Strange Ink

by Gary Kemble

  Heathy turned, waving his shotgun, looking for a clear shot. Harry rolled onto his side and pushed himself onto his knees. Cardinal was back on his feet. He closed his fists and turned on Jess but she was too fast for him, leaping up and wrapping her legs around his waist.

  Harry welcomed Rob’s surge. Hands still behind his back and body bent double, he charged at Heathy. The shotgun went off, pellets grazing his back. Harry drove his shoulder into Heathy’s stomach. The bikie fell backwards, gasping for air. He groped for the shotgun. Harry stomped on his fingers, then with the other foot kicked the shottie off the side of the tower.

  Cardinal slammed his fists into Jess’s kidneys and spun around, trying to shake her off. They teetered towards the edge. She gripped on tighter than ever. With both hands, she grabbed his face and ripped down, nails slicing his forehead and cheeks open. He screamed, blinking away the blood flowing into his eyes.

  He snapped his head forward, catching the bridge of Jess’s nose. She cried out and fell off him, landing hard against the steel. She rolled away, back onto her knees, shaking her head to clear it. Harry kicked at Heathy, stomping down again as the bikie rolled away from him. His tattoos burned. He could feel the heat through his damp clothes, could smell the stench of singed meat. Blood pulsed from his wounds. Heathy rolled again, pushed himself back up onto his feet. But when he tried to stand his left boot slipped off the side of the water tower. His hands grasped at a mobile-phone antenna, but slipped. He dropped, screaming into the darkness.

  Jess launched herself at Cardinal again, but he was ready for her this time. He lashed out at her shoulder. Jess staggered backwards, but left something there, standing toe-to-toe with Cardinal. A blue aura, like an after-image burning on Harry’s retinas. More than an aura. A woman, sketched in blue light. Longer hair than Jess. Tattoos up both arms, shimmering in the night like jewels. Cardinal’s eyes widened. Truly fearful for the first time.

  ‘No!’ he yelled.

  Then Kyla’s ghost was pulled back into Jess’s body.

  Harry ran for Cardinal, screaming as a burning sensation ripped through his arms. And then he saw Rob’s arms, ghostly blue, reaching out from his body, while his own arms remained tied behind his back. Rob’s arms grabbed Cardinal around the waist and lifted him off his feet, propelling him towards the edge. Harry screamed again, agony pulsing through his flesh as Rob tore free of his body.

  The rain dropped away. Harry saw the world through two sets of eyes. Nausea washed over him. Cardinal tried to wriggle free.

  ‘You can’t hurt me,’ Cardinal screamed. ‘You’re dead.’

  Jess ran screaming at Cardinal.

  At the last moment Kyla tore free of Jess, who slumped to the ground, one arm hanging over the tower’s edge. Cardinal’s feet slipped on the wet steel. His face contorted in rage. His arms pinwheeled. For a moment his face cleared; he realised his fight was over. And then he, Rob and Kyla plummeted from view. Only Cardinal screamed.

  Again Harry saw the world through two sets of eyes: St Elmo’s fire danced off the mobile-phone towers; the earth, bathed in the red and blue of police lights, rushed towards him. Harry felt the tower, firm under his feet; and he felt the crushing impact as Rob hit the ground.

  ‘Jess!’ Harry sat down heavily, slipped his tied hands under his bum and legs. He shuffled to where Jess lay unmoving at the edge, and with his tied hands outstretched he pulled her back towards him. She grabbed onto Harry and he looped his hands over her head. They held each other as the strange St Elmo’s fire intensified around them. Harry tasted the coppery tang of blood. The hairs on his arms and legs stood on end. His skin was burning. Far below, someone screamed. A corona of light bloomed, reaching up to the sky.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Harry said.

  And the world exploded in white.

  EPILOGUE

  Harry sat on his front step, watching the restoration crew work on the water tower. Despite Cardinal’s motives for wanting to protect the tower, new Labor leader and Prime Minister Carol Lawler decided to stand behind his decision, saying that it would stand as a monument to Cardinal’s victims and as a reminder of the need for eternal vigilance in the battle against corruption. That was the way Labor was spinning it, anyway.

