Dreamland

by Gilling, Tom

  Having the splash was always a coup for the Star’s under-appreciated foreign desk, and losing it put Jerry Whistler in a foul mood. For the next hour, he and Nick didn’t speak to each other. Then Jerry said, ‘I’m going across the road for a beer. Are you coming?’

  You could say one thing for Jerry Whistler: he’d never had a tantrum that couldn’t be cured by the prospect of half an hour in the back bar of the Evening Star hotel.

  ‘No thanks,’ Nick said. ‘I’ve got a couple of phone calls to make.’

  Jerry shrugged, ‘Your loss, old boy.’ He was halfway to the corridor when he shouted back, ‘If Reuters change their mind about those Filipinos, we’ll whack it in for the second edition.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Nick was still thinking about his conversation with Les Perger. He’d made mistakes before and always come back. Perger admired initiative and Nick had always shown plenty of that. But Perger had made it sound as though his exile on the foreign desk might be more than just temporary. What if his reporting career was over? Perger was a tyrant and it was in the nature of tyrants to keep reminding you of the fact. To err was human, the editor-in-chief liked to say, but to keep erring was the preserve of the broadsheets. The Daily Star didn’t run a ‘We were wrong’ column because there was no ‘we’. Serious offenders were rooted out and punished, by name. Sitting there, watching Jerry Whistler’s pear-shaped body waddle across the newsroom, Nick saw his banishment stretching away for years, until he slunk at last to some pseudo-managerial job that nobody else would do—cadet training manager, for instance. Nick Carmody, cadet training manager. The thought made him shudder.

  He got up and stretched his arms behind his back and walked over to talk to the night chief of staff, a Englishman named Brian Cockburn. The title night chief of staff implied ambition and enterprise although the job didn’t need either. Most of the paper had been filled before the night chief of staff even sat down but now and then something happened—a fire, a police chase, somebody famous at the airport—and a reporter would have to be found to cover it. Night chief of staff was one of a handful of jobs that Jerry Whistler had his eye on.

  Whether or not Brian Cockburn had worked for the Fleet Street papers he claimed to have worked for, in the capacity in which he claimed to have worked for them, was a moot point by now. Brian had long ago accepted that his career at the Star was going to stall at night chief of staff and seemed determined to make the best of it. From what Nick could see he spent most of his evenings sketching plots for the thriller he was going to write when he retired. He wasn’t bitter and Nick liked him.

  ‘Nick,’ he said, as though surprised to see him. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘I’ve been sitting at my desk since 4.30,’ said Nick.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cockburn. ‘It was after that. Probably around nine o’clock.’

  Nine o’clock was roughly when Nick had gone outside to smoke a cigarette. It had just started to rain. Huddled under the bronze awning, he’d spent a few minutes innocently—well, semi-innocently—chatting up one of the copy girls. He frowned. ‘What was?’

  ‘Michael was looking for you.’

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘Flynn. Crime reporter.’ Cockburn paused before adding archly, ‘Your gallant successor. He had some bee in his bonnet about something. I said I’d keep an eye out for you.’

  ‘Well here I am. Where’s Flynn?’

  ‘Heading for the lift last time I saw him.’

  ‘So it wasn’t important?’

  ‘I suppose it can’t have been.’

  Nick wandered off in the direction of the fire stairs, where three members of the sports subs’ desk were illegally smoking in the stairwell. Seeing him approach, they nodded and invited him to join them. One bummed a cigarette. Their cigarette hands rose and fell in unison, like a team of synchronised smokers. The one who’d bummed a cigarette—a laconic Vietnam veteran whom Nick knew only as Zippo—said, ‘Flynn was looking for you.’

  ‘So I heard,’ said Nick.

  As a fellow smoker in an increasingly tobacco-free workplace, Nick had almost daily conversations with Zippo and yet the only thing he knew about him was that he’d served in Vietnam—and he hadn’t heard that from Zippo.

