Blindside

by J. R. Carroll

  He dried off,put on his top and the shades,draped the towel over his head and shoulders and began the mandatory long walk along the shore, all the way to the next point. Ahead of him extended a long, unbroken crescent of white sand. In 1979 he had regularly made this journey following a morning session of bodysurfing. Back then, however, he hadn’t been alone.

  One of his companions on that trip—his main man—was Vincent O’Connell.

  The other guy was Derek Whyteford, who went to university that year to study engineering. The last Shaun heard about Derek, he was an ace in his field, building roads in China or Russia or somewhere far away.

  The three of them walked this stretch of beach every day while they were here. It became a ritual. En route they usually covered a range of topics, such as what they intended to do with their lives, post-school.

  At that time Derek was in two minds: he had applied for both science and engineering, and would wait and see. Shaun and Vincent were set on the police force. It was something they’d discussed on and off ever since a recruiting officer had visited the school. Even now he had a crystal-clear recollection of Vincent asking him as they walked along in the face of a scorching wind why, above all, he wanted to be a cop. Shaun had simply answered,‘To catch bad guys.’ Vincent had thought about it and said,‘Yeah. What could be better than that?’

  What indeed? How the wheel had turned.

  His thoughts switched to the encounter with Leon Turner. Not a lot had come out of the exchange, but it wasn’t a dead loss. I heard you got out, Turner had stated at the outset. It meant someone had told him. Someone who thought it was important enough to pass the information down the line. Shaun’s release certainly would not have rated a mention on regional New South Wales TV, or in the local press. He would not have been the subject of chatter among the members of the Nambucca Heads RSL.

  So Turner was still in touch with his old cronies. Still, that was hardly a hanging offence. It could mean something, or nothing.

  More interestingly, he gave every sign of being in denial when the matter of a missing cop was mentioned.It’s a dangerous job. I have no idea. People disappear all the time. None of this rang true. They were weasel words. A seasoned CI detective with a small army of underworld contacts would certainly have a theory, even if he didn’t want to share it with a visitor from the past who brought too many uncomfortable memories—and questions—with him. His off-hand manner was completely insincere. And why become so overheated? Wouldn’t an honest cop want to know what happened to Vincent?

  But all Turner did was deny and threaten, even before Shaun had accused him of complicity in Vincent’s murder. And his claim not to remember the pub meeting with Salisbury and Vincent was pure bullshit. Men like Leon Turner never forgot a fucking thing in their entire lives. It was what made them so good at their jobs.

  More telling, perhaps, was the way he appeared to lose his bottle in the last few minutes. A common interrogative technique used by detectives is to hit a suspect with a barrage of accusations to see what he comes out with under pressure. Sometimes he will incriminate himself inadvertently, after which it’s too late to retract. That’s when good detectives move in for the kill. So it was with Turner.

  His whole demeanour changed when Shaun accused him of arranging Vincent’s execution. And the mere mention of Bill Simmonds’ name visibly compounded his discomfort. Straightaway he lost all that bluster, and the colour drained from his face. In the end he turned away as if . . . as if he were admitting defeat, but couldn’t face it, couldn’t bear up under the weight. His strength had deserted him. Or was Shaun reading too much into the man’s reactions? He was getting old, after all, and age takes its toll. All the same, Shaun’s last vision of Turner was that of a man who was spitting blood and not travelling at all well.

  None of this brought the closure he was after, but the mere fact that he’d put himself in Turner’s face was a step in the right direction. Shaun had learned the virtues of patience and persistence in prison,and these were now his main assets. He had not expected a signed confession or anything like it,but the seed was planted. He was now inside Turner’s head, whether the old bastard liked it or not. Now Shaun would do what cops the world over do when they’ve zeroed in on a hot suspect: embark on a program of sustained harassment. Turn up unexpectedly everywhere. Repeat the accusations again and again; embarrass him in front of his friends and make him see he was never, ever getting any respite. Rattle his cage; watch him blow his cool. Put him under extreme stress. Pour on the pressure. Drive him nuts. Hound him into his grave if it came to that.

