by Gilling, Tom
Bending down, Nick thumped his fist against the wing. A crescent-shaped shard of green glass was protruding from the offside front tyre. The broken remains of a bottle of Great Western champagne lay scattered on the gravel beneath the car.
Nick opened the tailgate. The spare was nearly bald but at least it had enough air in it to get him to a garage. He dragged it out and let it fall on the ground. The black plastic tool bag was lying in the well, tied with a length of striped nylon rope. There was another bag next to it—a dark-green household garbage bag sealed with silver gaffer tape. Nick untied the tool bag and took out the spanner and assembled the jack and dug away the loose gravel under the jacking point. The bolts were almost rusted on and it took him a long time to loosen them. Finally he got the wheel off and replaced it with the spare. He was about to throw the old wheel in the boot when he stopped. The dark green garbage bag was lying there and Nick was curious to know what was in it.
He picked it up. The bag was heavier than he was expecting. He carried it around to the front of the car and laid it on the bonnet. The contents shifted slightly as he tore off the silver tape. There were several items inside, wrapped in a strip of oiled cloth. Nick knew already what it was. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he gazed at the lovingly oiled pieces of a small-bore rifle. Next to it was a small box of .22 ammunition.
Nick didn’t want to touch the gun. He re-wrapped the pieces and stuffed the bundle back where he’d found it and threw the old wheel on top and shut the tailgate. What did Kevin Chambers want with a gun?
He thought about the boxes of groceries. Then he searched under the front seats. He found a pair of binoculars in a case. They looked expensive. The leather handgrips were smooth and shiny from use. They smelt of sweat—and lubricating oil. Two brown elastic bands were stretched crosswise across the visor. Pulling it down, Nick found an Australian passport in the name Kevin Chambers.
He got out and examined the roof. The sun had broken down the enamel but just above the door he noticed scratches—the sort of scratches you’d get from hooking a searchlight to the edge of the roof. Nick got down on his hands and knees to look at the floor beneath the pedals. Red dirt was ground into the mat.
Chambers was a shooter. That explained the supplies. He drove into the bush to shoot kangaroos or wild pigs. Sometimes he shot at night and used a searchlight. It wasn’t exactly a yuppie pursuit but out in Canley Vale pig-shooting wouldn’t be an unusual hobby.
Hobby or not, Nick didn’t want to keep the gun. For all he knew, it wasn’t licensed. Even if it was licensed, he didn’t like the idea of driving around in a stolen car equipped with a weapon and ammunition. He’d dispose of it—not here, where an angler might fish it up, but somewhere safe, where it wouldn’t be found.
Nick had never heard of the Sunraysia Daily but there was his face the next morning—the wild-eyed mug shot from his staff ID card—scowling out from the top of page three. He was sitting in a gloomy corner of the public bar in the Grand Hotel in Mildura, nursing a bottle of Steinlager. The report consisted of a six paragraphs in bold type under the headline FEARS HELD FOR MISSING REPORTER.
A car belonging to missing Sydney journalist Nick Carmody was found by police yesterday in a carpark at Seven Mile Beach, on the New South Wales south coast, close to Shoalhaven Heads.
The red Toyota Camry was located by an off-duty police officer from nearby Nowra. Despite a thorough search of the beach and dunes, no trace was found of Mr Carmody.
The ignition keys were found in the car, which was loaded with several boxes of groceries bought three days ago from the Grocery Drop in Nowra. The glove box contained two hundred dollars in cash. Recent tyre marks belonging to another vehicle suggest that Carmody might have met someone in the carpark. Broken glass near the scene indicates that the missing journalist could have been involved in a fight.
Friends and colleagues at the Daily Star, where until recently Carmody held the position of crime reporter, now hold grave fears for his safety.
‘We’re devastated,’ said chief subeditor Jerry Whistler. ‘Nicky’s a top bloke and a great journo and we can’t imagine what’s become of him.’
According to the editor-in-chief of the Daily Star, Les Perger, Carmody was well-liked and had no enemies. ‘No one I can think of,’ said Perger, ‘had any reason to do away with Nick Carmody.’
