Drainland (Tunnel Island Book 1) (2 page)

The man from Vice: “How the mighty have fallen huh? You’re straight-up fucked on this one, Laura. Straight. Up.”

Ginger nodded along before adding, “Well? Okay then, try this. Laura, your boyfriend has really landed you in it. He’s not much, is he, this bloke of yours?
Will
”—and he checked his paperwork—
“Holding
? You may as well roll over on this one, because this…this right here, the three of us together, this is a courtesy visit. That’s how fucked you are. You’re almost not worth talking about.”

Romano sat there. She tried not to listen.

Ginger pulled a Dictaphone out of his jacket. “Oh, and we have this as well. Just so you know.”

Click.

The tiny shrill speaker sounded. It took Romano a moment to recognise her own voice.

That’s it, that’s it, that’s…oh, Will just fucking do it—

He snapped the recording off.

Both of them smiled.

The Vice man said, “That’s not even the juicy part. What the fuck didn’t you do up there in that flat of yours? Possession, consorting, improper access…on top of whatever we can prove you knew about Will’s little caper with the Riders. He’s talking a blue streak next door, by the way. And that’s all before we get into any of the disciplinary stuff. Who knows what those rat fucks will dig up on you? Endangerment, tampering, Christ knows. It’s a shit storm, Laura. A real shit storm, and you’re in under it now.”

“No umbrella,” said Ginger.

Romano saw the older one wince at that.

Click.

Yeah, fuck me, fuck…

They spent another while listening. When it was done, the detective took the tape from the machine and laid it on the table for Romano to look at. They knew a lot about her to take this route. She had to be careful.

“So let’s finish this up,” said Ginger. “I guess we can talk about who hears this. We can start there anyhow.”

The older one leaned in, “What we want to know is—”

“Lawyer,” said Romano.

“How much do you—”

“Lawyer, fuckwit.”

“And at what point did you—”

“Lawyer.”

Eyes averted.

“Oh come on, you’ll—”

“Lawyer,” she said until they walked out.

S
he rang
Ray Herbert and he put his guy on. The lawyer asked a few quick questions, the usual. “It’s pretty bad,” he said. “Will’s caught in it even worse than any of us knew. It’s not strictly about Ray and the club. He had something else going on but we can talk about that later.”

“They’re saying he put me in it.”

“Maybe. I don’t doubt it. From what I hear he’s made some rash decisions lately that aren’t particularly smart. We’re trying to get his counsel on the phone.”

“So he’s got his own people?”

“His father hired someone. But you just hang tight. You know the drill. You’ll be out sometime tomorrow with a bit of luck.”

T
he shakes got
the better of her during the night. She woke beside the basin, and the whole room spun. Sweats then chills, hot then cold, and both came on so fast they flickered and surged into one long sensation. At some point, she lifted her head and saw the tiles beside her flecked with bile and blood.

This was how people went into cardiac arrest.

This was how you died in custody.

This was how it felt.

Death’s door.

T
he lights came on
, and a guard took one look inside the cell and said, “Fucking hell, Romano. Okay, up we get.”

“Sorry. I
ergh
…”

“Okay, let me get you up.”

The guard helped her to the sink. This wasn’t how they usually were. This was the special treatment. Romano ran the tap, washed her face and mouth. As she wiped at her eyes, she said, “Do you know me or something?”

The guard didn’t answer.

She looked at him in the mirror.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was on the gate at Taradale. Second week of the job. I still think about it.”

“Right. I don’t think that’ll count for much now.”

“It should,” said the guard.

“You know why I’m here?”

He shook his head.

“Me, neither,” she said.

She looked at this new version of herself: blonde hair with stains in it, skin bruised and red eyes locked into a dead stare.

T
hey took
her back upstairs and put her in the staff lunchroom. The guard stood inside with her, between her and the kitchen drawers. Romano went to the window and waited. An overcast morning. Rain overnight.

She heard voices at the door.

A man appeared. He wore a tailored black suit, crisp glasses and hair. He went to the room’s kitchenette and worked the coffee machine on the bench.

“Ms Romano?” he said. “Do you want a coffee?”

“Black,” she said. “Thanks.”

The door opened a second time and Romano caught a glimpse of the corridor: the District Inspector, the ginger detective—his face flushed—and a stranger, a tall man in a suit but not like the one making coffee. This guy was sloppier. The tall man said something sharp and quick over his shoulder as he came in, then sat at the kitchen table and took a short, dour glance at Romano before opening his phone. He scanned the phone’s little screen and said, “You may as well sit. We’re going to be a while. You”—he turned to the guard—“you can wait outside.”

The other suit brought two coffees over, then followed the guard out. When it was just the two of them, the man sipped his drink and screwed up his face. He held the mug up and looked at it:
S.S.D.D.
printed in red letters on the side.

“Same Shit. Different Day,” said Romano.

