Deep in the Shallows

by J. L. O'Rourke

  “Who are you?” Simon asked, his normal condescending tone reduced to a plaintive squeak.

  Bruno leaned close. “You’re worst friggin’ nightmare, Sunshine.”

  Simon pressed himself back against the door frame, terror contorting his elegant face.

  “I’m a pig hunter,” Bruno continued, “so I know how to slit a throat and butcher a carcass, and I know where to dump a body so it will never be found. Get the message?”

  I stepped forwards to stand beside Bruno, pointed up the drive to the road where I assumed Simon had parked his car, and ordered him to leave. I could see his mouth moving as he tried to find the right phrase to give himself the last word but then Bruno gave his knuckles a menacing crack and Simon ran, scuttling down the steps and sprinting up the drive in a turn of sped he normally saved for the squash courts. We waited until we heard the sound of the car’s engine before we turned to each other and burst out laughing.

  “So that was Simon Bastard,” Bruno said as he draped his arm around my shoulders to herd me back into the house. “Nice guy. Not!”

  “Thank you.” I turned on Bruno’s arms and hugged him. “Thank you for pulling him off me. And for scaring the shit out of him. You get the Southern Man Superhero award for the day.”

  Bruno returned the hug, his embrace warm and comforting, then he pushed me back and gently touched my cheek. “He is never going to hit you again.” He looked at me, his expression solemn. “It’s not the first time, is it?”

  “No, but you’re right, it’s definitely the last.” I reluctantly pulled away from Bruno’s embrace and walked to the kitchen, busying myself by filling the jug and spooning instant coffee into mugs. By the time the mugs were ready, my hands had stopped shaking and I had my confused emotions almost in check. I held out a coffee to Bruno and walked past him back to the warm fire, ignoring the fluttering in my breast when our hands touched and the warm feeling that ran through me when he put his arm around my shoulders as we moved into the lounge.

  “So tell me more,” Bruno asked as we made ourselves comfortable side by side on the couch. “How long have you put up with that prick?”

  “Four years. I met him through work. He was buying a property our firm was valuing and I had to deliver some paperwork to his office. The girls in my office were very impressed when he sent me flowers and an invitation to dinner. They all thought he was the perfect catch. So did he. Well, so did I to start with. He seemed so strong and confident, so masterful. I took it as a compliment the first few times he bought me dresses. I was overwhelmed, flattered, that anyone could care so much as to buy me such expensive things. Then things started to change.”

  “He turned nasty?”

  “He certainly did, but slowly and all done so I blamed myself. It was my fault that I said something inappropriate, or used the wrong wine glass, or wore the wrong colour shoes. My friends tried to tell me that I was losing my self-confidence, apologising to him too much, but he was also very good at keeping me away from my old friends and only associating with his business cronies, Apart from work, my life began to completely revolve around him.”

  “So what made you see the light and leave?”

  “Not what, who. My boss, actually, and the girls in the office. The same ones who had thought he was so marvellous. When I turned up to work for the third time with a black eye, they staged an intervention. My boss knew a woman who worked in a women’s refuge, so she dragged me off to talk to her. I thought we were going out on a normal job then the next thing, I‘m being counselled. It took them a while to convince me that they were right and he was a psychopath but then, a week ago, he told me to wear a green dress but it was a cold night so I wore something else, and he hit the roof.”

  “He hit you?”

  “He wanted to, I could tell, but he had been in a long meeting so I had taken a taxi and met him at the restaurant. I was lucky that it was full of people and Simon would never make a scene in public. He started to vent but realised people were watching so he took his temper out on the poor waiter. As usual, he ordered for me, so I sat there like a meek little lamb, not saying anything, just knowing what was going to come afterwards. Then, all of a sudden, I knew I had to get out of there. I knew he would get up and go to the toilet just before the main course was served, he always did, and as soon as he had gone into the gents, I bolted. I grabbed a taxi, went home, locked the door, turned off the lights and sat in the dark. He turned up about half an hour later, banging on the door and shouting, but I kept quiet and after the neighbour yelled at him to shut up, he went away. And that’s about it. He has sent me lots of texts and left messages on my phone ranging from apologetic to threatening, and he has sent several bunches of flowers but my workmates are doing a good job of running interference for me and I’m sure the boss sent me down here to give me some space. I had thought he had finally got the message.”

