Chapter 37

Royal Brisbane Hospital glowed in the night, but Harry made it only as far as the smokers milling in the shadows before exhaustion overcame him. He staggered over to a low wall, sitting just as his legs gave way. He watched the nicotine addicts, some in wheelchairs, some with IV lines still attached. Bare feet shuffling in the dusty ground. An ambulance drove past, its lights and siren dead.

Harry texted Dave, and minutes later he saw a solid silhouette striding out of the light, into the darkness. Harry waved.

‘What’s going on?’ Dave said.

‘I’m in trouble.’

Dave glanced up at the hospital, then back at Harry.

‘Dave, I’m in trouble and I don’t know what to do.’

‘You look like you’re in shock,’ Dave said. Then, when he got closer, ‘Shit, you’re bleeding.’

He took Harry’s arm and studied it. Harry realised he was shivering.

‘How did you get here? You didn’t drive, did you?’ Dave asked.

Harry tried to remember. He remembered getting off the bus after talking to Vessel. He remembered figures running towards him. After that, it was just flashes. Pain. Blood. A knife clattering across the road. Then nothing.

‘I don’t know,’ Harry said. ‘Bus. I think.’

‘Yep. You’re in shock. Come on,’ Dave said. He held a hand out.

Harry looked up. ‘What?’

‘Come on.’ He grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him to his feet.

***

It was quiet for a Friday night; Dave was able to find a spare cubicle in Emergency. Harry lay on the bed, eyes fluttering closed, while Dave washed his arm with saline. He felt safe.

‘You were lucky,’ Dave said, swabbing the back of Harry’s arm. ‘No stitches required.’

He checked the hand. ‘This thing will bleed like a bitch, but then hands always do.’

A head poked through the curtain. A woman with dark hair and bright eyes, holding a cup of tea. Dave took it from her.

‘Thanks, Elva,’ Dave said.

She looked from Dave to Harry, then back again. ‘He hasn’t been admitted, has he?’

Dave shook his head. ‘He’s a friend of mine. Cut himself shaving.’

‘You’re dead if they find out.’

Dave shrugged. ‘I can always go back to pizza delivery,’ he said. Elva smiled, then closed the curtain.

Harry tried climbing off the bed; the world spun around him.

‘Whoa!’ Dave said. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I don’t want you to get in trouble. I better…’

Dave planted a hand on Harry’s chest. ‘Let’s just worry about you for a while. Here.’

Harry took the tea with a shaking hand. Sipped it. It was lukewarm, too sweet. He grimaced.

‘Just drink it,’ Dave said. He pulled together some bandages and started working on Harry’s arm and hand.

Harry closed his eyes but when he did the world swam and he saw Crow’s face, felt the knife-blade pressing against his stomach.

‘Two Dreadnorts,’ he said. ‘They came after me.’

Dave stopped what he was doing. ‘Dreadnorts? As in, outlaw motorcycle gang Dreadnorts?’

Harry nodded. ‘I confronted Vessel tonight, at South Bank. He must’ve…’

Harry sucked in breath as Dave rubbed antiseptic into his arm, then sipped more tea. He’d never felt so tired.

Do you want to cut, or dig?

Harry’s stomach cramped. Hot bile bubbled up his throat. He thrust the back of his hand against his lips as his stomach tensed again. Dave reached out and pulled a cardboard dish off the bedside table. He held it under Harry’s mouth as he vomited the tea into it. Dave passed him a couple of tissues and he wiped his mouth.

‘Feel better?’ Dave said. ‘Hang on. Ron Vessel. And Dreadnorts?’

‘Cardinal is the link. They came after me, and somehow I beat them. Rob beat them.’

‘Rob?’

‘Yep. These were his tattoos. He was in the SAS. The guys who came after me are the same ones that took him and his girlfriend down. It was as if – it was as if he were in control. I was just along for the ride.’

Dave stopped working on the arm for a moment, and stared at Harry.

‘He wanted me to kill them,’ Harry whispered. ‘He wanted me to destroy them.’

For a long time, Dave said nothing. Outside, a siren blared, then cut out. Shoes squeaked on linoleum.

‘I told you, Harry,’ Dave said. ‘I told you to get out of there.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘I told you, and you stayed there, and now…’

‘They’re pieces of shit,’ Harry said. Anger flared. ‘They deserve it.’

Dave stared at Harry. ‘That’s Rob talking. No-one deserves to bleed to death in a back street, Harry.’

Harry felt a sullen rage pulsing behind his eyeballs. He forced it down, and the extreme fatigue overcame him again. He couldn’t see a way out. But Rob could; Harry just didn’t want to accept it.

‘Then help me, Dave! Help me end this!’ he pleaded.

‘The best way I can think of to help you right now is to offer you somewhere safe to sleep,’ Dave said.

Dave finished the dressing on Harry’s hand, then rubbed his nose with his forearm. He tidied up, put Harry’s vomit bowl into the hazardous-waste bin.

‘You right to walk?’ he asked.

Harry nodded.

‘Come on then, you crazy bastard. Let’s get you home.’