by Peter Temple
‘Do that room,’ he said to Dove. ‘Don’t touch.’
The first bedroom had a bare single bed. He opened a wardrobe by tugging on the bottom of the door. Empty.
In the kitchen, the small fridge was running, freezer iced up. Empty.
Who paid the power bills?
‘Boss.’ Dove.
Villani went to the back bedroom, stood in the door.
‘Nothing here,’ said Dove, eyes on the carpet next to the stripped bed. ‘But there’s this.’
Villani crossed. On the cheap dark carpet, a darker stain, large.
‘Another one here,’ said Dove.
‘Well,’ said Villani. ‘We should ask the question. Get them. Prints, DNA, the lot. House search. Under the floor, roof, everything.’
He left Dove to wait, drove out of the street.
HIS PHONE rang as he was parking in a small shopping centre carpark, directly across from the arcade that ended in his brother’s consulting rooms. It was Kiely.
‘There’s no Metallic match with the weapons in Kidd’s car, the Ring Road one. That’s one hundred per cent sure.’
‘Bugger,’ said Villani.
‘And the vehicle. Genuine plates. It’s registered to a man not seen for nearly ten years and was sixty-eight then.’
‘Bugger again.’
A big man with long greased hair in a ponytail came out of the arcade and stood at the kerb. He took sunnies out of his denim jacket, big wraparound glasses, put them on, looked around, lit a cigarette.
Villani knew him. His name was Kenny Hanlon, they brought him in for questioning over a man called Gaudio, a minor drug figure. Gaudio’s biggest impact on society was to block a storm-water pipe in Melton. Someone, possibly Kenny Hanlon, had bound his hands and feet with no. 8 fence wire and stuck an apple in his mouth. Then a heavy vehicle had driven over his head, several times.
He watched Hanlon cross to a black Holden muscle car parked tight against struggling hedges in the far corner, get into the passenger seat, vanish behind the dark window.
Villani waited for the Holden to leave. Waited.
Mark came out of the arcade, white shirt, open-necked, he stood where Hanlon had stood, looked around, turned left. Villani lost sight of him, then he came through the ragged hedge in front of the Holden, went to Hanlon’s window, blocked Villani’s view.
The urge was to look away, start the car, drive off. Get on with the business of the day. But he looked and his throat was tight and his mouth was dry. The dark window came down. Mark Villani leaned his forearms on the sill, head almost in the car.
In less than a minute, Mark straightened, tapped the roof of the Holden, went back the way he had come. The machine woke, the driver made it growl, it backed, went forward, backed again until a wheel mounted the kerb. Then it escaped its lodging, came past Villani, slowly, eight-speaker sound system threatening to break windows, dent cars, blow the infirm and their shopping carts back into the supermarket. It had three short backsloping coil aerials on the roof.
Villani went to his brother’s surgery. An old man, two women and a toddler, a girl, were waiting, sitting on white plastic chairs. ‘His brother would like to speak to Dr Villani,’ he said to the receptionist, a thin woman with dyed black hair and pencilled eyebrows.
She picked up the phone. ‘Your brother’s here, doctor. Okay. Right.’ She smiled at Villani. ‘Doctor will see you next.’
Villani sat as far away from the others as possible, hands in his lap. He closed his eyes, tried to think of nothing, failed. He opened his eyes. The child was looking at him. She took off towards him, plodding and uncertain steps.
‘Dadda,’ she said. ‘Dadda.’
‘Shayna, leave the man alone,’ said a young woman in a man’s leather jacket. She had a tattoo around her neck below the Adam’s apple, a strand of blue barbed wire. The child ignored her, eyes fixed on Villani, took another step, held out her dimpled arms.
Villani looked away. How had the budding neurosurgeon ended up in this sad dump?
‘Dadda,’ the child said.
The old man made a popping sound like a failing two-stroke ignition. It might have been a laugh. He pointed at Villani. ‘Nailed yer, mate,’ he said. ‘Nailed yer.’
‘Shut yer fucken mouth,’ said the woman. ‘Stupid old cunt.’
‘Fuck you too,’ said the man. ‘Seed you got two more in the car. Three fucken dads no doubt.’
