Crosbie seized the bars of the cage and tugged on them. A ring on one of his fingers shrieked against the metal. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll kill you now. Now!’
The big black and tan dog must have made its leap from five metres away. It was nowhere in sight and then it was on top of Crosbie, throwing him sprawling to the ground and tearing at him with its paws and teeth. Crosbie screamed and tried to seize its head but the dog snapped at his hands and kept digging its claws into his body. Crosbie tried to roll away but Rudi was too big, too heavy, too motivated. He tore off an ear and then sank his teeth deep into the flesh of Crosbie’s neck. The man went limp. The dog chewed on him a bit and then lifted its head.
‘Rudi,’ Paula whispered. ‘Oh, Rudi.’ She extended her hand through the bars. Confidence.
The dog eased itself up off Crosbie and padded across to Paula’s cage. She made soothing noises and fondled his ears and muzzle.
‘Good boy, Rudi. There’s a good boy.’
I must have been holding my breath the whole time. I let it out loudly and the dog’s head turned in my direction. Its growl lifted the hairs on my scalp and made me want to crawl to the back of the cage.
‘No, Rudi. No, darling. It’s all right, boy. He’s a nice man.’
The headlights blazed, the bricks were slick with Crosbie’s blood. The dog I’d killed lay splayed out, one of its paws almost touching Crosbie’s head. I shivered and felt my body weaken as if my blood was turning sour. The wind had lifted and the cold was intense.
‘Everything’s all right now,’ Paula said.
‘I hope you’re talking to Rudi, not me,’ I said. ‘We’re locked in bloody cages and I’m freezing to death.’
‘I was talking to him, but everything is all right.’
I could feel myself becoming unhinged. I laughed. ‘What the fuck do you mean?’
‘You’re in Rudi’s kennel. I’ve got the key in my pocket.’
‘I don’t believe it. You had the key all along? Why didn’t you…’
‘I thought you’d killed Rudi. Then you wanted him to attack a man with a gun.’
There was no reasoning with her and no point. I put my hand through the bars nearest to the pillar. Rudi growled. I ignored him. ‘Give me the key.’
Her pale slender hand came through the bars holding the piece of brass. I couldn’t quite reach it. My fingers were stiff. She manipulated the key, trying to hold it out to the fullest extent. Rudi growled again and I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Crosbie was inching his hand across the bricks to where the. 38 lay, glinting dully in the headlight beam.
‘Another half an inch. Come on!’ I rammed my hand through the gap, ripping skin from the wrist. I still couldn’t reach it. Paula saw Crosbie’s intention and gasped. She dropped the key.
‘Oh, my God. I’m sorry.’
The little metal object was the most precious thing in the world, the most desirable, the most necessary. I pulled my lacerated hand free and shoved it under the bottom bar. My frozen fingers clawed at the bricks. I reached it, just. Got one finger across it, just, and flicked it back towards me. Crosbie’s hand was centimetres from the gun. Sweat broke out on my face as I wangled the key into the lock, working awkwardly with three fingers. I got it in. I couldn’t turn it.
Paula screamed. Crosbie had reached the gun. His face was a ghastly mask of blood and torn flesh. He slowly turned it towards us as he lifted the gun. Only his hand seemed to be capable of movement. His features were obliterated but his eyes were bright and alive. He said something I couldn’t understand. Blood gurgled in his throat and he spat it out. Rudi made a tentative move towards him. Crosbie put the gun into his mouth and squeezed the trigger.
A spray of blood, bone and tissue erupted from the man’s head.
‘Rudi, stay!’ Paula said.
It took several minutes but I finally managed to turn the key. The gate opened and I crawled out onto the bricks. The air smelled of cordite and blood, but it was still wonderful. Rudi eyed me suspiciously but I could live with that.
I looked at the woman crouched by the bars. Her face was chalk white but she was smiling and murmuring to the dog. I went to the Land Cruiser and found a sweater and an oilskin coat. I pulled them on and discovered my half bottle of scotch in the pocket of the coat. And I’d thought some light-fingered cop had lifted it. I uncapped it and the drink I took was one of the best drinks I’d ever had. Definitely worth another.
