Lucy stopped sobbing and looked at me. ‘My case is being considered next week.’
I’m not sure if she fully trusted me, but she looked at me longer and I must have been looking entirely confused because she began to talk. ‘My family is waiting for me to get them out, to bring them here. I must get out of here next week so I can do that. Palmenter said if I spoke anything about him he would hurt my family. I think he could do that.’
I looked around the room. It was bare. Plain gyprock walls, no pictures or mirrored walls or phones or fancy light fittings to hide a secret microphone. If Immigration recorded conversations and then used the information word of that would run around the camp like wildfire. But I couldn’t help myself from checking.
‘Why would he say that? Why would he hurt your family?’ I didn’t doubt that Palmenter’s net extended all the way back and that if someone did the dirty on him he could, and would, extract revenge. It was a risk to the operation that one of our imports might say something – reveal even by accident the name of the station, how it all worked, the boats, the chopper. In case of that, I was sure Palmenter would have made it known his network stretched far back into the countries these people had come from. If caught and if ever tempted to cut a deal – information about the people-smuggling operation in return for guaranteed residency – Palmenter’s threats would have been remembered. I didn’t think Immigration worked like that but it might not stop someone from trying it and I wouldn’t trust Immigration not to string someone along.
Spanner and I had the philosophy that people would not kill the golden goose, that if we did the right thing by people they would do the right thing by us. Most people had someone back where they had fled from who they wanted to bring out later. The story told by Zahra and Noroz, and Lucy, was one we would hear time and time again. We knew that they would require our services again and that closing us down would not be in their interests. That is an important lesson in business. Look after your customers and you will get repeat business. Hell, until we were running the operation, no one had any desire for anybody to actually succeed in getting to Australia. We changed that. But something always in the back of our minds was that if caught, when desperate, people would do anything to survive.
Obviously Palmenter had been a bit more upfront about prevention, it would be his style to threaten people so they would not reveal anything when put under pressure or offered a deal. His deal was worse.
‘I ... I say I not want to do it no more.’ She was crying again but she looked up and saw I didn’t understand.
‘Sex. We were supposed to give sex to the people.’ I must have looked stupid. ‘Even you, Nick.’
Did she say that to hurt me? I sat there open-mouthed, gutted. All we had been was nothing. She was told by Palmenter to screw me, that was why she had come out to me and found me on the grader bonnet and she fucked me. But all the other times? After? Was it all done because she was told to, because she lived in fear of Palmenter?
‘But...’ The brain knows something but the voice still has to act out, come running along behind like a dimwitted cousin trying to catch up with what the brain has been hiding, what it knew all along but didn’t reveal. The body is even further behind.
‘He raped us, Nick. He makes all the girls work in brothels in the cities but before that he takes us off the boats and away from any people we know and puts us at that house. Girls who are healthy. She made sure we are healthy, gives us health checks and then sees if we can work, first on the people there.’ And the brain showed a little more of what it knew all along, of Lucy when Palmenter was home and how she was different than other times.
‘Palmenter?’
‘Whatever he wanted. Whenever he wanted. The more you fought the more he wanted it. Him, then everyone else. You too. Margaret told me to go to you.’
‘You and I...’
‘I said I was not going to do it any more and he said I had to pay. He demanded more money. I said I haven’t got any. He said I already owe him too much and that I would have to pay it off working in his house in Melbourne. That is where all the girls go. He sends them all there or to other houses, he and Margaret would discuss it in front of us. But I say I no want to do that, that I had paid for the trip already and could leave anytime. He was very angry. I say I go, and if he not let me, I tell about what he doing. I meant with the girls, not the boats, I never meant the boats but he got even more angry and hit me, rape me, lock me in room. Then I hear Sami screaming, screaming. I know it was her. He was hurting her so I could hear, so we could all hear. Then nothing.
‘Next day the police came and took me away, took me to here, but before they came he told me he was letting me live so I could be a lesson to others. He told me if ever I say anything my whole family dead. He said he knew everyone everywhere and the police were his friends and even if I did speak they wouldn’t believe me but he’d still kill my family and then he would kill me.’
‘Palmenter is dead. I shot him,’ I said.
She looked at me in disbelief. Her dark eyes held mine. ‘You don’t have to say that.’
‘It’s true. He’s gone. You don’t have to think about him anymore. He can’t hurt you anymore.’
There was not much to say after that. When I left she was crying. I was too, but we were two different people and we had to cry alone in our own way. Our love wasn’t real and there was nothing I could do to help her. Kindness, that was all there was. I could have offered that but I was also struggling to cope with my own world. I had shot Palmenter. I was a murderer. It was a relief to discover that Lucy was alive and yet I found myself wondering why he had not shot her and buried her in the pit, and as I thought that, I knew that it was I who should be locked up and she who should be free and, in the face of that, I ran because denial is the easiest form of freedom. Palmenter had been supplying girls into brothels in Melbourne and everyone knew the brothels of Melbourne were the front for the big crime gangs, front door to the underworld. I wondered if he owned the brothels and if that might complicate or simplify his going missing. The deeper you live in the underworld, if you live and die in the underworld, that same underworld is not likely to come to the surface looking for you. There might be some serious shit to go down or Palmenter’s disappearance might cause not a whisper. I prayed it was the latter.
