Washed Up

by Berry, Tony

  Bromo made a half turn, wanting to see what was happening behind him. Bomber, eyes flicking warily from side to side, held his knife loosely at waist level. West, arm bent at the elbow, had one hand keeping the umbrella raised high over both of them. Bromo’s senses soared to high alert. West’s other hand, hanging at his side, held a short-barrelled gun.

  ‘We going possum hunting?’

  ‘You’re the only possum round here, Mr Perkins.’

  West’s voice was low and steady. It oozed menace.

  ‘We’re a protected species.’

  ‘Not tonight, you’re not. It’s time for a cull. Keep walking.’

  He’d been in perilous situations too often in the past not to know danger when he saw it. A risk assessor viewing the scene would turn his back and walk away. No chance. Bromo felt his heart racing. He tested the ties around his wrists. There was a slight give, but nothing to raise his hopes.

  The wind had doubled in ferocity, bending branches and even the trunks of the more slender trees. It threw tempestuous gusts at Carl West’s umbrella, threatening to tear the cloth off its fragile ribs. He fought to keep the protective covering aloft, even though the rain had started to ease.

  ‘Afraid of splashing the Armani?’ said Bromo, with a nod at the wavering umbrella.

  ‘Keep walking,’ snarled Bomber, treading hard on his heels and giving him another shove in the back.

  Clouds scudded rapidly overhead, a half-moon lighting the scene through a break in their close-knit formation. The wind summoned up an extra hard blow. Branches entwined and clashed close above them. There was a sudden crack of rending timber to their left. A tall, spindly wattle tree thudded to the ground ten metres away. All three men stopped in mid-step, nerves rattled. Trees starved of water during months of drought had no root systems. They were falling over without warning. Another crashed down on the far side of the clearing, flattening a clump of bushes. Two bats zoomed low above them. Bomber ducked, although they were nowhere near him.

  ‘Shit, let’s get out of here!’ he said.

  Bromo detected a tremor in his voice. The big bruiser was out of his element. Bromo grinned, feeling his spirits lift.

  ‘Not a country boy, then?’

  He’d found a weak spot.

  ‘Happier kicking arse in King Street?’

  At last, the barb hit its mark. Bromo felt the blow coming, Bomber lashing out with a swift roundhouse swing of his arm, aiming at his neck. Bromo bent away to one side and down. He felt the sleeve of Bomber’s jacket brush the top of his head as it whistled past, the impetus of the blow making his attacker stumble. Bomber was crouched down on his left. The edge of the clearing was two steps away. Bromo could see a narrow walking track leading into thick, dark scrub unlit by the car’s headlights. He tensed his legs.

  ‘Don’t even think of it.’

  West had read his mind.

  ‘Run now and you’re a dead man.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  Now or in five minutes’ time – did it matter? Bromo considered his options. Even the condemned man clung on until the very last moment. He was no different. He breathed deeply, calming his racing heart, watching Bomber brush himself down, removing leaves and dirt from his trousers. The rain had become a gentle drizzle but the wind had geared up to gale force. The trees were bending and bowing, casting grotesque shadows in the car’s full beam. Bomber looked nervously around as the gale made its own howling music, whistling through the higher branches. He flicked a twig off his sleeve and moved closer to West, seeking the protection of the umbrella.

  ‘Stop frigging around and get him into the bushes!’ snarled West. ‘Off the track We’ve got to hide him.’

  The voice had lost its calm, gone up a notch or two. A nervy man with his finger on a trigger was bad news. Bromo’s heartbeat gathered pace. Bomber pushed him forward, out of the clearing and on to the track. The light was dimmer. Bushes crowded in on both sides.

  They were forced to walk in single file – Bomber on his heels and prodding him in the back, and West at the rear. Memories of basic training clicked in; rules drummed in then were never forgotten, remained intuitive long after they were needed. So many times Bromo had cursed his inability to close the door on that other life. Tonight, he cheered inwardly as he realised one of the most rudimentary rules had just been broken through West’s impatience: never let anything come between you and your target. Where there were mistakes there was hope.

