The Inheritance

by Gabriel Bergmoser

  He was face down and squirming, whimpering something as he tried to push himself up. He was black-clad and looked fit. Another professional.

  Maggie stood as the car door opened. Jack Carlin approached from the shadows. There was no laughter on his face as he looked at the downed man. Just cold, terrible, anger, anger that made Maggie want to attack because she recognised it so very well. With one boot, Carlin rolled the man over. His eyes, glazed and unfocused, stared at the sky.

  Carlin shot him in the head.

  The sound echoed through the clearing around the house and up the road, thinning to a ghostly remnant by the trees. Maggie wasn’t sure she had ever before experienced the depth of silence that followed.

  ‘Let’s not fuck around here,’ Carlin said. ‘Because any tolerance I had for games is gone. The bastard found my house. A house that is not registered under my name. The information is out there, which means it’s only a matter of time before the Scorpions know it too. So if there’s anything you can tell me. Anything you know—’

  A sound from behind them. Maggie turned just as the figure veering from the house fired his gun. She felt the heat from the bullet but it flew past her – and slammed into Jack Carlin’s chest.

  He hadn’t even fallen before the next two hit him, sending him flying like a ragdoll into the shadows.

  Maggie was crouched low and firing. The approaching figure didn’t slow. Dirt exploded around her. Maggie squeezed the trigger and the gun clicked. She glanced towards Carlin’s still form. Another bullet hit centimetres from her feet.

  Maggie ran. She hit the side of the van, wrenched open the door and clambered in. The engine was still running. More gunshots. Maggie reversed. The van careened backwards. Ahead through the windscreen, the last assassin was swallowed by night and then there were only the trees and the dark.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Maggie’s knuckles were white, her grip stone.

  Carlin was dead.

  In some faraway, disconnected part of her brain, the impact of that seemed outsized. A man who had threatened her, placed her in danger, taken away the closest thing she had to a birthright. But also a man who had protected her, patched her up and done more than what he needed to keep her safe. A man who, somewhere in the strange amorphous mass of time that had been the past days, she had come to respect, even like.

  It seemed wrong, that his wry quips and wolfish grin had been wiped out by the bullets of some nameless assassin, an assassin Maggie had failed to kill.

  She tried to force away those thoughts. None of them was helpful. But still they bit and tugged and gnawed at her as she drove through the night and tried to keep from falling apart.

  Dimly, the notion that she could escape came into her mind. Townsend might already know that she had avoided his men yet again, but it would take time for the bikies or the police to figure that out. For the first time since arriving in Melbourne, she had an advantage. All it would take was her hitting the highway and continuing on her way, driving for days on end until Melbourne was a distant memory again, this time never to be revisited.

  But the idea that had occurred to her in Jack Carlin’s kitchen, the notion of where the hard drive – and with it, the chance to finally come face to face with her mother and ask her why – might be hidden, wouldn’t leave her alone. And now might be her only chance to find it.

  When she saw the lights of an open café, she stopped the van. She leaned back in the seat. Her stomach was growling and despite it all she could feel tiredness eating at her. She wanted to arrive at her location to plan her next move, but now that the adrenaline had worn off, she needed energy.

  The café was small and unassuming, tucked between a mechanic and a plumbing supplies store, both closed. The kind of place tradies or truck drivers went for an early feed. She stepped inside to be met by the strong smell of bacon and coffee. An old doo-wop song crackled from a single speaker. Washed-out posters for brands that she was pretty sure no longer existed covered the yellowing walls. The booths that lined the smudged windows were covered in laminated menus that looked sticky.

  A middle-aged woman in an apron emerged from the kitchen area behind the counter and stopped upon seeing Maggie. ‘You right there, love?’

  An honest answer was probably a bad idea. She nodded. ‘Just after a coffee and something to eat. Bacon sandwich maybe. No egg.’

  ‘Was just fixing one for myself,’ the woman said. ‘Grab a seat.’

  Maggie did. She could hear the woman singing along to the song in the kitchen, her scratchy voice punctuated by crackles from the cooking bacon. Maggie closed her eyes.

  Maybe she fell asleep because a moment later she was jerking in her seat as a plate was put down in front of her.

  ‘Dead on your feet there,’ the woman said, placing a steaming mug of coffee next to the plate. ‘These’ll give you a kick up the arse.’

  She smiled and returned to the kitchen. Maggie picked up the sandwich but found she couldn’t bring herself to take that first bite. Her limbs felt seized up. Her chest was contracting. She needed air. She went to stand then—

  The squeak of the door and a low, guttural laugh. She sat back.

  Two men had entered the café, deep in conversation. One was hulking but stooped, bald with heavy features. The other was relatively thin with a pinched face and darting eyes.

  Both wore the distinctive black cut of the Scorpions.

  Maggie didn’t move. The smaller bikie glanced at her but there was no recognition. They reached the counter and the bigger one pounded it once.

  The woman emerged. There was a brief exchange and, looking miffed, she went back to the kitchen. The bikies slid into the next booth along.

  ‘I’m telling ya, this shipment better be worth it,’ the smaller one was saying. ‘Early fucken’ starts will be the death of me.’