The picture looked, if anything, even worse than it had in the Star—a copy of a copy of a copy. It was like going backwards through some evolutionary chart: each successive image made Nick look coarser, more feral—and more guilty—than the one before.
The panel van was starting to fall apart. The exhaust fell off in a picnic area off the Sturt Highway. The gearbox felt ready to pack it in at any moment—sometimes, for no reason, it slipped into neutral and the engine revved madly for a few seconds before jerking back into gear.
Nick had driven for two days in the expectation that a destination would somehow emerge. Now it dawned on him that he was going to have to make a decision. Distance would protect him, but he knew he would feel safer in a crowd. He stopped thinking about heading west and started thinking about heading south: to Melbourne.
The gun was making him nervous. A few kilometres beyond Charlton, he stopped near a bridge and hurled it into the Avoca River. The bundle hit the water with a dull splash. Nick remembered a sultry summer morning in 1986, riding his bicycle in Centennial Park as police divers searched Busby’s Pond after the murder of Sallie-Anne Huckstepp. If you dug deep enough, a park ranger had told him, you would find the criminal history of Sydney entombed in the mud alongside the rusted bicycles and broken shopping trolleys.
Later, as dusk began to fall, Nick had the feeling that he was being followed. He noticed a pale-coloured Ford station wagon in his rear-view mirror. He was almost sure he’d seen the same vehicle when he stopped for petrol in Wycheproof. It was a common enough model but the colour—a sort of duck-egg blue—stuck in his mind. He slowed down to let the other driver pass but the station wagon seemed to slow down too. When he speeded up, the station wagon appeared to do the same. It might have been nothing. The distance between the two vehicles slowly increased. It was almost dark when Nick glanced in his mirror and realised that the station wagon wasn’t there anymore; it must have turned up one of the dirt tracks he’d noticed earlier. A feeling of incredible relief swept over him. His hands relaxed on the wheel. He drove for another ten minutes before pulling over. He wound down the window and breathed deeply. Was he going to break into a sweat every time he saw another vehicle in his mirror? He picked up his mobile phone. He had missed seventeen messages. A glance would have told him who they were from but Nick didn’t want to know. Those messages were for Nick Carmody but he’d left Carmody behind, in a carpark at Seven Mile Beach. He glanced in the mirror. His dyed hair looked ridiculous. He wondered how Kevin Chambers would look with his head shaved.
II
The impact sounded worse than it was—but it was bad enough. A busload of passengers with their faces pressed to the vandalised windows were staring at Nick as though he’d just come down in a shower of green sparks.
He was in a suburb called Box Hill, outside Our Lady of Sion College, and a bus had just run into the back of him. He didn’t know how he happened to be in Box Hill and until a few seconds ago he’d never heard of Our Lady of Sion. He got out of the panel van and inspected the damage—which was less than he’d expected, although the tailgate had been pushed out of shape. The bus was unscathed except for a mildly deformed front bumper.
The bus driver looked younger than he did, and Nick felt guilty, as though the accident had been his fault, although the bus had run into him rather than the other way around. He resisted the impulse to apologise.
‘Gee, mate, I’m sorry,’ said the driver. ‘Didn’t you see me?’
Meaning what, Nick wondered—that it was his fault? He tried to force the tailgate back into place.
‘You pulled out,’ the driver explained.<
br />
‘Did I?’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Sure.’
‘Need me to call an ambulance?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘You look a bit shaken.’
‘I’m fine. Let’s just forget about it. I was going to get rid of the car anyway.’
The bus driver hesitated. He bent down to look at the deformed bumper. He ran his hand over the dent.
‘I’d like to,’ said the bus driver.
‘Good—’
‘Only the supervisor will want to see some paperwork.’
‘Tell him I wouldn’t stop. Tell him it was my fault.’
‘It was your fault. You pulled out.’
‘So you’re in the clear.’
Nick was pushing down with all his weight on the damaged tailgate, which refused to shut.
