Return to Moondilla

by Tony Parsons

  ‘Then why are they doing it?’

  ‘It’s all a ploy to distract us from keeping watch here. They’ll come back to Moondilla when they think we’ve relaxed our vigilance.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Baxter asked.

  ‘We’ve managed to infiltrate their system. In simple terms, we’ve got an undercover cop in Campanelli’s outfit. It’s taken some doing, but he’s there and he’s passed us some very interesting information.’

  ‘Sounds dangerous, especially after what happened to that policewoman.’

  ‘Yes, it’s damned risky, and it takes a bloody good cop to do it.’

  Baxter nodded. ‘And am I still being babysat by your blokes at the dairy, or do you think I can start heading into town again?’

  ‘For the time being you can relax. Our “sleeper” will let us know as soon as Franco or any of his outfit come back. Their idea is that if we aren’t prepared for them, they can land a massive cargo of drugs, but we’ve got a shadow team of Police and Customs ready to go into action as soon as we’re given the word that they’ve returned.’

  ‘Well, I appreciate you coming to tell me. And I take it you’re going to use up some of the leave you’re owed?’

  ‘That’s my intention,’ Latham said, ‘although I’m never completely off-duty. I’m always keeping abreast of the drug situation.’

  Baxter thought of what Lester had revealed about Latham’s brother: a tragedy that obviously drove the detective on. Baxter had a lot of time for Ian Latham—he considered him an outstanding police officer who’d exhibited a willingness to work outside the official system. Latham would always have his co-operation.

  ‘As much as I like you, Ian, I hope I don’t see you again in a professional capacity,’ Baxter said, smiling, before Latham headed out the door.

  The detective shook his hand again. ‘Stay loose, champ. I’ll be in touch.’

  •

  Months passed while peace reigned over the river. Baxter was slogging away at his novel and was pleased with what he’d written. He went out fishing with Steve Lewis and spent time with the Lewises, and spoke to Liz and his mother on the phone.

  And, of course, he saw Julie. There had been no perceptible change in her attitude—she still came out and fished with him, and he cooked her special meals.

  One evening, Baxter received an unexpected phone call from Liz. There was something strange in her voice when she said hello. Then, without warning, she told him she’d had a baby boy. She sounded overjoyed.

  ‘Is it mine?’ Baxter asked, his heart racing.

  ‘Of course! And I’ve named him after you.’

  He wasn’t sure what else to ask. ‘Is he a good baby?’

  ‘Fantastic. He weighed ten pounds.’

  ‘That’s pretty big. Any problems?’

  ‘None beyond the usual, so I was told.’

  Baxter was shell-shocked. Out of the blue, he was going to be a father. Of course, this didn’t mean that he would marry Liz. He still felt warmly towards her—although he wished she’d told him about the baby a little earlier!—and he still didn’t love her. But he did think of how pleased his mother would be. He simply wasn’t sure how to tell her.

  The next day, Julie dropped by and she seemed troubled. When he told her the news, he could see she already knew. In fact, it turned out, Liz had called her.

  ‘Is it Greg’s?’ Julie had asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Liz had said.

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Not yet. I wanted you to be the first to know.’

  ‘I would have thought Greg should be the first.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll tell him,’ Liz had said. ‘I’ve just been a wee bit scared of how he’ll react.’

  In Julie’s opinion, Liz had derived no small amount of satisfaction from the situation. And for the first time, to his own satisfaction, Baxter was almost certain he heard jealousy in Julie’s voice.

  Because he was still coming to terms with the news, he asked her to keep it under her hat, and she readily agreed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Baxter had a meal with the Lewises about once a week, usually dinner. They’d often eat a new dish from him, although sometimes Jane would try her hand at something he’d cooked in the past. If it was a dish of any complexity, Julie gave a hand, and though at first disinterested in cooking, Sherrie had gradually become involved too.

  Jason didn’t cook, but he just about worshipped Baxter: all it took was a ‘How are you doing, Tiger?’ and Jason’s face would light up. He lived in hope that Baxter would teach him martial arts, and Baxter had told Lewis he’d start doing this once the book was out of the way.

