Animal Kingdom

by Stephen Sewell

  ‘Why didn’t anyone call me?’ he said. ‘I would’ve got the SOGies up there.’

  ‘Look, there was no time for that, mate,’ Norris answered. ‘He just lost the plot.’

  Leckie thought he wasn’t the only one. You wouldn’t shoot an escaped lion; you’d wait till they brought in a net and a tranquilliser gun. But you wouldn’t think twice about shooting a man, or a man like Craig Cody. At least, that was what some people thought.

  Leckie needed time to think, because he knew what the Codys were like, and things would really start to jump now.

  Smurf was shattered. Craig was her boy. It was different from Baz: Baz had been a good bloke and a friend, but Craig was flesh and blood, her son. He was part of her own body and she loved him as ferociously as any mother does, and more.

  She didn’t need to be told how it happened; she knew. She knew in her bones. She imagined his terror and confusion, his awful, panicked flight. She knew they would have shown no mercy, just like they were going to show no mercy to any of them. This thing that Pope had let loose, this ravenous monster of death, was going to devour them all, the way it had devoured so many before whenever it was let off its leash.

  ‘I’m having trouble trying to find my positive spin,’ she wailed as she sat slumped and broken on the kitchen floor.

  J was kneeling beside her, feeling afraid.

  ‘I’m usually very good at it,’ she continued, bawling piteously. ‘Usually it’s right there, but I’m having trouble finding it now.’

  It wasn’t grief she was feeling; it was something worse— blind, depthless horror. The kind of terrifying panic that makes you keep running back to the thought, trying to unpack it yet again, just to make sure you haven’t misunderstood, all in the hope that you have—that you’ve misheard, that it isn’t true, that somehow someone’s got their wires crossed and it’s not your son dead, no, not your son; the other one. It has to be the other one—someone else’s son, not yours.

  J watched her, feeling helpless. He didn’t feel much for Craig. His uncle had always been too wild to really feel anything around except nervous. Sometimes he could be fun, but that thing with the gun, the way he’d been on the night of the killings—cold, hard, murderous—they weren’t very conducive to any warm feelings of trust and affection.

  But a weeping woman, his grandmother, the only one of the lot who seemed in any way sane, tore him up and brought out the tender and protective side of his nature and, looking at her, he wished he could do something, anything to make it better.

  Pope was different again. He was in slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners mode; he just wanted to get back in the car and go out and kill them, all of them. ‘I don’t know why,’ he spat with an arch, angry precision. ‘People don’t listen, do they?’ He was pacing around, coiled and ready to strike; you could see that he was set to explode. ‘If you hadn’t gotten in his ear, Mum, about turning himself in, there’d be none of this shit. None of this carry on.’

  J didn’t understand why Pope would blame Smurf for Craig’s death, but that was only because he didn’t understand guilt and the way it crept through souls as twisted as Pope’s. Someone had to be guilty of Craig’s death and it certainly wasn’t Pope.

  ‘Did you think about that?’ Pope blustered. ‘Did you? Fucking gone and spooked him.’

  But she wasn’t going to take that and, with her own anger erupting, she got to her feet and charged him, cornering and punching him as hard as she could with her puny, flabby little arms, jabbing from her shoulders.

  If it hadn’t been so tragic, if it hadn’t been so pathetic, it would have been funny. To see this murderer, this coldblooded killer, flinching away from his mother, half his size, as she slapped him about the arms and head. And him fending her off, pleading in that plaintive, wheedling voice of his, ‘Stop hitting me, Mum. I didn’t kill him.’

  Suddenly she stopped. ‘I thought that’s what we did,’ she shot back, glaring at him with her bloodshot, teary eyes. ‘We take it out on whoever turns up.’

  Pope had had enough and grabbed her arms, warning in that hard, frightening voice of his, ‘Don’t. All right?’

  And that’s when J saw red. ‘Leave her alone,’ he ordered, getting up.

  Pope looked at him, blinking at the unfamiliar sound of someone standing up to him.

