The Windy Season (15 page)

You're getting burnt, said a voice behind him.

He turned to see the bar manager, Jules, standing with her towel in her arms and a calico bag over her shoulder.

Am I? he replied.

Yep.

Paul pulled the towel over his groin.

Paul, right? she said. You're Jake's cousin. Ruth's nephew.

Yeah, he replied, not intending to sound as suspicious as he did.

You know, Stark being how it is, she said, half apologetically. No secrets. You'll learn that soon enough.

He stared at his hand in the sand deliberately, focusing hard on the thin, even coat of white over his wrists, fine as icing sugar.

Jules, she said.

Yeah, I know.

Jules lifted the thin dress over her body. In the harsh light he saw the fine markings on her skin, the squiggled lines on her hip bones, and a large red scar on her arm. He took in the tattoo below the left breast of her bikini, a small black bird, like a swallow, with its head tucked behind its wings as if it were covering its eyes.

So where's he gone, your brother? she said, crouching to reach for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in her bag.

He's missing, Paul said, hearing the defensiveness in the words. What do you think's happened to him?

No one knows. That's the point.

Jules stood and gave him a long look, sizing him up. She plucked a cigarette and dropped the packet on to her towel.

Sorry, he said. Everyone asks that. If we knew where he is, he wouldn't be missing.

Fair enough, she said. You know, I didn't think you'd stick it out, all this crayfishing business. You're in the pull now, though.

Paul stared into his towel, unsure what she meant.

Stark has its own gravitational pull for sad cases, Jules explained.

Sad cases?

That's obvious, isn't it? She cradled the flame of the lighter against the hot breeze. You're not alone. Don't you worry about
that. Everyone has got some issues here. Not that it's a retreat or anything. There's no healing. It's more a containment kind of thing. She laughed.

You're a sad case?

Shit, she said. You are nosy.

So are you, he said.

I'm a bartender, mate. Isn't that the whole routine? She smiled and blew smoke, considering the curve of the bay. All those screwy boys at the bar, I should open a clinic.

An asylum more like it, he said.

Jules laughed.

Fuck it's hot, she said. I'm going in.

He watched her walk towards the water.

Rear-vision syndrome, she said, turning back to him. That's what my father called it. Here, everyone is always looking backwards. It's a sad as fuck thing. You'd do well to move on.

Runner

HIS CHEEK SWEATED WITH THE PHONE AGAINST IT
. He was sitting on the kerb, the night air dense and warm. The sound of the sea was amplified by the absence of the wind. Surf clamoured on the reef beyond the inlet, intervals of silence punctuated by the orchestral percussion of collapsing water several hundred metres off in the dark. Other than the waves the town was noiseless. Michael had said to him once that wind was all Stark was. It was all people spoke about in the morning, he had said, that it was easy to find yourself in a conversation about it, obliging an old-timer with a guess about the exact time when the wind might turn from the south, usually just before or just after midday. There was some local pride in that wind. Flags flew in most streets, and every other shop had a windsock erected above it. When the wind was truly up the town danced violently with multicoloured fabric. The breeze roused even the toughest, tiredest, lowest tree or bush
into movement. And the sound almost replaced the absence of traffic, of people. The wind gave the illusion of life.

His mother answered the phone.

Mum, he said.

Paul? Where have you been? I have been trying to get hold of you.

Sorry. It's been busy.

There's news. The police called.

When? Paul asked.

This morning.

What did they say?

His girlfriend. She was trouble. I knew that.

Tess?

The police won't ever tell us much about her, but you could just see she was tangled up in things and she was going to drag Elliot down with her.

Paul remembered what Jungle had said about his niece. His mother was right.

What did the police say? Paul said.

They wanted to know if we ever saw things. If we noticed anything in his room, or in the Pajero.

Like what?

Unusual things. Different bags. Packages.

Drugs?

Did you ever see cash on him?

They think he was a drug dealer?

Maybe he was just moving it for them.

What the fuck, Mum?

Don't talk to me like that.

But moving drugs for who, Mum? What do they know?

They can't tell us much. But it's not good, Paul. There was trouble in Stark. Bad people.

Bad people?

Something to do with a network, he said. Bikies or something. I don't really know. The detective said they've been watching some blokes transporting drugs across the border into South Australia. They think it's coming from somewhere up north, maybe Stark.

I don't understand what this all means.

The line distorted as his mother exhaled. What if Elliot got caught up in it? He might have had to make a run for it, if he had wanted out. But what if they got him . . .? His mother trailed off, then went silent.

Mum, it's not true. Elliot wouldn't have got caught up in anything. He's too smart for that. It's not like him.

Yeah, she whispered. I'll call you if I hear anything more.

They've got this wrong, Mum. This drug thing. It's not Elliot.

The living dead

THEY ARRIVED AT THE INLET AROUND
three in the afternoon.

Paul left his backpack with Michael and walked straight from the inlet to the main street, all the way to its end where the police station crouched on its island of dead lawn. Fred was out front, wind in her greyish hair, hosing down the boat. She raised her eyebrows when she saw Paul and scanned him, rubber boots to the cap on his head that he had taken from Elliot's room. It was only then Paul figured the image he must have been standing there in the bright haze of afternoon, his board shorts and white t-shirt browned by fish blood, face ghosted with sunscreen, eyes bloodshot.

