Lescott dangled his legs over the hole as Harris dug through moist, sandy earth. “The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft against the knee was levered firmly. By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man.” Harris muttered to himself a kind of motivating mantra as sweat dripped down his head and crooked back.
“Have you tried looking for God?” Lescott asked from the side of the shallow grave. He moved his head to one side to avoid the spadeful of sand Harris cast over his lowered shoulder. Lescott was convinced it was no accident.
“My affiliation with the church ended during my childhood.” Harris grunted with exertion. The question clearly got to him as he took the time to straighten up and lean on the handle.
“Here we go again.” Lescott regretted the question.
“Religion’s done.” Harris spat out the words like they’d been sitting burning a hole in his mouth for years. “Religion served its purpose. Back when we had no understanding of science, blind faith might have made sense. But now we do. And the Christian God is dead.”
Lescott looked down at Harris, who had gone back to digging furiously. He saw that, for the Englishman, this was more than dark philosophical musing. This was personal. Coupled with Harris being so quick to suggest a priest could have been driving the death car, Lescott was sure that Harris had unresolved trauma. “Were you diddled by a priest as a kid?”
Lescott’s attempt to hide a serious question asked out of concern behind light-hearted delivery was misguided and he regretted it immediately. The forced smile left Lescott’s face when Harris just kept digging, completely ignoring the question.
Moments after the damnable question had revealed far more about Harris than he was comfortable revealing, the standover man had tossed the spade at Lescott and climbed out of the hole. He’d walked over to the car and sat on the bonnet. Ordinarily Lescott would have chastised him for it, but not then. Not after what he had said. The sun began to set to the east of the car, releasing bursts of colour across the sky, to the west of the car, the pink brine of the lake caught the colours and lit up like an oil slick in the sun. Harris saw none of it. He chain-smoked and stared down at the ground.
Lescott was sickened by guilt. It left a knot in his stomach and a lump in his throat. It was hard to see Harris as vulnerable, harder still to see him as a victim. He was a huge, menacing, physical presence. But he hadn’t always been six foot four and 220 pounds. At one time or another, over the course of our lives, we are all vulnerable. One can only hope that during that period of our lives, we are protected, and not damaged by those charged with our care.
Such was his apprehension over what he’d said, Lescott was putting little effort and no concentration into digging. When he heard the sound of the cutting edge striking something hard, he didn’t think to inspect it. Looking over the edge of that hole, four-foot-deep, he kept his eyes on Harris. It occurred to him that he had seen Harris at his weakest, and it would come as little surprise to him if Harris jumped in the car and left Lescott there to die in the desert. As he pondered what would get him first — thirst, hunger or the heat — he raised the spade and brought it back down. Over and over. Clang. Clang.
Harris heard the sound and walked over. To Lescott’s relief, it looked like he had taken his break to put the conversation behind him. “What have you struck?”
“You don’t think it’s a gas line, do you?” Lescott asked with a worried look.
Harris looked around at the vast emptiness surrounding them. “Probably not.”
“Of course not.”
“Never mind. That’s deep enough. Get out of there and help me with our mutual friend.”
Harris and Lescott stared down at the dead man. The heat of the day had got to him. He was beginning to smell. The blood the capillaries that had been in of his skin’s surface was pooling in the veins lying deeper in his body, and he had turned quite pale. As Harris grabbed the man by his ankles, he could feel that the warmth had left his body. Through the man’s socks and slacks, he felt McCoppin’s skin: no longer was it soft and turgid, it had become dry and papery. Rigor mortis had taken hold and it felt like they were carrying a heavy and cumbersomely-shaped cut of ironbark. “This is wrong.”
“Well, let me grab his ankles. You can stick your hands in the fucking dead man’s armpits,” Lescott grumbled as he struggled with the dead weight.
“No.” Harris stopped and dropped the body near the grave. “This entire thing. In a place this beautiful, we’re doing something so immoral and ugly. This earth is too good for our kind. Too pure. We’re unnatural.”
