“You should thank your lucky stars I’m more worried about being on the front of tomorrow’s paper than I’m afraid of you, Flanagan. If it was just you an’ me in the ring again, mate, this time things would be different.”
“I can’t see it myself.”
They were a body-length apart, Flanagan with his hands on his hips, Hopkins’s hands stuffed into the pockets of his windbreaker.
“Seems to me like we’re both too fucked to do anything about it,” Flanagan said easily. “You broke a few ribs, or your mate did.”
“My mates’d do anything for me.”
“Carlo too, it seems. What’s this about, Hopkins? I’d rather you went back to being a blob of pixels I sometimes watch when I’m bored or have nothing better to do.”
“Just seeing you is enough for me, prick.”
Flanagan looked slowly around. The bad feeling settled around his neck continued to choke.
“What’s this about, Brett?”
Hopkins’s face was a mask of broken blood vessels beneath his perfect tan, something sickly and plague-like about him up close when he was angry. As the footballer throttled his rage, Flanagan saw the effects in their full glory, wondering if it was possible such an athlete could go down with a stroke.
“That fucken bitch,” Hopkins hissed. “Like I need any more fucken attention. As if some fucken teenage pussy could play me like that.”
“What are you talking about, Brett?”
“You’re her minder or something, is that it?” Hopkins leered. “Is that it? Did she fuck you for it, hey? She’s a whore.”
“Hopkins, you need to watch your mouth –”
“Well, you’re not fucken minding her now, are you? Cunt.”
Hopkins spat and backed away. For a moment, Flanagan thought he was daring him on – at least until he heard the car doors opening in the trackside car park across the road.
It was no surprise to hear he’d been lured away, guessing the timing of the meet wasn’t exactly coincidental the moment he saw Hopkins’s leering mug looking back at him from the seaside café. The only surprise was the two blokes stepping out of the parked Commodore looked like cops, decent-sized men with thinning crew-cuts and GP boots beneath their business slacks.
“Hopkins, you arsehole,” Flanagan sighed.
*
NEITHER OF THE men said a word as they came for him. Flanagan was already naturally crouched. His ribs felt like he had arrows jutting out of him. Seeing the apes approach, he slowly retreated, knowing he had nothing but water at his back or an unlikely dash along the walkway into the aquarium maze of the industrial-sized fish-and-chip shop.
“Come on, blokes,” he muttered helplessly. “No pun intended, but give us a break, eh?”
“Shut up,” the darker of the pair snapped.
He lunged ahead of his pal to try and grab Flanagan by the shirt-front. Flanagan swept the man’s hands aside, switching sideways and clubbing his fist behind the man’s ear. Grunting and stunned, the man couldn’t help staggering off-kilter into one of the fence posts. But his mate unexpectedly kicked Flanagan in the upper thigh, crushing the nerve and deadening his leg, before coming in with a series of sweeping hooks Flanagan had to escape from Jackie Chan-style, flat on his back and rolling backwards over his shoulders before standing awkwardly and doing just as he’d feared, pounding at a limp along the walkway and up several tiers of wooden slat steps to the tables on the rear balcony of Chikatillo’s.
That was as far as he got. The first of the men – Flanagan still couldn’t be certain they were cops, though everything about them screamed off-duty TRG – grabbed him by the back of the shirt and hauled him around, doing his best to slam Flanagan into one of the big wooden pillars the chip shop had out back. The shirt tore and Flanagan pulled one arm from the ruins, pushing off the pillar and slapping his open hand over the other man’s ear. Crumpling in pain as he clutched himself, Flanagan’s knee collided with the bloke’s face to the detriment of his front teeth.
Victory was short-lived. The downed attacker kept his clutches in the rest of the torn shirt and Flanagan could only go another metre as the second attacker, the wannabe kickboxer, came up the steps. Flanagan ducked and then blocked a nasty foreleg kick with his naked arm. Pain flared along the instantly numb nerve and it was a push-pull effort to eventually jerk his trapped arm free, half the blue shirt left in the kneeling man’s grasp like a distraught fan at an Elvis concert.
