A Dark Place to Die

by Ed Chatterton

  'We ready?' Reader gestures towards a door leading to the interview room. Koop gets slowly to his feet and follows the OCS officer, Moresby bringing up the rear.

  At the door to the corridor Koop stops and looks at Keane.

  'You know this is bullshit, right, Frank?'

  Keane holds out his arms in a gesture of impotence. 'It doesn't look great, Koop. You have to see that.'

  'That's enough,' snaps Perch. 'This is your fuck-up, DI Keane. Don't make it worse.'

  Em Harris sees the colour rise in Keane's neck but he remains silent. As does she.

  Keane moves towards the corridor, in the direction Koop has been taken.

  'Where are you going, DI Keane?' Perch's voice is ice. He turns to Harris. 'You sit in with the OCS interview, DI Harris. It's their case now, I know, but there's overlap and I want you there as the MIT rep. Keane, you're out. Your relationship with Koopman prejudices you. Not to mention the sloppy work concerning Koopman's brother.'

  Harris hesitates and Keane catches her eye. Perch's crack about Carl Koopman slipping through MIT's checklist has hit home. The fact that it was Harris's responsibility as much as Keane's was neither here nor there, and both of them know it. Keane isn't going to bleat about the mistake: he's ready to accept the blame. The question now is which way Emily Harris will jump. Technically, as one of Perch's junior officers, she should do exactly what he wants. The question is: will Harris make any sign of her loyalty to Keane? No matter how small, an indication that she's on Keane's side is there to be made.

  'You coming?' says Moresby. He's holding the door to the corridor, feeling uncomfortable. This is typical Perch; making public something that should have been said in private. Moresby looks at Emily Harris and raises his eyebrows. She brushes past Frank Keane without a word, her eyes fixed ahead.

  Keane nods to himself as though something has been confirmed. At the corridor Moresby purses his lips, studiously avoiding Keane, and closes the door behind them.

  Keane looks at Perch.

  'Will you be needing me here today?' he says, the words thick in his mouth. 'Sir?' If Perch so much as smiles I'm going to clock the bastard, he thinks.

  The Fish shakes his head, his eyes never looking in Keane's direction.

  'You can get on with something else. I'll wait for Harris to update me on Koopman. Both of them.' Perch pushes through into the main office leaving Keane in the foyer. The booking officer raises an eyebrow and Keane kicks a wastebasket into the opposite wall. He holds out a finger to the booking officer.

  'Not. A. Fucking. Word.' He takes out his car keys and slams through the street doors back into the city.

  49

  The boy is back at school. Jimmy Gelagotis knows his name by now – Mitch Barnes – but prefers to still think of him as simply 'the boy'. It will make it easier when the time comes. Jimmy has always had that facility to put his feelings in a neat box and move it to a compartment of his mind to be dealt with later, if at all. His own son is around Mitch Barnes's age and the thought of anyone harming Chris makes Jimmy feel sick to his stomach. But, in business, as in war, sometimes difficult decisions have to be made. And since the business Jimmy Gelagotis is in combines both, he doesn't have a choice.

  The boy has to go.

  Once it's decided, it's as good as done. Back when Jimmy was in tenth grade and already too familiar with the workings of the justice system, a court-appointed psychiatrist described him as a 'classic sociopath'. Jimmy found out what the phrase meant and wanted to kill the psychiatrist. He tried to, in a sort of ham-fisted adolescent way, by attempting to follow the man home from his clinic. He lost the man soon after and later was glad about the way it turned out. As time passed, Jimmy grew less concerned about killing for perceived slights. It was a much more effective use of his skills to use violence when it proved useful. Besides, the shrink was right on the money, Jimmy decided. He was a motherfucking sociopath. So what? Wasn't every successful businessman?

  It's nearing seven in the evening by the time Jimmy Gelagotis turns into the road where Mitch Barnes lives. He drives slowly past the house whose number Todd has given him. He doesn't stop, driving instead to the T-junction and making a left. A second left brings him along a road which borders a rising patch of undeveloped scrub. Jimmy pulls the car off the road under a thick tangle of tree branches. The shadow renders Jimmy and the car invisible. He takes out his iPhone and clicks the GPS map application, taps in the boy's address and sets the view to satellite. A clear image of the road comes onscreen and Jimmy zooms out to gain an understanding of the terrain. The scrub to his left rises up to a small ridge before rolling down towards the back of a retail park. On the GPS Jimmy can see the rectangles of trucks nuzzling up against the rear of the shops like suckling pups. A vast car park runs around three sides of the retail complex. That will be useful.

