So that when another figure materialised out of the darkness of the club’s shadows, flew through the air and landed on Hollis’s back, bringing him face-down in a head-high tackle, Gemma threw herself on the downed man with a yell of triumph, kicking the Glock from his hand.
‘Get the kid away!’ a woman’s voice screamed close beside her. Whoever it was had shoved Hollis’s face into the sand and twisted his arm behind him in a wristlock.
Gemma dragged the Ratbag out from under the killer. She recognised the woman sitting on top of Hollis. It was Brenda, Robyn Warburton’s mother, intent on using all her strength to restrain Hollis who was squirming like a snake, getting purchase on the sand, trying to lift his body and throw her off.
Gemma crawled around, searching for the Glock, lost somewhere in the sand.
‘Help me, Hugo!’ she called and he started ducking down between the old dinghies, feeling around in the sand for the gun while Gemma ran back to help Brenda.
Roger Hollis was very strong. Even with the two of them, he was putting up a terrific fight. Gemma, still handicapped by the injuries he’d inflicted on her in the lane, and Brenda, although extremely strong for a woman, was no match for him. The three of them rolled towards the beached launch, kicking and struggling. Hollis was getting the better of them. He broke free from the armlock Brenda had applied with a vicious twisting punch. Brenda’s head jerked back and he jumped to his feet.
Then the world exploded. Gemma turned to see what had happened. To the sound of the echoing shot, blue-gold flames shot up near her, and she scrambled further away. What was happening? A wall of fire sprang up, obscuring the beached launch.
‘Hugo!’ she screamed. ‘Where are you?’
She stared in disbelief. Hugo, limping towards her, was silhouetted against the flames, the Glock held out in both hands. Hollis had regained his feet but Brenda, hurling herself onto him again, blocked him. Again, he punched her aside and jumped into the sea on a running dive.
‘He’s getting away!’ Brenda screamed.
But Gemma’s attention was no longer on him. She realised what had happened. The 9 mm bullet the Ratbag had intended for Hollis had instead struck the fuel-tank of the large launch, its sparks igniting a river of flame that ran from the freshwater channel and into the surf, while along the shoreline, the fuel that had been leaking for days blazed into fire.
‘God, Hugo,’ Gemma said, ‘give me that!’
By the light of flames, Gemma saw his strained, unhappy face. She turned to see Brenda who was leaning against the cement wall near the surf club, head down.
‘Brenda, are you all right?’ she called.
Brenda lifted her head. ‘My nose is bleeding,’ she said. ‘And the bastard got away.’
‘I meant to get him,’ said the Ratbag.
‘Come here,’ Gemma said, taking the Glock from him, tucking it away and putting her arms around the boy. ‘You were fantastic,’ she said. ‘You saved the day, Hugo. You and Brenda.’ The pain in her side seared.
‘How come the water is on fire?’ he asked, sheepish about the hugging.
Gemma let him go and the two of them strained to see Hollis. It wasn’t possible past the glare of the flames, now burning down.
‘Hell,’ Gemma said. ‘The whole launch is going to go up. Quick.’
She grabbed the Ratbag’s hand and dragged him over to where Brenda was now sitting on the rocks near the cement wall. As Gemma approached, she saw a sports jacket lying in the sand. She picked it up and saw that it had been slashed to ribbons. That’s all they’ll need at the Analytical Laboratory, Gemma thought. That and the DNA on it.
‘He’s out there now,’ Brenda said, pointing towards the gap in the wall of fire. Gemma looked out in amazement. The Phoenix Bay rip had drawn the fire into itself, and as the wall of flame died down along the shoreline, a brilliant curve of fire, twice as long as the beach itself, followed the semi-circular current as it ran out to sea.
‘Look!’ she said to the others. ‘The rip is on fire!’
She thought she could just make out Hollis’s dark head, speeding out to sea, carried further and further away as they watched. To avoid the spurting fire, Hollis had swum into the clutches of the rip. The three of them stood mesmerised.
Gemma limped over to Brenda, her arm still around Hugo. ‘Thanks, Brenda,’ she said. ‘You and Hugo saved my life.’
Brenda took a handkerchief away from her bloody nose, and shook her hair off her tanned face.
‘I told you,’ she said. ‘I’d do anything to get him. I knew he’d come after you again because he couldn’t bear the idea you’d got away. I just stayed close to you. I used to live around here,’ she added, looking around at the few houses above the road. ‘I’ve still got friends here.’
The big launch exploded in a shower of flaming debris. They could feel the heat of it even here, at the other end of the beach, Gemma’s little boatshed silhouetted against the roaring blaze.
Now, they could hear the sound of sirens. The two women and the boy walked up to meet them.
Twenty-two
Next morning, Gemma woke the Ratbag with a cup of hot chocolate. Now they sat at the big dining room table looking out at the sea, rugged up against the early cold, the smell of dead fire heavy in the air. A light sou’westerly chopped the sea in low running diagonal ridges. She wondered if Roger Hollis’s body would ever be found, washed up somewhere on the coast.