  They hadn’t been following her, then. Maggie looked at her sandwich, then the door. She couldn’t eat anyway. She should just slip out now.

  ‘Reckon they’ll be a bit nicer to us this time?’ the bigger one said.

  ‘If they know what’s good for ’em. Remember how that little bitch carried on? Anybody would have thought he was attached to those toes or something.’

  More laughter. Maggie sipped her coffee.

  ‘His fault, really,’ the smaller one went on. ‘Shouldn’t’ve let that pretty girl help him with the flat tyre. That didn’t work out well for anyone, did it, genius?’

  ‘She was pretty too,’ the big one said. ‘Fucken’ shame.’

  ‘Ya could have left her face.’

  A gurgle of laughter. ‘Could have. Didn’t.’

  ‘We getting some food or what?’ the smaller one hollered at the kitchen. ‘Jesus Christ, put down the fucken’ needle for a sec, you dried-up old cow.’

  Maggie stood. Both bikies glanced at her. Watched as she passed them and walked to the counter. She saw a pen, left there by the woman. She picked it up.

  The bikies started talking again.

  The woman, looking harried, emerged from the kitchen. ‘Something wrong, love?’

  ‘Reckon you should duck out the back for a smoke,’ Maggie said quietly.

  ‘I quit the darts.’

  ‘Then duck out for something else.’

  The woman considered Maggie, then nodded and walked back through. Maggie listened – one of the bikies was in the middle of what sounded like a rambling joke. Maggie rounded the counter and followed the woman.

  The back screen door had just swung shut. There was a frying pan sitting on the stove, a thin layer of oil across the bottom. Maggie turned up the heat.

  She could hear the joke, still going.

  The oil on the pan spat and crackled.

  The joke stopped.

  Maggie hovered her hand over the pan. She could feel the heat emanating from it.

  The bikies were talking again, but quieter now. She could hear rustling, then heavy footfalls. She took the pan off the stove and, holding it
level, walked back out into the main area.

  The two bikies, approaching the counter, stopped upon seeing her. The big one looked at the pan.

  Maggie flung the oil into his face.

  He screamed, falling back. The smaller one swore and reached into his jacket but Maggie dived across the counter, swinging the pan as she did. It collided with his face – the sound of sizzling, another scream and Maggie hit the ground. She jumped to her feet; the smaller bikie was clawing at his face as he fell back into one of the booths. The bigger one lumbered for her.

  Maggie rammed the pen into his eye. He yelled, grabbed at it, tripped backwards and hit the ground, writhing violently.

  Maggie turned to where the smaller bikie was trying to climb out of the booth. Half his face was an angry red. His eyes bulged. Maggie hit him with the pan, then again.

  Movement on the ground. She turned. The bigger bikie, the bloody pen still sticking out of his eye, had managed to get his gun clear and was fumbling with it.

  Maggie stomped on the pen. He spasmed and went still. She picked up his gun and pointed it at the other bikie, still in the seat of the booth.

  Through the pain and confusion and rage, a hint of realisation crossed his face.

  ‘You’re her,’ he managed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Maggie said. ‘I am.’

  She pulled the trigger.

  Silence but for the jaunty bounce of the doo-wop music. Maggie returned to her booth. She downed her coffee. Her appetite had returned. She picked up the sandwich and left.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  She arrived in Williamstown as the sun rose. She parked down a back road near a few factories and, after checking the van for anything she could use and finding nothing, lay down on the mattress in the back and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to sleep but knew she had to at least try. After maybe an hour of fitful, fractured rest, she didn’t try to force herself back into it.

  She was inside a Kmart the moment it opened, buying cheap clothes with notes she’d already removed from the rest. A pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts and dark jumpers, a black fake-leather jacket and a beanie. In the van, she changed out of Carlin’s oversized gear and tried to ignore the ache of seeing his old clothes discarded in the corner.

  She shouldn’t have killed the bikies. She knew that. She could easily have slipped out and not risked the extra attention. But knowing that, in the moment, hadn’t been enough. Still wasn’t. The thought of their cruel cockiness slipping into knowing fear even made her smile as she walked from the car into town.

  She was aware that she likely had a small window of time here, but she needed the cover of night to properly search. In summer, Williamstown bustled with tourists, but winter wasn’t as different as she would have liked. The suburb was as beachy as anywhere in Melbourne got. Despite being close to plenty of industrial areas, its streets were lined with fashionable bars and restaurants, across the road from vast stretches of perfectly maintained grass that reached down almost to the water, dotted with statues and monuments. Across the bay, grey and flat but still bobbing with boats, you could see the towers of the city.

  It was hard to pinpoint how she felt, being back here. She almost wanted to identify this strangely cloying feeling as nostalgia, but that would be absurd. As a child she had loved Williamstown because being here meant something different and rare and, to her young self, special. But that beauty had come at the discretion of a man who spent the rest of his time ensuring that she understood just how ugly the world could be.

