Peter Corris - Beware of the Dog

‘What’s the trouble, Cliff?’

‘You wouldn’t want to know. But if you can fix me up with a four-wheel drive, a tent and a primus stove it’d be a big help.’

‘Serious problems can’t be solved by material things, mate.’

‘Terry,’ I said. ‘Don’t. Just don’t.’

Wanda turned out to be a big blonde woman of about Terry’s age or a few years older. Everything about her shrieked ‘Mum’, but Terry seemed to lap it up. He told her about how I’d cracked the stolen car racket and how I had a penchant for old Falcons with defective heaters and no cassette player. Wanda smiled indulgently at me and touched Terry every chance she got. They fed me on Wanda’s vegetable soup and home-made bread and then Terry took me across to the lot.

The staff had finally knocked off. It took Terry ten minutes to deactivate the alarm system. Wanda hadn’t had any effect in that department. His operation had expanded since I’d last seen him. He had a big service area and an imposing customer lounge. There weren’t many cars around which I took to be a good thing, business-wise.

‘I can let you have a Land Cruiser, Cliff. How long would you be wanting it?’

‘A week at the most.’

‘That’ll be OK. Did you say you wanted camping gear?’

‘A bit. Nothing fancy.’

‘D’you want a mobile phone?’

An hour later I was on the road. I had a one-man tent, a groundsheet, foam-rubber slab, sleeping bag, parka, thick gloves, tilly lamp, torch, binoculars, a Panasonic camera with zoom lens, primus stove, matches, a thermos full of soup and a half bottle of Johnny Walker red label. The Land Cruiser had a full tank of petrol and was running smoothly. I turned on the radio and caught the nine o’clock news but there was nothing about Sir Phillip Wilberforce. I wondered how he’d made his money and how much there was of it. I could feel the folded photograph in my pocket. It was my only glimmer of a lead in the Wilberforce case. It would be useful to ask Sir Phil about it, Dr John Holmes also, possibly. No chance of that for now.

I punched the radio buttons as I drove. The quiz on the ABC station held me for a few minutes when I knew some of the answers and lost me when I didn’t. I ran through a blizzard of commercials, religion and talk-back until I got Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto on FM. It’s one of the few classical pieces I can listen to without drifting off into thoughts carnal or mundane. The First Movement, great stuff. I tapped my totally unmusical fingers on the steering wheel and began to feel better. The night was clear and the traffic was light. The heater worked. I was heading for the pure clean air of the Blue Mountains. If I’d had any solid idea of what I was going to do when I got there I’d have felt almost in charge of my life.

I stopped at Emu Plains and bought some supplies at an all-night service station-bread, cheese, instant coffee and milk. Also a detailed map of the Blue Mountains. I studied it carefully, approximately locating the Lamberte block. The four acres appeared to be well out of the town and reached by several roads of ever-decreasing importance. Verity Lamberte had mentioned Bells Line of Road and the railway. There was a valley between them and the block. The Electricity Commission had a track through it to service overhead power lines and there were several fire trails.

It was cool in Emu Plains, it would be colder in the mountains. I filled a plastic water bottle I’d found in the back of the Cruiser. I bought a cup of coffee, spiked it with the whisky and sipped it slowly. When I couldn’t put it off any longer I called Glen on the mobile phone.

‘I got your note,’ she said quietly. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’m sorry. I think this is the way to do it.’

‘It’s not. You’re being stubborn and stupid. Where the hell are you now? Not that you’ll tell me.’

‘Glen, all the explaining, the paperwork, the sitting about would take up days. I’ve got things to do. If nothing works out I’ll come in. I promise.’

‘Meanwhile that crazy woman is running around with your gun.’

‘So she’s still got the gun, has she?’

‘Yes. How many rounds were in it?’

‘Eight.’

‘Terrific. She put one in her dad and shot off another six or seven.’

‘Which? six or seven?’

‘They don’t know. D’you see, Cliff? She might have one bullet left.’

‘Shit.’ The phone buzzed with static.

‘Cliff! Cliff! What’s all that? Are you using a car phone?’

‘Yes. How’s Wilberforce?’

‘Weak, in and out of it. But they say he’ll pull through. Seems to be a tough old bird. It’s a weird family, but I suppose you know that.’

‘No, I know bugger-all about them. This whole thing has just sort of blown up around me. I can tell you one thing, Wilberforce hired me to find his daughter.’

‘You don’t say. Big news. They found the cheque book. They’re not totally stupid. But finding a cheque stub made out to you for a grand hasn’t exactly helped you so far, Cliff.’

‘Look, love, I just can’t be of any use right now. If I could talk to Wilberforce…’

I let it hang there. She didn’t respond. We both knew that there was no way to bring that off. I could feel her hostility and anger. Telephones don’t facilitate calm and understanding.

‘That means you have got some ideas. Please, Cliff, let me come and see you. We can talk…’

‘No, Glen. Give me a couple of days.’

‘To do what, where, for Christ’s sake? Do you know who I feel like? Who I sympathise with?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Your poor starving fucking cat!’

She hung up. I clutched the dead handset and looked out through the windscreen at the highway. I could pull out onto it and head back to the city. Talk to Glen, get into bed with her. Do a deal with Detective Inspector somebody-or-other in the morning. Tell them what little I knew. Get myself side-lined. I couldn’t do it. I started the engine and headed for the mountains. Every kilometre produced a new rationalisation and justification. No-one could talk to Wilberforce until he was better-therefore, the photograph wasn’t any use. Paula had either one round in the. 38 or none. If none, fine; if one, she might not even know about it. If she did know she’d probably think long and hard about using it. Wouldn’t she?

I remember seeing a mini-series in which Michael York played a German doctor who’d been forced to do bad things by the Nazis. He’d got to Australia illegally and was working in a Gippsland timber camp. The script forced him into utterances like, ‘Der air is like vine.’ By Blackheath the mountain air was like wine all right, but very cold wine. There was an almost full moon, no clouds and a strong chilly wind. I stopped for a piss in a public toilet and the wind cut straight through my jacket and shirt. It seemed like a long time since I’d been out of the city and, despite my problems, it was exhilarating to feel the mountains all around, with more trees than houses and the sky huge and clear overhead.

There was almost no traffic on the road on the rest of the drive up to Mount Victoria. I shut down the heater because it made me drowsy. I turned off the radio as well and denied myself the swig on the whisky I would have welcomed. This was no holiday, no pleasure jaunt. Unless I was smart and careful I’d be spotted immediately, transported to Sydney and subjected to that peculiar scepticism that cops acquire through their mother’s milk or start learning from their first day on the job.

Mount Victoria was still and quiet. The last train had left and the lights were out in the pub and the couple of large guest houses on the edge of the town. The residents were inside around their fires and potbelly stoves and TV sets. The blue light outside the nice old double-fronted police station was glowing but the building was in darkness. I rolled on through and took the Mount York Road. All street lighting ceased after two more right turns and then I was on the thin, rutted track called Salisbury Road that ran past the Lamberte holding.