Peter Corris - Beware of the Dog

I was measuring the distance and thinking about hopping over a rocky outcrop and sliding down a lightly timbered slope, when I was saved from folly. A Land Rover came chugging in from the road and negotiated the track down to the parking spot in front of the woodpile. A man got out. He was tall and trimly built, wearing country clothes-jeans, boots, heavy sweater-that managed to look at once smart and fashionable. He fitted the description Verity Lamberte had given me of her husband-tall and well-built with greying brown hair, receding at the temples.

It was his attitude that clinched the identification for me though. He looked utterly at home, completely proprietorial. People who own country land tend to behave as if their title extends over everything they survey-far out to sea if they occupy a coastal headland, to the horizon in the outback. Lamberte clapped his gloved hands together and stamped his feet. His breath plumed in the cold air. He talked animatedly and waved his hands about, while pointing in this direction and that. Then he went around to the other side of the Land Rover and opened the door. The woman he handed down was a tall blonde.

At first I thought it was Paula Wilberforce and I almost shouted with surprise. I did make some kind of noise and I pulled back fast behind the nearest large rock. I recovered and took a good look through the glasses. Lamberte and the woman were unloading the back of the Land Rover. She had the Wilberforce build and hair, but her face was fuller and she was a few years older than Paula. The pair looked comfortable together, as if they’d done this sort of thing many times before, which had to make you speculate about what else they’d done before. Lamberte unlocked the back door and they ferried in their cardboard boxes, overnight bags and bundles. Two trips each and they were done. The door closed behind them. A short time later, a puff of smoke issued from the chimney and made me realise how cold and lonely I was.

There was nothing to be gained by staying where I was. It was only just past seven o’clock, too early to start hanging around the Post Office. I stared at the cabin door willing someone to come out, something to happen. Nothing did. I remembered Verity Lamberte’s statement about Patrick-’attractive to women and likes to take advantage of it’. I guessed that was what he was doing right now. He wasn’t likely to come out and start chopping wood. I scrambled back down the rocks, timing myself. It took about four minutes to get down, maybe twice that long to get up. So what? I didn’t know. It was just something to do.

Anyway, it seemed like a safe time to move the Land Cruiser. I drove back along the fire trail towards the service track. As near as I could judge, I couldn’t be seen from the cabin. When I reached the service road I turned in the other direction and did a little exploring. There were several tracks through this part of the valley and one led up to the highway. So there were two ways in to my spy point. I tried to make finding that out feel like an achievement. I sneezed violently several times as I drove and I could feel a cold building inside my head. Great for surveillance work.

I drove into town and killed time buying petrol, tissues and a newspaper. There was a small item on the Wilberforce shooting. His condition was unchanged; the police still wanted to interview the driver of a Falcon seen in St Marks Road some time before the shooting. I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror as I climbed back into the Cruiser. My hair was wild and I had a heavy growth of dark beard sprinkled with grey. I sneezed, swore and wiped my nose savagely. My eyes were red and wet-looking.

‘You’re getting too old for this,’ I said.

‘I beg your pardon?’ A woman crossing the road looked at me oddly and I realised that I had spoken aloud.

I sneezed and grinned at her, no doubt a horrible sight. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Talking to myself.’

She gave me a tentative smile and very deliberately moved a little further away as she passed. I didn’t blame her. I was parked outside the Post Office at nine o’clock on the dot. It was an old building set on a rise above the highway with the Imperial Hotel and the Bells Road turn-off opposite. There was a general store a little further along and an ‘old wares’ shop. The Post Office opened at five past nine, but business was slow. A woman from the antique shop took in a few parcels; a couple of elderly people made heavy weather of the climb but emerged with envelopes and contented expressions. I sat behind my paper, sneezing and feeling conspicuous. Balmain had won an interstate night game; Wimbledon was shaping like an all-European final, again; rail fares were up, air fares were down.

Patrick Lamberte drove up and parked behind me. I used the last of my pocket pack of tissues as he walked into the Post Office. He was an impressive figure-185 centimetres or so and trim. He’d changed his sweater, otherwise he looked pretty much as he had when I’d first seen him except that he was wearing a satisfied, just-had-a-great-fuck look. For a man supposedly facing bankruptcy, he seemed remarkably chipper. When he came out of the Post Office he was carrying a couple of letters and a parcel, about the size of a paperback book, wrapped in brown paper. He tossed it up once and caught it deftly before he swung himself inside the Land Rover. I wiped my running nose on the sleeve of my parka and hated him. He jumped in and gunned the Land Rover up the hill towards Mt York Road. I followed sedately, wishing that I’d bought more tissues, and cold tablets and Strepsils and rum. I had learned absolutely nothing from Lamberte’s manner. My tentative judgement was that his air of self-satisfaction was probably so strong and so constant that it would always be hard to tell what he was thinking or feeling. He drove fast, bullying a couple of slower cars and changing into the right-turn lane at precisely the moment calculated to cause most consternation behind him. I followed until I was sure that he was headed towards Salisbury Road without any stops along the way and then turned off to take my alternative route into the valley.

The head cold was making my ears ring and my throat felt like velcro. I was coughing and sniffling when I reached the bottom of the stack of rocks that ascended to my vantage point.

‘Twenty-four-hour cold, Cliff,’ I said. ‘Treatment, exercise, vitamin C and alcohol.’

I was talking to myself again and beginning to feel light-headed. I grabbed the glasses and the whisky and began to climb the rocks. Sweat broke out on me almost at once; it ran into my eyes and I had to stop to wipe them. I took off the parka and tied its sleeves around my waist. I suppressed a giant sneeze and went on with the climb. My thin city socks weren’t right for the boots and I could feel blisters building on each heel. I made it to the ledge and rewarded myself with a swig on the Johnny Walker. It seemed to clear my head. I moved forward, lifted the glasses and peered at the cabin. The Land Rover was sitting in its spot by the woodpile. Smoke was drifting lazily from the chimney. They’re probably having coffee, I thought, and getting ready for a rematch, no holds barred. I lowered the glasses. At that instant there was a roar like a low-flying jet and the back of the cabin burst into flames. I dropped the binoculars, jumped across a metre of open space to a big rock, scrambled over that and took off towards flatter ground that would take me to the house. I ran, jumped and scrambled, pushing through low bushes and slipping and sliding on damp grass. A window cracked and the flames roared from it, withdrew, then shot out more fiercely than before. I kicked at the back door until it splintered but the flames flared around the broken panels and drove me back. There was a hose running from the water tank. I turned it on and played it around the door but it had no effect. I ran around the side of the house, looking for another way in or out, but the windows were all set high in the timber walls which were already smoking.