Natalie appeared behind him a few minutes later. “Boo,” she said in his ear, playfully poking him in the ribs and sitting down beside him. Craig had been lost in his thoughts and was momentarily surprised by her sudden appearance.
“Where were you?” he growled, casting a quick glance at her before returning his eyes to his drink.
“I was just in the toilet. Did someone steal our table?” she said, frowning towards the group occupying their table. “Why are you back so soon? Did you lose your mark?”
Craig stared at his second drink, swirling the ice around. “I wish I did.”
Before he could elaborate Bryce joined them.
“Honey, you’re back. How’d you go?” Natalie asked, jumping up and kissing him.
“Not too well. I followed my guys for a while but they were just on a shopping trip. I gave up after one of them tried on his fourth pair of tight leather pants and modeled them for his partner.”
“How’d you go Craig?” asked Bryce.
“I ran into a bit of trouble.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I think I just witnessed a murder,” Craig said with a deadpan expression on his face. Natalie and Bryce looked at each other. Craig finished off his second drink and appreciated the way the alcohol seeped its way into every part in his body and gently massaged and soothed his taut nerves.
“What did you say? You witnessed a murder?” Natalie said with a confused expression on her face, not knowing if he was joking or serious.
“Could you speak a little louder next time? I don’t think the people across the road quite heard you.”
“What happened?” asked Bryce in a barely audible whisper, overcompensating for Natalie’s loudness.
Craig looked around and waited for a couple of young women to move past them on their way to the bar. He took a deep breath and gathered himself.
“Well I was last out. My guy was acting kinda strange, kinda nervous. I knew he was up to something. He kept stopping and checking himself. His collar was pulled up high and he was wearing a baseball cap. Anyway, he took the train to St Peters, walked through Sydney Park and then out the other side into a factory area. I kept following him. And then he went up to a car that was parked there and pulled out a gun. Bang, bang, bang, he shot some guy, as simple as that.”
Natalie and Bryce stared blankly at each other lost for words. Craig just stared into his third drink.
Jen and Grant returned to the bar together and pulled chairs to the table. Jen noticed the blank faces around the table.
“What’s going on?” she said.
Craig was in no mood to repeat his story so Natalie quickly filled them in on what had happened. Jen was near to hysterics by the end of Natalie’s retelling and looked around nervously as if the police would burst through the door and arrest them all at any moment. Grant smiled and stared blankly at Craig, wondering where the punch line was, but it never came.
“You have to go to the police to report it,” said Jen anxiously.
“No way!” Craig retorted sharply. “Do you know what happens when guys with records report murders? I’m not that stupid. I didn’t do anything and I’m not going to report anything. It’s got nothing to do with me and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“I didn’t know you had a record. What’ve you done?” Natalie said, eyeing him suspiciously.
“It was nothing. Just a couple of DUIs and an assault charge when I was a kid.”
“But what if the guy isn’t dead?” asked Bryce.
“Trust me, he’s dead. You don’t get shot three times from close range and live to tell the tale.”
“What happened then? What happened after he got shot?” asked Natalie.
Craig stared at his drink trying to remember.
“I....I don’t really know. I panicked and just ran. I know it sounds stupid, but I can barely remember the next few minutes. My adrenalin was pumping so hard my brain kind of shut down and I just ran like a sissy ten year old schoolgirl. After a while I managed to calm myself down and then I just came back here.”
“Well I still think we need to report it to the police,” said Jen, shaking her head in disbelief. “I mean you’re a witness, you saw the guy. You can give a description or something.”
“And what do I tell the cops?” he sneered derisively. “Maybe I should just tell them that me and my friends were out stalking some people and one of them just happened to murder a guy. Yeah, I’m sure that will go down real well.”
“He’s right,” Bryce conceded. “We don’t need to draw any attention to what we do. There are laws against stalking you know. We could all lose our jobs. Carmichael would definitely sack me on the spot if he found out.”
“Did you get any photos or video of this guy?” asked Natalie.
Craig looked at her as if he didn’t understand the question. “No. No, I didn’t really get a chance,” he replied in an exasperated tone. “I should have, I could have shown you guys, but I just wasn’t thinking straight at the time. And he was always on the move, moving away from me, and after he shot the guy he moved so fast….it was over so quickly.
Grant had been quiet until now. He was still stunned by the news but was trying his very best not to panic and to think his way through it.
“Did you get a good look at him Nat?” The question seemed to surprise her. She tilted her head and recalled the moment from her memory.
“I guess, but it was just a quick look. But as Craig said, he was kinda covered up, kinda mysterious and secretive looking. That was the reason I chose him.”
Nero’s was starting to reach capacity and before long a queue would start to form at the door and the bouncers would begin to earn their money by keeping the numbers inside in line with the prescribed limit. A four piece R&B band had set up their gear on a small stage at the rear of the bar and were doing sound checks on their instruments and double checking connections.
“So what are we going to do?” Natalie asked.
Craig glowered at her under a heavy brow. “We’re all in this together and we’ve all got something to lose if we get dragged into this. We do nothing.”
Chapter 8
It was seven minutes past two in the morning. All was quiet, apart from a noise that kept repeating, nagging, distracting dreams. A phone ringing. As his consciousness struggled to the surface to breath he became aware that the phone was not part of his dream. An eye finally opened, registered the time on the old clock radio beside his bed. He was of medium build, yet strongly put together but not in a pretty, waxed, gym junkie way. He was thirty-five. He sat up and turned the bedside table lamp on, causing momentary blindness which he shielded his eyes from. He turned the lamp on because he guessed what was coming. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn’t be going back to bed and also knew from past experience that remaining in a prone position after finishing a call often resulted in him falling back asleep. He had never quite got used to working nights.
The phone waited patiently for him while he rubbed his eyes. There was no voicemail to offer respite after ten rings or so, you either answered it or you accepted the consequences of missing the call. Earlier in the night he had partaken in a few celebratory beers, give or take several, and now he was beginning to regret it, a little. It had been a slow and tedious week, mostly spent at the Central Local court in the city waiting to give evidence at the long winded trial of a case that had been laboriously dragged through the courts for several years. The guilty verdict of murder, that had been returned by the jurors within two hours of the case being wrapped up had been a relief to all involved except the accused and his lawyer and had been the trigger for the celebration. The case had been particularly traumatic on the Homicide detectives involved. Two young children had been abducted on their way home from primary school and found murdered a week later. The accused murderer was a sixty-five year old neighbour of the children who had used his relationship with the family to lure the children away. All of the detectives involved in the case had been sickened to the core by the abuse of trust and calculated deception of the old man and were hopeful that when sentencing was handed down it would be sufficiently lengthy to ensure the offender would end his days on Earth in a small prison cell.