“Hello, Henry.”
Kite faced the dilemma of choosing between good manners and sheer terror. He seemed convinced that if he took his eyes from the road he would die. “I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Jamison,” he said, twisting around as much as his fear would allow.
“We owe our escape to Karen, Henry,” added Blaney.
“The men and I are indebted to you,” said Kite through clenched teeth.
Blaney told Kite everything that had happened since they split up. Listening for inconsistencies, Karen found none. And Kite’s responses, becoming more relaxed as he became used to the van, were in keeping with everything Blaney had told her. The whole thing was totally nuts, but she was hooked.
“How’s Cross?” she asked.
Kite became angry. “He was mistreated by those people.”
“He is very sick,” said Blaney.
Karen was surprised. “Surely not,” she protested, but she could not inject much conviction into her voice. In her line of work stories of police brutality were becoming less common, but they still persisted. It was not something she particularly wanted to follow. Something else had occurred to her. “Where the hell are we going, anyway?”
Blaney thought for a moment. “Back across the bridge. We will try to find Tommy Travis at the heads.”
“Tommy!” exclaimed Kite, with such force Karen almost ran into a parked car. “You know where he is?”
Blaney told him, while Karen negotiated the traffic. George Street was packed with cars and she knew how incongruous she must look driving the huge police van. Fortunately, most people tended to look the other way when they saw a police vehicle and, better than that, made way for it too. Turning the vehicle into Hay Street, Karen drove through lighter traffic onto the bridge ramp.
Blaney was telling Kite about the men he called convicts. Kite greeted the news of the shootout with police enthusiastically. “That’s very good. They must have been killed or captured.”
“It makes little difference to us, Henry,” said Blaney. “Too many men have died today and we are probably the only survivors. If we are captured, we shall be blamed for everything. We have broken the laws here and will be punished. Our only hope now is to go back.”
They’re all crazy, thought Karen. Blaney told her about how he had seen the Fortune from the whirlpool. Whirlpool! And about how he hoped to sail back into the storm and go back to his own time. It made absolutely perfect sense, she thought, to a lunatic. But Blaney was not insane. Far from it. What on earth could cause all these people to believe something so fantastic. I know, she chuckled, I’m the one who is crazy! “You’re both mad!” she laughed.
Blaney and Kite appeared in good humour and took the words as a compliment.
“However,” she continued, becoming serious, “we’ll need to find another means of getting to North Head.”
“Why?”
“Because when the two cops you took prisoner are discovered we are in deep shit. You didn’t hurt them, did you?”
Blaney was offended. “They are locked in a cage!”
Karen ignored his outrage. “The city will soon be crawling with police looking for this van. It’s not exactly inconspicuous. We’d be lucky to reach Mosman.”
“What do you suggest?” asked Kite.
Karen was amused by the irritated look on Blaney’s face. He did not like to be usurped. “I know somewhere in Milsons Point we can hide for a while. And I think I might be able to get us a boat.”
The faces of both men lit up, but she held up a hand. “I can’t promise anything, except that I will do my best.”
Blaney smiled one of his special smiles and she felt warm inside. “I know you will,” he said.
The idea was a long shot, Karen admitted to herself, yet it could work. If the man she was about to approach proved to be anything like his reputation, then her unwritten story was about to begin a new chapter. She took the Lavender Street exit from the Bradfield Highway and said a silent prayer.
LOCKWOOD
Noah Lockwood turned his face to the sun, enjoying both the warmth and the freedom. Must be about midday, he calculated, and it was going to get hotter as the day wore on. He sat on a bench in a quiet part of Hyde Park, Silas Hand next to him, and Rufus Redmond on the other side. It was typical that Hand could sleep under any circumstances, stupid enough not to have a care in the world. He was a follower. If Redmond said he’d had enough and was going to give himself up, Hand would nod and follow. Lockwood, however, looked upon his partner with affection. Fatherly, despite Hand being fifteen years older.
