Diamond Eyes (22 page)

‘Promise... yes, promise.’

‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘I’m really proud of you, Mira. Tomorrow, when the medication’s nearly out of your system, we can show Matron Maddy why you’re such a special young woman, okay?’

Mira’s fingers relaxed around Ben’s shirt collar. She patted his shoulder and released him completely. ‘Have... t’... show...
me
first.’

Amazing,
Sanchez signed to Ben.
She even musters a sense of humour. I wasn’t aware she had one.

There’s a lot you don’t know,
he replied,
but you need to.

S
anchez sat at her desk listening to Ben’s account of the trip to the treehouse. Her eyes strayed to their reflections in the mirror: his outline was so crisp and clear, yet her own was blurred. It didn’t make sense. She donned her reading glasses, but focus wasn’t the problem. There was also the fact that her reflection was confined to a wheelchair. Her image reflected her frown as a smile, then nodded to her and disappeared, replaced by the normal reflection of her sitting on the far side of her desk in her green leather chair.

She fiddled with her glasses and pen. ‘I’ll call Colonel Kitching,’ she said, realising Ben had stopped talking and was looking at her oddly. ‘Maybe he can pass a message on to let Dr Zhou know we’re trying to contact him.’

She fossicked through her out-tray to retrieve a faxed memo with Kitching’s contact number.

‘Done,’ she said, replacing the receiver a few moments later. ‘That was Kitching’s secretary at the Sandy Creek lab.’

‘There are a thousand Sandy Creeks,’ Ben remarked. ‘Which one in particular?’

Sanchez shrugged. ‘Inland somewhere. The number looks like it’s west of Birdsville.’ She escorted him to her door. ‘I’m really sorry things worked out this way, Ben. If you ever need a character witness, call me, okay?’

He nodded and they exchanged farewells.

‘Same time tomorrow?’ he asked.

‘Any time you can spare.’

She watched him leave, then grabbed her phone and dialled again.

In the window, she caught her blurred reflection: this time, her wheelchair-bound likeness looked sicker; open-mouthed, like a goldfish gasping for air.

She closed the curtains and focused on the phone.

‘Hello, Mr Moon?’ she said as soon as the line connected. ‘It’s Maddy Sanchez. About that treehouse I sold you...?’

Ben trudged out of the police station at midday, burdened by the confirmation that his car had indeed been sent to an impoundment yard in Brisbane, that it would take another fortnight to retrieve it, and that his house keys had gone with it.

On foot, he caught the car ferry to North Stradbroke Island then hitchhiked further north and jogged the last twenty minutes along dirt and sandy roads to reach the secluded beachhouse that he shared with his mother.

‘Hi, Ma! I’m home,’ he called as he broke in through the ground-floor laundry window. ‘Did you miss me?’

‘Were you gone?’

Her voice came from upstairs in her bedroom, and she sounded almost as angry as she did surprised, her usually charming British accent wavering just a little in time with the sounds of shuffling, as if she was hurriedly trying to move something — or someone.

‘I didn’t hear you drive in,’ she added.

‘Trouble with my car. It’s nothing. Should be fixed in a fortnight, I hope.’

He glanced into the kitchen and saw a saucepan, two soup bowls and two spoons upturned and draining of suds on an otherwise spotless sink. Above him, he heard the floor creaking. He strode to the foot of the stairs and tapped the railing. ‘Are you cleaning again, Ma?’

‘You say that like it’s a dirty habit.’

She hurried out of her bedroom doorway, straightening her black hair and the white collar of her nurse’s uniform, which always contrasted so attractively with her ebony skin.

‘Seriously, Ben-Ben, where have you been the last few days?’ Her hands played nervously on the top rail of the banister. ‘I’ve been out of my mind with worry.’

‘I had to work a few extra nights of overtime — didn’t want to bother you.’ He could tell that now was a bad time to mention that he’d lost his job; he hoped he’d find a new one before she found out through anyone else.

‘You couldn’t have called or left a note?’

‘Didn’t think of it, sorry.’ He headed back to the kitchen, aware that she sounded edgier than usual.

‘Do try to be more considerate,’ she called after him. ‘And do me a favour before you get settled? Feed Killer. He’s out chasing the seagulls.’

