DINING WITH DEVILS -- A Tasmanian Thriller

by GORDON AALBORG

  Waking up was less easy. Ian struggled out of a nightmare filled with demons that tormented him with the smell of fresh roasted coffee, and he eventually opened his bleary eyes to find that it hadn’t all been a dream. The coffee was real, as was the slender figure of the velvet-voiced woman brewing it, a woman who stared at Ian through reflective sunglasses despite the earliness of the hour, then smiled. It was not a nice smile. The last time Ian had seen a smile like that, it was on the grizzled face of old Viv Purcell’s dog Bluey, just before the evil little Jack Russell attempted to bite off Ian’s balls.

  There was also the small matter of the Vaime SSR, lying across the woman’s lap with the muzzle casually aimed in Ian’s direction, but he managed to ignore that as he struggled upright and lurched his way to the fire and the lure of the fresh coffee.

  He’d poured the coffee and even raised the tin cup in a casual sort of toast when he noticed the woman was holding his rifle in hands that wore latex surgical gloves. And the rifle was cocked.

  Then Ian really began to worry.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The man who dropped the knife didn’t always enjoy being dead, but he enjoyed being shot at even less.

  When the grazier’s shotgun exploded the morning, startling the sheep and dispersing a mob of magpies from the scrub around him, the man with the knife in his hand was already terrified. It had taken him fifteen minutes just to reach the cave opening from the point where it had become visible to him. Fifteen minutes to cover fifteen yards, and each minute a lifetime . . . even for a man already dead.

  Until the point where he’d actually seen the entrance to the cave, he’d moved with the grace of a dancer, flitting across the open paddock as if shifted by the dawn breezes. He’d ghosted along behind Kirsten’s party like the faithful scout in some Western movie – seeing but unseen, at one with the very universe around him, indomitable, all-knowing, amazing . . .

  But sight of the opening had struck him like a slap across the face, a sucker punch exploding outward from his own mind. He’d stumbled, nearly fallen as weird colors swirled through his vision and terror thundered in his ears. He’d been forced to approach on his hands and knees, which was perhaps just as well; his trembling legs couldn’t have supported him. Sweat poured into his eyes and his hands were slick with it, despite the coolness of the autumn morning.

  The cave opening gaped before him like the entrance to hell, and in his perverted mind it was exactly that. Half the world away and geographically very different indeed, it was – nonetheless – a cave mouth that seemed identical to the one in which he’d died, or almost died. Or both, depending on how one looked at it. The mouth of hell or the personification of fate . . . the definition didn’t matter. The simple terror it generated in him made his heart palpitate, his fingers tremble, his very vision swim in the crisp dawn air.

  His hands were shaking so badly he might have dropped the stock knife even without being shot at; he’d been trying to cut the rope one-handed, reaching out to keep himself as far from the actual opening as he could manage. Like a child half-wanting to touch a toad, or a snake, but terrified to move a finger that final inch.

  And definitely not expecting the shot. He was so surprised he nearly fell into the open cave mouth where Kirsten and her companions had disappeared twenty minutes earlier.

  The knife fell from nerveless fingers as he turned, scampered to the edge of the scrub that hid the cave mouth, peered out across the backs of the sheep to see the shooter – more than five hundred yards away and moving further away still . . . with a dead rabbit dangling from one hand.

  False alarm? Maybe . . . but it could also have been a genuine omen, thought the man who dropped the knife. Maybe his entire plan had been fatally flawed. Or just plain stupid! He watched until the grazier was out of sight, then turned and flitted away himself, once again graceful as he crossed the paddock to where he’d left the vehicle.

  He knew where Kirsten was, and would be, and when. There was time. Plenty of time. Enough to hatch a better plan that didn’t involve holes in the earth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The gundog trial site was swarming with uniformed police when Rex emerged from the catering tent, his bullet-burned earlobe glistening with some ointment he suspected was meant for wounded dogs. Not that it mattered; the stuff had stopped the bleeding and eased the pain, which was the point of the exercise. And now, in the aftermath, he was feeling decidedly strange – both about his own reaction to the incident and the reactions he’d encountered amongst the dog people gathered in the catering tent.

