didn’t like keeping things from him, but then, he was certainly keeping things from me.
I got to the appointed meeting place ten minutes early and hung around looking for signs of dirty tricks-people the old-time detectives would have called wrong ‘uns, male or female, or weapons stashed in rubbish bins or in the shrubbery. It all looked clean. Stafford and Sharkey arrived on time and sat at one of the tables nearest the coffee shop door. There was a sports store opposite and a short covered walkway into the mall. One of the other three outdoor tables was occupied by a woman with a child in a pram. People were going in and out of the shopping centre. Not a lot, but enough. The area was paved and clean-a few drifting leaves, the odd bit of paper.
‘There’s no table service, boys,’ I said as I marched up to the pair. ‘Allow me. Whatll you have? Water for you, Sharkey?’
‘Don’t fuck around, Hardy. Where is he?’
I checked my watch. ‘He’s being fashionably late. We can’t sit here without buying something.’
‘Long blacks,’ Stafford growled, ‘and he’s got five minutes, tops.’
I went into the coffee shop, ordered four long blacks and watched out through the window as they were prepared. I carried them out on a tray just as Hampshire arrived. He was dressed smartly-grey three-piece suit, tie, high-shine shoes-and he was leading on a leash the nastiest-looking dog I’d ever seen-a pink-eyed, pig-snouted pit bull.
‘What the fuck is this?’ Stafford roared.
‘Just a little insurance, Wilson,’ Hampshire said. He sat and tied the leash to his chair.
I was so surprised to see the dog, so appalled by its ugliness, that I took my eye off Sharkey. He’d retained some of his ring quickness-I’d been wrong about that. In no more than a couple of seconds he was back with a baseball bat he must have grabbed in the sports store. He took one swing, timed it perfectly as the dog leapt at him and crushed its skull. Blood, brain matter and bone sprayed in all directions as the dog gave a strangled groan and collapsed. Women and children screamed, men yelled. Sharkey had almost overbalanced with the violence of his swing, but he recovered quickly and Hampshire was clearly his next target.
I launched myself, carrying the table and its contents with me, and cannoned into Sharkey when he was halfway through his swing. He staggered, lost balance again, and I was up before him. I hit him with a right hook as low as I could reach. Not quite low enough: it hurt but didn’t disable him. He sucked in air, ignored my next punch and grabbed me by the jacket, pulling me close. He was roaring, spitting, and the saliva hit my face, but he was still a boxer and his instinct was to punch. I brought my knee up hard and caught him solidly in the balls. He yelled and lost his grip as the strength drained out of him. He was still dangerous though, reaching for the baseball bat. I picked it up and slammed it into his right kneecap.
I was breathing hard. That kind of violence affects people in different ways-some become half demented, others stay icy calm. I was somewhere in between. When I looked around I saw that the area had almost cleared, with a couple of people pressed back against the walls and some coffee shop patrons with their noses stuck to the glass. There was no sign of Stafford or Hampshire. I grabbed a napkin from the ground, wiped down where I’d gripped the bat and dropped it. The place was a mess with the dead dog and a writhing Sharkey, broken crockery, upset furniture and spilt coffee mixing with the blood. I walked away.
A man and a woman came down the path from the street and stopped when they saw me.
‘Call an ambulance,’ I said. ‘Bit late for the vet.’
I drove to the office and, as I’d half expected, Hampshire was waiting for me in the street.
‘Got anything to drink up there, Hardy?’ he said. ‘I need something after that.’
‘Wine,’ I said.
‘That’ll do.’
We went up and I poured us each a decent slug of the rough red. Hampshire socked it straight down and held out the paper cup.
‘Take it easy,’ I said as I topped him up.
He drank only two-thirds this time. ‘Did you ever see anything like that in your life?’
‘Not exactly, but I’ve seen worse-substitute a woman for the dog.’
‘My God.’
‘You’re playing with rough people, Paul. What was the idea?’
‘I felt I needed protection.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were so… capable.’
‘Where did you get the dog?’
‘The same place I got the car, from a friend. One of the few I’ve got left. I guess I won’t have him anymore.’
I drank some wine and felt it soothe me. ‘You didn’t really intend to negotiate a deal with Stafford, did you?’
‘No. I just wanted to size him up, see how serious he was. I didn’t get the chance.’
‘He’ll come after you, mate. He’ll turn the town upside down.’
‘I know. I’ll have to leave. I’m not safe here.’
‘You’re not safe anywhere. Does anyone else know where you’re staying? I don’t even know.’
‘Just the police.’
I groaned. ‘Stafford’s got a few of them in his pocket. There’s a place in Glebe I’ve put people in, a motel. They know the score. It’s the best I can come up with for the moment. Where’s your car?’
‘Down in St Peters Lane-illegally parked.’
‘No time to lose. I’ll get you to the motel and then we’ll think it through.’
‘I have to piss.’
I showed him where and told him to be quick about it. He wasn’t. When he came back he gulped down the rest of his drink. ‘Sorry, I guess I know why they say shit-scared.’
I took the ancient sawn-off out of the cupboard and we went down the stairs, me leading. I could almost feel the way his feet faltered on the steps. A very frightened man and I wasn’t sympathetic.
St Peters Lane is a narrow one-way street with a sharp bend halfway along, and it’s bordered on one side by a high stone wall surrounding a church property. There’s no parking, no footpath, and it doesn’t take you anywhere you can’t get to more comfortably by another route. That day there were a few cars jammed up against the wall. Not unusual. Joy-riders stole cars in the suburbs to get into the Cross and then dumped them; bombs out of registration, stripped of their plates, found a temporary home there.
Hampshire was struggling to regain his composure and confidence.
‘Where are you?’ he said.
‘Forbes Street.’
‘I’ll follow you.’ He jiggled his keys, pointed to an iridescent blue Holden ute fifty metres away, and headed towards it.
Just then a big 4WD came screaming around the bend, going the wrong way, accelerating. Hampshire didn’t have a chance. The bulky vehicle hit him full square, lifted him up and threw him against the high church wall like a bull tossing a toreador.
The shottie was useless and, when I reviewed the scene in my mind later, I got no solid impressions of the vehicle or the driver. A dun-coloured Land Cruiser, maybe. Baseball cap, sunglasses, maybe. I went across to where Hampshire lay in a spreading pool of blood. There was no pulse. His body was broken almost everywhere it could have been broken and his head was pulped, with the face nearly obliterated. The church wall was smeared with blood and the pink-grey of brain tissue.
I went back to my office, stowed the shotgun and called the police.
PART THREE
17