Redmond was staring off into space, lost in his thoughts. Now there was a man worth following, thought Lockwood. Most of the time. When he could keep a hold on his temper, the big convict displayed a keen intelligence. But his obsession with William Cross was a millstone about his neck. Since he discovered the Captain was still alive, he could talk of little else but his unfinished business. Lockwood was doing his best to dissuade Redmond from pursuing this hatred and hoped Redmond was mulling over his words now.
It would be so easy to stand up and walk away. Lockwood had thought about it, but decided no. This city was awesome, intriguing and frightening. Demonic noises periodically shook the ground, strange objects roared through the sky and terrible wailing machines screamed along the streets. Redmond and Hand were the only link with the familiar and he was loath to relinquish their company, testing though it could be.
Glad of the rest, Lockwood’s eyes roamed the park. In their haste in the early hours he had not noticed how beautiful it was, a garden in the stone wasteland of the city. After Redmond’s haircut they had walked towards the city, hoping to get lost in the growing crowds of people on the streets. But the tremendous volley of gunfire behind them sent them hurrying across the road and into the park. He felt sorry for those poor fools left in the cafe. They were doomed the moment we arrived, he thought, ill equipped for normal life, never mind survival here.
The three convicts found this bench soon afterwards, protected by bushes on three sides and a clear view to Elizabeth Street down a grassed embankment. It took a long time to take Redmond’s mind off Cross and make him concentrate on their own plight. Lockwood suspected that Redmond, despite his cold denial, did feel something for the men he led to this ignominious fate. The big man had a human side, normally buried under a welter of anger and hate, yet there all the same. Lockwood had experienced it, usually late at night in the Marlin’s hold, when Redmond grew melancholy and talked of his woman in England. The Marlin seemed so long ago now, though only a few hours had passed since they all went over the side.
Watching the people strolling on the grass and in the street, Lockwood smiled at their comfort in the presence of three desperate convicts. It had taken a long time for him to shake the feeling of being watched, but now he could comfortably observe. He saw a young woman approach up the slight hill and stop nearby. She wore little – a shirt and very short dress – and had a shapely body. Lockwood watched her closely. Her hair was brown and cut short, her face tanned and pretty. She reminded Lockwood of Nancy Peel, the woman who had shared his bed at the Boar’s Head Inn.
Lockwood remembered how he and Hand were captured. It was in November 1794, when they held up the Bristol coach. It was their finest work, a haul of some four hundred guineas in gold and jewellery. Lockwood was so pleased he raised no objection to Hand visiting his sister with some of the spoils, thereby breaking the tradition of hiding out at the Inn after a job. A man from the coach recognised Hand’s horse the next day and informed the magistrate. A clever man, he waited for Hand to leave and followed him to the Boar’s Head Inn with two dozen troopers.
In bed with Nancy when the troopers arrived, Lockwood was taken completely by surprise. It was a bad business, he reflected, three men dead in the raid, another four hanged later. The magistrate made off with the loot of several robberies and Lockwood knew not much of it would have been returned to its rightful owners.
He could still hear the final words of the judge. “Though I am saddened that so hardened a criminal should escape the gallows he so richly deserves, I am directed by His Majesty to sentence able-bodied men to penal servitude in the colony of New South Wales. I trust that place will be in keeping with its vile reputation. You shall be imprisoned there for the remainder of your natural life.”
Rumours about the colony were rife during his time in a stinking hulk on the Thames, though Lockwood knew better than to believe the worst of them. He realised educated convicts would be in short supply and knew he could secure a comfortable position. Yet as the months went by without word of passage the thought of a lifetime of servitude filled him with despair. Aged twenty-five and healthy, he could reasonably expect close to another twenty years of life, but living them as a convict held little appeal.
Rufus Redmond gave him hope. The huge, angry man, like Lockwood from the West Country, talked nothing but escape and revenge, infecting those around him. Lockwood was sceptical at first, but he gradually came to believe Redmond was not just talk. The wrongs done to him filled him with conviction. With Redmond it would be all or nothing. Escape or death. And this was no risk to a man without a future.
