Cut to the Chase (27 page)

‘Ah'd best be a-gooin',' he remarked, getting up and stretching himself, he sucked on his pipe and expelled a huge cloud of smoke throughout the cabin. ‘Ah'm a-gooin' to Stowerport after I've dropped this lot…' he jerked his thumb in the direction of his own craft that lay astern. ‘Ah may see yo' again, then.'

Wallace accompanied him to the deck and they chatted for a few moments longer. Another commercial craft passed by, rock-ing Wallace's craft as its bow wave hit them which caused them to adjust their weight on the balls of their feet. The crewman gave a wave and shouted ‘Morning Fred!' Hackett responded with: ‘Nice day, Bert!' and they both waved back.

Fred Hackett then clambered aboard his own craft, started the engine and with a wave of his hand he slowly steered his craft around Wallace's boat and headed west. When he was about 50 yards up the canal he turned, waved again and then disappeared around the bend.

Wallace went below, picked up his wallet and cash and then clambered up the embankment. He had a telephone call to make. ‘You told him?' McKay was incredulous.

‘No!' Wallace replied coldly. ‘He told
me
. He picked my accent straight away.'

‘My oath!' McKay ejaculated.

‘The same way he'd have picked you…if you'd said
that
!' Wallace said acidly. ‘And there's something else. How did some of Ravindran's friends lock onto me?'

‘What was that?'

Wallace told him, giving him details of the conversation he had had with Craddock and then the incident that occurred later at Broad Street canal basin in Birmingham.

‘Are you sure it was you they were looking for?'

‘Jesus Christ! Who else would they be looking for if they wanted to avenge Ravindran's death? They mentioned his name and gave a pretty good idea what they were going to do to his murderer when they caught up with him,' Wallace found himself shuddering, and it wasn't caused by the cold.

‘Shit!' McKay said with some vehemence. ‘What are your plans now?'

‘I'm seeing him next week,' Wallace said. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time…' he added, fearing a barrage of scorn from McKay. But to his surprise it seemed to pass muster.

‘All right, so how long will it take you to get there?'

‘Don't know, it's a long way going via Wolverhampton and Wombourne,' Wallace suddenly remembered that Fred Hackett had suggested the Netherton Tunnel, and was about to mention it when McKay cut in.

‘All right, give me a call when you get to where our friend lives, ring me from there. I'll drop you a line at the local Post Office…
not
under your own name…OK?'

‘Oh really? You mean something to avoid suspicion like John Smith?'

‘Shut up will you and stop being a bloody smart arse! The name will be that of our mutual friend who recruited you in Melbourne…and
don't
mention his name.'

‘Oh you mean Bra…!'

‘Shut up!'

‘You what…oh!'

There was a silence and then McKay cleared his throat.

‘We must have a leak somewhere, we'll have to nut that out. Have you been in touch with anybody else?'

‘Apart from that friend of mine, an old school buddy in Knowle near Birmingham. I stayed with him a couple of days and I rang you from there last time.'

‘Who else?'

‘Only Saul Prosser, not recently, you know about him.'

‘Nobody else? Relatives?'

‘No, not yet. I have a cousin in Surrey, but I wasn't sure whether to or not if my name was in the papers.'

‘It isn't! They haven't mentioned it again. Not sure why yet, but it may be they have doubts.'

‘Well that's nice to know.'

‘Drop me a line in the mail, you know where I am. Give me details of everyone you've been in contact with. Do it now…got that?'

‘Got it!'

‘You understand me?'

‘Loud and clear,' Wallace replied.

‘All right, you'll hear from me…main Post Office. Where will you be, in the area where you found him?'

‘Not sure where yet, I'll let you know.'

‘Right!' and McKay hung up.

Wallace made his way back to the boat, deep in thought. McKay clearly suspected that his telephone could be bugged. It was a possibility; he had made some of the arrangements for the boat hire from his apartment. But Wallace had to ring his apartment phone, he couldn't ring the High Commission. But if his phone was bugged, who was doing it? Clearly it was not the police, if it was Wallace would have been behind bars by now, they would have picked him up at the Broad Street basin or on the way between London and Birmingham on the Grand Union Canal.

