Read an extract of The Valley, the new novel from Chris Hammer.
Prologue
1988
Guy and Raz are the last to arrive; stolen car, stolen licence plates, driving at night, taking the back roads. The radio is talking of them and nothing else: the gold, the daring, the dead. Raz drives, smoking relentlessly, chewing gum incessantly, laughing intermittently. And every ten or fifteen minutes, a statement to the night. ‘We did it. We fucking did it.’
Guy feels electric, as if wired to a generator, like lying in a hyperbaric chamber filled with happy gas. His heart is beating so hard it’s almost dancing; he can feel it fluttering under his ribs like the wings of a caged bird. Everything seems hyperreal: his pulse, the red tail-lights ahead, the sound of his companion chewing gum, the smell of the cigarette smoke. He thinks it strange, this elation, this surge of energy, coming now when they are free and safe, almost home dry, whereas at the time, back at the warehouse, bullets flying, the gun kicking in his hand, the screams of the dying echoing, he had felt calm, focused, almost relaxed.
‘We did it,’ Raz informs the world once more. ‘We fucking did it.’
They’d done it all right, but not the way it had been planned. There’d been no intention to use their guns, no agreement to shoot anyone. In and out, with the whole night to make their getaway before the heist would be discovered. That was the plan. But they’d all been carrying, they’d all fired. He’d hesitated in those first frantic seconds, but he’d fired as well. Thought he’d hit someone. One of the cops, or one of the security guards. His heart beat a little harder. He’d put a bullet into someone. Another human being. Back when they were planning he’d said the words, ‘I’m all in,’ and he’d meant them. But now it’s a fact, they are all of them ‘all in’. Those who have survived, and those who haven’t. Bert Glossop is dead, one of the ringleaders, cut down by a copper not two metres from where Guy had taken cover behind a pallet of red wine, bottles exploding into scarlet shards with the impact of bullets. Glossop, bleeding out with a soft groan, blood mixed with wine.
You can’t get any more ‘all in’ than that.
The car in front turns off onto a farm track and they have the road to themselves, alone in the night, moving across the plain. An image comes to Guy, a bird’s-eye view from up in the cloudless sky, looking down on the pool of light created by the headlights, a small and tenuous thing crawling across a world of darkness.
He flicks Raz’s disposable lighter; reads the map by its stuttering flame. ‘Slow down a little,’ he tells the driver. ‘Should be a railway crossing, then a bridge.’
Raz slows. He’s been doing a good job, disciplined, resisting the temptation to speed, keeping the car trundling along steadily. It’s a good car. A suitable car. A Holden Commodore, white, a few years old, the most popular car in Australia. The most common. The most nondescript.
They come to the level crossing. No boom gate. No lights. Just a series of signs, riddled with bullet holes. Raz takes it gently, being extra cautious with the suspension, not wanting to tempt fate: they’ve pushed their envelope of good fortune, they know that. No use asking for more when they don’t need it. Guy feels a moment of pride in his comrade, this stranger, for staying cool; the cigarettes and chewing gum the only outward indication of nerves. They almost crawl across the railway lines, Raz conscious of the load in the boot.
They approach the bridge. There’s a sign: deep water creek. They’re where they should be.
Guy peers at the map. ‘Turn-off coming up to the left. Three red reflectors on the gate.’
‘There,’ says Raz, changing down to second gear, flipping the indicator on, following the road rules to the letter, pulling onto gravel, stopping. ‘We did it. We fucking did it.’
‘Sure, we did it,’ says Guy, climbing out, opening the gate, waiting while Raz guides the car through, then closing it again. There are no other vehicles on the road. The night is windless. Expectant. The sky is a black dome, moonless, pierced by stars—the only witnesses.
Raz steers along the drive, just a track through a paddock, a fence to one side, nothing more. They reach the woolshed. Corrugated iron. Lights inside, creeping out through gaps in the windows. Three cars parked around the back, out of sight. The others are already here.
They stop. Raz unlocks the boot while Guy holds up the lighter. They take a bag each, calico, bearing the branding of the bank. The one Guy carries is smeared with blood, deep brown, almost black, in the half-light. And then they lift the metal carry case, not so big but heavy for its size, lug it between them into the shearing shed.
Inside, the others are sitting in a circle around a large open space: six men on crates and chairs and a sawhorse, anything they can find, staring silently at the centre of the room, where bags are piled—the same calico bags, stuffed with cash. And five more of the aluminium carry cases, reinforced, with rubber-lined steel handles on each side. No one is moving, no one is laughing. They seem shell-shocked. Guy and Raz walk to the centre of the room, drop their bags with the rest and lower the metal case laden with gold. They walk to the periphery, join the circle of men staring at the accumulated millions like they’re gazing into a camp fire, warming themselves in its glow, hoping it’s been worth it.
