‘All right.’ Dr Plackett turned to the priest, who nodded. ‘We’ll do the bank vault first. Not you, though, Bridget. Those stairs would be too much for your hips.’
‘I’ll go and set the table,’ Bridget volunteered. ‘Do you have any paper doilies, Sanford?’
‘Of course not. Why on earth would I have paper doilies?’
‘Never mind.’ Bridget began to stump away. ‘Napkins are just as good . . .’
It was interesting to see how everyone reacted to this exchange. Reuben heaved an impatient sigh. Estelle snorted. Amin screwed up his face in sheer bewilderment; I don’t think he even knew what doilies were.
Nina caught my eye and smiled without showing her teeth.
‘Are you really thirteen?’ she asked.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Are you?’
She shook her head. ‘You’re tall for your age,’ she observed, ‘but you are a lot like Reuben.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are,’ she insisted. ‘You’re all fizzy and glowing.’
Fizzy and glowing? Fergus gave a honk of laughter. Reuben said sourly, ‘Come on. Shake a leg. We haven’t got all night.’
Various people began to move, heading for a door behind the old teller’s counter. Watching them, I wondered if I was making a big mistake. Should I really be going into an underground vault with a crowd of total strangers?
Amin must have been thinking the same thing. ‘Maybe I should stay up here,’ he squeaked. I saw that his forehead was damp.
Reuben spun around to glare at him.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Reuben. ‘I thought you wanted to see the vault?’
‘He’s scared,’ said Estelle. She removed the cigarette from her mouth before addressing Amin. ‘Isn’t that right, love? You don’t feel safe.’
‘Oh, for—’ Reuben stopped himself just in time. He took a deep, steadying breath as Father Ramon protested, ‘We’re not going to hurt you, boys. We’re trying to help.’
Amin didn’t seem convinced. But then Fergus spoke up.
‘Amin, that cab driver saw us, remember? And Toby’s girlfriend used the same cab before we got into it. So if something happens, the coppers will know where to look. Okay?’
Man, I hate it when Fergus does that. ‘She’s not my girlfriend, Fergus! I don’t even know her!’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Fergus waved me aside as he made for the next room. ‘Anyway, my brother’s a drug dealer. He chops off people’s feet. He’ll go mental if anything happens to us.’ Upon reaching the exit, he stopped to gaze back at a ring of astonished, deeply disturbed expressions. He seemed surprised that no one was coming after him. ‘So is it down these stairs through here, or what?’
‘Er . . . yes,’ Dr Plackett agreed. He was the first to set off in pursuit of Fergus. Reuben was next in line. Then Amin darted forward.
I finally found myself clattering down the stairs at the rear of the group, beside Nina Harrison. She was very small; the top of her head barely reached my shoulder.
She smelled vaguely of dust, like old potpourri.
‘So where do you go to school?’ was the only question I could think of to ask her. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
‘I don’t go to school.’ After a moment’s pause, she explained, ‘I get taught at home.’
‘Oh.’
‘Mum does it.’ She cocked her thumb at Estelle, who was shuffling along behind us in a pair of rundown moccasins.
I blinked. Estelle was her mum?
‘She calls me Mum because I raised her,’ Estelle interjected, then broke into a fit of coughing. Nina added quickly, ‘She’s my grandmother, really. Mum’s dead. So’s my dad.’
‘Oh yeah?’ That was a coincidence. ‘My dad’s dead too.’ I might have said more if we hadn’t reached the bottom of the stairs just then. All at once I realised that I was standing in front of an honest-to-goodness bank vault, like the ones you see in the movies. Behind a big, iron-barred gate lay a grey steel door that had to be at least half a metre thick; although it was very old-fashioned, with no digital locks or fancy laser alarms attached to it, this door was still impressive. I especially liked the giant bolts and tumblers.
‘Oh, man,’ Fergus exclaimed. ‘That is so cool.’
Even Amin had perked up. Reuben, however, wasn’t interested in him – or in Fergus. Reuben was watching my face.
