‘Don?’
‘Yeah? What?’
‘Brie just triggered the bomb. Get a bang out of it?’
Don stared at the phone, his face a study in granite. Then he said with crisp, measured articulation, ‘Tell Benny that one of my techs is going to fix that bomb. And when it is in perfect working order, I am going to kick it so far up his arse he’ll be able to sell his turds to Al Qaeda.’
Any fear left in the room was dissipating quickly, transmuting to anger, amusement or disappointment. Collison cut a swath with his glare and everyone felt vaguely guilty for succumbing to Benny’s deception.
‘The mother’s here,’ said Baxter.
Collison’s authority returned with the decisiveness of his response and everyone seemed to snap back behind him in professional rearguard formation. ‘Where?’
‘Down at the Wattle Street cordon,’ said Baxter. ‘Carrying on a treat.’
‘Right. It’s safe now, but we don’t want any soap opera in the middle of the street. Have them bring her here around through the back lane.’ Collison turned to Nile. ‘Get your gear on, Gareth. You and I are going over there to drag Benny out by his ears. A little something for the media. Might still extract some dignity from this bloody pantomime.’
Nile squirmed into his police-issue waterproof. ‘You handled it the only way you could, Don. There was no way of knowing if the bomb was the real thing. It might be. Phil still has to check it out.’
Collison tossed off curt instructions to the team. Then he pulled his jacket on. He paused at the door. ‘You all did well,’ he said gruffly. ‘Good experience if nothing else. Constable Baxter put out the word for all personnel to stand down. At ease, but alert until we secure the bastard.’ He joined Nile on the front verandah. The two men hunched and squinted at the house opposite. The sky sagged over the street like a sheet of soggy cardboard. The rain was a cold wet film that hung in the road like a dirty shower curtain. Gareth could barely make out the barricades at each end of the block.
‘Don’t think there’s too many photo opportunities out there, Don.’
Collison grunted. ‘C’mon.’ His foot touched the first step down from the verandah deck, when he stopped and breathed, ‘Shit, they’re coming.’
Nile looked up. Three figures were emerging from the gateway opposite, huddled under the borrowed umbrella. Nile paused on the verandah, but Collison hooked the hood of his jacket over his head and continued down the garden path to the gate. Let him have his moment, thought Nile, no need for us all to get wet.
Then the afternoon fell apart.
The road was just wide enough to have a narrow median strip. It was newly planted with native grasses and wide-spaced, drought-ravaged saplings that looked like moulting feather dusters. Gareth wasn’t that far from the action but the actors looked like smoke in a fog.
As the small cluster of figures crossing the street stepped from the curb, one broke away at an angle and ran to the median, then stopped and turned. The tall figure left behind flung the umbrella away and scooped the small figure into his arms. The man who ran shouted two words back at him, but Gareth didn’t catch them. They were drowned out by Collison’s cry.
‘Benny, you bloody moron, stand still or you’ll get yourself fucking shot!’
The front gardens of the neighbouring houses were suddenly bristling with armed and armoured coppers, like malevolent black garden gnomes. Blunt commands punched through the mist. Benny Bovell was blind to their existence. He turned toward the sound of Collison’s voice, eyes shadowed under his hood trying to locate its source through the drizzle. Then, spying Collison, he shoved his hand in the pocket of his parka, and moving purposefully towards him, he withdrew it again.
Gareth Nile had a degree in psychology. He was a senior constable in the Behavioural Analysis Unit. He knew all the theories, he had read all the literature, and would still say years from then that no matter what the fact later proved to be, he saw Ben Bovell pull a gun from the pocket of his snot-coloured parka. He knew by the end of that day what he saw was an illusion. But he saw it. He saw its lethal black snout. They all saw it.
All except one man. He was closer. He had special knowledge. He raised his hand and pivoted, clutching the child to him, his torso contorted to shield her from sight and sound and stray projectiles. He called out as he turned, repeating a single phrase that might have been ‘It’s a toy.’ But Gareth never heard the words. Their sense was lost in the rattle of gunfire.
When Benny pointed his ersatz weapon Gareth rammed his back against the wall of the house, the blind end of the verandah. He could see Don Collison at the bottom of the short path squatting behind the solid wooden front gate, cursing and scrabbling in his clothing, trying to pull his weapon free. Gareth wasn’t armed. He could see the child drawn swiftly into the hunched form of the man as if pulled into a tent from the storm. He couldn’t see Ben Bovell. The burst of gunfire was short. And it didn’t really rattle. Dampened by the dead, waterlogged air, it popped dully like corn in a microwave oven.
Then it stopped.
All this: a blur of seconds.
Gareth eased his back along the wall to peer around its corner. But before he reached it he saw the huddled figure on the far side of the road rise with the child in his arms. He saw Collison stand, his gun hanging by his thigh. Without looking left or right, cardigan man strode out towards them. He heard the door open behind him and someone come through talking softly but urgently into his radio. He stepped away from the wall and scanned the road.
At first all he could see were four or five men edging forward, their weapons pointed at something on the other side of the median strip. Then he saw the shapeless mass: the collapsed tent, the fragile membrane that failed to withstand the storm. Gareth turned back to the door. He was about to shout when Collison stole his words. ‘Get the fucking ambulance down here fast!’
‘It’s coming!’ the man at the door called as he ran past. It was the boss of the State Emergency Services team. Gareth followed him down the steps. At the curb, cardigan man, holding the girl with her head pressed into the hollow of his neck, was brushing past Collison. He didn’t alter his pace or glance at Don as he spoke.
‘It was a doll, Don. A black plastic doll. I told you he didn’t have a gun.’
Collison, whose intent must have been to intercept him, swivelled like a toreador to avoid a collision and barked at his back. ‘Who the hell can believe what you say anymore?’ Then he spun on his heel and joined the SES man as he hurried to the scene. The street was filling up with coppers who, bereft of purpose, had abruptly become bystanders. The lights of the approaching ambulance haloed in the mist.
Gareth met the man and child at the gate. ‘Is she okay?’
‘Let’s get her out of the rain.’ They sidestepped to let Phil Severs and his bomb crew through.
‘Where’s Daddy?’ said the girl, her voice muffled. She raised her head. Her eyes were large and bright and moist, her bottom lip was quivering. ‘Where’s my doll?’
‘Mummy’s on her way,’ Gareth said quickly.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ the girl immediately responded, jerking her head around.
The man in the cardigan gave Gareth a glance that he felt like a stab of ice-cream pain, through to the back of his brain. ‘She’s coming,’ Gareth assured her, nodding. ‘She should b—’ He was cut short by a commotion back in the house.
‘Get your bloody hands off me! What was that noise? Where’s my daughter? Y’gonna hang there useless as a nun’s twat, what the fuck’s goin’ on?’
They were climbing