Old Scores

by Whish-Wilson, David;

  He was being positioned. A gunman riding pillion due anytime soon. He kept his speed up, wanting to draw the attention of a traffic cop, but there was no sign, he was on his own. He dialled Hogan, steered with one hand, dirt and gravel on his left side, still doing 140; one slip and he was in the trees. Hogan answered, terse, ready to launch a tirade, Swann telling him where he was headed, what Hogan needed to do if he wanted the Grednic papers. Another bike, single rider, black helmet and settling between lanes a hundred metres back, then another, moving at speed up the far right lane, boxing him in; further back, a black wedge of riders breaking left and right past the startled faces of drivers around him, rolling thunder, and there it was, not a Harley but a BMW, faster and more responsive, pillion passenger drawing out a sawn-off shotgun, taking aim, Swann ducking as the rear window blew, the back of his head ripped by glass and buckshot, only distance saving him, could feel the wind on the pulp and scalp and exposed skull; slammed on the brakes and swerved right, caught the bike’s front wheel and sent it toppling forward, airborne and the riders flying, arms wide like skydivers but landing on the tarmac, gone beneath the wheels of a truck and taxi. Swarming bikes, falling around him, Swann waiting until the last second before cutting a hard angle down the Manning Road exit, the centrifugal force crushing the breath out of him, the bike pack split, but there were four on his tail. He led them down the straight road, could see uncertainty in their actions, once or twice speeding to catch him then settling back, waiting for the others to regroup. He took the advantage, his plan to swing around onto Leach Highway, get some distance and lose them in the southern suburbs, put his foot down and hit 160, the Statesman lifting into the headwind. Swann glanced over his shoulder, was hit with a flash of blinding light and then he was gone, floating; a figure aflame in a black landscape, just wind and pain and flame and darkness; came to on the wrong side of the road, had crossed a median strip, felt behind his head and down his neck, exposed spine, pellets lodged there. A panic that started in his feet, a fear like no other. Fingers on bone and cartilage and lead, warm and slippery with blood. The Holden’s steering was awry, damaged by the smack of cement on sump at speed. Swann heard the bikes beside him, slammed on the handbrake and slid into a right-angle turn, trying to keep his head straight, the light-headedness and the panic lost in flashes of light, coming in and out, light and dark, life and death. Found himself on Stormie Farrell’s street, the swarm behind him, sirens too; drove up the dirt incline of Farrell’s drive and skidded, heard the smash of metal on metal, the shattering glass falling from a great distance.

  The sensation of ghost footsteps, of stepping through black water onto silver sand, quicksilver bubbles, the darkness clearing, a perimeter of flames, beyond that Stormie Farrell’s open front door. Swann looked down, saw the pistol in his hand, heard the bikes in the street. He staggered inside. Slammed the door shut. Entered the room off the hall, took a position by the window, shot it out, one bullet gone. A black leather shape framed by fire. Swann shot him, saw him fall. Black blurs down the side of the house; heard gunshots in the street, sirens. Dozens of shots; different calibres, the old .38, a semi-automatic rifle, shotgun blasts. He knelt, crawled, dragged himself down the hall to the kitchen. Pulled himself up on the sink, aimed a wavering hand up at the sky, felt himself falling. Slid to the ground. Gunshots. The ceiling a flashing canvas, everything haloed by flickering orange light. Silence. The back door edged open. Swann felt the dark presence but couldn’t raise his head. Tried to raise his hand but couldn’t. Paralysed. No pain. The earth beneath him, steady and heavy and him on its surface, looking out. A shadow. Hogan, leaning into his view, head haloed by angelic light. Dark angel. Look of great satisfaction.

  ‘Jones is dead, Swann. Your doing. And Carter arrested by the Feds, taken to a Fed facility I can’t get to. Your doing.’ Hogan cracked the chamber of his revolver. ‘I’ve just killed four men, to get to you first. That leaves two bullets. That’s a nice pool of blood around your head. Like one of those Russian … ikons. I’ll finish with your head. How about that? But first –’

  Swann felt his body jump, float, thought he’d keep floating, but no. Nothing. No pain. Just the weight. Hogan laughed. ‘I see your spine is fucked Swann. I just shot you in the stomach.’

  Hogan smiled, leaned closer. Last rites. Death whisper. ‘I could ask you where Grednic’s files are. But I know. I’ll find Gould. Which leaves the coup de grâce. Pity you won’t feel it. I’m not going to waste an opportunity like this. Blame it on the road warriors outside. It’s been a long time coming.’

  Swann didn’t close his eyes. He looked down the barrel, the dark bore-hole, past it to Hogan’s haloed face. Hogan was waiting for something. Swann gave it to him, channelled the flame and the darkness into his eyes, flung it upwards. Hogan burst in a wave of blood, his face and torso erased in a moment of terrible sound, meat-spatter against the wall beside, and then the falling red mist, the legs falling across Swann’s legs, the ringing in Swann’s ears and then the sound of dripping blood.

  Stormie Farrell leaned over him, shotgun smoking.

  49.

  Swann asked to be sat, so he could see. The brace on his neck meant he couldn’t turn his head. Feeling had returned to his hands and feet. He clenched his hands and wiggled his toes, just to make sure. It was the gunshot to his stomach that had nearly proved fatal. The bullet had penetrated his bowel and shattered his hip. Galloping sepsis had set in, his vital organs shutting down even as the surgeons operated. His heart had stopped at one point. They had nearly given up.