  Meals with the Lewises were generally accompanied by robust discussions in which Sherrie, the school’s champion debater, took a leading part. Very intelligent and with well-formed opinions, the girl could hold her own with almost any adult.

  A few nights after Baxter and Julie learned the news from Liz, he and Chief walked into one of these discussions. This one just involved Julie, Jane and Sherrie—Steve Lewis was reading the paper and appeared disinterested in the subject.

  Baxter had just sat down to some pre-dinner snacks when the words ‘Liz Drew’s son’ caught his ears. He shot Julie a startled look and she gave him a reassuring smile—she hadn’t spilled the beans. News of the boy’s birth had somehow spread through town, although his paternity remained a mystery to everyone (not that there weren’t rumours, of course). At Moondilla High that day, Sherrie and her friends had been chatting about whether it was right for a single woman to have a child.

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’ Sherrie said. ‘If a woman can afford to rear a child from her own efforts and resources, why shouldn’t she? Liz obviously has the money to bring up a child on her own.’ The girl smiled shyly at Baxter. ‘What do you think, Greg?’

  ‘I think I’ll have an orange juice,’ he said diplomatically. He could see this discussion leading him into deep water—being the father of Liz’s baby placed him in a very vulnerable position.

  ‘So you’re going to sit on the fence?’ Sherrie said, surprised.

  ‘You bet. What’s doing, Steve?’

  ‘It looks like being a dirty weekend,’ Lewis said, over the top of the paper. ‘No outside fishing for a few days. Your jetty might be the best spot.’

  ‘How wonderful to be able to abrogate—’ Sherrie sounded very proud of the word ‘—any discussion of an important contemporary social matter for fishing.’

  ‘That’s going a bit too far, Sherrie,’ Jane counselled her.

  ‘Greg is writing a lot about social justice and the like, so I’m sure he has an opinion about single mothers.’

  Baxter realised there was no getting out of this one. ‘I think it’s mostly up to the woman and her circumstances,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t need a husband or partner to have children these days,’ Julie said. ‘If women don’t want a relationship but do want children, and have the means to look after them, they shouldn’t be condemned for taking that route to motherhood.’

  ‘Well, that’s the approach of a radical feminist,’ said Jane lightly. ‘I happen to think that in the majority of cases, kids need a father.’

  Julie frowned at her sister. ‘It’s true I want equality for women, but that doesn’t mean I think dads aren’t important. Our dad was great, and if I hadn’t had him I would have missed a lot. I was never at odds with him like I was with Mum. That doesn’t mean I don’t support single mothers, of course.’

  ‘Have you considered how a fatherless child would feel?’ Jane asked, arching an eyebrow. Baxter had never heard her speak so heatedly before—he felt slightly worried about her reaction to him being the father in question.

  ‘I should hope,’ Julie said, fire in her eyes, ‘that there’ll be a more tolerant environment for a fatherless child to grow up in. It’s happening now but is sure to be better in another ten to fifteen years. We will have moved on, Jane.’

  ‘I th
ink we have moved too far already,’ Jane huffed. ‘I don’t fancy the idea of a child of mine going through life without its father.’

  ‘It’s happening,’ Julie said. ‘Look at Liz.’

  Baxter cleared his throat. ‘Well, if it were my child, I’d think about that child every day of my life, and visit as often as possible. A father can play a role without being in a relationship with the mother.’

  ‘That’s just how I imagine you would feel,’ Julie said, smiling. ‘I can’t imagine anything less of you.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard about men,’ Sherrie put in, ‘most of them wouldn’t baulk at sleeping with a woman, whether it was for making a baby or otherwise.’

  Jane shook her head at her daughter and smiled wryly. ‘It seems to me that you’re much better informed about a lot of things than I was at your age.’

  ‘Yes, Sherrie has hit the nail on the head,’ Julie said. Then a mischievous twinkle came into her eyes. ‘Well Greg, seeing that we’re all adults and discussing an adult subject, would your scruples be stronger than your sexual inclinations?’

  ‘That isn’t something I feel disposed to discuss here. I’m happier to stick to cooking and what Jane’s going to dish up this evening.’

