Drainland (Tunnel Island Book 1) Read online

  Drainland

  Tunnel Island Book 1

  Iain Ryan

  Lamb House Books

  Contents

  Copyright

  Want to read FOUR DAYS for free?

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part 2

  Chapter 3

  Part 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part 4

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Part 5

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

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  About the Author

  Contact The Author

  Copyright © Iain Ryan, 2016

  Everything in Drainland is completely fictional and imaginary; any resemblance the characters or settings may bear to actual circumstances or to a living person is entirely coincidental. I just make this stuff up.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover design by Iain Ryan. Assistance from Carl.

  Interior design by Iain Ryan.

  Proofing by Tammi Labrecque.

  www.iainryan.com

  ISBN: 978-0-9943121-2-9

  Want to read FOUR DAYS for free?

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  If you like DRAINLAND, you’ll love FOUR DAYS, the prequel to the entire Tunnel Island Series. It’s 178 pages of lean, mean mayhem.

  Click this link to get your free book:

  http://eepurl.com/b6OIXH

  ISBN: 978-0-9943121-2-9

  For Clare

  Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.

  - Charles M. Schulz

  Part I

  THE BODIES

  1

  Laura Romano

  She remembered February. Melbourne, 2003. Will Holding was laid out on a blanket in the park. He put his hand up to the glare and said:

  “Can you see the earth curving over?”

  Laura Romano moved her head beside him.

  “Can you see it?” he said.

  The sky looked like a broad ceiling to her. It had no real bend to it, no depth or colour. Nothing worked that year. Her eyes, her mind, her gut. That was when he found her, after everything had stopped working. That was how he got in.

  Romano lifted her drink, more ice than whisky now. She was due at the station in four hours.

  The phone started up.

  She went to it. She stood over it and let it ring a while.

  She picked it up.

  “Romano?’’ said the voice.

  Denny.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “You’ve got to go up to the Gold Point,” Denny said. “They’ve got some sort of emergency. Two dead.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ve got to come in.”

  That was the official start of it. One set of bad memories exchanged for another, all from one phone call in the middle of the night on an island she did not recognise.

  2

  Jim Harris

  He remembered August. Tunnel Island, 2003. They were worn out, semi-retired. The bodies had started to pile up in his dreams. They haunted him. It was time to cash out.

  He took Old Bill Dranger to O’Shea and they told him together: we’re out. You have to take out your own trash from now on.

  O’Shea said exactly what Jim Harris knew he would:

  “There’s a wee loose end.”

  One more thing.

  The cliché that ruined people.

  The loose end was the Fitzgerald kid. He had to leave the island. He was gathering steam. He had a few cronies now, and they were all raising hell. “They grabbed a tourist,” said O’Shea, the deck of his boat rocking gently underneath them. “And the tourist is a kid, just a wee kiddie, the boy of a high roller. Came in to spend his money and now this. It’s a fookin’ disaster for me and mine. This guy has clout with Zane’s fookin’ brother-in-law, and now I got no one else who can deal with it. At least take care of this for me, until I can find myself some new fellas.”

  Fitzgerald had come up from the South, out of that swamp. He wasn’t affiliated or made. He was a wild dog. Harris had heard about him, had even been tempted to step in. If nothing else, taking care of Fitzgerald would be a good way to finish up. Neat. A full stop. O’Shea was right. If they took care of Fitzgerald, there would be a pause.

  Old Bill wasn’t so sure.

  They took the job anyway.

  The next day, O’Shea finessed the father, the high roller. When the ransom call came in, he made nice on the phone and promised Fitzgerald money. All the while, Harris and Old Bill set to work. Fitzgerald wasn’t hard to find. The information came cheap. He had a house tucked away down in the bush.

  Harris and Old Bill went in the same as always.

  No warrants.

  No uniforms.

  Weapons from the private stash.

  The men were asleep. One of the cronies took one in the leg before he made it out of bed. The blood and gunfire put everyone else in their place. Old Bill and Harris herded the five of them into the living room and put them on the carpet. Then Harris grabbed Fitzgerald and put the gun in his mouth.

  “Where is he?”

  Fitzgerald’s eyes opened like dinner plates, tears at the edges.

  The others looked each other.

  Silence.

  Old Bill grabbed the one who was shot and punched him in the wound. More blood. More screaming. The other men started shouting. The room got hot.

  “Where?” asked Harris, again.

  He took the gun out.

  “Argh, the compost…the…outside.”

