there’s a phoney feel to it.”
He flushed angrily. “What do you mean phoney? Kidnap, ransom.” His anger dropped suddenly away as if he was incapable of holding any strong emotion for long. A dull stupefied look on his face made me wonder whether there was any centre to his character at all under the histrionic shell. He went on lamely: “Do you mean it’s all too, well, dramatic to be real?”
“Not exactly.” I couldn’t tell him what I meant. I didn’t really know myself. I’d been on the sidelines in one kidnapping that had ended the worst way a couple of years back and I’d talked to men who’d been involved in others. I remembered, and had got from participants, a sense of desperation and urgency that wasn’t here now. Still, the terms were clear and so was my responsibility.
“What do you think will happen?”
“I know what you’re hoping for,” I said tightly. “You’re hoping I’ll drop the money and that your girl will come walking out of the mist and I’ll bring her back and you’ll live happily ever after.”
His face twisted into a grimace that was part self-pity, part something else.
“You think I’m soft don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m trying to tell you that kidnapping almost never works out sweetly. Someone nearly always gets hurt and people get changed by the experience. Some people begrudge the ransom money for the rest of their lives.”
“I’ve told you, I’m not worried about the money.”
“Maybe not. That’s not the point. You’re not listening to me. Get ready for something rough. If all I hear about this girl is true you’re in for a bad time whatever shape she comes out of this in.”
The half-hearted anger came back in the form of a pink flush.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
If I’d thought he was working some kind of deal on the case, some tax dodge or any one of the hundred or so reasons people have for setting these things up, I would have tried to break him with the information I had on the girl’s past. But I didn’t think that; he’d accepted a lot of things about her that would have sent most people off in the other direction, fast, and his concern for her seemed genuine, if immature. This was no time for self- discovery. I suspected that the events of the next few hours would stamp him as perpetually young or force him to grow up fast.
“Never mind,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”
He looked alarmed. “You’ll be too early.”
I juggled the car keys in my hand and reached for the briefcase and the bag. James moved quickly across to block me.
I brushed him aside roughly. “Look, there are no rules in this game no matter what they say on telly. It’s a game of chance. You can’t tell what’s the right thing to do and what’s not. But I’ll tell you two things I’m not going to do. One, I’m not going to walk into a park in Balmain after dark carrying a hundred and five thousand bucks without having a look around first. And two, I’m not going to leave myself stranded there with no transport. Sit down. Look, I’ll drive to Balmain, scout around and then get a taxi. Got it? Have another drink. Have a couple.”
He looked relieved. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you your business.”
“You’ve got a right,” I said more gently. “It’s your girl and your money.” He started to speak and I held up my hand. “I know, I know, you don’t care about the money. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you when I know something.”
Thick dark clouds had blotted out the fine afternoon and heavy rain was falling when I climbed into the Celica and stowed the money on the back seat. A strong wind was whipping the rain around and the spray from other cars cut down the visibility. I crept through the city and picked up speed over the Glebe Island bridge where the lighting was good and the roads were clear. I reached Terry Street half an hour before the appointed time, parked the car in a lane and worked up to the edge of the park using what cover I could. The wind bit in through the light parka and the thought of leaving that much money in the car nagged at me. The. 38 inside the jacket where I’d slashed the pocket and reinforced the lining was heavy but a comfort. It was slow to get at it but it was there.
The park runs down from the road to the water and ends in a narrow peninsula with steep, rocky sides. It’s bounded by a residential street on one side and by the Dawn Fraser pool and some gardens on the other. The park is about six hundred yards deep and is sixty or seventy yards wide at its broadest point. The rotunda sits in the middle like a salt dish on a table. I hadn’t seen it for years but I remembered its vandalised wall linings and smashed fittings and it was unlikely to have changed. I moved up from the street to a point behind a toilet block at the edge of the park and peered into the gloom.
Nothing was moving except one of a pair of swings which creaked like a door in a Gothic mansion. The slides and turnabout were weird, inter-stellar shapes against the harbour mist and drops of water splattered down on me from the ancient Moreton Bay figs. I waited and watched for ten minutes then eased back down to the street. I went back to the car, got in and wrote down the serial numbers of the money in Saul James’ bag, then I transferred Tarelton’s cash to the soft bag. I walked up to Darling Street holding the bag and trying to feel confident. A taxi U-turned at my whistle and pulled up beside me, splashing water on my legs.
The driver pushed open the front passenger door. “Sorry mate. Where to?”
I got in and took out a two-dollar note. “Around the block and drop me at the entrance to the park. It’s a two-dollar ride.”
He looked at me quickly, the Sydneysider’s suspicion of parks and perverts showing in his eyes but he shrugged and slipped the car into gear.
“You’re the boss.”
He did the circuit in second and I tried to push an unwanted image from my mind – it was a picture I’d seen of ex-President Gerald Ford looking bulky and unsure in a bullet-proof vest.
I paid off the cab outside the arched sandstone entrance to the park. The pistol butt was cold and hard in my right hand and the plastic handle of the bag was slimy in my left as I went down the short flight of stone steps.
My rubber soles squelched on the wet path as the darkness of the park closed around me. I stared hard ahead of me and around but there was nothing moving that shouldn’t have been. The path sloped down slightly to the basin occupied by the rotunda. I could sense eyes on me and the wind seemed to be carrying the sound of harsh breathing and the smell of fear. I went up the steps to the rotunda. It hadn’t changed, except to be even more dilapidated. A crazy network of slats hung down from the roof and one of its brick pillars was now a pile of rubble spilling out towards the centre of the concrete floor. A pool of water about six feet across and a few inches deep gleamed in the middle of the circular space. I set the bag down in the centre of it and straightened up slowly.
“Very funny mate.” The voice was harsh and thin like a fingernail across a blackboard. “Take the hand out of the jacket and keep it in sight.”
I did what he said. The voice seemed to be coming from the front of the rotunda, low down, beneath my eye level. There was a gap between the floor and the railing with plenty of space to see and to shoot through. I held my hands out wide and empty.
“OK. Out you go and walk down to the water. Don’t look back or it’ll be the last thing you do.”
The voice, still harsh and tight, was steady and sounded as if it meant what it said. This was the part I didn’t like. I backed out, walked around the side of the structure and started down to the harbour. I thought I might have a chance at him when I’d moved down a bit because it was too dark for good shooting and there was some cover beside the path. The idea died when I heard the voice again. It was much closer. He’d moved around and stood at the top of the path, positioned where he had me in a shooting gallery for a hundred yards, targeted against the lights where the peninsula begins to narrow down. He said “Keep going” and I did, concentrating on getting to the lights without any bullets in my hide. I’d gone about forty feet when I heard a noise like a scuffle behind me and I instinctively dropped down. A muffled shout and a sharp crack and a bullet whined off the concrete ahead of me and to one side. I pulled the gun out and started to crawl to a tree. A bullet thudded into the trunk I was headed for and I twisted round and fired back at the rotunda, aiming low. For no reason I could think of I shouted a word:
“Berrigan!”
The response was a hissing curse. A shape loomed up at the centre of the rotunda, a dark menacing shape
