A Necessary Evil

by Bruce Venables

  John shook his head. ‘You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?’

  ‘No I’m not,’ Shayne said and sipped his beer. ‘I’ve had a gutful of the police force. I’m gonna chuck it in and practise law.’

  John’s puzzlement was obvious. ‘Why are you talking sense, all of a sudden?’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘I know you, Shayne, you’re up to something.’

  ‘I’m not, God’s honour.’ Shayne sighed. ‘I just realised the futility of the whole situation. I’ve been running around like a blue-arsed fly for the last three years trying to fight the establishment. And where’s it got me? Nowhere.’

  ‘You are serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve lost my sense of honour. I’ve lost my self-respect. I even lost my girl. And for what? Nothing, that’s what.’ Shayne turned to the bar and sipped on his beer.

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘When I looked into Schumacher’s eyes a minute ago, I wanted to kill him.’ Shayne looked at John. ‘Truly. I was going to kill him, right here in a public bar. And then I thought, what’s the point? What would it solve? I’ll just finish up on a murder charge and life will go on its crooked way. And what would I do after I killed Schumacher? Kill Spencer? Then every other crooked cop in the job, including my father? That’s when it hit me, the futility of it all, and I thought, what’s the fucking point?’ He sat on the bar stool and downed his beer.

  ‘I hope you’re serious, mate.’ John gulped his rum and coke and signalled for more drinks. He knew they were in for a heavy night; Shayne was drinking very fast. Usually when Shayne drank it was for a reason—he was a binge-drinker, who used alcohol as a form of stress release.

  ‘I’m deadly serious. I’m gonna get drunk and forget the police force and tomorrow I’m gonna work out a new life for myself. A life where the police force,’ Shayne looked around the bar and raised his glass, ‘and everybody in it, can go and get fucked!’

  ‘I’ll drink to that!’ John said cheerfully, but he was aware of the stares they were getting from the other cops in the bar. He could envisage the end result if they remained in Connor’s Hotel while Shayne got drunk. There’d be an almighty blue. He patted his friend on the back. ‘I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t we go home to my flat and you can see your sister the famous doctor, and I’ll cook us a feed of steak and eggs. What do you say?’

  ‘Perfect!’ Shayne responded. ‘I’ll buy the grog. I haven’t seen Penny for ages.’ He went off to the bottle department while John finished his drink under the scrutiny of a number of angry cops around the room. Shayne was regarded as a loose cannon. They didn’t like seeing one of their own shooting off his mouth in a public place, especially if that someone was Shayne Everard. He was becoming part of their folklore. A legend. There were some in the force, a minority, who believed that Shayne’s fists-and-feet philosophy was just what was needed. Criminals only understood one thing—fear. And if the police didn’t dish it out to them, who would? But the majority of them saw Shayne as out of control and believed he should return to the fold and shut his mouth.

  By ten o’clock that night, Shayne was happily drunk.

  Penny had quickly assessed the situation when she’d arrived home to the smell of steak and eggs. A wink from John had been enough. She’d joined them in lively conversation which had jumped from topic to topic until Shayne had settled himself on the couch, relaxed and content. She knew her brother only too well. He’d needed to talk and John had been his sounding board. She looked at her husband and felt a great love for him. He was a truly wise and clever man. Her brother, on the other hand, was a psychological mess.

  Shayne’s mood had darkened briefly when she’d inadvertently mentioned their father. She hadn’t known why, but she hadn’t been surprised. They both knew their father was a bastard. It was why both of them had had as little contact as possible with him over the past three years.

  ‘So, brother of mine,’ said Penny, refilling Shayne’s glass. ‘You’re leaving the Force. What’s brought about this momentous decision?’

  ‘Well, sister of mine,’ grinned Shayne, enjoying the light-hearted repartee, ‘I’ve decided to get rich. I’m going to become Sydney’s top trial lawyer and buy a Porsche and a house in Vaucluse and date a succession of beautiful women.’

