‘That’s stupid. I was—’
‘Zames called Harris when his plane landed and he came over to the house.’ Gary Murphy had gone over it all with her and Stephen, explained the whole chain of events. The police had been incredibly kind. ‘When he arrived he interrupted an attempt to kill Zames. Probably an overenthusiastic Habib soldier wanting to make sure she didn’t give evidence in the trial. That’s what Harris and Sharon Zames say, Bec, I’ve seen copies of their statements.’
Ralston looked on the point of breaking down, and Karen needed to be alone. She was holding herself in so well, Stephen would be proud of her. He was in Canberra today, at COAG. She tried to recall the last time they’d made love, couldn’t. What an odd thought to be having at this precise moment. She folded her arms and gripped her shoulders.
Ralston stood up. ‘I am so sorry.’
‘Yes. Bec, why do you do this? Being a cop.’
Ralston looked out the window, as though she’d never considered it before. Half a minute passed before she said, ‘It hurts less.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I don’t really know.’
‘Have you thought of seeing someone?’
‘You’ve got a lot of faith in other folk, don’t you? Learning and stuff.’
‘I suppose I do.’
Did.
She left and Karen closed the door and sat down. Stephen had told her Ralston was off to Bourke in the state’s far west, a hot and dry town with a big Indigenous population and lots of problems. Chris Byrne had told him, said Ralston hadn’t been informed yet. She deserved to be sacked but they couldn’t do that, not after she’d saved Brian Harris’s life in the tunnel.
Karen had protested, but Stephen told her to save her breath. Apparently Ralston had been the lead on a raid recently where a baby had died because of her incompetence. The DPP had decided not to charge her, but the family had launched a civil action. Murphy said she was just no good, and her days as a detective were numbered.
And this was the person she’d asked to help her lean-limbed son.
Mate, this terrible thing Rafi is telling me in the jail is this. He has been a snout all the time for a year, since the pizza shop thing with that fuckwit Edi Sande. Even when they was at school the parents was saying Edi was a bad influence on Rafi, with his snakes and everything, and now it is all even truer. After the fire at the shop this jack Harris got one of the delivery guys from the shop to roll, and Harris is telling Rafiq he has the case against him for being a big-time drug dealer, which is bullshit but the guy will say anything the jacks tell him to stop going to jail. So Rafiq is agreeing to become a grass. It is a special grass just for Harris. There is no paperwork.
I swear to you I told them nothing about the family, he says when he is telling me this. I told this Harris cunt I will do this thing to stop going to prison but there is no way I will grass my family and I is never saying anything about Farid or any of the family business John I is swearing that you must believe me.
Mate, my heart was like it would break when I heard these things. We have this saying Allah yerhamak, May God have mercy on your soul. Rafiq is crying while he tells me, and people is looking at all the emotion but really I am cold in my heart, thinking about what we have to do with this new situation, it is like a hard game of chess. After I leave the jail I is driving over to Auburn. Rafi has been begging me not to tell Farid, but what he has told me is so big I have to share it so Farid can decide what to do. I get to Auburn and I tell Farid about Rafiq being a grass and I tell him the other things too Rafiq is telling me, that Harris told him to lend his car to Teller, and how he had to meet Harris and Teller at Gallipoli Park the night Teller died. When Rafi turned up there was no sign of Harris and Teller was lying dead on the ground. He had the keys to the Porsche with him and Rafi just grabbed them and ran. This is the thing Rafi has not been able to tell anyone, because to be a grass is the worst thing in the world.
I tell Farid these things because he has the big brain and can connect them to everything else and maybe tell us what to do and make things good again. Not like they were, but p’raps in a different way. The shame, Farid says, keeping his voice quiet but his face is gone red. The shame on his family. As Farid speaks with such anger, I start to think I have made a mistake, always thinking he is smart in everything. It is time to be cool and plan how we is to help protect our brother but Farid is all hot. Rafiq, he says, what is we doing about him now, that is the question. It is like he is not the same person anymore.
Farid is putting his head in his hands, like what I have told him is too big for even him to understand, and he is swearing all the time. This fucking line in the sand thing, he says. It was working with you so well, we is not looking at Rafi closely enough. Fuck, it is your fault, you should have been watching him. Shit. There is emotions running over Farid’s face and one of them is a smile. That is weird and makes me feel scared. That cunt Harris, says Farid after a few more emotions have come into his face. He must be in the pocket of the Deebs. They are killing Teller and blaming it on our family. He is shaking his head.
When we say this in court, I say, Rafi will be free, but then I is stopping as I hear the words they is so stupid. Farid looks really angry and nods his head, goes, One, the jacks would deny it and the jury would believe them. This Harris is such a slippery cunt you can be sure he is having a rock-solid alibi. And two, the shame this family would have with a brother being a grass. I mean, fuck, John. Like, fuck. He picks up his dagger and sticks it in the desk real hard. I say, But we have to stop Rafiq going to jail, and Farid says, It would be the end, John, if everyone heard Rafi was a grass. You know how hard the Deebs is pushing us now? I is not telling you the whole story of how bad things are, not wanting to worry you or the family. But Sam Deeb is getting desperate. I say, Well you is needing to do something about that, and Farid is angry again and says, What? That cunt is never compromising. I is dealing with him and paying him and he is always breaking his word. This is a surprise to me that Farid has been trying to pay off the Deebs, that is no way to fight a war. He says, If it got out, about Rafiq, those guys out there—he is pointing to the door—they would be deserting us like rats. We would be finished, brother. Really finished. Like, dead.
