Burn Patterns (31 page)

‘Sweep for a view,' said the team leader.

The robot swung slowly, pivoting, Iris guessed, on its tracks. A storeroom. It appeared neglected. Dust drifted in the robot's torch beam. There were stacks of chairs, old wooden ones, like you'd see on ships. A shelf held dirty glass canisters.

‘Hold,' said the leader. ‘Zoom.'

The camera zoomed in to a roll of black pipe. It stood upright, like a hoop, leaning against broken wooden panels, the kind used to announce hymn numbers and readings.

‘Chuck?'

‘It looks like the same piping used at the school.'

‘Everybody slow down. We have possible contact. Stevo, hold there!'

Stevo had moved to the back of the van. The windows were covered in cardboard. He was trying to peer through a gap between the cardboard and the window frame.

‘Tweak your light.'

Stevo focused his helmet light to reveal one large silver forty-four gallon drum with a red sticker on it and smaller silver and orange tins beyond.

‘Chuck, talk to me.'

‘It looks bad. It could be the diethyl.'

The bomb disposal team leader made a decision. ‘Withdraw. All men, withdraw. Stevo, come back in. Mark. Percy, out of the church. We have contact. Withdraw.' Then he called, ‘Have I got a chemist here yet?'

‘Travelling,' yelled someone.

A commander peeled away from the group around the monitors, started giving orders. ‘Get those fireys out of there. It could be hot. Tell the hospital to go to code orange. That's code orange. Everybody out. Have we got snipers in those buildings?' A ripple of murmuring was his only reply. ‘Talk to me, people. Is TRG here yet?'

‘Travelling, sir.'

The robot camera continued to pan around the basement. It found a wheelchair, then an electric cord plugged into an ancient
power socket. The robot camera zoomed into scorch marks on the wall above the socket. It tilted down to an electric jug, also scorched. The robot moved forward on the landing, elevated, panned over to a face. The camera zoomed out. It was James. He was lying on the basement floor, dressed in the loose blue pants and windcheater top of a psychiatric nurse.

‘We have someone down,' the team leader noted.

Iris lifted her eyes from the monitors to watch the three fully kitted bomb disposal men walking back towards them. They walked slowly. They could only walk slowly in all the protective gear, as if they were walking on a planet with heavy gravity.

The team leader called, ‘Commander, we have a man down in the church cellar.'

‘Commander Davies. They want you at the monitor,' someone repeated.

Iris stared at the monitor. James appeared dead.

Chuck said, ‘It looks like he's electrocuted himself halfway through setting up the bomb.' He glanced to see who was listening, caught sight of Iris. He winked with a grin.

Davies came back, Pavlovic with him. Pavlovic said, ‘Can you zoom in to his face?'

Davies yelled, ‘Where the fuck is my goddamn TRG crew?'

‘It's James,' said Iris. ‘It is the man we were interviewing at Fieldhaven in connection with the gymnasium bombing.'

The commander noted Iris for the first time.

Pavlovic ignored her, studied the screen. ‘It's James the Martian. Possibly James Jules. Fingerprints coming.'

‘He's alive,' said the bomb disposal team leader.

Iris stepped forward. Everyone leaned towards the monitor. Iris couldn't see. The leader said, ‘See the dust on the floor. He's breathing.'

‘Shit,' said Davies.

‘Pan left. I'm looking for a remote control devices on the ground or wires on his person.'

‘Would he commit suicide?' Commander Davies was asking Iris.

She said, ‘Yes. Zorro would. So would James.'

‘What?'

‘Yes. He could be under a delusion he's going to launch himself back to Mars.'

‘He probably will with all that diethyl ether.' Chuck.

Davies said, ‘Can you get your robot down the stairs?'

‘Easily.'

‘I want to turn him over.'

‘We can do that. Take Fred down the steps.' Apparently the robot had a name.

‘How long until the hospital is evacuated?'

A uniformed sergeant got onto a handheld, listened.

‘Look for trip-wires too,' said Pavlovic.

The officer on the handheld called back, ‘Another half-hour. They calculate one more load of patients.'