  Penny raised an eyebrow. ‘Speaking of beautiful women, do you know where Zoe Collingwood is these days?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Shayne sighed. ‘She’s living in France. I read about her in a magazine. She’s living with some famous French fashion photographer. Apparently she’s hit the big time.’

  Penny sighed sympathetically. ‘It’s a pity you broke up with her, Shayne—you two were so right for each other.’

  ‘Ahem!’ John cleared his throat. ‘Well, let’s not dwell on the past; Zoe’s gone and that’s that.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Shayne replied. ‘I don’t mind talking about her. She’s part of the reason I decided to wake up to myself. I really loved her, you know. And I lost her because I behaved like a complete arsehole. I realise that now.’

  ‘Well, we all have twenty-twenty vision in hindsight.’ John poured himself another wine.

  Shayne gestured helplessly and shook his head. ‘When she moved in with me, I should have given her priority, but I let my anger at what was going on around me in the police force get the better of me. And we argued a lot about Jane Smart. Jane and I never saw eye to eye.’

  ‘That’s one thing I never understood,’ Penny interrupted. ‘I thought you liked Jane Smart.’

  ‘Naah! She’s a bitch.’ Shayne sipped his wine contemplatively. ‘Anyway,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘working shift work doesn’t help a relationship. And Zoe overseas modelling all the time …’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I suppose it was meant to happen.’

  ‘Well, my woman’s intuition tells me you should contact her. Write to her, Shayne.’ Penny patted her brother on the knee. ‘Zoe loved you very deeply—I know that for a fact. She could still be carrying a torch.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Sis,’ he said flatly. ‘She’s with that photographer bloke and besides, after nearly eighteen months, I think the torch might have flickered out by now.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re wrong, but that’s just me.’ Penny stood up. ‘I’ve got to be at work at seven, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.’ She kissed John on the cheek. ‘You two have a boys’ night. I’ll see you in the morning, darling.’ Penny headed off towards the bedroom.

  When she’d gone, the two friends drank in silence. Finally Shayne spoke.

  ‘I might head off now, Johnny. The urge to get on the drink has left me.’ He stood up. ‘I’m not much good on the grog unless I’m wound up and I’m definitely not wound up right at this moment, thanks to you.’

  John walked to the door and took Shayne’s outstretched hand. ‘Any time, mate. I think you’re doing the smart thing.’ He slapped him on the back. ‘Get out of the Force and become filthy rich. You’ll become the best bloody lawyer in town. I’ve got no doubt about it.’

  Shayne looked out over the velvet black ocean and enjoyed the sound of the surf rising up to him from Bondi Beach.

  The talk of Zoe Collingwood had sobered him considerably. A day didn’t go by when she wasn’t in his thoughts. For the thousandth time he wished he could turn back the clock. He would have done everything so differently—and maybe she’d still be with him and not living with some yuppy photographer in France.

  Jane Smart had been the cause of his discontent. Rightly or wrongly, she’d shown him the world—his world—in harsh black and white. That his father was the focal point of that filthy world was almost too much for him to bear. He’d lashed out on all sides until he was regarded as a loner by his workmates. He’d chased crooks in every direction, especially if he smelt corruption, and he’d bring the full force of his anger to bear upon them.

  Shayne had been warned that his time was limited. His senior officers, aware that he was th
e Commissioner’s son, had tried to curb his zeal, but their efforts had been a waste of time. Shayne had ignored all the warnings and had torn into criminal society just like his grandfather George had done. He’d used his fists to mete out justice, and his grandfather’s old Irish baton to bludgeon anyone who even smelled like a crook into a trembling submission. Until, finally, his own father had had him escorted to the fifth floor of Police Headquarters, to the Commissioner’s Office.

  ‘I know we don’t see eye to eye, son,’ his father had begun when they were alone, ‘but as Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, I have to be guided by the opinions of my senior officers and they are howling for your blood.’

  ‘Big fucking deal!’ Shayne replied.

  ‘Shayne!’ Harold roared. ‘I won’t tolerate insubordination! I am also your father—’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself!’ Shayne roared back. ‘I know you for what you are.’

