by Graham Guy
She shook her head.
McLoughlin was crouched over The Weasel’s body with his pocket knife in his hand. Moments later he pulled the belt off of the dead gunman’s body and held it up for Bill and Georgette to see.
“Unbelievable!” McLoughlin said, shaking his head. “This is a specially constructed belt containing two pen-guns.” He pulled one out and showed them. “Looks just like a normal ballpoint pen. Until you un-screw the back of it. When you do, you’ll see it contains a .22 bullet… look at that.” He then held the gun up to his eye. “This one’s had a bit of use, too. Our friend here had two of them…”
“Is that another one in his pocket?” Georgette asked, pointing to what she thought was an ordinary biro.
McLoughlin looked to where she was indicating. “Shit!” he exclaimed. “Certainly looks like it.” He carefully withdrew the gun from The Weasel’s top pocket. He unscrewed the top and tipped it up. A .22 bullet fell out.
“No end of surprises to this bloke, is there?” He returned to the belt. “He had this thing rigged up so he had a pen-gun in the back of it and one in the front. A cord was attached to each. This reached around to his belt where he had a couple of ring pulls. Anyone grabbing him from behind. Zap. Anyone grabbing him from in front. Zap again. Pretty bloody crude, but by the Jesus, effective as buggery, point blank. There were a couple of shonkos done-in a while back. They were into guns and stuff. The hit was point blank. I reckon when we run the tests on these little buggers, we’ll have solved our case.”
Georgette McKinley and Bill Murphy found it near impossible to conceive what was going on around them. It was a world they knew nothing of personally and first-hand. Georgette reported on it. And for 30 years Bill Murphy had done the same. But neither of them had ever been this close to it, and it terrified the hell out of them.
Georgette went to the policeman and bandaged the wound.
* * *
“I think you’ll be seeing a bit of me for a while. At least until all this gets cleared up,” McLoughlin said. He looked at Bill Murphy. “What can I say? You really did save my life.”
“Well, you saved mine,” Georgette said.
McLoughlin looked hard at Bill Murphy. “You’re not that writer bloke, are you?” he asked.
Georgette answered for him. “And a very famous writer bloke, too,” she said. “He wanted to be a recluse, but to use the words of a dead man, I just fucked his day.”
Ken McLoughlin laughed loudly. Bill Murphy offered a halfway grin.
“Better start writing bloody books, I think,” McLoughlin muttered.
He picked up his discarded back-up and replaced it in its ankle holster. He retrieved and holstered his Glock. The .45 colt he held onto after pocketing the pen-guns.
“Can we go?”
“Sure. But don’t touch anything. Not even the spurs on his boots. Nothing, all right? The place will be crawling with forensics for the next few days, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Bill turned to Georgette and examined the bruising to her face. “You sure you don’t want to see a doctor?” he asked with concern.
She smiled. “Just pour me a brandy and hold me. That’s all the treatment I need,” she told him, and they walked off together arm in arm toward the house.
* * *
McLoughlin’s first thought was to call Kazumi, but he called the Victorian Police Commissioner Jack Rowland instead.
“It’s all over. He’s dead, sir,” he told him.
“Shit!” he exclaimed. “How?”
“It was a hostage situation. I’d been chasing him through scrub. He shot me twice…” McLoughlin explained what had happened to the Commissioner, at length.
“So you dropped the little prick?”
“Yeah, he’s gone, sir.”
“Thank Christ for that! You stay put there for a day or two. Get to a doctor. Ring me in the morning. I’ll grab Johnson and come up. This is great news! Did you find out where he went to ground?”
“It has to be here. Somewhere in the scrub around where I spotted him.”
“Well done, Ken! Bloody well done!”
* * *
Within two hours of McLoughlin speaking with Commissioner Jack Rowland, several police cars and the government undertaker had arrived at Bill Murphy’s house. Georgette’s mobile phone rang. It was George Hanks.
“You’ve heard?” she asked.
“Not really. Cops. Shoot-out. Dead body. What’s the story?”