Rafiq will be dead in jail, I say. And Farid has tears in his eyes and then he is screaming, so loud it is being heard all through the building and p’raps outside too, so loud the two soldiers come running in from outside. Fuuuck!
When that is all over and we is by ourselves again, I get up to go, and Farid is staring at me with new eyes as he gets up and we is hugging. He tells me everything is changing now and I will be working for the family, and the problem of Rafiq will have to be sorted out. I say he will be killed anyway if he stays in jail and Farid my own brother is saying well maybe that is his fate, like what happens to a man who brings his family to the edge of disaster. I say, Can’t you help him? And Farid goes, John you is to become a manager now, and what you must think of is what is good for the family, not for one individual if the family is destroyed. Being a manager is not easy but you will learn like I did.
I am thinking as I go out the door there are some things I do not want to learn.
That night when I get home Dani has not arrived yet so I have a conversation with the papa about Toyota, trying to forget about Rafi and telling the papa how I am wanting to go to Melbourne and what Farid is wanting and how the two things is different. I am just wanting to get away from the whole confusion by now but also I am feeling a coward for not being able to think of something for Rafi. I am feeling there might be a way but I am not thinking properly, and like the papa always told me, feeling without thinking is no good. But if Rafi is found not guilty anyway, everything is going to be all right.
The papa is smoking his cigarette and walking up and down the front yard. Since the jacks dug up the backyard and found the vodka he has not had the heart to go there and see all his ruined vegetables. He stands at the gate, not real
ly listening to me and looks up and down the street and says, John, why did I ever leave Lebanon? There is so much he does not know my heart begins to hurt and I put my arm around him thinking of Rafi and for a moment we just look at the brick houses across the road and the neat gardens and I am thinking about all the pain and sorrow that lies behind all the walls of the world and peoples’ eyes too, eyes is just like walls.
Dani arrives in her little Mazda carrying Mr Smiggles in her arms and the papa walks away a few steps and puts out his cigarette butt on the wall. She kisses me like there is nothing wrong between us. We watch Mr Smiggles do his business in the garden and I ask if she has changed her mind about moving to Melbourne. She puts a finger on my lips and says, Later, lover, you finish your conversation with your dad and we will talk later after I have helped Shada prepare the meal. Then she goes inside, clip-clopping on her high heels and pulling Mr Smiggles on his lead, and the papa and me watch her walk because really it is a beautiful sight and I am so proud of her. Then I say to the papa, I want to say no to Farid about working for the family and I ask for your support. When you drew the line in the sand I was not happy but I have learned to live the life you wanted for me and now that has become my life and I do not want Farid to take it away from me.
The papa’s hands are shaking as he lights another cigarette and I ask him if he is sick or anything. He shakes his head like he is angry and says, We must all do what is best for the family. Farid is head of the family now. That is not true, I say. You is the papa and we is all respecting you and always taking guidance from your experience and wisdom.
The papa looks at me and shakes his head. I realise in that moment so much of the stuff I have been thinking about the family is all wrong. I have always known this but hidden it from my intelligence. The papa is staring over my shoulder and I turn and I see Farid walking down the street. His Bentley is still trying to squeeze into a space up the road, and across the street Mrs Billecki is standing next to her roses and holding her watering can and watching as the Bentley comes to a stop and Talal and Mamdouh get out.
Farid reaches us and shakes the papa’s hand and I see at that moment the love the papa has for him and the respect and I see it is greater than the respect he has for any of us others and I see who is the big man. And I have just started feeling angry again when this silver Mercedes comes slowly down the road and I look at it because you is not seeing many Mercedes on our street, even older models like this one is. When it gets closer I see the people in it have dark faces. I is moving and yelling but you cannot do much communicating in less than a second. The windows roll down and I see they is wearing balaclavas and holding things which is guns, and they begin to shoot. But it is all so quick.
The Mercedes does not stop and when it is gone the papa is lying on the concrete ground with a bullet through his chest and Farid is sitting against the little brick fence holding his leg and going, Fuck fuck fuck. I hear more shooting up the road and look up and see the Mercedes turning the corner. Then the women is running out of the house Dani at the front she is running in her bare feet and she looks at us three men and then she runs over to Farid and puts her arms around him. I hear her say, Oh my darling.
The verdict in the Rafiq Habib murder trial affected members of the prosecution team differently. In a bar half an hour after the foreman had announced the decision, McGowan said to Bec, ‘You don’t seem surprised?’
‘The drive-by wouldn’t have helped. Reminded the jury the Habibs are gangsters.’
Ferguson had argued for a new trial; Justice Leahy had taken half a day to decide to reject the application.
