by Peter Temple
‘I thank you,’ said Hendry. ‘This project’s taken three years of my life, three years of spending my own money, which hurts, I can tell you. I’ve done it because I believe in it with passion. It will be the best thing I do in my life.’
Long and emotional applause. Hendry waited again.
‘The challenge I’m issuing to all of you,’ he said, ‘and particularly those standing for election in a few weeks, is this. Declare yourself for or against this project. In principle. That’s all we ask. Then we’ll let the people of this city and this state speak with their votes.’
The applause lasted minutes. Gillam, Barry and Orong didn’t join in. Clinton Hulme made a lot of noise.
‘That’s about as good as a speech gets,’ he said to Villani. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Has he done any public speaking before?’ said Villani.
Hulme smiled, patted Villani’s arm. ‘I like dry in a man. Come and meet Max.’
‘I don’t think Max’s hanging out to meet me,’ Villani said.
‘So wrong. He wants to meet you, Vicky wants to meet you.’
VILLANI WAS taken through the crowd, Hulme’s hand in his back. A long-legged woman in black led them.
They followed Max Hendry on a tour, the spruiker Kim Hogarth and two women escorting him, they read name tags, did introductions, Hendry shook hands, he spoke, the guests laughed, he laughed, he went serious, they went serious, nodded, he left them with a few words, another clasp, a touch on the arm, a woman kissed him on his cheek.
The woman in black intervened. Hendry turned.
‘Max, Vicky,’ said Clinton Hulme. ‘I’d like to introduce Stephen Villani, head of the Homicide Squad. He thinks you’re too royal to meet him, Max.’
They shook hands. They were the same height. Hendry had light eyes, disconcerting, the colour of shallow water over clean sand.
‘Meet Vicky,’ said Hendry.
Vicky Hendry wasn’t much older close up, fine lines, high-cheekboned, handsome.
‘Stephen, I have to tell you my family thinks Homicide walks on water,’ she said. ‘After my nephew was murdered, someone rang every day, always saying you’d find them.’
Villani’s scalp itched. Praise, flattery, to deal with them perhaps you had to be praised when you were young, he had very little experience of praise. For Bob, not getting things right was bludging, slackarse behaviour, not paying attention.
Stephen, don’t take your kids’ achievements for granted.
Laurie said that one day when he had found the time to read Tony’s school report and just nodded.
‘I suppose you know how much that means to people who’ve lost someone?’ said Vicky Hendry.
‘We try to understand,’ said Villani.
The fourth of Singo’s Five Commandments: Thou shalt speak to the family as often as possible. As avenging angel, not fucking undertaker.
‘And you got them,’ said Vicky Hendry. ‘Because for them to be out there free, laughing, that was a knife in our hearts.’
Through a gap, he saw the shimmer of black hair, Anna, laughing, just metres away. Their eyes met, she looked away.
‘We were watching television and you came on and my sister said, That’s him, he caught them.’
‘Well, it’s always a team effort,’ said Villani.
‘Not always,’ said someone behind him. ‘Sometimes it’s just one bloke with brains.’
Villani turned and saw Matt Cameron, the first time in years. Sixty-odd, he was still unlined, still whipstick thin, the big shoulders, the tight grey curls.
‘If you say so, boss,’ Villani said.
Max Hendry patted Cameron’s shoulder, Vicky Hendry touched him too, affectionate, they knew one another well.
‘This is about as secure as it gets,’ said Hendry. ‘Whole hierarchy of the police force and Mr Private Security himself. You know each other then?’
Cameron said, the soft voice, ‘Taught the boy everything he knows. Things he shouldn’t know too.’
When Villani joined the Robbers, Cameron was boss, in his early forties then, the hardest man, still boxing, just muscle and sinew, a phenomenal reach. He sparred with him, it was like fighting Inspector Gadget. He left the force after his cop son and his girlfriend were murdered on a farm near Colac, still unsolved. His wife killed herself a month later. Now he was rich, co-founder with Wayne Poland, another cop, of Blackwatch Associates, the country’s biggest security firm.
‘Gentlemen, got to keep moving,’ said Hendry. He put hands on Villani and Cameron. ‘Steve, Vicky’ll arrange something. Do us the honour?’
