The Unbroken Line

by Alex Hammond

‘And who’s Tom?’

  ‘He’s one of the men who attacked me.’

  She blinked at him, her face still.

  Around them, conversations and the clattering of glassware grew.

  ‘I’m right on the verge here, Teresa. I think this is the one thing that has kept me together. Finding out who this guy is.’

  Her face softened. She placed a hand on his. ‘So what happens when you find out?’

  ‘I . . .’

  In all the complex plotting, all the grubby dealing and trading, he hadn’t thought this far ahead.

  His phone started to buzz in his jacket pocket. It was Dianna. He let the call go through to voicemail.

  ‘I guess I’ll give that information to the police. I don’t know. I can’t link the guy to the attack.’

  ‘But this guy Tom can.’

  Will nodded. ‘I agreed to let them go. In exchange for this, him being here right now.’

  ‘Does Eva know about this?’

  ‘No.’

  Teresa raised a hand to her open mouth and shook her head. Her eyes scanned over him as though looking for something familiar, something she recognised.

  She didn’t find it.

  ‘Will, how could you do that to her? You do realise that if they were arrested, they might turn over the person they were working for?’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that. I can’t trust the police.’

  ‘Don’t. Will. Don’t say that. Do you know how idiotic it sounds?’

  ‘There’s something going on here. More than this one attack. I can’t explain it all now.’

  ‘This is the real reason you’re in defence. You and Miller, you’re so much more alike than you realise. It’s all about you. For him it’s the fame, but for you – you think you know better than the system. Why trust the police and prosecutors to do their jobs, to track down the crims, when you can do it all yourself?’

  ‘There wasn’t enough time. I needed to move quickly.’

  His phone started to ring again, as Gregory nodded over to him from beside one of the wood-panelled columns rising to the roof. Dianna was trying to call again.

  ‘I’ve got to get this. It might be important.’

  ‘Go, Will. You’ve got your tickets. Just go.’

  She walked away from him and into the crowd.

  ‘Teresa —’

  She shook her head. ‘We’re done, Will.’

  He answered the phone.

  ‘Dianna? This isn’t a great time. How can I help?’

  He could barely hear her over the crowd as he tried to push his way through to Gregory. He glanced over his shoulder but had lost Teresa to the crush. The race was just minutes away from starting.

  ‘I’m going to do it,’ Dianna said, her voice hoarse.

  ‘You decided to speak to the police?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You asked me if Saxon had pushed anyone else to hurt themselves or someone else. He did. Before he came to our school.’

  ‘He came from another school?’

  ‘Yes. Two years ago.’

  Will stopped walking. The noise and movement around him faded into the background. He pressed the phone against his ear.

  ‘Saxon came from another school? What did he do?’

  ‘One night, when he was drunk, he told me that his parents had moved him from the other school because of things he’d done there.’

  Gregory grabbed him by the arm. ‘Now or never, mate. While I still have eyes on this guy.’

  Will squeezed through the throng, stopping when the sniper put a hand on his chest.

  ‘What did he do?’ he asked Dianna.

  ‘I was drunk too. I can’t remember it all, but he said that he’d set some guys up at a party, to get them expelled. Told them about a drunk girl . . .’ She started to sob. ‘They raped her . . . He filmed it. He said his father made it go away.’

  Gregory was on the edge of the members’ area.

  ‘He’s over there, next to Michael Eldon.’

  ‘Dianna, I have to go,’ he said, as he lowered the phone from his ear.

  Will looked across the crowd towards the heavy-set, grey-haired Eldon in a charcoal pinstripe suit. His hostile gaze and shark-like grin were far from the behaviour of a grieving father. Gathered around him were the faces of men Will recognised from bar lists and police stations, from financial pages and election pamphlets. He knew the names of only a few: the scarecrow-like Superintendent Vincent from Melbourne West Police Station; Justice Fife from his mother’s fundraiser, who’d signed the warrant to search Miller’s house; and Justice Walsh.

