TIME TO PAY THE FERRYMAN
MICHAEL COLLINS
Chapter 1
JUNE
Bob Delaney gazed over the short strip of sand that lay between him and a wide expanse of flat rocks leading directly to the deep, roiling sea. His eyes appeared set on a horizon that shimmered, mirage-like, between a vast blue Australian sky and the cobalt ocean that met it. Yet he saw nothing. He was oblivious to the screeching gulls diving into the whitecaps. He ignored the frilly lizard scuttling across the grassy hummock to his right. Even his hearing, normally finely tuned, had blocked out the sound of a frustrated dog owner calling her animal back from the ecstasy of temporary canine freedom. Bob Delaney saw and heard nothing because his mind was firmly elsewhere.
At eleven thirty that morning the clerk of the court’s ‘all rise’ had been like a death knell to Delaney. He had sat in anguished silence as the jury passed in a ‘not guilty’ to murder verdict for each of the three home invaders who had shattered his life beyond reason. Slumped forward in disbelief he’d been incapable of moving to his feet as the learned judge exited the court and the accused deadly trio whooped and high fived their delight. They knew it had been a narrow escape. Delaney’s neighbour, the only witness apart from himself, had remained mute in the witness box and the case had folded. The accused had sashayed out of court, one of them taking the opportunity, as they filed past Delaney, to offer a last obscenity to a gross miscarriage of justice.
‘Hey, motherfucker, pity you weren’t there too. We could have had some of your arse.’ Cruel, high-pitched laughter hung in the deserted courtroom air long after they had left and still echoed inside Delaney’s head.
The surf thundered off Shelly Beach on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Once the favourite haunt of his wife, his daughter, and himself, Delaney knew he could never return after today. As he’d stepped wearily from the car he had automatically panned the grassy areas above the sand, checked the BBQ tables and peered under the shady trees for his family. It was then that desolation and loneliness finally swept over him. Little Katrina would never be running into his embrace again, squealing with joy as she wrapped her podgy six year old arms around his neck, giggling and complaining about his weekend beard scratching her cheek.
Only one thing, the impending court case, had kept Delaney from slipping into the very depths of depression and giving up on everything. He had kept himself together for today, for his slain wife and child, waiting for justice to put some meaning into their barbaric deaths. Now justice had helped three sadistic killers fling filth into their poor dead faces, stamp heartlessly upon their graves and mock their short, innocent lives. Bob Delaney buried his face in his arms and tried desperately to weep. Everything was right, the pain, the sorrow and the terrible sense of loss, yet nothing moved within him. All he could feel was a growing hate and like a toxic worm it pulsed and writhed in his guts, demanding retribution.
*****************
THAT SAME NIGHT
Matthew ‘Gatts’ Gatton, high on speed and bullet proof, belched up a warm, vaguely comforting taste of cheap, Queensland rum as he parked his 1990 Commodore at the very last pump of a petrol station on Samford Road. His twenty-year-old head buzzed with a need for action. The dishevelled yet still faintly handsome youth was edgy and impatient as the careless cocktails of chemicals and alcohol he’d taken earlier streaked haphazardly through his bloodstream, strumming at his nerve endings and pummelling his heart. He knew what to do.
The service station he’d chosen had an older style forecourt with clunky, ageing pumps set in a straight line making the last one difficult to see from the register console at night. Gatts also knew there were no cameras protecting the pumps on this site and he’d smeared a handful of roadside mud on his plates just to be on the safe side. This was going to be too easy.
‘Fill it up for you sir?’ his companion, Jesse Pavlic, sniggered.
‘Yeah man,’ Gatts replied, taking a swig from a half empty Bundy bottle as he watched the console. He felt a twinge of unease. Jesse was always the weak link in his plans. Weak, how could a brick shithouse like Jesse be weak? He stole a quick glance at the intimidating bulk of his companion as he moved with an eerie grace towards the pump. Jesse was seriously overweight yet incredibly light on his feet, a fact that constantly amazed Gatts who carried seventy less kilos and felt clumsy by comparison. But, in a more sober moment, if Gatts could confess to one fear in his life it would be fear of Jesse. He wasn’t afraid for himself, no way. Jesse was an impossibly loyal, fawning puppy where Gatts was concerned, always ready to lick his hand and bounce away to do his bidding. No, it was a part of Jesse’s brain he feared. Feared because he knew something crazy and different lurked there, ready to spring out with a blind, uncontrollable fury. Another swig of the raw liquor made him cough and brought his mind back to the job in hand.
