by Peter Temple
‘How do you know this?’
‘Talked to people. Boss.’
Villani nodded, acknowledged the reference, did not show amusement. ‘Interesting. Do away with cops. I can understand why the system doesn’t work but this lost-all-vision shit, no, I’m unhappy. Make sure that message gets to Mr Hugh Bloody Hendry.’
‘Tried that, boss. Repeatedly.’
Angela from the door. ‘Your mate. The old days. Says it’s urgent.’
Dove left, he took the call. Afterwards, he thought about Colby’s advice. There was no upside to Oakleigh. It was just wading into a swamp. What did it matter if homicides went to some other outfit, they had enough dead people. He sent for Birkerts.
‘I’m leaning to the view that Oakleigh should go to Crucible,’ Villani said. ‘Let’s stick to women drown their babies, men knife their wives, that’s our comfort level.’
‘Well excuse me, we have…’
‘Drugs,’ Villani said. ‘This is drugs, it’s like spit, no natural end. You never nail anyone who matters, never have the final day in court.’
Birkerts’ head inclined to the window. ‘Well, just turn it over before we have a chance, I mean…’
‘Not running a democracy,’ said Villani.
‘You can’t run a democracy, that’s the thing about democracies, they…’
‘Tell Angela to ask Mr Kiely to step in, will you?’
Villani looked away until Birkerts had left, two fingertips in the hollow of his throat, feeling the pulse, before a fight it was a way to steady yourself, get your breathing right.
‘Inspector,’ said Kiely, face stiff.
‘Take the media gig this afternoon?’
‘Well, yes, certainly. Yes.’
‘Give them the waffle. Can’t name Ribarics. On the torture, it’s out there, so the line is horrific and so on. We’re shocked. Scumbags’ inhumanity to other filth. With me?’
‘Urge people to come forward?’
‘Mate, absolutely. In large numbers.’
Kiely smiled, uneasy.
‘Anyway, the communication expert will guide you,’ said Villani. ‘Ms Cathy Wynn. Just don’t embed her.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Joke.’
‘Your jokes,’ said Kiely, ‘are either very crude or very obscure.’
‘Let me think about that, will you?’
‘It’ll probably take you a while.’
‘That’s cheeky for a subordinate,’ said Villani.
‘THE OLD DAYS,’ said Vickery. ‘My fuck, some good ones, right?’
They drank, set glasses on the counter cloth. The bar was in the basement of an office block, smell of pissed-on camphor balls, nylon carpet outgassing, the fears of failed salesmen.
‘Think about them?’ said Vickery.
‘Oh, yeah. The good times.’
Villani often thought about the rushes, about being young, unbreakable, stupid. He never thought about them as the good times.
‘We missed you,’ said Vickery. ‘Always miss a steady bloke. Reliable bloke. Bloke likes a joke.’
Vickery and a cop called Gary Plaice almost killed a half-arsed little robber called Ivanovich, they said he broke free, tripped and fell down a flight of stairs.
‘The lesson the scum can draw from this,’ said the boss, Matt Cameron, ‘is that you don’t get between Vick and a hard Plaice.’
Villani knew what Vickery was saying. ‘Different jokes now,’ he said.
‘Oakleigh, got a joke there. Good fucking riddance. Listen, won’t hold you. The reason is, we heard a story.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Um.’ Vickery’s tongue bulged his upper lip, did a few wipes over his gums. ‘Lovett carked it, hear that? Lung cancer.’
‘I heard that,’ Villani said. He had felt no loss at the news, every day dawned brighter without Alan Arthur Lovett.
‘Didn’t break down myself neither,’ said Vickery. ‘But he’s on a fucking video, coughing and spitting, the twat says we fitted the little Quirk bastard.’
‘Why would he say that?’ said Villani.
Vickery gave him the long look. ‘Yeah, well, the drugs fuck with your brain, my brother-in-law, another prick, he came up with all kinds of shit, incest, you name it. It’s the Super K.’
‘When was it made?’
‘What?’
‘The tape?’
‘Dunno. What’s it matter?’
