by Gilling, Tom
‘I get the feeling you weren’t very close,’ was all Alison said, as if she knew something was missing from the story.
‘Let’s say we had our disagreements.’
Her own history, at least to begin with, seemed thoroughly conventional: she was the only child of an Adelaide general practitioner and the nurse who became his wife. Private school, then a semester at university, followed by eighteen months spent backpacking around Europe and South-East Asia, and finally a job as a flight attendant with Qantas. The only unconventional aspect concerned her father, who—at the age of sixty-four— had abruptly divorced Alison’s mother, citing irreconcilable differences of which she was apparently unaware, in order to take up with his twenty-six-year-old receptionist.
Two family histories without—as far as Nick could see—a single element in common, and yet somehow those two histories had brought them together, here in this musty dining room, across a candlelit table, over a meal of artichoke soup and spaghetti marinara.
‘Did you know her?’ Nick asked.
‘Who?’
‘The flirty receptionist. Your stepmother.’
‘Did I say she was flirty? If you want my opinion he’s more likely the one to blame. Mum certainly thinks so.’
‘But you’ve met her?’
Alison stood up to collect the empty bowls while Nick swept the mussel shells onto a side plate and followed her into the kitchen. ‘No. I think she’s avoiding me. Although maybe she thinks I’m avoiding her. You realise she’s younger than me? I just can’t think of what I’d say to her. What we’d say to each other.’
Nick opened the fridge for the second of the two bottles he’d brought with him. ‘I’m guessing we could manage another?’
‘Why not? Since we’re getting along so well.’
He unscrewed the lid of a Yarra Valley chardonnay. ‘Would it be reckless of me to say I’m very glad our cars collided?’
‘Probably,’ she said.
She had a single bed, with a brightly-coloured African bedspread, wedged between a varnished plywood wardrobe and a dressing table with an oval mirror. There was a nice but slightly shabby crimson Persian rug on the polished Baltic floorboards. The room was neat but seemed in some odd way temporary (there were no pictures on the walls, no photographs on the dressing table)—not the sort of room Nick would have predicted for a thirty-three-year-old woman with a well-paying airline job. Not that his own bedroom gave any more impression of permanence.
‘You can always sleep on the floor,’ she said, ‘if you’re worried there won’t be room.’
‘The less room the better,’ said Nick.
She was pulling back the bedspread. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d shared a single bed—not since he was a teenager, probably. He put his arms around her and bent down to kiss her ear. She shivered and pulled away.
‘Careful. My ears are very sensitive.’ She reached behind his shoulders and drew him down with both hands. Her voice fell to a whisper. ‘Amazing things have happened to men who start kissing my ears.’
It was only a little story, half a dozen paragraphs beside a discount wine ad, but when Nick turned the page his eye went straight to it. The headline said, BIG DRY LOOKS CROOK FOR CRIMS.
Victorian criminals must be praying for rain to end the State’s long drought as police revealed yesterday that dumped firearms were being uncovered at the bottoms of drying dams, lakes and creeks.
Victoria Police said weapons so far uncovered included a sawn-off .22 semi-automatic rifle and a bolt-action 12 gauge shotgun. Checks were being carried out to see whether any of the guns could be linked to unsolved crimes. One rifle has been linked to a 20-year-old burglary and its original owner traced.
Senior Sergeant Frank Hare from Ballarat in western Victoria said four guns had been uncovered from the now-empty Lake Wendouree and at nearby Creswick. He said guns might have been dumped in lakes and dams after some categories were made illegal under new gun laws.
A number of dumped firearms had been found by people fossicking through rubbish exposed for the first time in decades on the beds of drying lakes and dams.
A week ago children playing on the banks of the Avoca River near Charlton discovered a dismantled lever-action .22 rifle wrapped in oilcloth which had been embedded in the mud. Forensic tests have linked this weapon to the unsolved shooting four years ago of a known drug dealer on Sydney’s northern beaches, not far from the historic Barrenjoey lighthouse. Last year a World War II plane that ditched near Colac 55 years ago was found in Lake Corangamite.
