through the phone again, loud and clear now that John had stopped. “Are you two really going to let me shoot the girl? Over a couple of hundred thousand? Shit, darling, that’s bloody rough. And I thought my family was fucked up.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Sally and Rashmi screaming. Dave shouting. Then nothing. The phone was dead.
“Call the police,” John said, sliding out of the car. “Triple zero. Give them the address.”
Billy watched him disappear through the front gate as he punched the emergency number into the phone. The woman who answered sounded far too calm. “Police. I need the police,” Billy shouted. Down the street he saw Sally come out of the house. She stood for a moment, looking up and down the street as Billy gave the emergency operator the address. “Yes, yes. Hurry—someone’s coming out. I have to go.” He hung up and shoved the phone into his pocket. Sally ran towards him, towards Dave’s Land Rover. She froze when Billy opened the door of the ute, the two of them staring at each other for a moment: Sally a dark silhouette, Billy lit by the dome light in the ute.
“Billy? Is that you? What are you doing here?”
“We were driving back, John and me. You called us. We heard everything…Manny and your father.”
“I didn’t…” Sally shook her head as she held up the keys. “I have to…” She turned away and unlocked the back of the Land Rover. “The bag. He wants Dad’s bag.” She swung the door open and peered inside. “Or he’ll shoot Rash.” She slid a large, black nylon carry-all towards her.
Billy ran to the front of the Land Rover and opened the driver’s door. He felt beneath the seat, his fingers moving across the gritty floor mat, until they found what he wanted. The shotgun was still where Dave had stashed it when they’d left Toolongolook. Billy pulled the gun out, remembering at the last minute to point the barrel away from his face. It was heavy and solid. He held it awkwardly, his hands working their way to the grips.
Sally had the heavy-looking bag slung across her shoulder and was starting back towards the house.
“Wait. Hang on.” Billy ran around the front of the Land Rover to meet her. “Don’t go back in.”
“I have to. He’ll shoot Rashmi.”
“John’s gone in there. Let him take care of Manny.”
“What? I didn’t see him.” She shook her head. “What can John do? That maniac’s got a gun.”
“John was in the army. I’ll give him this.” Billy held out the shotgun.
“Jesus, Billy. Where did you get that?”
“Under the seat. It’s Dave’s…” He couldn’t tell her that her father had blown a woman’s head off. “He had it up at the farm.”
“Jesus.” Sally just looked at him, her eyes red, her face wet and smeared.
“Just stay here,” Billy said. “I’ve called the cops. Just wait for them. They’ll be here soon.” Billy wished they were here now. “John needs this gun.”
“But that man said—”
“As soon as he gets the money, he’ll kill everyone anyway. That’s what they do. Wait here for the police.” Billy left her and ran to the house. On the veranda, he stopped and listened. The front door was wide open, but there was no sign of John. The hall was dark except for light spilling from the living room at the far end. Billy couldn’t see anyone inside, couldn’t hear anything either. The shotgun felt heavy and clumsy in his hands. He tried to remember to keep his finger off the trigger. Was the gun even loaded? How could you tell?
Where was John? Billy moved across to the corner of the house and peered down the side path. There was nothing to see except the plants that hung across the path, but John must have come this way. Where else could he have gone?
Voices from inside the house drew Billy back to the front door. Men shouting. Dave and Manny. Then Rashmi screaming.
Billy was halfway down the hall before he knew what he was doing. Rash was still screaming. He stopped, his hands sweating around the shotgun’s grips. He looked back the way he had come. What was he doing? There was more shouting, something about Sally. Billy moved as quietly as he could towards the living room, glancing back over his shoulder, hoping to see John. The living room was quiet now; he couldn’t hear anything over his own banging heart. He stood in the shadows, just outside the living room, trembling. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Why’s she taking so long?” Manny said, his voice cracking.
“It’s heavy, that much money,” Dave said. “I should’ve gone.”
“Shut. Up.” The sound of movement. A thump. Dave grunting. Rashmi yelling, crying.
