Line of Sight

by David Whish-Wilson

  But Timothy Coote, when he appeared, was immediately recognisable. He looked exactly like an ex-ruckman who was now a family man and English-county schoolteacher; he was tall and bald and thick-waisted, limping as he carried a sleeping child under one arm.

  Jennifer Coote was towing another child, who dragged a cuddly lion by its tail across the floor. Swann chose Jennifer, rather than her husband. Not only was she the one who’d written the letter, she looked more rested, sharper, more in control.

  He took a last look around the hall before stepping forward and opening his badge. ‘Jennifer Coote? Wonder if I could have a word?’

  ‘What? No, sorry.’

  Snappy. Scared. A mother’s voice. Swann smiled to reassure her and pressed on. ‘Homicide. It’s about the letter you wrote concerning Ruby Devine.’

  No trace of relief in her eyes, or even recognition. She turned to her husband, who was right there at her shoulder, staring down at Swann’s badge. Timothy Coote’s eyes were small and bloodshot, his glasses smudged where his daughter had groped them off his face.

  ‘Just a few minutes,’ Swann insisted. ‘It’s urgent.’

  Jennifer Coote looked wistfully at the taxi stand and the growing queue. Her assured attitude had been a façade; she was just as exhausted as her husband. The older child began to whimper and kick at her ankle.

  Swann let their frustration build before offering them a ride. He would drop them off at their door, he said. They could talk in the car on the way. He was parked right by the entrance.

  Timothy Coote puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. His wife closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  They lived in Bayswater, fifteen minutes away if he took the shortest route to Bassendean and the nearest bridge across the river. A purple light was breaking over the ranges and plains. Swann left the radio off so as not to disturb the children, who lay with their heads in their father’s lap in the back seat. Jennifer Coote had shunted the passenger seat forward to accommodate the reach of her husband’s legs, and with both kids asleep she began to revive.

  Unlike her husband, she was clearly excited to be home. The largesse she had brought with her took up the entire boot – Swann had to fix their suitcases onto the roof rack. Neither of the Cootes seemed to find it strange that Swann was driving a family wagon while on duty. Perhaps they were too tired for it to register. Jennifer was a middle-class girl from Swanbourne, he discovered, and private-school educated by the sound of it, but she didn’t so much as blink when Swann’s bottle of whiskey rolled onto the floorpan at her feet.

  He was going to have to work backwards. Neither of the Cootes knew that the royal commission had already begun. Jennifer appeared surprised that her evidence might be crucial. She didn’t seem worried by Swann’s suggestion that she present a statement to the commissioner, but her husband was more circumspect.

  ‘Of course we don’t mind helping, but we are on holiday. We only have two weeks.’

  What he really meant, Swann could tell, was that pointing the finger at the police didn’t sound real smart. He was trying to make eye contact in the rear-vision mirror. Swann looked at him evenly. He wasn’t about to lie.

  ‘That’s exactly why your written evidence is so important. It’s new evidence. You make a statement to me, sign on the dotted line, then go back overseas, no harm done.’

  But Jennifer had sniffed her husband’s fear. ‘Others must have seen the same thing as us,’ she said. ‘There was plenty of traffic for that time of night. Cars parked on the fairway, one of them police, right next to the highway – you couldn’t miss it. Why is what we saw so important?’

  ‘Because those other witnesses changed their minds soon after being interviewed. Funny that, if it was as clear as you said.’

  ‘It was as clear as day. But …’ She fell into silence while she worked it through, watching the wreaths of mist lift above the narrowing river and burn away in the sharpening light.

  Swann was searching for a hook. He was suspended from duty, he couldn’t offer them protection. Or a reward. He couldn’t play on their egos, the need for notoriety – they were too level-headed. Nor could he plead social responsibility – they were parents. Eventually Timothy Coote sat forward, leaning over his sleeping children, a hand on each head. ‘What did you say your name was again? Superintendent Swann? Aren’t you the guy … ?’

