Origin

by Greg McLean

  He can’t think. Damned sick fucks and their home movies. He gives up and coasts down the slope, parks the car and slips in the back door.

  ‘You’re always so quiet.’ Rose is sitting at the table drinking coffee, one of her work dresses half-darned on her lap. All lace and soft cotton.

  ‘Habit. From sneaking back into the station after seeing you. Didn’t want to wake Opey up.’

  She smiles. ‘Do you miss them?’

  ‘They can go to hell. Bastards sacked me.’

  ‘That wasn’t Opey though. And it wasn’t the sack, it —’

  ‘I’m not working there, am I?’

  She watches him a moment. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He gets up, sticks his head in the icebox so she can’t see his face. ‘Anything to eat?’

  ‘Can you talk to me?’

  How can he, after what he’s just seen? ‘I just want something to eat,’ he snaps. ‘That alright?’ In a flash of horror he realises he sounded exactly like his father.

  But she gets up and holds him to her. He tenses. ‘You can talk to me if you want,’ she says softly.

  He closes the icebox, looks at her a long moment. She doesn’t push it. Goes to bed before him.

  When he wakes the next morning – the bed empty and cooling beside him – the elusive thought is there clear in his mind. The Celepˇci brothers had looked at the rich woman walking past with a cold animal stare, as if already imagining her bloodied at their feet, pleading up at them for her life through a bubbling mask of spit and snot.

  He’d seen that look before: when that cop Kravic had looked at the pretty wife at the pub in Newtown. The same calculated narrowing of the eyes, a slackening of the jaw and deadness in their gaze.

  Could that mean . . . ? He was learning to follow his instinct with this – maybe he’d pay the cops in Wills a visit or two.

  At first, Mick sits in his ute down the street, watching them. He notes how Kravic deals with people compared to Roberts. Whereas the older cop tips his hat and stops to talk where he can, despite stooping in pain and dabbing his ever-running nose, Kravic barrels on uncaring of niceties and politeness. As if he couldn’t give a shit about the people he’s supposed to be working for. Or anyone.

  It’s pretty flimsy – but it’s all he’s got for now. He takes to following the police car when he can, hanging far back and getting used to its patrolling. Sometimes the cops would stick close to town, other times they’d set out on calls to farms or stations, or other towns.

  It’s probably a waste of time. Kravic isn’t going to do anything in front of his partner, is he? Not unless Roberts is in on the killing too. But they have so many chances for this – stopping lone cars at night on the highways, entering people’s houses together after dark – them working together is obviously not the case.

  Mick slips into Kravic’s house after he’s left one morning, but can’t find anything. He checks Roberts’ place too. Both men are bachelors so it makes it easy during the day. The police station itself is harder. The solid square brick building in the main street of Wills is locked down tight and fitted with one of those security sirens Mick’s not sure how to disengage. An impound lot out the back is patrolled by two massive guard dogs. There could well be a drum on the premises but he’s fucked if he knows how to get in and search for it. Or how Cutter could’ve planted anything in there.

  Besides, he’s growing less confident about his hunch. Maybe he’s making this personal. He wants Kravic to be the last killer, so he’s seeing what he chooses. One leery look doesn’t prove anything. Maybe that’s just how all men look at women. Like they hated them and wanted to fuck them. Hated them because they wanted to fuck them, but ya can’t just do it whenever the urge hits. Instead, there’s all these conventions about treating a lady right, trying to ignore what comes natural. And so the whole time they’re right there for the taking, but forever out of reach. Which makes some men step over the line.

  Something like that, anyway.

  It’s the only lead he’s got and he keeps watch over the station, trying to think of a way in, when one night he hears a commotion from the impound lot: a dog bark, then a yelp. Mick slips out of his car and runs across the road in the dark to a rubbish skip, hoists himself up to a gap in the bricks.