Georgette quickly explained the situation to her boss. “I’ll do a piece to camera, but you can’t identify the policeman involved. He’s undercover and Bill doesn’t want his name mentioned or the location of his house given out.”
Bill Murphy was sitting close by Georgette listening to her conversation. So was Ken McLoughlin.
“That’s bullshit, babe… put Murphy on. I know exactly what the prick wants. Give it here.” He took the phone. “G’day George. Don’t even ask!”
“Come on mate, shit! this is huge…”
“I live here because no bugger can find me. You put this on your news and I’ll have every bloody ghoul out there stalking the joint.”
“Mate. You know how it goes. It’s a big story. Gotta do it.”
Bill’s temper flared. “You put me or this bloody house on your fucking news and I promise you, I’ll print your name and address in my next book. By Christ, I will. Then we’ll see how you like it.”
He handed the phone back to Georgette.
“What’s wrong with a stand-up and some high-altitude aerials?” she asked George.
“Come on, babe, the old man will have my balls in a sling. Especially if he knows you’re there. Do it for me, will you?”
“George, anything, you know that. But not this. It’s too close.”
“Well don’t bother with a stand-up. That’s bullshit. I’ll get back to you.”
She was about to speak when her phone rang again. She didn’t even have time to announce herself.
“Monkhouse, girlie, you get that fucking story on my television station!” he roared.
“I’m sorry, Mr Monkhouse, I can’t do that. I’m happy to do a live piece or a stand-up, but I can’t identify the policeman or the location where this has taken place,” she told him firmly.
“Now you listen to me!” he bellowed. “I don’t give a rat’s arse about your personal preferences. And I don’t give a rat’s arse about who or what’s involved. Hanks tells me this is huge. I’m telling you to get the story and those involved onto my bloody news bulletin.”
Georgette stood her ground. “I can’t do that, Mr Monkhouse. I’ll do a stand-up or a piece to camera, but I won’t identify the people or the location.”
“You want to have a think about that?”
“I just did.”
“So you won’t do it?”
“No sir, I won’t.”
“Pretty damned expensive refusal on your part!” he told her. “You’re not welcome here anymore. Seems to me all you bitches are the same.”
Sylvester Monkhouse then abruptly hung up.
As soon as he did, the phone rang again. It was George Hanks. “What are you going to do?” he asked urgently.
“Nothing now,” she told him, a degree of shock in her tone. “The old man just fired me.”
Bill Murphy and Ken McLoughlin stared at Georgette, too shocked to speak. So was George Hanks. Finally. “He fired you?” George exclaimed. “Son-of-a-bitch. So what now?”
“Don’t know, George. Don’t really care. But don’t send a crew up here, all right?” She then hung up the phone.
Bill Murphy was still staring at her. “So what now?”
“Who knows?” she shrugged.
“You did that for me? You gave up your career for me?”
“I gave it up for the third dream,” she told him.
* * *
For three days twenty police and emergency service personnel searched the area where The Weasel played cowboy b
ut turned up nothing apart from bucket loads of used .45 bullet shells. Finally Jack Rowland approached McLoughlin.
“Buggered if I know, Ken. Looks like he’s taken this one with him. No-one’s turned up anything. He obviously dug himself in somewhere else. Wrap it up. Take six weeks off. Use the card. Go where you like. Have a bloody good holiday. Be in my office six weeks Monday. And thank you. You did well.”
McLoughlin knocked on Bill Murphy’s door. Georgette greeted him and invited him in. “That’s about it for me. There’ll be the usual inquiries and stuff but I’m out of here. I just wanted to thank you both.”
“And you too,” she smiled. “That prick was about to blow my head off. You saved my life.”
McLoughlin put his arms around both of them. “I’ll never forget either of you. For richer, for poorer, for better or worse and forsaking all others… go for it, you two, and I hope you turn out to be the happiest couple in the world. God knows you deserve to be.”
“Don’t be a stranger,” Bill Murphy called after Ken McLoughlin as he walked away.
“Send me a postcard.”
“We will… but where?”