‘Sure, okay.’

He was resigned by now to the fact that the only time his mother sent him off on a needless errand was on the very rare occasion she had a male visitor and wanted to smuggle him out. So he didn’t begrudge her her privacy. It’d been more than a year since her last lover, but he did wonder why she never wanted him to meet her male friends. He couldn’t help but feel a little hurt by that. Nevertheless, he opened a tin of dog food without voicing a complaint and crossed the living room to the timber sun-deck where his fat, arthritic Rottweiler was already waiting, wagging the stub of his tail and slobbering on the glass door.

‘How’s my old buddy?’ Ben opened the door, welcoming the sound of the ocean as well as his dog. ‘At least you still love me, right?’

The dog whined and stared at him, raising an eyebrow.

‘You’ve been evicted too, have you?’

Killer barked once; his trained response for ‘yes'.

Ben scratched the dog’s ears. ‘Is she alone?’

He barked twice.

‘I figured as much. None of our business, though, I guess. We’ve got our own problems.’ Ben glanced around the deck, where his power tools waited. ‘What are we missing here, fella?’

The dog turned around in circles, sniffed behind a potted palm, then hobbled off down the beach to dig up his plate from the sand.

‘Buried it so it wouldn’t blow away again, huh?’

Killer barked again, slumped his rump down and waited with a drooling tongue while Ben poured the meat from the can as one short fat sausage.

‘Bon appetiti

The animal picked up the whole meal as one mouthful.

Ben wagged his finger. ‘Uh-uh! What’s the rule?’

Killer raised a brow, whimpered with his mouth full, then set down the meat gently to nibble at it.

‘That’s right. Don’t bolt your food. You know it gives you gas.’

Ben fetched the walkabout phone from the kitchen, returned to the deck with it, and shifted a power-sander off his favourite sunlounge so he could make himself comfortable.

He dialled call-connect to find a pizzeria near the Likiba Isle bridge, then ordered three crispy-crust pizzas with sample toppings of everything for delivery to Mira’s room in time for lunch tomorrow. Next, he called Matron Sanchez to make sure the pizzas would make it through security intact.

As he hung up, he heard a motorbike fire to life beside the house and he sprang to his feet for a glimpse of the rider. All he caught was a faceful of sand and dust.

‘Nice,’ he muttered.

Shedding his shirt and shaking it, he returned to the deck to distract himself with some sanding of its timber boards. He’d given himself blisters by scrubbing at them manually for three days before investing in a power sander. The dog came to lick his face, his tongue full of the smell of fresh meat. Ben shoved him away playfully and Killer bounced straight back, begging to play. Still, Ben couldn’t get Mira out of his head. He remembered her poet trees, the bulldozer tracks and the sound of machinery that she’d heard as they left. And Sanchez had mentioned the
clearing
.

‘Damn!’ He switched off the power sander and checked his watch. Only 1 pm.

‘Gotta go, boy. Hey, Ma?’ he shouted. ‘Can I borrow your Jag for a couple of hours?’

A chain now barred the entrance to Mira’s property.

Ben skidded his mother’s old white Jaguar to a halt and cut the engine. Getting out, he was overtaken by a cloud of dust and sand, and he coughed and shielded his eyes until it settled, leaving a pink icing on the car and an extra layer on the rainforest scrub either side ofhim. Higher up, the trees also bore evidence of larger traffic; branches snapped or hanging.

On the ground, he found that his car’s tracks had been pulverised by truck tyres and more caterpillar tracks similar to those he’d seen on his first visit.

A sign hung from the centre of the chain warning trespassers to stay out of the construction site.

‘Construction site?’ Ben swore and kicked the road. Sanchez must know about this! As Mira’s legal guardian, she’d have to be party to it. unless the work was being done on a neighbouring property? Perhaps one that shared the same road access?

Fearing the worst, though, Ben locked the car and stepped over the chain.

Down a gentle slope to his left, the poet trees were still standing untouched; not so the field of wildflowers to his right. The rough scar that he’d seen on his previous visit had doubled in width. Despite the evidence, he still hoped that the noise Mira had heard had come from a neighbouring property. From the direction of the church ruins, she’d said. No noise on the breeze now; at least, none that he could hear.