  All of this told to him by Marion and his daughters. When he came round his hands and his feet were held, but he couldn’t feel them. Teardrops on his lips when they had kissed him. He too had cried, for them. For what he had done.

  Now he sat and looked out of the Mount Hospital window down the Esplanade to Burswood, listened to the Federal copper describe Terry Accardi’s last piece of evidence, the finding that got the environmental scientist killed. Examining his random samples of the Burswood site under a microscope, the scientist had noticed that the soil was similar to the soil taken from the Exetar building site in East Perth. Then he had looked closer. The samples were not just similar, but identical. In expectation of securing the Burswood tender for Exetar, Maitland Conlan had been trucking the contaminated soil from East Perth out to a disused quarry on the edge of the city, then turning the trucks around and sending them back to the inner-city Burswood site, the toxic soil used as infill. The low floodplain soil was now too contaminated to use as the premier intended, as a mixed-use low cost residential housing development. Too contaminated now even for a golf course or park. According to the Federal copper, Burswood was now intended to be the site of a giant casino, precisely as the Conlans had always planned.

  Not that they would get to enjoy the fruits of their scam. When Dennis Gould passed on the Grednic papers, soon followed by Mostel’s signed confession, to investigative journalists at the Daily News, the West Australian and the Sunday Times, the breaking news had sparked a stockmarket panic, and a run on Harrowgate. The premier had moved to pump one hundred million dollars of taxpayer money into the bank, allowing the Catholic Church and other friends to get their money out, but that only delayed the inevitable. Harrowgate went under within days, soon followed by Exetar and all of the Conlan subsidiaries across three different continents. Grim Greylands had his victory, and was there to pick over the remains, buying them up at bargain prices from the receiver who delivered money back to the banks the Conlans owed. Greylands withdrew from the Burswood tender after Jones’ death at the hands of old man Dragic, although his body was never found. The threat of the federal police investigation into Accardi’s murder spread into Ben Hogan’s role as Greylands’ flunky, which saw the British tycoon withdraw at speed. The premier had survived so far, but there were calls for his resignation, to stave off the royal commission that the media and others were demanding. As Stormie Farrell predicted, his son had swum with the shar
ks and been eaten alive. Government patronage of men like the Conlans was as old as the state itself, but the mask had slipped, and the face behind wasn’t pretty.

  Swann ceased his dictation. It was all there. Amended only in the writing to give Accardi the credit. His investigation on the Feds’ behalf, his death a result of a Fed leak, his forthcoming medal in recognition of his service. No comfort to anyone except Swann, and the man who stood next to him, straightening his uniform jacket, adjusting his officer’s cap. Accardi’s funeral was due to start in half an hour. It wouldn’t be well attended. Marion and his daughters would be there, some of the neighbourhood people, a few Fed representatives. A couple of reluctant CIB superiors, no replacement for Hogan having been found. Hogan’s own funeral, a hero murdered by bikie thugs, sponsored by the state, held in St George’s Cathedral, a cortege across the city to Karrakatta. The federal investigation into Hogan’s role in the Grednics’ murder continuing. Hogan had been working for the Conlans at that point. Both brothers were still free, for the time being. The bikies who’d planted the Accardi bomb presumed killed in the shootout at Stormie Farrell’s house. Omitted from his account the role that Des Foley, old man Dragic and Blake Tracker had played in securing the vital evidence. Foley was still Australia’s most wanted, but Gerry’s charge had been dropped, and Blake’s conviction annulled.

  Swann shook the policeman’s hand, and the press of his fingers felt good. The shotgun pellet that lodged in his spine had nicked the spinal column. There would be ongoing consequences, although it was presumed nothing serious. A secondary injury to the area could be catastrophic, however. He had been lucky, and soon he would be able to walk again. Walk on the beach beside Marion, the sun on his face, the wet sand beneath his feet. The good life, the life he had always wanted, the life he had always known.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is coincidental.

  I owe a debt to my first readers – Mark Constable, Sean Gorman, Andrew Nette, Dave Honeybone and Kerri Guardia. Thanks to Lyn Tranter, my agent, and Michael Robotham for his recent advice. To Peter Whish-Wilson for the financial background, and to fellow crime writer Alan Carter for our regular chats in the pub. To Fremantle Press for taking this on, and in particular my editor Georgia Richter, and publicist Claire Miller. It’s been a pleasure.

  And for Bella, love and gratitude always.

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  First published 2016 by

  FREMANTLE PRESS

  25 Quarry Street, Fremantle WA 6160

  (PO Box 158, North Fremantle WA 6159)

  www.fremantlepress.com.au

  Copyright © David Whish-Wilson, 2016

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Consultant editor Georgia Richter

  Cover design Nada Backovic

  Cover photograph Phil Melling; background image Shutterstock.

  Printed by Everbest Printing Company, China

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Whish-Wilson, David, author.

  Old scores / David Whish-Wilson.

  ISBN: 9781925164138 (epub)

  Subjects: Private investigators — Western Australia — Fiction.

  Political corruption — Western Australia — Fiction.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  Fremantle Press is supported by the State Government through the Department of Culture and the Arts.