Carnies Page 11

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Paul was still feeling very groggy, not quite awake. ‘Blessed?’

  ‘It’s a gift, you know.’

  Paul shook his head, trying to clear it. ‘What’s a gift, exactly? Tetanus?’ He flexed his hand. The pain still throbbed there. ‘Shouldn’t I be in a hospital?’

  Alvan’s smile remained. It was creeping Paul out.

  ‘They couldn’t have helped you.’

  ‘But you could,’ Paul said, dubious.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Paul tried to sit up again.

  ‘Oh, no no no,’ Alvan said, putting one hand on Paul’s chest and pushing him back to the bed with humiliating ease. ‘You’re not ready yet.’

  ‘Okay,’ Paul responded, ceasing to struggle. He worked hard at staying calm on the surface, lying quietly on the bed, but underneath he was getting a horrible feeling, like he’d just walked into a room crawling with spiders. This guy seemed harmless, but looks could be deceiving. Didn’t they always say that serial killers were quiet and unassuming?

  A new sensation grabbed his attention. ‘Uh,’ he began, embarrassed, ‘I need to... you know...’

  Alvan just looked at him, not understanding.

  ‘I need to... go.’

  The little man shook his head. ‘I’ve already told you, you’re not ready.’

  ‘No,’ Paul said, and tried to inject as much meaning into his voice as he could. ‘I need to go.’

  ‘I don’t... Oh!’ Alvan looked as embarrassed as Paul felt. ‘I’m sorry. You’ve been in bed for quite some time. It’s understandable.’ He pointed out of the doorway.

  ‘Second door on the right, you can’t miss it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Paul eased his legs out over the edge of the bed, and then stood up, still leaning on the mattress. His knees felt like they’d been replaced with rubber bands. He stood there for a moment longer, until his legs stopped shaking, and then let go of the bed, standing upright. For a few seconds the room seemed to dip and sway like the deck of a ship in a storm, and his vision greyed a little at the edges, but he took a couple of deep breaths and it all settled down. Then he made his unsteady way out the door, feeling Alvan’s eyes on him the entire way. It made him very uncomfortable.

  The corridor was decorated in a fashion similar to the bedroom: it had the same wallpaper, the same dark wood floors, even the same pale ceiling. He walked slowly to the second door on his right and opened it. It was a combined bathroom and toilet, the fittings old-fashioned but still shiny. He kept his head down, watching his feet, his balance still shaky. His intention had been to sneak out of a window if he could, but he doubted he’d get very far. Maybe this Alvan character was right. Maybe he needed more time after all.

  Paul lifted the lid of the toilet, opened the fly on his jeans and urinated for a very long time, sighing with relief as he did so. Once he’d finished, he fastened his zipper and flushed the cistern, then walked to the sink to wash his hands. He splashed some water around on them, using a little soap, then turned off the tap and looked up for the first time since entering.

  He staggered backwards, startled. At first he thought he was looking through a window, and someone was outside peering in at him. Then he realised it was a mirror, and the face he was seeing was his own. But he had a good month’s worth of beard growing on his chin and cheeks, a black tangled scrub that he hadn’t seen in many a year. He blinked a couple of times, still not certain he was awake. Perhaps this was still a dream.

  ‘Mr Roy?’ he called, his voice a little shaky.

  ‘Yes?’ came the immediate answer. He must have been standing right outside the whole time.

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘I told you, I found you last night. It’s late afternoon now.’

  He looked at his reflection again. No way was that an overnight stubble. He touched it, fingers running through the hairs, then noticed that the wound on his hand had also healed up. There was barely a mark to show where Jasmine had bitten him. He found himself shivering, starting in his chest and upper arms, and moving out to the rest of his body. He groaned and crossed his arms across his chest, bowing his head, his teeth chattering. Something was definitely not right.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Paul tried to answer, but could only manage a soft moan. The room tilted away again, and a deep ache welled behind his eyes. He leaned on the sink, trembling.

  The door behind him opened and Alvan came in. ‘Oh dear, I think you got up a little too soon. Come on,’ he said, taking Paul by the shoulders and leading him back to the bedroom. ‘You need some more rest.’

