Drive By

by Michael Duffy

  That day it just gets worse though, like really bad. I know what you are thinking, how can the weekend be any worse than what it is already? Well, I am telling you. That Sunday, Shada tries to knock herself. Turns out she has all these sleeping tablets from different doctors and takes them all in her bedroom after lunch. The papa finds her in the afternoon and an ambulance comes and takes her to the hospital and everything. Shada has left a note saying how the jack ripped her veil off her last night and for a Muslim woman this is worse than rape. I do not think this is true, but when Farid comes and reads the note he says, We will have to call a press conference, and I am thinking like, Fuck, fuck, what is going on in this world? Like you can see what sensible is but no one is doing it, none of the people you is relying on to do the things. He rings the imam and soon he is there and there is more and more people all coming to the house. It is like Shada is becoming this bigger thing than she ever was but is it her or is it all the other people? And is it good for her or for all the other people if you is looking ahead say six months? But still there is more and more of the people in our house. Salim is there and they is all talking about how this might help Rafi’s bail application the next day and I is going into my room and shutting the door and reading a Camry manual because, mate, I am starting to think. P’raps I have had enough.

  Later the mama comes home from Lakemba and I drive her to the hospital and we sit next to Shada who has had her stomach pumped and is being kept in for observation. We sit there watching Shada who is under sedation and fast asleep.

  She couldn’t have died, one of the nurses tells us. Sleeping tablets cannot kill you anymore, not most of the time. They killed Marilyn Monroe, says the mama, but the nurse says, They are made of a different chemical these days. The mama is crying and saying, Shada, Shada why is you doing this? Such an intelligent girl and getting all the marks in chemistry for the HSC and coming fifth in the state. I think to myself, P’raps she did know it, about the sleeping tablets, and it is another one of those big thoughts I am having all the time now and I try to push it away. P’raps I am one of those people Shada was talking about, who do not want anything to change even when everything is.

  On Tuesday Bec was dreading the call from Magda in Europe, had left a message on her mobile yesterday, asking her to ring, about the house. Had prepared some words but suspected they wouldn’t be much use. There’d be surprise, anger—you’d have to be angry, especially if you had children—and then, of course, the financial side. Tim and she would want to sell up, urgently, but what was the effect of a murder on a property’s price? Bec would do what she could, give them her savings.

  But it was a detective named Denis Schulz who called, deep voice, announced formally he was OIC of Strike Force Siltman, investigating the death of Ian Hirst and related events. Told Bec to come to police headquarters ASAP.

  Schulz was about fifty, not too tall but wide, grey hair with heavy black glasses resting on a big nose. His partner was Gabrielle Watts, bulky with short blonde hair. They looked like people whose main talent was keeping secrets.

  ‘Has Harris confessed?’ Bec said as they shook hands.

  ‘Let’s wait until we get to the interview room,’ said Schulz.

  She thought about asking if she was a suspect, knew it was no time for joking, wondered why she felt so nervous as they entered the room. Of course she had reason to be nervous, but not to feel it so strongly. Vella had called and ordered her to attend compulsory counselling. Maybe it was not such a bad idea.

  Watts switched on the recorder and ran through the preliminaries for a witness statement. Then Bec jumped in. ‘I asked before if Brian Harris had admitted to the murder of Ian Hirst and the attempted murder of myself and the undercover officer known as Sharon Zames?’

  ‘We can’t tell you that at this stage of our investigation.’

  ‘What about Sharon Zames? Does she support what I told Detective Carter on Sunday night?’

  ‘Detective Constable Cole’s memories of the past few days are confused. She’s been diagnosed with long-running post-traumatic stress disorder. Plus it seems she was in shock since she heard about the shooting at the gym.’

  Watts said this without looking at Schulz, so it must be something they’d planned. They wanted her to be worried about what Sharon was saying. Or not saying.

  ‘Hirst’s girlfriend, said her name was Trish, told me she saw the shooting. Have you got her?’