The old wanker behind the counter was busy hitting on a piece who’d filled up her fancy little Toyota poofter car just behind them. Through the glass she looked all right. Nice tits and a tight little arse filling her low-waisted jeans just right. Gatts’ gaze lingered over her skimpy top, admiring her flat, exposed belly and wishing he could reach out to slide his fingers down into her pants to tickle the curly pubic hair that he knew would be within reach.
Shaking his head Gatts slid out of the driver’s seat and, bent to his haunches, scuttled backwards to the Toyota. He remained crouched as he opened the Toyota’s door, at the same time glancing into the brightly lit shop. The girl was laughing and handing the operator a photo. Fucking perverted old fart. What’s a limp dick like him doing going after a good-looking sort like that? Gatts felt the bad vibes welling inside him. Through the window their picture-perfect, good shit happening, little selves were pissing him off. Well, maybe he could do something to wipe the smiles off their dumb-fuck faces for a while.
The interior of the Toyota smelt good with a warm, heady, woman-smell. He’d smelt that before when, looking for a purse to lift, he’d managed to bustle up close to a smart looking woman in the city. Gatts’ hands and eyes were quick. The dippy bird had taken some cash into the shop to pay for her gas and left her purse sitting on the passenger seat. In a moment the purse, a camera, a walkman and a handful of loose change were all in the Commodore.
Once the vehicle’s tank was full Jesse laid the pump nozzle onto the concrete by the car’s rear tyre and slipped back into the Commodore without slamming the door. With no ‘hang up’ signal at the console the operator would assume he was still filling and wouldn’t even bother to look their way. This would give the pair extra vital seconds. Gatts pushed his foot on the clutch and slid the handbrake off. The slope was sufficient to glide the car away from the pump silently, but, just as the Commodore began to move, a face appeared at Gatts’ open window.
‘Hey you bastards, give me my stuff back!’ the girl yelled, clawing at Gatts’ tee shirt, her tapered nails raking deeply across the side of his neck. The pain was sudden and agonising. Gatts, reacting instinctively to the fright, hit the brake. Jesus, the tart was fucking crazy. He turned to the wide-eyed, petite face framed in his window, shoving her flailing hands away from his body.
“Get off me you stupid bitch!” he screamed, feeling the bloody wetness of his scratches dribbling across his chest.
The girl’s panting face was hard against his as she groped for the ignition keys. As they grappled he couldn’t believe her fierce courage, or his own absurd and desperate need to plunge his face into the softness of her neck and suck at her skin. It was all so fucking way out he just wanted to laugh.
‘Fuck off!’ Jesse snarled, as his meaty fist snapped out and crashed into the girl’s face.
With a pitiful ‘Ungh,’ the girl reeled back from the window into the sharp metal sides of a waste bin. Watching the blood spraying from her face onto a nearby pump Gatts was reminded of fresh graffiti but then, seeing the girl’s slow motion, rag doll, flop over the bin, he cried out. Where it came from he had no idea. All he could feel was a deep sense of loss that had become all too familiar in his life.
‘Hey, you!’ came a male voice from behind the car.
It was the console operator. Gatts groaned as Jesse leapt giggling from the passenger seat and reached behind his seat for a baseball bat. He shrugged away a passing thought to help the girl. He’d better just make the most of this and grab some smokes.
John Stent, balding, fifty five, and never a brave man, knew he had bitten off too much as the obese youth seemed to glide towards him over the forecourt. It was that spunky girl tackling those layabouts that had done it. Without her he would have left them alone. So what if they’d grabbed fifty bucks worth of gas? The company told them not to be heroes. And did he want to be? He was a family man with two teenage daughters around the same age and as pretty as that girl. And he, a qualified bean counter, working a console. Not his preferred employment, especially after dark. But what can you do when you’re shafted by management and out on your bum? No old school tie lifelines flung out for him. And then when you’d rather work at anything than be made to feel like an unemployed bludger you like to think you do have choices left in your life.
Right now he wished he’d chosen to listen to his wife of thirty years. She’d begged him so hard to quit after the first armed hold up he’d felt sick when he refused her. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since that wild-eyed addict had jabbed a hypo needle against his neck, threatening to empty a syringe full of blood into him. Tests, tests and more tests plagued his life and kept his family in a state of terror until he knew he was clear of HIV. All for the miserable eighty bucks in his till.
‘Hey, hold on young fella!’ John appealed, hearing the quiver in his own voice as the youth squared up to take a swing at him.