‘Mr Stewart, kindly be quiet or wait outside,’ said the receptionist. ‘And you’ll wait all day.’
The child took another step towards Villani. ‘Dadda,’ she said.
The woman came out of her chair, wrenched the child away by the arm, sat down holding her tight. The child began to whimper and tears rolled down her fat cheeks. Her eyes never left Villani.
The door opened and a pimpled teenage boy came out, perhaps sixteen, olive-skinned, Elvis hair. He looked straight ahead, walked. Mark Villani stuck his head out. ‘Steve,’ he said.
The consulting room had a temporary look, a chipboard desk, a cheap computer, an examination table covered with a sheet, not sparkling white. The calendar was for 2009.
They sat.
‘Been meaning to call you,’ said Mark. He had grown his hair, grown a little goatee, a ring in an earlobe.
‘Saw you outside,’ said Villani. ‘At the black Holden.’
Mark lifted his chin, blinked twice, looked down at the desk pad, wrote something. ‘Patient left his prescription behind.’
‘I could see you knew him.’
‘Of course, I know him. He’s a patient.’
‘Could have sent the receptionist.’
Mark looked up. ‘You here to tell me how to run my practice?’
‘He’s not a model citizen, your patient. Know that?’
Mark shook his head. ‘Steve,’ he said, ‘I actually don’t ask sick people to present character references. Feeling crook is enough.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘I also don’t discuss my patients with other people. That’s a principle among doctors. Not heard of it? I suppose you’re in the pub telling the drunks about who murdered who?’
Villani waited, looking at his brother. Mark looked back, tapped a finger.
‘Nice of you to drop by,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got patients waiting. I’ll call you, find a time.’
‘Hellhounds,’ said Villani. ‘You’re associating with Hellhounds.’
Mark raised his upper lip. ‘Steve, don’t come the cop with me. The bloke’s a patient, he rides a Harley, I’ve got a Harley, we talk Harleys.’
‘Go round the clubhouse, do you?’
Mark picked up his ballpoint, clicked it, kept clicking it. ‘As I understand it, it’s just pool tables and beer fridges and a workshop.’
‘Are you fucking naïve or what?’
‘Listen, don’t tell me who I can talk to. Got fuckall to do with you, okay?’
‘No, it’s not okay,’ said Villani. ‘You’ve got something to do with me. I think that.’
‘Can we have this conversation some other time? I’m busy, I don’t have…’
Villani said, ‘So the golden boy’s now giving the wife and kids the arse, got a little beard, little earring and he’s associating with murdering bikie scum?’
Mark placed the ballpoint on the blotter, looked at his hands, opened and closed his fists. He had big hands, wiry hair on the backs. ‘Anybody punched you recently?’ he said.
‘Don’t give me tough, sonny,’ said Villani. ‘I’ll put you on your arse. I’m your brother. I’m telling you what you don’t want to hear.’
‘How’s your happy family?’ said Mark. ‘You still fucking everything in a skirt? You think Laurie doesn’t know? I’ve had enough sanctimonious crap from you.’
‘Fuck you.’ Villani got up. He had handled this badly, he was handling everything badly.
‘Sit down,’ said Mark. ‘Sit down, Steve.’
Villani sat.
‘J
esus, you’re a bully,’ said Mark.
‘People are telling me that,’ said Villani. ‘A boss manner, they say.’
‘Bullied the life out of me and Luke.’
Villani wanted to say, You’re only a doctor because I was a bully, but he said, ‘You’d both still be fast asleep if I hadn’t kicked you out of bed.’
Mark’s eyes were on the desk. ‘You were like a god, y’know? Always in charge, always knew what to do, so fucking cool and calm. I wanted to be like you. I wanted you to like me. You didn’t like me, did you? You don’t now.’
Villani felt unease, looked around. ‘Yeah, well, you’re my brother, like doesn’t come into it. I don’t want to see you fuck up your life. What’s wrong with you? There’s shit, right?’
Mark held his eyes, defiant.
Villani waited, folded his hands and waited, didn’t blink, didn’t shift his gaze.
Mark tossed his head and then he misted, blinked, and he put his arms on the desk and lowered his head, said something Villani couldn’t make out.
‘What? What?’
