The Unbroken Line

by Alex Hammond

  They were hard hits. Six weeks in a wheelchair had a way of putting strength into the arms. Will felt something brittle give way on the second hit.

  Tao dropped to the ground, toppling the paper towers.

  ‘Out! Out! Out!’ Grange shouted, eyes now wild. She snatched a teapot from the table and threw it at Brennan.

  Brennan ducked as the china smashed against the wall. She skipped over the paper stacks, weaving around Will and the bouncer. Will looked down. Tao’s face was shot with fear and he struggled to catch his breath.

  His fist was high above the bouncer now. He could predict the path it would take, the crunch of Tao’s nose like an echo from the future.

  ‘Will!’ Brennan shouted. ‘Let’s go!’

  Tao was sprawled on the ground, his hand held in front of his face.

  Will dropped his fist and ran after Brennan. His side was aching, his hands trembling.

  She pulled off her heels at the balustrade before moving down the stairs, her skirt riding up as she ran on strong, fast legs. Will struggled to keep up, stumbling around patrons who cluttered the stairs.

  Soon they were out on the street and in the cold air. Brennan sprinted at full tilt down the road, her feet slapping against the asphalt.

  ‘Brennan!’ Will called after her. ‘Brennan!’

  She turned around a corner.

  ‘Fuck.’ Will groaned as he staggered after her. He was cramping down one side.

  Brennan was leaning up against a wall painted with a mural of a giant head devouring its own body.

  He hunched in front of her, puffing, his eyes watering.

  ‘Sorry. That got out of hand. I shouldn’t have brought you here. Your career . . .’

  Brennan’s pale cheeks were burning, her braid falling out of place in auburn wisps. Her mouth and eyes were hidden by the stark shadows that fell across her face.

  Will straightened up and stepped closer to her. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

  She turned to face him and the shadows slipped away. She was grinning, her eyes bright. She dropped her shoes to the ground.

  ‘Fuck me, that was . . .’

  Brennan grabbed Will by the lapels and pulled him into her, kissing him. Her tongue pushed past his lips, driving away his hesitation. He kissed her back, not thinking, not analysing. She slid a long leg up around his back and gripped him in closer to her. He could feel himself starting to harden.

  Brennan pulled her mouth away.

  ‘. . . fun.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A disorienting cocktail of endorphins, pain and lust spread through Will as he slid into her. Brennan groaned and rocked her hips up against him, her body wrapped around his, her legs crossed over the small of his back, one hand gripping him on the arse while the other dug into his chest, alternately gripping and releasing his pectoral muscles.

  The covers lay on the floor, the chill of his bedroom now fading as their breathing increased and the world contracted around them. Brennan pushed herself up towards him, nose to nose. She grinned at him, shaking out her hair so that it rolled over her shoulders.

  ‘Jesus, Harris,’ Brennan said between breaths, ‘that’s some pent-up frustration you’ve got going there.’ She groaned again. ‘If I’d had any idea, I would have fucked you sooner.’

  She grabbed the back of his head and pulled it down to her chest. Will kissed the small freckles that ran across her collarbones and followed the trail to where it ended at her sternum. He kissed her nipples. She bit his neck. He stayed like this for a time, the pain distracting him from climaxing, keeping his attention on the ebb and flow of their bodies.

  She moved her hand down between their stomachs and gripped the base of his penis, while massaging his perineum with her index finger. Will groaned.

  Without warning Brennan rolled her hips against his, pushing up and twisting him sideways. He resisted her for as long as he could manage, but his core failed him. He winced as she moved on top of him, not once losing the slow rhythm of her rocking.

  ‘That hurt?’ she asked, taking hold of his wrists and pushing his hands above his head.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Good,’ she smiled. ‘I plan to keep you here a while longer.’

  The apartment’s heating had kicked in, pushing the faint smell of dust around the room. Teresa lay against him, her skin against his, her hand dragging in languid arcs through the dark hair on his torso. He felt calm. Whatever delusion of psychological complexity he’d been maintaining had been stripped away. The coil that’d been building in him for the last two weeks, last two months, last two years even, had started to unwind.