  “Let’s hope he has now,” Bruno growled. ”Because I will punch his lights out if he comes back.”

  I laughed and picked up the folder we had been looking at. “Anyway, enough of him, I am over him and he is a done deal. Let’s get back to the birds. Let’s look at one that matches a bird in the shed and see what’s written about it.”

  I handed a file to Bruno who started reading until, as he had done before, he stopped and cocked his head to the side.

  “No, don’t tell me he’s come back. Is he stupid or something?”

  “Did you hear something? Is Simon still out there?”

  “I think so. Let’s lock the doors, just to be safe. You check the laundry door, I’ll get the front one.”

  I raced through to the laundry and flicked the lock then rushed back to the couch where I huddled, legs drawn up to my chest, cuddling a cushion. I knew I was being a coward but I was scared. I watched Bruno checking the windows, listening intently to the noises outside, before he came back to reassure me. The noises stopped and we were breathing a sigh of relief when the door to the secret room opened and a figure walked out.

  Chapter 8

  I screamed. It was a character from a horror movie, covered in mud. Bruno, however, leapt to his feet and grasped the walking scarecrow by his dirty shoulders.

  “Gunna! Oh my god, am I glad to see you. Where have you been? Oh boy, you smell bad.”

  The mud monster stared at me then looked at Bruno for several seconds. I was beginning to think he was mute when he suddenly smiled.

  “I got your message. Could I possibly trouble you to let me have a shower as I believe you are undoubtedly correct and I am, indeed, rather malodorous.” He held out a backpack he was carrying. “I collected my provisions from the caravan but I have no running water there, and it’s been more than a few days since I last had unfettered access to this place. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Let’s get you clean and fed and then we can talk. Gunna, this is Andy North. Andy, meet Gunna.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Gunna. Forgive me if I don’t shake hands. You do smell really bad. Go, wash. Would you like some soup? I know there are a few more cans in the pantry.”

  “Oh, thank you, that would be life-saving.”

  Gunna disappeared down the hall, leaving Bruno and I to shake our heads in bewilderment.

  “Well, at least we know he’s alive,” Bruno said.

  “And both his arms are still attached,” I replied.

  “So who is the poor bugger in the swan pile?”

  “Let’s hope Gunna can answer that one.”

  Bruno nodded in agreement, and I contended myself with silently watching him as he pottered in the kitchen, heating soup and making toast, his face set in the same brow-furrowed frown he had when he was taking the bullet from Jackson’s leg. He caught me watching him and asked what I was smiling about, but I was saved from having to answer by the timely arrival of a clean and sweet-smelling Gunna. Without the mud, Gunna still looked like a scarecrow, his slightly-built frame barely filling his ex-military camouflage pants and green wool
len jersey, but his shoulder-length, straggly grey hair was clean and his wispy beard was trimmed.

  “Ah,” he said with obvious pleasure as he held his hands out towards the warmth of the fire. “That feels so much better.” He turned to Bruno and I. “Do you mind if I camp in the athenaeum for a few nights? I won’t be any bother.”

  “The where?” I asked at the same time as Bruno asked “The what?”

  “The athenaeum.” Gunna pointed to the bookcase that was really the door to the secret room. “The rooms behind the bookcase. Maggie and I call it the athenaeum. Wonderful word, means a place where reading materials are kept for study which, as you have seen, is its purpose. But it could also be a very convenient place for me to disappear into for a few days, and it would be a lot warmer and drier than camping in the mai-mai. Very astute of you, Bruno, to have worked out that I was there, by the way. I’m mightily glad Carlton never had your problem-solving skills.”

  “Did Maggie read all of those books?” I asked.

  “Oh heavens, no. Those trashy pulp novels were our interior mai-mai, our duck blind for the curious. All protection for the treasure. I presume you haven’t found the sleeping dragon yet.”

  “I think I have. Maybe you can explain it to us.”

