The wall of the lunch room was alight but the fire hadn’t reached inside yet. John shoved tables and chairs out of his way as he dragged his mother through. He pushed the door open with his head and shoulder, and they tumbled onto the dirt and dry grass outside. John sucked in cold clear air for a moment, then kept moving, kept dragging his mother in the chair till he got to the creek. Then he lay down in the water and closed his eyes. He could hear sirens and the voices of people coming from the houses on the far side of the creek. Coming to see what was going on.
* * *
Chapter 19
Smokey
John was lying face down, the wounds in the back of his leg and buttock covered with dressings.
“She’s dead?” he croaked. His throat was still raw from the smoke and fumes.
“Yes. Ricochet. Caught her in the head. It would have been instantaneous,” said Walker. “I’m sorry.”
John just wanted her to go away. They had put him in a room on his own and now it was full of cops: Walker and Moreton and a couple of uniforms. He wanted them all to go away, everyone but Billy. He’d been sitting beside the bed when John first woke up, and had resisted all attempts by the cops to get him to leave. Walker had been the last to try. “He stays,” John had said. “For as long as he wants, he stays.”
Walker shrugged. “Okay. Whatever. They found three bodies in the workshop. Not recognisable – it was a hell of a fire. You were lucky to get out.”
John didn’t say anything. He didn’t feel lucky.
“We found a guy locked in the boot of a Commodore on the street. A Matthew Peal.” said Walker. “Poor bastard nearly cooked. You have anything to do with that?”
“Yeah, that was me.” He just wanted to sleep. He felt for the morphine button and gave it a squeeze.
“We’ll have to do a formal statement when you’re not doped to the gills, but do you know who the bodies are? Peal’s very talkative, can’t shut him up but he can only name two. He says there was a Phil Waters there, nickname, Large. Old school loan shark, we know of him but we’ve never had our hands on him.”
“He killed the other two, not Jimmy, set the fire and took off.”
“So he’s not one of the bodies?” She went to the door and said something to Moreton who was talking to a uniformed cop. He pulled out his radio and started talking. Walker came back over to the bed. “What about Jimmy Duggan?”
“He’s dead.”
“They’re mostly charcoal now. It’ll come down to DNA. Duggan was a car thief and part-time meth slinger. Looks like he briefly graduated to bigger things.”
“He was with this Large. They took Mum. Then the other two showed up. Never seen them before. One was called Pike, he was the boss. They called the other one Joe.”
“Pike and Joe? Surnames?”
“No. Pike was the one that killed Duggan. Shot him. Then Waters killed him and the other one, Joe. Stabbed him.”
“Joe was the one stabbed?”
John nodded.
“They found a machine gun beside one of the bodies. You know anything about that?”
“Pike had a machine pistol.”
“There seem to have been a lot of guns.”
“Yeah. There were.” John closed his eyes, but he could still see the flames. “Tell me about Annette.”
“Shot. Through your front door. Dead, I’m afraid. We have a witness who saw someone fitting Waters’ description leaving your house about midday. Looks like he was after you. And Morgan got in the way. What did he want from you?”
“He thought we had something of his.”
“What?”
“A suitcase is what he said. This all started after our storage unit was broken into. My father’s furniture, from Paris. I think it had something to do with that. But I don’t know how.”
A nurse came around with a trolley to take his blood pressure and temperature. Walker and the other police left. John slept.
They kept him in three days then sent him home with a pair of crutches, a lot of antibiotics and some serious pain killers. “You’re very lucky it missed your femoral artery,” one of the doctors said to him. I must be wrong, John thought, everyone else thinks I’m lucky.
He made a formal statement at the police station. There would be a coroner’s inquiry. All kinds of inquiries and court cases when they found Waters. Not that he really cared. His story would stand up. The cops didn’t like that he had gone after his mother without telling them, but they didn’t know about the HK or the suitcase. As far as they could prove, he hadn’t done any of the shooting.
John didn’t go to Annette’s funeral. He sent flowers, but he couldn’t face seeing her children. They would hate him and they would be right to.
Betty’s funeral was at La Perouse, the same place where her own parents had been cremated. A new tradition for a family that didn’t have many. John hired a celebrant rather than speak himself. A nice enough guy, who read from the bio notes John gave him. It didn’t take long. They played Miles Davis’s Concierto De Aranjuez over a slide show of images from her portfolio. No childhood photos, no family photos.
There weren’t many people there. A few from the village, a couple of old newspaper people. Ken Mallard in a wheelchair with his granddaughter. He looked a lot better. “Out of hospital now,” he said. “So sorry about your mum. Terrible business. She was something else, your mum.”
Yeah something, thought John, shaking Ken’s hand, but he didn’t know what exactly, and he’d never know now. Billy was there of course, wearing a shirt with a collar. That was a first. He shook John’s hand. That was new too.
“I’ll miss your mum. She was awesome.”
John smiled, “Thanks, mate.” John had given Billy one of Betty’s cameras. The Nikon. He probably wouldn’t be able to get hold of any film to use it, but the boy was happy when John gave it to him. And sad too.
“Don’t you want to keep it?”
