Line of Sight

by David Whish-Wilson

  ‘Cooper, Christ, not on this line. Meet me at that last place, in —’

  He heard the sound of glass breaking, then Cooper cursing.

  ‘Cooper? Cooper?’

  But the line was dead.

  Partridge’s new desk was a trestle table overlaid with a black cloth. The commission had been relocated to the cafeteria of a nondescript public-service building awaiting renovation on the edge of the city. The table where Swann sat was undressed, and behind that were three rows of plastic chairs, then the long empty hall. Dust motes hovered in the light coming through the glass-brick windows near the ceiling. The change of venue had not been noted in the morning paper and the rows of plastic seats were empty but for Pat Chesson and two of her friends.

  Partridge leant forward and tapped his microphone and the portable PA system hissed. ‘Counsel, when you’re ready.’

  He was determined not to let the conditions get to him, at least until he’d managed to discuss the matter with the governor, whom he’d asked Carol to contact that morning. Wallace, on the other hand, was looking discouraged as he picked up his page of typed notes and walked across the checked linoleum floor.

  It didn’t bother Partridge to see Wallace knocked down a few pegs, just so long as it didn’t affect his performance. In fact Wallace’s fall from grace might work in the judge’s favour. Not only had the humiliation visited on them caused Wallace to lose his arrogant manner, but a new atmosphere of co-operation had been apparent during their morning briefing.

  That briefing had related mainly to the nature of Pat Chesson’s business, and the news that one of her prostitutes had been found dead the previous afternoon. And yet she had not requested her appearance before the commission be deferred, which was something that even the QC found unusual.

  Wallace cleared his voice and placed a hand at his spine as he stood under the fluoro lighting. ‘Your Honour,’ he began, then paused while a group of journalists entered.

  Partridge wondered whether one of them was responsible for the article in the morning paper. While the police were on record as saying there were no suspicious circumstances regarding the death of Pat Chesson’s girl, the newspaper also reported the savage bashing of another prostitute, Jacky White, the lover of the late Ruby Devine. White was in an induced coma in Fremantle hospital, with serious head injuries.

  Superintendent Swann sat immobile at the table, surely aware that the violent events outside the courtroom had strengthened his allegations. An execution-style murder, an apparent overdose and a savage beating, all among prostitutes and all in a short period of time – events that bore the hallmarks of organised crime. And where organised crime existed, so inevitably did police corruption.

  It would be most interesting to hear Pat Chesson’s view of the matter.

  ‘Your Honour, I call Mrs Patricia Chesson.’

  She stood and walked to the microphone alongside Swann’s table, so that she couldn’t help but look down at him. Considering that one of her employees had died the previous evening, she appeared remarkably untroubled. She took her oath in a broad accent, with the air of one used to being in court.

  Wallace’s shoes scuffed on the lino. ‘Mrs Chesson, you have admitted to being a brothel keeper in this state for some years. Would you please relate the changes you have witnessed over that period in terms of the enforcement of the laws that make prostitution illegal.’

  Pat Chesson smiled unexpectedly, revealing a set of polished teeth. There was something shocking about their high shine, studded into bright-red gums.

  ‘How long have you got, Mr Wallace? There’s a lot can be said on the matter.’

  ‘Take your time, Mrs Chesson. That’s why we are here.’

  She shrugged kittenishly, something that alarmed Partridge even more than her teeth. In her sleeveless floral dress and sandals she resembled the plain, thin-hipped suburban girls he remembered from his youth, except for the gutters that fanned away from her smoker’s mouth.

  ‘Mr Wallace, it’s like this. When I first arrived to set up my business here, there was understandings between myself and the police. We kept our part of the bargain, they kept theirs. We made sure all our girls was clean and well behaved. We kept a quiet profile. You wouldn’t know, walking past one of my businesses, what it was. And anyone who went outside the rules was run out of town.’

  She paused to dowse her gums with a mouthful of water. ‘Things were better in the old days, but that said, I’m a businesswoman and I have my family to feed. I’m a survivor, so I just go along with it. But I’ve been known to complain about it to whoever’ll listen – I even had a meeting with the premier.’

