Read Prophets and Loss (A Johnny Ravine Mystery) Page 27

The pastor was in his office at the church. I told him all that had happened. He fixed his gaze on me.

  “This is a police matter,” he growled.

  “No,” I replied. “Not yet.”

  “Not yet? Grant’s been murdered. You had a bullet through your window. Your Timor refugee friend has been murdered. An Indonesian torturer is walking around Melbourne. Now you are attacked. I know you have reasons for not wanting the police to enquire into you too closely. I’ll call the police myself. You’ll be protected. But they have to know about all this.”

  “Rohan has good contacts. He’s keeping them up-to-date.”

  “And this girl Briony seems to be near the scene of the crime a bit too often. The police ought to be rounding her up as fast as possible.”

  It was hard to disagree. But I did. “Give me a few days,” I said. “I don’t want the police investigating me. I need to talk to Rohan again.”

  The pastor looked at me for a long time.

  “You can’t go back to your apartment,” he said. “You never know who’s waiting there for you, or who might turn up. You’ll have to sleep in the church. Give me your keys. I’ll drive your car back to your place and leave it there. And I’ll bring some clothes. Tell me what to get.”

  I knew that the pastor operated under higher laws than those of humans. He sometimes spoke proudly of how he’d been put in prison more than once during the freedom rides of the 1960s, when he was among those who drove around Australia in support of Aboriginal land claims. Now I couldn’t help noticing a sense of excitement in the pastor’s voice.

  Unfortunately I recalled that another friend - Papa Guzman - had also sounded excited, just a few days earlier, at the prospect of being back in action.

  And something else bothered me. One of my assailants had muttered the words “Got you” during our struggle. It only occurred to me now that he had not been speaking English but Bahasa Indonesian. Why were Indonesians guarding La Rue?