Billy stepped into the living room holding the shotgun up in front of him. Rashmi was on the lounge, Dave on the floor near the window. Manny stood in the middle of the room, turning. His bandaged left hand was up near his face, while his right hand gripped the gun at his side.
Billy froze.
The gun in Manny’s hand came up. Billy willed his finger to move. Felt the trigger. Squeezed. Nothing.
Manny smiled as his gun steadied. “Hello.”
Billy dived for the floor as Manny fired. Two neat bullet holes appeared in the wall where his head had just been.
Billy landed hard on his elbows, the shotgun nearly jolting out of his hands. He looked up at Manny and tried to rack the slide, but it wouldn’t move. Nothing. He kept pulling the trigger. Fucking nothing. Dave moved on the floor behind Manny. He was trying to get to his feet when Manny swung the butt of the gun into his face. Dave slumped back, facedown on the floor. Manny turned back towards Billy, snarling, the pistol’s barrel a black circle staring down at him.
Glass smashed somewhere behind Billy. Manny looked up, twisting suddenly as something twirled through the air. A hammer glanced off his arm and crashed to the floor. Manny shouted something as he turned and fired. Too high.
John hit him in a low tackle, driving him off his feet and into the floor. Billy was up on his feet, looking around. Manny was still holding the gun, but he had to use his arms to block John’s punches. Billy picked up the heavy lump hammer and swung at Manny’s gun arm. The pistol flew across the room. Billy swung again, this time aiming for Manny’s head, but the two men were moving fast, throwing punches and blocks as they rolled across the floor. The hammer hit John’s right shoulder.
He shouted in pain as Manny rolled away and was up on his feet again, bouncing, shaking his right hand, squeezing it into a fist. Grinning. John got up too, slower than Manny, turning his left side towards him, his right arm hanging useless. He tried to back away, rolling his shoulder, flexing his hand. Trying to get some feeling back. Manny stepped in, sending a kick at John’s head. He blocked it with his left arm. Manny spun into a roundhouse kick that snapped John’s head sideways. He fell to his knees then shook his head as he tried to get back up. Billy ran at Manny, swinging the hammer. He didn’t even see the kick that caught him in the chest and sent him flying back onto the sofa. He landed on top of Rashmi, gasping to get air in. John was up again. Manny was still bouncing, waiting. Feinting a kick but backing away. He came in again, aiming for a right-foot kick, then twisted and caught John in the ribs with his left. John doubled over. Manny moved in close, throwing punches with his right hand, using both knees. John tried to block them, backing away, trying to give himself room.
One of Manny’s knees caught John in the groin, and he collapsed forward. Manny brought the other knee up into John’s head, straightening him up, pushing him back. The next kick caught John full in the chest. It hurled him backwards. Off his feet. Out through the splintering window.
Knives of glass were left in the frame, some painted with John’s blood. Billy was still trying to get his breath, sucking in shallow gasps. He felt Rashmi twist and move behind him. She pushed him out of the way and threw herself on the floor, scrabbling for Manny’s pistol.
Manny pulled her back by her hair. She s
creamed as he threw her onto the lounge again. He grabbed the shotgun off the floor, looked at it, thumbed a catch at the back, and pointed it at Billy. “You had the safety on, you stupid little prick.”
Rashmi’s hand found Billy’s and squeezed tightly.
Manny smiled, his eyes half closed. “No, you’re a keeper, boy. I want some time with the two of you.” He tucked the shotgun under his arm and picked up the pistol, covering the three of them as he moved over to the smashed window.
He leaned forward to peer out through the bloody shards. That’s when the tines of a garden fork hit him in the face. Stabbing through his throat, mouth, and left eye socket. A short scream, ending in a bloody gurgle, escaped as he stumbled back across the room, the big fork hanging off his face. The shotgun clattered to the floor as blood sprayed from his neck, the fork handle scything wildly as he spun and staggered. The pistol in his right hand cracked. Again and again. Manny’s hand was convulsing, firing randomly. Billy ducked as Manny flailed past the lounge, and then he launched himself. He hit the back of Manny’s legs, toppling him forward and driving the handle of the fork into the floor. Manny’s head twisted back with a sickening snap. The screams stopped. Billy rolled away. For a moment Manny was propped there, the fork holding his head up, his knees spread on the floor. Then he slowly crumpled, falling sideways onto the rug.