The situation felt totally bizarre. In the stark surreal shimmer from the overhead forecourt lights he felt like an actor in an old, art house, black and white movie. Very frightened John looked around. The road was quiet. Christ, in another five minutes he would have been closing the store and heading home. John heard a brief ‘whoosh’ before he felt the first blow rip screaming pain into his upper body and then the sound of his left collarbone splintering. The heavy timber bat crunched into his shoulder again. With his left arm hanging uselessly at his side he made a feeble effort with his right to block the next vicious swing. The bat brushed his arm away like a leaf, bearing down and thudding into his ribs. With a dreadful gasp John slumped to his knees, feeling a gush of blood burst into his chest cavity. The last thing he heard was high-pitched laughter. Was it the insane giggle of a demented child? He never knew because in the next instant a massive blow pulped his head.
Jesse didn’t stop bashing the lifeless form until his arms ached. Then he threw the bat at the corpse and picked up the discarded fuel nozzle. Ten seconds of cascading petrol was enough to saturate John Stent’s body and create a decent lake around the forecourt.
‘Leave you for one fucking minute. Jesus, Jesse!’
Gatts, back from emptying the console cash drawer and grabbing a bagful of cigarettes, shook his head in disbelief. He ran to the Commodore ahead of the expanding spilt fuel, firing up the engine and pulling clear of the hazard as Jesse was ripping paper towelling from a dispenser. Gatts was half out of the car when he saw Jesse dip the paper wad in the fuel and step back with his cigarette lighter in hand.
‘No, Jesse, no!’
As the Commodore picked up speed down Samford Road towards Enoggera and the city, Gatts checked his mirror. An orange glow filled his entire rear vision. Jesse turned around to look and whooped.
‘Fuck, what’s happening?’ a disembodied voice grumbled from below the back seat. Slowly a head appeared.
‘Go back to sleep you dumb cunt, you’ve missed the fun!’ Jesse teased, turning in his seat and giving the face behind him a friendly slap.
Nick Catling rubbed his greasy long brown hair, cleared his throat and spat through the open window.
‘Slow down Gatts, for fuck’s sake!’ he whined. ‘The way you’re going anyone would think you’d killed some fucker.’
********************
A slow tear squeezed its way out of Anna Chaplain’s left eye, tickling a route down the side of her pert nose, sliding to her upper lip where it poised with irritating suspense. Finally Anna licked the tiny droplet, noting its saltiness. She couldn’t do anything else. Everything Anna had once taken for granted like eating, peeing and scratching was now totally impossible without help. She was a useless lump of shit as far as she was concerned, no good for anything but flushing away and sweeping out of sight forever. She resisted the temptation to cry out in frustration, fighting off the black edges of depression that were waiting to roll over her. She turned to the silent figure sitting patiently with almost cat-like detachment at her bedside.
‘Can’t even blow my own fucking nose,’ Anna complained, screwing up her face.
Detective Sergeant Alain Fletcher nodded. He took a clump of tissues from the box on the bedside cabinet and held it against the sides of Anna’s nostrils. She honked once, feebly and then tried again as she overcame her embarrassment. Fletcher threw the used tissues into the wastebasket and walked over to the window as Anna thanked him. He looked down, swaying with momentary vertigo as his brain reeled at the height. From this high, corner room at the Royal Brisbane Hospital he had a magnificent view of the stop start traffic inching up Bowen Bridge Road towards Lutwyche. But what had caught his attention were not the vehicles, eerily silent behind the plate glass window, but the fairground lights blossoming from the RNA showgrounds where the Ekka ten day annual event was under way. Fletcher had never been to the show, not being fond of crowds, but from this vantage point the Ferris wheel, whirling above the sea of flashing colour and cutting the dark sky like a beacon gone wild, looked incredibly tempting.
‘I was there last year,’ Anna said, wistfully, following his gaze. ‘My boyfriend took me and it was my first time since I was a kid. Like back then I ate everything that moved.’
Fletcher turned from the glittering lights to the girl in the bed. The contrast was stark.
‘You’ll be there again, one day, Anna,’ he said, gently, though he knew that Anna Chaplain’s chances of walking again were little more than a dream at this stage. A murderous regime of physio along with a vast range of drug treatments had so far failed to elicit any response from the damaged nerves in her spine. Two months since her accident and the effervescent optimism of the therapists had gradually fizzled into resigned sadness when her case was discussed at their progress meetings. Anna heard none of that but easily picked up the subtle changes in attitudes and quiet deflection of her questions.
‘You remember when Cam gave up on me, don’t you, Fletch?’ Anna asked, referring to Cameron Moss, the ex boyfriend.
Fletcher nodded. He remembered calling in to see how Anna was doing, as he did every week, just as Cameron was leaving her room for the last time.
‘Sorry man,’ he’d muttered as he brushed past Fletcher in the corridor.
