Old Scores

by Whish-Wilson, David;

  ‘Conlan. It was Conlan.’

  Hogan’s voice eerie with displacement, as disembodied as Swann felt. Swann understood that he’d stopped breathing, barked, gulped at the air around him, pressed the barrel deeper. Finger rigid on the trigger. Understood now that the voice wasn’t Hogan’s, had come instead from the car. He looked across to the front passenger, his hands out the window in surrender, another young detective, eyes like Christmas baubles.

  ‘Mr Swann, it wasn’t us. It was Conlan. Inspector Hogan, he tried to warn you. We didn’t know.’

  Swann staggered up, covered them all, the words out of the young detective’s mouth coming automatic.

  ‘What the press don’t know yet – there was another letter bomb in Canberra, at the Feds. It was found in time. Postmarked Perth. A bulletin went out. Wasn’t passed on in time. Nobody knew that … Terry was working for the Feds. Not until a man named Sam Mostel called us, said he was passing on a message from Conlan. “Sniffer dogs like Terry Accardi get put down. You’re next.” Inspector Hogan had it on speaker. We all heard it. It’s recorded.’

  Beneath Swann, Hogan groaned. There was no fear in his eyes now, just hatred rising on the humiliation, weak man’s juice. He spat out the side of his mouth, tried to sit up, jacket askew. He managed to grunt. ‘Jones, get out of the car. Introduce yourself to Swann.’

  Swann looked to the detective but it was the other passenger in the back seat who climbed out, had the bulk and poise of a heavyweight, nose broken a few times but his eyes not punchy. He came around the car, no expression on his face. Swann saw Jones notice his shaking hands, his own juice departing. Jones kept his hands showing, stopped beside Hogan, but didn’t help him up.

  ‘I won’t shake your hand, Mr Swann. They appear to be full.’

  British accent, touch of Geordie. Calm under a gun. Military background.

  Hogan roused himself, got to his feet. Swann saw the iron in Jones’ jacket pocket, wondered when Hogan was going to reach for it. Hogan spat again, wiped blood from his face. ‘Jones here is a Falklands veteran. Royal Marines Commando.’

  ‘And now?’

  No answer from Jones. Hogan looked at his profile. ‘He works for Grim Greylands. In your line of work. I’m assuming you’ve –’

  ‘I’ve heard of Greylands. In fact, his name came up in conversation just yesterday.’

  Little smile from Jones, flicker of his hands, indicating for Swann to continue.

  ‘He’s buying up Hercules Construction stock, taken a poised position. You’ve been sabotaging Exetar, from within. What’s a Pommy tycoon’s interest in the Burswood tender?’

  Hogan coughed. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘Try me.’

  Jones cleared his throat. ‘Two birds with one stone. Maitland Conlan is a bug under Mr Greylands’ shoe. And there is money to be made in the long-term development of this state’s mineral assets.’

  Hogan saw that Jones wasn’t going to elaborate, stepped in. ‘It appears as though Maitland Conlan got impatient on the St Andrews long eighteen sometime last year. Wouldn’t wait for Greylands to clear the green on a par three. Launched a rocket-shot from a heavy driver straight at Greylands when he was putting, hit his favourite caddy behind the ear, nearly killed him. Waltzed up the green like nothing happened, sank his putt. They came to blows – Greylands decked Conlan. Soon after, Conlan started buying up Handos stock, financed by his brother’s bank. Greylands outsmarted him, basically forced him to sell it all back, got shorted badly. To the tune of near half a billion. Didn’t seem to touch the sides. Which made Greylands curious. Jones here is a vehicle of Greylands’ curiosity.’

  Jones shifted his weight, nodded. ‘Which is where you come in.’

  Swann shook his head. ‘You’re telling me this is all about a game of golf?’

  Slight nod from Jones, bemused. ‘Correct, in the first instance. Now it’s about ego. And principle. The teaching of a lesson. And money.’

  Swann shot a look at Hogan. ‘You’re Larry Conlan’s man, always been in his pocket. What’s in it for you?’

  Hogan sneered. ‘Those Conlan bastards are planning to build a casino at Burswood. Cut me and the wogs right out. The Italians will be out of business, and their business is my business. I offered to parlay, to provide security, most of the subcontracting on the Burswood building site, for a small percentage. But he refused.’

  ‘Then Gary Quinlivan contacted you from London. Let you know about Greylands’ interest in Conlan.’