  Swann met his eyes in the mirror again and held them for a long moment before turning back to the road. ‘I’m due in court in about three hours. Look, I understand your position. But you can say your piece and leave, go back to England. It may not make any difference to the commission, but then again yours could be the first story that puts the official one in doubt. After you, others might agree to follow.’

  ‘But we already wrote a letter. Can’t that be tended as evidence?’

  ‘That letter no longer exists. Like lots of other evidence in this case. If you could give a formal statement…’

  The excitement had gone out of Jennifer Coote. She seemed to have shrunk and had shifted away from him. They crossed the bridge over the river, tyres drumming on the jarrah beams, ducks squawking in the wattle scrub, magpies calling across the park, but Jennifer didn’t look down, didn’t look at the awakening suburbs, curtains parting, inviting the sun. She stared instead at her hands.

  ‘Just tell me off the record then,’ he said. ‘Everything you saw.’

  His own exhaustion sounded in his voice now, and Jennifer responded to that, watching his profile as he drove.

  ‘Like I said in my letter,’ she began, ‘we were running late for our plane. We’re not stickybeaks or anything, but as soon as I saw the Dodge and the police car, well, I had a second look.’

  ‘It was a white police panel van,’ Timothy corrected. ‘An HQ panel van. Turned side on.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Swann. ‘What next?’

  Jennifer adjusted her position on the seat. ‘Well, let’s see, the policeman we saw was tall, really tall, like Tim.’

  Uniform, Swann was thinking. Then again, every CIB detective had a uniform in his cupboard.

  ‘And?’ he prompted.

  ‘And he was leaning on the roof of the panel van. And then we’d gone past. Both of us mentioned it. You don’t see that many Dodges. Thought it must have been stolen.’

  Swann nodded his thanks. ‘I’ll tell you something,’ he said. ‘That police panel van you saw, there’s no record of it. The official report has the first police on the scene at dawn. And you’re right – there were other witnesses who saw the same thing as you, but they’ve all been convinced they were mistaken. I checked the incident reports for that night myself, and they show nothing at all coming in between midnight and dawn, which in my experience is unprecedented.’

  ‘Did you check the roster for that night?’ Timothy asked. ‘What my wife said is quite correct. The policeman we saw was unusually tall.’

  ‘Nobody tall was rostered on that night. I followed that up as well.’ Swann felt the anger rise in his voice. He’d failed to rouse them. They were good people, but he could see from their body language that they wouldn’t be coming through for him. He’d seen that look too often. Resentment and fear in equal measure. Shame in there as well. The idea you’d had of yourself being quickly reassessed: you weren’t who you thought you were.

  ‘We’re sorry about Ruby Devine,’ Timothy Coote said by way of apology, sitting back again. ‘We’ll speak to some friends. Have a think. Get back to you either way.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Swann. ‘You do that. Here’s my number.’

  He handed Reggie’s details to Jennifer. He turned into the Cootes’ street, tracking the houses. Californian bungalows with peppermint trees and yard swings. Workers’ cottages with rose gardens and mint lawns. An assortment of weatherboard and fibro and brick-veneer. Galvanised-iron and red-tile roofing. A man was tying his bootlaces on his front porch, a thermos and a cut lunch in a paper bag beside him. An old woman watered her garden while her husband
washed the car, a cigarette dangling on his lips. Not unlike Swann’s own neighbourhood, and it hurt to look.

  The Cootes’ home was salmon brick and blue tile, a Canary Island date palm on the dewy lawn. The louvres were open, airing the bedrooms, the front door was ajar.

  ‘Nanna!’

  The youngest child, suddenly wide awake, squirmed to get across her father, yanking on the window handle. Nanna was on the porch now, squinting into the sunshine, then breaking into a smile. Timothy Coote got out of the car and walked up the drive carrying boxes, hiding his limp, grinning at his mother, shooing the kids inside. Jennifer had gone down the side gate, calling out for a pet.