  ‘A meeting that he has no recollection of.’

  ‘And the Minister for Police.’

  ‘A meeting he also has no recollection of.’

  She shrugged again. ‘But then Ruby was done in and I’ve kept my trap shut ever since.’

  ‘Did you see Mrs Devine as a rival? A business competitor?’

  ‘No, me and Ruby was great friends. In the old days there was plenty of room for everyone. Ruby even helped me set up. She could tell I was a professional.’

  ‘Do you have a personal opinion as to why Mrs Devine might have been murdered?’

  ‘No, I don’t, Mr Wallace. It was as much a shock to me as everyone else.’

  ‘Did it make you worried that Mrs Devine was killed in so ruthless a fashion? I’ll rephrase that question – What do you think of Superintendent Swann’s conviction that payments made to certain detectives might be in some way related to Mrs Devine’s murder?’

  There was no reaction from Swann but Pat Chesson exhaled audibly into the microphone. ‘Well, I used to have a lot of respect for Superintendent Swann and I understand that he’s had some personal difficulties, which I sympathise with. But I don’t really know what he’s talking about.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s making it up? Haven’t you just finished telling us that, what were your words … there are understandings between you and the police?’

  ‘No sir, it’s just that – I wouldn’t know about that. I’m old-school, sir, old-school in every way. I run a clean house and mind my own business.’

  Wallace conceded the point with a single nod. He let the silence hang there, waiting for her to take it up.

  ‘Me and Superintendent Swann were fine until after Ruby’s murder. But then, what with his personal difficulties, you see, he started to act strange. You know all this, but he was in contact with me a lot. At first I understood it, what he was on about, but some of the things just didn’t make sense. He wanted me to help find his daughter, you see. And he was kind of blaming me at the same time. He thought I owed him information, like in the old days, but I hadn’t heard anything. And he started saying threatening things against me. He said I was the one to gain from Ruby’s murder, that with the CIB’s help I was trying to force her out of business, which is a lie, sir, a lie. And then he started saying things in public, and not just about me but about … But you know all this,’ she repeated.

  ‘Did Superintendent Swann ever threaten you physically, Mrs Chesson?’

  ‘Yes, he did. He said he would get revenge for Ruby.’

  ‘And what did you say to that?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything. I stopped talking to him after that. And I reported the matter to Detective Inspector Casey, who told me not to worry about it.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Chesson, that will be all.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Thank you for the opportunity to have my say. I hope some of the important people have been listening and will take note of the problems facing a businesswoman in these difficult times.’ She looked around at the largely empty room and unclenched the powerful little fist that had been punctuating her speech throughout, tapping rhythmically against the bone of her right hip.

  Outside, a cloud passed across the sun, and in the diorama of the courtroom the light began to flicker and run away to the walls. Pat Chesson rejoined her companions and
took her seat. The journalists began to whisper and compare notes. Annie DuBois was called to the witness stand, where she stared at Pat Chesson with an obvious distaste.

  Partridge looked down at his brief and noted the names of those who would follow her: two former detectives and a former minister for police.

  Tomorrow was Saturday, and his birthday, the first he’d spent away from his family. He had a lunch engagement with a politician, but Carol had managed to clear the rest of the weekend. He imagined what it would be like at home, his grandchildren tearing into his presents, his three children toasting him at the table laden with roast meat and salad, and felt his heart grow warm in the knowledge that this was what he would return to as soon as the commission was over.

  When he looked up again he made eye contact with Swann for the first time that morning. Here was a father who had lost a daughter, and what the weekend held in store for him, Partridge hated to imagine.

  The late-afternoon southerly was cool on his back as Swann walked briskly from his hotel across the park towards the bistro, pausing to light a cigarette beneath the giant arms of a Moreton Bay fig, out of the wind. He was sure he was being followed but it didn’t worry him. He had been followed by an unmarked all the way from the prison to the hearing that morning, where he had sat the day out on a hard plastic seat.