“I’ve got the Leica. One each, eh. She would have wanted you to have it. She loved that you had started taking photos.” He gave him a new digital camera as well, the camera that Betty was planning to give him for his thirteenth birthday.
The only one of his old school friends to show up was Dave Watson. “Sorry about your mum, mate,” he said. “She was so much cooler than anyone else’s mum.”
The only people from the regiment were Sam Morris and Tommy Jackson. That was another surprise; John didn’t think that either of them had met his mother, but he was grateful for the way that they ran interference with the handful of media that turned up. He saw Tommy wording up one of the photographers who was trying to get close to the small group of mourners, getting in the guy’s face, a big blond threat of impending violence.
The police came too. Moreton and Timmins, sitting at the back of the chapel. They didn’t bother to say hello, just nodded to him. That probably wasn’t a good sign. After the service they stood in the rose garden talking to each other and watching the small crowd disperse.
A few people wanted to have a drink afterwards. “Where are we going?” Sam asked. John hadn’t planned on anything, but Ken was keen, even if his granddaughter wasn’t. Sam told her that Ken would be safe in his care, that he’d get him back to Glebe at a reasonable hour. Ken grinned when she shrugged and nodded her acquiescence. He suggested the Bulls Roar as a venue. “Just being selfish really,” he said. “It’s close to home.” They dropped Billy at Annandale on the way back to Glebe. John suggested that there was still time to go to school, but Billy wasn’t keen. At the Bulls Roar, they dragged a couple of tables together in the side lounge and made room for Ken’s wheelchair and John’s crutches. Sam and Tommy seemed to be getting on well with Ken. John appreciated them turning up, but it did occur to him that they were only there to see if Smokey showed. He didn’t, of course. Dave told a couple of stories from their school days, and about meeting Betty in Paris. It was just getting dark when they called it a day and said their goodbyes. Sam and Tommy set out for Fores
t Court, pushing Ken in his wheelchair. Dave dropped John at Camperdown before he drove back to the North Shore.
It was August before John was able to do any serious work on the house again. In the meantime, he had got someone in to finish lining out the upstairs bedrooms and do the tiling in the bathrooms. Billy still came over each Saturday and did some work on the skirting boards and architraves. The kid really enjoyed getting the joints just right. Soon there would only be the painting, then the floors to be sanded and sealed.
The two of them were sitting on the front veranda in the afternoon, nursing cups of tea. Billy was going on about the football. In particular, whether the Tigers had any chance of getting into the finals. John had never really been a fan of league, he had played rugby at school and in the army for a while, but had never been a fan of any professional sport. Billy was excited though. It had been a few years since his team had come anywhere close to playing in the finals.
“I really think this is our year,” he said.
“Yeah? You reckon they can take Manly?” John couldn’t help winding Billy up.
“Manly? Of course. They’ll beat Manly, then they just have to get past the Broncos or maybe Souths, and they’ve beaten both of them this season.”
“If you say so.” John stood up and bent over, stretching the muscles in the backs of his legs. When he straightened up he could see a figure in a wheelchair coming down the middle of the road. Smokey. He’d changed, but it was unmistakably Smokey. He had long greying hair now, and was much thicker in the body. Huge shoulders and powerful arms guided the wheelchair in a wide arc across the road to the driveway of the apartment building next door. He pumped the wheels a couple of times to get up onto the footpath then glided down to John’s house.
“Your footpaths around here are a bloody disgrace,” he said. “Had to risk my life mixing it with the traffic.”
“I’d be more worried about the other road users than you,” said John, grabbing Smokey’s hand. “Where the hell have you come from?”
“Newtown. Caught the train.”
“Jesus, why didn’t you get a taxi?”
“Where’s the fun in that? Who’s your mate?”
“Sorry. This is Billy. He’s been helping me work on the house. Billy, this is Smokey, an old friend from the army.”
Billy shook Smokey’s huge hand but didn’t say anything.
“If I know what this lazy bastard is like, I bet you’ve ended up doing all the work.” Smokey gave Billy a big grin then spun the wheelchair so he was facing John. “You going to offer me a beer?”
John opened the door and he and Billy followed Smokey as he bumped up the step into the hall.
“It’s a bit bloody Spartan, mate,” Smokey said, spinning around, taking in the living room while John got beers from the fridge.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got grand plans. Soon as my leg is back to normal.”
“Heard about your mum. Sorry.”
“Thanks. I lost that USP, cops got it. That a problem for you?”
Smokey shook his big head. “No. They’re untraceable, at least as far as I’m concerned.” He took a drink from the beer bottle. “The reason I decided to drop in on you like this, apart from desperately missing you, obviously—”
“Obviously.”
“You remember that big prick, Joni Kasuasua?”
“Fijian. The CRW guy?”
“Yeah, him. He managed not to get court-martialled after the 2000 coup – no idea how – but he had to leave the country for a while.”
“He was a fucking smartarse, I seem to remember.”
“Still is. Anyway, he’s back in Nadi now. I’m doing a bit of business with him, nothing too illegal. But he has offered up a bit of news that I thought might be of interest to you.”
