Simmering Season Page 32

  ‘Reece Naylor?’

  Maggie had said there was a lot to tell. Dan guessed he’d find out more about this Reece Naylor character soon enough.

  38

  Dan

  Early the next day Dan pulled his car up just short of a No Parking zone on the street and slid a laminated police logo on the dash to let the local ranger think it was an unmarked police car on official business. After taking some time to observe the red-brick block from the safety of his car, he made his way across a small lawn area littered with soggy junk mail catalogues, then started the climb to apartment number eight on the second floor. A long-haired, tattooed male in his early twenties—about 180 centimetres tall, Caucasian, with dark-brown eyes and a scar that split his right eyebrow in two—ran down the stairway two steps at a time, slowing to eye the stranger. Dan was used to the look. Sometimes he swore he had the letters COP emblazoned across his forehead and flashing blue lights on his head.

  ‘You right there, mate?’ said the inked-up kid, his tone surprisingly menacing for someone of his young years. He was either warning Dan off, or the I’m-just-an-average-guy act Dan used to blend in was losing its effect. Maybe the kid had picked him as a copper and thought he was about to cark it in the stairwell and bring more coppers.

  ‘Not in top nick any more, mate,’ he lied. ‘Just you wait ’til you’re my age.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ tattooed teenager said, launching back into his effortless descent as if rubbing his fitness in Dan’s face.

  Outside number eight Dan listened to music coming from inside the flat. The familiar nasal twang of a country singer crooned a typical country song, the type that made you feel sad even when you’re not. His hard triple rap on the door worked like a remote control on the volume.

  ‘Jesus, lady!’ a voice called out from inside the apartment. ‘You got superhuman fuckin’ hearing or what? Go ahead and call the fuckin’ police again, you old bag.’

  Dan knocked again, only this time with a friendlier rat-a-tat-tat.

  ‘Fuck! What now?’ The door flew open and a hollow, unnaturally tanned and unshaven face stared back at Dan. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  Dan was tempted to say the same thing. The face staring back at him was not what he’d expected, causing him to glance again at the unit number on the door. With his well-practised policeman’s poker face, he relaxed his clenched jaw into a smile and unfisted the fight-ready hands by his side, extending one. ‘Brian, mate, you don’t remember me?’

  Brian dropped his head to look over the dark glasses and squinted at the stranger’s face, eyeing him down to his toes and back again. ‘Should I?’ he asked, hesitating before taking Dan’s hand.

  ‘You damn well better, old man. Dan Ireland. How goes it?’ He landed a heavy hand on Brian’s right shoulder before almost pushing the inebriated bloke off balance as he barged past him into the unit, stopping in the centre of the small, chaotic living room.

  ‘What’s it to ya?’

  Dan didn’t speak, his well-trained eyes doing a sweep of the room, his plastered smile never wavering, not even as his gaze zeroed in on the coffee table.

  ‘Am I interrupting a party?’

  ‘Hey, that’ll cost ya.’ Brian tripped across the room and snatched the bag of white pills away from the inquisitive stranger. ‘So where exactly do I know you from?’

  ‘You were in Calingarry Crossing, playing in a pub with your old man. About twenty years ago.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Brian clasped his forehead, smearing his oily fringe back over his head. He exhaled loudly. ‘Fucking hell, man, you had me worried for a minute. Anyone ever said you look like a cop?’ Brian chuckled. ‘Yeah, yeah, I remember you now. You had the hots for my Maggie.’

  My Maggie! That unwavering smile of Dan’s twitched as he fought the urge to thump some sense into the guy right there and then. He resisted—for Maggie’s sake.

  Dan didn’t need to stay any longer to know this was exactly the scene she had wanted to protect Noah from. He checked his watch. Having confirmed the Greyhound had picked up a boy matching Noah’s description from Saddleton bus terminal, and ascertained the ETA in Sydney, he had just enough time to intercept Noah and get him to call his mum.

  ‘So, mate, to what do I owe the pleasure?’

  ‘Reece? Babe? Are you coming back to—? Well, hello!’ A barely post-pubescent woman appeared, wearing cut-off denim jeans that made Kylie Minogue’s gold hot-pants look like pedal-pushers. The beige halter top looked hand-knitted, although Dan doubted Grandma’s knit-one, purl-one was ever intended to have two rosebud nipples poking through the stitches. ‘Are we having another party, babe?’

