Drainland (Tunnel Island Book 1) (12 page)

“
L
aura Romano
, back from the dead,” said Denny. He sat at reception. The television was on.

“What did I miss?”

“Nothing.”

“What are you working on?”

“My calves,” he said. “Leg day.” Denny began to massage his ankles. “My trainer’s a real prick.”

“Chandler?”

“Nothing. He hasn’t been coming in either.”

She stood there in the reception area for a few seconds.

Denny yawned. “Do you need something?”

"That day in Drainland, you—”

“Just try and forget about it.”

“No, you said the Riders had let it go, that it wasn’t always that bad.”

“Did I? Look, that place is…I don’t know, self-cleaning. Up here, you don’t even know it’s down there, right? Haven’t you noticed? Not a peep, around here. Nada.”

“Yeah. But the Riders are in there, right?”

Denny bit his lip and shrugged. “That’s the talk. Those junkies don’t grow their own poppies. Why? What’s this about?”

“Just curious.”

Denny turned back to the TV.

“You need to get yourself together,” he said.

She went through to her office. Romano figured she had one solid lead. It went right to the heart of things.

R
ay Herbert picked
up the phone in his house in Melbourne.

“It’s Laura Romano. Remember me?”

She could hear voices and music in the background.

“Hold on,” he said. Footsteps. A door pulled shut. “I’ve got my daughter’s kids around. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I take it, from the fact that you’re even talking to me, that someone filled you in on my deal with Vic Police.”

He laughed. “I heard,” he said. “I’m glad you found a way out of all that.”

She knew what that meant. “How’s Will?”

“Never heard of him,” said Herbert.

“Right. Well, I need a favour. You have some friends up here. They don’t like me much, but I’d like to meet some of them, just for a chat. Can you do the introductions?”

“Sure,” he said. “Nothing big, I hope.”

“Nothing big.”

“Anything else?”

“No. That’s it.”

“Okay, then. You look after yourself, kid.”

The line went dead.

Romano swivelled in her chair and wondered out loud: “Will Holding?”

She dialled a friend from Melbourne, a girl they used to party with. “Hey, Maree, it’s Laura. Yeah, Laura Romano.”

Then:

“—Yeah, yeah, it’s me, Laura.”

Then:

“—Oh you know. Hey, I guess you heard about Will and me. Have you heard from him?”

Marlee hadn’t heard a thing. No one had seen Will Holding in months. The rumour was he left town quickly. The subtext was witness protection or dead in a ditch. Romano couldn’t decide which one she preferred.

C
handler was
good and drunk when she got to the pub that night. He was standing under a bank of televisions watching a dog race. He held a pot of beer in one hand and a full jug in the other. As Romano came up on him, she felt the warm glow of the TVs wash over her, a little tremor from last night’s dose.

“You got money in this?” she said.

"Ten each way. Miranda Monday.”

“Again?” He had a thing about this particular dog.

Chandler winced as they crossed the line. “I hate the dogs,” he said, turning away from the screens. “Too quick. With the nags, at least it takes a couple of minutes to lose my money.” He took a fresh glass from the bar and poured Romano a beer from his jug. They dragged stools over and sat down. Romano had a smoke. Chandler took one from her pack and lit up, strictly a social habit. After a while he said, “I’ll tell you something that’s never said enough.”

“Yeah?”

“Never fall in love.”

“Okay,” she said.

They both drank to it.

T
he call came
the following afternoon.

“Hiya, lil girl. How you doing?” The voice had a familiar croak to it. American. An older man. “We have a mutual friend, it seems. Mr Raymond Herbert, Melbourne fella. He told me to give you a call sometime. So here I am, calling you.”

“I need to talk to someone in the Riders about Drainland,” she said. “Off the record.”

“Okey dokey. You wanna bring yourself down to the club again this arvo, say five-thirty-ish. Don’t bring any of yaw pig friends neither, or you’ll get yourself into trouble now.”

He sounded like he was about to sign off.

