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I hadn’t eaten since the coffee and banana bread earlier in the day. I briefly considered stopping at the Oxley for a schnitzel with pepper gravy, chips, and salad, but the thought immediately made my stomach turn, and I decided against it. I felt nervous and anxious and found myself craving whiskey. I’d never gone up against anyone in Paul Green’s position, and I put some serious thought to the ways I could expose him, with limited damage to my reputation.
It rattled me. I thought about the connotations and level of conspiracy Paul Green held over his little fiefdom of retirees on the south coast, and wondered how far his circle of influence spread. I suddenly felt exhausted, the events of the day having led up to something that might have been beyond my level of planning.
I negotiated a long bend in the road and coasted down a gradient onto a long, level stretch of empty bitumen.
A streak of white came at me fast from the right—a car with no headlights on.
There wasn’t a thing I could do. They say everything happens in slow motion when you’re about to have a car accident, and this was no different. I barely had time to slam my feet on the brake and say, ‘Shit!’ My fingers dug into the steering wheel.
Metal screamed and my head hit the side pillar. I came to rest at an angle, in a ditch off the side of the road. I smelled burnt rubber and tasted metal in my mouth. The stalled engine ticked over in the silence of the aftermath. Something inside under my ribs felt broken, but I didn’t want to look down at my body. I panted and gasped for breath. My neck had taken most of the impact, so I was scared to move.
A figure appeared to my right. Sergeant Paul Green’s countenance stared at me through the fragmented glass, then turned, and walked away.