‘Now, this is where Reuben comes every full moon,’ Dr Plackett remarked. He pulled the vault door open until its inner surface was revealed. ‘See that? And that?’ he continued, indicating damage on the painted metal. ‘They’re marks left by Reuben. You can see where he’s been scratching at it, trying to get out. And this is where he chipped a tooth on the hinge. And if you come and look at this little patch, there’s a smear of blood here with some hairs embedded in it. We didn’t clean those off because we wanted you to examine them, Toby.’ To my amazement, the doctor suddenly produced a heavy, silver-rimmed magnifying glass from somewhere beneath his jacket, like a magician pulling a scarf out of someone’s ear. ‘You can even take those hairs with you, if you want,’ he said, thrusting the glass into my hand. ‘Give them to any laboratory and you’ll find that no one can identify the species. It’s a unique dna signature. I can provide you with a sterile specimen bag, of course . . .’
Every eye was fixed on me. Everyone was waiting to see what I would do. Father Ramon smiled his encouragement.
Fergus said, ‘It’s okay, Toby.’ And he crooked his trigger finger, his gaze flicking towards Amin’s back. If anything goes wrong, he was trying to say (without actually speaking), I’ll whip out the nail gun.
‘For God’s sake . . .’ I muttered, wishing that I was a million miles away. But I couldn’t leave. I had to step forward and inspect the smear of blood. I had to appear cooperative if I wanted to be invited into the living room afterwards.
Besides, Nina was watching. And I didn’t want to look like a snivelling kid in front of her.
‘It’s just here by the door,’ Dr Plackett instructed. As I drew near him, I caught a whiff of his cologne, which was very strong. When I stuck my head into the bank vault, however, his piney scent was blasted away by a stench like a tidal wave. That stench – I kid you not – hit me with the force of a ten-tonne truck. I reeled back. I couldn’t breathe. It did something weird to my muscles, which all contracted at once. It made my head spin, and my heart race, and the blood burn red-hot under my skin. It gripped my stomach like a fist.
‘Toby?’ said Father Ramon. ‘Are you all right?’
I had to get out. I was frantic. Something was after me – I had to get out before it tore me to pieces!
Choking and gasping, I hurtled back upstairs.
Next thing I knew, I was surrounded by sticky paintings of flowers and apples and teapots. They were crowding in on me. But I couldn’t escape because someone was holding me back.
‘Let go!’ I cried, struggling and kicking.
‘Calm down,’ said Reuben. ‘It’s all right.’ His arms were clamped firmly across my chest like steel bars. And when I tried to buck him off, he drove the front of his knee into the back of mine.
‘Ow!’ My left leg crumpled.
‘Toby, listen. No one’s going to hurt you.’ This was probably Father Ramon’s voice, though I couldn’t be sure. I wasn’t really paying attention. As I threw myself backwards, Reuben staggered a little. For a moment I thought he was going to collapse under my weight.
‘Jesus!’ He managed to brace himself against the impact. ‘Calm down, or I will bloody hurt you!’
‘No, you won’t.’ Dr Plackett was talking from somewhere in my immediate vicinity. He lowered his voice to add, ‘This is a post-traumatic response. Something to do with those specialised olfactory organs—’
‘For God’s sake,’ Estelle interrupted. I recognised her smoker’s rasp. ‘Shut up and give the kid a valium or something, can’t you?’
‘Toby? Toby!’ All at once I felt a col
d little hand on my cheek. It was Nina’s hand. The shock of that icy touch snapped me out of my panic; I stopped fighting to stare at her.
‘Relax,’ she said. ‘You’re okay. What’s wrong?’
‘It was the smell,’ Reuben growled into my ear. ‘It was the smell, wasn’t it? Eh?’ He shifted his grip. ‘There’s nothing in that vault, mate. Just the smell.’
‘Why is your hand so cold?’ I mumbled. I was addressing Nina, who shrugged as she retreated a step.
‘I don’t know. I’m just a cold person,’ she replied.
‘But it’s the middle of summer . . .’ I was dazed and confused. My legs were shaking. I’d dropped the magnifying glass. When I looked around, I saw that I was in the big front room, near the tellers’ counter. ‘How did I get up here?’ I demanded, with mounting alarm. ‘Who brought me?’
‘You need something hot. With sugar in it,’ Dr Plackett decreed. ‘Come and sit down in the living room.’
‘Did I have another blackout?’ Suddenly I spotted Fergus and Amin. They were standing together some distance away, looking utterly clueless. ‘Hey! You guys! Was I drugged?’
They shook their heads slowly. Even Fergus seemed to be at a loss. For once he didn’t crack any smart-arse jokes or make any hair-raising suggestions. He just stood there like a little kid.