One of the detectives said, ‘South-west Sydney, it’s a self-cleaning oven.’
Laughter.
The guilty verdict had shocked the Habib family. Farid had been in court for the first time, on crutches, and had started to yell clamorous abuse at the foreman, who looked terrified. When the sheriff ’s officers came to take him away, Shada had launched herself over the wall in front of the public gallery at McGowan, while the rest of the belligerent family and their friends screamed and yelled. McGowan had sat straight, staring at the bench, while she rained blows on his back. It had been a ruckus, with only John Habib acting responsibly, trying to calm down his family. The Riot Squad had come racing in and cleared the public gallery. Three people were facing contempt charges.
‘We’re all happy?’ Knight concluded an earnest chat with Thomson and proposed a toast to the absent Karen Mabey, who was with her daughters in Paris. They drank, and Knight launched into a story about a recent visit to the Coopers brewery in Adelaide. Soon he was talking about hops, and his face assumed that vivacity it had only when he was talking about food or drink. People assumed because of his weight that he ate too much, but he didn’t, in Bec’s experience. Maybe it was a glands thing.
She drifted through the next hour until the lawyers departed. Some of the other detectives were there, including Burchell, Wallace, Easterley, but eventually they left too, only Knight remained. Bec stood up to go.
‘Let’s talk.’
‘I don’t think so.’
There was the sense of a conclusion and she wanted to keep it that way.
‘They’ve identified Ian Hirst’s friend, Trish. She’s Patricia Knowles of Seven Hills.’
‘Yes!’
‘Missing since the shooting.’
Bec sat down heavily. Knight said no more, waiting for her to speak, but the effort of revisiting the whole thing was for the moment too much.
There was a big television screen in the bar and the news came on, mainly politics and business stories. There was a brief mention of the trial verdict, and the presenter referred to the drive-by shooting.
‘I really thought they’d have retaliated against the Deebs by now,’ Knight said. ‘Imad would have. He would have considered it a matter of honour. Farid’s different, he’s a more cautious bloke. It’s going to take a while to get him.’
‘Not our problem.’
‘I guess. We’re just the garbage men, clean up when the action’s all over.’ He was talking about Homicide. Bec had been thinking again about applying to join the squad. Kicked herself for not raising it with Murphy. As the answer to one of yesterday’s crossword clues put it: quid pro quo. Maybe Murphy couldn’t offer her complete peace, but he could get her out of Liverpool.
‘So,’ Knight said, ‘you going to tell me about Brian Harris?’
‘What?’
Knight’s expression hardened, and he just sat there.
She realised he still had no idea what had happened on Sunday night. His knowledge, like her own, was imperfect. There’d been no further publicity, not even any rumours she was aware of. Harris had left the Drug Squad, been transferred but she didn’t know where. She said, ‘You owe me something first. Why’d you bring me back to do the trial?’
‘The investigation occurred within certain parameters, to use a technical term.’
‘You mean Harris forced you to charge Habib?’
‘Something like that. I knew he was keen, too keen. Don’t know why I thought that, even now. With all my knowledge, still rely on instinct. Sometimes you have to. It’s a kind of faith, isn’t it?’
Murphy had talked of faith, and she shook her head angrily.
‘Story short, I thought you might be able to derail the case, he’d blame you, not me.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I couldn’t be seen to be defying him.’
‘What’s he got over you?’
‘He runs me, Bec, and for once I wanted to find a way around that. I chose you because you’re smart. Independent.’
The fat man in search of redemption, and she his instrument.
‘And a newbie. Expendable.’
‘No. Someone who could not be punished for finding the truth.’
It fitted, almost.
‘But you kept me in the office.’
‘That gave you an overview. I let you sit in on the interviews. The others
didn’t like that. I wanted someone else there who knew everything that was happening, and could think about it.’
‘You thought Rafiq didn’t do it?’
‘I still don’t know. Do you?’
‘The jury does.’
‘I just wanted to give the bloke a fair chance. It was all this was about. Seriously. I still believe in that.’
He seemed genuinely to respect her. It was a long time since anyone had indicated this, about a thousand years at least, and suddenly she felt better about herself, capable of going back over some things. ‘This is frigging complicated, boss.’
‘Yeah. I used to be able to think in a straight line, when I was at school. Did all right in the HSC, could have been a clerk, even a chalkie. You know they say your brain is shaped by what happens when you’re young—’
‘I think that’s babies.’
‘What you see before you is a mind formed by the New South Wales Police Force of the 1980s.’
He was ridiculous. But if he hadn’t been, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
‘So, the trial?’
‘Thought things might shift and it’d be good to have someone there whose thinking was more fluid. Who could respond more freely to whatever happened, maybe revisit part of the investigation I’d been warned off.’
‘Someone unaware of the parameters?’
‘Arranged my little drama in Adelaide, convinced Vella the thing here was in the bag.’
‘This all sounds . . . elaborate.’
‘I have commitments to certain people. Such as my family.’ He stared at the table, drew a circle in one of the pools of moisture there. ‘Debts incurred. You live an interesting life, Bec, it’s what happens. Especially if you also live in interesting times.’
Drive By Page 36