I did toy with the idea of not going back. I had promised Spanner I would return in time for the final muster but if I didn’t turn up what could he do? I could make myself impossible to find. I wouldn’t go home, but I could drive out west, get a job on the mines. Problem was, except for a small amount of cash, I had nothing. No job, no money, no home. I had never been paid for any of my time at Palmenter. Bastard had never paid anyone. ‘Sort it out when you leave, Son. Too difficult up here to bother with weekly pay and you don’t need cash while you are here. You’ll save a packet, Son. I’ll look after you.’ Bastard.
Also, all that money was in the safe at the station and I wanted my share.
On the day I left Melbourne I drove to my parents’ home. It was early and the street was quiet. The garden wasn’t as lush as I remembered and the lawn was overgrown. Dad was always so proud of the garden. I had forgotten the weekly suburban ritual of rubbish day, wheeling the bins out, three bins each house – rubbish, greenwaste, recyclables – and these stood in clusters waiting for collection. Nothing had changed, but it was not as I had remembered.
I parked outside and watched the house. I knew Lucy and I had no future but inside me something was hollow. Now, after meeting with her and realising my youthful foolishness and then seeing this small crowded street where I grew up and remembering the childish way I left, the emptiness inside me grew. I saw that this was not my world. This small crowded street was empty. I began to long for the healthy space of the outback, where you can sit on a bluff and see the distance, the red-yellow earth and ivory sky and for as far as you can see, so far, you see both everything and nothing. You are an invisible speck on a timeless land
scape but somehow, you are important. Here in the city, in this street and all other streets exactly the same, there was clutter filling up the meaninglessness of lives lived trapped on a lonely planet.
I couldn’t go in. If I had, I would have broken down and cried and told everything including about Palmenter and eventually that I shot him and I would have not been able to leave, and what with the rubbish truck clattering by and its arm lifting and rolling and then burying all within, it reminded me of the pit, of rolling that van in with five poor men in it, or us rolling Palmenter’s car in and Spanner pushing loads of sand over it. Of Palmenter contemptuously kicking sand over Arif as he lay still warm and I regretted not for a moment that I had shot Palmenter.
I didn’t go in. I sat there in the van for a while and the forlornness of the early morning street must have rubbed off on me because then I began to think of Cookie and how he had said, ‘We are all trapped on this planet.’ Kind-hearted Cookie, the only one who had risked the wrath of Palmenter to visit me, bring me food. I at least had to say goodbye to him.
The funny thing is that, at that moment, with that choice, I felt the most in charge of my life that I had ever been.
Anyway, I would be back with the cash in a couple of weeks and it would all be over. I would stay at home for a week or so and my mum and dad would forgive me. I would tell them about the money, some of it. I would explain that I had been paid well and then I would take off overseas for the backpacking holiday I had always wanted. But right now I was on my way back to Palmenter Station and I was a murderer and I had to lie low and sort out this final muster and get my share of the cash. When I came back things would be different. I could relax and be myself, myself with a secret million dollars that I could never tell anybody about.
I started to write them a note. What could I say? Dear ... I wrote, and then sat staring at the paper. What could I say? I could not even work out how to start, and as I sat in the van I thought about all that had happened and how I came to be sitting in a van outside my parents’ home, writing a note that said I would be home soon, but that I must first go back to a place that had effectively kidnapped me. Why? To collect a million. And why were they giving me a million dollars? They weren’t. I was taking it. I had shot Palmenter, a thug with underworld connections. I had shot an underworld figure and was stealing his million dollars.
With sudden cold certainty I knew someone was going to come looking for me. Palmenter must have friends or associates who would come looking. What did Newman say? Sort out Palmenter’s boys. Already they were asking and Newman had told them to talk to me. And when I wasn’t at the station they would search the office and not only find all the money but they would find all the letters from my family. Foolishly I had left them on the desk. I had been reading them all the night before I left but I left them because I did not want to have anything personal on me if we were picked up in the van on the trip to Melbourne.
It was such a sudden and real thought I began to look around up and down the street to see if any other cars were casing the place. I really expected to see someone, but the street was empty. I had to go back to the station and destroy all the letters and all the paperwork with my handwriting on it.
By the time I had driven across town I had calmed down and I decided I could at least visit Simon. It was sort of on the way.
This street was busier. People were up and about, some schoolkids walking as a group with their parents behind. It was such simple, happy, suburban life that I wanted to cry. I wondered if Simon had any kids yet, if he still worked the mines, what his wife did.
I had determined that I would go in and the way to do it was to not stop outside and think. I’d park and get out and walk straight up to the door. So that’s what I did. I parked and got out and walked straight to the door, and froze. I waited an age and was about to leave when the door opened.