  He trod warily forward, his feet slipping and sliding on the rutted path. The wind was gathering strength, tearing the forest apart. Three tall, lean stringy barks swayed and bent in response to each squall. Strips of their coarse, fibrous bark littered the ground. Branches scratched at his face. He bowed his head to avoid them. Visibility was getting worse.

  An owl screeched from somewhere overhead. It was a warning no one recognised. One of the eucalypts bent and failed to rebound. Its trunk splintered and snapped. The owl screeched again. Its warning was too late. The tree became a brutal and deadly weapon, its upper trunk hurtling earthwards, seen too late by the men below, mesmerising them, freezing them to the spot, a trio of rigid statues.

  Bromo was the first to react – that old training once more firing up from some subliminal cell, instinctive and spontaneous. He took two ungainly strides forward – a hop and a step without the jump. The leap took him centimetres clear of a thunderous rush of falling foliage. He felt the spindly outer branches scrape his back. Behind him, fearful yells, a high-pitched scream and what sounded like the explosion of a gun formed a jumbled prelude to the thudding finale of the tree’s collision with the forest floor.

  Silence and stillness followed. Bromo stood rigid, anxious not to crack a twig or rustle a leaf. The silence was eerie, the forest was numbed by the downfall of a giant. It was as if the final note of a massive Mahler symphony had been played and orchestra and audience were stilled until that magical moment when the conductor slowly lowered his baton and the concert hall reverberated with applause. It was a moment for reflection and refocusing.

  There was no sound or movement back along the track. The splintered trunk of the tree, cloaked in a tangle of branches, blocked the path. Beyond, the limousine’s headlights continued to throw their twin beams into the forest’s blackness. The wind was stirring back into action. The drizzling rain was turning into a downpour.

  He could see no sign of West or Bomber. He assumed they had caught the full force of the tree-fall and were dead, injured or at least unconscious. The risk in trying to ascertain their fate was too great. With hands still bound behind him, he would be useless to help. Fate had dealt him some odd hands down the years but tonight he was holding a royal flush. The track he was on had to lead somewhere. He turned and pushed deeper into the forest.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The rain was getting heaver. Teeming down. Lashing him horizontally instead of vertically. The torrential downpour washed away any hope of finding useful shelter under the trees. Huge gusts of wind were driving the rain through the foliage, tearing away any pretence of protection.

  Bromo felt the damp seeping through his jacket into his shirt. His trousers were already soaked up to the knees where he had stepped into a ditch. If only he’d thought of taking his Drizabone off its hook behind the office door before he’d set out, however many hours ago it was. Too late for regrets; another stable door locked with the horse galloping into the distance. Surely he’d lived here long enough to know the local mantra of four seasons in one day. Leave home in a searing heatwave – return in a chilling gale.

  Not that he’d imagined he’d be caught in a storm on what should have been a short cab trip between suburbs with two frightened young women. He tried not to think what could have happened to Lottie and Adriana. The priority was to find his way out of this forested maze. He could do nothing for them where he was. He couldn’t even grope in the gloom for shelter, hobbled by the bindings around his wrists.

  Bromo kept his head bow
ed, butting his way through the foliage, peering both sides of the track for anything that would provide respite from the wind and the rain, somewhere he could curl up, stop shivering and get warm again. He wanted to burrow down and feel protected, away from the raging storm, and give his head a chance to disperse the fog befuddling him. The abandoned limousine, marooned in the middle of the picnic area, would have been ideal but until he was certain of the fate of West and Bomber it remained firmly out of bounds.

  The track was deeply rutted and narrow, little more than a metre wide from one densely wooded side to the other. Briefly, it widened – probably a lay-by or passing spot – cutting back into the trees on one side into some sort of escarpment. He found a low overhang of rock protecting a narrow strip of still-dry dirt where he could lie down, draw his knees up to his chest and huddle into himself, foetus-like, a return to the womb while he waited for daylight.