With a length of cloth dangling from his left wrist, Flanagan took the other end and snapped the line taut, turning just in time to capture the kickboxer’s next attack in the improvised garrotte his years of pencak silat training had taught. In Indonesia, they preferred to use a sarong, improvising a potentially deadly weapon from the most common worn clothing, but Flanagan’s ruined shirt sufficed. He caught the man’s booted ankle and held it at head height, driving his knee into the bloke’s thigh and then his crotch – and then his attacker collapsed. Before Flanagan could capitalise, the other cop caught him from behind in a stranglehold, his mate swiftly recovering and launching in with a series of old-style interrogation slaps, only half of which Flanagan managed to deflect.
An old man with a goatee stepped out through one of many glass doors and quickly retreated when the kickboxer glared at him. Brush-cut hair caramelised with styling cream, the attacker turned back and caught Flanagan’s flailing wrist before sending an axe-blow of a fist into his jaw, dousing the lights in an instant.
Flanagan slumped, his bowels relaxing, and in the murky half-light of dimming consciousness he tried to sweep his foot into the man’s instep. Instead, he felt a size-twelve boot grind down on his ankle, the pain as remote as the train crossing bell ringing somewhere in the distance.
TWENTY-TWO
IT WAS SOME time before Flanagan could work out why it was so cold. He lay in a medically-induced coma for thirteen days, the starched white institutional sheets and air-conditioning playing at his drifting unconscious throughout.
“Turn off the fucking air-con,” he managed to slur as one of many crisply-dressed ghosts passed through his room.
The nurse was almost painfully thin, glasses magnifying her eyes, her complexion a map to read whatever secrets were concealed by her condition. Her own demons didn’t reduce the woman’s ability to care for others or remain professional. Her face leapt into colour as she did a double-take at the bed and hurried over instead of rushing to comply.
“Mr Flanagan, are you awake?”
“Barely,” he managed. “Please, I’m freezing.”
“Of course.”
The nurse moved to the wall unit and turned the dial, fussing with a cross-hatched blanket she flicked open and spread over him, his arm strangled with an IV drip that fluttered in some weird relation with the heart monitor.
“The doctors put you into a coma to give you time to recover,” the nurse said as she came around the bed, checking his forehead with the back of her hand as casually as a mother of three with a newborn.
“They will be surprised you’re awake,” she said, her accent something Balkan. “How are you feeling?”
The question was an odd one. He knew he’d dreamed – probably a whole boxed set of them. At the same time, he felt like a switch had been flicked between one moment, fighting for his life amid rising panic for Allyson, the next moment waking a fortnight later in the hospital bed, concern undiminished.
“I’m worried. My friends . . . I have to speak to my friends.”
“I’d better get the doctor. Hold on, Mr Flanagan.”
She swept from the room, and as he tracked her with his gaze, the small floral collection on the table half-intervened. Sitting independently was a police business card, Detective Constable Mahmoud Pringdegar, Fremantle Detectives.
“Fuck.”
*
THE DOCTORS FUSSED, but their words went in one ear and out another. For the first time in a long time, Flanagan felt like crying at his helplessness. Even the satisfac
tion in knowing his unexpected return to consciousness had thrown their professional detachment for a loop meant very little as he lay pinned like a butterfly exhibit to the bed, desperate with worry for Allyson and the other Tennysons.
It wasn’t until the five o’clock visiting time that Lord managed to come in. His face was ashen, telling him everything he needed to hear except the facts.
“Teneille couldn’t come,” were his first words. “Her therapist has her on some pretty strong medication.”
“Jesus,” Flanagan gasped.
Lord croaked an indistinct reply and moved into the room, helping himself to a poured glass of water and then gulping it down, spillage down his reflective tie like surrogates to the tears he seemed unable to shed.
“What’s happened? The police –?”
“—are fucking useless,” Lord said. “You’ve had an Indian detective around to see you about your attack. There’s no witnesses, or no one coming forward anyway.”
