It had been a long time since any fun had been had in that house, if you don’t count cockroaches. There was a thick film of dust over everything-furniture, books, crockery, glassware. The place looked as if it had been left suddenly, one busy morning maybe, and, had never been returned to. The covers on the double bed in the larger of the two bedrooms had been quickly pulled up. A single bed in the other room had been used as a linen store-sheets and clothes, roughly folded, were stacked on it. A man’s clothes and a woman’s, like those in the drawers and wardrobe of the other bedroom.
Dishes had been washed at the sink and left to drain. Dust settling on them when wet had formed a sludge that was now a thin layer of dried mud. It was an uncanny and uncomfortable feeling to go through the drawers and cupboards collecting papers and other scraps of the lives that had been lived here. The clothes were the firmest evidence: blue shirts, dark trousers, plain shoes. There were holes where a badge had been pinned. Among the man’s clothes there was also some beach gear and summer wear. I found a camera and light meter but no photographs. The woman’s clothes were the kind Tania Bourke would have worn when she wasn’t strutting her stuff in the city-still well-made, still man-attracting, but with some concessions to a relaxed life in the lower heels and more casual styles.
As the flat in the Greenwich Apartments had contained more of the woman’s things, this held more of the man’s. The paperbacks tended to be of the hairy-chested variety, Robert Ruark and co. There was a small collection of the sort of thing that had been contraband in Australia until the Whitlam enlightenment- Lady Chatterley, Portnoy, Henry Miller etc. Joe Agnew must have been assiduous in his duties, or perhaps the boys divided the confiscated hot stuff at the pub after work.
I worked through the house thoroughly as the light dimmed outside. The electricity and gas were connected. The water ran rusty, the colour of weak tea. In the end I could probably have filled another garbage bag with Agnew’s and Bourke’s significant effects. I could certainly have proved that the same two people had occupied this house and flat one at the Greenwich Apartments. Some newspapers and magazines indicated activity later than in the other place, up to about a year ago. Unusually for that sort of house, the front door had a letter slot. Mail had built up inside the door like an Aboriginal midden. Most of it was unsolicited junk, none of it was revealing, personal, or intimate, but receipted power bills indicated that someone was paying the way in a place where no-one lived. Again.
‘Where have you gone?’ I said to myself aloud. The sound of my own voice startled me. I was in the living room which was almost dark. I switched on the light and heard a scurrying behind the couch against the wall. A fully paid up house for mice, I thought. Wait till the news gets around. I turned on the three-in-one sound system and hit the AM button. After a few bars of music I got the seven o’clock news. They were shooting white people in the Lebanon, brown people in the Philippines and black people in South Africa. Petrol and unemployment were up, farm incomes and the dollar were down. Two Balmain players were suspended for head-high tackling and tomorrow was going to be wet. No comfort anywhere.
I left the radio on and wandered through the house wondering if I should make an attack on the floorboards. In the front bedroom the blind was torn at the side and I glanced through the gap.
A man was standing in front of the house; he was slightly bent to get some cover from a shrub and the way his right hand was positioned suggested to me that he was holding a gun. He squinted at the house and then turned and made a beckoning gesture with his left. I raced through the house to the back, turned the key and pulled the door open. I was reaching for my gun when a man who already had one out and at the ready stepped into view. He lifted the gun.
‘Stand right there.’
I froze; he moved forward and gestured for me to back away. I stood my ground; he was going to come up the steps and that was fine with me. When the second step took his weight it crumbled; he lurched sideways and I bulled forward straight into him. He lost balance and footing; his gun slammed into the side of the house and I was past him and running through the thick grass to the back fence. I think I would have tried to jump it if I’d had to, but a ten-foot section of it had fallen flat. I hurdled the remains and ran on.
The light was fading fast now and the going was difficult. I was in light scrub and heading upwards. A rabbit track zigzagged up the hill and I followed it as best I could. Zigzagging was fine if there was going to be any shooting from behind. I gasped and wheezed, grabbed at saplings to keep moving up in the rockiest and roughest bits, and I didn’t look back. You can tell when you’re being pursued; you feel it on the back of your neck like a cold breeze and I was feeling it now. Still no shooting though.
I realised that I was heading towards the park in the middle of the island and I tried to remember its layout. Too long ago, and they’d probably filled in the water holes and installed adventure playgrounds. It wasn’t the brightest prospect-in the gathering gloom with at least three men and two guns after me, I should have been looking for human support rather than a tree patch with possums.
