by Morgana Best
“What? Oh sure, sorry.”
“Have a seat.” I pointed to one of two comfortable chairs around the little table in my back room.
“Why is your coffee machine down here?” Jackson asked. “Why isn’t it upstairs in your apartment?”
“Because I only have coffee in the mornings,” I told him, omitting the fact my coffee cauldron was upstairs, “and it’s an incentive for me to come downstairs and start work. I get coffee from the Hallows Café, and then have one or two here.”
Jackson’s jaw dropped. “What, seven days a week?”
I laughed and handed him his coffee. “No rest for the wicked.”
I caught Pudding’s expression of disapproval and silently berated myself. It was all too easy to fall into conversation with Jackson. I trembled as thoughts of Tartarus Island flashed through my mind. I had seen it on the news on occasion when human rights activists tried to gain access. Of course, they had been told it was simply a maximum-security prison.
His expression changed. “Speaking of wicked, they only caught six of The Squad members, but someone broke them out of the prison van in transit to Long Bay prison. That makes a seventh gang member at the very least.”
“So, what do we do next?”
Jackson finished his coffee before answering. “Can you take the day off? Or at least the morning?”
I was puzzled. “What do you have in mind?”
“I think our best bet is to stake out the convent. I’m not sure how long we’ll have to sit there before we see anything. Perhaps we could stake it out this morning and then on a regular basis, until we do find something. I assume there’s a convent car?”
I nodded. “Sister Bertrand drove an old blue Holden—it has to be at least thirty years old,” I said. “I haven’t seen it around town though. An old car like that stands out. And back to your original question, yes, I could take a few hours off.”
“Is there anywhere near the convent where we could park and wait, yet still see a car pass by?”
I thought about the side lane on the way to the convent. “I know the perfect place. We can park under the trees, and nobody will see us from the convent road.”
“Awesome,” Jackson said. “Let’s go.”
“What, right now?”
“No time like the present.”
I ignored Pudding who swiped at my leg, quickly scrawled Back later on a piece of paper, and stuck it inside the front door.
Two hours later, and I was tense. I was on edge, as I was stuck in my small car with a very attractive man.
And, of course, my main reason for being tense was that Jackson had the power to send me to Tartarus Island without so much as a trial.
“I think they’re moving,” Jackson said.
Presently, the old convent car drove by the intersection.
I slowly drove down the road after it.
“Shouldn’t you go faster?” Jackson asked me.
I shook my head. “No. The road that goes past the convent rarely has any traffic, so whoever’s driving will notice any cars that come up behind them. Closer to town, more roads join this one, so by then the driver won’t think anything of more traffic.”
The convent car headed towards town, but then eventually turned off on the little road that ran to the highway. When it reached the highway, I was able to catch up. “They’re heading north,” I said. “How far do we follow them? What if they’re headed for Brisbane?”
Jackson chuckled. “Well, we won’t follow them quite that far. How about we follow them as far as Guyra?”
“Sure,” I said, but right then, the convent car pulled off the highway onto the airport road. “The airport,” I said, stating the obvious. I followed the car at a distance again, and it bypassed the parking area of the public airport, going further on to the cargo section and the crop dusting planes, where it stopped.
I drove along the parallel road inside the parking area, and parked a few hundred metres away to ensure we wouldn’t be seen.
Two nuns stepped out of the car.
“Well, they don’t appear to be taking any flights,” I said. “And I know that’s a restricted ten minute parking area, so clearly they’re just here for a quick stop or something. Maybe they’re meeting with someone.”
I watched as the nuns walked around to the back of the car. They pulled out two large suitcases and carried them over to the airport fence.
“Come on,” Jackson said, breaking into a run. “Let’s go into the terminal building. I know they have huge windows, and we should be able to see what’s going on.”
“Wait,” I said, as I hurried to catch him. “The windows in there face the wrong direction.”
By the time I got inside the small terminal, Jackson had figured that out for himself. Luckily for us, the Qantas plane to Sydney was boarding, so we filed out the front of the building with the well wishers saying goodbye to passengers onto the enclosed area. From the lawn, we had a good view of the cargo section.
A man with a trolley walked up to the two nuns. He tried to lift one of the suitcases onto the trolley. He pulled and yanked, but barely lifted it from the ground. Another man came to help, and the two of them were able to lift the suitcases onto the trolley.
“That was weird,” I said. “Those nuns must have some serious muscle. Did you see how easily they lifted those suitcases, and then those men had trouble lifting them?”
“It’s looking more and more like those nuns are men,” Jackson said. A nearby woman gasped and shot him a look.
“What do we do now?” I asked as we made our way back to my car.
Jackson took my arm. “Look, they’re leaving. Let’s go!”
Just as I turned on the ignition, the nuns’ car drove off. They took a right onto the highway. “It looks like they’re going back to town.”
I followed the convent car at a distance. When we got close to town, the nuns didn’t turn off to the convent but kept going.
“Keep following them,” Jackson said.
I wanted to give up as I felt as though it was a waste of time, but on the other hand, I was spending time with Jackson, and I had to admit that spending time with Jackson was enjoyable. I shook my head to quash the image of him arresting me, and followed the vehicle all the way to the local restaurant, which was attached to the Royal Hotel. The car turned off the highway into the large parking area behind the Royal.
