by Peter Temple
Hanlon said to the guard, ‘Okay, buddy, back on station.’
Hanlon turned. They followed him across a tile-floored foyer into a room that was a kitchen and an eating place. He sat at a table of polished granite, two mobiles on it.
‘So what?’ he said.
‘Sure one fuckbrain is enough to look after you?’ said Villani.
‘Fuckall to do with you, buddy. Area’s crawlin with druggies. Did your job, I wouldn’t need security. Fucken poodle be enough.’
‘Intelligent dog, the poodle,’ said Villani. ‘It might not want to protect you. Used to live in your batcave, all of you, so shit-scared of the Angels. Still, crapping yourselves kept you warm.’
‘Just fuck off,’ said Hanlon.
Villani stood at the island bench. ‘It’s about a woman,’ he said.
‘Yeah?’
‘The one you took to the Prosilio building.’
Hanlon smoothed his hair with both hands, looked at his palms. There was a sheen on them. ‘Mate,’ he said, ‘where do you come by shit like this? What’s your problem?’
‘Dead girl, that’s our problem,’ said Villani. ‘Account for all your movements on Thursday night a week ago, Kenny?’
Hanlon put a hand into his collar, rubbed himself. ‘Every last second. I’m home fast asleep by eleven any night, every night.’
‘Someone can confirm that?’
‘No. Only about twenty people. And my wife. And my mother-in-law. Good enough? Do you?’
‘Live-in mother-in-law, is it?’
‘Better lookin than your wife, mate, she cooks like, I dunno, that Pommy poof. Better.’
‘So you now transport hookers,’ Villani said. ‘How can that be profitable?’
Hanlon tapped his forehead with two fingertips. ‘I’m in hospitality, buddy. You pricks been over me like slime for years. Want to go again? Go for your fucken life.’
A silence. Dove, face blank, was looking at his clipboard.
‘Your car,’ he said. ‘That’s the black Beemer. Involved in a collision in La Trobe Street Friday morning before last, 2.23am.’
‘Not me, mate. Had it with fucken German cars, had it with the Krauts. Holden SV now, mate. Aussie car.’
In the doorway appeared a woman in a cream velvet tracksuit. She was snap-frozen at around sixty, blonded, bee-swollen, decorated in a glowing shade of peach, bright pink plump collagen lips.
‘Guests, Kenny,’ she said. ‘So early.’
‘Give us ten, Suzie, there’s a love,’ Hanlon said.
The woman smiled at Villani, it lingered as though facial muscles had gone into spasm. ‘So lovely to meet you,’ she said. She left, beatific.
Hanlon stood, reached to a counter and picked up cigarettes, Camels. ‘Smoke?’
They didn’t respond. Villani went to the door and closed it, turned the lock. He looked around the room at the commercial coffee machine, the stainless-steel fridges, the stone-topped counter. ‘Our understanding,’ he said, ‘is that you keep hookers jailed in a house in Preston. Confirm that?’
Hanlon pulled a face. ‘Reality check here. Can I go back to planet fucken earth? Rejoin the human race?’
‘Rejoining would require prior membership,’ said Dove.
‘Who’s this smartarse boong?’ said Hanlon. ‘Can’t get white people to join you cunts now? Scrapin the fucken barrel?’
Villani looked away, moved closer, balanced himself, hit Hanlon under his ribs, big right hand punch, gave him a left in the ribs, a heavy right into a flabby pectoral.
Hanlon went to his knees and puked, yellow, projectile.
‘Respect, Kenny,’ said Villani. ‘Even if you don’t respect the man, you have to respect the badge.’
He found a dishcloth on the benchtop, threw it at Hanlon. ‘Clean it up before the Botox witch sees it, Kenny. She might paddle your hairy arse. Or does she do that for you anyway?’
Hanlon wiped his mouth with the cloth, wiped the tiles, stood up. ‘Die for that,’ he said. ‘Fucken die.’
‘Detectives, note that Mr Hanlon threatened me with death,’ said Villani. ‘Kenny, I’m giving you a chance to talk to us. Might save your life.’
Hanlon sighed, Villani heard resignation. ‘How stupid you think I am? How stupid are you? Couldn’t save my fucken cat’s life.’
‘Clears that up,’ said Villani. He smiled at Dove, turned the smile on Hanlon. ‘Enjoyed talking to you. Kenneth.’