‘Come on, mate.’ Having released me (at long last), Reuben put his arm around my shoulders. ‘You’ll be fine. I know it’s tough at first, but you’ll get over it.’
‘What happened?’ I still couldn’t work it out. Then I saw that we were retracing our steps. ‘Oh, no,’ I squawked, digging my heels in. ‘No way. I’m not going back down there.’
‘You won’t have to,’ Father Ramon assured me. ‘We’re not going downstairs. Sanford’s living room is on the other side of the stairwell.’
‘But that thing . . .’ I couldn’t finish. When I shuddered, Reuben frowned.
‘What thing?’ he asked.
‘In the – in the vault . . .’
‘There’s nothing in the vault,’ said Dr Plackett. He turned to my friends. ‘Tell him. Did you see anything?’
Once more, Amin and Fergus shook their heads.
‘You’re just scared of yourself, Toby. That’s all,’ Reuben theorised. ‘Come and sit down and we’ll talk about it.’ As he nudged me back into the stairwell, he and Dr Plackett began to argue about whose job it had been to buy lemonade. Nina kept patting my arm while Father Ramon hurried ahead into the living room. Nina’s grandmother was bringing up the rear; she had rescued my backpack, which Fergus and Amin had forgotten to pick up.
‘Here,’ she said, shoving it at Fergus. ‘You take this. I’ve got arthritis.’
The living-room walls were covered in paintings. That was the first thing I noticed when I crossed the threshold: all those splodgy flowers hanging from the picture rails. Then I saw that the paintings matched the carpet, which was printed with an old-fashioned floral pattern. Even the cushions had flowers on them. Everywhere you looked there were flowers.
‘Is this really where you live?’ I asked Dr Plackett, who didn’t seem like a flowery kind of guy. I would have expected to see nautical maps and tartan rugs in his house. Then I spotted a sepia photograph of a puffy-haired woman wearing a huge hat covered in flowers, and suddenly it all made sense. Of course. This wasn’t his taste; it was hers. ‘I guess that’s your mother, hey?’
‘Uh . . . y-e-e-es.’ For some reason, the doctor didn’t seem one-hundred-per-cent sure. He waved at an antique sofa with a dip in its back and a curled animal claw at the end of each leg. ‘Sit down,’ he ordered. ‘Have a scone.’
So I sat down. To be honest, I was glad to; my knees were still trembling, and I wanted to get away from Reuben. I didn’t realise that he was going to sit down right next to me.
Then Bridget suddenly spoke, making me jump. I hadn’t seen her because she was practically engulfed by the flowery, overstuffed wingback chair in which she was huddled.
‘What would you like on your scone, dear?’ she queried, in her cracked little voice. ‘Jam and cream, or just butter?’
‘Um . . .’ I had to clear my throat. ‘Actually I’m – uh – not very hungry.’
‘Tea?’
‘No, thanks.’
Around me the room was filling up. Nina had found an ottoman. Dr Plackett was perched on a piano stool. Fergus and Amin were both wedged into a kind of miniature pew with a carved back and a padded seat. Only the priest remained standing.
‘When does your mother expect you back?’ he asked. When I told him 11:30 pm, he checked his watch. ‘Not much time,’ he observed. ‘We’d better get a move on.’
But no one seemed to know how. We exchanged uncertain looks until finally Nina said, ‘Maybe Toby has some questions he’d like answered.’
Yet again, all eyes swivelled towards me. The attention left me tongue-tied; I had so many questions that I couldn’t decide where to begin. I wanted to say, ‘How do you know each other? Why are you doing this? Where do you live? What are you really here for?’ The trouble was, all these words became tangled up on their way out. They stuck in my larynx.
After a long pause, Dr Plackett finally declared, ‘I think we should treat this like an ordinary meeting. Reuben, why don’t you tell us your life story?’
Reuben scowled. ‘You already know my life story,’ he replied.
‘Toby doesn’t.’
‘Yes, he does. I told him about being locked up. I told him why it’s important that he doesn’t shoot his mouth off.’ Reuben glared at Fergus. ‘I told him we need to keep a low profile, if we don’t want to cop a lot of abuse.’
