Cliff Hardy: Deep Water Part 20

Hank got to his feet and loomed over Crimond. 'What's this, Ross? We just wanted you here to make Piers feel more at home when he told us about ... well, you know.'

Crimond now showed his true colours. He couldn't help the contempt creeping into his voice as he looked briefly at me then focused on Hank.

'You're out of your depth, Bachelor. There are big things at stake here-for New South Wales, of course, but more importantly for a G.o.dly society.'

Fox-James's expression was one of puzzled idiocy. 'Amen,' he said.

Sorenson was looking from Hank to me, weighing us up. He didn't seem too worried. Jones leaned forward in his chair. 'You may not realise it, Mr Beaumont, but the decision you make here can affect-'

Fox-James visibly shrivelled where he sat. 'I don't understand.'

'You don't have to bear witness to anything. If you leave these G.o.dless people this minute, I can a.s.sure you of a reward that-'

Patrick Fox-James had been well briefed and his glance at me, and my nod, took a micro-second. He showed he had guts to spare as he rose from the chair, pointed at Sorenson, and screamed, 'I saw that man-'

Sorenson was on the move and so was I. He stepped sideways and a pistol appeared in his hand. Shouts and noises on the stairs distracted him momentarily as he fitted a silencer to the muzzle. Fox-James. .h.i.t the ground and rolled. I acted without thinking, as if no thought was necessary: I jerked the door under the stairs open and grabbed the pistol Fitzwilliam had left there. It was a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver that felt as familiar as my toothbrush. I swung it on Sorenson who was manoeuvring for a shot at Fox-James, and the instruction of decades before travelled through my brain: Don't aim, point and fire.

Well-trained, Sorenson registered me as a threat. He swivelled and the black hole of his silencer gaped at me. I pointed and fired, but so did he.

25.

On the flight back from the States I'd seen a not-very-good film, The Black Dahlia. In an early scene, two men are talking about a woman who is standing between them. She says, 'Keep talking about me in the third person-it sends me.'

It didn't send me, but that's how I felt sometimes during my long stay in hospital. Sorensen's bullet had bounced around inside me, nicking various organs, and the wounds had become infected. They put me in an induced coma for a while and I lapsed into comas all of my own making a few times later.

Coming out of the fogs before dipping back into them again, I heard things like: I think he'll pull through/He's got a raging infection/He's very weak/He's fighting hard/His age is against him/He's got an amazing basic const.i.tution ...

When the mist finally cleared and the pain cut in as they lowered the doses of whatever they were pumping into me, the day came when I was able to recognise Megan and Hank and smell the flowers Margaret had ordered for me.

'Hey, Dad,' Megan said.

Sounds weird, but I felt tears welling when I heard that.

'I refuse to say where am I,' I said. I didn't recognise my own voice-it sounded thin and harsh. 'Who's that talking?'

'That's a guy's had a h.e.l.l of a lot of tubes in him in a lot of places,' Hank said. 'Great to see you back with us, Cliff. Nearly lost you a couple of times there.'

'So I heard.'

I told them about hearing the doctors' various p.r.o.nouncements when they thought I was out of it.

'Scary,' Hank said. 'I didn't see any white light at the end of a tunnel.' Hank nodded. 'I thought you'd say that.'

'I knew you'd say that,' Megan said.

I drew in a deep breath that hurt almost everywhere there was to hurt. I gasped and heard the reedy voice again: 'Tell me.'

'No chance.' Megan pressed the b.u.t.ton near the bed. A nurse came in and did something and the mist wrapped around me again.

Out on the hospital balcony the next day, with most of the tubes and hook-ups detached, they told me what had happened. The real name of the man who'd shot me was Cartland. I'd wounded him but not nearly as severely as he had me. He and 'Jones', whose real name was Bolton, and who held a senior position in Lachlan Enterprises, were arrested by the three police officers. When it looked as if I might die and Cartland was facing a murder charge, he made a series of admissions in exchange for the downgrading of the charge to manslaughter. Cartland and an a.s.sociate, acting on instructions from Bolton, had abducted Henry McKinley, held and questioned him, as Cartland put it, 'under duress'. Cartland denied killing him and claimed McKinley had died of a heart attack. He admitted that he and his accomplice had torched the car and McKinley's body.

