by Peter Temple
Cashin stopped behind the Cruiser, couldn’t see anything. Three doors open.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, something badly wrong here.
Dove was around the car first, Cashin bumped into him, they almost fell, both blind in the pouring rain.
A vehicle had slammed into the traffic lights on the wrong side of the road. A ute. He could see three or four figures, milling about.
Gunshots.
Someone shouted: ‘PUT THE FUCKIN THING…’
A shotgun fired, the muzzle flame of a shotgun, reflected by the wet tarmac.
‘DROP IT, DROP THE FUCKIN GUN!’
‘BACK OFF, BACK OFF!’
Two more bangs, handgun, tongue-tips of flame, quick, SMACK-SMACK.
Silence.
‘Fuck,’ said Dove. ‘Oh my sweet fuck.’
Someone was moaning.
Hopgood shouted, ‘KD, GISSUS THE FUCKING SPOTLIGHT!’
A few seconds and the light came on, the world turned hard white, Cashin saw the broken ute, thousands of glass fragments glittering on the road.
Three men standing. A body behind the ute, a shotgun beside it.
He walked across the space, wiping rain from his face.
Lloyd and Steggie, guns out, pale faces. Steggie’s mouth moved, he was trying to say something. Then he was sick, a column of fluid. He went to his knees, to all fours.
‘Get an ambo!’ Cashin shouted. ‘Maximum fucking speed!’
He went to the person on the ground, a slim youth, his mouth was open. He was shot in the throat. Cashin saw a glint of teeth, heard a gurgling sound. The youth coughed, blood poured out of him, ran in the road, thicker than the rain.
Cashin took the youth’s shoulders in his hands, raised him, knew he was going to die, felt it in the thin arms, the little shakes, heard it in the rasping sounds.
‘The fucking idiot,’ said Hopgood from behind him.
Cashin let the boy down. There was no help he could give. He got up and went to the ute. The driver was pinned by the steering wheel and the dashboard, his face covered in blood, blood everywhere.
Cashin put a finger on his neck, felt the faintest pulse. He tried to open the door, couldn’t. He went to the other side. Dove was there. The passenger was another boy, he had blood flowing from his mouth but his eyes were wide.
‘Oh fuck,’ he said softly. He said it again and again.
They got him out, laid him down. He would live.
The ambulance arrived, then another, the second with a doctor, a woman. She’d never done gunshot but it didn’t matter, it was always too late.
When they lifted the boy, Cashin saw a shotgun in a black puddle beside him, single-barrel pumpgun, sawn off.
The driver was still alive when they got him into the ambulance. The cops stood around.
‘Nobody touches anything here,’ said Cashin. ‘Not a fucking thing. Close the road.’
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ said Hopgood. ‘This’s Cromarty, mate.’
VILLANI put the tape in the machine and gave the remote control to Hopgood. ‘This is the media conference two hours ago,’ said Villani. ‘Be on telly at lunchtime.’
The assistant crime commissioner’s pink baby face appeared on the monitor. He was prematurely bald. ‘It’s my sad duty to report that two of the three people involved in the incident outside Cromarty late yesterday have succumbed to injuries received,’ he said. ‘The third person has a minor injury and is in no danger. The events are now the subject of a full investigation.’
A journalist said, ‘Can you confirm that police fired on three young Aboriginal men at a roadblock?’
The commissioner remained blank. ‘It was not a roadblock, no. Our understanding is that police officers were fired upon and responded appropriately.’
‘If it wasn’t a roadblock, what was it?’
‘The persons involved are suspects in an inquiry and an attempt was made to apprehend them.’
‘That’s the Charles Bourgoyne attack?’
‘Correct.’
‘Did both victims die of gunshot wounds?’
‘One of them. Unfortunately.’
The journalist said, ‘And is that Luke Ericsen, the nephew of Bobby Walshe?’
‘I’m not yet in a position to answer that,’ said the commissioner.
‘And the other boy? What did he die of?’
‘Injuries sustained in a vehicle accident.’
Another journalist said, ‘Commissioner, the officers involved, were they uniformed police?’
