Priors. Stuart Jackson E.
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next road and pulled over to one side.
“There was a driveway back there. My side of the road. There was a great line of trees alongside the road.”
“I remember it,” she said.
“There was a driveway in the middle of the line of trees and our Mr Green had driven in and was locking the gate that covered the driveway. Come on, we’ll drive back.” He turned the taxi. “I want you to study as much of the place as you can. We’ll only be able to drive past once. Any more and we could draw too much attention. Okay?”
“Okay.”
The line of trees was obvious alongside the road ahead of them. Thick, tall trees that also formed a boundary running a long way back from the road, until it merged into a large shed or garage on another, adjoining property. The trees were so closely together that it was impossible to see what was behind them. And nothing showed above them.
As they drove past the fence was clearer to see. It was metal mesh, maybe three metres high, topped with a line of barbed wire, and it was almost totally screened by the trees and bushes either side of it. The gates were shorter by maybe a metre and held together by a long and thick chain and heavy padlock. A simple metal plate to one side of the gate said DRUMMOYNE HOUSE, and Private Property. As they drove past, she turned and looked down the other boundary of the property. It was the same as the other side - thick high trees that gave away nothing.
“Well?”
“We’ve got nothing else to go on,” she answered.
“Then let’s try it tonight.”
Taylor re-traced some of their tracks, and then headed for Hastings, situated on the eastern side of the Peninsula and overlooking Westernport Bay. They walked along the foreshore and onto the jetty. There was lightning over French Island and beyond, and it was coming their way.
“Could be useful weather,” Taylor said. He sensed her tension; it wasn’t bad to be on edge. It got you thinking about things and made you more careful. He felt the knotted ball in his own stomach and the tightness across his shoulders. It reminded him of Vietnam; the waiting, the anticipation, the fear.
She felt a small drop of rain on her face and she wiped it away.
They walked back to the hotel and had a hot meal and Taylor tried to talk to her about other things.
At eleven o’clock they were travelling across the Peninsula again, heading west. On a long stretch of road, Taylor pulled the car off the road. He turned off all the lights and they got out. The wind gusted through the trees overhead and threw leaves across the face of the moon as it peeped through a narrow crack in the clouds. Behind them the long grass scuttled to and fro.
Then the moon was gone and the only light they had was that that came from the open boot of the taxi where Taylor had packed their change of clothes. Afterwards, Taylor drew the small leather bag from under the driver’s seat and beckoned her to join him at the bonnet of the car. He handed her one of the pistols. In the dim light he watched her eject the magazine and check the action and then slide the magazine back in. She weighed it in her hand, nearly a kilo in weight. He smiled and handed her the spare magazine. She slid the first cartridge out, and the second, and then re-loaded them. She stuffed the magazine into the pocket of her jeans.
“Silencer?” he asked.
“You,” she said.
It started to rain. A short sharp crack of thunder made her jump.
They got back into the car and waited.
*******
“And what’s Barry Doyle’s wife’s name?”
“Gloria.”
“You know that.”
He nodded.
“Did you talk to her?”
“Yes.”
“When.”
“I don’t remember the time.”
“How can you remember Barry’s ...”
“Hold on. What did you talk to Gloria about?”
“About Barry.”
“About his suicide?”
“No.”
“About his time in Tasmania?”
“Yes.”
“This is bloody painful,” Green said to Barron in a lowered voice, but one which, Green knew, Christie could hear.
Christie sat in the wooden chair, dressed in jeans and casual shirt, his arms resting on the table. He watched both Barron and Green across the table from him and Barron looked into Christie’s eyes to see if there was recognition. Can you see a memory? he thought.
They’d been going for almost two hours. They’d asked Christie the same questions that they’d asked him yesterday and they kept asking them. He looked at them with virtually no emotion on his face and he answered the questions with as few words as he could, calmly. At times, Barron saw, he would furrow his brow, as if a word or a question had matched with something in his mind. At those times there was recognition, and Barron’s pulse would quicken. A chance to see around a barrier in Christie’s mind.
Barron never knew what he was likely to say.
The doctor had been quite specific - no guarantee of success, no time period that fell due, and, if the memories did start to return, no indication whatsoever as to how it would happen. Perhaps a chance word or name, perhaps an image, a sound or a touch would be enough to trigger the process. And the memories may come back totally, or in part, or in a random sequence.
Christ, it was like sitting on a time bomb. Each talk with him was like exposing the fuse and lighting it. Would it go off this time? What would happen?
“Hunt,” Barron said.
Christie looked at him, puzzled.
“What?”
“Hunt. Dennis Hunt. Do you remember him?”
“From Tasmania?”
And every now and again some question that seemed to suggest that there was something ticking away down there. The logic, the associations, the way you thought that perhaps you never forgot.
“Yes. He was a friend of Barry’s. He was killed in a traffic accident.”
“No.”
“Fuck you, you bastard!” Green shouted and slammed his fist onto the table. Both Barron and Christie jumped. “You don’t fool me with this stupid act! All we want to know is why the hell you killed ... why you butchered that woman!”
“Geoff!” Barron said, reaching out across the table to grab Green’s arm.
“You sick prick!” Green spat, and he was on his feet, wrenching his arm free of Barron’s grasp, knocking the chair to the floor behind him. He took three long and quick steps that brought him around the table and as Christie was getting to his feet, he grabbed Christie by the front of his shirt and hoisted him upwards.
“Geoff!”
Barron saw no fear in Christie’s eyes, and his arms moved quickly, to try and block Green’s move, but he was too slow. He lunged across the table at them, but Green pulled Christie towards the wall of the room.
Christie seemed to gather his thoughts and he swung round with a clenched fist and caught Green on the side of the face. Instead of stopping him, he roared louder and slammed Christie’s back into the wall. Barron could hear the breath forced out of his body.
“You murdering bastard,” Green screamed, punching Christie in the stomach and bringing an elbow down the side of Christie’s