  He saw that his fist was clenched tight. Easy. Not yet.

  Shaun hadn’t planned that parting speech about doing something on behalf of your friend when the system failed to deliver. The words had just come out. But now that he thought about it, he could not have said anything more compelling if he’d tried. On his way up to the veranda Turner had stopped mid-stride and copped those words in his back as if they were hammer blows. Then, without turning around, he trudged on with an old man’s gait. The message had been sent and received. It had also served to stiffen Shaun’s own resolve, if that was ever in question.

  Leon Turner could stew for the present. Right now, more than anything, Shaun lusted after a cold beer. He picked up a six-pack of Hahn Ice at a drive-through liquor store and steered the Falcon back towards the motel, but couldn’t wait that long and cracked the first marine in transit. All that exertion plus the heat on the beach had given him an unquenchable thirst. Sitting in the car outside his room he tipped up the bottle and emptied the contents down his throat. Now he needed a decent shower to wash off all the salt and sand that had crusted on his skin and hair. In the rear-view mirror he saw that his face was sunburned, which gave him a strange, almost unrecognisable appearance. For many years now he was used to seeing the sun-starved pallor that comes with long-term incarceration every morning in the mirror when he shaved. But the guy in this mirror was a stranger.

  After showering he put on some fresh clothes—a new white tee shirt and cargo shorts—pulled another Hahn from the refrigerator and started on it. It was hot in the room, so he switched on the air conditioner before stretching out on the bed with the bottle sitting on his stomach. He was stinging everywhere now from sunburn. It didn’t matter; it made him feel alive, different, and free. Inevitably his mind reverted to Jo. Joanna Steer—she, more than anything, made him feel alive.

  He was sure he loved her as deeply as he could possibly love anyone. The connection he felt to her came from his vitals, right in the hot core of his guts. Now as she filled his thoughts it all started churning around and his heartbeat automatically powered up a couple of decent-sized ratchets. He picked up the phone and dialled her number. When she answered after one ring he closed his eyes and smiled. From the quick pick-up and the soft burr of her voice he judged that she knew who was on the line, and had been waiting for the call.

  ‘I’m missing you,’ he said quietly, without introduction.

  ‘Tell me all about it.’ There came the sloshing sound of a drink with ice in it.

  He did so. In between times there were periods of expectant silence in which there was only the sound of her breathing. Her lips could not have been closer to the handset.

  In a while she said, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Sitting in my room, staring at the walls. You?’

  ‘Well, I’m actually trying to prepare some material for next semester. But I can’t seem to concentrate, for some reason. Did you see that guy, Leon Turner?’

  ‘Yeah, I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t too thrilled. Didn’t exactly throw himself on the ground and beg for mercy.’

  ‘You didn’t expect him to, did you?’

  ‘No. Anyway, he knows the score. I won’t let up on him.’

  There was the sound of a sloshing glass. ‘Don’t let up on me either, will you?’

  That gave him a shiver.

&
nbsp; ‘I haven’t even started on you yet, evil one.’

  ‘Can’t wait till you do.’ More breathing and sloshing sounds followed. So it went for a few more minutes, until he reluctantly said goodbye. He waited with the phone to his ear until she disconnected first, then gently replaced the handset with Joanna still very much in his mind.

  To distract himself he decided to switch on the TV, but there didn’t seem to be a remote anywhere. He searched the room thoroughly without success.

  No remote.

  He picked up the phone again and told the manager, who said people often stole remotes for some weird reason, and that he would bring one to the room soon.

  Shaun opened the refrigerator and extricated another Hahn from the plastic wrapping. There were three left.

  That was fine. In a little bit he would wander into town for something to eat, maybe check out the pubs to see if the counter meals were as good as he remembered them. Drive out of town and down a couple of cold ones at The Pub With No Beer.

