A Dark Place to Die

by Ed Chatterton

  And here they were. Reader and Moresby were gracious enough to let MIT make the formal collar. Perch is – was – one of their own, after all.

  Perch is behind his desk. He doesn't glance up, instead waving an imperial hand towards the chairs. The hand missing two fingertips.

  Keane and Harris wait for Perch to look up. When he does his face pinches in annoyance.

  'Keane. Harris. Sit.'

  'I don't think so, Eric,' says Keane. 'Not today.'

  Perch looks like he's been slapped. 'You'd better have a good reason for that tone, DI Keane. I'm not in the mood for insubordination, is that clear?'

  'Come on, Eric,' Keane says. 'It's over. We know.'

  Before Perch can respond, Harris steps in. 'Let's do it by the book, Frank.' She fixes the DCI with a neutral look. 'Eric Perch, we are arresting you for conspiracy to commit murder, supplying illegal drugs with intent to distribute, and other charges that will be discussed at a later date.'

  'You must be insane!' Perch is on his feet. 'Get out!'

  'You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything . . .'

  'I'll have you fucking gutted, you black bitch!' Perch, snarling, moves around the desk towards Harris but Keane puts out a restraining hand. At his touch, Perch recoils.

  '. . . you do say may be given in evidence.' Harris finishes the arrest caution as though Perch hasn't spoken.

  'You got any cuffs?' Keane looks at Harris. 'I forgot we needed them.'

  Harris takes a pair of cuffs and hands them to Keane. He moves towards Perch who makes an ineffectual attempt to push him away.

  'You've got to be kidding,' says Keane, smiling. He twists Perch's arms and slams his face down into the polished wood of the desk. Placing a knee in his former boss's back, Keane slips the cuffs on and snaps them shut. His mouth close to Perch's ear, Keane whispers. 'How are you feeling, Eric? Like to add anything?' He hauls Perch to his feet, the Chief Inspector's spectacles askew. His breathing is ragged, his face red.

  'Get me my lawyer,' he says. 'You clowns have stepped out of your league.'

  'Seen much of Matty lately?' says Keane. Perch stops moving. Keane sees the arrow reach its target.

  'Frank.' Harris's tone is half-warning. 'We can do this in interview. By the book, right?'

  'It's OK, Em,' says Keane. 'We've got this fucker tied up nice and tight.' Keane looks at Perch. 'Just how you like it, eh, Chief Inspector? You and Matty taking turns. Each to his own, I suppose, although you might have thought twice about filming the fucking thing.'

  'I . . .' Perch has tears in his eyes. With an effort he pulls himself together. 'That's personal. If it's me. And it proves nothing.'

  'We've got it all, Eric,' says Harris. 'The tapes. The bank accounts. We have you on CCTV at the Halligans' lock-up. They kept tapes, as security, didn't you know? More diligent than most legit companies. We have what's left of the coke. Matty rolled over like a tame dog this morning. Gave you up without a murmur for a reduction at sentencing. We know the lot. They served you up to us. It's over.'

  Keane opens the door to the office where Reader and Moresby are waiting. At the sight of the two OCS officers, Eric Perch slumps. The office behind is fizzing with adrenaline as news of Perch's arrest spreads like ripples on a lake.

  'Look on the bright side, Eric. It could have been worse,' says Keane as he prods Perch towards the door. 'If Koop was still here we might be bagging you up for the coroner.'

  78

  Mel is going home to Sapporo to be buried by her family, but before that happens, there is a gathering at Nashua for everyone who knows her and Zoe.

  Kenji Ato, Mel's older brother, has come out from Japan to accompany her body home; their parents too traumatised by the loss to make the trip. At the site of Mel's death, around the back of the fig tree, Kenji has built a small tower of flat stones he's collected from a beach at Lennox Head. The smooth black rocks are carefully arranged into a circular cone. On the top stone Kenji places a votive candle in a protective lantern and lights it. He and one of Mel's colleagues from the university embrace as a thin ribbon of smoke rises into the air. Some of the twenty or so people gathered in a loose circle around the makeshift altar sniff and dab their eyes.

