property.’
‘Good stuff fibreglass,’ Cam said. ‘Doesn’t rust. Poisons you but it doesn’t rust.’
‘Turn round, let’s get back there,’ I said.
Cam didn’t blink, braked gently, changed down. Inside twenty seconds, we were heading back to Gary’s aunty’s farm.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Cam said. ‘I like surprises.’
As we went down the track to the farmhouse, I said, ‘Around the back. Got a torch?’
Cam pointed at the glovebox. I opened it and found a slim black flashlight. We got out.
‘Up there,’ I said. Cam’s eyes followed mine to the water tank.
We climbed the small hill, buffeted by the wind, getting wet. A path led up the side of the cutting, taking us to a position above the tank, looking down at its slippery top, at the manhole cover.
‘Why?’ Cam said.
‘Rusty water coming out of the kitchen tap,’ I said.
‘Could be coming from somewhere else.’
We looked down on the farmhouse. There were two corrugated-iron rainwater tanks, one on either side of the house.
‘No gravity down there,’ I said, stepping gingerly onto the tank, taking careful steps to the cover.
I put the flashlight in my mouth, knelt on the wet surface. The cover had a moulded handle. I pulled at it and it came off easily, almost causing me to slip sideways.
I put my hands on the tank, leant forward, looked into the opening.
Pitch dark. Smell of decay.
I took the flashlight out of my mouth, found the button, switched it on, pointed into the tank.
‘Christ.’
He was looking at me, lying on his back in a few centimetres of dark water. His mouth was open. Part of his lower jaw was missing, a congealed mess with pieces of white bone showing. His shirt was dark, the colour of the water he was lying in.
He’d been standing in the tank when he was shot. Shot several times from above. By someone who had walked him up to the tank at gunpoint, made him climb into it, leaned over the hole and shot him.
Gary Connors?
No. I could see his top teeth, good set of top teeth, no gold canine.
‘Nasty?’ asked Cam.
I nodded, got to my feet, took the steps back to land.
I had the photograph in my wallet. I got it out, handed it to Cam with the flashlight. He stepped over to the manhole, casual, confident steps, knelt, shone the torch into the tank.
He coughed, looked over his shoulder at me, non-committal look, examined the photograph, looked into the tank again.
‘Him, I’d say,’ he said. ‘Rings on the little fingers.’ He put the cover back, found a handkerchief, did a careful wipe. ‘Your bloke?’
‘No. Dean Canetti.’
We went back to the car. ‘Kitchen tap,’ Cam said, offering his handkerchief. ‘And anything else.’
I went inside, uneasy, wiped the kitchen tap, the back door doorknob.
Outside, Cam was leaning against the car, smoking, looking at the outbuildings. There was an air of menace about the place now: a man had been murdered here. Executed.
‘Bloke shot in a tank,’ he said. ‘Changes the way you see a place.’
We looked at each other. Without saying anything, we walked over to the feed barn, skirting the pools.
The big door came open under protest.
Walls of hay bales fallen, come apart. A mound where a broad aisle had been.
Cam went over to the pile, took a broken bale, pulled it off the heap, another, another.
I joined him, pulling hay away, getting hay all over my clothes.
Cam stopped.
I stopped.
Cam took his right foot back and kicked the hay.
Something solid.
Another grab of hay.
The tail-lights of a car, a dark-grey car.
In seconds, Cam had uncovered the back door, tried it, locked.
The front doorhandle, more scrabbling, Cam pulled it open.
The body came out sideways, falling into the hay, bringing with it a powerful smell of putrefaction.
For a moment, I thought I was going to be sick, swallowed, stood back.
Cam looked into the vehicle.
‘Another one in there,’ he said. ‘Head shot.’
‘Going bald?’
‘No.’
I kicked away some more hay from the back of the car, stood back, found a pen and wrote the registration on the palm of my left hand.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Put the hay back first,’ said Cam.
Heavy rain, sheets of water, began to fall as we turned into Sligo Lane. ‘Nice rain,’ Cam said. ‘Hate to have to change these tyres. Japanese tyres.’
I sat in silence, trying to think calm thoughts, until I felt my heartbeat return to normal. Then I took out the tiny mobile, looked for the On button, found it, paused.
No.
I put the phone away.
‘Think of anythin else,’ Cam said, ‘don’t tell me. Goin home now.’
The trip home was sedate, just under the speed limit all the way. I got Cam to drop me two blocks from Taub’s.
‘Thanks for the company,’ I said. ‘Not the best sort of outing.’
‘Could have been worse,’ said Cam. ‘Last outing like this I went on with you, a bloke hit me with a shotgun. Often. Kicked me too.’
‘There’s that,’ I said.
‘Anyway, I never went on this trip.’
‘Unless you went alone,’ I said.
35
Charlie was back, hobbling around. I did an hour’s work on the Purbrick construction, then stepped out of sight, switched on the tiny mobile and punched one-two.
It rang three or four times.
‘Yes.’
‘Dave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Recognise the voice?’
‘Yes.’
‘Use names on this thing?’
‘Yes.’
‘I found Canetti. Dead. Shot in a water tank on a property belonging to Gary near Warrnambool.’
‘Oh shit,’ said Dave.