“You’re a complicated kind of creature, aren’t you?” Lescott laughed. “Listen, we can put him back in the boot if you like. But I think we ought to get this over with.”
Harris shrugged and gave the stiffened corpse a nudge with his oversized shoe. McCoppin fell into the hole, and as he hit the dirt, his body made an unmistakable airy squelching sound. Lescott gagged. Harris looked down in the grave. “It’s ok. Just gases being released. It’s completely nat…” Harris stopped speaking.
Lescott stifled the need to spill the contents of his stomach on the sand, he was bent double and sucking in air through pursed lips. “What…”
“Can’t be. Cannot. Fucking. Be…” Harris said as he jumped into the hole with the flatulent corpse.
“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Lescott peered into the hole to find Harris on his hands and knees going through the dirt. “Can we get out of here? I need a strong drink. I’ve never heard a corpse fart before. It’s unsettling.”
Harris let out a laugh. A weird laugh. Not a snigger he sniggered out the side of his mouth. This was the cracked, throaty laugh of someone who couldn’t believe what was happening. When he climbed back out the hole, he was holding an opal. “That sound the spade made? You struck gold. You struck better than gold.”
Lescott looked at the uncut gemstone and shrugged. It was maybe the size of a cricket ball. On two sides, it just looked like rough, dark rock. Its other two faces were polished. A clear black rock that held reds, greens and yellows inside it. “It’s just a rock.”
Harris shook his head firmly without taking his eyes off the thing. “This is an opal.”
“So, what? It’s an opal. There’s a woman at Sydney market who’ll sell you two for a quid.”
Harris looked up. “Do you know much about opals? Because I do. One of Ronnie Prince’s more legitimate enterprises is precious metals and stones. I’ve seen them all.”
“And?”
Harris looked like he was in love with the damn thing. “And a similar stone was found in these parts, closer to Coober Pedy, just after the war. That one was a bit bigger, but the light didn’t play inside it like it does in this.” Harris held the stone up to the light and his jaw fell slack. “They called that stone the Fire of Australia.”
“You think it’s valuable?”
“I’d bet your house on it. Because with this stone, I’m pretty sure I could buy your entire street.”
“Fuck off. You’re winding me up.”
Harris’ eyes were wide in awe of the light show he was staring into.
“Let us have a look?” Lescott wrestled the stone from Harris’ grip and held it up to the light of the dying sun. He didn’t really see the appeal. It was a rock. A pretty rock, but a rock all the same. Maybe that’s why he tossed it back into the hole with Walter McCoppin.
Harris almost cried as he jumped back into the hole to retrieve it. “What are you doing?”
“We’re not taking it.” Lescott shrugged.
Harris did this strange involuntary spasm when he heard the words. “Didn’t you hear anything I just said?”
“This is wrong,” Lescott recited Harris’ words back to him. “This entire thing. In a place this beautiful, we’re doing something so immoral and ugly. This earth is too good for our kind. Too pure. We’re unnatural. I heard you say that.”
“Yeah but…” Harris desperately interje
cted.
“I’m doing you a favour,” Lescott said. “I’m giving you the chance to prove to me, and to yourself that you’re not entirely full of shit. You’re right. This place is beautiful. We’ve done something ugly here. But the past is the past. That’s done. What we can do is ensure that we leave something beautiful with something ugly. Call it cosmic balance. Gift it back to the land.”
“I ought to shoot you in the fucking face.”
They didn’t speak on the trip back to the freeway. Lescott was smug, he’d called Harris out on his hypocrisy and taught him a damn valuable lesson.
Harris seethed in the passenger seat. Or at least, he made the effort to look like he was seething. Once Lescott was done with his sermon by the graveside, Harris had made an entire production about coming around to Lescott’s way of thinking. But what did Lescott know? He was fucking rich. When Harris climbed out that hole, he climbed out with a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of stone splitting the seams of his pocket. He was rich. But he had been proved to be full of shit, so now he was making a big song and dance about sulking like he had left the stone behind.
