Bare Island is connected to the rest of Australia by a hundred yards of old wooden causeway over a rocky deep water channel. A wind off the ice cap was blowing in all directions at once and whipping up the spray from the water and blending it in with the drizzle when I drove down to the foreshore. I rummaged in the back of the car and found a yellow plastic slicker for me and an ancient, mouldering duffel coat which I gave to Penny. We coated up and ran to the police truck parked near the beginning of the causeway. Two cops were sitting in the truck and I pounded on the glass of the driver’s window as we flattened ourselves against the side trying to get some shelter. The window came down and the occupant swore as some rain whipped into his face.
“What the bloody hell do you want?”
I’d seen his face down at police headquarters on one of my not infrequent and ill-starred trips down there. I dug deep for the name that went with it.
“Evening Mr Courtenay,” I said. “Nice night?”
“Yeah great, who’re you?”
“Hardy, private enquiries, I’ve seen you down at Brisbane Street.”
“Yeah? Who do you know there?”
“Grant Evans.”
It wasn’t a bad name to throw around just then. Grant had recently got a promotion and men on the way up sometimes take others up with them. Courtenay wasn’t unimpressed, as the writers say. I thought I’d better move in on him quickly.
“This is Penny Sharkey,” I said, guessing. “She’s a relative of the dead boy.”
The other cop leaned across and looked out. “I can see that.”
“Shut up Balt,” Courtenay snapped.
I looked at Balt. The collar on his gabardine overcoat was turned up and some wisps of straw-coloured hair stuck out from under his hat. His head was long and his eyes were as pale as an arctic night. When the migrant rush from Europe got going after the war we called them all “Balts” wherever they came from, but this one looked like the genuine article.
“What’s your interest, Hardy?” Courtenay asked.
“I’m on a missing persons case – girl. She was last seen with Simmonds. I hear she was on the spot but isn’t around now. Thought I’d come and have a look here and ask you about the girl.”
“Did you now?” Balt rasped. “What about her?” He jerked a thumb at Penny. His hostility was undisguised and probably stemmed from trouble he’d had himself as a migrant. Race prejudice has a pecking order and the Aborigines get no-one to peck. Balt seemed to be the wrong man on the wrong job, or perhaps the cops thought he was just right for it.
“I thought she might be able to help,” I said mildly. “She saw Simmonds this afternoon, might spot something important now.”
It was lame, I knew it, Courtenay knew it, Bait didn’t even listen.
“Who’s your client?” he rapped out. “Who’re you looking for?”
“Ease up, Balt,” Courtenay soothed him. He looked down at the girl who was huddled inside the duffel coat. The talk had washed over her like a wave of nothing. The water drops in her hair glistened in the light from the inside of the truck. She looked stoical and immovable, able to outlast us all.
“I heard he was on the rocks. Still there?”
Courtenay nodded. “Down on the rocks outside the wall. The place is a fort. You know it?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s a fort like I say, with these high walls around it. Built to light off the Japs.”
“Russians,” Penny said suddenly.
“Alright, Russians. Anyway Simmonds was shot somewhere up on the island and fell down to the rocks. Ended up in a sitting position. He’s still there. We need some pictures.”
“Who found him?”
“Girl. She called us, went around to the house. Then she shot through. She your misser?”
“Yes. Can we take a look out there?”
“If you like. He’s not pretty. No face to speak of.”
Penny turned away, her nails scratched the smooth surface of the truck as she reached out for support. I moved closer and put my arm around her. Balt’s sneer was a hiss of stinking gas in the dark.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Who’s out there?” I asked Courtenay.
“Foster, forensic guy, photographer, stretcher boys on the way. Tell Foster I OK’d you.”
“Right.” We crouched ready to move off into the rain which seemed to be easing a little.
“You might remember the co-operation when you see Evans,” Courtenay muttered, trying to keep the sound from travelling to Bait.
Penny sprinted off into the drizzle. We dodged the posts that prevented vehicles driving onto the causeway and started across. The visibility was poor and we had to watch our footing; the wooden handrail and the planking were twisted as though the island had tried to wrench itself free of the continent. There was an oasis of light down under where the causeway ended at a gate that stood up like a stand of spears. We struggled down some steps to where two men stood in stiff formation near a dark shape on the ground. A roughly rigged-up floodlight on a six foot high stand threw shadows around and caught flecks of spray and drizzle in the air. One of the men was wearing a white boiler suit and heavy rubber gloves, the other was fiddling with one of the cameras slung around his neck. The dark crumpled heap against the pitted cement wall looked like something that had been screwed up and thrown away. One of his legs stuck straight out and the other was tucked up under him at a crazy angle. His face was a sagging collapsed hole. He was wearing a light khaki jacket and denims. The left side of the jacket was an oozing dark stain. Penny looked down at him, a shiver ran through her and I could feel her trembling across the distance between us. Then she turned away and leaned her back against the wall. She stared ahead of her, across the water to La Perouse and beyond.
