Peter Temple: Dead Point

Then the reserves of energy were found to be nonexistent. I slowed to a controlled stagger near the lovely tree where a young woman had been found one winter morning, sitting in the comfortable fork. Dead, strangled, dumped.

Where paths met, I was at a walk. Winded.

The walking winded.

Like a real athlete, my head was up, my hands were on my hips. I was always this way by the time I got to this point. Warming down, they called it. How can you warm down?

Exhaustion with signs of distress was what it was.

Standing there, panting, I heard something.

The shift of a foot on leaves?

Something out of the corner of my left eye, just a movement of the dark trunk of a tree.

Close, two metres away.

I turned my head, saw the figure take a step towards me, a man, saw light from the high park lamp ahead gleam on something…

Oh Jesus.

At once, a sound like a fist thumping a desk and a flash, a shutter blinking on a white-hot fire, a tug at the tracksuit hood, burning on the back of my head.

Instinctively, I reached for the man, lurched, covered the distance between us, got both hands on an arm as I fell, pulled him down with me.

He hit me on the side of the head with his left hand, lost his footing, fell towards me, half over me. I let go with my right hand, tried to punch him, made contact somewhere, he made a noise, I rolled over, took him with me, I outweighed him, a slim person but strong, I was on top, no face beneath me, a mask, a silk ski mask, mud on it. I tried to hit him in the face with my left hand, then my right, missed both, realised he had no hold on me.

I got to my feet.

He was bringing the weapon up.

I swung a kick at him, connected, turned and ran. Not for home, too far, get out into the open. I ran in the direction of the playground, the barbecue, sliding on the gravel, got off the path, looked back, saw him coming, moving well, I hadn’t hurt him.

Why didn’t he shoot? Had he lost the weapon?

No, he wanted this to be neat. He’d wanted to shoot me from close range, a clean hit, a professional hit, Alan Bergh had been shot by a professional…

Run, just run.

I could hear him behind me on the path.

He was closing on me. I could hear his running footsteps over the sound of my heart, of the blood in my ears, of my panting.

The children’s playground ahead, beyond that the road gleaming wetly in the streetlight, the school, a light on in the school, a cleaner at work…

If I could reach the road.

Just reach the road.

I wasn’t going to reach the road before he caught me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the dark figure close behind, all black, white blurs for eyes. I changed direction to run through the swings, run between the swings, the ground wet and slippery underfoot.

No more breath in my body, slowing down, he was going to run up behind me, shoot me in the back of the head.

Shoot me. Metres from me.

I saw the swings, solid planks suspended on heavy chains.

I was between them, on an isthmus between the troughs worn away by children’s swinging feet.

Behind me, I heard his breathing.

He was almost on me.

Going to die.

I grabbed the swing to my left, grabbed the nearest chain, swung the heavy plank, it jumped up awkwardly, twisting.

He was a metre away, in stride, both hands on the pistol.

I brought the swing seat around shoulder-high.

It smashed into his forearms, knocked them sideways, he fired, the flat sound, no muzzle flash seen, the shot way off course.

His momentum brought him up to me, I smelt his breath, sweet, his left hand was off the gun…

His right hand was bringing the gun back towards me, not worried about neatness now, just a desire to kill me.

I had the swing seat in both hands, threw it over his head, grabbed the chains, pulled them together, no thought in any of this, wrapped them around his throat, twisted with all my strength. He had a hand at his throat, both hands, I twisted, twisted, maniacal strength in my arms, in my torso.

He went down on his knees in the swing’s depression, making a gargling noise.

I didn’t stop twisting, couldn’t stop, went on…

When I stopped, I didn’t look at him, walked away.

Without a backward glance, I walked home, slowly, little shudders passing though my arms, my shoulders, more like tiny convulsions, spasms, a great feeling of tiredness upon me.

At home, I was sick for a long time, then I rang the police emergency number, told a woman that there was a body in the north playground of the gardens, at the swings, gave her my name, address and telephone number.

It was twenty minutes before they knocked on my door. I was showered, shaved, dressed. My breathing was normal.

He was a weary-looking uniformed cop, blue-chinned, probably at the end of his shift.

‘Jack Irish?’

I nodded.

‘Rang about the body?’

‘Yes.’

He looked at me for a while. ‘Reckon it’s a good joke?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t fuck with me. We don’t appreciate this kind of crap. I can charge you.’

‘At the swings.’

‘No body at the swings, there’s no body in the whole fucken park.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Must’ve been a dero having a nap. Sorry.’

When he’d gone, I went to the kitchen and sat at the table, my elbows on it, my head in my hands.

Someone was sent to kill me. Instead, I killed him.

Had I killed him?

Or had he recovered, crawled away? Perhaps someone had taken him away, dead or alive, because it was less trouble that way? It had been at least fifteen minutes before I’d phoned the police, plenty of time to remove the masked man.

I hadn’t seen his face. I had wrapped a chain around his neck and tried my best to strangle the life out of him, thought I’d succeeded, and I had no idea what he looked like.

Just the silk-masked face in the near-dark, the smell of his toothpaste.

I walked around the apartment aimlessly, made the bed so recently left. Looked at my watch. It was just after 7 a.m.

Who?

Someone who wanted the matter of Marco to stay closed.

Would they try again? They’d have to find another hit man.

Perhaps they had a supply of hit men. Hardly likely.

Who?

The same people who’d murdered Marco?

It was almost certain that WRG had used Bergh to attempt the blackmail of Susan Ayliss. In that case, he’d hired Marco. But the bid had failed, leaving Bergh and Marco as potential embarrassments. Now they were both dead.

And then I came along, asking questions about both men.

Bergh had held the key to everything. He talked to Doyle, to Mick Olsen, drug scam mastermind…

I needed to look at Bergh’s phone bill again.

No.

I needed to do nothing. This wasn’t worth dying for.

Colin Loder would recuse himself from the cocaine jackets trial and, with luck, never hear anything more about his missing album. As for Marco, his death was of no personal concern to me. I had no interest whatsoever in Marco.

Send a message to WRG that I was no longer interested in Bergh or Marco, that was what I needed to do.

Go away for a while. Go far away. Leave now. That would convey the message that I had disengaged from anything that annoyed them.

Ring Cam, ring Linda, ring Wootton, ring Colin Loder on his borrowed mobile. Ring Stan and tell him to pass the message on to the Youth Club that I’d gone away, wouldn’t be picking them up on Sunday. Ring Gus and leave a message for Charlie. Enzio. I’d have to get hold of him.

A life to run away from.

I could do that. I could spend a few weeks with Claire.

No, I couldn’t do that. They might not accept my gesture of submission and send someone to Claire’s house to look for me. I couldn’t go near anyone I knew.