Headland, page 9
‘Fuck you then,’ he yelled into the darkness. ‘Stay here!’
Number thirty-three was only two cabins further on. It was empty.
He sploshed his way back to the car, shivering and swearing.
The barracks was on one of the highest streets in the town. Although the ground was saturated, there was no floodwater running through the property. He pulled into the carport and called Ellie on the radio. Told her he’d gone under and needed to change his clothes. He didn’t bother running for the door. It wasn’t possible to get any wetter.
As soon as he entered, he could tell something was wrong. The house was dark but there was a clattering noise coming from the kitchen. There was a presence in the house. Not rats this time. He threw on the lights and drew his pistol simultaneously.
‘Police, don’t move!’ he screamed with fear-fuelled adrenaline. Moving to his left, his pistol trained on the kitchen door. ‘Police, don’t move!’ he yelled again as he took two big strides into the kitchen.
It was empty. The back door was wide open. The rain-filled wind was slamming the door into a cupboard and the raggedy curtains were streaming in sopping tatters across the room.
‘Oh God,’ he moaned as he kicked the door shut. He laid his head on the bench as he looked down at the floor, at the trail of muddy footsteps coming in from the yard.
Fuck.
He spun around, pistol out in front.
‘Police, don’t fucking move!’ he screamed.
The hallway, the bedroom, the bathroom, the lounge, the second bedroom—something flashed. Nothing. He wanted to cry.
He fell down onto the lounge. His pipe was still there, stuffed between the cushions where he had left it. He reached into his pocket to retrieve the few bags of rocks that he had crammed in there at the truck stop. The deal bags were sopping wet, open and empty. He held his head and moaned.
He spent the obligatory five minutes waiting for the hot water and then another five under the steaming flow before it ran out. He towelled off quickly, dancing on the freezing cold tiles. He exited the bathroom just as the front door opened. There was a direct line of sight between the two. He froze. Larissa entered first and then Ellie. They stood and watched, smiling wide, while he stood semi-paralysed, swinging in the breeze.
‘Must have been the cold,’ Ellie said to Larissa when he reentered the lounge room, dressed. Larissa snorted, smiling his way. It took him a moment, then he smiled himself.
Whatever.
They had made coffee, instant, and were hunched together on the lounge with his little heater on full. He snuck a hand down and carefully manoeuvred his crack pipe further back under the cushions.
‘Could be the only street that still has electricity,’ Ellie said.
He took the cup of coffee they had made for him and held it between his hands, soaking up the warmth.
‘So, what’s the story now?’ he asked.
‘We just wait until five a.m., then we head out as well,’ Ellie said. ‘They reckon the bridge will be under by eight. If anything comes up between now and five, we’ll have to deal with it but other than that we might as well just hang out here.’
Watson told them about seeing the person in the caravan park and then showed them the muddy footprints in the kitchen.
‘We’ve had three reports of burglaries this afternoon and tonight,’ Ellie said.
‘Arseholes,’ Larissa said. ‘But they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here, aren’t they?’
Then the thought seemed to strike all three of them at the same time.
‘We’ve got a proper coffee maker, too,’ Ellie said.
They poured their thin instant coffees into the sink, raced out into the rain and drove to Ellie and Larissa’s place.
No sign of forced entry. It was all good.
Ellie got the king-size gas heater happening while Larissa got the percolator perking. Watson dropped himself into the big plush lounge in front of the fire. Ellie dropped a mohair blanket onto his lap.
‘Try this on for size,’ she said, and he did. It was toasty.
It wasn’t long before Larissa entered, carefully holding out three steaming mugs and with a packet of Tim Tams stuffed under her arm, one biscuit already hanging out of her mouth.
‘Move over,’ she muttered around the biscuit, and she squeezed herself under the blanket to Watson’s right. Ellie had already made herself comfortable under the blanket to his left.
They sat in silence, sipping their coffee, eating their biscuits, entranced by the hypnotic glow of the heater.
‘Three-thirty,’ Ellie said eventually. ‘An hour and a half to go. I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute.’
Watson felt Ellie’s weight gradually lean into his side and a bony elbow grind into his ribs as she relaxed into a deep sleep. She was snoring lightly within minutes.
‘It didn’t look that cold to me,’ Larissa whispered in his other ear, and he felt her warm breath against his neck. Two minutes later she was asleep as well, snuggled up close with her head on his shoulder.
The New South Wales Police Force Academy was a breeze. It was everything he had hoped for. Most of the instructors there knew the old man. ‘Watto’s boy’ they called him. He’d invited his father to a little family get-together the night before he was due to leave for the Academy, but he didn’t show.
There was nothing he didn’t excel at. The physical fitness side of things was a bit of a joke. He actually had to slow himself down on a few occasions just so people wouldn’t think he was big-noting himself. He applied himself hard to policing theory and legal studies and was running at close to a hundred per cent in every test he took. He was absolutely killing it.
There was a four-day block of leave scheduled at the end of the first month’s training. He was glad to be heading home for a few days but he also wouldn’t have minded if they just kept on going.
