‘You hit him and killed him,’ I said.
Tom was sitting on a chair in the kitchen. His face was chalk white and his pleated drill trousers and smart white cotton shirt had dirt and vomit on them. I was having trouble stopping myself from hitting him again.
‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘He fell over and hit his head on the table. The old bugger had a weak heart. He died of a heart attack.’
I’d covered Bert with a sheet, but his shirt had been buttoned to the neck. ‘I bet you did a lot to help him.’
He shrugged.
‘I had a look at that bruise. I reckon you clocked him with the frying pan when he tried to stop you getting the gold.’
He was rapidly regaining his cool. ‘You’d have a fuckin’ hard time proving that.’
He was right but I had to push him a little more.
‘The way you came at me, that was because you knew you’d killed him.’
‘Crap. That was because you were going to stop me from taking what’s mine.’
I had the solution right then and I smiled. He didn’t like the smile much. ‘You think it’s yours, do you?’
‘I know it is. My dad, my real dad told me about it. It was his, now it’s mine. Even if it was his,’ he looked down at Bert, ‘it’s still mine. I’m his heir.’
‘Your father was a conman and a pimp and a thief and probably worse. If you think you’re going to get anything out of this you’d better think again.’
He summoned up enough courage for a sneer and felt in the pocket of his shirt for his cigarettes. He got them out and I knocked them flying across the room. I put my hands around his thin neck and pulled him to his feet. I gripped beside the carotid arteries. ‘A good squeeze and you go out for twenty minutes. That’s long enough for me to take you down to the water and drown you.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
I increased the pressure. ‘You’re a worthless piece of shit. It wouldn’t worry me one bit.’
‘It’ll leave marks, like…’
‘The frying pan? Maybe, if they found you. But that wouldn’t do you much good, would it.’ I squeezed almost enough to cut off the blood supply, enough to give him a taste of it.
‘Don’t. Please, please, Mr Hardy.’
I eased up a fraction. ‘The alternative is you do everything I say. One refusal and I swear I’ll drown you and anchor you to the bottom. And I’ll wait until you’re awake to do it.’
‘Okay. I’ll do what you say. Okay.’
I had him load all the gold into the back of Bert’s 4WD, including the ones he’d already put in his Monaro. Then he drove the vehicle down to the boat ramp and got the dinghy into the water. By the time he’d loaded the gold into the dinghy he was almost too tired to row but he was too scared not to. When he was utterly exhausted I got him to lie face down in the boat. He blubbered but he did it. I started the outboard and took the dinghy well offshore. Then I made Tom take off his shirt while keeping his head down. I made a solid blindfold from the shirt and tied it hard around his head.
‘Sit up!’
He groped and shuffled onto the seat. I took an oar and jabbed it gently into his crotch. He winced and I left it there. ‘Now, one by one, you take up those bits of metal and you drop them over the side.’
It took a while and the sun was fierce in the sky. By the time he’d finished his neck and shoulders were bright red from sunburn and his tears had soaked through the blindfold.