  ‘This here’s my old mate, Dan, from Calingarry Crossing.’

  ‘Brian,’ Dan said, deciding he was running out of time, ‘we’re not mates and I’m not staying to party. I’ve come here at Maggie’s request.’

  Nipple girl’s gum chewing slowed. That, combined with the big brown eyes laden with mascara flitting between the men, and the nipples, made Dan think she looked a lot like a jersey cow.

  ‘Who’s Maggie, babe? And where’s Calingarry Crossing?’

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ Brian said, his eyes shooting daggers at Dan. ‘She’s brought in the big guns, eh? Well, if this is part of her get Brian by the balls and drag him back to Calingarry Crossing, you can tell her no fuckin’ way.’

  ‘Who’s Brian? I’m confused, Reece babe.’ Nipple girl’s brain was clearly headed for a meltdown, while to the two bulls now locking horns she was invisible.

  ‘Listen to me, Brian. I’m not into your business. I just know you’ve got a wife and a son in Calingarry who obviously’—he was going to say love but the word stuck in his throat—‘care about you.’

  ‘Sending you around is an odd way of showing it.’

  ‘You owe it to your wife and your kid. Family’s important to Maggie, Brian. Give her a call.’

  ‘Hey, mister whoever you are, you got the wrong guy.’ Nipple girl stuck both hands on her hips, pushed out her sizeable breasts and said, ‘This man is Reece Naylor and he’s going to be the next big thing, aren’t you, babe?’

  ‘My name is Reece Naylor,’ Brian repeated in a weird, robotic way as though rehearsing for something. ‘And Reece Naylor is this fuckin’ close to being the biggest name in country music, pal.’ He pinched his thumb and index finger together to make his point. ‘This close. So if you’ve come looking for Brian Henkler, you’ve come to the wrong place. That person doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Not according to your wife.’

  Brian snorted and began pacing around Dan, eyeing him.

  ‘What’s all this to you anyway, mate? You and Maggie got something going on I should know about?’

  Dan’s fists clenched and unclenched several times by his side. He refused to let the guy goad him, despite Brian’s face being so close that Dan could taste every breath of stale booze. Rather than back away, he squared up and locked eyes. ‘Maggie is your wife and mother to your son.’

  Brian poked a finger at Dan’s chest, pushing Dan back towards the door and out of Nipple girl’s earshot before lowering his voice. ‘If you’re here to push her bloody ultimatum then you can tell her from me there’s no room in my life for family crap right now. Whatever her problem is, Maggie will have to handle it. Christ, she’s handled everything all this time—like I’ve had any choice. She knows how important this is to me. I’ve waited too long, given up too much, and got too fuckin’ close to my dream to stop now. According to my bio, I’m Reece Naylor. That’s the way it has to be for now. No way am I turning into my old man, throwing my career away to drop dead in a pub in some dusty country town. It does not suit me to have a wife or a son right now. You tell Maggie that from me.’

  ‘Dad?’

  Both men turned towards the front door. Dan swore under his breath and Brian pushed Nipple girl aside roughly, lunging forward, arms flailing.

  ‘Well, fuck me! If it isn’t my Noah. Christ, you’ve grown up
in two years.’

  Noah stepped back, his face shifting from confusion, to hurt, then anger.

  ‘No you don’t, mate.’ Dan redirected Brian’s stumble, shoving him back into the room and onto a two-seater sofa as Noah took two terrified steps back.

  ‘Screw you, you bastard!’ the boy yelled before storming down the stairs, Dan in pursuit two steps at a time.

  ‘Wait up, Noah,’ Dan called, catching up with the boy on the footpath. ‘Slow down.’

  Noah shrugged Dan’s hand roughly from his shoulder and hurled his backpack to the pavement, knocking over a garbage bin in the process. More junk mail escaped. He drove his boot into the parking ticket machine.

  ‘Just leave me,’ the boy said in a low growl that sounded like it had erupted from somewhere deep inside.

  Dan backed off, speaking fast. ‘Listen, Noah, you probably don’t remember me. I’m an old school friend of your mother’s. My name’s Dan. Dan Ireland. I was at the reunion.’

  ‘Good on you.’

