Only Killers and Thieves(40)

“My pleasure. Help yourself. Anytime.”

“We should save some for Mary. For when she wakes up.”

“We’ve a jar in the pantry big enough she could sleep a whole year.”

“A year?”

“I didn’t mean—” Again she smiled at him. “Good night, Tommy.”

“Good night.”

He was asleep when Billy came into their bedroom, but was woken by the door latch and the noise of his brother stumbling about, trying to get himself undressed. Tommy lay still, facing the wall, blinking into the darkness, then closing his eyes when he felt Billy at the bedside, standing over him, a smell of smoke and grog.

“Tommy? You awake?”

He didn’t answer. Billy nudged his shoulder, Tommy let himself be nudged. Billy grumbled something, then went to his own bed; Tommy listened to him thrashing before he fell still and his breathing slowed and began its familiar ticking sound. Both stayed in their own beds that night, the first time they’d slept apart in their lives.





14



He rode up the track in a fury of hooves and dust, longcoat flaring, a winged and dark silhouette against the sun-bleached soil.

Noone.

Tommy watched from Mary’s bedroom, cowering beneath the sill, wide eyes peering through the bottom windowpane. He watched him ride full gallop almost to the steps, bringing the horse up so hard it reared its head and bared its teeth; he watched him dismount and hand off the reins to the waiting stableboy, then climb emu-like up the stairs, long legs reaching out before him, two or three steps at a time, the body upright and static, a long body, the proportions all wrong, nothing on the bones. Fluid and agile, no stiffness in him, not a stockman’s gait. As he reached the top of the stairs Tommy rose with the angle, but soon lost him beneath the verandah roof, the tread of his boots sounding on the boards, then voices, Sullivan greeting him at the door.

Tommy hurried around the bed, Mary lying there just the same as yesterday, and the day before that. Out into the hall and along to the balcony landing, where he crouched behind the balustrades and saw Billy standing stiffly in the atrium below, his hands crossed behind his back and his eyes fixed on the front door.

Tommy whistled to him. Billy found him among the rails.

“What you doing?” Tommy whispered.

“Meeting him. Noone. John said to wait here.”

“What for?”

“Give our account of what happened.”

Tommy stood, leaned on the railing, lost the whisper from his voice.

“What about me, then?”

“What about you?”

“I should give mine too.”

Billy glanced anxiously between Tommy and the approaching voices. “Just . . . wait in the room. I’ll come up when we’re done.”

“Like hell you will,” Tommy muttered, rounding the balcony. Billy glared up at him, then dropped his gaze again, as Noone and Sullivan emerged directly beneath where Tommy now stood: the blade-thin parting in Noone’s black hair; Sullivan’s threadbare scalp. The tail of Noone’s longcoat floated around him as he moved. His boots echoed heavily from the walls. He walked directly to Billy, Sullivan introduced them, Noone didn’t take Billy’s hand. He stood appraising him and, as Tommy continued around the balcony, the inspector’s face peeled into view. His thick mustache, the cheeks sunken to the bone, those pale and glaucous eyes. Noone looked up and Tommy stalled at the top of the stairs. His hand gripped tight on the rail. It was the same sensation as when they’d first met: the feel of him tiptoeing down Tommy’s spine.

“You won’t be needed, Tommy,” Sullivan called. “Go on back to your room.”

“Ah, the little brother,” Noone said. “I suppose you saw all this too?”

Tommy nodded uncertainly. The accent was strange, inflected, from elsewhere. Noone motioned grandly down the stairs. “Well, then, down you come.”

“He’s only a child,” Sullivan protested. “It was Billy that found them first.”

Noone ignored him. All watched Tommy descend, slowly, like a lag to gallows, it felt. He stood beside his brother and Noone weighed the two of them, expressionless, nothing whatsoever in his face, until Sullivan led him beneath the stairs to a door in the corner of the wall, and as they followed the two men Billy leaned close to Tommy and whispered, “Agree with what I tell him.”

“About what?”

“Just do it, alright?”

The room was a cramped wood-paneled parlor with a broad writing desk, orderly bookcase, and various weaponry displayed on the walls. Two stud-leather wingback chairs were angled in front of the desk. The sun streamed through the window and fell directly between them, an imprint of the cross frame shadowed on the rug. Sullivan poured two drinks and handed one to Noone, then inched around the desk and sat down in his chair. Noone eased himself into one of the wingbacks; Billy took the other, leaving Tommy to stand in the shadow on the rug. Noone crossed his legs and sipped his drink.

“Right then,” Sullivan began, “Billy, d’you want to—”

Noone raised a hand for silence. They waited while he swallowed and positioned his glass on the corner of the desk. “Let’s begin with the wife—she was in the bedroom, I assume?”

All three frowned at him. Hesitantly Billy said, “Yessir.”