  ‘Quite right, too, Greg,’ Lewis said with a grin, folding up the paper.

  ‘You men would stick together,’ Sherrie said, scowling.

  ‘I hope I’ve got the marinade right,’ Jane said. She stood up and headed from the kitchen, releasing delicious smells when she opened the door. ‘I put it in the fridge like you said, Greg.’

  The joint opinion was that Jane had got the marinade right. ‘To borrow a phrase, that was finger-lickin’ good,’ her husband said, and the others agreed.

  ‘I must say you’ve added significantly to this household’s culinary delights,’ Jane said with a smile to Baxter.

  He returned it. ‘There’s still my apple and rhubarb pie,’ he said, and with a big grin Jason went to bring it in from the kitchen.

  ‘Ooh, I don’t think I should have any,’ Sherrie said, pouting. ‘I’ve cut out all cakes and pastry.’

  ‘You don’t have to eat the pastry,’ her mother told her, ‘and the apple and rhubarb won’t hurt your figure.’

  ‘Maybe just a small serving and not much cream,’ Sherrie said as she eyed the pie.

  Jason, who never gave a thought to his figure, expressed the common view of Baxter’s pie-making ability. ‘What a yummy pie. Who’d have thought you could make something so nice from stalks of rhubarb?’

  ‘There’s more than rhubarb to Greg’s pie,’ Jane said. ‘There’s apple . . . and then there’s something else that he keeps to himself.’

  Baxter smiled—she’d been pestering him for his secret.

  ‘That doesn’t matter, as long as he keeps making that kind of pie!’ Jason said.

  ‘Well, I must say that it’s great to be able to enjoy another meal without worrying about Franco Campanelli and what he’s going to do next,’ Lewis said. ‘I heard a rumour from a customer today that he’s off in a Tuscan villa. Wherever he is, good riddance!’

  He’d obviously intended it as a light-hearted comment, but the sudden mention of the drug smuggler’s name cast a pall over the dinner party, as if a dark cloud lay across the room. Baxter had heard about the villa too, from Latham—but given other things the detective had been telling him, Baxter wasn’t as optimistic as his mate about Campanelli staying there.

  ‘What do you think makes people use drugs?’ Sherrie asked, looking around at the adults. ‘I’ve thought about that question a lot and can’t find a single word that answers it.’ Her eyes came to rest on Baxter. ‘You must have done a lot of research about this, Greg. Why do you think people become drug users?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘As you’ve said, it’s a complicated issue. If I had to make a stab at a generalisation, some people are dissatisfied with their lives, and the temptation is to make things tolerable with drugs. Prostitutes take drugs, but so do company directors. No matter how much money someone makes, or how famous or talented they are, they might not be satisfied with their lot and turn to drugs.’

  ‘There’s the peer pressure too,’ Julie put in.

  ‘Yes, very true,’ said Baxter. ‘A great many people think it’s cool to take drugs, and that if you don’t take them—at least try them—you aren’t really with it.’ He hoped Sherrie and Jason were paying attention. ‘One thing I’m sure of is that there’s no answer to be found in drugs. They give you a temporary charge, but the biggest charge is downhill. I don’t know of anyone who’s ended up a better person for taking them.’

  ‘Well, it seems strange to me that so many people are prepared to spend so much money taking something that’s bad for them,’ said the ever-practical Lewis, who’d never had the slightest inclination to take drugs. Fishing was the only drug he needed.

  ‘That’s humans for you,’ Baxter said, ‘and there’s always creatures like Franco Campanelli who profit from human weaknesses.’

  ‘There’s millions of dollars being wasted on that rubbish,’ Jane said, disgustedly.

  ‘And millions more being outlaid to try and stop it,’ said her sister. ‘But you can’t turn back the clock. Drugs are here in town and I’m afraid they’re here to stay, with or without Campanelli.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Julie,’ said Baxter. ‘If he does come back and the police can do a job on the big bloke, maybe it will scare off anyone else who tries to step into his shoes—at least in Moondilla.’

  Julie shook her head. ‘How can that happen? Campanelli’s got big money behind him, he’s got goons to protect him, and by all accounts he’s got a police informer.’

