On Cringila Hill Read Free

directions, the noise made by several television sets all tuned to the same show. He thinks that he’s about to vomit but breathes deeply and fights back the impulse. Then he thinks that he’s going to cry but fights that away too. He looks back along the alley where raindrops bounce and burst on the asphalt.
    Aloud he says, ‘Well, fuck me.’

Chapter Two
    There’s only dull pain around the spine but the throb in Gordon’s right thigh is getting worse. He suspects it will improve if he changes position but fears the sharp stab he’ll feel in his back. He checks his watch. There’s forty more minutes to pass before he can take another painkiller. He waits, undecided.
    He hears the clack of shoe heels on polished floorboards, and then gets the good, warm smell of the woman as she comes up beside him from behind. ‘How’re you doing,’ she asks, the tone intended to sound encouraging.
    â€˜If anything,’ he says, ‘I think it’s gotten a bit worse. I’m sorry. Could you get under my right shoulder? I’d like to move.’
    She crosses behind the armchair, stoops. He circles her shoulders with an arm.
    â€˜There,’ he says.
    â€˜Better?’
    â€˜Yeah, good. Thank you.’
    â€˜Cup of tea?’
    â€˜That would be wonderful.’
    He listens to the rush of rain across the iron roof, the wet whooshing of the foliage of the tall gum trees, the hiss of gas burning in the fireplace. He jumps, startled, at a sharp burst from the telephone. The woman calls, ‘I’ll get it.’
    He watches her lift the handset. ‘May Winter,’ she says. He sees her frown. Eventually she says, ‘Edna, look, truly he can’t. He’s in really serious pain.’
    â€˜Is that Edna?’ he asks. May waves a hand to dismiss him. ‘I’ll speak to her,’ he says, and pushes weight down onto the arm of his chair, bites his bottom lip, stands, then shuffles to the telephone. He can see the seriousness of May’s displeasure as she hands him the receiver and leaves the room.
    â€˜Edna. Gordon here.’
    â€˜Gordon. How are you?’
    â€˜No good.’
    â€˜Ah. I want to ask you to do something.’
    â€˜Edna …’
    â€˜Just listen. We’ve got a corpse in Warrawong, which I’m told is almost certainly a homicide.’
    â€˜Warrawong.’
    â€˜Just down from Cringila Hill.’
    â€˜Ah.’
    â€˜We have a preliminary identification that people are confident about.’
    â€˜Do we?’
    â€˜We think it’s Abdul Hijazi.’
    Gordon looks out into the darkness beyond the front windows. He says, ‘Oh, dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.’
    â€˜Exactly.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    â€˜No idea whatever. All we’ve got is a corpse with a hole in its head on the footpath in the rain. We’ve done a bit of a doorknock. To this point, no one saw anything, they were making their tea, they were watching television.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜So, someone’s going to need to prepare some comments for the papers and the talkbacks.’
    Gordon thinks he knows what she’s going to say next but doesn’t know what he hopes to hear. Eventually Edna says, ‘I was hoping you’d take a bit of a look at the scene for me.’
    â€˜Who’s got it at this point?’
    â€˜Peter Grace. Now, hold on. Listen. Let’s assume this runs on awhile, which it feels like it will. They’ll form a team from homicide in Sydney and they’ll come down. That would be nothing to do with you. I’d like it if you’d look around. You’d report only to me, officially but independently.’ She chuckles. ‘This, do you see, would be an innovative detecting technique.’
    â€˜Of a type for which you are justly famous.’
    â€˜So I’m told.’
    â€˜Edna …’
    He can tell that she’s talking quickly to