  ‘I’m all right, J,’ Smurf said, warning him to leave it be.

  But Pope was getting that mad, angry look in his eyes as his cross-hairs settled on J. If he couldn’t blame Smurf, then he could blame the kid. The kid who spent too much time with the cops. Craig’s death was J’s fault. Yes, it was J.

  ‘Just relax,’ J said, his heart pounding as he saw Pope hardening. ‘All right?’

  It was a faint hope. Pope’s idea of relaxing was kicking the heads off puppies.

  ‘Come here, mate,’ he said, lurching towards him.

  ‘Don’t you touch him,’ Smurf warned, pulling at him to block his way.

  But, pushing her aside, Pope reached out after J, thundering ferociously, ‘Come here!’

  J wished he could have stayed there and slugged it out with him. He wished he could have been brave. But Pope wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met, not even the worst of his mother’s friends. Pope was a full-on psycho deviate and J didn’t need any encouragement to take off. With Pope right after him.

  They chased through the house, slamming into walls with Smurf screaming ‘Leave him alone! Leave him alone!’ behind them. But nothing was going to stop Pope. He was going to get him and make him sorry he ever talked to the cops.

  And he would have, too, if Detective Senior Sergeant Leckie hadn’t stepped up to the screen door just as J came charging out.

  Coming to a stop, J tried to pretend nothing was going on, but Leckie wasn’t that stupid.

  ‘G’day, Josh,’ he said, his eyes scanning the scene as Pope swung around the corner and came to a sudden halt just behind J. ‘I’ve got some bad news, mate,’ Leckie continued, wondering what he’d stepped into and how he might use it.

  ‘He knows the bad news,’ Pope replied. ‘We all do.’

  ‘Is everything okay here?’ Leckie asked J, his new best mate.

  J could barely hear him, his blood was pumping so hard in his ears.

  Pope answered for him. ‘Yeah. Everything’s great.’

  ‘You all right, mate?’ Leckie repeated.

  J felt like he was a rag being wrung out between the two of them.

  ‘He’s fine, Mr Leckie,’ Smurf answered, stepping forwards, pale and puffy-eyed.

  ‘Josh, I’d like you to come down to the station with me, if that’s okay,’ Leckie said, stirring the pot to see what might rise to the top.

  ‘Hey, what’s he done?’ Pope asked, like he was J’s lawyer. ‘Tell me. I’ll make sure he gets discipline.’

  Leckie didn’t have to imagine what that would be like. He’d already seen the bodies of the two constables and what Pope had done to them to know what he was capable of.

  ‘Will you come with me, Josh?’ Leckie asked in that kind, confiding voice that always made J want to trust him, even when he knew he couldn’t.

  ‘Well, what do you want to talk to him about?’ Pope persisted. ‘Talk to me about it.’

  Leckie knew how cooperative Pope could be. ‘We’ll speak to you again at a later date,’ he said. ‘When we’re ready.’

  Caught in the middle between Leckie and Pope, J didn’t know which way to jump. Either way, he was going to cop a belting, of that he was sure.

  Casually leaning against the doorframe, Pope made his own offer. ‘I might, um …’ he began confidentially, ‘I might have some information for you about those two murdered police.’

  Leckie looked at him, curious about what he might say.

  ‘I’ve been asking around a bit,’ Pope continued, in a low, man-to-man voice, ‘and there’s a few theories floating around.’ Just in case Leckie might get his hopes up, Pope added quickly, ‘I don’t know if any of them are t
rue or not, but I might be able help you with your investigations.’

  ‘Oh, thanks for that,’ Leckie answered, the slight smile in one corner of his mouth hard to read. But, turning back to J, he repeated, ‘Will you come with me, Josh?’

  ‘You go, love,’ Smurf said, breaking the impasse. ‘I’ll call Ezra. Go put your shoes on.’

  As J moved off, Smurf got Leckie in her sights and, uncomfortable, he finally said, ‘I’m not currently in a position to discuss what happened today, but I can arrange for counselling services to visit, should you require any.’

