Only the Dead

by Ben Sanders

Ford removed his arm and turned to face him. One eye was swollen, both nostrils were ringed crimson. A heavy nosebleed had given him a red median strip. He was a tall man in his mid-twenties. His jaw was bearded, his hair ponytailed.

  ‘Sean Devereaux. Oh, help. They hurt me.’ He whimpered and the arm went back in place. He smeared tears. ‘Please let me out. I don’t know what they want. I don’t know what they want, man.’

  He pulled the other leg up and wrapped his arms around his knees and rolled over to face the wall. Devereaux stepped across the room and dropped to his haunches beside the bed. The Howard Ford back story made for sad reading. He’d been in and out of correctional facilities for the better part of fifteen years, intellectual disability and lack of support keeping him off the straight and narrow.

  ‘What happened, Howard? What did they do to you?’

  ‘I, I … I was just out having a drink, you know? I took a leak, and next thing I know these two cops are chasing me, so I tried to run away. But they caught me and took me here.’

  ‘Where were you taking a leak?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Try to think.’

  ‘Just outside this bar.’

  ‘Where was the bar?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t really know what streets are called.’

  ‘But you were outside.’

  ‘Yeah. And they got me and took me back here. I had to wait in here, and then they took me out and put me somewhere else. They kept asking me questions, Sean. They kept asking, October eight, October eight, October eight.’ He snivelled. ‘What’s October eight? I don’t know anything about October eight.’

  ‘Okay. Who hurt your nose, Howard?’

  A protracted whimper. ‘The man at the desk.’

  ‘Which man? There are two men at the desk.’

  ‘It was the big man.’

  ‘Blake.’

  ‘Yes. He hit me. They put me in a room away from this one, and they kept saying, “October eight, October eight, tell us about October eight”. And I said I didn’t know anything about October eight, and that man just bent right in my face and he was shaking a can, and he was like “do you want to get sprayed, do you want to get sprayed?” and I was telling him no, and I pushed him away and that’s when he hit me.’

  ‘How many times did he hit you?’

  ‘One time. It hurt.’

  ‘Okay. Who else was there when it happened?’

  ‘Two men wearing suits. I didn’t know them.’

  ‘Did they hurt you as well?’

  ‘No. One of them was asking me the questions. When I said I didn’t know the answers, the big guy got in my face. The other guy in the suit wasn’t even watching. He was just standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, and he was leaning there, facing the wrong way.’

  It sounded like a Don McCarthy-sanctioned tactic. Or maybe he’d sent Frank Briar down. Maybe even Bowen.

  ‘What did the men in suits look like?’

  ‘I don’t know. Normal guys, I s’pose.’

  ‘How old were they?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Were they older or younger than me?’

  ‘Older. A little bit. Maybe.’

  Devereaux fell quiet. A shout/clang overlap from the corridor. Disinfectant odour hung ripe, the cool scorch of it deep in his airways. The head of the mattress was tear-stained: random dark lesions on the sheet. Ford was still facing the wall.

  ‘Roll over, Howard. Let me see your nose.’

  Ford rolled over. Devereaux leaned in for a close-up consult.

  Ford said, ‘Is it broken?’

  ‘No, it’s not broken.’

  He placed his arm across his face again. ‘Why are they asking me these things, Sean?’

  ‘Because they knew I wanted to find you. And they thought because I wanted to find you, that you might know something that could help them.’

  ‘So this is your fault. They wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for you.’ Tears speckled the mattress in neat succession. ‘Why did you want to find me?’

  ‘To ask you about October eight.’

  He raised his arm and slapped the wall to punctuate each word: ‘I. Don’t. Know. About. October. Eight.’

  ‘Calm down. That’s not going to get you anywhere. You need to chill out.’

  Ford gave a long sigh and rolled away from him again. ‘You fucking chill out. Jeez!’

  Devereaux said, ‘October eight was the bank robbery last year. Do you remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must remember. It was in the news.’