Lescott was fully aware that the Englishman had taken the stone. He was just happy he’d put Harris in a position where it was difficult to start beating his own drum by spewing more of his own, depressing brand of philosophy. When they would talk again, they would talk on Lescott’s terms.
“Doug McPhee?” Lescott asked after he had enjoyed a peaceful period of quiet. Since he’d spoken to Jared Hills in the shipyard the previous December, his occupational curiosity had demanded answers to the bounty of questions raised that day. “Have you heard of him?”
“I knew him personally, that’s no secret. I don’t think that’s what you’re asking though.” Harris never gave much away. “You want to know if I killed him?”
“That’s the story going around town.” Lescott kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t want Harris to see judgement in his eyes and clam up.
“Who do you think started that story?” The smile was back at the corners of Harris’ mouth.
“So what, it’s just a lie in the name of public relations and reputation building.”
“I didn’t say that.” Harris whistled through his teeth. “I liked McPhee. There was a good man under all that bluster. He just got too close to the edge, and one day he went over. That’s when I found him. He was lying in a snicket in Surrey Hills. Someone had taken a knife to him. Might have been a razor. Whoever it was, that was a really sick fuck. They’d severed his Achilles tendons, he was never going to walk again. But worse than that… They’d cut his face off and left him there to bleed to death. That’s why I say I didn’t kill him. He was dead when I got there. What I did was put him out of his misery with a bullet to his brain. I did him a favour. I knew whoever did it was never going to own up to it. So, I took the credit. Until now that’s been between me, Doug and the sick fuck who’s still out there somewhere. So, I’d appreciate you treating that with discretion.”
Still Lescott kept his eyes on the road. “Pass me a cigarette, would you?” Harris lit two and passed one to Lescott, who had one more question to ask. “What about Shotgun Eddie?”
“Shotgun Ed…” Harris corrected. “That’s a different story altogether. I deserve all the credit I get for that one.”
Chapter 31
The winter of 1959 was wet in Sydney. A deluge poured down upon the roof of the office in which Harris was waiting for Ronnie Prince. It was a cheaply built, temporary construction. It couldn’t withstand that kind of weather for long. As rain hammered down on the thin sheet metal roof, it rattled and became displaced. Water leaked through the flaws in the construction, ran across the ceiling and down the light fixtures. Harris, sitting in the dark, didn’t notice as water fell all around him. He was soaked through and he had no idea whatsoever.
From that rickety little office overlooking Parramatta river, Prince shipped all manner of stolen goods in and out of Sydney. Opium from Asia, cocaine and muscle cars from South and North America respectively, diamonds from Africa, and just about anything he could get his hands on from his contacts in Europe. Everything on the earth came through that innocuous little office. If there had been anything other than snow and penguins at the Poles, he’d have brought that in too.
On that particular night, Harris had no idea why he’d been summoned by his master’s voice in the dead of the night. Prince was old school. He wasn’t one of these flashy modern gangsters who spent all night in clubs. He kept usual business hours to keep up an appearance of respectability. Then when the sun went down, he went home to his beautiful wife. He’d be available through his phone until a couple of hours after dinner, then he’d tuck himself into bed and be unreachable. Between midnight and sunrise, his organisation’s wheels kept turning under the guidance of a number of his trusted lieutenants. Harris, back in 1959, wasn’t yet in the upper echelons of the criminal hierarchy. He usually got the night off. As a closet heroin addict, that suited him just fine.
“What are you doing, sitting here in the dark?” Prince looked over at Harris, who came to from a brief sleep. Ronnie had turned the lights on as he walked in, Harris held his hand over his eyes to shield them from the glare.
To Prince, it was clear that something was off with his young employee. When he’d picked up the phone and spoke into it groggily, Prince assumed his hired gun was simply still half asleep. But that was over an hour ago. He ought to have woken up in the time that had passed. Prince walked over to a drinks cabinet. This was not the sort of discussion you’d have without a drink in your hand.