  Even when the good guys were trying to be nice, they still managed to sound like pricks.

  ‘I hope you find the killers,’ Smurf answered, slow and careful, like a sniper lining up a shot.

  ‘Yeah. So do I,’ Leckie answered, looking away.

  Back inside the house, J was putting on his shoes.

  ‘You know you’re not alone, right?’ Pope was saying, suddenly Mr Nice, all friendly and chummy.

  J didn’t say a word.

  ‘We’ll get you through this, mate, okay?’

  J stood and took off, swerving to miss Pope’s paw as he tried to give him a friendly pat on the back.

  Pope looked dark, but he wasn’t fooling J any more.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Leckie said when he got J in the car.

  ‘They’re upset,’ J said.

  ‘So am I,’ Leckie answered, looking at him, ‘and you want to know why? Because now he’ll never be able to come clean and answer for what he did.’

  J was listening to him, but wasn’t saying anything.

  ‘He killed those boys. Him and his two brothers. We know he did,’ Leckie continued. ‘And if he’d been brave enough, he could have owned up and told us, and got it off his chest. Now he’s lost his chance and he’s taking it with him to wherever he’s going.’

  ‘Where’s he going?’ J asked, curious to hear what Leckie had to say.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Leckie answered. ‘You tell me.’

  THIRTEEN

  Ezra sat like a self-satisfied frog behind J, licking his thick, fat lips as Leckie started the You have the right to remain silent crap again.

  ‘Now, I’ll remind you again, Josh,’ he said, sounding perfectly reasonable, ‘you’re under no obligation to say anything at this point in time, but anything you do say can be used as evidence in any future court appearances. You understand that?’

  J had heard him, but what he couldn’t understand was why Leckie was carrying on with all this palaver. It certainly wasn’t for Ezra’s benefit, because he didn’t believe a word of it, so why would J? Everyone knew the Codys had done it, and knew the cops were just going to keep shooting them till no-one was left. Wasn’t that the way it worked? Why pretend otherwise? Of course, Ezra knew it was just a habit, a form of words intended to conceal the truth, the truth being that there was nothing just about the justice system, and that all that had changed in five hundred years of criminal law was that the floggings had been moved out of sight.

  ‘You understand that?’ Leckie repeated.

  J did, but Ezra wasn’t even going to let him answer that. ‘Yes, he understands that,’ he said for him. J’s presence had ceased to matter.

  Ezra was now going to use every weapon in his considerable arsenal to put J out of Leckie’s reach, not because J meant anything to him, and not even because the Codys were clients; simply because he had waged his own war against the police over many years and enjoyed the sport of it. He liked to see them squirm, he explained sometimes. It’s the thrill of having something dumb and dangerous helpless on its back.

  ‘Okay, now, picking up where we left off,’ Leckie said, already knowing where this was headed. ‘When we last spoke, you were telling us how upset your uncles were over the death of Barry Brown.’

  Ezra sort of snorted, as if to say, Well, you’re not going to get a free kick like that again.

  Leckie continued, ‘Can you remember what was said or any … any comments that were made at that time exactly?’

  J looked at his hands and tried to think of something else. This was too hard, and he already sensed he could easily wind up dead.

  ‘Josh,’ Leckie said, leaning forwards a little, ‘has Mr White provided you with advice in respect to how you should conduct yourself in this interview today?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll be remaining mute,’ Ezra said, and the way he said it, so close behind J he could feel his breath on his neck, it felt like an order.

  ‘Okay, I can appreciate you’ve been advised not to say anything to me,’ Leckie said, trying to catch J’s eye, ‘but the sooner you help us with our enquiries, the sooner we can scratch you off the list and move on to a different line. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  J looked up at Leckie, searching his face, hoping to find something there, but not quite sure what. Reassurance, protection, hope. Hope that there was some way out of this. But what could Leckie offer? He was just a policeman standing on the side of the law.

  J heard Ezra grumbling behind and turned away. Leckie was as much a part of the game as Ezra was.

  ‘Nothing else you want to say at this point?’ Leckie asked.