  Ford hugged his knees. ‘The one where someone was killed?’

  ‘Yes. The one where someone was killed.’

  ‘I wasn’t the person who robbed it.’

  ‘I know you weren’t. But you’ve been in trouble before for robbery, haven’t you?’

  He squirmed on the bed. ‘Little bit.’

  ‘Yes. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Because even though you mightn’t have done this one—’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘Even though you didn’t do this one, I thought you could know someone who has information about it.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone who has information. About anything.’

  ‘You’ve got lots of friends, though, haven’t you, Howard?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And lots of them have also been in trouble with the police, haven’t they? Some of them have been in similar sorts of trouble to you.’

  He was still facing the wall. ‘Yeah. I s’pose.’

  ‘So do you think maybe you might have heard them talking about the bank robbery in October? Maybe just a small mention. Maybe after it happened. Do you think you might have overheard anything like that, from any of your friends?’

  ‘I don’t know. They talk about lots of stuff.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure they do. But remember, there’s nothing wrong about overhearing something. You’re not going to get in trouble by listening to something and then telling me about it.’

  ‘I’m already in trouble, though. It’s what I don’t say that gets me in trouble.’

  ‘Answer the question, Howard.’

  ‘Which question?’

  Devereaux rested his nose between steepled fingers. ‘Have you heard anyone talking about the bank job on the eighth of October last year?’

  ‘No. I don’t know anything about it. Nobody I know does.’

  ‘Okay. If you did want to know something about it—’

  ‘But I don’t.’

  ‘I know, but for the sake of argument, pretend you did, pretend you did want to know something about it, which one of your friends would you ask for information?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Think carefully, pretend you really, really want to know what happened with this thing, who would you go to and ask about it?’

  He rolled onto his back and released his legs full stretch. He blinked. Dammed tears formed a thick bright film. ‘I’d probably go and ask Leroy,’ he said.

  ‘Okay. Good. Who’s Leroy?’

  ‘He’s just this friend I’ve got. He knows stuff about things.’

  Devereaux’s crouch was burning him. A stutter of joint pops as he stood.

  ‘Where does Leroy live?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must do.’

  ‘I know how to get there. But I don’t know what his address is.’

  ‘Okay. Has Leroy been arrested before?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Loads of times. Probably more than me.’

  Devereaux dipped his hands in his pockets, felt the damp and tortured body of the chewed cigarette. He dropped it in the toilet.

  ‘Sean, I don’t want to stay in here tonight.’

  ‘I know you don’t. But you’re going to have to. There’s nothing I can do about that.’

  ‘I don’t want to get hurt again.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘What’s gon
na happen to the guys who hurt me?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Nothing they’ll be pleased about.’

  He stepped to the grille and called to be let out.

  The constable escorted him back down the corridor, prisoner choir prevailing. He was buzzed out through the booking window gates. Blake was still at the glass, elbows on the desk, watching his departure across netted fingers.

  Devereaux said, ‘You’re lucky you didn’t break his nose.’

  ‘I’m lucky, or he’s lucky?’

  ‘I’m lodging a complaint. You threatened to spray him.’

  Blake laughed. ‘You should know better than to trust what comes out of the mouths of these people.’

  Devereaux stepped to the screen. ‘It was the blood coming out of his nose that was most persuasive.’ The glass fogged with his words.

  ‘I’ve got two witnesses who’ll say the force used was necessary. Ford took a swing at me. He was out of control, I responded appropriately.’

  ‘Suffice to say he tells it a little differently.’

  Blake creaked back in his chair. Departing headlights strafed a yellow blaze across them. Devereaux’s shadow leapt ahead of him into the office.

  Blake said, ‘Everyone’s tough from the other side of the glass.’ He smiled. ‘You and the fucking miscreants they drag in here.’

  ‘Come out here and talk to me, if you like. I’ll wait.’

  Blake said nothing.

