A Dark Place to Die

by Ed Chatterton

  After a pause, Eckhardt continues. 'Thanks. I believe I may have something of interest for you blokes.'

  'And the non-blokes,' puts in Harris.

  'It might be morning where you are,' says Eckhardt, blithely ignoring the barb from DI Harris. 'Down here it's too bloody late to be working, blokes and non-blokes, both. But this might just be worth waiting up for.'

  There is an audible rustle of paper over the speakers.

  'We have, or had, one Steven Brendan White, aged thirty-four. Height one hundred and eighty-one centimetres, approximate weight ninety kilos. These measurements were taken at his last arrest.'

  Harris looks at Keane and raises her eyebrows. There's a tangible increase in the atmosphere inside the incident room at the mention of an arrest. An arrest means paperwork. Facts. The lifeblood of any investigation.

  'Yes, this boy's got form,' says Eckhardt as if he's seen their reaction. 'If he's your body. Quite a bit of form too. He's a "known associate" of several of our leading Melbourne businessmen, although that's a long way outside my patch. I got that from his arrest sheet and from a call I put in to a friend of mine down there. White moved up here to banana-bender land – that's Queensland to you – four years ago. I'll email the details I have, but you'll need to speak to the Melbourne guys for older information on White's activities.'

  'Any distinguishing features?' says Keane.

  Eckhardt pauses – for dramatic effect, Keane is sure.

  'Well, that might be the clincher, DI Keane,' says Eckhardt. 'Stevie's a big Saints fan.'

  'Saints?' says Keane.

  'St Kilda, DI Keane. One of our glorious footy clubs. I believe your man has a tattoo that matches?'

  'Looks good,' says Keane. 'Anything else?'

  'Quite a lot, now you ask. Steven White left Australia via Brisbane on October seventh flying on Qantas, as all true blue Aussies do. According to the flight manifest he went straight through to London, arriving on October the eighth. He travelled on a British passport issued only recently through the British Embassy immigration department in Canberra.'

  'He's a Brit?' Keane can't keep the surprise out of his voice.

  'Only just,' says Eckhardt. 'According to the records I've managed to collect, Stevie was born in the UK in 1975. In your town too, DI Keane. He's one of your own.'

  'A Scouser?' says DC Rose.

  'I don't know,' says Eckhardt. 'What's a Scouser?'

  'Someone from Liverpool,' says Keane.

  A dry chuckle comes down the line. 'It looks like Stevie came home to die,' says Eckhardt. 'Not that I imagine he expected to.'

  'Thanks very much, DSS Eckhardt,' says Keane. 'You've been very helpful. Very helpful. I think we'll be talking again.'

  'No problem. Always a pleasure when it all lands on someone else's plate, eh? Oh, and one more thing –'

  'Yes?'

  'His real father's name wasn't White. It was Koopman.'

  14

  After Sullivan and his taciturn partner have left, Zoe kisses Koop on the side of his head and tactfully withdraws to her studio.

  Koop grabs a bottle from the fridge and pours himself a large glass of white wine. He drinks half standing at the kitchen counter and refills the glass. Ringo padding along behind him, he takes it out into the garden and walks down the rough path to the fig tree. On the side of the tree furthest from the house the land runs down towards the creek and Koop can see the hinterland rolling away into the distance, with Mt Warning just poking its sharp beak above the skyline.

  It is a lovely, glorious spot.

  Koop has put an old double car seat there, its back to the great trunk of the tree. Zoe keeps pestering him to replace it with something more in harmony with its surroundings but, the longer the seat is there, the more resistant Koop is to the idea of getting rid of it. He settles back into its sagging embrace and reflects that, in this case, Zoe is wrong.

  That's the trouble with designers; they always want things to be tasteful. Koop prefers them to be real. This old car seat had been lying in the shed on the property when they'd moved in. As far as Koop is concerned it has more right to be here than he does.

  Besides which it's bloody comfortable.

  Koop takes a pull on the wine and lies back. Ringo flops heavily to the ground and drops his head onto a patch of grass, leaving Koop to try the impossible and organise his thoughts.

  Stevie is dead.

