The Bat (9 page)

She waved them off. After such a build-up, naturally it was an anticlimax to discover that the cafe was basically a standard outlet selling coffee, tea, lettuce with yogurt and lettuce sandwiches. In the designated crystal and mineral room there was an exhibition of glittering crystals, Buddha figures with crossed legs, blue and green quartz and uncut stones in an elaborate light display. The room was filled with a faint aroma of incense, soporific pan-pipe music and the sound of running water. Harry considered the shop nice enough, though a touch camp, and unlikely to take your breath away. What might cause respiratory difficulties, however, were the prices.

“Ha ha,” Andrew laughed, on seeing some of the price tags. “The woman’s a genius.”

He pointed to the generally middle-aged and evidently well-off customers in the shop. “The flower-power generation
has grown up. They have adult jobs, adult incomes, but their hearts are somewhere on an astral planet.”

They walked back to the counter. The energetic woman was still wearing her radiant smile. She took Harry’s hand and pressed a blue-green stone in his palm.

“You’re Capricorn, aren’t you? Put this stone under your pillow. It will remove all the negative energy in the room. It costs sixty-five dollars, but you really should have it, I think, so let’s say fifty.”

She turned to Andrew.

“And you must be a Leo?”

“Oh no, ma’am, I’m a policeman.” He discreetly held up his badge.

She blanched and stared at him in horror. “How awful. I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Not as far as I know, ma’am. I presume you’re Margaret Dawson, formerly White? If so, may we have a word with you in private?”

Margaret Dawson quickly pulled herself together and called one of the girls to take charge of the till. Then she accompanied Andrew and Harry to the garden where they sat around a white wooden table. A net was stretched out between two trees. At first Harry thought it was a fishing net, but upon closer inspection it proved to be an enormous spider’s web.

“Looks like rain,” she said, rubbing her hands.

Andrew cleared his throat.

She bit her lower lip.

“I’m sorry, Officer. This makes me so nervous.”

“That’s OK, ma’am. Quite a web you’ve got there.”

“Oh, that. That’s Billy’s, our mouse spider. He’s probably asleep somewhere.”

Harry unconsciously tucked his legs under him. “Mouse spider? Does that mean it eats … mice?” he asked.

Andrew smiled. “Harry’s from Norway. They aren’t used to big spiders.”

“Oh, well, I can put your mind at rest. The big ones aren’t dangerous,” Margaret Dawson said. “However, we do have a lethal little creature called a redback. It likes towns best, though, where it can hide in the crowd, so to speak. In dark cellars and damp corners.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Andrew said. “But back to business, ma’am. Your son.”

Now Mrs. Dawson really did blanch.

“Evans?”

Andrew eyed Harry.

“To our knowledge, he hasn’t been in trouble with the police before, Mrs. Dawson,” Harry said.

“No, no, he hasn’t. Thank God.”

“We actually drove by because your place was on our route back to Brisbane. We were wondering if you knew anything about an Inger Holter.”

She ran the name through her memory. Then she shook her head.

“Evans doesn’t know a lot of girls. The ones he does know he brings here to meet me. After having a child with … with this terrible girl whose name I’m not sure if I want to remember, I forbade … I said I thought he should wait a bit. Until the right one came along.”

“Why should he wait?” Harry asked.

“Because I said so.”

“Why did you say so, ma’am?”

“Because … because it’s not the right moment—” she glanced at the shop to signal that her time was precious—“and because Evans is a sensitive boy who can be easily hurt. There’s been a lot of negative energy in his life, and he needs a woman he can trust one hundred percent. Not these … tarts that just muddle his thinking.”

Gray cloud cover had settled over her pupils.

“Do you see your son often?” Andrew asked.

“Evans comes here as much as he can. He needs the peace. He works so hard, poor thing. Have you tried any of
the herbs he sells? Now and then he brings a few along and I put them in the tea in the cafe.”

Andrew cleared his throat again. From the corner of his eye, Harry noticed a movement between the trees.

“We’d better be off, ma’am. One last question, though.”

“Yes?”

Andrew seemed to have something stuck in his throat—he kept coughing and coughing. The web had started to sway.

“Have you always had such blonde hair, Mrs. Dawson?”

It was late when they landed in Sydney. Harry was dead on his feet and longing for his hotel bed.