  A small voice, diminishing even now, spoke of how the woman in this bed with him was meant to be Eva.

  Teresa touched the red welts of the scars on his chest and abdomen, tracing their length and shape.

  ‘They look like Arabic.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of them that way.’

  ‘Do they hurt when I touch them?’

  ‘They itch sometimes.’

  ‘Fucking crazy. Some guy stabbed you. And this one here?’ she said, touching the scar on his cheek.

  ‘A client did that with a beer bottle,’ he said, reaching forwards and plucking a shard of broken china from her hair.

  ‘Who’d work in criminal defence, huh?’

  ‘Only an idiot, apparently.’

  ‘Good,’ she purred. ‘Glad to see we can both agree on that.’

  Will rolled onto his side to face her. The lamp behind her cast furrows of light and shadow over her milk-white skin.

  ‘So?’ he asked.

  ‘So,’ she replied. Teresa lay on her back and reached for the glass of Scotch by the bed. ‘You want an explanation?’

  ‘I don’t need one. I’d be interested in anything you had to share. But it’s not mandatory. No judgement.’

  ‘No judgement?’ Teresa said, leaning up to sip from the glass.

  Will smiled at her.

  ‘Oh, so you do smile, Mr Harris.’

  ‘For certain select individuals, yes. I do smile.’

  ‘Well, I feel honoured.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I know you only just split up with Eva, but the moment seemed to call for it. You know?’

  ‘Not really. Violence terrifies me.’

  She laughed. ‘You do realise you have a reputation that contradicts that?’

  ‘Only stupid people aren’t afraid of getting hurt. I respect violence. I try to stay away from it.’

  ‘Didn’t look that way when that bouncer grabbed you.’

  ‘Oh, I also have a temper. I’m not saying that doesn’t get in the way of things.’

  ‘It’s not a temper, Will. That sounds simplistic. You should say you’re “emotionally impulsive”. It has a ring of complexity to it.’ Brennan propped herself up on her side, her breasts sliding forwards, the light across her belly shifting. She sipped again before passing the glass to Will.

  He lifted himself up to mirror her and took a slug from the whisky. Undiluted by water, the ethanol shook through his senses.

  ‘I used to get into fights a lot when I was a kid.’

  ‘Did you start them?’

  ‘No . . . I had a mouth on me, but before puberty I was a lot smaller than the other kids. I was a bit too smart. Received a lot of unnecessary attention for it. Back when nerds weren’t being used in aspirational advertising campaigns.’

  ‘It’s aspirational?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Kids would bully me. I’d fight back. I was beat up a bit but I always fought back. I don’t know, this sense of injustice would flood over me and I’d see red. As if schoolyards could ever be fair. The worst it ever got was when I was stabbed.’

  ‘Stabbed?’

  ‘I was thirteen. It was just a small pocketknife a kid had smuggled into the school. Dan Farris was his name. He was bigger than me, but somehow I managed to get him onto
the ground. Made him promise to stop hitting me. He agreed. But —’

  ‘But he lied. You let him go and then he stabbed you.’

  ‘Yeah, in the back. The total cliché.’ Will sipped from the glass again. ‘So what am I saying? I guess it’s always been with me. I think it’s the real reason my father taught me how to box. As an outlet.’

  ‘Well, the way you handled that guy tonight was pretty fucking hot.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re supposed to say things like that.’

  ‘As a woman or a prosecutor?’

  ‘Both.’

  Brennan winked at him and leant forwards, tipping the glass in his hand towards her lips. She sat up opposite him and crossed her legs.

  ‘I own my actions. I don’t regret them. I’ve enjoyed this,’ she said.

  ‘So have I.’

