by T. J. Beach
“Great. I can always use a willing victim. Do you have any experience with that sort of thing?”
“Only cubs.”
Dave gave him an old-fashioned look.
“When I was a kid. As a participant. Dob, dob, dob and all that shi … stuff.” He grimaced. Children present.
“That’s not a problem. What we do is common sense. I will need you to get your Working—”
Hollins gave a scout’s three-finger salute. “Done. The lady on the desk has the card now.”
“Great. You don’t need to bring anything but community spirit. If you have some skills to pass on to the boys, it’s a bonus.”
Hollins could teach them half a dozen different ways to kill, concealment in enemy territory, how to build IEDs. The boys would love it. Their parents might not. Quite apart from the fact that he had no plans to reveal that side to anyone in Bell’s Landing, let alone Dave McManus.
He should be getting creepy vibes in a situation right out of the rock spider playbook but there were none. He could have got it wrong, misread the signs, got carried away, but he played his carefully considered trump card, just in case. “I like to take photographs. I can bring my camera.”
A glint in Dave’s eye. A momentary lift of the eyebrows.
A millisecond later, Hollins wasn’t sure that he’d seen it, but an icy shaft sliced into his gut anyway. The cheerful, selfless teacher was a mask. Dave McManus was a predator.
Hollins collected his Working With Children card.
“All okay?” the lady asked. “You look worried.”
He forced a smile. “James is better. He’ll have quite a bruise.”
The administrator’s gaze shifted to Dave walking the boy back to his coach.
Hollins took the opportunity to escape and headed back to Station Two.
Debbie cut him off. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I’m in.”
“Nothing?”
“We put cold towels on the boy’s arm. It was totally innocent.” Except for that look. It would haunt him.
“No, it wasn’t. I can see it in your eyes. What happened?”
“I told him I liked to take photographs, and I think I saw into his soul. He covered it up immediately. He’s damn good at hiding it, but he’s a pedophile. I’m sure.”
Debbie’s lips set in a grim line. Her eyes strayed to the clubhouse. “He takes the boys into the change room for his little chats. If only I could put some cameras in there, too.”
“Too?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it after. Matt needs you.”
Over at Station Two, Matt had his hands and legs apart, mouth open, stricken, like a kangaroo in the headlights of an oncoming semi-trailer while the boys and Joanne ran in all directions waving their bats.
Austin’s big return drew a crowd that filled every available parking space in front of APP campaign headquarters and spilled into the road.
Hollins edged his ute through, careful not to run down a granny crabbing for a view of a real live actor whose lover had been murdered at his side not ten days before. He took one of the last remaining spots in the vast Bunnings Warehouse car park two blocks away, as busy as a holiday weekend except the staff were standing in the entrance, arms crossed, watching the crowds because no one was inside buying hammers.
Hollins hovered on the fringe of the crowd with his hands in his pockets and his cap pulled down low, as if the campaign would care that he turned up.
The rubberneckers brought flowers, cards and soft toys — not a protest sign or disapproving glare in sight. Their excited chatter nauseated him.
“Will he have a new girlfriend?”
“Will the news send a helicopter?”
“What if they have another shot at him?”
Hollins wanted to yell ‘bang’ to see what happened. He figured half would run for their lives. The other half would charge the office for a closer view of the blood. Neither faction would have any qualms about trampling pensioners, puppies and babies in the stampede.
His feelings of superiority lasted five minutes or so until he realised he was no better than the mums and bums drawn to the spectacle like criminals returning to the scene of the crime.
Speaking of questionable activities, the front walls of campaign headquarters had been re-painted a sickly pastel green which smothered any reminders of the false graffiti. Vote Gould blared anew from the windows. Nothing to see here, certainly not truth.
Why did he come? Apart from the fact that Tommy would put him to work around the caravan park if he stayed home. Debbie would have a word or two to say about that if she knew. Another lecture on pissing his life away watching daytime telly, napping and drinking lager. Completely unfair. He hardly watched any TV since he’d got into the true crime podcasts on Spotify.
A police car swung into view, bar lights flashing, a Mercedes people-mover with dark windows right on its tail. Television camera operators at the campaign office doors handed their takeaway cups to the reporters, scooped their weapons onto their shoulders and jockeyed for best positions focused on the black car. Men spewed onto the footpath from the side doors of the Mercedes, four of them, in suits with earpieces and neck microphones. Fit guys who moved with the graceful certainty and clear-eyed confidence in their physical dominance that came from being tested. They hadn’t pumped weights for useless bulk, either. They weren’t big. Their suits didn’t strain across their chests or stretch at the shoulders, but the tailored jackets and ties only emphasised feral wariness. Their neat hair cuts screamed military.
The nearest spectators jumped back without being asked.
The protection detail angled their bodies to let the media through.
A grey-haired variation of the hardmen stood in the rear door of the Mercedes, took in the crowd like a meerkat in a sci-fi action movie, then led Austin Gould into the light.
The star smiled bravely and raised both palms in a vain attempt to quell the roar of applause. He paused to let the reporters fire questions, tossing wistful glances into the smiling faces around him.
