March (3 page)

Scrape you off the track.

His words really hit me. Shock smacked home. My heart thumped against my ribs and my breath came again in big panting sobs. I fell back, slumped now against the wall. I’d had such a narrow escape, but I was alive, thanks to this strange little guy in the suit.

‘How long have I been down here?’ I asked.

‘You’ve been out to it for a while,’ he said. ‘Been asleep all day.’

I felt relieved, knowing that Red Singlet was long gone for the time being, but then I was tormented by thoughts of Winter Frey. She’d set me up, I told myself. She made up something, just to trick me and find out where I was. I wasn’t sure if I’d seen a passenger in the back of the black Subaru—my focus had been on the guy jumping out of the car, coming for me—but
Red Singlet had appeared within seconds of her phone call to me, and he
almost
got me and the contents of my backpack.

My backpack! I suddenly panicked, sitting up, realising I didn’t have it.

‘It’s OK,’ my new friend said. ‘If you’re looking for your bag, it’s there, against the wall.’

My eyes followed the direction of his pointed finger, and I spotted a mound near the opening of one of the shafts. I sank back with relief.

‘What are those drawings all about?’ he asked. ‘Hope you don’t mind me looking at them.’

‘As long as they’re all still there,’ I said. ‘They’re really important drawings my dad did before he died.’

‘And what did you think you were doing,’ he asked, ‘running along the railway line like that? Looking for death, too?’ His possum eyes narrowed. ‘You weren’t looking for lost property, were you?’

‘Lost property? I was running for my life. There are people chasing me.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said nodding. ‘I saw that big guy coming after you. Hardly fair. I know what that’s like.’

My heart rate was returning to something like normal. Winter aside, I started to feel pretty damn good. I’d dealt with Sligo’s thug and the
drawings were still safe in my backpack. I’d escaped again and was free to keep working on the dangerous mystery of the Ormonds. The DMO.

‘I can’t be caught by him, or anyone like him,’ I said. ‘Or by the cops, of any sort. I’ve gotta get away from here—if I’m caught, it’s the end of everything.’

‘That makes two of us,’ said the man, chuckling. ‘
I
can’t afford to be caught, either. That’s why we’re both hidden down here!’

I was a bit unnerved that this guy had only helped me to keep his secret lair safe. Still, I owed him big time. But being saved from the train wasn’t going to be much use to me if the authorities were going to find me.

‘What if they come down the tunnel to where we are now?’ I asked.

‘That’s why we are about to move on,’ he said. ‘They’ve been searching the other drains all day and they mustn’t find us here.’

‘Where can we go?’ I asked.

‘Do you think you can walk?’

‘I’ll give it a go,’ I said, carefully getting to my feet and trying some weight on my injured leg. It felt a little wobbly, but good enough.

‘Good man. Grab your things and we’ll be on our way.’

The man in the suit pushed me aside. ‘Me first. You follow,’ he ordered. ‘There are iron pins wedged into the stonework, all the way up the shaft. Some of them are badly rusted and loose, so pay attention to what I do—I think I remember which ones they are.’

I hoped so too. I watched as he started climbing, testing each iron spike for hold before putting all his weight on it. He was a bit like a spider, slender and slight—a daddy-long-legs scaling a wall.

‘Where exactly are we going?’ I asked again.

‘Back to my place,’ he said. ‘Up this shaft.’ He pointed to the dark opening of the shaft in the roof of the pump station.

It was probably a good idea to lie low with this guy for a while, I thought, even though I didn’t really have a clue where he was leading me. I quickly began following him up into the shaft, watching intently for the safe spikes he’d used to prop himself up, before grabbing them myself. My backpack kept getting in the way, catching on the toeholds higher up, making it just that little bit more difficult. I tried as best I could to ignore the pain in my stitched leg as I battled my way up. Even though I was helped by the light that increased the higher we climbed up
the shaft, I was still falling behind and in danger of losing the mysterious man ahead.

He was almost at the top of the shaft, and I hoped he’d wait for me. I didn’t know where I was going to come out—for all I knew I could have been walking straight out into the steel embrace of the police and railway officials. I kept climbing, bullying the backpack behind me, my feet bruised and painful with every single step.

The light brightened and I realised that it was the pale night sky I could see high above me.