He jogged along the scar of earth, hoping to find someone who might be able to explain what was going on. Trespassing to do it, he realised, but having served six years for a crime that he hadn’t committed, the minor offence now seemed liberating. Almost justified. Or at least he didn’t feel guilty.

Reaching the jagged entrance to the forest, he discovered that the scarred earth led even deeper into the trees before turning downhill to follow a rocky gully with a trickling creek.

After a brisk five-minute jog, he came to a cleared area beside the bay where two dozers and an excavator sat silently sharing the anaemic shade of the only tree they’d left standing. The doors and windows of the

equipment had all been fitted with vandal-proof covers made of checker-plated steel, each painted with signage for
Max Moon’s Earthmovers.
No sign of the operators, though.
Gone for an early weekend?

Ben jogged around a tall pile of splintered trees and found the charred remains of an old stone church huddled close to the debris. Beside it stood a small field of grey crumbling gravestones, and beyond them, the decaying remains of four other colonial-style buildings — a blacksmith’s shop, general store, schoolhouse and hotel.

‘Huh?’ He staggered back a step. ‘A ghost town!’

Pocket-diving for his mobile phone, he dialled Serenity, hoping to speak to Sanchez again. The phone only bleeped in defiance.

No reception.

A
fter the long drive home Ben slewed the Jag into the garage and hurried into the beachhouse.

‘There’s a message for you near the phone,’ called his mother.

He dropped her keys on the bench, wondering if the message was from Matron Sanchez. He’d tried to contact her several more times since returning to the satellite coverage area, but had achieved nothing more than a brief conversation with her answering machine.

Hearing a footstep above him, he glanced upstairs at the internal balcony in time to see his mother emerging in a fresh nurse’s uniform. She paused at the top of the stairs and stared down at him.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Sure, Ma. Why do you ask?’ He poured himself a glass of milk.

‘The man who called was a doctor; said he wants to see you. Made it sound urgent.’

‘Oh, that’s for work.’

‘Baby, don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not!’

Broad walls of glass beyond the white piano invited him to watch the moon rise over panoramic views of the ocean. He headed to the deck with his drink so she couldn’t read his face.

Behind him, she scraped her keys off the bench. ‘Did you fuel up for me?’

‘Yeah, and I splashed through a creek so it’s clean now too.’

‘You’d better be kidding! I don’t have time to hose off any salty shit before work. What took you so long anyway?’

‘Just errands. What shift are you working?’

‘Midnight till 5 am.’ She snatched an apple and a bottle of water from the fridge and headed for the door to the garage. ‘I’m surfing when I get home. Join me if you want.’

He nodded and watched her go, before opening the glass door for the dog.

‘Home alone, Killer. What shall we do?’

The Rottweiler barked three times and trotted clumsily to his plush rug beside the sofa, where he eased himself down and stared at the blank TV.

‘Either I need a paw-sized remote or you need smaller feet.’ Ben switched on the TV, pressed play and the screen illuminated with scenes from
Extreme-Rescue Dogs.

Returning to the kitchen, Ben looked for the note.

It was written on the back of a shopping docket: a phone number — a local number — for Dr Mitch Van Danik and a request for Ben to call him at his hotel at precisely nine in the morning.
Regarding your police record,
his mother had noted with those four words underlined.

‘Regarding my police record?’ he echoed. ‘Hey, Killer, did you hear that?’

The dog glanced at him but returned his attention to the TV.

‘I might get a chance to speak to them before Matron Sanchez, and if I do,’ he said, joining his dog on the rug, ‘they’d better confirm that she left a message with their secretary, or else she’s going to have a whole lot more explaining to do.’

In the timeless darkness of her room, Mira lay flat on her back in bed, sedated but awake, drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness like a leaf floating on a black ocean under a starless sky. She listened with invisible ears for something real to latch onto, but heard only the distant screams of other clients with night terrors, each sound snagging her mind on a quivering reef until the waves rose to sweep her off again.

A small circle of light spilled in through the observation window in her door. She couldn’t see it, even with her eyelids open, but having found it with her hands another day, it emerged now in her imagination, as round and beautiful as a full moon over Halls Bay.