by Gary Kemble
At every intersection, Sandy asked Harry to wait. Occasionally a four-wheel-drive would roar past, but mostly the only cars he could see were parked in driveways, some being washed. Left. Right. Right. Left. They reached the end of another cul-de-sac, turned around. Sandy asked Harry to pull over. She stared up at the house. A small girl – probably five or six – stared back at her from the garden, then ran into the open garage.
The sun was high in the sky. The car was hot. Harry’s back was sweating and the tattoo there started to ache again. He was irritable.
‘No, not here,’ she said.
Harry pulled out. Repressed the urge to sigh. Up and down streets. They were starting to retrace their steps now, or at least that’s how it felt. Here or there a curtain flicked. The men washing cars stared at Harry’s battered Corolla, rather than ignoring it as they had the first time past.
‘Here,’ Sandy said.
Harry pulled over to the curb. The house was one of the low-set variety.
‘Didn’t we just go past this place?’ Harry said.
Sandy ignored him. Harry peered out at the letterbox, the small lawn. This one looked like it had been put down fairly recently. The garage door was open, but empty. The front door ajar. Harry switched off the engine.
‘Here, what?’
‘Here.’ She gestured with her hands, as though this would make it clearer. ‘This is the place.’
‘And what does it have to do with me?’
A curtain twitched. The hairs on the back of Harry’s neck stood up. Sandy grabbed his hand, squeezed it. She was sweating. The warmth of her hand told him his was cold.
‘I don’t know, sweetie,’ she said. ‘But I don’t sense danger. Not anymore.’
Harry’s pulse throbbed in his ears. He wished he’d bought a bottle of water at the servo. His stomach felt light, insubstantial. The last time he could remember feeling quite like this was as he leant in for his first kiss, on Peregian Beach back in the ’90s. An equal mix of fear and excitement.
He climbed out of the car. His legs felt weak, but it was good to stretch them. While he’d been sitting in the car he hadn’t realised how badly they’d been shaking. He took a deep breath. Looked again at the house.
He walked behind the car and saw the screen door open. Someone stepped out from the shade into the sunlight. He saw everything at once. Her rumpled white blouse, hanging loose at the unbuttoned cuffs and around the neckline. The trendy jeans, custom frayed before they reached the store. Big Jackie O sunglasses, masking the apprehension that still showed around her mouth and in her stiff-legged gait.
But most of all, he noticed the tattoos. And that was funny, because she’d gone some way to hide them. But since Dave’s buck’s night he saw them everywhere. Young women, old men, Sailor Jerry rip-offs on kids’ arms. This woman had a tattoo on the inside of her forearm, poking out from under the shirt sleeve. Another only visible between the bottom of her singlet and the top of her jeans. Her long brown hair was tied up in a bun, a pencil holding it in place, and he knew that if she turned he would see the grid there, in the same place as his.
Her shirt glowed in the sunlight. Harry squinted and held a hand over his eyes in a bad TV salute.
She stopped just behind the letterbox, resting one hand on it. Using it as a shield. Wedding band. Whopper of an engagement ring. Harry walked up to her, then realised he didn’t know what to say.
‘I . . . ah, I’m here . . . I’m here about Rob and Kyla,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, and started backing up the path.
Harry ducked around the letterbox, trying to catch up with her. ‘Yes. I’m Harry. Harry Hendrick.’
She flinched at the words. Turned and wrenched the flyscreen door open. ‘No! This isn’t real. This isn’t real.’
Her legs buckled. Harry pushed through the doorway and caught her. She wasn’t heavy but he was having trouble keeping upright himself. Even in the house it seemed too bright. He could taste dust in the air. It was as if electricity was surging through the ground, into their bodies.
When he touched her he felt something big and heavy drop into place. Some dark machine somewhere cranked up a gear, and cogwheels churned away, opening a doorway to a terrible place. He didn’t care. He could feel her body against his, this woman he knew nothing about. She carried secrets. And maybe together they could work this thing out.
The woman regained her footing. ‘No!’ she said, slapping his chest. ‘No! No! No!’ Turning her open hand into a fist.