Watching Cameron’s taut back and sensing the young man’s discomfort, a feeling of dread had come over him. As an experienced cop Fletcher was equipped to deal with the worst that humanity had to offer. This would be different and he could cope. But he didn’t have to like it.
Fletcher had knocked quietly and gone in, finding Anna so stricken that he thought she would choke on her grief. And it was a tough night. Cameron had told her he couldn’t handle the stress of not knowing if she would ever walk again and wanted to finish the relationship and ‘move on’ as he put it. Anna, shocked and with mounting despair, had listened gracefully. Then with the greatest acting ability she could summon she informed him that she was thinking along the same lines herself, letting the gutless shit clean off the hook.
The hours until dawn had been interminable and it was only Fletcher’s long-term association and almost legendary reputation with the hospital that prevented him being booted out and replaced by a shrink.
‘Yeah, I think I remember,’ Fletcher teased, prompting a barely perceptible flicker of humour to cross Anna’s face.
She was a beautiful young woman and more so when she smiled, however reluctantly.
‘I would have killed myself if I could have got out of bed that night Fletch. I now know Cam wasn’t the man for me and I’m happy it turned out that way but I was devastated when that prick blew me off.’
Fletcher sat down again, allowing Anna to keep talking.
‘It was all too much on top of losing hope of getting back on my feet, let alone not knowing what had happened to me at Keperra. God, Fletch, you were so patient all those weeks, waiting for me to remember something about that night. And still nothing. Nothing for either of us. Will it ever come back do you think?’
Fletcher watched her as her eyes drifted with another effort to recall some detail of the incident. She had been found unconscious by a petrol tanker driver who’d arrived with a fuel delivery and been confronted by a fierce inferno. The forecourt and a vehicle were alight and as he rushed in with the tanker’s extinguisher he saw a body close to the flames. He wasted no time in dragging Anna clear of the intense heat and then attacked the blaze, sweeping into the mass of rolling flames with streams of foam until the fire was smothered. Horrified, he then discovered another body, charred and hunched into a bizarre pose in the middle of the singed forecourt. The intense heat had contorted John Stent into a sitting position before reducing him to nothing more than a black, petrified stump. The remains of a baseball bat nearby were a clear indication that this was no unfortunate accident but something more macabre.
Anna, the single known witness, only remembered talking to the servo operator. Nothing more. Fletcher had found photos of Cameron and herself on the counter along with scattered coins from the pillaged till. He had watched the in-store security video until his eyes ached, starting with the animated conversation between John Stent and Anna where they examine the photos. Anna turns to look out the shop window in the direction of her vehicle and then runs from the shop. Stent is perplexed at first, obviously unable to see clearly from his point behind the counter, and then he too runs to the shop door. The next person to come into the shop moves quickly and is hell bent on mischief. A wide brimmed cap pulled low over the eyes and a coat collar pulled up high makes it difficult to spot any facial features as the creep twists the key that had been left conveniently in the till. The Nike logo on the cap is clear but there are a thousand such caps. Fletcher even had one himself stuffed in a drawer somewhere. The perp obviously resists any temptation to look up towards the camera lens as he raids the lower racks of cigarettes, skimming the packets into a plastic bag before racing back out. Fletcher fumed, cursing the tight arsed servo owner for not installing a camera on the forecourt. Most thieves know where security cameras are and avoid them, aiming for softer targets. For the sake of a couple of hundred bucks this would not have happened and two decent people would still be walking around today.
Fletcher swore under his breath. Maybe he was being unduly callous and unfair towards the thugs responsible for that hideous mess. Shit, the truth was they were also victims. The miserable bastards had probably suffered abused childhoods, were orphans or not breast fed long enough. Maybe someone had smacked their bottoms or taken away their fucking Playstations. What was the world coming to? What happened to the simple theft, the straight up fist and a bit of yelling and screaming? Now it was maiming and killing for no gain whatsoever. People were hurt in mindless rages or just for the goddamn hell of it these days. Road rage? Queue rage? What the hell was happening to us?
‘Hold my hand, Fletch!’ Anna said, breaking into his bitter reverie.
Fletcher knew she couldn’t feel anything but leaned forward and took her limp and lifeless hand. It was small, finely boned and well cared for. He knew that Anna’s sister was a regular visitor, sitting for hours massaging her extremities with aromatic oils, filing her nails and doing whatever else was needed to lift Anna’s self esteem, if even by a fraction.
‘Would you ever be able to help someone in my position die?’ she asked, candidly.
Fletch paused. He had known people in similar straits so the question didn’t surprise him. Involuntarily he squeezed Anna’s hand to reassure her before realising the gesture was futile. He had to be careful. He needed Anna’s confidence. By rejecting the discussion outright he might be allowing a window of opportunity for Anna to recruit someone more amenable to whatever ideas she had cooked up.