  Walsh.

  ‘That’s him,’ Gregory said.

  ‘Walsh?’ Will needed to be certain. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Make the call. I’m out of here.’

  ‘Wait,’ Will said, grabbing him by the arm.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just point your finger at him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Point at him, I need to be sure.’

  Gregory raised his hand and pointed at Justice Walsh, who was now staring at them. Walsh narrowed his eyes. The noise from the stands became muted as the two dozen men around him stopped talking and turned to look at Will. Eldon raised his head and dropped his smile.

  Will’s hands felt as though they were dragging though tar as he called O’Dwyer.

  ‘Gregory pointed him out. He’s on his way back now. He’ll release Emmet.’

  He hung up the phone.

  FORTY-NINE

  ‘So here you are,’ said Eldon. ‘Against all expectations.’

  ‘I just want to talk to him,’ Will said, pointing at Walsh.

  ‘You’ll get that chance.’

  ‘Miller didn’t kill your son.’

  ‘I know that. He died because he lacked self-restraint. Almost entirely.’

  The stalls were becoming agitated, getting to their feet and looking over to the track. The race preamble was underway, the horses being moved to the gate, the announcer providing the latest odds. The noise around them started to swell with the anticipation of punters. But in the centre there was silence, just the stern-faced men staring at Will as Eldon glowered at him.

  Walsh had pulled on his jacket, stricken and pale. He pushed past the silent men around him, through the gridlocked crowd and towards the opposite exit.

  Will started to follow.

  Eldon grabbed him by the arm, yanking him against his shoulder and hissing into the side of his face. ‘Do you honestly expect to get out of this? Do you think we don’t have contingencies? You’re a dead man.’

  Even now Will could see Superintendent Vincent with his phone to his ear, watching Will as his lips moved with grim determination.

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Will pulled his arm free. ‘Fuck you all.’

  Will turned and ran after Walsh, shoving his way through the press of people while over the PA the race caller began reciting the starting positions of the horses and their jockeys. He twisted free of the crowd at the top of the stairs and rushed down them, pushing his way past racegoers hurrying to make the starter’s pistol. Once he was in the corridors below the stand he was suddenly alone.

  From outside came the muffled blare of the horns and the crowd erupted into cheering. He could barely hear Walsh’s footfall ahead of him.

  ‘Walsh!’ he called. ‘Wait!’

  Turning a corner he could see Walsh rushing for the exit.

  ‘Alan! Wait. I just want to talk.’

  Walsh slowed and looked back over his shoulder.

  ‘Wait? Don’t you understand? We’re a liability now. You. Me. They’re coming for us.’

  ‘Who? There’s no one here. It’s just us.’

  ‘Exactly. I’d be safer in the crowd.’

  Walsh continued to hurry ahead of Will. Will’s gut ached and he struggled to breathe. The metres between them seemed like miles.

  ‘Why did you ask me to help you? After you’d paid
men to attack me?’

  ‘To keep you close. Distract you from the Covenant.’

  ‘I didn’t even know about the Covenant until the attack.’

  ‘That irony isn’t lost on me. I thought you were working with Miller. I was wrong. I had to protect Saxon.’

  Walsh threw open a double door and disappeared outside.

  The noise grew as Will passed the entrance to the members’ stand. The eyes of the security guard there, like everyone too far from the track to watch the race live, were turned in the direction of large LED screens.

  A temporary guidepost gave directions to places that meant almost nothing to Will: The Domain, The Nursery, Hill Precinct. He saw Walsh walking quickly down the boulevard at the rear of the stands and past a sign pointing to the VIP car park.

  ‘They tried to set up Miller, didn’t they?’ Will called after him.

  Walsh kept moving. ‘An accidental death used to send a message. A fuck you, courtesy of the Covenant. To knock him back a few rungs.’

