The Simple Death

by Michael Duffy

  ‘Well,’ Burton said, ‘I’m very sorry about that. Very sorry indeed. I would have had him down as the careful kind.’

  ‘You knew him well?’

  ‘He approached me one day about the pigeons, found his way up here. He wanted to take a photograph. After that, he’d drop by a few times a week. Just for a chat.’

  The strange world of Mark Pearson, Troy thought.

  ‘Do the initials LS mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Football, mainly.’

  ‘Did he ever stay the night?’

  Burton looked surprised at the suggestion and shook his head. ‘Not up to his standard of accommodation, I’d reckon.’

  Troy looked at the caravan, determined not to ask.

  Burton smiled faintly. ‘They renovated the place in the nineties and hired a whopping great crane to get some old machinery out. Someone put the van up here as a joke, and they forgot to take it down. It’s quite comfortable.’

  ‘Did Mark ever seem like he was under the influence of any sort of drug?’

  Burton seemed to find the question distasteful. ‘If you knew him you wouldn’t ask that.’

  I’m trying to know him, Troy thought.

  He asked some more questions but learned nothing of interest. Burton had an alibi for the period after Mark had left on Friday night. Finally Troy thanked him for his help and walked towards the top of the stairs.

  ‘Another officer will be along to take a written statement,’ he said. ‘You always let the birds out about now?’

  ‘Normally dawn and dusk, but today I slept in. I was up half the night, certain problems down below.’

  ‘In the building?’

  ‘No.’ Burton glanced at his stomach. ‘Closer to home.’ As they reached the door leading to the stairs, he said, casual-like, ‘It was usually with Charlie.’

  Troy stopped.

  ‘Charlie?’

  Burton nodded, as though the whole world knew Charlie. ‘Do you think he’ll still come?’

  ‘Charles Pearson came here?’

  ‘Lovely fellow but pretty slow. Sad, all that.’

  He recalled Mark’s brother lived in a group home for people with intellectual disabilities. They’d checked his alibi: he’d been there at the time Mark died. ‘Sad that Charles is slow?’

  ‘Not that.’ Burton shook his head. ‘Sad that Mark’s wife wouldn’t have him in the house, that they had to sneak around to see each other.’

  Troy felt the familiar surge. Sometimes, Mac had once said, this job is as good as sex.

  ‘Charlie lives in Artarmon on the disability pension,’ Burton went on, ‘he gets bored. So twice a week he catches the train over, he can do that okay, walks down from the Cross and meets Mark here, after work. It’s a big outing for him. We chat for an hour or two and they go off, Charlie back to his place and Mark to the ferry.’

  ‘No one else knows about this?’

  Burton shrugged. ‘It was their secret. Charlie doesn’t like Mark’s wife. She never talks to him, he reckons, gets angry when he makes a mess.’ He looked over at the chairs. ‘He can be a messy bugger.’

  ‘Is he very disabled?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so.’

  ‘Their parents would have known they came here?’

  ‘I don’t see why. Like I say, it was their secret. They were brothers.’

  Troy thought about Emily; about Mark; about their marriage. He shook his head. ‘So Mark and Charles were here together last Thursday evening?’

  ‘Yeah. Is that when Mark died?’

  ‘When did they leave?’

  ‘Around eight. It was a pleasant evening. Charles and me had two light beers, Mark had a can of Coke. They left together, arranged to meet here next Tuesday.’ He scratched the top of his head. ‘Never turned up.’

  His hand on the door handle, Troy said, ‘Apart from coming here, did Mark and Charles do anything else together?’

  ‘Football games sometimes. We went to see Milan play last month, over at Moore Park.’

  Troy pulled out his notebook and flicked back to the date when Mark was supposed to have been at Liverpool overnight.

  ‘That would be the twenty-second of January?’ he said.

  Burton nodded. ‘It was a rubbish game, none of their best players came out. Charlie was upset by that, he can be pretty sharp at times. Reckon I can go to the funeral?’

