for one of the other residents to pinch my spot. The occasional visitor or Glebe diner-out offends, but they were usually gone by this time. I parked further down the street and walked back with the gun in its holster under my jacket.
As I approached the house a woman came out of my neighbour’s place and walked smartly towards the red hatchback parked in what I considered my spot. I stopped and watched her and she stopped and looked at me. I guessed I must’ve looked threatening at that time of night with the experience of the last few hours showing on my face and a suspicious package under my arm
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I live next door to Clive. My name’s Hardy. We’re mates.’
Relief was apparent in every muscle in her body. ‘Oh, the private detective. Clive’s told me about you. Oh God, I’ve taken your space.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I won’t shoot you.’
She laughed. ‘I should hope not. Sorry again. There was a van pulling out from here when I arrived. I didn’t know it was your spot.’
‘Only by convention,’ I said. ‘First come, first served really.’
‘Well, I’ll be off. Goodnight, Mr Hardy.’
‘Goodnight.’ I stood, debating whether to move my car as she pulled neatly away and drove off. Clive is a taxi driver and we both keep irregular hours and live alone. The woman who’d left was thirtyish, about Clive’s age, and attractive. Good luck to you, I thought. And good luck to me, too. I’d decided to leave the car where it was when I saw Clive standing at his gate and beckoning to me.
I wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but I was always ready to give Clive the time of day or more usually, night.
‘Gidday, Clive.’
‘Cliff. Look, it’s probably nothing, but there was a strange-looking van parked outside your place briefly when Sally arrived. I didn’t think anything of it at first. You’ve had that other young bloke staying. Thought it must’ve been to do with something you’re working on. But he gave me a funny look and drove off like a hoon.’
‘What d’you mean, strange looking?’
‘All colours of the rainbow – psychedelic. What’s wrong?’
My brain snapped on the connections: van – psychedelic design – Damien Talbot. He’d been here!
The tiredness had dropped away as I felt a reaction rise inside me I hadn’t experienced for a long time – that of the hunter becoming the hunted. ‘Tall bloke? Long hair?’
‘That’s him. Anything wrong?’
‘No, mate. Probably not. How long was he here?’
‘In and out I’d say. Well, I’ve gotta clean up and start my shift. ‘Night, Cliff.’
My security is reasonably good. The front door is a solid job, deadlocked. The house is freestanding on one side but the bougainvillea grows so thickly in the front that you’d lose a hell of a lot of skin trying to get through. At the back is a drop of a couple of metres to the lane and there are a couple of blocks of flats opposite with windows looking out. Hard to break into. All clear there. I inspected the front porch as best I could in the dim light but there didn’t appear to be anything of concern – no suspicious parcels, no bodies.
I unlocked the door, turned on the light and saw the sheet of paper that had been slipped under the door. I closed the door behind me and picked it up.
LEAVE ME ALONE OR I’LL FUCKING KILL HER!!!
Capitals in heavy black Texta on a sheet of quarto copy paper.
The adrenaline rush that had hit me outside ebbed away and I felt bone-tired. The ‘her’ had to be Megan and I had no idea of where to look for her. I dropped the holster on a chair, stripped off my jacket and went to the bathroom where I washed my face and hands. I drank three glasses of water and made coffee, keeping my mind a blank. When the coffee was ready I drank half a cup scalding hot and refilled it, then went through to look at the paper again and think.
What if the ‘her’ referred to in the note wasn’t Megan French? Bad images were jumping around in my head: sick women, dead women, women sleeping or maybe dead. Tess.
I swallowed a couple of high-octane caffeine tablets, grabbed my gun and jacket and raced out to the car. I headed back towards Tess Hewitt’s house without any of the caution I’d employed before. If Talbot knew where I lived and where Tess lived what was to stop him hurting her?
With the caffeine kicking in I drove too fast and badly, narrowly missing other cars and shrieking around bends on tortured tyres. I didn’t care and I was lucky there were no cops on the road and that I didn’t encounter anyone as out of control as me. I pulled up outside Tess’s house and sprinted for the verandah, stumbling on the path and almost falling up the steps. I clawed the key out of the flowerpot where I’d left it, unlocked the door and strode through to the bedroom with my heart thundering in my chest and my vision blurred.
She was there. A curled-up shape in the centre of the big bed. One arm lay outside the bedclothes and her other hand was clenched and near her mouth. In my hectic state I didn’t quite believe it. I bent down to make sure I could hear her breathing and only eased back when I heard it and saw the slow rise and fall of her body under the blanket. I must have made some noise because she stirred and changed position. She muttered something I couldn’t catch and then settled back into untroubled sleep.
I was sweating from a combination of emotional reaction and chemical disturbance as I backed out of the bedroom. My mouth was sandpaper dry. I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water and drank it. The Scotch bottle was sitting beside the sink and I poured myself a generous measure and added a little water. I took the drink into the living room and dropped into an easy chair.
I drank the whisky and checked on Tess again. Then I drank more whisky and did another check. I told myself I was there to protect her but I was really there for the comfort of her presence. I acknowledged that just before I fell asleep to the sound of falling rain.
20
‘Cliff. Cliff. Are you all right? What’re you doing here?’
Tess shook me awake from an uneasy sleep that left me with half-remembered dreams and an all-too present crick in my neck. I struggled to the surface and found her standing over me wrapped in her kimono with her hair standing up, tear stains in the remains of yesterday’s makeup. She still looked good and I stood creakily and put my arms around her.
‘It was a hell of a night,’ I said. ‘Things happened after you went to sleep and I had to come back to make sure you were all right.’
‘What things?’
‘Let me get cleaned up and I’ll tell you.’ I was reluctant to let her go and she didn’t seem to want me to. I smoothed down her hair. ‘I’m sorry about Ramsay. I’m very sorry. I feel partly responsible.’
She released herself, backed off and looked at me. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean if I hadn’t started poking around things might not have turned out like this. Probably wouldn’t have.’
She shook her head. ‘No. This goes back before you. Both things – me and Ramsay and the protest. I knew there was something wrong about the Tadpole Creek protest and about Damien Talbot. But the thing had given Ramsay a focus and me too for that matter, and I didn’t want to admit it. You’re not responsible, Cliff. Don’t think that. Have a shower. Ramsay left some shaving stuff here, I think, before he started growing the beard. I’ll make coffee.’
I showered and shaved using one of Ramsay’s disposable razors and a cake of soap. The razor had been used before and soap doesn’t make the best lather. I avoided nicking myself but the result was pretty rough. I tamed my hair with Tess’s brush, but there was nothing I could do about a shirt that had been sweated into, made