‘If anyone asked me, Anna, I would probably have to think long and hard about it. You never really know how you’re going to react until it happens, do you? Anyway you’re not in any hopeless, dead end situation. You still have a lot to be going on with and you never know what’s just around the corner.’
Anna sighed but didn’t take her eyes off Fletcher’s face.
‘When you’ve explored every option and there’s nothing left for you but this, there doesn’t seem much point to life anymore, does there?’ she insisted.
‘Well, maybe not to start with but haven’t you always wanted to write a book?’ Fletcher ventured.
He’d had the idea up his sleeve for some time, unsure how she’d react. Long before her accident and already a proven wordsmith Anna had been consumed with ideas for books. Would it work for her now or send her into a deeper funk? He had to throw her a lifeline, give her something to focus on and fire up a will to live. Yet knew the time to do it may never be right.
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
‘Yeah, Fletch, hold on while I tickle a few words out of my keyboard,’ she mocked, bitterly.
Fletcher sidestepped her anger.
‘Have you got the start of a book in mind?’ he asked.
She stared at him as if he had large rocks in his head.
‘Start, start? I’ve just about got the first four chapters up there. Apart from feeling like a beached whale it’s all I can think about!’ she flared.
Fletcher smiled inwardly at her passionate outburst. With any luck his gamble would pay off.
‘But can you, you know, verbalise your thoughts?’ he challenged. ‘Are they good enough to put down on paper yet?’
If Anna Chaplain could have made it off the bed she would probably have strangled him. As it was, looking at her face suffused with red-hot anger, Fletcher was concerned he’d pushed her too far.
‘You wanna to try me out, smart arse?’ she threw back at him.
Fletcher roared with laughter.
‘No bloody way, I can’t stand chick lit at the best of times. But I do know someone who would happily come in here for an hour or so most days and put it all down onto a laptop. It would be simple once you got the hang of dictation. I know,’ he added with a grin, ‘you could call it ‘Pillow Talk’.’
Anna’s eyes danced.
‘Really, who would do that Fletch?’ she bubbled, excitedly.
‘Someone I know who does a lot of great work in the hospital. Her name’s Peta Crestwell. She’s very bright and would probably be able to mentor you too because her husband had a book published about the Majestic Hotel last year and she helped him heaps with that.’
‘Incredible,’ Anna sighed. ‘That would be fabulous and I’ll show you, Fletch. Chick lit and pillow talk my bum.’
Anna caught Fletcher’s surreptitious glance at his watch.
‘Bugger off then! Leave me to my creative muse!’
Fletcher grinned and bent to plonk a kiss on her forehead. Anna lifted her face to intercept the kiss with her lips.
‘Thanks, Fletch, thanks heaps for everything,’ she whispered shyly.
If Detective Sergeant Fletcher had looked to his left for one second longer as he swung his wife’s aging BMW out of the hospital car park he’d have seen a solitary runner coming down Herston Road. He would have unconsciously noted that the man’s gait was smooth and his stride powerful. Lifting his gaze from a lean body to Bob Delaney’s face he would have described it as severe and unsmiling whereas a woman might have found it ruggedly attractive and sensuously enigmatic. But both would have agreed that his features were totally impassive, his mind closed to everything except the pounding rhythm of his feet.
He’d ran over twenty kilometres as he had done every night since the court case and this was on top of a gym program that would have crippled the average runner. Bob Delaney was out to be very much fitter than average. He was also honing his reaction times, rediscovering long forgotten, lethal skills and blocking his mind to any pain in the process.
The physical agonies of over taut muscles, blistered feet and frequent cramps were noted, categorised and then dismissively filed away in Bob’s mind. Not so easily shaken were the darker forces that swirled unrelentingly through his head, visions draped in dripping, black clouds of retribution that threatened to overwhelm him in their brutal savagery. For fuck’s sake, he was no stranger to violence. He wasn’t some young, impressionable idealist but a man who’d seen death many times over and, at times, faced it down. Now he found himself overcome and at the raw mercy of his love for the only two people who had meant anything in his life. They were both dead and he had to do something about it. And if the people who’d trampled thoughtlessly on his life had known anything about his history they would have never set foot in his home.
Years back a hideous federal mistake had spawned an elite and extremely secret anti crime group that Bob was invited to join. The entity, known only as ‘The Ferrymen’ had evolved from a series of governmental misunderstandings at the highest level. It was a monumental fuck up. There wasn’t a soul who really understood what had happened or was prepared to stick their precious, political neck out, ask the right questions and stop the hydra’s head from growing. In the ‘cover your own arse’ philosophy it was generally accepted that it was simply better not to know about covert matters that could one day come back to bite your bum.