‘There were uniformed police at the scene.’
‘So if it wasn’t a roadblock, was this a chase gone wrong?’
‘It was not a chase. It was an operation designed to avoid any danger to everyone involved and…’
‘Can you confirm that two police vehicles were travelling behind the vehicle that crashed. Can you confirm that?’
‘That’s correct, however…’
‘Excuse me, commissioner, how is that not a chase?’
‘They were not pursuing the vehicle.’
‘It wasn’t a roadblock and it wasn’t a chase and you have two dead Aboriginal youths?’
The commissioner scratched his cheek. ‘I’ll say again,’ he said. ‘It was an interception operation designed to minimise the possibility of injury. That is always the intent. But police officers in danger have the clear right to act to protect themselves and their colleagues.’
‘Commissioner, Cromarty has a bad reputation for this kind of thing, doesn’t it? Four Aboriginal people dead in matters involving the police since 1987. Two deaths in custody.’
‘I can’t comment on that. To my knowledge, the officers involved in this incident, and that includes a highly respected Aboriginal police officer, behaved with the utmost respect for protocol. Beyond that, we’ll wait for the coroner’s verdict.’
Villani gestured to Hopgood to switch off the monitor. Cashin was standing at the window, looking at the noonday light on the stone building across the street, having trouble focusing. He was thinking about the crushed boy in the ute. Shane Diab looked like that, the life squeezed out of him.
Pigeons and gulls were walking about, some drowsing, apparently living in amity. Then full-on violence broke out on the parapet— wings, beaks, claws. The peace had only been a lull.
‘The position is,’ said Villani, rubbing his face with both hands, ageing himself, ‘that this operation has brought upon me, upon you, upon this station and upon the entire fucking police force an avalanche of shit. We are buried in shit, the guilty and the innocent.’
‘With respect,’ said Hopgood, ‘how can you know that a driver will be so dumb? What kind of stupid cunt swerves around a car at red lights and loses control?’
‘You can’t,’ said Villani. ‘But you wouldn’t have had to if you’d listened to me and taken them at home. Now you’d all better pray these kids are the ones attacked Bourgoyne.’
‘Ericsen had no reason to fire on us,’ said Hopgood. ‘He’s a violent little arsehole, he’d likely have done the same if we’d waited till they were home in the Daunt.’
‘My understanding,’ said Villani, ‘is that Ericsen’s in an accident, he gets out, sees two civilians jump out of an unmarked car and come at him. Could be mad hoons. Three years ago four such animals did exactly the same thing, beat two black kids to pulp, the one’s in a wheelchair for life. Also in this town a year ago a black kid walking home was chased down by a car. He tried to run away and the car mounted the pavement and collected him. Dead on arrival. law. For something anyway.’
Villani had been looking around the room. Now he stared at Hopgood. ‘You familiar with those incidents, detective?’
‘I am, boss. But…’
‘Save the buts, detective. For the inquiry and the inquest. Where you will need all the buts you can find.’ Villani sighed. ‘Two dead black kids,’ he said. ‘Bobby Walshe’s nephew. Shit.’
‘Walshe’s never been near his nephew,’ s
aid Hopgood. ‘He’s too good for his fellow Daunt…’
He didn’t say the word. They all knew what the word was.
‘I wish I was more distant,’ said Villani. ‘Mars, that would be good. Maybe not far enough.’
Cashin coughed, it caused a scarlet flash of pain.
‘I’m just a country cop,’ said Hopgood, ‘but it’s not clear to me that the presumption of innocence lies with arseholes who try to run red lights, hit a pole, climb out with an unlicensed sawn-off pumpgun and fire on police officers.’
He rubbed the stubble on his upper lip with a big finger. ‘Or is it different when they’re related to fucking Bobby Walshe?’
‘That’s well put,’ said Villani. ‘The presumption of innocence. You might think about retraining for the law. For something anyway’
He took out cigarettes, flicked the pack, lipped one, lit it. There was a sign prohibiting smoking. His smoke stood in the dead air.