When Austin shook his head to end the interview, the media backed away. Apparently, it took nationally televised grief to get a modicum of respect from the hyenas.
The chief hardman slipped his hand under the candidate’s elbow and drew him towards the office, but Austin politely demurred and turned to his supporters. They swarmed around the bodyguards, who extricated themselves with professional dexterity and formed a loose alert perimeter.
A female shoulder bumped Hollins. “Sorry.” He moved to make space.
“Those blokes look like they know what’s what,” Debbie said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I saw on the news that Austin would be back, so I thought I’d drop by and leave a hard-copy invoice, seeing as they haven’t responded to the one I emailed.”
“Bollocks. You wanted a sneaky butcher’s at Austin just like all this lot.” He pretended to look over her shoulder. “You’ve got a bunch of flowers back there, haven’t you? And a photo of Sophia he can sign.”
“Says the pot!”
“All right. Kettle.” Hollins straightened his collar. “Those are his new security people.”
“M&M.”
Hollins gave her a look.
“Word on the grapevine is that they’ve hired M&M Protective Services, the best Australian dollars can buy.”
Hollins nodded. No argument from him. He had no plans to kick sand in their faces.
“Chocolate soldiers,” she said. “Weird that they named themselves after little round lollies.”
“It’s more likely Mars and Minerva,” Hollins said.
“Go on. You’re dying to tell me.”
“It’s an SAS thing. The badge of 21 SAS, the reserve unit, the name of the regiment magazine, their website. If these jokers are not special forces — every one of them — you can kiss my ass.”
“Yuck. No, thank you. Yvette at the cricket might be i
nterested.”
“Paul’s mum?”
“Yep.”
“Isn’t she married?”
“Don’t go there, Gary. I could never look you in the eye. Or her.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
Debbie nudged him with her elbow and nodded to Austin’s new security team. “That’s exactly how you look when you go all ‘you-even-blink-and-I’ll-tear-your-head-off’.”
“Total bollocks. I don’t even own a suit.”
Debbie snorted. “Whatever you say. Is that where you learned how to shoot a flea off a dog’s nose at fifty paces and scare the shit out of teenage rednecks? The SAS?”
Bugger her for being observant. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“You could try.”
“Hey, did all that green paint cover over your cameras?”
“Wouldn’t matter if they did. We’re charging them for the cameras anyway.”
“I reckon you took them down, and they’re in Dave’s spare bedroom.”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Which you’d do in a heartbeat. Are you going to deliver your invoice?”
“Wanna come with me? Get a stickybeak inside?”
“No.”
“Me either. I think I’ll leave it for later.”
“I’m only here because I was picking up something at Bunnings, and the staff were distracted by this circus.”
Debbie grunted. “Sure. You’re jealous of the chocolate soldiers. Admit it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HOLLINS’ PHONE RANG before he got his key in the ignition.
“Yep.” Deb must have forgotten something. No one else rang him.
“Gary? Is that you?”
A voice Hollins recognised immediately. “Austin?”
“Yes. How are you going?”
“Me? Fine. More to the point, how are you?”
A dry, sad chuckle. “I think you can guess. Glad to be back. Weirdly. It’s good to be doing something, and Glenn’s got me working from dawn to dusk, by the looks of it. I fear I’m just glad to be out of Victoria, you know, escaping. It got a bit depressing there. Soph’s poor parents …”
“Mmm. I can’t imagine.” Perhaps that was why Austin called him, to elicit sympathy. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I actually told you that. So sorry, it’s awful—”
“You never had the chance. Everything happened so fast. It’s understood. You don’t need to tell me how painful it is to talk about Sophia. So, we won’t. God help us. You were just starting to get to know her, but you were already our friend.”
Hollins held the phone away from his ear. Their friend? Did he hear that right? Another actor thing?
“Where are you, Gary?” Austin asked.
“Err, at Bunnings.”
“Oh. Oh, I thought you’d be in the office.”
Hollins couldn’t imagine why. “Glenn didn’t tell you?”
“He said you argued.”
Hollins remembered it more as Glenn unable to defend the accusation that he’d faked the vandalism, but each to their own.
“He wouldn’t say what it was about, but I don’t care. I want you back here. I need you. I need all my friends around me. It’s going to be hard, but I’m determined. We’re doing it for Soph. This campaign was her idea. She wanted us to make a difference.”
A trite sound bite. A self-justifying cliché from anyone else, but delivered by Austin Gould, a man who had time for every granny and waster who crossed his path, Hollins found it hard not to believe.
“We argued about the graffiti,” Hollins said.
“Really? Why?”
Hollins stared at his phone again. Had Glenn seriously not told Austin? He didn’t tell the candidate he hired fake vandals to stage an attack on the campaign? Austin would have to be blind not to have realised. Then again, Hollins had never met a more artless adult than Austin Gould. Or such a skilled actor, except maybe Sophia, they being the only professional actors who’d crossed his path. A key element of the D’Arcy Shawcross appeal was the character’s guileless acceptance of his parishioners’ faults. Did Austin Gould play himself in Warrior of God, or was he playing D’Arcy Shawcross in Bell’s Landing?