He poured two drinks, never taking his eyes off Harris who looked out of his mind drunk. He was nodding off and coming around again just a moment later in a state of absolute confusion. Prince couldn’t proceed with him in this state. “What’s wrong with you James? You don’t look well.”
“I just. I had a few drinks. I’ve got a fluey cold. I took some tablets. I think. I think I’m not well. I need to throw up.” This was unlike any level of straightforward inebriation that Prince had ever seen. Spotting and exploiting inebriated men was a gift Prince had developed as a child. He wasn’t falling for it.
“Have you taken something else?” Prince was notoriously hard on those in his crew who became addicted to drugs. It made them unreliable. It made them untrustworthy. A junkie desperate to get out and get fixed up was far more likely to crumble during interrogation by the police than a man in full control of his wits.
“Just drunk from drink.” Harris lifted his head to answer Prince. He could barely open his eyes. “And tablets I took two days before this day.” Harris’ speech pattern was bizarre.
“Where have you been drinking?” Prince didn’t believe Harris. He knew that if they talked long enough, while Harris was in this state, he’d trip himself up and reveal the truth.
“The Hummingbird,” Harris slurred.
“On Bayswater Road?” Prince asked. “The pub that burnt down last month?”
Harris woke up as a shock of uncontrollable fear ran through his body. He’d been well and truly rumbled. It was time to do damage control and come clean. “I took some heroin.”
That was all Prince needed to hear. He stood up and walked over to Harris. This was 1959, and the rapid effects of stress and age hadn’t finished their work on Ronnie. He was still a fucking scary man. It was only after a bout of cancer in ‘62 that he lost much of his height and weight. It was downhill from there.
Prince threw Harris across the room like a ragdoll. He pushed, he punched, he kicked. When Harris attempted to fight back, and it appeared momentarily that he might have had the upper hand, Prince bit his brow. He scratched, and he gouged. Harris took a pummelling that night. He was beaten to a bloody pulp. Prince took no pleasure in it. It was simply a case of teaching the young man a valuable lesson. When he was done, he put Harris back in his chair.
Having heard the commotion from outside, one of Prince’s men walked in with a gun dr
awn. “Is everything alright in here, Mr Prince?”
“I need someone to go grab a bag of ice and a couple of thermoses of strong black coffee.”
“Nowhere’s open.”
“If I tell you bastards to do something, you fucking do it!” Prince yelled. “If I want coffee, you bring me coffee. If I want you to steer clear of drugs, you fucking steer clear of drugs.” Prince screamed at his bodyguard; it was clear he was deflecting his anger at Harris onto the poor guy. The bodyguard wasn’t an idiot; he could see this. He was paid well enough to smile and take the abuse. This was the 1950’s. Life was hard for the working man.
An hour later, Prince watched as Harris, who had consumed much of the coffee as a straightener, held an ice cube to his badly split brow. “You’ll kill yourself using that shit. You know that?”
Harris nodded a silent and obedient nod.
“How long?”
“Heroin? Since ’55. Before that it was opium. Before that it was morphine, which started in ’42 in Egypt. It’s an off and on thing.” Harris moved the ice to his swollen jaw.
“Mainly on?” Prince asked. Harris nodded. “You brought that war back with you, didn’t you, boy?” Prince shook his head. He’d handed out the punishment, now was the time for sympathy.
“Do you need to spend some time back in England to sort yourself out? See your family?”
“Anything but that.”
“Family’s important, James.” Prince looked at Harris in a new light. He’d hired a confident, capable young man with a fast mouth and heavy fists. A man who solved problems. A man who made him a great deal of money doing filthy work no one else had the stomach for. Maybe that was driving him further into the arms of that dreaded drug. Prince decided the matter would have to wait. “Something disturbing has come to light. Something that needs your attention.”
THE DEVIL IN THE RED DIRT: DIVIDED IN LIFE. UNIFIED IN MURDER Page 28