‘You said you were under pressure.’
‘Impatient people’, Hayes said moodily. ‘Let’s go.’
I turned around and started the motor. ‘I still don’t see why Collinson isn’t in Rio.’
Hayes cleared his throat; it’s true that my car is a bit vulnerable to engine fumes. ‘Collinson’s not finished yet. He’s still trying to hang on and save his skin. He must have some people onside still. On the other hand, he’s worth half a million dead to some others.’
‘Impatient ones.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you sure you’ll get the money?’
‘I’ll get it.’
The roads were clear going south; we went over Tom Ugly’s bridge and I had to watch not to be taken off to the coast too early. Everything south of Rockdale is foreign territory to me. A pair of headlights sat squarely and unwaveringly behind me all the way. I played around with the idea of a wild goose chase on which I could lose Catchpole and Williams, and provoke Hayes into some kind of mistake. There were two things against it: I didn’t think Hayes would make any mistakes and my job was to protect Ray Guthrie. I was going where I had to go anyway. That Ray was going looking for a man who was worth a half million dead, and that I had the gun that might do the job pointing at the back of my head was just bad luck. Deep stuff, Hardy.
As I drove, I thought about Helen Broadway and how she’d react to the call from Jess Polansky. If she was going to have anything to do with me she’d have to get used to such things. Was she going to have anything to do with me? Hi, Mike. How ya doing? I switched to thoughts of Parker and Hilde. Would Parker have displayed my calm, calculated resolve? No. But then, people might be dead who weren’t dead yet, including me. Thinking was getting me nowhere. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be having regrets.
It was a very uncomfortable drive: the big man sitting behind me didn’t fidget, didn’t talk; I couldn’t hear him breathing. I must have slowed down unconsciously, trying to gain time, hoping for a miracle. He might have fallen asleep.
‘Step on it, Hardy. This bomb’ll do a bit more than that.’
The traffic thinned further along, and the road widened- there was no excuse not to pick up speed. We started to reach dark, ill-lit stretches and curvy sections where a sharp braking might shoot him forward… He seemed to read my mind.
‘Undo your seat belt, Hardy.’ He jerked at the fastening above my shoulder. ‘Any fancy stuff, and you’ll go first.’
I undid the belt. ‘I thought we were sort of in this together now. Our interests are pretty much the same.’
‘Bullshit. My interests have never been the same as anyone else’s.’ He gave a short, unpleasant laugh. ‘Ask my wife.’
It was his only venture into humour, and there was nothing warming about it. I drove, trying to interpret his remark. Was he satisfied or dissatisfied with that state of things? It occurred to me that he might be something of a psychologist-here he had me interpreting his cryptic remarks rather than thinking about my own survival.
I ignored a few signs to Sutherland and Cronulla, hugged the middle lane and thought some more about the. 38 and its five cartridges and two inch barrel. A close range gun. I tried to stop thinking about it, in case he really could read my mind. He stirred in his seat.
‘Lose them!’ he rasped.
‘What?’
‘Lose that rubbish behind us.’
‘Jesus, why?’
‘They’re both useless. Lose them!’
I was getting down to the National Park turnoff and trying to remember its configurations from the one time I’d made the drive. I remembered it as an abrupt swing-off, not well lit.
‘Who’ll be driving?’
‘Liam.’
‘He any good?’
‘Ratshit!’
The lights of Catchpole and Williams’s car were a good way back and I could see the trickle of traffic coming up behind them. I accelerated, doused my lights and swung into the left lane, fifty metres before the turn-off. The driver behind me became momentarily confused; I saw his lights waver and then he kept his course. I couldn’t look in the rear vision mirror anymore, because I had to concentrate on holding the road at speed with no lights. I took more road than I should and prayed for no on-coming traffic.
I shot down the turn-off and, passed the rangers’ booth in the middle of the road that marks the entrance to the park. Then the road started to wind and I turned on the lights. I wanted to look back, although the rear vision mirror was blank. Hayes let me feel the gun in the nape of my neck.
‘They’re gone’, he said. ‘Well done, driver.’
18
It’s hard to have a meaningful relationship with a man in the back of your car who’s holding a gun on you. He’d neatly disposed of some of the distractions-in the persons of Catchpole and Williams-I’d been half-counting on, and he seemed full of purpose and resolution. Unlike me. I asked him about the pair who’d chased me in Elizabeth Bay and his reply was an uninterested grunt..
‘Why’d you quit the force, Hayes?’ I asked. ‘You were sitting pretty, weren’t you?’
‘This came up. One of the conditions was that I left the force. They saw me right, don’t worry.’
‘What will you do with the money?’
Mention of money seemed to relax him a bit; he permitted himself the luxury of a scratch.
‘In Queensland you can turn a half million into a whole million pretty fast. And go on from there. If you know the right people. I do.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then the good life, and plenty of it. I’m fifty-four, plenty left in me yet.’
‘Your turn’ll come.’
He gave that abbreviated laugh again. ‘You’re a funny bloke, Hardy. You remind me of blokes I knew in the army- shit scared half the time, but they’d still have a go.’
There was nothing much to say to that; all I could think to do was keep the questions up to him, not be passive, and try to act before he decided I was expendable.
‘You weren’t scared, Hayes? In the service?’
‘No.’
‘Did you know Collinson was in Vietnam?’
‘Yeah, I knew. So was I. Never ran across him that I know of.’
‘What rank did you hold.’
‘Warrant Officer. You?’
‘Sergeant, briefly.’
Lights were coming up behind us fast; Hayes was aware of them as soon as I was.
‘Could be them’, I said.
‘I doubt it. Liam thinks the world ends at Leichhardt-he’d be bushed out here.’
‘What about Dottie?’
‘Dottie only knows one thing. Let them pass and we’ll have a look at them.’
I slowed and let the car pass; it was a nippy Japanese coupe, carrying two young women. The passenger had her arm around the driver’s shoulders. The driver lifted her hand to acknowledge my courtesy and I waved back.
‘Dykes’, Hayes said.
‘None of that in Queensland, eh?’
He didn’t do it at once, he waited until a flat, straight stretch and then he clipped me on the ear with the automatic. I felt the flesh tear, and I swerved.
‘No more jokes. Just drive.’
I drove. I put my hand up and felt the blood on the side of my face. When my ears stopped ringing and the pain had settled to a dull throb, I realised that the blow had had an odd effect on me-I wasn’t afraid any more.
The night was clear with a high half-moon; the park stretched away for kilometres on either side of the road. A lot of the growth was small, coming back after the big bushfires of a few years ago. I had the window half-down and was picking up bush smells strongly and, faintly, the smell of the sea. The sea smell got stronger after we made the first of the turns that would take us to Hacking Inlet. Fifty metres around the turn, Hayes told me to stop. I hit the brakes and pulled on to the gravel. He looked back at the main road and waited. After a minute or so, a car sped past the turn and headed on through the park towards the south coast.