“We disagreed on campaign tactics,” Hollins said.
“Well, that is Glenn’s field. I’m putty in his hands.” He laughed.
Many a true word spoken in jest.
“You two can sort it out. Come back. Don’t make me beg.”
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Hollins couldn’t quite believe Austin could be truly cynical. He’d spent hours upon hours at Austin’s side, and the candidate had never slipped. Not once. On the other hand, under a miserable exterior, Glenn had the integrity of a seven-pound note. He would be quite capable of luring Hollins back into the fold to keep an eye on him, maybe to silence him or discredit anything he told the police.
Two could play at that game.
“Can the APP afford it, Austin? Those M&M guys don’t come cheap.”
“Tell me about it! They blow my mind. We had a few tough-guy roles in Warrior of God, but I wish we’d seen these guys back then. I had no idea how real-life hardasses carry themselves. Don’t they scare the crap out of you?”
Hollins didn’t know how to take that. Should he be insulted that he didn’t intimidate Austin like the new team or relieved that not everyone had made the same connection as Debbie?
“We can pay a dozen of them, actually,” Austin said. “Donations are pouring in. A legacy for Soph, I guess, and bloody handy, but sad what makes people open their wallets.”
Debbie swiped to Hollins’ call as she walked from her car to the Ridenour Investigations office. “What now? Do you want to apologise?”
“Why would I want to apologise?” he asked.
“For being you. Isn’t that enough? For fobbing me off when I try to offer you a decent job? For being rude to me — all the time.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t sound it. Try harder.”
“Okay. Sorry for stepping into the breach at the cricket. Sorry for helping out when you have to mind the kids.”
“Huh. That’s not enough.”
“Did you drop off that APP invoice?”
“No.” She still had it poked in her purse.
“Good. You’re going to have to add to it.”
“You thought of some new charges? Excellent!” Debbie would love to pad out the bill for the rotten cheats.
“I’m back on their payroll.”
Debbie baulked with her hand on the door handle.
“Hello? Still there?” Hollins asked.
“You’re going back to the Gould campaign?”
“Yep.”
“They took us for a ride. They tried to fake us out, to use us to legitimise their dirty tactics, and you want to work for them?”
“You’re really taking that to heart.”
“It’s the chocolate soldiers, isn’t it? You want to be one of them. You’re dying to be invited into their little club. Kim and I aren’t good enough for you.”
“I’m not so sure about Kim, to be honest. How about I get back inside the Austin Gould tent, watch developments from within and feed intelligence to the authorities?”
“Oooo. You’re going undercover. You’re so cool. Be still my heart. Except you’re not cool at all. How long do you think you’ll last without giving yourself away? Do you think Stu Reilly will thank you for sticking your nose in?”
“I think he’ll be delighted and offer his full support.”
“Bullshit!”
“Wanna bet?”
“Twenty bucks.”
“Is that all? How about your house and everything you own?”
“You’ve talked to Stu already, haven’t you?”
The gawkers had found something better to do by the time Hollins had changed into his business attire: shoes instead of flip flops, chinos instead of shorts, and a shirt that buttoned up
the front. It annoyed him that it gave him a sense of purpose.
An M&M special forces guy in a suit loitered by the door. He lifted the fingertip-sized microphone hanging at his neck to his lips and mumbled something as Hollins approached.
What tossers.
It set off Hollins the mouthy chav who slipped out of his cage when he got irritated. He stopped in front of the guard, stared straight into his mirror sunglasses, threw his arms wide and turned a full circle. “Okay? Or do you want to frisk me? I left my L119A in the car. Shall I go and get it?”
The chocolate man’s lips curled into a sneer.
He didn’t get the reference to a preferred SAS weapon. Maybe he’d never been in the army after all.
“Okay by you if I go through? Or do you have to call ahead? I’m Gary. Austin is expecting me.”
The guard stepped aside and motioned for Hollins to proceed.
The office hummed with activity. The blue rinse set had come out in force at the trestle tables doing whatever they did with flyers. Bozza from the Goon Squad loafed at the shop counter with his arms crossed, chuckling to himself.
“G’day. Making friends?” Hollins asked.
“Always. You?”
“I’m good. Are you on a break?” Hollins asked.
Bozza straightened. “What do you mean?”
“I thought you’d be with the protection detail given all your skills and experience.” Hollins jacked his thumb over his shoulder.
“I reckon Austin needs all the help he can get. If someone’s trying to kill the man, he must have upset them. Anyone who pisses off the loony lefties is all right by me. There are only two of the new guards anyway.” Bozza nodded to the chief chocolate man, who stood at ease by the candidate’s office.
Hollins held his gaze.
Bozza shrugged. “Anyway, I’m still on holiday from work.”
”Where’s the rest of the Goon Squad?”
Another shrug. “Working? Dunno. Hey, how do you know Chopper?”
Hollins paused. “Who says I do?”
“I saw you at the motocross, remember?”
“Is it a problem?” Clearly, Chopper hadn’t shared much, which suggested Bozza might not have been in on the graffiti deception. “How do you know Chopper?”