  Paul couldn’t offer any opposition. The shakes had subsided a little, but little spasms were still passing though him like aftershocks. He found himself lying on the bed again, fighting to keep his eyes open, a fight he was losing.

  As he drifted back into a light, uneasy sleep, something occurred to him, something tiny, yet very significant. He’d been sore walking to the toilet, certainly, but in that after-fever kind of way. In his dazed state, he hadn’t realised what that meant until that moment.

  He’d walked without his cane. Without pain.

  -18-

  I never expected to be back here quite so soon, David thought as he drove past the town sign again. He’d headed out in the early afternoon, once he’d managed to convince both his wife and his boss that the return journey was purely for business reasons. He didn’t think they’d appreciate the truth. In fact, he really didn’t know what the truth was. All he knew was that there was more of a story here, and that his brother could be in some kind of danger.

  He wasn’t sure which of those facts took precedence. He’d called the Inn Tillbrook, straight after he’d received the strange anonymous telephone call. It had rung fully twenty times before being answered by the motel manager, even crankier at that late hour than he had been before. He’d been reluctant to check on Paul’s room, but David had finally convinced him. There was a long silence, easily ten minutes, and David had begun to suspect that the manager had lied and gone back to bed instead, but then the irritated voice returned, with the news that his brother wasn’t in the room, though his clothes were still there.

  Somehow, David hadn’t been surprised, and there and then decided on his course of action for the following day. In his years as a journalist he’d learned that the best thing to do in murky situations like these was to go straight to the source.

  Tillbrook wasn’t a large town. After passing the welcome sign it only took a few minutes to reach the oval where the carnival was still set up. It had another two nights to run yet, so David was confident he’d find it occupied. Whether he’d find Paul there was another matter entirely, but he had to try.

  He pulled up in the car park, which was otherwise empty. Inside the fence he could see the carnies hard at work, lugging large pieces of timber and steel around the place, pounding tent pegs into the ground with mallets, and many other tasks which David assumed were vital for the smooth running of the carnival. He looked for any sign of his brother, who he was sure would stand out amongst them, but he didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.

  Then he realised that he’d been noticed. Some of the men put down their tools and walked out through the gate towards his car. He swallowed once, and checked his reflection in the mirror quickly, then got out of the car and strode towards them, trying not to show his nervousness. He pulled his jacket tight around himself to keep out the cold afternoon air. He remembered how easily the huge man, Carl, had crushed the digital camera two nights before. He didn’t want to meet the same fate.

  ‘What are you doin’ here?’ one of the men asked, frowning in an exaggerated fashion, like a caricature of anger. David didn’t dare laugh, though. ‘You was told to stay away.’

  ‘I want to talk to your boss,’ David said, amazed at how steady his voice was. ‘I want to talk to Amos.’

  ‘The boss is busy,’ another large man said, coming up behind the first one. He w
as blond, and had a bushy beard that might have been golden if he ever washed it.

  David turned his attention to the second man. ‘Tell him it’s about my brother.’

  The man frowned, almost a mirror image of the first carnie. He thought for a moment, then put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. ‘Don’t let him in, Joe.’

  ‘Like I would,’ he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl. The hairs on the back of David’s neck stood upright, his flesh rippling. He tried not to let it show.

  The second man nodded, then turned and walked back into the carnival.

  David and the other man stood there for quite some time. David was shifting his weight from one leg to the other, not wanting to meet the big carnie’s eyes. Every time he did, they were fixed on his, with a steel behind them that made him look elsewhere. It reminded him of the times he’d met with some of the organised crime bosses in the city, in the days when his career had been flying. But the memory was not so much of the bosses themselves - they’d cultivated a quiet manner that belied their power and ferocity. No, it was their minders, thugs in expensive suits, who had the same eyes as this man, the same cold eyes that regarded you the way you might look at a smear of dog mess on your shoe, moments before you wiped it clean on the grass. David didn’t particularly want to end up like that.