I blundered on, tripping on tree roots and feeling branches cut my face. I tasted blood and almost fell when a branch hit my right eye solidly and squarely. Suddenly, I was half-blind. Everything to the right of centre was a blank. I felt a rush of fear and blinked frantically but the vision wouldn’t clear. I swung my head to increase the field of sight and almost fell. I felt useless all down the right side. I was barely moving when I finished the climb and reached a level, grassy stretch. I stood for a minute with heaving chest, blind eye and raw throat, trying to decide what to do next. I could see the lights of the houses below me and hear noises: with diminished vision, the noises were incredibly clear-birds, rustling animals, stealthy feet. I jogged across the clearing towards a stand of trees. The eye throbbed; I put my hand up to it and felt a blow on the back of my neck. I sagged, dug in my pocket for the gun and felt it again in the same spot but harder. I closed the other eye. I didn’t want to but I couldn’t help it. I fell forward, slamming my shoulder into the hard earth.
I didn’t pass out but I might just as well have. I had trouble getting the good eye open; my shoulder hurt and I had practically no breath in my lungs so I lay as if I was paralysed. Three men stood over me-the two I’d seen back at the house and one other. The two I’d seen before were breathing hard, the other wasn’t, but all six of their eyes were open and none seemed to have a mouthful of blood like me. I managed to turn my head sideways and spit out some of the blood.
‘Christ,’ the one I’d seen at the front of the house said.
‘He’s all right.’ This was from the third man who wasn’t out of breath, wore a smart, full-length coat in contrast to the casual clothes of the others, and seemed to be the one in charge.
The man I’d pushed past on the back steps rubbed his shoulder. One small score to Hardy. ‘Do we do it?’ he said.
The boss bent down and took my gun from the jacket pocket. He put it away in his coat. ‘That’s what they tell us.’
‘Do what?’ I mumbled. ‘Who are you?’
‘Shut up!’ The boss snapped. ‘Think you can walk?’
‘How far?’ I said.
‘Not far.’ He turned on his heel. ‘If he can’t walk, don’t try to carry him. Drag him!’
They pulled me up; everything spun and then settled down into a swirling mist. Maybe I walked, maybe they dragged me. I felt as if I was swimming while standing upright. I don’t know how far it was to the car, probably not far, but it felt like five miles. I knew it couldn’t be because the island was only one mile across. I didn’t care, it still felt like five. Sitting in the car felt good. I was in the back with my two friends beside me-soft seat, back rest; when the car got going I buckled in the middle and vomited on the floor between my legs.
The one on my right said, ‘You animal!’ and belted me across the face. The damaged eye took some of the force of the blow and I yelled with the pain.
‘Next time swallow it,’ he said.
‘I’ll make you eat it if I get the chance,’ I said.
‘You won’t, Hardy.’
That gave me two things to ponder-they knew my name and they were going to ‘do’ something with me. I concentrated on getting my breath back and my right eye open on the short drive. I succeeded with the first but not with the second. The flesh around the eye was puffy and swollen and I felt as if I’d lost muscle control in that part of my face. The shoulder hurt too; it was dislocated or nearly so. I was in poor shape for running away or fighting or doing anything but talking. I was so worried about the eye that I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then I stopped worrying about the eye; dead is dead, one eye or two. I had to talk.
The car stopped at the jetty. We sat awhile for my companions to make sure the coast was clear. Then the boss snapped his fingers. ‘Harry,’ he said. ‘Take his boat.’
‘I’ll lose my deposit.”
‘Shut up!’”
Harry, who hadn’t spoken yet, said ‘Right.’ He got out of the car and vanished. The boss and the other man manhandled me along the jetty and down a set of steps into a boat-a speedboat with sleek lines and an enclosed cabin in front. They switched on lights, started the engines and took her expertly out into the channel. I heard a Johnson engine kick a couple of times before it started. My boat. There was no-one around to yell to. I couldn’t have made it over the side and I doubted I could swim with the damaged shoulder anyway. Talk, Hardy, I thought. Talk!
‘Tell me what’s going on,’ I said.
No reply.
Were they going to drop me in the water? I felt the fear stir inside me and looked around for the right stuff-wire, cement blocks, bed frames, but there was nothing like that.
My voice sounded as if it was coming from underwater already. ‘Who’s behind this?’ I said. ‘Darcy?’
The boss was sitting opposite me with his coat hitched up over his knees. He was a tall, thin character with a grooved, sharp-boned face. The grooves looked as if they were cutting their way through to the bones.
‘In a way,’ he said. ‘Any problems. Rolf?’
