THE DEVIL IN THE RED DIRT: DIVIDED IN LIFE. UNIFIED IN MURDER

by Michael Smith

  After he’d snapped the broom handle over his knee, he had his prop. He jammed it under the trapdoor, and shimmied under the hatch. For a moment there, his body was in the kitchen while his legs were in the darkness of the cellar, probing for a ladder. It felt cold down there.

  Harris descended into the dark and lit a match. It was a futile effort to make the murk down there a little more palatable. From the stacks running along the wall, he came to understand he was in a wine cellar. There were so many rats down there, the floor moved. He could feel them brushing up against his ankles. He hated rats. It dated back to his days growing up on a canal filled with dirty, writhing rodents. Each time he felt their sprouting whiskers, their sodden bodies or a fat tail rub against his skin, he wanted to gag.

  The entire experience drove him to drink. If he was going to play this game with Beaumont, he’d get something out of it. He reached into one of the wine racks and picked out the oldest, dustiest bottle of claret he could see.

  GRAND VIN DE CHTEAU LATOUR, 1938

  What Harris knew about wine you could write on the tip of a corkscrew, but even he could see this was the good stuff. He smashed the neck of the bottle on the shelf, and held the jagged glass to his mouth. He took a large breathless gulp, the stuff barely hit his mouth before it was rolling down his throat into the pit of his stomach. The wine was not good. In fact, it was godawful. He cast the bottle aside and stood there contemplating the wine’s peculiar thick, viscous texture. It had left a savoury, almost metallic taste in his mouth. “Fuck. That’s…”

  Harris couldn’t finish his sentence as the bottled blood he had just consumed came roaring back out. His body was sickened. He bent double and vomited violently on the swarming rat at his feet. That shower of blood and bile seemed to piss the little bastards off. As their clamouring chorus of squeaking reached an ungodly crescendo, Harris clambered back onto the ladder. There was no one down there. Maybe there was. At that moment, he didn’t care.

  As he hurriedly climbed, the trapdoor slammed shut. He didn’t know if it was a draught running through the room above, the movement of the ladder under his weight, or someone shutting him in. The rungs which had felt so steady on the way down into the cellar felt less stable. Several snapped under his weight and almost cast him down into the darkness. Those that didn’t give way beneath his feet were suddenly slippery. That desperate scramble upwards ended when his head hit the hatch in a sickening, concussive collision; casting him back down below.

  When Lescott broke entirely is the cause for some debate. Some would say it was the moment the door creaked open and he checked off that last room upstairs. Others, when he stepped foot into the doll’s house. Many would put it earlier: when his wife and child disappeared into the ether. It’s quite unclear. But what can be stated with absolute unshaking certainty, is that everything that had happened to that poor soul over the years, it all led him to that room.

  Tears ran down his face as he stood in the doorway looking into a pale pink nursery. A cot stood before the window, and before the cot, sitting in a shaft of light were a woman and her child. As the failing sunlight crept into the room, it hit the cot and left the pair in shadows of bars. Like they were trapped in some unnatural jail cell from which they would never escape.

  The apparitions that had haunted Lescott at every turn come 1965, had lost any kind of softness. As time passed, as his addictions took further hold, and his mental wellbeing eroded, the form of his wife and child had eroded too. For months they had been glistening skeletons who awaited him around every corner. He had become so accustomed to their new appearances, that he had forgotten the beauty he once beheld in their faces. The kindness, the innocence, and the love too.

  But not there in that bedroom. As the body of his wife held his daughter tightly, as though she was sheltering the little thing from the storm outside and the degradation inside the house. All the love came flooding back to him. With it came regret, guilt, and a pain so potent no man nor woman could fully comprehend it until they, too, had lost everything they loved.

  By his side, the gun dropped from his hand and fell to the floor with a clatter. He fought through the pain, and looked through the tears as he edged towards the pair. The world in which he had lived, not five minutes before, was gone. All that was left was his sorrow and the unslakable desire to join his family. He dropped to his knees and embraced them, taking his place in Beaumont’s carefully curated collection of grief.

