Quota (18 page)

Offshore he could see black boulders breaking the surface at regular intervals. Deep masses of kelp crowded around the boulders, and drowsy-looking seabirds perched on them, ignoring the boat. They'd only been going for a few minutes when Patrick abruptly killed the motor. The nose of the boat came down to level, and the wake caught up to the stern, giving them a last push forward.

‘Milly told me you borrowed the snorkelling gear yesterday,' Patrick said as he lobbed the anchor and its chain over the bow.

‘I did.' Then the long silence, leaving Charlie unsure whether to intrude. ‘What do you call those diamond-shaped fish?'

‘Silver?'

‘Yeah…maybe silver-grey.'

‘Sweep. Were they hanging around in the fizzy water, near the edge of something?'

‘Yep.'

‘Yeah, that's what they'll be. They're very curious, eh. They'll come right up to your mask. Can't understand how people spear em.' He laughed dismissively. ‘Bloody good to eat, but.'

Patrick tied off the anchor rope and took out two handlines. He threaded a greasy-looking baitfish onto the hook and handed the first line to Charlie. ‘So why you going off snorkelling? I thought you were s'posed to be at work down here.'

Charlie recognised that he was being mocked. ‘It's peaceful isn't it. I can see why you do it a lot.'

‘I don't do it a lot,' countered Patrick. ‘I used to. Used to go out all the time, swell, no swell, didn't matter. Other young fellas'd go surfin and I'd go off snorkelling. But things changed with the family.'

Charlie looped the fishing line over an index finger, the way he remembered his father doing. He propped a foot on the bench opposite and studied the sand that had stuck to it, the lines of the bones running towards his toes. He felt a nip at the line and tugged sharply. The line fell still again.

‘You'll need another bait,' said Patrick distractedly. ‘He'll've cleaned you out.'

Charlie retrieved the line and found the hook bare. He took another baitfish from the plastic bag and pushed the point of the hook through its eye. It hung unconvincingly in the bend of the hook and Patrick watched doubtfully as Charlie swung it over the side of the boat and into the water. Just as Charlie settled again, there was a violent yank on the line and he found himself pulling back against a considerable force. He stood up and pulled in loops of line. The fish was kicking and pulsing, taking line back off him as he struggled to regain it. It circled round towards the stern, and down through the clear water he could begin to see a bright shape driving in determined circles. It looked silver at first, just a reflective blob in the green-blue depths. But as it came towards the boat he recognised the side of the fish, its robust head and watchful eye. As it finally broke clear of the surface it kicked a shower of droplets off its tail and he dropped it onto the floor of the boat.

‘Snapper!' cried Patrick, unable to conceal his delight. The flanks of the fish were a delicate pink, intricately speckled with spots of silver and blue. A line of white dots trailed from its gills back to the tail. The big eye rolled slightly as Patrick picked it up and examined the hook in its mouth. He turned the fish slightly so he could push the hook back through its lip. It kicked hard and slipped from his hands. He grabbed it again from the floor of the boat and tossed it in a bucket. For a moment or two he stared at it absently, deep in thought. They both settled back into their positions in the boat as the sun came clear of the cliffs.

‘I'm going to tell you what happened,' he said without looking up.

Charlie was caught off guard. He'd been considering whether to tell Patrick about his encounter with Delvene Murchison, and had decided to leave it alone.

‘What, just like that?'

‘At least this way it's your problem as well as mine. Chuck us the bait.'

Charlie handed him the bait without reply.

‘So we both know I was on the
Caravel
that night,' Patrick began slowly. ‘I was worried about Matt, an' I never liked the whole idea so I wasn't letting him go on his own. We've gone out to Gawleys—it was s'posed to be down off Boulder Point but Matt and Skip must've arranged it different in the end. I didn't notice.'

He flicked the line back into the water and looked out to sea.