‘So where do the orders come from?’ asked his father, Tom. They were sitting in the spine tingling sunshine of a Brisbane winter’s morning having a cuppa. Back then Tom didn’t have long and was entirely satisfied with his lot. As he said, he had no pain and his head was still screwed on, so what more could he ask for? Bob had been spending much of his squad free days with his old man, appreciating the candour and friendship that had recently permeated their lives.
‘Would you believe nobody knows?’ Bob replied, meeting his dad’s eyes briefly to show he wasn’t trying to fluff over the question. ‘We sometimes get info that comes in by secure government courier. And they aren’t operational directives just security updates and criminal intelligence. A couple of the lads even tried an intercept on him and got a bollocking for their trouble.’
They both gazed comfortably into the trees bordering Tom’s property, watching a crow shuffling around the branches.
‘What do you all do then?’ Tom asked.
Bob had paused. There was nothing he couldn’t discuss with his father. It wasn’t that. His difficulty was putting into words the absurdity of the situation.
‘Pretty much whatever we want,’ Bob stated, flatly. ‘After a round table discussion where we analyse all our intel reports we devise our own missions and go right ahead and put them into operation. We don’t have to obtain authorisation from anyone.’
‘Probably just as well,’ his father snorted, ‘you wouldn’t know who to ask by the sounds of it. You blokes are a law unto yourselves, aren’t you?’
Bob knew he didn’t have to answer that.
‘What about funds, resources, expenses and all that shit. Do you get paid?’
Bob laughed. ‘We’re paid a shitload, dad. It’s unbelievable but we each cop as much as a high court judge. We reckon it’s to keep us above the evils of bribery and corruption. For everything else there’s a bottomless pit of dough for us to draw on as long as we produce receipts. What we spend, and on what, doesn’t seem to matter.’
Tom shivered and wrapped his old poncho closer to his wasted frame.
‘More tea, dad?’ Bob asked, watching him carefully. He may have been mercifully free of pain but, with only half the weight of a year ago, looked dreadful.
Tom shook his head. ‘No, thanks, I’ll be up and down to the loo like a yoyo.’
Tom never lived to see the downfall of Bob’s outfit. Over a couple of years, human nature being as vain as it is, the squad became bolder and more flamboyant. Arrogance, a refusal to court any alliances and contempt for red tape created a swathe of enemies who, one day, only had to spread whispers of imminent political fallout to finally have the group decommissioned. The tables were turned. With the members well scattered, sinister suggestions that it would be for the best to completely eradicate them were mooted, but they all fizzled out. After all, who the hell would they get to do it?
Bob Delaney was grateful when the group was disbanded. He knew they’d been dangerously out of control both in a moral and legal sense, eventually working completely outside the law. Their freedom easily allowed them to act as judge and jury and the responsibility was too readily abused.
On one occasion, towards the end, Delaney’s squad had been following five hardened crims who were known to have left a kidnap victim to die after the botched effort to pay the ransom had resulted in a shootout. The lackadaisical local constabulary had missed all the clues and it was weeks later that the body of the unfortunate teenaged girl was found. The medical examiner’s findings were brutal. She had starved to death and, during the last terrifying days of her lonely life, rodents had gnawed her constantly. Sickened, the squad rolled into action and all the stops were pulled out.
As the gang fled they had expertly covered their tracks but Delaney’s people knew where they were. Money was never a problem. With cash for expenses coming directly from an enormous slush fund they were able to watch the men from chartered aircraft, leased trucks and a variety of hire cars. Then, after a week on the run, the gang stopped, confident of their freedom.
They were camped by a remote lake when Delaney and his team struck and they never had a chance. Three of the crims died instantly from sniper fire, never making it out of their chairs by the fire. The other two ran into the darkness unaware that thermal imaging scopes watched them blundering helplessly through the scrub. Withering crossfire cut down the first. The second, the gang leader, then lost his footing and fell ten metres into a dried riverbed. Howling with pain from a shattered leg he wasn’t going anywhere and an unspoken decision was made to leave him to die in his own good time. For Delaney and his cohorts the matter was forgotten history and it was back to the city and business as usual.
But Bob couldn’t put the final scenes of the last operation out of his mind. He had lain on a ridge and tracked the desperate bandit, weaving and ducking through the sparse scrub, watching naked terror distort the man’s face through his telescopic sight. Caught in the crosshairs he was an easy target yet Bob was unable to squeeze the trigger. Later, in good humour, he took the chaffing from the other men as they joshed him for his apparent lack of marksmanship. They went on to laugh uproariously as one of the team described how the crim had lain in the gully begging to be shot rather than be left to perish in agony over many, many days. As the chopper whisked them back to base Bob was grateful that the machine’s clatter precluded conversation. He remained deep in thought and unable to see the funny side.
