‘G’day, bro.’
He turned and saw Sam standing next to him, short-cropped hair, the big smile he remembered. He looked as though he’d been in a fight long ago and never got over it. There were two teeth missing, and at some point his nose had been broken. Troy opened his arms to hug him, but Sam thrust out a hand and grabbed Troy’s firmly, pulling it in between them so the handshake kept them apart. Troy tried to pull him closer, clapped him on the back. The smell of mothballs and alcohol was strong.
‘Great to see you,’ he said.
‘So the old bastard’s finally gone, eh?’ said Sam, withdrawing his hand and stepping back, his eyes avoiding Troy’s. ‘Been in Grafton, they let me out two days early for this.’ His gaze flickered around the crowd without enthusiasm. ‘Luke used to write to me each month. Bloody boring letters.’ There were tears in his eyes.
‘You want to stay with us for a while?’ Troy said.
‘Nah. Got to go to me aunty’s in Walgett.’ He was moving from one foot to another, as though already anxious to be off.
Troy sensed the vast gulf between them, recalled an argument about the lyrics of a Springsteen song Sam said was his personal poem. Troy couldn’t recall what the argument had been about, but remembered it had been mysteriously fierce. As though their friendship had been fragile in ways he hadn’t realised.
‘Let me give you a lift to the cemetery,’ he said, ‘and we can talk about it. Introduce you to Anna, my wife.’
Sam took a step back. He was in good physical shape, Troy saw, but twitchy, and there was something in him that had not been there fifteen years ago. Some sort of surrender.
‘Nah,’ said Sam. ‘I just come see the old feller was really dead. Successful copper, you, seen you in the papers. Who would have thought it?’
‘Well—’
‘Some of the things we used to get up to, I’m surprised they let you in. I might have to tell the commissioner.’ Sam wasn’t looking at him, his eyes were glancing around as though searching for something, but there was no pattern to it.
‘Why don’t—’
‘We’re on different sides these days but. Let’s keep it that way. You’re the good fella, I’m the baddie.’
Troy recognised the old mockery, but now there was none of the light that would appear in Sam’s eyes when he was having you on. Maybe it was not mockery anymore.
He said, ‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Us simple people like simple. I got to go.’
Troy said, pointing to the hearse, ‘He didn’t do those things.’
‘I know that.’
‘How do you know?’ Troy said urgently.
‘Because I know Luke.’
His feet were moving faster now, as though he was in the ring. Suddenly he was off, in a dance through the crowd.
Troy moved after him, worked his way through all the people, heard some of them say the bus that was going to the cemetery had been delayed. Sam was gone, so he slowed down, found his mind drifting, thinking now of Luke and Carl Burns, of Leila Scott. He’d been to see her a few times at Royal North Shore, but she was not ready to be interviewed. One day a nurse had told him Scott had been talking in her sleep, saying ‘a leech, a car’.
‘Maybe a leash?’ said Troy.
He’d mentioned this to Anna that night, part of the new openness about his job.
‘Aleisha,’ said Anna, ‘is a name.’
The next day he’d typed it into COPS, got nothing, tried spelling variants, found Alecia Parr. Called the locals and got the story.
Ms Parr was seventy-two, dying of cancer. The previous Thursday she’d walked across the suspension bridge at Northbridge, carrying a large gift-wrapped parcel, about the size of a wine carton. It was big, said the security guard stationed on the bridge at the time, but, from the way she was carrying it, light. The guard was there because the bridge had become a popular suicide spot, and the local and state governments were arguing over whether to erect an unsightly barrier fence along both sides. In the meantime, the council had hired a guard to deter jumpers. But as the man said afterwards, what can you do? He hadn’t been told to breathe down the necks of everyone who used the footpaths on either side of the bridge. As he’d watched, idly, from across the road, the old lady had stopped, put down the parcel, stepped onto it and just sort of rolled over the wall.