  Schulz removed his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. Without them, his nose looked even bigger. ‘We haven’t found her.’

  ‘Was Ian Hirst shot by Brian Harris’s gun?’

  ‘No. The inspector’s gun—let’s make this clear at the start—was found locked in the boot of his vehicle by the on-call team. It had not been fired. The deceased was killed by an unknown weapon.’

  It was a gaping hole in her understanding of last night. What if Trish had imagined it? ‘He must have had another weapon, thrown it down the hole with Sharon, it got washed into the bay. You’ve looked for it?’

  Schulz shook his head angrily. ‘Can we ask some questions now?’

  The interview was long. They ran through the events of the weekend once, and broke for coffee, which was provided to Bec in the room. Then they went back to the start, this time focusing on her own decisions following Rafiq Habib’s evidence at the trial: her meet with Sharon Zames on Friday night, her unofficial use of Wallace on Saturday, and then her exclusion of Wallace on Sunday and the unusual actions she’d taken, including the failure to stop after the motorcycle accident. Hiding Zames at the Kensington house without telling anyone.

  Schulz said, ‘We’ve found the two men who were on the bike you knocked over. The passenger had a warrant out for possession, that’s why they ran. There’s no reason to link either of them to any of this. No connection with the Habibs, no firearm offences.’

  Bec swallowed, recalled the bike coming up on her left, the hand going into the jacket.

  She said, ‘Did either of them have a connection with Brian Harris, or his deputy, Jim Marsden?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are aware Harris tried to kill Sharon Zames and me? It’s in my statement.’

  Schulz shook his head impatiently. ‘Let’s keep this in order. You don’t seem to have handled Cole in a sensible manner. You were scared yourself?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘One phone call was all it needed, to the Drug Squad or to your boss if you had problems with them. If you’d done that, Ian Hirst would still be alive.’

  ‘He’d still be alive if Brian Harris hadn’t shot him.’

  Schulz sighed. ‘You saw this alleged murder?’

  ‘Trish did. Heard it.’

  ‘That’s your case, isn’t it? That Trish no-surname heard a bang. You want us to charge an inspector with murder on that? What possible motive could there be?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  It might be there somewhere, in the crazy story Sharon had told her about Papua, which she relayed to the officers. They seemed unimpressed by it.

  ‘Okay, let’s get back to the decisions you made on Sunday. Some really bad ones.’

  ‘There was a legitimate concern the phones were off.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. This stuff about someone in the job arranging to have phones tapped for the Habibs. It’s a fantasy. A conspiracy theory. Told to you by someone who was obviously unwell.’

  She said, ‘Zames’s concerns were unlikely, but not impossible. I could afford to give her the benefit of the doubt. As soon as Harris called, he was going to pick her up—’

  ‘Except you stashed her in a private house. What was wrong with here? Or the Police Centre? Or your local station?’

  ‘It might have compromised her undercover status—’

  ‘And then you just left her. Are you familiar with protection procedures?’

  She knew that decision would haunt her forever. But even so, she had not killed Ian Hirst, or even known she was placing him i
n danger. ‘The phones—’

  ‘You were way out of your depth by then, breaking rules you didn’t even know exist.’

  Bec breathed deep and realised that they were trying to demolish her, destroy her confidence. It was the job they’d been given, Knight had said so yesterday. She had already lost.

  She smiled. ‘You’re good at this, aren’t you?’

  When they finished, they announced that Gary Murphy wanted to see her at three, an hour away, and she was to leave the building until then and not speak to any colleagues. She went for a walk into the Parramatta CBD, hoping the crowds might provide a distraction. Felt wretched, for a number of good reasons she could do nothing about.

  On her new phone the Telegraph had a brief reference to the death of Ian Hirst, but there was no mention he’d been shot by a police officer. She rang a friend named Holly and had a conversation in which she did not allude to the events of the weekend. The pain in her shoulder and hip tugged at her to tell the truth, but she withheld it. She was used to keeping work secrets but this did feel different, it was a denial of something so important it had become part of her. As they chatted she saw how she could maybe accept this, and the deceit itself would become a part of her too.