Early retirement was a shock and a problem for some of the men. They were highly skilled and extremely competent in only one occupation, hunting down and killing by using any possible means. Abandoned, disenchanted and unable to return to their pre-crime squad occupations, a few grew fat and useless, resorting to alcohol and drugs to escape the crushing boredom, whilst others, drifting into criminal activities, set out to rule the same roosts they’d once worked so hard to dismantle.
Bob Delaney successfully put the past firmly behind him, staying well clear of his old comrades and their pathetic, beer-sodden reunions. He knew he’d lost the ‘killer instinct’, that unique detachment of the mind that allowed a man’s life to be terminated with nothing more than a few grams of finger pressure on a trigger, or the quick thrust of a knife. Losing that ability had made him unreliable and a deadly liability to himself and his teammates.
And he didn’t need the baggage that sad bunch of disinherited no-hopers still carried. All they wanted to do was sit around wanking on about the ‘good old times’, getting thoroughly pissed instead of getting off the pot and doing something worthwhile for themselves. Bob knew he could do better and decided that the job for a shooter was shooting but in a sport where no one got hurt.
After months of research and a considerable amount of agonising over choice he ploughed his golden handshake and savings of a few thousand dollars into a carefully selected range of digital photographic equipment. Bob had always been comfortable behind a lens, and, in the past, he had stuck to film, confident that he knew its limitations. But then he became increasingly frustrated when the results of his work took too long to process and he was forced to cool his heels until they had been traditionally processed, scanned and made ready for his computer screen. When he finally swallowed his pride, putting aside his inherent distrust of digital cameras, he found he could apply most of the photographic principles he’d learned over the years to make a smooth transition. The new technology delighted him. Like a child on Christmas day he was completely enthralled by both the quality of the pictures his digital SLR produced and the phenomenal increase in workflow speed. Event photography, where quick reflexes and a second sense for the action were required became Bob’s forte and now he was able to set his images up on the Internet and into print within hours.
It was at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival where Bob had been commissioned to capture the atmosphere of the occasion that his steady, reliable hand had momentarily faltered. With his eye to the viewfinder he was trawling through the throng, allowing his lens’s auto focus to whirr swiftly and almost silently as he cruised in and out of the sea of faces. This was Bob’s preferred method and bloody fantastic entertainment for him too. People became used to seeing him with his camera stuck to his cheek after a while and soon ignored his fluid movements as he panned gently amongst them. Quietly image after image was recorded on his flashcard freezing that intense moment of a conversation, a budding author’s wistful look or a jealous glance. He even seemed to have a nose for a spot of trouble and would be just around the corner when emotions flared and a mean little spat erupted. Naturally these less complimentary images weren’t for his clients but went into his ‘portraits of humanity’ directory, as he liked to call his cache of real life drama. Of course there were the formal parts he was duty bound to record, the writers’ panels, the book signings and the presentations, but Bob’s skill infused even these often mundane occasions with a unique touch of verve.
It was her eyes, large, dark and luminous, laughing at him straight back through his three hundred-millimetre lens that had pierced his heart. And he knew instinctively that his wound was permanent.
Throughout his life Bob had stayed clear of long-term relationships aided by what he considered ‘bloody good luck’, inevitably choosing vacuous companions who would always bore the crap out of him within a few hours of bedding them. And, to make life difficult for himself, he had become an exceptionally skilful and considerate lover that made disentangling from most liaisons a tenuous business.
His sexual adventures had started early, at thirteen, when his sister’s girlfriend, Sally Atkins, had led him into her bedroom and unexpectedly driven her sensuously slippery tongue deep into his mouth. At the same time she’d slipped her hand into his undies and wrapped it around his quivering penis, drawing it gently until he’d come with shuddering force into her hot palm. In that moment of jolting initiation she laughed out loud at him, dispelling any pleasure he’d experienced and leaving him feeling used, a mere toy of her whims. From that day he’d vowed he’d never again would he be a plaything but the master of the bedroom.
He went out of his way to be taught by the best in Asia; how to eke out the delights of the flesh, tantalise women’s bodies to the point of insane delight and then drive them into mindless vessels of ecstasy. And although for many years Bob thought that it was a damn good, win-win arrangement for all concerned, he felt an emptiness of spirit and an inexplicable sense of loss that was often too pervading to shrug off. He wasn’t sure what it was but he knew he missed it.