  “These Tasmanians are very strange people,” he said as he approached Teague Kendall and Bluey, who seemed to have come to some sort of understanding and were both calmly watching the chaos surrounding them.

  “All Australians are strange,” Kendall replied. “Years ago, an Italian who’d migrated here wrote a book called They’re A Weird Mob, and never were truer words put on paper. Although,” he added after a moment’s pause, “they’re no weirder than some Americans I have known. So what’ve you heard that’s so strange?”

  Rex could have laughed. There was no comparison he could see between Tasmanians and Texans except for a sense of good-ole-boy familiarity and fierce independence, but then he’d only been in the island state for a day and a half.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t stay here,” he replied. “You haven’t got the accent, but you talk like them, and I’m beginning to believe you think like them, too. The first reaction you had to this gaping wound in my ear was that I was lucky it didn’t kill me, and therefore I ought to go and purchase a lottery ticket.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, except that no less than six – count ‘em! – six other people said the same thing in almost the exact same words while the veterinarian was tending my injury. A vet!” Rex sighed, deliberately being over-dramatic. “Still, better than no doctor at all, I suppose.”

  “Heaps better, I’d reckon. They’re trained to fix up patients that can’t tell them what’s wrong.” Kendall leaned in to inspect the injured ear. “At least it’s quit bleeding. Just wait until you get back to The States; you’ll be able to tell everybody you were attacked by bloodthirsty Aboriginals.”

  “Who’d believe that?”

  “Most Americans I’ve met. Although, yeah, maybe you’re right. Americans only believe what they see on television.”

  “If this had happened at home, at least everybody wouldn’t be sitting around complaining about how it wrecked the dog trial.” There was a sharpness to Rex’s voice that caught Kendall’s attention. “And they certainly wouldn’t be arguing with the authorities about whether they should be allowed to move a hundred yards downstream and continue the damned trial with a new judge! And I’ve had three offers to buy my hat, if you can imagine it. And . . . and . . .”

  Rex’s mouth kept moving, but no words emerged. Kendall suddenly realized his companion was genuinely upset by the day’s events. Rex wrote fairly chilling and dark mysteries, to the delight of his many fans, but Kendall thought him to be a gentle and caring soul at heart, despite that vivid imagination.

  “Steady on, little mate,” he cried, reaching to grab Rex if the man should suddenly decide to faint. The move surprised the rough-coated Jack Russell terrier leashed to Kendall’s left hand, and he responded by erupting into excited barks and rushing around in a demented circle that resulted in Kendall, not Rex, tumbling to the ground.

  “You rotten mongrel of a dog!” Kendall snarled at the dog, then clambered upright, making sure to maintain a hold on the leash. Bluey’s response to the insult was an evil glare; the dog liked Rex (most dogs did) but was unsure about Kendall, who wasn’t really a “dog person.”

  “Give him to me before you trip again and injure the poor creature,” Rex said, obviously recovered from his spate of shock. Bluey scampered happily through the transfer of guardianship, pausing only long enough to sprinkle Kendall’s boots as he departed. Rex laugh
ed. Kendall didn’t see anything funny about it.

  “You’re overdoing this famous bit, you rotten mongrel,” Kendall said. “You’ll get your comeuppance, mark my very word, and there’ll be no sympathy from me when it happens. Nor from anybody else, either, I’ll wager.”

  “Not from me, and that’s sure and certain.” The voice of Charlie Banes rumbled from behind them, and Kendall, Rex, and Bluey all turned to meet the approaching policeman. Even in civilian clothes, Charlie tended to carry himself with alertness and precision, and despite the lack of uniform, he exuded authority.

  “You’re an evil animal, little mate,” he said to the Jack Russell, who glared ferociously, one yellow eye fixed on the grazed knuckle he’d already inflicted on his tormentor. “Still,” Charlie continued, turning his attention to Kendall, “this evil little bugger’s responsible for solving your Specialist case, and probably saving your life, too, at least in a roundabout way.” Charlie then turned to Rex.