I made it to the top of the shaft and cautiously stuck my head out and looked around. The shaft had opened up into a dusty, weed-filled yard. Another caged light about twenty metres away shone near the opening of another huge tunnel, its mouth covered by iron gates. It reminded me of the opening above the ocean I was nearly washed through in the stormfloods not long ago.

My leg was aching pretty badly but I tried to ignore it and concentrate on my surroundings and getting my bearings. Some distance away was a collection of run-down buildings against a stone cliff face, a couple of old train carriages
and ancient rusting engine parts, train wheels and axles.

The guy in the suit had disappeared.

I couldn’t help a brief moment of
disappointment
rushing through me as I realised I was alone again. He must have had second thoughts and deserted me, before I’d even learned his name.

I couldn’t really blame him. He’d already done so much; it was up to me now. I should have been used to being alone. I’d have to find my way out of the old railway yards and somehow get back to a safe place.

It was the middle of the night and from where I was, the streets around the yards seemed deserted.

Still half out of the shaft, I turned to look around again for a sign of my companion.

Over at the cliff face, not far from the largest building, I was drawn to three old grey filing cabinets, each almost as tall as a man. They stood there like empty, abandoned wardrobes.

Then I heard his voice.

‘Come on my boy! Over here!’

From the filing cabinet in the middle, the man in the suit beckoned to me. He was standing squashed inside it, head bowed a little to fit in,
eyes in his thin face flashing with enthusiasm.

‘Come on!’

This guy was a lunatic!

Now in the cold yard light I could see that his suit was very shabby; his tie looked like something out of Gabbi’s dress-up box, his jacket was worn and slipping, too big, off his shoulders, while the arms crept up, too short at the wrists. If he was as crazy as he looked, he might want to slam me inside a filing cabinet too.

I crawled out of the shaft, my ankle swollen from being jammed in the tracks, the stitches in my leg pulling painfully. Dragging my backpack over my shoulder, I carefully got to my feet.

A wailing siren nearby made me drop to the ground and almost back down the shaft again. I remained crouched until the cop car had passed. Time to go. I couldn’t hang around with a guy in a cabinet. I couldn’t hang around at all! The cops were coming and I had to get away. My legs felt shaky and painful but my system was pumped with nervous excitement, edgy and raring to go.

Somehow, I would have to make it through the yards and onto the road without being seen. I dropped down again as yet another police car whizzed past outside the fence.

‘What are you doing?’ my companion called. ‘Come on! Get over here! You can hide here!’ 

Sure, I thought. Standing in a cupboard in full view—a great way to hide. He was nuts!

‘Thanks again, for everything, but I’ve gotta go,’ I called. I was about to start crawling towards the cover of the old buildings when I saw something that made me doubt my own sanity.

I blinked in disbelief.

The man in the suit disappeared into the filing cabinet! And I mean disappeared into it! Swallowed up! I swear one moment he was standing, squashed in there, next moment—gone!

I stared, trying to work out where he’d suddenly disappeared to when another police car, siren blaring, lights flashing, whizzed by on the road, just beyond the rusty wire fence. It was fast followed by another, and another. They’d sent out the cavalry and I knew who they were hunting.

If ever a guy needed to disappear into a filing cabinet this was the moment.

I ducked down as the wailing sirens tore through the air, and scurried like a crab towards the spot where my companion had vanished.

‘Hey!’ I called. ‘Where are you? Where did you go?’

As I spoke, he suddenly reappeared, once more framed by the cabinet. It was like a magician’s trick! Before I could work it out, a nearby
noise alerted me. About one hundred metres away, a group of railway police were approaching, flashing their torches ahead of them. They were searching the buildings and it was only a matter of minutes before they’d reach us.

‘Look!’ commanded the thin guy. He pressed against the back of the filing cabinet and somehow it opened behind him like a door. He disappeared through the opening, and the cabinet wall snapped back into position.

I stood staring again at an empty filing cabinet!

Astonished, I watched as the back of it opened up again and he reappeared. It was just like a secret door you’d see in movies!

‘Don’t just stand there! Come on through!’

I scrambled to my feet then did exactly as he had, pushing against the back panel. I felt it give behind me. I pushed backwards, squeezing through while the false cabinet wall snapped right back into position.

