Challis - 01 - Dragon Man (5 page)

Im back, Ange.

Im trying to picture your house.

Its just a house.

A catch in her voice. Not that Ill
ever see the inside of it.

Ange, I-

I imagine somewhere peaceful and
quiet. I miss that.

Yes.

Im not a bad person, Hal. Not deep
down inside.

I know youre not.

Temporary madness.

Yes.

I cant really believe it all
happened like that. Like a bad dream.

Yes.

You do forgive me, dont you?

I forgive you.

The answers came automatically. Hed
been giving them for years.

She said, in a wondering voice: Youre
an unusual man, Hal. Other husbands wouldnt forgive their wives, not for
something like that.

Challis swallowed his drink. So,
Ange, will your mum and dad come on Christmas Day?

Change the subject, why dont you?
Mum will, Dad wont. He doesnt want to know me. She broke down. God, seven
years, and he hasnt been once to see me.

Challis let her cry herself out.

You still there, Hal?

Im here.

The night was still and dark. The
house was like an echoing shell around him.

You dont say much.

Ange

Its okay, Hal, I have to go
anyway. My phonecards almost used up.

Take it easy, Ange.

I shouldnt be here, Hal. I dont
belong, not really.

Challis said gently, I know.

Its not as if I did anything.
Conspiracy to murder, God, how did I know hed try it?

Ange

She sighed. Spilt milk, eh?

Spilt milk.

Get on with my life.

Thats the spirit.

I cant believe I wanted him
instead of you.

Challis drained his glass. He said, Ange,
I have to go now. Take it easy, okay? Keep your spirits up.

Youre my lifeline, his wife said.

* * * *

Three

hat
same night, a woman on Quarterhorse Lane jerked back her curtain and saw that
her mailbox was burning. Now the pine tree was alight, streaming sparks into
the night. God, was this it, some twisted way of telling her that shed been
tracked down?

Shed been briefed carefully,
eighteen months ago. Never draw attention to yourself. Keep your head down. Dont
break the lawnot even drink driving or speeding, and especially nothing that
will mean youre ever fingerprinted. Dont contact family, friends, anyone from
the old days. Change all of your old habits and interests. Dress differently.
Learn to
think
differently. You liked collecting china figurines in the
old days, right? Went to auctions? Subscribed to magazines? Forget all of that,
now. Switch to sewing, cooking, whatever. Its good to give people a box to put
you instereotype you, in other words, so that their minds fill in the gaps in
your new identity. Above all, dont go back, not even if you get word that your
mums dying. Check with us, first. It could be a trap. You make one mistake, or
ignore what weve been telling you, theyll find you and theyll kill you. Youve
got a new ID; its pretty foolproof; youll do all right. Youll be lonely, but
plenty of people start over again. Just be wary. Watch what you tell people.
But youll be okay. Plenty of New Zealanders in Australia, so you wont stand
out too much. Meanwhile well do what we can to keep you alive from our end.

Thats what theyd told her. She
hadnt made much of an effort. There hadnt seemed much point, because the
situation had begun to unravel even before the plane that was to take her out
of the country had left the ground.

Shed been in the departure lounge
of Christchurch airport, eighteen months earlier, seated with the detective
assigned to escort her across the water and into a new life, when two men from
her old life had waltzed in and sat down nearby. The detective tensed. He knew
who they were, all right.

Terrific, shed said. Theyve
found me already.

Wait here.

She watched him walk to the desk and
show his warrant card. For a while it looked like a no-go, but then the
reservations clerk turned sulky at something the cop said and punched a few
keys and stared at his screen.

Meanwhile one of the men had spotted
her. He nudged the other, whispered in his ear, and now both were staring hard
across the dismal green carpet at her. She saw hatred and hunger in their
faces. One of them enacted a pantomime of what lay in store for her when they
caught her: a bullet to the head, a blade slicing across her windpipe. She hauled
her bag onto her lap, got to her feet.

A hand tightened on her shoulder.
The cop said urgently, Clara, come with me.

She pulled away. You must be
joking. Im pissing off.

No. If you leave here theyll track
you and youll be dead meat.

Theyve already tracked me down,
she said. Fat lot of good you people are. Look at them sitting there, large as
life.

Coincidence, the cop said, forcing
her to go with him.

Yeah, sure.

I checked. Theyre both getting off
in Auckland.

But theyll know Im going on to
Australia, she said. Theyll come looking.

Australias a big place.

Not big enough.

Look, for all they know, youre
going on to Europe.

She had glanced back. One of the two
men was standing now, watching her. She saw him tap his temple, grin, and flap open
a mobile phone with a neat gesture of his wrist. He was flashily dressed, like
they all were from that corner of her life: shirt buttoned to the neck, no tie,
expensive baggy suit, costly Italian loafers, oiled hair scraped back over his
scalp.

Hes calling someone, she said.

Let him.

Where are you taking me?

Weve got a backup seat reserved
for you on another airline. It leaves in fifteen minutes.

Six-thirty, early evening, a dinner
flight, a seat in first class. Clara ate steak and salad, and palmed the knife
and the fork. They werent much, but at least in first class they were
stainless steel, and theyd give her an edge if she needed it, the kind of edge
shed come to rely upon in her short life.

That had been eighteen months ago.
She had herself a new life in a quiet corner of south-eastern Australia, close
to the sea on a peninsula where nothing much happened. The locals accepted her.
She had answers for their questions, but there werent too many of those. Her
nearest neighbour in Quarterhorse Lane was half a kilometre away, on the other
side of a hill, a vineyard and a winery separating them. If she walked to the
top of that hill she could see Westernport Bay, with Phillip Island around to
the right. She lived on a dirt road that carried only local traffic and half a
dozen extra cars to the little winery on days when it was open, the first
Sunday of the month. No-one knew her. No-one much cared.

