Aftershock ch-14

by Peter Corris

  “Why don’t you round up a couple of Ronny’s bikie mates? Could be useful.’

  Morton stared at me. ‘Bikies? Are you serious? “With all this shit going on you want to bring in bikies?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just a suggestion. What does the sharpshooter say?’

  ‘He says he’s getting tired. I’m going to have to send someone in. We’ve got a volunteer.’

  He pointed to where a tall, thin constable was changing into a blue overall, not unlike the one worn by Mark Roper. The bullet-proof vest he was wearing would make him look less thin and he didn’t look a lot like Roper anyway. I wondered what they were going to put on his head.

  ‘Commissioner.’ The policeman who knew how radios worked was beckoning urgently. Morton went across and I followed. It was only a matter of time before he told me to piss off.

  ‘He’s got a CB,’ the policeman said. ‘He’s sending. I can pick him up.’

  ‘Do it!’

  A bit of the code name rigmarole was gone through and then Renato Costi’s voice, higher-pitched than before, came through. ‘I told you I wanted Roper.’

  ‘He’s coming,’ Morton said. ‘Let me talk to someone else in the house.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are they all still alive?’

  ‘Yes. For now they are.’

  ‘Can’t you let your mother and sister go at least?’ I had to admire Morton; his voice was steady and he was trying to win a few points.

  Ronny’s voice went into a near shriek. ‘Fuck you. What sister? Send Roper. That’s all, cunt.’

  Morton spoke quickly. ‘There’s a priest coming. He wants…’

  ‘Fuck what he wants. You’ll need him afterwards. That’s it!’

  The line went dead. Morton shook his head. ‘Mad as a cut snake.’

  He went over to the marksman who listened, nodded and fell into a relaxed posture. Then Morton went back to where the tall, thin, dark young policeman was standing. He had his hands in the deep side pockets of the overall and I could see the bulge of his pistol in his right hand. Morton spoke to him, patted him on the shoulder. The young cop grinned and pushed back his hair which was long for a cop but not nearly as long as Roper’s. I wanted to tell him to let it fall forward, but I didn’t have the right to tell him anything. He conferred with the marksman and then began to walk towards a point where he would leave the shelter of the trees. The sharpshooter tucked the rifle butt into his shoulder. The breeze that had been stirring the leaves dropped. I stared at the top floor window; then I glanced around. I was holding my breath and everybody else was doing the same.

  Before the man in the overall could break cover another figure appeared to his left, moving unsteadily but quickly forward. He stepped out of the shade into the sunlight. He was wearing a shirt and trousers. His right arm was strapped to his body and he held a pistol in his left hand.

  ‘Ted.’ Morton’s voice was a harsh whisper. ‘It’s Ted Withers.’

  The two shots came within a split second of each other. Withers’ left arm went up and the gun flew from his hand as he staggered backwards and fell.

  The marksman said, ‘Got him!’ A long, drawn-out scream came from the house.

  The paramedic rushed forward and bent over Withers. The face he turned towards us as we approached was ashen. ‘I was looking at the house,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  Morton said, ‘Is he dead?’

  The medic nodded. ‘Through the heart.’

  Morton started barking instructions and suddenly the space in front of the house which had been still and empty was full of people and equipment. Two uniformed cops got to the front door first, closely followed by a pair of ambulance men with a stretcher. I stayed close to Morton. We went into the cool interior, a tiled hallway, and up the wide, curving staircase. We met the stretcher bearers coming down. Glen Withers’ eyes were fluttering. She managed a weak grin as she recognised me.

  ‘I’m okay’ she murmured. ‘She told him- Mario.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  I glanced at one of the stretcher men who nodded.

  ‘Leg,’ he said. ‘She’s okay, but please…’

  I touched Glen’s shoulder as they whisked her past. From below I could hear women sobbing and soothing voices. Morton and I went up the stairs and along a carpeted corridor to a big front room. A constable standing guard stepped aside. Renato Costi, dressed in motor cycle boots, black jeans and navy singlet, lay on his back a few metres away from the shattered window. Blood and brain tissue had sprayed over the floor and walls. A rifle with a telescopic sight lay below the window and there must have been more than twenty cigarette butts ground out in the deep, pale pink carpet.

