At 8.20 I knocked on his door and got no answer. I swore and tried the handle. The door was open. The room was a mess. There was no sign of Twizell or his bag. No toiletries. I swore again and left the room. I stood there fuming for a few minutes, then a Nissan Patrol pulled in from the road and up to the slot for Twizell’s room. He jumped out and greeted me cheerfully.
‘Can’t go where we’re going in that rattletrap Falcon of yours, Cliff. I hopped over to Mayfield by cab and picked up my car. Then I went for a swim.’
He showed no signs of the night’s drinking.
‘Why did you take your stuff if you knew you were coming back here?’
He grinned. ‘Just wanted to give you a fright.’
‘Were you followed?’
That took the wind out of his sails a bit. ‘What?’
‘I told you Hector wouldn’t just give in.’
‘Yeah, funny thing is, I thought I was being watched the other day. I suppose that was Hector or one of his blokes. No, I kept an eye out this morning and I don’t think I was followed. Tell you what, you can pay for the gas. Ready to go?’
I wasn’t and I said so. He took out a tissue and rubbed at a spot on the gleaming duco. I was annoyed at his game-playing and I don’t like petrol being called gas, but I couldn’t help smiling. One to you, Jack.
We got going with Twizell driving. Like me, he was in country clothes now—jeans, boots, windbreaker—except that his were new. I wondered where the money for the clothes, the squash gear, rent for the serviced apartment and the car had come from. I didn’t ask, I had a feeling he’d lie. But it was something to think about.
The route was north-west and the distance about a hundred kilometres. We rolled through the Newcastle suburbs into the lush Hunter Valley country where they can pursue almost any agricultural and pastoral activity. The web had told me that the area had been hard hit by the floods of the year before and I could see some signs—dead grass woven into wire fences, fresh paint on new fence rails and deep gullies in paddocks where flash floods had run through.
He turned on the radio and we heard the news about the killing of Osama Bin Laden. We listened in silence to the long report.
When it finished Twizell said, ‘Raghead bastard. Good riddance. What do you reckon?’
‘I’m not sorry he’s dead, but I don’t much like the sound of the way they went about it.’
‘Only way, mate.’
‘What would you know?’
He laughed. ‘I’ve done a bit.’
‘Where? When?’
‘Best forgotten.’
That made another thing I didn’t know about him. It was an uncomfortable feeling. He was a volatile type, a mood switcher. I reminded myself not to take him lightly.
Vineyards and a township and then we were in scrubby country and on the upslope. The range ahead was blue in the distance and took on the typical grey-green colour of the bush the closer we got. We left the tarmac for a dirt road that had been reasonably graded and gave the big 4WD a smooth ride. Then it was off on a rougher road and onto what was really just a track through sparsely wooded country cut by a succession of shallow streams, some of them little more than linked puddles. Twizell enjoyed splashing through them and using the squirter to clean the windscreen.
‘Way to go,’ he said. ‘When we came here last it was in an old ute. Jolted us and I got bogged once. What are you doing?’
I’d hit the window button and was staring out. ‘Trying to see if any vehicle has passed by recently. What do you think?’
‘I’m no bushman, mate. The bush is just somewhere for me to have fun in. Get me underground and I can read the signs like an Apache; up here I’m just a tourist.’
I wasn’t a bushman either, but I fancied I could see tyre tracks in spots and there was a sheen of oil in one of the ruts made by a vehicle spinning its wheels after crossing a stream. It looked fresh. The climb got steeper and then levelled out.
Twizell pointed to some rusted machinery on a concrete slab, all overgrown by creeper. ‘Used to be an army training camp of some sort out here. Fair bit of equipment left behind the way they do. Wasteful buggers. The cottage was for the caretaker. All gone now.’
‘How far to go?’
‘About one k.’
‘Stop. We don’t want to advertise ourselves.’
‘Why not? Oh, Kristie’s tough guy. You’re scared of him, aren’t you?’
‘No, Jack, I feel the same way about him as I do about you.’
He stopped the car and worked his shoulders loosely. ‘And how’s that?’