  “I think there is a hell of a lot more than that to explain,” Bruno interrupted. “I think Gunna should start at the beginning and tell us what the hell is going on, who is that poor sod in the woolshed and how come their arm was floating in the lake, wearing your duck caller, Gunna.”

  Gunna slurped his soup noisily then sat forwards on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and cradling the warm mug in both hands.

  “It’s a long story, and it’s a real shame Maggie isn’t here to help tell it. Most of the work in the sleeping dragon is hers. I did some of the field work, but it was Maggie’s brain that put it all together. She was the one who decided to keep track of it all, and to hide the records until we had enough proof to nail the bastards. We were almost there, too. If she had just been more careful, treated that lake edge with more respect, not got so complacent, she’d be the one sitting here telling you this. She should have left old Herman to sort himself out. Silly woman.”

  “Herman?” I was completely lost and, by the look on his face, so was Bruno.

  “The swan,” Gunna explained. “Down past my caravan. There’s a nest, been there for years, same pair of swans, Herman and Matilda, we called them. Anyway, Maggie and I were planning to meet down there to do our usual check-up. I was already out on the lake in the dinghy when I saw Maggie wading through the weeds. I knew she was getting too close to the swans’ nest and I yelled out but she didn’t hear me. Deaf as a post. Anyway, old Herman is a grumpy old shit and gets very protective of his nest and he came at her like a raging bull, head down, wings out, flapping and squawking. Poor old Maggie got a dreadful fright, forgot all her training and did exactly the wrong thing. She turned and ran, which made her a perfect target for Herman. I’m paddling like crazy to try to get to Maggie when Herman lunges at her and knocks her over. I can see her trying to get up and protect herself, but he’s a big, strong bird and he just kept at her. I still don’t know if she fainted or if he knocked her out but by the time I got the dinghy to a landing place, then waded around to her, Maggie was gone. Drowned. In just a few inches of water. I still can’t believe it.”

  “You can’t blame yourself.” Bruno placed a comforting hand on Gunna’s shoulder. “You did all you could in the circumstances.”

  “Yes, I know,” Gunna nodded. “It was just so... needless. It shouldn’t have happened. And it has forced my hand. I had been trying to tell Maggie that maybe we should let the whole thing go and mind our own business, but she was so outraged. So I felt obliged to carry on, and now I’m hiding in a duck blind hoping I’m going to live another day.”

  “Well you don’t have to hide in the mai-mai anymore,” Bruno said. “It’s still Maggie’s house so there’s no reason why you can’t stay here. Is there, Andy?”

  “No,” I shrugged my shoulders. “I should say no, you can’t stay, but, frankly, the last couple of days have been so crazy, I can’t think of any reason to stop you. You might even be more entitled to be here than I am. If you don’t mind me asking, how come you didn’t inherit this place? Why am I here valuing it all for sale if Maggie could have left it to you?”

  “Because we were idiots,” Gunna acknowledged. “Young and stupid became old and stupid.” He sipped at his soup before continuing. “I met Maggie when I was at teachers’ college. She was first year at university, studying zoology, and we both lived in the same hall of residence. We clicked right away and all through our studies we were a couple. Then I got sent to the West Coast on my first teaching placement and Maggie was offered a scholarship to Cambridge to complete her doctorate, so we went in two completely different directions. Both of us got tied up in our new lives and we drifted apart. Then I did the unthinkable, in Maggie’s eyes. I met a local girl in Greymouth and married her. Maggie never forgave me. My marriage didn’t work out and we separated years ago, long before I met Maggie again, but that wasn’t good enough. Maggie wasn’t interested in getting married, said she wasn’t being my second choice and, anyway, technically we couldn’t as I’ve never got around to filing divorce papers so I’m still legally married to Sandra. So we’ve let all the old history get in the road. We never did what we should have done years ago and now it’s too late. I’ll just have to hope that whoever buys this place is kind enough to let me keep my caravan parked down at the lake. I’ve kind of got used to being one with the swans. I don’t think I could live in a real house again, especially if it wasn’t this one.”