  Morton crouched beside the body. ‘An inch above the eye,’ he said. ‘That boy can really shoot.’

  ‘So could Ronny,’ I grunted.

  ‘Ted was a sitting duck.’

  Something about the way he said it, biting down on the words as if to cut them off, and the glance he shot at the constable, told me more than the statement itself. Had Ted Withers charged the house to rescue his daughter, provide the diversion for the sharpshooter to take advantage of, or to push Renato into taking care of Sergei Costi? Or to do the job himself? There was no doubt about the way it would appear in the record.

  ‘He was a hero,’ I said.

  ‘Yup. Medals all round. Well, there’s a lot of tidying up to do around here.’ He straightened and walked to the door. ‘Come on, Hardy. You shouldn’t even be here. Constable, no-one except the technical people and the pathologist in this room, got it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The mother and father?’

  ‘You heard me, son.’

  Despite what he’d just said, Morton let me accompany him while he checked on the situation in the house. We learned that Renato had locked his father and mother in the wine cellar in the basement of the house. He had tied his sister to a chair in the room where Glen Withers had been shot. The girl had been in a faint or hysterical for most of the time. But she had heard the final shots and it was her scream that had signalled the end of the business. She was now in the hands of a policewoman and the ambulance men. Morton conducted a brief interview with Sergei Costi from which I was excluded. Mrs Costi was in a state of collapse.

  Bruno Costi, a stressed, balding man in his thirties, and a plump, avuncular priest arrived and were ushered inside the house to offer what comfort they could. A few other people turned up-all Italians, all distressed. A constable who spoke the language talked to them and allowed some in and turned others away. Two camera crews did some filming and reporters talked to a couple of cops. But Morton didn’t come out and the reporter who tried to talk to me went away very unhappy.

  When Barrett Breen arrived I angered the other newshounds by beckoning him over and going into a huddle with him. I gave him a scaled-down version of what I knew. Good stuff, but not the whole story. I needed to be on side with the police as much as I needed friends in the media. But Breen was satisfied; he scribbled notes, checked on name spellings and thanked me for honouring our agreement. The people with the microphones and cameras clustered around him after he left me but I didn’t bother to watch. What he did with the information I’d given him was his business.

  The police eventually shooed them back to the road. I sat on a piece of sandstone which was part of the artful, restrained landscaping of the front garden, and waited for Morton. There was a lot of coming and going, a lot of sweating and swearing as the afternoon grew warmer. A cop carried away Renato’s rifle enclosed in a plastic bag, and Glen Withers’ pistol, similarly wrapped. Then came Renato himself, all zipped up in a black vinyl body bag. Good stuff for the cameramen. There was still no sign of Morton so I wandered around the front of the house and looked at the two cars parked carelessly on the gravel together with Ronny’s bike-a black and silver Kawasaki 1500 with raked handlebars, stripped to the chromium-plated bone. A death machine.

  Morton emerged from the h
ouse wiping his face with a soggy handkerchief. He’d worn his jacket and tightly knotted tie throughout the whole business, but now he looked ready to strip down to his singlet and jockey shorts. He waved me over and I went, carrying my jacket slung over my shoulder. This allowed me to show off my gun in its holster which was the only thing that had stopped some of the cops telling me to piss off.

  ‘Now I’ve got to talk to the press,’ Morton said.

  ‘It’s tough at the top.’

  ‘Fuck you. What did you do that counted?’

  ‘I gave Ted Withers another hour or so of life. And if it hadn’t been for him you’d still be sitting there with your finger up your arse.’

  ‘I can see why not everyone in Sydney likes you.’

  I sighed and suddenly felt old and empty. I wanted something to eat and drink and someone to be nice to me, and someone to be nice to. ‘I’ve got a knack for getting into situations that bring out the worst in people, including me. What’s next, Commissioner?’