‘Of course.’
Vicky Hendry offered a hand, she took his in both hands, silken, the extra second of clasp, not flirting, the couple moved on.
‘Interesting bloke, Max,’ said Cameron. ‘I see Colby’s not choosing your suits anymore. Nor ties.’
‘Got a new advisor.’
‘Smart people always take advice. But only from smarter people. How’s the Oakleigh thing going?’
‘Not as fast as you’d like,’ said Villani. ‘Remember Matko Ribaric?’
‘Trying to forget Matko.’
‘It’s his boys. And Vern Hudson.’
Cameron smiled, the rare smile, Villani remembered it was gold. ‘Well, best fucking thing I’ve heard for a while,’ he said. ‘Vermin born of vermin. Be drugs. Everything’s drugs.’
‘Not unlikely.’
‘Handballing to Dancer and the Crucible dancing girls?’
‘No.’
‘Brave. Still, boy’s got worries enough. Machinery for deep-level mining, can’t crack a walnut.’
Cameron drank something pale from a whisky glass. ‘I heard about Lovett. Grace Lovett.’
‘Before me,’ said Villani. ‘I heard ten minutes ago.’
‘Out of the loop. Still, no leaks, media don’t crack a fat, it’ll go away. Working on that, are you? With Searle?’
‘We’re not that close.’
‘Son, a Pom once said England had no permanent alliances, only permanent interests. Look after your permanent interests. With me?’
‘Suck up to the prick?’
Cameron looked at him, Villani saw his father in Cameron’s gaze, you never knew what it meant until it was too late, you had got it wrong.
‘Well, world’s imperfect,’ Cameron said. ‘Don’t be the twat ends up on the cross. Need a hand, I still know a few people.’
Villani knew that he should bow his head and say something, with gratitude. He hadn’t asked for a favour, he didn’t want one.
‘Thanks, boss,’ he said.
A man came up, tall, handsome, floppy fair hair, fleshy mid-thirties. Villani knew who he was.
‘The old man gives a nice party,’ he said. He wore a grey suit, snowy shirt, no tie.
‘Know Steve Villani?’ said Cameron. ‘Steve, Hugh Hendry.’
The handshake was perfect, firm, gentle.
‘Your man Dove’s a bloody Jack Russell,’ said Hendry.
‘Trained to be so,’ said Villani. ‘Paid to be so. Encouraged to be so.’
The perfect smile too, the big teeth, white and even. Rich teeth. ‘Respect that. It’s getting it over to him that we are pleading guilty to a software failure and not guilty to whatever else he has in his mind.’
‘People feeding us bullshit,’ said Villani. ‘That’s what we have in mind. Total loss of vision on this scale is new to us.’
The tiny narrowing of Hendry’s eyes.
‘We’re a bit new on that too,’ he said. ‘Our techs are hotbunking to solve the problem.’
‘Doesn’t the software write a log?’
‘A log?’
‘Have a code that writes a detailed log on glitches, breakdowns?’
Hendry didn’t get it.
‘Certainly a technical challenge,’ said Hendry. He was looking at Cameron in the way of someone who wanted to be rescued from a bore.
‘Dead girl in the building,’ said Villani. ‘T
hat’s our technical challenge. Low-tech challenge. Girl screwed to death.’
Cameron ran a finger across his upper lip. It was a signal to Hendry. The feeling of being patronised triggered the icy rage in Villani.
‘Maybe we should be talking to you, boss,’ he said to Cameron. ‘Maybe we’re talking to the office boys. This’s a Blackwatch cock-up, not so? Blackwatch high-tech challenge. No back-up, no log.’
Cameron smiled, not the golden smile now, no eye-crinkles, Villani knew this smile too and he wished he could take back all his words.
‘Growing in the job, Stevo,’ said Cameron. ‘Crawling out from under Colby and Dance and Singleton. That’s a good thing for a man your age. Mature man, family man.’
In the crowded room, in the hubbub, Cameron’s words made their own silence.
‘Got to move on,’ said Cameron. He was looking over Villani’s shoulder, raised a hand to someone. ‘Keep sane.’
Cameron walked and Villani looked.