  From the steps of the deck, Koop watches the smoke drifting up into the branches of the fig. He has no idea if the ceremony has any religious meaning, or if it is simply something Kenji has cooked up to mark Melumi's death for a disparate group. He should have asked, he knows, but since coming back from Lake Ballard he's found himself to be short of some social skills. It's as if he is observing familiar things from underwater: he can recognise what they are but his responses feel sluggish.

  It is two weeks since he raced across the salt flats, dodging Gormley's nightmarish black skeletons – two of which reared up in his beams – and found Zoe.

  He can't get the image of her out of his head.

  I'm too late. That was his first thought. He was so close, so very close.

  Picked out by the harsh spotlights of the hired Toyota, she looked like a sacrificial offering. Naked and on her knees, her blonde hair showing a stark red bloom running down across her blood-spattered breasts and thighs. In front of her, North holding a gun to her head, ready to deliver the coup de grâce.

  It was the worst moment of Koop's life. All his fault. Everything. He hit North with everything he had.

  'You okay?' Koop feels a hand on his shoulder and turns to see Zoe. She wears a scarf wrapped around her head to conceal the bandages. North's bullet carved a path along her temple, taking off the tip of her ear on its way past and knocking her instantly senseless.

  Koop reaches up and pats her hand. 'I thought you'd be out there.' He nods towards the gathering.

  'Looking like this?' She points to her black eye and heavily bruised face. 'People will think you've been knocking me round.'

  The medical diagnosis is promising. No internal damage from the bullet, no signs of brain damage from the beating she took. She'd have a small scar across her temple and there was nothing to be done about her ear, but in all other respects Zoe would make a full recovery.

  Physically, at least. Koop knows from long experience rape victims carry more damaging scars.

  He hasn't yet discussed in detail with her the days leading up to North's death, although Zoe told the West Australian Police everything. Which she then had to repeat for the Queensland OCG and for Warren Eckhardt at Homicide. Eckhardt offered to go through everything with Koop, but he declined. Zoe would tell him when – if – she felt the time was right.

  'We'll be fine,' says Zoe, softly. 'You found me. You saved me.'

  'And Mel? I didn't save her, did I?' Koop speaks in an angry enough tone for several of the mourners to turn their way. Zoe wraps her arms around him.

  'You can't help everyone.' Zoe pulls away and holds him at arm's length. 'Listen, Koop, I'm only going to tell you this once because I don't want to think about it any more. Mel didn't suffer. She was out before . . . before he did what he did. He was an animal. We – Mel and I – just got in the way. It wasn't your fault.'

  Koop appreciates it, he really does.

  But she's wrong.

  It is his fault, his foolish decision to chase Stevie's killer, and he is going to live with it for the rest of his life. As a copper – correction, ex-copper – Koop knows he has the capacity to compartmentalise things like this. He'll put Melumi Ato in a sealed room in his mind, but she'll always be carried around with him; he'll be able to function, but with part of him irrevocably damaged.

  So he nods to Zoe. 'I know. I'll be fine.' The words stick in his throat. That's great, Koopman; you'll be fine. What about your wife? Her girlfriend butchered in front of her, abducted by a psychopath, raped, shot and left for dead in the middle of nowhere and she's comforting you? Top class.

  He gets to his feet and puts his arms around his wife, feeling her involunt
ary and unnatural stiffness in his embrace. 'We'll be fine.' They kiss awkwardly. Zoe is going to take some time to face physical contact after what happened. The two break apart and Zoe retreats to the kitchen to keep herself busy. Koop watches a friend put her arm across her shoulder and the two of them begin quietly talking.

  'Hell of a thing.' Warren Eckhardt materialises on the deck. He casts an appreciative Aussie eye around the area. 'Nice size deck you have here, Koop.'

  'It looks bigger because the, er, because the tub's gone. You know.'

  'Oh, shit. Of course. Tactless as usual.'

  Koop holds up a hand. 'That's OK.'

  Eckhardt lifts out his cigarettes. 'You mind?'

  Koop shakes his head. 'Help yourself.'

  His cigarette lit, Eckhardt eases his generous backside onto the rail and puffs happily.

  'Like I said, hell of a thing.'

  'Did you hear from Frank?'

  'Keane? Yes, they made the collar yesterday.'

  Koop imagines Keane clanking the cuffs on Perch. Jesus, that would have been a thing to have witnessed. 'How did Perch take it?'