‘That’s right,’ said Father Ramon. Then he turned to me. ‘“Werewolf” is a very emotive word. It has bad connotations. But it’s a word that’s bound to be used if the general public finds out about your condition, Toby. At which point you’ll become a target for hatred and prejudice and violence.’
‘Like I did,’ Reuben broke in. ‘And poor old Danny Ruiz. Remember I told you about Danny? He’s the one who lives in the desert.’
There was a muted murmur; clearly, I wasn’t the only one who had been told about Danny Ruiz. Nina shook her head sadly. Father Ramon sighed.
‘Danny’s really messed up,’ Reuben continued. ‘He can’t cope with other people. He’s not a big threat now, but if anyone ever came after him with a camera . . .’
He trailed off. There was more solemn head-shaking. At last Dr Plackett said, ‘That unfortunate man is damaged. He needs help. If only he’d get some therapy, he’d be a lot better off.’
‘Sanford, he’d eat you for breakfast,’ Reuben rejoined. Then he flushed as Estelle chuckled. ‘I mean – not literally, but . . . you know.’
‘Metaphorically speaking,’ said the priest.
‘Yeah.’
‘I do think we should keep trying, though,’ Bridget quavered. ‘We can’t just abandon him because he’s so hard to help, poor thing.’
Reuben shifted impatiently. ‘Yeah, but you haven’t met him, Bridge. None of you have. You dunno what he’s like – the guy’s a full-on menace. He totally freaked me out.’ Catching my eye, Reuben was quick to offer reassurance. ‘I’m not saying he’s crazy because of his condition. It’s the way he was treated. Anyone would start to lose it after being treated like an animal for twenty-odd years.’
‘It’s post-traumatic,’ was Dr Plackett’s diagnosis.
‘Yeah. I guess,’ Reuben agreed, his gaze still boring into me. ‘See, Danny never learned how to trust people. No one ever helped him. I was rescued, but Danny wasn’t. He escaped from that underground tank all by himself, and then he went bush. I only found him because . . . well . . .’
He hesitated, furiously rubbing his jaw. It was the priest who finished his sentence for him.
‘Because Danny’s kidnappers had a change of heart,’ said Father Ramon. When Nina raised her eyebrows, he added, ‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘A change of h
eart. Yeah, right,’ Reuben said drily. ‘I guess you could call it that.’
‘I think we should call it that,’ said Dr Plackett. ‘Since we’re all friends now.’
Only Bridget, however, backed him up. Though she began to nod and smile in an encouraging way, no one else seemed very enthusiastic. Estelle sniffed. Reuben glowered. Even the priest looked doubtful.
‘Speak for yourself!’ Nina snapped. ‘Personally, I don’t care if I never see the McKinnons ever again!’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Reuben – much to Bridget’s distress. Her forehead puckered and her smile began to fade.
Father Ramon eyed Reuben reproachfully. ‘The McKinnons are doing their best, Reuben, and they’ve been very helpful.’
‘Hah!’
‘If it weren’t for the McKinnons, we wouldn’t have found Danny,’ the priest insisted. He flicked me an inquiring glance. ‘Has Toby heard about the McKinnons?’
‘Oh, yeah. He’s heard about the McKinnons, all right.’ Reuben answered before I could. ‘I told him how they locked me in an underground tank and made me fight in a pit—’
‘Not anymore, though,’ Dr Plackett said firmly. ‘Credit where credit’s due.’
‘That’s right,’ Father Ramon concurred. ‘They want to repair the damage they’ve done.’ Ignoring Reuben’s sneer, he began to elaborate, still watching me closely. ‘When the McKinnons were making their money off blood sports, they had a friend who used to alert them to various dog attacks around the state. This friend was a dogger, so he was always the first to hear about wild dog activity.’ My blank expression made him falter for an instant. ‘Do you know what a dogger is?’ he asked.
I shook my head.
‘Doggers hunt wild dogs,’ Reuben volunteered. ‘They trap ’em and shoot ’em.’
‘And this particular dogger used to collect a small fee every time he gave the McKinnons a good tip.’ Father Ramon went on to recount how the McKinnons had never informed their dogger friend that they were no longer in the business of kidnapping people. So the dogger was still conveying news of the latest sheep losses, which the McKinnons, in turn, were relaying to Reuben. ‘They told us about some attacks near Dubbo last year, and Reuben went out there to investigate,’ the priest finished. ‘Which is how he located poor Danny.’