The Inheritance

by Gabriel Bergmoser

  Time passed.

  Jack wasn’t sure what to expect when he received an email out of nowhere from Olivia Dean. He knew her by reputation only; she was relatively young, had made detective fast and had a reputation for fastidiousness and drive. By this point he had bounced around so many departments that he knew some of the younger cops called him ‘Pinball Jack’. Behind his back.

  Dean’s smile was warm and her handshake firm when they met in a café. A glance at her gave him the wistful feeling of how old he was getting. She was in her late thirties, not that much younger than Jack in the grand scheme of things, but whatever Dean had seen and done, nothing about her looked worn or weathered. Her blonde hair was tied back, her suit worn with care, her movements natural but, he suspected, calibrated.

  They made pointless small talk. She laughed at Jack’s wry cracks about various older cops, something that surprised him, given her evident professionalism. But the longer they spoke, the clearer it became that Dean wasn’t there for any sort of friendly getting-to-know-you session.

  Finally, the point came out.

  ‘I heard from Eric recently,’ she said.

  Jack didn’t react. His mind was moving fast, trying to work out pre-emptive replies to anything Dean could be about to drop on him.

  ‘He wanted information. Some old files. Played up the whole “I mentored you” thing. Naturally, I said no. But what he asked for . . . I mean, look, I know what he was like towards the end. And I could hear it on the phone. He was clearly wasted. But it sounds a lot like he’s trying to get us to reopen the Adams case.’

  Fucking typical. At least it had nothing to do with Rook. Jack relaxed slightly. ‘Maybe I’m being harsh,’ he said. ‘But the way I see it, a heart attack would be Eric’s best friend right about now. He’s an abusive, delusional drunk. I’d ignore him.’

  ‘Except he seems to think that the real killer was a member of the Scorpions,’ Dean said. ‘And he thinks he might know where to look to find evidence.’

  Jack went to speak. Didn’t. He sat back. ‘Okay.’

  Dean placed both hands flat on the table. ‘Look, whatever you say about him, I know. Of course I do. But if he’s right. If there’s a way to prove that a member of the gang was a killer, that could be grounds for—’

  ‘Whatever the Australian equivalent of RICO is,’ Jack said.

  Dean nodded. ‘We don’t have one, exactly, but there are things the Crime Commission can do that will be as good as, provided we can give them reason. I asked Eric what files he wanted but of course I didn’t say I’d give them to him. He figured out the wilful omission pretty fast. Now, I know that you and Harrison Cooper were close to him back in the day. Cooper didn’t want to tell me anything, pretty much brushed the whole thing off. But if you have any idea where to look, or if, I don’t know, you could speak to Eric, get the information from him somehow.’ There was an electric gleam in Dean’s wide eyes. ‘Imagine it. Bringing the Scorpions down.’

  Jack could imagine it. Had been doing so for years.

  It was dangerous, of course. If any hint reached Rook that he was involved, the bombshell that was his one-time involvement with them would go off and then some.

  ‘Let me see what I can do,’ he said.

  He still had contacts from his undercover days. Many of whom, even knowing now that he was a cop, remained on relatively good terms with him. Of course, they were the ones he had strategically decided not to put away. So he hit the streets and started asking questions. Questions only those who had been a part of the scene back then would know the answers to. Had the Scorpions sheltered a serial killer?

  He knew Eric would tell him nothing. He also knew that Dean – having spoken to Harrison Cooper – had set off dangerous tripwires. If Harrison was still involved with Rook, then he would be working overtime to ensure that any information Eric had did not see the light of day.

  Of course, he knew Eric could be full of shit. It was possible that his belief of the Scorpions being involved was some alcohol-induced manifestation of his own long-buried guilt. But if there was even a chance it wasn’t, if Jack could find some sliver of proof that the Scorpions were directly linked to several murders, then everything changed. He could leave the force having realised some kind of justice for the Leightons, even if all he did was pass the relevant information on to Dean.

  Then the call came from the commissioner.