Billy stood up slowly, not able to take his eyes off Manny’s head, the bloody steel tines visible through his scalp. He felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around.
John’s face shone with blood; long cuts lined his nose and forehead. “You all right?” he asked Billy.
Chapter 31
Distant Rumble
Billy wasn’t all right. Nights were the worst. The dreams, when he managed to fall asleep, were bad. The dreams you wake up from sweating, tangled in the sheets. Terrified. He didn’t like being out at night either. Headlights panicked him, made him want to run.
Days were better. And open spaces. The long corridors at school got him sweating sometimes, but mostly he was okay if there weren’t too many people. Crowds were bad. He liked quiet. No shouting, no raised voices. They made him jittery. He liked to be in his room at John’s house. That was best.
The cops had dropped him off at his mother’s house just before lunchtime the day after. He’d tried to explain his situation to them, but they wouldn’t listen, and anyway, John was still at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, and they weren’t going to be letting him go anywhere for a while. Billy’s ma was her usual helpful self. “Jesus, Billy. Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been looking for ya.”
“Where? In the bottom of a fucking bottle?” he’d said. He was sick of her bullshit. She was well into the enthusiastic part of her drinking day—noisy and self-righteous, smiling up at the young cop. The self-pity and the accusations would come after the police had pissed off.
Billy wasn’t going to hang around for that. He couldn’t. As soon as the cops left, he took off. He was exhausted, but he needed to be somewhere quiet, somewhere safe. His mother had threatened to call the cops—community services, even—if he went. That was nearly funny. “What? You’re going to report me to DOCS? For being at risk?” He pushed her out of the way. Roy was standing there, looking like he didn’t know what was going on, as usual. If he moved or said anything, Billy would have hit him. Smashed that stupid fucking nose. But Roy just watched, probably happy that Billy was going. Billy didn’t slam the door; instead he left it wide open.
He went to Broughton Street; there was nowhere else to go. The police had told him Rash and her mum were at some hotel because their house was a crime scene; cops were everywhere. As far as Billy knew, John and Dave were both in the hospital. And both under arrest.
Tony was the only one there when Billy got to Camperdown, stiff and sore. He greeted Billy with a hug. The only question he asked was if Billy was hungry.
Billy sat at the kitchen bench while Tony went to work, cooking spaghetti. “Shasta’s gone up to RPA,” he said, as they waited for the water to boil. “Trying to get in to see John.” He threw olive oil, tomatoes, onion, and parsley into the spaghetti and grated Parmesan cheese over the top. Billy ate two full bowls.
Upstairs in his room, Billy realised how tired he was. His laptop and phone were at Rashmi’s house, and his camera and all the other stuff he’d taken up the coast were still in John’s ute, and the cops had that. He borrowed Tony’s phone and tried to call Rashmi. He wasn’t surprised when there was no answer. Her phone was probably still at her house, in her bedroom with his. He didn’t leave a message. What could he say?
He lay in bed for a long time, his mind racing, replaying everything, wondering what he could have done differently. At some point he must have fallen asleep, because he woke up panicking in the dark. He turned on the light and lay down again, looking around at the bare walls, remembering that he’d taken everything down before he and Rashmi had left for Brunswick Heads. The next thing he knew, it was just starting to get light, and a channel-billed cuckoo was calling outside somewhere. Probably in the park. Shasta used to say their calls sounded like someone being murdered. Now Billy knew they didn’t.
That day turned out to be New Year’s Eve. Tony told him while they were eating breakfast. Not that it mattered. Billy spent the morning lying on the lounge, watching television. Mostly just music videos. He tried to play some video games, but they just seemed pointless.
Shasta brought John home about midday. He had bandages on his face and arms and was moving carefully, wincing as he sat down. “Broken ribs,” he said, when he saw Billy’s face. “The other stuff is just cuts. A few stitches.”