He got in late on a Thursday afternoon. He hadn’t teed anything up with his mates and his mother was working a late shift at the hospital. He hung around at home by himself for a little while before meeting a mate, Mark, at the Rex Hotel for a couple of after-work beers. Mark couldn’t hang around, though, as he was meeting up with a girl. People were moving on; the town was changing.
He noticed Alison right away. Remembered her from school. She was waitressing at the pub and she delivered his meal to him at his table. She remembered his name, but he had to read her name tag. She told him she had started at university, was studying radiography. He wasn’t sure what that was but it sounded impressive. He kind of remembered she was one of the smart girls.
She delivered meals to the tables all around him and smiled at him each time she passed. He liked her smile; it looked happy and sad and serious all at the same time. He asked her if she’d like to sit with him after she had knocked off. She didn’t look certain, but said she might.
She was paler than the girls he usually went for and she wasn’t a glamour. He didn’t mention that he was kinda sorta seeing someone else at the time. After all, it was only a casual thing, they hadn’t agreed they were exclusive or anything. He hadn’t even told the other girl he was coming home on leave. So he told Alison he was single, that he was focused on getting through the academy, which was more or less the truth.
Alison asked questions about the training course, and he found it hard to get it all out by closing time. She seemed genuinely interested, and she had a way of looking at him, half serious, half smiling. He took her number and thought about her before he went to bed. He sent her a text, just a smiley face, but she didn’t respond.
He sent her a text in the morning, saying, I might see you tonight.
That evening, he met up with Mark and the boys for Friday night drinks. Most had serious girlfriends, some were turning into losers, he couldn’t work out which were which. He thought about Alison, remembered that she knocked off at nine thirty, so he got there at nine. She came straight over, looked surprised to see him. ‘Of course I came,’ he said. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’
She looked different when she came and sat with him that night. Her hair was out, long and wavy and light brown, and she had put lipstick on. They resumed their conversation from the previous night—at least he did—and it was as if he hadn’t drawn breath. He told her all about himself. She listened intently.
‘I’m tired,’ she said after last drinks were called.
She must have seen something in his face. ‘You can come back to my place.’ She said it seriously. It seriously turned him on.
‘It’s just me and my mother.’ Her eyes flashed when she said it.
He felt a stirring beside him.
‘Come on, it’s four thirty,’ he heard, and his eyes snapped open.
Ellie was standing in front of him, dressed, ready for action, two steaming mugs in her hand.
‘It’s black,’ she said. ‘No milk.’
Larissa mumbled incoherently and tried to pull the blanket back up over herself. ‘I don’t want to go to school,’ she whined.
Watson watched Ellie’s face soften into a smile.
‘Come on, get up. The bridge will be under by eight—we’ve got to get out of here.’
Larissa threw the blanket off. ‘If you put it that way,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine being stuck here?’
Ellie called in on her large police walkie-talkie. Static. She tried a few more times and got the same result.
‘It looks like all the towers are off the air,’ she said. ‘We’ve got no comms. Phones are down as well.’
Watson pulled his phone out of his pocket to double-check. No bars, no reception.
He stood outside the house’s only bathroom while Larissa took an inordinate amount of time to go to the toilet. He was just contemplating the backyard when the toilet flushed and the door opened. She had fixed her hair and make-up. She looked him in the eye and touched a finger to the end of his nose, just lightly.
They made a dash for their cars in the freezing wet darkness and took off for the bridge, the women in front.
Ellie’s brake lights flared unexpectedly, scattered red in his windscreen. It took him a moment to realise she wasn’t slowing down—she was stopping. He stamped his foot hard on his own brakes and only just missed slamming into the back of the other car.
What the fuck?
They were two hundred metres from the bridge, just short of the town’s main drag. Ellie and Larissa climbed out of their car. Watson got out and joined them. The road they were on dipped down into the intersection before climbing again slightly to the bridge. From a couple of metres in front of Ellie’s cruiser to as far as the eye could see, the road was awash.
The bridge was gone.
They all turned and looked at each other, then turned back again to face the spot where the bridge used to be.
There were no lights on the other side. There was no one waiting for them.
‘Philby,’ Watson said. ‘What the fuck?’
Ellie shook her head, speechless. Larissa had tears welling.
Ellie jumped back into the patrol car, flashed the high beams, turned on the lights, gave the siren a burst. It turned the area into a flashing red-and-blue psychedelic lightshow, but there was no response from the other side of the river.
‘They’ve left us,’ Larissa said. ‘They’ve fucking gone and left us here.’
He could hear Ellie yelling into the two-way radio in the patrol car, but there was no answer.
They were on their own.
15
Insipid dawn light was doing its best to break through the gloom when they pulled up outside Ellie and Larissa’s. The power was out. They stood around in the lounge, directionless, breathing out frost until they got the heater cranked up again.
‘At least we have gas,’ Ellie said, toasting her hands over the heat.
‘I’ll make us some breakfast,’ Larissa said.
Watson and Ellie followed her into the kitchen; it seemed they all felt the need to stick close together.
Larissa pulled eggs and bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese out of the fridge, took a large frying pan out of the cupboard, and asked, ‘So what are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’ Ellie responded.
