my strangling tie and study the letters of the alphabet, trying to find three words to tell my story. Eli Misses Opportunity. Eli Fucks Up. Eli Fucks World. I’m lost in the letters of this horrific tie.
Then a voice from the other end of my platform seat.
‘Eli Bell.’
I follow the voice and I find her. We’re the only two people on the platform. We’re the only two people on earth.
‘Caitlyn Spies,’ I say.
She laughs.
‘It’s you,’ I say.
There’s something too strong and wonder-filled in my stupid, open-mouthed, jaw-dropped gasping.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘It’s me.’
She wears a long black coat and her long brown hair falls over her shoulders. Dr Martens boots. The cool air seems to make her pale face glow. Caitlyn Spies glows. Maybe that’s how she draws all those prized story sources to her. Maybe that’s how she gets them to open up and spill their inner psychological beans. She mesmerises them in her glow. In her fire.
‘You remember me?’ I say.
She nods.
‘I do,’ she smiles. ‘And I don’t know why. I always forget a face.’
A loud train rattles in to platform 4 in front of us.
‘I see your face every day,’ I say.
She can’t hear that over the train noise.
‘Sorry? What was that?’
‘Never mind.’
Caitlyn stands, gripping the strap of a brown leather satchel over her right shoulder.
‘You on this one?’ she asks.
‘Where’s it going?’
‘Caboolture.’
‘I’m . . . ummm . . . yeah. This is my train.’
Caitlyn smiles, studies my face. She yanks on the silver handle of a middle carriage door and steps into the train. It’s empty. Only us two on the train. Only us two in the universe.
She sits in a four-seat bay, two empty seats facing two empty seats.
‘May I sit here with you?’ I ask.
‘You may,’ she says, adopting a regal voice, laughing.
The train pulls away from Bowen Hills station.
‘What are you doing in Bowen Hills?’ she asks.
‘I was meeting your boss, Brian Robertson, about a cadetship,’ I say.
‘Seriously?’ she replies.
‘Seriously.’
‘You had a meeting with Brian?’
‘Well, not a meeting exactly,’ I say. ‘I hid behind a hedge for six hours and approached him when he was exiting the building at 9.16 p.m.’
She rolls her head back, laughing.
‘And how did that go for you?’ she asks.
‘Not so great.’
She nods sympathetically.
‘I remember thinking there might be a teddy bear heart beneath that monster exterior when I first met Brian,’ Caitlyn says. ‘There’s not. It’s just another monster inside biting the head off a teddy bear. But he really is the best newspaper editor in the country.’
I nod, stare out the window as the train passes the old Albion flour mill.
‘You want to be a journalist?’ she asks.
‘I want to do what you do, write about crime and what makes criminals tick.’
‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘You knew Slim Halliday.’
I nod.
‘You gave me a name,’ she says. ‘I looked him up. The limbs guy.’
‘Tytus Broz.’
‘Tytus Broz, yes,’ she says. ‘I remember you were telling me a story about him and then you rushed off. Why’d you take off so fast that day?’
‘I had to go see my mum urgently.’
‘Was she all right?’
‘Not really,’ I say. ‘But she was all right once I saw her. That’s nice of you.’
‘What?’
‘Asking that little question about my mum like that, that’s nice. I guess you learn that as a journalist after a while.’
‘Learn what?’
‘Asking the nice little questions in between the big important questions. I reckon that would make people feel better when they’re talking to you.’
‘I guess so,’ she says. ‘You know, I ended up doing some digging on your limbs guy, Tytus Broz.’
‘You find anything?’
‘I phoned a few people. Everybody said he was the kindest bloke in the south-west suburbs. Honest as they come, everybody said. Generous. Gives to charity. He’s an advocate for the disabled. I called a few cops I knew back then in Moorooka. They said he was a pillar of the community.’
‘Of course they said that,’ I say. ‘The cops are the greatest beneficiaries of his charitable soul.’
I look up at that orange crescent moon.
‘Tytus Broz is a bad man doing very bad things,’ I say. ‘That artificial limb business is a front for one of the biggest heroin importation syndicates in south-east Queensland.’
‘You got any proof of this, Eli Bell?’
‘My story is my proof.’
And a missing lucky fucking finger if I can ever fucking find it.
‘You told anyone your story yet?’
‘No, I was going to tell your boss but he insisted I tell him the whole story in three words.’