Out of the Blue

by JR Carroll

  He looked up the death columns and there was just one tribute to Teddy—from his mother, who gave thanks that her son’s ‘torment’ was at last over.

  Saturday, ten pm. Dennis sits in his Magna, whose registration plates he has smeared with mud. He is parked in the same place as the day before. In the dark he can just make out the lone sheep pegged to its stake. He has already driven past the house and knows that the Tarago is there. A light was on in the lounge room, but he saw no one in that brief second. He smokes a last cigarette, puts it out. Now his hands are trembling slightly. He dons his gloves, double-checks the Walther and hopes that it will work properly if the need arises. He pockets the pistol, then drags up the shotgun from beneath the seat. This is just the insurance he needs. Something tells him he might need more than one gun to get out of this tonight.

  Out of the car and down the side of the road. There is no footpath, just a raised grassy verge from which it would be easy to slip and fall in the dark. Arriving at Graham’s driveway, heart going hard, he pauses, looks around, listens, takes deep breaths. No front light, which is good. Then he hears a car approach, ducks behind a bush. The car passes. Waits—no further traffic. Now. He mounts the three steps to the porch, looks for a bell—no bell. No knocker either, so he is going to have to rap on one of the glass panels in the door. With the shotgun by his side he bends to the door and listens for voices inside. He just wishes he knew how many there were. He fancies there is a voice, but it’s too muted even to tell him if it’s Graham’s camp one.

  He raises his hand, holds it in front of him, then raps urgently with his knuckles, a five-second tattoo that could not fail to be heard. Any harder and he’d have broken the glass. ‘Anyone home?’ he calls. ‘Is anyone there?’ Raps again.

  Listening, he hears—feels—uncertain steps on the carpet inside. No one answers him. Someone’s just standing there, right on the other side. Dennis raps again, more urgently. ‘Hello! Is anyone home?’

  A throat is cleared, then Graham says, ‘Who is it?’ The voice is restrained, toneless, full of suspicion.

  ‘Thank God!’ Dennis calls, an edge of hysteria creeping in. ‘There’s been an accident. A child’s been hit. We need to use your phone—please!’ Then: ‘This is an emergency!’

  Silence. Then he hears Graham conferring, relaying the essence of what Dennis had told him.

  ‘Please hurry!’ he shouts. ‘The kid’s lying on the road, for God’s sake! We think he’s dying—he may be dead!’

  Silence again; wheels turning in Graham’s brain. More conferring. Then, audibly unhappy: ‘All right. Hang on.’

  The outside light comes on. Dennis braces himself. He is expecting a chain. Now he hears it being loosened. The door opens, just the length of the chain. Graham’s face appears. Dennis raises his foot and the old door is no match for his kick; the chain flies free; Graham, shocked, jumps back; Dennis is immediately inside and has the shotgun jammed under Graham’s throat, jerking his head up so that Graham can only see the ceiling. Dennis shuts the door, kills the outside light.

  ‘Hands on head. Back against the wall,’ he says calmly. Graham obeys.

  Someone inside says, ‘What’s going on, Graham? Graham?’

  ‘No-thing,’ Dennis says, airily camp. He frisks Graham thoroughly, then, unable to resist, punches him hard in the balls, a full-blooded uppercut. Graham crumples as much as a man can with a shotgun under his chin, utters cries of excruciating pain.

  ‘Come, come,’ Dennis says. ‘Take your medicine like a man, sir.’

  ‘Graham?’ the voice inside says. ‘Who’s there?’

  Dennis grasps Graham by the shirt, a big bunch of it in his fist, keeping the barrels jammed hard in Graham’s bulging throat. Graham’s eyes are full of bitter tears; he flings himself, splutters, spraying spit. ‘Get your hands back on your head. Now walk backwards. In there.’

  Graham shuffles back awkwardly, guided by Dennis. He cannot see where he is going. Having to move only intensifies his torture; Dennis can feel his body trembling with it. They reach the doorway to the dining room and Graham fills it, arched backwards, head forced up: he staggers, drags his feet. Dennis helps him through, and then they are in the room. Looking past Graham, Dennis sees the other man, standing, pale and expectant, one hand on a chair next to a table of dark, polished wood, at which he had apparently been sitting. They stare at each other. Neither speaks. Graham splutters on. Dennis releases him as if he were suddenly not there and Graham falls, groaning, holding himself; Dennis aims the gun through the space Graham has made.