‘Could matter a lot.’
Vickery turned his back to the bar, glass in hand, looked around the dungeon. ‘Anyway, the problem here’s the wife, bloody Grace’s found God, fucking never-never-land shit and she’s sent the DPP the tape.’
Down the bar a blade-faced man coughed and coughed, could not stop coughing, it was painful to hear, he bent his head, ejected something into an expectant palm.
‘Fucked,’ said Vickery. ‘Another cunt going Lovett’s way. My guy says they’re talking second inquest. And there’s people very keen to see us go down. So we need to consider taking steps.’
He looked into his glass. ‘Coming man like you, you can raise this in the right places.’
‘Don’t know about that,’ said Villani.
Vickery turned to be at a right angle to Villani, he was the same height, heavier, torso sausaged in cold blue polyester.
‘Mate, mate,’ he said. ‘Clarity here. Courtesy this mad prick we can go down as killers, perjurers, eternal disgrace to the fucking force.’
In dreams, Villani always saw the fire escape, the kitchen’s grey vinyl tiles, dirty, peeling, the blood, on the ceiling, on the walls, on the windowpanes, lying on the carpet like drops of scarlet syrup. He never saw Greg Quirk’s face, never the blown-away throat, he never saw the face of the dying man.
‘See what I can do,’ he said, finished the beer.
Vickery made a nasal pipe-hammer sound. ‘Stevo,’ he said, ‘we don’t get smart here, we’ll know what arsefucked by a whole footy team feels like. Those who don’t already.’
‘Well, you heard a story,’ said Villani. ‘Could be some mistake.’
‘My whole life’s a fucking mistake,’ said Vickery. ‘With one or two exceptions I can’t remember. No mistake here.’
On the stairs, carrying his parcels, Villani passed two young women arguing, blotchy drug faces, hookers. The street door resisted him, then the outside hit, hot air of wood smoke and petrochemicals, fuels ancient and new.
‘I’M NOT sayin Greg was a good boy,’ she said that day.
‘You wouldn’t want to,’ said Villani, ‘because it would be a very big porky.’
He had been on his knees, pulling at the last clump of the couch grass, the roots yielded, no warning, his hands struck him in the mouth. He spat, an elastic string of sputum, no lift-off, the bloody line fell down his chin, lay on his T-shirt.
He put a finger into his mouth, felt his inner lip.
‘Fingers in your mouth, son,’ Rose said. ‘That’s a big no-no. Feedin yourself germs.’
She was on the verandah, a filter cigarette in a pink plastic holder.
‘Pity I didn’t meet you earlier,’ Villani said. ‘You could have spared me so much.’
‘On the other hand, Mick,’ she said. ‘Always thought Mick would come good.’
‘Just got in with bad boys, I know.’
Rose closed her eyes, tilted her head back, blew smoke. ‘Too right. Rotten homes, every last one of that lot.’
Villani took the watering can to the rainwater tank behind the house. Tap watering was banned. It hadn’t rained much for a long time but Rose’s tank was always full. He didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t beyond her to pass through next door’s rotten fence in the deep of night, connect her hose to their tap and fill the tank.
In the house, over time, he saw items well beyond the means and needs of an aged pensioner, French cologne, a leather purse, handbags, chocolates, jewellery, CDs, DVDs.
Once he picked up a small camera. ‘Where’d you get this?’
‘Same stop as the Chanel No. 5?’
‘Don’t be cheeky, copper.’
‘Hate to see you in court.’
‘What, gonna dob me? Serve me bloodywell right lettin you into me house. And who the hell are you to talk? Bloody bent, every last prick of you. Believe me, sonny, I know.’
Villani came back, watering can brimming. ‘Lucky with rain here,’ he said. ‘Microclimate. Tiny zone of high rainfall.’
After a while, Rose said, ‘Kids. You don’t want to blame yourself, do you? God knows, you done your best.’
‘What if you haven’t done your best?’
‘Me?’
‘No, me.’
‘Well, you’re not a mum.’
‘No,’ said Villani. ‘That lets me off then.’