'Must have been p.i.s.sed off when I pulled through,' I said to Hank, who was supplying the details. 'Wounding at best, and with a good lawyer ...'

'Right,' Hank said. 'But it unravelled from there. Bolton named someone higher up in the organisation as the instigator and he was arrested trying to leave the country. The press got onto it all from-guess who?'

'Phil Fitzwilliam.'

'Persistent guy, that. They just couldn't keep him at arm's length. You dealt him a good hand and he played it to the hilt. He's come out of it OK. Lachlan's shares are in the toilet.'

'How's Holland, the Global man?'

'In much better shape than you.'

'Tarelton?'

Hank shrugged. 'In serious debt to Lachlan. Christ knows how that'll sort out. Losing staff is all I heard.'

'Margaret McKinley?'

'We're paid in full.'

'That's not what I meant.'

'She sent flowers. That's it.'

Over the next few weeks as I mended, I had a stream of visitors and a flow of information. Lachlan's lawyers were pulling out all the stops for Bolton and the others, and Hank and I were fending off counter-charges of conspiracy and entrapment. Hank had hired a high-powered law firm to monitor proceedings and they reported that a stalemate had been reached.

'That's bad,' I said.

Hank said, 'No, apparently that's good. Don't ask me why.'

Margaret emailed Megan for my phone number at the hospital and she called me on a day after I'd completed one of my corridor walks. I was building up towards a couple of hundred metres a day. It was something like the rehab after the heart surgery, but thankfully without the breathing exercises and the elastic stockings.

'You're on the mend Megan tells me.'

'Slowly. How're you?'

'I'm fine. Something to tell you. My ex and I are back together.'

'Your daughter'll be pleased.'

'Is that all you have to say?'

'Margaret, I don't remember any ... core promises on either side.'

'You're right. I just wanted you to know I won't ever forget what you did for me. For us-for my dad and Lucinda and me, and what you went through to do it.'

'And I'll remember Larson's quarry.'

'Yes,' she said, 'me, too. Goodbye, Cliff.'

The visitors came and went. Patrick Fox-James brought grapes, most of which he ate, throwing them up and catching them in his mouth.

'You done good,' I said.

'Should've thrown myself between you and the bullet.'

DS Angela Roberts came and told me that the .38 I'd used had had one decayed round in the chamber and that I was lucky to have got off a shot at all.

'Always been lucky,' I said.

Josephine Dart, dressed to the nines in silk and with impeccable makeup, tapped her way into the room on her stilettos. She perched on the bed like the late Princess Diana visiting a cancer ward.

'Those people killed my husband, didn't they?' she said.

'Almost certainly, but there'll never be any proof.'

'What did you think of the Myall cottage?'

'Stimulating. Henry's daughter thought the same.'

She stared at me, her violet eyes blinking. 'You didn't.'

'Not exactly,' I said.

My recovery was slow, with setbacks when the infections flared. I fretted at the slowness and the confinement and read the newspapers from first page to last. The Sydney basin aquifer remained sealed, but the drought broke in parts of the state and the city got a lot of rain. There were two pieces of good news: Tony Truscott won the WBA welterweight t.i.tle, and the outplayed, discredited federal government was emphatically shown the door.

Megan came to collect me on my discharge from the hospital. I'd read a shelf load of books, bought in the Glebe and Newtown second-hand shops by Megan, and I donated them to the hospital library. I signed my name on a batch of forms. My second big hit on the health fund. Well, they'd had a clear run for a long time. I shook hands with the surgeon who'd removed the bullet that had lodged dangerously near my spine.

I said, 'I hope you don't ever need my services, Doctor, but if you do ...'

'Mr Hardy,' he said, 'you need to lead a quieter life.'

end.