Garry Disher - The Dragon Man

He opened the little flap on the front of the mailbox, stuffed it with petrol-soaked paper towels, tossed in a match, stepped back. The flap swung down, choking the flames. They waited. Danny raised the flap again. The interior of the box was scorched, still glowing red in places, but it wasn’t alight. He leaned close, blew. God, what a stink, varnish, wood preservative, whatever.

‘Come on,’ Jolic said. ‘Better take you home to your mum.’

Home was a new estate on the outskirts of Waterloo, houses crammed together but facing in all directions because they sat on madly looping courts and avenues, not a straight road in the whole place. Danny watched Jolic leave, the ute booming to wake the dead, the brake lights flaring at the turn-off. He lit a cigarette. He didn’t want to go inside yet, hear his mother yell at him.

Danny gnawed his lower lip. The last thing Jolic had said was he needed help on another break-and-enter sometime after Christmas. ‘I’m waiting for word on when the owners’ll be away,’ he’d said. Danny laughed now, without humour. Why should Jolic care if the owners were away or not? His idea of a break-and-enter was to smash the door down and bash the occupants before tying them up and rampaging through the house. Aggravated burglary, no fun at all if the law caught up with you. Danny had been with him on two such jobs. No fun at all, but he couldn’t wriggle out, not without copping a lot of aggro.

He tossed his cigarette into the darkness. His own style was more scientific. He’d stake out a street for a couple of afternoons after knocking off work, getting a feel for the surroundings. Any dogs? Any neighbours about? Any lawns in need of mowing, mail mounting up in the box, newspapers not collected? Then, having targeted a house, he’d go around it, examining the windows for alarms. That was what he was good at. Using his head. He’d steal nothing big, no bigger than a camera, say. Rings, cash, watches, brooches, credit cards, CDs. Anything that would fit in his backpack, a fancy soft leather thing with some foreign name stamped into the black leather. He’d lifted it from a house on the outskirts of Frankston a few days ago. Almost new, lovely smell to it. He’d give it to Megan next time he saw her, tell her he was sorry he’d forgotten her birthday.

One o’clock in the morning. The bar was closing, and John Tankard had dipped out badly with that nurse, so he thought he might as well drive home.

He’d been chatting her up-not a bad sort, about a seven on the scale-and started by buying her a glass of riesling and telling her his name, ‘John, John Tankard, except my mates call me Tank.’ She’d looked him up and down and said, ‘Built like one, too,’ then her hand went to her mouth and her face went red. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean you’re fat or anything, I meant you’re strong, you know, like you keep in shape and that.’ She came out of the other side of the apology a little breathless and smiling and relieved to have turned a possible insult into a compliment, and he’d grinned at her kindly and they’d settled elbow to elbow on the bar and begun to talk.

But then came the moment. It was always there, hovering over everything he did when he was off duty:

‘What do you do?’

He said flatly, ‘I’m a policeman, a copper.’

Wariness and retreat were there in her eyes in an instant. An opportunity lost or failed, like hundreds over the years. Just once would he like to see approval or interest or curiosity on someone’s face when he told them that he was a copper.

There was a time when he believed all of the bullshit, that he was there to protect and serve. Now he saw it as us against them, the police against the public. The public were all guilty of something, anyway, if you dug deep enough. And did they deserve his protection? They shouted ‘police brutality’ whenever he made a legitimate arrest. At parties they cringed comically and said, ‘Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me’. He’d had four malicious civil writs from people he’d arrested, just trying it on, giving him a hard time.

Over the years the hardness had grown. He was more suspicious than he used to be. The job was more violent now. You saw some ugly things, like dead people, like syringes or speed or dope on kitchen tables in full view of little kids. Tankard was full of frustration. Repeat offenders were forever getting off on a bond. Sergeant van Alphen tried to drill it into him, Don’t take the job personally. Your responsibility is simply to present the case. It’s not your fault if some dropkick gets off because he’s got a good lawyer or a piss-weak judge or a good sob story-but it wasn’t as easy as that.

He was no longer sure what was right and what was wrong, and nor did he care. He’d seen some pretty bent coppers in his time and some halfway decent murderers, rapists and thieves. Most people were on the take in some form or another. A nod and a favour here, a wink and a slab of cold beer or half a grand in an envelope there. Fuck ‘em all.

And he felt tired all the time now, and ragged from sleeplessness. He ate and drank too much. His back ached to the extent that he could never get comfortable in any chair, and sitting for long in the divisional van or a car was sheer hell. The insides of his cheeks were raw from where he’d chewed them. Tension. You’d think, after all this time, that he’d never let the job get to him. But it did. He was surprised at the hurt he still felt, after his name had appeared in the local paper. ‘Police harassment.’ What bullshit. And now someone was flooding the town with leaflets, calling him a Nazi stormtrooper. Too gutless to say it to his face.

He had a scanner in the car. He switched it on. Someone was setting fire to mailboxes. That just about summed up life, for him.

Sergeant Kees van Alphen, ashily damp from helping the Waterloo CFA unit put out the fire in the woman’s pine tree, was shocked. He’d never seen anyone so distressed. First it was a job getting her to step outside and talk to him, and now she still couldn’t get the words out. She was gulping, clearly terrified. He stood with her on the verandah, wanting to say, ‘It’s only vandals, only your mailbox,’ but her fear was so acute that he put an arm around her, patted her on the back and said, ‘Hush, hush,’ something his mother used to say.

He felt awkward. He was no good at this sort of thing.

Then she twisted as if to get closer to him and grabbed his free hand. He screamed. He’d burnt himself somehow. The back of his wrist.

The woman sobered. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Got burnt.’

She looked distractedly at the open door behind her. ‘I could dress it for you.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

Behind him the CFA truck was turning around in her drive. With a brap of the siren it was gone. The air smelt damp and smoky. The roof of his police car gleamed wetly, and there was enough moonlight for him to see steamy smoke rising from the charred mailbox.

He sighed, fished out his notebook. ‘Did you see anything? Hear anything?’

‘No.’

‘Name?’

‘Clara will do.’

He shrugged, noted the name and put the book away. New Zealand accent. He turned to go. ‘I’ll make a report and see that one of our patrol cars comes by here every night for the next week or two.’

She had another attack of hysterics. ‘You’re not going? You’re not leaving me?’

‘Miss, the fire’s out, it was probably kids, they won’t be coming back. There’s nothing more I can do here. Would you like me to contact someone for you? A neighbour? Family? Friends?’

He saw her close down, as if she were suspicious of him. Who was she? What was eating at her?

‘Why would you want to contact someone? Who?’

Bewildered by her mood shift, he replied, ‘Well, someone who could stay with you, look after you. Family, perhaps.’