The Simple Death

by Michael Duffy

  ‘But Luke would never have told anyone,’ the archbishop said. ‘He’s not allowed to, according to his vows.’

  ‘Maybe Burns didn’t know that. Or maybe that wasn’t why he killed him; maybe he just didn’t want another person knowing these things.’

  The archbishop frowned. ‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense.’

  Sometimes crimes don’t, Troy knew, and he also knew few people were aware of this. By the time sin has been packaged for the public, in press releases and presentations to courts, it’s been trimmed of its inconsistencies and its mysteries.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. Walsh nodded. Moore had already left them, called away by someone who’d run up and tugged at her sleeve. ‘I’d like you to say the mass at the funeral.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Walsh said, shaking his head sadly. Troy saw the haunted expression his face had held these last minutes disappear, replaced by the habitual air of authority. Now the archbishop was back on more familiar ground. ‘I have the whole Church to think about. This abuse scandal needs to die with Luke.’ He was speaking more quickly now, almost with urgency.

  Troy didn’t care; something inside him would not be moved. ‘Saying the mass won’t mean you think Luke was innocent,’ he said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘There’ll be an uproar, people will say the Church cares more about the priests than the victims. It’s happened before.’

  ‘If you don’t say the mass, I’ll tell what I know about the deal with Davies.’

  ‘But you promised—’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  The archbishop pleaded, ‘Davies doesn’t deserve to suffer. He’s made his peace with God.’

  But there was still the truth, Troy thought, or whatever could be salvaged. He hoped this wasn’t about his own pride. It might be, but he didn’t think it was. Someone had to speak for Luke.

  ‘Just do it,’ Troy said, and walked away. He was starting to feel angry. The emotion felt good, even if it was an evasion.

  He stood on the steps of the hospice, wondering about Burns’s movements that day, where he might have left his car when he’d come to work and where he’d be going now. Other people were running the systematic part of the search, they had St Thomas’ and Burns’s flat under observation, as well as Julie Cornish’s place. The Telephone Interception Branch was monitoring his mobile. His photo and the numberplate of his car had been circulated and they were checking on credit-card use. The bus stations and the airport were being watched. Troy wondered what he could contribute.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Carolyn Moore was standing next to him. He shrugged. ‘Is there any suggestion he killed anyone here?’ she said. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  Cautious relief flooded her face. ‘I’m sorry about Father Luke. He had a rough time at the end. I don’t . . . I don’t think it was right.’

  He nodded his thanks and headed out onto the street, calling Inspector Horton. There was no news from the search.

  Ten minutes later he came across two male uniforms talking to a woman on the steps of a tiny terrace. She was wearing a flimsy pink top with spaghetti straps, and one of the cops kept looking at her breasts. The woman was holding a magazine and using it to fan herself and try to hide her chest at the same time. Troy stopped and showed his badge, learned that Burns had burst in and helped himself to a hat and a blue shirt belonging to the woman’s boyfriend. She’d been alone and watching television, the front door open because of the heat.

  ‘When was this?’ said Troy.

  ‘About ten minutes ago,’ said one of the uniforms.

  The woman nodded fiercely. ‘The bastard had a gun. A bloody big gun.’

  Troy moved off. There were plenty of police around now, and he needed to keep himself apart so he could think about what was going through Burns’s mind, what he might be up to. It was probably pointless: in the time since he’d stolen the clothes, Burns hadn’t been seen. If he’d kept walking in a straight line, he might be outside the search area already. Although, given the time since he’d left the hospital garden, he should have been a lot further away by the time he’d stolen the clothes. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly.

  His phone rang. It was Horton, saying Burns had just tried to use his credit card in Darlinghurst. The phone rang again, this time Danny Chu, over in Manly.

  They exchanged greetings and Chu asked about the search. Then he said, ‘That job you were offered, you going to take it?’

  ‘What job?’