Nick was sitting in a crowded cafe in Lygon Street but the world around him fell eerily quiet, as if for a few moments he was trapped inside his own noise-proof bubble. The urgent crackle of animated conversation sounded like a distant roar, a slowed-down tape-recording, or like voices heard underwater. He remembered the shooting near Barrenjoey lighthouse. He’d even gone up there with a photographer. The body had been removed but he’d seen the chalk marks indicating where the dead man had fallen.
The dealer was in his fifties, Nick recalled—a Russian, or at least someone from one of the former republics of the Soviet Union. To the police—and to most readers of the Daily Star— they were all Russians, just as any criminal of South-East Asian appearance was Vietnamese.
Detectives investigating the case had worked on the premise that he’d been murdered by a rival, or as punishment for an unpaid debt. He’d died from a single shot to the head: a good shot or a lucky shot, nobody could say which. The killer had left the ejected shell case on the ground.
Now, thanks to Nick, the gun had been recovered. And whatever the police knew, Nick knew that Chambers was not the harmless weekend pig-shooter he had wanted to believe. One thing Nick had learnt as crime reporter was that jumping to conclusions was as foolish as shutting your eyes to the obvious. The rifle he’d found in the tyre well of Chambers’ panel van had been linked to the murder of a Sydney drug dealer. That didn’t mean Chambers had any knowledge of what the gun had been used for, still less that he had used the gun to kill the dealer. Nevertheless, it established a connection—and connections, Nick knew, had a habit of spreading. Was there one between the Kevin Chambers who kept a gun hidden in the tyre well of his panel van and the Kevin Chambers who’d burnt to death in his ute? Or was it just one of those coincidences that made the world go round?
Once upon a time he would have been able to answer that himself. He would have known who to call, what questions to ask, and whether or not to believe the answers. Nick Carmody could have rung one of his former contacts at Police Headquarters to find out if there was anything about the rifle dumped in the Avoca River that hadn’t been reported. But he wasn’t Nick Carmody.
He wished he’d chosen somewhere else to dispose of the gun. He’d thought he was being clever but the truth was he’d panicked, and the land always found ways of punishing those who panicked.
‘Flemington. Racecourse Road.’
The passenger looked vaguely familiar, as business travellers for some reason tended to. There was every chance Nick had picked him up before. He’d been drinking, either on the plane or in the business-class lounge before boarding. The smell of beer and whisky and stale cigarette smoke rolled off him.
The taxi gods had a habit of delivering Nick to the rank at Tullamarine Airport just in time to meet the last Qantas flight from Sydney—the only flight, as far as Nick could tell, that actually honoured the promise of unlimited free alcohol.
The man in the passenger seat had been staring at Nick intermittently from the moment he got in. He was staring at him again now.
Nick had learnt not to initiate conversations with passengers who showed no interest in talking. If they didn’t talk it was usually because they had a reason for not talking. Twelve years at the Daily Star, interrogating and ingratiating himself with strangers, had given Nick a reasonable knowledge of human nature. But what he’d learnt behind a reporter’s notebook paled next to what he was discovering beh
ind the steering wheel of a taxi.
He’d envisaged taxi driving as a form of drudgery—a dispiriting combination of bad pay, long hours, physical risk and enforced subservience to surly, ungracious, preoccupied strangers. And he was right. But it was also something else. A taxi, especially in the early hours of the morning, rattling along empty streets through comatose suburbs, was like a confessional without the screen. Ordinary people confessed extraordinary things, secure in their own anonymity.
Nick had expected to be bored but he was anything but. The money wasn’t great but for some reason he didn’t mind that. He’d tried once to buy the future. For now he was content to live in the present, where having enough to pay the bills was all that mattered.
Pretending to adjust his rear-vision mirror, Nick glanced sideways at the figure slumped in the passenger seat. He was a big man. He looked about forty. His right earlobe, the one Nick could see in the orange glow of the freeway lights, was ragged like a cat’s, as if someone had taken a bite out of it. He wore a dark grey pinstripe suit that would have looked more stylish if it hadn’t been a couple of sizes too small.
