Shore Leave

by David Whish-Wilson

  At that range, one blast from Brown’s shotgun and Lee Southern would be atomised from his boots to his neck. Swann uncocked the .38 and returned it to the back of his belt. Barry Brown nodded and drew the shotgun inside the car.

  ‘We’ll be on our way then,’ Swann said. Lee Southern finished his cigarette and ground it beneath his toe. The kid hadn’t flinched or panicked in the slightest.

  ‘Tell Riley I’ll be calling him,’ Swann said. ‘Don’t want any crossed wires on this one.’

  Barry Brown smiled. ‘You do that. He’s been trying to get hold of you. Has an offer.’

  Swann heard footsteps behind him and turned. Blake Tracker and Webb rounded the corner off Bellevue. Webb knelt and reached for his ankle. Swann shook his head.

  When the bikies were gone, the twin-barred tail-lights of the Monaro crossing Hampton Road toward the hospital, Swann began to speak. ‘The leak. Someone from the prison, most likely. Told Riley what we were looking for in the visitors’ books. Either a guard or another prisoner.’

  Lee shook his head. ‘It’ll be one of the screws. My father wouldn’t disclose anything you said to another crim. Not if he knew I’m involved.’

  Swann nodded. ‘Either way, we need to get Cord’s auntie’s address, before Riley’s men. Webb, can I use your brick? You three make a start on Solomon Street. Every second house. I’ll catch up.’

  Swann dialled The Nongs’ clubhouse as the three men turned down Solomon and began to canvass. Riley picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Not on this number,’ he replied. ‘Try this one, and give me two minutes.’

  Swann memorised the number, hung up and waited. After a couple of minutes he dialled the number. Riley sounded harried.

  ‘Glad you called, Swann. I need you.’

  ‘I just ran into Barry Brown. He says you have an offer for me.’

  Riley was silent, meaning he was weighing up whether to share. ‘Yeah, I got the tip from a screw. Said you’d been looking through the old visitors’ books, for an auntie Cord who lived near the prison.’

  ‘What of it?’

  Riley chuckled. Swann heard the hissing of a lighter, Riley drawing a cigar to life. ‘I also heard that the Feds have put a tap on our phone. Legitimised because of the APM involvement. I can do without it.’

  ‘Nothing I can do about that, Riley.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Just wanted to ask whether you’d be interested in me returning those Yank weapons to you, should I come across them in the course of my enquiries.’

  ‘Of course I would. What do you want in return?’

  ‘You won’t see it in the media, but we’re having our own funeral, Viking-style, out in the desert next week. A fallen comrade, Ted Mangles, killed in the line of duty.’

  ‘My condolences. But get to the point.’

  Riley described Ted’s execution at the hands of one of Cord’s men. He described the Yank sailor, Devon Smith, the one responsible for selling the M16s to the APM, taken captive. After raiding an APM house, Riley’s men had left the sailor there, setting up a hidden surveillance camera that captured what happened next. Riley told Swann about the call from Cord – the offer of turning over the weapons and the sailor, who they’d blamed for Ted’s murder, to a trusted intermediary.

  ‘So this Devon Smith, the sailor. You don’t have an interest in him, or the weapons? You’ll return them both?’

  Riley laughed. ‘Too right. Call it a civic duty, Swann.’

  ‘You mean, it’ll get the Fed surveillance off you. Who’s choosing the intermediary? You or Cord?’

  ‘Leave that to me, Swann. None of your business. I’ll contact you once it’s done.’

  Swann thought about that. It wasn’t good enough. Too many things that could go wrong. A shootout between Riley’s thugs and Cord’s gang, for one thing, with the US sailor in the crossfire. Swann didn’t like it, but he’d have to trust Riley until he thought of something better.

  ‘I’ll run it by the Yanks. When is this handover organised for?’

  ‘Soon as possible, Swann, unless we find them first.’

