a briefing room lined with desks and chairs. “We have to supply them with a desk, apparently,” said Chandler. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a DPU bloke use one. That’s all they do, play cards. They’re all even more pissed off now because Old Bill used take his lunch with them.”
Chandler finished the tour where they started, looking at the drizzle and the courtyard. He took a tin of tobacco from his pocket and started rolling a smoke. Romano offered him one from her pack. He refused.
“So what’s a DPU then?” she said.
“Displaced Person’s Unit. You don’t have one down south? Okay. It used to be on the mainland up here. It’s where they used to send you if you refused a transfer or if they shut something down. Or if you fucked something up. It’s where you went for a few weeks till they found you a new job.”
They put Romano on sick leave. She’d spent months at home, waiting for the phone to ring. “And now the DPU’s here?”
“That’s right. Now it’s just the dead wood. Those blokes aren’t going anywhere. They’re sitting in there till retirement, the poor bastards.” Chandler finished rolling his smoke and lit up. “Not that I have it much better.”
“Is anyone out on patrol?”
He shook his head. “We don’t go out into the jungle unless something big happens.”
“Who’s handling the routine stuff? I thought the drunk tank would be full twenty-four seven.”
“Hotel security and contractors look after most of it. The rest just sorts itself out.”
“Sorts itself…and this is how the other guy ran things?”
Chandler looked over at her. “That’s right. This is how we run things. The mainland doesn’t give a flying fuck about any of it. We don’t exist, as far as they’re concerned. Tunnel Island is its own thing. You, Denny, me, those old diggers inside, Old Bill, we’re just…” He coughed, a hoarse sickly sound in his chest. “Christ, there’s a bug going round. Been on the verge of getting it all winter. What was I saying?”
“The mainland brass.”
“They don’t care. It doesn’t fucking matter to them,” said Chandler as he sucked in another lungful. “It doesn’t. You’re on the other side of the tunnel now. If you haven’t worked that out yet, you soon will. You’ve sorta been put out to pasture. My advice is to find yourself a hobby. That’s it.” He flicked his smoke and started back towards reception. “That’s the tour,” he called back, without breaking stride.
Romano lingered. The rain started to come down harder. She lit a fresh cigarette off the last and waited for something to happen. When it didn’t, she made her way back to her new office and started cleaning.
F or a week , Romano didn’t do much more than get her affairs in order. She ordered mail redirection and spoke to a removalist in Melbourne. She picked up the keys to her new house and looked it over: a small whiteboard bungalow in a neighbourhood ten minutes’ drive from the station house. The place was set back two streets from a still water bay. She could see the water from the gate. There were no signs of the previous tenant inside. He hadn’t blasted a hole in the wall topping himself. She could find no new plasterwork or stains in the flooring. In fact, the place was now completely empty.
Romano booked another hotel until her furniture arrived. On Chandler’s advice, she rented a car and drove to the mainland, down through the tunnel under the bay, and visited an IKEA in Brisbane, arranging delivery with one of the few freight companies who came across. By the Friday of her second week, she had most of it squared away. So much so that she planted herself beside Denny at the front desk and watched the midday movie. They were halfway through it when the call came in from the head office.
Denny answered.
He listened and said, “Really? Sure.”
He put the phone down.
“Who was that?” said Chandler, from the room over.
“The big man’s