An Iron Rose (28 page)

‘Listen, Mac, I’m closin.’

It was the publican. I knew him, welded his trailer for nothing.

‘Finish this,’ I said.

‘No,’ he said, coming over and putting a half-full bottle of Johnny Walker on the table. ‘Just closin the doors. Sit long as you like, fix it up later. Put the light out, give the door a good slam when you go. Lock doesn’t go in easy.’

‘Thanks, mate.’

‘Back roads, right.’

‘Back roads.’

I drank some more whisky, thought about Lew, Ned asking me to look after him. Lew and the dog, my responsibilities. Lew: mother gone, grandfather gone, just me now. I thought about my life, what it had been for so many years: the job and nothing but the job. Utter waste of time. I didn’t even remember whether I’d loved my wife. Couldn’t remember what it felt like to love her. Remembered that she could give me an erection with one look. What I did know was that all the self-respect that I had lost with one bad judgment had been slowly given back to me by my ordinary life in my father’s house. A simple life in a simple weatherboard house. Working with my father’s tools in my father’s workshop. Feeling his hand in the hammer handles worn by his grip. Walking in his steps down the sodden lane and across the road to the pub and the football field. And knowing his friends. Ned, Stan, Lew, Flannery, Mick, Vinnie—they were all responsible for giving me a life with some meaning. A life that was connected to a place, connected to people, connected to the past.

But now I was back in the old life, worse than the old life because then it wasn’t just me and Berglin. It was me, Berglin and the massed forces of law and order.

It was highly unlikely that my life was connected to the future.

For an hour or so, I slumped in the armchair, drinking whisky, clock ticking somewhere in the pub, lulling sound, sad sound. Fire just a glow of gold through grey. Putting off reading Ian Barbie’s last testament in the same way I’d put off listening to Bianchi’s tape.

Berglin. I needed to talk to Berglin. I got up, stretched, moved my shoulders, pain from tackling Neckhead on the fire escape. I got out the mobile, switched it on, pressed the numbers.

‘Berglin.’

‘Mac.’

‘Mac, where the fucking hell have you been? Point of having a mobile is to have the fucking thing switched on.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Been busy. This line secure?’

‘Well, as secure as any fucking line is these days.’

‘Got a tape. Bianchi, Scully, Mance. Before Lefroy. Bianchi had a wire on him. Insurance.’

Berglin whistled. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

‘In the sticks. People are trying to kill me.’

‘Again?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Must be learners. I’ll meet you. Where?’

I thought for a while, gave him directions. It was as good a place as any.

I took cigarettes, matches from the bar and the bottle of whisky.

Back roads, route avoiding anything resembling a main road.

As I turned the corner of the drive, the clouds parted for a few seconds, the half moon lighting up the house at Harkness Park. It didn’t look ghostly or forbidding, looked like a big old house with everyone asleep. I parked around the side, settled down to wait. It would take Berglin another half an hour. I had a sip of whisky, hunched my shoulders against the cold. Tired.

I jerked awake, got out, yawned, stretched, lit a cigarette. It tasted foul, stood on it.

Car on the road. Berglin? Quick driving.

Stopped. At the entrance to the drive.

Typical Berglin. I’d told him to drive up to the house. But Berglin didn’t do the expected. He didn’t drive the same way to work two days running.

I went to the corner of house, looked out between the wall and the gutter downpipe. Hunter’s moon, high clouds running south, gaps appearing, closing, white moonlight, dark. Waited for Berglin.

He was no more than fifty metres from me when the clouds tore apart.

A coldness that had nothing to do with the freezing night came over me.

Bobby Hill, slim and handsome as ever, dark clothing, long-barrelled revolver, man wants a job done properly, has to go out and do it himself.

And behind him, a few paces back, another man, short man, wearing some sort of camouflaged combat outfit, carrying a short automatic weapon at high port, big tube on top.

Clouds covered the moon. Too dark to see the man’s face.

Moonlight again.

Beret on the second man’s head. Turned his head.

Little pigtail swinging.

Andrew Stephens. My visitor in the Porsche.

How did he fit in?

No time to think about that.

The car door was open. I found the box of cartridges under the front seat, moved into the heavy, damp, jungle-smelling vegetation beyond the rotten toolshed.

How many? Just Hill and Andrew Stephens?

It wasn’t going to be only two again.

Escape. Which way?

Down to the mill would be best. Cross the stream above the headrace pond, follow the stream down to the sluicegates. Go around behind the mill, up the wooded embankment. Places to hide there, wait for dawn, ring Stan.

The mobile. I’d left it on the passenger seat.

No going back. I was moving in the direction of the site of the house that burnt down, the first house. But the growth here was impenetrable, I’d end up like a goat caught in a thicket.

I had to veer left, pass in front of the sunken tennis court. But to do that I would have to cross the top of the area we had so painfully cleared. In darkness, that wouldn’t be a problem. But if moonlight persisted, I’d have to wait. And they’d be coming…

Steady. They didn’t know which way I’d gone. They’d have found the car by now. It was coal dark. I could be anywhere.

Scully’s words on the tape came into my head:

You don’t know this fucking El G, fucking mad. I know him from way back…

Way back? How far back? From Scully’s days in the country?

El G? El Torro, The Bull. El Greco, The Greek.

The Greek? Who had said something about a Greek recently? Greek. Recently. In the past few days. The past few days were blurred into one long day.

Frank Cullen, man of contraptions:
Rick’s tied up with that Stefanidis from over near Daylesford. RSPCA went there, heard he was shootin pigeons. Bloke behind a wall throws ’em in the air, Greek shoots ’em with a twelve bore from about two yards. Sticks it up their arses practically.

