Alex Palmer - The Tattooed Man

‘Didn’t you know where he was going?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me. Next thing, I’m in hospital. When I wake up, I hear Leanne’s dead and someone’s cleaned out Mike’s safety deposit box. Next I hear Baby Tooth is off to Perth with his wife and kids. His dad got him some job with the local coppers over there on their anti-corruption squad. I ring Stewie. He hangs up without talking to me. Next thing, I hear on the radio Paulie’s calling Mike’s disappearance murder. When I finally get home, my house is like this.

‘Put it together, mate. I’ve had a lot of time to think this out these last few months. Whatever deal Beck had going with Stewie and Nattie, when he took Mike down to that place in Campbelltown, he pushed someone too far and too hard. And he knew that’s what he was fucking doing!’ Suddenly Freeman was angry. ‘You listen to that fucking tape. It’s like he was fucking saying to whoever was watching him, Come on! Get me! And they fucking did. Someone came down on him hard and they swatted us along the way. They put the screws on Mike to find out what Beck had let slip. And he told them, he must have done. ’Cause that’s why they’re knocking on my door now. They want my tapes. They’re cleaning up, protecting their arse.’

He stopped. His mouth was blue. ‘I’m going outside now. I’m feeling cold. I reckon you should get out of here now, Gracie. Take those other tapes too. Paulie’ll want ’em.’

The plastic bag holding the rest of the tapes was still sitting on the arm of his chair. Grace left them there and followed him out onto the porch. She had one more question to ask before she left. He sat down in a shredding cane chair, labouring with his breathing. Out here, the sky was an endless blue above the marble angels in the cemetery. The sea matched the sky, curling out towards the horizon where both blended together in a hazy line.

‘Why didn’t Cassatt kill Harrigan that night in Marrickville?’ she asked. ‘Or even at some other time?’

‘Fucked if I know, mate. It’s a mystery to me. Because of old Jimbo, I suppose.’

The straightforward casualness of this chilled Grace almost more than anything she had heard that morning. Freeman’s breathing was becoming harsher.

‘Let me call an ambulance,’ she said.

‘No, mate. I just want to sit here in the sun. It’s not going to be long. I’ll give you my keys and you can let yourself out the back. Don’t bother to-’

He stopped. In the sudden silence, Grace heard the sound of a motorcycle coming speedily down the lane, then saw it stop at the foot of the steps leading up to Freeman’s porch. With a final effort, Freeman pulled himself to his feet. ‘Get inside,’ he said, his voice squeezed for breath. At once, Grace stepped back inside the doorway.

The rider dismounted and came up the front steps at a run. Dressed in black leathers and wearing a helmet, he was unidentifiable. He reached inside his jacket and took out a gun. Seconds only had passed.

In the instant the gun was fired, Freeman pushed himself between Grace and the shooter. There was a series of dull, muted cracks. Grace leapt backwards into the house, slamming the door so hard and so quickly she fell to the floor. A bullet thudded into the wood at almost the same instant the door slammed shut. She remembered at once that it was on a deadlock. The keys were in Freeman’s pocket where whoever was out there with a gun could get them. There was no way out through the back door, which was locked, or the windows, which were barred. She was trapped.

She ran for the cellar, the only possible shelter, shutting the door behind her. There was a bolt on the inside of the door; she slid it into place. Moving as quickly as she could, she went down the stairs. As Freeman had said, they were dangerous. They kept shifting under her feet, once almost catapulting her forward. Down in the cellar itself, there was no place to hide. With the light on, she was like a rat in a trap; it would be like shooting into a fishbowl.

Grace had trophies to prove she could shoot straight. With no other choice, she took Freeman’s gun out of her bag and shot the fluorescent tube in half, dropping to the floor to avoid the racket and the ricochet, hoping the bullet would bury itself in the wooden floor above. The tube’s broken pieces fell like a faint iridescent rain before disappearing into blackness. I’m burying myself in another person’s grave, she thought, shivering in the cold, dead air. The silence was greedy, like something waiting. Along with their breath, it had absorbed the final sounds of the last people to be killed in here. The smell was vile. It was a terrible place to die.

She felt her way along the side of the stairs, until there was enough space underneath them for her to hide there. Even by touch, she could tell they were held up by an unstable scaffold. She heard the door handle above being rattled by someone. Then, with a crash, the door was kicked open. She looked up. Daylight illuminated the cracks in the underside of the top step. She pressed herself into a niche in the wall, holding Freeman’s gun, waiting. Her teeth had been chattering. With her left hand, she forced her mouth closed. Whoever it was turned the light switch off and on several times. When nothing happened, they stepped forward in the dark. The first stair moved under their feet and they stepped back. From where she was, Grace could see nothing of them.

‘Are you down there, man?’ said a soft, male South African voice. ‘I’ll find you. I’ll hear you breathe.’

Grace, barely breathing, had her hand over her nose and mouth. He would be able to smell that a gun had been fired in here, even if he hadn’t heard it. If he walked into the dark down those dangerous steps, he would know that she had a better chance of getting him before he got her.

‘Let me tell you something, man,’ the gunman said. ‘That little trick of yours didn’t fool me for one second. I saw that bag of tapes on the chair. But I can count. I know there should be five tapes and one CD. You give me the tape you’re holding and you can walk away. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Easy. That’s all I want, that tape. I’m taking the rest with me anyway. Just give me the one to make up the whole.’

He stopped. They both waited.

‘You’re not fooling me. I know you’re down there. You don’t want me coming after you, Auntie. You give me that tape and you’re safe.’ There was another pause. ‘Let me tell you something, man. It doesn’t mean anything that you’ve got that CD. I’ve already got all the pictures on it. If they hit the media, they’ll take people down. Maybe it’s someone you know. Someone you care about. You can stop that happening.’

Again, silence.

‘Look, man, if it’s money you want, we can talk about that. You give me that tape. There could be more money in this for you than you can dream about. You think about that.’

She could hear growing agitation in his voice. Then all at once he was gone, shutting the door behind him. The tension snapped, she leaned back against the rock, breathing deeply. After some moments, she took out her mobile phone. The illuminated screen said no signal. Pressed into the rubble, she was in too much of a cave. If she moved into the centre of the cellar it might be possible to make a call. She waited for more long, terrible minutes, wondering if he would come back.

Suddenly, the door was pushed open again and brilliant torchlight flashed down the stairs, its beam raking across the cold room. Grace froze where she was. Then a broad Australian voice called out, ‘Police. Is anyone down there? Walk into the light. Keep your hands where we can see them. Come out now.’

In the dark, Grace leaned back against the icy rock, breathing the filthy air too deeply. She wouldn’t die in here after all.