  Hogan shrugged.

  ‘What’s that got to do with Terry Accardi? I know he was working on the Exetar environmental scientist’s murder.’

  ‘Nothing to do with that. With Jones’ help, we’ve been bugging Maitland Conlan’s phone. He got a tip-off from a Federal. About Accardi working out of school, looking at Conlan’s links with organised crime. Being run by a Fed handler, the one that got a little message in the mail this morning.’

  So Hogan hadn’t known about Swann and Accardi. Instead, Accardi had been betrayed by the organisation he was hoping to graduate to.

  ‘Murdering fizzes is your line of work. Who sent the bomb to Accardi? I want a name.’

  Hogan nodded. ‘Part of Conlan’s rise to prominence, his being taken under the premier’s wing, is that I’ve lost control of certain members of the outlaw motorcycle community. Rather than them paying me, Conlan is paying them.’

  ‘The Junkyard Dogs.’

  ‘Correct, and facilitated by Sam Mostel, Conlan’s accountant, now right-hand.’

  ‘You invited the Outlaw Mob over, to try and patch the Junkyard Dogs. Get back some kind of control.’

  Hogan looked surprised. ‘A desperate act. One that Heenan tells me you stymied with your interference. Jones. Over to you.’

  Jones nodded. ‘It’s Mr Greylands’ belief that the Conlan brothers’ business empire, both the bank and the companies, is a house of cards. The merest tap, and it will collapse. Taking your government with it, it looks like. What I need from you is the documentary evidence. I’ve tried to obtain it myself, by payment and blackmail, but no luck so far.’

  ‘When did this process begin?’

  ‘Late last year. Around the time Conlan started buying Handos stock.’

  The time the Grednics disappeared. Grednic was Conlan’s chief accountant, knew everything about the business. Swann looked to Hogan, who had a hand in the Grednics’ murder, at that point still working for Conlan. When Blake Tracker stole the Grednics’ Mercedes, Hogan lost the incriminating paperwork.

  ‘Carrot or the stick?’ Swann asked.

  Jones smiled. ‘That’s up to you. A sizeable retainer for your services, a significant bonus should you succeed. But if you don’t … the Conlans find out you were working for Accardi, your atomised friend. You have of course demonstrated today your willingness to avenge Accardi. What I’m offering you is a chance to do that, while getting paid. As if that weren’t incentive enough, I understand there exists evidence that you played a part in murdering an old rival, Trevor Dragic. And that this evidence is in our possession. And that ex-cops prefer not to serve life sentences, for the simple reason that they don’t get to serve them out.’

  The cold clarity in Jones’ eyes. The professional crime scene at Dragic’s farmhouse. It was Jones who’d killed Dragic. Because Dragic had killed the Grednics, together with Carter, or left the Mercedes there for Carter to collect.

  Dragic had been tortured, but had he broken? Swann knew Dragic better than Jones, better than Hogan. If Dragic had been tasked to kill the Grednics, collect the incriminating paperwork and hand it over to Hogan, there was little chance that he’d hand everything over. He’d keep something as insurance, and as a potential doublecross earner.

  There was the Grednics’ Mercedes and the materials in the boot, submerged for a year and likely ruined. There was Dragic’s farmhouse. There was Conlan’s bank vault.

  ‘How long have I got?’

  Hogan s
cuffed dust off his jacket. ‘Not long. The premier’s under the Conlans’ thumb. We know for a fact that they’re pressuring him to announce the Burswood tender in Exetar’s favour. We need something in case he goes early. If he doesn’t, we need something to demonstrate why he shouldn’t. Something that’ll destroy him if he does.’

  ‘You need to take down the Junkyard Dogs’ hierarchy. The men who sent the bomb.’

  Jones cracked his neck, glanced at Hogan, who hissed. ‘I’m not going to mourn a rat. But as chief of the CIB, one of my own getting murdered – that’s a case that’s going to be solved. Don’t you worry about the Junkyard Dogs, or Sam fucking Mostel. Those bastards broke ranks. They’re going to pay for that. An example will be made.’

  Swann turned, walked the track to the Statesman, felt their eyes on his neck, the target on his back. They were going to kill him the moment he was no use.

  45.

  Swann fishtailed off the dirt track onto the bitumen trail that ran through the park towards the city. Turned on the local radio, the talkback all about Terry Accardi’s murder; the speculation, the fallout, the loss of a promising detective. Rumours abounded, some of them unlikely and some of them moronic: ‘With a name like Accardi, he was probably working for the mafia, had a falling out.’

