The Tankermen Read online

  ‘What?’

  ‘That shiny thing.’

  Jed crouched and drew in his breath. ‘Can you believe it?’ he muttered.

  ‘What is it?’ Finn felt a twinge of his dream-fear.

  ‘You remember those kids who were sitting up here in the middle of the night, carrying on like idiots? Well, they’ve left a little souvenir.’ He picked up a piece of cardboard and started carefully scooping sand aside. When Finn could bring himself to focus properly he saw three hypodermic syringes, planted, needles up, in a neat row.

  ‘Careful, don’t spike yourself, Jed.’ Finn’s voice was about to start wobbling, and he tottered up the stairs unable to watch any longer. He was afraid he might throw up, or cry. The world felt full of ill will, and he wished briefly that the poison would kill him so that he could escape from it all.

  He sat on the top step slowly brushing sand from his clothes, feeling transparent and weak. Jed’s jacket was a comforting weight; he put his arms in the sleeves and then rolled the cuffs back so he could tie his shoelaces. Concentrating on little mechanical tasks kept the worst queasiness at bay.

  Jed retrieved a newspaper from a nearby rubbish bin, carefully wrapped the syringes and dumped the parcel back in the bin. Then he turned to Finn ‘You okay?’

  Finn looked up at him. Without his jacket Jed didn’t look so tough and cool; he looked almost like a family man in his black jeans and check shirt, especially the way he looked at Finn, as he might bend down in concern over a very small child. Finn gulped and shook his head and looked hard at the beach, blinking.

  ‘Have a rest, mate, then we’ll go on,’ said Jed, sitting beside him and tactfully watching the horizon.

  Finn sat up straight and took a few deep breaths. The air was clean and good, even if his chest did wrinkle and stretch and threaten to split open. He was sweating, but that felt good, too, as if the toxins that had found their way in via his wounds were pushing out through his healthier skin. He spent a few more moments feeling his body fight back. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  ‘Well, guys, your guess is as good as mine.’ Dr Jennifer Schwarz smiled sympathetically. Finn, through a mist of pain, wondered whether it was wise for a doctor to leave so much cleavage open to view. When she bent over him he could see the white lace trim of a low-cut camisole against her tanned skin.

  ‘There’s all sorts of muck out there,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t catch me swimming in it if I had even the tiniest cut.’ She came at him with her scalpel and lanced another blister.

  Finn yelped, bit his lip hard and groaned loudly through his teeth as she squeezed the poison out. ‘Feels like you’re burning holes in me!’

  ‘I’ll give you some cream to help it heal and reduce the scarring,’ Dr Schwarz said calmly, as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Only one more,’ she added, tossing a loaded swab into a bucket with a skull and crossbones on it.

  ‘Is it a prescription cream?’ Finn got the words out hurriedly to make way for another yell of pain.

  ‘Yes, but there’s a chemist just next door. You can pop in there as you leave.’ She was squeezing again. Her fingers felt as if they were right down near Finn’s backbone.

  ‘No, what I meant was,’ he said when the pain receded a little, ‘scrips cost fifteen bucks now, and I haven’t got—’

  ‘Don’t be a chump, Finn.’ Jed, sitting against the wall of the surgery, had to peep around the doctor’s behind to meet Finn’s eye. ‘I’ll get it for you.’

  ‘But you can’t keep paying for things! I feel terrible—’

  ‘Look, it’s my fault, if you think about it. You wouldn’t have gone in to swim if I hadn’t suggested it.’

  ‘Ooh, he’s a bad influence, that one,’ joked Dr Schwarz, bending over to open a little cabinet on the floor. Jed and Finn looked at one another, studiously pretending to be unaware of the doctor’s short skirt and long, tanned legs.

  ‘You shouldn’t . . .’ Finn said distractedly.

  ‘Forget it, mate. I’m loaded.’ Jed waved a hand airily.

  ‘I won’t put a dressing on it,’ said Dr Schwarz as she gently spread cream on Finn’s wounds. ‘Better to let the air get at it.’

  Depends on the air, thought Finn. The doctor smiled warmly into his gloomy face. She was wearing a perfume that made her smell like ripe peaches. ‘All done,’ she said, handing him his T-shirt.

