Dead Man Walking - Part 2

II.

Several days later, I was leaning against my shop counter staring at Josh’s face, looking back at me from the front page of the Blue Mountains Chronicle, the local newspaper that Tom works for. It was the very same picture that I had displayed in the front window; that I had, and practically everybody else in the village had, including Huynh, now that he understood what was going on. I was vaguely musing whether this was the only decent photo that had been taken of Josh in recent times and what he might think about its applicability in summing him up for the rest of the world. I started to think about the last time I’d had a photo taken of myself and whether or not – were I to suddenly go missing – they’d choose to use that blurry, vampire-eyed photo of a long-haired me gleefully miming pouring a bottle of wine over a much hairier Tom, passed out on a violently-coloured couch. Most likely people would just give up searching immediately...

The front door jangled and halted my cogitations. An elderly woman in a smart dress suit tricked out with a large diamanté brooch, stood looking about my sun-drenched merchandise. She sniffed, then turned to face me.

‘I’m led to believe that you sell books,’ she stated.

‘Whenever I can,’ I said, keeping my poker face intact.

‘...And these books,’ she said, flicking a gloved hand at my shelves, ‘are they new or...used?’ there was a distinct tang of distaste stressing this last word.

‘My stock is second-hand and antiquarian,’ I said, ‘but I can order in new books if you have something specific in mind?’

Her hand had flown up to hover in front of her mouth as I said this; she nodded, checked quickly around herself to make sure that she had everything and stepped towards the door. I moved to open it for her; or rather, to hold it closed until I could fathom what was going on here.

‘Perhaps there’s a particular title you’re after...?’

‘I do not read other people’s books,’ she said with emphasis; she looked around conspiratorially then leaned in close, ‘some people read,’ her voice dropped an octave or two and I had a sudden “Exorcist” flashback, ‘on the convenience.’

‘Okay,’ I said and opened the door wide. As she fled my septic premises, Tom swerved around her and slipped into the closing gap.

‘I hope you’re wearing your Hazmat suit; it’s pretty toxic in here,’ I said to him over my shoulder while I walked back to the counter.

‘Sorry?’ he said, freezing and looking around nervously.

I waved a hand to indicate that it was of no consequence. ‘Howard Hughes’s grandma just dropped in for a spot health check. What’s up?’

‘I just thought I’d let you know that they’re going to be door-knocking your part of town this evening. The State Emergency Service has joined the search for our missing tourist and they think he might be hiding in someone’s property without them knowing.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Not that I mind, or that I have anything to hide, but doesn’t that breach some privacy issues?’

Tom waved his hand. ‘It’s not a search-and-seize operation: they’re just going to ask if you’ve seen anyone about your place and to think of places on your property where someone – especially someone hurt or suffering from hypothermia – might have access to if they crawled onto your premises.’

I nodded. ‘Okay. You know this guy is really making a nuisance of himself, isn’t he? I mean everyone seems to be focussed on his whereabouts. I was getting a coffee from Michaela this morning and she said that she heard he’s trying to avoid some industry heavies and is just laying low, ‘til the heat cools off.’

Tom snorted disdainfully. ‘A junior manager in an insurance company? That’s right up there with the one I heard about how he’s just doing a runner on his girlfriend because she’s trying to pressure him into Popping The Question. No: he’s in trouble out there, wherever he is; that is, if he’s still alive. No-one stays out in this weather on a whim.’

I nodded again. ‘Is everything being done to find him? I mean, is what they’re doing enough?’

Tom tapped the newspaper on the countertop. ‘Like it says, they’ve got sniffer dogs out – although the rain last night has made that option less effective; they’ve got helicopters in the air with infrared scopes checking the valley walls and floor; they’ve got a command post set up in the grounds of the Ridgemont Hotel – where he disappeared from – to co-ordinate efforts. It’s full on. They’re even tracking the GPS system on his mobile phone – at least they were before it went dead’

‘Sounds pretty intense.’

‘Sure. Remember about four years ago when that Canadian guy went missing? They searched for ten days straight, without half the technology they have nowadays, and, after giving him up for dead, he staggered out of the jungle on Day Twelve, a little worse for wear but still alive.’ Tom shook his head: ‘They don’t want a repeat performance of that fiasco.’