  Koop, like most cops, has developed an ad hoc system of compartmentalising his emotions. It's a survival tactic which no policeman on earth could manage without. Like coral building and hardening, the years bring new layers of protection. You couldn't see the things he'd seen without that distance, that crust. The trouble is, when something like this comes along, that same protection also becomes a problem. Menno Koopman is not, he feels, an unsympathetic or cold man. Far from it. Despite his Dutch antecedents he is, if anything, somewhat hot-blooded, more Mediterranean than North Sea. But this one has him foxed.

  Stevie is – was – his son. A son he'd never been a father to. Stevie may never even have known Koop existed. A son who, from what Koop had pieced together, had not chosen the high road. A son who had met a grisly end in, of all cities, his birthplace. A son who Koop has thought of through the years. He should be feeling the loss yet there is nothing from the heart and this pains him almost as much as the news about Sharon and Stevie.

  The sun is low now and mosquitoes begin to find their target. Koop, wearing his usual jeans, boots and a long-sleeved shirt he'd pulled on over his t-shirt, doesn't notice. A dull anger is beginning to build as he starts assessing what he knows about Stevie's death. Sullivan had said the Brits might need some DNA from Koop at some stage to confirm identification. This was because Stevie had been burnt.

  Possibly, Sullivan had hinted, while alive. It had been a vicious and violent end for his own flesh and blood.

  Koop had seen Stevie once. In 1975, shortly before Sharon's family emigrated, he'd waited for her to leave the terraced house and take the new-born baby for a walk. Koop had stopped her in Stanley Park and looked at his son for the only time. There had been conversation but nothing heated, at least nothing that Koop could recall now across a distance of thirty-four years.

  It is the image of Stevie's head, his eyes closed as he slept that crisp Liverpool morning that lodges in Koop's mind. Stevie with his life in front of him, no pathway set, no problems. Innocent. And now someone, someone in Koop's old patch, has taken the trouble to kill him. Koop finds it difficult to examine his emotional response, but there is nothing complex about the conclusion he reaches under the fig tree.

  Someone is going to pay.

  15

  The girl's peach-perfect buttocks rotate in front of Stevie's face, the UV black light lending her skin an erotic blue-white sheen.

  She is very good.

  Pale-skinned, dark-haired, and looking a little more elegant than most of the other dancers, she speaks with an accent Stevie doesn't recognise. Some sort of Eastern European thing. He doesn't care. Kite is treating him well, showing him a good time and Stevie knows that the dancing is just a preamble if he decides he wants the girl. She's on offer, as much a part of Kite's hospitality as his room at the hotel, or the French fizz bubbling in his glass. A perk.

  The girl turns and straddles Stevie's thighs.

  'You have fantastic body,' she whispers. She breathes into his ear. 'Most people I dance for not in so good shape. I want you, yes?'

  Stevie doesn't know if it's part of her act. Quite frankly he doesn't give a shit. He's been around strippers and dancers and hookers for so long that he knows it's all bullshit and that it doesn't matter. When they are as good as this chick, it's best to just lie back and enjoy the moment.

  Kite, a head-turning blonde gyrating on his thigh, raises a glass to Stevie who returns the gesture.

  'Not too fucking shabby, Mr White, eh?' says Kite. 'How are you liking Liverpool?'

  Stevie smiles. He's liking Liverpool just fine
. Kite is right. This is very far from shabby. The trip is turning out to be better than Stevie could have imagined. The Liverpool of his imagination, in so far as he'd ever thought of the place, was formed by half-digested, out-of-date TV shows broadcast in Australia. England, they told the viewers, was either a land of upper-class types punting on rivers in Oxford, or it was feral football hooligans stabbing one another before returning to their filthy terraced slums to eat black pudding and spotted dick and other unimaginably foul 'food'.

  That indoctrination hasn't prepared him for modern-day Liverpool.

  Granted he is being given the five-star treatment, but from what he's seen of the place it looks like somewhere he could spend some time. The weather is shithouse, that's a given, but then St Kilda in winter is nothing to boast about. The thing that Stevie has noticed – the thing that is really getting his attention – is the money. He'd been told this place was something close to a ghetto. Instead, and despite the economic gloom enveloping the country like a shroud, he finds Porsche dealerships at the dock front, upscale apartment blocks on the market for millions. Wine bars are on every corner, populated by sharply dressed drinkers. He's been driven past funky buildings lit up like art objects.

  And of course there are the drugs.

  Over a lunchtime steak at a waterfront restaurant at the Albert Dock, Kite had begun filling Stevie in on the deal; the deal that Stevie is there to claim a piece of on behalf of Jimmy Gelagotis. The deal that Stevie already knows too much about.