I was in another world! Behind the filing cabinet was a stone cellar and I looked around in wonder, trying to work out how the guy in the suit had done this. He must have replaced the original back wall of the filing cabinet with a spring-loaded version so that it opened backwards and then snapped shut again. Then he
must have placed the refitted cabinet up against a pre-existing doorway so that it hid the entrance to the cellar in which I now found myself!

Yet, from outside, it just looked like one of three discarded pieces of office furniture quietly rusting away.

He extended a thin arm from his tattered, short jacket sleeve. ‘Welcome,’ he said with a lively handshake, ‘to the world of The Reprobate!’

2 MARCH

305 days to go …

‘The who?’ I asked.

‘A magistrate called me that once. “
Reprobate
.” It means sinner. A bad guy.’ He shrugged as if he didn’t mind. ‘The nickname stuck. You can call me Repro.’

I shook his wiry hand back. ‘Repro,’ I nodded.

We were in a room about twice the size of my bedroom at home, filled with the sort of furnishings I’d become used to back in the squat: thrown-out stuff like a crooked, scratched-up table; multi-coloured pieces of old carpet on the stone floor; and in one corner, there was an old sofa-bed covered with blankets next to a long, sagging bookcase made of water-damaged timber propped up on carriage fittings.

Wherever I looked, small towers of boxes stacked higgledy-piggledy rose from the ground.
In the gloom I could see that every surface was cluttered with strange shadowy objects and boxes overflowing with hand tools and stuffed with documents tied with string.

A continuous, whirring sound drifted out from two old-fashioned electric fans mounted on the far wall.

I watched Repro waft with ease through the narrow spaces left between the piles of books and objects, pausing to fuss about with loose papers, making tiny adjustments to the towers, running his spidery fingers softly over the many shapes as he moved.

The timber shelves that ran along the length of the stone walls were crammed with boxes and books, folders and tins. Three long railway carriage seats ran beneath them and around a corner, providing a right-angled lounge area under a light bulb that hung from some very shady electrical wiring. I traced the wiring with my eyes to see that Repro had patched it into an electricity cable running up a wall.

A string of greyish washing and a sheet stretched across the ceiling, from the top of another filing cabinet to a hook just above the secret entrance. It formed a makeshift screen between a tiny shower recess and toilet and the rest of the cellar area.

Behind me, Repro pushed a huge and heavy chest against the back of the narrow pass through which we’d both just climbed.

‘There,’ he puffed, brushing his hands together in satisfaction. ‘Now we’re nice and cosy, and the filing cabinet’s blocked off. Well, what do you think of it?’ he asked, looking around with pride.

‘It’s cool,’ I said.

As I spoke, I heard a clicking, winding sound, coming from above. I looked up at the wall and watched as the tiny double doors of two cuckoo clocks flew open and two wooden birds on their springs started sounding off. Their wooden wings clacked with every chirp.

… 10, 11, 12, I counted, thinking it must have been midnight. But one of the cuckoos continued, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, until Repro reached up and smacked the small, carved bird. It retreated into its chalet and the tiny doors slammed shut again.

‘That is one crazy cuckoo,’ he said. ‘Must fix him up one day.’

I looked at him in amazement. There was so much I wanted to know about his life here in hiding. Now that I’d had a good chance to study him, it was plain to see that Repro—although
skinny—was tough. His possum eyes were set in a thin, lined face that had seen a lot of life, not much of it easy, I thought.

A box of biscuits on the wonky table caught my attention; even the pain in my leg couldn’t distract me from how hungry I was.

I had to sit down suddenly as strength drained from my body. The after-effects of adrenaline had left me weak and shaky.

‘Help yourself,’ offered Repro.

I grabbed the box and pulled out a couple of biscuits, shoving them into my dry mouth. They were stale. I suddenly felt like throwing up.

Repro pulled a chair up to the table and sat opposite me. ‘That gash in your leg sure was ugly,’ he said. ‘Just as well I have a good dispensary.’

‘I already had an injury there,’ I said, not wanting to have to explain my little run-in at the zoo. ‘That business down on the tracks opened it up again.’

Repro threw back his head and laughed.

