Salt and Blood (16 page)

‘What about the bloke?'

‘He took off.'

There was a pause and I thought he was going to ask about the how and why of that. I was glad he didn't. ‘Where are you?'

‘Broken Beach, that's …'

‘I know where it is. I'm coming up.'

‘What about your course?'

‘Fuck it. I'll be there by midnight, depending on the traffic. Where are you exactly?'

I told him. I didn't particularly want him to come but clearly there was no stopping him and Glen was going to need someone around for all the pain and guilt and horror she was going to suffer. She was still sleeping soundly so I slipped out, walked back to my car and drove it to the room, parking it where the Pajero had been. There were paracetamol tablets, a toothbrush and toothpaste in my bag. I had a shower, changed my shirt and took three of the tablets with another slug of Scotch. The wound on the back of my head had stopped bleeding but it was throbbing. My chest and left side were bruised where Rod's shoulder had hit me.

I got a can of Coke, a container of orange juice and a sandwich from vending machines near the units and called it dinner. Then I slumped in a chair beside the bed and fell into a doze.

‘Rodney!'

I hurt my head against the back of the chair as Glen's voice jerked me awake. She was sitting up, gripping the sheet and staring wildly around her. The room was dark with just a dull glow coming from the bathroom. I went across to the bed.

‘Glen, it's Cliff.'

‘Cliff. Oh God. Oh God. What? Where's Rodney?'

‘He's gone. Lie back. Take it easy.'

‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?'

‘In the Pajero.'

She fell back against the pillows. ‘He's a terrible driver. He'll kill himself.'

Good riddance,
I thought.

Her eyes closed and I thought for a moment she'd fallen asleep but she said, ‘I feel like death. I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead.'

‘You don't. You'll be okay. Just take it a step at a time. Can you make it to the shower?'

‘I'm not sure.'

I'd put the Scotch out of sight in my bag but I had the pain-killers to hand. I broke two out of the foil and gave them to her with a glass of water. She swallowed them down and lay back limply. ‘We drank and drank.'

‘I know. But it's over now. You kicked it once, you can do it again.'

‘I don't know.'

She was negative, passive, compliant. I got her to the shower, stripped the cover from the soap and unscrewed the top of the miniature shampoo bottle. She was in there a long time; too long. I went in and she was just standing under the lukewarm water, staring at the tiles. I turned the water off, dried her and got her into the kimono she used as a dressing-gown. In the kimono, with a towel around her hair, she looked something like the Glen I knew. All except her eyes, and they were dark, hopeless hollows.

20

Glen drank four cups of milky, sweet tea, using all the sachets the management provided. She also ate the two lots of biscuits. She dressed in jeans and a sloppy joe, used the hair dryer and we went for a walk on the beach as we'd done often before on a similar beach not many kilometres north. But this was different; we weren't lovers now and never would be again. The question was, where was she going from here?

We took off our shoes and paddled along in the shallows. There was just enough moon and starlight for me to see by. The water was cold but Glen didn't seem to notice.

‘I needed someone,' she said. ‘I just couldn't go on alone. And I thought he might be the right person, having some of the same problems.'

The water was too cold for me and I steered her onto the sand but I let her keep talking.

‘I gave him the computer lesson and he took to it quickly. He's very bright. Then we made love. He was good at that as well. I was happy for the first time in ages. I felt strong, in control.'

My feet were freezing. We stopped and sat
down and I put my shoes and socks on. She didn't. She hugged herself as if to keep warm although the air wasn't that cold. I thought it might be the beginning of the shakes that were bound to come, but it wasn't.

‘So we went out and had lunch and it all felt so normal and nice. I felt normal and nice. Like an ordinary person, not like a fucking alcoholic.'

‘So you had a drink.'

‘Two. We had two glasses of house white each. But Rodney bought a bottle of Scotch when I wasn't looking and we started in on that when we got back to the flat. Then it seemed like a good idea to go away for a while, to forget about all this shit. So we did. We collected some of my clothes and took off. He said Redhead beach was one of his favourite places in the world. And I said …'

I knew how it would have gone. Swapping stories, finding parallels, drawing closer until it seemed it was all meant to be. And the alcohol would have helped, broken down barriers, released inhibitions, provided punctuation points; lubricated the possibilities.

