by Peter Temple
‘How do you know that?’
‘Weber. He talked to people.’
Villani was looking at the mountain. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘That’s an old-fashioned thing to do.’
‘He’s from the country,’ said Dove. ‘Manton says Prosilio management’s not responsible for Stilicho’s technical failures. He says talk to Hugh Hendry, he’s the Stilicho boss.’
‘Is that Max Hendry’s son?’
‘Don’t know, boss.’
‘Find out. And the other stuff?’
‘Running the names. Unless someone pops up for killing women, even one, it’ll be a while.’
‘Takes as long as it takes,’ said Villani. ‘Do it right and sleep tight.’
Oh God, another Singo saying. He killed the call before Dove could say something clever, walked back down the verandah.
‘Got the meat, the Crownies,’ Bob Villani said to Luke.
‘Can’t, Dad,’ said Luke. ‘The talent dropped out, some weak-dog excuse. I can’t say no, it’s in the contract. Really pisses me off, been looking forward to talking ponies.’
Luke rose and they all stood. Luke put an arm around his father’s shoulders, walked him along. It struck Villani that he now looked completely unlike Bob. At the car, the girl inside, Luke took out a wallet, thumbed fifties.
‘Thursday,’ he said. ‘Benalla. Stand in the Day in the third. The little thing’s rough as a brush.’
He tucked the notes into Bob’s shirt pocket.
‘Four hundred,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a bell about ten if it’s on, you and Gordie pop over to Stanny. Probably a hundred each way, the rest, we’ll box a few. Thirty per cent commission, how’s that?’
‘Reasonable,’ said Bob. ‘Stand in the Day. Good name.’
‘Just my dough, Dad, okay?’ said Luke. ‘No insurance here, could run stone motherless.’
He turned to Villani. ‘Want to be in this?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Oh yeah, forgot you’d given it away.’ He offered a high-five to Villani. Villani didn’t take it, he was not a high-five man.
‘Catch you, mate, right?’ said Luke. ‘Soon. Ring you.’
‘Good.’
Luke put his arms around Bob. ‘This fire gets serious, mate, I want you out of here, okay? I’ll come up and drag you out myself.’
‘Be fine,’ said Bob. ‘Got Gordie to look after me.’
‘Do that, Gordie,’ said Luke. ‘I’m holding you responsible for this bastard.’
‘Do that, Lukie,’ said Gordie.
Luke hugged him.
They watched the car reverse, swing, fat tyres spat stones, Luke gunned it down the drive.
‘My turn to go,’ said Villani.
His father looked down, rubbed his stubble. ‘You could stay, have the barbie,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you up at sparrer.’
To say no was in Villani’s mouth, he had the excuses. But his father turned the black stone eyes and he could not utter them. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘The meat, the beer.’
‘Fire up the bugger, Gordie.’
‘Total fire ban,’ said Villani.
‘For dickheads,’ said Bob.
The day ended slowly, a fever in the western sky. Villani ate too much steak, smoked Gordie’s cigarettes, slept in his old bed. Some time after midnight he woke, felt the storm coming, the trembling stillness, then the first solid movement of air and the thunderclap, it shook heaven and earth, a wind struck the house, squeaked the timbers, squealed the roof iron, rain hit like buckshot, two or three minutes under heavy fire, gone, the dying sluice of water in the downpipes.
His father didn’t have to wake him. When he came into the pewter day, Bob was there, shorts, bare-chested, all rib and bone, sinew and muscle.
‘No need to get up,’ said Villani.
‘Hear the rain?’
‘Woke me.’
‘Yeah. Done buggerall, need a soaking.’
‘The finances,’ said Villani. ‘Coping?’
Bob Villani flexed his arms. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Just asking.’
‘That boss stuff,’ said Bob.
‘I’m not worrying about it,’ said Villani.
‘The way things were, you looking after the little buggers.’
‘You can let this fucking house burn down,’ said Villani, ‘but if the forest goes I’m coming after you.’
They shook hands, just touched skin. He wanted to hug his father as Luke had done and give him something, some evidence that he too was a worthy son, but that was not possible.