Could it be Kalim? He would clearly want to catch up with Wallace since he now knew too much as he should have been found dead or nearly so in that apartment and had clearly escaped. But would Kalim be working with Ravindran's friends? This was quite unlikely. Ravindran's friends would know who Wallace was, he had been the last person seen with him and Wallace's name had been briefly mentioned in the newspapers. Could McKay have led them to him? On reflection this wasn't likely, for all the disputes and bad feeling with McKay he didn't strike Wallace as being incompetent. Presumably Kalim and his men would have some idea where members of the High Commission lived, could they have bugged McKay's phone? But if they had, McKay was now alive to the prospect and searching for it. But it was a possibility; as far as Kalim was concerned Wallace had been at large now for about ten days or more and Kalim must have been concerned. Wallace was the only one who could identify him as Ravindran's murderer.

Wallace passed under a railway bridge and then observed the turn off to the left. He hesitated and then pulled the boat around into the Gower branch. This branch was the long way through Wolverhampton and the Staffs & Worcester Canal. Then impulsively he halted and then poled the boat back until the boat was back at the junction again. He went on past the junction and then secured the boat.

There was a large oil depot behind the boat to the left, there was a flame leaping high into the air from a large chimney. Did he want to go through the tunnel or not? Could he stand more claustrophobia? Yet the Blisworth and the Braunston tunnels had been negotiated successfully even though they had both fuelled his claustrophobia, and this one was no longer than the other two. Further, it was in constant use, why should the roof decide to fall in when Wallace happened to be using it when it had been in operation for over 200 years?

He consulted the canal book and saw that there was a passage in it relating to tunnels and a brief chapter on the Netherton tunnel. In the days of yore, about 150 years ago, a means of passing through tunnels was by way of ‘legging'. The boatmen would lie on their backs on the tops of their cabins, push their legs in the air and literally walk, or leg, their way from one end of the tunnel to the other. He grimaced and accepted that they must have been extremely leg weary when they reached the other end. He thought about it for half an hour, then started the engine and headed straight on. He had decided to use the tunnel.

He turned left at the next junction and headed south through Tividale and Dudley Port. He passed under a main road and saw the mouth of the tunnel before him. A barge was exiting from it and the boatman gave a wave as Wallace headed for the entrance.

‘Bit wet in the middle,' he called out.

‘Right…thank you!' Wallace responded. He wasn't clear what the other boatman meant but thought it wise not to ask too many questions.

As he entered the portal he felt as though he was entering a void, similar to feelings at Blisworth. He turned on the light at the front of the boat and the beam shot straight ahead. He could see nothing except bricks, curving around from one side of the tunnel to the other. He nearly panicked, as he had done at Blisworth Tunnel and thought of turning round and going back but the tunnel was too narrow for that. There was only one thing to do now, keep going.

He stood by the wheel and tried to steer dead centre. The sound of the engine filled the air with a dull throbbing noise and once again he had the fear that the vibrations may start an avalanche of bricks. As the boat went slowly onwards he discovered he was tending to zig zag, heading first for one wall and then the other. It was not easy but he managed to correct the drift without too many problems. At first he tried to keep an eye on the brickwork at the sides, but afterwards decided instead to watch the distant tunnel exit as it slowly grew larger and larger, he found that was easier.

His mind was working overtime as he slowly progressed, with the thumping of the engine hitting the walls and bouncing back it belaboured the eardrums. He went back to the beginning of his current misfortunes and tried to find answers.

It rested with the identity of Kalim and that of Ravindran. Who or what was Ravindran? From the brief acquaintanceship with him he appeared to have been of a liberal turn of mind, that is he disliked oppression, and also a radical in that he wanted to be rid of the oppressors and install self rule for his state or island.

True, the terms liberal and radical often appeared contradictory but frequently this contradiction happens in this world in which we all live. Political thought is like a clock face, if moderate centrist polices are at 12 o'clock, the Left and Right branch out in separate directions, and finally the extremes meet at 6 o'clock, each indistinguishable from the other! The dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin were markedly similar.