  Jess came out with two cups of tea, handed one to Harry and eased down next to him. His mending skin stretched tight as he reached for the cup. Lightning flowers, the doctor called them. She said they’d fade over time, as would the headaches and the ringing in his ears. She seemed perplexed by the fact that the burns seemed more pronounced in some places than others, and didn’t always follow the path the electricity took through his body, as Lichtenberg figures usually did.

  ‘Lightning is strange,’ the doctor had concluded, shrugging. ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

  That suited Harry and Jess just fine. Neither of them wanted to explain the tattoos that had mysteriously appeared and then been torn off their bodies. The only tattoo that survived was the one on his neck. He wasn’t surprised to see Jess’s was still there, too.

  ‘Do you think this government will survive?’ Jess asked, sipping her tea.

  ‘I don’t know. The Opposition is baying for blood,’ he said.

  When Harry woke up in hospital, head throbbing and body on fire, the last thing he could remember was placing his sights on the back of Andrew Cardinal’s head. For a few terrifying moments he thought he’d gone through with it. Short-term memory loss was another symptom of lightning strike, the doctor said. But slowly it came back to him: cracking the code, Dave’s kidnap, finding the documents, and the life-and-death struggle on the top of the tower.

  As soon as he was out of ICU, Christine was there, with her laptop and the metallic-green fire-proof document case, much to the chagrin of his doctor. The nurses shooed her away but as soon as they were gone, she was back. Tenacious didn’t even begin to cover it. Harry read through the notes he’d written up, but it was like something a stranger had written. Rob’s memories were gone. Harry didn’t believe a word he’d written until he started sifting through the documents in the case.

  Transcripts of conversations – Kyla and Rob talking to various military officials, and to Terry Redwood. Military intel documents, signed by Cardinal and his superiors. Photos taken in Afghanistan. Police reports detailing the various sins of Crow and Heathy after they left the army and joined the Dreadnorts. Surveillance photos of key players. Cardinal had been careful, had kept his distance, but Rob still managed to get a photo of him and Heathy and Crow, laughing and sharing a beer together. And there, at the bottom of the case, an old piece of cloth. The bloodstains on the hijab were almost black now.

  While in hospital Harry and Jess had been under police protection. It meant they had the room to themselves, and the press were kept at bay. The journalists knew part of the story – they’d seen the skating rink confessions on YouTube; they’d heard the audio from the top of the water tower. All of that had been enough to land Vessel and Crow in jail. Cardinal and Heathy would have to answer to a higher power.

  But no-one knew the full story. So Harry wrote, or he dictated and Christine wrote. Dave dropped by with coffee, limping slightly but still giving Harry sass for taking so long to finish the bloody thing and for landing him in the doghouse with Ellie. And when it was done and checked and legalled, Miles ran the story in the Chermside Chronicle. Harry was offered a lot of money to publish the story elsewhere, but he turned down all the offers. They’d all get their claws into it as soon as it hit the streets, but he wanted Miles to have a rare taste of glory.

  The former government howled for a new election, arguing that a party led by a psychopath and a man willing to keep his mouth shut for a taste of power wasn’t fit to rule. New prime minister Carol Lawler and her party clung on for all they were worth, and the spin doctors pointed out that Labor had won in a huge landslide, with the Coalition ousted all the way from Perth to Brisbane. You elect a party, not a prime minister, they said.

  Sitting on the front
step, Jess leant against Harry. ‘You going to stay here?’

  He nodded. While they were in hospital the police had come to Harry’s house, dug up Rob’s body, and forensics had had their way with the place. Rob and Kyla had been given a proper burial.

  ‘Yeah. It’s peaceful. . . now.’

  He’d had visits in the hospital, from Dave, Christine, Sandy and Fred. They brought cards, chocolates, flowers. Sandy the psychic gave him a big hug, like Harry was her long-lost son. All of them wanted to give him updates about the latest developments in the story. Ron Vessel charged with accessory to murder, and a bunch of other stuff. Brian Swenson’s arrest and subsequent fatal heart attack. Terry Redwood brought in to answer allegations of perverting the course of justice.