  Swann hung up and looked over the black ocean, marker buoys winking out in Gage Roads, the smaller lights of fishing vessels beyond Rottnest and Carnac islands. The sea breeze had dropped and a cold easterly had begun blowing off the desert. It was going to be another hot day. Swann began to trudge up the hill after the others. His legs felt heavy and his hips ached. He was winded by the time he reached the war memorial, where Webb, Lee and Blake were waiting on him. No luck. Many of the street’s residents were asleep. Some of those who were awake hadn’t answered their doors. Those who had come to the door didn’t know anything about an old lady. It was too late to canvass the streets further south.

  Swann thanked Blake and Lee. He offered to drive them home but Lee needed to get to Kerry’s brothel, to work the door. As they walked to his car, Swann told Webb about Riley’s offer. Webb had the same misgivings, although there was nothing they could do. First thing in the morning they needed to get the records from the prison, before Riley’s bikies, and if that turned a blank then get a marriage certificate for a Rose Cord from Births, Deaths & Marriages, followed by a title deed search from Landgate. Swann drove Webb to the port, refusing his offer of a nightcap aboard the Vinson.

  One message on the answering machine. Swann could hear Marion out on the back deck, listening to early Stones while waiting for him.

  Swann pressed the button. There was something about Tremain’s voice, a tentativeness and strain that told Swann he wasn’t alone. ‘Swann. This is Paul Tremain. I’ve got some bad news. Jared Page was here a few minutes ago, with two of his men. He’s looking for Gooch. Gooch had told him that he was coming to check on me. I told Page that Gooch was never here. Page then mentioned you. Your role in all this. Said that Gooch had been following you, but that you hadn’t taken Gooch’s advice and kept –’

  The tape ended. Swann was glad that he hadn’t been around when Tremain had called. Page had been listening when the call was made, to try and gauge Swann’s response.

  Gooch was gone, but Page was going to be a problem.

  Swann thought about calling Paul Tremain, but that wasn’t smart. He didn’t want to leave any kind of record. Page may or may not have found Gooch’s body, but either way Page couldn’t kill Tremain. He needed him alive, at least until he signed over the Lightning Resources lease.

  Tremain wasn’t built for any of this. Swann had to hope that his instinct for survival had kept his mouth shut. If Gooch’s colleagues in the CIB were alerted to his disappearance by Page, then they would search Tremain’s office, find the body in the patio yard.

  Swann considered giving the flare gun back to the old bank robber, so that he could kill Page as planned, but that wasn’t a smart play either.

  Swann would have to think on it. Something would have to be done.

  62.

  Devon Smith had never heard a man weep so raw and powerful. He hadn’t mentioned it out of malice, or because Charles Bernier was black, but because he was shocked to find that the midshipman didn’t know anything. Soon as Bernier identified himself, Devon had blurted, ‘But you’re that rapist, murderer.’

  Devon couldn’t see Bernier and didn’t realise that he too was chained. He assumed that Bernier was hiding out. Like the newspapers said he was.

  ‘Man, what you talkin about? I’m a prisoner. I got grabbed my first night shore leave. Been tied up here ever since.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about sex murders?’

  ‘I tole you. I don’t know nothing about any murders. I been here the whole time. The Vinson still in port?’

  ‘Yeah, it is.’

  Bernier whistled his relief. ‘Tell me about the murders. What they got to do with me?’

  Devon described the two murders. What the newspapers were saying about Bernier. A witness statement. The black neckerchief, with Bernier’s name sewn into it.

  Bernier was silent for near a minute
. Devon thought that he was considering the evidence against him, but that wasn’t it.

  ‘The prostitute you mentioned. You remember her name?’

  ‘Nope. Just that you were shacked up with her, in a hotel across from a brothel.’

  ‘Franny? Francine?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it.’

  That was when the weeping started. Devon had never heard sounds like that come from another man. Deep and long, like a dying steer. At first, Devon was angry with the other man. He wanted to know more about where they were both at. How they might work together, to escape. But when the man kept wailing Devon couldn’t help it – his chest started to constrict and tears began to well in his own eyes. ‘Shutup, shutup, shutup,’ he said to himself, over and again. It felt like the man wasn’t just crying for his lost whore, or for the shittiness of his situation, but also for Devon’s wasted life, all the stupid lies he’d told himself to get where he was at – helpless and chained to a concrete block on the wrong side of the world – a death sentence hanging over him, soon to be executed.

  63.