“Okay, follow them in there, but go slow,” Jackson said. “We don’t want to be noticed if we can avoid it.”
I pulled in shortly after the nuns and found a spot where we could see the convent car. Just then, one of the nuns got out of the car and entered the building. “She’s going in. We need to get in there,” Jackson said.
Jackson and I walked into the restaurant. The nun was seated at a table with her back to us. Jackson nodded toward the table on the other side of the small room. There was only one table between us and the nun’s table, and two elderly ladies were sitting at it. Fortunately, their table was slightly off at an angle.
Jackson sat with his back to the nun, and I sat across from him. I had a good view of our target. Jackson picked up his menu and flipped it open. I picked up the large vase of lilies and placed them on another table. “I can’t stand the smell of lilies,” I said to Jackson when I returned. “They remind me of funerals.”
“Are you ready to order?” The waitress appeared as if from nowhere, startling me.
Her face fell when we said we were just having coffee. She hurried over to the nun to take her order.
Our coffees arrived, but before I had a chance to take a sip, a tall man in a suit walked past us. He sat opposite the nun.
I strained to hear the conversation. Jackson was closer.
“I think the guy might be a bookmaker,” he whispered to me. “They’re talking about the odds on some charity football game that’s coming up.”
I nodded. “That would be the Halloween women’s football match. All the proceeds go to the conven
t.”
Jackson was still paying close attention to the nun’s conversation with the bookmaker. “Wait, what’s a Yowie? I mean, of course I know it’s a mythological Aussie creature that looks a bit like Chewbacca.”
I chuckled. “That’s the name of the team that wins every year. The Yowie Team plays dirty and never loses. It’s always difficult to find enough women to make up the team to play against them.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are always incidents and injuries during the games; people are too scared to play against them. The Yowie Team is full of huge, strong, muscular women. Sister Bertrand used to organise the match, so I suppose Sister Maria is organising it now. The Yowie Team women are horrible bullies. Isn’t it odd that a nun is gambling?” I added. “Are they allowed to gamble?”
Jackson shrugged. “It’s not all that uncommon, to be honest.”
“Are you serious?” the bookmaker said loudly, causing the elderly ladies to stare at him.
Jackson and I leant in the direction of the nun. I held my breath in an attempt to overhear.
“Listen, I’ll take the bet, but I feel really bad about taking money from nuns. The Yowie Team never loses. Are you sure you want to take such a big risk?” the bookmaker asked the nun. “Nobody ever bets against them.”
I saw the nun nod. I listened for a while longer, but the bookmaker had lowered his voice. Jackson leant over to me. “Do you know who the Yowies are playing against this year?” he whispered.
“Not a clue,” I said, “but they must be pretty good, or that nun knows something that nobody else does.”
The bookmaker and the nun both stood and continued talking as they made their way towards the door. As they passed my table, I glanced up and locked eyes with the nun. A chill ran through my bones.
Chapter Eleven
Saturday dawned bright and clear, a good day for an AFL match. There were several types of football in Australia, but AFL was home grown, as the name Australian Football League suggested.
I pitied the poor girls who would play against the Yowie Team this Halloween.
The Yowie women were all farmers from out of town. They rarely came into town, thankfully. They were loud, rude, and obnoxious.
Sure, there were umpires for the game, but as it was not part of any league, players couldn’t be reported or suspended, so the Yowie women did whatever they liked.
And so it was with some trepidation I agreed to meet Jackson for the match.
As I took my seat next to him in the stand, a voice came over the loudspeaker. “Did he say the Sisters of Temperance Team?” I asked in disbelief.
Jackson nodded, but the voice over the loudspeaker continued, and announced that only six players would be playing on the Sisters of Temperance Team.
A loud gasp of horror went up from the spectators. Jackson and I were shocked, but not for the same reason as the spectators. I turned to Jackson. “The man nuns are playing!”
Jackson pointed to the field.
Six nuns in full habit ran onto the field, while the eighteen players from the Yowie Team ran onto the field at the opposite end.
No one cheered. I assumed everyone was in shock. It was bad enough playing against the Yowie Team with a full team of eighteen players, but the Sisters of Temperance Team was one-third of that. However, Jackson and I knew something that nobody else knew: the nuns were men, and big, bulky, hardened criminals at that.
“That explains the bookmaker,” Jackson whispered to me.
I nodded. It looked as though the women on the Yowie Team were finally going to get their comeuppance and the nuns were going to make a tidy sum.
The Yowie women doubled over with laughter, pointing at the nuns. If only they knew.
The game started, and a nun from the Sisters of Temperance Team took immediate possession of the ball. Two hefty, solid Yowie players tackled her hard, a legal tackle for once, but the tackle had no effect whatsoever. The two Yowie players fell backwards onto the ground, and lay still. Play continued while the two Yowie players were taken away on stretchers. The nun kicked the ball to another nun. A Yowie player pushed that nun in the back, an illegal move, so the umpire blew the whistle.
