by Peter Corris
The uniform conducted me to a corner of the room where a man sat at a desk with his hands folded, watching our approach.
‘Detective Inspector, this is Cliff Hardy.’
‘Right. Any trouble?’
‘No, strikes me he’s done this before.’
‘I bet. Okay, thanks, Bill. Have a seat... Mr Hardy. I’m Kerry Watson.’
I nodded and sat. He was fortyish, red-haired and freckled, a little overweight in a dark blue shirt that was a bit too tight. He looked tired; his desk was covered with files and sheets of printout and there were post-it notes stuck here and there on the shelves. If I’d had to deal with all that I’d be tired too.
‘When did you arrive in Newcastle?’
‘Why am I here?’
‘Let’s get a few things sorted and I’ll tell you. You’re licensed for a firearm. Where is it?’
‘In my car.’
‘I’m not sure that’s legal.’
‘It’s unloaded and secure. Your boys’ll find it if they’re any good.’
‘They’re good.’
‘That’s one thing then, what else?’
‘What’s your business here?’
‘You know better than that. My business is my business.’
He shook his head and a few dandruff flakes dropped onto his shoulders. ‘Not really. It’s customary for people in your ... line of work to check in with us when you arrive. You didn’t.’
‘Customary doesn’t mean you always have to do it. I wasn’t planning to stay long.’
‘How long?’
I shrugged. ‘Depends.’
He took a notebook from the pocket of his jacket hanging over the back of the chair, turned a few pages. ‘You paid a call to Peter Wilson McKnight.’
‘That’s right. Can we stop this? What’s going on?’
‘McKnight was found dead in his office this morning. He’d been shot through the head.’
~ * ~
9
Watson watched closely for my reaction and I didn’t have to pretend to be shocked. He sighed and flicked through his notebook.
‘Your car was spotted in the parking bay of McKnight’s building at 6pm.’
‘Right, and I left about thirty minutes later.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘I went straight to a restaurant in Market Street and would’ve been there before seven. I’ve got the bill.’
He nodded. ‘For your expenses.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Must be nice.’
‘When was Pete killed?’
‘Pete? You were good friends?’
‘Not really. He was always Pete, the way Pete Sampras is Pete.’
‘Who? Oh yeah, the tennis player. Before Federer. He was killed around 10pm. Where were you then?’
‘With a friend.’
‘Name?’
‘Not unless I have to. You don’t really think I killed him, do you?’
‘No, but it might be helpful for you to tell us what you wanted to see him about.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘He’s no loss, anyway. Did you know McKnight was a bagman for the Tanners?’
‘No.’
‘You’re surprised?’
‘I haven’t seen him for quite a few years. People change.’
‘For the worse in his case. When his wife left he got on the piss, started gambling, got in deep with the loan sharks. One thing led to another.’
‘He didn’t look particularly prosperous.’
‘No, the Tanners probably bought him by paying off his debts or putting them on hold. They like to control people on the cheap. That’s their speciality.’
He wasn’t telling me much I didn’t know apart from the information about Pete. He put a few more questions to me which I deflected. His heart wasn’t in it. When an ex-cop-turned-private-detective forms an alliance, however reluctantly, with criminals, you have a recipe for trouble. Pete’s killer would have to be looked for in a dozen different directions and the police didn’t have the time or the motivation. When Watson took a phone call, responding in a series of grunts, my interview was over.
‘Your car’s in the back parking lot. Your keys are at the desk. If any information that might help us comes your way, get in touch.’
I said I would, collected the keys, located the car and drove a few blocks at random to see if I was being followed. Nothing. The contents of the glove box had been left on the seat and I had to assume the police had found the catch that opens the lockable section I’d had Hank install behind the glove box. They’d have learned that the gun hadn’t been fired recently.
I followed my original intention and went back to the same city restaurant for lunch. I try not to drink before 6pm, but circumstances dictate behaviour and hearing shocking news seemed worth a drink. I had two glasses of red with my focaccia. I hadn’t been close to Pete McKnight but I drank a toast to him. Too young to die. His attitude during our talk made more sense now. Maybe he thought he was doing me a favour warning me away from the Tanners and only my disappointment had led him to name the patriarch. Then again, maybe he’d told the Tanners I was coming to Newcastle.
I strung the food and wine out for as long as possible and then took a walk around the harbour, the beach and the city. I got to the coffee bar at the appointed time to find Marisha there already. I could tell by her body language, stiff and somehow hostile, that things had changed.
Still standing, I said, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You’ve blown it,’ she said.
