Thirty-Seven

Kava had done the twelve-to-two shift in front of the monitors, and was asleep upstairs when they broke in just after three. He’s a light sleeper, though, and they woke him. He would have jumped them, but he heard them threaten Toffee and Jack with a bullet each. So he knew they had guns. He hid instead. The attic. Dusty, but empty.

He went downstairs not long after he heard the back door shut. He crept outside but didn’t see which direction we had been taken. He didn’t need to. It was soon obvious. He ran back inside, called Bill and Gabby on their mobiles. He noticed the men with guns had left some bags behind. Tools to remove the locks they had taken out of the side servants’ door they had come in through. No doubt the plan was to put the locks back in place after completing the Lachlan Swamp multiple drowning.

Bill and Gabby both arrived about ten minutes later. Kava was already gone. Following his nose. Bill did the same. It was quick thinking by Jack. He wasn’t scared. Not of these dipshits. He had walked around jungles in South East Asia and faced far worse.

He had opened his colostomy bag. Just enough to leave a trail of himself for others to follow. An ex-soldier and a Samoan native had no trouble picking up the scent.

Jack’s below-the-belt twist on Hansel and Gretel was exhausted about one-third of the way down Dickens Drive. We could have been anywhere amid more than 200 hectares of Norfolk pines, Moreton Bay figs and eucalyptus. Bill Doyle guessed where they would be taking us, though. Duck Pond, or Lachlan Swamp.

The first thing I saw when I was breathing air again was Gabrielle. Dark jeans, and only a dark singlet on top. Her hair was all over the place, but all over the place in an erotic, as distinct from erratic, kind of way. I had nearly been drowned, but I had the wherewithal to register that. Like I said, men are never really free.

Gabby was standing astride Metro-Goon. She owned him. She was holding the spear gun I’d had in my bedroom the way Stallone holds an AK-47. She held it between Metro-Goon’s legs. He didn’t look like he was planning any sudden moves. Jesus Christ. Lara Croft’s turned gay. I was thinking this when I gagged again on something in my mouth. Hot liquid, trickling back down my throat. Warm iron and salt. Blood. I spat, coughed, nearly vomited again.

‘You’re okay, son,’ I could hear Bill say through some kind of fog, like it was a dream, like I was still underwater. ‘Just a bloody nose.’ I gently felt between my cheekbones. Someone had attached a large overripe avocado to my face.

Which was when I noticed Cement Voice’s nose. It did not appear to be firmly attached to his face anymore. It was dark, the moonlight filtering through the paperbarks, but at a guess, I thought his nose was now structurally attached, loosely, to his right earlobe. He was covered in claret, and his breathing suggested he might be in need of a tracheotomy.

So, this is the scene I took in when I came back from the nearest thing I had ever had to forty winks with the short-finned eels. It was all good news. I was alive. My team was winning. We had the guns, we had the spears, we had the fists. And, from what I could tell, there was an unspoken consensus to use all weapons at our disposal, in no particular order.

I wasn’t thinking straight when we arrived back at the house. I was euphoric. I was still alive when I should have been dead. I was ready to take on the world.

Toffee and Kava took care of the two goons in the library. Tied them up, taped their mouths. Kava, the softie, suggested taping Cement Voice’s nose back in place, but Toffee overruled him. ‘Fuck him,’ he said, firmly. Which pretty much summed up my feelings on the matter too. We’d hold the maxillofacial surgery for the time being. The rest of us then went into the living room, where I began to set up my interview equipment.

‘What do you think you’re doing now?’ Bill stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips, King of Siam again.

‘I have to set this camera up,’ I said.

‘And?’

‘They confess. On tape.’

‘They confess, hey? What makes you think they’ll do that?’

‘We torture them until they do.’

I wasn’t certain if I was serious. I was in pain, suffering shock, and mildly concussed. I was not feeling charitable towards Cement Voice.

‘Torture? You’re going to perform it?’

Me? Well, I was pissed off, but torture is not really my thing. ‘I was thinking one of you bigger blokes might like to try the persuasion thing,’ I said. ‘Or the girl with the spear gun.’

Bill shook his head. He looked at Gabby, then looked back at me. ‘You thought we’d take care of it, did you?’

I nodded. I had nearly died. I’d made my contribution for the morning.

‘When do we call the cops?’

‘Later. Not yet,’ I said. ‘After we have what I want on tape. If not, Plan B first.’

Bill shook his head again. He turned back to Gabby. ‘You look a lot more sensible than him at the moment,’ he said. ‘Come with me. Let’s have a chat.’ He tapped Jack on the shoulder as he turned to walk out. The three of them left me. I was alive, but I was out of the loop.

Kava entered the room moments later to keep me company. He had a VB can in his hand. It was 5.05 am. He held it up to me. ‘Get you one, mate?’ They never stop thinking of you, these Samoans. I shook my head.

‘Are they tied up?’

‘Nice and tight,’ he said. ‘Toffee keeping an eye on them. His evil eye. Not happy being hit.’

Toffee had been pistol-whipped, or cannon-whipped. He needed stitches, but had made do with a blood-soaked tea towel and packaging tape. Sporting this new headwear, he did not look like someone the Australian Government would go out of its way to give a visa to.

‘He’s all right?’

‘He’ll be good,’ Kava said. We were silent for a while. I could hear the others conspiring outside, then Kava added, ‘Hey, Chris, mate?’

‘Yes.’

‘That Bill. Got a punch on him.’ He smiled.

‘I know,’ I said. And I did. ‘You should see him with real estate agents.’

Ten minutes after they left me, Bill and Gabby burst back into the living room with military urgency. Decisions had been taken. ‘Kava,’ Bill said, ‘I need you to go somewhere. A butcher in Clovelly Road. It’ll be closed, but someone will be there at six. Knock at the door, tell them Bill Doyle sent you. Give them this note. Everything’s to go on my tab.’

A butcher. In Clovelly Road? That’s nice. We’re having a fucking barbecue.

Bill looked at me. ‘I’ll be back in twenty minutes.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m getting some plastic. And some other gear.’

‘Why is Kava –’ but Bill was gone.

I looked at Gabby. She was still doing a great Lara Croft impersonation. Just as sexy, hold the collagen, the implants, and the Billy Bob tattoo. ‘Chris,’ she said calmly, ‘we think you’ve been concussed. You need to take it easy. We’ll handle this now.’

We’ll handle this now. What is she? MI6? 008? Fuck, give a girl a spear gun and a violent male-induced situation and she turns into a female Bruce Willis. Without the conservative sympathies, of course. And almost certainly not the same taste in women.

She must have realised she was a touch Thatcherite in the way she spoke to me. She took me out to the kitchen, examined my nose, which was far more centrally located than CV’s, gave me some painkillers and a glass of water. Then she told me roughly what the plan was. I was annoyed I only had a small part – a walk-on, really – but I was feeling a bit vague. Being seconds off drowning can do that to you. And I did like the plan. Not the glass of water, though. It tasted like frogspawn and eel skin. Then again, for days afterwards, so did everything else.