He turned round and looked back. “Send it to me care of Kazumi, Katie’s Farm, Naracoorte, in South Australia.”
Ken McLoughlin was driving back to Sydney when he pulled in off the road. He sat in his car with the engine running, thinking. Suddenly, he wheeled round and drove back to where he had originally located The Weasel. He went to the spot where he lay prone watching The Weasel play games with his colt .45.
It has to be here,’ he thought. This prick must have holed up here somewhere. Maybe the searchers didn’t go in deep enough.
He walked a long way from where The Weasel was shooting targets and a good deal deeper than searchers had penetrated. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Anything. The slightest thread. Footprint. Bullet casing. Drink can. But there was nothing.
He returned to his vehicle and drove into South West Rocks and booked into a motel. The next day, he returned. He backtracked over the same area. He went further afield. Still nothing. He decided to take a breather and sat down on a fallen log by a thick clump of bushes. It was the middle of the afternoon. Then, like a bolt out of the blue, his head spun around, his eyes shot open and his mouth dropped.
What the bloody hell was that?
He checked his watch. It was three p.m. exactly. Ken McLoughlin could’ve sworn he heard the pips of a time signal, like at the top of the hour on radio stations.
He looked around. Nothing, but he couldn’t dismiss the sound of the pips from his mind. He checked his watch. Eight minutes to four. He decided to return to the exact same spot where he was sitting at three p.m. When he did, he watched the second hand move around the dial. If they were the pips, then I should hear them again. At the stroke of four p.m., once more he heard six pips.
This is bullshit! It’s just not possible. What am I missing here?
He climbed off the log and pushed his body into the thick bush. He looked around, and if he hadn’t have kicked it with his foot, he would have missed it. There was a piece of downpipe inserted into the ground. McLoughlin looked at it and was going to ignore it, but instead decided to shine his torch into it.
He could see something at the bottom, but the light wasn’t strong enough. He dropped to bended knee and put his ear to the downpipe. He was jolted backwards by what he heard.
Voices, for Christ sakes. I can hear voices. He put his ear to the pipe again. There’s a radio on down there. A bloody radio!
He attempted to pull the downpipe up, but it was stuck fast. He stepped outside the thick bushes. Just to his right was a length of cement water pipe covered in debris and bush, about three metres long and a half-metre in diameter. McLoughlin went to the front of it and bent down. He shone his torch into it. It looked empty. On all fours he climbed into it. When he got to the other end, he put his hand on what looked to be nothing but a dirt wall. To his surprise it opened.
As he peered through it he suddenly realised he’d finally found what he’d been looking for. This was The Weasel’s hideout. At the entrance to the length of cement piping was a drop of about one-and-a-half metres and a small ladder. A small light was glowing in a corner. McLoughlin climbed onto the ladder and eased himself down.
He found himself standing inside a caravan that had been completely buried beneath the ground. As his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, he saw several other battery-powered lamps. He switched four of them on. Before him was the ultimate hideout. The piece of downpipe he’d kicked was the air vent. Sitting next to it a radio with its aerial run half way up the ventilation pipe. The radio was switched on, but the volume control was turned down.
The pips I heard echoed up the ventilation pipe! I’ll be buggered!
The caravan was nearly six metres long. There was a bed at one end, and a massive stack of dry-cell batteries. A tiny electric hotplate. Several casks of spring water and tinned food stacked from the floor to the roof. Plenty of blankets and a full-length curtain about three-quarters of a metre wide on the far wall. McLoughlin moved to pull it aside more from casual curiosity than anything else. This time he got an even bigger shock. The curtain was a doorway which led to an underground shed. McLoughlin grabbed a light and held it up. Other dry-cell lamps were close by so he switched several on. Standing in front of him was The Weasel’s car.
No wonder we couldn’t find the bastard! The prick buried it.
He wondered where the entrance was but thought he’d get to that later. At the front of the vehicle was a huge box. McLoughlin lifted the lid and held a light over it. Lying on a sheepskin rug was the Barrett .50 calibre and another mobile-phone gun.
Jesus, he even had a spare! he exclaimed to himself.