‘That’s it?’ said Hanlon. Hands in the air, hairy fingers, two gold rings on each hand, forefinger and pinky.
‘Unless you want to say something.’
Hanlon found a cigarette, lit up with a plastic lighter, lifted his head, blew smoke out of his nostrils. ‘Goodbye. I want to say that. Goodbye.’
‘Those Camels,’ said Villani. ‘Duty paid?’
‘Bloke give me a carton.’
‘Bloke in a pub?’
‘You know him?’
At the kitchen door, Hanlon said to Villani, ‘Occurs to me, you related to Dr Marko?’
‘Never heard of him, sunshine,’ said Villani. ‘Face the wall, close up, hands behind you. You’re under arrest.’
‘Don’t be fucken…’
‘Draw your weapon, Detective Weber,’ said Villani. ‘Mr Hanlon is about to resist arrest. Kenny, I’ll kick your balls off and then we’ll shoot you.’
‘Like you done Greg Quirk?’
Villani took back his right hand. Hanlon looked into his eyes and he turned, put his hands behind his back. Weber cuffed him and told him his rights.
Villani pointed to the mobiles on the table. Dove put them in his inside pocket.
‘Open the door, Detective Dove,’ said Villani. ‘You go first, Mr Hanlon. And tell your prick outside to keep his hands out of his clothes or we’ll kill him and that will be a pleasure and a public service.’
At the car, Weber in the back with Hanlon, Dove’s mobile sang. He plugged it into his ear, talked, put it away, looked at Villani with bright eyes.
‘Where you suggested, boss,’ he said. ‘Tomasic’s got a bloke, just come on shift a minute ago.’
Villani rang the number. ‘Villani. Got a piece of shit to be taken off my hands. Yeah. Twenty minutes.’
To Dove he said, ‘Charge him with accessory to murder, conspiracy to pervert, deprivation of liberty, any old fucking thing crosses your mind. Then he can wait for Monday, have a little time to think.’
IN THE security office, Villani shook hands with the man. He had a big belly and a beard like faded red moss and should have been retired in Venus Bay.
‘Tell me, Vic,’ said Villani.
‘Well, I seen her comin at the Dudley Street corner,’ said Vic. ‘Light’s not bad there, and she run across the street and I seen she’s got no shoes on. She sees me, she runs up to me, she can’t hardly breathe she’s that tired.’
‘What’s she look like?’ said Villani.
‘Just a kid. Like sixteen maybe? Thin, white skin, black hair.’ He touched his shoulders to show the length. ‘She got on like a party dress, black? Those little straps, y’know.’
‘Shoelaces?’
‘Yeah. Them. Red lipstick.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Got no English. Very little.’
‘So?’
‘So I said, come with me and we come around here. She’s really scared, she’s jabberin on in Romanian and she’s lookin back, down Peel and she’s kinda tryin to hide in front of me. Y’know? Like gettin in my way?’
‘Romanian?’ said Villani.
‘Yeah. Didn’t know what it was. Just wog jabber to me, mate.’
‘And?’
‘I give the other bloke a call. Made tea, she can’t hardly drink it. Anyway, he comes, name’s Maggie, he’s a wog too. He can’t understand her but he says she’s a Romanian, he gets that. So he says, get the police and she knows about police, she goes ballistic, no, no, no, she’s crying.’
‘Common reaction,’ said Dove.
Vic laughed. ‘So, anyway, Maggie says he knows a Romanian, he’ll ring him in the morning. We tell her don’t worry, no police, make a bed for her in the back. She just drops off like that, curls up, she’s dead to the world.’
Villani said, ‘In the morning?’
‘Maggie rung the bloke, puts her on, she talks to him. I knocked off but he come around for her. Maggie stayed on.’
‘How do we get hold of Maggie?’
‘On holiday. With the caravan. By himself. Monday he went.’
‘Went where?’
Vic shrugged. ‘Dunno, mate. Fishin, mad keen. Mad Collingwood, mad fishin. Go anywhere.’
‘Phone number?’
Vic went to a shelf and found a torn folder, put it on the table. It held stapled pages. He ran his finger down one. ‘Jeez, the turnover here, mate, you wouldn’t believe. Here. Name’s Bendiks Vanags. How’s that for a name?’
‘Means hawk,’ said Tomasic. ‘Vanags.’