‘Carmody,’ he said at last. ‘Nick Carmody.’ It was a statement, not a question.
Nick didn’t say anything.
‘Come on Carmody. You’re not fooling me. I’ve read all about you.’
Nick was trapped and he knew it. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d been anticipating this moment, even while he assured himself that it would never happen.
‘Stackpole,’ the man said. ‘Ian Stackpole.’
Ian Stackpole. They had been at St Dominic’s together but Stackpole was four years older. His father, Lawrie, was a racehorse trainer who’d trained a filly that ran third in the Melbourne Cup. Ian was a useful rugby player and played a few games for one of the Sydney clubs while he was still at school. Then his father suffered a stroke and the stables were sold. In his last year Stackpole was made a school prefect. One afternoon he’d busted Nick and Danny Grogan for smoking. He must have flunked his final exams because after leaving St Dominic’s he went straight into the police. Nick remembered running into him at a coronial inquest into the death of an Aboriginal youth, standing sheepishly in the lobby of the Glebe Coroner’s Court, dying for a cigarette but not daring to go outside in case he missed his call. Stackpole hadn’t recognised Nick in his cheap reporter’s suit but Nick had introduced himself. If he hadn’t then maybe Stackpole would not have recognised him now.
‘Ian,’ he said, trying to sound calm. ‘You look different.’
‘Like fuck.’
For a few seconds neither spoke. Then Stackpole broke the silence. ‘What the hell,’ he said in a more conciliatory voice. ‘Maybe I do. I try not to look in the mirror too much these days.’
‘You look all right,’ said Nick.
‘I wish I felt all right. I can’t piss and my balls are turning blue. Other than that I’m a picture of health.’ He stared at Nick. ‘So what’s the story—or am I going to have to invent one? I mean, that’s what you blokes do, isn’t it? Ask a couple of questions and then make up the rest.’ Ignoring the ‘No Smoking’ sticker on the dashboard, he fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. ‘Mate, I’m sorry. I almost forgot. This is your private pain and humiliation we’re talking about. You don’t want a stranger like me sticking my nose into it.’ He found a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth and said through pursed lips, ‘Coroner’s inquiry, wasn’t it? You were working for the Star. Just started, I seem to remember. But pretty full of yourself all the same.’ He gazed around Homolka’s battered taxi. ‘Felt like a change of career, did you?’
‘Something like that.’
‘No, mate. I’m interested. Star reporter goes missing. Quite a story. They found your car somewhere. I’m trying to remember the place…Somewhere down south, wasn’t it?’
Nick realised that holding out now was pointless. He would have to go along with Stackpole and see where it took him. ‘Seven Mile Beach.’
‘Seven Mile Beach. That’s it.’ Stackpole made several feckless attempts to light his cigarette before Nick passed him the dashboard lighter. ‘Thought you might have drowned, didn’t they? I knew that was bullshit. At fucking St Dominic’s they didn’t teach us much but at least they taught us to swim. You remember the outdoor pool? And that sadist McCluskey. “Who’s going to break the ice for us today?” Shove. I heard that bastard had a stroke.’
Nick shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know, Ian. I haven’t really kept in contact since I left.’
‘No,’ said Stackpole. ‘I don’t suppose you have.’ He blew smoke over his shoulder. ‘So here I am, mate. A passenger in your taxi. Are you going to tell me what happened or what?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Nick. ‘I’ll tell you all about it one day.’
‘I bet you will.’ Stackpole sucked on his cigarette. ‘Of course, I could just ring up the papers. I guess they’d know what to do with a yarn like this. What do you reckon?’
Nick didn’t answer.
‘Maybe I’ll just sit on it for a bit,’ said Stackpole. ‘See if I can come up with a better idea. I might even have a go at writing it myself. Special correspondent. Do you think they’d come at that?’