  ‘I hear you didn’t want to get your face on television?’

  ‘Right. They never get me on my best side.’

  ‘Keep it that way. How do you stand with your clients?’

  ‘Lousy,’ I said.

  Morton sucked in air and put the braided cap he’d been carrying back on his head. ‘I’m going to talk bullshit for a few minutes, you go back to your motel and wait. We’ll have a de-briefing at the hospital when Sergeant Withers is up to it.’

  ‘When’s that likely to be?’

  Morton straightened his jacket. ‘Tomorrow, I hope. Depends on how the news of her father’s death affects her.’

  24

  One hospital is pretty much like another in my experience. They all use the same disinfectant and have the same bugs in the air conditioning. The Newcastle Community Hospital wasn’t worse or better than average, but slightly more interesting in that it showed some signs of renovation and repair after earthquake damage. Twenty-four hours after the Costi siege Morton, a Chief Inspector named Reynolds and an Italian-speaking Sergeant who was the police ethnic community liaison officer, and I gathered at the bed of Senior Sergeant Glenys Withers.

  After a nurse had told us what not to do, we took chairs around the bed. I sat a discreet distance from the patient. She looked good; her hair was brushed and shining and the little bit of weight she’d lost around the face suited her. The white hospital smock didn’t do much for her though, nor the drip feed into her arm. We exchanged smiles while Morton and Reynolds made commiserating noises to Glen about her dad and then approving noises about her and each other. When Glen indicated that she was quite fit enough to talk, Morton invited a stenographer in and we got down to business.

  Glen told us that she had set her radio to broadcast the alert signal if she didn’t return within an hour.

  ‘Sensible precaution,’ Reynolds said. ‘Sound procedure.’

  Once inside the house she had requested a private talk with Gina Costi to which the girl had reluctantly agreed. ‘She was terrified,’ Glen said. ‘Quite literally. She’s not very bright and you could see she’d been under a lot of strain.’

  ‘How did you handle it?’ Morton said.

  ‘I tried to be discreet. I said we’d received certain information about Oscar Bach and would she like to comment on her relations with him.’

  “Who was in the house then?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d only seen Gina, Mr and Mrs Costi and the… servant, whatever she is.’

  ‘Housekeeper,’ the liaison man said. ‘Mrs Adamo.’

  Glen nodded. ‘At first Gina didn’t want to say anything. I pressed her a little, mentioned Mark Roper. Then it all came pouring out-how Bach had forced her to have sex with him, how Roper had done nothing, how she’d tried to keep quiet about it. She was ashamed, but more frightened than ashamed.’

  ‘Frightened of what?’ Morton said.

  ‘Of her brother, of Renato. Apparently he’s completely crazy about the idea of family honour. He’s all hung up on old Italian ideas about virginity and dishonour and vendettas and all that. She’s brainless, but she was sensible enough to be scared that Renato would kill her and Roper and Bach if he got the chance. She said he likes killing.’

  I glanced at the liaison man’s notepad. He was writing in Italian, underlining the words and adding exclamation marks. I had the rogue thought that Helen Broadway would have been able to translate his notes for me.

  ‘Gina got drunk at Christmas last year. The strain of keeping it all in was too much for her and she told her brother Mario. She loves Mario. She says he’s the gentlest of her brothers.’

  ‘Not hard to edge out Ronny,’ I said.

  Morton signalled for me to shut up. ‘Go on, Sergeant, if you feel up to it.’

  ‘I’m all right, sir.’

  She went on to spell out the chain of events as Gina understood them. This was pretty much how I’d worked it out in my own head, much too late for it to be of any use. Mario had told his father that he intended to kill Oscar Bach. For all his mildness, Mario was just as keen on honour as Renato, just more cunning about it. Mario had seized his opportunity in the chaos following the earthquake. He’d been keeping tabs on Bach, come on him just as he’d avoided being injured when the church collapsed and had attacked him with a brick. The trouble was, Bach had fought. Mario had killed him and done enough to make it look as if Bach was a quake victim, but he’d been badly injured in the fight himself and ended up comatose in hospital.