  Commissioner Walsh had never liked him. This was fair enough, given the feeling was mutual. Walsh was tough, almost entirely humourless, and a big advocate for cleaning out the last cops left over from the days where the rules were largely seen as guidelines. Jack had been careful to never give her any reason to kick him out on his arse, but as it turned out somebody else had handed her that on a silver platter.

  It was the kind of minor thing that he had almost forgotten about. The kind of thing that Eric had spent years failing to turn into anything solid. But now somebody had. A fight with a crook from years ago, one that ended with the prick in hospital, brain-damaged. It had been written off as self-defence, except now some non-existent witness had come out of the woodwork and claimed aggravated assault. Jack had always seen Walsh as joyless, but damned if she didn’t take evident pleasure in telling him that he could not continue to serve on the force with such a stain on his record.

  That simple, in the end. The ‘victim’ had long since died of an overdose and wasn’t about to testify, so Jack avoided jail but was off the force. Twenty-five years of service gone in minutes.

  He didn’t want a big final bash or the shaken hands or heads or the pity or lack thereof. He cleared out his desk late at night, then walked into the cold. He stood in the glow of a streetlight as the wind blew feeble rain across the city. As he lit a cigarette he remembered, briefly, doing the same so long ago with Harrison and Eric.

  Something made him look back. There, in the shadows of the overhang that fronted the sliding doors to the station that had been his home for so long, was Harrison Cooper.

  The other man didn’t nod. Didn’t smile. Just watched. And Jack watched back and knew.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t accuse or attack. He just stood in the rain until he finished his cigarette. Then he walked to his car.

  He had work to do.

  Maggie didn’t speak as Carlin finished his story. Wasn’t sure what she could add.

  Carlin seemed to feel the same. His eyes were on the night. Maggie wondered if he had ever told all that to anyone before. If anyone else understood what he had been through and done to end up here. It was possible he was lying but Maggie didn’t think so. A liar would try to make themselves look better.

  ‘All of those things my father started as,’ Maggie said, ‘could he have stayed that way, do you think?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ Carlin said flatly. ‘So obviously not.’

  ‘So you think he was doomed to become what he did.’

  ‘I think he made small concessions that became big concessions. I think the moment he took Rook Gately’s money, yeah, he was doomed.’

  ‘But you did as well.’

  Even in the dim light she could tell Carlin’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Never said I wasn’t doomed, girl. But we’re all different, so it stands to reason that bad choices can lead us each down different roads. ‘Course, it can take time to know how different. And that’s the danger.’

  He slid Maggie the bottle. Out in the night a bird sang something low and mournful that died away into silence. Maggie picked up the bottle and drank.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It was late. Maggie sat in the kitchen, a cup of tea in hand, staring at the plain wall. She was out of reading material and there wasn’t much else to do after nearly ten days here. She checked the clock. Close to two in the morning. This relative peace was creating its own peculiar form of restlessness, a perpetual sense that these were stolen moments she couldn’t afford.

  Carlin’s story had been reverberating through her head all da
y. In some ways he had been right when he told her it didn’t matter. It didn’t change her predicament. But looked at slightly differently, it changed everything.

  She knew better than to absolve her father. His choices were his own. But hearing the way that Carlin spoke about the man he used to be, about that serious, driven, hero cop, turned her thoughts to Rook Gately. To the bikie president who was still out there, still alive and in power, still pulling strings and turning things to his own benefit. The fact that Cooper could willingly work with a man like that, even knowing what he was capable of, bothered her more than she liked.

  But, she reminded herself, Cooper didn’t matter anymore. Whatever she had thought he was, whatever she had wanted him to be, that delusion was gone. Her childhood fantasies had been proven definitively incorrect. And in the end, of the three young policeman who had taken Rook Gately’s deal, only one had chosen to walk away from it, for which he had lost everything.

  Simmering underneath her attempts to understand Carlin’s story was a more pressing question: whether or not she should tell him what she suspected about the hard drive. But she knew now which way the scales were tipping. She needed the information on there, but for her to take it and run would also mean the Scorpions continued to get away with everything they had done. There would have to be a compromise of some sort. A deal with Carlin that she could take what she needed to from it and let him have the rest.