  He didn’t say anything.

  J was fucked. No matter which way you looked at it, he was fucked.

  ‘How old are you?’ Ezra asked later as he drove J back to the railway.

  ‘Seventeen,’ J said, glancing sideways at him.

  ‘Do you like the police?’

  ‘No.’ J laughed nervously, wondering if he was trying to trick him.

  ‘Why not?’ Ezra asked, looking straight ahead.

  ‘Well,’ J began, trying to think, ‘they get you into trouble.’

  ‘It’s what you do that gets you into trouble,’ Ezra answered.

  ‘Well, everybody does something,’ J replied, ‘so how come only some people get caught?’

  ‘You know how old those coppers were that got killed?’ Ezra asked, glancing at him.

  ‘Sure,’ J said guiltily. What had he asked him that for? What did that have to do with anything? How would he know something like that? He hadn’t really even thought about them.

  ‘One of them was nineteen,’ Ezra said.

  J wondered what he was getting at. ‘So what?’ he asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter to you?’ Ezra asked, sounding like it should.

  ‘Does it matter to you?’ J answered, sensing a trap, and not wanting to be made to look like a fool.

  ‘People amaze me sometimes,’ Ezra said, looking back to the road.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know,’ the man replied, ‘people get up to the sort of shit they get up to—I don’t know, the kind of crap they do. Kill their girlfriends; get drunk and drive their cars into shop windows; you know the sort of shit people do.’

  J was staring at the floor. He knew what he was talking about.

  ‘Then they come to someone like me to get ’em off the hook so they can go out and do it all over again.’

  J thought for a while. The car was nice and new, and had that new-car smell. ‘Well, that’s what you’re there for, isn’t it?’ he said at last.

  Ezra looked at him and started to laugh. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘That is what I’m there for. Thank you.’

  J was lost now. ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said.

  ‘No, you did. Thank you,’ Ezra laughed. ‘Thank you for putting it so succinctly. That’s what I’m there for. And what are you there for?’

  J didn’t know what he was getting at, but it sounded like he was telling him something. ‘I’m just there,’ he answered.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ezra repeated, still laughing. ‘That’s what I’m there for.’ And, looking back at the road, he concluded, ‘And that’s what you’re there for, too.’

  J still didn’t get it, and they drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Back at the house, Ezra was snorting some lines off a CD cover on the table. He’d d
ropped J off in the city, done a bit of running around picking up a birthday present for his kid and now was back here giving a report.

  ‘There wasn’t a good feeling in the room,’ he said, pinching at his nose and feeling that exhilarating zing as the coke hit his brain. ‘Leckie was running the whole Yesterday you were very helpful routine,’ he continued.

  Pope and Darren were sitting in armchairs, listening closely as he continued, ‘That was probably for my benefit but I dunno. He’s just a kid. Kids are stupid. They’re weak. He may think he’s doing the right thing but really his foot’s covered in dog shit and he’s got it stuck right in his mouth.’ He stripped off his court shirt to slip into his tennis gear. He had a friendly match with a Land and Environment judge a little later. ‘I’m pretty surprised you’ve let him get anywhere near you, to be honest.’

  Pope looked at Darren, snarling, ‘I told you to go get that car.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Darren spat back.

  Pope wouldn’t have it. ‘I told you to go get the car.’

  ‘No, you didn’t!’ Darren said, in that whiny, defensive tone that came so naturally to him. ‘You never fucking mentioned it to me once, Pope.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any of this,’ Ezra said, walking away and trying to remind them of the dignified position he held in the law, to their considerable benefit. ‘You’ve just got to be worried about what he’s been doing.’

  Standing in the shadows in the corridor outside, J was petrified as he listened to it all.

  ‘He’s a big kid,’ Darren said, trying to wash his hands of it. ‘He can look after himself.’

  ‘Can he, now?’ Ezra answered, intent on giving Darren a lesson in psychology. ‘Can he handle police? Can he handle their pressure? It’s a totally different kettle of fish.’