‘Just making sure’, he said. ‘Let’s go.’
The road ran flat and straight for a few kilometres, then there was another left turn and a winding descent to Hacking Inlet. The surface was rutted, and I had to grip the wheel hard on some of the turns. We bounced and I wondered if the Chiefs Special would fall out. It never had before. I wanted a drink very badly.
The weekenders and holiday houses trickled out along the road from the main settlement, but Phillips was right, the place had none of the signs of being cut up into fish finger blocks the way most of the coastal towns are. Here the trees predominated in wide, deep, seclusion-giving belts between the houses. It was very quiet, and I imagined I could hear the beat of the sea against the sand over the car noise. I drove down until I reached the centre of the township-a general store-cum-petrol-station-cum-pub-a couple of hundred metres back from the beach. It was set in a clearing with a playground and picnic benches around it. A big aviary stood in the middle of the playground; dark shapes hopped and flapped behind the grill. I pulled up by a petrol bowser and felt the cool metal on my neck.
‘Well?’
‘This is Hacking Inlet. I’ve never been here before. The Gregory’s doesn’t cover it, and I’ve only got the name of a lane, not a detailed map.’
‘So?’
‘So we look for the town map or we find someone to ask.’
We got out of the car; I’m a city man, but I felt like a country man beside Hayes. I was wearing jeans, a collarless ex-navy shirt and sneakers, he had on his business clothes and business shoes. Dry leaves crackled loudly under his feet us he walked across the clearing.
‘Map might be up by the store there’, I said.
He judged the distance; a wide verandah ran along the front of the building which was built up on high brick foundations. From where we stood its whole length was visible, framed against the pale moonlit sea. He smiled and lifted his gun.
‘Go ahead, Hardy. Go on up and look-I could put one in your ear from here.’
I walked over, and climbed the wide wooden steps up to the verandah. It would be a nice place to sit and have a quiet drink in pleasant company, now it felt like a rifle range. My foot hit a beer can lying on the verandah and sent it clattering over the edge. I froze, then looked back at Hayes. He wasn’t doing anything stagey; he wasn’t standing with his legs spread and his gun arm out supported by the other arm. He was just there and watching.
There was a big, white-edged town plan covered by a cracked sheet of glass mounted on the wall near the door of the shop. I squinted, but I couldn’t make out the details. I went back down the steps and over to the car. Hayes lifted his gun and I stopped.
‘What’s up?’
‘Can’t see, I need a light.’
He nodded and I opened the driver’s door: it was lucky that the door-operated interior light hasn’t worked for years. I got a torch from the glove box and my gun from the clip. The gun with the two inch barrel went down into the front of my pants, where I prayed it would stay and not show. I flicked the torch on and off experimentally.
‘Get on with it!’
I went back to the map and located the lane. Hayes held his hand up ready to shield his eyes against the torch beam if I’d decided to play that trick. His gun hand was rock steady.
‘Short drive’, I said.
We went down a rocky side road that had been cut into a hill, and off that down a track; the long grass sticking up in the middle between the wheel ruts showed that it didn’t get much use. I had the lights on high beam and it was a first-gear crawl along the track. The water was off to the left-a long, flat stretch framed by high, scrubby hills. The tide was low and the water looked like mud; maybe it was. The pylons of a couple of small boat jetties stuck up awkward and useless-looking high above the water line.
‘End of the lane here.’ I was whispering, for no good reason.
‘Stay well back then, and turn the car around.’
I stopped, backed and filled and got the car turned about in the narrow lane. I’d seen the house in the last flash of the headlights-a narrow-fronted fibro job, just visible through heavy tree-cover. We approached it by going slowly along the side of the track where bushes and saplings offered irregular cover. Ten metres from the house, and to one side, there was a dark patch in the vegetation. I pushed at the low, light branches and they gave way; behind them I could feel, from a step or two taken, firm ground falling away evenly.
‘Said to be a driveway down there’, I whispered. ‘Garage holds a couple of cars, store room, God knows what.’
Hayes nodded and gesture with the gun for me to come back up on the track. He stepped back to avoid the possible suddenly released branch: he wasn’t such a city boy after all. He was a pro. When I was on the track, he grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head down. His voice in my ear was hard and harsh: ‘Listen, Hardy, I’ve killed eight men. I don’t mind killing people. I wouldn’t mind killing you. Don’t try anything clever. I won’t give you a chance. If I get Collinson neat and clean, you’ve got a chance of getting out of this. Just a chance, get me?’
I nodded, torturing the follicles.
‘Right. Now how the fuck do we get in there?’
It was 1.30 a.m. The half-moon went behind a patch of cloud and the scene darkened. The trees that hid the house from the road were thick and high; I could see more of the shack’s tin roof from this point than its fibro walls. It was an unpretentious property. The trees on the block grew close around the house, loomed over it. A fire risk. I strained my eyes to see through the trees to what lay beyond the house. Darkness. Then I remembered the water and the jetties. I pointed with the torch butt.
‘Looks like this place has got absolute water frontage. Must be a track down to the house from up here, path or something. What d’you reckon on using the torch?’
‘Give it to me.’
I handed him the torch and he shaded the beam carefully as we picked our way along the track. Hayes stopped and made a pushing gesture. He clicked off the torch.
‘Gate. After you.’
I went through, inching my way, trying to feel the ground with my toes through the worn-down sneaker soles. I stumbled, flailed my arms, almost fell. Hayes hissed something behind me and I lurched sideways to grab a tree trunk. I poked my foot forward tentatively.
‘Path. Goes down. Pretty steep-rocks and roots.’
‘Go on.’
I edged down the path using the trees growing at the sides to steady myself. It was like walking into a downward sloping pitch-black tunnel. Sweat was trickling down my neck, and I felt the gun in my pants move and settle into my crotch. I slid my hand down, pulled up the gun and my shirt front. I put the gun in my pocket, and let the shirt hang in front of it. I slid, bounced off a tree and stopped.
‘Easy’, he hissed.
We were at the bottom, standing on a concrete slab that jutted out for about three metres and ran the width of the house. The windows were set high up near the roof, and I thought I could see a gleam of light inside. Windows placed that high seemed strange until I realised that lower windows wouldn’t give a view back up to the gate and the track. The house hadn’t been designed to be snuck up on.
Hayes stood motionless and seemed to be sniffing the air. All I could hear was a low, sucking sound coming from beyond the front of the house and the soft brushing of bushes, rubbing against the fibro in the light breeze.
The Doberman came quickly and smoothly with a soft footfall and just a low growl. It sprang at Hayes, but he was like a good boxer-he seemed to have all the time in the world. He stepped back and chopped it across the muzzle with his gun hand; the dog yelped and faltered. Hayes pivoted and smashed the gun butt dead-centre on to the dog’s skull. The animal quivered and sank and he hit it again, savagely. Its legs gave way and it twitched, heaved and lay still.