Very carefully, he moved forward into the pepper trees, getting closer. Suddenly there was an earsplitting screeching, a furious scratching and scattering of the leaves. The man jumped up immediately, turning and firing in a single action. Harrigan dodged down and sideways, slipped on the litter and smacked his left shoulder against a tree, just escaping falling into the dirt. The bullet thudded instantaneously into the tree trunk on his right, barely missing his shoulder. It was a soft sound, a quiet gun. Harrigan fired back, a loud crack in the night. The bullet scored across the man’s lower left arm. He dropped his gun with a curse. Immediately Harrigan was there, kicking it across the dirt.
The man was on Harrigan before he could fire again, gripping his right wrist. The grip was painful, tight as a vice, relentlessly digging into a nerve. He was trying to numb Harrigan’s hand and make him drop his gun and at the same time crash him backwards against the nearest tree. With his other hand, he punched Harrigan hard in the stomach, smacking into the soft tissue over and over. Harrigan gasped, tried to yank his right hand away but couldn’t shake off the grip. He’d always had a strong left as a boxer. With his bare fist, he cracked his left hard on the man’s upper arm, then smacked him in the face and neck repeatedly. They grappled silently. His right hand was growing numb, the gun slipping from his grip.
Harrigan levered himself forward, overbalancing them both, pushing the man to the ground between the trees and the house, landing on him heavily and winding him. The force of the fall knocked the gun from Harrigan’s nerveless hand. The man tried to grab at it but it was on the wrong side for him and Harrigan managed to twist and skitter it out of reach with his foot. Still the man did not let go of his wrist. He had a powerful supple strength, it was like wrestling with an angry tomcat. Gripping his hand in Harrigan’s hair, he tried to force Harrigan over onto his left side. Harrigan knocked the man’s head hard onto the ground. The man punched his face and tried to gouge his eyes. Then Harrigan’s hand was released. It was numb. The man pushed away from Harrigan with all his strength, kicking at him and rolling back out of his grip, tearing his shirt. He staggered to his feet and ran for his gun. Harrigan rolled back and went for his own gun with his left hand. Then in the night there was the roar of a shotgun.
‘You fucking mongrel!’ Harold shouted.
The blast had propelled Harrigan’s assailant sideways. The man tried to scrabble for his firearm again, only to be driven back by another shotgun blast. He got to his feet and sprinted away, followed by a third blast. Harrigan got to his feet after him. His right hand was useless. He snatched up his gun with his left hand and ran in pursuit. The man was heading for his car. ‘Police! I’ve got backup coming,’ Harrigan shouted.
By the time he reached the far corner of the house, the man had gone into the coral gums at the end of the garden. Harrigan went after him. He heard a car starting and then roaring away. Running forward, he saw a white BMW disappearing down the track towards Harold’s main gate. It didn’t cross the bridge but turned right onto the Creek Road, driving away at high speed. Harrigan sheathed his gun in his holster and ran through the gardens into the house paddock. Harold joined him.
‘I couldn’t shoot straight, mate. My hands were hurting too much. I was worried I was going to get you.’
‘Don’t worry about it. You don’t know what you saved us all from. If I remember rightly, he can get out onto the highway that way, can’t he?’
‘He can, but he must have been here before. That road’s not on the maps. You’d have to know about it.’
Suddenly the car stopped. There was a gap in time. Then Ambrosine’s cottage blossomed in flames into the night. They heard the car drive on. It hadn’t turned on its headlights.
‘You fucking bastard,’ Harold said. ‘If that spreads to the creek, all that vegetation along there will go up.’
‘I’ll call the fire brigade.’
Harrigan’s right hand was beginning to tingle as the nerves came back to life. He ran towards the house to be met by Ambrosine running out of it.
‘My house. Every fucking thing we own. Everything fucking thing the kids had. All my tattooing gear, my books, my machine, my photographs. Jesus, fucking everything.’
The flames from the cottage flared higher, visible for miles. Her children had followed her out. They stood in a straggling line behind her. Harrigan saw a look of deep anger on the older boy’s face.
‘Mum, something’s coming,’ Jen said.
‘It’s the backup I asked for,’ Harrigan said.
Three cars were crossing the bridge in convoy. He saw one turn onto the Creek Lane and speed in the direction of Ambrosine’s cottage. They would take care of the fire one way or another, including calling out the rural fire service. The other cars continued to the farmhouse.
‘Whoop-de-bloody-do,’ Ambrosine said. ‘Too fucking late now. Come on, kids. Inside. Let’s get you out of the way. We’ll think about what we’re going to do next tomorrow. We’ve got nothing now. Just a rust-bucket car and that’s it.’
‘Mum, Harry said that man must have shot Rosie. Why did he do that?’ Jen asked.
‘Not now, sweetheart.’
‘But why?’
‘Baby, I don’t know. It’s too hard for me right now. Because he’s a cunt. Come on.’ She took Little Man by the hand and they disappeared inside the house.
‘Can you take my shotgun, mate?’ Harold said. ‘I’m going to have a look at Rosie.’
‘No worries.’
Harold turned and walked quickly to the end of the house. Harrigan followed. At Rosie’s enclosure, Harold unhooked the gate and squatted down in front of her kennel. She lay on her blanket, shot once through the head.
‘At least it was quick,’ he said.
After this, he did not speak. Then Ambrosine was there at the gate.
‘Do you want a cigarette, mate?’ she said to Harold. ‘I rolled you one in case you did.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
She lit two cigarettes together, one for her and one for him, then turned and went back to the house.
‘I’ve got to get rid of the carcass. I can’t leave her here till tomorrow.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Harrigan said.
‘No, I’ll do it myself. Your mates are here. You’d better go talk to them.’
Shotgun in hand, Harrigan went to meet the arriving police. Looking back, he saw Harold lodge the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and drag Rosie’s body from out of her kennel on her blanket. He carried her away behind the brokendown poultry sheds. Against the dark, the old struts and chicken wire were as fragile as torn cobwebs. Harrigan watched him disappear, wondering how much it had hurt him to pick her up, how heavy she was in his arms. He checked his watch. It was after midnight and the night had hardly begun. As usual, he had work to do.
17
I am a machine, Harrigan thought. He ticked off the details as if feeling and thought were dead. Mercilessly he rang Trevor, dragging him out of bed, giving him lists of directions for what he wanted to happen, people to be flown down to Yaralla first thing tomorrow, including Trevor’s own people and a forensic team.
‘Well, boss,’ Trevor said when Harrigan had stopped talking, ‘I’m glad to hear you’re still alive.’
‘That’s nice to know. Thanks, mate,’ Harrigan said, for once a little thrown.
The local police had retrieved the shooter’s gun. Bagged for examination, it was slender and deadly in its cheap plastic dress. It would go back to Coolemon with one of the police cars. The gold badge would not. Harrigan had collected it from the window sill, planning to oversee its fate himself.