  Dazed and disoriented, his mind wandered back down the years, morphing into the child who joyfully snuggled down into the bedclothes when his parents came in to say goodnight. No matter how hard the day had been, how many cuts and bruises were suffered in the schoolyard or tellings-off received from the gaunt and fearsome and badly named, Miss Flower, there was warmth and comfort in those bedtime moments. Especially when there was rain on the tin roof, hammering down but never drilling through and soaking into the soul. Mum and dad would tuck the blankets tight around him. Then one of them would perch on the edge of the bed and read him a story. How he loved dad doing his impersonations of all those characters befriended by Christopher Robin – Pooh and Piglet, Roo, Owl and, best of all, poor old downtrodden Eeyore with his mournful voice. Everything was familiar, cosy and comforting. Even when they turned off the light and quietly closed the door, the feeling remained of being safe and warm.

  There would be no mum or dad tucking warm blankets around him tonight. Those days were long gone, along with both parents – dad dying in agony, eaten away by cancer from years of smoking, and mum slipping gently over death’s threshold with a sigh when her over-active heart decided enough was enough.

  All the bedtime comforts since then had come from a wild mélange of too many different hands to remember. A tucking-in of bodies rather than blankets. Long-term relationships had become shattered dreams of permanency replaced by shorter intense comfort breaks that blazed and faded; and brief stopovers that provided a few nights of warmth and solace. Less bitter now, he could view them as rest stops on the road through life, havens from the turbulence that had swirled around him.

  If there was any luck left in his account, a paramedic or nurse would likely be the closest he would come tonight to the sort of faraway comforts drifting through his mind. Maybe they would also wrap him in blankets – perhaps one of those shiny, metallic ones – and strap him to a stretcher and tuck him in tight, just like mum used to do.

  Better still if they let him commune with the comforter he had learnt to favour when human contact passed him by; if they let him grasp the bottle of Lagavulin and pour two fingers of the peaty, golden malt into a whisky glass, savouring its pungent aroma before spreading its warmth deep into his core. Human contact would only go so far in stilling the shivers racking his chilled and hungry body.

  Beyond the protective rock the rain sheeted down, forming a water-wall distorting the landscape beyond. He shrouded himself deeper into his jacket, the collar up, the buttons undone to pull it tighter round him, overlapping.

  Perhaps by now Pete Jardine was wondering where he was, why he was late, even though he hadn’t given a specific time – simply that he’d be bringing the girls late that afternoon or early in the evening. Maybe Jardine had called Liz, got her worried enough to think of going out to look for him, checking the girls’ house and making reluctant talk of accidents.

  He shivered, his eyes briefly squeezed tightly closed against the gloom. The mirage of a bottle of scotch flashed across his inner screen, a tantalising yet false and unattainable comfort.

  If someone tried to call his mobile they’d get no reply and probably dismiss it as out of range, switched off or low on battery. All the usual excuses and reasons would be flying around, no one believing anyone – not even the technophobe Bromo – ever left home these days without the device that had become an extension of everyone’s body.

  Eventually, surely, someone must come. A spasm of cold racked his body. The shivers made him double further into himself, his head down on to his bent knees. He began hallucinating, hearing voices

  ‘Seems you’re in a bit of trouble.’

  The voice sounded near, at his shoulder. It was rough and croaky, coming from a smoker’s larynx, yet quiet and somehow soothing and comforting. Bromo shook his head, trying to clear it. He had to get rid of the voices, stay alert and in control.

  ‘What was it? A buck’s night gone wrong?’

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. A convulsive shudder shot through his body. He twisted his trunk up and sideways, feeling the pain spurting up his arm to his neck from his tethered wrists. He’d been caught napping.

  ‘Easy mate, easy.’

  The source of the voice moved into view, bending over him, calm and solicitous. An ageless man, bearded and weather-beaten, short and broad, strands of matted hair peeping from beneath a woollen skull-cap of a beanie. The man gently extended his arm and laid a steadying hand on Bromo’s shoulder. His other hand held a stubby torch, no more than two A4 batteries long, which shone a strong pinpoint beam to the ground. The man moved round in front of him, studying him closely, seemingly unfazed by his appearance.

  ‘Someone playing games, eh?’