So how had she been found? Was the
fire a signal? And why a signal in the first place? Why not just barge in and
finish her off? Unless they wanted to wind her up first, a spot of mental
cruelty. Her hands were shaking. God, she could do with some coke now, just a
couple of lines, enough to ease the pressure in her head. She stared at her
fingers, the raw nails. She clamped her left hand around her right wrist and
dialled the number of the Waterloo police station. Above her the ceiling fan
stirred the air. God it was hot; 35 and not even Christmas yet.

* * * *

Danny
Holsinger, twisting around in the passenger seat, peering back along
Quarterhorse Lane, said, Burning nicely.

Boyd Jolic felt the rear of the ute
fishtail in the loose dirt. Baby, come and light my fire, he sang.

Danny uttered his high, startling, whinnying
laugh. He couldnt help it. He swigged from a can of vodka and orange, then
stiffened. Theres one, Joll.

Jolic braked hard, just for the
sensation of lost traction, then accelerated away. The mailbox outside the
winery was a converted milk can, all metal, not worth chucking a match into.
Not like that wooden job back down the road.

They came to an intersection. Left
or right, old son?

Danny considered it. Left, you got
a couple of orchards, couple of horse studs. Right, you got another winery, a
poultry place, some bloke makes pots and jugs and that, lets see, a woman does
natural healing, some rich geezers holiday place, then you got Waterloo and
the cops. He giggled again. His day job was driver of the shires recycle
truck and he knew the back roads like the back of his hand.

Left, Jolic decided. Right sounds
too fucking crowded.

He planted his foot and with some
fancy work on the brake and wheel, allowed the ute to spin around full circle
in the middle of the intersection, then headed left, away from Waterloo.

The first mailbox was another solid
milk can, but the next two were wooden. The first didnt take, kept starving of
air or something, but the second went up like it was paper. Sparks shot into
the sky, spilled on to the other side of the fence. Soon they had themselves a
nice little grass fire going.

Where to now, Joll?

Jolic blinked awake. He realised
that his mouth was open, all of his nerve endings alive to the dance of the
flames.

Joll? Danny tugged him. Mate, time
to hotfoot it out of here.

They climbed back into the ute,
slammed away down the road just as torchlight came jerking down the gravel
drive from a house tucked away behind a row of cypresses.

Mate, where to?

Other side of the Peninsula, Jolic
decided. Well away from here. New territory.

Danny settled back in his seat. This
was ace, out with his mate, a bit of damage by nightbut thats all it was. He
couldnt say the same for Jolic. The bastard was pretty flame happy. Maybe it
came from being a volunteer fireman for the Country Fire Authority.

The Peninsula was deceptive. There
were places, like Red Hill and Main Ridge, where the earth was composed of wave
after wave of deep gullies and folds and knuckles of high ground. Later on in
the new year the vines on the hillsides would be encased in fine bird mesh,
like long, slumbering white slugs at night. Jolic drove them to a twisting road
above the bay. Suddenly pine trees swallowed the moonlight, the headlights
boring into funnelling darkness as they roared down the hill toward the coast
highway.

At the roundabout inland from
Mornington they turned right, into a region of small farms, then right again,
on to another system of back roads.

Check this.

A large wooden mailbox, mounted on
an S-bend of welded chain, the number 9 on it in reflective enamel. Jolic
slowed the ute. Glossy black paint job; small brass hinges; a sticker
stipulating no advertising material.

Fucken A, Danny said.

They got out, stood a while in the
windless lane, listening. Only the engine ticking. It was a long night, and
very hot, and Danny began to wonder why he was out here with this mad bastard
and not slipping one to Megan Stokes, in her bed or in among the ti-trees down
the beach, with a plunge into the sea to cool down after. Well, he did know:
she was pissed off with him because hed forgotten her birthday and it was
going to take plenty of sweet-talking and presents to bring her around. Mate,
lets just pack it in, call it a night.

It always caught you unprepared, the
way Jolic could explode, if explosion was the right word for a fist gathering a
clump of T-shirt, choking you, and a face hissing in yours, so close you got
sprayed with spit.

Youre not wimping out on me, are
ya?

Danny coughed it out: Its just, Ive
got work in the morning. Start at five. I need sleep.

Piss weak, said Jolic, shaking
him. Danny was small, skin and bone, and felt himself rising to the tips of his
runners as Jolic absently lifted him by the bunched T-shirt. Jolic was built
like a concrete power pole, slim and hard. He wore grease-stained jeans that
looked as if theyd stand unaided if he stepped out of them, a red and black
check shirt over a blue singlet, and oily boots. Tattoos up and down his arms,
and a bony skull under crewcut hair. Danny had been hanging around Jolic ever
since primary school, needingso Megan reckonedthe big cunts approval all the
time.

Mate, I cant breathe.

Jolic released him. Piker.

Danny rubbed his neck. Gis the
matches. Ill do it.

He opened the little flap on the
front of the mailbox, stuffed it with petrol-soaked paper towels, tossed in a
match, stepped back. The flap swung down, choking the flames. They waited.
Danny raised the flap again. The interior of the box was scorched, still
glowing red in places, but it wasnt alight. He leaned close, blew. God, what a
stink, varnish, wood preservative, whatever.