“Concussion too,” Shasta said. “Again. Don’t forget that.” She dumped her keys and her bag on the bench and kissed John on an unbandaged part of his cheek. “You should get to bed, baby. I’ll bring you up some chamomile tea.”
“I’d rather have a whisky.”
“Not with those pain-killers.” She helped him out of the chair and pointed him toward the stairs, making little shooing motions as John made his way slowly and painfully up to his bedroom.
Billy slept most of the afternoon but ended up lying awake once it got dark. He joined Shasta and Tony downstairs on the lounge, watching the Sydney Harbour fireworks on TV. At first it was okay, all the sparkly lights. All the colours exploding. He started sweating when he realised he could hear the actual explosions coming from outside as well as on the television. The breeze carried the distant rumble from the harbour. It was continuous, not like thunder, and it made him want to get under something. He went upstairs and found John awake in bed. He looked over at Billy for a moment. “The fireworks?”
Billy nodded.
“They reckon it gets better, but it still gets my heart rate going too.”
Billy sat on the floor, his back to the bed. “What happened with the police?” he asked.
“The lawyer I talked to says they might not charge me, and even if they do, we’ve got a good case for self-defence. They’ve arrested Sally’s father, though. No bail—he killed those guards during that van robbery before Christmas.”
Billy nodded. “The shotgun.”
“Yeah,” John agreed. “The shotgun.”
“What about the farm? The tunnel?”
“They wanted to know all about it. Why I didn’t report the body in the tunnel when I found it.” John gave a harsh little laugh. “It’ll take them forever to pull it all together. They’ll want to talk to you and Rashmi about it. You two are the only ones who know everything that happened up there. There’s that guy that Ruth and Manny murdered in Brunswick Heads too.”
“Kurt.”
“Yeah. And apparently some other guy they killed as well, in Sydney. Those two psychos left a trail of bodies wherever they went. Until the cops piece everything together, I reckon they’ll keep us all on the hook.”
After the fireworks had finished, Shasta came up and told Billy to go back to his room. “John needs to get some sleep. He w
as up all night at the hospital. And all those questions from the police…”
Billy went to his own bed and lay on top of it, watching the ceiling again.
The cops came looking for him the next day. They were pissed off that he hadn’t stayed at his mother’s house.
“Have you met my mother?” Billy asked the detective when she had a go at him about it. They wanted to ask him more questions. He told them the truth, all of it. Before the cops had arrived at Rash’s house, John had said to him. “Don’t lie, mate. Tell them everything you know.”
“But—”
“Don’t try to protect anyone. You haven’t done anything wrong, and they’ll catch you out anyway. Then you will have done something wrong.”
Billy thought it seemed like a strange thing to do—telling the cops the truth—but John was right. It was too complicated to try to lie about. And what would the lie be? He’d seen two people killed. And both of them deserved it. That was the truth. And in the end the cops believed him.
Dave was going to go to prison. Billy read about the van robbery on the Internet. Two guards had been killed with a shotgun; Rash’s grandpa had done that. They were going to charge him with a whole lot of other robberies too. Going back years. He’d probably be locked up for the rest of his life.
There would be a series of coronial inquiries first, but it looked like John wouldn’t be charged for killing Manny. The police eventually accepted that he was trying to protect the others. The Feds were still sniffing around Rashmi about her stunt with the minister, but after everything else that had happened, her lawyer reckoned it didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. And there was more public sympathy for Rashmi now in the media.
There was a lot of news coverage. It was a really big story. The crazy psycho killers from London. The missing gold. The Sydney bank raids. And in the middle of it all, the blue-haired cripple girl. It was all over the papers and television for a week as more information came out. The gold got everyone excited, including Shasta. “So who actually has it?” she asked, after John found out the cops weren’t going to charge him. No one knew of course. Billy and John didn’t think Dave could have had it, or the other guy, his mate who was killed at the bank. Like Dave had said, if they’d had that much, they wouldn’t have been robbing banks. And Dave wouldn’t have been living in a little house in Brunswick Heads, mowing lawns. Shasta said that if she had the gold, she’d buy a house by the beach and her own gym.
Tunnel Vision Page 23
