The Tempest Ending

It’s Monday and I’m working a shift as a support worker with my client, Jamie, when I get a call from an unknown number.

“Is this Tim Holland?” The voice is muffled and distant.

“Yes.”

“You had the Bombtrack stolen a few years ago?”

“I did, yeah.”

“I may have a lead on your bicycle. I run a site called Bike Vault.”

“Am I on speaker phone? I’m having difficulty hearing you.”

“Yes, you are.”

Jamie is blasting Old School Beats on Foxtel so I excuse myself and step out through the kitchen where Jamie’s Tibetan cleaning couple are mopping the floor. I continue out to the back verandah, squeezing past Jamie’s dogs—an old beagle called Bruno, and a muscled American Bulldog called Ruby. They watch me like I’m food.

“Did you say you’re with Bike Linc?” I ask.

“No, I’m not with the police. I run Bike Vault. It’s a site that recovers stolen property, mostly bicycles.”

I recall posting on the Bike Vault site back in December, 2019, when my bike was stolen from Coles in Maylands.

“Where are you based?” I ask.

“I’m over east.”

“And what was your name, please?”

“My name is Brad.”

Brad’s response is obliterated by a commotion inside. I’ve left the back door ajar and Bruno’s pawed it open. The dogs are inside, running over the newly mopped floors.

“The dogs!” The cleaners call out.

“Bruno! Ruby! Outside!” Jamie yells.

“Bruno! Ruby!” I call out. The dogs come leaping outside, tails wagging. I slide the back door closed and raise the phone back to my ear.

“Sorry, go on.” I say.

“We’ve had a report of your bike for sale on Gumtree.”

I assume he’s referring to an ad from a year ago which was a dead end. I’d offered the seller money but he’d declined to sell.

“How old is the ad?” I ask.

“Posted yesterday.”

Brad has my attention.

“Can I ask,” he continues, “did you alter your bike in any way?"

“No, it was all original parts.”

“Right. The one on here has a bottle cage.”

“What’s a bottle cage?” I ask.

There’s silence on the other end.

“It's a cage that holds your drinking bottle.”

“Right, of course. Um, no, I don’t think mine had one. It was almost two years ago that it was taken.”

“The ad says it’s at Northlands Shopping Centre at Cash Converters.”

“Aren’t Cash Converters supposed to register their products with police?” I ask.

“Cash Converters supply data to the police. It’s up to the police to check.”

“Would you advise calling Cashies?”

“No, I’d just go there and see if it’s yours first.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do that.”

“Best of luck, mate.”

He hangs up. I’m watching Bruno drinking from a water trough. He trots past with his tongue out.

I Google Bombtrack Northlands Gumtree and it’s the first return. The ad shows the Bombtrack Tempest model at Cash Converters on sale for $1,199.00. It has the bottle cage attachment which my bike didn’t have, but otherwise it looks like mine.

Ruby dances around me playfully. I step aside and she pounces at a gnawed traffic cone on Jamie’s veranda. Her jaws lock on, and she shakes it savagely.

I open the sliding door and walk back inside to Jamie who is on his bed in the lounge room. Jamie has been paraplegic for fourteen years. I’ve spent a little of most days with him for the past year. He has disks of titanium fused through his spine and he even looks a little like Wolverine with his thick eyebrows and long sideburns.

I tell Jamie about the phone call, about my bike, and about Cash Converters.

“No shit?” Jamie says.

“I’ll go pick it up this afternoon.” I say.

“They won’t let you take it.”

“I’m taking it.”

“You should take Ducky.” Jamie says.

Ducky is Jamie’s friend. He’s half Serbian, half Croatian, and built like a brick shithouse.

“I’ll be right.”

“Okay.” I note the skepticism in Jamie’s response and wonder whether I should take back-up.

I message my buddy, Steve.

“I’m working today bro.”

My friend Hilly works in Balcatta. I’ve known Hilly since highschool. He manages a concrete pouring company. I tell Hilly what happened.

“Right, we’re getting that cunt back today.” Hilly says.

I call Bayswater Police Station and an officer answers. I give my report number and my bike serial number and explain that I’ve received a tip about my bike, that I’ll be there today and that I’d like police assistance.

“Cash Converters register all their products so if it is your bike we would know.” She says.

“I know what they’re supposed to do. It doesn’t mean they do it.” I say.

“You can call the number and arrange a time to come by the station and give us what you have.”

“I’ve given you a report, my bike link account, and now I have a credible lead. I’d just like some help.”

There’s a pause.

“You can email it to Bayswater Police and we’ll see if an officer can swing by to look.”

“Thank you.”

I email through the ad to the station, along with the details and get on with my shift.

A Senior Sergeant replies to my email.

“Can you please confirm how you know this particular bike is in fact yours?”

“There are only two in WA.” I reply, which probably isn’t true.