  ‘I’ll mention it to the parents.’

  Burton smiled sadly. ‘It was still a great night for him, he stayed at a hotel up the road.’

  ‘With Mark?’

  ‘Yeah, they’d done it before.’

  ‘Why would Mark do that?’

  ‘It was like a treat, you know. Charlie’s a big kid really. And I guess Mark didn’t want to tell his missus where he’d been.’ Burton smiled and looked at his birds. ‘I never married.’

  *

  Back at the car, Troy found Conti sitting in the front seat and holding her bottle of water. He slipped in beside her and asked where Mac was.

  ‘He called half an hour ago,’ she said. ‘He was going for a walk to find a shop, he felt dehydrated.’ Troy’s heart sank. ‘This weather, you’ve got to watch the fluids.’

  He told her what he’d just learned and she became excited, he liked the way she did that. Certainly he had more tolerance for enthusiasm than Mac did. When he’d finished she swigged some water, said bright-eyed, ‘So now we know what LS stands for.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘Lennie Small. Character in Of Mice and Men. It’s a novel, we did it at school. He’s big and slow, has a mate, a normal guy, who looks after him.’

  Charles and Mark.

  ‘LS,’ said Troy, remembering the film. ‘That ended badly too.’

  ‘But not in the same way.’

  Troy smiled.

  ‘I’ll tell you something else for free: there was a copy of the novel in Mark’s desk at the hospital. I saw it on the exhibit list.’

  He got out of the car, the thrill of his discovery starting to evaporate as he thought it through. The six o’clock appointments had provided a line of investigation that might have helped explain Mark Pearson’s death. Now that was gone, like just about every other line. All they had left were Valdez or Carter, neither a strong suspect. There was Saunders, but it couldn’t be Saunders. He looked around the empty street, and began to walk.

  He found McIver in a pub up the hill and around a corner. It was a small place, dark and cool, and there were almost no other drinkers.

  ‘I’d offer you a beverage,’ Mac said when Troy had taken a seat on a stool next to him, ‘but one of us has to stay alert.’ He pointed at the empty shot glass standing next to his schooner. ‘Always wanted to try the American way of drinking. There’s a lot to be said for it.’

  Mac had never been sentimental before, in Troy’s experience. He sat down and told him about Charles Pearson. It was one of those breakthroughs you lived for, worthy of celebration. But the sergeant seemed hardly to be paying attention. When Troy had finished, he clapped him on the shoulder, said, ‘So young, and so full of enthusiasm.’

  Troy took a deep breath. ‘Do you want to talk about this? How you’re feeling?’

  ‘You like your job still, what are you now, fourteen years in?’

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘What if you woke up one morning and found you didn’t like it anymore—how would you feel?’

  Troy shrugged.

  ‘Why did you become a cop?’

  In their time together, it was not something they’d discussed.

  ‘I used to think it was because I needed a family,’ Troy said. ‘Then I used to think it was
because of the violence, that lift you get when you see it’s happened to someone else and not to you.’

  ‘That’s not kind.’

  ‘Anna says it’s because of the hit-and-run that killed my parents, I’m permanently trying to solve that failure to stop.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t care anymore.’ It was like marriage; sometimes the reasons you began something were not the reasons you went on with it. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what about you?’

  McIver swallowed some beer, looked at the glass fondly. ‘The singing, we talked about it last time, the singing is the problem. I like it so much the job’s become empty. Like the meaning’s shifted from one part of my life to another.’

  Troy shook his head. There was a stab of panic but it faded.

  ‘At least it’s still there,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I can’t just fucking walk away from the job and become an itinerant blues man. We’re not that good, you know. And I still owe two hundred grand on the house. Things have become more confused than I’ve been used to.’