“Allyson?”
“She’s gone, mate.”
Flanagan was deadly fearful for a moment. Their eyes met and Lord’s expression was like a grieving parent, locked into forever widening circles of misery he could only hope to master and never escape.
“She’s . . . dead?”
“We don’t know,” Lord replied. His hands rose to make some ineffectual gesture and halted halfway, becoming the very gesture itself before he slapped them down on his long narrow thighs.
“According to the police she’s not even a missing person.”
Flanagan groaned as he struggled up slowly and spoke.
“Tell me what happened, Lord. You came home?”
“No, it was Teneille,” Lord said. “Came home and the front door was wide open. Ally’s stuff was gone. No note. No anything. Neighbours saw nothing. I called the police and they said to fill in some forms. I called a cop I know, Peter Bayless, and asked him to come down. He brought his partner, but they couldn’t locate any signs of a struggle, said it wasn’t a crime scene, shrugged like cunts and did nothing.”
“Missing persons report?”
“I went with Teneille, explained the situation, the links to Carlo Franco. Treated us like we were hysterical parents. You should’ve seen Darryl and Glenda. Fuck!”
“Did you . . . file it?”
“Yeah, but the police know she has a history of running away. Your cop, Pringdegar or whatever, says we should call community services.”
“Jesus,” Flanagan gasped throatily. “Is he a fucking detective or . . . or what?”
“Truth is they just don’t have the manpower, Mick.” Tennyson hung his head like he felt the guilt himself. “The cop’s been waiting to speak with you. Swelling on the brain, major concussion –”
“Fractured wrist, blood on the lungs, so on and so on,” Flanagan finished.
“You’re lucky they didn’t open your head up to take a look.”
“Aches like they fucking did.”
“Should I call the nurse?”
“No,” Flanagan muttered. “God knows, she might actually be eating something. Wouldn’t want to interrupt that.”
Lord sniffed unawares and nodded.
“I’m sorry, Mick.”
“Jesus, I’m the one who’s sorry, Lord.”
The lawyer lifted his brimming eyes.
“You tried your fucking hardest. The only one who did. You nearly got yourself killed. What happened?”
“Franco called,” Flanagan sighed. “I don’t need to tell you it was a set-up, do I? Hopkins was there. He had some goons in a car. I think they were cops. Something military about them, I don’t know.”
“They left you for dead. A fifteen-year-old boy called the police from his mobile. He said there were three men, but he only saw their backs.”
“You spoke to him?”
“I’ve been going out of my mind,” Lord said. “It’s only the last three days I’ve been back at work, run out of sick leave and got the hard word from the higher-ups. I tried to think what you would do. So I went down there, found the kid, talked to him. Gave him a hundred bucks. Kind of my way of saying thanks.”
“Should’ve been a thousand,” Flanagan weakly laughed.
Lord remained serious, blue eyes locked on his friend.
“The kid called on his mobile because the shop manager wouldn’t let him use the landline. She said they didn’t want the press attention.”
“Far out.”
Flanagan stared at the wall with the air-conditioner like it was a painting by Flaubert. It took a few sentences from Lord before he came back to attention.
“What?”
“I told the owners we’d be suing for criminal negligence if you died. Their lawyers have got some serious teeth, studded collars, black chains, you know the deal.”
“Forget about them,” Flanagan said. “I know who needs to pay for this one.”
His gaze steadily returned to the intriguing white wall. He would’ve said more, but the nurse returned with a tray of medicine in little paper cups.
“I’ll call in tomorrow,” Lord said.
“No,” Flanagan said. “I’ll call you.”
*
IT WAS SEPTEMBER. Hopkins and his team were in the finals. A brief read of the daily paper before dressing and checking himself out was enough to turn Flanagan’s stomach, sending him back for more bed-rest, to think that amid all the dirt, “Hoppy” Hopkins could still be winning the admiration of the WA public, just a single boxed column dedicated to pondering the off-field shenanigans leading to his black eye and fat lip.