  Jimmy slides the car from the shadows back onto the road and turns the corner. With the shops closed for the night, the complex and its car park are empty. Jimmy drives to the furthest point from the main road and stops the car in the shadows of some trees backing onto the scrub. He unclips his seatbelt and reaches inside his jacket for his phone which he places face down on the dash in front of him. From a glass vial in the glovebox Jimmy shakes out a small mound of white powder onto the back of the iPhone. Using the side of a credit card, he smoothly chops the coke into two neat deliberate lines. With a rolled five-dollar note he bends over the powder and snorts the lines one after the other. He throws his head back and sniffs wetly. As the effect kicks in, Jimmy coughs before licking a finger and wiping the remaining coke from the phone. He runs a finger around his gums before replacing the phone in his jacket pocket.

  Let's get this fucking party started.

  Jimmy Gelagotis checks the area but it's deserted. He steps from the car and closes the door quietly behind him. It's a blustery evening and Jimmy walks a few paces along the nature strip at the edge of the car park before spotting a small gap in the waving brush. He pushes through and stands in almost complete darkness. Jimmy waits for fully five minutes as his eyes adjust, the trees roaring above his head. Eventually he finds he can see well enough to navigate his way towards the top of the small rise. At first his progress is slow as he trips over stray branches or stumbles on loose gravel. Once or twice he jerks as spider webs are blown against his face and Jimmy furiously thrashes his head, images of spiders landing in his hair. Gradually, though, as his vision improves, he grows more confident and within ten minutes of leaving the car finds himself looking at the back of Mitch Barnes's house. A security light comes on and off again at intervals, triggered by the movement of branches in the wind. A bonus; no-one will respond to the security light coming on if it's been doing the same all night.

  Jimmy settles back against the base of a tree to wait. Most people in his line of business, he'd observed, tended to rush straight into things and the temptation to do what he's come here to do and leave, quickly, is almost overpowering. But he stays, checking his watch at ever-increasing intervals. The wind picks up in intensity making his task much easier. No-one will be out on the hillside on a night like this and the wind renders any sound he might make inaudible.

  After almost an hour, Jimmy hits the jackpot. A light comes on in a downstairs room only partly concealed by badly drawn blinds, and a boy walks in, illuminated as clearly as if onstage. He wears a pair of shorts and a baggy t-shirt. He gets into bed and lies down, a surf magazine in his hand.

  Jimmy straightens. It looks very like the boy on the soccer field but he isn't completely sure. Jimmy moves closer to the edge of the back fence and, careful to leave his face in shadow, examines the boy more closely. He tries to recall the night of the shooting and there it is in front of him. The blood spraying up and out of Kolomiets as the bullets hit, the drops spattering the face of a white-skinned, dark-haired boy with wide eyes.

  It's him.

  A middle-aged woman, clearly the boy's mother, comes into the room and perches awkwardl
y on the edge of the bed. She ruffles his hair, and sits with him for a short time until, after a few words, she leaves. The boy flicks the magazine half-heartedly before turning off the bedside lamp, the room still illuminated by a bar of light coming in through the partially open bedroom door.

  Fifteen minutes later Jimmy checks his gun and climbs the fence in one easy movement. The yard is in darkness but, as he comes within range, the security lamps flood him in harsh white light. As he expects, no-one in the house notices. They might investigate if the light stays on for a long time but Jimmy won't be here long. What he's here for will only take a few seconds.

  Jimmy comes to within four paces of the sleeping boy and levels the barrel of the Sig Sauer at his head. At that precise moment, Mitch Barnes opens his eyes and looks directly at Jimmy Gelagotis standing in much the same pose as the last time he saw him.

  Jimmy's finger, tight against the trigger, freezes momentarily. He stares at Mitch Barnes who seems unable or unwilling to move. Jimmy steels himself and takes careful aim.

