‘Lose that rubbish behind us.’
‘Jesus, why?’
‘They’re both useless. Lose them!’
I was getting down to the National Park turnoff and trying to remember its configurations from the one time I’d made the drive. I remembered it as an abrupt swing-off, not well lit.
‘Who’ll be driving?’
‘Liam.’
‘He any good?’
‘Ratshit!’
The lights of Catchpole and Williams’s car were a good way back and I could see the trickle of traffic coming up behind them. I accelerated, doused my lights and swung into the left lane, fifty metres before the turn-off. The driver behind me became momentarily confused; I saw his lights waver and then he kept his course. I couldn’t look in the rear vision mirror anymore, because I had to concentrate on holding the road at speed with no lights. I took more road than I should and prayed for no on-coming traffic.
I shot down the turn-off and, passed the rangers’ booth in the middle of the road that marks the entrance to the park. Then the road started to wind and I turned on the lights. I wanted to look back, although the rear vision mirror was blank. Hayes let me feel the gun in the nape of my neck.
‘They’re gone’, he said. ‘Well done, driver.’
18
It’s hard to have a meaningful relationship with a man in the back of your car who’s holding a gun on you. He’d neatly disposed of some of the distractions-in the persons of Catchpole and Williams-I’d been half-counting on, and he seemed full of purpose and resolution. Unlike me. I asked him about the pair who’d chased me in Elizabeth Bay and his reply was an uninterested grunt..
‘Why’d you quit the force, Hayes?’ I asked. ‘You were sitting pretty, weren’t you?’
‘This came up. One of the conditions was that I left the force. They saw me right, don’t worry.’
‘What will you do with the money?’
Mention of money seemed to relax him a bit; he permitted himself the luxury of a scratch.
‘In Queensland you can turn a half million into a whole million pretty fast. And go on from there. If you know the right people. I do.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then the good life, and plenty of it. I’m fifty-four, plenty left in me yet.’
‘Your turn’ll come.’
He gave that abbreviated laugh again. ‘You’re a funny bloke, Hardy. You remind me of blokes I knew in the army- shit scared half the time, but they’d still have a go.’
There was nothing much to say to that; all I could think to do was keep the questions up to him, not be passive, and try to act before he decided I was expendable.
‘You weren’t scared, Hayes? In the service?’
‘No.’
‘Did you know Collinson was in Vietnam?’
‘Yeah, I knew. So was I. Never ran across him that I know of.’
‘What rank did you hold.’
‘Warrant Officer. You?’
‘Sergeant, briefly.’
Lights were coming up behind us fast; Hayes was aware of them as soon as I was.
‘Could be them’, I said.
‘I doubt it. Liam thinks the world ends at Leichhardt-he’d be bushed out here.’
‘What about Dottie?’
‘Dottie only knows one thing. Let them pass and we’ll have a look at them.’
I slowed and let the car pass; it was a nippy Japanese coupe, carrying two young women. The passenger had her arm around the driver’s shoulders. The driver lifted her hand to acknowledge my courtesy and I waved back.
‘Dykes’, Hayes said.
‘None of that in Queensland, eh?’
He didn’t do it at once, he waited until a flat, straight stretch and then he clipped me on the ear with the automatic. I felt the flesh tear, and I swerved.
‘No more jokes. Just drive.’
I drove. I put my hand up and felt the blood on the side of my face. When my ears stopped ringing and the pain had settled to a dull throb, I realised that the blow had had an odd effect on me-I wasn’t afraid any more.
The night was clear with a high half-moon; the park stretched away for kilometres on either side of the road. A lot of the growth was small, coming back after the big bushfires of a few years ago. I had the window half-down and was picking up bush smells strongly and, faintly, the smell of the sea. The sea smell got stronger after we made the first of the turns that would take us to Hacking Inlet. Fifty metres around the turn, Hayes told me to stop. I hit the brakes and pulled on to the gravel. He looked back at the main road and waited. After a minute or so, a car sped past the turn and headed on through the park towards the south coast.
‘Just making sure’, he said. ‘Let’s go.’
The road ran flat and straight for a few kilometres, then there was another left turn and a winding descent to Hacking Inlet. The surface was rutted, and I had to grip the wheel hard on some of the turns. We bounced and I wondered if the Chiefs Special would fall out. It never had before. I wanted a drink very badly.
The weekenders and holiday houses trickled out along the road from the main settlement, but Phillips was right, the place had none of the signs of being cut up into fish finger blocks the way most of the coastal towns are. Here the trees predominated in wide, deep, seclusion-giving belts between the houses. It was very quiet, and I imagined I could hear the beat of the sea against the sand over the car noise. I drove down until I reached the centre of the township-a general store-cum-petrol-station-cum-pub-a couple of hundred metres back from the beach. It was set in a clearing with a playground and picnic benches around it. A big aviary stood in the middle of the playground; dark shapes hopped and flapped behind the grill. I pulled up by a petrol bowser and felt the cool metal on my neck.
‘Well?’
‘This is Hacking Inlet. I’ve never been here before. The Gregory’s doesn’t cover it, and I’ve only got the name of a lane, not a detailed map.’
‘So?’
‘So we look for the town map or we find someone to ask.’
We got out of the car; I’m a city man, but I felt like a country man beside Hayes. I was wearing jeans, a collarless ex-navy shirt and sneakers, he had on his business clothes and business shoes. Dry leaves crackled loudly under his feet us he walked across the clearing.
‘Map might be up by the store there’, I said.
He judged the distance; a wide verandah ran along the front of the building which was built up on high brick foundations. From where we stood its whole length was visible, framed against the pale moonlit sea. He smiled and lifted his gun.
‘Go ahead, Hardy. Go on up and look-I could put one in your ear from here.’
I walked over, and climbed the wide wooden steps up to the verandah. It would be a nice place to sit and have a quiet drink in pleasant company, now it felt like a rifle range. My foot hit a beer can lying on the verandah and sent it clattering over the edge. I froze, then looked back at Hayes. He wasn’t doing anything stagey; he wasn’t standing with his legs spread and his gun arm out supported by the other arm. He was just there and watching.