  ‘Tryon. Kevin Tryon’s offered me a job too. I just want to make sure it doesn’t interfere with anything you want.’

  After a second’s confusion, Troy realised what this was about and snorted with laughter. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘It’s all yours.’

  ‘You’re not planning on leaving?’

  ‘No,’ Troy said, keeping his eyes on the passers-by in the street. ‘You are?’

  ‘Working for the government’s not what it used to be.’

  ‘Can I call you back?’

  ‘I just wanted to make sure, I need to let him know by tonight.’

  Troy disconnected and went to laugh again, but no sound emerged.

  He forced himself to think once more about what he knew of Burns’s actions that day, which wasn’t much. The attack on Luke seemed irrational; as Walsh had said, you’d expect even a non-believer to know about the confidentiality of the confessional. But maybe that was the point: Burns was acting irrationally, and without concern for his own preservation. Maybe he had killed Julie and this had been another manifestation of that. Or maybe she’d killed herself and that had set him off. There might be no logic left in his actions.

  Troy realised he needed to tell Anna about Luke, before she heard on the radio. He called and got her right away, she listened in silence while he spoke. Then she was crying. He shed a few tears himself, and turned towards a wall while he got it under some sort of control.

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t be there with you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how long this will take. We have to find him.’

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  ‘He might kill again.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said urgently.

  He rubbed the wall with a finger, impatient to be getting on, wondering what she was doing. After ten seconds’ silence and some rustling, a small voice came on the line. ‘Hello, Dada.’

  It was the first time Matt had talked to him on the phone. Troy took a deep breath.

  ‘Hello, mate,’ he said.

  More silence. Then Anna: ‘He’s gone all shy. I’ll go now. We love you.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘This time,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to change my mind. We’re here for good.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said.

  Not knowing it at all until this moment.

  Sixty-one

  Leila is sitting in her office, trying to concentrate on the latest departmental directive, when her phone rings. Not the phone on the desk but her mobile.

  ‘You still want the second bottle?’ He sounds oddly different.

  ‘Carl, how are you?’

  She wonders if Detective Troy has been in touch with him since their conversation earlier that day.

  ‘I’m going away,’ he says. ‘I want to help Alecia and I need some money. Since Julie’s death, you know, I need some time to myself. If you can meet me now, right away, I’ll give you the bottle. Bring whatever money you can get. I need at least five hundred.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  She figures this is her chance to put things right. Get Carl. But get the bottle too.

  ‘Drive along Oxford Street,’ he says, ‘heading east from the city. Stay in the middle lane and drive slowly, somewhere I’ll be waiting on the footpath, I’m wearing a blue shirt
with long sleeves. I’ll wave.’

  ‘A blue shirt?’ She is making notes, writing down his instructions as though they are complicated. But they aren’t.

  ‘What car will you be driving?’ he says.

  ‘A white Camry. It’s a busy road. Where will you be, roughly?’

  ‘Somewhere between the city and Bondi, that’s all you need to know. Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘I was just talking to Stuart. He says Alecia Parr’s hurting a lot. I’m thinking it’ll take you twenty minutes to get to an ATM and reach me. Any longer, you’ll never see me again. This is your last chance to help Alecia.’

  Prick.

  ‘There’s no need to be so aggressive. I appreciate it, Carl.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he says, and for a moment he sounds normal and she remembers the way he used to be, when Julie was alive; recalls how she came to have these people living in her mother’s house. Carl must think she’s stupid, he must have always thought that.

  He disconnects and she tells Amie she needs a car urgently. Then she opens her bag to get Troy’s number and her phone rings again and it is him.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ he says. ‘Burns is a very dangerous man, he’s killed people.’

  ‘You’re tapping my phone?’

  ‘His.’

  ‘Is that legal?’ she says inanely.

  ‘Life-threatening situation, in this case yours. What I want you to do . . .’