  A sharp crack cuts through the thrashing of the wind. The front of Jimmy Gelagotis's head disappears and a crimson arc splashes against the bedroom window. Through the glass Mitch Barnes looks at Gelagotis lying in the garden, a low decorative wall keeping his body cantilevered awkwardly. His left leg jerks spastically and then Gelagotis remains completely still, his blood beginning to run in lines down the glass.

  Thirty metres away, invisible in the crook of a fig tree, Declan North places his rifle inside its leather carrying case and drops lightly to the ground. He sets off back up the rise, as behind him Mitch Barnes finally begins to scream. North moves purposefully.

  There are things to do.

  50

  Before the interview Koop calls Zoe. It isn't something he's been looking forward to. Moresby takes him into a small office, places a phone in front of him and leaves. Koop has no doubt he'll be listening in on an extension.

  'Koop?' Zoe's voice, half-asleep, sounds older. 'What is it? Are you alright?'

  'I'm fine, there's nothing to worry about,' he says hurriedly, conscious of how stupid a statement that will turn out to be once Zoe hears what he has to say. Koop is sure there are women somewhere who would react calmly to being woken with the news that their husband is being held on suspicion of the murder of an international drug dealer, but Zoe, he strongly suspects, won't be one of them.

  'Give me a minute,' she says. He hears her put her hand over the speaker and talk to someone in a muffled tone. Mel must be staying. When Zoe comes back on to the line she sounds alert.

  'I'm in the kitchen,' she says. 'What's up?'

  Koop tells her. Her reaction isn't any better than he imagined it would be.

  'You stupid, stupid, stupid bastard!'

  There's a whole lot more like this during which Koop realises Mel must have come into the kitchen. He can hear Zoe repeating his words to her in tones of incredulity.

  'I'm coming over,' Zoe says in a firm tone.

  'Don't be ridiculous.' Koop winces at the blast down the phone. It's the wrong thing to say and it takes another minute or two to calm her down.

  'This won't stick,' he says, his voice sounding like his old policeman self. As he says it, his spirits rise with the realisation that it's true. Modern policing stuffs up from time to time but not on things like this, not any more. Forensics will show no traces of Kite on him. The path report would demonstrate a time problem. There will be physical evidence – or lack of – which will take him out of the loop. For all he knows the CCTV at the hospital alone will be enough to get him off the hook. Motive would only carry the case so far before it ran out of steam.

  Zoe isn't convinced. At one point she swears at him and Mel picks up the phone. In the background he can hear banging and crashing noises.

  'She's really mad, Koop. She's broken a couple of things.'

  'I got that, Mel. Listen, don't let her do anything silly like coming out here. There's really no need. It's all a bit of a misunderstanding. I'll be coming back as soon as all this gets sorted.'

  Moresby pokes his head around the door and points at his watch. Koop nods.

  'You know what she's like, Koop,' says Mel. 'And it does sound bad from this perspective.'

  'It sounds worse than it is.'

  'Well, I'll do what I can. That's all I can say. Do you have somewhere we can reach you?'

  Koop gives her the Stanley Road number.

  'What about a lawyer?' says Mel.

  'We're not at that stage yet,' replies Koop, although he's far from sure that's the case. 'If I do, there are a couple of good ones I know from way back.'

  'She got the GOMA gig,' says Mel.

  Shit, thinks Koop. I never asked.

  There's a short silence. Moresby comes into the room and stands at the door. Koop holds up an apologetic hand.

  'I've got to go. Look after her, Mel.'

  'I'll try, pervert. Bye.'

  'Bye, slut.' Koop hangs up and Moresby raises a quizzical brow.

  'Slut?'

  'Long story.'

  Without offering any further explanation, Koop follows Moresby back down the corridor and into Interview Room 3. His conversation with Zoe has been unsettling from a personal point of view but Koop feels strangely invincible as he takes his seat. Reader and Moresby sit across the table from him, with Em Harris at the end. Koop glances at her as he sits.

  'Gone over to the dark side?'

  Harris looks at him coldly but Koop sees the colour rise at the base of her throat.

  'Perch must be making it worthwhile,' he says. 'Frank's a good copper. I hope you know what you're doing.'