At over twenty metres away in a festival swarming with people she would have had to have been a photographer herself to know that he could see every detail of her in close up, and by the tiny whimsical smile that played across her full lips she knew all right. She’d seen his hesitation but held her gaze steady until he lowered his camera, inclining his head briefly in a gesture of capitulation. Bob watched, spellbound, as her head tipped back in delight and her smile widened to a full laugh. Even from that distance he could make out the pink tip of her tongue peeping from behind white, perfect teeth. And, the gods be praised, she was for the moment quite alone. Nothing on earth could stop him. He had to get to her side.
Bob had instinctively looked down to check how many images were left on his card. It was a bad move. When he raised his eyes to the space his visitor from heaven had graced it was empty.
‘Fuck it!’ Bob muttered, staring around surprised by an unaccustomed sense of panic.
Oblivious to the bemused stares from the good-natured crowd Bob ducked and weaved to catch just one glimpse of that dazzling woman. A strange desperation drove him in frantic ever widening circles as he searched until, sweating and thoroughly pissed off, he slumped against a marquee pole. Ruefully he had to admit that she had been totally in control of the encounter and she had been the one to decide when and how to leave it.
For the remainder of the day Bob was in turmoil. He had the advantage of being able to work to a loose schedule so he could scour the tents and auditoriums for the mysterious female whose one look had shaken his inner core. He wanted, no needed, to see if she was for real and already craved her attention again.
When he checked the previews stored on his camera he was stunned to find that he had taken fifteen images of the woman. In his delight at her magnetic sensuality he must have been continuously taking shots as he drank her in. The images were superb, as he knew they would be, considering the subject. But he hardly needed them. The picture of her fine boned face thrown back in mischievous delight had been laser etched into his mind.
It was at the end of that weary day that Bob had settled himself in a well-chosen vantage point for the final event of the proceedings. The two panellists, authors Tara Anderson and Pria Adams discussing dreams and the occult, promised a lively and intelligent debate. He sighed. At least when the photos were in the bag he could sit back and enjoy the session without having to dart off to any more events. He needed distracting as he’d had no luck finding that woman, despite tracking through the entire venue time after time. His search had become completely obsessive as the day had worn on and failure now found him listless and disheartened.
With infinite care he tracked Ms Anderson with his lens, his pulse quickening at the challenge to keep her in the frame yet his own movement utterly controlled. She was an interesting subject with more on-stage personas and movements than the Cirque de Soleil. Christ, her hands were so expressive, moving hither and thither as she accentuated each point. Bob concentrated, feeling a bead of sweat trickling down his cheeks. He was absorbed. This was a hard one and he loved it. He knew those flashing hands had to be caught at an exact moment to properly convey the woman’s sparkling individuality. Without expensive film to worry about he had virtually unlimited frames yet he still shot in much the same considered way of old. It was utter bullshit to end up with a hundred quick, ill-considered digital images if none were salvageable. Five good uns out of twenty should be right on the money.
‘Don’t let me put you off!’ came the whispered voice from his left.
Bob sensed rather than felt a soft tissue sweep up the sweat that threatened to dribble off his chin. Used to distractions Bob ignored the gesture until he was satisfied with his last frame. At events there was always a camera buff or even the odd harmless nutter intent on chatting while he was working. Bob was normally happy to take well-intentioned advice with equanimity or even give some tips when occasionally asked but tonight he was more interested in the animated discussion on stage, so he made sure not to look round and be distracted into some half-arsed conversation. The two women were in fine form and the audience invited to participate applauded with delight, lapping up the repartee as each question was fielded with intellect and good humour. Bob, feeling energised again felt more than saw the arm being raised on his left. Pria Adams nodded towards Bob’s side of the theatre.
‘This is a question for Tara,’ said a softly melodic woman’s voice that made Bob’s neck shiver, sending tingles down his spine.
What the fuck was up with him today? Maybe it had been too long between women and his pot was beginning to boil over.
As Tara Anderson looked over, the person on Bob’s left began to speak again.
‘Tara, in your book ‘Things to Come’, you covered your own experiences with precognitive dreaming. Can you tell us of any new developments now we’re a few years on?’
As the question was fielded by Tara, Bob turned just enough to see a mass of black, lustrous hair. His skin prickled. It was her. From that moment on Delaney heard only snippets of the discussion as Tara encapsulated how her life had changed since the publication of her fascinating book. All too soon the audience was clapping in appreciation as Anderson and Adams left the stage. Before the applause had finished Bob had turned to the woman seated next to him and, meeting her open, honest stare, asked her to marry him.
