Jon Cleary - Dragons at the Party

When Seville realized he had shot the wrong man, panic, something he had never felt before, shot through him. His hand trembled; he looked at it with amazement, as if it didn’t belong to him. By the time the shaking had stopped it was too late for another shot. He hastily dismantled the rifle, fumbling in his haste and cursing himself for his awkwardness. He stuffed it into the squash bag, took a quick look around to make sure he had left nothing behind, then headed for the front door. He let himself out of the apartment and ran down the stairs.

He had reached the bottom flight, was halfway down it, when he saw the elderly couple outlined against the glass front doors. They were about to come into the building, but had turned back for a last look at the demonstrators.

Seville missed his step, almost plunged down the last few stairs. He swung round at the bottom and turned back behind the staircase. There was an alcove there, a storage place for buckets and brooms for the building’s cleaner. Seville pressed himself into the small dark space, waited for the elderly couple to come in and go to their flat. He had recovered his composure; he was prepared to kill again if he had to. It would be another close-to death, perhaps two, but that could not be helped.

The front door was pushed open and the elderly couple came in. Seville could not see them, but he could hear their hesitant footsteps on the stairs above his head. And their remarks:

‘I’d lock ’em all up,’ said the elderly woman.

‘Those fellows across the road?’ said her husband. ‘Norval and his gang? I’ve been saying that for years.’

‘No, stupid. Those young people in that crowd. Making all that noise and what for? What did noise ever do for anyone except give headaches? Have you got the key?’

‘No, you have it.’

‘I gave it to you, stupid!’

‘Keep your voice down. You’re making a noise.’

They had stopped on the first-floor landing. Seville stepped out from the alcove, then froze. A uniformed policeman stood right outside the front doors, clearly seen through the glass. Seville hesitated, then he shoved the squash bag back into the alcove, dropping it into a bucket. His mind had worked swiftly. He did not want to be stopped and questioned as to what he was carrying in the bag. The noise from the demonstrators had suddenly stopped as they realized something had happened in the grounds of Kirribilli House. The police would be more alert now; even as Seville looked at him, the policeman suddenly moved off at the run as a whistle sounded. Seville stepped across the front lobby and out into the street.

The demonstrators were being herded back up the street. They were going quietly, some of them looking shocked; they had evidently been told of the shooting. Seville hurried to catch up with the stragglers. A policeman appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Seville by the arm. His first reaction was to stop and struggle, but the policeman, a big burly man with cauliflower ears, was too quick for him.

‘Don’t try any rough stuff, son, or you’ll finish up in the wagon!’ He gave Seville a shove, then a boot up the behind. ‘Git!’

‘Don’t argue with him,’ a young girl warned Seville. ‘That’s the Thumper – he’s a menace to democracy.’

‘You’re bloody right I am!’ said Thumper. ‘Now git before I put me boot up your bum, too!’

The girl jerked her fingers at the sergeant, but ran up the street, dragging Seville with her. A moment later he was lost in the crowd of demonstrators, losing the girl too.

Now, twelve hours later, he sat in this small bedroom in a pub in Rozelle, two or three miles from the heart of the city. He had found Sydney booked out for its 200th birthday party; it was an obliging taxi driver, after driving around for an hour, who had found this drinking hotel which, miraculously, had a room to rent. It was not an establishment that catered much, if at all, for accomm#243;dation; it made its money out of drinkers, not guests, and it entertained the drinkers with rock bands that had no talent but thunderous volume. The noise and the surroundings had done nothing to decrease Seville’s dislike of Australia and Australians.

He was cursing the loss of the rifle; he still had the task of killing Timori but now he had no weapon. He had coolly walked through security screens before, in Rome, Milan, even Tel Aviv; but he had never done so carrying a weapon immediately after an assassination or massacre. This job had come too quickly, Timori’s movements had been unpredictable and Seville had had no time for proper planning. He was a precise killer and this time he had been anything but that. He was not accustomed to failure and it hurt like a bullet wound.

He was forty years old and perhaps it was time to retire. But he could not go out on a botched job, with the target still alive and walking around. He needed another gun; but where did one buy a gun in Sydney on a holiday weekend? Guns were being fired all over the city, but they were firing blanks for celebration. Then he remembered the black militants he had met on his last visit to Sydney. The Aborigines, if they were like the Indians of Argentina, would be the last people taking a holiday to celebrate the rape of their country.

‘This house is so small, ’ said Madame Timori; trying to look hemmed in and not succeeding. ‘Our palace back home has eighty-eight rooms.’

‘Perhaps Australians have a better sense of modesty than us.’ President Timori, homeless, was doing his best to be polite. He was training for exile, just in case the worst proved permanent.

‘I’m Australian,’ said his wife. ‘Or anyway half-Australian. Do you live in a modest house, Inspector?’

‘It’s no palace, Madame.’ Malone thought of the three-bedroomed house in Randwick that would fit almost twice into this one.

‘Do you have a swimming pool?’

‘Yes, a small one.’ That had been a gift for the children from Lisa’s parents, a gesture that at first he had resented.

‘This house doesn’t. Can you imagine, a Prime Minister’s house with no pool? An Australian Prime Minister’s! I’ll bet there’s a barbecue somewhere, though.’

She’s more than half -Australian, Malone thought. She’s one of those expatriate Aussies who can’t resist knocking their home country. He wondered if she ever mentioned Malaysia, her mother’s country. He was not chock-a-block with patriotism himself, but a little of it didn’t hurt, even a traitor.

‘You can always go next door and bathe in the Governor’s pool,’ said the President.

‘The Governor-General.’ She had a passion for accuracy: she wouldn’t have missed if she had been firing at her husband. ‘But who’d want to? He hasn’t sent one word since we arrived here. He’s probably waiting on the Queen to tell him what to do. And you know what she’s like, so damned stuffy about protocol.’ Then the First Lady seemed to remember some protocol of her own. ‘I hope you’re not taking any of this down in your little book, Inspector.’

‘No, Madame. Now may I ask the President some questions?’

They were sitting out on the terrace on the harbour side of the house. Out on the sun-chipped water the yachts were already gathered like bird-of-paradise gulls; once, Malone remembered, the sails had all been white but now a fleet looked like a fallen rainbow. A container ship, all blue and red and yellow, was heading downstream towards the Heads, its hooting siren demanding right-of-way from the yachts, which seemed to ignore it till the very last moment. On the far side of the water the expensive houses and apartment blocks of Darling Point and Point Piper, silvertail territory, sparkled like quartz cliffs in the morning sun. There was little breeze and the heat lay on the city like a dark-blue blanket. It was going to be a scorcher of a day.