* * *
Epilogue
Yasawa Islands, Fiji
A dot appeared above the horizon, just west of the far headland. Only a slight increase in the helicopter’s elevation gave a clue that its course was bringing it directly to the resort, to the collection of bures and pavilions strung out along the white sand of the beach that lined Palantui Bay. Jeff Palmer stood naked at the window of the bure, watching the helicopter through the wooden slats as it flew across the startlingly blue ocean. It would be coming from one of the high-end resorts further north in the chain of islands that stretched out into the Pacific. They tended to have clientele that could afford the outrageous cost of being choppered to and from paradise.
Behind him on the bed, a woman snored softly, her hand trailing on the floor, and a thin thread of saliva connecting her mouth to the pillow. He tried to remember her name and failed. She was about his age, but bloody good fun in bed. He scratched his balls idly, watching the little waves that had made it across the reef fold softly onto the beach. He wondered if she would be sticking around for a while. A few days of uncomplicated sex would be fun – and he needed some kind of hobby if he was going to live here.
Jeff pulled on a pair of swimming trunks as the high-pitched buzz of the helicopter increased in volume like an angry wasp. After it had passed overhead, he stepped down onto the beach to make sure that it kept going. The noise faded rapidly, cut off by the hills as the helicopter continued south-east towards Nadi. He didn’t like helicopters. Or wasps for that matter – Fiji seemed to be full of bloody wasps. Huge ones, always busy hunting in the undergrowth and nesting under the eaves of the buildings. There was a nest in the roof of the veranda, up in the recessed light fitting just above the door. Every time he came through the door he had to watch out for the wasps coming and going. He’d asked one of the men from the village to do something about it but nothing had happened yet. Fiji time.
He took the path between the bures to the pool. It was still early and the only people about were the old men who clean up the beach each morning and the ladies who put fresh flowers on every conceivable surface. Jeff wondered if the punters appreciated the amount of effort that went into maintaining paradise for them, or if they thought it was all just according to God’s plan.
There were a couple of kids at the pool already. Pommie boys by the accents, aged about nine or ten. Jeff presumed that their parents had kicked them out of their room early in the hope of getting a bit more sleep, or more likely, an uninterrupted quick fuck before breakfast. Good luck to them.
The boys were busy trying to outdo each other with the most complicated and spectacular jump from the deck into the sparkling pool, laughing and squealing as they twisted and cartwheeled themselves into the air before falling hard onto the water. “Did you see that one?” shouted the elder boy, emerging from the water after a leap that involved a star jump and a full pike.
“Yeah, but watch this,” said his brother, running across the yellow concrete, and launching himself into a forwards somersault, landing hard on his back with a loud slap. Jeff smiled to himself at the thought of how much that would have hurt. He slipped into the tepid water and began his laps of the undersized pool. He started slowly, gradually picking up his pace, until there were only five strokes between his slow but effective tumble turns at each end.
When he emerged from the water after fifty laps the boys were gone but Voli was there with a towel and a mug of coffee. “Morning, boss.”
“Morning, mate,” said Jeff, taking the towel and the mug. He set the mug on one of the plastic tables while he towelled himself down. The resort was too small to make a lot of money but it was remote and quiet, which suited Jeff. He had bought into the place just after the last round of financial embarrassments slowed the flow of cashed-up Westerners to Fiji. He had got a fifty-three per cent share of the resort for a very good price, and until recently he had been a silent partner, happy to leave Roland and Margery to run the place, just having the occasional holiday here. Tax deductible, of course. Roland and Margery had bought the place from the original owners but the financial crisis had hit them hard. They were just about to go under when Jeff met Roland at a cricket match in Auckland. Je
ff had been looking for an investment opportunity in Fiji and was happy to stay out of the day-to-day running of the resort.
Roland and Margery used Jeff’s money to improve the infrastructure and rebrand the resort. Now Coral Sands was an ecoparadise, targeting the backpacker market and ecoconscious empty-nesters. They had done a good job too; everyone involved was pleasantly surprised that the investment and change of name had paid off. The resort had a ninety per cent occupancy rate, and was taking bookings well into the next year.
Jeff had stayed out of the running of the place. He knew bugger all about hospitality, but he lived on site, in one of the older bures, tucked in under the headland. It really was paradise here, although he had soon learned that even an ecoparadise stinks of shit when the sewer system breaks down.
New punters arrived from the main island each day. The resort had its own eight-metre boat powered by twin 225-horsepower outboards, which made the trip to Denarau in a little over an hour. The boat took a load away each morning and returned in the afternoon with a new lot. They were greeted by some of the staff singing a Fijian welcoming song, and were prompted by the boatmen to shout “Bula!” in response. Jeff made sure he was always around to see the new arrivals step onto the beach each afternoon. He liked to know who was coming to his place.
He had breakfast sitting at the bar. They knew what he liked now and a Fijian version of a Spanish omelette was soon placed in front of him together with a glass of orange juice and his own bottle of tabasco sauce.
When he got back to his room, the woman was gone. Probably for the best, but it had been a fun night. He tried to remember her name: Annie? Dannie? It was something like that. Nice arse she had, he certainly remembered that, and very creative in the sack too.
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