  ‘Flatfoot,’ the man says.

  Dennis can find no words. He moistens his mouth. Sweat coats his face.

  ‘A surprise, I must say, to see you,’ the man says. ‘But not a pleasure. No.’ Then, looking at Graham, ‘What have you done to him?’

  Ignoring the question, Dennis quickly frisks him, then, satisfied, says, ‘Sit down,’ indicating with the gun. The man resumes his seat, not taking his eyes off Dennis, who hoists Graham up; Graham is a grizzling wreck. ‘You sit down too,’ he says. ‘Next to him.’ Graham leans on the table, sucks breath, then negotiates himself into the chair as ordered. His face is a picture of distress.

  Dennis walks around to the other side of the table, pulls out a chair and sits facing them. The shotgun is fixed unwaveringly on the pale, expressionless man.

  ‘What are you doing here, Rex?’ he says. ‘You’re supposed to be in jail.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  I am in jail,’ Rex Campbell said. ‘What you see here is another reincarnation.’ He smirked at his own cleverness—an old Rex Campbell trait.

  ‘You got twenty years at the end of ’87. Doesn’t add up.’

  ‘Mitigating circumstances, flatfoot,’ Rex said, then sighed wearily. He did not seem unduly thrown by this sudden intrusion. ‘Yes, twenty years. But as you might imagine, I’m not the most intractable of prisoners, and that brings its rewards. There are other considerations too. The result is that I am occasionally granted the privilege of weekend leave.’ This he said with an undisguised sneer.

  Dennis smiled this time. ‘I’m lucky to catch you then.’

  ‘True.’ He wet his lips and said, ‘May I smoke?’ The simple politeness of his question dripped with vitriol. Two packets of Dunhill lay on the table before him, together with a plastic lighter. Dennis nodded and Rex got one going. ‘I gave these up a long time ago, before it was fashionable to do so,’ he said, inspecting the cigarette-end. ‘Now I’m on sixty a day.’ He forced a tight smile. ‘It helps.’ Graham remained hunched in his chair, hands clasped between his legs, slowly recovering his composure. Rex seemed not to be concerned with him now, although the occasional glance sideways was forthcoming.

  Dennis studied Rex closely. The tanned, well-fed face had gone, replaced by a thin one, quite shrivelled and bloodless—it had been a long time between dinner parties and exclusive resorts for Rex Campbell. The brilliant blue eyes were now watery, almost transparent. They held none of the old laughter now—just a cold glitter, magnified by the liquid in them. The reincarnation had been an unfortunate one.

  ‘Now tell me, Rex,’ Dennis said. ‘Just what the fuck have you been doing?’

  Rex said, ‘Doing? Struggling to survive, mainly. Making it, as they say, one day at a time.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Why don’t you put that thing down,’ Rex said. ‘Your guns and bluster have no place now. Nor do they intimidate me. Where I come from fear is a way of life—strangely, you do get used to it. I am beyond being harmed any further by you. So put it down, and then perhaps a civilised conversation may be possible—even though only one of us is civilised.’ The barb was good for another smirk, showing glimpses of the old Rex.

  Dennis placed the shotgun carefully on the table, the barrels still aimed at Rex. Then he withdrew the Walther and put it alongside the shotgun.

  Rex’s eyes widened. ‘You have come prepared, flatfoot.’

  ‘Cut th
e shit, Rex. You’re not funny any more. Talk to me, fuck you.’

  Rex saw and felt the anger suddenly rise in Dennis, and drew back. He said, ‘You’ve never been in prison, have you? Pity. That would at least give us something in common.’ He organised his thoughts, then said, ‘Try to imagine what it must be like for a man like me being incarcerated among scum for more time than you can ever grasp ahead of you, having to address neanderthal prison officers as “sir”. Eating the disgusting swill that passes for food, just so that you can remain strong enough to see out another night in the stinking cells. One day after another, each day wearing you down until you feel yourself succumbing to that brutalising hell-house, and then you spend your nights quietly weeping yourself to sleep, a sleep consisting solely of grotesque dreams.’ He drew deeply on his cigarette with a hand that shook from emotion, then added, without irony: ‘A man of my intellect and sensibility should not be so incarcerated, flatfoot. Especially when that incarceration is without justification. But then I couldn’t expect someone as … brutishly utilitarian as yourself to understand that.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, Rex. Neither did the jury.’