  ‘I don’t suppose he said what it was about.’

  Zippo shook his crew-cut head as he exhaled. ‘Didn’t ask.’

  Nick finished his cigarette and ground it out beneath his heel and kicked the mangled filter down the stairwell. While the others slowly climbed the stairs to the editorial floor, Nick took out his mobile phone and dialled Danny Grogan’s number. He was curious to know whether Flynn had been in touch with him since the trial. There was something about Flynn he didn’t trust: the fact that he spoke Mandarin, perhaps. Why would a Mandarin-speaker want to work on the Daily Star, whose only foreign bureaus were in London and Los Angeles? Nick waited for the ring tone but Danny’s phone was either switched off or out of range.

  He felt apprehensive without knowing why. The edition was a few minutes away. The last reporter had gone home for the night and subeditors were still straggling in from the Evening Star. There was no sign of Jerry Whistler. Nobody paid any attention to Nick as he walked across the newsroom to the row of steel filing cabinets along the back wall. He bent down. His heart thumped as he unlocked the drawer marked ‘Carmody’. He opened the drawer and took out the envelope containing the five thousand dollars in cash given to him by Danny Grogan’s father. He resisted the temptation to open the envelope and count it. Looking over his shoulder, he noticed Jerry Whistler talking to Brian Cockburn. He stuffed the envelope in his pocket and locked the drawer and walked back to his desk.

  The lights were on when Nick got home. Usually it was only the dog that waited up, quivering on the doormat in the hope that, at one o’clock in the morning, Nick might change his mind about going to bed and decide instead to go for a walk around the crime-ridden streets of Chippendale. They had met in Prince Alfred Park in the early hours of a January morning and somewhere in the back of its tiny greyhound brain was a belief that they had never left. Looking into its pleading eyes, Nick was touched by the animal’s faith in him, its perpetual willingness to overcome and forgive disappointment. He squatted between the bicycles and stroked its bumpy skull, and the dog in turn slapped its tail against the floorboards.

  The living room door opened. Sally was standing there in her dressing gown and somehow Nick knew, by the look on her face, what she was going to say.

  ‘Nick. Michael’s here. He’s been waiting for you.’

  Flynn was on his feet and standing in front of the red chintz sofa with his hands, bizarrely, on his hips. What did a stance like that convey—embarrassment? Menace? Or some esoteric combination of both? Nick noticed a bottle of whisky—he’d never seen Sally drinking spirits before—and two glasses on the low table between the sofa and the battered leather armchair. No ashtray, of course, since Nick had agreed not to smoke in the house. Flynn had his hand out. He had a surprisingly firm grip. ‘Nick. I know it’s late…’

  Nick glanced involuntarily at his watch, although he knew exactly what time it was. He could smell the whisky on Flynn’s breath. ‘Michael. What’s this about?’

  Flynn and Sally exchanged glances, and Nick wondered what he’d told her.

  ‘Look,’ said Sally, ‘why don’t I leave you guys alone?’

  Flynn didn’t say anything.

  Nick said, ‘Sorry you had to wait up, Sal.’ He was going to add, ‘It won’t take long to sort this out’ but as he opened his mouth he sensed Flynn looking at him and left the words unsaid.

  On her way out Sally turned to Nick. ‘There’s some scotch left if you feel like it.’ She wasn’t smiling and Nick wondered again what she knew.

  ‘I’ll put the dog out,’ Nick said as Sally shut the door behind her.

  Flynn was standing, with his hands in his pockets this time, as if he didn’t know what else to do with them, although this hardly seemed
to Nick like a hands-in-pockets sort of occasion. He sat down in the armchair and waited for Flynn to reclaim his place on the sofa.

  ‘All right, Michael. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’

  It was almost 1.15 a.m. He wanted to be in bed.

  ‘I don’t know you very well,’ Flynn began, ‘but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘That’s good of you. But in relation to what?’

