Wet Graves (17 page)

“What, Paul?” Pat had put her cup down and was staring at her husband.

Guthrie rubbed his hand across his face. He looked around his comfortable, well-appointed sitting room as if he could hardly believe in the reality of his surroundings. “One thing in particular. I can see it now, and I still don't like to think about it. Dad had taken me to the fabrication workshop. It was where Luna Park is now. They built big sections and took them out on the barges. They used a hot-rivet method.”

Pat shook her head. ‘You've lost me.”

Guthrie's eyes seemed to retreat into his skull. “They heated the rivets up, almost to liquid point, then they spooned them across to the rivetter who had heavy gloves and tongs. He lifted the bit of red-hot metal out and banged it into place. It was incredibly dangerous.”

“This is in the workshop,” Pat said, “not …”

“They did the same up on the structure. Tossed this red-hot metal around as if it was putty.”

“It sounds sort of … Dickensian,” Pat said.

Guthrie struggled up out of his recollection. “How do you mean, love?”

“Well, like workhouses, sweated labour, children down the mines … that sort of thing.”

Guthrie shook his head. “No. It was nothing like that. Not as I recall it. The reverse, if anything. The men were happy, cheerful, laughing. Anyway, this time I remember, a rivet jumped out of the dish, or slipped from the tongs. I don't know. It happened so quick. The rivet hit him somewhere around here.” Guthrie touched his thigh. “And it burned through his overalls and went down inside them. He was screaming and screaming … Dad grabbed me and pulled me away.”

Ray Guthrie's head appeared around the door. “We're on,” he said.

15

Three hours later I was sitting in a boat under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Not exactly under, a bit to the side and near the north shore, but close enough. Aboard were Ray Guthrie and another man whom he'd introduced as Milo. Like Ray and me, Milo was wearing a parka and a woollen knit cap and trying to expose as little of himself to the cold air as possible. It had been very cold on the run from Northbridge to this point. Here, somewhat sheltered from the wind, it wasn't so bad. But the people in the restaurants—the Imperial Palace, picked out in lights, and Doyles at the Quay, spelled out in blue neon—were showing a lot more sense than us.

I was mindful of Pat Guthrie when I asked Ray how dangerous the operation was likely to be.

“How d'you mean?”

“Oh well, sharks, getting tangled up in something under the water, electric cables …”

Ray laughed. “Hear that, Milo? Electric cables. Listen, Cliff, we've got only two problems.”

I could hear Milo chuckling as he did something with ropes. “They are?”

“One, the water police come along and ask us what we're doing. That's your department.”

“Two?”

“Some amateur could come along and hit us. That's Milo's department.”

“Ready, Ray?” Milo said.

“Yeah.” Ray went into the little cabin of the boat and came back a few minutes later in wetsuit and flippers. Milo helped him to strap on a tank while they adjusted his goggles and talked about pressure and currents.

I stared around me, feeling extraneous. I could hear a pontoon mooring creaking over on the Quay side and there was a red light blinking on the near shore. I couldn't identify the light. The city loomed up on both sides, towers of partly lit steel and glass. The surface of the water was dark but fairly calm. At least I wasn't asking him to go down in the middle of a howling gale. I still didn't feel good about it, though. What would I say to Paul and Pat if …?

“Cliff,” Milo said, “we got no problem about the light.” He gestured to a tube Ray had tucked in his belt and a camera enclosed in a rubber case and fastened to his arm with a heavy elastic strap. “That's an Ikelite modular job—the best. Hard to say what the visibility'll be like. Could be a couple of metres, could be more. Depends on the particles in the water. If it's bad the light won't help much. Be like headlights coming at you through a dirty windscreen. But we could be lucky. Pictures might be a bit of a problem.”