  Walsh was past the railway platform at the back of the racecourse and the showground that adjoined it. As Will hurried after him, he stepped over the legs of a racegoer, slumped between two dustbins, already too drunk to stand. Someone had placed a multi-coloured sombrero on his head. He was missing a shoe, and one leg of his oversized trousers was bunched at his ankles.

  Will froze.

  Walsh kept on moving, disappearing out of view as Will reached forwards and pulled away the sombrero. Gregory lay against the wall, his eyes rolled back into his sockets, a single trickle of blood still running from the deep puncture below his ear.

  Fuck.

  Will spun around. Only he and Walsh moved through the grounds, everyone else was pressed as close to the racetrack as possible. The din was swelling as the horses turned into the final straight.

  Will dropped the hat back on Gregory and started to sprint for Walsh as the judge turned at the train station and disappeared behind the large sponsor umbrellas lining the boulevard. Will’s body felt as though it were tearing itself apart, the stabbing pain in his abdomen spreading through him.

  Gritting his teeth, he pulled out his phone and redialled Teresa’s number. It went straight through to voicemail.

  ‘Teresa, I need you to grab a cop. Any cop you trust and meet me in the VIP car park. It’s urgent. They just threatened to kill me.’

  An air horn blared to Will’s left. Glancing in its direction he saw the line of police at the rear entrance bowing under the pressure of a hundred red-shirted protesters. As uniformed police scrambled to help reinforce the line, the protesters threw red paint. There was a second blare of the horn. One of the cops stepped away from the line and suddenly it broke. The protesters started to rush through.

  Some were dragged to the ground by desperate police, who now began the frenzied task of grappling as many as possible before they could make it to the racetrack. Police horses started to move forwards to try to create a new cordon as the protesters swarmed the grounds.

  Will swung his head in wide arcs, scanning for Walsh as he kept running towards the car park. He couldn’t see him.

  A bearded protester sprinted past Will, with a uniformed policewoman and a security guard following close behind. The policewoman caught him by the collar of his red shirt and twisted him sideways. Will watched as the protester’s legs spun out from under him, his heels colliding with the jaw of the security guard. As the protester hit the ground the policewoman hit him in the face with pepper spray, the air filling with the acrid smell of capsicum.

  In the car park a small woman in combat boots clambered onto the top of a black Audi and hurled a paint bomb at three cops, who were hogtying another protester. The paint splattered across their riot masks, and she leapt off the car and continued running towards the stadium and the new cordon of police horses.

  Height. I need height.

  Will reached the same Audi and followed the dented path up its bonnet and onto the roof.

  ‘Oi!’ shouted a cop from three cars behind him.

  Will looked over the rows of luxury vehicles glistening under the sun. A suited figure was hunched over by a limousine.

  Walsh.

  Will jumped off the car, bracing himself for the agony that shot through him as he hit the ground. With every stride, his abdomen punished him by rippling pain up through his torso and down his hip.

  Will crouched low. It intensified the burning sensation in his gut. He clenched his jaw and pushed on, following a parallel line to where he had last seen Walsh.

  He counted the cars and at the sixth, cut down towards the row where he’d seen the judge. Will propped his arms on the bumper of a Lexus and leant out from the car.

  The judge was staggering towards the train line, passing under the dappled shade of the trees lining the station.

  Will gritted his teeth and sprinted towards him, letting the pain act as an incentive. The sooner he got to the man, the sooner he would have answers.

  ‘Walsh! Wait!’ Will called.

  The judge turned around, his eyes shot with fear. He started to run.

  In that moment Will heard them, somehow coming to him through the din drifting over from the track.

  Hooves.

  He turned and saw a mounted policeman, his horse gaining velocity as it rushed towards him. Both the perspex facial armour of the horse and the lowered riot helmet of the cop reflected the clouds of the bright sky above. The cop wore dark sunglasses under the facial shield; this and the bulky yellow high-visibility jacket obscured any recognisable traits. He was well away from the riot in this no-man’s-land between the train track and the car park. It took no time for Will to realise why he was here.

  In the cop’s right hand was a riot baton.