  He sat on the edge of the bed sipping beer. There came a rap at the door. He put down the Hahn before opening up. But the motel manager wasn’t standing in front of him.

  Leon Turner was.

  18

  Shaun was so stunned it took him a moment to realise who it was. This was partly because Turner was wearing a white terry-cloth hat that obscured his eyes. Shaun gave him the once-over to see if he was carrying. There was an uncomfortably silent gap of several seconds during which neither man seemed to know what to say. Finally it was Turner who coughed up.

  ‘You said you were staying here,’ he said.

  ‘Uh, yeah—do you want to come in?’

  ‘No—I prefer to be outside. Can’t stand air conditioning.’

  Shaun said,‘Hold on,’ grabbed his room key and came out, shutting the door.

  ‘Want to head for the beach?’ Turner said after they’d already started striding out in that direction, down the hill.

  ‘Sure.’

  They walked along. Various thoughts swirled in Shaun’s brain as cicadas hummed in the dry soil. At this time, early evening, the air was soft and warm, with a pleasant sea breeze coming off the Pacific.

  ‘How did you find me here?’ Turner said, looking down at his feet as he walked.

  ‘I still have one or two friends in the job,’ he said.

  ‘That surprises me. After all this time.’

  ‘Well, when I say friends, I don’t expect to be invited to any dinner parties.’

  Turner’s face cracked into a humourless grin. ‘I don’t get invited to too many myself, comes to that.’

  Soon they made their way past a front lawn with a sprinkler that sent out a shower onto the pavement, then turned down a narrow, dusty trail to the sea. At the end of it there was an old Moreton Bay fig tree with a root system that twisted around itself above the sandy ground like anacondas having sex. To one side, under its shade, was a wooden bench on which Turner sat. Shaun, still standing, looked out at the water and waited for Turner to say whatever was on his mind.

  ‘Pretty cool bastard, aren’t you?’ Turner said.

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Sure you are, fronting me like that. Soon as I clapped eyes on you at the club I knew who you were—and why you’d come. Man on a fucking mission, I said to myself. You haven’t changed at all, except now you’ve got that yard stare, and the hunted fugitive look about you. You guys, you’re always on the run. There’s no escaping that. Why don’t you siddown, McCreadie? No-one’s gonna come up behind you and stick a shiv in your kidneys.’

  ‘I sincerely hope not,’ Shaun said, not quite managing to smile. He sat on the other end of the bench, leaving plenty of space in the middle.

  ‘I’ve lived here six years now,’ Turner said. ‘And I’ll die here. That’s no comfort, by the way, knowing where you’re gonna curl up your toes. Or when. But it’s a far cry from chasing shitbags down south for a living.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘We’ve got a yacht, up at Proserpine on the Barrier Reef,’ Turner said, scanning the sea as if he expected her to sail into view any second.‘She’s a sloop—real humdinger of a craft. Built in the USA and brought over here by one of those playboy millionaires with bikini-clad blonde bimbos all over him. I’ve never been a sailor in the past, but this baby won me over. We don’t actually own her, we have a share that entitles us to two weeks a year. Tell you one thing, that’s two weeks I look forward to for the whole other fifty. It’s unbelievably beautiful up there. We just sail around, pop a cold can anytime, drop the anchor and jump in for a swim when it gets too hot, spear fish and barbecue the sweetest coral trout you ever tasted on deck, under the stars . . . It’s fucking paradise, no two ways about it. If heaven exists, that’s where it is.’

  ‘Sounds all right,’ Shaun said. He’d decided to say as little as possible and let Turner rabbit on. Sooner or later he might get to the point.

  ‘Man of few words,’ Turner said.‘That’s right—Shaun the Silent, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Been a long time since anyone called me that.’

  Turner fixed him with his battleship grey eyes. Although his face and arms were deeply suntanned, it was a dry, leathery brown that was creased and splotched with darker spots that stood out in contradistinction. Skin sagged at his throat, and he was much thinner than Shaun remembered from the old days. He could see the bones in his upper chest, where his shirt was opened. There was definitely something wrong with him.