‘The procedure here is going to be a model for future cock-ups,’ said Villani. ‘Two feds plus ethical standards officers plus the ombudsman’s office. They’re here. All officers involved are now on holiday. Any contact, that’s the phone call, the little chat, the fucking wink over the bananas in the supermarket, those concerned will turn in the wind. Understand? The family, the brotherhood, that shit, that is not going to operate. Understood?’
Cashin said, ‘Could you go over that again?’
Villani said, ‘Well, that’s it, you can go. Cashin stay.’
Hopgood and Dove left.
‘Joe,’ said Villani, ‘I don’t appreciate smart shit like that.’
He smoked, tapped ash into his plastic cup. Cashin looked away, watched the birds across the street. Sleep, shuffle, shit, fight.
‘For presiding over this cock-up, I am branded,’ said Villani.
‘It was my advice. What else could you do?’
‘You passed on Hopgood’s considered opinion. That’s what you did. Passed it on. I decided.’
Villani closed his eyes. Cashin saw his tiredness, the tiny vein pulsing in an eyelid.
‘I shouldn’t have brought you in,’ said Villani. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Bullshit. No sign of Bourgoyne’s watch?’
‘No. Probably flogged it somewhere else. They’re looking. They haven’t found Pascoe’s place in Sydney.’
‘Sydney detection at its best,’ said Cashin.
‘I wouldn’t point the finger,’ said Villani. ‘Not me.’
Silence. Villani went to the window, forced it open, shot his stub at the pigeons, crashed the window down.
‘I’ve got a little media appearance to do,’ he said. ‘How do I look?’
‘Ravishing,’ said Cashin. ‘Nice suit, ditto shirt and tie.’
‘Advised by experts.’ At the door, Villani said, ‘If it were me, I’d say as little as possible. Innocent stuff comes back to haunt you. And this cunt Hopgood, Joe. Don’t do him any favours, he’ll sell you without a blink.’
IT WAS mid-afternoon before Cashin’s turn.
In an overheated interview room, audio and video running, he sat on a slippery vinyl chair before two feds, a fat senior sergeant from ethical standards called Pitt and his puzzled-looking offsider Miller, and a man from the police ombudsman’s office.
Cashin took the first chance to say that he’d had to convince Villani to approve the operation.
‘Well, that’s a matter for another time,’ said Pitt. ‘Not the matter at hand.’
The feds, a man and a woman, both stringy like marathon runners, took Cashin through his statement twice. Then they picked at it.
‘And I suppose,’ said the man, ‘with hindsight, you’d see that as an error of judgment?’
‘With hindsight,’ said Cashin, ‘I see most of my life as an error of judgment.’
‘Are you taking the question seriously, detective?’ said the woman.
Cashin wanted to tell her to fuck off. He said, ‘In the same circumstances, I’d make the same decision.’
‘It resulted in the deaths of two young men,’ she said.
‘Two people died,’ Cashin said. ‘The courts will decide who’s to blame.’
Silence. The interrogators looked at one another.
‘What was your initial opinion of conducting an operation like this in heavy rain?’ said the woman.
‘You can’t choose the weather. You take what you get.’
‘But the wisdom of it? What was your opinion?’
‘I had no strong opinion until it was too late.’
It had been too late. He had waited too long.
‘And then you say you instructed Dove to call Hopgood and order the operation abandoned?’
‘I did.’
‘You believed you had the authority to order the operation abandoned?’ said the man from the ombudsman’s office.
‘I did.’
‘You still think so?’
‘I thought I was in overall command, yes.’
‘You thought? It wasn’t made clear who was in command?’
‘I’m in charge of the Bourgoyne investigation. This operation flowed from it.’
They looked at one another. ‘Moving on,’ said the woman. ‘You say you made four attempts to call it off?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And they weren’t acknowledged?’
‘No.’
‘Dove asked for the calls to be acknowledged?’
Cashin looked away. He was in pain, thinking of home, whisky, bed. ‘Yes. Repeatedly. After the first message, Hopgood asked for a repeat, said he couldn’t hear us’
‘That surprised you?’