  The royal commission had adjourned for the weekend. Perhaps Hergenhan was right and they’d wait until it was finished before they tried to kill him, but in the meantime they’d made their tactics clear with Jacky’s bashing and Michelle’s murder. Michelle had been put down like a dog, and the fact that it happened in his daughter’s old hotel room only made the message clearer.

  A few hopeful gulls traced the edges of the streetlights, beaks open as they waited for the darkness to come. Swann stepped out into the wind and jogged the last twenty metres to Bistro Gregorio, pushed open the heavy door. As always, the chime rang to announce his entrance, Reggie waited in his dark corner, and Greg slid a drink ironically down the counter.

  ‘You heard this before?’ Greg asked him.

  ‘Can’t say I have.’ A blues harmonica soaring over a noodling guitar.

  Greg smiled and shook his head. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a bootleg of Norman Gunston on harp playing with Frank Zappa in Melbourne. Unfuckingbelievable.’

  ‘Not bad,’ conceded Swann. ‘The little Aussie bleeder might have a career beyond television.’

  Greg laughed. ‘They always say that’s a good idea, yeah.’

  ‘Keep ’em coming.’

  The barman nodded, lost again to the chugging rhythms of the guitar as he filled a cocktail shaker with vodka, ice and vermouth for some customers by the piano.

  Reggie blinked, by way of saying hello. On one side of his head his orange hair was flat, while the other was bushy. His eyes were wild. ‘I’ve just come from seeing Jacky,’ he said. ‘She’s going to be all right, they say.’

  ‘Isn’t she in a coma?’

  ‘Only when the coppers are there.’ Reggie looked at Swann with renewed interest. ‘I also saw what you did to Mitchell Davey. Fractured skull, broken jaw. Fifteen cracked ribs. Broken wrist.’

  ‘He launched the boat. What’s he saying?’

  ‘He’s not saying anything. His jaw’s trussed up tighter than a virgin’s daughter. But the nurse told me he got hit by a truck.’

  ‘Not very original. Surely he would’ve been more believable if he’d said Pat was the one who bashed him. You hear what she did to him last year?’

  Reggie laughed. ‘Oh yes, the superglue.’

  Sick of Davey sleeping with her girls, Pat Chesson had reportedly superglued his prick to the inside of his leg while he was passed out.

  ‘Surgery was involved there too, as I heard the story.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Swann took his notepad from his pocket and flicked a page. ‘This is what I asked Terry to pull. Two years ago a bloke name of Solomon Sands was declared bankrupt. He disappears to Sydney for a year and comes back a multimillionaire.’

  ‘Why’s he on file?’

  ‘He was accused about twelve months back of swindling some investors in a gold-mining venture. They’re still after him. Now he’s rebadged himself as a tax agent. New house on the river. Vintage cars. Holidays in France. The full wanker’s trifecta. But that’s not all. His missus, according to Jacky, is Annie DuBois.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘That’s what I thought too,’ Swann nodded. ‘Ruby might have threatened to trade off more to the taxman than the identities of Casey and the others.’

  ‘Some other tax scam. But what? What’s Sands up to?’

  ‘That I don’t know yet. I don’t even know what a tax agent does, exactly.’

  ‘Can’t be too straight if his form’s anything to go by. Leave it to me. I’ll ask around, see if I can get a list of his clients, find out how he makes a quid.’

  ‘You get the rest of those land titles?’ Reggie’s insider at the Land Corporation had agreed to search out the titles for all the Ds who’d attended the false raid in Rawson Street.

  Reggie nodded. ‘Must be true what they say about Tupperware. So many wealthy housewives.’

  Swann buried his nose in his tumbler, drank down the last finger of whiskey and tipped the ice into his newly delivered glass. The muscles in his arms felt like wood. His knuckles were tattered and swollen. ‘I told you about the diary I found in Michelle’s room,’ he said.

  ‘She say anything useful?’

  Swann shook his head. ‘Fantasy love letters to Bon Scott mostly. Explicit fantasy love letters to Bon Scott. Not a good advertisement for the state school system either.’