  Finally the first man returned, and behind him walked the manager of the carnival, Amos. David exhaled with relief, releasing the air his nerves had trapped in his lungs. He noticed again that the other carnies slouched around Amos. Behind the manager there was a woman with long, dark hair, wearing jeans and a thick black woollen jumper. She was quite beautiful. David wondered if this was the mysterious fortune teller that Paul had mentioned. She certainly matched the rapturous descriptions he’d spouted over their drinking session two nights before. And behind her a younger woman followed at a discreet distance, who was slim and with short hair, wearing shorts and a t-shirt despite the cool temperature.

  ‘Mr Hampden,’ Amos said, his voice cold. ‘I wish I could say I was pleased to see you. But I can say that it’s a surprise.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ David asked, one eyebrow raised. ‘I thought you might have expected me.’

  Amos frowned. ‘Why would we have expected you?’

  ‘Where is my brother?’

  The question seemed to take Amos aback. ‘Your brother?’

  ‘The man I was here with on Tuesday night. Where is he?’

  Amos seemed genuinely puzzled. The beautiful woman behind him came up and whispered in his ear, her expression also confused. But what caught David’s eye, long-experienced at picking up subtle reactions to his questions, was the girl in the shorts. She’d jumped when he’d asked the question in the first place, and was now looking very uncomfortable. She knew something.

  The manager finally spoke. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hampden, I’m afraid we can’t help you. We have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Well then,’ David said with a small, thin smile, ‘perhaps you should ask your friend there.’

  Amos and the woman at his side both turned in unison, and the young woman took a step back, nervous. She looked from one to the other in turn a few times, then turned her eyes to David. They were brimming with anger and tears.

  ‘You bastard,’ she hissed at him. ‘You...’

  ‘Jasmine,’ Amos said. His voice was quiet, but it silenced her. There was something in his tone, an authority that demanded respect and obedience - expected it without hesitation. She looked at him, cowed. ‘We shall talk. Later.’

  The manager waved his hand, and Jasmine turned and ran back into the carnival, not looking behind her again. In a moment she was gone.

  Amos turned back to David. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Hampden,’ he said again, ‘I’m afraid we can’t help you. Please leave.’

  David couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘That girl,’ he said, anger building in him, ‘she knows something about Paul. What are you hiding?’

  ‘Are you speaking as a brother now,’ the manager asked, his voice still quiet, ‘or as a journalist?’

  ‘Go to hell!’ David spat. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll find it out, you know that!’

  Amos smiled. ‘Perhaps you might have, once upon a time, Mr Hampden,’ he said. ‘But I think now you may have neither the skills nor the resources you once had. I advise you to go home.’

  ‘Go home?’ David asked, incredulous.

  The manager nodded. ‘Wherever your brother is, I’m sure he’s fine, and that he’ll contact you. He may be trying to do so as we speak, for all we know.’ His voice was soothing, almost hypnotic. ‘Go home,’ he repeated, gentle but firm. ‘This is not your concern.’

  ‘I’ll show you what my concern is,’ David growled, then turned and strode back towards his car, his face red and burning. He could feel a dark rage building inside him, deep in his gut, marked by the acidic ache of his ulcer. But for the time being he took a hold of the anger and placed it in his imaginary WAIL box, that most useful of psychological inventions.

  It was beginning to get crowded in there, though.

  He climbed back into his car and started up the engine, then put it into gear and spun the wheels in the gravel as he drove out of the car park, hoping a few pebbles would catch that sanctimonious jerk in the head.

  He headed back down the highway towards the motel. He figured he’d check the room out himself anyway, just in case Paul had left anything useful behind. Not that he was questioning the honesty of the mean, drunken old man who ran the place, of course. He grimaced at the thought of the motel manager stumbling into the room in the early hours of the morning, woken by some city slicker with an attitude problem, giving the place a perfunctory once-over and then having a quiet beer to waste some of David’s time before returning to the phone to give the all-clear. There could have been a detailed inventory of Paul’s plans written in red ink on the wallpaper and he probably wouldn’t have noticed. No, it’d definitely be better to go over it himself. Paul might even return there, though he doubted it very much. Plus, of course, it would give him a base of operations for the time being.