  The dim form of a cop stands over a grovelling Doberman near the back step. ‘Fucken bitch, ya bit me,’ the man hisses, and Mick can’t tell who it is, though it looks like the taller Kravic in the light. The other dog cowers against a pile of tyres but the man ignores it and focuses on the mutt at his feet. ‘Shithead. Just trying ta feed you.’ The voice indistinct. The man kicks the dog in the stomach again and it yelps and growls, then turns its muzzled head back to him, baring its teeth. The cop kicks it so hard in the face its lower jaw unhinges, hanging down in the lowlight like a great drooping tongue.

  The dog whimpers and stumbles backwards in shock, but it’s like a switch has clicked in the man and his gun’s automatically by his side – gotta take note of that – as he advances and kicks again. The dog stumbles onto its side and Kravic – or is it Roberts? – raises a leg and stamps down on its head. A crunch in the air. The dog lies unmoving as the cop stomps on its ribs and long legs, breaking them like kindling. He keeps kicking until blood’s spread across the dirt, and there’s gore and bone glinting in the moonlight now too. The bloke raises his gun and Mick holds his breath, wonders if he’ll fire a shot right here in the middle of town. And what for? But the dark figure lowers the weapon after a while as his breathing slows.

  His head swivels to the other dog and it crab-sidles away from him up against the pile, but the man just turns and heads back inside, wiping his face as if in a daze. He stops at the door and looks down at his pants, scrapes away blood. Mick hears him ‘tsk’ in annoyance. Then he disappears inside. Mick tried to get a glimpse of his face as the door opened but it was too quick. It’s gotta be Kravic.

  Whoever it is, he’s found the third Other.

  He crouches against the fence as the mozzies play about his ears, dazed at what he’s just witnessed – the ferocity of the attack. The naked anger. He can smell the blood in the air and even though he’s repulsed he can feel his senses buzzing, his heart quickened. He jumps down before anyone finds him there. Before that smell worms its way any further into his brain.

  *

  The excitement at knowing he’s found the final killer stays with him all the way home. He’ll fuck Rose good, take her right there on the table and she won’t even have a chance to talk or goad him beforehand. He’ll be the one in control, just like with his hunt for the killers.

  But she must’ve taken extra shifts to avoid him and he sits in the house alone, staring at a spot on the wall without moving, his mind working deeper and deeper circles inside himself.

  Mick watches the cop shop all day from the front window of the Black Shanty, barely moving, save to grab another beer. But Rose keeps flitting into his head and he’s about to give up and see if she’s back for dinner when he sees Kravic head out to the car by himself.

  There’s something weird in the way the copper’s moving, like he’s blocked up the toilets and is making a run for it. Too quick, glancing around as he gets to his car. He takes off too fast, and then’s careful to slow so he doesn’t draw attention.

  Too late, matey.

  Mick slaps a couple of quid on the counter and saunters out, then has to floor it to catch up to the speeding speck in the distance. They drive north out of town and then get to the more open road, and Mick can’t keep up as the cop car accelerates away. But he thinks he knows where it’s going.

  It takes two hours to get to Newtown and Mick can only hope he’s guessed right. He needs petrol but it’s too late for the servo to be open so has to dip into his store in the back of the ute. Then he heads for the pub to see if the fuel he’s just wasted is worth it.

  The bar’s closing for the night and the last cars are pulling away. Mick drives past slowly but nothing seems amiss
. He’s beginning to curse when he spots the cop’s white four-wheel drive parked behind the building, with only its nose peeking out. There’s someone inside smoking quietly in wait. Mick drives, his eyes fixed ahead, hoping Kravic hasn’t seen him, then parks and cuts his lights.

  The barman’s wife, the blonde, comes out some minutes later to lock up. The street’s quiet by then and Mick hunches in his seat and watches her work at the keys as the light in the hiding car winks on: Kravic slipping out. Mick watches, breath held, as he comes to her out of the darkness.

  She jumps as the cop slides behind her, wraps a hand around her waist. And drags her to one of the empty hotel rooms around the back.

  Mick grins. His hunch’d been right. Then has to decide what to do next.

