Crucifixion Creek

by Barry Maitland

  Harry calls Jenny and asks her if she can find out who owns these properties. It doesn’t take her long to ring back.

  ‘A company called Pretoria Holdings. Sole owner Joost Potgeiter.’

  Harry remembers Kelly’s text message. Potgeiter is the key. ‘What do we know about Potgeiter? Where does he live?’

  ‘I have an address…two actually. He has an apartment in Parramatta, and a property out near Orchard Hills. And I have several phone numbers.’

  Harry notes the addresses and rings the numbers in turn. The landline to the Orchard Hills property is answered by a man who sounds as if he’s been woken from a deep sleep. ‘Hello? Hello? Who is this?’ Harry recognises the vowels and hangs up.

  As soon as she gets off the phone Jenny remembers the other thing she had to tell Harry. Working through another Kristich file that she has managed to open, she has found more references to payments to ‘Curly’, for larger sums this time, tens of thousands of dollars. She decides to ask the computer for its suggestions, and it comes up with a list of synonyms and associations. Among them are translations of the word into other languages. In Italian, the word for curly is rizzo. She rings Harry again but it goes to voicemail, and she leaves him a message.

  It’s a thirty-five-minute drive. Beyond Orchard Hills the GPS takes him off the bitumen and onto a dirt road that runs between empty brown paddocks. He reaches the number painted on a post and turns into a long drive leading to a single-storey house with verandas and a tin roof. When he stops no dogs bark. A white Holden Caprice is parked at the front door.

  Harry walks around the house, looking through windows. Through one he sees Potgeiter preparing something in the kitchen, through another an unmade bed, and through a third a bare mattress on a bed frame with what appear to be straps attached to its four corners. He peers in more intently, shading his eyes, and sees other things scattered on the floor. Some clothes, a cane, a thick whip. Harry puts on gloves and tries the window, which proves to be unlatched. He climbs in. He smells bacon frying and hears the sound of a radio from the kitchen as he steps among the things on the floor. The clothes are a woman’s. There is dried blood on the braided leather lash of the whip, and in patches on the mattress, which stinks of body fluids.

  ‘And who the fuck are you?’ The same words that Kristich used when he caught Harry in his office, spoken now with a broad South African accent. Harry turns to see Potgeiter standing in the doorway with a shotgun in his hand. He looks tousled, wearing the T-shirt and boxers he probably slept in. His face clears in recognition, and he cries out in mock affability, ‘Why, Detective Belltree! How kind of you to call!’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ Harry says.

  ‘No, but I know all about you. And about your illustrious black father, of course.’

  ‘Why? What was he to you?’

  ‘A bloody nuisance. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m looking for the reporter, Kelly Pool. Do you know where she is?’

  ‘Aha.’ Potgeiter gives a knowing smile and his eyes stray to the bed. ‘Indeed I do, and I have some further business to conduct with her which you are holding up. So let’s take a little walk. Come along.’ He waves the barrel of the gun, and Harry steps slowly forward.

  ‘That’s the way, nice and easy.’ Potgeiter steps back from the door to keep him covered, but as he reaches it Harry puts out a hand and slams it closed, then drops as the shotgun booms and shredded plywood sprays across the room. He springs up, runs to the window and dives through. Races to the front door, reaching it just ahead of Potgeiter, who bursts out, gun first. Harry grabs the barrel and rams the butt into his stomach. In a moment he has the gasping man back inside, handcuffed on a wooden chair. Eyes watering, Potgeiter sucks in air and stares up at Harry.

  ‘Do you have a warrant, detective? You don’t, do you? You are a trespasser, breaking the law. I had every right to shoot at you.’

  ‘There are a number of things I want you to tell me,’ Harry says. ‘Let’s begin with Kelly Pool. Where is she? What have you done to her?’

  ‘Go fuck yourself. Oh!’ He sees the look on Harry’s face, and gives a crow of satisfaction. ‘Are you going to hit me? Well, go ahead! As much as you like. And when you’re finished, and I’ve told you nothing, I shall destroy you. How proud your father would have been of you, threatening a defenceless prisoner.’

  Harry draws up a chair facing him. He feels weary. Thinks of the psychologist’s piece of torn paper. ‘What do you know about my father’s death?’

  ‘Does it bother you still, sergeant? Didn’t Marco Ganis tell you what you wanted to know when you broke into his tow-truck yard? You threatened him too, but of course you didn’t really hurt him. I’m not so easily frightened. He told Bebchuk about your visit, and Bebchuk wasn’t best pleased. He was a brute, that Bebchuk.’ Potgeiter chuckles, indulgent. ‘Didn’t Ganis’ story satisfy you? Bebchuk ran your father’s car off the road.’

  ‘I want to know who Bebchuk did it for.’

  ‘Oh, those bikies. They did it for themselves. Your father upset them.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Really? Then you’d better be very, very careful, Detective Belltree. And you can start by getting off my property.’