  ‘Ah, yes. The jury. More mediocrity. People like you. God deliver us from decent, ordinary people doing their duty. They have a lot to answer for—you have a lot to answer for.’ He extinguished his cigarette and said, ‘A jury can only reach a conclusion on the basis of information presented to it. I’ve seen the dumb, uncomprehending looks on their faces. I know. Housewives, petty officials, truck drivers. By what right do such individuals sit in judgment of me? They are vacuous creatures with their mouths open, waiting to be fed. In my case, the diet was lies.’

  ‘So you say. But many criminals refuse to accept their guilt, Rex. Eventually they are unable to distinguish between fact and fiction. It becomes a pathological condition.’

  ‘I know about that!’ Rex snapped, and flicked a wrist dismissively. ‘Are you saying that I suffer from a pathological condition, flatfoot? Wrong. I suffer from many things, but not that.’

  ‘You murdered Jacob Wheems,’ Dennis said. ‘The evidence was overwhelming.’

  ‘I find it difficult to believe that I could be guilty of murdering someone I’ve never met.’

  Dennis didn’t feel inclined to go over all this, but Rex’s presence, his impassioned words, cast a persuasive spell. He was also curious to know what had brought Rex to this point. ‘You met him all right. You and Wheems were bringing in Pink Rock from Malaysia, remember?’

  Rex fixed him with his wet, glittering stare. ‘I didn’t even know what Pink Rock was. It sounds like something you buy your kids at the Show.’

  ‘It won’t work, Rex. We had a mountain of stuff on you—you, Wheems, and Laszlo. All in it together. Everything came out in court. You had your chance. If I recall, you had the best team of lawyers in town batting for you.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Rex said, morosely. ‘But not even they could save me from such a diabolical conspiracy. And that’s what it was, make no mistake.’

  Dennis was remembering details. ‘You pleaded not guilty to all charges—importing, laundering, murder, the lot. You refused to name names. You wouldn’t give us Laszlo, maintaining that you didn’t know him either. The stakes were high, Rex. You took a big chance. You gambled on the jury swallowing your entire story. But then we found the crossbow in your garage. Your defence became a house of cards—one fell, the rest tumbled, and you wore the lot. Your fault. Don’t blame me. If you’d been prepared to deal at the beginning, the whole thing would’ve come out differently.’

  ‘I had no choice. I had to plead not guilty.’

  It made sense. ‘Fear of repercussions? That’s what happens when you play with bad boys, Rex.’

  Rex said, ‘You can’t know how much I hate you. Words can’t express it. You’re so … stupid.’

  ‘Maybe I am. But I’m not wrong, not about you.’

  Rex leaned forward. Graham sat still, eyes only for Rex, hanging on his every word.

  ‘Look, for what it’s worth, I admit now that I was handling cash. Big deal. I did not know whose cash it was, or where it came from. It was purely a business arrangement whereby I minimised tax and made a good profit at the end of the day. What I did probably wasn’t even illegal at the time. This was the ’80s, don’t forget—everyone was doing it in one form or another.’

  ‘That’s true. But most of them are bankrupt now—or in the slammer, like you. What goes around, comes around.’

  ‘How glib. Is that what they taught you at detective school?’

  ‘Insult me all you like—it doesn’t change anything. The crossbow was in your garage. Fact, Rex.’

  ‘A crossbow? What would I want with a fucking crossbow? Who do you think I am—Robin Hood?’

  Graham allowed himself a chortle. Dennis shot him a shut-up look—Graham wasn’t in this.

  ‘You bought it for the purpose of killing Wheems. And you did it, alone or with others, right there in the fucking garage. All the evidence said so.’

  ‘Evidence. Yes, how careless of me to leave the murder weapon lying around—bloodstains on the floor, even the offending arrow sitting in the yard for busy little flatfeet to find. What a windfall. Would I be so cretinous as to do that?’

  ‘I wondered at the time. But murderers, even highly intelligent ones like yourself, often do bring themselves undone that way. You’d be surprised. And don’t forget you were an amateur—then.’

