Slaughter Park

by Barry Maitland

  60

  Deb checks the time, 11:13 pm, another fifteen-hour shift on Slater Park. The list of persons of interest has expanded to eighty-seven males and one female. Since dusk there have been intermittent reports of breaches of the electronic perimeter system. There’s a colony of rabbits roaming about in the north-west corner of the park, and the odd fox, cat and dog. The police have their own dog patrol active at night, as well as the tours of the park roads by vehicles.

  Her phone signals a text from Charity. Home now. How u doing? Deb wonders where she’s been, and immediately suffocates the little stab of jealousy that she swore she’d never allow herself to feel again for as long as she lived. But she cares.

  Nearly done. How was your evening?

  She stares at the screen, waiting, eyes watery from staring at screens all night.

  Rubbish movie but fun with girls. When will u stop working and join us?

  Deb smiles, then notices a new report arrived on her computer. It is the spreadsheet of vehicles entering Slater Park on the nights the last two victims were found. It lists the vehicle regos, names of their occupants and their source, times of entry and exit. Several of them repeat through the nights, vehicles from local stations incorporating a visit to the park on their regular night patrols. But as she checks through the schedule she notices some odd ones—vehicles from a local area command out in western Sydney, a long way from the park. There are two of them, one on each night, different patrol cars and different crews but from the same distant police station.

  She rubs her weary eyes and silently tells Harry to stop fucking with her head. Wherever you are.

  61

  Early the following morning they part outside the hotel as Kelly’s cab to the airport arrives. She gets in trying to dispel a hollow feeling that she won’t see him again. He kisses her cheek and gives her the flash drive from Maturiki. ‘I don’t have the resources anymore,’ he says, ‘but maybe you know someone you trust who can open this thing.’

  He makes his way to Brad’s bar for breakfast, and has a talk. Brad considers the matter, makes some phone calls and comes up with a proposal. Harry settles down to wait.

  After an hour a new customer walks in and shakes hands with Brad, who introduces him to Harry as Ginger, for obvious reasons. He has a thick New Zealand accent. After a brief conversation Harry hands over all his remaining cash and they leave. In the street a battered Citroën is waiting with the motor running, two passengers sitting in the back. Harry squeezes in beside them while Ginger gets in with the driver and they set off. He recognises some of the buildings along the way from their arrival two days before. When they reach the airport the driver takes them past the main car park at the terminal building and continues to a separate compound of small hangars and prefabricated buildings, where they get out. They wait in silence in the shade beside one of the buildings while Ginger goes inside. When he returns he leads them across the apron to the far side of a hangar where a small plane is waiting. They climb in, the four of them filling its tight seats, Ginger at the controls. When he’s made his checks he turns to them. ‘All right folks, all strapped in? First stop New Caledonia.’

  It takes three hours for the Skyhawk to make this first leg to Nouméa, where they pause only long enough to refuel and make a comfort stop. When they reboard Ginger hands out bottles of water and packets of biscuits and sets off again across the great ocean towards the south-west. This stage is twice as long, and the sun is nearing the horizon as they drop down onto the little airstrip below Mount Lidgbird on Lord Howe Island. Again their stop is brief, and they are soon airborne again, heading directly towards the fading glow in the western sky. The other two passengers are soon asleep, but Harry remains awake, enveloped by the numbing drone of the engine and the dense blackness that surrounds them.

  It’s approaching midnight when the engine note changes and the plane eases forward into its descent. Harry makes out the glimmer of lights up ahead, becoming brighter and more distinct as they approach the New South Wales coast. Soon he can distinguish the pattern of streetlights below them, and the brighter gleam of the city centre over to their right. It recedes as they continue on, the lights becoming less dense. The other passengers struggle upright as Ginger warns them that they are about to land at Camden Airport in Sydney’s south-west.

