by Greg McLean
Mick watches the cop car pull up outside the squat block. He could ignore it and run. But he wouldn’t get far.
There’s a couple of reporters outside the station sheltering from the last of the heat but no one glances at him as he passes. Other townsfolk are walking in and out of the building the whole time, jabbering questions, maybe getting interviewed too. He’s just another concerned local.
Kravic is already at the front desk, looking harried. When Mick walks in he glances up, gestures to a back room, then keeps searching through the stack of papers. The receptionist is on two phone calls while fending off a group of baying people surrounding her. It’s probably the busiest the place has been in years.
Mick heads down the corridor, keeping his breathing shallow, his hands open and relaxed. Tries to keep his mind clear, not anticipate what’s to come. There’s an open door leading to a small room at the end and he pauses before it.
‘Yeah, in there,’ Kravic says, stalking up behind him with a handful of folders.
Mick looks back at him, takes in his too-relaxed gait, the policeman’s attention still on his files. Mick could take him out now, where he couldn’t be seen from the front desk, then escape out the back. But what for? They’re only questioning him, surely – wouldn’t be acting so casual otherwise. They couldn’t have any evidence against him anyway.
So what’s he doing here?
‘C’mon, for fuck’s sake. I haven’t got all day.’ Roberts is already in the room. Must be quieter to work back here in the interview rooms. He’s hunched over paperwork, his back in that pretend hunch.
Mick sits across. Roberts ignores him and keeps looking at the photos in his grasp. Mick can just make out shots of the crime scene if he cranes. The policeman lingers a bit too long over one photo and something crosses his eyes: a little flicker of interest in the still shot of death that’s just as soon gone. Kravic leaning in the doorway doesn’t see it.
‘I’ll be at the front, boss.’
Roberts nods as he leaves, habitually wipes his nose. Then looks up at Mick.
‘We got a shitstorm now,’ he says.
Mick nods. ‘So I hear.’
‘So what you got to tell me?’
‘About . . .?’
‘About your dick size – what the fuck you think, boy?’
‘Well . . . I didn’t do it.’
Roberts barks a laugh like a gunshot. ‘No, you fucken idiot. I’m not asking if you did it. We already cleared that up with your missus. Unless . . .’ He straightens a little in his seat as he looks at Mick more closely.
‘My missus?’
‘Rose. Known her most her life, trust her more than you. We know you been staying with her. When we called ’round today she said you was with her last night. Unless you’re saying now you weren’t.’
‘No, I was.’
‘Doing what?’
He hesitates, then looks the man square in the eye. ‘Tryin’ ta start a family.’
Roberts continues to stare at him. ‘Yeah,’ he says eventually, screws his mouth in distaste, ‘that’s what she said. Irresponsible far as I’m concerned, bringing a kid into this world out of wedlock.’ He stacks the photos before him, distracted. ‘That’s not what I’m asking. Your friend – you still got nothing you can tell me?’
‘You mean Cutter? Why do you keep asking me about him? You don’t reckon he —’
Roberts hisses breath and Mick feels like he’s in the room with a tightly coiled snake. One false move and he’d strike at anything close. There’s something else in there Mick can sense too: a territorial prickling. Just as Cutter warned.
‘We found his knife near the scene last night.’
Mick covers his skipped heartbeat with a show of surprise. ‘His station knife?’
‘If it’s him did those hippies, means he’s still in the area. And he’s escalating. But we haven’t released any of this to the media, so not a fucken word.’
Mick nods, then: ‘Hang on. If it’s him?’
Roberts considers him. ‘There’s some things don’t add up.’
A dampness spreads up Mick’s tailbone. He doesn’t react. Roberts must be talking about the handle being wiped. Because why would Cutter do that then accidentally drop the knife? Even if the girl was escaping at the time. Fuck. ‘So why am I —?’
