42

There was a phone in Jenny’s briefcase. Fern was still breathing and we did our best to stem the bleeding until the ambulances arrived. The bullet had struck her in the lower abdomen, just above the groin. The ambulances were quick, and the first one took her away with its siren blasting.

‘I’ve always had mixed feelings about that sound,’ said Tasso. He was holding Harry in his arms as he watched Fern’s ambulance disappear around the corner. Harry watched it go, too, fascinated by the siren and the flashing lights, and then went to sleep against Tasso’s chest, Tasso stroking his curly hair.

‘You mean the siren?’

‘Yeah, the siren. On the one hand it is the sound of civilisation, you know? The sound that tells us we are an organised and humane society and we’ll do our best to save every life. Every life, even the dicks. That’s civilised.’

‘I never really thought about it.’ I was pulling duct tape from my jeans. We had sliced through our bindings with a kitchen knife, but the pieces were still sticking to me.

‘But on the other hand, it’s the sound that reminds us that death stalks us all and that there’s always someone out there who is breathing his final breath, fighting his last fight, letting go his white-knuckled grip on the world. One day the siren will call for you, Steve. It’ll call for me. It’ll call for us all.’

‘Yeah, I guess it will. But I’m fucken just not going to answer it.’

Tasso gave a grim little grin. ‘And in the end, what was it all for?’

‘We all have to find our own meaning, Tasso.’

‘Yeah.’

The first cops sealed off the scene, and eventually the forensics guys turned up in their hairnets and white overalls. Tasso and I sat on the back of one of the ambulances and a local resident brought us a cup of tea. A paramedic tended my shoulder wound, which had opened up in my struggle with Coy and was hurting like buggery.

‘Tell them everything,’ Tasso said. ‘The cops.’

‘Even about Ecstasy Lake?’

‘Yeah. You know what?’

‘What?’

‘Ecstasy Lake wasn’t worth this.’

Bert arrived, bringing Melinda. She ran to Harry and grabbed him from Tasso. She kissed him about fifty times and woke him. He started crying.

‘He’s hungry,’ I said. She ignored me.

Bert spoke to Tasso. He asked just enough questions to find out what he needed to know. He had a word with the uniformed cops who were standing guard. With the cops’ agreement, he took Melinda and Harry away.

Next to arrive were Tarrant and McGarry, both looking exhausted. Tarrant glanced at me, shook his head and went into the house. He was inside for half an hour, maybe longer. The bodies were brought out. Tasso and I had to vacate our seats and the ambulances loaded up and moved out. It was nearly midnight.

‘Who shot who?’ said Tarrant, when he emerged.

‘Coy shot Fern, Jenny shot Coy, and I shot Jenny,’ I said. ‘And by the way, Jenny was trying to shoot me, not Coy.’

Uniformed cops took Tasso and me in separate cars to the station on Wakefield Street. We were questioned separately. It took a long time. The adrenalin had worn off long ago and by three in the morning I was nano-napping. I told Tarrant I wanted to go home. He wanted to go home, too. He put me in a holding cell.

‘Just until morning,’ he said. ‘After everything that’s happened in the last couple of days, I can’t afford to take chances by letting you loose on this poor little town. Tasso’s in another cell. I’ve got to write a report for the commissioner. Then I’m going home. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ I was too tired to argue. In fact, the idea of a holding cell appealed to me. The bed was hard and narrow, but I would have slept on nails.

We were released the next afternoon. Our stories had tallied with each other’s and with the evidence at the crime scene.

‘Any news about Fern?’ I asked Tasso.

‘Tarrant said they operated last night. She’s still alive.’ He looked tired. The skin on his face was flaccid, and there was no energy in his eyes.

‘Think we’ll still qualify for the lease?’ I said.

‘At the moment, I couldn’t care less about the fucken lease.’

Bert and Melody met us in the foyer of the station and we went our separate ways. Melody and I went to my flat. She cooked noodles and brewed a cup of tea, and we chatted while we ate and drank, and when night fell we went to bed and gripped each other in the dark.