  Swann turned off the radio, hit the freeway north, turned onto Scarborough Beach Road and headed towards Wanneroo. The road out to the pine plantation was quiet and still as the heat built in the breezeless morning. He didn’t bother hiding the Statesman at the entrance to the market garden, but instead cut down the dirt trail raising a parachute of dust. The marijuana plants were vivid green and rising higher over the tomatoes, the row sprinklers still ticked over the heated earth. There was no car at the farmhouse, but two Doberman puppies roused themselves off the porch and looked at each other and looked at Swann and ran towards him on unsteady legs. They bumped his knees and licked his hand. Swann looked up for their owner, saw his silver hair and flannelette shirt behind the screen door, cradling a shotgun.

  Swann raised his hands, let the puppies lick his boots. Old man Dragic cracked the screen, slipped onto the porch, aimed the shotgun at Swann’s belly. The puppies looked at Dragic and whimpered, cowered towards him. Recognition in the old man’s eyes. Knew that Swann was the man who destroyed his son’s reputation, bankrupted him, made him desperate. He would know that Trevor wanted Swann dead, would assume that Swann had killed him.

  ‘The men who killed your son. They wanted something.’

  Dragic spat into the dirt. ‘You know who killed Trevor?’

  Swann shrugged, yes. ‘You know who I am. I’m not a murderer.’

  The old man grunted. ‘Every man is a judge, jury, executioner. Only fate decides when it’s time. Perhaps your time came. Perhaps now it’s my time.’

  Leaned forward to distribute his weight, prepare for the recoil.

  ‘The men who killed Trevor, they were looking for documents. He wouldn’t talk. They’re still here.’

  Speculation, speeded words, Dragic’s eyes watering like he was ready to burst. Then a switch as Swann’s words hit, the old man allowing himself to feel the pride, a remnant product of his fathering – the fact that Trevor hadn’t spilled. He nodded, relaxed his shoulders, brought in his front foot.

  Swann needed to keep Dragic talking. A sullen violence, product of grief and old-world pride, there on the surface. ‘You didn’t report his murder.’

  ‘I don’t report nothing to nobody. It happened here, it stays here. My revenge, when it comes, will be dealt here.’

  Swann had buried Dragic in the dirt not a few kilometres north, but he asked the old man, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘That, I don’t know. Where he is buried. But I found his dogs up there, in the bush, poisoned. So I buried instead his guns, his dogs, clothes and what you’re looking for. My boy, I teach him: take your secrets to your grave.’

  He turned, and Swann followed him through the house, which smelt of meat sauce and drying herbs, the puppies greeting them at the back door. Old man Dragic handed Swann a shovel, and he followed through the sheds past a vegetable plot to a stand of wattle; a Christmas tree beginning to flower; a child’s swing hanging from the bent back of an old paperbark. Beside the swing was a mound of turned earth. Knee prints in the soft earth, deep and numerous. Raindrop spatters on the grave, when it hadn’t rained for months. The old man, alone here at night, returning time and again, weeping over the empty grave of his only son. On top of the mound was a plastic cowboy rifle and black hat, pinned with a silver star. The puppies threaded Swann’s legs, began to nuzzle and dig.

  *

  Dennis Gould’s apartment was hot enough that the papers spread around the floor had begun to curl. He sat before Swann in his silk boxers and smoked a cigarette and scanned the ledger. The rolls of fat on his belly were beaded and silver lines of sweat trickled out of his hairline down his neck. Swann’s mind was elsewhere. On the radio had come the news of a riot inside Fremantle Prison, in B wing where Gerry Tracker was being held. The afternoon heat had broken forty-three degrees, and you could add ten degrees inside the old cells. Prisoners had bashed a guard and taken hostages. A fire had spread to the adjoining wings. Most of the prisoners were in the yard, in the baking sun, avoiding the flames. Squads of TRG troopers were getting ready to mount an assault. The premier was unavailable for comment.

  Gould grimaced and smoked and scratched himself, going down the lines of the balance sheets and bank statements and wire transfers without a hint of excitement. Swann hoped that there was something – the price for the ledger had been to give old man Dragic the names of Hogan and Jones. When Swann mentioned Trevor Dragic’s likely involvement in the Grednics’ murder he had shrugged, grunted, kept drinking his homemade wine.