  “ ‘The Specialist’,” Charlie said in sneering tones. “Not hard to tell our Teague’s been a journalist, eh? Typical. Can’t have a story without putting some fancy-dancy name to it, and taking everything all out of context, and indulging in a little journalistic feeding frenzy, eh?” His voice lost no authority, but revealed his views on the journalistic profession, not that Charlie Banes would have dignified it with such a description.

  Rex didn’t reply. He’d already heard, chapter and verse, how the diminutive dog and his geriatric master, a stereotypical Tasmanian bushie, had led Charlie to discovering the Tasmanian exploits of the psychologist serial killer/cannibal Dr. Ralph Stafford, whom Teague had christened the Specialist.

  “He didn’t save my life, and even if he did – that’s no excuse for pissing on my boots,” Kendall retorted as he traded scowls with the totally unrepentant dog.

  “It’s why sensible people wear gumboots to dog trials,” Charlie replied, turning his attention again to Rex. Charlie leaned down to inspect the injured ear, obviously having been told about it before he’d joined them. “Bullet burn, for certain,” he said. “Now come show me precisely where you were standing. We’ve got bugger-all else to work with on this thing so far, so anything constructive would be helpful.”

  The three men spent some time estimating sight-lines and possible places the shot might have come from, but Charlie refused to allow any closer inspections of the ridge in question. “I’m being sent the entire mob of recruits from the police academy in Hobart,” he said. “They’ll do a proper line search – part of their training, if nothing else. And I expect there won’t be much else, either. The local coppers are busy interviewing everybody, though, for what it’s worth.” Again that thoughtful pause before he continued. “Nobody saw anything, nobody did anything, nobody knows anything. Well, not surprising. The judge certainly wasn’t shot by any of these people.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Rex interjected. “At least half of the ones in the tent when I was being looked at by the vet were bound and convinced he deserved shooting. It was about the only thing most of them did agree on.”

  “Well he did deserve it, going by what I understand the silly bugger said to that blind man last night,” Teague said. “Insensitive peckerwick, if nothing else, although I guess that doesn’t really make him deserve to be shot.”

  Charlie seemed unimpressed by the line of reasoning. “They’re just nervous, and I don’t blame them,” he said. “And of course he was over from Australia, which is one strike against him, and from Canberra-our-nation’s-capital (running the words into one) is a pretty sound second strike. Add the incident with the blind bloke and Bob’s your uncle – he was a bad bastard and deserved shooting.”

  Rex Henderson, ever alert to semantic nuances, started to reach up and touch his wounded ear, then thought better of it. “Why do you refer to Australia as if it was a foreign country?” he asked. “Isn’t this part of Australia?”

  “This is Tasmania!” Teague and Charlie replied almost in unison, then looked at each other, and laughed outright at the perplexed expression on their companion’s face. It was left to Kendall to explain that in the eyes of most fair-dinkum (genuine) Tasmanians, Australia is sort of a foreign country, or at least a second-rate cousin to Tasmania, which everyone knew to be far more significant than the mainland. “We’re the tail that wags the dog, or at least that’s how native Tasmanians think of it,” he explained.

  Charlie’s cue: “Speaking of dogs, is there any chance you could—?” He got no further.

  “Not on your bloody life,” Teague interrupted. “We’re staying in a posh hotel, for starters, Charlie; not someplace he can piss on what furniture he doesn’t try to eat. Besides, that mongrel hates and loathes and detests me, and the feeling’s mutual. I’d be lucky to get him back to Launceston without being eaten by the bugger. And Rex can’t take him either, because he’s in the same hotel, and because . . . well . . . just because.”

  “Don’t make such a production of it. I was only about to ask if you’d mind holding onto him a bit longer. The problem is that I’m going to be stuck here until the CIB and forensics teams arrive, at the very least, and I can hardly do me job and look after this evil creature” – with a sideways glance at the grinning dog – “at the same time, can I?”

  “So lock him in your car. At least that would protect everybody else from him. I don’t think he needs much protecting.”