What was funny about that? This guy was truly bizarre. Stunned, I watched while Repro made two claws out of his sinewy hands, held them high in the air, then frightened the life out
of me by roaring and pouncing at me. I jumped sideways, falling off the chair, while he
continued
to laugh wildly.

‘I guess that means you know who I am,’ I said from the ground, after realising what he was up to with his lion act.

‘I wouldn’t have shown you the entrance unless you were like me—on the run. How else could I trust that you wouldn’t blow
my
cover? Anyway,’ he said, standing up again and straightening his jacket. ‘Let’s see what we have in the way of footwear in … the collection.’

The way he said the last two words was as if he was describing a sacred monument or a secret treasure.

‘The collection?’ I repeated, as I scrambled back to my feet.

‘On the shelves, in the cupboards, on the floor, on the tables, on the walls, under the bed … that’s my collection. You wouldn’t believe the things I find on the trains. Somewhere in the corner there’s even a skeleton, left behind by a medical student I suppose … fancy leaving a skeleton on the train!’ He threw back his head and laughed again. ‘Or maybe it was a railway commuter who left it too long to get off at the right station! I have loads of excellent and valuable things over there. Including shoes—you
can’t go through life with one boot.’

I looked down at my feet. One in an oversized gumboot, one bare, swollen and filthy.

Repro started digging through a plastic garbage bag, throwing random shoes and sneakers out behind him. ‘Have a look through those,’ he suggested. ‘Lost property. Left on the trains. New clothes, old clothes. New shoes, old shoes. Umbrellas, pens, pencils, art, glasses, folders, documents, phones, cards … you name it, it’s been left on a train. And if it’s been left on a train, or on a platform, I have it here in the collection.’

‘And that painting?’ I asked, pointing to a beautiful landscape of the harbour in much earlier times. Little cottages with smoking chimneys were nestled in the thick forests around the foreshore, while fluffy white clouds glowed, reflected in the peaceful blue water, rippled only by the passing of a small steamer.

‘Left on the train,’ he said, ‘wrapped up in brown paper. I liked it so much I hung it on my wall. It reminds me of the world outside. Well,’ he added, ‘the good parts of the world outside.’

‘It’s awesome,’ I said, understanding what he meant about ‘the good parts’. Until my dad died, and this life on the run began for me, I never realised just how good the ‘good parts’ were.

‘Sometimes they leave the Lost Property depot unattended,’ said Repro. ‘Duck out for a smoko—filthy habit, if you ask me. That’s when I pop in to see what’s in there. See if I can add anything to the collection.’

He and Boges would have got along well, I thought, collecting all sorts of lost or abandoned bits and pieces, then giving them a new life.

From a box that had landed beside me, I found a pair of near-new runners that fitted almost perfectly.

‘They’re yours,’ he said. ‘I’ll never wear them.’

‘Thanks,’ I said excitedly. ‘What about these?’ I picked up several wallets and lost school bus passes and waved them at him.

‘Help yourself. I can’t really pass as a school kid!’ He giggled, flashing his big eyes. ‘Take whatever you like. You should take some of these, too. They make a lovely bang. You like fireworks?’

He’d passed me some metal objects that were shaped like screws, except ten times larger than the biggest screw you’ve ever seen, and with much bigger heads.

‘Fireworks?’ I asked. ‘Weren’t they banned because they’re so dangerous? Kids were blowing their hands off and stuff?’

‘These are
track detonators.
Explosive caps. When the fettlers are working on the train lines, they place these along the tracks about a kilometre back from where they’re working. When a train runs over them, they explode with a loud crack and the driver knows to slow the train right down. You’ve heard about land mines? These are like tiny land mines. Give them a bang with a hammer and they make a great old noise!’

Repro danced around waving the detonators.

‘Hey, careful,’ I said. ‘You might drop one and bring the bluecoats back here.’

I took them and stashed them safely at the bottom of my backpack.

‘Now don’t throw that around too roughly,’ warned Repro, ‘or your backpack might go off!’ He found that idea pretty hilarious, and fell forward laughing.

A sudden noise outside made him stop,
mid-giggle
.

From outside came the sounds of searchers approaching—people yelling out to each other just beyond the thin steel of the filing cabinet. I gripped the table. I didn’t think they could hear us, but I held my breath until, slowly, the sounds faded away.

We were safe … for now.