‘We’ll just have to wait it out,’ Watson said, stating the obvious. He frowned. ‘Philby,’ he said, then, staring hard at Ellie, ‘what the fuck is going on?’
She shook her head.
‘Come on, Ellie, you act like he’s carrying Ebola, you can’t stand to be in the same room as him, and as far as I can see he’s shit scared of you.’
‘We don’t know what his problem is,’ Larissa jumped in. ‘We just know he looks at porn—a lot.’
‘He’s disgusting, makes my skin crawl,’ Ellie added. ‘And there’s something else …’
‘What?’ Watson and Larissa both said it at the same time.
‘I’m not exactly sure, but I think there was something going on with Alan Bishop.’
‘He’s a pig,’ Larissa muttered.
‘Like what?’ Watson asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Ellie said, ‘but I heard them fighting in Philby’s office with the door closed. I think Philby was scared of Alan, or Alan had something over him. It was just after the big accident.’
‘The accident? Out on the highway?’ Watson said.
‘Yeah, that afternoon, and then he was gone. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘I’ve seen him,’ Larissa said. ‘He was hanging around outside the station in his car.’
‘When was that?’ Ellie asked.
‘Monday, the day that Craig started. He was just sitting there watching.’
‘Christ,’ he said, and moved back to the heater.
He had to pull over on the side of the highway, driving back to the academy that first time—after Andrea on the lounge.
He couldn’t concentrate. He kept getting pictures in his mind. Kept hearing her voice, laughing at him, teasing him. It was like he was naked to the world for the very first time. Everyone would be able to see straight through him. See the bullshit. See his act. They would know that he was terrified. Know that ‘Watto’s boy’ was nothing but a pale, hopeless imitation of his father.
Watto had treated him like a mangy mutt that had followed him home one day. He hardly even visited after he’d left them. He’d left Craig sitting on the wall outside his mother’s house for five hours one day, hoping his dad was going to turn up for his scheduled visit and take him somewhere. He’d cried for days afterwards.
Sitting by the side of the road, he did it again: he held on to the wheel tight, and he sobbed.
There was an exam that first week back from leave. He hadn’t studied, he hadn’t really slept, he didn’t even finish it, let alone pass. A few of Watto’s old mates pulled him aside, asked him what was going on. They looked concerned. ‘Woman trouble,’ he told them, and they chuckled. ‘Just like the old man, hey?’
Alison was like a lifeline. She was back at uni now and working nights, but they’d speak most evenings and she’d tell him how much she missed him. She made him feel better about himself.
Two weeks back at the academy, and he was called up to see the Superintendent, who wanted to talk about what was going on. ‘Why the failing grades?’ he asked. ‘You were at the top of the tree.’
He gave the Superintendent the same story: he had broken up with a girl, it was nasty, but he’d bounce back, there was no need to worry.
Three weeks in and he had started to get on top of things again; he’d got some pills to help him sleep, and they helped to calm him down. He started to study and got back to the exercise. He was passing again; there were smiles all round.
Then one Wednesday afternoon he had a message from the office. His mother was coming to pay him a surprise visit; she’d be arriving at five thirty to take him out for dinner.
He waited in the reception area and at five thirty on the dot a car pulled in. A brand-new Mercedes. Behind the wheel was Andrea, smiling widely.
‘It’s only going to go off if we don’t eat it all now,’ Larissa said, cracking more eggs into the frying pan.
Watson was shovelling it down; he couldn’t remember the last time he had an appetite. They sat and they ate until none of them could eat any more.
‘Oh my God,’ Larissa said, rubbing her stomach. ‘What did we do that for?’
‘That was great,’ Watson said, then, feeling he should contribute, ‘I’ll make coffee.’
‘There’s no milk,’ Ellie said. ‘I can’t drink coffee without milk.’
‘Well, I think the shops might be shut, El,’ Larissa pointed out.
‘The station,’ Ellie said, not even bothering to acknowledge the interjection. ‘There’s plenty of milk there. I got a large bottle yesterday. I’ll just go and get it.’
Watson knew better then to offer. Knew she wouldn’t appreciate any show of chivalry. Equal rights and all that.
Ellie grabbed the keys and went for the door, letting in an arctic blast of cold air and rain before it slammed shut behind her.
Larissa scraped the plates into the bin and rinsed them in cold water before loading them in the dishwasher. Watson was wrestling with the hand-cranked coffee grinder.
‘It’s not that hard,’ she said, standing at the sink watching him, hands on her hips.
He suddenly felt flustered, nervous. It was the way she said it, the way she was standing.
Larissa must have noticed, because she walked over to him. Stood behind him. Put a hand on his shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’ she cooed. ‘Is that big old machine too complicated for you?’
He felt her other hand slide up and start to lightly massage his neck and shoulders. He could feel her heat close behind him.
‘Is that good?’ she whispered in his ear, closer now.
‘Oh yeah,’ he managed.
These girls are seriously confusing.
She dug her fingers in a little harder. He turned to face her. Her eyes were smiling, her lips slightly parted, curving at either end. He slid his hands around her waist, then slowly down to her firm round rump, and pulled her to him. He moved his face closer to hers until they shared each other’s breath.