  Devereaux said, ‘Another day, maybe.’

  Blake said, ‘If you’ve got a complaint, go and fucking make it. But otherwise I don’t want to have to deal with you.’

  Devereaux didn’t respond. He turned away and headed for the stairs.

  NINE

  MONDAY, 13 FEBRUARY, 11.13 P.M.

  The arrival woke him.

  Crunch of tyres on gravel, the broken ceiling-flicker as headlights panned the frontage. Hale slid out of bed. He felt his way to the front of the house, a strip of moonlight bent between hallway floor and wall. He checked the kitchen window. A silver sedan was idling at his garage, reflected headlamp blaze pooled around it. He backtracked to the bedroom, unseen edges nudging him in the gloom. A Remington 12 gauge lay loaded within snatch distance in the space beneath his mattress. Devereaux called it paranoid. Hale called it ‘sensible’: fourteen years’ law enforcement had accrued a thick catalogue of people worth fearing. All firearm-based security measures were acutely necessary.

  He kept the gun close as he dressed, awkward and unbalanced in the semi-dark. He made the front door in a crouch, fumbled to free the deadbolts. Two doors slamming. He stepped outside. The gun grips were sweating up already: he gathered a shirt hem and dried them, trotted down the stairs that led to the front left corner of the house.

  His property was steep, the garage set in against the slope beneath the main floor. The car was parked nose in to the house, kissing distance to the garage door. Alan Rowe and his minder stood hands in pockets beside it, shoulders hunched against the evening chill, ankle deep in bright light.

  Rowe heard the squeak of the stairs and glanced at him. He nodded at the gun. ‘Expecting somebody else?’

  Hale placed the Remington on the bottom step and leaned it against the house. ‘You brought backup.’

  ‘We were out and about.’

  ‘This is a long way from most places.’

  ‘I was told you were hard to get hold of.’

  ‘Not if you ring.’

  Rowe shrugged. ‘Can we come in?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘I haven’t tidied up.’

  Rowe smiled. ‘I don’t mind seeing newspapers on the table.’

  ‘We’ll talk out here.’

  Rowe didn’t answer. He was dressed in a suit, breeze keeping his tie dancing. The property was west of Auckland Central, surrounded by dense bush. The smell of it hung heavy, clean and organic. Hale eyed the escort man: tall, mid-forties, grim and buzz-cut. Mental neon flashed ‘ex-cop’ in bold. His nose was kicked off-plumb, brow thickened with scar tissue.

  Hale said, ‘Looks like Sugar Ray landed a few.’

  ‘Didn’t fight him,’ the guy said. ‘Got invited to.’

  ‘Maybe it was lucky you turned him down.’

  The guy smiled. It wasn’t a kind look. ‘Fuck you.’

  Rowe ignored him. He said, ‘I was hoping you might reconsider your earlier decision.’

  ‘I didn’t realise I hadn’t made myself clear.’

  ‘I didn’t give you the full story.’

  ‘That’s not a great way to win me over.’

  ‘Just hear me out.’

  ‘It’s after eleven.’

  ‘All I’m after is two minutes of your time.’

  Wind caught the front door and ticked it against the latch. Hale said, ‘I’ll need a name.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Visit my house and I need to know who you are. It’s like roll call.’

  Rowe laughed, gestured vaguely. ‘This is Wayne Beck. My chief of security.’

  ‘Beck the boxer. Nice to meet you.’

  Beck didn’t answer.

  Hale said, ‘Turning up at this hour, I thought maybe you were planning on being unfriendly.’

  Rowe laughed again, but with dampened gusto. ‘No. Nothing like that.’

  ‘Shall we get to it then? My bed’s getting cold.’

  Rowe placed his hands in his pockets. Wind put a ripple through his trouser shadow. He said, ‘The fight club break-in on January third’s linked in with the bank thing on October eight last year. Auckland Savings and Loan. Same guys did both jobs.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  ‘My daughter was a victim at the fight club on January third.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘She was in the way of the getaway. She was hit on the side of the head with a hammer. It broke her jaw and left her unconscious. She bit off the end of her tongue.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘I didn’t see her when I visited.’