This meant a free kick to the Sisters of Temperance Team. The field umpire pointed to the spot where the offence had occurred, and the other five nuns ran towards the goal posts. The nun kicked the ball, which flew in the direction of a nun standing at the fifty-metre mark.
Right then, a Yowie player ran at the nun, with her elbow raised to strike the nun across the neck. The crowd sent up a collective gasp. The nun ducked, and the Yowie player flew over her head and landed badly. As the Yowie player writhed on the ground, the nun took the mark, and everyone cheered.
Jackson and I exchanged glances. While a doctor ran out to the Yowie player, the nun lined up to kick the ball.
“Surely she’s not going to try to kick a goal from the fifty-metre mark!” the announcer exclaimed.
The Yowie Team must have thought the same thing, for just as the nun kicked the ball, a Yowie player ran to tackle another nun. The other nun saw her coming. It all happened so fast. The nun scored the goal, and then there were two Yowie players lying on the ground. They were duly carried away on stretchers.
“About time that Yowie Team got what’s coming to them,” an elderly woman sitting in front of me said to her husband, who loudly agreed with her.
“They’re risking quite a lot coming out in public like this,” I whispered to Jackson.
“That bet must’ve been sizeable,” he whispered back, “and they would’ve had incredibly good odds. They’ll make an absolute fortune.”
By quarter time, the Yowie Team had lost eight of their players to injuries, and now they were the ones too intimidated to tackle the Sisters of Temperance Team. The score was in favour of the Sisters of Temperance Team, 55 – Nil.
For the rest of the game, the nuns were not so overt in their behaviour. They even allowed the Yowie Team to score a few goals. The final score was 186 - 24. The Sisters of Temperance Team, of course, won.
Jackson and I had been on the lookout for Sister Maria, but had seen no sign of her so far. After the Sisters of Temperance Team won, they shook hands with the remaining players of the Yowie Team. I caught Jackson’s arm. “There, look!” I pointed at Sister Maria who was walking over to the Sisters of Temperance Team. She slapped them all on the back in delight.
Sister Maria and one of the fake nuns broke away from the group and walked in different directions. “Okay, how about we split up and follow one each,” he said, “and then we can meet back at the Hallows Café as soon as we’ve seen where they’re going.”
He left to follow Sister Maria. I followed the nun, a tall nun with a hooked nose.
On one side of the football field was a large stand, beneath which were two restrooms, one for men, and one for women. Most of the people who had come to watch the game had left, and the stragglers were still filing out or chatting with friends near the turnstile exits. I looked around and saw the nun off in the distance.
I caught up to the nun, but hung back a suitable distance. The nun passed the ladies’ locker room and then the men’s, before turning into the women’s restroom.
I waited a moment and then went in as well.
The bathroom was a bit dingy, the lighting a terrible, fake yellow emanating from two fluorescent tubes running across the ceiling. There were four stalls in the small bathroom and two sinks near the door. The tall nun was nowhere to be seen.
I cautiously took a few steps inside and then bent at my knees. I looked under the stall walls, until I located the nun standing in the second of the four stalls. Thankfully, no one else was in the restroom, or it would have been embarrassing for me, peering under the door as I was.
I couldn’t help but smile as I looked at the nun’s feet. They were spaced a bit apart, and they were facing the toilet just as a man would. If I’d had any doubt before that the nuns were men, I had none n
ow.
I turned and hurried out of the bathroom. I practically ran toward the parking lot, hurrying to my car, and climbing behind the wheel. I cranked the engine and stomped on the gas, causing my rear tires to spin with a screeching sound on the blacktop as the car shot out of the parking lot and onto the road.
Within a minute or two, I parked up the road from the Hallows Café. I had intended to text Jackson from the safety of the café, but he was already there. He sat alone in a booth in the corner, a cup of coffee in front of him.
“Hey,” he said, as I took my seat opposite him. “Are you hungry? I’ve ordered potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce for us both.”
I nodded. “Thanks, I’m ravenous. Where did Sister Maria go?”
“Just to the convent car, but then she went straight back to the other nuns,” he said with disappointment. “Did you have any better luck?
“Listen to this,” I said. “I followed that nun into the bathroom. I looked under the door. He was standing up and facing the toilet.”
“So the nun is a man!” Jackson exclaimed, loudly enough that the people at the tables and in nearby booths nearby looked to him.
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“You do realise we have to tell the police,” Jackson said, as the waitress deposited a huge plate of potato wedges in between us.
I pulled a face. “They won’t believe us,” I said. “They’ll wonder why I was looking under toilet doors.”
“We have no choice,” Jackson said, before he popped a whole potato wedge in his mouth.
“Truly, they won’t be any help at all,” I said, as I dipped a wedge in the hot chilli sauce and then the sour cream. “Surely there’s something else we can do?”
An hour later, we stood in front of the police station. It was a small building, and the yellowing paint should have been replaced a decade or so ago. I fervently hoped that it would not be open. As it was a small country town, the police station kept unusual hours, and sometimes one had to press the buzzer next to the door to be transferred to the police officer on duty. However, it was also a well-known fact that the local police rarely responded to the buzzer.