Iris peered past the police and rescue vehicles to the hospital building no more than three hundred metres from the church. They would have started their evacuation protocols as soon as the police discovered the church was unguarded.

‘Okay, we wait. Hold your robot for the minute. Maybe in half an hour my fucking TRG team will have finished their muffins and be able to join us.'

‘They were rostered on tomorrow, sir,' said a functionary voice in the crowd. ‘They were told to get sleep.'

‘Okay, let's double-check all these buildings around here. Let's clear out these non-essential personnel, can we? Let's do another sweep of the surrounding laneways and streets for secondaries.' He swung back to Iris. ‘If he's awake, do you think a negotiator could talk him out?'

Iris considered. James could be talked down. Zorro, she wasn't so sure about. He'd want to go out big rather than with a whimper. His ego couldn't stand to lose. On the other hand, if James was in charming James mode or in Martian mode they might be able to talk him down.

‘You don't know,' said Davies.

‘Not with sufficient certainty to be useful, sir.'

‘All right. Very good. Useful. Thank you.'

‘I'd be willing to try.'

‘Of course not. No. No need at all.' He went back to planning how to take James.

Iris had probably signed James's death warrant. If he moved, they'd shoot to kill.

Davies bawled, ‘This is not a television set. Can I have some room?'

The cars and the trucks began to move, unclogging from the rear to fall back to safer positions further down the hill. The redeployment took the full half-hour required to finish evacuating the hospital.

Only after everyone had cleared did Fred the robot begin the painstaking, meticulous viewing and lifting of James. They found no remote control. The truck with the remaining diethyl ether had not been hooked up to any detonation device. James was not conscious. Although he'd managed to electrocute himself, he was still alive. If he'd been left much longer, according to doctors, he would not have survived. Iris's alert probably saved his life.

Iris heard about these things through channels as did the other police, support staff, firefighters and rescue workers two blocks back from the church, and later from Charles, who stayed at the front. It was like being outside a full football ground, only hearing about the close result after the event, not with a bang but an unexpected sigh of relief.

Ironically, the nearest high-security hospital room was across the road from the church. James the Mad Bomber, like other patients, however, was not allowed back in until the church site had been judged secure. The drums of ether were sprayed down with foam then packed into trucks supervised by a fire services chemist before being driven away by the army.

Discussions were held about the funeral. The church had been swept, the missing ether accounted for, the bomber in custody. The funeral went ahead only one hour after the scheduled start with a grim note of victory, a tone of justice. The standing down of the active emergency services and transformation into pomp and respect was a testament to training and organisation but also to its multifunction within society. So said the commissioner speaking at the service.

The city street leading up to the church filled with grateful people, families with awestruck children, police officers in full uniform, fire appliances from the Volunteer Fire Brigades, those men and women in full turnout gear. Each of the armed services was represented. The SAS sent their own honour guard. The precautionary snipers spread through surrounding buildings were not part of the ceremony.

Iris attended with Mathew. She had intended to approach the wives to offer counselling or at least put them in touch with the appropriate PTS procedures, but she lacked the will, also the sense of purpose she'd once felt when trying to set up those things within the fire service twenty years before. As Chuck rightly said, these things were common now, especially for the families of the fallen. After the public church service the wives and children were to be taken up to a firefighters' memorial in the park on the other side of the city for a partners and kids picnic. Firefighters' families only.

Iris and Mathew nodded to people they knew, not stopping to talk. Mathew said little in the service. He had appeared in a dark suit at the end of the aisle and they made way for him. He sat with her during the service, looked compassionate yet restrained. Iris thought he'd make a good judge. Possibly a better judge than a lawyer. He'd developed gravitas. He didn't need to display his intelligence or his energy. It was a given. Mathew took her elbow, steering her out of the church grounds, now verdant in sunshine under clear blue sky. The fire appliances were still parked, the firefighters, volunteers, police, ambos and soldiers milling now in sombre groups of serving men and women. Mathew manoeuvred Iris to a laneway and an illegally parked BMW.

‘Benjamin's. I came straight from the office. I need to sign a few things, if that's all right?'

