was all neon and glass and aluminium-easy-to-clean surfaces that were still new and bright but would one day become as dull as the old cafe laminex. The place was doing good business. I suspected that a lot of the customers were drivers who were hoping for the rain to stop. Others, shaken up by the accident scene, needed to get off the road for the sake of their nerves. I wasn’t sure which category I was in. I ordered coffee and a hamburger from a uniformed girl behind the counter. No waiting. The stuff was hot and ready to go. I took the polystyrene box into a corner and sat with my back to the road. Maybe I was in category two.
As I sat there I examined my certainty that Paula Wilberforce was hiding at Fitzroy House. I decided that there was no basis for it in fact, just an enormously high probability. It felt right. On the other matter, whether she’d killed Patrick Lamberte and Karen Livermore, I felt no certainty at all. It seemed unlikely, but so did the deaths themselves. Halfway through the hamburger I realised I was hungry. I hadn’t had lunch. I was supposed to take the antibiotics before meals, but what if you didn’t have meals? I took a couple of capsules anyway and washed them down with a second cup of coffee.
I used the toilet and examined myself in the mirror. Pale from lack of sun, a bit hollow-eyed and sunken- cheeked. No oil painting. No photograph. Back in the Land Cruiser with the rain still coming down, I phoned Glen using the gismo. No answer. I phoned the Wilberforce house in Randwick and got Mrs Darcy. I asked her how her patient was doing.
‘Not well, Mr Hardy. The doctor’s been and seems very concerned about him.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Irregular breathing and pulse. He seems to be weakening.’
‘Is he conscious?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s reading and he demands whisky from time to time. The doctor says he might as well have it.’
That was a bad sign. I asked her if he’d mentioned me or Paula. ‘There was something he was trying to remember.’
‘He mentioned you only to ask if you had been in touch. I don’t suppose you have any good news for him? I believe it would help.’
I told her I didn’t, not yet, but that I might have soon. I gave her the mobile phone number and asked her to give old Phil my best wishes. Glen didn’t answer either at Glebe or Petersham. Well, why the hell should she? We were independent adults, weren’t we? Pursuing our own fates. I filled up with unleaded and got back out on the road. It was seven o’clock and the traffic was thinner. The rain slanting down through the beam of the headlights was steady and being moved around by a slight wind. The heater and demister were doing their jobs. I was doing mine, but whether coming up with good news was part of it or not I didn’t know.
As the road climbed the rain began to clear. A few kilometres out of Mittagong it was a drizzle, by the same distance on the other side of the town it had stopped. At Mittagong I turned off the freeway. The sky was clear and the moon was bright and almost full. Even the stars seemed to be giving out some helpful light, but that might have been my imagination-it was just so good to see the rain stop. I found Wombeyan Road at the mid-point of the old route to Bowral and turned off a reasonably wide, reasonably well-lit bitumen strip onto a narrow, rutted track from which the tarmac was fast falling away. After a kilometre or two it gave up trying and became a dirt road.
Tall gums growing along both sides of the road cut down the light and I had trouble locating the lot numbers. Why should the owners bother? Everyone who lived along Wombeyan Road knew who was where, others could please themselves. There was no traffic and I had the feeling that I’d entered an alien landscape and was all alone. City boy feeling. The glimpses I had through the trees of the properties behind them weren’t encouraging. A few dim lights in the far distance; dark shapes, probably cows, on gentle, moonlit slopes-good country for hiding, bad country for searching.
The 4WD’s strong headlights picked up the sign hanging lopsidedly from a tree branch. One of the chains supporting it had snapped and the board had dropped almost to the ground on that side. Years, weather and the Australia-wide rural habit of using signs as rifle targets had ravaged it, but something of its original charm was still visible-a dog and a cat stood nose to muzzle against a background of rolling hills. ‘Fitzroy House Kennels’ was written above them in a ye-olde-English script. The name of the proprietor and the telephone number had been obliterated by bullet holes.
The property had once boasted a white post-and-rail fence. This was now a rotted ruin, rapidly fading to a neutral grey and sagging back towards the earth. The gateposts leaned drunkenly inwards, leaving only a narrow entry. Wide enough for the Land Cruiser, but only just. I steered it through and ran down the eroded track for a few metres before pulling off into the shelter of the scrub beside it. I turned off the engine and the lights and stared out through the windscreen into the silent darkness. One fact about the place I had entered had registered strongly: although the track sprouted high weeds and was overgrown from both sides, other vehicles had passed down it recently.
I stepped down into a cold that I hadn’t really expected. The cessation of the rain had lulled me into a feeling that the outside world was benign. Instead, it was colder than in the mountains. A steady, knife-edged wind blew from the south. It cut through three layers of clothing and chilled my feet immediately. I forced myself to open the back of the Cruiser and search for the things I needed-torch, matches, groundsheet, gloves. My fingers were stiff and clumsy and I fumbled in the dark, touching icy metal and cursing softly when the object proved not to be what I wanted.
I heard it before I saw or felt it: the dog must have growled as it launched itself into a tremendous spring. I reacted instinctively, throwing myself to one side and holding on to whatever my hand touched in hopes that it was a weapon. The velocity of the dog’s leap and the vigour of its attack on the padded thickness of my parka almost pulled me down. It wrenched its jaws free of the material and sprang again, directly at my face. I screamed and threw up my hands. I was holding the soggy, mildewed leather jacket and the dog’s teeth fastened on it. It snarled and let go as it realised that old, wet leather wasn’t fresh meat. I stepped back, still holding the jacket which was now minus a sleeve. I tried to wrap it around my arm in the approved fashion but the dog was on me again, snapping and attacking low.
I kicked it and connected solidly, only enraging the animal. It howled and threw itself at me. I knew that if it got me down I’d be finished; I flailed at it with the jacket, probably howling myself. I felt the weight of the Colt in my pocket and struggled to get it out while the dog backed off with another chunk of leather and lining in its jaws. I got the gun free and when the dog jumped again I hit it as hard as I could, bringing the gun butt down on its head. The blow glanced off bone and gouged into an eye socket. The dog seemed to turn in midair and attack again without having touched ground. I pounded the gun against the side of its head, mashing an ear. It snarled and grabbed my ankle. I beat down at it, feeling bone and flesh turn soft and pulpy until its grip relaxed.
I leaned back against the Land Cruiser breathing hard. My breath made clouds of steam in the icy air but I was sweating. Perspiration trickled down my body. My hair was prickling all over my scalp and I could feel the adrenalin pumping through me like an electric current. The dog twitched and thrashed, then lay still. It was a big, yellow dog. I like dogs, but the feeling has to be mutual. Years ago I had to shoot one that was attacking me. This was worse, and there was a single thought in my head: are there any more of them? I wasn’t sure I could go through it again.
The phone bleeped. I staggered around to the cabin, jerked open the door and picked up the instrument in my left hand. My right was locked around the Colt as if it would never let go.
‘Yes.’
‘Cliff, it’s Glen. Are you all right?’
‘I’ve just beaten an attack dog to death.’
‘My God, where are you? I’ll get some people to you. Cliff, where are you?’
‘I’m OK,’ I said.
‘You’re not. You sound terrible. Cliff…’
She was right. I wasn’t OK. My pulse was racing and the sweat was freezing on my body. I was trembling as I stood there and I didn’t know whether it was from the cold, or fear or relief. All I knew was that I was going on with what I’d started.
‘I’m OK,’ I said again. ‘Don’t worry.’ I slammed the phone back into its housing.
No more yellow, snarling shapes came hurtling from the darkness. The wind blew steadily; the light scrub