  She didn’t want to return to the van, so she walked through parks and down backstreets. She had a crumbling pie for lunch, then sat under a tree and waited for the sun to slowly vanish, then waited some more before she made her way towards the boat sheds near the beach.

  She passed the area a couple of times before she was reasonably confident there was nobody else lurking around here. Not that she was especially surprised by that. Her father’s paranoia extended to a lot of things being done either through cash-in-hand deals or under fake names. The shed, she had surmised, would not be any different.

  As such, she knew that the unsettled chill in her chest as she walked along the darkened pavement towards her father’s shed was not to do with the potential of being found here, but rather with something harder to define. Something she hadn’t even felt back at her childhood home.

  The shed was padlocked, as it had always been the times her father had taken her here. The lock was old and heavy, almost certainly unchanged in years. She took a piece of aluminium foil from her pocket, folded it, then with a quick glance over her shoulder, wrapped it around one of the now-burnished bars of the lock. She worked it down into the dull gold body, moving it back and forth until the lock came free. She removed it and pulled up the roller door.

  The smell immediately told her nobody had been here since her father had died, and likely not for a long time beforehand. The air was thick with disuse and decay. Cobwebs hung low from the ceiling and coated the tools scattered across the benches.

  The long boat lay tilted on the concrete ground, spared by neither the dust nor the spiders. Maggie had once braved asking her father why he kept it here instead of at the jetty. She had braced for the attack but he had given a gruff laugh and told her that this was both cheaper and harder to steal. Besides which, the relatively small boat would have looked a bit pathetic next to the far bigger, more impressive ones. Eric did so very much hate looking pathetic.

  It felt like invading a tomb. But Maggie wasn’t here to be reverent. Quickly she got to work, moving things around, checking in the stiff drawers of the bench. Finding nothing, she clambered into the boat.

  She closed her eyes. For just a second she had smelt the sea and felt the warm wind and the fragile, fearful laugh that had risen as she watched her father, hair blown back and face for once not furrowed and furious, standing at the prow, the city shining and brilliant against the clear blue sky above the bay. Once or twice a year, he would knock on her door and tell her to get in the car. She always knew what it meant and while she would never risk showing too much obvious joy, it had risen powerful and breathtaking inside her.

  For years she had hated the fact. That she could ever feel such gratitude towards her father. She had despised her younger self’s stupid, easily manipulated wretchedness. Now, that terrible, illogical joy just seemed deeply sad to her. Yet it remained so ingrained and elemental that even now she could still taste its lingering vestiges.

  Tucked under the stern of the boat, she found a small tin box. She pried it open.

  The hard drive sat there, silver and small enough to fit in her pocket, a short USB cord sticking out of it. She lifted it to the minimal light creeping in through the door and turned it over.

  It was so innocuous, no different to millions of others sitting on desks all over the world. Held on this, allegedly, were the answers to the case that had broken her father. And, potentially, answers that mattered a whole lot more to Maggie.

  She stepped out of the boat but found she couldn’t leave. She told herself that she had to be out of Melbourne. That she was in danger. She had to move. She looked back around the dim shadows of the shed, then leaned against the bench.

  She had never felt any real need to understand her father. The impact of what he did had always outweighed the ultimately irrelevant question of why. Maybe the same should apply to her mother but in her almost lifelong absence, save for vague and warped old memories, there still remained the potential, however slim, for something more than monstrous, something that could even make sense. Until Maggie knew otherwise it was as possible as anything else.

  But now, sitting in the dark of the one place she had known where for whatever reason her father wouldn’t hurt her, she wished with a keen and painful yearning that she could just once have seen inside his mind. To know what it was that twisted him to the point where he could turn his fists on the child he was supposed to love. And more to the point, how that violence could somehow coex
ist in the same man who took his daughter on impromptu sailing trips. Every time that small and rare human side of him came out, Maggie had wanted to cling to it and beg it to stay and love her, to forgive him for everything he had done as long as he could just be this way forever.

  She closed her eyes. It went beyond her father. How could her mother have read her stories and fallen asleep holding her yet still abandon her? How could Jack Carlin put a gun to her head then hours later bandage her wounds? How could Harrison Cooper eat burgers and talk about the future with her all the while knowing that he was betraying her? And how could Maggie, who knew better than anyone just how evil the world was, find herself hoping for a different outcome time and time again?

  She couldn’t have named the last time she cried. It felt foreign to her and yet somehow too familiar, as though she had in this moment looped back around to the child she thought she had run away from. Maggie slid down the bench and sat in the dust and ruins of the one thing her father had loved and sobbed. For Jack Carlin, for Harrison Cooper, for her father and for herself. For all the ifs that had never happened and, in never happening, led her to this.

  She pulled the door of the shed closed and locked it again behind her. She stepped back and looked it over. No sign anyone had been here. Eventually somebody would realise that this shed had sat ignored for years and try to work out who owned it. By then, the cobwebs and the dust would have covered over any evidence that its forgotten rest had been disturbed.

  Maggie reached out a hand to touch the roller door but didn’t. For a moment her hand hovered, then dropped.

  ‘Maggie.’

  She turned.

  Harrison Cooper stood in the shadows behind her.