“I feel like I should have known that. Okay, Laura Romano, my name is Matthew Dyer. I’m with the Federal Police. Now, your lawyer is on his way over here and he’s one of Ray Herbert’s blokes, I hear. In the meantime, I want to have a chat with you because…I’ve read your file. I’ve been keeping an eye on you and this mess you’ve gotten yourself into. I figured we should have a talk.”

Romano took a sip of her coffee and put it back down. The guy had detective training, but he was trying to shake it off. It was in his voice. He was choosing his words carefully, trying not to appear too careful.

She didn’t speak.

“You’re so much better than this,” he said. “You know it. I know it.
My
people know it. The only people who don’t know it are those dickheads outside. This…is just a blip for you.”

“Oh yeah?” said Romano, unable to stop herself.

“Look, you fucked up, clean and simple. And the charges they’re going to roll out against you are nothing to sneeze at. But…personally, I don’t see much point putting you in the clink. It won’t be much of a stretch anyhow, you know that. They know it, too. You’ve probably done the math. This whole thing”—he dropped his voice—“I don’t know what it is. I’ve never been sure what these local blokes wanted out of all this. Your boyfriend and this other bird he’s been carrying on with, they’re already cooperating, but my people have had a look at what he’s willing to turn over and it’s fuck-all in the bigger scheme of things.”

“Other…I…” She felt cold.

Dyer coughed, then said, “Look, this is—”

“Shut up. Shut your mouth.”

“Listen—”

“What do you want? And don’t bullshit me.”

“What
I
want is none of your business,” he said. “But if this whole performance of yours, this little downward trajectory you’re riding—” He spun his hand in the air like a spiral. “If the last twenty-four hours have hammered anything home, there
might
be something
I
can do for you. If you were starting to think that now might be a good time to stop feeling sorry for yourself and start acting like a police officer, I can help you. Otherwise, I’m due across town.”

Romano could feel another bout of the shakes coming on. She gripped the coffee. She could feel Dyer watching every nanosecond of it. “I’m not sure a deal that I can’t see the other end of is what I need right now. Do you?”

Dyer shrugged. “Your boyfriend gave you up. You’ve been with this shithead how long? Four years? Five? Now he’s running around with someone else, and on top of that he’s going to send you to prison just to shave time off his own stint. His former employer, a fucking ex-bikie…I take it you’ve seen Ray’s file, right?
He’s
the one coming over to bail you out. So you know what I think? Better the devil you
don’t
know in this situation you’ve got yourself in.”

Romano felt a flush of anger. Her skin burned.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Dyer. “I’m going to leave you my details.” He stood up, took a business card from his wallet, and handed it to her. As she read it, he went to the sink and washed out the
S.S.D.D.
mug, and placed it on the rack. When he was done, he waited, arms folded, staring.

Romano put the card down on the table.

Dyer nodded to himself. He went to the door.

“Okay,” she said.

“Yeah? What do you mean?”

Romano flicked the card across the surface of the table. “You know what I mean,” she said. “Whatever gets me out of this shit. But I won’t rat on Herbert.”

He sat back down. “That’s fine. I’m not interested in Herbert. Bikies are small time.”

“What is it then?”

“What do you know about Tunnel Island?” he said.

H
e ran
and the wind whipped sand against his ankles. A dark blue sky overhead, smudged together with the ocean on the horizon. The beach stretched sixty kilometres, all the way to Drainland and the Mission. After a time, he stopped and stripped down to his underwear and walked into the sea. The surf churned, but it was calmer out past the trough. Out in the slow water, Jim Harris looked up and down the shore. He had the place to himself, the last man on Earth. He let himself float there like a dead body in the water.

T
hat evening
, the storm seemed to bring the night on early. Harris didn’t like it. He stood by the windows of the surf club kitchen and stared out.

“The weather’s changing,” he said.

Dev took a look. “It’s blowing in from the south.”

“It’s getting worse every year.”

They both hated winter. A colder, wetter version of it didn’t appeal to either of them.

Dev ran a hand through his long, greying hair. “I know,” he said.

They both heard the door open and close. Tony arrived at the servery window, a damp cigarette hanging from his lips. He took a lighter from his pocket and sparked it. “What are you two looking at?”

“Come on,” said Dev. “Not inside, mate.”

“Fuck off. I can’t bloody well smoke out in that, can I? Jesus, Dev, if you told me you were getting dressed up for tonight, I would have put in some effort myself.”

Dev wore jeans—black, torn at the knees—and a thin grey cardigan. He only wore closed shoes in the cold season. Tony got his smoke going. “I didn’t know you even owned a pair of trousers, let alone a bloody jumper.”

“I wish I didn’t need to.”

The two men could banter about anything. It wore Harris out. He went to the storage closet in the hall and started sorting the chairs for the meeting.

“Could be a quiet one,” said Tony, after a time.

“I guess,” said Harris.