  ‘It wasn’t my crossbow. I didn’t put it there. There were no fingerprints on it. You couldn’t even prove that the blood was that of Jacob Wheems.’ Rex lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply, blowing smoke straight at Dennis, then added, ‘It was all a fabrication. Someone set me up—then they did the same to you.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Think about it.’

  ‘I’ve thought about it all I intend to.’ Dennis felt suddenly sick of Rex, his arrogance and sickening self-righteousness. A ringing filled his ears; both hands clenched. He wanted to kill them both now, get it over with. Why wait?

  Sensing this, Rex spoke quickly, buying time. ‘You were a new boy in Homicide, remember? Ever so keen to please. Everyone knew what a hot little property you were. They also knew how bitterly disposed towards me you were, having comprehensively botched the earlier case. True?’

  ‘I was unhappy. Yes, even resentful. The case wasn’t comprehensively botched, either. You got off on a fucking technicality.’

  ‘See? Still rankles, doesn’t it? Maybe we have more in common than I thought. Neither of us forgives, flatfoot.’ He put out his cigarette, lit another one immediately, then said, ‘All they had to do was point you in my general direction. Go get ’im boy, and off you ran, tail wagging.’

  ‘All right, Rex, if you didn’t kill Jacob Wheems, tell me who did.’

  ‘Look closer to home, flatfoot. Look to your own kind. You were taken for a ride.’

  Taken for a ride. And Dennis is on the road to Sorrento again, Ashley Delacroix at the wheel and Don Hammond in back. Hammond asking him questions about cadavers, Vietnam, Triads. Delacroix listening and not saying much. Then on that windy bluff, Dennis squatting, Don Hammond standing over him, hands black-gloved, arms folded: Care to do the honours, Sergeant? Hammond sticking close, watching Dennis, steering him through. Later, case closed, celebrations ahead, Hammond saying, Auspicious beginnings. Well done, digger. Digger. Not a soldier, but a detective. Digger of truth—digger of lies. Don Hammond? No. But then, Dennis’s dream, Hammond standing over him again: Shot through the heart, would you say? And Dennis: It’s too obvious. There’s not enough blood—not enough in the garage, either—I think we’re being set up. It’s all happened somewhere else. Dennis being set up, Rex too. It’s all happened somewhere else. Look elsewhere for the truth—it isn’t here. Don Hammond? No. Yes. No!

  Don Hammond, Chief Inspector, Homicide. Killer of Jacob Wheems? Not possible. But why did his dream say otherwise? Why did he feel this way, now? He felt th
at way then—but didn’t acknowledge it. Why would he? What grounds existed? None—and yet …

  He looked at Rex.

  Rex smiled. ‘You were gravely misused, flatfoot. You understand that now.’

  ‘Don Hammond? The Club of Three?’

  ‘I believe that was its rather fanciful appellation. There were more than three, however. Hammond, certainly. Other lesser lights. Of course all this I found out later, in prison. It’s quite astonishing how much one can learn there. But I was as much in the dark as you were then. Apparently when the Wheems operation was terminated in, what—?’

  ‘Early ’86.’

  ‘Yes. Well, one of the officers involved decided to use his position to advantage. He brought in a couple of confederates—Hammond was one—and together they muscled in on Wheems. The thing grew and everybody made a fistful. But then Wheems, growing fearful, became a problem. The problem was eliminated. But not without careful forethought.’

  ‘But wait on, Rex. No one told me to go after you. I came to that conclusion after reading the Wheems fi—’ But yes, that was at Hammond’s suggestion—with his help.

  ‘See what I mean? You were fed from start to finish. Primed. Wound up, like a good clockwork copper. I suppose they thought you would be alert enough to make the Laszlo connection, and that in turn would illuminate your path towards me.’

  ‘The Blairgowrie raid was all my idea.’

  ‘Took you a long time to get there. They must’ve been growing anxious. Rest assured, if you hadn’t thought of it someone would have whispered “Blairgowrie” in your ear. “Blairgowrie.” Doesn’t have the same ring as “Rosebud”, does it? And you know, the fellows in the film, the reporters, never did find out what it meant. It never occurred to them that the single most important thing in Kane’s life could be something as simple and obvious as a child’s toy. Meaning his loss of innocence, that early idealism. You, too, missed the obvious, flatfoot. And lost your innocence—if you ever had any.’