Dark Fires Shall Burn (34 page)

‘No, don't. Don't touch me!' he shouts at Dot when she attempts to take his arm, and he can't bring himself to care that she is crying too.

On that train to Sydney, Templeton had held onto Annie close as a tick, drinking in her talcum powder and jasmine scent, and she allowed him to stay like that. She did not say a word the whole journey. He cannot remember her holding him since, but he remembers the song she hummed quietly, the same one she sang on the verandah with the bundle in her arms.
Oranges and lemons; oranges and lemons
running in his head the whole ride down, like a toy steam engine, doomed to round the same bends on its bit of track until the last verse came up like a blind corner. How he longs to be there in her arms again.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed, and here comes a chopper to chop off your head
, his mind rings.

THIRTY-ONE

Nancy reads over the newspaper article for the hundredth time and forms the name Jack Tooth on her tongue. She's on her bed, still in her clothes, ignoring the pyjamas Mrs Roberts laid out for her, even though her mother has long since gone to bed. The flat nightdress, empty of a body, seems to mock her, and she thinks angrily of Frances' yellow cardigan and its final terrible use. Lately she can't stop considering Frances' last minutes. Had she cried? Had she known what was about to happen? Surely the answer is yes.

Something aches in her, and has ever since Frances' death — and perhaps even before, ever since her father's death. It's like a cancerous acorn, enlarging malignantly. The room is oppressively quiet. Through the window, the branches of the tree wave to an unheard wind. She looks at Frances' ugly teddy bear and holds it to her face, trying to catch the scent of her, but it smells only of dust and, faintly, of chemical dye.

She thinks of George, her favourite from The Famous Five
books, and imagines what she would do. Rising, she goes to her cupboard and takes out her winter coat, slipping her arms into the thick warm sleeves. She thinks of the box, lined with green velvet, and of how much her mother had to drink at dinner, and of the house on Lennox Street, and of the clean, honest smack of the night's cold air awaiting her.

THIRTY-TWO

‘It's Nellie.' Roberta comes upstairs in the early hours of the morning, tears rolling freely down her face. ‘I just heard. The police told Tipper. She's dead.'

‘What? What are you talking about?' Dot says, bleary with sleep. She has her arms wrapped around Templeton, and his warm weight pins them to the bed where they'd slept, soldered together, after returning from Annie's the afternoon before.

Templeton shifts to let her free and sits up back against the wall, feeling like he might lose the contents of his stomach at any moment, the whole weight of the day flooding back and crushing him.

‘Nellie. They found her body in Trumper Park just an hour or two ago,' Roberta says. ‘She was beaten to death.' With a trembling hand, she removes a hip flask out of her pocket and takes a large swig.

Thank God it's not Annie, he thinks, and then is ashamed. ‘Oh my God. Where's Tipper?' he asks.

‘Down at the morgue to identify the body.'

‘But if they're still identifying the body, how do they know …' Templeton begins.

‘Formally identify. It's her. Ten different people said so.'

Dot opens the curtains a chink and peers out the window, down to the footpath lit up by streetlights. Already a reporter gawks in the alley at the end of the block, and there is a small snake of police cars winding to the park. ‘What in hell happened? What was Nellie doing out last night?'

‘I heard them,' Roberta says. ‘I heard Tipper and Nellie having a row last night, just as I was turning in. I'm surprised you didn't?'

Templeton can't remember much of anything from when they'd come home last night. He looks at the two empty whisky bottles lying on their sides near the bed. Dot had been drunk like a demon. He couldn't get a word out of her except for Polish curses. She'd thrown up in the piss bucket, crying like she was being torn to pieces, and he'd held her hair back from her mouth.

‘Uh … no,' he says and looks guiltily at Dot.

‘Nellie said she was sick of Tipper and she was going out to meet some friends at the Trocadero,' Roberta tells them. ‘I could hear Tipper hollering that it wasn't safe, that she shouldn't go. Seems like she may have smacked her around some trying not to let her leave, because the next thing I heard was Nellie screaming that she'd had enough and the door slamming.'