  Swann couldn’t sleep. Rather than risk waking Marion, he went into the kitchen and poured a glass of water, then took his revolver and medicine box onto the front veranda. Under the moonlight he fixed himself a syringe of the chelate solution and felt around for the bruises caused by his earlier injections before stabbing it into his thigh. He barely felt the needle, he was so tired.

  Swann hadn’t been able to sleep because he was expecting a visit from Jared Page and his goons. If what Tremain said about Gooch was true, and that he’d been Page’s sole fixer in the CIB, then Page would be feeling vulnerable and unprotected.

  It happened just before dawn. A tan Fairlane entered from the bottom of Swann’s street in low gear, headlights off. Swann lifted the revolver and placed it on his lap. The Fairlane slowed, pulled closer to Swann’s verge. Two men in the back seat stared at him, the driver looking ahead. Swann lifted the revolver and waved as the Fairlane accelerated up the hill.

  Swann waited for his heartbeat to settle. He realised that he’d been holding his breath. That there were three of Page’s men in the Fairlane told him the visit was about more than reconnaissance. Swann put the revolver back under its pillow, sat back in his chair. He listened as wattlebirds and honeyeaters sang their tentative first notes, soon answered as the sky began to blue. Next door, Salvatore began to water his roses. A milk truck trundled down South Terrace, commercial radio blaring. A newspaper boy on a tricked-up Malvern Star rode past one-handed, tossing a paper into Sal’s yard.

  Swann closed his eyes to lessen the burn. If he was lucky, he’d doze for a few minutes before he returned inside and made Marion some scrambled eggs.

  The situation with Gooch and Page was not of Swann’s making, but that didn’t make it any easier. Page’s men had come to Swann’s home, and they would come again.

  Swann heard the front gate open. He must have slept for a few minutes. He hadn’t noticed the van park in the street, but there it was, nestled under the branches of the bottlebrush. Tony Pascoe stood with one hand on the gate, watching for Swann’s reaction. Swann waved him in, looking around to see if Sal was still in his garden.

  Pascoe walked calmly down the drive. Apart from the oxygen tank in a small backpack and the tubes running into his nostrils, you would never think that Pascoe was knocking on death’s door. He was thin but didn’t look frail. His skin was pasty but his eyes were clear and steely-blue.

  Swann waved Pascoe into the rattan chair opposite him, protected from the street by the frangipani.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Swann said. ‘What you did yesterday – it’s already come back on me.’

  Pascoe nodded. ‘I can help with that.’

  ‘I don’t want your help. As it stands, you’re a liability. I want you to leave the city, or hand yourself in.’

  ‘Not going to happen. I came here to speak with you. Can we speak? You got sleeping people in there. Don’t want to wake anyone.’

  ‘One sleeping person. My wife.’

  ‘I thought you had three daughters?’

  Swann didn’t like that. How did Pascoe know about his family, his children? He read Pascoe’s face for the veiled threat, but couldn’t see it.

  ‘My daughters. They’ve grown up, left home. What do you want? I get a sniff that you want to blackmail me over what happened yesterday, I’m going to put my foot through your chest.’

  Pascoe looked away, watched a magpie drinking from the birdbath by the drive.

  ‘Nothing like that. Came to get my pistol back. I need it. You know why.’

  Pascoe’s homemade pistol, ingeniously fashioned out of a flare gun, was still in the boot of Swann’s car, along with Gooch’s throwdown. Again Swann considered giving it back to the old man, to make Page go away. But he wasn’t going to do that. Later in the day, he’d take them to the Fremantle Traffic Bridge and toss them into the churning tidewater.

  ‘It’s gone,’ Swann lied. ‘Never to be found.’

  Pascoe looked down at his clenched hands, took control of himself. ‘That’s a pity. But you know what I need to do. I’m taking Page out, as the saying goes – if it’s the last thing I ever do. Which it will be. It’s something you want too. Why you got a revolver under that pillow.’

  ‘I can’t let you do that. Not after what happened to Gooch. Soon there’ll be questions asked. Why Gooch hasn’t showed up for work. I can’t have your vendetta with Page linked to Gooch.’