Before first light, still cool, he drove down Selborne’s curt main street. Beneath the pub’s sole elm, a man slept on his ute tray, he was embalmed in a grey blanket, one naked marble-white foot showed. Around his head was a rough semi-circle of empty stubbies.
On the main road, Villani switched on the radio.
… firefighters arrive from West Australia today to support the weary teams battling to save three towns now under threat in the high country…
When the mobile rang, the towers were in sight, he was in the early Monday commuter traffic, all slit-eyed men, close-shaven, dreaming of Friday afternoon so far.
‘Villani,’ he said.
Birkerts said, ‘Three dead, it’s a shed in Oakleigh.’
‘Three?’
‘Yeah. Pretty fucking rough.’
THE SMELL was of a slaughterhouse, of excrement and piss and blood and fear.
Breathing shallowly, Villani stepped over the black creek and stood just inside the tin cavern. Light from the doorway lay across a man near them, on his front, his fluids had formed a clover shape before they ran out under the door.
Ten metres away, against a side wall, two men sagged from steel roof pillars, hands tied above their heads with gaffer tape. They were naked, covered in caked blood, feet in black ponds.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Villani. ‘Jesus H. Christ.’
He took the long route to the first upright man, kept close to the wall, stopped well short.
The man was tanned, muscular, big-calved legs, small paunch, tracks on his arms. His hair appeared to have been burnt off, his genitals cut off, a thing of flesh lay on the concrete, head like a kicked cabbage dipped in blood, glint of teeth. Skeins of viscous material, gobbets of flesh, stuck to the tin wall behind him.
Villani went to the second man. He was paler, bigger beer gut, semi-circle of scar tissue under his left nipple. The same damage had been inflicted upon his face and genitals.
He looked around. The shed was a vehicle tip—carcasses of cars, doors, bonnets, windscreens, wheel rims, pistons, seats, dashboards, steering wheels, engine parts, they lay as if dropped from the sky.
Behind him, Birkerts cleared his throat. ‘Forensics two minutes away. Ditto coroner.’
‘We’re out of here, then.’
At the door, it was dead quiet, Villani heard something, looked up and saw a starling in ragged flight beneath the silver ceiling it had bounced off.
They passed through the door, the uniforms parted for them, and they went outside and stood on the concrete apron and sucked the dirty city air, so clean now. Birkerts offered, they lit.
Gawkers lined the side fence, workers from the car repair shop next door.
‘Shit,’ said Birkerts. ‘This is a step up.’
‘Who found them?’
‘Security bloke. Walking along that fence, he saw the blood, went around to the front of the house, door open, no one home, he came through and had a look. He’s in shock.’
A warm wind from the north-east now. Villani looked at the sky, thin streaks of high cloud the colour of tongue fur, heard the sound of a train, the rip and flap of a loose truck tarp in the nearest yard.
‘Well, three,’ he said. ‘Three is just one times three.’
‘Simple as that,’ said Birkerts, he was looking over Villani’s shoulder. ‘The scientists.’
People in blue overalls were coming down the side of the house
, the crime-scene team, blood, ballistics, fingerprints, photography, they carried bags, not in a hurry. They walked across the concrete yard, chatting side-on, could be tradies coming on site.
Two of Birkerts’ crew came around the corner, in black, scratching, yawning, Finucane in front, work needed on his shave, as much hair on face as scalp, the pitbull Tomasic behind him.
Next was the forensic pathologist, Moxley, a balding ginger Scot. Villani raised a hand.
‘Doctor Death,’ he said.
Moxley grounded his bag. ‘The head of Homicide. Isn’t this early for someone so important?’
‘Never sleep. Three deceased here, two with no clothes on. May I request an extreme hurry-on?’
‘ASAP is always the aim,’ said Moxley.
‘Of course,’ said Villani. ‘Must be painful always to fall short.’
‘Well, it takes more than your nine or ten years of third-rate schooling to understand professional procedures.’
‘Yeah, but in Australia,’ said Villani. ‘Outranks a Glasgow PhD.’ ‘Probably couldn’t find Glasgow on a map,’ said Moxley and left.