  But for now she knew: Carlin had to be told.

  The phone rang. She looked over; it sat on the kitchen bench, beside the kettle, and while she had noticed it before she’d soon put it out of her thoughts. There was no-one she could call even if she had wanted to. But now, for the first time since she had been here, it was ringing.

  There was no reason to answer. She didn’t. She waited until it rang out.

  It started again.

  She walked over, picked the phone up and put it to her ear.

  ‘Girl.’ Carlin’s voice. ‘Tell me that’s you.’

  A spike of cold fear. Maggie looked out the window. Just darkness. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m on my way back but I just got word from one of my informants – there are men coming there right now.’

  Maggie’s hand tightened on the phone. ‘What men?’

  ‘Len Townsend’s fucking men. Six of them. My guy got the offer a few hours ago – good pay, immediate work. I have no clue how the hell Townsend found out where I live, but they’re coming and they’re looking for you. They don’t know for sure you’re there, but—’

  ‘Townsend didn’t send six men to suss out a hunch.’

  ‘No, he sent six men because he saw what you did to the last two.’

  ‘What makes him think I’d be here?’

  She could hear Carlin’s frustration. ‘Probably some prick with information to sell, some prick who heard I was looking into the hard drive and had reason to shelter you. Some prick I’m going to find and kill. Listen, above my bed is the entry to the attic.’

  ‘They’ll check the attic.’

  ‘You’ll find a toolbox up there. There are things you can use. All the knives and everything; I stuck them away after you arrived, just in case, you know.’

  Fair enough, Maggie thought.

  ‘You can try to get clear but my bet is they’ll be coming through the trees, dressed in black, spread out and closing fast. I don’t know how long you’ve got, but I wouldn’t be fucking around. I’m coming as fast as I can but I’m gonna need you to find somewhere to hide and stay there until they’ve left. Maggie, you—’

  Maggie hung up. She listened. There were no sounds from outside. But then, there wouldn’t be. She scanned the kitchen. What did she have?

  She gave herself a moment. Just a moment to breathe, to let her heart slow and her head clear.

  She turned on the kettle. Then she went quickly back down the central hall of the house. There were two main doors at either end, the front door and the one in the kitchen, facing each other directly down the hall. The other rooms were on the sides. She turned left into Carlin’s room. She hadn’t been in there before. It was messy and cluttered with files and papers but she ignored them. She looked at the roof; the outline of the trapdoor into the attic sat directly over his bed. Wincing, she clambered up and pulled it downwards. She smelled dust. With some difficulty, she lifted herself up into it.

  There were boxes everywhere. It didn’t take her long to locate the drawer of knives and a faded red toolbox. The contents were not inspiring. A hammer, a couple of chisels and spanners, some string. She took the hammer and stuck in through her belt. She grabbed a handful of steak knives and lowered herself back through the trapdoor. She left it open.

  The kettle was boiled. She tapped it, checking the heat. She glanced out the window. Still nothing.

  She pulled the back door slightly ajar. A chill crept into the room. Maggie opened the kettle and placed it on top of the door, leaning slightly against the frame. She stepped back. The kettle stayed put, but it was precarious.

  She hurried to the front door. She had three serrated steak knives. Kneeling, she pressed the blades one by one against the floorboards until they all snapped free of the hilts. Then she stuck the jagged, broken bottom of the first blade between the floorboards, about a metre from the front door. It was a tight fit, but it worked. She planted the other two the same way nearby then stood and backed away. She turned off the hall light and the house was plunged into darkness. She moved sideways into her room and crouched beside the bed. She found her money, now bundled into an envelope, and stuffed it into her pocket. She listened.

  She had been waiting less than a minute when she heard the creak of the front porch. Her heart rate increased. She took the hammer from her belt. She moved just beside the door, pressing herself up against it.