Jesus, Troy thought. Logged out of COPS, went and found a cup of coffee. Wondered how much of this sort of thing was going on.
He found Anna still talking to the other couple who’d been married by Luke. She introduced them as Jason and Leanne. The woman was crying and being comforted by her husband and Anna.
‘He’s polluted us,’ she said, looking angrily at the hearse and then at Troy. ‘Polluted our marriage, the filthy old man.’
Pollution was a word Luke had used. Indeed, Troy thought, if the priest was listening now he’d probably approve of what the woman was saying. He saw that Anna was distressed. Maybe the implications of the promise he’d made to Luke were hitting her now.
But she said to Leanne, ‘You’ve got to try to forgive him. That’s what this is all about.’
She looked back at the simple, cream brick church.
‘Can you forgive him?’ said Jason. You could tell he was the calm one in the marriage.
Anna nodded slowly. ‘I can.’
‘How can you? After the way he’s betrayed us?’
The couple stared at Anna, who for the moment was lost for words. As though the act of forgiveness had used up all her energy.
The bus had arrived and the crowd was disappearing as people made their way to vehicles for the trip to the cemetery. Troy told Anna he needed to take a leak and went around to the toilets. He’d just finished washing his hands when someone came in, and when he turned around he saw Geoffrey Davies. The politician checked that they were alone.
‘Wanted a quick word, mate,’ he said, and came up to Troy. He was a powerful man, almost Troy’s height. ‘Understand you might be going public with some stuff about me. Want you to know, you do that I’ll deny it. Then I’ll tell the world about Brigita and Tim Kalnins.’
Troy was stunned. It was not the threat, or the complete misreading of his own character it indicated. What shocked him was how much Davies knew. The archbishop must know about Kalnins, maybe he’d used that to force Luke’s silence. And then he’d told Davies. Walsh had made him feel he was the only one who mattered. Of course he wasn’t.
‘You bastard,’ he said.
Suddenly Davies moved, pushing Troy back so that the middle of his back hit the hand dryer on the wall behind. It hurt. Davies’ eyes were wide, he was enraged. For a moment Troy couldn’t react: it was one of the most unexpected things that had ever happened to him. Davies was a federal minister, the risk he was taking was enormous.
He pushed back and Davies staggered, lashed out with a hand that struck Troy’s nose. Troy could tell it wasn’t broken, but it hurt and it was bleeding. The politician was staring at the blood, he seemed upset but excited too. He dropped his hands to his sides, his chest heaving, said, ‘Maybe I should tell the world anyway, what your dirty mate did.’ He said it with contempt.
Troy grabbed Davies’ lapel with his left hand and pulled back his right, about to sink a fist into the man’s gut.
But someone else was here now. It was Sam, who’d come in behind Davies and put an arm around his throat, was dragging him away from Troy. Davies tried to elbow him, and Sam did something Troy couldn’t see that made the politician’s body sag, his face contorted in pain.
‘You got to watch that temper, mate,’ Sam said to Troy, his voice muffled by Davies’ shoulder. ‘Luke used to talk to you about that.’ Then he swung the politician around and hustled him out.
Troy looked at his face in the mirror. There wasn’t m
uch blood and he cleaned up slowly. With a nose, you have to take your time.
Sam came back in and looked at him. ‘You’ll survive.’
‘You should have let me hit him. He deserved it.’
‘Keep it simple, mate. That’s the big thing. What Luke used to say to me.’
Troy smiled, calmed down. ‘Did it work?’ he said.
‘No.’ Sam smiled too. ‘Not enough room in it for me.’
Troy didn’t know what to say. Luke had never said it to him.
Sam said, ‘He ever talk about me?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Used to talk about you all the time. What you were doing, when you got married and all.’
‘You saw him?’
‘He visited once a year. Last time, it was during that Tower thing, he said to me, “It’s a great disappointment, son, that you’re back on the juice.” ’ Sam’s voice slowed as he did a bad imitation of Luke’s accent, full of affection.
