On Cringila Hill Read Free Page B

storm. Raindrops burst and stain dark the floorboards. In time the darkness in the street below him is broken by shafts of light from headlamps. A Commodore turns into their driveway. He calls, ‘I’m going,’ and makes his way, step by slow step, down the front stairs.
    â€˜Chilly.’ The driver who greets him is a young man, slender. He wears a well-pressed suit, crisp white shirt, a striped tie.
    â€˜Good evening, David.’
    They sit a little time in the front of the car. David Lawrence peers up at the dwelling illuminated in headlight beams. He says, ‘Nice-looking house. How can you afford a house like this up here?’
    Gordon smiles. ‘Been in the family a long time. You’d be surprised what you can have if it’s been in the family a long time.’
    David backs the car into the street, then through beating sheets of rain they drive, with occasional murmurs of information from the police radio. They reach Wollongong’s northern distributor, go along it, turn left and ascend to a bridge across the Princes Highway, head through town to the flame and steam of the steelworks in production. At Warrawong they turn right, head up Cowper Street towards Cringila Hill. Along all of that way neither man speaks.
    On Flagstaff Road they are waved down by a young policeman in uniform who holds a light cone. Sheltering under his umbrella, gripping tightly to his walking cane, Gordon makes slow progress to the stretched, blue-checked tape that marks out the crime scene. Beyond, there’s a huddle of spectators beneath umbrellas and heavy coats. Police have made a gesture of sensitivity by erecting a screen around the corpse. As Gordon pushes past, a little boy stooping on the footpath turns to call to the crowd behind him, ‘I can see his hand!’
    Gordon enters the barricaded area, past a policeman who says, ‘Eh, Chilly.’ Gordon does not respond, as is his habit when distant acquaintances use his nickname unbidden. He walks to where white-clad technicians prod and measure. The dead youngster lies chest down, his face pressed to the concrete.
    A worker raises his gaze, nods. ‘Chilly,’ he says. Rain splashes on his hood, rolls across his weatherproofed shoulders.
    â€˜Roy,’ Gordon replies, and squints his eyes in the cold glare of the floodlights, ‘anything so far?’
    â€˜Very little more than you can see. It’s quite a hole, the exit wound. If it’s a single wound it’s of tremendously heavy calibre.’
    â€˜We haven’t got a bullet?’
    â€˜Not yet. Probably it will be in that yard, assuming he was shot from the street, which would appear to be the case. And if it’s more than one shot I can tell you this – this is someone who really knew what he was doing.’
    Nearby are three men who wear white shirts, ties, heavy raincoats. Gordon joins them. ‘Peter,’ Gordon says, and a heavy-chested man nods in greeting.
    â€˜I was warned you’d be here,’ Peter Grace says.
    â€˜Warned.’ Gordon raises his eyebrows.
    â€˜Oh, well. Told. By the Empress.’
    The two gaze at each other under the rain, keeping all expression from their faces.
    â€˜So,’ Gordon says. ‘What have we got?’
    â€˜So far, a corpse and, in addition to that, just about SFA. When we got here there was a big puddle of blood but most of that’s gone in the rain. We’re confident it’s Abdul Hijazi.’ Peter nods at a knot of onlookers. Someone’s holding an umbrella above the head of a heavy, dark-clad woman who cups her hands, rocks back and forth, her mouth open and working. ‘That’s his family,’ he says. ‘They heard, and came down. They say it’s him. We’ll get the prints and all that and be certain in the morning.’
    â€˜Can we talk in a couple of days?’
    â€˜I’m told that’s the way that things are going to be.’
    As Gordon