  Gould closed the ledger, looked disappointed. ‘No smoking gun, I’m afraid. There are clear indications the Conlans have been using bottom-of-the-harbour tax schemes, but so has everybody else. And it’s difficult to prosecute. There’s evidence of asset-stripping between the listed companies, and of transferring large amounts to unnamed financial institutions, most likely offshore tax shelters, but that too is common and equally difficult to prosecute. All we’ve got here is clear evidence of juggling accounts, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul within the Conlan Empire. It’s enough to arouse suspicion that Exetar and Maitland Conlan’s other companies are struggling financially, but not enough to prove insolvency, failure to disclose and stock manipulation. Sorry, Frank.’

  ‘It’s alright. Dragic wouldn’t have known what to look for. A stab in the dark.’

  ‘I’ll keep them safe. If we get a broader picture, based on more detailed information, we can run with it.’

  The sun was setting, but no breeze blew from the coast. The darkness in the room seemed to magnify the heat. Swann passed Gould the bottle of Jameson and wiped the sweat off his forehead, his hands shaking with nerves, out of sync with the slow turning of the day, the quiet suburban lives around him. For Swann the world was turning faster.

  *

  He sat in the parliamentary carpark, the Statesman alongside the peach Commodore. The receiver in his hand scanned for wireless signals, of which there were many. The strongest signal was the most likely. He adjusted the dial on the receiver until the red hand on the meter touched the red shade that indicated a solid fix. A quick call to Norman Gorman after leaving Gould’s house had decided him. When Swann asked the blind telephonist whether he’d been listening to the premier’s phone calls Norman had sighed, yes, on occasions, but wished he hadn’t. He was only able to eavesdrop between taking and transferring other calls, and so only heard snippets. Asked to describe the premier’s state of mind, Norman had answered: agitated, furious, defensive. Norman didn’t know that the premier’s line was being bugged on his own instructions, so that Farrell would be careful about what he said, but Norman’s answer was helpful. The young policeman’s death, according to Norman, had invoked a slanging match with an older ma
n whose voice he didn’t recognise, all veiled threats and coded phrases that hinted at common interests and a close personal relationship turning sour.

  Swann locked the receiver onto the wireless signal, exited the Statesman and popped the boot of the Commodore. Whenever the premier’s line initiated the recording to the receiver inside Parliament House, that receiver would in turn trigger Swann’s receiver. Its batteries were fully charged, with six hours of tape ready on the spool. He locked the Commodore’s boot and returned to his car, cranked the ignition and cruised out of the darkened carpark towards the curling sulphur lights of the freeway.

  46.

  Des Foley parked the dirt bike in Shafto Lane, away from the eyes of the few drunks and street-people on Hay and Milligan. He was dressed like a dero, cap pulled low over his bearded face. There were a few people on Murray Street down towards the mall and a prowl car parked near Wolf Lane. He shuffled up the road in his heavy coat like any of the other derelicts headed towards Kings Park for the night. At the entrance to Conlan’s bank, Foley glanced inside to make sure no lights were on, walked to the end of the block past Fast Eddys and came back the other side of Wellington Street. He jumped a fence and climbed a wall, made his way through the shadows towards the bunker-like shape of Harrowgate Investment Bank, keeping out of range of the single security camera covering the rear doorway. The building behind Foley was a record store, only a blank wall with no windows. He tested the downpipe nearest the back; solid steel. It was thirty feet to the asbestos roof behind the salmon-brick fronting, no eaves. Pressure perpendicular to the drainpipe would rip it off, so he braced his feet and hands and made the first jump and shimmy, making sure his weight ran vertically down the pipe. The week hiding beneath old man Pickett’s house had drained his muscles and weakened his tendons, and so he climbed quicker than usual. It wasn’t far to fall, he told himself as he gripped the pipe with feet and hands, moving from fixing brace to fixing brace. He made the roofline and rolled over, sat with his back to the wall and took out his tools. He’d done a preliminary reconnaissance of the bank a couple of years previously, but had decided against hitting it, had gone for a savings branch instead. But it wasn’t cash on Foley’s mind tonight. The safety deposit box key in Mostel’s leather satchel was stamped Harrowgate, and whatever the box contained, it wouldn’t be Mostel’s wife’s jewellery. The frustration of waiting for the police and media attention to ebb away had only made him more determined. If he could get something incriminating on Mostel, shed some light on whatever scam he was running, then he could use that to destroy the man.