  A big black Nissan Patrol is waiting beside the hangar, a woman behind the wheel. She kisses Ginger and they all pile in. One of the passengers asks to be dropped off in Liverpool, Harry and the other man opting for Central station. They separate when they reach the station, Harry crossing Elizabeth Street and striding up into Surry Hills. He walks past the end of his laneway, head down, surreptitiously checking the cars parked in the street. When he’s satisfied he returns and moves quickly down the lane, keeping to the deep shadows. It’s only when he’s at the front door that he looks up and notices the sliver of light showing at the edge of the blind in the attic window high up beneath the roof.

  He slides his key into the lock and eases the front door open. The interior is in darkness, silent. Harry closes the door and treads softly towards the stairs. At the first landing he pauses, hearing a sound, the thump of something heavy. He continues, hearing the tread of feet, the creak of floorboards as he gets closer to the attic. On the final flight he sees a line of light below the closed door. He bunches his fist, reaches for the doorhandle and barrels in. The figure at the desk gives a cry and turns. Harry stops short. ‘Jenny!’

  They hold each other tight, wordless. He looks around and sees the sleeping bag in the corner of the room, some clothes on hangers. Finally they sit down together and talk.

  ‘This was the only place I could think to hide,’ she says. ‘I thought if they didn’t actually break in here I’d be safe. I’ve become nocturnal—I creep downstairs in the middle of the night with the lights off and use the bathroom and get food, the way I used to do when I was blind. And…I just didn’t want to run anymore. I wanted to come home, our home.’

  ‘Yes. Nicole said you came here sometimes when you were staying with your mother.’

  ‘That was different. You had left Sydney and no one knew where you were, and it occurred to me that if I was never to see you again I would have to explain to Abigail one day about the missing half of her family, who her father was, and her distinguished grandfather. And I realised that there were big gaps, things I knew little about, and I decided I should do at least a little research before everything in the house was disposed of.

  ‘That’s what I told myself anyway, although I think part of it was that I wanted to go back again to where we were happy together, before everything went so wrong.’

  Harry says, ‘Yes, I understand. I felt that too.’

  ‘Is that why you came here tonight?’

  He shrugs. ‘I’m on the run too, Jen.’

  She grips his hand more tightly. ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  So he tells her about Grimshaw and Fogarty.

  ‘Oh, Harry…You did this for me.’

  ‘I had to stop those two. And I wanted the cops to realise just how wrong they were about you.’

  ‘You told them my story?’

  ‘I told Deb Velasco. She didn’t believe it.’

  ‘So you proved it could be done, and now she’s after you.’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  62

  ‘You’re exhausted.’ Charity offers her a glass of whisky and sits by her side.

  ‘I don’t mind feeling tired. It’s feeling things going out of control that I can’t stand.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  Deb shakes her head. ‘I can’t. That’s part of the problem.’

  Mid-afternoon, for the sake of thoroughness—for Deb is thorough—she phoned the duty inspector at the distant police station from which the two patrol cars originated. After a search of their logbooks he told her that no, the two cars had not been assigned on the nights in question. ‘Do you know where they were?’ she aske
d, and he replied, ‘Here, locked up. Why?’

  She told him that there was a discrepancy in their records and that someone on her team had obviously stuffed up. She mentioned the names and registered numbers of the cars’ occupants as recorded by the officer on gate duty at Slater Park, and the inspector told her that one was HOD—hurt on duty, off sick with a broken pelvis—and the other was on overseas deployment in East Timor. Deb thanked him and apologised for wasting his time.

  After several interruptions she got hold of the gate duty officers and questioned them about their shifts. Neither had a clear recollection of the uniformed occupants of the cars, although one thought the driver might have been unusually tall. There were no cameras operating at the gates on the first occasion, but one had been installed by the time of the second. She put in a request for the footage of that night, then thought for a long while before coming to a reluctant decision.

  She went to see her boss, Superintendent Blake, and told him about the anomalies. He seemed more puzzled than surprised. ‘So, how did you get onto this?’