  He had a sneaking suspicion he’d be in town for a while longer yet, despite Amos’ advice.

  -19-

  The sun settled amongst the trees in the west, soaking the whole bush landscape in a sepia light. Paul stood on Alvan Roy’s back verandah and watched it, leaning on the waist-high railing that surrounded the wooden decking, feeling very relaxed. The muscular aches he’d been suffering since he’d awoken that afternoon were beginning to ease, and in their place was a kind of tingling warmth that he’d never felt before. His worries were still present, somewhere towards the back of his brain, but he chose to ignore them for the moment, instead simply enjoying the sensations on offer. The vista that spread out beyond the verandah was breathtaking for a city boy like Paul: a wide paddock, with knee-high golden grasses that stopped where the tree line started. Beyond that, the forest, small trees at first, then growing larger farther on. It was like one of those paintings he’d seen at the art gallery, on those rare occasions he’d visited it. He’d always assumed they were an exaggeration of the real thing, but now he realised they weren’t. In fact, they were nothing but a pale imitation, a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. But this... this was gorgeous.

  If he was going to be held hostage by a madman, this wasn’t a bad place for it.

  Roy was mad, there was no doubt about that. The entire afternoon he’d been fussing over Paul like a paranoid grandmother, checking how he was feeling, measuring his blood pressure, and generally being bothersome in the nicest possible way. He refused to answer any questions Paul asked. More accurately, he simply avoided them, or perhaps didn’t even notice them. His mind seemed to be working almost at random, blurting thoughts and ideas like they were popcorn in boiling oil. It was in turns funny, fascinating and unnerving. The only coherent facts Paul had managed to glean were that he was interested, or more likely obsessed, w
ith the carnival, and that he ‘cleaned up’ for them on occasion. He wasn’t too sure what that entailed, exactly, but he hoped it wasn’t a euphemism for something nasty.

  He rubbed his eyes, blinking a few times. His vision was a little blurred, and had been since he’d woken up that afternoon. Asking Roy about it was pointless. When he’d tried, the little man had just laughed and said it was ‘normal’, and not to worry about it. That didn’t make any sense to Paul, but then again, not much about the man did.

  Then again, there was still his ankle to consider.

  He shook his head and looked around again, taking in the sights. Even the van parked near the back door was beautiful in this golden dusk light, its silver paint job shimmering with amber highlights.

  Something came together with an almost audible click then, deep inside Paul’s mind, and he gasped with surprise. He’d seen that van before. Twice. Once the previous morning, parked outside his motel, and once again before that, at the car park at the carnival the night he and David visited. He stared at it a moment longer, unable to believe his eyes.

  ‘You like my van?’ a voice came from over his left shoulder. He yelped and turned to find Alvan Roy standing behind him, carrying a tray with two glasses and a pitcher of some pale brown liquid. Iced tea, he realised from the smell, though it must have been bloody strong for him to be able to tell that from there. ‘It’s my pride and joy. My home away from home. Away from home,’ he added with a smile.

  Paul just looked at the man, feeling adrenaline burning in his veins. His heart was beating fast. Somehow up until then the threat had never really been obvious, but that van had been following him around. This whole thing was premeditated. An instinct was screaming at him somewhere inside him, one he’d never experienced before.

  It was telling him to get away. So he obeyed.

  In a single fluid motion he spun around and vaulted the rail, landing on all fours in the grass beyond the verandah. He didn’t pause there for even a heartbeat. He was on his feet and running, ploughing through the high grass like a speedboat through water, leaving a yellow wake behind him. In the distance he could hear Roy calling out to him, his voice more worried than angry, but it didn’t make any difference to Paul. He crossed the paddock in a matter of seconds, moving faster than he’d ever moved in his life. He expected the flare of pain from his ankle at any second, but it didn’t come. This didn’t concern him, though. Almost all rational thought had fled his mind, replaced by an all-consuming joy, a sensation of total freedom that he’d never felt before. He was flying. His feet seemed barely to touch the ground. He was no longer running away, he was simply running.