  In the master bedroom, amongst that sordid scene of abuse, something stirred. Lescott had been too sickened to pay any kind of attention to the participants, and he had missed something vital, something life-saving. One of the corpses untangled itself from the pile of bodies in which it had laid dormant, waiting. A stark-naked Richard Beaumont raised his bony body and made for the door. He could hear Lescott’s tormented crying from down the corridor. A crooked smile twisted the corners of his mouth.

  This man, this embodiment of the evil that lies dormant within all humans; a primeval cruelty dating back to before people were people, he began to stalk. Long had he used his barbarism to ravage the land and its peoples. It was Fred Lescott’s turn now.

  Beaumont followed the sounds of anguish to the nursery. There, in the doorway, he let out a soft low growl from his throat.

  Lescott was quite oblivious that Beaumont’s shadow had cast over him. Beaumont smiled, “I’d hoped for so much more from you little mouse… Now you’ll bleed for me.”

  As Beaumont crept around the room, he did so theatrically. This was not a man, it was a murderous demon trained in ballet. He moved in behind Lescott and raised his blade high. The dying sun, losing its attritive fight with the storm in the sky, did its level best to warn Fred Lescott. The narrowest but purest shaft of light burst through the clouds, into the room and hit the reflective steel of Beaumont’s blade. From there it bounced its way into Lescott’s bleary eyes.

  It was too late to warn him of the danger, but just early enough to make him aware of the blade chopping through the air. It found its place in between Lescott’s throat and clavicle. Then it emerged bloody, and brought with it a shower of Lescott’s blood spraying across on the floor and the wall.

  Beaumont didn’t stick around to watch Lescott flail on the ground, holding his neck, gasping for air, desperately reaching for his gun. There was more work to be done.

  Chapter 71

  Soaked in rat piss and blood from a gushing head wound, Harris shuddered as he caught sight of himself in one of the kitchen’s windows. He, too, had endured more than he could bear. But where Lescott was now impotent in the face of the demons that stalked him, Harris turned to his oldest friend: anger. He fired his shotgun into the roof and roared, “Beaumont!”

  Now Harris prowled, quite unafraid. He stormed back through room after room, firing off shots into the darkness, making as large and discordant a racket as he could. He toppled furniture. He screamed angrily, as he toppled furniture and tossed Beaumont’s dolls to the ground. The time for care was gone. Now was the time for fury. And dear, oh dear, in his concussed state, did he make a glorious mess of that carefully-staged house.

  When he came across an open fire, he reached down and grabbed at a flaming log before walking over to those godawful curtains shrouding the entire building in darkness. The flames engulfed the filthy material in the space of seconds. Where once there was dark, there would now be fire. While Beaumont had thrived in the shadows of the country for years, Harris had been forged in the furnace of war. This was his house now. He strode through room after room, his resolve steeled, his anger bubbling, ready to play God and end a life. But Harris was concussed. He wasn’t nearly at his best.

  Though he didn’t know it, he was moving in circles. He’d walked past Beaumont twice. As that menacing mass of bone and sinew stormed through his house, Beaumont bided his time, waiting for his chance to strike. It all came to a bloody conclusion at the entrance of the house.

  There, Harris found Charlie dragging a c
ritically-wounded Lescott down the stairs. The fire was beginning to consume the interior walls of the building and the roof, soon it would cave in on itself. Harris rushed over and went to help Charlie bear the weight of Lescott’s prostrate form.

  As he did, Charlie released Lescott from his grip and the man’s dead weight caught the Englishman off guard, sending the pair tumbling down the stairs. As he lay there on the floor, with Lescott’s inert form on top of him, Harris looked over at the entrance through blurred vision. A shadow passed before it. Beaumont, still naked and now dripping with Lescott’s blood lingered there, holding that drenched, yet still thirsty blade. Like a big cat stalking its prey, he prowled there for a moment, pacing in front of the doorway. And then he charged at the fallen men. Teeth bared. Knife glinting. He descended upon them like a hound from hell, roaring as his long stride covered the expanse between them.