‘You don’t think this new guy is going for the record?’

Tom sniffed. ‘He’d better not be, that’s all I’m saying. There’d be some pretty pissed-off people around here...’

Again, I nodded. ‘Oh! That reminds me,’ I said, ‘Louise’s book came in.’ I ferreted the parcel out from under the counter.

Tom’s hand dove into his pocket, looking for his wallet. ‘What is it this time?’ he asked, ‘Dion Fortune’s guide to candle magic? Sybil Leek’s secrets of the witch’s kitchen?’

I held up a warning finger. ‘You might want to let Louise foot the bill for this one,’ I said, ‘it’s not exactly inexpensive...’

Tom froze, eyeing the parcel suspiciously. ‘How “not exactly”?’

‘Well it’s a 1932 edition of the Society for Psychical Research’s Blue Book; their operational procedure manual for when one investigates a haunted premises, as compiled and edited by Harry Price.’ I named the three-figure price tag.

‘Okay,’ said Tom wincing, ‘I can run to that. But it’ll be baked beans on toast ‘til next pay day.’ We concluded our business in silence.

‘Well, I’m off,’ said Tom tucking Louise’s book away in his backpack. ‘I want to get home before the cold front moves through. They say we’ll have frost tonight.’ He waved as he jostled through the door and into the fading sunshine.

I pushed shut the till and remembered reading in the news report that the lost guy had last been seen wearing a short-sleeved shirt over jeans with a leather jacket. I hoped, for his sake, that it would be warm enough.

*****

 

At this stage I need to tell you about Wallace Henderson. He’s no great mover and shaker; just a local retiree, my neighbour in fact, who had the bad luck to have a hip replacement go bad.

Wal (as he’s known) is an avid reader of what I refer to as “blokey fiction”. He used to work for the railways and, since there was plenty of standing-around in his daily routine, waiting for trains to show up, he spent much of that time reading. His tastes run to things by Alistair MacLean, Wilbur Smith, Jack Higgins and the like, with a bit of Leon Uris and Bryce Courtenay laid by for when he’s feeling a bit “intellectual”. We met the day he came into the shop looking for something to graze on and was appalled when he discovered I had nothing in the way of his reading spectrum. Accordingly, he showed up the following week with a box of “finished withs”, stuff he’d read into the dirt and was happy to pass along, to make my place more like a “real bookshop”. Every couple of months another boxload would arrive: I would normally offer to pay for these contributions, but Wal would insist that they were a donation, with the full sense of improving my stock and my readership.

Of course, the reason that these authors don’t appear on my shelves is that they take up valuable space which I need for “real” writers (and yes, I know that my snobbery is showing); still, nothing ever stopped me from dropping his books onto my ‘specials’ table out the front and selling them off like hotcakes for five or six dollars apiece: I still need to eat, you know.

(And I’m not completely mercenary: the times when he dumps collections of Arthur Upfield, or Vince Kelly, or Ion Idriess on me, I most definitely insist on paying him for the privilege of selling-on these increasingly collectable titles.)

What I’m wending my way towards is the fact that, when Wal went in for his hip-replacement replacement, he left me in charge of his dog, a black Labrador named Patsy. She is a standard type of her species and, if you know anything about them they are companionable, generally lazy, and impossible to feed to the point of satiation. My job, as I figured it, was to keep her from starving while at the same time preventing her from turning into a velour-covered balloon.

The Marquis, of course, disapproves entirely of dogs; but the good thing about the arrangement was that, living next-door, Patsy didn’t have to intrude upon my cat’s territory: feedings and walkies were all administered from Wal’s place, so neither of them had to meet face-to-face. Still, The Marquis was suspicious that something was Going On, and he kept a close eye on my comings and goings; it was a relief, therefore, that he had decided to spend his nights at the shop of late, rather than come home.

Patsy’s fearsome bark welcomed me as I walked through the gate and around the side of Wal’s house. Like many people on my street, his faith in solar-powered lights was extensive and many tiny and muted patches of dim fluorescence served in no way to guide me through the darkness in which his house was enveloped: I relied mainly on memory and Patsy’s woof-beacon.