  The sadness in Gunna’s voice left me bereft. My job was usually so impersonal, I just listed items on a clipboard and tallied up their value, but Gunna’s loss was invaluable, his whole world had crumbled in an instant and there was no way I could quantify his loss on my job-sheet. I looked up and realised Bruno was also struggling to find suitable words to respond, so I changed the topic.

  “So whose arm is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Gunna answered.

  “But it’s got your duck caller tied to its wrist,” Bruno argued. “Your caller, your handmade caller that everybody recognised and nobody else owns. If you don’t know who the arm belongs to, how did the caller get there? Do you randomly tie callers to dead people that you find floating in the lake? Or did you kill him? And if you did, why did you leave your caller on him? And why did you cut his arm off?”

  “All fair questions, young Bruno,” Gunna smiled. “And when you stop to draw breath and give me some talking space I can answer some of them.” With a grin Bruno spread his arms wide in a gesture of surrender as Gunna continued. “To some extent I did tie my caller to a random body, although it wasn’t floating when I found it.”

  “It’s in the woolshed, isn’t it?”

  “One point to Bruno. Yes, indeed. Do I assume you’ve seen the rest of it then?”

  Bruno answered by pulling out his phone and showing Gunna the pictures of the pile, including the skull and the blue material. “So you don’t know who he is?”

  “I don’t have a name but he’s one of them. I’d seen him a couple of times, doing business with them at the shed, but I don’t know his name and I don’t even know if he was a supplier or a buyer, but I know they argued about money and I know Carlton was pretty damned angry when his mate blew that bloke away.”

  “How do you know? Were you there?”

  “I was close. That old woolshed is derelict. There are lots of holes in the wall on the far side that Carlton hasn’t bothered to patch because he thinks nobody can see in as there are no houses overlooking it, but there is a wonderful macrocarpa hedge two paddocks up the road. I’ve built a lovely blind in it which, with my binoculars, gives me a perfect view inside the shed. It’s like sitting in the gods at the opera. And almost as entertaining some nights. Anyway, last week, so that’s nine or ten
nights ago, I was positioned in my tree, all nicely furnished with a thermos of tea and a box of sandwiches, as I was expecting them to be making a deal, and I watched the whole thing play out in all its technicolour gore.”

  Gunna paused to finish his soup then took up his tale.

  “As usual, it was nearly dark when Carlton and his ugly thug of a mate, Nettles, arrived. I saw them coming up the road then, about five minutes later, the other bloke drove up. I saw them open the boots of both cars then I saw them carrying dead swans into the shed but, because of the angle, I couldn’t make out which car they had come out of, which is why I said I didn’t know if that bloke was bringing birds to sell to them or buying meat off them, or both. Whichever, they took a dozen birds into the shed then came outside and lit cigarettes. Then the shit hit the fan. The bloke said something and Carlton got angry. They were yelling at each other so loudly, I could hear enough of it to know it was the price of the birds they were arguing over, but I’m not sure if Carlton wanted to pay less, or wanted the bloke to pay more. After a few minutes of yelling, the bloke turned to walk away and Carlton ran after him, spun him round and punched him. The bloke went down for a second or two then came up fighting and the two of them went hammer and tongs at each other. By the time the bloke managed to get the better of Carlton and knock him out, they were both on their last legs. Carlton slumped to the ground in a heap and the bloke pulled himself up and started to stagger back to his car. I guess he was going to cut his losses and get the hell out of there. Anyway, just as he was getting to his car, Nettles storms around the building with his rifle and shot the bloke in the head. One shot, stone dead.”

  Bruno leant forwards to throw another log onto the fire and we all watched the flames flare brightly before Gunna continued.

  “By that time, Carlton was coming round and he was not best pleased with Nettles, that’s for sure. I could see that he was furious but I couldn’t hear them. There was a lot of waving of arms and angry pointing, then Nettles dragged the bloke’s body into the shed. I wanted to know what they were doing but I wasn’t stupid enough to get near until they were well and truly gone, then I climbed down out of my tree, sneaked across the paddock and climbed in through the rotten wall. The top level of the shed was empty but I knew about the trapdoor so I figured they had chucked the bloke down it. And I was right. I went down to the bottom and there he was, all butchered up with the swans.”