Peter Corris: The Marvellous Boy

‘Preparing food by the look of it — that’s the kitchen.’

‘This is as good a time as any,’ I said in Bettina’s ear. ‘I’m going in the front and try to catch them with their faces full of food. Give me fifteen minutes and come on in if you don’t hear more than one shot.’

‘What if I do hear shooting?’

‘Is there a town cop?’

‘I think so, yes, there is.’

‘Get him and anyone else useful you can find.’

‘Good luck,’ she said, then she giggled: ‘Wish I had my camera.’

Christ, I thought, that’s all I need, candid shots of Hardy creeping about in the scrub, gun at the ready. The idea relieved some of the tension though: it was a tricky situation going up against armed men I didn’t know, but it wasn’t full-scale war. I moved down the side of the lot towards the front. Beside the house and fifteen feet away was a thick screen of trees: a bird hovered and then dropped in a long, streaking dive behind them. I was snapping, scraping and tearing things as I moved, but I was doing the best I could. I worked down to the cars which had their windows open and the keys in the ignition — the way people leave cars in the country. I put the keys in my pocket.

The Selbys’ cottage was as simple and unpretentious as their suburban house was the opposite. It was a square fibro bungalow set up on brick piers with a deck running along the front. It was also hemmed in with trees so that I had cover up to the deck. I never saw a weekender yet with a decent lock on the door and this was no exception; the man who taught me could have opened it with his thumbnail. I used the stiff plastic and the lock slid in; I held it there, eased the door open, and then freed the lock slowly and without a sound.

The interior was painted cream and there was sea-grass matting on the floor; a door at the end of the passage led to the rooms at the back of the bungalow and, as I stood looking at it, it opened. The man with the bandages and sticking plaster on his face came through and turned his head back to say something in the direction he’d come from and then he became aware of me and his jaw dropped.

I lifted the Colt and put a shot into the wall about a foot above his head; the sound was like thunder in the enclosed space and he stood rock still. I bustled up and stuck the gun in his ribs.

‘Hey,’ he said weakly, ‘hey.’

‘Back up. Get back in there.’

He went like a lamb all the way back to where Richard Selby and Verna Reid were sitting. Selby was lifting a glass of beer to his mouth, the woman yelled and he dropped it; the beer went into his lap and the glass shattered on the floor. I prodded the tall man again.

‘Sit down.’

He did. He’d recovered from the shock and was starting to look me over carefully. His hands were big and thick around the knuckles and joints. He flexed them and shuffled his feet.

‘Don’t try any of that Bruce Lee stuff,’ I told him, ‘I owe you a bit and I’d be glad to get even.’

Selby looked up from mopping his pants. ‘This is overdue, Hardy. It’s time we had a talk.’

I gave him a hard look. They’d have called him Red Richard back in Norman days and admired him for a fine figure of a man. There was lard on him to my eyes and I thought I could see some pink scalp in places through the carefully arranged black locks.

‘I owe you something, too, for that nice work in the garage,’ I said, ‘and I’m a vindictive man. Don’t go smooth on me Selby, I can tie you into one murder, maybe two, and I will if that’s the way you want to play it.’

Verna Reid’s face was tight with malice. She looked at Selby with contempt. ‘I told you we’d have to kill him.’

It wasn’t clear whether he was talking to me or the woman but anyway Selby said: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ It carried about as much conviction as the warning on a cigarette packet and I let it pass.

The boy with the bandages was more direct. ‘How did you get loose?’ he asked. His voice was deep and educated.

‘You’ll see,’ I said. I jerked the gun at him. ‘Now you are going to take those bandages off.’

Alarm leapt into the voice. ‘Why?’

‘Just do it.’

‘No! Russell no!’ Verna Reid sounded as if she’d heard someone threaten to knock a leg off the Venus de Milo.

James touched the bandages and looked nervously at Selby.

‘I can’t!’

I grinned and raised an eyebrow at him, his voice wasn’t as deep now or as educated.

‘I can’t, I’ve got bad cuts, that mirror at the gym — they’ll scar.’

‘Sonny boy you can end up like Quasimodo for all I care. I’m going to see your face now one way or another. If I have to do it myself I won’t be gentle.’

He looked appealingly at Selby who shrugged. ‘You better do it Russ,’ he said.

‘I’ll need scissors.’ He stood up quickly and pushed his chair back; he was dangerous, a nice mover and with enormous strength packed in the wide shoulders and arms. I needed to defuse him and quickly: I moved up closer raising the gun and then smacked him across the cheek with my left hand. He screamed and I thumped him on the shoulder with the gun.

‘Sit down and start unwrapping!’

He lifted his hand to his face and then let it drop. ‘I can’t.’

The bandages covered most of the upper part of his face leaving good sized slits for his eyes and going down around his chin. I grabbed an end of plaster and yanked. He screamed again and I pulled the tape free and held it in front of his eye slits.

‘Do it, or it’ll be like that all the way.’

He reached up and began fumbling for the ends of the plaster strips. I felt like wincing as he worked them slowly off the surface of the bandage; tears jumped into his eyes and all the fight seemed to have gone out of him. I took time out to look at Selby who was playing with a bread roll on his plate. He looked puzzled, as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure what language to speak in. It was a mistake to be distracted — James came at me suddenly, coiling up off the chair like a big cat, his hands out, stiff and deadly. He looked good but he was just a little slow; I side-stepped and swept the flat of the gun against the side of his face and he went down clutching and making tight little agonised grunts.

‘I told you not to be silly,’ I said. ‘Get up.’

He lifted himself up into the chair and his trembling hands worked at the wrappings. Selby didn’t say anything in any language, didn’t move. It took James five minutes and blood started to seep out pretty soon; Verna Reid sobbed quietly. Blood was flowing freely down his face when he eased off the last bandage but his features were plain. He wasn’t Warwick Baudin — nothing like him.

Disappointment hit me like an electric shock; I gaped and felt unsteady on my feet. Bettina Selby’s voice cut through the accumulated tension.

‘It’s not him.’ She stepped in from the passage and her husband’s eyes moved between us both as he got the connection.

‘Not who?’ Blood ran down Russell James’ face and spotted his cream silk shirt.

‘Yes, who?’ Selby got up and took a couple of steps out from the table. I moved and brought the Colt up to cover him but I was hopelessly unprepared. I’d let the gun drop while I’d watched the bandages come off and now I wasn’t sure enough where it was pointing; now there was an extra person in the room and one of the others was moving. These are excuses for the fact that I ended up with my back to a door which had opened. I knew that when I felt something hard and sharp bite into my neck.

‘Put the gun down, Hardy,’ Selby said smugly, ‘or he’ll blow your head off.’