“Wait, what club?”

“Angels, lil girl. And don’t go making no asshole of yourself this time. Dem boys down there are still laughin ’bout yer last visit.”

Romano necked a Valium and changed out of her uniform. The police cruiser would draw attention, so she called a cab. The sun was setting as the cab slowly turned through the streets of Domino. The Riders were all camped out in front of their houses. Dirt-stained kids roamed the streets on push-bikes. Everyone watched her come. In front of the club, she took down the driver’s number and tipped him. He seemed to know her but she couldn’t place his face.

“I want you to come back and get me in an hour,” she said.

The driver nodded. “I’ll wait for five minutes when I come back, but that’s it.”

“Deal.”

Inside Angel City, the Riders didn’t have much of an afternoon trade going. The same pudgy woman as before heaved her ass around for the old-timers. Romano stood in the darkness and waited a beat. Like a summoned demon, the old man in the grey suit appeared, the same man from her last visit. She figured him for the caller and as soon as he opened his mouth he confirmed it. “Welcome back,” he said. “And lucky for you, lil girl, we wave that there cover charge for all y’all womenfolk.”

Romano looked around for the other men: the bartender she’d threatened, the tweaker on door.

“Where are your friends?”

“They around,” said the man. “Come on out back.”

He started off. As he passed the stage, he yelled, “Shayleen, you go on take your ass off and get Franny up there on that fuckin’ stage now.” The dancer crouched down and gathered her tips. “Shit, girl, come on now. Move! These boys ain’t here to look at you clean up none.” He turned back to Romano and said, “Sorry. We’re going out the back so I don’t get distracted none.”

Romano followed him down a short flight of concrete stairs into a dark hallway space under the club. The old man turned lights on. He opened a timber hatch, then walked through a corridor, taking her around to what looked like a garage of some sort. It was a tall room lined on one side with a roller door, the orange sun peeking through the seals. The place smelled like dust and salt.

The Valium was working. Romano felt level.

“Drink?” he asked, opening a bait fridge. “I got beer and beer. That’s it.”

“Okay.”

He took two bottles out for himself then passed a third to her. “Let’s sit out back,” he said, pushing a button on the wall. The door rolled up and there, behind the club, sat the ocean lapping at the edge of a long, sandy bank. Between the door and the water was a yard filled with hard rubbish, a mess of construction waste, motorcycle parts and busted furniture. Half a couch sat pushed up by the door and the old man lowered himself down into it. It was a regular spot by the look of it. The cushioning moulded to him. Romano noticed that both he and the suit he wore had seen better days. He needed a shave. His face was weathered and hung from his skull, dotted by wild eyes.

Romano pulled a milk crate out of the rubbish and placed it down beside him. She sat and offered him a smoke. He took it.

“So what the hell do you want with Drainland?” he said.

“I went down there a couple of weeks back. Saw some things. Heard talk that the Riders are involved, and gave Ray a call. I want to get it square with you so I don’t put my foot in it again. I used to be around the Riders in Melbourne.”

“Is that right? Maybe you ain’t as dumb as I thought?”

“Maybe,” said Romano.

“Well, we do our business down there, sure. Ain’t no shame in it. Give dem people what they need, supplies and the like. Ain’t no harm. Those people are damn near dead anyhow.”

“I heard things are worse than usual?”

“Naw,” said the man.

“So that was business as usual?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“When I was down there, I was looking for these two,” she said. She showed him a picture. “Petey and Drags. You know them?”

“I know ’em. Heard you found ’em too. Heard dey topped themselves.” He smiled a little.

“We found them hanging from the trees. You and your boys know anything about that?”

“Not officially.”

“And unofficially?”

The man took a final pull on his first beer and tossed the empty out into the junk pile. He opened the next.

“Petey and Drags broke the rules,” he said. “They were moving their own shit down there, stepped on nasty shit, cut lousy with something. Killed a bunch of dem junkies. Awful stuff. Same shit that killed dat Marr girl from what I hear too.”