Mark looked up, more blinking. ‘I’m under investigation.’
‘By?’
‘Practitioners Board.’
‘For what?’
‘Prescribing and other stuff. They want me to suspend myself.’
‘Prescribing?’ He noticed for the first time that Mark’s eyes were a soft brown, not the glossy black olives of Bob Villani.
‘The pressure’s huge, you have to be in the game to understand, you…’
‘The game? This’s a game, is it? You’re saying you’ve got a habit, don’t fuck with me.’
‘It’s under control, Steve. Under control. I am coming out of a bad time, but, yes, it’s now under…’
‘What’s the stuff in this prescribing and stuff?’
‘Well, they have some, they have someone saying I treated someone for a wound. Gunshot wound.’
‘And that’s right, is it?’
‘Don’t look at me like that, just don’t look at me like that, okay, it’s not a fucking major offence, it was an accident, blokes buggering around, a gun went off, it’s not like the person was shot by…by someone like you. No.’
A coldness in him, Villani got up. ‘So you’re the Hellhounds’ tame fucking GP,’ he said. ‘You’re the smacked-out medico patches up these cunts, prescribes what they can’t make.’
Mark stood up. ‘Stevie, it’s over. I swear that, I swear it is over, it is under control, I am taking back my life, that is…’
‘You’re a disgrace,’ said Villani. ‘Bob, me, all the fucking effort, we thought we had a thoroughbred in the stable, a surgeon. You blew it, you weak dog, you fucking waste of space.’
He left, passed swiftly through the death-ray eyes in the waiting room, went down the shabby arcade, crossed the parking lot. In the car, he sat for a moment, composed himself.
VILLANI AND Dove sat in the car eating salad rolls bought by Villani on the way back to Preston, he could not trust Dove not to get lost.
A car parked behind them. Birkerts. He got in the back.
‘Coming past,’ he said. ‘Heard you were here. Mr Kiely’s given me Burgess.’
Troy Burgess had been Villani’s first section boss in Homicide. Why Singleton took him from the CIB was an enduring mystery. He was work-shy, a heavy drinker, spent most of his day on his gambling, his domestic problems, two ex-wives, four children, one with time for drugs, one married to a violent crim shot in the back by an associate, a succession of demanding young women met in strip joints and pubs, at the races.
‘Off the piss, Burgo,’ Birkerts said. ‘The punt too, they say. Become a bit of an advisor to Mr Kiely. As an elder of the force. Explaining the history and quaint customs.’
‘God help us,’ said Villani. He had no high ground on the punt, it had come so close to bringing him down.
‘Waiting,’ said Dove. ‘I never realised how much waiting there was.’
‘It’s television,’ said Villani, chewing. ‘These techies now see themselves as the band. We’re just muscle, the roadies.’
‘Can we be told why the boss roadie himself isn’t running Metallic anymore?’ said Birkerts. ‘Or is that impertinent?’
‘Mr Kiely deserves a turn.’
‘Great timing. What’s the charge?’
Villani didn’t want to talk in front of Dove. ‘Men now dead escaped while under surveillance,’ he said. ‘They think there might have been a better way.’
‘What way?’
‘When they tell me, I’ll tell you.’
A hot wind had arrived, moving the ragged, forgotten trees. Two youths in overalls, a tall and a short, came out of the factory next door, stood smoking, looking at them, one said something, they laughed.
‘Only the truly ignorant are truly happy,’ said Birkerts. ‘My dad.’
‘Penetrating,’ said Villani. ‘An old Swedish saying?
‘Don’t know Swedish sayings from fucking Ukrainian,’ said Birkerts, rubbing his face with both hands. His mobile rang. He had a short conversation, put the device away.
‘So what’s on here?’ he said.
‘We have no idea,’ said Villani, chewing, looking at the youths, at the house, waiting for some sign.
Birkerts sighed. ‘Three highly trained operatives in one car. With no idea why.’
A man in overalls in the front door of the house. He raised a gloved hand.
‘Like the fucking Pope,’ said Villani.
‘I’ll be on my way then,’ said Birkerts. ‘See you later, roadies.’
‘Tell you the Ford guns don’t match Oakleigh?’