He sprinkled water, special attention for the carrots and potatoes in the drum. He liked underground vegetables. When he was seven, Bob Villani left him and Mark with their grandmother, Stella. Couple of weeks, son, he said. More than three years passed, he came back only twice that Villani could remember.
But he already knew by seven, knew from his mother, that what adults told you was only true while it suited them for it to be true. He had become expert at detecting grown-ups’ moods, always alert for signs of anxiety, for false cheerfulness and unnecessary lies, for the appearance of sincerity. He knew all the danger signs—extra attention and being pushed away, hushed conversations, the unexpected and frightening outbursts that gave way to hugs and kisses.
The first spring, Stella showed him how to plant carrot seeds. She put them in a glass jar with sand, drew a furrow in the black soil of her back garden with a finger, trickled a line. When the tops came up, he went outside in the evenings, after tea, lay on the path next to his little carrot bed, warm bricks beneath his body, trying to hear the little carrots expanding, pushing downwards.
‘Time to put the radishes in,’ said Rose. ‘Love a tiny little radish.’
‘April,’ said Villani, ‘that’s when the radishes go in.’
‘April,’ said Rose. ‘Doubt I’ll see April. Feelin a terrible tiredness. Body and soul.’
‘Ten years you’ve been saying that,’ said Villani. ‘Still be saying it in ten years.’
Rose said, ‘Ten years? Be bloody eighty. No desire to be eighty. I can see what bloody eighty looks like. Looks like bloody hell.’
Rose Quirk hadn’t got much older since their first meeting. On his second visit, dusk on that long-ago October day, coming from a barren surveillance, he stood at her front door, regretting the impulse. ‘Out this way, thought I’d see if you…’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Nothing?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if something comes up, if I can do…’
‘No,’ she said.
Going down the cracked concrete path, Villani’s eye fell on crusted earth, faded seed packets. At the gate, he said, ‘Need to get the summer vegies in soon.’
‘Greg did the vegies.’
They had shot Greg dead, he wasn’t going to do the vegies.
On the next Saturday, Villani woke early, heard Laurie’s car grate the gravel in the driveway, it was her busiest day of the week. He lay in bed thinking about the old woman’s vegetables, sighing. After making breakfast for the kids, he drove to a nursery and bought blood and bone, mulch, seeds, seedlings. Rose Quirk didn’t answer his knocks. He went around the back, found a fork in the shed, dug up the beds, dug in blood and bone. He planted carrots, beans, two kinds of tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, beetroot, mulched the beds, watered thoroughly.
He was sweaty, looking at his work, the bright seed packets on sticks, when he heard the gate.
‘What’s this?’ said Rose, hoarse cigarette voice.
‘Put some vegies in.’
‘What for?’
‘I thought we could share them.’
‘Why don’t you grow your own?’
‘No room.’ A lie.
‘Can’t hardly walk, never mind lookin after vegies. Buy em at the super’s easier.’
‘They don’t need much. I’ll come around.’
Black eyes, Rose looked at him as if he were a Jehovah’s Witness, wouldn’t take no. He thought he had been stupid, he would take no. At the gate, he said, ‘Got my number, Mrs Quirk,’ he said. ‘You can get me.’
‘What kind of copper are you?’
‘Not just a copper,’ he said. ‘I’m a human being too.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’d be a first,’ she said. ‘Thirsty. Go a beer?’
‘I could go a beer.’
They sat on the front verandah in fraying, swaying wicker chairs and drank Vic Bitter out of glasses with green and red bands around the tops.
‘Smoke?’ said Rose.
‘Given up,’ said Villani. He took one. Rose clicked a pink plastic lighter, he leaned across.
‘Family man?’ she said.
‘Two girls and a boy.’
‘Wife?’
‘Wife. Their mother.’
‘Where you from? You Melbourne?’
‘No. A few places.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘My dad was in the army.’
Loud clattering noise.
Villani jerked, alarmed, heads in the street, beanies.
Skateboarders.
The street sloped, full of holes, they would come from all around to run it. He put his head back, felt the tension in his neck.