“Do the best you can, Ray,” I said. ‘You might not see anything anyway.” I'd explained to Ray that I wanted him to explore the area immediately under the bridge for as much of the four-hundred-metre stretch as possible, but concentrating on the middle. I told him what he was looking for; it didn't seem to worry him. I didn't ask him how he'd know where he was once he was under the water. Apparently it wasn't a problem. Ray dipped his mask in a bucket of water and flapped it around. Then he pulled it over his face and took two froggy steps to the side of the boat. I thought he'd do a back flip, like Lloyd Bridges used to do in
Sea Hunt
, but he just climbed over and slipped down into the dark, lapping water.

A bit of threshing on the surface and he was gone. Milo started the engine and the boat puttered across to the Milson's Point shore. “Can't stick around out there like a shag on a rock.”

“Won't he need a marker or something? How's he to know where he is?”

“He'll come up to five metres or so and look up at the bridge lights. Vertical visibility under water's better than horizontal. He'll be right. Fifteen metres, twenty at the most. Piece of piss. Don't look so worried, Cliff. Ray's a top scuba man. Top.”

“What about you, Milo?”

“I'm pretty bloody good, too.”

“You'd better be,” I said, “because there's no way I'm going down there if he gets the cramp.”

Milo laughed.' “If he gets cramp he comes up. It's only fifteen bloody metres. He's not going to get the bends.”

I granted. “People drown in the bath.”

“Jesus, you're a happy one. Australians're supposed to be cheerful bastards.”

“No,” I said, “that's Greeks.”

He laughed again. I was the funniest act on the harbour that night. It was too late for the ferries, and there was nothing else moving on the water. I could hear the intermittent ramble of traffic on the bridge above and an occasional crash from the container wharf at Mort Bay. Milo lit a cigarette and hummed as he made adjustments to the line hanging into the water. He checked his watch and started the engine.

I was too nervous to have any idea of the time. “How long's he been down?”

Milo held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “About this much of his tank. Don't worry about him. We just gotta watch for trouble up here.”

The red light fascinated me. I located it in Kirribilli, where the prime minister and the governor-general sometimes live. I wondered if they were there tonight, perhaps together, toasting the revolution. Probably not, on all scores.

“Need any help there?”

The voice, amplified through cupped hands, came from a man sitting in a dinghy a few feet away from our boat. He'd shipped one of his oars and was using the other to keep the dinghy more or less stationary. On closer inspection, the boat was something more than a dinghy. It was wider and flatter-looking and had provision for a sail and a couple of large lockers built into the structure. Milo shone a torch on him, and he lifted a dark-gloved hand to block out the beam. He was wearing a tracksuit and sneakers and a long peaked cap that kept his face shadowed. He wasn't young.

“We're fine,” I said. “How about you?”

“Just rowing about. Habit of mine. Don't see too many people around here at night. Would you think me too rude if I asked what you're doing? Free to refuse to answer, of course.”

His voice was that of a man habituated to politeness, but it didn't cut any ice with Milo. I hadn't thought nerves were part of his makeup but he showed I was wrong. “We're minding our own business, mate,” he growled. “Why don't you do the same?”

The rower slipped his oar into the rowlock and pulled away expertly without responding.

“Bit rude, Milo,” I said “What's the matter?”

“Bloody nutter. I dunno. This place gives me the creeps.”

It was getting to me, too; I realised for the first time that the bridge was blocking the light from a low-lying half-moon, leaving us in a deep, inky shadow. “Where do you reckon Ray is now?” I said.

Milo shrugged. “What would you have told that old joker?”

“I was just starting to think. Probably would have told him I was a private detective hired to find something that'd been dropped overboard from a Balmain ferry.”

“Fuck me,” Milo said. “What a bullshit artist.”

We were saved from falling out even further by a noise in the water. Ray surfaced about twenty metres away and swam towards us. Milo started the engine. I helped Ray climb aboard, and we were moving away as soon as he was properly over the side. He gave Milo a nod, slipped the light from his belt and unhooked the camera. I was unfamiliar with the apparatus, and clumsy, but I helped him to shuck off the tank. When he pulled off the mask his face was unnaturally white and his lips were drawn back in a tight, jaw-locked grin.

‘You okay?” I said.

He gulped and nodded. “There's some brandy down in the cabin. I could do with a belt.”