Curtains stands, tilts his head, silently acknowledging Guy and Raz. The big man is the leader, real name Hec Curtin, universally known as ‘Curtains’, his nickname well earned. ‘That’s it then. That’s all of us.’ The men are all looking at him, saying nothing as he continues. ‘You’ve heard the reports. Glossop is dead. Not good. At least he won’t be talking.’
‘We need to take care of his missus—see she gets her share,’ says a large man with a neck tattoo, one of the bikies.
‘We’ll look after her,’ says Curtains. ‘Priestly and Barker are in custody. Priestly shot up bad, Barker more walking wounded.’
‘How do you know?’ asks a hard-faced man. Morelli: another of the bikies.
Curtains doesn’t answer, but Guy understands. Their leader is connected. Has someone on the inside. Not just in the security firm, in the cops.
Curtains holds his hands aloft, like a preacher, then gestures at the pile of loot. ‘Look at it, gentlemen: behold what we’ve achieved.’
And all of them turn to admire the treasure; how could they not? Which is when Curtains takes two steps back, three, then reaches behind his back and pulls a handgun, taking another step back. Boyd Murrow backs up to join him, now brandishing a small machine gun, the promise of death, indiscriminate, with plenty to go around.
‘Stay calm!’ says Curtains, voice firm but not yelling. In command. ‘No one moves, no one gets hurt. Pull a weapon and we’ll fucking drill you.’
Someone swears, Guy isn’t sure who. He thinks of his own gun, nestled in the small of his back, tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Useless. If he reaches for it, he’ll be dead before he hits the floor. He lifts his hands, signalling his surrender, his compliance. Around him others are doing the same.
‘Excellent. Thank you,’ says Curtains to the group as a whole. Then he addresses Guy. ‘Mate. You can go first. You carrying?’
Guy nods. ‘Yeah. Handgun.’ He turns, back to them, lifting his polo shirt so they can see the handle.
‘Don’t move,’ says Curtains.
Guy stays perfectly still, feels the weapon reefed from his trousers.
‘Good man,’ says Curtains. ‘Now very slowly, remove your shirt.’
Guy turns around, so he can look Curtains in the eye. His heart is no longer a caged bird, it’s a pneumatic drill, and his vision has closed in, like peering through a tunnel. He makes his movements slow, deliberate, lifting off his shirt, dropping it on the ground by his feet.
'What the fuck is this?’ says a voice behind him.
‘All will be revealed,’ says Curtains.
If he’s making a joke, no one is laughing.
‘Pants,’ he says to Guy. ‘Leave your shoes on, just drop your trousers to your ankles.’
Guy signals his comprehension, does what he’s told. He understands what’s going on now, suspects the others must as well. Wonders why he’s first; maybe because he and Raz were last to arrive, maybe because he’s the youngest, the last to be recruited, the least well known. He breathes a sigh of relief, knowing he’s clean. Turns a slow circle so Curtains can be sure.
‘Good man,’ says Curtains again. ‘Pants up. Come and stand by us. Away from the others, but where we can see you.’
Guy leaves the circle, walks across to where Curtains and Murrow have the others covered. He stands off to one side of them, putting as much distance between himself and the two gunmen as possible, careful to stay just in front of them so they can see him. He no longer holds his hands above his head, but more at chest height, still clearly visible.
The air is so volatile it smells like avgas.
‘Raz, you’re next up,’ says Curtains softly.
‘I ain’t wearing no fuckin’ wire,’ Raz spits indignantly.
‘Someone is,’ says Curtains.
And that’s when the shooting starts. Guy doesn’t see who fires first; it doesn’t matter as the machine gun coughs death in reply. Guy hits the ground; can see the bullets tearing through men even as they claw for their own weapons; hears the rattle as bullets pierce the steel walls, like hail on a tin roof; sees the shattering of a fibro partition as if in slow motion, like the wine bottles at the warehouse.
And then nothing. A silence. A whimper. A low moaning.
He feels no elation, no horror. He rises to his feet, surveys the carnage.
It takes him an hour, maybe more, maybe less, to do what needs to be done. Time has become tenuous, not flowing smoothly but coming in lumps, like clotted blood. Eventually he is back in the Commodore, behind the wheel, no longer excited, no longer thrilled. Not calm, just frayed, his nerves burnt out. Moving mechanically, trying to be methodical, attempting not to rush, to do it right. Raz is in the passenger seat, breath shallow, blood oozing. Still chewing gum. Guy takes it slowly, feeling the weight in the boot, the suspension sagging, the car threatening to bottom out. The six boxes of bullion, the calico bags. He leaves the engine running while he opens the gate. Takes the rag, wipes the metal clean. The moon is rising, a half-moon. Looking back across the paddock, he can see the aura, the woolshed on fire, a lanolin-fuelled pyre, arcing into the sky like a nebula, the other cars burning.
They need to be far away before the dawn.
Extracted from The Valley by Chris Hammer. Available in all good bookstores 1 October.
Chris Hammer will be on tour throughout October and November.
The Valley
by Chris Hammer
Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic are back – and Nell is thrown into her most emotionally fraught investigation yet.
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