  Harry shrugs and gets to his feet. He goes through to the kitchen and starts going through the drawers. From one he takes a pair of large poultry shears, and from another a steel mallet with a serrated face for tenderising meat. He returns and sits down again in front of Potgeiter, who eyes the tools with a sparkle in his eye.

  ‘Ooh, mister detective, please don’t hurt me,’ he whimpers, mocking. Then he snarls, ‘You want to do to me what Bebchuk did to your old army mate? I was there, you know. I watched it all. Are you no better than Bebchuk? I can hear your father and mother spinning in their graves. No, you won’t do it. You won’t break my fingers and toes.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re the bits you value most,’ Harry says, and reaches across to pull Potgeiter’s shorts down to his ankles. He picks up the shears and rests them on Potgeiter’s thigh. The man flinches, his face grows a little paler, and when he speaks his confidence is less convincing.

  ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘You won’t frighten me, mister police officer,’ and he smiles as Harry lays the shears down on the floor.

  Then Harry pushes Potgeiter’s knees apart, picks up the steel mallet and slams it down on Potgeiter’s left testicle, which explodes in a spray of pale blood. The scream rings across the empty paddocks for quite some time.

  It is perhaps twenty minutes before Potgeiter is capable of speech. He sits there, drops of sweat glistening on his chalky forehead, saliva dribbling down his chin.

  ‘You’re an animal,’ he croaks.

  Harry says. ‘My father. Who wanted him dead?’

  Potgeiter opens his mouth but says nothing, just panting, and Harry raises the bloody hammer once again.

  ‘NO!’ Potgeiter is trembling, shaking helplessly. ‘Oldfield! The minister—Oldfield. It’s all about him, all of this. Your father, the kiddies, everything.’

  Harry’s lost. ‘What about the kiddies?’

  ‘He couldn’t leave them alone, always calling
in at Mortimer Street to be with them.’

  Harry is thinking of Kelly’s last news story. ‘You all went to Jakarta to get children?’

  ‘It was just business as far as the rest of us were concerned, but Oldfield was obsessed. Look, people are too sentimental. There’s no future for them in those slums, and their families were glad of the money.’

  ‘They sold you their children?’

  ‘Sure, yes. For adoption, we said. Well, you don’t want them to feel bad, do you? At first Mansur brought them back on his boat, but then we used other ways, containers and so on.’

  ‘And then you sold them.’

  ‘Of course. Just business.’

  ‘And my father found out?’

  ‘What? No, no, that was something different, something between him and Oldfield. I don’t know what that was. The kiddie business was going well until Kristich got killed. I still don’t understand what that was all about. But after that everything unravelled, and the bikies got out of hand, and we had to wind things up fast. Listen, I’m telling you all this, I’m cooperating, okay? But you’ve got to help me. I can give you everything—bank accounts, customers’ names, everything. But then you need to let me go. A twenty-four-hour start, okay?’

  Harry nods. ‘Keep talking. Did Greg March know about all this?’

  ‘He suspected, I think. That’s why he had to go. It was him who got us first involved in Crucifixion Creek. Oldfield was looking for a way to get at your father and he found out about a family connection in business down there, having money problems, and Oldfield got me to get him tied up with council contracts so we could put pressure on him for information about your father’s movements. March thought it was just to arrange a meeting with the good judge, but later I guess he put two and two together. We kept him in line by promising more work. But we were looking for somewhere quiet to run the kiddie business, and Kristich saw the potential of Mortimer Street. He already knew the Crows through their drug operation so it was perfect set-up.’

  ‘What did you mean, “he had to go”?’

  ‘Kristich and Bebchuk arranged that. March was asking questions, so they decided to get rid of him. He was short of money again and Kristich tied him up with a loan. Told him he’d sort it out if he ran an errand for him, to deliver a parcel to a kid in Belmore. The parcel contained cash to pay the kid to kill whoever handed it over.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Well, he was a liability. And the other fellow was more use right from the start.’

  ‘What other fellow?’

  ‘The other builder, Rizzo. He’s taken over March’s business now but he was involved all along. Preparing the Mortimer Street houses for the kiddies, making sure March didn’t cotton on.’

  ‘He knew all about it?’

  ‘Sure. He and Oldfield and Kristich were great buddies. He was just a tradesman, of course, but they took him to parties, showed him a good time.’

  Potgeiter stops, sits there panting. ‘Listen, I’m telling you all this and I’m in pain. Get me some water and painkillers from the bathroom, eh?’

  ‘Tell me about Kelly Pool. Where is she? Have you killed her?’

  ‘No! I was a bit rough with her yesterday, you know, but she’s fine.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Out in the paddock. I’ll show you.’

  ‘Don’t try anything. You know what I’ll do to you.’

  ‘No no! Just undo these cuffs and help me up.’