He pulled her closer, protecting her. Thinking of Rob and Kyla. He didn’t have the full story, but he knew it didn’t end well.
You used a shottie. Half his fucking chest is gone.
CHAPTER 21
She didn’t want to believe him, but when she saw the tattoos she had no choice. They only shared one. The grid at the back of the neck. And it was the one she didn’t seem ready to tell Harry about.
She showed him the two swallows on her midriff, off to the left-hand side. When they compared the tattoos, it was clear the birds were the same. One tattoo was based on the other. But she didn’t dream of the night at the Shelter Bar, under the Story Bridge. Instead, she dreamt of a little yellow worker’s cottage with an overgrown garden. A small verandah at the front. Fireworks. All the lights were off, and Kyla and Rob held each other, watching the explosions of colour, smoking pot and drinking bourbon.
‘That was the moment that she knew they’d be together forever,’ she said. In the light coming through the kitchen window, Harry could see goosebumps on her bare arms.
When she was calm, she sat at the kitchen table, shaking her head, while Sandy made tea in the kitchen.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m Jess. Jessica McGrath.’ She offered Harry her hand. It seemed too formal but he took it. Her fingers were cold.
When the tea was made, the psychic brought it to the table, taking her own cup to the patio setting outside.
‘I don’t mind if you sit with us,’ Jess said. But Sandy waved it away.
‘I don’t need to hear your stories,’ she said. ‘I can feel them.’
On Jess’s left arm, a demented Raggedy Anne doll, one eye pulled from its head.
‘She was abused, when she was 14, by her swim coach,’ Jess said. ‘She never confided in anyone, she never felt safe with anyone, until she met Rob. When Kyla told him about what happened, he went round to the swim coach’s house and beat the shit out of him. Even though it all happened years earlier.
‘Rob was in the army, wasn’t he?’ she asked.
Harry nodded. ‘SAS, I think. Special forces, anyway.’
He told her about the drowning man, showed her the tattoo. Jess reached out towards the tattoo, then hesitated as though she were scared the man might spring from Harry’s flesh and drag her under. Her fingers felt cool on his skin.
Harry pulled his shirt off to show her the poppies. Outside, Sandy left her tea on the table and took herself on a tour of the garden. Wind rattled the windows.
‘Holy crap!’ Jess said.
He hoped she would touch his skin again, but she didn’t. Maybe she was scared of the tattoo, or scared of what might happen if she touched him again.
Harry felt the heat rising in his cheeks. ‘Rob saw something horrible. He saw Australian soldiers – or maybe contractors, working for an Australian – massacre a group of Afghans. At least one of the women was raped. And then. . .’
He pulled his shirt back on. Shrugged.
‘I don’t know what happened then. The memory. . . the memory I have is that there was no way he was going to let them get away with it. He felt like shit, watching it unfold through the scope on his rifle.’
‘I think he came home, tried to get some sort of justice on his own terms,’ she said. ‘I think that’s what this one is about.’
She turned, so that he could see the tattoo on her right arm. A sexy, zombie librarian. Leg up on a stepladder, revealing stocking top and suspender. Hair pinned back with
bloody throwing knives. She was holding a manila folder, the pages tumbling to the ground.
‘She helped Rob. When he hit the roadblocks, she went in and helped him out,’ Jess said.
‘Helped him out?’
‘Mata Hari-style. I didn’t. . . I can’t remember it all. I remember her staring at the ceiling while this hairy-backed brute fucked her. I can remember Kyla leaving, slipping some documents into her bag while he was still asleep in the bedroom. His uniform was strewn across the floor.’
‘Uniform?’
‘Army uniform.’
Harry considered this new piece of information. ‘Wow. Just. . . wow.’
‘Yep.’ Jess drank some tea. ‘I guess. . . I don’t know. . . she was sexualised young. Abused. Maybe she decided she wanted to use sex to help Rob.’