“We’ve got a new one coming,” said Dev. “Court ordered. Someone from the mainland, gave me a call the other day. From Melbourne, apparently.”

“This is Melbourne weather,” said Harris.

“Must have brought it with him,” said Tony, planting himself in one of the chairs.

“It’s a woman,” said Dev. “She’s a cop. Old Bill’s replacement, apparently. It’s been a while.”

“Jesus,” said Tony. “You know about this?”

Harris shrugged.

They plugged in the urn and opened the biscuits. Then the three of them waited in the empty club while the storm raged outside.

I
t was a slow meeting
. They started the preamble with Peter Simmons, a gardener at the Chateau Agri, and Noel Chandler, an estate agent from Arthurton. All of them had been sober for years. In fact, Noel had made the trek up in the rain to celebrate his sixth anniversary.

“It’s been a good spell,” he said. “I take the good with the bad. We all do, I guess. But it’s been good. It’s boring but you know, we all…”

As Noel droned on, Harris noticed a figure out on the deck, a silhouette pacing in the rain.

“…and there’s days where I still miss it,” Noel said. “I mean, what the hell? Six years later, and I still get a taste for it watching someone mix a bloody cocktail on the TV…”

Harris watched the figure walk the length of the building around to the side door. That door was opened, the downpour loud for a moment.

“…and it’s mostly pretty easy these days, but some days, gee, I dunno. I feel like my worst days, which aren’t very often admittedly, but I feel like they’re
worse
than ever. What gets me sometimes is that it’s all much of a muchness if I think about it too much, it’s…”

Harris watched as the woman approached the circle. She stood a few metres back, waiting through a couple of seconds of Noel’s story before deciding to sit. She was dressed entirely in black, an oversized sweater over dark denim and black elastic-sided boots. She was deathly pale, wet to the bone, her skin and hair bleached white. Harris kept himself to quick glances, but he could see that the woman had the fear. It was in her hands. She kept cupping and turning them in her lap.

“…and I guess that’s it,” said Noel. “That’s the end. Six years.”

They all waited for Dev to say something. Instead, he stared into space for a long moment before saying, “Argh, thank you Noel. You need to help your body through those low points, I guess. Your body wants to act, so you should let it act. Go for a walk. Go to the gym. Go swimming. Try a shower. You should meditate. Or something like meditation, something transportive. We always forget that our minds and our willpower are only a part of our sobriety. They’re not the whole. If your body craves transgression, transgress a little and save yourself a fall. Just steer it somewhere safe, somewhere productive.”

“Is that it?” said Tony. He was chairing the meeting.

Dev nodded.

Tony looked directly at the woman and said, “Does anyone else want to share something?”

She stared into her hands.

No one spoke.

She was supposed to talk, but she didn’t strike Harris as someone who’d spent a lot of time in meetings like this.

Tony leaned forward. “Well, Noel, in light of today’s milestone, do you want to chair the next one?”

“I’m away,” Noel said. “I’ve got this court thing.”

“How about you, Peter?”

Peter Simmons had not said a word all night. He nodded.

“Okay, then let’s get out of here,” said Tony.

They all stood up, except the woman. It was only as they started the prayer that she seemed to notice things had changed.
The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
A disjointed type of unison, all behind Dev’s voice. When it was done, Harris went to the kitchen and watched things finish up from in there. Noel helped himself to the biscuits. Tony bummed a smoke. The new woman sat with Dev. She unfolded papers from her pocket and had him sign the lot. As soon as it was done, she walked.

H
arris stood
on the rug in the living room. He had a house up in the hills, had done for years. He was one of the few who lived up there. Most of the places were empty. He liked that. At fifty-five, Harris knew he needed this house. He needed the quiet, especially now. It gave him a sense of things. When he kept a quiet home, he could spot disruption a long way off. He could feel it like a change in temperature. He knew what came with that change.

Ghosts.

The woman from the meeting was a bad omen. She felt familiar. This had all happened before.

He called Dev. It was late but the man answered.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Harris said.

“Already? And it’s been quiet lately, since Bill.”

“That’s why I’m worried.”

“You can’t change the future, Jim.”

“I know.”

“But you’re feeling something, right? You did seem a bit off tonight.”

“I was,” said Harris. “This fucking weather. They sometimes come in the cold for no reason. And now this woman, I…”

“Have you meditated?”

“That’s your answer to everything.”

“Have you?”

“No.” Harris sat down and crossed his legs. “I’ll do it,” he said.

“And?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s only one person who has
all
the answers, Jim, and they’re not on the island. They’re not anywhere. So you, the best
you
can do is deal with what you have in front of you. Remember that, okay? Bad feeling or not, a lot of this is none of your business.”

He was talking about God. This was Dev’s way of dealing with things. He blamed a higher power.

Harris put down the phone.

He shut the lights off.

He prayed to anyone who’d listen.

Be in the space.

Scan down through the body.

Find the centre.

Harris disappeared into himself.