  She stops listening as Amie comes in and puts the car keys on her desk. Leila stands up and tears off the piece of paper with Burns’s instructions and puts it in her pocket. She is determined to go through with this, atone for her stupidity in being taken in by Julie and Carl. She thinks she can withstand a lot, but not being stupid, for her that is some sort of betrayal. Of course she can’t explain all this to Troy. He wouldn’t understand, and in any case there isn’t the time.

  ‘This will enable you to catch him,’ she says, interrupting and looking at her watch.

  ‘What, you want to be some sort of bait?’

  ‘If you like. I’ll be in a white Camry.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he says, sounding like someone trying to keep his annoyance hidden. But not trying too hard. ‘I can’t let you do this. He’s a dangerous and irrational killer.’

  So this is the point I’ve reached, she says to herself: here I am being patronised by a cop.

  ‘That’s how it is,’ she says, picking up the keys. ‘I should be there in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Where—’

  ‘The rest is up to you.’

  She hangs up and puts her jacket on. The mobile rings, and she sees it is Troy again. Switching it off, she leaves the office. It occurs to her she is not behaving rationally, and then, as happens when you are not behaving rationally, the thought goes away.

  Sixty-two

  Where’s the meet?’ said McIver.

  They were at the command post in the hospice, and Troy had just described his conversation with Leila Scott.

  ‘Somewhere along Oxford Street. We’ve got cars looking for her.’

  McIver looked unhappy. ‘She’s not a stupid woman, is she? I thought we’d established that.’

  ‘I’d say she lacks a certain type of intelligence.’

  McIver exhaled, peered at a map of the inner city that had been taped to the wall. Horton came over to him and they began a conversation in low voices.

  Ten minutes later Horton said, ‘There’s been no sign of a white Camry.’

  He was in radio contact with the police on Oxford Street. Five minutes later, McIver said to Troy, ‘Ring her.’ Troy called, but Scott’s phone was off. He thought back to his meeting with her that morning, this time deliberately ignoring what had been said and recalling the physical details of the building in which she worked. He remembered coming out of the lift and going to her office. There’d been someone at a desk outside. He called the Education switchboard and asked to be put through to Scott’s PA, if such a person existed. She did, her name was Amie, she told him she hadn’t seen or heard from Dr Scott since she left fifteen minutes earlier.

  ‘What car’s she driving?’

  ‘A green Lancer.’

  ‘She told me a white Camry.’

  ‘Normally it would be. But someone had an accident yesterday. This is a temporary replacement.’

  Troy swore. ‘You have no idea where she’s gone?’

  ‘No. Although I suppose the GPS would tell you.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘All the fleet cars have them. It’s a requirement of our insurer.’

  Sixty-three

  Leila stops in Darlinghurst to get the cash, continues up Oxford Street, three lanes in each direction. She drives past the bookstores, Ariel and Berkelouw’s, keeping her speed down so the driver of a BMW behind honks and pulls into the outside lane and races past. The wide road curves to the left and climbs past Victoria Barracks until it reaches Paddington Town Hall, where it levels out for the run through the shopping strip. There are side streets every few hundred metres so she takes it easy, there is no rush. She finds herself behind a delivery van which is double-parked, and just sits there for a while, looking out for Carl on the busy footpath, checking her rear-view mirror for any sign of Troy’s blue car.

  It is only then she realises she is in a different car to the one she described to Carl. And to Troy. It doesn’t seem possible she could have overlooked this, it is so completely and obviously absurd: she’s never done anything so stupid in her life.

  ‘I’m not myself,’ she murmurs, and reaches into her bag for the phone.

  As she turns it on, it occurs to her that if she’s made this mistake she might have made others, ones she isn’t yet aware of. Perhaps Troy was right when he said her plan was too dangerous. She dials his number.

  The passenger door opens and Carl reaches across and grabs the phone. He gets in, slams the door, and yells, ‘Go! Go!’

  Leila can’t see the phone anymore.

  ‘I was trying to call you,’ she says as she swings out and drives past the delivery van.