Harry thought about it, stared out at Sandy, who was leaning over a flower bed at the bottom of the garden, smelling a white rose. He sipped his tea, listened to the gum trees rustling in the wind. Harry looked up at Jess. She stared at him with dark eyes. She pushed the hair back off her face, tucked a curl behind one ear. He’d only just met her, but it was a gesture he was sure he’d see a lot of.
‘You’re married?’ he said.
She held up the finger, flashed the ring. ‘Yes. Just.’
Harry imagined what it must have been like for her. It was bad enough having to deal with it by himself. But if he’d still been with Bec, well, he wasn’t sure the relationship would have withstood the stress. Well, duh.
She nodded, reading his mind. ‘Yeah, Darren thinks I’m crazy.
‘The neck tattoo. . . What did you say it was?’
‘It’s from Afghanistan,’ Harry said. He considered elaborating, passing on the information Bill had given him. But he didn’t want to freak her out. Not yet.
‘Right. That one appeared while he was at a conference. So I had the shock of it to deal with, and then I had to try and explain it to him. I’d had a couple of wines, but it wasn’t blackout material.
‘And he didn’t believe me, when I told him it had just appeared. Well, why would he. . . Would you?’
Harry shook his head.
‘I think he thought, you know, early mid-life crisis. Night out with the girls. Bad Boys Afloat. Too many margaritas. Tattoo.
‘And the funny thing was, he seemed to accept that. If I had told him that’s what had happened, he would have thought it was funny. A great story to tell. He’s no prude. He’s got a couple of tatts himself. And now. . .’
She got up, took her cup to the kitchen. Filled herself a glass of water from the tap. Stared out into the garden. Harry could see she was struggling to keep it together.
‘Now. . . I don’t know. I think he thinks I’m someone else. Maybe I am. Do you know what I mean?’
Harry did. He wanted to get up and comfort her. He wanted to do a hell of a lot more than comfort her. But that wasn’t him. That was Rob. And he didn’t want to do it to – with – her. Not that there was anything wrong with Jess. But this was Rob, reaching out to Kyla. He nodded, but she was still staring out the window.
‘Jess, I know exactly what you’re talking about. They’re growing. They’re real people. Or the spirits of real people. Inside us. And as the tattoos appear, their influence on us is growing.’
She returned to the table, wiping her eyes. Forced a smile.
‘The neck tattoo,’ Harry said. ‘I know you don’t want to talk about the memory that it had attached to it but. . . I can remember a dark room, a man’s face. I think it’s the guy who did the tattoo, the guy Rob pulled from the sea.
‘It all seems to be linked to him, to what he did. I thought if we could. . .’
‘Ahmed,’ she said.
Harry gasped. As soon as she said the name, it locked into place. He wanted to speak but Jess had her eyes squeezed shut, hands out as though feeling for something in the dark.
‘He had a wife. . . and a boy. . . I can see him in a high chair. Afsoon. The wife’s name was Afsoon.’
She opened her eyes. ‘I thought it was just some random dream. A kitchen.’
‘If we can find them, maybe. . .’
Jess nodded. ‘Yeah. Maybe. . .’
Harry checked his watch. ‘Is Darren going to freak if he finds Sandy and me here?’
She tilted her head to one side, screwed her face up. ‘It’s not going to help.’
‘I’ll get Sandy. I don’t want to cause you any more problems, but we do need to talk about this some more.’
He finished his tea, got up, and opened the door to the patio. Sandy turned, smiling. But there was a haunted look in her eyes.
‘Ready?’ she said.
‘Not really, but. . .’
‘Yeah.’
Harry and Jess swapped phone numbers. She asked him to text rather than call.
‘You know, because of. . .’ She gestured in the direction of the garage, where the car was missing.
She walked them out. At the bottom of the driveway Harry turned, looked into the vacant garage. This time he noticed the empty packing crates stacked there.
‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.
‘Oh, not long. A month or so.’
‘Who lived here before you?’
Jess shrugged. ‘No-one. This was the last block on the estate. They dropped the price to get rid of it. Put the house on it. We moved in.’
Harry scratched his head. Sandy climbed into the car, leaving him alone with Jess. He was never good at goodbyes, even at the best of times.