Villani watched him go. ‘When I kill him, I want three days’ start,’ he said. ‘Like Tony Mokbel. Sum up the position for these two, Birk.’
Birkerts said, ‘Three dead. One shot, the others, the Christ knows, could be tortured to death, make you puke, I can tell you. Found by security. That’s it. Boss?’
‘It would be at night,’ said Villani. ‘Can’t be long ago.’
The day was warming quickly, cracks and pings from the tin building, the structure around them. ‘Not exactly in the bush,’ said Villani. ‘Someone around here must have seen something.’
‘Kill three people,’ said Birkerts. ‘Tie two up. How many does that take? You’d want to come in force, wouldn’t you? Say two cars, at least.’
‘Unless they came in a little bus,’ said Villani. ‘Like an outing.’
‘Non-linear thinking, boss.’ Birkerts gestured at Finucane, Tomasic. ‘Let’s get out there and ask about the place, start with those dorks at the fence.’
‘Media,’ said Finucane.
Villani looked. Television crews were arriving at the side fence, jostling.
A faint chop in the west, a television helicopter, a second one, bugs on the surface of the huge pale pond of sky. He said to Birkerts, ‘Since you look so sharp, when the time comes, you talk to them.’
‘People love to see me on television,’ said Birkerts.
‘So do we all. Say nothing. Check the whole street for security vision, that’s the priority. Along with all mobiles in the vicinity, starting, oh, 6pm Saturday.’
‘My exact thoughts,’ said Birkerts.
‘What took you so long then?’ said Villani. ‘Are we assuming the killers took these boys from the house to the shed to work on them?’
‘I am,’ said Birkerts. ‘The back door’s been smashed in.’
Villani crossed the concrete apron, inspected the back door. The latch was lying on the floor, all four screws forced out, that was one heavy, practised blow. He smelled disinfectant before he entered the kitchen, clinically clean.
The smelling he learned not on the detective course but from Singleton, who walked around murder scenes sniffing like someone with a lingering cold.
‘Stay with you, smells,’ Singo said. ‘All your life.’
Villani did not know of any occasion when sniffing had detected something that would not have been found by other means. But the more he sniffed, the more doglike he became, the more aware of the smells of the world.
The day would come, sniffing would pay off.
Empty pizza boxes stacked beside a bin, plastic plates in a drying rack, empty sink, two scourers. He crossed the room. A dim passage with a bare parquet floor led to the front door, two doors to the left, three to the right.
He looked into the first left-hand room. A bedroom, single bed. Prim like the kitchen, bed unmade, two pairs of runners lined up under it, clothes folded on a chair, a comb stuck in a clean hairbrush, like a porcupine with a fin.
The room opposite, a bathroom, towels hanging from rails. Clean as the kitchen, it smelled of chlorine bleach.
Next, another bedroom, king-sized bed, not made, cheap Chinese cotton clothes peeled from a body, dropped to the floor, layers of clothes. He sniffed cigarettes, dope, alcohol breath, sweaty runners.
Something else. Perfume, cheap. He sniffed above the bed. A woman had slept in it recently. Or a perfumed man.
The next room on the right. Duplicate of the previous one but dirtier and with two drug pipes. Different perfume here, also cheap.
The room on the left, a sitting room. Oversized chairs of cheap leather, foam escaping through splits, glass coffee table three metres square, cracked from corner to corner, a landing strip for burger wrappers, empty beer cans, cans of Cougar, HotRod, Stiff, HighLand. A chrome hubcap served as an ashtray, it held perhaps forty or fifty stubs, others missed the ashtray, burned out on the table, left cylinders of ash, dark nicotine stains. A fifty-inch flatscreen stood on a stand, the sound muted, a man and a woman with thick make-up, sprayed hair were talking to the camera: a breakfast show. The male frowned at the end of sentences, his eyebrows sloped, a dog face, sometimes happy, sometimes puzzled, sometimes sad. The pretty woman was excited in an awkward way, she knew she was meat, they had told her to be herself, she had no idea of what she was herself except pretty, so that did not help.
Someone had slept on a sofa against the wall, an unzipped sleeping bag on it, a grimy pillow, on the floor a full ashtray, a half-empty cigarette pack, a plastic lighter.