  “He’d destroy the car’s interior in five minutes flat, and I’m likely to be here for hours.” Charlie again glared at the animal he’d become lumbered with when Bluey had been dumped in Charlie’s care by his geriatric owner, Viv Purcell, en route to the hospital for a checkup. Viv had handed Charlie the dog and made his escape before the policeman could think of any useful excuse.

  “So borrow a crate and lock him in that,” Kendall said. “I’m not having him with me, and not in my rental car, either.”

  It was Rex who salvaged the situation. “Unless there’s some law against it, I’d sort of like to stay and watch whatever’s going to happen,” he said, firming his grip on the leash. “You,” he said, turning to Teague Kendall, “can go back to Launceston if you like. I’m sure I can scrounge a ride with somebody once the dust settles. One thing about these Tasmanians, they’re very obliging to strangers.”

  “Don’t be daft. If you want to stay, I’ll stay too,” replied Kendall. “In fact, I’d best stay, or these obliging Tasmanians might talk you out of that fancy Stetson and con you into trading those Lucchese boots for Blunnies.”

  “It is not a Stetson. It is a Charlie One Horse ‘Desperado,’ if you can imagine such a thing.” Rex lifted the offending hat from his head and regarded it soberly. “The publishers insisted I wear this,” he said. “Part of my image.” He snorted, clearly not impressed by the concept. “And these Lucchese boots, I’ll have you know, cost me $549. I’ve had them for about seven years and I’d sooner trade my car! These boots are like bedroom slippers.”

  Teague Kendall had no real comeback. His own battered Akubra bush hat, once a top-of-the-line example of Australian hat manufacture, was nearing the end of its useful life, and his battered Blundstone boots weren’t much better. Both had been back and forth between Australia and Canada more than once.

  “Going to be a long, boring day,” said Charlie. “Be another couple of hours before the trainees get here, and then there’ll be a bun fight over jurisdiction and whether it’s safe to let the cadets even do a proper line search. Safe!” He spat out the word. “There’s a hundred people standing around here, and nobody else has been shot yet, but they’ll be arguing about safety, you mark my word. Whoever’s in charge will be mortally afraid of being criticized for endangering his troops, and just ignore the fact that’s what they were sent here for – to do a line search!”

  “Jesus! Maybe you should go home, Charlie. This is getting to you, I think,” said Kendall.

  “Of course it’s getting to me. I’m off my turf, out of bloody uniform, and lumbe
red with this evil bloody animal, but I’m still the senior officer on the ground and, whatever else, I’m the one who’ll cop the shit when it flies from the fan. As it will!” Charlie’s voice belied his obvious enjoyment of the situation.

  “And speaking of things hitting the fan,” he continued, “oughtn’t you be getting yourself back to Lonnie, like Rex suggested? You surely ought to be there when your girl gets back from wherever she is. Leaving her to find you missing and no idea where you are or why is hardly honeymoon behavior, I’d say.”

  “This isn’t a honeymoon, and well you know it!” Kendall’s flush was half anger, half embarrassment. He knew his friend was – in the vernacular – having a lend of him. A laugh at Kendall’s expense. But it didn’t ease his real concerns on the subject of Kirsten Knelsen, their trip together, and their fragile, highly questionable relationship. He wasn’t about to disclose those concerns to Charlie Banes or anyone else, but he didn’t enjoy being led into a risky corner about them, either.

  “Not if the woman’s got any sense at all; no sane woman would marry you,” was the reply. “So, where did you say she was? Down a cave somewhere, as I recall.”

  “Mole Creek, with a mob of equally crazy caving enthusiasts.” Teague wasn’t afraid to show his feelings on that subject. After his experiences with Kirsten in the cave she’d discovered on Vancouver Island, and the terror of being trapped in icy water that came to his knees but froze his very soul, in total darkness for hours that seemed like a lifetime, positive he was going to die there, Teague had sworn never to venture underground again. Indeed – and he did not admit this fact – he doubted he could summon up the nerve to do so! It was among the many difficulties he faced in developing a relationship with Kirsten, whom he thought he loved dearly but was totally uncertain he could ever live with. Their journey to visit Tasmania had been planned, in fact, to see how they got on together under more or less normal circumstances, few of which had yet come to pass.