I examined the tree. All I know about trees is that their roots lift and crack the tiles at my place, they get into the pipes and the leaves clog the guttering. Still, I like them well enough to have sympathised with Young and Ivens.
‘You said bastards-plural. Wouldn’t it be a one-man job?’
‘Don’t think so. Easy enough to drill and pour, but-’
‘Someone has to hold the torch.’
He chuckled. ‘Right.’
‘You reckon they know what they’re doing. Sounds as if you’ve studied up on this.’
‘I have. The internet’s a wonderful thing. That’s why I can tell when the next attack’s likely to happen.’
‘If you can do that, you’ve practically done my job for me.’
He beckoned, ‘Come over here.’
He showed me two trees in the next row close to the dying one. I couldn’t see anything wrong with their trunks, but he scratched with a Swiss Army knife and revealed the drill holes. He caught the material he’d dislodged in his hand.
‘Cunning buggers sort of puttied them up.’
‘More evidence that they know what they’re about.’
‘Yeah, but I’m reminded of a couple of my clients who tried to be too bloody smart.’
Ivens set about carefully repairing the damage, using the blade, the stuff he’d trapped and saliva. I let him have his moment of triumph and looked back towards the line of houses, a cluster really, that would benefit from the enhanced view. Something about them struck me as odd, but I couldn’t pin it down.
Ivens finished his repair work and indicated to me that it was time to go, so we started back through the scrub.
‘As I said, Mr Hardy-’
‘Cliff
‘Cliff, I’m Chester-never liked it but I got stuck with it. As I said, this retirement stuff’s got whiskers and I’m glad to have something interesting to deal with. I’d be pleased if you’d come back to my place, have a drink and I can sort of spell it out for you.’
‘Glad to, Chester,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a feeling you’re going to be even more useful.’
Ivens’s flat was a duplicate of Youngs but it was set up in a very different way-much less neat, many more books and state-of-the-art TV, stereo and computer gear. He said he was having trouble filling in the time, but he was giving it his best shot.
‘I’ve become fond of vodka and tonic,’ he said after he’d shown me around. ‘What would you say?’
‘I’ll be in it. Thanks.’
In the kitchen he took the Smirnoff and Schweppes tonic out of the fridge with a tray of ice cubes. He sliced a lemon. ‘I like to make a good strong one and have it last. I find I drink less that way.’
The drink had a kick all right, welcome at the end of the day. Ivens sat down at his computer and I pulled up a chair, prepared to be bored as his fingers tapped the keys. I’m slow with this stuff, he was fast. He found the webpage he was looking for.
‘This pretends to be conservationist,’ he said, ‘but that’s bullshit. It’s really a manual on how to poison plants. The thing is, these people we’re dealing with are following its prescriptions precisely-where to drill, what to use. It’s not a one-off operation, you understand. Takes time and this site spells out the right intervals.’
He was scrolling down as he spoke, too quickly for me to follow, but I could see where he was heading.
‘I’m beginning to get the drift,’ I said. ‘You know when the last holes were drilled so you know when they’ll be at it again.’
He spun around in his chair with his drink in hand. We clinked glasses.
‘Got it in one,’ he said.
According to Ivens’s calculations, the attack on the trees would take place in two or three days. I thanked Ivens, reluctantly refused another souped-up vodka and tonic and left.
Two or three days gave me time to recruit Hank Bachelor to help me do the job and to hire some equipment that would film the action in the dark. Naturally, Ivens couldn’t tell me whether the poisoners would do their thing late at night or in the early hours. It was mid-June, pretty cold at night, and it wasn’t likely that there’d be anyone around after dark. It looked as though Hank and I would have to stake out the place from about eight o’clock to a bit before dawn.
‘Jesus,’ Hank said when I told him. ‘I came to this country to be warm. Now you’re talking about down jackets, gloves and earmuffs.’
‘You came here because you couldn’t bear to live in the same country as George Bush.’
‘That’s true, but I wasn’t figuring to freeze my butt camping out.’
‘All good experience. I once spent a night in a car with no blanket halfway up Mount Kosciuszko.’
‘You better lay on the coffee and bourbon.’
On the first of the favoured nights we took up our positions, checked our equipment and waited. And waited. We worked our way through two thermoses of coffee and a good bit of Jack Daniels. It was dark and cold and a bit creepy with things rustling in the trees and the scrub. Nothing happened.
We arrived a bit after eight the following night to find what turned out to be four men in two teams. One pair spread out just inside the patch of scrub. Hank’s eyes are sharper than mine; he spotted them first and pulled me down.
‘Two guys up ahead,’ he whispered, ‘and I can see two more-one on the left and one on the right.’
‘What re they doing?’
‘Watching.’
‘Think they’ve seen us?’
‘Can’t tell, but they’ve got weapons. Baseball bats, maybe.’
‘What about down by the trees?’
‘Could be a faint light showing, not sure. What d’we do, Cliff? Call the cops?’
‘They’ll be gone before the police could get here.’
‘Wait up,’ Hank said. ‘I can hear something.’
Oh to be that young. His ears picked up the soft hum of a drill. He demonstrated the action.
‘Shit,’ I said, which wasn’t much help.
After a couple of minutes a voice cut through the night loud and clear: ‘Keep your distance and you won’t get hurt.’
Hank poked his head up. ‘They’re in a group heading off towards the road up thataway. Think I see four. Taking their time. Reckon we should follow?’
I stood, easing stiff muscles and joints. ‘They’ll split up. No point.’
For what it was worth, Hank filmed the departure of the men. Not my finest hour.
The hardest part was telling Young and Ivens.
‘That’s bad, Cliff,’ Ivens said. ‘They’ll only need another couple of treatments and the next one’s not due for a month or so.’
We were in Youngs flat and he was looking pretty deflated. ‘They must’ve been watching,’ he said, ‘and they saw you and Chester sniffing around.’
‘My fault,’ I said. ‘That was careless of me, but I think I’ve got an idea.’
‘What?’ Young said.
‘It’s to do with the number of people they had on the job, and something I spotted the other day just clicked in my head when I arrived this morning.’
‘Care to elaborate?’ Ivens said.
‘I’d rather not in case nothing comes of it and I look silly, again.’
The two men exchanged glances. ‘We have faith in you,’ Young said.
That didn’t make it any easier.
One householder wanting a better water view doesn’t employ four men. Someone had a big stake in the poisoning. The thing that had been niggling me for the past few days was triggered into clarity when I took a closer look at the properties affected by the killing of the trees. I’d thought of them as a cluster, perched up in a series of interlocking cul-de-sacs, and that was accurate. The houses in what might be called the front line were all substantial, well-maintained residences, obviously their owners’ pride and joy. So were most of the places further back, but off to one side in the third street was a row of houses showing wear and tear. I’d noticed them almost subliminally at first, because my house has some of the same signs-shaky guttering, overgrown garden, faded fence. Now I drove up to take a closer look.