Beside the fireplace, newspapers were neatly stacked on a small table beside an obese and lumpy chair. Villani looked.
The Age.
Saturday’s paper. In this house, who read the broadsheet of record, the druggies or the tidy man, the cleaner and disinfector?
They had always kept the Age for Bob Villani at the milkbar in Selborne. When he was driving all week, they accumulated. On Sunday mornings, Bob arranged them in order and father and son read them at a sitting, Bob passing each paper on as he finished it.
Villani went back down the passage, through the antiseptic kitchen, into the day. Moxley was coming from the shed wearing a green surgical mask, pushing it onto his forehead.
‘Three Caucasian males, bullet wounds only on the one nearest the entrance, shot in the head, the two hanging have multiple wounds, including bullet wounds,’ he said. ‘No identification. Except.’
He handed Villani a card.
VOLIM TE IVAN, written in slanting capitals.
‘What’s this,’ said Villani.
‘Engraved on an earring on the nearest hanging male,’ said Moxley. ‘The two are both late thirties, I’d say. Give or take a few years.’
They watched him go back into the building.
‘I like him more with the mask on,’ said Villani. ‘More kissable.’
He showed the card. The crew stepped close.
‘I love you Ivan,’ said Tomasic. He was an only child, his parents dumped him when he was seven, he was fostered, shopped around, spoke four languages. ‘That’s what it says.’
‘In what?’
‘Croatian. Slovak.’
Villani felt the little tingle, looked at Birkerts. ‘Get in there and tell Moxley I’d like details of tatts.’
‘That’s going to be helpful?’
Birkerts had been Singo’s star pupil, picked in spite of having a degree, in spite of getting up the nose of every superior he’d ever had.
Villani had an acid surge, beer, nicotine, vinegary tomato sauce. ‘You reckon not, detective?’ he said. ‘Should I have asked you first?’
‘Sorry, boss.’ A small head bow, Birkerts went.
Villani and the crew stood in the warming day, the air alive with electronic squawk and grate and twitter, waited for his return, watched him step around the blood, come back.
‘Both got a little shield with a s
word across it,’ said Birkerts. ‘Like a chessboard.’
He patted his left upper arm. ‘Here.’
‘Matko Ribaric’s boys,’ said Villani. ‘Who says there’s no God?’
He walked to the building. They would have turned the third man onto his back by now, he could take pictures.
IN THE CAR, at the lights at Belgrave Road, the phone rang.
Kiely’s fat vowels. ‘Gather I’m the last to hear about Oakleigh,’ he said. ‘Makes me unhappy.’
‘What’s your unhappiness got to do with me?’ said Villani.
‘Just a comment. So I’m playing catch-up, what’s the prelim scenario?’
Villani wanted to close his eyes for a long time, but the lights changed.
‘Could be drugs,’ Villani said. ‘That’s a possibility.’
‘Really?’ said Kiely, smart little inflection. ‘I thought it might be something like, ah, farm produce.’
Kiely had a degree in criminology and an MBA, done parttime. He was head of Homicide in Auckland when he got the nod, they thought New Zealand was clean and green. Kiely was certainly green.
‘We’ve had farm produce, mate,’ said Villani. ‘Many dead. The Mafia war. But you wouldn’t know.’
The silence sang.
‘Anyway,’ said Villani, ‘Tomasic’s sent through three names, we’ll get the paper on these boys soonest. The house is going to take all morning. That’s the priority.’
‘Shouldn’t this be a Crucible matter?’
‘Unnatural deaths. Homicide. Not the case in Auckland?’
‘Just contributing to our ongoing professional conversation.’
‘Whatever the fuck that is. Forget Crucible.’
Hunger.
Villani detoured to South Melbourne, parked in a disabled space, he felt disabled. They knew him at the greasy, run by Greek outlaws, he customised the hamburger with the lot, subtracted the cheese, he couldn’t hack plastic cheese, the bacon with the pink stains of meat in the white fat. Four orders ahead of him, he went down the street, bought a paper, came back and watched the two-station assembly line at work.
