by Steve Hawke
The Pearsons can sense something is out of kilter. Felicity announces they will go and check in at the Cable Beach Club and call back later. But just as they are about to leave, Harry the police aide arrives, with a plain-clothes policeman at his side. Janey sees the hard look in the detective’s eyes when Harry points Buddy out to him. She grabs Felicity’s arm and whispers to her, ‘Please, can you stay a minute.’
Harry is furious that Buddy’s return has not been reported, and is happy to stand back as the policeman announces that he has a warrant to take Buddy in for questioning.
Andy has taken a tight hold of Buddy. ‘What do you mean you’ve got a warrant?’ he asks. ‘Does that mean you’ve charged him?’
‘Not yet mate, not just yet,’ says the policeman. ‘You the absent father are you?’
Andy looks daggers at him, but does not reply.
Suddenly Felicity steps forward. Janey has been frantically whispering into her ear. ‘Can I see your warrant Constable …?’
‘It’s Detective. Detective Jim Johnson. And who are you lady?’
‘Felicity Pearson, solicitor with Withnail, Jones and Pearson. I am Master Jirroo’s lawyer. Now could I see that warrant please?’
Buddy grins up at his father. The detective looks questioningly at Harry, who can only shrug back at him.
Detective Johnson quickly starts backtracking under Felicity’s aggressive questioning. He hasn’t actually got the warrant with him; no, it’s not back at the station; in fact, no, he hasn’t actually got one yet; no ma’am, he isn’t acting under false pretences; yes ma’am, he’ll ring her at the Cable Beach Club to make an appointment when they are ready to interview Master Jirroo.
Buddy is dancing on the spot as Harry and Detective Johnson retreat back down the driveway. Andy too is smiling broadly as he reintroduces himself. ‘Mrs Pearson, let me shake your hand again, properly this time. I’m Andy Jirroo, this young rascal’s father. Thank you.’
‘Please, call me Flick. Buddy, you’re the drummer aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, that’s me. Thanks Mrs Pearson, that was awesome.’
‘I think I’d better have a talk with the two of you sometime today. We might have sent the detective packing for now, but I don’t think I’ve exactly made a friend of him.’
Big Al glances at his watch then starts peeling off his filthy clothes. He is cutting it fine, but he will make it back to the Bay View in time for the meeting with those bloodsuckers from the bank. Just as well he always keeps a set of good clothes on the boat. It wouldn’t do to turn up at the Bay View looking like this.
The cruiser is Big Al’s one indulgence. As a rule he is much more interested in making money than in flaunting it. But the boat is different. He supposes it goes back when he was a kid, hanging around the luggers. He just loves having it as his private plaything, kept here at his quiet mooring.
By rights, he shouldn’t be feeling half as good as he does. Georgie Jordan still hasn’t come through with the final approval. ‘Any day now,’ he keeps saying. And the fire was a major nightmare — not just the money it cost him — he has had to put off the construction crew for another week. Now it’s his quarterly meeting with the two leeches representing the banking syndicate funding the development.
But as he shaves and showers and gets himself ready, he even finds himself whistling. And he knows why. It’s the diamonds! He can smell them again. Just when the trail seemed to have gone cold.
He’d been about to screw up the bundle of paper and hurl it into the smouldering ruins, he was in such a towering rage. But the scrawl of his own logo had caught his eye, and he had glanced again. It didn’t take much to work out that it was a drawing of the pendants. So they’d found the third one.
Poring over the drawing, he’d eventually worked out that it was a well. Those damn kids were onto it, but he would outsmart them. Last night’s labours might have netted him nothing, but he wasn’t finished yet.
Cleaned up and ready to go, Big Al calls through the locked door of the storage cabin, ‘I’ll be back for you later. Think about what I said.’ He climbs down into the dinghy and motors off to the town jetty and his waiting car.
Once the sound of the dinghy’s motor fades Teoh Tom starts struggling again. But he has little strength left and the bonds are too tight. His wrists are tied behind him, securing his arms around a pole, and his legs too are bound. His only hope is to work free the tape over his mouth and scream for help, but he is not sure that anyone would hear him out here.