The bus driver peered inside: ‘How’s the dog?’
‘The dog’s all right, thanks. We’re both all right.’
‘Greyhound, is it?’
Nick was beginning to realise why public transport always ran late. ‘Yes. It’s a greyhound.’
‘Race, does he?’
‘Used to. Not any more. She’s retired.’
‘She?’ The bus driver walked around for a closer look. ‘What’s the name—if you don’t mind my asking? I used to have a bit of a punt. Always liked a good bitch. You know what they say, don’t you: it pays to follow a bitch in form.’
Nick gave up his attempts to close the tailgate. ‘Listen, mate. I’d like to talk but I’m supposed to be somewhere. Is there any way we can fix this without bothering your supervisor?’
Two female passengers had left their seats and were walking towards them. The bus driver tried to wave them back. When they took no notice he physically herded them back up the steps. Nick seized his chance, jumping back in the car and pulling straight out into the traffic while the bus driver watched him with a look of disappointment bordering on betrayal.
‘She’s fucked. Pardon the Italian, but that tailgate is fucked.’ The mechanic straightened himself up. He was about six and a half feet tall and hinged at several points. He put both hands in the small of his back and grimaced. ‘I could try and hammer the fucker out but chances are it would still be fucked. You’d get water leaking in, rust, the works. Take my advice. It’s not worth it.’ He walked slowly around to the front. ‘What’s the engine like? Someone’ll give you a few hundred for scrap if the engine’s okay. If the engine’s fucked you’ll be lucky to get a hundred.’ He hoisted the bonnet, held it up with one arm, glanced at the battery. ‘New battery?’
‘Newish,’ said Nick.
‘Give me a listen.’
Nick got in and started the engine.
‘I’ve heard worse,’ the mechanic said after listening for a few seconds. ‘I don’t mind giving you three hundred. Cash. Save you the trouble of taking it somewhere else.’
‘What about five?’
The mechanic let the bonnet fall. ‘What about four?’
Nick glanced over his shoulder at a motley assortment of used cars parked beside the workshop.
The mechanic wiped his hands on his overalls. ‘Looking for something now, are you?’
‘I could be.’
‘What?’
Nick shrugged. ‘What have you got?’
‘Big? Small?’
‘Small. Reliable. Not too expensive.’
The mechanic scratched his head, as if those specifications would be hard—even impossible—to meet. He put his hands on his hips. ‘Reliable. Not too expensive.’ He looked at the panel van. ‘How much have you got to spend?’
Nick thought of the money in his pocket, the money Danny’s father had given him. He couldn’t afford to spend it all. Maybe he didn’t need a car. But he’d had a car since he was seventeen. He’d be lost without a car. He noticed a scooter parked among the used cars beside the workshop.
‘What about the scooter?’
‘What about it?’
‘Is it for sale?’
‘It could be.’ He looked Nick up and down. ‘Ever ridden one before?’
‘Not for a long time—why?’
‘You don’t seem like the kind of bloke who’d ride a scooter.’
‘Really?’ Nick was accustomed to defining himself—either on the telephone or by holding out a business card—and was curious to hear a stranger define him, even by what he was not. ‘And what sort of bloke rides a scooter? In your opinion.’
‘In my opinion?’
‘Yes.’
The mechanic folded his arms. ‘Students. Waiters.’ He paused. ‘Faggots.’
‘How much?’ asked Nick.
The mechanic unfolded his arms. ‘How much did I say I’d give you for the Valiant?’
‘Four hundred.’
‘Call it a straight swap then. Yours for the scooter.’
At the last moment Nick hesitated. He didn’t have the transfer papers. Maybe it would be safer just to drive the panel van into the bush and leave it.
The mechanic leaned back casually against the side of the car. ‘I’m guessing,’ he said, ‘that you haven’t brought the papers with you?’
‘I forgot all about them,’ said Nick.
There was a long pause. ‘It’s a bit of a risk buying a car without papers these days. I mean, you never know what the police might come nosing around. I don’t suppose they’d be interested in a wreck like this but you can’t be too careful.’