The man at the wheel lit a cigarette. ‘No,’ he said.
Not a gabby pair.
‘D’you want a cigarette, Hardy?’ the boss said.
I shook my head which hurt. ‘Bad for the health,’ I said, ‘but probably not as bad as meeting up with you guys.’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You’re in a bad way. Eye looks terrible.’
Then he shut up and looked out across the water. I was puzzled by them; they didn’t act like hoods but then, hoods aren’t always acting like hoods these days. The boss had a kind of hard-bitten dignity and Rolf was cool and relaxed at the wheel as if what he was doing was perfectly legitimate. Cops? I wondered and the thought gave me no comfort.
‘Where’re we going?’ I said.
‘You’re Sydney born and bred, aren’t you, Hardy? You should know. Have a look.’
I swivelled around on the hard seat painfully and tried to get my bearings. The sky was dark now, but the moon was up and there were lights dotted here and there all around. Shetland Island lay to the east and we were heading towards a dark coastline.
‘National Park,’ I said.
‘You sound relieved.’
‘I thought this might be a burial at sea without the flag and the gun salute.’
He gave a short, barking laugh. ‘You’re a romantic, Hardy. Forget about Davey Jones’ locker. Haven’t you heard of the shallow grave in Kuringai Chase?’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I wouldn’t call that method reliable.’
‘No? That’s interesting.’
‘Getting close,’ Rolf said.
We entered a bay that seemed to taper in to a stream that disappeared into darkness. Before we reached the mouth of the stream Rolf cut the motor and the boat drifted in the current.
‘Dinghy, Hardy,’ the boss said.
‘Jesus. Why don’t you just shoot me now and drop me over?’
‘Too easy. Come on.’
We stood at the stern and watched a rowboat approach us.
‘Williamson?’ The whisper came from the boat, only just audible over the plopping oars.
‘Yes. You’re taking two. Okay?’
‘ ‘kay. Here we are. Steady…’
Williamson swung his long legs over the side and lowered himself into the boat. I moved awkwardly and Rolf helped me roughly to do the same. I squatted in the boat; my shoulder was on fire and my eye throbbed and gave me stabs of pain at the smallest movement. It was hard to hold my head steady in the moving boat and I eventually used both hands to help me do it.
The boatman pulled hard against the last of a running tide and we moved steadily up the stream. It was wider in some spots than others; branches from the trees hung over the water and a couple of times Williamson told me to duck. I did so and groaned at the pain. After about ten minutes of rowing we ran ashore on a narrow, sandy beach. The boatman heaved the vessel far enough up to allow himself and Williamson to jump onto dry sand. I couldn’t jump.
‘Get your feet wet, Hardy,’ Williamson said. ‘It’s part of the treatment.’
I didn’t know what to make of that but I eased gingerly over the side and waded to land through a few inches of water.
‘What now?’ I said.
‘Short walk. You can wait here,’ he said to the boatman. ‘I can handle this.’ He produced a torch from his coat pocket and took out his gun almost as an afterthought. He was cool and confident which made everything feel very much worse. He pushed my damaged shoulder and I yelled.
‘Sorry. That way.’ He flashed the torch beam at the scrub. I could just see a break in it. My vision was good in the open eye but it’s hard to gauge distance and levels with only one eye. I stumbled a lot as I walked which hurt the eye and shoulder. My feet, sloshing about in wet shoes and socks, were cold. Once or twice Williamson jabbed me with his gun but he was a pro. He moved around from side to side and dropped back sometimes so that I never really knew where he was-not that I could have done anything about it anyway.
We came out of the scrub into a sandy hollow, like the space between two big sand dunes. The grass was thick over the area. Two men stood to one side, just out of the scrub. One held a hurricane lantern and I could see a rake and a broom on the ground beside him. I shivered and stopped. Williamson moved around and stood beside me. He extended the hand that held the torch. ‘I want you to look very carefully to where this is shining, Hardy. What do you see?’
I stared through the darkness trying to keep my restricted vision inside the area lit by the torch. The eye watered and I rubbed it. ‘Nothing,’ I said.
He moved the torch. ‘There. Can’t you see anything?’
I could. Just discernible were two long, narrow disturbances of the earth. The grass had partially grown over them but you could see the slight rise of the ground, like long lumps, the slight shadow.
‘What is it?’ I said.
I felt Williamson’s gun muzzle touch the back of my neck. It rested there lightly. It was cold and I could smell the faint tang of gun oil.
‘There lie Joe Agnew and Tania Bourke,’ Williamson said.