  ‘Prostate cancer,’ Turner said. ‘Had it diagnosed . . . five weeks ago now. If they get it early they can cure you, but mine is too far advanced. It’s now at the aggressive stage. It’s coming after me with a vengeance. It wants me, it’s eating me up— and it’ll do the job in two, three months, unless I blow my fuckin’ brains out first. Last thing a man wants is to go out in a fuckin’ coma, drip-fed and dosed up to the eyeballs with painkillers.’

  ‘Well . . . I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Turner.’And, unexpectedly, he was—just a little.

  ‘Are you? That’s not the impression I had back at the house. What was it you said? Ah, never mind. You know, the cruel part about it is that it’s so fucking easy to nip the bastard in the bud. That’s what shits me to tears. You only have to get yourself tested once a year or so. But of course, men of my generation don’t do that. We’re invincible. I’ve always been fit and as strong as a bull, never had a day off in my life, so why should anything happen to me? Anyhow, it’s unbecoming to have someone shove a fist up your rear end, even if it does save your life. Shit. A man must be fucking mad.’

  Shaun was silent.

  Turner studied his feet and said,‘So, that’s that. It’s all over rover. I’ll never see Proserpine again. I decided not to bother with chemotherapy. Don’t see why I should put myself through all that shit and misery, and still pop off at the end of it. No point.’

  ‘I guess not,’ Shaun said.

  ‘Dunno how the wife’s going to manage on her own. She wouldn’t have the foggiest about dealing with lawyers or insurance companies, or the goddamn tax department, or any of that bureaucratic go-round. It’s all beyond her. Christ. She can’t even write a fucking cheque, or use an automatic teller machine. I’ve always managed everything right from the day we were married. Every ship has only one captain, right?’ He gave a wry little laugh. ‘Well, maybe I should’ve delegated a bit more. But I wasn’t any good at that either. I had to run the whole fucking show. It’s in the nature of the beast.’ He shot Shaun a sideways glance and said,‘Sorry to bore you with all this personal shit.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Shaun said.

  ‘No, I guess it doesn’t any more.’

  ‘Is that why you decided to come and see me?’ Shaun said, trying to point him in a new direction.

  Turner’s face split into a smile. ‘Confession time? Maybe there’s a bit of that in it. I’m no Christian, don’t believe in God or any of that architect of the universe, Masonic mumbo-jumbo, even though I�
�m a member, but I do believe this: what goes around, comes around. At the end of the day we all get what’s coming to us. And it’s got nothing to with divine judgement. It’s just the way it is.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that,’ Shaun said, since Turner’s words accorded precisely with his own beliefs. A lot of inmates found God while they were serving time, but they were nearly always lost individuals whose past lives had been a spiritual wasteland, devoted to greed, violence and drug abuse. They were empty vessels ready to be filled with something—anything—to give their lives a purpose. This was known as the ‘born-again syndrome’. But having been brought up in a religious system, Shaun was immune to its seductive appeal. With each day that passed he believed less and less in a higher power. The crunch came when he watched the Twin Towers come down on TV in the Barwon common room. His reaction was: If there is a God in charge of this fucked-up world he’s doing a pretty ordinary job at it. He knew what the Marx Brothers would reply to that, but then they were not about to repudiate the reason for their very existence.

  ‘So, I cop this killer disease, you turn up, and you bring Bill Simmonds into it: past, present and future. Maybe it’s all connected somehow. At any rate it gives me the chance to spit out some stuff. What’d you say back there? I was holding too many secrets, and they’d find a way out. Maybe so. Maybe this is my last chance. They say if you bottle things up it can give you cancer, and if that’s true I’ve already been punished for my . . . uh, transgressions. But Bill Simmonds brings back a lot of memories, I have to say.’

  ‘Did he tell you I was out of jail?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. And don’t ask me who did, because I’m not saying. I haven’t seen or heard from Bill in years. Is he still a cop?’