  She took a deep breath and told him it was Harry Belltree’s suggestion.

  ‘Belltree. I thought we were shot of him. How did he get involved?’

  So she told him all about Harry, his claim that Fogarty framed Jenny, his being sectioned, charged, released. Blake’s frown deepened with each new revelation. When she finished he was looking at her like someone wondering what to do with a disappointing piece of hardware.

  He shook his head, irritated. ‘Get him in here, Deb. I want to talk to him myself.’

  Then she had to explain that unfortunately she couldn’t do that, because Harry had left the country, current whereabouts unknown.

  His expression darkened. ‘You should have told me all this at the time. I want a full written report on what you’ve just told me. Every detail.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘What’s the situation with Fogarty?’

  Deb explained that he was still in custody. He had refused to say anything further and his lawyer had applied for bail, which had been refused, decision to be reviewed after forty-eight hours to clarify points in the forensic evidence.

  Charity squeezes her hand, whispers, ‘Relax,’ and Deb realises that her whole body has become rigid. She can’t stop going over it again and again in her head.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Is there nobody you can talk to?’

  ‘No, no one.’

  ‘What about your old boss, Bob the Job? He was a legend. I drove him a couple of times. He seemed very genuine, very sympathetic.’

  Harry, Bob, damaged goods. She saw herself being tossed into the same sad bin of burnt-out cases. ‘No, I don’t think so. Doesn’t matter, I’ll sort it out.’

  63

  Sophie, her coat now glossy, torn ear healing, has learned some tricks while Kelly was away. She watches the pooch turning circles and rolling over to Wendy’s commands, the two of them enormously pleased with themselves. In fact, Kelly realises, the bond between them has become much stronger than Sophie’s bond with her. She doesn’t mind, in fact is rather relieved. She claps and offers praise and rewards, which Wendy and Sophie accept with matching modesty.

  ‘But you still haven’t told me much about your trip,’ Wendy says. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by the land-diving on Pentecost, since I was at school back when the Queen visited. The locals put on a display for her, but it was the wrong time of year and the vines tied to the divers’ ankles weren’t flexible enough or something. One diver crashed and was killed. We discussed it in class—I think the teacher was making a point about the evils of colonialism, but we were just in awe at the Queen witnessing a horrible death.’

  So Kelly tells her about Pastor Emanuel Dubouzet and his wife Lydia and the kava. Then, after another glass of wine, about poor Pascaline Tamata and their hair-raising trip to Maturiki—scarier in the telling than it seemed at the time.

  ‘Great background,’ Wendy says. ‘But what’s the story?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kelly says, suddenly glum. ‘Good question.’

  She tries to sketch the complexity of the situation with Harry, its improbable implications, without going into too much detail. After all they’ve been through together she trusts Wendy completely, but still, she has to be careful.

  ‘You’re not in love with him, are you?’ Wendy demands.

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘Why are you blushing then?’

  ‘Oh, shut up. The point is, the story is so outlandish, so scandalous, that it’s only printable if I have overwhelming evidence that it’s true, and there isn’t any.’

  ‘And you want to protect Harry. Do you want my opinion?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You’re a reporter, not a therapist. Harry can look after himself—go for the story.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘I am right. Impossible stories always have a loose thread somewhere. All you have to do is find the thread.’

  ‘Wow. Who said that?’

  ‘You did, long ago.’

  Actually it was Bernie Westergard, her old boss at the Banks-town Chronicle. She remembers him wagging his finger at her when she was a rookie reporter. She smiles and resolves to pay him a visit one day.

  ‘Well, I was absolutely right,’ she says.

