Honeysuckle Heat

Honeysuckle Heat

The wind off the harbour bit into Claire’s face. Sharp and salty. The tang of rust and diesel from the tugboats hauling yet another coal ship into the port. The stacks of the steelworks pouring fallout into the air. A bitterly cold night, the dead of winter. Those icy fingers made it perfect for tonight’s work. Anyone who didn’t absolutely have to be out was tucked up in bed. And those that had to be avoided the harbour. It funnelled the ocean’s Antarctic breeze deep into Newcastle. Honeysuckle, the future playground vision. She’d seen the models, the newspaper articles. Everyone had. Developers holding press conferences every second week like clockwork. Describing modern high rises and trendy bars. Filing cabinets reaching into the sky for the wealthy to look down on the world. A renovation of a fishing hut of historical importance, to reflect history. But right now it was little more than overgrown, disused fields bordered by a heavy rail line. And rotting woolsheds. Great long wooden sheds, a throwback to the days when Newcastle shipped more than just coal to the world. Just another piece of Novocastrian history that needed to be developed away.

Despite its outward appearance, this particular woolshed was definitely not abandoned. Actually, very few of them were. Clandestine operations for the underbelly of Newcastle. This one belonged to her boss, her captor. It blended in with the others, all rotting timbers and rusted frames. It had served their purposes well, a secret storage place tucked out of the way, still central to everything that went on in Newcastle. But times had changed. Word on the street said the new upwardly mobile Local Area Commander for the Newcastle cops, fresh up from Sydney, wanted to make a name for herself. And her grand scheme was about to launch a mass raid on any known operation. Except Newcastle was a sieve and the details had been leaked. In time the shiny new LAC would disappear back to Sydney, claiming to be the broom that swept everything under the rug. Probably with a raise and a promotion. But right now she was a problem that couldn’t be solved with a fist or a gun.

Claire’s boss decided that this woolshed was more valuable and less of a liability if it were to go out in a blaze of glory. Best way to be sure there was nothing to find. And easier to redevelop if there was nothing there. Claire had been sent to ensure things went down according to plan. Always her for this sort of thing. She owed and she was thorough. Things never went astray when she ran things. She sat in her car, a little way from the woolsheds. Watching for any unwanted visitors. Watching her team hard at work. She lit a cigarette, hands shaking like they always did before these sorts of jobs. It’s just a fire. Clean. Simple. She hated fires. Much preferred a good battle, sending in troops to wage war. But not tonight. Walter, her soldier with a taste for arson, crouched beside her car door, his hair plastered to his forehead, despite the cold night. Sweat beading.

“You sure everything’s been taken?” she asked.

“Everything worth taking. Cash, papers, nothing left to worry about”.

She watched as the building started to smoulder. Burning. Tongues of flames passing through the broken glass, pouring out from gaps under the eaves. Flames licking timber and old wool presses, a century of lanolin soaking into the floorboards. Woolsheds were easy to burn. Even without the diesel. But her sense of unease was growing as the smoke and fire grew. Like this wasn’t just cash and ledgers. Something about the shadows in the building was disturbing. Like they were moving. Deliberate. Coordinated. Not like thieves, not like cops.

“Did anyone else see that?” Claire whispered.

Walter flicked at the ash on his fingers “See what?”

“Inside … figures. Moving”

“Reflections. Or smoke,” he said. “Nobody’s watching. Fire brigade, the cops, they’re paid off for tonight. Relax. We got time”

She wanted to believe him. Claire wanted nothing more than to see the smoke, the firelight, just watch an old building burn away any evidence. But her instincts screamed otherwise. She got out of the car, taking a few steps toward the woolshed. Peering through the smoke as it poured out of every rotten crevice. Shadows were shifting inside that building, around the crates. People. They were moving with a purpose. This was not just a fire to erase evidence. Claire looked back at Walter.

“This isn’t what we were told. There’s more going on here. Who are those people in there?”

“Get back in the car,” he said. “You poke around, you’ll wish you hadn’t”.

The flames danced and hissed, the timber groaning under the heat, slowly consumed by the fire. Claire ignored Walter’s urgent warning, taking another step towards the woolshed. To do what, she had no idea. But she had a need to get closer, a need to see what was going on. She looked back, over her should, seeing the rest of her team driving off in the second car. Then Walter tugging at her arm, pulling her away from the flames. She paused. And took one last look at the woolshed.

A figure passed by a window. Fast, smooth motions. Tall. Deliberate. She recognized his face, a soldier in a rival organisation. For a moment their eyes locked. She froze in her tracks. I’m burning their operation. They were inside, saving something. Something important enough to risk being caught in a rotten, burning woolshed. But Walter had assured her everything of importance was already gone. She watched, mesmerised. The flames roared and the smoke thickened. The figures in the building moved quickly, retreating into the shadows with whatever they could carry. They couldn’t come her way, the fire was growing too intense. Claire’s chest thumped like a piston. Walter grabbed her arm, pulling her back towards the car.

“Time to go. Now”.