There were also a number of other weapons including a collection of handguns and umpteen boxes of ammunition. To the left of the box a portable toilet, a big plastic bowl and a deep hole in the ground, the bath. He returned to the caravan and stood looking around. He figured The Weasel could live in here for months. Probably did. So whatever was in the plane has to be in here. Has to be!
There was nothing of consequence under The Weasel’s bed. The small cardboard portable wardrobe contained only clothes. Then he lifted up the seats at the table. Two very large black nylon bags were stowed under one seat, and several smaller bags were stowed under the other. McLoughlin dragged them out. When he pulled back the zip of the first black bag, he could see it was stacked with tightly-bound bundles of $1000 bills in US currency. He unzipped the second and immediately several gold ingots fell to the floor. He picked them up and put them on the table.
This one’s jam-packed too. Got to be millions. got to be!
“Talk about a pandora’s box,” he muttered. “Jesus!, I’ve just found ten of the bastards.”
He then proceeded to open the smaller bags. Bundles of cash were plentiful and McLoughlin quickly estimated tens of thousands of dollars. A passport. It showed The Weasel’s photograph but a different name. Then a small diary.
McLoughlin seized it. He rested his foot on one of the nylon bags, pulled a light across the table and began to turn the pages.
Christ, it’s all here. Names, dates, amounts, victims.
But it was the last entry which rocked McLoughlin. It read: Bourke. Copper. Kununurra. .50 cal. Fucked his day (arsehole). Bloody near got his mate, too.
McLoughlin’s anger rose. He turned back the pages and there were all the names and dates, even newspaper cuttings showing pictures of the people he’d bashed and robbed.
He closed the diary and sat pondering his situation. Never in his career had he been involved in a case like it. And the effect this one small man had had on so many people’s lives was catastrophic. His hands began to shake slightly when he considered how close he came to being a victim himself. He picked up the black nylon bags and tipped out their contents. At the end of counting he’d tallied up exactly $20 million. Plus 47 gold ingots. In th
e smaller bags, $147,000 in Australian currency.
He sat shaking his head at such a massive amount of cash. What staggered him even more was that no-one in the whole wide world knew he had it. The Weasel was dead. Everyone on the plane was dead. The greeter to the plane was dead. Insurance by now would have paid out the victims of The Weasel’s robberies. McLoughlin climbed out of the caravan and returned to his car. He called the Victorian Police Commissioner.
“It’s not six weeks yet…”
McLoughlin interrupted him to speak of his discovery.
Jack Rowland was flabbergasted. “He buried a bloody caravan and a shed and lived in them?”
“That’s right, sir. And he kept a diary. It’s all in there. It’ll wipe the slate of your unsolveds. Has to. There’s also nearly 150 grand in cash. The .50 calibre’s there. Christ, you should see what’s there!”
“Any indication of what was on that bloody aeroplane?”
McLoughlin steeled himself to tell the biggest lie of his life. “No sir. Whatever it was, he certainly didn’t stash it in the van.”
“So we’ll never know?”
“No, sir, I guess we won’t.”
“I’ll talk to Johnson and tell him all this. You deserve a bloody medal. Stay by your phone. We’ll call you in the morning and work out what to do from here.”
McLoughlin headed for Bill Murphy’s place. When he arrived at the end of the driveway, he climbed from his car carrying a small bag. He walked to the house, placed it at the front door, then returned to his vehicle. He phoned Bill Murphy.
“I just left you a present at the front door,” he told him and hung up. He then called directory assistance and asked to be put through to the Ritz hotel in London. “I’d like a room for two for two weeks in two weeks’ time,” he told them.
“Indeed, sir. What name?”
“McLoughlin. Ken and Kazumi McLoughlin.”
McLoughlin hung up the phone. Christ, she’d better say yes.
Such a thought tickled McLoughlin and he found himself laughing out loud. He then dialled Qantas and booked two First Class return air fares.
* * *
Bill Murphy opened his front door and picked up a small black bag. He took it inside, opening the note attached to it as he went.