  Harold’s voice turned to ice. ‘Really? And what would that be?’

  ‘A fucking crook!’

  Shayne had been boiling with rage from the moment he’d been ordered to his father’s office and now he snapped like a steel wire. He flew over Harold’s desk and grabbed his father by the throat. He dragged him out of his chair and rammed him against the wall. ‘You listen to me, you pathetic little prick,’ he ranted. ‘You’re not a policeman’s bootlace! I know what you’ve done in your life and it disgusts me!’ Shayne’s fist was raised to strike when the look of shocked fear in Harold’s eyes forced him to release his grip. His father slumped to the floor.

  Harold crawled to his desk and regained his feet. He sat himself down in his big leather chair and looked at his son. His voice when he spoke was a hoarse whisper. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Does Tip-Toe Investments ring a bell?’

  Harold blanched. ‘Jesus God Almighty.’

  ‘I know all about you!’ Shayne spat. ‘I’ve known for years.’

  ‘That information could get you killed, son,’ Harold said weakly.

  ‘You listen to me,’ Shayne’s voice was clinically cold. ‘I’m not going to say anything, simply because I won’t drag Grandad’s name through the mud. So you’re safe, but I’m warning you, if you lift so much as a finger against me, you’ll die!’ Shayne’s anger was barely controllable.

  Harold looked at his son through horrified eyes. It wasn’t Shayne in his office terrifying him, it was his father, George Arthur Everard, returned in the flesh.

  ‘I will bring down a terrible vengeance upon you, you bastard,’ Shayne continued and pointed a finger under Harold’s nose. ‘I will personally thrash you to within an inch of your life, then happily watch you drown in your own blood!’ Shayne’s hand balled into a fist and crashed down upon the desk. ‘Do I make myself understood?’ Harold could only nod. ‘And then I will seek out your associates—and I know them all—and I will send them to hell in a handcart!’ Shayne took a deep breath and expelled it as he strode to the office door, then he turned and once more pointed. ‘My grandfather would be ashamed of you! You are a disgrace to the Everard name and a bastard in the eyes of all honest men who wear blue! You’ve been warned, Harold—you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone! Do you understand?’

  Harold could find no voice. He was witnessing the reincarnation of his father. He could only nod and watch, completely frozen with fear, as the apparition left his office.

  Outside in the hallway, Shayne Everard took a small tape recorder out of his shirt pocket and switched it off.

  Shayne breathed in the cool night air. There was more rain coming from the south-east. He breathed out slowly, willing himself to relax. Thinking of that day in his father’s office still made him tremble with rage. He knew Harold had approved his forced transfer from the C.I.B. to Redfern, but it didn’t worry him. He knew he’d terrified his father that day. Harold was a gutless worm and Shayne was in no fear of any further action from him.

  His transfer from the detectives to uniform had signalled the beginning of the end of his relationship with Zoe. His bitterness had known no bounds. His inability to share what he knew about Harold and Jane Smart with Zoe had effectively split them apart.

  It was obvious to him in hindsight that Zoe interpreted his remoteness as a lack of feeling towards her. He desperately wanted to share his knowledge with her, but knew that to do so would have placed her in danger. She in turn couldn’t understand his wild behaviour. He was constantly in the newspapers, always involved in brawls and court proceedings with criminals, and his anger flowed over into their time together. And finally, and most importantly, there was his attitude towards Jane Smart. Zoe couldn’t understand it and Shayne couldn’t explain it to her without telling her the truth. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Zoe left on an assignment overseas and didn’t return. She wrote to him, saying she loved him deeply and giving her address in France and told him that if he came to his senses she’d be waiting for him.

  His anger and hurt would not allow him to reply. As far as he was concerned, she’d deserted him in his hour of need. Angry weeks turned into lonely months and those months had brought him to the present. A present without her.

  Shayne hadn’t told Penny that night, but he’d seen a photo of Zoe and her photographer in a glossy magazine. They’d been snapped at a famous ski resort in Austria and a little boy had been in the shot. Her little boy.