“How do you read it?” I asked Foster.
He pointed up. “He got it up there and fell down. Got the head shot I mean.”
“And then?”
“Can’t be sure, but I think he was propped up and shot in the chest.”
“To finish him off?”
He shrugged. “Could be.”
“When was this?”
“Sometime this afternoon. Look, who’re you?” I’d wondered when In was going to ask. I told him that Courtenay had given me the nod. Hi looked happier, as if he’d done his duty as a policeman. The cameraman suddenly let off a flash. We all jumped.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
I asked Foster what was on the body and he told me “nothing remarkable”. I bent down to get a closer look at the corpse. The belt was fastened about two holes too loose and one of the laces on the canvas sneakers was untied. This could have been the result of the body being searched and I was going to ask Foster about it when the stretcher bearers arrived. They came down the steps and we all stood aside. They lifted the body onto the stretcher, covered it with a dark blanket and secured the load with broad straps. The procedure finished off the process of the elimination of a person that had begun with the first shotgun shell.
The drizzle had stopped. We watched the men in their pale blue uniforms carry the stretcher up the steps and back along the causeway. On the bridge, with the long, flat burden between them, they looked like a strange monster, low backed, with a high, pale rump and head.
The cameraman assembled his gear and unhinged the stand. I thanked Foster for his co-operation then the girl and I started back to the land – where this had all started and where the reasons for it lay. Her high-heeled boots thudded on the wooden planking and I glanced down at them; they gave her an extra three inches; without them she would only have been medium tall. Lost in the duffel coat, she looked small and young, and I wondered about what having your dream man shot to death when you were seventeen did to you. It couldn’t be good.
Courtenay and Balt and the ambulance had gone. The car for the photographer and forensic man was parked a little further on and it made me think of Ricky’s Biscayne, the car you couldn’t miss. Where it was and how it had got there would be important. I’d have to get Grant Evans’ help on that. We got back into my car and she huddled in the corner again.
“Home?”
She snorted. “If you can call it that.”
“They your parents?”
“No.”
“Is your name Sharkey?”
“Is now.”
I started the car and drove back through the wet, empty streets. The pubs were still open, letting out a fitful light and a trickle of people. I pulled up in front of the house. The girl shrugged out of the duffel coat and folded it before putting it on the back seat. She opened the door.
“Just a minute,” I said. “You can help me.”
She raised her eyebrows, theatrically bored and sceptical.
“How?”
“What did Ricky and Noni talk about down here, what did they do?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“You want Ricky’s killer caught.”
“I know who killed him.”
“The girl, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I doubt it.”
“You would. What would you do if it turned out to be true?”
“I’d let it be that way.”
She sneered. “Why?”
I was getting tired of the conversation and let some impatience come into my voice. “I’m not a crusader and I’ve cooked the books in my time, but I let the facts alone unless there’s very good reason not to. I can’t think of any reason to do differently in this case.”
She turned her head and studied me through the gloom. The inside of the car smelled damp and old; it didn’t reek of high-priced corruption or the sweet smell of success.
“All right Mr Cliff Hardy,” she said slowly. “Maybe you’re telling the truth. I can’t tell you much anyway. All I know is that Ricky’s father was a crim and he dropped out of sight about twelve years ago. No-one knows what happened to him. For the last couple of years Ricky has been driving people mad around here with questions about his father. I don’t know what he’s found out.” She let the sentence hang there.
“That’s interesting, but not much help. There’s something else you can tell me?”
“Yes. It’s just a feeling. I went around with Ricky a bit and saw him talking to people. I got the feeling he wasn’t only interested in his father. He seemed to be almost looking for someone else as well.”
“Can you make it clearer?”
“Not really, it was just a feeling. He seemed to stare at people, men, who couldn’t have known his father because they were too young. Men his own age, you know?”
I nodded and stored the information away. It could mean something but I felt tired, my head hurt and I remembered that I hadn’t had a drink for too many hours.
“Thanks, I’ll think about it. Tell me about the girl.”
“Noni?”
“Yes. What’s she like?”
She clenched her hands in her lap to stop them from flying about like angry birds. When she spoke her voice was full of malice with a note of fear. Maybe she believed Noni had actually killed the boy.
“She’s a blonde, thin, a bitch and a bloodsucker. She acts freaked-out, you know? But she’s really ice-cool. Know what we call her down here?”
I shook my head.
“White meat,” she hissed. She opened the door and started to get out of the car.
“See you Penny,” I said.
“Not here you won’t.”
She slammed the door and moved off. I watched her go through the collapsed gate and up the overgrown path. She was an elegant parcel of brains, bone and muscle wrapped up in hate. Seventeen. I drove away.