  Old Bill went. He came back with a small boy slumped in his arms, both of them covered with dirt and shit.“Here,” he said. “He’s still breathing. Just.”

  Harris grabbed the boy. “Come on.”

  Old Bill stared at the floor, blank in the eyes. He didn’t move. He’d had a son once. “Take him outside,” said Old Bill.

  “Come on, Bill.”

  “Out.”

  Harris took the boy and ran.

  As he crossed the lawn, he heard the shots and kept running. The boy murmured. “It’s okay,” said Harris. “It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t okay. Old Bill murdered them all. Shot each of them in the stomach and left them to bleed out together. When Harris came back to clean up, he found Fitzgerald out in the rear yard, his hand wrapped around the bottom of the hills hoist like it was going to save him. Harris dragged the
body back inside. The living room was covered in blood an inch deep, like a slaughterhouse floor. It smelled like hell, and when Harris burned the place to the ground that smell drifted out and rose up on the smoke.

  A week later, Old Bill was dead. He shot himself in his spare bedroom. Nothing left but a dead body and a postcard in the mail: a piece of card stock split into four quadrants each showing one of the island’s beaches.

  There was gold foil font:

  “Welcome To Paradise”

  Harris turned it over.

  I’m with the ghosts now, Jim.

  Hopefully this is the end for both of us.

  Sorry I couldn’t hack it. Take care of yourself.

  - Bill.

  That was a year ago.

  Harris stood out on the verandah of his house and watched the dawn sky. It had been a cold night. Primal wind coming off the sea, the trees roaring. Now the sun looked like a dull glow in the cloud.

  His phone buzzed.

  It felt like a confirmation. He knew he was waiting for something. He flipped it open.

  “Harris,” he said.

  “You might want ta have a look in on the Gold Point, Jim.”

  O’Shea.

  “Why?”

  “Bit of trouble brewing.”

  “Send the new guys.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’re idiots.”

  “Then find someone else. I don’t care anymore.”

  “I don’t think that’s true, Jim. I think you’ll care a wee bit when you find out who it is. Mate, it’s Don’s daughter.”

  Harris pinched his fingers into his eyes. The trees started back up. That was both of them dead now.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “For Don,” said O’Shea.

  “Is that it?”

  The line went dead.

  Part II

  The Police Officer

  3

  December, 2003

  Romano paced the apartment.

  Fucking Will.

  Find Will.

  She took her shirt off and re-checked the air-con. She opened and closed the fridge, went back to the balcony doors and looked out.

  Three days without Will. No calls. No contact.

  One day was nothing.

  Two days was odd.

  Three days was wrong.

  She could feel herself coming apart.

  Romano picked up the phone and called Bobby Franklin and got: “I told you this morning, I haven’t seen the little prick.” She called the clubhouse and Cheryl said the same thing.

  Cheryl:

  Will’s drug connection.

  Her drug connection.

  As far as they were concerned, this problem of hers was a hallucination.

  Romano dialled again and left another round of messages. She called his sister, his business partners, two of his closest friends. His privacy was a luxury she could no longer afford. She tried his phone, over and over again.

  Nothing.

  Eventually, she chalked out another line of coke and got back to her pacing. Her nose began to run. She went to the kitchen for paper towels, taking the roll back to the windows. The city buildings sat there on the skyline. The night glowed. No movement on the street. For two hours, she walked and blew her nose. As the sun came up, she noticed there was blood on the towelling. She didn’t care. She was due at the station.

  The suburbs panned by, one new estate after the other. Suburban Melbourne in early December. Christmas lights lined the streets and her partner, Constable Jack Whiting, slowed the squad car to check a nativity scene: the Virgin Mary in flashing neon, brighter than sunlight.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  Romano sucked on a milkshake. It was all a wash to her. She couldn’t let it in. She wound down the window and tossed the shake onto the sidewalk.

  Jack peeled out. He kept his mouth shut. He knew more than he was letting on, just enough to keep clear of her. He reached across and grabbed the McDonald’s bag off the dash.

  “You going to eat this?”

  “I need a smoke,” she said.

  They pulled into to a park in Keilor East. Romano walked out to the lawn and lit up. The cravings were gnawing at her. All she needed was thirty seconds out of sight, but nothing subtle presented itself. She could feel the sweats coming on. The playground felt ominous around her, creepy and distorted. She sucked hard on the smoke and stifled a cough.

  Fucking Will.

  The squad car horn sounded.