“A drink?” Andrew suggested.

“Don’t you need to get home?” Harry asked.

Andrew shook his head. “I won’t meet anyone there except myself at the moment.”

“At the moment?”

“Well, for the last ten years. I’m divorced. Wife lives in Newcastle with the girls. I try to see them as often as I can, but it’s quite a distance and the girls will soon be big enough to have their own plans for the weekend. Then I’ll discover, I suppose, that I’m not the only man in their lives. They’re good-looking little devils, you see. Fourteen and fifteen. Shit, I should chase away every admirer that darkens the door.”

Andrew beamed. Harry couldn’t help but like this unaccustomed version of a colleague.

“Well, that’s the way it goes, Andrew.”

“That’s right, mate. How ’bout you?”

“Well. No wife. No children. No dog. All I have is a boss, a sister, a father and a couple of guys I still call pals even though years pass between their calls. Or mine.”

“In that order?”

“In that order.” They laughed.

“Come for one. At the Albury?”

“That sounds like work,” Harry said.

“Precisely.”

Birgitta smiled as they entered. She finished serving a customer and came over to them. Her eyes were focused on Harry.

“Hi,” she said.

All Harry wanted to do was curl up on her lap and go to sleep.

“Two double gin and tonics, in the name of the law,” Andrew said.

“I’d prefer a grapefruit juice,” Harry said.

She served them and leaned across the bar.

“Thanks for yesterday,” she whispered in Swedish to Harry. In the mirror behind her he saw himself sitting with an idiotic grin on his face.

“Hey, hey, no Scandinavian turtle-doving here now, thank you very much. If I’m paying for the drinks we speak in English.” Andrew shot them a stern look. “And now I’ll tell you young ones something. Love is a greater mystery than death.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Uncle Andrew’s going to tell you about an ancient Australian legend, to wit, the story of the giant snake Bubbur and Walla.”

They bunched up closer, and Andrew licked his lips with relish as he lit a cigar.

“Once upon a time there was a young warrior called Walla who had fallen in love with a beautiful young woman called Moora. And she with him. Walla had successfully completed his tribe’s initiation rites, he was a man and could therefore marry whichever of the tribe’s women he liked, provided he had not been married before and she wanted him. And Moora did. Walla could hardly tear himself away
from his beloved, but the tradition was that he had to go on a hunting expedition from which the spoils would be a kind of dowry for the bride’s parents, then the wedding could take place. One fine morning, the dew glistening on the leaves, Walla set out. Moora gave him a white cockatoo feather, which he wore in his hair.

“While Walla was away Moora went out to collect honey for the feast. However, it was not so easy to find, and she had to go further from the camp than she was wont to do. She came to a valley with huge rocks. A strange silence hung over the valley, there was not a bird or an insect to be heard. She was about to leave when she spotted a nest with some big white eggs, the biggest she had ever seen. ‘I’ll take them to the feast,’ she thought and stretched out a hand.

“At that moment she heard something slither over the rocks, and before she had time to run or open her mouth, an enormous yellow-and-brown snake coiled itself around her waist. She fought, but could not free herself, and the snake was beginning to exert pressure. Moora looked up at the blue sky above the valley and tried to call Walla’s name, but she did not have enough air in her lungs to utter a sound. The snake’s grip tightened, and in the end all the life was squeezed out of Moora, and all the bones in her body were crushed. Then the snake slithered back into the shadows it had come from—where it was impossible to see it because the colors merged with the light-dappled trees and rocks of the valley.

“Two days passed before they found her crushed body among the rocks. Her parents were inconsolable and her mother wept and asked her husband what they would say to Walla when he returned home.”

Andrew gazed at Harry and Birgitta through shiny eyes.

“The campfire was no more than embers when Walla returned from hunting the following dawn. Even though it had been a strenuous trek, his steps were light and his eyes
bright and happy. He went to Moora’s parents, who were sitting mute by the fire. ‘Here are my gifts to you,’ he said. And he had brought back a good catch: a kangaroo, a wombat and emu thighs.

