“Yeah,” Sunday grunted. “Maybe.”
The girl had stopped sobbing and was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t fathom. I was conscious again of the mess I looked, but that wasn’t what was on her mind.
“You came down here looking for Ricky did you?” she said.
I turned to her. “In a way…”
“Is that a gun you’re wearing?” My coat was open and the shoulder strap was showing. I adjusted it.
“Yes.”
“You were too late gubb, someone else got him first.”
“What’s that?” Sunday snapped at her.
“Ricky was shot.” Her voice started to break then she gathered it up again and went on hard and cold. “By a shotgun, in the face and the chest, close up.”
Sunday swore and the woman started praying again. Sunday led me off to the kitchen. I started to apologise for the tactless remark but he brushed the words aside. He ripped a piece from a greyish sheet hanging over a chair and handed it to me. I ran some water in the sink, wet the cloth and mopped at the back of my head. The cloth reddened up and got sticky. I wrung it out and mopped a bit more. I washed my hands and flicked the water off into the sink. I put the cloth in the kitchen tidy. Sunday watched, saying nothing. Up on the wall behind him was a photograph of Dave Sands, a newspaper shot of him wearing a championship belt, blown up to poster size. His dark, handsome face looked angry, as if he was thinking that being the champion didn’t mean a damn thing.
“Sorry I upset your uncle,” I said.
“S’all right, you’ve got a job to do.”
“Is he Ricky’s father or what?”
“Uncle, real close, his mother’s brother. What are you going to do now?”
“See the cops, see the body”
We shook hands. We had some sort of understanding but it was pretty fragile. I walked out through the living room. Rupe was sitting at the table smoking, the woman was sitting like stone in her chair. The girl had gone. They ignored me and I went down the passage and out the front door.
I was more cautious about getting into the car than before but the girl sitting in it wasn’t trying to hide. She was huddled against the window on the passenger side. I got in and settled down beside her about three feet away. White men have to be careful about sitting in cars with black girls in this part of the city and one gun under my coat and another under the dash didn’t make me feel any safer.
She asked me my name and I told her.
“I knew that white bitch would get him into trouble.” Her voice was thin and bitter.
“What did they talk to people about down here, Ricky and Noni?”
She looked at me. In the dim street light her eyes gleamed dark and cold.
“Are you going to look for whoever killed him?”
“It might turn out that way.”
“Let me know when it does, I might help you.”
I started to say something but she raged at me.
“Look, they fucked, got off, got pissed. She liked gang bangs, Ricky said. He was teasing me. Jesus.”
She started to cry again; her thin shoulders shook and her breath shuddered in and out with a thin, reedy sound like papers being shuffled. I wanted to reach over and comfort her but it was the wrong move at the wrong time. I felt for my tobacco and remembered that I’d left it inside the house.
“What was Ricky to you Penny?”
“Nothing, worse luck.” The childish expression seemed to stop the crying. “He was wrapped in Noni. She came down here from Paddo or wherever the fuck she lives and I wouldn’t see him…” She pulled herself up in the seat until her back was ramrod straight. In that position there was just a suggestion of swellings under her sweater. In profile there was a slight heaviness to her face that suggested strength and stubbornness. She swung her head around, the heaviness disappeared but the strength was still there.
“Take me to Bare Island, I want to see Ricky.”
Her voice was steady with no note of hysteria in it and I couldn’t think of any reason not to do as she said. She didn’t look like someone who had to ask permission to go out at night. I started the car and drove off. I took a quick look at her. She was staring out the window as the familiar places whipped past in the dark but the look on her face made me think that she was about ready to leave La Perouse.
6
Bare Island is connected to the rest of Australia by a hundred yards of old wooden causeway over a rocky deep water channel. A wind off the ice cap was blowing in all directions at once and whipping up the spray from the water and blending it in with the drizzle when I drove down to the foreshore. I rummaged in the back of the car and found a yellow plastic slicker for me and an ancient, mouldering duffel coat which I gave to Penny. We coated up and ran to the police truck parked near the beginning of the causeway. Two cops were sitting in the truck and I pounded on the glass of the driver’s window as we flattened ourselves against the side trying to get some shelter. The window came down and the occupant swore as some rain whipped into his face.
“What the bloody hell do you want?”
I’d seen his face down at police headquarters on one of my not infrequent and ill-starred trips down there. I dug deep for the name that went with it.
“Evening Mr Courtenay,” I said. “Nice night?”
“Yeah great, who’re you?”
“Hardy, private enquiries, I’ve seen you down at Brisbane Street.”
“Yeah? Who do you know there?”
“Grant Evans.”
It wasn’t a bad name to throw around just then. Grant had recently got a promotion and men on the way up sometimes take others up with them. Courtenay wasn’t unimpressed, as the writers say. I thought I’d better move in on him quickly.
“This is Penny Sharkey,” I said, guessing. “She’s a relative of the dead boy.”
The other cop leaned across and looked out. “I can see that.”
“Shut up Balt,” Courtenay snapped.
I looked at Balt. The collar on his gabardine overcoat was turned up and some wisps of straw-coloured hair stuck out from under his hat. His head was long and his eyes were as pale as an arctic night. When the migrant rush from Europe got going after the war we called them all “Balts” wherever they came from, but this one looked like the genuine article.
“What’s your interest, Hardy?” Courtenay asked.
“I’m on a missing persons case – girl. She was last seen with Simmonds. I hear she was on the spot but isn’t around now. Thought I’d come and have a look here and ask you about the girl.”
“Did you now?” Balt rasped. “What about her?” He jerked a thumb at Penny. His hostility was undisguised and probably stemmed from trouble he’d had himself as a migrant. Race prejudice has a pecking order and the Aborigines get no-one to peck. Balt seemed to be the wrong man on the wrong job, or perhaps the cops thought he was just right for it.
“I thought she might be able to help,” I said mildly. “She saw Simmonds this afternoon, might spot something important now.”
It was lame, I knew it, Courtenay knew it, Bait didn’t even listen.
“Who’s your client?” he rapped out. “Who’re you looking for?”
“Ease up, Balt,” Courtenay soothed him. He looked down at the girl who was huddled inside the duffel coat. The talk had washed over her like a wave of nothing. The water drops in her hair glistened in the light from the inside of the truck. She looked stoical and immovable, able to outlast us all.
“I heard he was on the rocks. Still there?”
Courtenay nodded. “Down on the rocks outside the wall. The place is a fort. You know it?”