  Noah’s next kick dented the metal casing of the parking meter.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was supposed to meet your bus.’

  ‘I asked the driver to let me out early.’

  ‘Okay, well, your mum’s worried.’

  ‘I knew she wasn’t telling me something. Like my father’s an arsehole.’

  Another boot, another dent in the parking meter.

  The boy’s tears grabbed Dan by the chest. As a cop he’d grown a tough skin to shield him from the crap, but in his private life with his kids he was as exposed and vulnerable as anyone. Kids did that. And while Noah wasn’t his, he was Maggie’s. That mattered to Dan.

  A child’s tears remained Dan’s Achilles heel, even when that child wasn’t his. Witnessing Noah’s tears, his first instinct was to reach out and take away the pain. The boy, however, was not Dan’s to hug. He’d stick to a reassuring squeeze of Noah’s shoulder and hope that was calming enough.

  A Saab with a dented front fender nosed awkwardly into the No Parking spot in front of Dan’s car. Recognising the vehicle first—who could miss the canary yellow convertible and FIFI 001 plates—Dan knew instantly who the young woman was behind the wheel.

  ‘What are you doing here, Fi?’ Noah barely looked up from his feet, dragging his fringe over red eyes.

  ‘Do you know your mother is freaking out?’ Fiona shoved a pair of sunglasses on top of her head and leapt out of the car. ‘She just about accused me of kidnapping you. I tried calling her. Then I remembered we’d Googled your address on my phone one day. Thought I’d see if you were here.’ She turned to Dan, as though noticing his existence for the first time. ‘I know you,’ she said, almost accusingly, before focusing on Noah again. ‘Is everything okay, Noah? You look like crap.’

  Noah kept his head lowered and resumed his assault on the parking meter, his mark becoming more obvious with every boot to the thin metal sheeting. Dan knew he should stop him but … What the hell. Dan hated parking meters the same as the next guy.

  ‘Quit with the kicking thing,’ Fiona demanded.

  ‘Shut up and leave me alone. You’re not my mother. You can’t tell me what to do.’

  ‘No, I’m not your mother, or your sister, or anything else thank God, but I am a friend and you, Noah, are a jerk if you don’t let me help.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you wanna help? You can start by not telling me what to do.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you can start by—’

  ‘Okay, okay, you two sound no different to my fourteen-year-olds right now.’

  Noah looked up. ‘Can we just get out of here?’

  ‘Sure, mate. I need a minute. I have something to do. Then we can go. You two wait here. Okay, Fiona?’ he glared at the girl and she responded with a look that said she wasn’t a complete idiot.

  He left her coaxing a reluctant Noah towards the Saab and jogged back into the block of flats, taking the stairs two at a time with ease, only to find Brian, as anticipated, making a wonky attempt to descend.

  ‘No you don’t, mate,’ Dan said, taking a firm grasp of Brian’s left bicep and turning him back up the stairs. The other hand grabbed Brian’s belted pants with an upward twist, the proven technique an oldie, but a goodie. The ball-crushing hold never failed to ensure cooperation.

  ‘Get your hands off me. I gotta see my kid.’

  ‘Not like this.’

  And not ever, if I have any say.

  Dan shoved Brian through the open door and dropped him onto the sofa for a second time. By now Nipple girl was rushing to Brian’s aid, a string of profanities vomiting from lips smeared with the remnants of fuchsia-pink lipstick.

  ‘Who the fuck are you to tell us what to do?’ she sprayed, flopping down next to Brian.

  The police ID Dan flashed might as well have been a Taser from the stunned look on both faces. First shock, then as their gaze dropped to the coffee table with its inventory of smoking devices, booze and pill packets, their expressions switched to one Dan had seen so many times before—the struggle between fight and flight instincts.

  ‘Relax, both of you,’ he said, ‘I’m not here to bust your arses over that. Although I’m not so sure the same can be said for the guys at Kings Cross station. If you want to go ahead and kill yourselves with that crap, I’m not going to stop you. But Brian, you’re not going to destroy your son, or Maggie, in the process.’

  ‘Who’s Maggie?’ Nipple girl asked.

  ‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,’ Brian jeered. ‘So she’s sending the cops around to force me back now, is she? I’ve told her she might as well kill me as make me become some country hick.’