  But that roar abruptly ended when Beaumont, blinded by a singular need to end Harris, ran straight into a stiff job from Charlie. The blow landed straight on the madman’s sternum dropping him immediately to the floor, where he gurgled desperately for air.

  The room was beginning to fill with a cloud of thick black smoke as fire licked at every surface. As the flames raged, the damp, mould Somewhere in the distance the architecture of the house was succumbing to the inferno, crashing down to the floor; where it would burn for hours and become a lost memory of a woe begotten time.

  Harris got to his feet and began dragging Lescott towards the door, leaving a smear of dark blood as he went. “Bring him outside.”

  Charlie paused. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to kill Richard Beaumont or not. He was, however, quite certain that he didn’t want to save his life. He felt perhaps it would be best to leave him there, to perish amongst his unholy works.

  Dragging Lescott, Harris collapsed by the door. His head was light and fuzzy, yet somehow heavy and aching. He saw the hesitation on his young friend’s face and in his body language. “We need answers. He dies when I give him permission to. Not a moment before.”

  With what strength remained in his body, Harris dragged Lescott out the door, across the courtyard, and onto the grass. There he lay on that cool rain-soaked surface as it soaked into his clothes and skin, soothing his aches and pains. He could feel the warmth of the fire on his face and arms. He was quite still as he enjoyed the simple, sensory experience.

  “What are we doing with this cunt?” Charlie said as he let go of Beaumont.

  The killer’s threat had been vanquished with that blow to the chest. Such was the force of the blow, it had caused a ruptured somewhere inside him. In between coughs that brought up blood, he rasped desperately for air. If he didn’t receive medical attention soon, he would drown in his own blood.

  Harris got to his feet and grabbed his shotgun. Standing above Beaumont, he pressed the barrel down on his ruptured neck and pushed, leaning much of his weight on the handle. “What is this hell? What is it you’re doing here?”

  Beaumont’s body was failing him, but the might of his sadistic will remained, “Manifest destiny.”

  “Don’t give me that shit.” Harris scorned. “Talk straight. These are the last words you will speak. Make them count.”

  “My work is that of God,” Beaumont spoke through splutters and bubbles of blood blowing from his mouth. “Since the landing of the first fleet… This work has been preordained. Before me, there were others, when I am gone, there will be more like myself. We are unstoppable.”

  “From where I’m standing, you look stopped, my friend.” Harris pushed down on the gun further.

  “The course leading to this country’s future is set. Nothing you can do here today can change that. A river flowing endlessly. You are but a cast stone causing the slightest ripple. The rich will always win. The poor will always lose. The strong will always prey upon the weak.”

  “You know what? Maybe you’re right.” Harris smiled, Beaumont would come to regret those words. “But here and now. In this ripple in the river. All of your wealth, your influence, your coal and your gold, your paid-off policemen. None of them make you powerful… But this shotgun…” Harris gave the gun a pump to prime it for shooting. “This fucking shotgun makes me powerful.”

  Harris looked over at Charlie. The young man was applying pressure to Lescott’s neck as he watched the burning wreckage falling in on itself.

  “Charlie… Do you want to do the honours?”

  “What do you mean?” Charlie looked up to see Harris holding the shotgun out towards him. He shook his head definitively. “It’s funny. Ever since the boy went missing, all I’ve dreamed is dreams of defeating the Yara-ma-yha-who, the Bunyip, Malingee. All the rest of them, but as I stand here. I can see that the greatest monster known to mankind, is itself. He’s just a man.

  “I am more than a man…” Beaumont choked on blood, “I am modernity.”

  “No. You’re a fucking man. Anangu Tjukurpa teaches us that when we punish a person, we wait by their side until they recover fully. There aren’t enough years in my life to give you what you deserve, and then wait by your side. I’ll spend the rest of my life here. I don’t want that.”