Roberts thrusts forward a notepad. ‘Everything you know about him. Anything he mentioned, other towns, spots in the bush. All of it. We got trackers out but the bastard could be hiding anywhere.’ Those lizard eyes unblinking. ‘Again, if it’s him.’
Mick swelters under his gaze, but Roberts doesn’t seem to be looking at him with anything more than normal cop suspicion. He nods and grabs the notepad.
Kravic appears in the doorway, looks at Mick distastefully. ‘Anything?’ he asks his superior.
‘Think there would be?’ Roberts asks.
‘Last night?’
‘With the whore.’
Mick pauses in his writing, but keeps his hand steady and doesn’t look up.
‘Always got an alibi, haven’t ya, Mick? Rosey still have those scars on her belly? Don’t ask me how I know, ’cause I’ll tell you.’
This time Mick does look up, stares at the man in the doorway. ‘I told you, I didn’t —’
Kravic ignores him, nods at his boss. ‘The big wig’s on the phone. You better field this.’
‘Shit.’ Roberts stands, and the world-weary act slips over him again. His big back hunches and his face twists with his sickness. Kravic heads back and Roberts pauses at Mick’s chair. ‘He’s just playing with you, dickhead.’
Mick nods and continues writing. The big policeman stands a moment longer. Maybe staring at the sweat prickling through Mick’s scalp. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ Roberts says and leaves him there.
Mick writes a moment more until the footsteps fade. Then he jumps up and sticks his head out the corridor. This is his chance.
The first room’s filled with filing cabinets. He opens a couple of drawers in case Cutter lied about the drum to fuck with him. Maybe he’s been looking for the wrong thing all along, too fixed on it being in a drum. It could be planted anywhere. What if the prick had taped it to the underside of Roberts’ desk? Hidden it in the patrol car somewhere? But shit – if that’s the case it could be any of the places he’s already searched.
As he more frantically searches the next room he begins to realise something else. That prick Cutter is still running his life, even in death. He’d set Mick up. Got him thinking about killing, so as soon as the hippie provoked him, Mick went straight to it. He’d made him aware of the other killers so he began observing what they did, took in their techniques to see how they covered their tracks, how they hid themselves in plain sight. The man was shaping his brain even now. Guiding him down the path. And Mick was no more in control than he’d ever been.
He rounds the corner of the corridor, trying to concentrate but distracted by his rage against Cutter, the feeling of being a fucken puppet —
Then he stops dead.
The back door of the police station is flanked by a few rusted ten-gallon drums. Mick rushes to the closest. It’s heavy, filled with dry dog food. He checks the one nearest the door next. It’s nearly empty: only a couple of inches remaining at the bottom, stretched out by the loss of the second dog, no doubt.
Then he tries the middle drum – the next to be used. It’s heavy too, but through the petrol hole he can see a glint of metal sitting atop the mound of pellets. He crooks a finger in and feels steel, prises off the lid.
And brings his knife up and into the light.
There’s blood like a confession crusted on the blade. His dusty fingerprints so obvious on the handle. Those familiar initials screaming at him. Ah, Reg, you cunt. Musta found it hilarious hiding it here.
Mick bolts back and he’s in the room writing again when Roberts returns. He’s even able to control his panting breath enough that he can speak normally when the policeman barks at him:
‘Finished yet, boy? I got the brass’s heads so far up my arsehole I feel pregnant. Better have something for me.’
‘I’m not sure, sir. As a shooter he’d be drawn to hills, rises, so he can see, I’d reckon. Maybe he’s hiding somewhere there’s a mountain range, he can see anything coming.’ He wonders if he’s giving away the mine site. But, nah, couldn’t be found based on just that. Like a needle in a big fucken desert. ‘I seen him do that a few times on the station, observing from on high.’
Roberts sucks his bottom lip, forgets to hunch. Standing straight he’s a big man, bigger than Mick, and he fills the room. Mick can see why he puts on the sick routine. He’d be too imposing otherwise. Too much of a threat, someone to watch out for. ‘That’s a good thought. Could be west, then. Maybe you’re not so useless after all.’