  ‘She doesn’t live with me. And she’s still in hospital.’

  ‘I didn’t realise fight nights were the sorts of things nineteen-year-old girls were interested in.’

  ‘Yeah. Neither did I.’

  ‘You could have told me this earlier.’

  ‘I’d banked on you saying yes without needing the full details.’

  Hale didn’t answer.

  Rowe smiled. ‘She probably wouldn’t want me to pursue anything anyway. Heaven forbid someone else gets hurt, even if they did hit her in the head with a hammer.’ He nodded in the direction of the shotgun. ‘You’re not a violent man, are you, Mr Hale?’

  ‘Lapsed pacifist.’

  He nodded slowly and appraised the front of the house. ‘I can live with that.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘The brief’s the same. Find who did it. And then tell me.’

  ‘And then you’ll send Wayne after them.’

  Rowe laughed. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps something similarly effective.’

  ‘Will she make it?’

  ‘My daughter? She’ll need a lot of rehabilitation.’

  ‘Has she spoken to the police?’

  ‘No. She’s in and out of consciousness.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t bother doling out watered-down sympathy. No offence. You don’t know what it’s like.’

  Hale didn’t answer.

  Rowe turned away and stood facing down the driveway towards the street. ‘Give him the file,’ he said.

  Beck circled the rear of the car and opened the passenger door. He palmed his tie flat and leaned in and removed a blue plastic folder from the footwell. He passed it across the bonnet to Rowe, who handed it to Hale. It was thick, bulked by documents in plastic page-protectors. Hale thumb-fanned it front to back. He checked the first page, angled it to catch headlight gleam. A digital
photograph of a woman’s face lay inside a plastic sleeve, the right side of her face abraded and swollen. Eye a narrow slit amid a purpled socket.

  Rowe said, ‘She lost teeth on that side, too. Nearer the back, so they reckon her smile will still be okay.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Charlotte Rowe. I’ve got the police shit in there too for you. Their reports and some witness info.’

  Hale skimmed pages, file propped atop a cocked thigh. Photocopied pages of codified cop-speak, semi-legible.

  ‘I’ll take a look at it.’

  ‘Does that mean “job accepted”?’

  Hale closed the file. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  Rowe tipped his head at the car. Beck slid in the driver’s seat.

  ‘I guess it’s progress,’ Rowe said. ‘If you’re as hard-nosed as you make out, I reckon we might strike pay dirt.’

  Hale moved back to the steps and picked up the shotgun. Rowe opened his door. He paused there, half in and half out of the car, one elbow propped on the window. ‘There was a guy they interviewed,’ he said. ‘Name was Leland Earle. He’s in prison so they’re probably not looking to pin it on him, but I think maybe they reckoned he might know something about it.’

  ‘Did they get anything out of him?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I guess if there’d been an arrest we would have heard. You know?’

  Hale nodded.

  Rowe said, ‘This isn’t my area of know-how, but maybe you could have a chat to this guy Earle. If you can get to him …’ He slid into the car and pulled his door, buzzed his window down. ‘Worst-case scenario, you’ll just retrace their steps.’

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  Rowe nodded at the shotgun. ‘Don’t forget to unload.’

  Hale didn’t reply. The car rolled back off its brake and crunched down the hill towards the road. He watched the ghost of headlights dwindle between the trees, and then he went back inside.

  TEN

  TUESDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 12.48 A.M.

  Bowen had left. Devereaux passed his darkened office and used Grayson’s computer in the incident room to access Howard Ford’s details. Leroy James Turner, DOB 19 July 1985, was listed as a known associate. Offence code flags formed a résumé: 1510/6120 denoted serious assault and burglary. He was currently paroled to an Avondale address, pursuant to the assault charge.