‘Blown what? How?’
She shook her head dismissively. ‘I should have known.’
I sat down finally. ‘You’re not making sense, Marisha. Known what?’
‘Lily told me that the one thing that worried her about you was that you were a magnet for trouble. She said you drew it towards you and she had a suspicion that you liked it that way. In the end you ...’
I knew what was coming. A lot of people thought Lily had been killed because of me and what I did for a living. It wasn’t true and I thought Marisha knew enough to understand that. I’d run into the problem too many times to be angry and now I was just disappointed. That must have showed because she relaxed some of the tightness in her expression and let her shoulders sag.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say ...’
‘You shouldn’t think it. It’s not true. But I didn’t know she felt like that about me. She never said.’
‘She loved you.’
We sat in silence for a while. Then she picked up her computer bag and handbag from the floor and stood.
‘You heard about Pete?’ I said.
‘Yes, and about you being taken in by the cops.’
‘Just for a talk.’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t bring you and Jobe together. Not after today. Goodbye, Cliff.’
She walked out with her long athlete’s stride and didn’t look back.
~ * ~
Two disappointments for the price of one. A waitress who’d hovered and then withdrawn, probably thinking she was witnessing a lovers’ quarrel, approached with a tentative smile. I ordered coffee I didn’t really want just to accommodate her.
I toyed with the coffee, thinking how badly things that had seemed so promising had gone. I was no closer to getting something to play off against the Tanner brothers. Pete McKnight had implied a serious rift between them and the father and that seemed likely to widen to a yawning gap if they found out what Jobe was up to. Promising, but I couldn’t reveal that without bringing Marisha into the picture. I needed something solid to neutralise the Tanners, get some cooperation from Twizell for Wakefield and bow out of the whole thing.
If contact with me had brought about Pete’s death, although I couldn’t see how, I was sorry. And I was sorry to lose Marisha’s confidence. But sorrow doesn’t solve problems. The only thing to do was return to Bathurst. Just possibly, Twizell might give me something to deflect the Tanners.
I did the drive in a som
bre mood and I did it reinforced by the blues. I checked back into the same motel. Same room even. I was distributing things about when there was a sharp knock on the door.
I was back in hostile territory so I’d brought the .38 in from the car. I put it within arm’s reach behind a curtain and opened the door. A tall woman wearing a leather coat stood there with her fist raised to knock again.
‘Cliff Hardy?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Kristie Tanner. I have to talk to you.’
I stepped back and motioned for her to come in. The butt of the pistol was sticking out from under the curtain. She noticed.
‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘you’re jumpy.’
‘Yeah, thanks to a meeting with your brothers.’
‘I know about that. Roger told me.’
I pulled out a chair for her. ‘Roger?’
She unbelted and took off her coat. She wore a dark blue dress, short and tight on her generous figure. She was well above average height but her very high heels made her look even taller. Her features were good but they had a slightly heavy, mannish quality. Her hair was brown and short; she wore a lot of makeup, skilfully applied. She moved purposefully, a bit like brother Joseph, as she dropped the coat over the back of the chair and sat.
‘Roger Tarrant, he ... drives for Hector.’
I shoved the pistol into my overnight bag. ‘Oh, Rog. Yes, I’ve met him.’
‘He said you broke two of Clem’s ribs.’
‘Two, was it? I was worried it was only one.’ I rubbed the arm where Rog had hit me. ‘I owe him something too.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘He’s a dangerous man. Anyway, he’s on your side.’
I sat on the bed. ‘I’m feeling pretty dangerous myself just now, but I don’t understand. You’d better explain.’
‘Did you go to see Johnnie about the cave?’
‘What cave? And that’s a question, not an explanation.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Johnnie’s a caver, or he was. He says he found a lot of money, all vacuum-wrapped and sealed. Close to a couple of million, he reckoned. This was in a deep cave. He didn’t say where.’
My scepticism must have shown.
‘It’s true. He says he moved it to another cave while he thought what to do. The trouble was, as he was coming back up the cave roof fell in and he was lucky to get out alive. He broke an arm and a leg and hurt his back. He was in hospital for months. That’s where I met him. I was visiting a friend. I knew we were related from his name—second cousins or something. Tanners and Twizells, all part of the same mob.
‘And he told you this story?’
She nodded. ‘Bit by bit. We started a relationship, hands under the bedcovers, screen around the bed when he got more mobile. Like that. Eventually he told me he needed help to get the money out. He knew about my family and he said he needed people like Hec and Joseph. The money was probably stolen; the cave was on private property. He needed equipment after it collapsed and the cooperation of the owner of the land, who mightn’t want to cooperate. You understand?’