‘It happens. Equipment malfunctions.’
‘To go back to the moment you rounded the vehicle,’ said the male fed. ‘You said you heard shots.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And you saw a muzzle flash beside the ute?’
‘Yes.’
‘You heard a shot or shots and then you saw the muzzle flash?’
Cashin thought: he’s asking whether Luke Ericsen was fired on and fired back.
‘An instant in a cloudburst,’ he said, ‘I heard shots, I saw a muzzle flash at the ute. The order, well…’
‘It’s possible the muzzle flash was Ericsen firing after the other shots?’ said Pitt.
‘I can’t make that judgment,’ Cashin said.
‘But is it possible?’
‘It’s possible. It’s possible the shotgun fired first.’
‘I’m sorry, are you changing your statement?’ The woman.
‘No. I’m clarifying.’
‘A person of your experience,’ said the male fed. ‘We’d expect a little more precision.’
‘We?’ said Cashin, looking into his eyes. ‘Does we mean you? What the fuck do you know about anything?’
That didn’t help. It was another hour before he could go home. He drove carefully, he was tired, nerves jangling. At the Kenmare crossroads, he remembered milk and bread and dog food, there was only a bit of the butcher’s sausage left. He pulled in to Callahan’s garage and shop.
The shop was unheated, smelling of sour milk and stale piecrust, no one behind the counter. He got milk, the last carton, went to the shelves against the wall to get dog food. One small can left.
‘Back again.’
Derry Callahan, oil smears on his face, was standing behind him, close up. He was wearing a nylon zipped-up cardigan, taking strain over his belly.
‘Good to see you blokes earnin yer fuckin money for a change,’ he said.
Cashin looked around, smelled alcohol and poisonous breath, saw Callahan’s pink-rimmed eyes, the greasy strands of hair hand-combed over his pale spotted scalp.
‘How’s that?’ he said.
‘Takin out those two Daunt coons. Pity it wasn’t a whole fuckin busload.’
There was no thought, just the flush. Cashin had the can of Frisky Dog Meaty Chunks in Marrow Gravy, in his right hand. He turned his hips and
brought his arm around close to his body and hit Derry in the middle of his face, not a lot of travel, they were close. The pain made him think he had broken his fingers.
Callahan went backwards, two short steps, dropped slowly to his knees, at prayer, hands coming to his face, blood getting there first, dark red, almost black, it was the fluorescent lighting did that.
Cashin wanted to hit him again but he threw the carton of milk at him. It bounced off his head. He stepped over to kick Callahan but something stopped him.
At the vehicle, Cashin realised that he was still holding the dog food can. He opened his hand. The can was dented. He threw it onto the back.
Rebb heard him arrive, a beam of light, the dogs jumping, big ears flapping, running for him. He fondled their ears, hand hurting. Dogs went between his legs, came around for more.
‘Thought you’d buggered off,’ said Rebb. ‘Leaving me with your mad dogs and your debts.’
THE DOGS woke Cashin a good way out from dawn and, blind, he crossed the space, let them into the cold, dark room, went back to bed. They snuffed the kitchen for dropped food, gave up, jumped onto the bed, spoilt rotten.
Cashin didn’t care. They sandwiched him, pushed against him, lay their light heads on his legs. He went back to sleep, woke with a start, a sound in his memory, a scrape, metal against metal. Head raised, neck tense, he listened.
Just a sound in a dream. The dogs would hear anything unusual long before he did. But sleep was over. He lay on his back, fingers of his right hand hurting, hearing the sad whimpering pre-dawn wind.
The boys in the ute.
In the same circumstances, I’d make the same decision.
It resulted in the deaths of two young men.
Until that moment in the stale room, it had not fully dawned upon him that the line ran directly from the bleeding and dying boys to him on the phone talking to Villani.
I think you might be over-dramatising. It’s just three kids in a ute. Can’t be that hard to do.
Would it have been different if Hopgood had spoken to Villani? Would Villani have rejected the advice if it came directly from Hopgood?
No matter how much they might have botched raids on the boys at their homes, there wouldn’t be two dead.
