soon as he was properly over the side. He gave Milo a nod, slipped the light from his belt and unhooked the camera. I was unfamiliar with the apparatus, and clumsy, but I helped him to shuck off the tank. When he pulled off the mask his face was unnaturally white and his lips were drawn back in a tight, jaw-locked grin.
“You okay?” I said.
He gulped and nodded. “There’s some brandy down in the cabin. I could do with a belt.”
I went down and got the bottle of Tolley’s brandy. I uncapped it and Ray took a big swig. I did the same and held it out towards Milo. He shook his head.
“Not while he’s driving,” Ray said.
We were skipping across the water, passing Kirribilli where the red light was still blinking. Ray had another drink.
“Well?” I said.
Ray towelled himself off and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. “Three of them. Could be more. But three was enough for me. Short chains to plugs of some kind. They’re all wrapped in canvas. I touched one. Squishy. Pretty close together. More or less in the dead set middle under the bridge. Jesus, Cliff, you should’ve seen them. In the light. Sort of… half-floating, half-hanging there.”
I started to say something about being sorry to put him through it, but he didn’t listen. He looked out at the water and the land and drew in several deep breaths, as if trying to cleanse his insides. Then he shivered and went below to get changed.
Milo had another cigarette going and I was tempted to ask him for one. I resisted. I hadn’t earned the right to the weakness. It wasn’t me who’d seen the canvas shrouds. That led me to think of the camera. I picked it up and then heard Milo clicking his fingers. I handed the camera to him.
“You get what you wanted?” he said.
“Worse than I expected, apparently.”
“Must be, to shake Ray up. He’s a tough bastard.”
“I know. That’s why I…”
He held the wheel with one hand and examined the camera. When he was satisfied he set it down at his feet. “He got a few shots for you. Could be they’ll come out OK.”
“I want to thank you for your help,” I said. “I felt pretty edgy out there.”
“That’s all right. Sorry I got shitty. I felt as if the fuckin’ bridge was going to fall down on us.”
We were well out in the channel, in choppy water, making for Bradleys Head. I passed the brandy bottle to Milo. “Have a drink,” I said. “I’m sure you know your way back from here.”
16
The brandy bottle travelled back and forth a few times on the passage to Middle Harbour. Ray changed his clothes and had one of Milo’s cigarettes. He was pretty shaken and I was sorry I’d put him through it.
“What was Paul talking about just before I came in?” he asked.
“He was telling your mother and me how things were when they built the bridge.”
“How were they?”
“Bloody hard, and dangerous.”
Ray rubbed a towel over his head but oil and grease from the harbour water remained. He looked at the towel. “Harbour’s filthy. Weird, isn’t it? The water was probably very clean back then but they treated workers like shit. Now the workers get a fair go and the environment’s a great big toilet.”
I agreed that it was weird.
“What happened to those blokes? I suppose they were blokes?”
The question hadn’t occurred to me: were the daughters of the bridge builders also under threat? I was too tired and stressed to give Ray a full answer. I just told him that the bodies were those of missing people and that there was some connection with the bridge. “I can count on you to keep quiet about this, Ray, can’t I?”
“Absolutely. Milo too. And don’t insult me by offering me money.”
“What about Milo?”
“He won’t be insulted.”
I gave Milo fifty bucks and thanked him for his help. “Sure,” Milo said. “What’s next? Do we climb Centrepoint?”
“Don’t laugh, Cliff,” Ray said. “He could do it.”
We stowed the gear and Ray shut and locked the hatches and doors on the boat. Milo said goodnight, jumped up onto the dock and walked off. I heard a car engine start and tyres gripping gravel. Ray said he’d have a shower in his parents’ house and go home. “Paul’ll wake up no matter how quiet I am,” he said. “Want to see him?”
I considered. “I wouldn’t want to disturb him.”
Ray stepped onto the dock and juggled the camera as he helped me up. “No problem. He sleeps so light you wouldn’t believe it. He’d be happy to say good-night, or good morning, or whatever the hell it is.”
We walked through the semi-tropical garden the Guthries had growing between their house and the water. It wasn’t nearly as cold here as out on the harbour and I pulled off the woollen cap and the parka. Ray was still rubbing grease from his head when we went into the house. He went away to shower and I hung the parka on a peg by the back door. Almost as soon as the water started to run, Paul Guthrie appeared in the hallway.
“What’s the time?” he said.
“I don’t know. About four.”
“Find what you were looking for?”
I nodded.
“You want some tea?”
“I never drink tea, Paul. I’ll have some coffee if you’re making. How come you wake up so easily?”
He grinned. With his crewcut hair sticking up and his trim body wrapped in a smart, Asian-print dressing- gown he looked like a fit fifty-year-old. “Used to be from worry, when I agonised about business twenty-four hours a day. Now, I don’t know. I think I just like it. I get up for an hour or so most nights. It’s quiet, and you can think clearly.”
We went through to the kitchen and he put water on to boil. We sat on stools and waited. “How did it go tonight?”
“Good. Ray comes through, doesn’t he?”
“Always. He’s sound. Pat’s always worried that he or Chris’re going to show signs of going to the bad, like their father. I tell her it won’t happen and I reckon I’m right.” The water boiled and Paul made tea for himself and instant coffee for me. The shower was still running.
“Ray came up looking like a Channel swimmer,” I said. “Grease in the water.”
Paul shook his head. “It’s a crying shame. You wouldn’t believe how dirty the harbour and the coast have got. Well, you have to believe it, after all the publicity. But I’ve seen it happening over the years. Couldn’t get anyone to listen-councillors, politicians. Hopeless bloody bunch.”
I sipped the hot, milky coffee and felt it blend warmly and comfortingly with the brandy in my stomach. My mind was tired but still working sluggishly on the case. “I don’t suppose your father’s still alive, Paul? I need to…”
Guthrie snapped his fingers and jumped off the stool. “That’s what I have to do. That’s why I got up. Hang on.”
I drank some coffee. The shower stopped running. Guthrie came back carrying a thick book. “You only missed Dad by a few years,” he said. “Lived into his nineties. After you left I got to thinking about the bridge and all that. I hunted around and found this.” He held out the book. “It’s Dad’s scrapbook on the bridge. He kept it for years, from the time he captained the tug and until after the opening. Thought it might be useful.”
The scrapbook was an old-fashioned seaman’s log with clippings and papers pasted to the leaves. It was only about an inch wide at the spine but four inches wide at the edges of the leaves. Some of the clippings had been too big for the page and were folded over; others had frayed and torn edges. I turned over a few pages and