Mick hands across the notepad and stands.
‘All over some goddamned hippies,’ Roberts says as if talking to himself and Mick can feel the anger radiating off him. ‘Long-haired layabouts stirring up trouble, then running to the courts when the hornets come after them. Probably just pissed off the wrong person. Stuck their noses where they shouldn’t a’been.’
Mick figures he’s dismissed but he stops at the door. ‘On their way to Darwin, eh?’ he asks casually. ‘You ever been north?’
‘Was stationed there a few years back,’ Roberts says as he shuffles his notes. He looks up. ‘Why?’
Mick shrugs. ‘Always on the lookout for work. Might make my way up if there’s some going.’
Roberts considers him, then nods. ‘There’s always work if you’re up for it. Which these hippie fucks obviously weren’t. You should do alright.’
It’s almost a compliment. Mick turns to go.
‘This shit with your friend, now these parasites . . .’ Roberts growls the word, stops. Mick bets if he went back through the newspapers he’d find instances of people breaking the law having quietly disappeared in these parts, just as had happened in Darwin with that protestor Kev was talking about. He wonders how many people the cop’s lost his temper with through the years. How many deaths he’s swept under the carpet. ‘I like to keep my town clean,’ Roberts concludes.
You bet he does. The only one the policeman’d let do the killing is himself. ‘Yes, sir,’ Mick says, then waits, not knowing if Roberts’ words are a warning or just frustration bubbling up. He hopes his pounding heart doesn’t betray him.
The big cop watches him a moment longer, before waving a dismissive hand and slumping in his chair to go through interview notes. He looks like some great uniformed bear slouched over the table, stressing over the spate of killings in his town of late. That he hadn’t done himself.
‘So, you confess yet?’ Kravic asks Mick as he passes the front counter. Even the receptionist looks up at that.
Mick doesn’t bite. He steps outside with his own knife again against the small of his back. He should be euphoric. But that gnawing’s worse now he’s seen Roberts’ reaction.
Because in getting his knife back he’s awoken the Others to a new player amongst them.
As he’d awoken the spirits.
They came night after night like a harsh wind scouring clean the landscape. Scraping at his mind, battering at the doors. He began to feel hollowed out listening to them. As if all his emotions: his fear, his anxiety, his regret, were taken away by a thunderous wave sweeping across the vast dead land.
He kept remembering Eddie’s stories of his ancestors – of the deathskill of singing, the sound maybe like that of the keening wind outside at night.
And of skinning to take the power of another.
As the spirits stripped him clean and he grew in confidence surviving on the plains, so the memory of his father’s hold over him faded.
And in its place was left only an acid rage that burned like black fire.
While he still feels a nagging worry and – yes – even fear at the thought of the Others, what he feels most is the seething, unfulfilled anger that always threatened to consume him.
He’d jumped through Cutter’s hoops, played out his stupid game.
And all it’d done is make the Others aware of another killer in their midst.
With most of the town still congregating at the watering holes, Mick heads out to the mine site again, hoping he won’t be spotted on the roads – although he can always claim to be out hunting dogs in the area – and sits back a ways from the outcrop. But he can’t see any movement and at dusk he slips in and checks the sheds. The place is deserted.
As soon as he can he heads north, to Lawson, and finds a sheaf of newspapers stacked outside the pub with the murder on the front page. More cars than usual are gathered inside the hotel, people drawn to talk. Word’s spread. Of course.
The mechanics’ is locked tight, and though Mick heads around the back he knows the residence will be empty. The brothers have done exactly what Jerry the Fiddler must’ve when the story hit.
They’ve gone to ground.
15
Rose is working that night and Mick’s back and already in bed before she gets home. He senses her hesitate in the doorway then slip into bed beside him.
She knows he’s awake and speaks after a while lying there. ‘It’s horrible, what happened,’ she says softly.
‘What?’
‘Those two kids.’