  'Can we start?' says Harris, looking at Koop, but talking to Ian Moresby.

  'Good idea, love,' says Moresby. He flicks an eye towards Koop who registers the none-too-subtle put-down. Harris doesn't react. Reader presses the start button on the data recorder and gives the details of those present in a quick monotone.

  'Did you kill Keith Kite?' says Reader.

  'Straight into it?' says Koop. 'OK, that's fine. No, I did not kill Keith Kite.'

  'He was found in your room.'

  'Is that a question?' says Koop.

  'Perhaps you'd like to comment?' offers Moresby.

  'Yes, he was found in my room. That would be the first thing that's wrong with this. Come on, Ian. Think about it. If I'd killed Kite, would I have left him there like that?'

  Moresby sucks on his lower lip.

  'Left him like what?' says Harris. 'You admit to seeing him?'

  Dave Reader flicks her an irritated look which Harris ignores.

  'Yes, I admit I saw him. And I should have called you right away. Should have, but didn't. A mistake, I admit. But I was disoriented. Tired. I'd been in Broadgreen all night.'

  'Because of the beating you took after attacking Kite at The Granary?' Reader checks his file. 'Says here you glassed him, Koop. Is that how you normally greet people in Australia?'

  Koop holds up his hands. 'No. Yes. Wait. Yes, I did hit him with the glass and it was a stupid thing to do.'

  'Very,' says Harris.

  Koop turns in his chair to look at her directly.

  'You saw my son, didn't you, DI Harris? Down at the beach, I mean? It was your name on the sheet as the attending officer, wasn't it? You were at the autopsy too. If that had been your boy out there, how would you have greeted the man responsible? A frosty glare? Give me a fucking break.'

  'So you wanted to hurt him?' Dave Reader's voice is soft. 'It's understandable, Koop. We'd all have felt the same way.'

  'Yes, I did. I did want to hurt him and I'm glad I did hurt him. My only regret is that I wasn't the one who killed him.'

  'Were you observed at Broadgreen? On the ward, I mean?' Ian Moresby is looking at his file. 'You were admitted at 11.54 pm and discharged at 8.30 the following morning.'

  'You mean I sneaked out of the ward, tracked Kite down, took him off his goons and persuaded him to come back to my hotel ro
om where he let me tie him up and butcher him? That's your theory?'

  Moresby looks at Reader and there's a short silence before Moresby speaks again.

  'It might not have been you who did the persuading.'

  'Not me? What do you mean?'

  'You have friends in Liverpool, don't you, Koop?'

  'Friends?'

  Moresby leans forward and crosses his arms on the table. His voice is quiet, conspiratorial. 'Alan Hunter. There's a name that can get things done in this town.'

  'Hunter?' Koop rubs the bridge of his nose. He's asking the question to buy some time as much as anything else. The mention of Hunter means one thing. They aren't going to give this up without a fight. 'I know Hunter, yes.'

  'You found his daughter's attacker, Koop. Good police work as I remember. Very good. Hunter must have felt like he owed you.'

  Koop is impressed. They've made the connection between him and Hunter. And then he remembers Reader and Moresby are OCS. Post 9-11 it has become acceptable, routine almost, for drug investigations to use wire-taps and bugs. Hunter may have been under investigation when he spoke to Koop. He makes a mental adjustment not to underestimate Reader and Moresby again.

  'You think Hunter delivered Kite to my room like a plate of steak and chips? Hunter might have owed me something, perhaps, but not that.'

  'He gave you Kite's name.' It's a statement from Dave Reader. 'Or as good as.'

  So there was a wire. Or a tail. Koop flashes back and the image of the thin waiter at the golf club comes into mind. It doesn't matter; they have the information.

  Koop shrugs. 'He might have given me a start. That's all. He never mentioned Kite by name. And Hunter won't sit still for something like this, Dave. He'll have you in court just as fast as Zentfeld can get here.'

  Arthur Zentfeld is a colourful and high-priced lawyer with a rottweiler reputation as a career-wrecker. Quick to litigate on his client's behalf, he has a long record of painful victories against Merseyside Police. He is Alan Hunter's pet lawyer.