  ‘But I’m not stupid. I know you’ve got a lot going on, that you’re vulnerable right now. You might even get back together with Eva, and I understand that.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Shh, Will. Let’s not go down that path. I’m not here leading the witness. Can we let this be what it is? A moment? Let’s not burden ourselves with our pasts. There’s obviously a physical attraction and, shit, there’s probably more than a little of the whole wrong-side-of-the-tracks thing going on as well.’

  Will smiled and shook his head.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’ve pretty much paraphrased something Miller once said.’

  ‘No doubt. Miller’s obsessed with prosecution. He’s always chasing the OPP girls,’ Teresa said, taking the Scotch from his hand and placing it back on the table. ‘But I didn’t come here to discuss your business partner.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘I did not.’ She grinned.

  Her hair fell forwards as she kissed him on the scar along his chest. ‘Let’s see if there’s something to be done about that itching.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Teresa was up before him. He could see her through the bedroom doorway, her hair damp and wrapped in a towel, reading the spines of the books in his library. Will dropped his legs over the bed and gave her a foggy-headed nod as he walked through to the bathroom.

  ‘Took it out of you?’ she called after him.

  ‘Don’t gloat,’ he called back, as he turned on the shower.

  They dressed and had breakfast in a cafe across the street. Throughout the meal Will could already feel the tension of the rest of the weekend winding up inside him. Aaron, Saxon and Miller – three cases that all needed work. Now there was the additional question of Teresa, although she seemed more relaxed about the one-night stand than he was.

  Was that it? A one-night stand?

  ‘You’ve got to head back in,’ Teresa said as she sipped her coffee.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You. You’re already distant this morning.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you. I —’

  Teresa put her finger over his lips. ‘I get it, the job.’

  ‘So . . . ’

  She stood, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair. ‘So see you round.’

  She smiled and kissed him, the taste of her coffee lingering on his lips as she left some money at the till.

  ‘I’ll get this one. You grab the tip.’

  Will nodded and held a hand up to her as she left.

  While Will finished his coffee, he texted Miller: Still have your car. You need it today?

  Miller replied almost immediately: No. Let’s keep it in your garage. Easier to get to if either of us needs it. Meet in the office to debrief at 9?

  Will replied: Can we meet tomorrow? I’m snowed under today. Also, I might have a lead on Eloise.

  His phone rang a few seconds later as he was dropping some coins into the tip jar.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It appears she hasn’t been by to get her pay since her last performance at the club.’

  ‘At Roberta’s?’

  ‘That’s right. I left a card. Hopefully she’ll swing by and pick it up. I also spoke to Leah. She says the police witness who links you and Mark taking cocaine wasn’t working on the night in question. A bouncer called Tao.’

  ‘Will! That’s fucking brilliant. That fucks with their chain of evidence.’

  Will stood up and started pacing around the cafe. His head was buzzing with Miller’s words. Why hadn’t he seen it earlier?

  ‘You’re right. Fruit from a poisonous tree. They can’t link the cocaine to the stuff they found in your apartment.’ He pushed open the door and started to cross Bourke Street.

  ‘That only just occurred to you? Come on, Will. Get your head sorted.’

  ‘For a guy who’s just been thrown a lifeline, you’re being awful mouthy.’

  ‘I’m being mouthy? Listen to yourself. What’s going on with you this morning?’

  ‘I can’t get into it right now. You work up that line for tomorrow. We’ll map the timing of the last week. Hopefully it will have enough traction to shut this thing down at your committal hearing.’

  ‘Done. Good work, Will.’

  The vault stretched in front of him. Its unpainted concrete and exposed pipes gave the room the feel of a subway tunnel rather than a boutique shop. A bamboo flute played through the speakers, and a sparse selection of black clothes hung on racks lining the long walls. Will watched as the smaller man flicked through a range of shirts and jackets.

  ‘What are we doing here, Ram?’

  ‘You said you wanted to talk in private,’ he said, pulling out a sweater with high collar and diagonal zip. He held it up over his pink polo shirt and sports coat. ‘My uncle’s men would never be seen in here. “Pederi.” That’s what they’d say about a place like this.’

