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  owner, a Pommy retiree, and he’ d known to leave it alone.

  Aware that he was leaving, Lee tried to see Emma once a

  day, always after school. He gave the excuse of saying he’ d driven up from Albany to see a friend in Freo Prison, and was staying with his family. She didn’t ask who.

  They hadn’t gotten together again, but it was moving

  toward that. She held onto him when they walked through

  Fremantle, stopping at the markets, and she kissed him when 189

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  they parted. He hadn’t raised the idea of taking her south for a weekend. He thought about it, but every time he saw their reflection in a shop window he knew that their futures were going to be different.

  *

  Lee’s plan was to buy himself a few grams from Frankie’s

  dealer, to ease himself off when he ran. Each time he

  shadowed Frankie in her red Mini Cooper, she drove to the

  same house. It wasn’t the kind of house he expected; not a

  rundown flat in an outer area, but rather a riverside mansion in a wealthy suburb. He kept his distance behind her, but he was close enough to see that she had her own electronic key.

  The key opened a sliding gate that gave off to a concrete drive sloping down to the river. Security cameras on the gate and on the wall. Two black Doberman guard dogs with cut ears

  and cropped tails, following her car at a trot.

  Lee had thought to ask one of the old boys at the boxing

  gym. The white guy, Frank, said he was a private investigator.

  Had once been a cop. Perhaps he could find out who lived at the mansion. But it was the other guy, Gerry, who was at the gym most days. He sparred with Lee in the makeshift ring,

  building Lee’s fitness and speed and in particular teaching him the art of counter-punching. Gerry reckoned that Lee had the talent to make himself a name, but Lee suspected it was just the old boy recognising that he was in trouble – the evidence being the track marks on his arms and the fury that escaped him in the ring – Gerry parrying until the storm had passed.

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  Today’s front page had a picture of Lee’s father, with his

  eyes blacked out, standing alongside Greg Downs in their ful camo gear with Armalite rifles. Lee knew that it was his father because Lee had taken the photo, wasn’t sure how the press

  got hold of it.

  The identity of the ‘supergrass’ was still a secret. There

  was no suggestion that the man beside Greg Downs was the

  turncoat. Instead, the focus of the article was on the automatic weaponry. The Armalite was the US infantry regulation rifle, and there were questions about how many the Knights had in

  their possession, and where they’ d been sourced. What other banned weapons were part of their armoury.

  The rest of the article outlined the rise of the revolutionary right in Australia – evidenced by the recent firebombing of Asian businesses in our own streets. Fears of shared

  intelligence and arms dealing. The Knights regarded as little more than a symptom of a wider malaise. Not much of a threat, according to unnamed sources. Product of small minds in a

  small country town.

  Red rag to a bul , Lee thought.

  He could imagine his father reading the same article.

  Everything he’ d worked for, a bit of a joke.

  But there was truth to it, when viewed from a distance.

  Lee hoped his father saw that.

  *

  Brad pulled up in the drive. Another stolen car – this time a battered Landcruiser. He flashed his lights and Lee locked 191

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  the house door. It was a warm night and the moon hadn’t

  risen. There were a surprising number of stars in the sky: he could see Venus, Mars on the horizon, the Saucepan and the

  Southern Cross. The bright swathe of the Milky Way, billions of stars roaring behind a million years of silence.

  Brad passed Lee a balaclava and a pair of soft leather gloves.

  ‘You see the front page?’ he asked, cranking up the

  Landcruiser, waiting for the engine to settle from its hard rocking before he put her in reverse.

  ‘Yeah, I saw it.’

  ‘Don’t take that shit to heart, kid. The media always does that –

  it’s their job. Paint us as fools and loonies. They’ d shit their pants if they knew how many soldiers, coppers and screws support our cause. Better they don’t know, until the time comes.’

  ‘That’s what I figured.’

  Brad was on the speed again, his ropy forearms clenching

  and unclenching, his hands white on the wheel.

  ‘What’s the job tonight?’

  Brad grinned. ‘Need-to-know basis, son.’

  ‘You don’t reckon I need to know?’

  ‘Nah, I don’t. The same as before. You’re on cocky duty while I do the hard yards. This place isn’t like the others. There’s going to be security. One guy parked outside the house. Full-time, the poor bastard.’

  Brad clearly wanted him to ask, to cajole until he learned

  more, but Lee wasn’t in the mood.

  *

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  They parked on the buffalo grass verge of a house that was

  hidden behind a high, stuccoed wal . Beneath them, the warm salty smell of the river rose over the blocks of mansions, the smeary lights of the city further east. Lee knew his way around the suburbs now. This was Peppermint Grove, the richest in

  the state, on the leeside of the hil s that fronted the windy coast. The air was humid with condensation from all the lush gardens.

  Brad didn’t open the back of the car. Didn’t carry a bag of heavy tools. Like Lee, he wore a balaclava and gloves, was

  dressed in dark overal s and black tennis shoes.

  He drew out a hunting knife with a serrated blade from

  inside his overal s and then a black pistol and something else black. It was a suppressor, the first Lee had ever seen. Brad passed Lee the knife while he screwed the suppressor onto the pistol barrel.