  Jed had to see someone about some work, so he dropped Finn off in the Cross. Finn reluctantly gave him his jacket back. He felt lightweight and unprotected without it.

  ‘How about I meet you at the fountain tonight, round seven?’ Jed said. ‘Just to see how you’re getting on. I wouldn’t want you to crawl off and die on me.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Finn casually. The miserable feeling of wanting to go home and be looked after lessened a little. He could hold out until seven. He was much better already. His chest was sore and stiff, but the inflammation was dying down. The other aches and pains seemed to have dissolved, and Jed had insisted on buying him a breakfast so huge that he wouldn’t need to eat again today. He felt reasonably well bolstered against the general seediness of the Cross.

  He watched Jed glide away down the street, then turned away quickly and crossed Victoria Street with an air of great purpose. His pace slackened off, though, as he walked up Darlinghurst Road. It was still early, not yet nine o’clock. The morning was fresh and promising, but there was a weird cast over the day caused by the bad dream and the trip to the doctor’s. Finn’s routine had been disrupted, his concentration on his own small territory broken. The memories of his night and morning led back to other memories, that he usually admitted to his mind only in small doses.

  It was Jed’s fault, really, for being so kind, and that doctor, smiling at him and Jed as if they were brothers just on their way home from a night on the town. Suddenly Finn felt that he was visible again, not just a pair of eyes looking out on the world, with a brain behind them accumulating clues. Maybe he shouldn’t meet Jed tonight—it made things too complicated.

  A blue light hung above him, with POLICE written on it. Finn looked dubiously at the glass doors of the building. Jed had said he ought to report the tankermen. They weren’t just breaking the law; they were attacking people, and Finn wouldn’t wish the pain he’d had on anyone else. He went up the steps.

  A tired-looking policewoman glanced up from the counter as he came in.

  ‘Hi,’ said Finn. ‘I just wanted to report a, um, some dumping of some waste which I think could be poisonous—’ He stopped, unnerved by the woman’s silence and her unfriendly stare.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ She looked as if she wouldn’t care if you dumped toxic waste on her front porch.

  ‘Yeah.’ There was a big map of the city on the wall, and Finn waved at it in a general sort of way. ‘There’s this little lane that runs between Hughes Street and Manning Street. Yesterday morning around five o’clock I saw a tanker parked in there dumping its load down a stormwater drain—’

  ‘What’s a kid like you doin’ roaming the streets at five o’clock on a Monday morning?’ the woman asked. A young policeman passing behind her glanced sharply at Finn and went into another office.

  ‘I was going for a run.’

  The woman looked him up and down. Finn had never felt paler or more scraggly. ‘Yeah, you really look like a fitness freak, I must say.’

  ‘Well, anyway, there were these guys in protective suits—’

  Through the doorway he saw the policeman opening a looseleaf folder and flipping through pages of photographs. He took one out and handed it to another man sitting at a desk typing, leaning over him to speak. The other man took off his glasses, held the page at arm’s length, then shot a look at Finn. ‘Reckon you’re right,’ he said, handing the picture back.

  Finn backed away. ‘Forget it,’ he said to the policewoman. ‘You don’t believe me anyway.’

  ‘Stop him, Cheryl,’ the seated policeman called, but Finn was gone before Cheryl had begun to shift from her sea
t.

  Talk about bad luck, he thought as he ran. Of course they’d know about him, of course they’d be on the lookout. But Finn had thought they’d have hundreds of missing persons to watch for. Now he’d gone and drawn the heat—they’d know he was in the area, maybe even tell Dad and Janet. Perhaps he should shift locations for a while.

  But at least here he knew his way around. He knew how to disappear. When he figured he was out of range, he slowed down to a saunter, trying to look relaxed. He headed off on a roundabout route back to his bin, where he could lie low for most of the day.

  He was back on Victoria Street, moving against the morning peak-hour crowds. He saw the roof of a police car, bedecked with spotlights, aerials and a loud hailer, slowly approaching. Best to keep out of sight—the people at the station might have radioed out a description of him. Feeling pleasantly dramatic, Finn fell into step beside a large businessman and kept the man between himself and the car as it passed. Then he turned and continued on his way.