He flicked his ash into the ashtray and stared for a long time out of the side window. When he turned around his expression had changed. Nick knew he had to keep him talking.
‘What about you, Ian?’
‘What about me?’
‘Are you still in the force?’
‘No, mate. I’m not.’
‘Been out of it long?’
‘Not long enough.’
Constable Ian Stackpole’s career had been effectively over from the moment he testified in court about the death of an Aboriginal man in custody. According to the custody sergeant the man had fallen awkwardly while being escorted to his cell. Aboriginal men had a habit of falling while being escorted to their cells. They fell and from time to time they didn’t get up again. All Stackpole had to say was that, like his colleagues, he’d seen the prisoner throw a punch. But Stackpole wouldn’t say it. He didn’t say the punch wasn’t thrown; just that he hadn’t seen it. Not seeing that punch finished his career. The irony was the coroner took no notice of Stackpole’s evidence and decided that ‘reasonable force’ had been used to subdue the prisoner. Another whitewash, and as far as most of the media were concerned, Constable Ian Stackpole was as complicit as all his mates. But to his mates he was a liability, a colleague who couldn’t be counted on to say the right thing when it mattered. In those few minutes on the witness stand, Stackpole had fucked up his life, not by anything he’d said but by something he hadn’t said. If he was bitter about the way things had turned out, Nick thought, he had every right to be.
‘Family?’ asked Nick.
‘Ex-wife,’ said Stackpole. ‘Three ex-kids. I’ve just been in Sydney to see them. I hadn’t laid eyes on them for six months. She gave me an hour.’
‘Too bad.’
‘You got any?’
‘Kids? No.’
‘Then you don’t know what I’m talking about.’
Stackpole squinted at his watch but seemed unable to read the time. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just after eleven.’
They drove in silence for the rest of the journey. A steady drizzle was falling. Once or twice Stackpole appeared to nod off, only to wake up abruptly as his head lurched forwards. By the time they reached Racecourse Road he was in one of his wide-awake phases. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’
He spoke as if both of them needed sobering up.
‘I’m supposed to be working,’ said Nick.
‘Then don’t come in.’
Stackpole clambered unsteadily out of the seat and held onto the door for balance. Nick switched off the engine.
Stackpole slammed the door and began stumbling towards the gate. He lived in one half of a dilapidated pair of semis. His half was the more dilapidated. A downpipe had co
me away from the gutter and stood out from the wall like some crazy flagpole. Letters were spilling out of the mailbox, as though it hadn’t been cleared for weeks. Nick removed his takings and took his ID card from its holder and locked the taxi. Then he followed Stackpole up the broken cement path to the front door. As he climbed the steps, the older man suddenly tripped, almost hitting his head against a brick pillar. Nick didn’t say anything but as he helped him to his feet a monstrous thought flashed through his mind. If Stackpole had fallen and split his head on the pillar, the problem of what to do about him would have been solved. From the way he’d described his life, who would have missed him? The thought seemed to belong not to him—that is, to the person he recognised as himself—but to a stranger he didn’t know. He felt Stackpole push him away—out of embarrassment, or because he knew what Nick was thinking?
‘Fucking steps,’ said Stackpole.
He held up the brass key and prodded clumsily at the lock until the teeth of the key disappeared and the door opened. Groping along the wall, Stackpole switched on the light. Nick shut the door behind him.
The carpet was orange shagpile. Overflowing ashtrays and unwashed plates lay everywhere. The house smelt of beer. Around the walls were piles of form guides, circled and scribbled on with red ballpoint, each held in place by a brick. Nick sat on the sofa while Stackpole crashed around the kitchen in search of coffee.
When he finally emerged it wasn’t mugs of coffee he was carrying but a bottle of Famous Grouse. He put down the whisky and stood there swaying for a few moments, as though trying to remember why there was someone else in the house. Then he sat down heavily in the scruffier of a pair of armchairs. He pointed vaguely at a bow-fronted sideboard in the corner of the room. ‘You’ll find a glass in there.’