The voice of a man suddenly interrupted his thoughts. It was an odd, scratchy sound, as though he was speaking down a long pipe. Lockwood looked around for the source of the voice and found it was coming from a small box lying on the ground next to the girl. It must be one of those picture boxes, marvelled Lockwood, though he could not see a picture. The words were enough to prevent further enquiry. He reached across and shook Redmond. “Listen, Rufus!”
Redmond looked at him blankly, then became alert as he heard the voice.
“...shootout with police, bringing the death toll in Sydney today to almost two hundred. The Premier has ordered a full inquiry into the police handling of the siege.
“This description of the three men who escaped before the siege has just been released.”
He went on to describe them as Lockwood listened with growing horror. Redmond was first, one point nine metres tall, red hair of medium length, clean shaven, about thirty-five to forty, wearing a light grey suit. He also had a four centimetre scar on the left side of his chin. The measurements were unfamiliar, but there was little doubt it was the big convict.
Hand was next. Stocky build, one point six metres tall with receding brown hair, broken nose with large wart and thick eyebrows, about forty, also in a grey suit. Finally, Lockwood was described. One point seven metres, black, short cropped hair and blue eyes, navy blue suit.
“All three men are believed to be heavily armed and should not be approached.”
They were marked men now, thought Lockwood, anxiously glancing about. He saw Redmond had slouched in his seat in an unconscious attempt to appear smaller. Lockwood could have told him he was wasting his time, but the voice went on.
“...news just to hand. Police have confirmed forty-seven men captured in Cremorne early this morning have escaped from Central Police Station. Two officers were assaulted in the mass escape.”
Another voice, female this time, took over, dripping with sarcasm. “Thank you, George. And now that the only harbour survivor from this morning’s disaster has apparently walked away from Garden Island, everyone who might be able to shed light on today’s events is either dead or on the run. The Premier’s press conference should be a hoot.”
Before Lockwood could hear more, the girl fiddled with the box and the voice was replaced by an awful rhythmic squealing noise obviously more to her liking.
Redmond was looking at Lockwood, and the younger convict knew from his eyes that he had realised Cross was free. Damnation! “We must find somewhere to hide until dark,” he said quickly, hoping to break the spell.
“Aye,” said Redmond, alert, “we’s done for out in the open.” He roughly shook Hand. “Wake up, yer lazy sod! We’re movin’ on.”
Hand opened his eyes and blinked in the sunlight, unaware of his surroundings for a moment. Lockwood looked at both men. One was like a child who would blindly follow without thought. The other driven by thoughts of revenge which, if pursued, would surely destroy them all. Lockwood would have to work even harder to deflect Redmond from his obsession.
BLANEY
Standing in the open doorway of the prison van, Lieutenant Christopher Blaney explained to the men why they must find the Fortune. Some of them understood, he was sure, but most did not. It was more important to let them see he was confident and in control. They needed to believe they were safe in his hands.
Mission accomplished, Blaney crouched next to Captain Cross, who lay half awake on the floor of the vehicle. The van was parked beneath a building where one of Karen’s friends worked. It was almost totally empty because the main occupiers had moved out. She had left the crew to make “further arrangements”. She really was a resourceful woman.
“You’re thinking about Karen!” accused Kite with amusement.
Blaney felt his face redden. “What on earth are you talking about, Henry?”
Kite merely tapped his not inconsiderable nose, provoking a great laugh from the men. Blaney motioned them to stay quiet.
“She is a remarkable woman, Kit,” said Cross, opening his eyes, which shone a little brighter now. “But beware, she has a mind. Almost had me jumping to my feet to salute when she ordered us to remain here.”