  Eckhardt smiles. 'Not well. Frank said he tried the stonewall approach first – then he switched to "this was all an operation, I was undercover", all that sort of crap. When that got nowhere Keane said he let him marinate overnight. Put him in a cell next to a screamer. In the morning Perch wanted to talk. Funny thing was he was more worried about word getting out he was a poofta – sorry, gay – than he was about looking down the barrel of a life sentence. He's trying to negotiate something in return for the Halligans.'

  'And the Halligans?'

  'They're doing exactly the same. And giving up more than Perch in the hope that will seal the deal. Same the world over. Maggots.'

  Eckhardt blows out a long plume of smoke into the night and the two men are silent for a moment.

  'Any news on the shooter?' says Koop. Both know he is talking about the man who killed North as he pulled the trigger on Koop.

  'Nothing. And we won't, if you want my personal opinion. This bloke knew what he was doing. North's vehicle was stripped bare of the cocaine. From the info Frank's getting in Liverpool and from what Chakos is giving me from OCG, there would have been around fifteen million dollars in that vehicle. If I'm putting it together right, and I think I am, the shooter was sent by Liverpool – meaning, obviously, Perch and the Halligans – to tie up the loose end. He will have had something worked out about getting the coke, or the money from the sale, back to Liverpool minus a cut. With that side of things all tucked up, I'd make a serious bet the shooter has pocketed the coke and is now busy making himself disappear.'

  'It all came down to money in the end, didn't it?' Koop suddenly feels like getting hammered. He looks into the kitchen where Zoe is surrounded by a group of friendly faces. He turns to Eckhardt. 'Fancy a drink?'

  'I thought you'd never ask.'

  Koop grabs two beers from the deck fridge and hands one over. Eckhardt puts his arm around Koop's shoulder and the two clink the necks of their beers together. Koop can smell the smoke on Eckhardt's breath.

  'You know, Koop,' says Eckhardt. 'This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.'

  'Are you making a pass at me, Warren?'

  'Get fucked. Casablanca, mate. Best film ever made.'

  'Never heard of it.'

  'Jesus,' says Eckhardt as the two of them walk slowly back into the house. 'I'd heard Poms were stupid, but this is going too far.'

  Three thousand kilometres west the sun is low in the sky and a wind is picking up across Lake Ballard. It comes over the low-lying scrub and gathers a fine dusting of salt crystals from the dry surface. The only objects in the path of the wind are the iron skeletons. The salt rattles against the black metal and on the red earth marking the spot where North died. The dark stain is almost gone and in a few more days will have disappeared completely.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without the help and support of a number of people. I'd like to thank my good friends Margrete Lamond and Jenny Burgess for their early readings and sharply intelligent responses at a crucial time. I'd also like to thank Bev Cousins at Random House Australia, and Kate Burke at Random House UK, for their wonderful taste in crime fiction and their ongoing support, knowledge and hand-holding. My editor, Patrick Mangan, has done a great job ensuring I didn't make a complete fool of myself, a difficult task for anyone. My agent, Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown, deserves thanks for her steely nerve under fire, as does supersub Pippa Masson who filled Tara's shoes so capably while Tara briefly abandoned me on the flimsy premise that she was having a baby.

  I have borrowed the names of characters freely from friends (almost all of whom have agreed). I'm hoping that those who didn't aren't too offended when they showed up as corpses, criminals or cops. Special mention must be made to Menno Koopman, Jim Gelagotis and Macksym Kolomiets, who very kindly agreed to the loaning of their names, if not their characters. It's not the first time that team-mates have supplied me with inspiration and it won't be the last. Needless to say, the characters in the book bear little or no resemblance to their real-life counterparts.

  Antony Gormley's wonderful sculpture installation on Crosby Beach (Another Place) was fundamentally inspiring for me and, in some ways, was the jumping-off point for the book. As a fan of his work I hope my use of the iron men as a location is taken in the spirit in which it was intended. If you ever get the chance to see either Another Place, or Inside Australia, or indeed any of Gormley's work, you should.

  Lastly – before I start weeping and thanking God and grandma – I would like to thank my patient and understanding life partner, Annie, who has had to call on all her powers of encouragement and reservoirs of blind faith to get me to this point.