“ ‘You’ve arrived in time for the funeral, Walla, you who would have been our son,’ Moora’s father said. Walla looked as if he had been slapped and could barely conceal his pain and grief, but being the hardy warrior he was, he restrained the tears and asked coldly: ‘Why have you not already buried her?’ ‘Because we didn’t find her until today,’ the father said. ‘Then I’ll accompany her and demand her spirit. Our Wirinun can heal her broken bones, then I will return her spirit and breathe life into her.’ ‘It’s too late,’ said the father. ‘Her spirit has already left to go where all women’s spirits go. But her killer is still alive. Do you know your duty, my son?’

“Walla departed without a word. He lived in a cave with the other unmarried men of the tribe. He did not speak to them either. Several months passed. Walla sat on his own and refused to take part in the singing and dancing. Some thought he had been hardening his heart to try and forget Moora. Others thought he was planning to follow Moora to the women’s kingdom of death. ‘He will not succeed,’ they said. ‘There is one place for women and one for men.’

“A woman came to the fire and sat down. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘He’s deep in thought, planning how he can avenge the death of his woman. Do you suppose all you have to do is grab a spear and kill Bubbur, the great yellow-and-brown snake? You’ve never seen it, but I saw it once when I was young, and that was the day my hair turned gray. It was the most frightening sight imaginable. Mark my words, Bubbur can only be defeated in one way, and that is with bravery and cunning. And I think this young warrior has those attributes.’

“The next day Walla went to the fire. His eyes gleamed
and he seemed almost excited as he asked who wanted to accompany him to collect rubber. ‘We have rubber,’ they said, surprised to note Walla’s good mood. ‘You can have some of ours.’ ‘I want fresh rubber,’ he said. He laughed at their startled faces and said: ‘Join me and I’ll show you what I’m going to use it for.’ Curious, they joined him, and after they had collected the rubber, he led them to the valley with the huge rocks. There he built a platform in the highest tree and told the others to retreat to the valley entrance. With his best friend, he climbed the tree, and from there they shouted Bubbur’s name as the echoes rang through the valley and the sun rose in the sky.

“Then it appeared—an enormous yellow-and-brown head swinging to and fro, searching for the source of the sound. Around it a teeming mass of small yellow-and-brown snakes, obviously hatched from the eggs Moora had seen. Walla and his friend kneaded the rubber into small balls. When Bubbur saw them in the tree it opened its jaws, flicked out its tongue and stretched up for them. The sun was now at its zenith and Bubbur’s red-and-white jaws glistened. As Bubbur launched its attack Walla hurled the largest ball of rubber down the snake’s open mouth and instinctively it sank its fangs into it.

“Bubbur rolled around on the ground but was unable to get rid of the rubber stuck in its mouth. Walla and his friend managed to perform the same trick with the smaller snakes, and soon they were rendered harmless with their jaws sealed. Then Walla called the other men, and they showed no mercy, all the snakes were killed. After all, Bubbur had killed the tribe’s most beautiful daughter, and Bubbur’s progeny would one day grow up to be as big as their mother. From that day forward the feared yellow-and-brown Bubbur snake has been a rarity in Australia. But our fear of it has made it longer and fatter for every year that has passed.”

Andrew drained the last of his gin and tonic.

“And the moral is?” Birgitta asked.

“Love is a greater mystery than death. And you have to watch out for snakes.”

Andrew paid for the drinks, gave Harry a pat of encouragement and left.

He opened his eyes. The city outside his window droned and growled as it woke up, and the curtain waved lazily at him. He lay looking at an absurdity hanging on the wall on the other side of the spacious room—a picture of the Swedish royal couple. The Queen with her calm, secure smile and the King looking like someone was holding a knife to his back. Harry knew how he felt—he had himself been persuaded to play the title role in
The Frog Prince
at primary school.

From somewhere came the sound of running water, and Harry rolled over onto the other side of the bed to smell her pillow. A jellyfish tentacle—or was it a long, red hair?—lay on the sheet. He was reminded of a headline on
Dagbladet’s
sports page:
ERLAND JOHNSEN, MOSS FC—FAMOUS FOR HIS RED HAIR AND LONG BALLS
.

He considered how he felt. Light. As light as a feather, in fact. So light he was afraid the fluttering curtains would lift him out of bed and whistle him through the window where he would float over Sydney in the rush hour and discover that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. He concluded that the lightness was due to draining himself of various bodily fluids in the night with such a vengeance that he must have lost several kilos in weight.