‘This is all just over there.' He pointed to the south. ‘So we've pulled alongside because we could see their light over on the edge of Gawleys there. We pull alongside and Matt goes first, climbs over and tells me to tie off. The cabin's forward on their boat, and there's a big undercover work area aft of that. There's a light on in the work area: not the main light you use when you're workin at sea at night, cos that one's a big fluoro. This was just a bulb, and I reckon it was up under the weather cover, so it's not all that bright as he steps over. I remember looking at it, you know, you notice these things. I was thinkin it was odd the way they just had that light on. I remember when Matt had spoken to em on the way out, on the phone, he'd like repeated back to em, you know, I think they'd said to him and he was repeating, that there'd be a light on deck. The fact it was just this little one, well I s'pose I've stopped worryin because I would've thought, they're just being careful, not attractin attention.

‘I couldn't tell from the way Matt was that night whether he thought he was gettin his money out of them, or whether he thought he was gettin some product to make up the difference. See you have to remember the money went in both directions—they'd be payin him commission if they were givin him abs to take up to Melbourne, and he'd be givin them cash if he was getting hydro off em. Anyway, so he steps over, and I turn my back for a second to tie off. I'm movin towards the stern to start there, and Matt's gone over the rail roughly halfway down the side of the boat. I think the last I saw of him he was headed forward, which makes sense I s'pose because he would've been headin into the wheelhouse, expecting em to be there. So I'm tyin off and he yells out that there's nobody there. I think his exact words were “There's no cunt here.”

‘He must've gone forward somewhere, so I come on board and I'm headed that way, and then I notice something on the port side of the cabin. See there's some steel brackets you can use to secure plastic drums. You just stand the drum against the wall of the cabin and you can tighten these steel bands around em and they stay there. The Murchisons' boat is set up for abs, and I've never seen em use them brackets for anything—you'd be more likely to use em for lines or floats or something if you were line fishing or running nets. Anyway, I'm goin past them, and there's a big blue barrel in the bracket, like a screw-top thing that looks a bit like a chemical drum, and I'm thinkin to myself, That's odd, so I unscrew the top. Anyway, it's fairly dark and I stick a hand in there cos I can't see in, and it turns out the thing is packed with vacuum blocks of dope. About the size of a brick but a bit flatter. Dozens of em, all the way to the top. The smell coming out of that barrel was unbelievable. I've never seen so much dope in all me life. So I'm just standin there holdin one, me head's just spinnin, and suddenly I hear like bangs or crashes, and a voice yelling, really worked up, really angry, goin “Where are you fucker?” Then there's a crack, and I know it's a rifle straight away. I drop the brick of dope and at the same time someone hits the light. So it's pitch black and I'm freaking, just freaking. From then on, I'm kind of going on, well I s'pose the memory of what I been looking at just a second before, and I been on their boat once or twice before, so you've got a rough idea of the layout.'

He tugged at his line suddenly and pulled it confidently towards himself. The fish was another snapper, smaller than the first one. He unhooked it and dropped it in the bucket without comment.

‘So I go forward the same way I thought Matt had gone. It's chaos for a few seconds—there's all this runnin around and yellin going on, people crashin into things. I run smack into Matt just on the far side of the cabin, on the gangway, just slam into him. I'm moving pretty fast, but I don't know if he was. We fall over and I wind up sort of lying over his left leg, right next to the opening in the gunwale for the crane. He's breathin real hard, like shallow and fast, and I know they've shot him. I'm hangin onto him and he's tryin to get up and he keeps slumping back down. There's a row of bolt heads in the bodywork right next to us where we fell, and he's grabbin at them and trying to pull himself up and you could tell that somethin was wrong, like he couldn't. And I can't tell where they've got him—it's too dark, and there's blood on me but I can't tell where it's coming from. And I'm tryin to talk to him, just whisperin like, You okay? And he, I don't think he's trying to be quiet, I think he actually couldn't talk, there's just this whistly sound like he's trying to.