  None of them looked across the road to the white unmarked parked under a bottlebrush. Engine still ticking. Fresh oil on the dusty macadam beneath.

  Swann climbed out and began to unstrap the suitcases. He couldn’t see the driver behind the tinted windows but it didn’t matter. He dumped the cases in the driveway and got back into the station wagon. It was a pity about the Cootes, but he’d done them one favour at least – Casey’s thug wouldn’t need to enter their family home now. Most likely he’d just wait there for them to notice him. When they came out for the paper. To check the mail. Walk the dog. They’d see him there smoking and staring, smiling at the kids even, but his eyes not smiling at all.

  On the third morning of the commission, QC Wallace stood before Superintendent Swann with his typed page of notes shaking in his hand. It hadn’t occurred to Partridge that the lawyer might have a drinking problem on top of everything else, but he certainly looked the worse for wear after his night at the lodge. To his credit Wallace had shown more restraint in his dealings with Swann this morning, and so far Partridge hadn’t found it necessary to speak over him.

  The QC strolled to and fro before Partridge’s bench while he waited for Swann to formulate his response.

  ‘Yes, you might say I was instrumental in setting up the policy. Although policy is too strong a word. Nothing was ever written down. But that’s the kind of flexibility a mining town like Kalgoorlie demands. Like it or not, since the first discovery of gold, prostitutes have been part of the local community.’

  Swann paused and wiped his hands across his lips, a gesture that Partridge had come to recognise as a precursor to a risky statement, an intellectual gamble. Learning to read the mannerisms of his witnesses was always as important to Partridge as listening to what they had to say, especially when they were under pressure.

  ‘From my years in Kalgoorlie,’ Swann continued, ‘I learnt that many ordinary women work in this industry. Having made some money or met a suitable companion, they go on to other things. Very few stay for long in the work, with the exception of those who become proprietors of establishments themselves, Ruby Devine being a case in point.’

  Wallace ceased his restless patrol and faced Swann directly. ‘We will come to Mrs Devine later, Superintendent Swann. Could you please outline for us the situation in Kalgoorlie vis-a-vis prostitution on your arrival there, and the manner in which you were able to alter the policing during the term of your employment?’

  ‘Certainly, for his Honour’s benefit. Everyone else in this room would be aware of the kind of town Kalgoorlie was, and is —’

  ‘Thank you, Superintendent Swann.’ Wallace smiled and plumped out his chest, trying his hardest to be polite. ‘Now, if you could answer the question.’

  ‘The situation as I found it had existed for close to a century. As I said, Kalgoorlie has always been famous for its prostitutes, many of whom came to the goldfields from France, later from China. Prostitution therefore has been long tolerated, while remaining a crime. Officially, of course, it was the job of the police to charge and arrest those who broke the law. An unnecessarily large amount of time was spent rousting prostitutes from public houses and motels, and arresting those who were foolhardy enough to solicit on the streets. The penalties were such that it was only a matter of time before these women were at it again, and so the cycle continued. As a newly appointed detective —’

  ‘You took it upon yourself to ignore the law?’

  ‘Not as such, and I didn’t act by myself.’

  ‘You mean you consulted with your superiors, with the town council, with the local member of parliament? With the metropolitan legislature?’

  ‘Even if I had, Mr Wallace, I have already stated that nothing was written down, and so nothing I say here can be proven or otherwise. What I mean is that I worked with my partner, Donald Casey, then also a detective constable.’

  ‘It all sounds like an ambitious challenge for a young detective constable,’ Wallace continued. ‘You were in your twenties at the time?’

  ‘Yes. And I was ambitious. In the sense that I wanted to improve the situation. I thought we could make a difference.’

  There it was again, Partridge thought, that tone in Swann’s voice that set him apart from the others. For a reputedly unstable man, he remained optimistic in his body language, continuing to engage with the hostile forces around him, but it was more than that. For all his well-groomed confidence and capability, Superintendent Swann’s courtroom manner displayed none of the performative flair of the others, and suggested nothing of crusading madness.