  Reggie leant forward. ‘It’s even worse than that, I’m afraid. The reason I came straight here from seeing Jacky. She told me that Michelle phoned not long before they came for her. Said something that meant she had to die – Michelle was the babysitter.’

  Swann felt a surge of anger. Ruby Devine’s babysitter, who might have seen who went with her that night, delivered to her death. Now on ice at the morgue.

  ‘Christ, why didn’t they tell me earlier? I could have protected them, got them out of town.’

  The biggest break so far. Yet he had sat with Michelle over a glass of beer and learnt nothing. He could barely contain his bitterness.

  ‘Not even Jacky knew until Michelle called her. She wanted money, Jacky reckons, otherwise she wouldn’t speak. Jacky told her she’d get her the money somehow, but of course …’

  ‘I went to see Ray Hergenhan this morning – Mitch Davey put him in. He’s not the trigger man but he knows something. He might have put Michelle up to it. Michelle must have told him something, who she’d seen.’

  ‘You think he’ll talk, after what happened to her?’

  ‘Wouldn’t count on it,’ Swann said. ‘Now that Michelle’s dead it’s his word against whoever she accused. And the word of a bloke locked up for a hard ten at that. But if I could get a name, take it to Partridge, I might be able to get Ray an offer, soft time, maybe even a new start.’

  Reggie was looking at him and shaking his head. ‘You’ve got that look in your eye.’

  Swann stared down into his glass and saw an image of Michelle laid out on a steel slab, just like Ruby before her. He lit another cigarette and signalled for more drinks. When his Jameson came he nudged a mouthful between his teeth, tossed the rest down his throat to prepare himself for the morgue.

  ‘Are you all right, Harold? You sound tired.’

  It was good to hear Margaret’s voice, but Partridge was conscious of keeping the events of the past few days out of his own.

  ‘It’s the heat, my dear,’ he lied. And then couldn’t help himself. ‘ “Oh wind, rend open the heat,/cut apart the heat,/tear it to tatters …” ’

  ‘You philistine,’ she laughed. He had a history of reciting badly that had begun during their courtship, but Hilda Doolittle was her favourite poet and he knew she couldn’t let it stand.

  ‘Rend it
to tatters,’ she corrected him. ‘ “Fruit cannot drop/ through this thick air –/fruit cannot fall into heat … ” ’

  He missed the sound of Margaret’s easy laughter. Fifty years and the ritual still thrilled him.

  ‘On the subject of grapes,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, they’re coming along. Dusty from the driveway, still waiting on the paving contractor, of course, but coming along, you might even say round. Are you really well, my love?’

  ‘Of course,’ he replied, alert to the concern in her voice. ‘I miss you,’ he added.

  ‘And how will you be celebrating your birthday?’ she asked. ‘Hard to believe you’ll be seventy-three.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘And I still feel …’ He was unable to finish the sentence, overtaken by the image of Margaret the day he’d met her. Playing tennis with her chestnut hair tied back, and those magnificent legs. Partridge sipping a gin and tonic beneath the jacarandas as he watched her through the dappled shade, a carpet of purple flowers at his feet.

  ‘Yes?’ she prompted. ‘You still feel what?’ The hint strong enough for Partridge to pick up, amazingly, the lines he’d spoken those fifty years ago and not once since. It had been the first time he flirted with her, beckoned her, and the old desire stirred in him again. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,/Old Time is still a-flying … But he couldn’t say the words.

  ‘Complete. In answer to your question, I feel complete.’

  But his voice must have given him away. ‘Oh Harold, you’re still unwell. Shall I join you? I can call TAA and get on the next flight. It’s the weekend – perhaps we could go for a drive?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘As much as I miss you. Perhaps afterwards. Or perhaps in a day or two, when I’ve got a better idea how long I’ll be here.’

  ‘If you think that’s best. Well, we all miss you too. We’ll celebrate your birthday the day you return; that’s a promise. Please look after yourself over there. And I’ll call tomorrow, of course.’