  Beaumont began to cackle wildly, it was premature.

  “Well, I’m not fucking Anangu,” Harris interrupted. “I’m Mancunian. And, in Salford, where I come from, we go down to the canals and shoot rats like him for fun. So, I’m going to fucking enjoy this.” Harris took the weapon in two hands and pulled the trigger with a smile.

  After a moment of contemplation, Charlie stood over the body of the deceased madman, he looked at Harris with a smile as he unzipped himself, “You know, there’s a lot of avoidance practices around death in my culture. But Mowan and the others never really said much specifically about pissing on a dead madman.”

  Harris laughed a tired laugh. “I think it probably goes without saying… You do it every chance you get.”

  Chapter 72

  Harris wanted to sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was enter Darlinghurst Road. But the occasion called for one last visit to see an old friend. He reverted to type by standing out the front of the building, smoking a couple of cigarettes and staring vacantly up at the building. When he’d done this every day for eighteen months between ‘63 and ‘64, he’d received a lot of attention from passers-by. But that day in ’65, no one cast him a second glance. He finally fit in amongst the rabble of deviants on King’s Cross streets. His skin was dyed red and crusty with his own blood, his long hair was matted with the damn stuff.

  As he strode towards the building, a strange feeling overcame him; he was feeling a lot like his old self. That aura of spite and invincibility had returned. It was just in the nick of time. He would need it, where he was going.

  It was a normal day in Major Crimes. They were blissfully unaware of the inferno raging just on the other side of the Blue Mountains. Sydney’s finest, a cohort of overweight and sweaty middle-aged men were standing around comparing the bra-sizes of their sisters-in-law.

  When Harris walked back through those double doors, the first time he had done so in eighteen months, every detective in the room gormlessly gawped in his direction. It had certainly been a while, but it hadn’t been long enough to explain this new appearance of his. Covered in blood, in a tattered filthy suit, with that long dirty hair and a vast beard, he looked… Well, nobody could quite figure out what the fuck he looked like.

  When the surprise subsided, a couple of the braver, or more foolish, detectives rushed over to him. Harris was a wanted man. Though he was technically handing himself over to Major Crimes, getting their names in the press as the arresting officer would do their career no harm.

  Harris held out his hands willingly, and they carefully handcuffed him. As they did, he snapped at them with his teeth, making a biting sound that ran around the room. His reputation was such that, each time he did, the room filled with gasps.

  “Take me to Alan Livingstone.”

  “We’re putt
ing you in a cell.” One of the detectives spoke as he grabbed Harris’ jacket to haul him away. Though Harris had lost much of his mass, he was still a difficult man to move.

  The Englishman smiled at the detective, “Take me to Alan Livingstone before I open you up like a can of corned beef.”

  “I’ve arrested James Harris! We’ve fucking got him.”

  Livingstone, sitting in his office waiting for a phone call, hadn’t expected to hear that. He looked up to see two detectives roughly dragging what he assumed was a vagrant they had mistakenly arrested as James Harris towards his door.

  “Who the fuck is this?” Livingstone asked before sniffing at the odour wafting over from the man in the doorway. “That’s not James Harris. I don’t know what the fuck that is.”

  “It’s James Harris…” A detective protested, fearing his moment of glory would be snatched from him.

  “Hello Alan…” Harris smiled as he shook the over-enthusiastic detectives from him and sat down across from his old boss. “It’s been a long time.”

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I just took a trip up to the Blue Mountains. To a place called Dismal Hill. Maybe you’ve heard of it? The local wildlife up there… Well it’s quite a place.”

  Livingstone nodded at Harris. He understood that this was something like his chickens coming home to roost. “Leave DC Harris and I… We need to talk.”

  “It’s Mr Harris. I’ve gone straight.”

  Livingstone reached into his drawers, pulling out a pair of tumblers and a bottle of Scotch. “You’ll forgive me if I leave you in those handcuffs for the duration of this conversation?”