  Harry didn’t want to hear it. He knew everything was back in balance. He could feel it. He had no interest in writing a follow-up. There was no follow-up. This was the end.

  A week after he arrived home, Christine told him the Brisbane Mail had offered her a job. He told her to hold out for something better. Then he switched his phone off, sick of journalists – mostly people he’d gone to uni with – calling him for ‘the story behind the story’. He was scared to think how many messages would be waiting for him next time he switched it on.

  ‘Darren phoned me,’ Jess said. ‘He wants to meet me. He wants to talk.’

  Harry watched the workers on top of the tower. He was expecting it. Maybe that’s why he didn’t feel sad.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘I think you know.’

  Harry nodded. He’d had a message from Bec before he turned his phone off. She said she wanted to talk to him. Wanted to see him again, even if just as friends. He hadn’t responded yet.

  ‘I think I need to talk to him,’ Jess said.

  ‘Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.’

  ‘I. . . I don’t regret it. Any of it. But. . .’

  Harry looked at her. She was beautiful. Strong and smart and beautiful. But there was no connection, now that Rob and Kyla were gone.

  ‘I know,’ he said. He leant forward, kissed her on the lips.

  They finished their tea in silence. Jess touched Harry’s shoulder, got up and went inside.

  Harry stretched his legs out, leant back, and enjoyed the sunshine.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It has been a long, long road, but certainly not a lonely journey.

  Thank you to the following:

  Alex Adsett, my agent, for making sure this book wasn’t left to languish in a bottom drawer, like a corpse in a shallow grave.

  Angela Meyer and Echo Publishing for taking a punt on a debut author. Cat Camacho and the Titan Books team for keeping the dream alive in the UK and the US.

  Kate Eltham for teaching me how to write grant applications, and the Australia Council for giving me time to write.

  Angela Slatter for the flensing and your belief in the book. The fact that the flensing wasn’t as severe as I feared it might be gave me hope that maybe I truly had something worth reading. Claudine Ryan, my ‘book counsellor’, for your help with the initial structural edit – you saw some true horrors. Critique partner Chris McMahon – I’m not sure how much work we got done during those Friday-evening sessions at the Irish Club, but it sure was fun. And to my beta readers – your thoughtful feedback improved the book no end.

  Everyone who helped with my sometimes weird research questions, and everyone who cheered me on via social media during the first draft (you can follow me on Twitter: @garykemble). There’s nothing like a public shaming to get those fingers tap-tap-tapping. Thank you to Davin at Brunswick Ink Tattoo, and Matt Cunnington and the Westside Tattoo crew. (I thought about getting a tattoo, then chickened out).

  My dad for not encouraging me to be an accountant or engineer (both noble professions but I would have sucked at them and been miserable). Carolynne for those kitchen book chats. Mum for always believing in me and reading every short story I had published, even though you don’t like horror. I’m sorry you couldn’t be here to read the finished product, but I’m glad you got to read the first draft. (And fuck cancer.)

  My wife, Amelia, for giving me time to write and for those times when I was with you but my mind was with Harry. My kids, Eamon and Aurora. You are everything to me.

  If you want to read about some real-life action heroes, check out The Amazing SAS (Ian McPhedran) and SAS Sniper (Rob Maylor). If you want two very different perspectives on bikie culture, read Dead Man Running (Ross Coulthart and Duncan McNab) and The Brotherhoods (Arthur Veno).

  The Paddington water tower was heritage listed in 2000. It is very well looked after and doesn’t wear a crown of mobile-phone towers.

  The Border Protection Bill (2001) was never enacted. It passed the House of Representatives but was knocked back in the Senate. At time of writing, the current government’s Operation Sovereign Borders had resulted in 15 vessels being turned back from Australian waters.

  Gary Kemble’s award-winning short fiction has been published in magazines and anthologies in Australia and abroad, and his non-fiction has appeared in newspapers, magazines and online. Born in England, Gary now lives in Brisbane with his wife and kids, where he is the Social Media Co-ordinator for national news broadcaster ABC News. Strange Ink is his first novel.

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