If you weren't on your two feet I would think you were a dead person, Fred said. She turned the water off and dropped the hose. Come through.

Inside her office were three desks. Fred lifted a stack of bulldog-clipped documents from a chair.

Have a seat, she said.

Paul sat down.

Elliot Darling, she said. I read the report.

The police in Perth. They told my parents there was trouble in Stark. Drugs.

Fred nodded. It's why Gunston left, she said. He was like me, a city cop. From Sydney. Don't think he suspected how hard it could get. Didn't have the stomach for it.

For what?

This place is bubbling with junkies. Probably keeping this town going, really. All the glass.

Glass?

Methamphetamine, she said. Ice. Stark is crawling with the stuff, like everywhere else. Probably worse here, though. It feasts on a town like Stark.

Fred lifted another stack of documents from the chair behind the desk.

Tell you what, she said. This office is like quicksand. Bloody drowning in Gunston's stuff. He'd probably prefer I torched the lot of it.

Fred carried the papers to the furthest of the three desks and dropped it with a theatrical giving way of her hands.

I'm supposed to be getting some help, she said as she moved a cardboard box from in front of him. She placed it near a stack of half a dozen or so other boxes near the door. Stood straight again, arched her back, grimaced. I'll be getting another copper, they tell me. Some Stark kid. Only twenty-four and he's a war veteran, if you can believe that. Afghanistan.

The drugs, Paul said. Why Stark?

Fred stepped back behind her desk. Pointed to the framed photograph against the wall nearest to him. A tall man gazed back at Paul. Kind eyes. White-haired.

My husband Robert, Fred said. Rob worked the courts in Sydney. Show him a town in population decline, he would show you a methamphetamine problem.

She sat down.

Rob thought meth was like the bacteria that flushes a corpse, she said. Bloats and colours it and twitches its limbs. Keeps it moving after it's dead, he'd say. You understand? A corpse isn't alive but it teems with the barely living. The opportunists. The ceaselessly hungry. Dealers and junkies. Junkie dealers.

Paul nodded.

You know the type, she continued. See them outside the deli or the bakery.

Paul had seen the men who were far too gone even for working a boat. They hovered in town in the mornings, grinning like whaler sharks. Dead-eyed. Despite the ravaging effect on a face, the drugs gave even the oldest of them a child's twitchiness. They watched everything like they were remaking sense of it.

And Tess? Paul said. She was trouble?

Tess Hopkins? Fred asked, then shrugged. Your brother's girlfriend. Police spoke to her back when the investigation began. She was known to police, had some history in town. A user. Wasn't in the mood for talking, but Gunston decided there was nothing there.

What about Elliot? Paul said.

I don't know everything the police in Perth know but I don't necessarily see any link. Unlike his girlfriend your brother had no history, no use or possession. There wasn't much on him at all.

But someone might have hurt him.

I doubt that, she said. I mean, most of them out there, the small operators, they're more a harm to themselves. It's not
murders that keep me busy. Fred slapped the pile of papers in front of her. She looked up at Paul. Petty theft, she said. It is unbelievable. Stark has, what, eight hundred people? But you can't leave a door unlocked.

The police told my parents that they think the drugs could be coming from Stark.

Fred shook her head. You don't get that volume out of someone's kitchen. It's coming from somewhere else.

Where? Paul asked.

Fred shrugged. Africa. The Middle East. Asia. Even South America. Could be coming from anywhere; it doesn't really matter. The question is how.

Paul gazed at the papers. How do you stop it?

She gave a sort of smile. According to my husband there is no stopping it. I told you, it's just like the bacteria that raids a corpse. Fred laughed wearily. At least you can torch a corpse.

From up on a ridge we see a town. Glints and white dots in the shimmering farness like boats on a red sea. Yulara. And below us a line of vehicles on the highway, not moving, a hundred metres long. Hire vans. Caravans and motorhomes. Two squad cars at the head of it. The President says they're federal police. They're looking for us. I lie down on the rock with the .308. The President adjusts the rifle scope for me. Has me glass one of the coppers. Even at four hundred metres I can see the pulse and flex of his throat as he speaks. See him laughing with the lady copper he is talking to. So close in the telescopic sight you can almost hear them.

Spinning over and over, like a plane going down

JAKE TURNED INTO THE STREET EARLY
, the headlights travelling through the morning dark at a greater than normal speed. The deckhands gave each other a look before the ute pulled up. Paul jumped into the skiff without daring to utter a word, and when Michael had to run back into the house to get his gloves Jake shook the steering wheel with such a rage that the boat trailer shook. When he was in this mood, every delay was enough to make him scream aloud. Any obstruction, like a stubborn door or stray cray pot, received a full-blown strike with a fist or a boot. On those mornings even Michael would put his grin away. Michael had said before that the more sober Jake was the worse his mood. It was as if he could see all of his problems more clearly, see all the shit in his world in greater detail. And Paul figured Michael was right. Jake was almost better when in the fog of a hangover
or even still half drunk; at least then he was some way towards being tranquilised, deadened to things.