The freight yard was a million psychological miles from the certainty and confidence of the big houses by the river and the clear signposts to the university. It was reached by a dusty road that turned off another road which had swung away from the well-heeled section of the district. The railway line here was what the Americans call a spur-an off-shoot, a by-way. There were low, broken-down fences around the goods yard and the road to an old brick office seemed to be marked by smashed wooden freight pallets. A small car park was defined by star stakes which were bent and askew and trailed their wires aimlessly.
I arrived at around 9.30 a.m. which seemed to be too early for commercial activity or civilised communication. The bearded youth in overalls who opened the office door looked at me with loathing.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said.
‘You’re too early. No one’s here.’
‘Don’t put yourself down.’ I said. ‘You’re here.’
He hitched at his overalls, which was unnecessary, because there was no way they could fall down. But he seemed to find it worth doing and he did it again. It dawned on me that he was stoned.
‘Let’s go inside and talk’, I said. He resisted-my second time at being refused entry in ten hours. ‘Okay, let’s stand our ground. Do you know Chris Guthrie?’
He shook his head and hitched the overalls again. It was too much. He’d started to shake his head before I’d spoken the name. He was bigger than me and younger, and if he was stoned and I was sober at 9.30 in the morning, that was his problem. I pushed him back against the wall, not gently.
‘Guthrie’, I barked. ‘Where?’
He pointed to the right, down the railway track. ‘He s… sometimes sleeps in the old freight car down there. I don’t know whether he’s there now or not.’
I let him come back from the wall and he slid down it into a squatting position. He smiled vacantly up at me.
‘I hope nothing important ever happens around here-you wouldn’t seem to be up to the job.’
‘It doesn’t’, he said.
I tramped down the derelict platform which was only raised a couple of inches above the rail. The whole place was an object lesson in how fast the bush would reclaim the city: the wood I saw was splintered and rotten, the metal was rusted and weeds were pushing up and growing aggressively through the cracked concrete.
The freight car was an old, immobilised ruin, blackened by fire and crumbling from disuse. The sliding door was half-open; it wouldn’t budge and I levered myself up and in. Light came in through chinks and gaps in the slatted sides- enough light to see the figure of a man slumped in a corner on a pile of hessian bags.
He was in a half-sitting position with his back against the fire-scorched wall. He was barefoot and wearing jeans and a tattered tee-shirt. A bag hung over one shoulder like half of a poncho. There were a couple of day’s worth of youthful fuzz on his face and his brown hair was long and matted: things moved in it. His eyes were closed and his mouth was puffy and blueish. He was Chris Guthrie. The disposable plastic needle hung in his arm like a caterpillar on a leaf. I jerked it out and a trickle of blood ran from the puncture mark which was one of a number, crusted and mottled, running up the inside of his thin, brown arm.
He was wasted and the grime was flaking off him, but there was a slight rise and fall to his chest. I bent forward to lift an eyelid when I heard a sound behind me and spun around. Ray Guthrie was climbing into the freight car; I was temporarily dazzled by the light and against it, Ray looked fuzzy in outline, shaggy like a gorilla. The noise he was making were scarcely more intelligible.
‘You bastard’, he roared. ‘Don’t touch him.’
‘Easy, Ray…’ I moved towards him to conciliate, but I could feel the grim set of my face and with the needle still in my hand I must have looked like the king of the pushers. He jumped at me, arms flailing. I dropped the needle and retreated, trying to keep from stumbling on the debris-strewn floor. He hit me with a long, looping punch that landed on the shoulder and didn’t have much sting; I hit back instinctively, catching him on the cheekbone. He went back and I shuffled back to the nearest wall.
‘Ray’, I gasped. ‘I’m a friend, your father hired…’ The word was enough to set him off again; he came in with both fists pumping and it was a matter of protecting myself from damage. I hooked him which brought him up short, then I pushed: he stumbled back and fell out of the car. I jumped after him and landed close, but a bit winded. He was game; he pulled himself up and threw another punch. I warded that one off, which takes less wind than throwing one yourself.
‘Stop it, Ray. I’m trying to help you.’
He bent and picked up a piece from a broken pallet, swung it like a club. I recoiled and that gave him a moment to look at me.
‘… bastard… followed us from the pub…’
‘Right. But…’
He threw the wood and I ducked. He ran down the platform, hopping over the uneven surface like a rabbit. I went after him-six paces and I caught my foot and fell. I sprawled on the ground, grazed my hand again and winded myself thoroughly. Lifting my head, I saw him running, jumping and skittering with terrific speed, down the platform, past the office and out of the freight yard.
I recovered my breath, picked the dirt out of my palms and went back to the freight car. Chris hadn’t moved; his bony chest was still fluttering and there was a thin, reedy sound coming from his throat. I made sure his tongue wasn’t going to go down it, and ran back to the office, where the kid with the beard and the personality problem was rolling himself a steadying joint.
‘Phone!’ I shouted.
He pointed to the floor: the telephone sat on a pile of tattered directories that went back to the Commonwealth Games year and beyond. I swore and fumbled with the mouldy, stuck-together pages. He got his joint going and looked at me with amusement.
‘Hospital?’ he said.
I nodded and he recited the number. I rang it and got a highly efficient-sounding Emergency service. I told it I needed an ambulance and that I’d better have the police as well while we were at it.
‘What’s going on, man?’
‘It’s visiting time’, I said. ‘You’ve had me and the young bloke who ran past. Now you’re going to get the police and an ambulance.’
‘Shit!’ He pinched out the butt and put the inch or so of stained stub in his mouth. ‘Well, shit. I think there’s a train due later this morning.’
‘That’ll make your day’, I said.
I ran the rusty water in a tap outside the office, cleaned my face and hands and waited for officialdom.
It came with sirens, flashing lights, starched uniforms and shiny buttons. The ambulance attendants seem to think that Chris would pull through. When the cops started on me I doubted if I would make it. They carted me down to a steel and glass tower in the centre of the city which was their headquarters; I wouldn’t say they were gentle about it, but at least no one slammed the car door on my fingers. They left me in a bare room ten storeys up, and let me look out over their city and think about my sins. The river ran a straight course through the city and then meandered away to the east. I imagined I could see its muddy banks, a malarial plain, a fringe of mangroves where it entered the sea. It put me in a mood to leave Queensland to the Queenslanders- maybe that was the idea.
An Inspector Jervis, who was terse but not overtly hostile, listened to my story after looking at my licence to enquire privately. I told him that I’d been hired to look for Chris Guthrie who’d been out of touch with his family for a worrying period of time. It was close enough to the truth for me to tell it without sweating. He didn’t like it much, particularly the reflection it cast on the organisation of which he was a proud member.