  ‘This was what Gina and her father pieced together,’ Glen said. ‘Mario had told Sergei Costi all about it and how he planned to kill Bach.’

  ‘Mario must have really done some work on Bach,’ I said. ‘Somehow he found out that he was Werner Schmidt. Was Mario a drinker?’

  ‘Gina says he was,’ Glen said.

  ‘He phoned up Antonio Fanfani when he was drunk. That was just before opportunity knocked on December 28. That explains why Sergei ordered the work to be done on the Ocean Street place. He was hoping to clean away anything that Bach might have left lying around.’

  Reynolds consulted a file. ‘Mr Costi wanted to demolish the building, but he was prevented by a regulation requiring buildings over a certain age to be inspected for possible heritage value.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ Morton said.

  Glen was beginning to look tired, but she took a drink of water and went on. ‘Renato was in the house. He listened to all this. He must’ve because… after, I heard him shouting and raving and parroting Gina’s exact words back at her. He must’ve locked his mother and father and the housekeeper away somewhere. Then he burst in on Gina and me. He was completely crazy. We fought over my weapon, but he got it and… he shot me. I heard things after that, but I was in shock and none of it makes much sense until I saw Cliff on the stairs.’

  ‘Mr Hardy has been of considerable use,’ Morton said smoothly.

  ‘Did they find bodies at the house?’ Glen said.

  Morton nodded. ‘Two.’

  Then I remembered that the only person I’d told about Bach’s interest in the lagoon was Ted Withers and he was dead. It wasn’t the time to make the point. Morton asked a few more questions and invited Reynolds and the liaison man to do the same. There was nothing more of substance to add. He thanked Glen and wished her a speedy recovery.

  ‘I’d like a to have a word with Cliff, please,’ Glen said.

  Morton put his braided cap on. ‘Certainly. I’d like to see you, too, Mr Hardy. In ten minutes, shall we say?’

  They trooped out and I went to the bed and kissed Glen’s now slightly damp forehead. Then I took her hand and played with it, the way you do. ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ I said. ‘He gave it a very good try.’

  Her eyes were wet. She sniffed and shook her head. ‘He was corrupt. He knew that I knew. It was very difficult. Only a matter of time. I’m glad he didn’t finish up inside or on the front seat of his car with a shotgun. You know’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.


  ‘What does Morton want with you now?’

  ‘I don’t know. If he wants to get nasty I’ll say I won’t tell him where the other bodies are.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘I think they’re in the Redhead lagoon.’

  ‘Jesus. I think I want to get out of this place. If I’m fit I might apply for a transfer to Sydney.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ I said.

  Assistant Commissioner Morton wanted to debrief me the way he had Glen. I wasn’t too co-operative, but I did tell him about the lagoon.

  He shook his head. ‘Weird world isn’t it? You come up here looking for a killer and you find him. You know where Mario Costi is, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s about two floors above.’

  ‘What’ll happen there?’

  ‘Nothing. He’s not improving, close to brain dead. They’ll be pulling the plug pretty soon.’

  I didn’t envy the cops what they had to do next-dragging ponds, identifying bodies and informing relatives is not fun, but I didn’t imagine much of that would fall to Morton’s lot. He had something else on his mind.

  ‘Did you get much of a chance to talk to Ted Withers before he went over the top, Hardy?’

  ‘Not much. Why?’

  ‘I just wondered about his state of mind.’

  I didn’t say anything and we walked down the hospital corridor to the elevator. Reynolds and the stenographer had gone and we had the lift to ourselves. ‘I’m in a position to do Glenys Withers a bit of good,’ Morton said.

  ‘I imagine you are.’

  ‘Or not, as the case may be.’

  I nodded. We reached the ground floor and Morton reached for my hand again, the way he had the day before. It was an odd gesture for such a restrained man. ‘There are some ladies and gentlemen from the press wanting to talk to you. Watch what you say, won’t you?’