  ‘I’ll admit he appears to be in a strong situation, but all of that can come crashing down overnight. One mistake could lead to a crack in his empire.’

  ‘If so, I certainly hope it’s not too long coming,’ Julie said and sighed. ‘This week I had two teenagers in surgery who were clearly drug-affected.’

  ‘There’s kids at school that are into drugs,’ Sherrie said.

  Jane’s mouth fell open. ‘Where do they get the money to buy them?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. I don’t have anything to do with those kids.’

  ‘Thank heavens for that!’

  ‘Things were a lot better when fishing was the main interest here,’ said Lewis. ‘They were still talking about Zane Grey and his big fish when I was a boy. And couldn’t that man write about catching them—hours and hours fighting swordfish! Then there was the thousand-pounds-plus tiger shark he caught off Sydney Heads. You ever read that stuff, Greg?’

  ‘Not yet, unfortunately. I’ve been meaning to get hold of one of his books.’

  ‘I’ll lend you a couple. You can smell the sea in them and feel the lines going through your gloved hands. Blooming wonderful, they are. Nothing about rotten drugs.’

  •

  The news about the baby was pushed to the side somewhat by word from Ian Latham that Campanelli had returned to Moondilla. ‘We’d always expected that he’d be back,’ the detective told Baxter. ‘This is his home, after all.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  In the week since Campanelli’s return, everything had been quiet. Then, very late one night, the phone trilled sharply in Baxter’s office, where he was hard at work putting some finishing touches to River of Dreams.

  ‘Damn the phone,’ he said as he reluctantly reached for it.

  Julie’s voice was agitated. ‘Greg, they’ve got Ian.’

  ‘Who have and where?’ he asked, his heart starting to pound.

  ‘You know I often work into the wee small hours. Well, ever since Campanelli came back, I’ve been driving past his yacht on the way home. Sometimes I’ve pulled over and kept an eye on it for a while—’

  ‘Julie!’

  ‘I’ve been careful, Greg. And it was worth it. Tonight I saw Campanelli’s thugs dragging a man up the jetty. I got out of my car and snuck a
little closer—’

  ‘Julie—’

  ‘I’m sure no one saw me! But I saw it was definitely Ian. They must have woken up to him at last.’

  ‘You didn’t ring the police, did you?’ Baxter asked, pulling on his jacket.

  ‘No, of course not. I can’t be sure I won’t get Senior Sergeant Cross.’

  ‘Good. But how many men are on the boat?’

  ‘Four, with Campanelli himself. Apart from his two goons there’s a fellow who’s a kind of minder. He looks after the boat and does a lot of odd jobs.’

  ‘Four men and they may be armed. I think we’re outmatched, Julie. We might have to find a way to get the coppers involved—’

  ‘There’s no time for that! Look, I’m going with or without you. Right now they’ll be knocking Ian about to get information. Then they’ll dump him in the ocean.’

  ‘They’ll dump you too if you go meddling with them.’

  ‘I can’t stand idly by and let them kill Ian!’

  Baxter knew she was right—he just didn’t want her anywhere near danger. But he couldn’t take on four men alone, and without the police, it was him and Julie together. In that case, he thought, the more the merrier.

  ‘All right, I’m in,’ he said. ‘Ring Steve and get him to meet us near the jetty. He isn’t a fighter, but he may be of some use.’

  Julie agreed and named a particular side street as a good place to meet.

  When Baxter put the phone down, he looked at the old shotgun beside his desk. He was tempted to bring it, but after a moment of thought he vetoed the idea. Instead he rammed a short ironwood stave in his belt. It was incredibly heavy for its length and as hard as iron, hence the name—a very handy weapon at close quarters.

  He didn’t even consider bringing Chief. The dog was loyal and trustworthy, but he wasn’t trained for a situation like this. He was an innocent pet, not a police dog, and there was just too much risk of him being shot. Before Baxter rushed out of the house, he gave his mate a pat and told him to hold down the fort.

  •

  When Baxter arrived in the darkened side street near the jetty, he spotted Lewis and Julie waiting in her car. He parked and walked down to meet them, keeping to the shadows, then knocked on the window and got into the back seat.