  Ramir shoved the sweater back onto its rail and took down a leather jacket.

  ‘Nick’s in trouble. Your family aren’t satisfied that he’ll stay quiet,’ said Will.

  He thrust the jacket at Will. ‘Hold this.’

  Ramir pulled off his sports coat and swapped it with Will for the jacket.

  ‘Did you hear what I just said?’

  Ramir pulled on the jacket and scanned the room for a mirror. Will followed him over to a nearby pillar. A willowy sales assistant with dyed black hair and eyeliner scowled at them from behind the register. His fingers tapped the tablet in front of him and the music changed to something more electronic.

  ‘Nick told me about the girls.’

  Ramir stopped zipping up the jacket. He looked through the mirror at Will, who was standing behind him.

  ‘They can’t know that he knows,’ Ramir said.

  ‘I agree. Caja’s words made that clear.’

  Will grabbed him by the arm. Ramir’s face was shot with fear.

  ‘Listen. I don’t have much time for Nick. I have even less for you. I’d rather be done with your whole family and all the misery they shit into the world. That includes killing a not-so-innocent arsehole just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t need to tell you that if your family suspect Aaron knows about the girls, he’s no longer safe.’

  Ramir’s face was now paused in a sneer, a mask of bravado that was rapidly failing. Will watched as his eyes scanned over him. Ramir’s face softened.

  ‘I don’t want anything to happen to Nick. He’s a good guy. He’s looked out for me over the years.’

  ‘Good. Then I need you to help me move this forwards. Nick’s on his way to jail. He’s pleaded guilty but he didn’t make any deals with the police. We need to convince your uncle that he knows nothing. Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘I can try.’

  ‘And what about Caja?’

  ‘He does what the old man tells him to do.’

  ‘Blood ties?’

  ‘Caja? No. He’s not from Serbia. He’s just always been around. I don’t know why.’

  Ramir had taken the jacket off by now and was scanning the care instructions. He s
niffed at the leather and held his hand out to Will for the sports coat. Will resisted the urge to throw it over Ramir’s head and beat his face into the mirror. He swapped jackets and breathed deeply.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Ramir asked.

  ‘I’m going to say that their source from the police was wrong. That the only information Nick had to trade was their names and that he didn’t. If they come to you looking for you to contradict that story, you don’t. You stay quiet.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ramir said, pulling a gold credit card out of his wallet and walking up to the counter.

  Will dumped the jacket by the register and walked towards the door.

  ‘What if that doesn’t work?’ Ramir called after him.

  Will stopped. He didn’t turn his head. He couldn’t bear to look any longer at that face with its smug entitlement. ‘Then you beg. They hired me to keep you out of jail. So let’s hope they still give a shit about keeping you happy.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Will had fumed all the way from the city to the leafy eastern suburbs. The mid-morning traffic had been slow and he’d arrived late to the meeting. None of it had improved his mood. Like a fool he’d thought of Teresa, hoping it would buoy him. But it had only raised even more questions that he had no capacity to answer. Her willingness to keep things casual and her sensitivity to his situation far from alleviated his becoming attached; it made him feel more strongly towards her.

  Already his emotions were getting away from him and it was only lunchtime.

  Now he sat in a dappled garden on a warped, damp bench. A small girl wearing an eye patch chased a yapping dog around a sandpit, waving a cutlass made of cardboard and tinfoil. Her older sister, Dianna Carter, sat next to him.

  ‘She thinks she’s Jack Sparrow,’ she said.

  ‘Jack Sparrow doesn’t have an eye patch.’

  ‘That’s what I told her. But she said he got it after the movies.’

  ‘Cheeky.’

  ‘She is.’

  Dianna pulled the collar of her duffle coat more tightly around her neck. Beneath it she still wore her pyjamas. Her tawny hair was uncombed and her skin covered with a greasy sheen. She looked nothing like the glammed-up woman in an evening dress from Saxon’s video.