‘Thanks,’ he said. He held out his hand.
She sidestepped the outstretched hand, and wrapped her arms around his waist. She planted a kiss on his jaw. He breathed in the scent of her hair. He could feel her heart beating against his chest. Goosebumps rose on his arms. Since splitting up with Bec, this was the loneliest he’d ever felt.
‘You know who did it, don’t you?’ Jess said.
Harry thought of the silver-haired man, striding into the compound in Afghanistan.
‘Yeah, I do. You?’
She nodded, squeezed him tighter, then let go. ‘We’re going to have to be careful,’ she said.
Jess turned and walked up the path. She sniffed back tears. ‘Talk soon.’
Harry watched her go, then climbed into the car. Sandy reached around to get her seatbelt. He saw her hands were shaking so badly it took her three attempts to click it in place.
Harry looked at her, but she wouldn’t return his gaze. ‘Drive.’
He drove. Back through the labyrinth of landscaped suburbia, past kids playing street cricket. As they left Cedar Falls, with the comforting roar of the highway growing louder by the second, Sandy took a deep breath, cleared her throat and finally spoke.
‘Something really bad happened there. She’s buried there.’
Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. ‘Kyla?’
‘If that’s her name. Long dark hair. Feisty. Tattoos.’
‘That’s Kyla.’ Harry looked out the window. ‘Holy shit!’
‘What?’ Sandy said, following his eyes as though he’d seen something out the window.
Harry’s mind reeled. The ant walking in slow circles.
Well, we are concreting his driveway.
Floorboards.
Scratching.
Dead batteries.
‘I’ve been such an idiot. I know where Rob’s buried.’
Sandy was quiet. He looked across at her. Saw the tear rolling down her cheek. She hitched a breath, trying to hold it in.
‘Sandy? Are you okay?’
‘Of course I’m not! Jesus. This is why I don’t do this shit anymore!’
CHAPTER 22
Harry sat underneath the house, peering through the darkness, shivering. He’d never felt so cold. He supposed at least some of it was shock. But it was far colder than it should have been in summer. He was cold but he couldn’t do anything but sit there shivering.
‘They can’t hurt yo
u anymore, Rob,’ he whispered.
Harry rubbed his arms.
Do you want to cut, or dig?
He should have called the police. Before he dropped Sandy back home. He should have called the police and told them there was a body under his house, then given them Jess’s address and told them there was a body there, too.
And then what? Get out, like Dave thought he should? Let the police take over?
‘Yeah, why not?’ Harry spoke out loud.
The same reason he wouldn’t leave the house. The same reason Jess wouldn’t either, even once he told her that Kyla was buried there. The tattoo was his. Rightly or wrongly, it was his. He had to be the one who delivered the justice. Or he’d end up like the guy in Afghanistan. Insane, trying to burn the tattoos off his body.
He slumped back onto the concrete, staring at the dark floorboards above his head. Cold bit into his shoulders and back. He ignored it. He thought of Rob, lying in icy lay-ups, waiting for his perfect shot. He thought about Andrew Cardinal, poised to romp to victory in the election. He thought about what he knew, and what he could prove. The difference between the two was a chasm, possibly wider than that between life and death.
Do you want to cut, or dig?
You used a shottie. Half his fucking chest is gone.
Jeez. Lotta ink.
Harry’s world spun. He rolled on his side just in time, as his lunch and the Mars Bar he’d bought on the way back from Sandy’s shot out of his mouth, onto the concrete. He lay there for a moment, panting, his chest throbbing. Then climbed shakily to his feet, wiped one hand across his face.
He stared at the cracked concrete slab. He saw the cement mixer backing up, saw the bikies doing a bit of concreting. Crow, beergut poking out from underneath his shirt. Heathy, with his blond hair and tear tattoo. Cardinal’s dad, who went and got himself some tatts and strung himself up under the house. Harry shook his head.
‘It won’t be long, Rob,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
Harry climbed the back steps. He let himself inside and went straight to the bathroom, where he turned the shower on as hot as he could stand it. He stood there until the water ran cold. Got out, dried himself and climbed into bed.