  She bought some sushi and ate while she walked, wondering how much she should raise with Murphy, what he’d be like. She’d never spoken to anyone above the rank of superintendent, but it was her assumption that the people who ran the force were individuals of outstanding qualities. Her hopes for the coming meeting were considerable.

  Bec was only twenty-eight, had never walked the corridors of power. She expected Murphy would have an office off an open-plan area, like everyone else, possibly with a secretary outside. But when she reached his level back at headquarters she found a labyrinth of corridors like the neural circuits of a brain, with lots of offices with closed doors. Finally she found a secretary, whose room was bigger than the office of the commander of Homicide. There were five doors or corridors leading into the room, and as Bec waited she wondered how many secret operations were being run from here, units that appeared on no organisation chart.

  It was fifteen minutes before one of the doors swung open and Murphy strode into the room. He was in uniform. The short-sleeved pale blue shirt worn without a tie—standard for the force’s senior staff—looked absurd on anyone over twenty. Someone had observed that the police commissioner and his executive must be the only leaders of an organisation of eighteen thousand people in the world to dress like small boys. But Murphy had other sources of dignity, starting with his size. As they shook hands he squeezed tight, as though starting a contest, and Bec recalled that he’d once been a champion athlete. He had smooth grey hair and an unremarkable face, except for the sharp brown eyes.

  His office was a corner, glass on two sides providing a view of Parramatta and the flat suburbs around.

  ‘Good to meet you,’ he began. ‘My niece plays netball, you beat her in the state championships eleven years ago. Quarter finals. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I read about that business in the navy. A terrible thing. You did well.’

  ‘Sir?’ Felt a twinge of panic—maybe we are condemned to repeat ourselves, through life.

  ‘Have a seat.’

  Murphy did not sit down himself but came and stood almost over her, peering as though conducting an examination. Nodded and turned abruptly, seemed to be heading for his own seat but veered off and came to rest with his nose near one of the windows, his back to Bec.

  ‘The war on drugs is the biggest thing we do here. Call it by other names, Middle Eastern, Asian, gangs, firearms, it’s mainly about drugs. You’re a believer, Bec?’

  Automatically she agreed, wondering how he knew she was not called Rebecca.

  ‘Drugs are evil.’ Murphy was speaking loudly; it was necessary, because the room was big and he still had his face aimed at the window. ‘You agree?’

  ‘They certainly encourage people to make bad choices.’

  He turned and nodded. ‘The war on drugs is not like World War I, front line, know where the enemy are. It’s like Vietnam, never sure who’s who. We let the Yanks come here for R&R, they introduced heroin to Australia. Like I say, you were never quite sure where the enemy was. Drugs knocked this organisation about for twenty-five years, a whole generation. Bad times.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘But since the Royal Commission, we’re back on top. Bit of corruption, not much, morale’s good. With me?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ The word came unbidden. There was something about Murphy that made her want to agree with everything he said; even if she didn’t quite understand what it meant, she felt she would later.

  ‘Now we’re doing it properly. Fighting drugs is a sacred cause for the police of New South Wales, it gives us a noble purpose. I don’t want to get into a discussion of “sacred”.’ He came closer and smiled, waved the prospect away. ‘You studied anthropology, Bec?’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘Fascinating subject. Every society needs things that are forbidden, taboos, essential to maintaining a sense of right and wrong, moral health.’ He was slapping the words on like paint. ‘We used to oppose lots of things, gambling and sly grog, premarital sex, abortion, porn . . . sex was very good for us that way.’ He laughed.

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘Not much left now, apart from protecting kiddies. Anything goes these days, and that’s a general point, I’m beyond specifics.’ He paused again, as though communing with himself. ‘But there has to be something we still oppose, something that’s big and everywhere. The fact we’re moral beings demands it. Without taboos the whole thing falls apart. With me?’

