Peter Corris - Wet Graves

“There it is. Pull over.” Meredith sounded edgy, too. He pointed through the windscreen at the big, three-storey terrace house which had a neon sign over the gate-BUDGET BACKPACKER. “Christ knows how they run these things,” Meredith said. “Do they just deposit the protected witness somewhere they consider safe and leave it at that? Or do they keep a watch?”

“Haven’t you been briefed?” I said.

Meredith glanced at the driver who was sitting rigidly, with his hands on the steering wheel. “I was busy,” he said. “Let’s take a look. You’d better check your weapon, Constable Moody, but for God’s sake don’t use it unless you have to.”

“What about my weapon?” I said.

“What about it?”

“Tobin’s got more reason to kill me than you or Moody. He might think I’ve got the tape.”

Meredith stared ahead at the street and didn’t reply. It was about two in the morning and fairly quiet. Not that it’s ever completely quiet at the Cross. There were people in the street, drifting along, getting close to the end of their day. The street was lined with cars; some of them, the Falcon and Holden station wagons mostly, the vehicles that Backpackers would try to sell the following day. There were cars with resident stickers and others belonging to the people who came to the Cross for alcohol, food and sex, or just to look.

Moody had checked his pistol and returned it to the holster. “I know Prue Harper, sir,” he said.

“Do you?” Meredith said. “That helps.”

“Do you want me to go in and bring her out, sir?”

Meredith opened his door. “It’s not a bad idea. Hardy, you stay here.”

I opened my door. “Not without my gun.”

Meredith hesitated. We were parked about fifty metres from the gate of the house. The street was well lit and the pavement, looking back towards Darlinghurst Road, was like a shooting gallery.

Meredith shook his head. “If you see anything, Hardy, turn on the siren. Show him how it works, constable.”

Moody showed me the switch. I nodded. “Great. I’ll tackle him while he’s suffering temporary blindness and hearing loss.”

“Look,” Meredith said. “Tobin won’t know that Jackson told us anything. He’ll be counting on confusion and delay. It’s very unlikely that he’ll show. We’ll go in and get the woman. That’s it.”

“There’s a lane at the back,” Moody said. “Bound to be another way in.”

“Shit,” Meredith said. “All right, Hardy, here’s your bloody gun. You stay here. I’ll go around the back and check it. Then the constable and I’ll go in the front door. Before sunrise, I hope.”

Meredith retreated around the nearest corner. I sat in the passenger seat next to Moody. I was tense, he seemed relaxed. “How d’you come to know Prue Harper?” I said.

Moody stared ahead. “I know lots of people.”

“What’s she like?”

“Foolish,” he said.

A clutch of people came down the street-three large, blonde young men and a couple of women of the same stamp. They separated. A couple went into the house we were watching; the others crossed the road to the HOTEL CALIFORNIA-BACKPACKERS WELCOME.

“Lucky buggers,” Moody said. “Where do you reckon they’re from?”

I shrugged. “Germany, Sweden.”

“Wouldn’t mind going there myself.” Suddenly, he leaned forward. I tried to see where he was looking.

“What?” I said.

“Look there.” He pointed. “The Tarago.”

A large van was moving slowly towards us. I couldn’t see the driver or anyone else in the van, but Moody could. He gave me a shove which hurt one of the ribs Arch had kicked. “The driver’s checking the place out. Get down!”

We slumped down and the van cruised past. Moody sneaked a look in the rear vision mirror.

“What’s it doing?”

“Stopping,” he said. “Two guys getting out. Skinny bloke and a fat one, real fat. That him?”

“Could be.”

“They’re going around the back.”

“Can’t sit here,” I said. I opened my door and eased out, keeping low. The street was empty now; Moody ran for the corner and I limped after him. The street we turned into was narrow and dark. I could just glimpse the entry to a lane which ran behind the terrace houses fronting Victoria Street. Moody disappeared into the lane. I followed him after looking cautiously around the corner first. I saw shapes moving ahead, darting from one side of the lane to the other. I moved ahead slowly, pressing back against a brick wall.

Two shots, clean and sharp like whipcracks, sounded in quick succession, then I heard Meredith shout. “Stop! Police!”

A third shot, with a heavier note, boomed out, and the lane was suddenly full of echoes and swearing and the sounds of running feet. A figure loomed up in front of me, running fast. Too tall to be Moody, too slight for Meredith. I stepped out and tried to raise my gun, but he arrived too soon. Too soon for him as well. He swung something short and stubby at me; I ducked under the swing and dived forward, hitting about knee high and sending him thumping hard onto the ground, head first. There was a roar as the shotgun he had been carrying hit the brick wall and went off. Pellets flicked around, ricocheting from the bricks and roadway. They missed me. He didn’t move.

I got up and peered through the gunsmoke, but I couldn’t see anything. I’d dropped my gun. I bent over, feeling for it as much as looking. Suddenly, Tobin was there-wide as a house with his breath coming in wheezy gasps and his chest heaving. He pointed a pistol at me and I froze.

“Fuck you, Hardy. Fuck you…”

I could see him getting up the will to shoot me, and I couldn’t move or speak. The shotgun was on the road but it was a mile away. Tobin shuffled forward, making sure…

I waited for the explosion, but instead I heard a sound no louder than a whisper. Moody rose up from the shadows and chopped the pistol from Tobin’s grasp with a blow that cracked the bones in Tobin’s hand. Moody grabbed Tobin’s arm and jerked it up behind him. Tobin resisted, straining to use his bulk against the lighter man. As I moved forward to help, a car swung into the lane and hit us with its headlights. Moody rammed his gun into Tobin’s ear.

“Give it up!”

Tobin jerked his head around and saw the dark intense face close to his own. “You black cunt! You fuckin’ boong…”

Moody jammmed his gun in harder. “Sticks and stones, gubbah” he said. “Sticks and stones.”

Having my bacon saved twice in the one night by policemen was an unusual experience. I thanked and complimented Moody, but there was no way to communicate with Meredith. Barry Tobin had shot him twice, in the chest and in the leg, and while I was being interviewed, cross-examined and warned, Meredith was in St Vincents fighting for his life.

Eventually, with the help of Frank Parker, I got things sorted out. The police had the tape and the film and the photographs, and a statement from me which probably didn’t make a lot of sense-it was 3 a.m. and I’d suffered a fair amount of personal abuse-but laid emphasis on my innocence. With my battered head, torn pants and shotgun pellet-ripped jacket, I had credibility as the victim of a conspiracy. Parker assured me that if I had to appear in the magistrate’s court it would only be to receive an apology. I would have been feeling more or less cheerful if it hadn’t been for Meredith.

“He’s pretty tough,” Parker said. “Used to play hockey, they tell me.” Frank was driving me home. It was 3.45. His wife wouldn’t be happy at my keeping her man working so late, but, as my former tenant, she knew my erratic habits.

I was so tired that forming words felt like building a brick wall but, after all the trouble Parker had gone to, it would have been bad form to just nod off there in the car. “Is hockey a game for tough guys?”