He waits for her to continue. ‘Yeah,’ he says eventually. Hopes that’s enough.
‘They came around this morning, after you left. The police. Roberts and that prick Alex. Asked me some questions.’
‘They spoke to me too.’
‘I told them you were with me all night.’
‘I sat in here waiting for you to come in. When you didn’t . . .’
Her voice soft in the dark. ‘I know, Mick. That’s why I didn’t tell those bastards anything.’
She snuggles into him and her breathing goes heavy. He lies next to her, staring up at the roof until fitful sleep finally takes him.
A few days later he’s sitting in the Black Shanty when the hairs on his neck bristle. He glimpses the fat pedophile across the room.
The man’s looking right at him.
Mick can’t help reacting, even if just widening his eyes, clenching one hand around his fork.
It’s enough. The man sees as much as he needs.
By the time Mick can get through the crush of drinkers the corner’s empty. So is the street. He’s left standing outside with the fork still clutched in his hand like a weapon.
A day after that he notices a car start up behind him as he leaves the pub. A tow truck with a scorpion-tail crane. It follows him a couple of blocks and disappears.
He doesn’t go to Rose’s that night, but keeps driving into the bush and falls asleep clutching Opey’s rifle on a rise overlooking the parked ute. He’ll have to make up a story to Rose the next day about a chance find of a bitch he’s been tracking for weeks, though he doesn’t think she’ll believe it.
Although the papers are focused on the Kiwi fugitive Reginald Cutter, the Others know the truth.
And now they’re moving against him.
Mick should have split as soon as he found the knife, and convinced Rose to come with him. But stupidly he’d wanted to be sure, to see if he could still stay here. He tempted fate too long. Now he’s going to pay for his weakness.
This was always going to happen. He’d been too young, too amateurish for Cutter’s plan.
Then he realises the real fuck of it. Roberts and Kravic know he’s staying at Rose’s – just as Opey had – so it stands to reason anyone in the little town could. Which means the Others only had to ask around to find him.
And Rose.
He’s coming back through the foothills when he notices a car parked near the scrubland well out of town. A figure stands beside the clump of trees in the heat of the sun. The long shadow of a rifle in its hands.
The man could be waiting for him to pass, about to set an ambush. Mick pulls over and jumps from th
e car, whipping out his own .22 and scoping in. But no: the man has his back to him, concentrating on something against the trees. Looks like has no idea Mick’s even there.
Silently, Mick scampers down the face of the rocks, careful to stop and sight every dozen feet. The man’s lighting a cigarette now, his whole body a shield against the desert wind. Then he focuses again on the trees, that big back straightening.
It’s Roberts.
There’s a figure tied up against a thick trunk: just a huddled smudge against the brigalow.
Mick knows in an instant it must be Rose.
He’s too late.
He comes in low and fast, pausing to check the policeman hasn’t spotted him. He knows this has to be a setup – that Roberts’ partner Kravic must be lying in wait for him or something. He couldn’t be this lucky.
Yet he is. Kravic isn’t invited to this little party. It’s just the three of them.
Roberts raises the rifle and Mick falls to his stomach, aims his own weapon. He’s quick enough to just see Roberts’ rifle bark, and follow the spit of the bullet into the dirt next to the flinching figure. A crack and distant laughter cross the distance.
Mick puts his scope on the tied-up shape and makes out more clearly now that it’s not Rose. It’s a man with a burlap hood over his head. He’s wearing a blue and white chequered shirt. And stained underpants. It’s Ol’ Kev.
Mick’s heart stops yammering and he sights between the two, tries to work out what’s going on. Roberts is saying something and Kev shakes his head through the hood. It’s obviously not pleasing and the policeman raises the rifle again.
Does he think the old bastard killed the kids?
Mick should leave now, but he needs to know if he’s in the clear. He moves in quietly over the undulating red ground, keeping Roberts’ car between them as cover, and is able to get close enough to hear his voice drifting on the wind.