‘Mr Kiely did.’
‘I want the Oakleigh gun,’ said Villani. ‘I want the satisfaction of the Oakleigh gun.’
‘Do anything to satisfy you, boss.’
Villani and Dove crossed the street, went down the path, filed through the front door, stood in the dim house. A woman was mixing fluids in a pump spray, the sickening smell of peroxide.
‘The big stain,’ she said. ‘And there’s others. Have a look at a bit of the big one. Not to bugger the DNA.’
A man edged around them. ‘Tape it?’ he said.
‘No,’ said the man in charge. ‘Shutters down, Wayne.’
Wayne wound away the light. A torch came on, lit the room.
The leader said, ‘Yeah, dark enough. Gerry.’
Gerry sprayed the carpet.
‘Off.’
Click. They stood in blackness, blind.
A small piece of carpet began to glow, luminous blue.
‘Oh yes,’ said the woman, cheerful. ‘Blood. That’s lots and lots.’
VILLANI WENT back to the car, made calls about Lizzie. She was on all the keep-a-lookout-for lists. He put the phone away and leant back, slept for ten minutes until his head lolled. He sat up, dry-mouthed, thirsty.
It came into his mind: the faraway Thursday in winter, the long drive on the snow road, Singleton and Burgess in front, Burgess’s terrible jokes. He didn’t understand why Singo could be bothered, remembered wishing he had never transferred to Homicide, aching to be back in the Robbers, they did not drive for hours. The day was dying behind the mountains, steady drizzle, when they saw the divvy van at the side of the highway. The cop, stoic face, waved them onto the track, they went about two hundred metres.
She was naked, she was small, pitifully thin, prominent ribs, a long neck. The corners of her mouth had been cut by something. It took weeks or months to identify her, he had moved on, she wasn’t local, that was all he remembered. Darwin, somewhere far away…
His phone.
‘FYI, the second man is a Raymond Judd Larter, age thirty-eight,’ said Kiely. ‘Unfortunately, he turns out to be ex-Special Operations Group too. He quit six years ago to join Special Air Services, time in Afghanistan. Discharged two years ago.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve asked the question. We’re trying to find him on other bases.’
&nb
sp; ‘We are obliged to warn Searle about impending shit,’ said Villani. ‘Need to find the gun. Get the Prado X-rayed.’
The girl on the track, Burgess would know what the outcome was. No conviction, that was certain.
Phone again.
‘Lizzie,’ said Laurie. ‘She says she’s okay.’ Instant anger.
‘Where the fuck is she?’
‘It was noisy, street phone, she said, Hi Mum, I’m okay, talk to you later. That was it.’
‘You want them to keep looking for her?’
‘Of course. Yes.’
‘Right, okay. This really pisses…’
‘I see you’ve taken your clothes.’
‘Any reason I shouldn’t do that?’
‘No, not a single one. Goodbye.’
You could not slam down a mobile. He was looking at it, clenching it, when it rang.
‘Need a chat, mate.’ It was Dance. ‘How’s the old spot suit? Five-thirty?’
‘See you there.’
Villani got out, stretched, tried to touch his toes, felt eyes, saw a worker looking at him. He crossed to the house, walked around it and sat on the back step. He watched Dove walking around the yard. His suit wasn’t a Homicide number, the jacket didn’t have the poncho fit. He had never had a good look at Dove. Until you watched people from a distance, you hadn’t really seen them. You had to register the way they walked, held themselves, moved their arms, their hands, their heads. You could learn things by doing that, observing, some mothers could read their kids from half a block away, know what was going on in their heads.
He remembered sitting outside Brunetti’s in Faraday Street that day, seeing Laurie from a long way, waiting at the lights. He watched her come, jeans, black leather jacket, jinking through the walkers, he realised she’d lost some weight, slightly different haircut, shorter, she was walking in a more confident way. Their eyes docked when she was ten metres away. He was the one to drop his gaze.
She touched his shoulder, the long hand, she kissed his forehead, perched on the chair, straight back. ‘Haven’t been here for yonks, got a meeting in half an hour.’
Villani said, ‘You’re having an affair.’
It was not what he had planned, he had wanted to hint, to force her to say the words.