Iris shrugged a yes, suddenly feeling exhausted. She checked her face in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. She'd borrowed extra make-up from Senior Constable Ferguson, friends again after the capture of James the Mad Bomber.

Mathew drove down the laneway and out into the busy city street beyond.

‘I think they did a good job, for the ceremony, don't you?'

‘Yes. It was good. It was … fitting and …' She struggled for adequate words.

‘Not too much pomp, a lot of respect … and sadness.'

‘When a fireman dies, it's never a shock or even a surprise, even though it's not common. It's always a possibility. But this, this wasn't them doing their job. It was murder. Evil.'

Mathew pulled into the driveway of Lee Steere, Court, Lefroy, Shenton & Foster, Partners at Law, called variously ‘the practice' or ‘chambers' or ‘the office' by Mathew. It was not particularly far from the church. The security grill started winding up.

Mathew said, ‘Will you come up?'

‘I'll stay down here.'

‘We'll be getting a taxi. This is Benjamin's car.'

‘Oh, yes, of course.'

‘Come up. You haven't been in for some time.'

Iris felt Mathew was putting her through a further ordeal. The promenade to the car. Making her go into his office. She'd like to be in a butterfly house.

‘Mathew,' called a very pretty thing at the front desk. ‘Oh, Mrs Foster. Hello.'

Iris knew her face but not her name.

Mathew actually took her arm, hooked it in his own, led her through glass doors and down the carpeted corridor past more frosted-glass walls. People looked up. Diligent young men and women in power suits hunkered over files.

‘Mrs Foster, hello,' said someone.

‘Iris,' said Benjamin.

They paused.

‘Thank you for the car, Ben.'

‘It was a loan. I hope I haven't given it away,' he said with a grin. He was a senior partner, thin with killer eyes. He shaved his head to hide his baldness, which made him look like Vladimir Putin.

Mathew handed him his keys.

Iris smiled.

‘Awful business. We saw parts of it.' He pointed to a large television set in his outer office, now switched off.

Mathew said, ‘I'm going to sign those special conditions then take the rest of the day, mate.'

It sounded odd hearing Mathew say the word ‘mate'.

They were confronted by Roland Hyland. He stood solicitous outside another office. He was a pear of a man who made his suit look like a bag full of yogurt. He was June's husband.

‘Iris, how are you? Terrible events.'

Personal or public, Iris wondered. ‘Terrible, Roland.' They called him Roly. Sometimes Landland. Iris did not say, so, Roly, how was your wife's weekend? This would be the time. Is this why Mathew was parading her? Testing? Besting?

Roland squeezed her shoulder as they passed, making Iris wince.

Mathew's office lay behind an outer chamber with green leather couches, a personal secretary's desk. An enormous piece of Aboriginal artwork hung above the couches.

‘This is new,' said Iris.

‘Yes, we're doing a thing with the university. Rotating some of their bequests.' He led her into his inner sanctum where they discovered Reggie laying out piles of paper.

The back wall was covered in law books. The large window showed a glimpse of river between two larger buildings.

‘Just these last ones, Mathew.' Reggie wore a dark suit. He had been Mathew's secretary for fifteen years. ‘Mrs Foster!' he said loudly, like the host at a party. He stepped forward, his hand extended.

‘Reg,' she said. You look good.'

‘I'm riding, like the boss.'

Mathew would take him to the bench if he could wangle it.

‘The kids?' Iris couldn't remember their names although they'd attended christenings.

‘Marvellous. And Rosemarie is doing well at university, I hear.'

‘You probably hear more than I do.'

Reggie looked alarmed, as though he'd put his foot in it.

‘She makes us so proud,' Iris added, to defuse.

Mathew said, ‘These are going into Ben and Liz.'

Reggie rustled papers.

Iris noted Mathew's luggage in a corner, the barest hint of red dust along the edges. She retreated to the outer office to look at the artwork again. Dots and circles. Tracks leading to special places. This is how it had often been explained but of course they were considerably more, the red and white and shades of brown. They were a map yes, and also an imprint, the land imagined from above and within.