She examined her injured side in the mirror in her bedroom. The bruising was fading, losing its edges. She searched for another warmer top and as she was about to close the drawer, the gleam of gold caught her eye. It was the Scorpio charm. She picked it up and looked more closely at it. It seemed even uglier now, a gaudy lump of gold. The phone rang and Gemma answered it, still holding the charm. After a brief conversation she turned to the Ratbag who was sitting up on the lounge, slurping his drink.
‘Hugo,’ she said. ‘My friend Angie has contacted your father and he’s going to pick you up this morning.’
The boy looked frantic.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘I’ve explained everything to Angie and she’s already told your father what happened. I’m going to recommend you for a bravery award.’
‘Me?’ he said, blinking.
‘You,’ she said. ‘You made all the difference last night. How about pizza for breakfast?’ She rang and ordered one.
He was resigned to going back to Melbourne, Gemma knew. Although he wasn’t doing handstands about it. She made herself coffee and by the time it was ready, the pizza arrived. Gemma took a wedge out for herself and handed the Ratbag the rest of it. They went back to the dining table and Taxi perched like a vulture on the sideboard, hopeful of a taste.
‘I want you to know, Hugo, that you can come up and spend holidays here with me. I’d like to have a friend like you. We could go to the pictures, maybe do some rock climbing. You could ask those friends of yours over, the ones you liked at school here.’
He nodded over a mouthful, looking cheerier.
‘Look, Hugo,’ she said, ‘it won’t be long before you’ll be leaving school. Who knows, you might even get a job with me.’ If I’m ever back in business again, she thought.
His eyes widened. ‘That would be heaps cool.’
Her phone rang again and she picked it up. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m allowed out tomorrow afternoon. I said you’d pick me up. Will you?’
‘Steve,’ she said with all her heart, ‘I will always pick you up.’
She cleared away and tidied the kitchen. I nearly died last night, she thought. An immense gratitude filled her heart. Okay, she admitted to herself. I’ve got a few business problems. But I’m alive and Steve’s coming home.
While Hugo sat swivelling on a chair in her office, she pulled the bi
lls off the spike and smoothed them out. It was time to face the music. She started calculating her expenses and her financial position didn’t look promising.
‘What about the singing man,’ the Ratbag said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘What if he comes back?’ He touched his throat where she’d put a strip of plaster over the cut from Hollis’s knife.
‘I doubt if the singing man will come back again,’ she said. ‘There’ll be a search for a while. Maybe he’ll wash up somewhere.’
‘Why would people look for a man like him?’ asked the boy.
Gemma put a few cheques in an envelope to be banked. It was a good question.
‘Because,’ she said, ‘he’s a human being no matter what he’s done. And some of us believe that human beings are valuable, even if he doesn’t think so.’
She was folding the cheque Minkie Montreau had given her to tuck into the banking envelope, when she noticed something. She looked closer.
‘Holy shit!’ she said.
‘What?’ said the Ratbag, delighted at her language.
She stared at the cheque. I was so preoccupied with everything, she realised, that I didn’t notice the placement of the comma! A grateful Minkie Montreau had written a cheque for $100,000. Her heart lifted with more gratitude and relief. It was only a trifle for someone who’d be as rich as she was now, Gemma thought, but very few people would act with such generosity. Now she had plenty: enough to go away with Steve for a while. Enough to establish a new company name and, with a bit of luck, enough to put Mike and Spinner back on the payroll again. I’ll call the business Phoenix, she thought, after the street I live in and the bird who rises out of the ashes. Maybe there would even be enough for a trip to Delos with Kit to look at those lions and the sacred lake.
‘What’s that gold thing?’ The Ratbag pointed to the chained scorpion, now lying on the table near the window.
‘It’s a zodiac charm,’ she said.
‘Do you believe in that?’
Gemma shook her head. ‘I’m going to take it down to the beach and chuck it into the ocean,’ she said.
‘Maybe a fish will swallow it and someone on the other side of the world will catch the fish and find it,’ he said.
‘Maybe someone will.’
‘Why don’t you want it?’
‘A lot of reasons,’ she said, smiling at the boy, spinning round on her swivel chair.
‘Hugo,’ she added, ‘what would you say about me shouting you and your Dad lunch today before you leave?’
She went to the sliding doors and opened them. The stench of wet charred timber was stronger outside. Later in the day, she would go down to the beach, throw the gold charm into the sea as an offering, for her life, for Shelly, for Steve, for her family, for everything good and growing. Then she could work on her lions again, free from all other pressures. It was a clear winter day, dark blue water, light blue sky. She noticed the long jasmine buds swelling in maroon clusters on the deck railing. Spring would be here in a few weeks. In this expanding moment, all things seemed possible to her. She stood there, taking it all in, the quiet joys of her life, and the small white horses rising and vanishing in turn on the sea as the sun shone on a redeemed world.
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