  Zoe and her new family had looked happy. Radiantly happy. And Shayne knew, as he looked at that photograph, that he’d lost her forever.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The spider hardly moved. At first it seemed unaware that the fly had become entangled in its web. It carried on attending to a minor weaving problem as the fly struggled to extricate itself. Finally, satisfied that its web was securely fastened to the balcony rail, the spider moved with great speed to the fly, covered it with its body and stung it.

  Harold Everard watched the dance of life and death unfold before his eyes. The speed with which the spider acted shocked him. One moment the fly was attempting to free itself and the next it was in the final throes of death.

  The allegory of the drama was not lost on Harold. He knew in his heart that he was the fly and his son Shayne was the spider. His father George had been a spider too.

  All his life, Harold had masqueraded as a spider. He’d worked his way into a position of great power. He’d weaved an intricate web and moved this way and that, stinging any intruder caught in his domain. But he’d never actually done the stinging himself. He’d always employed others to do it for him—because in reality, Harold was a fly.

  He was also frightened. He’d always been terrified of the immense power his father had exuded. When he was a small boy, his father would move across a room and smack him with the same electrifying speed as the spider had attacked the fly. Now his son Shayne had revealed himself to possess that same power, that same propensity for swift, violent action that struck fear into Harold’s soul.

  He had to do something. He had to protect himself. God knows, he’d given Shayne enough opportunities in life. He’d given him every chance to toe the line and conform. But the boy was stubborn, like his grandfather. George had instilled in the lad that stupid sense of honour which Harold so despised.

  ‘Be a man, Harold!’ his father would say to him. ‘Stand up and do what’s right, no matter what the odds!’

  ‘Do what’s right,’ Harold muttered to himself. The fucking old hypocrite! What about Vera? Was it right to take another man’s wife. Your own son’s wife, no less! ‘Do what’s fucking right!’ he muttered again.

  ‘Sorry, boss?’

  ‘What?’ Harold turned and looked at Derek Schumacher. He’d forgotten Schumacher and Spencer were on his balcony.

  ‘I thought you said something,’ Schumacher replied.

  ‘I was just thinking out loud,’ Harold mumbled. He knew they were waiting for a decision, but how could he make a decision that would mean the murder of his own son? But
Shayne deserved it, he told himself—no two ways about that. Everyone knew he was a loose cannon. It really would serve him right if other policemen decided to correct his behaviour once and for all.

  Harold was torn between love, honour and his sense of duty. He was, after all, Commissioner of Police and in that capacity he was responsible for the lives and welfare of ten thousand men. If Shayne were not of his own blood, it would be a different matter—but how could a father order the death of his own son! And yet Shayne’s behaviour was inexcusable. He could bring down the whole police force if he opened his mouth. The public would lose faith. The do-gooders would howl for blood. Jesus Christ! Shayne could bring about another bloody Royal Commission! And whose head would be first on the block? Harold Everard’s.

  Quite suddenly, Harold began to laugh. Another question had hit him like a ton of bricks. Who the fuck had told Shayne about Tip-Toe Investments? Why had the question never occurred to him before? The answer was so simple he couldn’t help but laugh. Who else could it have been? Nine principals knew. Six were dead. Stan Ames had been living on a yacht in South America for the last three years. And Harold knew he hadn’t said anything. That left one person. The fucking bitch! The sly, calculating, fucking bitch! She’d told him. But why? Probably out of some sense of misguided loyalty to George. She’d done it to get revenge! The fucking bitch! He laughed again. Well, she’d pay.

  Shayne had said he’d keep his mouth shut, but Harold knew him too well. The boy was too much like George. His rage would one day get the better of him and he’d attack, just like the spider had done.

  ‘Sir?’ Ian Spencer prompted.

  ‘What?’ Harold turned to him, irritated.

  ‘Sir, we’ve got to know what you want us to do.’

  Harold paced up and down the balcony. He wrung his hands together and continually shook his head. ‘Do you realise what you’re asking?’ He stopped and looked at both men. ‘The boy is my flesh and blood!’