I clock off at 2pm and drive directly up Wanneroo Road to Northlands Shopping Centre. Cash Converters occupies the northern half of the block but the branding has faded from gold to canary yellow. I park and walk down the stairs to the front entrance.

I enter a dark grey room with two thin queues of unhappy people at a counter. There doesn’t appear to be any stock. I realise I’m at the loans desk so turn and exit.

I find the main entrance next door. I enter the broad room and pass a young man sitting at the counter with spectacles and a moustache who greets me with a hello. I wave and stop at a collection of bikes, none is the Bombtrack. It’s another bum steer I tell myself. A fake ad. I walk back to the man at the counter.

“Do you have a Bombtrack bicycle here?”

“Ahhh…”

“The blue one?” Asks a young woman at the other end of the counter.

“Yes.” I say, turning to her.

“It’s on hold outback.”

“I’d like to see it.”

She passes me and the other staff member, then enters a room behind. I quietly say a Hail Mary before she returns with the bike, wheeling it my way. It seems a bit lower perhaps than my bike was and I note some paint missing. I turn the bike upside down and look at the serial number.

“It’s my bike.” I say.

I turn it upright and wait for a response. “Aren’t you meant to register these bikes with police when you get them?”

“We do.” The man says.

“The police can take a week to respond.” The woman says.

“Who’s it on hold for?” I ask.

“The police.” She says.

“How long have you had the bike?” I ask.

The woman looks at the ticket on the bike. “Oh! It's a bit late. We received it December last year.”

I bite down on nothing.

“So the police just didn’t follow up?” I ask.

“I guess.” She says.

“Well,” I begin wheeling the bike away, “thanks for everything.”

“We can’t let you take it.” The woman says. “The police need to see it.”

I leave the bike and walk out to the carpark. I call Bayswater Station. The same officer answers who I’d spoken with earlier.

“Hello, I called earlier regarding the stolen Bombtrack bicycle.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. Tim, there are police on their way out to Cash Converters now.”

“TK!”

I turn to see a ute pass and park. It’s my friend Hilly. He steps out of his car, slams the door and strolls casually over, broad shoulders, golden hair and Oakley Sunglasses.

I lower the phone.

“The bike’s mine. Police are on the way.”

“Will it fit in your car?” Hilly asks.

I look at my Sera.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I can pick it up tomorrow.”

“Thanks Hilly.”

“I reckon it’ll fit in your car.” Hilly says, looking at my Sera.

“I’ll wait here for the police anyway”

“They’ll be fuckin’ hours.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Oh, wait. Here they are.”

A police Hilux paddywagon suddenly rolls up behind us and parks. It contains two tall clean-cut policemen. I approach the driver window.

“I think you’re here for my bike.” I say.

The driver greets me with a nod and looks at his file through his Ray-Bans.

“Do you have the serial number of the bike there?” He asks.

I tell him the number and he looks back at his file with a wry smile.

“Yeah, that’s not the number Cash Converters gave us.”

“A mistake you reckon?” I ask.

“I doubt it.”

I follow the officers back into Cash Converters. They greet the manager, a weathered mattress of a man and accompany him backstage.

I wait at the counter and look back at myself in the mirror in front. I wonder how many times this has happened and at how many Cash Converters. I wonder how many of the items in here might still belong to people. I take out my phone and take a photo of my reflection.

The officers return, wheeling the bike out; the manager waits behind.

“Can I suggest,” I call out to the manager, “that you look through the bikes here to check whether you’ve listed the actual serial numbers.”

“Leave it alone,” the officer says. “Don’t start any shit.”

I hold my tongue and follow them out.

“You’ve got your bike back so there’s no point in making a scene.” The other officer says.

I nod in sickly compliance.

“Do you know who sold it to them?” I ask.

“We know them alright.”

I wonder who it is and decide I don’t want to know.

“Do you have your proof of purchase?”

I hold up my phone and show them the digital receipt from William Street Cycle Co.

“Okay, we’ll take it to Bayswater now and you can collect it from there.”

“Um, yep, okay.”

I arrive by 4pm and the station is closed. I try the buzzer and they let me in. I wait in the lobby for a few minutes. I overhear officers speaking softly behind the staff door.

“They gave the wrong number. And that’s why we didn’t get the bike.”

The door opens and a tall male officer wheels it out to me.

“It needs some air in the tires.”

I thank him, take my bike, take the front wheel off and realise the front wheel nut is missing. I drive home, wheel the bike into my room and sit at my desk. I pick up my phone and call Brad from Bike Vault.

“Hi, this is Tim, from earlier today.”

“How’d you go?”

“Yeah, it worked. Thanks so much.”

“Good to hear.”

“Cash Converters had given the wrong serial number to the police.”

“Yep, I was a detective in Victoria for twenty years and the amount of stolen goods that goes through secondhand dealers is remarkable.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Can you send me a photo of you and the bike?”

“I can.”