Andrew Stephens. Andrew Stefanidis?

Andrew’s father was a good man, fine man, fought with the Greek partisans in the war.
Dr Crewe, walking around the lake, talking about Ian and Tony and Rick and Andrew.

Sudden chilling clarity. Andrew Stephens’s father was Greek. He’d anglicised his name.

Andrew Stephens was El Greco, The Greek, close-range shooter of pigeons, maker of snuff movies, organiser of murderous run-throughs.

And then the realisation.

Berglin had always known who El Greco was. Berglin had toyed with me. Berglin had given me to Scully, Hill and El Greco.

Naive. You only know about naive when it’s too late.

Absolute silence.

I walked into something, old fence, some obstacle, small screeching noise.

Something landed in the vegetation near me, sound like an overripe peach falling. And then a thump, no more than the sound of a hard tennis forehand.

Whop.

The night turned to day.

Blinded.

Flare grenade. I backed away, left arm shielding my eyes.

The bullet plucked at my collar, red hot, like being touched by an iron from the forge.

I fell over backwards, twisted, crawled into the undergrowth, hands and knees, through the thicket, thorns grabbing, scratching face and hands, reached a sparser patch, got to my feet, ran into the dark, into something solid, forehead first.

I didn’t fall over, stood bent, stunned, looked back. The flare was dying, white coal.

‘Mac.’ Shout.

Bobby.

‘Mac. Deal. The tape, you walk. Don’t need you dead.’

What hope did I have?

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’m coming.’

I ran left, northeast, hindered by wet, clinging, growing things, hampered but not blocked. I reached the fringe of the cleared area, exhausted. Knew where I was.

Clouds opened. Moonlight.

The bullet hit something in front of me. Something solid, tree trunk.

Night-vision scope.

That was the fat tube on El Greco’s rifle. Light-enhancing nightscope.

He could see in the dark.

I threw myself into the denser growth to my right, crawled deeper, deeper, desperate, no breath left, ten metres, fifteen, more. Into, over plants, roots, through ditches of rotten leaves, mud, scrabbling, don’t want to die like this…

I fell into the sunken tennis court, fell a metre, head over heels, got up, dazed, winded, pitch-dark, sense of direction gone, ran, ran a long way, length of the court perhaps, knee-high weeds, swimming in porridge, fell, crawled, a barrier, a wall, the other side of the court, bits of rusted wire, hands hurting, sodden soil, tufts of grass coming away in my hands.

I was out of the court, on my stomach, all strength gone.

The end.

Fuck that.

I was being hunted. I was their victim. They’d had lots of victims. They knew about victims: they run, you find them, you kill them.

Dangerous is what you want to be. Go mad. Nobody wants to fight a mad person. Nobody wants fingers stuck up his nose.

A father’s words to a small and scared ten-year-old son.

Yes. I found the strength, crawled around the perimeter of the sunken court, turned north. Waited in the undergrowth.

Whop.

Fireball. In the tennis court. Night sun. Cold, white night sun.

I buried my head in the dank, wet weeds. Flare thrown from the edge of the tennis court, somewhere near where I’d toppled into the court.

Flare dying, fading.

Dark.

Dark.

And then light, cold silver moonlight through the flying clouds.

Bobby Hill, ten metres away, moving through the knee-high weeds, long-barrelled revolver at his side, not anxious, not hurrying, man out for a walk in difficult conditions.

Dark again. Lying on my face, I reached under my chest, found the gun butt, comforting feel, drew the Colt from the shoulder holster. Safety off. Hammer back.

Whop.

In the air, above me, intense sodium-like light.

I cringed, pushed myself down, didn’t move, Mother Earth, breathed wet soil, waited for the pain. You bowl these things, I realised, throw them, they float for a few seconds. Not parachute flares.

No pain. White glare dying away. Slowly, slowly. Dark.

I got up. Walked to the edge of the sunken court, slid down on my backside, stayed down, drew up my knees, rested my outstretched arms on them. Waited.

Look down. Another flare goes off, don’t look at the light.

Pitch dark.

The clouds tore, moon revealed.

Bobby Hill.

The length of a ute from me.

I saw him.

He saw me.

Handsome man, Bobby Hill: dense black hair combed back, nice smile, standing in knee-high weeds on a forgotten tennis court.

He was smiling as he brought the long-barrelled revolver up.

I fired first, at his middle, big bang.

The bullet hit him somewhere near the bottom of his fly, massive punch in the groin. His lower body went backwards, feet leaving the ground.

For an instant, I saw the expression on his face. It said:
This is odd.

In my head, I said,
Goodbye, Bobby.

From close by, from the thicket above the tennis court, El Greco said, ‘Bobby. Got him?’

I went up the side of the court again, crawled through the vegetation, Colt in hand, dark again, ground sloping, stopped for a second, heard the creek below me, full this time of year.

Flare behind me, to my left. El Greco had misjudged my direction. He was looking further up, thought I’d turned north. I holstered the Colt, lay still, crawled again, mud in my mouth.

Creek close, few metres, rushing water, making a noise no problem. I was in the thicket of poplars that lined the creek, dead branches poking at me, cheek torn open.

I fell head-first down the bank into the stream. Freezing water, couldn’t find my feet, taken downstream, banged into a fallen tree trunk, turned around, use of only one hand, swallowed water, Jesus Christ, I couldn’t drown after all this…

My feet found the oozy bottom, I got a hold on a branch stump, pulled myself along the tree trunk. Island in the middle of the creek, some moonlight. Hid behind the trunk until it went.