Last night, after guiding Buddy to town, he had paddled the canoe back to his island hide-out and fretted about what to do. All his instincts, all of the secretive habits he had developed over long decades, told him to stay hidden. But everything had changed with the bones being found, with his promise to the boy to tell his story to Buster and Bella. It was all bubbling up.
He had not asked Buddy what he was going to do, but he had a fair idea. He figured if Buddy had his way he would be back as soon as he could to get down Old Jirroo’s well. But that young Steer, with the mad, bad power in his eyes, he was on the prowl too.
So, going against all the voices that told him to stop where he was, Tom slipped into the dark waters of the creek. He found a spot in a tree, in between the Jirroos’ shack and his old camp, where he could watch that devil man trying to dig out his well.
And sure enough, Buddy and the other kids had come sneaking along and got to work at the shack. Tom shuddered at every noise they made. He had watched and waited, until the clang of the metal plate had echoed through the quiet of the bush night. He had seen Big Al look up from his attack on the well, at first startled, then curious. He had watched Big Al, crowbar in hand, head down the track towards the shack.
And without thinking he dropped from the tree and cut across to the track. When Big Al came round a bend, Tom had frozen. All power of thought and action had left him.
It was not a plan, he had just done it. But it worked. Buddy and the other kids were safe. He stood there like a kangaroo in a hunter’s spotlight until Big Al grabbed him and dragged him back to the remains of his old camp.
He shudders at the memory. Big Al had snarled, ‘Got anything to tell me?’ He had shaken his head frantically, cowering, but Big Al leered in close and hissed, ‘About the diamonds?’
Tom had lived most of his life in fear of the danger his secrets might bring down upon him, but this was something else. It was sheer blind terror.
‘I’ll get it out of you yet,’ Big Al had said. ‘But it’s going to have to wait. Daylight’s coming.’ He had tied Tom up and thrown him in the back of his car. By the time daylight came, he was on board the cruiser.
After securing him in the cabin, Big Al had leaned in close and whispered menacingly, ‘It took them fifty years to find Old Jirroo. You’ll never be found.’
Now, unable to shift the tape from his mouth or loosen his bonds, Tom knows he is beaten. All he can do is wait for the end. Big Al is a killer, just like his father. Or will be soon.
Georgie is waiting at the Bay View. When Big Al’s car pulls up he darts out, with a grin like a Cheshire cat. ‘Where have you been Mr Steer? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’
‘What is it Georgie boy? Got something for me?’
Georgie hands him a fax. ‘It’s the approval. Came through this morning. It gives the all clear for the whole box and dice. The Minister’s signature is just a formality now.’
Big Al runs his eyes over the document. ‘Good stuff. Got to go Georgie. Meetings.’ He bustles inside and up the stairs to his office, leaving Georgie feeling deflated. Somehow he had expected more than this.
Flick had become an instant hero with her intervention on Buddy’s behalf. Once things calmed down a little after the departure of the police, everyone got properly acquainted over cups of tea, accounts of the stolen bones, and the fire.
Ally said to Flick, ‘Janey told you we’d be having a party while you were here?’
‘She did
say something about it.’
‘Well how about the three of you come round tonight?’
Flick made polite noises, and Graham asked, ‘Are you really feeling like a party?’ But Ally insisted, and plans for the day were agreed. A late morning siesta was in order. After that, Andy would take the kids round to the Cable Beach Club so Flick could go through the details of Buddy’s case while the rest of them got organised for the party.
The session with Flick is reassuring. She quizzes the kids in fine detail and comes to the conclusion that it will be very difficult to prove any sort of a case against Buddy, or the rest of them. ‘They can place Buddy at the site that the fire began, but that’s only circumstantial. There’s nothing else.’
They take Flick out to inspect the burnt-out ruin of the site office and the remains of Tom’s camp. They show her the spot the bones were taken from, where the coffin shaped hole has been filled in and the surrounding ground roughed up to remove any sign of what has happened there.