‘Stupid girl.' Dot shakes her head and winces. ‘Stupid, stupid girl.' She yanks the curtains closed.

‘I followed her out on the street and offered to walk her to the Troc, but she told me where to go.' Roberta folds and unfolds her arms. ‘It's my fault. I should have insisted. I shouldn't have let her go alone.'

‘What could you have done?' Dot says and touches her arm. ‘Nobody could stop Nellie in one of her moods. Oh, Nellie.' She chokes up, the weight of it hitting her.

Roberta's mouth turns up into a sad but grateful smile and she pats Dot's hand. ‘I don't know how she ended up down in Trumper. I still feel like it's my fault, like I should have forced her back. Jackie must have been lying in wait.'

The newspaperman is knocking on the door, but they let it go unanswered. Templeton sweeps back the curtains and opens the window, leaning half his body length out. ‘Piss off, why don't yas! Piss off and leave us alone! Bloody vulture.' It feels good to shout. He can hear the man shout up a question and there is the flash of the paper's cameraman, trying to get a picture of him, emerging out of the dark.

‘Shut the window,' Roberta says. When he hesitates, she scoops him back into the room and shuts it herself. The two of them sink to the floor.

‘I am going to kill him. Tonight.' Dot nods meaningfully at Roberta.

‘No, Dot! How do you even know it was Jackie?' Roberta asks, terrified. ‘Really. It could have been anyone. Any rough mug. We don't know.'

Dot doesn't answer but fixes her with a dreadful, cutting stare. She lights a cigarette. Then she says, ‘I should have done it when we shot Errol. Finished him off. Letting Jackie escape was stupid. What was I thinking?
Idiotka
. Now he's got real blood on his hands. And so do I.'

‘How are you going to do it?' Templeton asks. Dot's eyes are hard and unfeeling, like the eyes of his skeleton treasures before the ants pick them out. He thinks about the time he broke the struggling possum's neck with his hands.

‘I haven't thought of that yet.' She uses her hands to lever herself up from the table, face drawn in concentration. ‘Coming up behind him with a knife would do the trick. Surprise him. Give him one right across the throat.'

‘Here, Dot, do you want some of my gin?' Roberta offers the flask. ‘Stay a while. Think it over. We don't even know where he is.'

‘No, I need a clear head.' Dot brushes the bottle away. ‘I have to get this right. There's not going to be a second chance.' She moves to the stairs and descends shakily.

‘Lucky, please look after her,' Roberta snatches his ear and whispers into it. ‘Don't let her get hurt.'

‘I'll do my best,' he whispers back.

An hour later, Templeton pushes his fist through the broken window and unlocks the Lennox Street door. His hands shake as he enters, involuntarily, and he curses himself, remembering the night they sheared him like a lamb.
Angel hair
, said his mother's voice in his head. How she had loved it, told him never to cut it.
Never grow up
. They had stomped his hair with their bootsoles and his blood dripped into the floorboards. The lights are off inside and no one is on the street, where it is still dark.

‘Hurry up,' Dot says impatiently behind him.

‘Alright, alright. Don't get your tits in a knot.' He is angry. Angry that they are here and that Dot could not be dissuaded. Angry at Annie. Angry that he couldn't put his foot down strongly enough and that Dot doesn't listen to him and that he is with her anyway, because he could not let her go alone. He is almost certainly about to cop a razor to the face, and worse, if Jackie's within a mile. ‘Let me strike a match.'

The flame leaps up and in the illuminated instant, Bob's cyclops head is made visible, and the rest of him sitting calmly in a dining chair, back against the wall, holding a large gun in his lap.

‘Mary, mother of Christ!' Templeton jumps and burns his fingers on the match. He lights a second.

‘Son of a bitch,' Dot breathes out, regarding Bob in the tremulous luminescence.

‘G'day. What brings you two down here?' Bob says, unruffled. ‘Good thing you made so much bloody noise on the way in, son. Or I might have put a hole through you by mistake.'