Anna. His hand was on her arm. She touched it.
He saw Cameron stoop, kiss her cheek, another cheek.
Jesus, when did he take up this shit? The last time he saw Cameron stoop to kiss it was to kiss Joey Colombaris with his forehead, the prick bled for so long they exhausted the shit paper, called the medics. Joey turned out to be a bleeder, needed a transfusion, almost died.
‘Not the best few days,’ said Hendry. ‘Casino’s screaming at me, the hotel, bloody Marscay. I’m supposed to be at the beach.’
‘That’s tough,’ said Villani. ‘A last point. This stuff doesn’t go away. You and Marscay and Orion can fuck with us but we don’t go away.’
Hendry put up his hands. ‘No, no, we want to know what happened up there as much as anyone. We understand our obligations. But the technology failed us. The bloody Israelis gave us a demo in this hot lab in Herzliya. Worked like a charm. Infinitely scaleable, they said. You know what that…’
‘I know what that means,’ said Villani.
A couple were at Hendry’s shoulder, the woman tall and thin, pale hair in a man’s cut, her loose shirt showed hollows behind her collarbones deep enough to hold water. Small birds could sit on her shoulders and nod to drink. The man was shaven-headed, hooded eyes, an art dealer, Daniel Bricknell, often in the media.
She put a hand on Hendry’s shoulder. ‘Darling, that Orong creature made an advance,’ she said.
She smiled at Villani. ‘Oh shit, he’s not your closest friend?’
‘Like brothers,’ said Villani.
‘Caitlin Harris, Daniel Bricknell, Stephen Villani,’ said Hendry. ‘Stephen’s the head of the Homicide Squad.’
‘I know who Stephen is,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen Stephen on television. The serious face. It turns me on. Stephen, that old “City Homicide” show. Is it really like that?’
‘Only the names were changed,’ Villani said.
‘You’re not bad in the flesh,’ she said. ‘I mean without the make-up. That’s unusual.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ said Villani. ‘I have to go, attend to bodies.’
‘Well, I’m a body,’ said Caitlin. ‘I need attending to.’
‘Forgive her,’ said Hendry. ‘The beauty-brain imbalance. Scientists are working on it.’
‘Nothing wrong with a beauty-brain imbalance,’ said Bricknell. ‘It’s the ugly-brain balance I don’t like.’
Villani passed close to Anna, Cameron gone, he met her grey eyes, he was a stranger, could read nothing.
Near the door, Barry came from nowhere. ‘A rewarding outing, boyo. Talking to the right people. Doesn’t hurt to get to know people, does it?’
‘Thanks for the invitation,’ said Villani.
‘My pleasure. You went really well. Just a little tip?’
‘Yes?’
‘Smile more. You can be a bit forbidding, bit grim. Makes people uncomfortable, know what I mean? Like you’re going to arrest them.’
Villani smiled, he felt the resistance in the muscles of his cheeks. ‘Point taken, boss,’ he said.
‘Excellent,’ said Barry. ‘Now it’s an early night. That’s an order.’
ANNA WAS on his mind all the way home. So striking, so handsome. And so clever, so confident. She could choose from all the smart people around her. Why had she slept with him? Perhaps she was like him, perhaps she felt the compulsion to possess.
The house dark, murmur of television from the back, the family room, no complete family ever gathered in it, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of extension, half what the house cost, Laurie arranged the money.
Corin asleep on the sofa. He killed the television, said her name, twice, a third time, she was startled, grumpy, puffy-eyed, rose and went away without a kind word.
He went down the passage, sat on the bed, took off his shoes and his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, ready to shower, lay back, just for a little minute, closed his eyes.
It was not like television. His second or third month on the job, a late-night kicking in Flinders Street, the man unconscious, then induced coma, two days later they cut the power. The premier went on television, said symptom of all that was rotten in society, the whole force including traffic was on the case day and night, results expected hourly. The truth was they had nothing. They looked at security footage from every working camera in the area. All they got was a glimpse of four figures, grey shadows, a block away, the time right. Unless they got a dobber, they had nowhere to go and so the media unit fed a stream of rubbish about positive identifications in the hope that one of the pricks in the group who didn’t actually kick the man more than five or six times would dob in those who did.
