Chapter 9

Harry sat in front of his laptop, eyes glazed over, barely seeing the screen. His arm throbbed. The sun was long gone, but it was still stinking hot. Sweat beaded on his chest, running down to the waistband of his shorts. The house creaked, expanding with the heat. The tin roof tick, tick, ticked. Distant thunder taunted.

He took another mouthful of beer, went to Google and typed ‘phantom tattoos’. The page loaded and he laughed. The screen filled with links to photos and discussions about tattoos of the Phantom of the Opera and the Ghost Who Walks. He clicked on ‘Images’. Skulls peered out at him, but they were either on the Phantom’s belt buckle (where they should be) or surrounded by blood-red roses. None of them were anything like his drowning man, or the ‘Arabic bingo card’.

He opened a text document and wrote down everything he could remember from the latest nightmare. A soldier called Rob. Men, women and children, drowning. UBAs, Rob had called them. He stared through the screen.

‘They were trying to turn the ship around,’ Harry said to himself.

Shit. Harry sat back in his chair, ran his fingers through his sweaty hair. Took another slug of VB. He could hear them screaming.

Two tattoos. Two nightmares. Was Rob the guy buried in the shallow grave? Harry thought he was.

He searched for ‘asylum seeker tragedy’. The screen filled with the first page of more than a million hits. Everywhere from Australia to Africa to Afghanistan. He added ‘Christmas Island’.

The top result was a news story from a week earlier: Former minister reflects on Christmas Island tragedy.

During the 2001 federal election campaign, Harry read, Australian forces were sent from Christmas Island to turn around an Indonesian tramp steamer that had strayed into Australian waters. The ship was full of asylum seekers, picked up after the fishing boat they were travelling on sank. The ship’s captain wanted to offload them on Christmas Island.

But when the Australians neared the ship, it exploded. A report into the tragedy found that asylum seekers had tried to sabotage the engines, and accidentally ignited the ship’s fuel supply.

With a storm fast approaching, the vessel sank quickly. Of the more than 400 people on board, only 45 were saved. The SAS troopers involved, who weren’t named, were awarded the Medal for Gallantry.

The former immigration minister, reflecting on the ‘unnecessary’ loss of life, put the blame back firmly on the people smugglers, rather than the government’s decision to turn the boat around. Further down the article, Labor’s immigration spokesperson blamed the government for the asylum seekers’ deaths. But in the next quote she promised even tougher border controls under a Cardinal Labor government.

Harry typed some more notes, then returned to Google. He finished his beer, and rose from his chair to fetch another, then stopped. On a whim, he typed in ‘ghost tattoos’. Again, a heap of links to literal tattoos popped up. But on the side, in the sponsored links, a list of different results. A couple of local tattoo parlours, including West End Tattoo, but also psychics: City Psychics, Australian Psychics, Brisbane Psychics. Harry stared at the links for a long time, but didn’t click.

Instead, he returned to the fridge and pulled out another beer, replacing the empty bottle in his stubby holder. He shouldn’t really be drinking, given his likely psychological problems. But when you’re at the point where you’re going out and getting tattoos done while you’re unconscious, a couple of beers couldn’t hurt.

He stood in the kitchen, looking out at the house next door, and its back garden. Thinking of Karen. Of brain tumours. Of drowning men and buried men and screaming. Lots and lots of screaming.

He took his beer back to the lounge room and stretched out on the couch, watching movies in his mind. How did it all fit together? He felt like he had when he’d been at uni, working on his final assignment. In the early stages. He’d had all these pieces of seemingly unrelated information. And then, one day, they’d clicked together.

Harry sculled the rest of his beer, enjoying the buzz. He lay back and stared at the ceiling. Outside, the wind picked up. Off in the distance thunder boomed. Harry drifted to sleep, goosebumps prickling his flesh.