  ‘This ain’t the neighbourhood for people to own junkyard

  dogs, but just in case.’

  Brad stowed the knife and the silenced pistol in his overal s.

  He nodded to the wal , indicating for Lee to hoist him up. Lee made a saddle of his hands and took his weight. Brad rolled and dropped over the wal , and Lee leapt and pulled himself up.

  On the other side of the wall was a blue-tiled swimming

  pool that reflected the starlight, and a series of stepped gardens full of tropical plants that mostly concealed the glass wall at the back of the house. Lee dusted off his trousers but Brad indicated with the pistol that they skirt the pool. He stowed 193

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  the pistol and lifted his foot for Lee to hoist him over the next wal . They climbed and crossed three backyards before Brad

  crouched and knelt and checked the suppressor on the barrel.

  They were in a large yard with another swimming pool lit

  from within. Leaves floated on its surface. There was a gazebo with a shingle roof between the pool and the large house

  built in the style of a station homestead, with deep shadowy verandas and a tin roof. Faint strains of classical music coming from the second floor. The ground floor was dark and quiet.

  No sign of a dog, although Brad didn’t pack away his gun.

  Lee followed Brad as he skirted the side wall and entered

  the veranda and knelt beside the back door. He pushed the

  door with his gloved hand, and it clicked. He took out a slim jim and worked it between door and jamb until there was a

  secondary click. Now he rose and opened the door, took Lee

  by the shoulder and drew him through the cool darkness of

  the wood
-panelled hall that led to the front door. From their position by the front door they could see down a garden

  path to a man parked in a Ford LTD, reading a newspaper

  by torchlight. Brad shook Lee’s shoulder and used his forked fingers to indicate that Lee needed to watch the man in the car. Lee stood and leaned against the wall that smelled like fresh paint. From the dining room came the remnant smel s

  of roast lamb.

  The man in the car kept reading, and Lee continued

  watching him. He was in some kind of uniform. On the dash

  was the formal hat that navy captains wear.

  Lee looked around the hall for something that would identify 194

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  the owner of the mansion, but there was only a hatstand with a Crombie cap and a Claremont football scarf. A board of keys with little enamel tags. A painting of an old man with mutton-chops and a photograph of the house that looked like it was taken a hundred years ago. It was too dark to read the steel plaque beneath it.

  Brad was only gone for a few minutes. Lee heard the quiet

  padding of his shoes on the polished floorboards upstairs,

  then the squeaks on the stairs. He nodded to Lee who checked the driver one final time, now peeling a mandarin.

  Lee followed Brad through the rooms. He was behaving

  strangely, gently tipping over candleholders and vases but

  being ruthlessly quiet about it. Rummaging through the

  kitchen drawers, leaving them open. It was when he opened

  the fridge door that Lee saw the blood sprayed across Brad’s overal s. Blood on his gloves and forearms. Blood on his neck and the side of his face. Like it’ d been painted with a brush.

  Like it’ d been squirted on him with a syringe. Brad catching Lee’s eyes and shaking his head, continuing to disarray the back room, pulling blankets and coats and linen onto the

  floor, but in perfect silence.

  Out in the yard and against the side wal , Brad indicated

  that Lee should take his weight again.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’

  ‘Shut your mouth. Till we get to the car.’

  They went over the four wal s, Lee tumbling onto the verge.

  He’ d been calm inside the mansion until he saw the blood.

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  and his guts were awash with nerves. He climbed into the

  passenger seat and Brad turned the ignition, which failed

  to catch. Brad closed his eyes and turned the key again, the starter motor whirring loudly before the spark caught and

  the engine roared.

  Brad left the lights off until they reached the highway. He pulled in behind a kombi full of surfers and headed north

  and east, the most direct route back to the city. The highway was quiet. Just when Lee was about to speak, Brad raised

  his hand. There was a police car, parked in the shadows of a vacant school carpark, nose toward them.

  They passed the cop car and Brad looked nervously into

  the rear-vision. He pulled into a side road and zigzagged the suburban streets, heading east.

  ‘You’re going to read about this, but we never speak

  about what just happened, you hear? Tonight’s the start of

  something we’ve been planning for a while. The start of

  something big.’

  There was a tremble in his voice, whether departing

  adrenalin or shock, it was hard to tell. Either way, Brad was staring at him, willing him to meet his eyes.

  ‘You hear?’

  ‘Yeah, I hear. Just tell me –’

  ‘I ain’t telling you shit. Now, I’m gonna drive this baby

  up into the hills and torch her, and you … you’re gonna go

  home and plug your arm and dream sweet, you hear me?’

  Lee nodded, peeling off his gloves. The roads were quiet,

  barely a light inside any of the houses. Sprinklers ticked over 196

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  front lawns. For a moment he’ d hoped that the cop car would pull them over, bring everything to an end. He wasn’t going to dream sweet tonight.

  197

  20.