‘A wharfie, me dad,’ Rose said. ‘Bashed mum, bashed me, bashed us all. Me brother Danny run away, twelve years old, never ever saw him again. Biggest bastard ever lived, me dad.’
There was nothing to say about that.
‘Broke me little doggy’s head with a half-brick,’ she said. ‘No bigger swine ever lived.’
Villani was on the fire escape at the back door of the third floor unit when he heard the shots. He went in, weapon drawn, filthy kitchen, pizza boxes, beer cans, opened the door, a passage, went left down it, put an eye around the corner and saw Gregory Thomas Quirk, Rose Quirk’s second-born.
So you say that from the fire escape you heard Detective Dance shout?
Yes, sir.
What did you hear?
He shouted, Put it down, Greg.
You heard that clearly?
Yes, sir.
It says here, you say here, he shouted it two or three times?
Yes, sir.
And then you heard the shots?
Yes, sir.
You were outside the back door?
Yes, sir.
How far away was the back door from the front door, sergeant?
I don’t know exactly, sir.
I’ll tell you, sergeant. More than ten metres.
That could be right, yes.
Certainly is. So you say that, across this distance, through double-brick walls, you heard Detective Dance shouting?
Yes, sir.
Put it down, Greg. He barked those words?
No, sir.
No?
He didn’t bark them. He shouted them.
Of course. Sharp point, my apologies. Not a dog then. Nothing worse than a dog, is there, Mr Villani?
Detective. Sir.
Yes. Moving on, you say you heard Detective Dance shout and then you heard shots? Yes, sir.
What was the interval between the shouts and the shots?
Quick. Short.
What, a second or two? More?
I can’t estimate that, sir. He shouted, there were shots.
Four shots, you say here.
Yes, sir.
You could count them?
Yes, sir.
Widely spaced?
No, sir.
In the passage, he looked into Greg Quirk’s black sleepy eyes. Greg’s left hand was on his chest, blood running, over his fingers. He coughed, from his throat blood spurted, his chin dropped, long blac
k strands of hair hid his face, he went to his knees.
Tell us what you saw when you first saw Greg Quirk.
There was blood coming from his throat. He dropped a firearm, a handgun, and he took a step and sort of knelt down.
And?
Detective Dance was in the door. Detective Vickery. Behind him.
And Detective Lovett?
I didn’t see him. Not then.
Nothing prepared you for it: the volume of blood; the weak sounds of life leaking away.
COLBY SAID, ‘So you put the sheepshagger on TV to say you have no idea who these dead pricks are.’
‘No. Didn’t do that.’
‘That’s the impression of the girl Gillam, who’s been shat upon by the branchstacker Orong, who rang Mr Larry O’Barry to complain.’
‘I told Kiely don’t name anyone,’ said Villani. ‘I didn’t say we don’t know who they are. Anyway, he was in the hands of Searle’s media expert. Cathy Wynn. Handpicked by Searle.’
‘So she told Kiely what to say?’
‘Well they tell you what not to say, don’t they?’
‘That’s better. I don’t know Cathy Wynn.’
On television, Anna Markham raised her chin and tilted her head a few degrees east. Good-looking women did that, it was in their genes, they had to do it.
‘Just come on board,’ said Villani, cold in his heart. ‘From the Herald Sun, possibly the fashion pages. They say recently seen going into Lake Towers in Middle Park with someone. Two-thirty in the pm.’
‘What kind of someone?’
‘Resembling a communications expert.’
‘That’s from?’
It came from an off-duty uniform via one of Birkerts’ squad.
‘I forget,’ said Villani. ‘Reliable enough.’
‘So the defence line is Homicide badly advised by said slut?’
‘We are not the defendant, boss.’
‘Moving on. Reconsidered passing this Oakleigh shit to Crucible?’
That impulse was gone. ‘No, sir.’
Colby put the phone down. Villani unmuted. Anna Markham was speaking:
…in Wangaratta today new state Liberal leader Karen Mellish rated water, health, public transport, economic mismanagement, public safety and police corruption as key issues for voters in this election…