  'You know the quantity, Mr White,' Kite had said. 'Eight hundred kilos. Straight from Bogota via Gdansk and then on to your neck of the woods courtesy of The Russian's connections. Eighty million plus. That's pounds by the way, none of your Australian kangaroo dollar shit.'

  Stevie already knows how much the deal is worth. He's been part of Jimmy's operations for long enough to have a comprehensive knowledge of the street value of a smorgasbord of narcotics. And Kolomiets had been relying on Jimmy's connections to disperse the stuff across Australia and over to New Zealand. It's a big shipment, perhaps the biggest ever in that part of the world, and it had proven too much of a temptation for Jimmy Gelagotis. Now, with each passing minute Stevie's in Liverpool, Kite is getting closer to talking about the nub of the problem.

  Kolomiets.

  The Russian is dead and it is Stevie's boss who killed him. That, Stevie thinks, is the tricky bit. And it had all been avoidable.

  You could almost say it had been Macksym Kolomiets's doing. Like always, greed was to blame.

  Max had told Gelagotis that, due to the size of the load, Jimmy's percentage would be lower. He wanted to go to a fixed price on this deal; a new way of doing business. New to his relationship with Jimmy Gelagotis, that is.

  The way Max saw it, Jimmy would still be making an obscene amount of money so what was the problem? It was a miscalculation that had cost The Russian his life. When Jimmy had informed Stevie that it would be they, and not Kolomiets, who would be stepping in to take over the whole deal, not just becoming the distributor, it had sounded feasible, sensible even. 'Just go over there and tell the Pommy fucks that they have a new partner. They'll play ball. They'll adjust. They have to, otherwise that shipment will never reach the customers. Max shouldn't have underestimated me, Stevie. Never forget who's coming up behind you.'

  In Liverpool, Stevie is starting to see things from a different angle.

  For one thing, Kite is unpredictable. You don't get to be crowned the 'King' and play ball with the Colombians and the IRA without having serious history behind you, not to mention a giant set of titanium testicles.

  Keith Kite doesn't look like much: small, stocky, with the doughy features common to the Irish ancestry of much of the city. He's been scrubbed up, hair sharp, clothes tailored, and he carries an aura of power with him as tangible as the smell of his expensive aftershave.

  Despite this, nothing quite manages to mask his animalistic nature and Stevie suspects that is exactly how Kite likes it. His mouth has a tiny upturn at each side of the sort that Stevie associates with those who enjoyed inflicting pain and humiliation. It reminds Stevie of Heath Ledger in that Batman flick. If he had to pick one word to describe Kite it would have been 'evil'. The fucker is straight out evil.

  So Stevie is somewhat relieved that Kite seems to be in no hurry to cut to the chase. The more time that passes before the ticklish subject of Max Kolomiets comes up, the better, as far as Stevie White is concerned. In the meantime, enjoy the little tour Kite is putting on. Lunch at the docks, an afternoon at the lap dancing club owned by Kite. Earlier, while driving in Kite's Bentley, Kite ostentatiously flags down a police car to ask directions, letting Stevie see the grudgingly respectful way the coppers speak to him through the window of the car.

  'Unlike you to be lost, Mr Kite,' the cop says dryly, tapping a finger against the peak of his cap in an approximation of a salute. 'You be careful around here, the place is full of rough types.'

  Kite drives away, he and the Halligan brothers laughing harshly. The city is his and he knows it. Wants me to know it too, reflects Stevie.

  Kite is turning his drug empire into a legitimate one, brick by brick. Bars, hotels, garages, development, development, development. Security companies, the doorman controlling distribution. A shipping company, one he'd used over the years to transport drugs, is now wholly owned by a front company run by Kite. He is making more through legitimate means than through narcotics. But the margins remain so huge in drugs that Kite won't stop.

  By the time evening comes, it's all starting to make Stevie feel like a junior grade footy player making his debut in the grand final.

  The dark-haired dancer is very good in bed. Skilled in a way that makes Stevie forget she has been paid for. At the hotel, he fucks her lying across a white grand piano and almost laughs out loud at the theatricality of it all. She kisses him goodbye with such a good impersonation of a lover that he forgets, for a time, she is a whore. Kite has also laid on some spectacular blow and Stevie, his system buzzing in the way that a jolt of primo marching powder always brings, steps out for dinner with a swagger in his stride. He suppresses the troubling thought that Kite is ready to talk about the shipment.

