Crucifixion Creek

by Barry Maitland

  He hangs around, unable to settle. When he sees Deb he complains that Wagstaff is making a mess of it, but she doesn’t want to know. ‘Keep out of it, Harry. You’re a witness, that’s all.’

  There’s an email on his computer from the psychologist suggesting he make an appointment. He deletes it. Finally he does a search on the smash repair business in Mascot. It is owned by Marco Ganis, cousin of Stefan Ganis who died in the siege. He owns a tow truck, first registered two years, colour red.

  The rain has newly stopped, the pavements are still slick, trees dripping, a heavy black cloud cover in the night sky. Harry parks a kilometre away and walks quickly down deserted streets. He pulls a black ski mask over his head as he approaches the compound, which sits on a corner. On the footpath facing away from the streetlight, a gnarled paperbark tree hangs half over the chain link fence, and Harry quickly climbs it and drops into the yard. The dog stirs, then appears from the shadows behind the shed, sniffing, peering. Harry calls softly, ‘Here boy.’ It gives a deep growl and comes bounding across the concrete, then stops abruptly as the steak—half a kilo of rump—lands with a fat plop. It sniffs, licks, then grabs it and begins to chew. Harry stays motionless against the fence as the meat goes down in greedy gulps. When it’s finished, the dog peers over at Harry and growls again. It begins to lope towards him, then pauses, sags onto its haunches and falls flat.

  The dark mass of the tow truck fills the shed. Harry examines the bodywork carefully with his torch, the gleam of fire-engine red, then begins to scrape away at the paint, collecting the flakes into a plastic pouch. It isn’t long before he finds white beneath the red. Then he hears a sound. He switches off the torch.

  ‘Caesar? Where are you boy?’

  The voice comes from the far side of the truck. Harry circles around and sees a figure reaching for the wall. As the light clicks on he darts across and grips the man’s throat, showing him the gun in his other hand. The man makes a gargling sound as Harry forces him across to a metal chair at a bench, makes him sit and ties his hands behind him to the chair.

  Harry searches him and opens a wallet, examining the man’s licence. ‘You’re Marco Ganis.’

  ‘Look,’ the man croaks. ‘I don’t keep any money here.’

  Harry moves round in front of him so that the man can see him for the first time. He sees the fear in his eyes as he takes in the mask, the gun. ‘I don’t want money. I want to know about your truck.’

  ‘Where’s Caesar?’ Ganis gulps. ‘You killed him?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me about your truck. You rebirthed it two years ago, right?’

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  Harry hits him across the face with the gun. Ganis squeals with shock, then sobs and moans for a while, spitting blood from his mouth. Harry waits till he quietens, then says again, ‘You rebirthed it two years ago, right?’

  The man nods his head.

  ‘Before that it belonged to you and your cousin Stefan, who’s now dead.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Ganis mutters. ‘Oh Christ, I think that was a tooth.’

  ‘Three years ago, on the twenty-sixth of June, you drove it up north to Thunderbolt’s Way where you ran a silver BMW saloon off the road.’

  ‘No.’ Ganis shakes his head, then gives a little shriek as Harry raises the gun again. ‘No! I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I swear!’

  Harry considers him for a long moment, then walks away, out of the shed to the forecourt, where he takes hold of the dog’s rear legs and drags it back inside and dumps it in front of Ganis. ‘Now I’m going to show you what I do to people who tell me lies.’ He cocks the pistol and points it down at the dog’s head.

  ‘No! Not Caesar! Don’t kill Caesar!’

  ‘Up to you.’

  ‘I wasn’t one of them! I was never a Crow.’

  ‘But Stefan was.’

  Ganis nods.

  ‘Who was with Stefan?’

  Ganis gives an awkward little squirming shake of his head.

  Harry says, ‘If you don’t tell me, or if you tell me lies, I’ll kill the dog and then you. But if you tell me everything, truthfully, you and Caesar will live. Understand?’

  ‘Stefan went with another Crow.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Harry presses the muzzle to Caesar’s skull. ‘Last chance, Marco.’

  ‘Roman. That was his name, Roman. Stefan couldn’t stop talking about it. They ran the car off the road and then Roman went down the hill with a baseball bat to make sure they were dead. But we had to get rid of the truck, he said. So I drove it down to this bloke I know in Melbourne, and he kept it there for a year, then we brought it back with a new ID.’

  Harry lowers the gun. ‘If you keep quiet about tonight there will be no consequences for you, Marco. Caesar will wake up in an hour. If you’ve told me the truth you won’t see me again.’

  ‘It is the truth, I swear.’

  ‘Why did Stefan fall out with the Crows?’

  ‘It was the drugs, chief. They made him crazy.’