  The siren started to whoop behind him. In a state of cold panic he hurried past the El Alamein fountain. He chanced a look around and saw a policeman leap from the car and start pounding after him.

  ‘Oh no!’ He was off and running again. He made it to the lane system that backed on to the churchyard and began to work his way through it. Every time he paused he heard the policeman running behind, and his yells: ‘Come on, now, stop playing silly buggers! It’s no good running, Finley!’

  Finn turned a corner and darted up the lane. He was halfway along it before he recognised the vehicle blocking the far end. The person in the cabin turned and saw him as he slowed; the face was a white mask with black goggle eyes and a breathing-snout. Finn saw something lifted to the open window, grey-green and metallic, knobbed with tiny red lamps. The moment Finn registered that this was a weapon, he flung himself aside, flat behind a brick garage that projected a mere hand’s-breadth into the lane.

  The policeman leapt into the lane opening. ‘Gotcha!’ he said, seeing Finn.

  ‘Get back!’ Finn yelled. ‘They’ve got acid—!’

  The policeman’s chest lit up bright orange, and he was flung back against a galvanised iron fence. He slid down it in a disorganised sprawl, his chest smoking.

  Finn found himself in someone’s backyard without knowing quite how he’d got there. Through a broken paling he watched, clutching his own chest, taking shallow breaths and trying not to move a millimetre. Two white-suited figures passed along the lane. He crept forward and saw them bend over the policeman. They exchanged words Finn couldn’t understand, in scratchy voices like radio static.

  They picked up the body. Finn hid behind the garage as they carried it past. The garden he had landed in was well tended, full of giant tree ferns, partly paved with old, worn bricks. The terrace house it belonged to was tall and painted white, its windows curtained with lace. Finn wondered if anyone was behind them, watching him panting with fear in their garden, and the corpse-carriers beyond their fence.

  He waited until he heard the tanker’s engine roar and move off, then scrambled back over the fence and ran full pelt to his bin. He flung himself through the flap into the hot, smelly darkness. Already there was a new bundle of clothes there; he sat on the squeaky bag and trembled with delayed shock. He’d come within a thousandth of a second of being blasted away. His nightmare on the beach had been almost prophetic, but it was the cop, not Finn, whose heart was going to be eaten up by the acid or whatever they’d shot at him.

  His brain went obsessively over those few seconds—the weapon lifted, his back thumping against the fence, the triumph on the policeman’s face and then the confusion as he was hit. Eventually the memory stopped making him shake. Instead, he felt very tired, with worries nibbling at the fringes of his mind.

  He found the short stick he always kept inside, and propped open the bin-flap for air. The new bag held coats and jumpers—a bit itchy to lie on, but thick and soft and clean. He made himself a nest with them, curled up and sank immediately into a dark, heavy sleep.

  ‘G’day, Finn. How’s tricks? You look terrible.’ Frank was cheerful and natty as usual; his crisp white shirt-sleeves were rolled up past his elbows and his hair and shoes had a high polish.

  ‘I don’t feel too good, either.’ Finn tried to muster a friendly grin. He was very scared, away from the safety of the bin, sure the tanker was going to appear at any moment. His chest still hurt, too. It was no worse, but it made him want to hunch over and protect himself.

  ‘Can I ask you a favour, Frank?’

  Frank looked wary. Finn knew he expected to be asked for money.

  ‘I just need somewhere to . . . to hide, I guess, until around seven. Some guys are after me, and I don’t want to run into them.’

  ‘Not the cops, mate?’

  ‘No, some crims I saw the other day.’

  ‘Shouldn’t muck around with blokes like that,’ Frank said, ushering Finn behind a bank of speakers.

  ‘I don’t. I just accidentally saw them, and they saw me, and now they’re after me. With guns.’