“You know Sophie?”

“I did. Good kid. Great ass. Never any trouble, not for me, not for any of us or nothing. But you go ask Frith about Petey and Drags though, he’ll tell you. Him and Pauline had to put a dozen people in the pit just from that shit Petey was slinging around down dere, some of ’em not even out of their teens. Real shame. And bad for business too. Can’t have no ent-trey-pro-neurs stepping on our shit, killing people, even down dere. That’s not how it works, not how it works at all. And Petey and Drags knew that. Knew it all too well. Know it better now.”

“They were strung up with about thirty or so others.”

“That weren’t all us. That’s just where some of them junkies check out. The boys probably put ’em there so people could have a bit of a look. Dem people need a gentle reminder every now and then. They ain’t so smart a lot of the time.”

“You know why Petey and Drags were even up this way around the time Sophie was killed?”

“Nope.”

“No? Nothing?”

“Nope, no idea.”

“They weren’t working for you guys? Picking something up, something like that?”

“Hell, no. Dem two couldn’t do shit for us. And I’ll tell you something else: I don’t want no more pigs sniffing around Drainland, you hear? But I’ll tell you this. Don’t make a lick of sense how Sophie passed, not a fucking lick. That kid had been clean for almost a year. And wild as she was, buck wild, she ain’t ever gonna sell no bad drugs off to someone like dem two. She ain’t have nothing to do with no drugs no more and good for her. So it don’t make no sense for those two to be near her.”

“What about the other guy, Thomas Bachelard?”

“Never met him myself. Never even seen him.”

“Okay then. But…the gear Petey and Drags were moving around the camp…let me get this straight. You’re saying it came from the Gold Point?”

“It was the same shit that killed Sophie. And they damned well didn’t have it before dat poor girl was doped up.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it?”

Romano put her half-finished beer on the ground.

The man reached over and put his hand on her forearm. “You listen to me now, girl. Don’t go making trouble for us down dere. Ray gets you this sit-down, but it ain’t no free pass. We got what we got from taking care of trouble for our own selves. And I ain’t no rat but…what happened to Sophie happened because someone else wanted it to, someone smarter than those two idiots, and you think I can help you with something ’bout her, you ring the club, ask for Vic. That’s me. You ain’t shit to me yet, but we take care of our own, and Sophie was close enough to it. So you and I might be able to help each other, if need be.”

“Yeah,” said Romano, standing up. “Sounds like a real family business you’ve got running here, Vic. Thanks for the chat. I got someone picking me up out on the street. Think I might just walk around now. Take it easy.”

“Oh, I will, lil girl. Is all I ever do these days.”

Romano walked. The street was empty out front.

A battered white sedan came past, slowed to watch her.

The next car was her ride.

She got in.

Romano thought it out as they left Domino. It still wasn’t making a lot of sense. Petey and Drags didn’t bust their way into that hotel room. They had a swipe key. And if Sophie was clean, Bachelard wouldn’t have a brick of H lying around. Unless this was Bachelard’s deal, something that went wrong.
But why?
That didn’t scan. The kid was a fool but he didn’t vibe drug dealer. And even if Petey and Drags could have fronted as buyers—something requiring a miracle of deception for them—who would ever let them inside a confined space? This Vic character was right. There was a third party to it all. Only one way to work it: start at the end and work back.

Romano knocked on the plastic shield. The driver looked over.

“Forget the pub,” she said. “Take me home.”

H
arris watched Romano from afar
. She didn’t travel so well after Drainland. Her neighbour across the street, Dave Benchley, was none too impressed. “She’s a bloody drunk all right, and the rest. Lights on at all hours. Music all bloody night. I’d call the cops if she wasn’t one.” She was always alone apparently, never any visitors. In those first few weeks after their trip down to the camp, Romano got worse and worse. She stopped going to work. She seemed to give up what little enthusiasm she had. It boded well. That type of inert despair could keep you alive on Tunnel. It helped.