  Kite has reserved a private room at one of the new breed of gourmet places imported into the city in recent, confident, years. It sits near the crest of the high ground overlooking the city, between the two cathedrals. The food is better than any Stevie has ever tasted, but is a little fancy for him, and he never feels hungry on coke. Kite shovels it down with every sign of enjoyment. The table is a small one, with only three of Kite's closest team in attendance: Declan North, along with Matty and Dean Halligan, two of the infamous and labyrinthine Huyton Halligan family who have been heavily involved in the Liverpool drug operation for as long as anyone can remember. None of them speak much during the meal, which does little to settle Stevie's nerves. Outside the restaurant, Sean Bourke waits patiently as instructed.

  After the waiter brings them brandies, Kite leans forward and, without Stevie quite knowing how, the atmosphere in the room cools perceptibly. Here it comes, Stevie thinks and tries to look calmer than he feels.

  'Mr White, we've been very hospitable today, I think you'll agree?' Kite says, his mouth turned up in an imitation of a smile, a row of sharp teeth revealed. 'Now I think it's time to tell us what you're here for. Something to do with our upcoming Australian venture, I imagine.'

  Stevie glances at the four faces around the table who gaze back at him blankly. Kite gives an encouraging nod.

  'Jimmy,' says Stevie, his voice higher than he would have liked. 'Jimmy sent me, Mr Kite. Jimmy Gelagotis?'

  'I know who Gelagotis is.'

  OK, Stevie, man the fuck up and tell the Pommy cunts. He takes a deep breath and forces the words to come out calmly, with authority.

  'Jimmy's taking over the Australian end.'

  Kite stares at Stevie. He sits back and folds his arms across his impeccable suit.

  'Is
he now?'

  Stevie nods. He keeps his face neutral.

  'And how, exactly, is Jimmy going to do that? I'm in business with my good friend Max Kolomiets. That's who the deal is in place with.'

  'The Russian's dead.' It comes out quicker than Stevie intends. Fuck it. The Pommy cunt has to find out sometime. With the words said, Stevie feels the worst is over.

  Kite looks at North and then back at Stevie, letting the silence develop. Stevie is conscious of the clatter and chatter of the other diners in the restaurant. When Kite speaks again, his eyes have dulled and Stevie feels his sphincter clench. He looks at the man across the table and he knows, as sure as he knows his own name, that the whole deal has fallen apart.

  'Hear that, Mr North?' murmurs Kite, his flat eyes never leaving Stevie's face. 'Mr White here tells me that The Russian is dead.'

  North purses his lips. 'That is very disturbing news, Mr Kite,' his Irish accent soft, his face hard.

  'Fucking heart attack, was it?' says Kite, his voice suddenly choked with venom, his face flooded with blood and fury. He leans forward until he is right in Stevie's space, spittle flying from Kite's mouth as he hisses out the words in a low undertone. 'Stroke? Fell under a bus? Clobbered by a rogue fucking kangaroo?'

  The change is savage and, even though Stevie has been expecting a reaction, takes him aback. Dean and Matty Halligan haven't moved. North looks slightly bored.

  Stevie opens his mouth but Kite holds up a hand and speaks rapidly, his voice lowered so that no-one nearby can overhear. More disturbingly, he plasters a sickly smile in place and his colour returns to normal. Stevie almost thinks he prefers the angry Kite.

  'Not a fucking word, you out-of-your-depth and out-of-place motherfucking Australian cunt. Max Kolomiets was my boy, you understand? Mine. Not Jimmy fucking Gellygallopipa-fucking-opolis, or whatever the fuck that Greek twat is called, mine! He is mine to dispose of or not dispose of, as I please, not some jumped-up olive-stuffer!'

  Kite's eyes are glowing. 'That's the fucking problem with the fucking world today: too many fucking incomers, poking their fucking noses in what is none of their fucking business! If it's not fucking Greeks, it's Polacks, or Latvians, or fucking Somalis, or some other greasy black bastard wop fuck convict cunt trying to grab a slice of someone else's hard-won money. In this case, my fucking money. It's ungentlemanly, that's what it is. It's a fucking liberty, my son. A. Fucking. Liberty.'