  Swann was looking up at Wallace now, waiting for the next question. He was red-eyed and sat with his palms down on his knees, his shoulders rounded, his expression patient and sceptical, precisely as it should be. Partridge had lived the examined life, but that didn’t make him interesting to himself. Swann, on the other hand …

  ‘Did it occur to you, Superintendent, that by attempting to control an illegal industry you might be placing yourself in a position of temptation? That as a young detective you might be vulnerable to manipulation by outside influences?’

  Swann didn’t take the bait. ‘The way I saw it, Mr Wallace, I was merely returning the situation to an earlier state of toleration. And I can assure you there was no danger of outside manipulation.’

  The words he didn’t say were conspicuous. Minister for Police Desmond Sullivan was in court today, himself an ex-policeman. A hulking, many-chinned man with heavy shoulders, he sat with the other notable guests of the commission in the seats usually taken by the jury. He wore a navy-blue suit and tie, as though he were still in uniform, and with his pale neck and plump face, he resembled a great white grub.

  Partridge knew something of Sullivan by way of a good friend in Melbourne, an engineer who not long ago had decided to expand his company’s operations to the north-west. But the price to set up a business in Western Australia was twenty thousand dollars in cash, payable to the Minister for Police himself, otherwise there was no possibility of a permit. Partridge’s friend had been informed of this by Sullivan himself, at a cocktail party in a revolving restaurant overlooking Perth. The engineer had laughed at first, but Sullivan wasn’t joking.

  The operation never went ahead. The engineer flew home the next day, well aware that he would be paying continual bribes to a host of different players at every stage of the project. He had told Partridge the story in humorous terms, because with the boom on he regretted not paying the twenty thousand, and the rest. Some of his competitors had adapted to the situation, as they liked to put it, and were thriving in the new can-do environment of the Liberal government.

  Sullivan leant across to whisper something in the ear of his secretary, seated beside him, and as he did he caught Partridge’s eye. He returned the judge’s stare with an accent of interest.

  ‘Please describe for us, Superintendent Swann,’ Wallace was saying, ‘the manner in which you and Donald Casey were able to “control” prostitution in the Kalgoorlie area, as you put it, and the subsequent effect this had on the way in which matters were managed in our capital city.’

  ‘We instigated small changes which we felt were in the best interests not only of the prostitutes, but also the wider community. These consisted of placing limits on the physical area used for prostitution and on the number of
establishments, and the women who ran them were known to us. In this way the involvement of opportunistic men was averted. It was the women’s responsibility to ensure regular check-ups for their girls with a certain doctor, also known to us, and to make sure that no one with drug or alcohol problems worked in their establishments. And no under-age runaways. These arrangements proved successful, and lasted for the duration of my posting in Kalgoorlie. Upon my transfer to the metropolitan area I encouraged the practice here.’

  ‘Thank you, Superintendent,’ said Wallace. ‘And how would you characterise your relationships with the … madams during this time?’

  ‘It was in everyone’s best interests to comply with our terms.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning our relationships, if you want to call them that, could be characterised if not always by mutual respect, then at least mutual understanding.’

  ‘But not friendship?’

  Swann accepted the direction Wallace was taking him in with a single nod. ‘Yes, in some cases.’

  ‘Would you describe your relationship with Ruby Devine as friendship? Were you ever a guest at her place of residence, for example?’

  ‘Yes, I would – and yes, I was.’

  ‘Given your friendship with Ruby Devine, would it be fair to say that she received at your hands what might be called preferential treatment?’

  ‘No, that was not the case. She was treated just like the others.’

  ‘And did this friendship involve the soliciting of monetary or sexual favours, Superintendent?’

  Partridge found himself leaning forwards on his bench, much like the crowd in the gallery.

  ‘No, it was not my practice to solicit monetary or sexual favours from Ruby Devine, or from anyone else.’