  Lee was still awake when Frankie returned from her shift. She put the fresh gram, wrapped in a Women’s Weekly page, on the kitchen table. She folded her arms around his shoulders, her hair smelling of perspiration and disinfectant. ‘Your father sent word. He wants you to attend court. He doesn’t want you to see him in that position, but you got to be there anyway.

  Regardless of the idiots who’re trying to stop you. It’s part of the deal.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  The same answer as always. ‘Never mind who told me. That’s

  what your father said. I’m just the messenger.’

  Lee clipped the mainspring of the Luger to the coupling

  link lever, clicked the breechblock end piece and the firing pin together, assembled the rest of the parts, working

  automatical y, as he’ d been doing these past hours.

  ‘Brad said that what we did, it’ d be in the news.’

  ‘Sure you want to see it?’

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  ‘Yeah, I am.’

  Frankie returned with her works and the newspaper. She

  passed him the paper and began to make up a solution to

  share. There it was, on the front page, just like Brad said.

  ‘The Governor?’

  Frankie watched him, her eyes hard. ‘You think it’s too

  ambitious? Too … grandiose?’

  Lee searched for it in her face, but couldn’t find it. Doubt.

  Remorse. Fear.

  Everything that he was feeling.

  ‘No’, he said quietly. ‘I think it’s insane.’

  Frankie pushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand. People like you think that what we’re

  planning is hard to do, or impossible. But it isn’t. Nobody is safe from us, and we’ve shown that. It’s part of a strategy; the first step. None of your concern.’

  ‘Then why get me involved? If you don’t trust me?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she replied, rubbing the

  plunger around the slurry of powder and water. ‘And I don’t want you to talk about it, either. You’ve got to keep it together for another couple of days.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  Frankie snorted, careful y, lest she disturb the air near the open packet. Her movements with the needle and saucer were

  like Lee’s movements assembling the gun.

  She passed him his fresh syringe, nothing in her eyes. She

  drew up her own shot and tapped the syringe and squirted,

  lifted a bare foot onto her seat and began searching between 199

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  her toes, hair falling in a curtain over her face.

  A tide of nausea found its level in Lee’s throat. He could feel the sharpness in his gil s, the acid in his mouth. He swallowed and opened his arm, looking for a vein. Slid home the plunger and waited for the blanketing surge to carry him away.

  Frankie was looking at him. ‘I’m jealous of you. When

  the books are written, your name will be raised up. You’ll be remembered. What you’ve done, what you’ve been doing.

  Whether you’re reluctant or not.’

  The smack was strong, forced a balance with the shock that

  unsettled him, became a welcome numbness. Now Lee could

  read the article. Now he could look beyond the picture of the Governor, smiling beside his wife, cutting the ribbon of a new hospital, his cropped grey hair and winged white eyebrows,

  his smiling eyes.

  A suspected break-in. A spate of robberies nearby over the

  past weeks. Despite residen
t complaints. The first governor to live away from Government House. Didn’t want the formality

  or the trappings of power. A country boy who got his law

  degree through night school. Ended up a High Court judge. A man with the common touch.

  The creation of a CIB task force had been announced to

  investigate the murder. All uniformed and plain-clothes

  coppers were recalled from leave. Every crim with a history of armed robbery, burglary and petty theft was to be dragged in for questioning. Federal police and ASIO investigations

  to commence, working in tandem with the local force. The

  Governor’s was a purely ceremonial role as the Queen’s

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  representative, but not without its influence. He was the

  most high-profile murder victim that the state had ever seen.

  It was only then that Lee understood. The break-in was

  never about stealing documents, or anything else for that

  matter. It was a straight-up assassination, made to look like a robbery gone wrong.

  Meaning that nobody would be claiming responsibility.

  What then its purpose?

  Frankie was on the nod, a sleepy smile on her face. Lee

  stood, and she stood too.

  ‘I’m gonna shower, then get some sleep. You want to join

  me?’

  Her voice neutral, like they’ d been discussing footbal

  scores or the weather, and not the murder of the state’s most senior public official.

  Lee watched her sleepwalk down the hal , heard the hiss of

  the shower, the spatter of water on the tiles. He sat down and lit a cigarette, looked again at the Governor’s face, innocent of what was coming for him.

  Like us al , he thought.

  Lee tried to see a way beyond what was coming for him. Run.

  Go to the police. The media. Try and explain. But everywhere he looked it ended the same way, with him either locked up or murdered for what he knew, what he had said.

  The same thing his father was going through now.

  The only man who could tell him what to do, not there to

  help him.

  He thought of her then, for the first time in a long while – his 201

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  mother. Just the same old image, sepia-toned from wear and

  repair, Lee holding it in his mind, trying not to change it. His mother leaning over his cot, rubbing Vicks onto his congested chest, singing him a lul aby. The fear he felt at not being able to breathe, the burn of the eucalyptus oil in his nostrils, his watering eyes, the firm pressure of her fingers as they pushed at his bony chest, his soft bel y. He listened to the crooning syl ables that fell gently from her lips, the loving voice belying sadness; the piece of the picture that was hardest to fix, to hold true: her cut lip and swollen eye, the single teardrop that slid from her good eye, rolling down her nose and falling onto his mouth.