Blaney laughed. Karen had been most forthright when she left her instructions. How would one go about taming such a woman. Her freedom of expression excited him, but her manners were appalling. She would outrage his society with her...her...honesty! That was it! he thought. No fluttering eyelids, no saying one thing and meaning another. She said what she thought and damned the consequences. Blaney was all at sea with the women of his own time, but was even more flummoxed by one from this time.
The men were all watching him, smiles on their faces. “How are you feeling, sir,” he asked Cross to cover his embarrassment.
“My useless body is racked with pains and aches, but I feel better than before. I believe another meeting with that swine Marsh would have finished me.”
Blaney did not doubt it. Cross was a mere shadow of the man who had sailed out of Portsmouth all those months...years ago. Even yesterday on the Marlin, he was robust compared to now. He looked as though he was too tired to go on.
Blaney was in charge and he was determined not to fail his men. Capture meant they would all hang or rot in prison for life. The only hope was to find and board the Fortune. But that’s not quite right, he corrected himself. Hurry back, Karen, for you are our only hope.
KAREN
Karen walked down to the harbour, warm sunshine and a pleasant breeze on her face. It felt so good to be out in the open. It was ten past twelve. The crew, though they must have been made to have showers, still stank. It was a shame she did not have an open top bus; she could have driven them through a car wash.
As she walked further down Alfred Street there were more people, holidaying kids, tourists, locals. A train had just pulled in at Milsons Point station and hundreds more were working their way down to the harbour to watch the police operation on the water. She found an unoccupied bench close to the water and tapped a phone number on her mobile. Mike Davidson answered. “Mike! It’s Kaz.”
“Kaz!” exclaimed Davidson excitedly. Karen could imagine him, all red cheeks and pimples. “Where are you?”
“Never mind. Is Sam there?”
Davidson dropped his voice to a whisper. “No, he’s in the conference room with a police detective called Marsh. He’s a real bastard. He interviewed me earlier. He says you were involved in the escape from Central Police Station.”
Shit! thought Karen.
“He’s threatened to arrest Mr Tyler.”
Karen laughed. The police must be so pissed off. “Sam can take care of himself, Mike. All he did was tell me to report on a story. They’ve got nothing, so don’t worry. Look, put me through to Harry Decker.�
��
She sensed Davidson was hesitant. “Now, Mike, it’s urgent.”
“OK.”
As she waited to be connected, Karen gazed across the harbour to the city. There, close to Circular Quay, was Decker Tower, the giant phallic symbol dedicated to the prick himself. Her only meeting with Harry Decker had been at the party to celebrate his takeover of the Express three years ago. The affair took place on the top two floors of the tower and was lavish. A who’s who of Sydney society, including mother, of course, was there, together with the senior staff from the paper. Decker had held her elbow as they were introduced and stroked her arm with his thumb in a way that made her skin crawl. She could sense he was interested, but she made sure to avoid him for the rest of the evening and had not seen him since.
Decker was one of the most powerful men in the country. His dealings often bordered on the shady, but his lofty connections ensured a squeaky clean public image. Karen would hate to be caught in the man’s web, a thought that made her uneasy. Stuff that, Kaz, she told herself, you’re holding all the aces.
“Mr Decker’s office, Muriel speaking.”
Karen steeled herself. “May I speak with Mr Decker, please.”
She sensed that superior change in tone she often experienced when talking to female secretaries when Muriel answered. “Mr Decker is too busy to take any calls. Who is this?”
“Karen...”
A man’s voice broke in. “I’ll take this one, Muriel. Hello, Kaz, this is Decker.”
She imagined his creepy smile that did not reach his eyes. Here goes, she thought, taking a deep breath.
REDMOND
Sitting in a corner of the tavern, Redmond was pleased with himself. Nicely groomed, well fed, smoothly shaved, a beer in his hand and several more in his gut. Things were finally going his way. The barman did not understand their request for pint pots when they entered the tavern. He’d muttered something about “bloody poms” under his breath and produced schooner glasses, piddly little containers he filled with a cold, brown liquid that apparently passed for beer in these parts.
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