The whole story took a while to filter through to him, but Harris eventually heard it from O’Shea. “She thought that Gold Point thing was her ticket out of here,” O’Shea said. “Didn’t do her homework on that one.”

Bachelard’s father, the senator, was no innocent bystander when it came to Tunnel. He had his tentacles all over the island. He was invested. No one needed to keep him in the loop, especially not a new cop out to impress.

“So we’re stuck with her,” said O’Shea.

“She’s harmless enough,” said Harris.

It was true. If one taste of Drainland put her into a spin, Romano would not prove dangerous, especially now that she understood how permanent things were.

“Back to business,” said O’Shea.

“Back to business,” said Harris.

The girl’s father, Donald Marr, came back into the fold. O’Shea set him up with a job on the mainland, essentially the same job he’d had on Tunnel except now he drove the supply boat in the opposite direction. Harris and Dev still used Marr’s old boat for delivery runs. They met him out to sea. Very little had changed in Don after Sophie’s passing. He had always been a bit of a blank slate. In the dead of night, as he pulled his new boat up alongside the old one, he gave off the appearance of the same man, doing the same work. Dev found his coldness chilling. Harris agreed.

In December, the removalists came and packed up the Marr house, and it was on the market a week later. A New Zealand businesswoman bought the place for a holiday home. The house now sat there vacant, for the most part.

After that, the rest of the year dwindled away. The tourists came. The heat rose. The tenor of the island ramped up. Harris kept his nights open. Each new week sat discrete from the next. He did the meetings. He made his delivery runs in the boat. He stayed semi-retired. He stayed out of O’Shea’s problems: a guy from the mainland came looking for a missing girl; a brawl broke out at the Bond Mirage; the simmering tension between the Doomriders and the Chans continued unabated. As often as possible, Harris met Dev down on the point to meditate. They sat in the grass together and watched the sun glimmer in the sea water.

Concentrate on your breathing, Jim.

Let the breeze pass through you, Jim.

Let your head hang loose on your shoulders and let the energy drain down, all the way to your toes, Jim.

He could never make it work.

It was never quite enough.

The past nagged at him.

He kept checking on Romano, watching the woman slowly divide further and further apart. He wanted this, but he also couldn’t completely abide it. It felt wrong. By December she was managing an hour or two at the station house, but the pace didn’t seem to suit her. Harris knew the signs. She was using again. Carl Yates confirmed it. He had a pizza guy selling to her. Harris didn’t want to help, but some part of him felt sorry for her.

A quick search through her house one night revealed more case files spread across the living room floor, more note paper full of receipts and lists and theory. Harris still had the phone tapped and by working from home as she did, she left a trail of calls. He went home and followed the paperwork. She was all over Pastor Frith and the Mission, which was a curious move. Harris had no idea why. The old priest never seemed to bother anyone. Harris couldn’t think of someone less involved in the Gold Point thing. Maybe Romano was just spinning her wheels? Or, with a grim smile, Harris realised that maybe Romano was starting to settle in good and proper. No one liked a do-gooder on Tunnel. The locals—true locals—nursed all sorts of vendettas and obsessions. Maybe this was Romano’s induction?

Whatever it was, it put her right into the spiral. By mid-December, she was a wreck, looking more full-blown as the days passed. She was completely oblivious, but it was starting to get noticed. The talk was that she’d interviewed a group of Frith’s nurses down in Arthurton and scared the old ladies half to death. The racket she made on the mainland—calling every other day, chasing down files and confirmations—eventually it all appeared on O’Shea’s radar, and he wasn’t pleased.

“Ya going to have to do something,” said O’Shea. “Ya said this shit with Drainland would tame her.”

Harris shrugged. “I’m not doing anything yet.”

“Soon,” said O’Shea. “This is not like the rest of it. Ya can’t just ignore it. Ya got yourself involved, so just remember, ya involved now, lad.”

“I’m a better judge of that than you,” said Harris.