‘He thought Hec and Joseph’d be good persuaders?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, what went wrong?’
She sighed. ‘Got anything to drink here?’
I opened the mini-bar. She opted for vodka with ice—a true Tanner. I had a light beer.
‘My bloody brothers,’ she said. ‘They’re greedy bastards. They decided that if they knew where the cave was they didn’t need Johnnie. Joseph would’ve tortured him but Hec wouldn’t go that far, partly out of consideration for me, I think. Hec got hold of some drug that makes you tell the truth. They got Johnnie high on booze and pills and shot him up with this stuff.’
She took a big slug of her drink and closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she spoke again it wasn’t much above a whisper, as if the memory had constricted her throat. ‘Johnnie went right off his head. That’s when he attacked me and nearly killed me. He was delusional, I know that. It really wasn’t his fault, not altogether. Anyway, he was yelling and I was screaming and Joseph and Hector were yelling and there was blood everywhere. A neighbour called the police and they took Johnnie away.’
I’d put most of the little bottle of vodka in her glass. She reached for the bottle, added the rest and knocked it back.
‘Johnnie punched me and kicked me and managed to use a knife before Joseph got him off me. They rebuilt my face but I’m not as good-looking as I was. They made me look like a transsexual. A lawyer told me I should sue, but I’d had enough of lawyers and doctors by then. As for the rest of me, want to see the scars?’
‘You hushed all this up at the trial? About the drugs? He could’ve got off on diminished responsibility, or at least a lighter sentence.’
‘Yeah, and that would’ve been the end of the money, wouldn’t it? Johnnie was prepared to do the time. He’d been inside before. He could hack it.’
‘And your brothers were willing to wait?’
‘They had no choice. But Johnnie let them know they were out of the picture and they’re not prepared to accept it. That’s why they put the pressure on you to deliver a message to Johnnie he might believe. But you haven’t done it yet, have you?’
‘No. I’m seeing him again tomorrow.’
‘Will you deliver the message?’
~ * ~
10
Call me self-interested, but my first thought was that this gave me something to work with against the Tanner brothers. The mention of Megan and the sly placement of the coke had pissed me off and countering the threat had become my first priority. But I was still working for a client and I next had to consider how this affected Wakefield’s approach to Twizell. I played for time.
I said, ‘I thought cavers always worked in pairs.’
‘They do. That’s another bit of the ... hassle. Johnnie said he went down with a young Pommy backpacker he ran into at a pub. The Pom said he’d done a lot of caving at home and was keen to have a go here. Johnnie said this bloke helped him move the money but apparently he was caught when the cave roof fell in. He’s still in there, buried. That’s another reason they needed Hec and Joseph—to deal with the body.’
‘Are they good at that, too?’
Since she’d described the matter of disposing of a body as nothing more than a hassle, I wasn’t surprised at her reply. ‘I think they’ve had some experience.’
‘It’s all very interesting,’ I said. ‘Not sure I believe it, but you seem to. All I can tell you is that it’s the first I’ve heard of hidden money. My business with Twizell relates to something else entirely.’
‘Which you won’t tell me about.’
I shrugged. ‘No, and no need. Nothing remotely to do with what you’ve told me, but I’m left with a question.’
She was playing with her empty glass, moving it from hand to hand. ‘What question?’
‘Suppose I was concerned about hidden money, what was the point of you coming to me?’
‘You’re supposed to tell Johnnie bygones are bygones and that they’ll help him in return for a share of the money.’
‘They didn’t spell it out quite that clearly, but I suppose that’s what they had in mind, once I’d convinced Twizell they were dinkum.’
‘I want to ask you to tell him the opposite—that they’d rip him right off.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want them to have the money.’
I was getting tired of the question/answer format. ‘Because you want it—you and Rog, say?’
‘Forget it.’ She grabbed her coat and took two steps towards the door before I grabbed her.
‘Better let me go,’ she said. ‘Roger’s just outside.’
‘Let’s have him in.’ I grabbed the .38 and threw the door open. He stood there, big and dark, tense, but not alarmed by the gun. ‘Come in, Rog. We’ve got things to talk about.’
He ignored that. ‘You all right, Kris?’
She retreated ba
ck into the room. ‘Yeah, he’s an arsehole but he didn’t hurt me.’
He nodded and came in, shutting the door behind him. His composure threw me a little. I let the hand holding the gun drop to my side but brought it up as he opened his leather jacket.
