Garry Disher - The Fallout: A Wyatt Novel

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The Fallout

[Wyatt 06]

By Garry Disher

Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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Prologue

Bythe fifth hold-up the papers are calling him the bush bandit. An inspector ofpolice, flat, inexpressive, resistant to the pull of the cameras, is lesscolourful: We are looking for a male person who is armed and should beconsidered dangerous. His method of operation is essentially the same in everycase. He targets a bank in a country town within an area covering west andsouth-western Victoria and east and south-eastern South Australia. He selects aquiet period when there are few if any customers, then menaces bank staff witha sawn-off shotgun, demanding cash from the tills. To date, we have no reportsof an accomplice. I repeat, this person is armed. On no account should he beapproached.

There are things that the inspectordoesnt say. He doesnt say that the police are at a loss to pinpoint anoperating base for the man. Given the area he moves in, the bush bandit mightbe holed up in Mount Gambier, Bordertown, Horsham, even somewhere up on theRiver Murray. Or he might be operating from Adelaide, even Melbourne.

The inspector doesnt say howeffective the bandit is. First, the shotgun, its blunt snout, those twin blackstaring mouths. Everyone knows about shotguns, knows the massive damage theyinflict at close range, the spread of the pellets, scattering and cutting likehornets. The dull gleam of the metal, the worn stock, the smell of gun oil. Ashotgun spells gaping death, and so you are quiescent before it. You spreadyourself out on the floor, you empty the till, you forget about being a hero.

Then there is the bandit himself.Witness descriptions tally for each of the five hold-ups. The man is tall andslender and he moves well. Athletic, one bank teller said. No wastedmotions, said another. Other than that there is no clear description of thebush bandit. He varies his dress from job to joba suit, jeans and a checkshirt, zip-up windproof jacket and trousers, overalls, tracksuit. And somethingalways to divert attention away from his face glasses, sunglasses, cap,wide-brimmed Akubra, a bandaid strip.

He also speaks in fragments, so thatbank staff are never able to get a clear fix on his voice: Face down...fill the bag, please, no coins... foot off the alarm... dont move...dont follow. Its a quiet voice, thats all they can say. Calm, patient,understandingthese are some of the words the witnesses use. And young. Theyagree that he cant be more than about twenty-five.

Although they dont say it, thepolice believe that hes probably not a junkie. First-timers and junkies, theybarge in screaming, pistol-whipping staff and customers, generally encouraginga condition of panic and instability that can tip over into hostages and spiltblood.

Its agreed that the man rides a bigDucati. No, a Kawasaki. Maybe a Honda. Big, anyway. Plenty of guts and veryfast. Hard to track. On a bike like that he can be miles away before the alarmis raised. You can put up a chopper, send out a pursuit car, but all the bushbandit has to do is simply wheel off the road and under a gum tree or behind awindmill until the danger blows over.

Where does he store the bike? Thepolice have no answer. Could be anywhere. Maybe their man has a dozen bikesstashed away, all around the country.

One thing we do know, theinspector says, one day hell slip up. And well be there when it happens.

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Itwas a wheat and wool town on a dusty plain. According to the local paper, theparade would pass down the main street between midday and half past twelve,turn left at the tractor dealership and wind its way on to the showgrounds nextto the Elders-GM stockyards. This was the first anniversary of the AustraliaDay fire that had burnt out an area the size of Luxemburg and almost destroyedthe town. In fact, the front actually licked at the edges of the high school,destroying a portable classsroom. Later the wind had changed, sweepingunseasonal rains in from the west, but not before Emergency Services personnelhad lost one unit and two volunteer firemen. The shire president had wanted torun the parade on a Saturday, but feelings were still raw in the town andcouncillors voted for Australia Day itself, which this year fell on a Friday.

The man known as the bush bandit hadnever felt welling pride or sentiment for anything, but he knew how to reademotions. He walked down the main street, stopping to buy a newspaper, a halflitre of milk, a packet of cigarettes that he would never smoke. A bannerswayed in the wind, thanking the volunteer firemen. People were lining thefootpaths, yarning and joking, cameras ready. Half of them were farmers andtheir families, and thats who the bush bandit was today, a pleasantly smilingfarmer dressed in elastic-sided boots and clean pressed work shirt andtrousers. He wore a stained felt hat pushed back on his head. He lookedwork-worn and weary. He wasnt alone in wearing sunglasses. Its just that hiswere anachronistic, a flash narrow strip of mirrored glass across his eyes.They belonged on a roller-blading kid at St Kilda or Bondi or Glenelg. Ifanyone thought about it, they thought the man had eccentric taste. Certainly itwas the only thing memorable about his face.

He watched the parade trumpet past:police, firemen, ambulance crews, the two widows in the back seat of a squattersblack Mercedes. It was over in ten minutes. In ten minutes the main street wasdeserted, the tail end of the spectators disappearing around the corner andaway from the centre of the town. There was only one bank, and the banditwalked into it at 12.25, removed his sawn-off shotgun from his bag of shopping,and announced that he was robbing the place.

There were no customers, only twotellers. One said, Oh, no. The other froze. The bush bandit trained the twinbores of the shotgun on the one whod spoken. Hed picked her as the likelysource of trouble, so he said, Face down. Not a sound.

He watched her sink to the floor.She stretched out awkwardly, one hand holding her skirt from riding up.

The other teller watched the gunswing around until it was fixed on her stomach. The bandit placed a chaff bagon the counter. Fill it.

Friday. There would be more cashthan usual, though not enough to make him rich. But that was a thought for theedge of his mind, a why-am-I-doing-these-pissy-jobs? thought for the darkhours.

He watched the teller, the shotgunnow back on the woman on the floor. The meaning was clear: She gets it if youstuff me around.

At one point, the teller hesitated.

Move it, the bandit said.

Travellers cheques, she burstout. You want them?

Hundreds of cheques, crisp,unsigned. The bush bandit could almost conjure up their new-paper-and-inksmell. Hed take them to Chaffey. Chaffey handled wills, property conveyancingand sentence appeals in his front office; in his rear office hed pay twentycents in the dollar for anything the bush bandit turned up that wasnt cash oreasily negotiable.

Yes, the bush bandit told theteller.

When it was done, and both womenwere on the floor, he said, Remain there, please. Five minutes.

One woman nodded. The talkative onesaid Yes, but the man was already gone.

The motorbike was on the tray of afarm ute. Hed turned it into a farm bike with mud, dust, dents, a crackedheadlamp. He drove the ute slowly away from the town, his elbow out the window,an irritating figure familiar to interstate coach drivers, truckies andtravelling salesmen, and soon had faded into the landscape, faded from memory.

He ditched the ute on a dirt trackand switched to the bike. This time it was a Honda and hed stolen it inPreston. He ran into a storm, strong winds and driving rain, on the way back tothe city, but by evening was in his balcony apartment, looking out overSouthgate and the stretch of the Yarra River between the casino and PrincesBridge.