  ‘Who’s Maggie?’ Nipple girl’s constant enquiry reminded Dan of a dripping tap, adding to his itch to flatten the stupid bastard Maggie had chosen over him.

  ‘Whatchya gunna do now? Report back to the missus? Aw, hang on a minute.’ Brian slammed a fist into the sofa. ‘I know what this is about. She wants me out so she can save money. Well, in that case …’

  Maggie’s hurried explanation over the telephone hadn’t prepared Dan for this sorry excuse for a man. She’d said Brian had changed a lot in the last twenty-four months but he was finding it hard to believe someone as smart as her would tolerate such base behaviour. As Brian heaved himself out of the sofa, Dan tensed, self-defence mode kicking in. Instead of attacking, Brian seized a stack of papers fighting for space on the coffee table and lunged at Dan, thrusting the handful of loose letters and envelopes at him. ‘Here,’ he spat. ‘All hers now.’

  Dan automatically snatched the papers to his body, dropping some as he backed up. No way was he going to open himself up to a knee in the head by bending down to pick something up, something as unimportant as correspondence. He’d seen enough. This bloke didn’t warrant his, or anyone’s time. Dan needed to check on Noah.

  As he left the pair behind in the flat, Nipple girl’s whining words, ‘Babe, who’s Maggie?’ followed him down the stairs and out the door.

  As Dan reached Noah waiting on the footpath outside, he heard a noise, then …

  ‘Oi!’ Brian was on the tiny second-floor balcony, a box suspended in his hands. ‘She wins,’ he called. ‘I’ll get out. You can tell her I’ve already started packing and I think this is hers.’ He opened his hands and let the box fall onto the postage-stamp-sized front lawn, narrowly missing the small brick wall that housed the spewing letterbox slots.

  Then he was gone.

  Miraculously the carton remained intact. Not so the contents—mostly ornaments, some sports trophies separated by bubble wrap. Fiona gathered a few items that had spilled on the lawn and Dan let the now crushed paperwork fall into the box.

  ‘I’ll put these in my car,’ she said.

  Dan stopped at Noah’s side, a protective arm across the boy’s sagging shoulders ready to restrain him, if needed, from a dash back into the flat to beat the crap out of his old man. He was never so glad to be wrong. That was how Dan had dealt with his anger as a kid. Noah wasn’t him. Noah
had grown up in a loving environment.

  For a moment, Dan wondered what had changed to make the weedy character he’d known in Calingarry Crossing so pathetic. Why Maggie would want anything to do with him was beyond his understanding. He could only think she had good reason. That reason was likely the scared and confused kid in front of Dan.

  ‘Take a breath, mate,’ he said. ‘We need to contact your mum.’

  ‘I knew there was stuff happening,’ Noah mumbled. ‘I just wish she’d told me the truth.’

  ‘You know, mate, I reckon your mum’s having that very same thought. I’m sure she didn’t mean to lie. Sometimes keeping a secret is a choice we make because the time’s not right to tell.’ Dan thought he saw something in Noah’s face, as if his words were really getting through. ‘Then stuff happens and, well, before we realise it the secret’s turned into a lie. The longer you keep the secret, the harder it is to tell the truth, especially if the truth is going to hurt someone you love. Get my drift?’

  Noah nodded. ‘So, what now?’

  ‘First we ring your mum. Then we get you back home,’ Dan said.

  ‘I don’t want to go back yet. I asked Fiona if I could stay with her for a few days. She’s moving back home and I said I’d help move her stuff.’

  Dan was shaking his head before Noah even finished his sentence. ‘I don’t think your mother will go for that.’

  ‘I could call Maggie and ask.’ Fiona was trying to fish her phone from skin-tight jeans. ‘We can put Noah on a bus back to Calingarry Crossing if she wants, or he can stay a couple of days and I can drive him back myself.’

  Dan wasn’t convinced. He was even less convinced Maggie would agree, but it wasn’t his call.

  These weren’t his kids.

  ‘I suppose you’ve never made a mistake?’ Fiona asked. ‘I’ve learned my lesson, okay? And I know I have a bit of making up to do. I’m going to try.’

  ‘The decision isn’t mine. I’m not your father. How about we sit down and eat something first. Get our heads clear, then you can call your mum and ask, Noah. What do you say?’