  Harry leaves him there, tied to the chair, and climbs back out of the yard. He concentrates on remaining unseen all the way back to the car, but when he is finally seated behind the wheel he allows himself to think of Roman Bebchuk climbing down the hill with a baseball bat in his hand, to make sure they were dead.

  27

  The sleek glass cube overlooking Pyrmont Bay makes a startling contrast with the scruffy little dump that she’s worked in for the past twenty-odd years. As she rises up in a glass elevator to the top floor she looks out over broad acres of floor space filled with rank upon rank of the latest IT equipment served by a bustling community of vigorous young staff. She wonders if she’ll be up to it.

  Catherine Meiklejohn is reassuringly warm and down to earth. She glances over Kelly’s CV and says with a smile, ‘Yes, I think I’m familiar with all this. Now I want to focus on your future.’ She describes the make-up of their crime desk, their resources, their strengths and weaknesses.

  ‘We see you complementing the team perfectly, Kelly. Your boots on the ground familiarity with this city, with the western suburbs, with how it works, will be invaluable to us. But I need to ask,’ she leans forward, watching Kelly closely. ‘In light of the attack on your flat, are you quite certain that you want to continue with this work?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’

  ‘Good.’ Then Catherine makes an offer of a package that Kelly tries hard not to goggle at—in total, with the perks, at least twice, maybe two and a half times what she’s currently getting. ‘And we will provide you with temporary safe accommodation until we’re sure you’re out of danger. But I would like a swift decision, Kelly, and, if the answer is yes, as early a start date as possible.’

  Kelly says ‘Yes,’ and ‘Tomorrow’.

  She leaves, thankful that Catherine hasn’t raised the awkward matter of her Crucifixion Creek conspiracy theory beginning to look shaky.

  But it does come up the following day, after she’s gone through HRM and been given a security pass and allocated a de
sk, when Catherine invites her up to her office again to talk about her work. She takes a folder with her of copies of her articles and supporting material.

  ‘Kelly, before you get down to work with anyone else, there’s a matter of confidentiality that we need to clear up. It’s apparent from your recent articles that you have sources of information that you don’t disclose. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What can you tell me about them?’

  ‘Well, they’ve insisted that I keep their identity to myself.’

  ‘All right. Can I ask, is it one source, or multiple sources?’

  ‘Predominantly one, although I’ve been getting many new contacts since the first article from people who are obviously knowledgable and concerned about what’s going on.’

  ‘But this primary source, are you absolutely satisfied that they would have access to this sort of confidential information?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you met them in person?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you are certain they can be trusted?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘All right. Let’s give them a name for convenience—how about “Kelpie”? Okay?’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘So, for example, Kelpie gave you that “three kings” photograph, did they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what about the business of the south-west underground rail route?’

  ‘No, he—they—didn’t give me that. That was my own interpretation of events.’

  ‘It’s been getting a bit of a knocking the last few days. Are you still confident about it?’

  ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. But I am convinced that the three kings were involved in a criminal conspiracy of some kind, along with other people. Kelpie believes this too.’

  ‘Hm.’ Catherine looks, not disbelieving exactly, but needing to be convinced. ‘Has he given you anything else?’

  Kelly takes a large print of Harry’s latest photograph from her folder and gives it to her. ‘Kelpie gave me this. It was taken in the bar of the Le Meridien hotel in Jakarta last April. That’s Kristich, Mansur and Oldfield, and the fourth man is called Potgeiter, a local councillor whose ward includes Crucifixion Creek. Oldfield declared his trip to the parliamentary record as being for liaison with Indonesian police officials, while Kristich paid for Potgeiter’s airfare and hotel accommodation. Potgeiter told his council that he was taking a holiday in Tasmania.’

  ‘What were they up to?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s one of the things I’d like to find out.’

  ‘You want to go to Jakarta?’

  ‘Um…’ She hasn’t thought this through.

  ‘Alternatively, we have resources on the ground there. Maybe you could talk to them and see what they can find out.’

  ‘Yes, great.’

  ‘What about this Potgeiter? Isn’t he a bit out of his league?’

  ‘That’s what makes me think it must be something local to the Creek. I’ve heard rumours in the past that he uses influence with council inspectors and other staff to go easy with his friends when they sail a bit close to the wind.’

  ‘But surely this is something bigger?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like to find out more of his background. He emigrated from South Africa about ten years ago.’

  ‘Okay.’ Catherine examines the photograph again. ‘I think we should hold this back until we know more about the context. On its own it means nothing.’

  Kelly is disappointed. She hoped that the momentum would increase with the Times behind her, not slow down.

  ‘You disagree? Your first photo, the three kings, set the hares running. They all went into a panic, but it won’t happen again. They’re prepared now. We need the story behind the photograph to get the impact.’