‘Yeah,’ said Vic. ‘He said that. That’s why they call him Maggie. Got a pen?’
Dove wrote down the number. ‘Mobile?’ he said.
‘No mobile here.’
‘Got a family?’
‘No, mate. All alone. The wife give him the arse, that’s a while ago. Years.’
‘Get the address off you,’ said Dove.
They went outside, the scorching day, hard planes of light off the windscreens in the parking lot, Dove on the phone as they walked.
Lizzie. Did it cross her mind that she would destroy him? He took out his phone.
‘Mate,’ said Vickery, third-pack-of-the-day voice, last drink.
Villani described the man. Dreadlocks, tatts on his face, between his eyes. Dirty did not have to be said.
‘I remember,’ said Vickery. ‘Beat the drums for the cunt now.’ Pause. ‘Constructive conversations important, not so? So everybody faces the rising sun.’
‘Absolutely no question, mate,’ said Villani, the taste of copper in his mouth.
BIRKERTS PUT a page on the desk.
‘Texts,’ he said. ‘In a possible time frame, in the LAI. But no date.’
Villani looked.
Received 02.49: WHAT?
Sent 02.50: SOON.
Received 03.01: ?????
Sent 03.04: GOING IN.
Sent 03.22: OTU BANZAI OK
‘Tell me,’ Villani said.
Birkerts caressed his shave, found something under his chin. ‘New light on the matter,’ he said. ‘I would say Kidd and Larter do the SAS stroke SOG stuff, kill Vern Hudson, hang the brothers up. Then they hand over to someone.’
‘Could be Kidd talking to Larter.’
Birkerts went to the window, prised open two venetian slats, peered.
‘I find it hard to believe,’ he said, ‘that even a cross-trained killer would take on the Ribs and their mate by himself and then send for the other bloke. But that’s just me.’
‘It’s always just you,’ said Villani. ‘I wish it wasn’t always just you. What do we do with this?’
Birkerts turned. ‘Have you ever asked a question you didn’t have the answer to? Mind made up. Know how much that grates?’
‘That’s cheeky. Insubordinate. Know how much that grates?’
Birkerts didn’t look at him. ‘I’m quitting,’ he said. ‘Monday. Had it.’
‘Steady on,’ said Villani. ‘Don’t do this to me.’
‘Why not? Anyway, it’s not to you, it’s to the fucking job. You live in some kind of communion with the dead, you never get a decent night’s sleep, it’s always on your mind, people treat you like you’re an undertaker, mortician, it fucked my marriage, now it’s fucked the only decent relationship I’ve been in since then and another…’
Birkerts fell silent. ‘Yeah, anyway, I’ve had it.’
‘You’ll do what for a living?’
‘I don’t know. My ex-brother-in-law says he’ll give me a job selling real estate.’
‘Sell property? Are you mad?’
‘What’s wrong with real estate? You make money. You don’t get called out to some fucking shithole where a mental defective’s been burnt to death for fun, you can smell burnt meat a block away.’
Villani got up, went around the desk, no purpose, body humming with tension, kicked Singo’s box, full swing of the leg, his toecap dug into it, the boxer shot out, hit the floor with its head, which broke off.
‘Oh fuck,’ he said, bent and picked up the pieces. ‘Typical force shit, can’t even give you a bloody metal trophy. I’m supposed to send it to his nephew.’
Birkerts took the pieces from him. ‘I know a bloke can recast this. Do it in aluminium. The nephew won’t know.’
‘I don’t actually give a fuck about Singo’s nephew,’ said Villani. ‘I’m quitting too.’
‘Come on?’
‘Not the only one who’s had it, mate.’
Birkerts shook his head. ‘Boss of crime, the word’s out. You can be the complete bloody sun in all its glory.’
‘No,’ said Villani. ‘Sunset. My little girl says I did things to her. Sex.’
Birkerts frowned. ‘Jesus. Well.’
‘Smacked-out, on the street, feral scum,’ said Villani. ‘I’m finished. Fucked.’
Silence. In it, the radio was heard:
…the Morpeth–Selborne complex have been told to expect the worst tomorrow when extreme conditions are predicted, temperatures in the mid-to-high forties and winds that could approach…
‘On Kidd,’ said Villani. ‘He texts this stuff, changes nothing. Oakleigh is over.’
‘My Lord, what is this job?’ said Birkerts. ‘We drive an hour in the shitawful so you can sniff the fucking roadside and find this, now it means fuckall?’