‘You're a good boy,' Dot says and leans in to kiss the back of Templeton's neck, the hairs of which are still raised in shock. The match dwindles out. ‘What in the name of God are you doing, Bob? Let me light this lamp.' She moves to the table and fumbles in the dark.

‘Keep it low,' Bob warns her. ‘Don't let it be seen from the street.'

Shadows jump like marionettes around the room as she adjusts the knob.

‘Did you hear?' Templeton whispers, recovering himself, but his voice is dry as sandpaper.

Bob nods. ‘Jackie's been hiding out round here and the rat-fucker got to Nellie.'

‘I am going to cut the bastard in half,' says Dot.

‘With what?' Bob looks her up and down. He pats the gun. ‘I'm going to kill the bastard.'

‘I thought this would do it.' She takes a hunting pocketknife from her dress and unfolds it, holding it up. The blade is curved like a wave. When he purses his lips at her, she mimes drawing it across her throat.

‘You might be right with that. If you can get close enough to him. How'd you figure you are going to do that?'

‘Wait here in the dark. Same as you.'

‘You're not strong enough. He'd see you coming and have you pinned within three seconds. And what if he's got Will and Frank with him? One girl against three men. Good luck to you,' he snorts.

‘I'm not afraid to die if I can take him with me,' she tells him, and Templeton can see in her eyes that it is true.

‘No, Dot. I've a bad feeling. Let Bob do it. He's got the firepower. We can't afford to fuck this up.'

‘And what part do you play in this?' Bob lines up Templeton in his sights. ‘What have you got? A waterpistol?'

Templeton blushes and holds up the truncheon he nicked from Tipper's bedside cabinet, a heavy thing for cracking skulls, yet he doubts he could kill as much as a kitten with it. Bob has seen right through him.

‘And what do you plan to do with that, son?' Bob smiles contemptuously.

‘Damn it, Bob!' Dot paces, red-faced, white spittle gathering in the corners of her mouth. ‘I watched him beat Annie and did nothing. I should have killed him some night in his sleep. It's my fault Nellie's dead.'

‘Hold up.' When she nears, Bob reaches out and steadies her with his hands, like someone trying to calm a horse. ‘Just hold up now. You're going to stab him on suspicion? I mean, I know he did it. But that's for a judge to decide. Now, what he did to Florence — I know that without a doubt. And I'll be judge, jury and executioner on that count.'

‘If he did not kill Nellie, then who in hell did? Errol?'

‘Maybe. But Nellie was a fast girl. Bad things can happen.' Bob shrugs. ‘
You
know that.' He sighs.

‘It's possible, Dot. Maybe this is all a coincidence,' Templeton says, trying to calm her down. Even he hears how flaccid the words sound once they're hanging in the air. He can see the disgust flash across Dot's face at his words.

‘Another dead whore beaten up in a park, who really cares — is that what you're saying? I don't believe in coincidence,' she says.

The headlights of a car wrap around the corner, and Templeton hears the crunch against the curb as it slides in to park. Three doors slam and six boots get out.

‘Fuck!' Dot throws herself over the light and scrambles to turn it off. The room is dark as pitch and they drop to a crouch and hurry up to the window. Through it he can see Jackie, Frank and Will, almost at the front door.

Templeton looks about him for an escape but they are trapped like rats. He stares in horror at Jackie's hand reaching for the doorknob. ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?' The words tumble under his breath. He is pinching Dot's arm, near to pissing himself.

‘Get back. Behind me.' Bob mutters the order. They do so, and he readies himself on the inside of the door, gun held up. But suddenly the door bursts open — Templeton had not locked it after him — erupting inwards and catching Bob right on the shoulder. He is down like a felled tree and Jackie stands in the backlit doorway, flanked by Frank and Will.

Jackie's face is a freckled brick, his hair slicked back, eyes narrowed, and his lipless mouth curls up at the corner as he sees Bob out cold on the floor. Then he gives Templeton a horrible smile. Takes the razor out of his jacket pocket, snaps it open and waves the blade at him. ‘Turn a bloody light on, Will,' he says, eyes on Templeton.