Janey provides a running commentary on Big Al’s plans as they head down to the beach, explaining where all the different elements of his resort and golf course will go, what would disappear, what would be wrecked. When they step out onto the sand there is a cooling sea breeze ruffling the water. The tide is halfway in, lapping at the mangroves, and herons and waders are picking along the shore.
Andy points out Jiir Rock on the headland. Dancer interrupts, ‘Look.’
They all follow his pointing finger and watch a sea eagle glide in across the waters of the bay and circle down to settle on Jiir rock.
‘Wow!’ Graham says quietly, as he puts an arm around Flick.
Sal grins at this, then whispers to Janey, ‘It’s awesome.’
Buddy and Dancer hang back with Andy as the others head for home. Once the Pearsons’ car pulls away Andy lets out a whoop of joy. ‘I just wanted a few minutes on me own with you two monsters,’ he laughs. ‘Come and show me your handiwork.’
As they inspect the well, and examine the harness Dancer rigged up, Andy and Buddy are full of optimistic talk, and wild plans for the future. But Dancer is uneasy.
‘I don’t know Dad. I just can’t help remembering what Nyami said about the purri purri.’
‘We don’t want to keep the diamonds son. Just sell them, and use the money.’
‘Yeah, I know, but …’ His words trail away. He feels like the worst sort of spoilsport, talking like this when his father and brother are on such a high, but he can’t deny the feeling in his guts. ‘We’ve still got to find a way to save Jiir’s place, that’s the most important thing of all. I reckon Nyami’s right, it’s all tangled up together somehow.’
31
TEOH TOM COMES round at the sound of the approaching dinghy. Night has fallen. He has been lapsing in and out of consciousness all day. He is beyond thinking, beyond fear, and is consumed by thirst. When Big Al rips the tape from his mouth and begins firing questions, all he can do is make croaking noises through his dry swollen throat.
Big Al drags him out to the rear deck, then gets a mug of water. He taps his foot impatiently as, with shaking hands, Tom gulps it down.
‘Well?’ he snaps.
Tom whimpers, ‘Nothin’, nothin’ in my well.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No, nothin’.’
‘Move ’em somewhere else did you?’
‘Never.’
‘I’ve had a long hard day, you silly old coot. I’m not in the mood for games.’
As he says this Big Al manhandles Tom to the back of the boat and plunges him into the ocean. He holds him down under the water.
Tom thrashes wildly, but cannot match Big Al’s strength. Just when he thinks he can hold his breath no longer, he is jerked upwards.
Big Al dangles him by a handful of hair.
Tom cannot stop the words that spill out. ‘The boy know. Buddy. He know I got nothin’. He worked it out.’
‘The Jirroo kid? The cheeky one?’
Tom stops struggling, as shame floods through him.
‘What’s he know?’
Tom stays silent this time, even as Big Al shakes him, and hisses, ‘What the hell does the kid know? What did he work out?’
Big Al plunges him back under the water. Tom starts thrashing again. Suddenly, with a great tearing of hair that burns his scalp, he comes free, leaving skin and hair behind in Big Al’s fist.
He kicks wildly as he bobs to the surface, just evading the arm that gropes for him. He ducks under water as he hears the splash of Big Al diving in after him.
The darkness is Tom’s friend, and the water is his element. He does not try to outswim Big Al, instead plays ducks and drakes, breaking the surface silently each time he has to come up for air, then zigzagging in different directions under water, gradually working further away from the boat.
When he hears Big Al clambering back on board he strikes out for the shore. He hears the dinghy’s outboard fire up, and sees the torch beam playing on the water as it circles the cruiser. But by then he has reached the mangroves and he is soon hidden in the maze of roots.
The backyard is a whirl of food, talk and music. Sal is sitting next to Janey, who is pounding out a rhythm as Little Joe and Jimmy trade licks, so engrossed that she does not notice her parents arrive. Ally spots them looking around the crowded yard though, and shepherds Flick and Graham over to sit with her.