  Bec nodded. Mild panic was mixed with a sense of being on the brink of a breakthrough in comprehension, after which everything would be clear. She felt privileged to be hearing these things and wanted to believe. To do so would relieve the tension created by his words.

  ‘Brian Harris has been a leader in the war on drugs,’ Murphy barked out. ‘Locked up dozens of crooks, got tonnes off the streets. Literally. Worked sixty-hour weeks for years, unblemished record. Commissioners’ commendations, you name it.’ He stopped and looked almost pleadingly at Bec, who held herself still, no nod, not even a grunt. With Harris they had descended from the general to the specific, and she could not connect the two in the way Murphy seemed to want. Not yet. He cleared his face. ‘I know there were problems with this Leb, they go back.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

  Again the sense of something just beyond her understanding, but this time more tangible. Rafiq Habib?

  Murphy took a few steps towards the desk, and shook his head.

  ‘You know anything about this Indonesian business?’

  ‘You mean the villagers in Papua killed by the crop spray?’

  She hadn’t intended to say it, knowing her mind was too dull to argue, but felt driven to assert her own existence in the face of Murphy’s exorbitance.

  He expressed surprise. ‘Not the truth at all. Who told you that?’

  She told him about Zames, and the letter from the lab. He looked at her kindly, shook his head. ‘Teller got it completely wrong, with the steroid abuse he wasn’t thinking clearly. The AFP visited the village the week before Teller died. They had their own interpreter. Unrestricted access. It was cholera, Bec, that’s what killed those poor people. You have my word. The crop was sprayed by the Indos—Roundup.’

  ‘Zames—’

  ‘Officer Cole, to use her real name. Brian Harris told Teller the result of the AFP visit, but he didn’t tell Cole, because he was not aware Teller had told her of his suspicions. Teller was under orders to keep the Papua visit to himself.’

  Bec’s surprise must have shown in her face. He said, ‘You’ve been assuming all the players in this had perfect knowledge. A common mistake, but life is not like that. Worst fear, Bec? What did you think had happened here, really?’


  The shock had passed and now Bec just felt dizzy. ‘The attempts on Zames’s life—I thought Harris wanted her dead because she knew about Papua, the village he’d wiped out with the spraying. Maybe he’d been testing some new spray for the Americans . . .’

  Murphy looked surprised. ‘But he didn’t. How could he?’

  ‘Teller told Zames he did. She told me. And the report—’

  ‘I’ve explained that. What about Ian Hirst, the things you say about Harris shooting at you? Why—’

  ‘He wanted Zames dead because she’d had enough, was about to go to the Crime Commission and tell them about the spraying.’

  Murphy seemed confused. Genuinely. ‘How could Harris have tried to shoot Cole at the gym? He was in Coffs Harbour at the time.’

  ‘He might have arranged it, sir.’

  But she was struggling. What he’d told her about the cholera had destroyed her whole theory.

  ‘Does Zames believe this?’

  ‘Some of it. The Papua—’

  ‘By the end, Teller had lost touch with reality. Cole didn’t fully realise that. Unfortunately they broke procedure, began a relationship, he told her some of his delusions. She was in a bad way herself, couldn’t distinguish between truth and barking insanity.’

  She felt herself blushing. ‘Harris—’

  ‘Left them under too long. It was a serious error in judgment and he must pay for that.’

  ‘But Zames—Cole . . .’ she began, weakly.

  ‘She’s not well, Bec. Been on sick leave this past year.’ So Harris had been right, and she’d been taken in by a woman who was seriously unwell. Bec felt that her sense of reason had detached itself from its bearings and was floating around in her mind. Her judgment of other people could never again be trusted. Murphy said gently, ‘She lied to you. Harris made mistakes with Teller, but he wasn’t going to repeat them. We took her out right after Teller’s death, gave her counselling, sent her home. She was on leave, still is, flew back and took a flat here, got her old job back, said she needed to be here to grieve.’ Bec felt herself sweating. ‘We tried to talk her out of it, offered her more counselling, but what can you do? It’s a free country.’