The shakes started with the tears and she sank to her knees on the sand. I put my arm around her and felt the convulsions surge through her and heard her grinding her teeth. The spasm didn't last long and she wanted to walk again. Standing up made me grunt with the pain in my chest and side. Glen didn't notice. We went back the way we'd come and she told me how the money had started to run out, partly through Rod buying dope, and how they'd ended up broke in the Ti-Tree caravan
park. How Rod had insisted on driving and banged up the car.

We found a Nite Owl shop and bought more tea bags, Coca-Cola and chocolate—comfort food. On the way we began to talk about the Harkness case. I told her what had happened at my end, including my encounter with Warren and my suspicions about why he and his mother had hired us.

‘Bastards,' Glen said. ‘Anyway, I suppose we're off it now.'

‘I don't know. Don't answer if you don't want to, but did you get anything out of him about what sent him off the rails. Did he say anything about killing his wife and child?'

I'd told her about getting this information from the ex-cop Hughes and Jerry Weir and how this had upped the concern for her safety being felt by me and Kevin Sherrin. She'd taken it on board, including the mention of Sherrin, without much reaction. She was still trapped by her own demons. But she answered the question.

‘No. Nothing like that. But he hated her. She was promiscuous. I located an old girlfriend of hers who gave me a list of her lovers. I've got it on file. God, that reminds me. Rodney dropped my laptop. I have to see if it's still working.'

A good sign that, concern about possessions. We hurried back to the units. Glen pulled the computer out, unzipped the bag and turned it on. It booted up smoothly and the screen glowed. Glen sat back.

‘That's good. For what it's worth.'

‘You'd better check that you can access the files.'

She tapped away and a file came up. I leaned over her shoulder.

‘What's this?'

‘It's that list of names I told you about—blokes who'd fucked Lucille.'

I ran my eye down the list. There were seven names—Lucas, MacDonald, Bartoli, Ellsworth, Seagram, Sexton—none of them meant anything to me. Glen turned the machine off and put it back in its case without bothering to close the zipper. Her eyes were set in that hopeless, far-seeing, looking-at-nothing gaze.

I hadn't told her about Sherrin coming up. Maybe this was the time. ‘Glen, Kevin Sherrin's on his way here. Should arrive soon.'

She sat on the bed with her shoulders hunched. ‘Why?'

‘He cares about you.'

‘Could've fooled me. No, that's not true. He's a good man, Kevin. The only thing wrong with him is that bloody job. Have you ever thought about it, Cliff? What this sort of work does to people? The crap we see. The lies we listen to. The shit that bubbles up from down below.'

I put the jug on and got set to make tea for her and coffee for me. I tossed her a chocolate bar and she let it fall on the bed. ‘I try not to think that way,' I said. ‘Sometimes we help get things straightened out.'

‘Not often.'

She was determined on sliding down and there wasn't a lot I was going to be able to do about it. I made the drinks and put them on the table, forcing her to get off the bed at least, stand upright, take in a breath. She reached down and picked up the chocolate, ripped it open and ate a couple of squares. Still standing, she drank some tea and pulled a face.

‘Shit,' she said, ‘shit, shit, shit. I want a real drink.'

As if on cue, a knock came on the door. I opened it and Sherrin, in his suit but looking weary, walked in.

‘Hello, Kev,' Glen said. ‘Wouldn't a have a drink on you, would you?'

Sherrin looked at me.

‘A bad patch,' I said. ‘She'll get through it.'

‘Don't talk about me like that! Maybe
she
won't fucking get through it.'

‘I'll take you back to Sydney,' Sherrin said. ‘You can go to an AA meeting as soon as we get there.'

‘At three a.m?'

‘Yes, at three a.m.'

Glen squared her shoulders and looked from one of us to the other as if she was seeing us for the first time. But at least she was seeing us and the blank state had gone. I got some inkling of the power of the AA approach. ‘Okay,' she said. ‘Yes, I think that'd be best. I think it's that or …'

‘A day at a time,' Sherrin said.