No one came forward. They took turns talking to the victim’s family, rich people in Toorak, he didn’t know anything about them, just rich people. He spoke to the mother and the father, they always thanked him warmly but he knew he was just a reminder of what they had lost.
On a night in August, freezing wind off the bay, it had rained at last light, Villani and Burgess went to Footscray, a sad domestic, woman stabbed, the blood-spattered husband was in the local cells, picked up at the milkbar while buying cigarettes. Villani tried to talk to the man, who was incoherent with drink, drugs, possibly this was his natural state. After a while, Villani went outside for a smoke, stood against the wall in the cold, stained concrete yard, the sky now blown clear, he could see the Southern Cross, the wind blew the cigarette coal white-hot.
A van came in, they unloaded two youths, black trackies, beanies, still full of fuck-you attitude, it showed they had been treated with the respect owed to citizens, even those who were lawless scum.
‘What?’ said Villani to the senior.
The man knew him from the Armed Robbers, most cops in those parts knew him, he had been seen in the company of legends, it attached to you.
‘Bashing a black kid, kicking him, boss,’ he said. ‘We come around the corner, the hugely intelligent pricks run straight up a dead end.’
Villani flicked away his stub, watched the party go up the steps into the building and, through the legs of the cop behind, he registered the second youth was wearing Blunnies.
He followed. Inside, he said to the senior, ‘Give us a minute with these dorks. One to start.’
The man looked at him, the moment of query, uncertainty.
‘Sure, boss. Just do the paper, they come in unharmed, okay?’
They did the paper, put the boys away, it took time, it was late when Villani went into the smaller one’s cell, his name was Jude Luck. Now the fuck-you boy was alone, had no beanie, no shoes, no trackie, he had some homey tatts, his eyes showed a lot of white, not good dairy white.
Villani started in the normal way, he smiled and said, ‘Hello, Jude, I’m the chaplain from St Barnabas,’ and he kicked Luck’s feet out from under him, he fell sideways and Villani stopped him meeting the concrete, not with love, laid him to rest, put a shoe on his chest, tested his weight, moved it up to the windpipe and pressed, tapped, you did not w
ant to mark the cunt.
‘I’ve been looking for you, son,’ he said. ‘So long I’ve been looking for you. You and your fucking Blunnies.’
They recorded the interview with Jude Brendan Luck at 12.47am. A while later, they put Luck’s story to the bigger one, Shayne Lethlean, he went to water. They picked up the other boys, the brothers, two years apart, ginger-freckled angels fast asleep on the floor in the garage of their sister’s house in Braybrook, they did not wake when the door rolled up, they had to be shaken, slapped, there was some pleasure in the work.
Villani woke, fully dressed, unrefreshed, as if from a brief fainting spell, the new day was grey in the east window, the city was making its discordant birth cries.
CORIN WAS eating cereal. She was dressed to go, damp hair back, looking twelve or thirteen but for the nose, the neck, the strong shoulders.
‘Early?’ Villani said, whispery voice.
‘Job interview,’ she said. ‘Six-thirty.’
Third year at university, so clever, she was always so sharp. He could not believe his sperm played a part in her creation.
‘Where?’
‘Slam Juice. Lygon Street.’
‘Dawn interview?’
‘They test you. When’s Mum get back?’
He was looking into the fridge. ‘I don’t know. Jesus, this needs high-pressure steam. Don’t you talk to her?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘She doesn’t phone you?’
‘She’s working, Dad. Do you ring me?’
Toast. Vegemite. Peanut butter. That would do.
‘Heard from Tony?’
‘He’s in Scotland. Don’t you know that?’
‘Scotland? I thought he was in England.’
‘He’s on an island, working on a fishing boat.’
‘Nobody told me that.’
‘Maybe you weren’t listening, Dad. Preoccupied.’
‘Give me a break,’ said Villani. ‘I’m human. Lizzie talked to her mum?’
‘I have no idea.’
Corin went to the sink, he saw the sad and lovely curve of her nose, it was his mother’s profile in one of the two photographs he had, kept with her letter.
‘Well, ask her,’ Villani said. ‘She may be in the loop.’