Indonesia had previously been a dictatorship, which had democratised, but there were many who wanted independence from it, some to run their own liberal democracies on some of the many islands that make up Indonesia. Yet there were other separatists who wanted religious regimes for these same islands, regimes which could be very oppressive. In addition there were those who wanted to convert the whole state of Indonesia to fundamentalism. The present government in Jakarta wanted neither, no splintering off into separate independent island states and no Islamist fundamentalism.

Ravindran appeared to be a middle of the road politician who wanted a secular separatist island state, but so often these types who emerged as rallying points were overtaken by extremists. Had Russia in 1918 retained a constitutional monarchy, or had the moderate regime of Kerensky survived, the history of the world and Russia itself could have taken a very different turn. Had Mirabeau survived to lead the French Revolution, how different that could have been. This was Ravindran's fate, the centrist who was hated by both ends of the spectrum and who had paid the supreme penalty.

Who then was Kalim? He was possibly a member of the political police, the establishment of the Right. Yet police forces of this type were interchangeable, in 1918-1919 Russian secret police had enthusiastically rooted out Royalists where previously they had arrested revolutionaries. Was Kalim working for the Right wing status quo, or was he secretly working for the extreme fundamentalists?

From Wallace's sight of him in the street as he left Jakarta it indicated he was working for the regime, against any possible secession by Ravindran and his ilk, from his testy exchange with his colleagues in the apartment they had carried out a similar exercise in Paris that had been fouled up. His expense account must be a large one, Wallace thought bitterly, trips to USA, Paris, London and hotels paid for in Jakarta, and rent for leasing apartments in false names, and no doubt oodles of free liquor and narcotics when drugging his hapless victims.

Yet why had he selected Wallace? Or had Wallace selected himself with that damned trip to Jakarta and collecting that confounded computer flash drive. They had obviously been on to the messenger, he had brought half the police force with him, had he brought many more they would have needed a double decker bus to carry them all. That reinforced Wallace's theory that the people with whom he had been dealing were of the Centre; the Left and the Right would be far better organised.

But why this London caper? If the Left or Right had leased a flat in Wallace's name months ago or whenever, they must have been preparing for this for some time. After Wallace's involvement in Jakarta they knew Wallace was planning a trip to London, this he had carelessly mentioned to Kalim on their first meeting, he was ideal for being the fall guy if they managed to assassinate Ravindran in London. Quite apart from getting rid of Ravindran, the other objects appeared to be to discredit ASIO or ASIS and the country of Australia generally – probably pay back for East Timor and Australia's role in appropriating parts of the Timor Sea for oil exploration. In addition it was a means to embarrass Australia in the negotiations going on at the present time.

This would always be a sensitive area for Australia, initially they had fallen over backwards to not appear to be interfering when Indonesia took over East Timor, while their protests had been relatively muted at the deaths of those five Australian newsmen.

The current incident, if Australia's alleged part in the assassination of Ravindran could be substantiated by the frame up, would be another nail in Australia's coffin, a Western state interfering in the affairs of a Muslim state in East Asia. Or could it be more specific, to exert pressure while negotiations were proceeding for a definite object, oil exploration, gas shelves, mining and the like.

On the other hand…Jesus!

Thought processes ceased abruptly as Wallace was caught in a deluge of water. He panicked and let go the wheel, the craft took a turn and hit the side of the tunnel. Water cascaded over him and over the decks until parts of them were awash and he felt water swirling around his ankles. He was nearly whimpering with fear as he realised that the boat could be sinking under him in a long tunnel.

T
he deluge ceased as abruptly as it had begun, the panic stricken Wallace caught hold of the wheel once more, the comforting throb of the engine continued as it had done throughout the showering, and once again he centred on the light ahead. He could hear the water cascading into the canal behind the craft, not half as bad as it seemed from the sheer shock of it landing on the deck. He recalled the warning received from the other boatman as he had entered the tunnel and realised he had not taken full cognisance of it.