‘ “The juice”?’
‘He loved them old movies. Then he went on about that case you were doing, he had this newspaper photo of you in his wallet. I asked about your wife and he said, “Nick didn’t keep it simple. That’s always a mistake.” ’ Suddenly his expression changed. He didn’t cry, but he might just as well have: the grief was in his face, and it looked at home, not reluctant or ugly the way it did with some people. Troy moved towards him, and this time he allowed himself to be held.
They walked back around the church to the empty forecourt. Tim Kalnins was opening the door of a taxi on the road. He saw Troy and waved, seemed about to come across but changed his mind and got in. The taxi drove off.
Troy knew he was going to keep the promise he’d made Luke.
He said, ‘It’s never been simple for me either.’ Wanting Sam to understand him.
Sam shrugged. It was polite, but it was a rejection of anything Troy was offering, or asking.
‘I’d better be going,’ he said.
And he went.
Troy walked over to Anna, who was waiting in the shade of the porch.
‘I saw Davies go in after you,’ she said, ‘and that dodgy-looking fellow. Did you sort it all out?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Good.’ She smiled at him, her smile different to the one he’d known in the past. For the first time in his life he realised, fully, that he was growing older. It felt a bit like waking up.
She said, ‘There’s blood on your shirt.’
THE CALL
Sixty-eight
David Saunders had been at the funeral, although Troy hadn’t spoken with him there. Two days later, Saunders called to say the review of the theft of pethidine from the pharmacy had found nothing.
‘That’s a problem,’ said Troy.
‘Found other things missing,’ Saunders said. ‘We have a new chief pharmacist.’ He cleared his throat and apologised for what had happened with the three complaints to the ombudsman regarding deaths in Oncology. ‘Paula Williams shouldn’t suffer,’ he said. ‘If there’s any fallout, please direct it to me.’
‘I will,’ Troy said. He wondered why Saunders was calling. The matter had already been resolved, with McIver.
‘I know this is not an excuse,’ said Saunders, ‘but I’d never have done it if I’d known that Mark was dead, let alone that there might be something seriously wrong in Oncology.’
‘I wish you hadn’t,’ Troy said. ‘We might have got to Burns sooner. Several people might still be alive.’
‘I’m deeply sorry. It’s something I’ll never forgive myself for.’ Troy said nothing. ‘I didn’t trust you but I should have. There was one moment I almost called you and said what I’d done, when I heard about Carter’s alibi. Roz Herron is Dirk Wainwright’s sister. You know who he was? A gay man—’
‘I know who Dirk Wainwright was.’
‘Ian was very good to the family. They’d do anything for him.’
Troy thought about this strange conversation a lot over the next day, trying to fit it into what else he knew. He pondered Saunders and Archbishop Walsh. He’d never met people like them before. He’d met people who were trying to be like them, but most would never make it. Saunders and Walsh, though, they had made it, and once you knew what to look for, you could tell the difference. So he thought about the conversation more specifically, considered it line by line. Especially the last one.
‘Tell me again,’ McIver said. ‘I don’t think I heard you correctly.’
So Troy told him again, and it didn’t make McIver much happier. Still, you could see he was intrigued by the idea of it.
‘There’s nothing on the CCTV.’
‘No, but the cameras don’t cover the whole wharf, at either end.’
‘The expense,’ said the sergeant, ‘would be enormous. We are talking needles and haystacks. Are you sure it’s even possible?’
It was. Troy had done the work on that, talked to someone in the Forensic Services Group, and he laid it all out.
McIver shook his head. ‘I won’t deny we’ve got a certain number of brownie points at the moment. But if this goes wrong, we won’t have them for long.’
In the end, he said he’d talk to Peters about it, and Troy was content. Peters was the sort of superior more likely to respond well to a huge proposal than one that was merely irritatingly large. With a certain type of manager, you needed to grab their attention.