  She jogged back. Jack had her door open.

  “Code 10 in Grosvenor Street. You want it?”

  “Let Cain and Davey get it.”

  “It’s an open call. They must be on dinner. And I’m bored shitless.”

  “Okay. Hold on.”

  Romano took another drag and ground out the smoke. She looked up and waited to exhale. An arc of cloud rose up from the trees in the park and the houses behind them. In the distance, a storm hovered over the city.

  The domestic in Grosvenor Street had a primal edge to it. It was a woman, Samantha Something. She was young, one of those twenty-five going on forty-five types with greasy red hair and bad skin. She’d been screwing around with a neighbour, by the sound of it, and had a load on now. Jack had to keep sitting her back down in a living room recliner. The place smelled like a pet store.

  “And then what happened, Samantha?” said Jack. “Someone in the street called us. You go over there? You go over there tonight?”

  The woman shrugged. “I dunno.”

  Jack nodded.

  Romano folded up her notebook. She walked out to the street and looked around. The house directly across had an illuminated pink Santa strapped to the roof. The lawn was crisp. It didn’t vibe with Samantha. The next house up had a freshly broken window, glass on the lawn, the hole plastered over with cardboard. That was more like it. Romano went to the door and knocked.

  A big man answered. Late thirties, dressed in gym shorts and nothing else.

  “Had a few complaints about an argument, sir. You want to step out here for me?”

  The guy came out. He was their guy.

  “So what’s the trouble tonight?” said Romano.

  “That crazy bitch down in eleven started throwing rocks at the house.”

  “Right. So tell me—”

  The radio: Suspect fleeing on foot! Rear exit!

  Jack in pursuit, shouting.

  “I told you,” said the man.

  “Back inside.”

  Romano ran. She took the path down the side of Samantha’s house, stepping over rubbish and broken brickwork. The back yard opened out onto a dark reserve. Romano stopped for her flashlight and listened: rustling, a woman moaning in the distance. She started out. Within a minute, she found them halfway down an incline tapering off to a sewerage out. Jack had Samantha Something pinned to the ground. Her face was pressed into the grass and her sad yellow dress was caught up under her arms, exposing her legs and ass.

  “Bloody hell, Jack, am I interrupting something?”

  “Will you give me a fucking hand, please!”

  Romano held the woman’s legs while he got the cuffs on. “How’d this all start then, Samantha? I thought we were here to help.”

  “I wanted to give the house a sweep,” said Jack.

  “And she bolted?”

  “Fuck you both,” said Samantha.

  They put her in the back of the squad car and had a look around. It started to figure. In the kitchen pantry, Jack found the stash: half an ounce of weed, a small bag of pills. Romano searched the back of the house. Despite the summer heat, Samantha was living with the curtains drawn. Romano went to the bathroom of the master bedroom and gently closed the door behind her. She sat on the toilet and took a small silver vial from her pocket. She tapped out a line and snorted it back. As the buzz came on, she let her eyes close for a moment.

  Will.

  She washed her hands and checked the m
irror.

  One step up from Samantha, if not for the make-up and uniform.

  Fucking Will.

  Something moved in the shower behind her.

  Romano froze. She stared into the mirror.

  Nothing.

  Paranoia.

  Then the sound again. Movement.

  Romano unclipped her holster.

  She pulled back the shower curtain.

  Something on the basin floor.

  Romano hit the lights.

  She looked.

  Her head pounded.

  There were five rats gnawing on a severed arm, tiny mouths tearing at the bright red flesh.

  Romano came to mid-morning. She took a shower, popped a benzo, poured vodka into orange juice.

  Her brain fired. She made a plan.

  Find Will.

  No more waiting or playing it safe. No more hoping.

  But nothing official either. She was on her own.

  Will had a small accounting practise he ran out of a house in Fitzroy. She drove there and let herself in with the spare key. The place was empty. His desk and office sat untouched. She went to the reception desk out front and checked the appointment book. His last meeting was marked private; he’d clocked out Wednesday seven-thirty. Thursday and Friday had lines through them.

  She saw something: Thursday morning. A cancelled meeting with Ray Herbert.

  That didn’t make sense.

  No one cancelled on Ray.

  Romano drove to the Herbert manse in Toorak and parked across the street. She scoped the house. It was a nice cream brick place behind a row of old oak trees. Looked like something a dentist would live in, not a bikie.

  As she came up on the gate, a guard stepped out.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “We expecting you?”