  ‘Everyone reckons you were a bloody good reporter.’

  ‘Are, not were. I’m not dead yet.’

  ‘From what I heard you got a raw deal over the Milhench arrest.’

  ‘You mean the Milhench non-arrest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen, Michael. It’s late. I’ve been subbing wire copy all night. Could you skip the preamble and just tell me why you’re here.’

  ‘Danny Grogan.’

  Nick folded his arms, then wished he hadn’t. In his experience folded arms meant having something to hide. Ignoring his promise not to smoke in the house, he reached for his cigarettes. Somehow, from the moment he’d laid eyes on Flynn, he’d been bracing himself to hear those words.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s a friend of yours, right?’

  ‘Was. We were at school together. I don’t see much of him these days.’

  ‘But you saw him on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘You drove his car.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A metallic blue Audi TT coupe.’

  ‘Michael. I’ve had this conversation in front of a magistrate. It cost me six hundred dollars and four points off my licence. And in case you’re wondering, Les Perger knows all about it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘So if that’s your scoop, mate, you’re running a bit behind the pack.’

  Flynn ignored the patronising tone. He sat for a while watching Nick smoke. Then he said, ‘What if I told you that a car just like Grogan’s was involved in an accident that night?’

  ‘Not while I was driving.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Where was this accident?’

  ‘Randwick.’ Flynn paused. ‘Just a few kilometres from where you were clocked speeding.’

  ‘Bullshit. Someone’s pulling your leg, Michael.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Who did you get this from—one of those dopey buggers in media liaison?’

  ‘This didn’t come from media liaison.’

  ‘Who then?’

  Flynn didn’t answer. Nick hadn’t expected him to: he wouldn’t have answered himself.

  ‘What sort of accident?’

  ‘A hit-and-run.’

  Nick vaguely recalled the Star reporting a hit-and-run on the night of New Year’s Eve. The victim, he remembered, was a middle-aged man. There had been no mention of witnesses. The police hadn’t even known what sort of car they were looking for. ‘What about the rego?’

  ‘The witness didn’t catch it. So I’m told.’

  So there was a witness. But a witness to what? And why had it taken so long for this witness to come forward?

  ‘If he didn’t catch—’

  ‘She. The witness was female.’

  ‘Fine. If she didn’t catch the rego, how come she was so sure about the car?’

  ‘Audi TT coupe,’ said Flynn. ‘It’s the kind of car you’d remember.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Nick ground the butt of his cigarette into Sally’s whisky tumbler. ‘Listen, Michael. A bit of friendly advice. There are some bitter and twisted people in the world and quite a few of them wear blue uniforms. I wouldn’t exactly describe Danny Grogan as Mr Popular down at Police Headquarters.’

  ‘But Grogan wasn’t driving his car that night,’ said Flynn. ‘You were—or have I got that wrong?’

  Nick lit another cigarette. To deny he was the driver was to admit to perverting the course of justice. The thought suddenly occurred to him that Flynn might have spoken to Danny. Was that why Nick hadn’t been able to reach him? Was Danny avoiding him?

  ‘The victim was a dealer,’ said Flynn. ‘The word is, he was a sleazy customer. He was into other forms of payment.’

  Nick realised he was being backed into a corner. He couldn’t rely on Danny to get him out. An awful realisation dawned on him. What if it had all been a set-up? Nick thought about the incinerated car. Supposing Danny—or the girl—had hit someone. They burnt the car, hoping that would destroy the evidence. Maybe they heard about the witness, maybe they didn’t. In any case they needed an alibi. The speeding ticket was just the bait they needed to draw him in. It would have been too much to expect Nick to put his hand up for a fatal hit-and-run. But a speeding ticket? For a hundred thousand dollars Nick was just stupid enough to agree to that. A hot sick feeling went through him like a wave.

  ‘The way I heard it,’ said Flynn, ‘the car must have hit him twice.’