Troy caught Peters out front of Police Headquarters, walking back with a cup of coffee, and they stopped to talk. The inspector said McIver had told him about the idea and Troy should get moving.
‘You’re a friend of Mac’s,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘You know—’
‘I know about the baby but it’s more than that.’ He sipped his coffee, nodded to a senior officer walking past. ‘Yesterday we were driving down the M7 to that shooting at Prestons, he was spouting bullshit.’ Peters looked almost embarrassed. ‘Is he having some sort of breakdown?’
‘What did he say?’
‘Kept using this phrase, “sense of place”. Something about Sydney doesn’t have one anymore. I mean, what does he fucking want?’ Peters looked around the busy footpath, nodded to someone else. ‘Paris?’
‘It’s the singing,’ Troy said.
‘I told him to go to church if he wanted meaning in his life.’
‘He doesn’t believe—’
‘Then he can go to fucking Bunnings like the rest of us.’
‘You told him that?’
Peters frowned. ‘The timing on this is up the shithouse. Tyler’s being moved on in six months, we’ve been trying to get Mac to take his place.’ Tyler was head of the unsolved cases team.
Troy said, ‘Mac’s not an inspector.’
‘Which leads us to the other thing: Kelly is really pushing you to go for sergeant.’
‘I don’t—’
Peters turned red. ‘Jesus, you think Homicide runs itself? People like Kelly and me work our arses off doing boring admin work, training you, watching your backs . . .’ He stopped, pulled back. ‘Thinking is, time both of you stepped up. Put something back in.’
Troy looked at him in wonder. ‘I’ve never thought of it like that.’
‘Well fucking start. Now.’ He calmed down. ‘Just think about it. You still reading that book?’
‘I finished it. I’m reading another one.’
‘Pearson’s widow is writing a book; I read about it in the paper. What was her name?’
‘Emily. What sort of book?’
‘An autobiography.’
*
Three weeks later, they arranged for Ian Carter to come in for an ERISP.
McIver had been at Prestons, and Troy hadn’t talked to him abou
t the conversation with Peters. He didn’t know where to start, anyway. One morning the sergeant was back, standing at his desk with a cardboard box. Troy went over and told him they were ready to talk to Carter. Mac said he and Conti should do the interview.
‘You don’t want to be there?’ Troy said.
‘I’m off to the States for three months.’ McIver looked away. ‘Ruth and me, we’re going to listen to some good music, while we can. Long service leave.’
Troy had had no idea. He nodded, and said what he’d been wanting to say for some time: ‘I thought you might have come to Luke’s funeral.’
‘Yeah, well . . .’ McIver reached into his pocket and pulled out a CD in a case and handed it to Troy. ‘I’ve not been myself. This will make up for it.’
The cover showed a big man, a bit like Boris Karloff’s brother, holding a trombone.
‘Jack Teagarden,’ Troy read. ‘You sure?’
But McIver was gone.
When Carter came in he had a lawyer with him, a thin woman with her hair tied back severely, dressed all in black. Troy read out the preliminaries and they got going. He said, ‘It’s like this. I decided to visit the Crown Street Clinic to verify your statement you were there at the time Mark Pearson was killed. Roz Herron had told us—’
‘I know all this,’ said Carter. He was staring at Troy with dead eyes: a lot of the energy had left him since their last interview.
‘Can I ask why we’re having this conversation now?’ said the lawyer. ‘I understand you visited the clinic a month ago, soon after Carl Burns died.’
‘As I was saying . . .’
He was saying it partly for Conti. She’d left Furnace soon after Burns’s death. She’d stayed just long enough to take part in the hospital interviews with Leila Scott, who was in a wheelchair now, expected to recover most of the use of her legs with time. Emotionally, Troy didn’t know where Leila was at. A nurse at Royal North Shore had told him she spent most of her time gazing into space. Friends had brought her stacks of books, but she hadn’t opened any of them. Her answers during the interviews were terse.
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