  ‘You could call it that.’

  ‘Bit more than that by the look of you.’

  ‘Hmmm. Yeah, well …’

  It was too early for trust and explanations. Bromo wondered where the man had appeared from, so suddenly and quietly, and what he was doing wandering around the woods on such a bastard of a night.

  ‘I suppose you’d like to be untied.’

  ‘It would help.’

  ‘Not going to jump me, if I do? ‘

  ‘Do I look the type?’

  Who was trusting who? They were like dogs sniffing and assessing. Bromo realised he must present as a rough sight.

  ‘I haven’t got the energy,’ he added.

  He watched as the man delved into the deep pockets of his waterproof and took out a Swiss army knife. The man held the torch between his teeth as he carefully selected a blade and snicked it open. Bromo felt him sawing at his binding – gently, not rushing.

  ‘Don’t want to cause any more friction,’ explained the man.

  The release came suddenly as the last strands parted. The man stepped back, still wary, but closing the blade and putting the knife back in his pocket. Bromo rubbed each wrist in turn, noting the raw welts where the rope had rubbed.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  He held out his right hand, breaking the tension.

  ‘Bromo’s the name. Bromo Perkins.’

  The man grasped it, firm and tight. Bromo felt rough skin, hard and grainy.

  ‘Alex,’ the man said. ‘Alex McIntyre.’

  He waved his arm vaguely to the darkness behind him.

  ‘This way.’

  He turned from Bromo and walked towards the rocky overhang, ducking his head as he went. Bromo hesitated. He was comfortable where he was, sheltered from wind and rain. His battered body needed rest. There was no knowing where McIntyre was leading. There was a flash of the torch beaming down on to the track. McIntyre looked back over his shoulder.

  ‘Stay there if you want,’ he said. ‘I thought you might like some warmth and food.’

  He shrugged and walked on. Bromo stilled his doubts. Food and warmth sounded good options and McIntyre seemed more trustworthy than anyone he’d met for the past five hours. He stepped into line behind his rescuer. The track skirted the rock face and crossed a flat patch of scrub and heath before delving once more into rising land thick with
tall timber. Bromo stumbled over a broad block of wood and stubbed his foot into a metal rail. He regained his balance as McIntyre reached out a supporting arm, again letting the beam briefly light the ground.

  ‘Sorry. I should’ve warned you. It’s one of the old tramways.’

  ‘Trams? I thought the Number 75 only went as far as East Burwood. I must have nodded off while the transport minister got off her backside and did something for once. This is the bloody bush.’

  McIntyre chuckled.

  ‘Too right. They’re the remains of the old timber tramways laid down by the sawmills, some of them here, others over in Gembrook.’

  Bromo digested the information. He didn’t care about old tramlines or sawmills. The way he felt tonight they could cut down the whole bloody forest. Gembrook was the key word. It meant they were out beyond Pakenham, close to the Dandenong Ranges, in some sort of wilderness, a long way from a decent cup of coffee unless McIntyre’s promise of food included a shot of espresso. Even two spoonfuls of instant in lukewarm water would suffice.

  McIntyre suddenly ducked down, head forward, arms parting the bushes in front him. There was a faint glimmer of light somewhere up ahead.

  ‘Through here. Mind the brambles. They’re my front fence.’

  Bromo bent and followed, arms tucked into his sides, hands shielding his face. They were in a tunnel of tightly entwined bushes, prickly vines, lantana and low trees. He felt thorns jagging at his jacket but pushed on. The scrub’s resistance was token – a snick more than a tug. McIntyre was already standing up to one side, out of the tunnel and gesturing with his right arm.

  ‘Welcome to McIntyre Mansion.’

  A hurricane lamp, turned down low, spread a dim glow into a low timber shack with three sides, its fourth open to a small clearing of mossy grass. A circle of large stones enclosed the embers of a fire. A protruding extension of the shack’s tin roof protected it from the weather. Beyond the shack, a cluster of rounded rocks loomed high and steep in the misty dark.

  ‘Very cosy,’ said Bromo. ‘Good job it’s not fire ban season.’