money, right? So one thing led to -‘
‘Money?!’ challenged Jenny, now turning to Fitzgibbon. ‘Tony and Vi were our friends, they were top people. And you had them killed for money? Screw you, mate!’
‘Hey, watch it, squaw!’
‘ Watch it? You’re nothing better than a corrupt cop, that’s what you are. A person who’s no good at his job so he takes the easy money to undermine the whole show. Screw you!’
Fitzgibbon lost his jauntiness, raised the SIG at Jenny while Rachel looked at Mac. ‘Well, well, McQueen, you had a bird like Diane on a string, and you go for this – what do Australians call it? – this piece of work?’
‘Like she said, Danny.’ He put his arm around Jenny.
‘How do you think that happened, eh Jenny?’ laughed Danny. ‘He walks away from Diane and gets you?’
‘He got lucky!’ snarled Jenny.
‘So,’ said Mac, still wanting more. ‘How did you fi nd us?’
Fitzgibbon laughed. ‘That would be telling, eh, old man? Let’s just say that all bureaucracies leak simple information -‘
‘You already knew Jen’s maiden name.’
‘Yes,’ sniggered the Englishman, ‘but it took someone with a brain to let me know that Jenny’s old cop friend now had a law fi rm on the Gold Coast.’
Mac sighed. The family trust that owned their home had Sian’s fi rm as the registered address.
‘Atkins?’ asked Mac, almost not wanting to hear the answer.
Fitzgibbon laughed. ‘Yep, you can thank Marty, but he was unwitting. Poor fellow had no idea what was going on.’
There was a tapping on the window and the Englishman turned to see a shape against the night sky. Mac grabbed Jenny and Rachel and pulled them down and to the side as the window exploded inwards, glass shards bouncing off his back. When he raised his head, the window was gone and Danny Fitzgibbon was a lump of meat on the rapidly discolouring carpet, part of his head now missing.
Sitting up, the glass fell off Mac as he looked out the jagged window frame, where the large form of Johnny Hukapa hung upside down like a bat, a sawn-off shottie in his hand.
‘Gizza lift, willya, bro?’
Getting to his feet, Mac lifted Jen and Rachel up from the ground, shielding them from the sight of Danny Fitzgibbon as they moved to Johnny, whose right ankle was strapped to the railings of the apartment above.
‘How’d you fi nd us?’ asked Jenny.
‘There was an address on your kitchen table. That was for me, wasn’t it?’
Didge had lost his left ear, a chunk of his neck and a lot of blood.
Johnny and Mac got him onto one of the beds in the apartment and wrapped his head in a sheet, laid him down and hoped he’d regain consciousness. Jenny hit the phone and persuaded the air ambulance to come. When it landed in the park three and a half minutes later, Johnny and Mac carried Didge out to the helo on a litter made of a bedspread. Jenny wanted to be with Mac before she went back into the house, so Johnny said he’d accompany Didge on the fl ight.
They said goodbye and Mac felt so embarrassed that when he tried to thank his friend, no words came out.
‘Take it easy, bro,’ said Johnny, giving him a thumb shake and then touching chests. ‘You’re a warrior, mate.’
And then he climbed into the helo.
CHAPTER 65
Sarah worked in well with her cousins and her sister, and Johnny’s son James. There was a TV and a DVD player in the Chevron Island house, and Pat and Felicity took turns bringing the kids cordial drinks and biscuits while they watched The Wiggles. There was a real Christmas tree in the corner with presents under it, and Mac was busy wrapping up more in the spare bedroom with Pat McQueen.
‘You’re lucky with Jenny,’ said his mother quietly, not looking at him. ‘She’s going to be fi ne with Sarah.’
‘I know, Mum. She’s amazing.’
‘So are you, darling,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I’m proud of you.’
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘A girl needs a dad. And Sarah and Rachel are going to enjoy having each other in their lives.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Mac.
They fi nished the last present – Mac doing the wrapping, Pat tying the ribbon – put them all under the tree and walked outside to where the extended clan was sitting down to eat in the back garden under the frangipani trees. Mac took a seat between Jenny and Pat and marvelled at the set-up. An old cop buddy of Frank’s called Bobby Seavers had inherited a house on Chevron Island behind Surfers Paradise but never used it. On hearing that Frank’s kids were living in Brisbane and the Gold Coast, Bobby had put out an open invitation to his old friends to use it.
Frank came over from the barbecue with the plate of meat. He’d hardly changed since Mac was a kid in Rockie. Still wore a short-sleeved button-up shirt with a pair of teal slacks. Still had those boxy wrists and piercing pale blue eyes that missed nothing. The receding, thinning blond hair was greying and swept back straight off the face, and Mac could see what he’d look like himself in twenty-fi ve years.
‘Get your laughing gear round that lot,’ Frank drawled as he put the chops, steaks and bangers on the table.
‘Oh, Frank! Please!’ said Pat. ‘What will Felicity think of us?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he muttered as he headed back to the barbie to take his apron off and grab his beer.
Pat made a face at Felicity and they both giggled.
Frank stood at the head of the table, the citronella wafting over them, and raised his glass. On Christmas Eve the McQueens took the opportunity to make their toasts and Frank started with his usual: ‘To all the angels who made it and the devils who didn’t.’
Jenny toasted Johnny and Tony and Vi, Mari toasted Jenny for busting the slave sweatshop, and Pat asked them all not to forget Sarah’s mum and Felicity’s daughter, who was still recovering in Jakarta. Mac raised his glass to Gary – who hadn’t made it – and Didge, who was alive but in Southport Hospital for Christmas Eve and probably a long time beyond. Frank reminded them that it was Queensland cops who, in the end, had bagged Hassan Ali in a stolen car somewhere up north on the Burnett Highway. Huck raised his beer, pointed at Ari, and said, ‘Here’s to Ari – the fi rst boyfriend Marama’s had who doesn’t stutter when he meets me.’
Johnny and Ari laughed at one another and Mari pouted. ‘ Dad! ‘
They dug in and one of Virginia’s boys, Charlie, wandered out, complaining that someone wouldn’t let him watch something. So his father, Graham – Mac’s brother-in-law – told him that if he had to come in there and sort it out, the whole thing was going off. Charles scarpered, problem solved.
They got louder as they drank and Ari, who’d been regaling the table with tales of how different the Israeli desert was to the Moscow ice, asked Huck how he had met Frank. The table went silent, the rest of them knowing that Huck didn’t talk about the war.
The two old soldiers stared at each other, and Frank shook his head, ‘Nah, Huck doesn’t want to tell that.’
‘Oh come on, Dad!’ said Mari. ‘I’ve been waiting years for this.’
Huck fi nally smiled, sipped on his beer, and told them how the Kiwi and Aussie SAS were doing the LURP patrols out of the Nui Dat base in South Vietnam during the late 1960s. ‘I knew Frank to say hello but we hadn’t done any patrols together by then.’
‘Hang on, Huck. Dad, you never told me you were SAS,’ said Mac.
‘Yeah, well you’ve spent fi fteen years telling me you’re a fl amin’ textbook salesman!’
The whole table went up in a roar of laughter and Mac sat there and wore it, Johnny slapping Ari with a high fi ve. As the laughter died, Mari said, ‘Go on, Dad.’