  Frank sat him down and looked closely at him, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth. Eventually Finn’s blanched look and nervous hunch must have convinced him. ‘Okay. Sit tight here. No-one can see you from the street, but you can peep through this little gap here and see who’s coming in, and duck out the door behind you to the back lane. Plus,’ he added with a salesmanly flourish at the wall of television screens behind him, ‘come six-thirty you can catch Paradise Row. Cuppa tea while you wait?’

  Finn managed a laugh. ‘Hey, good service here! Yes, please. Nice and strong, with lots of milk and sugar.’

  It was a very comfortable two hours. The place was much airier and lighter than the bin, of course, and Frank kept him supplied with tea and biscuits and, when the shop was empty, conversation. He steered clear of asking Finn about the people following him, but Finn could see that it was much on his mind, the way he kept inching towards the door and peering keenly up and down the street, looking for thugs who might be carrying concealed weapons. Then he’d turn and wink at Finn and call out ‘Still all clear!’ Finn appreciated the reassurance. Michelle cast him some curious looks from her desk up the back, but he gave her a non-committal smile every now and again and she went back to her work. Then Paradise Row came on, and he managed to lose himself in that for a while.

  A funny thing happened in one scene. Stacey and Sian had disguised themselves so they could spy on Mick while he was buying drugs. There was this shot that panned along the street, a street that Finn knew was in some seaside town in Victoria. A little lady with mauve-grey hair turned from a shop window and looked at him as the camera passed, and Finn knew her. It was his gran, only a bit younger than his gran was now—she was up and walking, sprightly-looking. Finn even thought he recognised the dress she was wearing, the pink roses splashed against the spring green. It was the one she used to wear when she took him Christmas shopping in Lismore. It had made him feel all Christmassy just to look at it when he was littler. It happened in a flash; she was there on the screen for just a couple of seconds, wearing what used to be her characteristic look, fond and sharp and slightly daffy.

  Then the camera was zooming in on the café tables and Finn was sitting surprised and quite still, wondering whether he could trust his eyes. Was life on the street starting to send him just a little bit round the twist? There was no way it could have been her—wasn’t she up at Greenlawns right now, watching this stupid show herself, almost helpless in her wheelchair? Besides, all little old ladies looked the same, didn’t they?

  Well, no, actually, they didn’t at all. He remembered from his times at Greenlawns. From each old person’s face his or her younger face looked out, only partly veiled by the wrinkles or the age-spots or the white hair. You could tell from the patterns of the lines how much happiness or hardship or worry or laughter each one had had in life, but you could also see how each had looked before the hardshi
p or the laughter had made their marks. You could no more mistake Gran for Mrs Stanwick than you could mix up Barney and Finn himself. He was as sure he’d seen his gran as he was certain he could not have.

  He wanted to go to Greenlawns now, to see her, and ask her—the last twenty-four hours had shown him that even the impossible was possible. But then, what could she tell him? She’d just sit there, smiling her adoring half-smile at him. For the nurses, she talked—somehow she managed to make her wishes known, even to dictate a postcard—but to Finn she would say nothing, only smiling, only squeezing his hand with her light, worn one.

  He shook his head, oblivious to Stacey and Sian’s intrigues. He didn’t know whom he missed more, the upright, busy woman he thought he’d just seen, or the real Gran, watching and beaming from her wheelchair. Either one he could have told about his running away, about these latest events, and been certain of a hearing, and of reassurance and a new slant on life that would make it less fearsome to deal with. Both of them were smiling upon him now from their distances, the one in time, the other in space. But neither was with him, here and now. Neither could help.

  4

  Moving Target

  Finn sat with his back to the fountain—watching the water sprays had made him feel giddy and sick. Instead he continually looked about him, checking in three directions that the tanker or the police weren’t sneaking up on him. He had seen lots of kids behave in the same paranoid way at this place—waiting for their dealers, he’d supposed. He tried not to wonder where they might be now.

  He would’ve given anything to see his dad’s beige Magna pull up by the kerb and see his straight figure unfold from it. Of course, his father would have to be different; he wouldn’t bully Finn for explanations, or carry on about how worried he’d made them all; he’d just gather him up and put him in the car. Finn thought about the feeling of his father’s hand on his shoulder, and tried to keep his eyes from misting over. He had to keep a lookout, after all. Blink, blink.