Nick knew all about risk, and how to compensate for it. ‘Give me two hundred,’ he said, ‘and I’ll forget about the scooter. I bet you could get two hundred just for the doors.’
The mechanic grinned. ‘I knew you weren’t a faggot.’
A bare scalp on a man under thirty-five both invited and rebuffed scrutiny. Was it an aggressive style statement, or hereditary and unavoidable—or was it the result of chemotherapy? Catching sight of himself in mirrors and shop windows, Nick had the feeling that baldness was going to suit Kevin Chambers. He noticed the looks he received from strangers as he walked around the city: wary, yes, but at the same time oddly impressed, even envious. Or was he just imagining it—projecting onto them the strange excitement he felt at slipping out of one life and into another? How many people, after all, got to do what he was doing? Millions dreamt of having a second chance, but how many had the nerve to go through with it—to simply disappear and start again?
And not a moment too soon. Michael Flynn had tracked down the female witness to the New Year’s Eve hit-and-run. According to her, the driver of the Audi TT bore no resemblance to Danny Grogan. Nick swore out loud as he read the handful of paragraphs on page six of the Daily Star. It was as if he had written the story knowing that Nick would read it—as if Flynn was taunting him. Danny’s father had got to the witness—or someone had—and made sure that the driver she remembered seeing looked nothing like Danny or his underage girlfriend. Nick wondered how much she’d been paid for her trouble. You could say one thing for Danny’s father: he always paid. At the end of the story Flynn reminded the Star’s readers that his missing colleague, Nick Carmody, had admitted in court to driving Grogan’s car on the night of the hit-and-run. Nick was no longer just a fugitive, but an outlaw.
He found himself rattling along Sydney Road in a number 19 tram, staring at the fabric shops bristling with bolts of pink and purple silk and the halal butchers with their awnings drawn against the sunlight. The dog was holed up in a motel room in West Maribyrnong, with a bag of Meaty-Bites and a bowl of water, behind a sign that said DO NOT DISTURB.
The tram halted outside an Afrocentric hair studio and Nick got off. He needed somewhere to live and this seemed like a good place to start looking. The pavements were busy but not crowded. Women carrying bags of shopping got on and off the tram without smiling. The street was lined with bargain shops and discount chemists and pawnbrokers. The population was largely immigrant and Nick got the feeling that people here minded their own business.
/> He crossed the road to a shop called Planet Real Estate. There were plenty of units for rent but Nick’s eye was drawn to a picture of a weatherboard cottage whose front porch was being slowly strangled by a wisteria vine. The rent—$240 a week—was only a few dollars more than the agent was asking for a two-bedroom unit in a red-brick block of twelve.
Nick opened the door and walked inside. For all the ambition of its name, Planet Real Estate looked like a one-person operation. A man in his fifties in a corduroy coat was speaking on the telephone. Nick pointed to the window and asked whether the weatherboard cottage was still vacant.
Without removing the receiver from his ear the agent nodded and mouthed the word ‘yes’. Nick asked for the address.
The agent put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘It’s just around the corner. De Carle Street. Two minutes’ walk.’
‘Can I have a look?’
‘Can you come back later?’
‘I won’t be here later.’
The agent pulled a face. Then he took his hand away from the mouthpiece. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. His voice sounded pained. Watching him, Nick guessed that the person on the other end of the line was his wife. ‘I’ll call you later,’ the agent said, but seemed unwilling to end the call. (Was it his mistress, Nick wondered?) ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, looking now at Nick. ‘Yes. I’ll try.’ Then he hung up.
‘Sorry for interrupting,’ Nick said.
Ignoring his apology, the agent rummaged in his desk drawer for the keys. Each set of keys had a cardboard tag and the agent had to read a dozen of them before he found the tag he was looking for. He followed Nick out of the office and turned the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ and locked the door behind them.
They stood side by side at the pedestrian crossing and waited for the walking man to turn green.
‘Where are you from?’ the agent asked.
Without thinking Nick answered, ‘Sydney.’