  She heard the front door handle turn and open, slowly.

  Then the shoved open back door, followed by a thud, a clatter of metal on wood and screams, screams of stunned pain as boiling water soaked the man who had just come through.

  ‘Vic!’ A yell from the front, heavy footsteps, then a gasp and a cry of pain, which got louder as he pulled himself forward and staggered past Maggie’s door, a silhouette in the dark.

  Maggie moved through the doorway, saw his crumpling figure from behind, saw the back of his head and brought the hammer down hard on it. A crack and he was down. She glimpsed flailing on the ground near the back door but ignored it; she bolted straight through into Carlin’s room as the first gunshot sounded.

  The renewed pain in her back and leg didn’t matter. She was up on the bed and clambering through the trapdoor as she heard more yells and pounding feet. She pulled it closed; a moment later, from below, she heard somebody enter the room. She slid away from the door and her eyes landed on the drawer of knives.

  A gunshot burst through the wood below and missed her by half a metre. She didn’t move. Silence.

  She reached out and, taking care not to make a sound, took one large knife from the drawer. She placed it on the trapdoor, near the hinge, pointing towards the handle. Then another, a bit further across.

  Splintering wood and a deafening shot. No closer. Maggie didn’t move. She counted to five then placed the next knife. And the next. She moved away. The trapdoor shifted. It creaked and Maggie stood. It was pulled down, hard and fast. The knives fell. A yelp.

  Maggie picked up the toolbox and flung hard it through the hole. A crashing rattle of metal and body hitting the ground and then silence.

  She didn’t wait. She moved, slow enough to not make any more sound than necessary, to the dust-coated window. She slid it open – it was louder and heavier than she’d hoped, but she figured attention down below would be elsewhere. Cool night air filled the musty attic. She heard voices, low, scared, angry. She climbed through the window, out onto the gentle slope of the roof, into the deepening cold of a cloudy, starless night. She moved to the side, clear of the attic window. The wind picked up. She listened.

>   It was brief, so brief she might have missed it. A snatch of heavy breathing from below. A guard. She counted in her head. Six men. One scalded, one stepped on the knives and got the hammer, one taken out by the toolbox. That left three unharmed. At least two would have stood guard but maybe the swift dispatching of the men inside attracted at least one of them. The other, it seemed, had kept his post.

  She slid down the roof. She heard no sound from the attic, not yet; hopefully, whoever was in the house assumed she was still hiding in there. She reached the edge and listened. There it was again. Fast, shallow. She stuck her head over the edge and looked. A shadow, on the porch, looking at the front door, hands forward, holding a gun. Maggie pulled back. She moved into a crouch. Pre-emptively she winced. However she handled this, her leg would not thank her. She slid forward again, legs over the edge, and dropped.

  She hit the porch, pain bit down. She tottered, heard the gasp and the half-formed yell and she swung, bringing the hammer to where she knew his face was. For a moment she saw his eyes, wide, scared, young – then the hammer hit, his eyes rolled back and she snatched his pistol from his limp grip as he fell. A shape appeared in the door and she fired twice. A bullet scorched her ear and Maggie pulled the trigger again.

  A thump.

  One left.

  She moved.

  She knew he’d be coming, whether from the doorway or behind the house. She knew and she zigzagged, erratic and low to the ground. She could see the road up ahead, a gaping maw in the midnight trees. She hit the tree line, swung behind a trunk, leaned out and pointed her gun at the low, dark shape of the house.

  No movement. Just a groan from within, whether the toolbox man, the kettle or both, she didn’t know. An incapacitated opponent was not an inactive one. She focused on the front door.

  It was the cracking twig that made her fling herself forward; she tasted dirt just as the gunshot went off and the bullet hissed over her head. She spun, saw the approaching figure moving down the road from the opposite direction to the house. She lifted her gun knowing it was all too late, then the sound of an engine, a movement of racing darkness and the rip of tyres in dirt and the man was flying forward, slammed by the speeding van and thrown through the air until he hit the ground less than a metre from Maggie.