  Troy wondered if you lost flexibility as you grew older, how much this differed from one person to another. He would have thought Mac had more resilience, but the look in the man’s eyes now, he was almost scared. It made him look like a different person.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  This seemed to anger McIver, who began to laugh, an unpleasant rasping noise. ‘That’s your idea of sympathy?’ he said. ‘For a smart kid, you’re pretty stupid.’

  ‘So now it’s me?’

  Mac said nothing.

  Troy decided not to take it personally; he was collateral damage. Still, the idea lacked dignity. He slid off the stool, said, ‘I’ll be getting back.’

  Mac grabbed his shoulder.

  ‘Do you think I drink too much?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Ruth thinks so.’

  ‘She’s an observant woman.’

  McIver smiled, swallowed the remaining beer in his glass, and got up. He stood tall, hardly wavered. ‘That’s my last one.’ Thank God, Troy thought. ‘I mean my last one ever. This is an historic moment.’

  ‘I’m pleased for you,’ Troy said uncertainly.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘One day at a time.’ He took a few steps.

  Mac looked around the bar fondly, waved to the television high on one wall.

  ‘Ruth’s with child, gave me an ultimatum. I stop drinking or she walks out.’

  Troy stopped, came back and felt a sense of things falling into place; not everything, but a lot.

  ‘That’s great!’ He clapped McIver on the shoulder.

  ‘The pregnancy, you mean?’

  ‘Of course.’

  McIver said, ‘We should have a drink to celebrate.’ Smiled as Troy’s face froze. Let a few seconds pass before he said, ‘Only joking.’

  Thirty-one

  Leila punches in Carl’s number. It’s only been a day, but she needs to talk about the bottle.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she says when he answers, ‘about Julie.’

  ‘It’s a terrible thing. They’re saying it’s sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, one in a million chance.’ His voice low and stumbling.

  ‘Life’s not fair, is it? She looked so peaceful. I think it must have happened very quickly.’

  ‘What they say, with SADS, you die without knowing you’re dying. You’ll be at the funeral?’

  ‘It’s in Sydney?’

  ‘Her parents haven’t decided. They’d probably like to have the grave, you know, where they can visit it. In Queensland.’

  ‘Let me know, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure. I know she thought of you as a real friend.’

  She recalls her own recent experience: all the clichés suddenly there to help you through. And they do help.

  ‘I need to ask about something else,’ she says. ‘I gave Julie something the last time I saw her, and I need to get it back. She said she gave it to you for safekeeping.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Can we meet to discuss this?’

  ‘Sure. Let’s talk at the funeral.’

  ‘It’s the bottle, Carl, I need to get it urgently.’

  ‘What?’

  Oh boy, she thinks.

  ‘The Nembutal.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sometimes Julie imagined things.’

  Not this. Not this.

  ‘I still owe Julie some money, for looking after Mum. I know you were with her for some of the time. I’m happy for you to have that, Carl, if you’ll give me back the bottle.’

  There is a pause. Why did she say that? My God.

  ‘I don’t want your money,’ he says. Then: ‘You can have the bottle if you give me the diary.’

  ‘The what?’

  He speaks with intensity. ‘Julie had a diary, like a story of her and me. I want to keep it as a record of what we had together.’

  ‘That’s beautiful, Carl,’ she says. ‘But I don’t have it.’

  ‘I saw it at your house. Julie didn’t bring it home, so it’s still there.’

  Leila hasn’t seen it. ‘Even if it is here, you’d need to ask her parents for it.’

  ‘Like you should have declared the bottle at customs.’ Ouch. ‘It has personal stuff in it, she can be quite explicit, I wouldn’t want her parents reading it. Not you, either. Promise me you won’t read it.’

  ‘Carl—’

  ‘Promise me. Please!’ Now he is crying.

  Grief hasn’t taken her this way, but she knows it could have, if she’d been a different person.

  ‘I’ll have a look,’ she says. ‘But why would she leave it here?’