A woman in her late twenties stood looking at me. When she opened the door I had turned to go but now I was half turned on the front step and she was in the door looking at me and we stayed like that for a very long time. I had not met her before but she was looking at me like she knew me.
‘Simon?’ was all I could say.
‘Nick? Is it Nick. Oh my God, it is you!’
‘Are you Michelle? Is Simon here?’ I must have sounded so formal.
She shook her head. ‘He’s at work. But come in.’
She came out to greet me and take me inside, but her friendliness, the fact she recognised me, the fact that obviously I had been talked about and missed and that she knew me – something in me cracked and I began to cry. Not the quiet sobs of before as I hurried from the detention centre, this was full-blown, out of control crying. She put her arms around me and hugged me and that made it worse. She dragged me inside.
‘Where have you been? Simon’s been trying to find you. What is the matter? Are you all right?’ She talked and talked, asked questions, made me coffee, made me breakfast, and I do not recall saying very much at all. She let me take my time.
Eventually I recovered enough to tell her things had been tough but that I was on my way home. I had a few more things to sort out before I was back in the city for good.
‘What sort of things? Where have you been? Everyone’s been looking for you. Last they heard was Alice Springs, then nothing. You didn’t answer letters. Simon’s been trying to find your station. Police up there didn’t want to know. Are you all right?’
‘I’ve been on Wingate Station. It’s very remote. No phone or anything.’ If Simon had been there I might have said more, told the truth, admitted to him about Palmenter. ‘Tell him not to worry, I’ll be back soon.’
‘He’s home in a few days. Where are you staying? You can stay here if you want.’
‘No, I’ve got to drive back, finish off some things. I’ve promised the guys to come back and run one more muster, then I’m coming home.’
She looked at me kindly, concerned. I felt I had to explain my outburst. Grown men don’t break down like that even if they have been missing for a few years.
‘It’s about a girl. I had to come to Melbourne to see a girl. But that’s all over now.’ I gave a shrug. Maybe she believed me.
‘Oh.’
‘Sorry to ... you know.’
‘You okay now? Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Yeah. No. I’m all right. I’ll be okay.’
‘Simon is at a camp near Port Augusta. If you’re driving north why don’t you visit? I can email him and tell him you are coming. You should go see him.’
‘I might not have time.’
‘You should go see him. I’ll email him, he’ll be expecting you.’
I left with the address of Simon’s camp but I only half promised to go there, it was a relief to be back on the road. Michelle had promised to call my parents for me and tell them I would be back in a month. That was enough for now, I thought.
It takes two full days when driving alone to get from Melbourne to Port Augusta, and by that time I had decided I would drive right past the turn-off to Simon’s camp. I justified it to myself as that I didn’t have much spare time and anyway I would soon be back. I’d go there on my way south in a couple of weeks. One more muster, collect my cash and keep the van I was driving to go home in.
But before I knew it I was driving the wide gravel road that led west off the Stuart Highway. If you had asked me, I might have pretended I was not stopping but the road goes nowhere else and the outback is the same all over. Same as on Palmenter Station: if a car drives anywhere on our roads we feel it, so Simon would sense I was arriving even as I turned off the main road.
Anywhere along that hundred kilometres I could have turned around. But I didn’t. I arrived, and immediately felt the need to leave. Simon and two others were lounging in the shade next to a caravan that served as the camp office. As I drove up he came to greet me. I was expected.
‘Don’t you blokes do any work out here?’ I put on a brave face. Seeing Simon now
I suddenly realised how much he looked like my father. This was going to be hard.
‘Nick!’ He shook my hand, pulled me in to hug me. ‘How’ve you been?’
‘Long time.’ I was trying to be casual. No big deal.
‘Too long. We were worried. Folks have been really concerned.’
‘Yeah. Sorry. It just got, y’know, a week, a month, a year.’ I shrugged, tried to be dismissive. I had to maintain composure in front of these other two who I didn’t know. I had nearly blabbered the whole story to Michelle. ‘We don’t have a phone on the station. It’s really remote out there.’
‘You can’t have been that remote.’ He knew something else was up. ‘Everyone has sat phones now. How do you operate? No one can run a place without a phone. I tried to find Wingate. I wrote to you. Did you get my letters? They never came back. You should have answered them.’ He grabbed my bag from the front seat and headed towards the caravan. ‘Stay the night. No one else here. Drill rig is due tomorrow.’
‘The boss was a bit funny about, it was a bit, well, I only just got your letters.’
‘Michelle says you were upset. She says–’
‘Girl trouble,’ I said, interrupting him. The two other blokes were watching us so I forced a laugh. ‘I’m okay now.’
Simon put my bag on the table and introduced me to the two whose names I don’t remember. At my mentioning ‘girl trouble’ they tutted in sympathy.
‘Look, really, I can’t stay. I have to get back to Wingate. I was driving this way so thought I’d drop by.’
He looked at me and knew I was serious, and that despite the years apart we knew as brothers do when to ask questions and when not to. I shared a beer with them and we talked about stuff and then, because I at least owed him something, as we walked to the van I explained.
How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling Page 12