  The muscled flanks of the horse rippled as it picked up speed.

  Will pumped his legs harder.

  He looked left to the narrow spaces between the parked cars. No horse can run through metal.

  Will glanced over his shoulder and saw the cop closing in on him fast, outflanking him. If he cut sideways to the cars, he ran the risk of being trampled. So he moved right instead, following Walsh, who was rushing down the line of trees.

  His legs, unused to running, were in spasm, the twitching muscles across his thighs biting with every footfall. But this was nothing compared to the wrenching pain like hot wire through his gut. He felt as though he were being cut in half.

  Will glanced behind him again as he heard heavy breathing and the thunder of hooves, closer than he’d anticipated. He could feel hot air as the horse’s nostrils flared. The baton was raised above him.

  He was too slow.

  He held his hands over his head and ducked.

  The musky, sweaty smell of the massive beast rolled over him as it rushed alongside him. He waited for the strike of the club.

  Nothing.

  The horse kept on moving, leaving churned clods in its wake.

  He wasn’t the target.

  ‘Walsh!’ he shouted, as the running judge turned with no time to anticipate the strike of the baton.

  A crack echoed across the car park.

  The grey hair splattered red and the man fell to his knees.

  Will drove his legs into the ground, urging them to be pistons, to be iron not flesh, as he ran towards the collapsed Walsh.

  The rider was straining to slow the horse, leaning hard against the reins, and the animal’s hindquarters dropped towards the ground.

  Will slid across the grass and grabbed hold of Walsh, whose head was lolling from side to side.

  ‘The cars! Get up!’ Will shouted, lifting him up by his lapels.

  The unrelenting fall of hooves rolled across the turf as the horse churned up more earth. Will didn’t want to see what they could do to a human’s body.

  ‘Walsh! He’s coming.’

  The groggy-eyed Walsh let himself be pulled over Will’s shoulder as he hefted him to his feet. Will could feel a tearing within him as he
hauled the judge towards a perfect space between a Land Rover and a Mercedes.

  Too slow again, as the thunder rolled towards him.

  Will ducked his head and pulled the judge under him.

  The crack over his back knocked the air out of him, sending daggers of pain bristling up his spine, making him gag and struggle not to throw up. He was heaving on the ground, his tired limbs refusing to give him any more.

  The horse circled again.

  Walsh was weeping. ‘Sorry. I’m so sorry, Will. Never meant . . . Didn’t know they would . . .’

  ‘Walsh,’ Will groaned, ‘get to the cars.’

  The judge pushed Will off him and started to stagger in the opposite direction, towards the train line.

  Will was struggling to stand. He could barely lift his head or draw in air.

  Justice Walsh ran for the trees, his legs kicking wildly, his arms flailing. Concussed, stunned, he staggered in a diagonal line, the least direct route.

  It took no time at all for the rider to bear down on him.

  ‘No,’ Will whispered, as the glistening torso of the horse smacked Walsh, knocking him down like a rag doll. Walsh’s shin snapped sideways under the horse’s forehooves while its hind legs ground him back into the earth – a matted paste of Italian suit, warm blood and twisted bone.

  Will kicked his legs, scrambling backwards between the Mercedes and the Land Rover.

  He could see the judge twitching, his body hardwired to survive.

  From his place in the dirt, hidden behind a wall of automotive metal, he could no longer see the rider. But he could hear him.

  The slow fall of horse’s hooves stamped the earth towards him.

  Will grabbed his phone from his pocket.

  It came out in two pieces.

  Dead.

  Shattered.

  The screen cracked, the circuitry exposed.

  He tried to stand.

  His legs collapsed. They had nothing left to give.

  The rider came into view between the cars. He looked sideways towards Will. He shrugged his shoulders and slid the baton back into its sheath. Reaching into his jacket, he took out a gun.

  It was too small to be regulation.

  He aimed it at Will.

  Will shut his eyes. A strange serenity fell over him.

  ‘Drop the weapon!’