  ‘Jules left it around, sometimes she wanted people to read it, even though she knew they shouldn’t. She was shy, couldn’t talk about herself the way most girls can. I think it’s just, people she liked, she wanted them to know more about her. She liked you, thought you were a friend. But it isn’t appropriate, some of the stuff she wrote. Jules didn’t realise that. There were issues. Promise—’

  ‘I won’t read it, Carl,’ she says gently, deciding the state he’s in, there’s no point expecting consistency.

  He is sobbing now, and after half a minute she disconnects, unable to bear the sound. Wonders why she has cried so little since her mother’s passing.

  Thirty-two

  Conti and a local uniform brought Ian Carter in at 2.30 pm. He was unshaven and wearing a beige T-shirt over jeans, each item faded and well-worn, slightly tight on his muscly frame. Slung from one shoulder was a canvas bag Troy suspected had cost a lot of money. They went into the room next to 233 and Carter dropped his bag on the table and sat down. He pushed the chair back and looked at Troy, his limbs sprawled, handsome face scowling. Not happy.

  Mac was back at Manly, but Troy and he had discussed a strategy for the interview. Puzzled, not accusing. Troy asked Carter where he’d been the night Mark Pearson was killed, and the doctor said he’d been doing volunteer work at the Crown Street Clinic. It treated HIV/AIDS patients. He yawned.

  ‘Roz Herron’s the manager there,’ he said, and recited a phone number. Conti wrote it down and stood up, looking at Troy. Carter said, quickly, ‘Don’t tell David Saunders this, it’s very important he doesn’t find out about my work at the clinic.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘He’s very conservative. I’m gay and he does not approve of gays. Doctors’ careers have been hurt before.’

  ‘But there are laws—’

  ‘Of course there are. It happens behind the scenes, you could never prove it in a court. But it happens. I’m warning you.’

  Troy didn’t know whether
to believe him. Carter’s face was expressionless, there was nothing in his tone to suggest he was really afraid of Saunders.

  ‘It’s a public hospital, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Christ is rather the point.’ Carter sat up, leaned forwards. ‘There are reasons David didn’t get made the CEO that go to his judgment being affected by his religious beliefs, all right? That’s all I’m going to say.’

  ‘He must know you’re gay?’ said Conti.

  ‘As long as I don’t make it an issue, I survive.’ He looked at the two of them and shook his head, as though at some private joke. ‘You people, you really believe this stuff, don’t you? Law equals justice.’

  ‘It’s why we’re here.’

  Carter shook his head and Troy saw contempt. The doctor said, ‘David’s not supposed to be like that, I know. But he is.’

  Troy nodded to Conti. When she’d left the room he pushed the mortality stats for Oncology across the table and explained what they were. Carter flicked through the paper.

  ‘Eighteen months ago we started taking some more serious cases from other hospitals,’ he said, shoving it back to Troy. ‘Plus when BRISTOL came in, the annual period changed from calendar to financial, so this year’s figure is an estimate obtained by doubling the first six months. Wait another six months and it’ll probably be back to normal.’

  This wasn’t what McIver thought, but he might be wrong. He’d acknowledged as much himself. After consultation with the Department of Health, a copy of the stats had been sent for analysis to the state’s Clinical Excellence Commission. Until they heard back, they needed to tread carefully.

  Carter was looking at the wall, his lack of interest apparently profound and genuine. Then he scowled and switched his gaze to Troy.

  ‘What, you thought I killed Mark to cover up some poor stats? They’re given to everyone, including the mortality committee.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘You think we’re killing patients too?’ Carter laughed. ‘Look, cancer will do that to you anyway, it doesn’t need our help. I watched these people die, I understand what was wrong with them. There is no way those deaths are suspicious once you understand them, no matter how many there are.’ He shook his head. ‘In the ward you’re surrounded by medical experts, with an intimate knowledge of the state of health of every patient. We discuss each death. I can’t think of a worse place to try to murder someone.’