Ally and Flick are soon deep in conversation, swapping notes on their daughters, while Graham talks music, cattle and Broome stories with Eddie and Andy. But their conversation dies away when they notice a shifting of chairs over in the music circle, and the kids picking up their instruments.
It’s not really cool to put on a performance in this environment. The vibe of backyard parties is a fluid movement, with different players dropping in and out, and the talking and eating continuing unabated around the music. But the rest of the family have been dying to hear the new song just as much as the kids have been dying to do it, and a hush falls as Buddy starts the beat, using Col’s drum box.
Janey and Dancer kick in with their guitars, playing rhythm and bass, and then Jimmy joins in with the lead line he devised. Flick and Graham can’t keep the grins off their faces when Sal joins Janey on the vocals for the first proper rendition of Dreaming in Broome.
Applause does not really fit into the backyard vibe either, but Flick and Graham don’t know this, and when the song comes to a close they whistle and cheer. Once they have given the lead, others join in and call for more. The kids run through their repertoire, with Janey prodding Sal to join in on the choruses.
After the kids do their thing the night mellows out. Buster and Micky play a couple of slow blues numbers with Little Joe, before Buster drifts over to listen to the flow of conversation around the Pearsons.
Later, when all the other guests have drifted home, the Pearsons are still there. Flick finds herself in a corner with Janey and Dancer, Little Joe and Buster, who seems to have been waiting for this quiet moment to talk to her. Buster turns the conversation to Jiir and Manburr, and the ceremony he and Little Joe have come from.
His voice is quiet, but the effect is mesmerising. He weaves stories of the dreaming and of country around stories of his own life — working the stations, the boats, odd jobs around Broome and up and down the coast. He explains to Flick how as the years passed he was given more and more responsibility for the laws and the ceremonies of the rain dreaming.
His life has come to revolve less around making his way in the white man’s world, and more on the old ways and the well-being of the land. Little Joe is the one from the next generation who looks like he will follow this path, Buster explains. And maybe it will be Dancer in the generation after.
Flick begins to appreciate that for all the trappings and distractions of modern life in a town like Broome, the dreaming and the law of the land are much more than an echo of a time past. They are central to the way these people live, the way they feel, the way they se
e the world. The impassioned raves she has heard from Janey down in Perth take on a whole new context, watching her sitting at Buster’s knee as he talks.
Buster tells her about the raindancing up at Garnet Bay, and his fear that they will be of no use. ‘I’m a lawyer too, like you, blackfeller way,’ says Buster. ‘Or a lawman, anyway. Only I don’t know if I’m winnin’ my case.’
‘If there’s anything I can do to help, I will,’ Flick answers quietly.
‘There is somethin’ I wanted to ask you,’ Buster says.
‘What’s that?’
Buster reaches under his chair for a shopping bag. Janey and Dancer go goggle eyed as he pulls the biscuit tin out of the bag. ‘I was wonderin’ if you’d mind lookin’ after this for a few days. I reckon you’ll be safe with it.’
‘I’ll be safe?’ Flick has no idea what he is talking about.
He smiles at Janey and Dancer. ‘These two will tell you. If they belong to anyone, they belong to the kids, but more better if you look after ’em for now. My sister doesn’t like having ’em round here.’
But before the conversation can go any further there is a commotion. Teoh Tom, covered in mud and streaked with blood, is staggering down the driveway. Buddy leaps up, and Tom collapses onto him, trying to hug him, and to hold himself up. ‘I’m sorry boy,’ he sobs. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell ’im. ’E was goin’ to kill me.’
Tom is settled on a chair by the stoked-up fire, with a blanket around him and a steaming mug of tea. A bandage around his head has staunched the flow of blood from his scalp.
Bella had supervised cleaning him up as he stammered out an account of his capture and escape, begging forgiveness for telling Big Al that Buddy knew the secret. Eventually, he looked Buster and Bella in the eye and said he had a story to tell them. He asked for a cup of tea, and now he has it they all wait. He stares into the flames for a long minute before he takes a sip.