  Despite himself, the volume of Swann’s voice had increased. He knew that Marion would be awake now, and listening. He leaned forward, close enough to smell Pascoe’s breath, sense the decay eating him from within.

  Swann was just about to speak when Pascoe glanced over his shoulder. Marion came to the screen door, opened it.

  Pascoe ignored her. ‘There’s something else. The other reason I came here. To say goodbye.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  Pascoe was struggling with something. He wouldn’t meet Swann’s eye, looked instead at his hands. ‘I wasn’t going to, but our paths crossed. Frank. I’m your father.’

  64.

  The negro had ceased his crying but the pain was still heavy in his voice. He talked softly and carefully, like a child’s impersonation of a man. He called the men who’d kidnapped him devils. He said that he never saw their faces; he wore a stinking hood the whole time. One minute he was returning to his hotel room, climbing the rear steps to the building late at night, his girl behind him, when wham, he took a baseball bat to the face from someone staked out around the corner. That was the last thing he remembered. He woke up here, where he’d been ever since. They stripped off all his clothes, chained him to the brick footing. Left him a bottle of water and a loaf of bread every morning. Let him out, once, to call his mother. Made him read from a script they’d written.

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Bernier. ‘When they open that hatch to bring us some water. Why they’re devils, and this place is hell. You probably notice the smell, right?’

  The stink was hot in Devon’s nostrils. Not knowing made it worse. He had to ask.

  ‘It’s a ole dead woman,’ Bernier replied, ‘that’s what it is. Her head stove in. Been dead a long time, too. One of them devils even got a name for her. Calls her Rose. “Mornin auntie Rose,” he says to her, every time he brings me my water. Won’t tell me nothin though, or show his face. Just tosses me the bread an water like I’m a dog on the chain.’

  Devon knew what the men were going to do with him, but he had no idea what the plans were for Charles Bernier. Why they’d kidnapped him and killed his woman. It was still dark in the cellar but outside the house he could hear traffic, and birdsong.

  ‘Can you reach any walls?’ he asked.

  ‘Nope, I only got six foot of chain. I tried to dig round the base of the concrete pillar here. Found an old tin can and dug up some sand, but then I hit rock, more concrete. I had to give up. You?’

  ‘Same
. We got to think on a plan. Your voice sounds close. Can you come toward me? Maybe if we can reach each other, we can work together to break the chains.’

  Devon heard the clanking of a chain.

  ‘Keep talking,’ the voice said. ‘So damn dark.’

  ‘You do the same.’ Devon encouraged his fellow American closer, listened to the sonar of his grunting and ragged breathing, his repeated ‘I’m comin’ until he heard the chain clank. Behind him, Devon’s own chain reached its limit.

  ‘You sound close,’ Devon said. ‘Can you reach me?’

  Devon held out his hands, waving them into the blackness. He felt a touch, and both of them said ‘me’ at the same time. Devon returned his hand to the place and he felt Bernier’s fingers, then his hand. Their hands clasped, and held.

  ‘What you here for man?’ Bernier whispered. ‘Why’d they grab you up too?’

  Devon thought about his answer. It was good to hear an American voice. Might be the last one he ever heard. ‘I dunno,’ he lied. ‘They just snatched me up.’

  ‘Devils,’ Bernier hissed. ‘Thought they got me cos of my white girl.’

  Devon didn’t have the heart to tell Bernier that what he suspected was probably true. Or that a couple days ago Devon would’ve approved of their actions. He was all mixed up now. Nothing about the past days made sense. The bikers and the skinheads treated him no better than the black man next to him. They were all about the colour of money.

  Both men heard footsteps on the board above them, the padlock popping. The twin-trapdoors opened with a horror-show creak, letting in a flood of dusty light. Devon looked across at Bernier, naked, afraid, the whites of his eyes big and round, his face and hair covered in pale dust. Devon went to let go the man’s hand, but Bernier held on tight. Devon couldn’t see behind him. He glanced over toward the smell and saw the dead old woman, still in a floral dress and sandals. Her face covered in congealed blood. Someone had tossed some quicklime over her chest and head, but no attempt had been made to bury her. Footsteps on the stairs, and then a burst of cruel laughter.