Peter Temple - Dead Point

Heads down, no interest in the scene before us.

The Return’s coming at them, Portobelle stopping under the big weight, Caveat’s a fighter, won’t give in, it’s The Return and Caveat, it’s going to be The Return, she’s clear, the Kiwi raider’s going away …

Four men stood up, hands in the air, making animal sounds of satisfaction in the midst of the grieving St Kilda faithful, who looked at us, murder in their eyes.

We sat down.

‘No surprise, Jack, me boy,’ said Norm O’Neill. ‘Had the pencil on the animal this mornin. Put me in mind of a certain Kiwi horse…’

‘Say the bloody name Dunedin Star and I’ll kill you,’ said Eric Tanner.

We made the collect on the way back to the Prince. It frightened me to see how much money was handed over to the Youth Club, fifties dispensed, repeatedly.

In the car, after crossing the city and listening to a great deal of hilarity, I said, primly, ‘I’d never have mentioned it if I’d thought you were going to put that kind of money on.’

Silence. Rain on the windscreen. The Stud had had a long day. The Stud and the Stud’s owner, who couldn’t remember when the day had begun, remembered, and tried to shut it out.

‘Jack,’ said Wilbur, low voice.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s our bloody money.’

The wipers needed replacing. So did the door seals. The clutch had that certain feeling too.

‘Point taken,’ I said.

‘You bastard,’ said Eric. ‘Had the oil.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘the study of class, sectionals, draw, going, trainer, jock, track, barrier, weight, these things help inform a decision.’

‘The oil,’ said Eric.

I pulled up outside the Prince, a space waiting for us.

‘And then there’s the oil,’ I said.

The men in the back seat attacked me, beat me around the head with rolled-up copies of the AFL Record.

We went in, had a few beers, no e-people in, didn’t talk about the Saints’ failings, too numerous to count, concentrated on the positives. All two of them. From Stan’s office, I rang Linda’s home number. Answering machine.

‘Jack,’ I said. ‘I’ll be home by six. Do with that information what you will.’

I said goodbye. The lads were in the process of shouting the bar, not an expensive exercise this Sunday evening. In the street, thoughts of sausages and mash and bed uppermost, my mobile rang.

‘Listen, I could use a hand.’ Cam.

‘Now?’

‘Yeah. Can’t wait.’

I wanted to groan. ‘What?’

He told me where he was. I did groan.

‘Bring a torch,’ he said.

In the unlovable depths of Coolaroo, Cam was waiting for me at the gate of a car wrecker’s yard. In the dark, in spotting rain, we walked down an avenue of car bodies. Hundreds of them, piled two and three high.

‘Artie lives down the back,’ said Cam. He was in biker gear: leather jacket, jeans, boots.

‘Where is he?’

‘Handcuffed to a Lada Niva. Hasn’t been helpful.’

We went around a large shed that served as an office and set off down another passage between wrecked vehicles.

‘Don’t they have dogs guarding these places?’ I said.

‘Should be halfway to Albury by now, the dog.’

I didn’t ask what he meant.

‘How’d you find Artie?’

‘Lizard. Big help, Lizard. Given up the wood business. Just today. Gone home to New Zealand. Wouldn’t know this shack was here.’ He went through a gap in the wall of old twisted metal. In a clearing stood an ancient weatherboard cottage, sagging everywhere as if dropped from the air onto the site. On its verandah stood two bench seats from cars. Pieces of motorcycle covered the rest of the space.

‘In the Lizards together, Artie and Almeida and Lizard,’ said Cam. ‘Lizard reckons Artie’s topped three people. Gets carried away.’

‘That Lada strong enough?’

‘Artie’s tired. Engine block fell on his leg.’

‘Don’t tell me any more. I’m a respected suburban solicitor.’

Cam led the way through the front door of the house. We were assailed by the smell of burnt cooking oil and cat urine with a strong underlay of blocked toilet.

‘Well,’ said Cam, ‘where’d you reckon he’d keep it? Tried all the usual places.’

‘Appliances?’

‘Only got a beer fridge.’

‘With money, they’re scared of fire.’

I went from room to disgusting room, shining my new truckstop torch over everything, unwilling to touch anything. The kitchen was the worst, cats lived there, dozens of them.

We went out the back door. Off the porch was a washhouse, the bottom of its door rotted away leaving jagged wooden teeth.

‘Looked in there?’ I said.

‘Yup.’

The door was jammed. Cam opened it with a kick.

It was the cleanest room in the place, just an old concrete laundry sink, a boiler the size of a 400-pound bomb, and grey dust and cobwebs.

I shone the torch on the boiler, tentatively tried the fire door. It opened with a screech, ashes spilling out.

‘Course it could be out there somewhere in a wreck,’ said Cam. ‘Probably is. Boot of some scrap iron.’

I was looking at the boiler’s fluepipe. The ceiling collar had come loose, tilted.

‘Hold this.’ I gave Cam the torch.

The top of the boiler was at shoulder height. I put both hands around the fluepipe just above where it entered the boiler and twisted.

It turned easily.

I lifted.

The fluepipe went up into the roof, its bottom end came out of the boiler.

I pushed it to one side, let it hang from the ceiling, stuck a hand into the hole in the boiler, found something to grip with my fingers, lifted.

The top of the boiler came off.

I dropped it into the sink, put my arm down the boiler, touched something wet, recoiled.

‘What?’ said Cam.

‘Don’t know.’

I reached in again, touched the thing.

Plastic, something plastic. Rain had come down the pipe.

I took hold, pulled. It was heavy. I got some of it out. Cam put the torch down, helped pull the rest out.

A heavy-duty garbage bag, grey, closed with a plastic tie.

Cam opened it. I held the torch.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ said Cam. ‘My sweet lord.’

On the way out, down the dark avenue of dead machine bodies, Cam carrying the bag, he said, ‘Artie’s storin chemicals down the back. Thought I came for em.’

‘As in?’

‘Amphie cook.’

‘That’s punishable by law.’

‘Law doesn’t know. The big man says drop in for a drink. Good day’s racin.’

We passed through the gate. Cam put the bag in the boot of the streetslut. I read my notebook by torchlight, found the number.

Cam lounged against his vehicle, looking at me.

A woman answered, no name. I gave her mine. Barry Tregear came on.

‘What now?’ he said.

‘Arranging your promotion,’ I said. I gave him the directions. ‘The shed on the back boundary,’ I said. ‘That’s where the fun stuff is.’

‘Never thought you’d end up my dog.’

‘Also there’s a bloke chained to a Lada Niva.’

‘Cruel and unusual,’ said Barry. ‘Chained to an old Ford Prefect’s bad enough.’

‘Help’s on the way,’ I said to Cam.

I drove to Harry Strang’s house in Parkville, got there just after Cam. Lyn Strang let us in, robustly sexy as always, flesh an alluring shade of pink. She left us in the study, standing by the fire. Only the table lamps were on and I could see the flames reflected in the glass doors of the lower bookshelves. Charlie Taub bookshelves, made long before my time.

Harry came in, freshly shaved, hair oiled, brushed, a herringbone sports coat over a fine-checked shirt.

‘Jack, Cam,’ he said. ‘On the little mudeater, Jack?’