  She’s right, Kelly concedes, as she makes her way back to her desk. She was lucky before; now she has to do the solid groundwork. She feels like an amateur coming into this great machine, having to prove herself all over again. She thanks God she’s got Harry.

  28

  It is a chilly winter morning and the pool looks almost as dark and forbidding as the sky. There is only one swimmer, ploughing his solitary watery furrow up and back, up and back. Harry, pulling his coat around him against the wind, watches him from the stand. After almost an hour the swimmer hauls himself out and wraps himself in his towel. He pads off to the changing room without a glance at the lone watcher in the stand.

  Harry is waiting for him as he emerges from the entrance, a stocky man with powerful shoulders and a battered face. He has a noticeable limp. When Harry steps into his path, Tony Gemmell glances at him without surprise and says, ‘You look like a cop.’

  ‘The name’s Harry.’

  ‘Not interested.’

  Gemmell goes to push past and Harry says, ‘I was in the army with Rowdy O’Brian.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It was my doorstep they dumped his body on.’

  Gemmell peers at him more closely. ‘And why was that?’

  ‘We’d met a couple of days before. Somebody saw us together.’

  ‘So it’s your fault he died.’

  ‘Maybe, or maybe someone just wanted rid of him. He told me about you and how things had changed for the worse since you left the Crows. He had a great respect for you, Tony.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to nail whoever did it.’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ He keeps walking and Harry lets him pass.

  ‘They broke all his fingers and toes, then they used an oxy-acetylene torch on him. Burned the club tatts off his arm and carved D-O-G on his back.’

  Gemmell stops and slowly turns back. ‘What are the cops doing about it?’

  ‘Not making much headway so far. Prime suspects were Bebchuk and his mob, but they have alibis, so now they’re thinking it might be another gang.’

  ‘Bullshit. What was their alibi?’

  ‘They all rode out to a hotel in Bathurst for the weekend.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘The hotel staff. Local cops saw their bikes outside all weekend, and their phone data places them there.’

  ‘Nah, it’s a set-up. Cameras?’

  ‘The hotel doesn’t have any. So they say.’

  Gemmell shakes his head. ‘There’s no way they would have gone on a ride last weekend except to set up an alibi.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because this weekend is the Presidents’ Ride, and they wouldn’t have gone out two weekends running.’

  ‘What’s the Presidents’ Ride?’

  ‘Each year three of the west Sydney outlaw motorcycle clubs have a meet at the Swagman Hotel in Penrith. It’s a longstanding tradition, and anyone who breaks it would be in big trouble.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Bebchuk did Rowdy all right. It’s as clear as day.
Bebchuk, Capp and Haddad, those three.’

  They stand in silence for a moment, then Gemmell says, ‘What did you expect from me?’

  ‘I wondered if you might be able to tell me how I could get Bebchuk on his own, outside of the compound.’

  Gemmell shakes his head. ‘No chance. Bebchuk’s made plenty of enemies. They don’t go out much, and always in strength.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You are a cop, right?’

  Harry nods. ‘But not on this case. This is strictly personal.’

  Another pause, the two men sizing each other up as the wind whips a spattering of rain around them. Then Gemmell says, ‘So let me tell you about the Presidents’ Ride.’

  29

  Around lunchtime, Nicole calls in unexpectedly on Jenny. Their mother has taken the girls to the movies and Nicole, in town for some shopping, thought she’d drop in to see her sister. As she comes in Jenny smells her perfume and imagines her make-up, something Nicole was always good at. For Jenny, make-up is another one of those awkward problems now. Mostly she has to rely on Harry to tell her whether she’s done a decent job.

  ‘Isn’t Harry here?’ Nicole asks. ‘I thought you said it was his day off today.’

  ‘He had to go out. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nicole sounds disappointed.

  They go into the kitchen where Jenny’s got out the bread and cheese she was going to have for lunch. ‘There’s plenty for both of us.’

  Actually, Nicole is more interested in wine, and helps herself from a bottle in the fridge. ‘The truth is, Mum’s driving me crazy,’ she says. ‘She’s turning the place upside down and I can’t find anything. She just takes over. Well, you know what she’s like.’

  From their mother she goes on to all the other problems she’s having. ‘God, Jen, I just didn’t realise when Greg was alive how much I depended on him. The money of course, he did everything. Paid the bills, balanced the books. I’m hopeless, he never told me how it all worked. And then things keep going wrong. Have you ever tried changing a globe in one of those recessed ceiling lights? It’s impossible. Mum says call an electrician, but we can’t afford to do that every time a globe goes. And then one of the hinges in the cupboard doors has come off, and I can’t get the lawnmower to start. I’m just useless, that’s how I feel.’