‘And we been there for probably only a few seconds and then all of a sudden he gets some words out: he says real clear, he says “Shit, I'm dyin.” And as soon as that comes out of his mouth, it's like they'd been listenin, tryin to work out where he is, and they come bolting towards us—you could hear two sets of footsteps runnin on the gangway. And just as they're nearly on us, Matt's reached up and grabbed at my shirt and he just rolls me sort of across his body and I've stuck a foot out to balance meself and there's nothin there, just space, and I realise he's got me into the gap in the gunwale. So I'm fallin out, and I've got to that point, you know, when your weight's already over the edge and all you can do is fall, and I'm still lookin at Matt like I can't really work out what he's done, and he's just lookin back at me. And I can see it's Skip above him, I can see that fucker's face so clearly. You see a person every day kickin around the town, and after a while you get to know the shape of their head, eh—you play footy with a person, you know the shape of their shoulders. You know how they walk. Anyhow, he's got to Matt but he isn't looking at Matt, he's looking at me. They both are. And Skip's got a gun in his hand, a rifle, sort of holding it down low. And as I'm fallin, he's lifting the gun. Then I remember hitting the water and it's a fair way from the deck, so I've penetrated a bit, you know, and when I look up I can see the side of the hull against the sky, and I head under the keel and swim forward a bit, so I come up between the two boats, just back from the bows. I've stayed on the surface for a sec and got a few breaths in, and then I hear Mick McVean yellin above me and I look up and I can see he's spotted me, so I dive again and just head out into space away from the boats. I got no idea which way I'm swimmin, you know, just trying to get the fuck away from them. They're shooting at me—I can hear it, it's a fucken weird noise, like this
whoosh
, as a couple of rounds go past me in the water. And I'm thinkin to myself, they're expectin me to keep going out from the boats, so I've gone deep instead, and I've got to the reef about twelve, fifteen feet down, and I'm hangin onto some kelp for a sec. But I can't hold me breath as good as I normally do, cos I'm just so wired by that stage, so I come up again, and I spin around looking for them and I can see they're on the other gunwale and they're looking the wrong way, so I get a few more breaths in and I head down again. And as I'm going down I hear the engines start up, you know, very clear through the water.

‘An' I hear the anchor come up, and I've got a really good breath this time, and I just hang there on the bottom, holding the kelp, and I start moving along the bottom nice and slow, and as I'm moving, I hear another round come down: like about three or four feet away, and it makes a click when it hits the rocks. I'm thinkin about it, and I'm thinkin, how the hell do they know where I am? They were lookin the wrong way last time I come up. And then there's one or two more, and they're really close, the big
whoosh
. I can feel the bubbles from one near me ribs as I'm hangin on. And then the clicks when they hit the reef, and I've worked it out all of a sudden, the fuckers have got the fishfinder on. And here's me, I'd be the only fucken thing on their screen, right under them. And I'm runnin out of air, and I'm thinkin this time they've got me cold, I'm fucked, and I gotta come up and they're right above me, but they're still creeping forward, so I come up right behind the props, in the wash, and I reckon that would've lost me for em. They keep goin forward for a while, and I can hear over the engines they're still firin into the water, and they've got the big lights on now, pointing em into the water around the bow where they think I'd be. And I'm just hangin on the surface, dead still, getting me breath back. And they're motoring away from our boat towards the shore, I s'pose they're figurin I'd head for shore so they're just kind of taking that line. Our boat's behind me, but I'm just watchin em, gettin ready to duck under again if they sweep round. It's still pretty dark out there, and they would've had it harder'n me cos they were in among the lights on the deck. So I'm treadin water out there, actually movin a bit further out to sea away from our boat, just tryin to do what I thought they wouldn't be expectin me to do. And then they've got this spotlight out. I can see them working it up and down, lookin for me, and they're still firin out to sea, just randomly.

‘They spot out near me a couple of times, and I go under again, and I can hear the bullets underwater again. They fucken petrified me, those shots. I'm down there and I can feel me heart just going mental. It's a bit hard to describe. But if someone shoots near you in the air, all you know is it missed. You don't have any idea how close it was. In the water, you can feel the bastards rippin past. Anyway, they're bringin the boat around in a big half circle, back towards our boat, and they're still working the searchlight and still shooting, and as they come back to our boat, they turn off the engines and everything goes quiet, and I'm still hangin on the surface and they start calling out, saying stuff like “Gettin tired Paddy?” and “Paddy, we're gonna wait for you boyo, we're gonna fucken do ya boyo.” I remember that one especially. And I can clearly see Mick with the rifle up at his shoulder, shooting out to sea, and he'd go “Cunt!” and he'd shoot, and “Cunt!” and he'd shoot again. He was really worked up.