  Carl puts the phone to his ear, listens for a moment, then hurls it out the window. He strikes Leila’s head, an awkward blow that still hurts as it glances off the side of her face and bangs her chest. Leila goes into a mild state of shock, things starting to move slowly, although she is aware of Carl shouting at her. Then she is back, almost normal again, except she is frozen inside and fighting not to cry.

  Through all this she somehow manages to keep driving the car.

  ‘You know what this is?’ he yells, waving at his lap.

  Half hidden beneath a bag with the words The Sydney Morning Herald—Start a Conversation is one of those boxy pistols you see on TV. He is pointing it at her thigh and says, ‘If I pull the trigger, do you know how much it will hurt?’ Pause. ‘Fucking turn left here.’

  She turns down Queen Street.

  Glancing into his hot eyes, she sees that he is mad. Not just now, but always, sees he was like this before but she never spotted it, thought she was so intelligent, but she overlooked what might turn out to be the most important thing in her life. Knew evil existed, but never really expected to meet it. Even the cops, the stupid cops, have been ahead of her. Wonders what else she’d missed, in her life.

  He can read her mind, because he says, ‘You know what I thought, when I was staying at your house that time, and when we used to visit that old fart Stuart?’

  ‘Tell me, Carl.’

  ‘I thought how fake your lives are, like you’re living in a film set. Everywhere people like you move, there are serfs scurrying around just off the set, out of sight, nurses and gardeners and people who wash your dishes and clean up your dirt and your shit, but you never se
e them.’ Clearly he’s given it a lot of thought. ‘You move along these tubes, got your own freeways and railway lines to take you between the nice places in the city, never see the kids being abused everywhere, the mentally ill. There’s whole suburbs out there filled with people who never make it. All pushed away into public housing, jails, schools that don’t work. It’s like, everywhere you go, you’re in this . . . this tube.’

  Hidden depths, Carl, she thinks, but keeps quiet. Saying all this seems to calm him down, and she just drives, following his occasional directions. Trying to keep herself under control. It might be better if she could draw him out about what he’s done, she’s seen people do it on the screen, get the criminal emotional and vulnerable. But for the moment she is barely capable of driving properly. The sudden awareness of her own arrogance, the danger into which she has placed herself, is interfering with her normal functioning, like a virus running through a computer.

  Similes won’t help you now, she says to herself after a while. It is a long while—they turned left back at Edgecliff and are just entering the Cross City Tunnel. But then, thinking about similes is normal, maybe she is getting some of her mind back.

  She looks at Carl. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ve been in a trance, Leila. I told you, I want to go home. Go left here.’

  They turn into the Harbour Tunnel.

  ‘We’re going to Brisbane?’

  ‘Toowoomba. I don’t think we’ll make it all the way, you and me. We’ll go as far as we can.’

  He nods, but not to her, seems to be going into himself. The walls of the tunnel flicker by. She realises he hasn’t even asked about the money she’s brought.

  ‘I figure they’ll be waiting for us,’ he says, his voice slower now, ‘maybe at a bridge somewhere up the coast. Bet you never thought that’s how it would end.’

  She has to ask, ‘Why a bridge?’

  He grimaces and puts his right hand across his body as though to touch his stomach, then stops and withdraws it. He sighs.

  ‘The fuck do I know.’

  She is glancing in the mirror on the outside of her door, hoping he won’t see her, hoping for a police car. Not sure what to do if she sees one. Bang the car off the wall of the tunnel, would she be brave enough for that? Would it even be a good idea? It comes to her that if she has to think about it like that, she is unequipped for the situation, not an action person. Really she is just one of the crowd, a ruminant. For some reason she thinks of the Getty, all the people moving through it slowly with their catalogues, and she thinks of cows. Thinks of being beaten by Lewis and feels a stab of anger. I am not a cow. Feels the need for some action to prove she is alive, but she might have left it too late.