I went down and got the bottle of Toller's brandy. I uncapped it and Ray took a big swig. I did the same and held it out towards Milo. He shook his head.

“Not while he's driving,” Ray said.

We were skipping across the water, passing Kirribilli where the red light was still blinking. Ray had another drink.

“Well?” I said.

Ray towelled himself off and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. “Three of them. Could be more. But three was enough for me. Short chains to plugs of some kind. They're all wrapped in canvas. I touched one. Squishy. Pretty close together. More or less in the dead set middle under the bridge. Jesus, Cliff, you should've seen them. In the light. Sort of … half-floating, half-hanging there.”

I started to say something about being sorry to put him through it, but he didn't listen. He looked out at the water and the land and drew in several deep breaths, as if trying to cleanse his insides. Then he shivered and went below to get changed. Milo had another cigarette going and I was tempted to ask him for one. I resisted. I hadn't earned the right to the weakness. It wasn't me who'd seen the canvas shrouds. That led me to think of the camera. I picked it up and then heard Milo clicking his fingers. I handed the camera to him.

“You get what you wanted?” he said.

“Worse than I expected, apparently.”

“Must be, to shake Ray up. He's a tough bastard.”

“I know. That's why I …”

He held the wheel with one hand and examined the camera. When he was satisfied he set it down at his feet. “He got a few shots for you. Could be they'll come out okay.”

“I want to thank you for your help,” I said. “I felt pretty edgy out there.”

“That's all right. Sorry I got shitty. I felt as if the fuckin' bridge was going to fall down on us.”

We were well out in the channel, in choppy water, making for Bradleys Head. I passed the brandy bottle to Milo. “Have a drink,” I said. “I'm sure you know your way back from here.”

16

The brandy bottle travelled back and forth a few times on the passage to Middle Harbour. Ray changed his clothes and had one of Milo's cigarettes. He was pretty shaken and I was sorry I'd put him through it.

“What was Paul talking about just before I came in?” he asked.

“He was telling your mother and me how things were when they built the bridge.”

“How were they?”

“Bloody hard, and dangerous.”

Ray rubbed a towel over his head but oil and grease from the harbour water remained. He looked at the towel. “Harbour's filthy. Weird, isn't it? The water was probably very clean back then, but they treated workers like shit. Now the workers get a fair go and the environment's a great big toilet.”

I agreed that it was weird

“What happened to those blokes? I suppose they
were
blokes?”

The question hadn't occurred to me: were the daughters of the bridge builders also under threat? I was too tired and stressed to give Ray a full answer. I just told him that the bodies were those of missing people and that there was some connection with the bridge. “I can count on you to keep quiet about this, Ray, can't I?”

“Absolutely. Milo too. And don't insult me by offering me money.”

“What about Milo?”

“He won't be insulted.”

I gave Milo fifty bucks and thanked him for his help. “Sure,” Milo said. “What's next? Do we climb Centrepoint?”

“Don't laugh, Cliff,” Ray said. “He could do it.”

We stowed the gear and Ray shut and locked the hatches and doors on the boat. Milo said goodnight, jumped up onto the dock and walked off. I heard a car engine start and tyres gripping gravel. Ray said he'd have a shower in his parents' house and go home. “Paul'll wake up no matter how quiet I am,” he said. “Want to see him?”

I considered. “I wouldn't want to disturb him.”

Ray stepped onto the dock and juggled the camera as he helped me up. “No problem. He sleeps so light you wouldn't believe it. He'd be happy to say goodnight, or good morning, or whatever the hell it is.”

We walked through the semi-tropical garden the Guthries had growing between their house and the water. It wasn't nearly as cold here as out on the harbour and I pulled off the woollen cap and the parka. Ray was still rubbing grease from his head when we went into the house. He went away to shower and I hung the parka on a peg by the back door. Almost as soon as the water started to run, Paul Guthrie appeared in the hallway.

“What's the time?” he said.

“I don't know. About four.”

“Find what you were looking for?”

I nodded.