Her voice was steady. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m drinking whisky.’
‘Give me some.’
I took a hammer from the tool chest. Rudi looked at me as I advanced with a hammer in one hand and a bottle in the other. I wouldn’t have felt safe with an Uzi. He let me pass the bottle through the gate.
‘Tell him everything’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m going to smash the lock.’
‘Rudi, stay!’
Rudi stayed. I broke the lock and Paula came out. We stood together on the bloody bricks and we both had a drink. Neither of us looked at Crosbie. The sweater, oilskin and whisky had warmed me. I was bleeding in about five different places and fleas from Rudi’s blanket had bitten me in five hundred, but I was beginning to think I’d survive.
‘What now?’ Paula said.
‘I’m going to have to call the police. Is there somewhere we can wait?’
‘There’s a flat behind the kennels. No phone though.’
I went to the Land Cruiser, slipped the mobile phone from its cradle and showed it to her. ‘The complete modern detective,’ I said.
21
It was a long, cold night and the whisky was a distant memory by the time we were finished. Police arrived from several different places and did a variety of things, including talking to Paula and me for hours. I tried to be patient. I didn’t always succeed. Paula appeared indifferent, remote. She came to life only once, when someone suggested that Rudi be put down as dangerous. She spoke only three words to him and the guy abandoned the idea.
Some of this took place at Fitzroy House, some in the Mittagong Police Station. There were telephone calls to and from Sydney. In general, the cops weren’t too unhappy with me. Two mysterious deaths had been explained and they now had someone to charge over the shooting of Sir Phillip Wilberforce. They had a weapon, mine, to pop into a plastic bag and run tests on. This was once they’d prised it out of Robert Crosbie’s dead hand. Not one of them suggested that anyone else had fired the last shot, although a pale-faced, long-nosed detective sergeant studied the hand long and hard and looked as if he’d like to make something of it.
Even dog lovers would have to be happy. They had one bad dog, dead, and one good dog alive and a hero. Rudi ate a large tin of Pal out on the back step of the police station and looked around for more. Up close he wasn’t that big but he didn’t need to be. He was all bone, muscle and teeth. He commanded a good deal of respect, Rudi.
A woman who’d been a friend of the Wilberforces when Fitzroy House had been their holiday home was located and she took Paula and Rudi in for what remained of the night. Paula would be taken to Sydney and charged but there was no doubt that she’d be released on her own recognisances. Before she left she turned to me and held out her hand. We shook formally.
‘How is he?’ she said.
I’d phoned Mrs Darcy with the news. She’d reported that it had acted like a tonic on Phil. ‘Improving,’ I said.
‘Good.’
That was about as much concern for other people as I’d seen her express. Perhaps it was a good sign. Rudi padded away after her and I was left with a couple of yawning cops, one of whom asked me if I’d like to sleep in a cell.
‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ve tried that. The sheets are usually too rough.’
‘What sheets?’ the wag said.
It was almost dawn by the time I got back on the road. I shivered until the heater took effect, then I sweated. I wasn’t well. As I drove, I went through the whole thing in my mind again. It all fitted. Robert had recognised the background to Paula’s photograph as Fitzroy House and made the connection. He’d got out here as quickly as he could to eliminate the other step sister who he saw as a threat to him. All the questions were answered except the ones I’d started with: who sent the box of bullets to Patrick Lamberte and why? I didn’t know and I decided I didn’t care. I turned off at Wombeyan Road and drove to Fitzroy House. All the coming and going had broken branches on the bushes growing beside the track and had flattened the grass growing up the centre of it. A fine, bright day broke as I pulled up near the house. In the light it looked old and decrepit, but I could imagine Paula fixing it up and living there with a couple of dozen Rudis. I found my parka and the illegal gun in the wet grass. I was glad that I hadn’t had to use the gun. Who was I kidding? I’d never had a chance of using it. I didn’t visit the kennels. I had the feeling that I’d run my luck out there. If I went back, I was likely to slip on the bricks and break my leg.