‘Basically,’ said Villani.
‘I have work to do,’ said Birkerts. ‘Maybe we can have a drink on Monday when we’re both moving on to new careers. New lives.’
At the door, he said to Villani, ‘This is why the wife kicked you out?’
‘Keep moving,’ said Villani. ‘Sell inner city, can’t go wrong. Is that right?’
He rang Bob’s number. It rang out, he tried again, again.
‘Yeah, Villani.’ Bob.
‘What’s happening?’
‘I’m busy, on a bloody bulldozer.’
‘Where’d you get a bulldozer?’
‘Borrowed it. Me and Gordie’s putting in an airstrip in front of the trees. Talk later.’
End of call. Man in the door.
‘Boss, hospital just rang, there’s a lady, a Mrs Quirk…’
A WOMAN from hospital management met Villani and took him to the fourth floor, along a blank corridor to a room with eight beds, curtains drawn around them.
A young nurse, cheerful farm-girl face, was coming towards them.
‘Nurse, please show Inspector Villani to Mrs Quirk’s bed.’
Villani said his thanks, followed the nurse to the last bed on the left.
The nurse said loudly, ‘Mrs Quirk. Visitor.’
‘Who?’ said Rose from behind the curtains.
‘Me. Stephen.’
‘Well, come in the bloody tent,’ Rose said.
‘Not on her last legs?’ Villani said to the nurse.
‘Not just yet.’ She ran a curtain aside.
Rose on two pillows, head bandaged, face the matching colour. Her right forearm was in plaster to the first knuckles.
‘Jeez, ma,’ said Villani. ‘You’ve got to stop getting in these fights.’
She drew her mouth down. ‘Little shit run me down. What took you so long?’
‘Have a heart,’ said Villani. ‘Only got the message ten minutes ago. You could’ve said you were okay, not given me a fright.’
Rose made a noise, scorn. ‘Probably thought, good riddance, bloody old bag.’
Villani sat on a moulded plastic chair. ‘Yeah, that crossed my mind. What happened to your head?’
‘Can you believe it?’ said Rose. ‘The one li
ttle bastard knocks me over, the other one’s on a skateboard. I’m lyin there dyin, he rides over me head.’
‘Who saved you?’
‘Across the road come and put a cushie under me head, held me hand.’
‘Probably didn’t want the street’s free veggie supplier to cark it,’ said Villani. ‘Arm broken?’
‘Nah, the wrist.’ Rose craned towards him. ‘Listen, Stevie, can’t stay here, don’t want to die here, bloody germatorium. Tell em to let me go home. They’ll listen to you. Bloody inspector.’
‘Inspector doesn’t carry weight with the medical profession,’ said Villani. ‘Doesn’t carry weight with anyone actually.’
‘Please, love.’
Rose put her left hand out to him. He took it, chicken bones in a bag of skin, held it in both his big awkward hands.
‘They give me all this health shit,’ she said. ‘Blood pressure’s too high. The weight on me heart, surprised it don’t shoot out of me ears.’
‘I’ll lean on them, ma,’ Villani said. ‘Get you out of here. Those mobile nurses can come around.’
‘Don’t need em,’ said Rose. ‘I’m gone. Little arse hit me, saw me spirit float out of me body.’
‘Cigarette smoke,’ said Villani. ‘Out of the lungs. Time to cut down.’
She pointed at the tin cupboard beside the bed, winked. ‘Get me bag. We’ll have a little ciggy.’
‘No, ma. That’s the only reason you wanted me here. Got to go, attend to the dead, you’re the living.’
Rose sighed. ‘Stevie, Stevie,’ she said, ‘do somethin for me?’
‘What?’
‘Trust you? Cop scum.’
‘Depends. Maybe. No. What?’
‘I’m scared about me money.’
‘What money?’
She put her head back, closed her eyes, lids of old silk. ‘Little treasure chest. Savings. Me float.’
‘In the bank?’
She opened her eyes. ‘Jesus, mate, wake up to the bloody world. Under the kitchen table, lino comes up. There’s a trapdoor, stick a knife in.’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t bugger me knives either. Little treasure chest.’
‘Yes?’
‘Keep it safe for me, son? Had a nightmare, house burns down, it’s all ashes. Like Black Saturday, I’m walkin around there, pick up a cup. Promise?’