  He could take Kravic now, while he’s preoccupied. It might be the best chance he’ll ever have. But maybe he should wait until the bloke’s finished, surprise him in the attack, to have some evidence against him. It could help if Mick never finds the knife. But perhaps he didn’t even have to do anything – he could just wait and see where he dumps the body and use that against him. Might be useful to have something hanging over him.

  Then again, he could always save the girl – have her on his side to testify against the prick. But that’d be too complicated, especially if Kravic hasn’t actually done anything yet.

  No, his best bet is to take the man out now. The girly’s not his responsibility. If she’s already dead then she’s dead. Mick can make it look like she got a lucky strike to her attacker before she died. The knife’s the thing. And if Kravic doesn’t already know of it, Mick could make sure he got the codes for the police station from him. It had to be in there.

  Because if it’s not, Mick’s fucked and all this is for nothing.

  He checks his rifle, then leaves it in the car in favour of Cutter’s knife for a fight in a cramped room. He’s about to slip out of the car and run low towards the building when the door creaks open and he sees a flash of flesh. He freezes at the sight of the naked woman running out – she’s gotten away. Fuck! How’s this going to —

  Then she stops at the ice chest outside the room and cracks it open, fills a bucket. Her pale, shapely arse wobbles and a soft giggle carries across the lot. Then a shadow appears in the doorway behind: Kravic, standing legs astride waiting for her, naked and hanging low in the night heat, looking very pleased with himself. She dances back into his arms and he smothers her to him, grabs the bucket and slams the door.

  Mick sits stunned. He’d been sure he’d read it right. The way Kravic had looked at the woman as she worked seemed so . . . dark. Like he was sizing her up, imagining what he’d do to her.

  Maybe he was. But maybe that just is the way all men look at women.

  Well, just because the prick hasn’t done anything yet doesn’t mean he won’t. But even though Mick waits out the night, the door opens again some hours later and the couple exchange a last stolen kiss, then Kravic straightens his uniform and heads to the car. The woman watches him, wearing only a shirt, twisting a toe on the ground as if stamping out an ant.

  So, just an affair. Nothing more.

  But Mick hadn’t imagined the killing of the dog. The anger that’d overtaken the man that was so like when he’d kicked Cutter after he’d died. The same surge of rage, the same blankness afterwards, the shock. There was no denying that.

  Which meant he had the wrong man all this time.

  He should be after Roberts.

  And it’s just as well he’d sat there a moment longer stunned and unmoving, because Mick glimpses a movement at the far corner of the pub – another figure. A hand raises, lights a cigarette, keeps it cupped against the wind so its ember’s barely visible. A silhouette of blown smoke.

  The recognisable barrel chest of Roberts, that bulldog brow and heavy hands.

  But not hunched as he usually is. Instead, standing strong and tall.

  The man watches Kravic drive away – perhaps he’d been there all night, also keeping vigil. The big head turns back to the woman’s room, and there’s something menacing as he pegs the ciggie to the ground in front of him. Hate? Jealousy, maybe? Then he turns and disappears, and Mick hears a car a moment later as the big cop heads back to Wills in Kravic’s wake, leaving Mick stilled by shock.

  13

  Roberts is a different animal altogether. Mick hadn’t been focused on him at all – knows nothing about him. He’d been blinded by Kravic, and by the mask of sickness Roberts wore to distract attention. It’d nearly cost Mick dearly.

  He’s no longer excited. He feels unsettled, anxious, out of step with everything, like his control is slipping away from his grasping hands. Because if he gets this wrong, as he nearly had tonight, blundering out of his car after Kravic in full view of Roberts watching from the dark . . . then the knife’s the least of his problems.

  He’s surprised to find Rose waiting for him when he returns home. Dinner’s waiting on the table.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asks.

  ‘Just eat. You need a proper feed.’

  He sits, tries to cut his steak without his hands trembling.

  ‘Everything okay?’ she asks after a few bites.

  ‘Why?’ It comes out tighter than he’d intended.

  She looks away.