Her bark being far worse than her bite, I found her quickly, the motion-sensitive light above the rear patio revealing me to her in a blinding flash. I’m aware that some of our other neighbours are far less accommodating of Patsy’s noise than I am so I always try to hush her up as soon as possible. As I reached for the lead, she started her play-bow greeting, accompanied by much whiney-growling and a scatter of claws on the hardwood decking.

Once we were tethered together, we headed out into the fast-falling evening. We strolled at a good pace to the top end of the street, then headed south towards the valley. This road was the main one that ran along the top of the cliffs then back towards the village: the further out you went, the larger the houses and their blocks of land before petering out entirely; as you headed back towards town, the grand houses appeared again and gradually reduced in size and value as you neared the highway once more. At its furthest extent, this loop of road enclosed nothing but dense bush; just past the last property, a short trail led at right angles to the tarmac down to a steel gate, beyond which stretched a fire trail, a cleared bulwark against a potential bushfire incursion into the exclusive holiday-homes of the Sydneysiders.

This trail is about 50 metres wide and runs the width of the road loop, following the profile of the landscape. The open area of it is littered with lopped limbs and trunks of Banksia scrub, livid branches of bloodwood mulching down into the rocky soil. Rugged grass predominates along the trail, scored across with the walking paths of various locals, like me, who enjoy walking their dogs here. At the margins of the trail, softly rounded walls of Banksia and grevillea close in, shaded in all the permutations of muted green: all you can see is the stony ground, the bush, the sky and the towering eucalypts beyond. At various points, the ground gets boggy and soft, thick with oozing mud and dotted with the fuzzy scarlet of sundews: it’s a full-time job keeping Patsy’s churning paws away from them.

As we stomped our way along the trail, our feet rattling across the stony paths, I noticed that Patsy was less than enthusiastic about her exercise this evening. Normally, she would sniff and snort her way along, tracing the trails of wombats and other canine peers; tonight, she stayed beside me, her head hanging low, darting fretful glances into the scrub on either side. Apart from our footsteps and the occasional gust of wind, the evening hush was broken only by Patsy’s infrequent growls and the soft “zzzz-zzzz” of her retractable leash cord.

About halfway along the trail, I stopped and looked around, trying to see what was bothering her. The bush was hushed and the intensity of the quiet gave it a poised quality, as if it was waiting, ready. On either side the green walls seemed tensed: it felt as if they would close in upon us at any moment like waves. Beside me, Patsy whined and stamped her paw on my foot.

‘Okay girl,’ I said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’

The wind had risen sharply by the time we gained the far end of the trail and turned towards home. As we entered our street, blue, red and white flashing lights split the darkness, hiding rather than revealing the trucks on which they were carried. We moved carefully past two fire engines and some State Emergency Services vans before turning in at Wal’s front gate, whereupon Patsy began to growl fiercely.

A shadowed figure in yellow turned from pounding at Wal’s front door and called out when he saw me:

‘Hey! SES! Do you live here?’ He began pacing towards us.

I held my thumb down on the lock of Patsy’s lead to stop her charging forward. ‘No,’ I answered, ‘but she does.’ I jerked my head towards Patsy.

‘Hey girl!’ The yellow-clad man crouched down, his foul-weather gear crunching and creaking, and rubbed Patsy’s head fondly. In the flashing motley of lights, he was revealed as a smiling young fellow in his late twenties or so, with a gingery beard. He stood up and held out his hand which I shook.

‘Gareth’ he said, ‘SES volunteer’. He jerked his thumb at the logo on his jacket by way of confirmation. ‘We’re doing a house-to-house search for this missing tourist...’

‘Yeah; I heard. Any luck?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Let me get Patsy sorted out and I’ll give you the tour.’ We moved around the back of Wal’s house.

‘Perhaps you know the person who lives next door,’ said Gareth. ‘I’ve been knocking but there’s no answer. The TV seems to be on though...’

‘That would be my place,’ I said, ‘we’ll head over there next...’

*****

 

To Be Continued...