Nuala had the Fairmont towed to the back of her unit, a sheaf of parking fines turning yellow on the dash. She’d also won custody of his phone and keys, and the first thing she did when he turned up at the Norfolk Street flat after hugging him was present him with the pink diary and a stack of redirected mail.
“Your friend Lord has been dropping it around. His wife’s staying at her mother’s. I don’t think he thought you were going to be going back there.”
“Probably expected me to die,” Flanagan said blearily. His face was unshaven, and despite the hospital toothpaste, his mouth felt like small birds had been breeding and dying in there since at least the early 90s.
“You’re meant to be in Berlin,” he eventually said.
Nuala was fussing with the kettle, upset, he could tell, unable to fit the black cord into the metal slot. Flanagan slumped at the kitchen table, the past severity of his broken ribs now veiled by the general body-wide ache the two types of painkillers could barely suppress.
“Karen’s gone. I’ll come later, I said.”
“Kind of you, Nee,” Flanagan said in a ghost’s voice.
She whirled, face slippery, and threw the stainless steel kettle across the room. It cracked off the wall of glass windows looking out onto the courtyard, and as the glass spider-webbed, the kettle rebounded like a gong off the inner wall and narrowly missed Flanagan where he sat. He wiped his face dry, not so much unmoving out of inner calm as exhaustion.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“How are you going to lead a normal life, Mick?” Nuala moaned. “How? You can’t keep ending up like this. What are you doing?”
“I know you’re concerned about me,” he slowly replied. “But this is nothing. Lord’s sister is out there somewhere, being held against her will, I’m betting. You know men.” He made a face of eloquent disgust. “What do you think’s happening to her?”
If it was possible to pale further, Nuala managed it.
“Why are they doing this?”
“You know why,” he slowly replied, patting the diary on the table. “My guess is they found out she’d been speaking to the media. Hopkins is pathological. His best friend in the world is a criminal thug who’d stop at nothing to protect his interests. I don’t know what he gets out of Brett Hopkins, but they’re in it deep. Deeper, now.”
“Do you think she’s . . . dead?”
“Yeah,” he
nodded. “Maybe. Shit.”
Nuala turned back to the long counter, shelving claustrophobic above her head, and eventually returned to the table with a sheet of newspaper folded double. She dropped it beside his unopened letters and knelt to retrieve the leaking kettle.
“You’d better read this.”
Flanagan felt his chest restrict as he turned the page the right way around and saw a photo of Teneille and Lord holding up Allyson’s picture.
“Jacobsen teen abduction claims,” Flanagan read aloud weakly.
He looked at his sister. “Am I in this?”
“Briefly,” she said. “You have to read it.”
“‘The family of a 17-year-old girl missing for a week believe she was kidnapped by members of Perth’s criminal underworld.’” Flanagan nodded as he read. “‘Allyson Jane Jacobsen went missing from her sister’s Mosman Park house after returning from a prestigious Scarborough girls school on August 22.’”
Flanagan put the paper down a moment before finally reading the rest. Teneille was quoted saying she and her parents were concerned by the company Allyson had been keeping, but the paper hadn’t stuck its legal neck out to name either Franco or Hopkins. The reporter had also linked in Allyson’s previous truancy, and her status as a”‘teen runaway” strongly undermined the credibility of the family. The real kicker was a quote from an “unnamed source” – probably Franco, whom Teneille would’ve named, and to whom the reporter would’ve gone for clarification. The unnamed man said, “‘I don’t know her whereabouts, but this girl is a renowned drug fiend and party queen. She could be anywhere.’”
“Christ,” Flanagan stammered, rubbing his face with his hand and then reaching shakily for a stale cigarette. Nuala said nothing as he lit up, the bare house a sign she wasn’t planning on concern about the smell for much longer.
“They got it wrong,” Flanagan said, exhaling painfully slow from between his teeth. “She’s only sixteen.”
“No, Mick,” Nuala answered in an equally pained voice. “She had a birthday. She’s seventeen, now.”
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