Claire hesitated, her feet fixed. Curiosity demanded answers. Survival demanded flight. Then the flames grew more intense, ripping through the roof of the woolshed. Walter bundled her into the front passenger seat, closing the door behind her. He slapped the bonnet as he rounded the car, slamming the door shut as he keyed the engine. Gravel spat under the tyres as he peeled away from the woolshed, the flames painting orange streaks into the gloom. They drove towards Wickham, passing fire-engine hurrying to the flames. Suitably late to not be able to save anything. Silence weighed heavy in the car, broken only by the hum of the engine, the distant waves against the docks, the fire brigade lights and sirens as they pulled up to the woolshed.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Walter said. For a long time Claire didn’t respond.

“Maybe I have,” she muttered. Her eyes fixed on the road, her knuckles white in her lap.

“Shaking,” he said.

“Adrenaline,” she lied.

“You’re sure?”

“I thought… someone was inside. Before it went up,” she said.

His eyes didn’t meet hers. “You’re seeing things. The shipment’s out to sea.”

“Shipment?”

“Forget it. Not your concern.”

Claire looked at him. Shipment? What shipment? She really wanted him to stop driving, wanted to interrogate him, find out what he knew. But in the back of her mind she knew that would not be a wise choice. Clearly there was something here she wasn’t meant to know about. She knew Walter well, and when he said it wasn’t her concern, she believed him for the first time tonight. Instead of pressing the matter, she distracted herself. She lit a smoke, drawing a deep breath. She exhaled. She watched the smoke curling around her fingers, trailing around the inside of the car. Her chest tightened as her mind dug deeper into the night. Crates, shadows, fire – she examined every detail in her memory, trying to piece it together. But the photograph in her mind was smudged. Burned. Disappearing. That face, the one she recognized through the smoke. A clever individual, sharper than most, not to be taken lightly. Claire sank back into the seat, choosing to let the tension ebb away. As best as she could. The opposition would realise soon. They’d understand. If they didn’t know now, they’d know soon enough. Or at least figure out that Claire was the one most likely to have destroyed their operation. Her reputation would see to that. And if that figure recognized her … She wasn’t hiding a petty crime for her boss. She had placed her head in the noose.

“You okay? You look tense, pissed off” Walter said

“I’m fine, just … the fire. It gets under your skin” Claire said.

Walter didn’t push, even though he knew there was something more to it. Newcastle blurred past in streaks of street lights. He drove quickly, but not drawing attention to himself. An inevitable momentum thought Claire, but towards what? The horns of the harbour were echoing in the distance. Not even those lost souls seeking a nights company were out tonight. She took a brief look out the back window of the car. The columns of smoke from the woolshed twisted into the sky, blending into the fallout from the steelworks. The scent of ash and diesel faded in the salty ocean air. Shadows in mist. Half imagined, half real. Half recognized, half unfamiliar. In that moment, Claire knew it didn’t really matter what she had or had not seen. It didn’t matter who knew or suspected anything. All that mattered was how she acted now. She had two options. Pick at the scab and dig herself a hole. And inevitably find out just how deep the ocean is off the edge of the shelf. Or keep her head down and avoid drawing the light of suspicion to her.

Walter pulled over near Broadmeadow race-course. He doused the car in diesel, a practiced efficiency. Destroying another link in the chain. Claire was already walking down Beaumont Street as the car ignited. Walter jogged to catch up to her, adopting the familiar cover of two lovers on a stroll, her arm slipping neatly inside his. A practiced movement they’d used countless times before. A couple draws less suspicion than two single people, especially when one of those people looked like a thug like Walter. Another car further down the street started up, its lights cutting through the gloom, driving towards them before turning down Tudor Street. Together Claire and Walter walked, crossing over and heading for the alley behind Eurobar. Nothing was said the entire walk. Choice, discretion, silence. Silence was her weapon, his weapon, the only weapon. To complete a job as requested and never see anything in the process. More precisely, to not see what she wasn’t supposed to see. Something happened tonight that she got a glimpse of, something she wasn’t meant to know about. Claire knew the boss would be asking, and she’d already decided she’d simply say it went to plan. She’d keep quiet about the figures in the fire. Everything else, especially the truth, was irrelevant. What am I going to gain if I dig? Besides a rock tied to my feet and dropped offshore. Survival, that’s all that mattered. She and Walter walked into the office, answering tersely. A job well done, no complications, no witnesses. Collecting a fat envelope each. Then Claire disappeared into the night.

The wind still tugged at her coat. Cutting through to her bones. Carrying the faint smell of smoke. Claire slipped her bounty for her nights work under the floorboards in her apartment. Somewhere in the dark of Newcastle, those rival figures were planning. Calculating. Waiting. But they always were. The city never truly slept. Tomorrow the papers would write about some accidental fire that destroyed a priceless historical woolshed. Lost and irreparable. Which would coincidentally pave the way a little more for those modern high-rise apartments of Honeysuckle. The dream of her bloated boss in his back room. But that was the future yet to be. Tonight, she poured herself a rum and sat by the window. Watching. Keep your head down. One choice at a time. One action at a time. Play the odds.