  64

  It had been eerie returning to the house. For three years after the crash left her blind, Jenny had lived there, rediscovering its geography by feel and memory and painful knocks. But when the inquest shook her from her torpor she returned there with her eyesight restored, and it was like being plunged back in time. Seeing it all again—the deep skirting boards, the burnt orange of the sofa, the gleam of light on a familiar vase—induced a deep nostalgic yearning for those days with Harry and his parents, before all the bad things happened. She realised how little she really knew about that family, beyond the public story. Her father-in-law had a little office in the attic, the judge’s den, in which he worked in the evenings and at weekends. She had only been there a couple of times before the crash, and been impressed by the number of books, files, papers crammed into every corner. After the crash, when she and Harry moved in, she desperately wanted to explore it more thoroughly in the hope that something there might reveal why this had happened. But she couldn’t see, and Harry, bitter with grief, avoided the place. Now at last she could look.

  ‘And have you found anything?’ Harry asks.

  She shakes her head. Nothing pointing to a cause, or perhaps too much, for the judge had been involved in hundreds of cases during his career that might have provided motive. Certainly nothing in the way of a warning or threat—no abusive letters, no hints of anxiety or need for special care. It had come out of nowhere.

  Harry says, ‘So all we’re left with is Palfreyman’s stories, and his claim that he had proof that Konrad Nordlund killed his brother Martin, and that my father learned of it. But if Fogarty and Grimshaw didn’t find it the day you disturbed them, they had plenty of time since to track it down. If that’s what they were after.’

  ‘The only confirmation of Palfreyman’s story was that entry in your dad’s diary on the ninth of August, 2002, the day Martin Nordlund’s plane crashed. I’ll show you.’

  She goes to the pile of diaries on the side table and opens one of them to the date: 3:30 Norman Comfrey. ‘Just as Terry Palfreyman told me. It’s the only part of his story I was able to check out.’

  ‘He claimed that Martin Nordlund was at the same meeting,’ Harry says, ‘but we don’t know that for a fact. Maybe we could check.’

  ‘It’s a long time ago, twelve years.’

  65

  Deb sleeps badly for a couple of hours, then wakes abruptly, lies rigid, head full of troubled thoughts about the Fogarty case. Beside her Charity breathes steadily in untroubled slumber.

  Finally Deb slides out of bed and goes for a run through the darkened streets. She returns to the flat, showers, and discovers th
at Charity has washed and ironed her shirts.

  When she gets to work at strike force HQ she finds the Slater Park entrance CCTV film downloaded on her computer, and scans through to the relevant time. She sees an over-exposed image of the patrol car caught in harsh lighting, deep shadows. The driver’s face is visible—gaunt, bony. It looks very much like Eden Grimshaw.

  Now what? She needs to think about how to approach this with Dick Blake, and leaves the office briefly to pick up a breakfast roll and coffee. She’s eating, deep in thought, when she gets a message on her phone to get over to his office at Parramatta.

  He’s looking sombre, his big-boss-meeting tie on. ‘Sit down, Deb. I had a long session yesterday with our assistant commissioner and Tom Bellamy, head of organised crime, to review your report. They’ve both known Ken Fogarty over many years, and I must say they were utterly incredulous about what you had to say. Fogarty’s record is impeccable, twenty-seven years in the force without a stain, two silver medals, regularly cleared in all the psychometric and other annual tests without a whisper of doubt. Grimshaw may be a different matter—his record is much more patchy—but they refused to believe that Fogarty was capable of what he’s being accused of. And where’s the motive, Deb? Why would an exemplary officer go so completely off the rails? He has a harmonious family life, high standing in his community, no significant debts or health issues that anyone’s aware of.

  ‘But both he and Grimshaw are in a challenging area of work in organised crime. Tom advised us that they’re currently involved in an investigation into large-scale money laundering in Sydney for Colombian drug syndicates. Those people will stop at nothing, believe me, and it’s entirely feasible that what we’re seeing is a plot to neutralise two officers who were getting too close to the heat. And of course this whole business has been thrown into confusion by Belltree’s maverick muddying of the waters.’

  Deb tries to say something but Blake holds up his hand. ‘If you’re still not convinced, we now have solid proof that Fogarty is innocent.’