  Potgeiter can barely stand, and Harry grips his arm to steady him as he shuffles with whimpering sobs towards the door. When they step outside he points to the steel gantry like a hangman’s scaffold, out there across the dry grass. ‘It’s an old mine shaft, deep. I put her down there for the night to loosen her tongue. There were things they wanted me to find out from her.’

  When they reach the place Harry sees that a concrete slab has been laid across the top of the shaft. It is littered with old bits of machinery and a pair of steel trapdoors are set in the centre. Potgeiter slides back the bolts and Harry helps him heave open the heavy flaps. A taut cable runs from a pulley at the top of the gantry down into the dark hole.

  ‘Kelly!’ Harry’s shout echoes in the void, but there is no answering sound. A foul stench rises out of the hole and he chokes. ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘There are dead animals down there.’ Potgeiter is fiddling with a small engine on the winch mechanism. It coughs into life and he presses a button and the winch turns, hauling the cable up. Staring down, Harry sees a pale shape begin to emerge from the darkness. It rises into the light, a trussed figure dangling from a harness on the end of the cable. He recognises the bowed head, the tangled red hair. Horrified, he grabs her and swings her away from the hole. He unfastens the harness and she flops to the ground and he starts to tear away at the straps of the jacket. He sees the naked flesh beneath, bruised and bloodied.

  ‘Dear God.’ He looks up at Potgeiter, kneeling beside the winch with a furtive leer on his face.

  ‘Just a bit of softening up, old chap. Nothing like what you did to me, eh? She’s alive, isn’t she?’

  He’s not sure. She’s so cold. He feels her throat and finds a pulse, and then her eyes blink open, struggling to focus. ‘Harry?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ He pulls off his jacket and wraps it around her, then gets to his feet. He grabs Potgeiter, hauling him upright.

  ‘We have an agreement, detective!’ Potgeiter squeals as Harry drags him towards the hole. He is still protesting when Harry lifts him into the air and hurls him down the shaft.

  His scream fades into the void, then abruptly stops.

  Harry stands there for a moment. He turns back to Kelly and sees her staring at him.

  ‘You didn’t see that, Kelly.’ He takes her weight and begins to carry her back to the house. ‘You’re going to be all right now. You’re safe.’ She grips his shirt, pressing her face into his chest.

  In the living room he lays her on the sofa and gets blankets from Potgeiter’s bedroom and wraps them around her. He fetches a glass of water and waits, holding her hand, until her shaking subsides, then gets up and cleans the chair where Potgeiter sat, and the mallet, and takes it and the shears back to their kitchen drawers. He returns to Kelly and places the phone beside her.

  ‘I’m leaving, Kelly. I’ve never been here. Potgeiter brought you back to the other room and left you lying on the mattress and then went out again, you don’t know where. You managed to crawl out here to the phone to call for help. You’ve no idea where Potgeiter’s gone, and no one else has been here, okay?’

  She nods.

  ‘Give me a minute to get clear, and then ring triple-O. Can you do that?’

  She nods again, then whispers, ‘He won’t come back, will he, Harry?’

  ‘No. He’ll never come back.’

  As he heads to the door she calls after him, ‘But I don’t know where I am. What do I tell them?’

  ‘That’s okay, they’ll trace the number.’

  38

  As Harry drives through Orchard Hills an oncoming ambulance and police car rush past him with sirens and fla
shing lights. He continues east, back into the city, to the Creek. On the way he checks his phone, and gets Jenny’s message about Curly.

  The white ute is there on the forecourt of Rizzo Construction, but this time the door is locked. Harry picks up a brick and smashes the lock and the door flies open. In the reception area he can hear the distant sound of machinery, then the muffled burst of a jackhammer. He opens the door into the shed but there is no one there. The sounds seem to be coming from the far wall. He goes towards it and sees the outline of a door frame set into the wall, barely visible between some shelving and racks of timber. He opens the door and the noise hits him. He is in a section of the shed next to the vacant unit that the bikies had colonised, and ahead of him a small backhoe is digging in an area of concrete floor that has been partially broken up.

  The roar of the backhoe engine dies to a rumble, and a figure wearing safety helmet, goggles and ear muffs jumps to the ground and picks up a shovel. He has his back to Harry, who walks towards him and taps him on the shoulder. The man jumps and cries out, spins round and sees Harry, then drops the shovel and pulls off the ear protectors and goggles. ‘Shit, Harry!’ Rizzo yelps. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Um, okay. I’m kind of busy. Maybe later?’

  ‘This won’t take long.’

  ‘Well…let’s go to the office.’

  ‘Here’ll do. What are you doing?’

  ‘Um, there’s a problem with the drains.’

  ‘Yes, I can smell it.’ It’s a familiar stink, one he’s smelled recently. He looks at the trench Rizzo is digging and sees black plastic but no drains.