  ‘Rose. It’s just —’

  ‘I bought you something today. I thought it might help you. Us.’

  ‘Hope it’s not a dog . . .’ he says, under breath.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You have to come outside, though.’ She takes his hand, grabs a kerosene lamp and starts leading him out, even though he’s only halfway through his dinner.

  He props his arms. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s part of it.’

  He resists a moment more, but she’s insistent and drags him to the back door. Outside he scans the shadows, tries to split the darkness beyond the reach of light. He can’t see anything, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re alone.

  She leads him to the barn, gives a small smile as she opens the big half-broken doors and draws him in. A lamp pushes back the darkness.

  She points to the ladder and ascends ahead of him to a loft filled with clean-smelling straw. ‘We haven’t been up here. But I think I can trust you now.’

  He peers up. ‘This is the surprise? Your treehouse?’

  ‘No. This is.’ A small box sits in the middle of the straw and she picks it up and hands it to him. Resting on a mound of tissue paper inside is a long knife in a sheath. For a heart-stopping moment he thinks it’s his missing blade – that she’s known all along and somehow found it for him – but it’s too long and thin, too sharp. Some sort of European style.

  ‘I had it ordered in at McKinsey’s. Took a while. I thought they give you a knife when you start as a jackaroo. It’s for you to use dogging. And . . . with us.’ She directs his gaze to a set of ankle shackles amongst the straw, and another eye-hook and chain set into the roof above.

  He grips the box in rigid hands. ‘I . . . I don’t think I should do that right now.’

  She rises on her tiptoes, kisses him. ‘I trust you, Mick. I know you’re upset at something. This can help.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand —’

  ‘Shh.’ She quietens him, takes his hand and picks up the knife from its box as if plucking a bird from its nest, holding it delicately in her long fingers. He wonders how many dicks those fingers have held. Cutter’s knife burns against his back.

  She leads him over to the shackles. He can’t tell her the truth of what’s eating at him, why he hesitates – and in trying to resist his own thoughts, his opposition to what she wants him to do, he slips. He finds himself grabbing her wrists, and when she holds her hands tight by her sides in playful refusal he jerks her arms away and up to secure her. Her head’s at his chest and he can smell the flower scent of her hair, her body heat against his. Her warm breath. ‘Cut my dress off,’ she commands, those green
eyes flaming like a demon’s.

  He picks up the knife at their feet. She watches him in the lamplight and it’s like she’s challenging him and he kicks her legs apart, grabs the front of her housedress and cuts down. The thin material parts like skin. She gasps a little hiss as her dress slides away and she’s revealed beneath. Her stomach ripples with her panting breath, the dark shadow beneath open and vulnerable. He brings the knife up underhand like he’s about to gut a pig, and it touches between her spread legs. He can feel the shiver go through her. His own hand’s shaking.

  He wonders if this is what Cutter did to those he captured. Slicing off bits at a time, like he said. Tourists so full of confidence and hope. Their faith in their life draining away with every moment held captive, every second no prince came to rescue them. Defiance in their eyes replaced by fear and a last terrified acceptance – like the woman in the Celepči film. He wonders about the kiddy-fucker and the bodies beneath his camp – not just children but their parents too – wonders at what the mothers and fathers must have felt, knowing what was to come, even just watching. Wonders if they fought to the last trying to save their kids, or gave themselves in despair to death when they couldn’t do anything.

  ‘My stomach,’ Rose says, and he blinks at her, having almost forgotten she’s there. ‘Cut me.’

  With one move upwards he could split her in half, extend her up into her guts. If he had enough strength, he could cut up to her tongue, those commanding eyes. She couldn’t stop him any more than a sheep could.

  ‘Mick. Please.’

  The knife is deadweight in his hands and it takes all his effort to wield it. It pulls carefully away from between her legs and runs up her skin in a slight beading line to her belly button. Little drops of blood well. She gasps again at the sharpness.

  ‘Yes.’

  He drops the knife.

  She opens her eyes. ‘What are you doing? You haven’t started.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be doing this.’