Glen shook her head as she picked up her handbag and zipped the laptop bag shut. ‘The way I feel it's an hour at a time.'

I carried her overnight bag out to Sherrin's car,
a white Pulsar, and we stood around in the cool night air trying to find something to say. Eventually Sherrin couldn't hold it in any longer. ‘What about this bloke?'

‘I'll look for him,' I said.

He looked at my Falcon and the three other cars lined up at the units. ‘He's stolen Glen's car, right? I could put out a call on him.'

‘Don't do that,' Glen said. ‘I let him drive it. You could say he's just … borrowed it.'

Plus,
I thought,
he's drunk, hasn't got a licence and has marijuana on him.
If the cops caught him he was headed back to the institution and that didn't suit me. I wanted to find out what was behind all this crazed behaviour, whether it worked out well for Warren St John and his bitch of a mother or not.

Glen rubbed her eyes and shivered. ‘Cliff, I can't go on with this.'

‘I'll see what I can do. I'll talk to the brother. Don't worry. Just get yourself together again. We'll see how it works out.'

She got into the car and sat straight, looking pale and fragile through the tinted glass.

Sherrin said, ‘Thanks, Hardy.'

We didn't shake hands, as if we both sensed it would make Glen look like some kind of goods, handed over. He drove off and I went into the unit and dug out the Black Douglas. About two inches left. I poured it out and added an ice cube. I kicked off my shoes, dimmed the lights and sat on the bed, propped up against the pillows, to drink it but I was asleep after two sips.

21

The insistent ringing of my mobile woke me. It was close to 4 a.m. so I'd had about three hours sleep, enough to make me dopey and slow to respond but not enough to be refreshing. I fumbled for the phone, knocked it to the floor and swore several times before I was able to answer.

‘Yes. Who's this?'

‘Cliff, it's Jerry. Where are you?'

That got my attention. I swallowed the rest of the drink and tried to clear my head. ‘Jerry. I'm up Newcastle way still. What's happening.'

‘Oh God, I hoped you were closer. Rod's been here. It was … terrible.'

‘Are you all right? Did he hurt you?'

‘Yes, a bit. He tried to kill me, I thought. He was drunk and crazy. He …'

‘Are you safe now? Are you locked in?'

‘Yes, yes. I'm safe, but I don't understand. He was raving about you and this woman, Glen and his wife.'

‘Stay put. I'm on my way. I'll be there in a couple of hours, say three.'

‘I'm sorry. I …'

‘It's okay. I'm leaving now. Ring me any time if you need to. I'm coming. Do you need a doctor?'
She almost laughed and the sound made me feel relieved. ‘I
am
a doctor. Thanks, Cliff. I'll see you soon then.'

I grabbed the few things I'd taken into the unit, threw them in the car and was off within a couple of minutes. Underfed and underslept, with a dull ache in my head and pain through my upper body, I was in no condition for driving, but the traffic on the highway was light and I made good time. Rod was running out of control but there must have been some reason for him to go to Jerry. Maybe there'd been more between them than she'd let on. I decided not to worry about that and to concentrate on driving.

Dawn broke when I was halfway there and it was fully light by the time I got to Mosman. I went up to the house as quickly as I could, given my battered condition, and rang the bell. Jerry opened the door. She was barefoot, pale and swathed in a black velvet dressing-gown. She had a black eye and a bandaged head and her throat was bruised. She reached for me and wrapped her arms around me. I gave a gasp of pain but grabbed her when she tried to pull away.

‘What's the matter?' she said.

I held her and kissed her hair, keeping clear of the bandage. ‘I had a run-in with Rod as well. He flattened me. What happened here?'

She drew me inside and closed the door. I examined her injuries in the light flooding in from the skylight. ‘Jesus, he throttled you.'

‘Tried to. I fought him off. I can fight and I was terrified. Look.' She showed me her right hand. The knuckles were skinned and three of the nails were broken.

‘You did better than me. How much damage did you do to him?'