  Flynn’s engine wouldn’t start. Nick switched off the light and stood in the hallway while the starter motor choked and snarled. Finally the engine spluttered into life. Flynn sat there revving the accelerator before driving away.

  Why had he come—to warn or to threaten? Nick had stuck to his story, because he had no choice. But the story had changed. Tomorrow or the next day or the next, two detectives were going to walk through the door—or maybe they would come for him at work—and charge him with manslaughter, or worse. He could deny it but what good what that do him? It was his word now against his word in court, on oath. He was lying now or he’d been lying then.

  He thought about the money: five thousand dollars and a wad of uncashed cheques. Without it, he could have argued that he’d lied for Danny out of a misguided sense of loyalty. Breaking up with Carolyn had left him vulnerable to an appeal by an old friend. He’d acted out of character. As a court reporter Nick had heard similar excuses dozens of times. Sometimes a magistrate believed them—or pretended to. Sometimes Nick even believed them himself. And yet he knew in his heart that people didn’t act out of character. They acted in character. They just didn’t recognise it.

  He went into the kitchen and shut the door and tried ringing Danny. His phone was still switched off. He found Danny’s home number in an old contact book but the phone rang out. He wasn’t sure that Danny could help him but he knew that without Danny he didn’t have a chance.

  A floorboard creaked—or was it the balcony swaying in the wind? Nick stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening. He wondered if Sally was still awake. Could he confide in her—in anyone? The dog gave one of its agonised yawns—the yawn of an animal that knew that any moment now it was going to be put outside. Nick reached down and stroked its skull. Then he put it outside.

  From the kitchen Jess called out, ‘I’m feeding myself.’

  ‘Jess is feeding herself,’ said Sally. ‘She wants you to have a look. Please applaud. The more applause she gets the more likely she is to do it again.’

  ‘Good girl, Jess,’ said Nick. In Sally’s presence he always sounded more formal towards Jess than he intended.

  ‘I made a mess,’ Jess replied proudly, leaning over the tray of her high chair to indicate a smudge of Weetbix-coloured mush on the ancient linoleum floor.

  ‘Come on,’ said Nick. ‘Let me see another mouthful of Weetbix.’

  Jess dipped her plastic spoon into the milk.

  ‘Milk first,’ said Jess.

  Sally was watching him and not moving and for a moment Nick had the disconcerting feeling that she was frightened of him. She untied and re-tied the knot in her dressing gown. ‘What’s going on, Nick?’

  Even if he’d wanted to answer that question truthfully, he wouldn’t have known how. He walked up to Sally and put an arm around her. She let him but her own arms remained by her side. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Then why was Michael so anxious to see you?’

  ‘He was working on
a story. For some reason he wanted to run it past me.’

  ‘At one o’clock in the morning?’

  Nick didn’t answer.

  Sally took Jess’s plastic spoon out of her mouth. ‘Come on, darling,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t stop just because Nick is here.’

  ‘I want to watch something,’ said Jess.

  ‘No, Jess. We had an agreement. You can watch something after you’ve had breakfast.’

  ‘I want to watch something now.’

  ‘I’ll feed her,’ said Nick.

  ‘You shouldn’t encourage her blackmail,’ said Sally.

  Nick stirred the Weetbix until it was a formless paste. ‘She’s almost finished. Haven’t you, Jess?’

  ‘I’m almost finished,’ Jess agreed.

  ‘Has this got something to do with Danny Grogan?’

  ‘It might have.’

  Sally stared at him. ‘Were you really driving the car?’ She gripped his forearm for a few seconds before releasing it. ‘I’m not the police, Nick. You can tell me.’

  ‘Admitting it cost me six hundred dollars. Why would I say I was driving the car if I wasn’t?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this, Sal. It’s bad enough having to tell Flynn—’ He stopped himself.

  ‘Tell Flynn what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Are you in trouble, Nick?’

  ‘It’s just a misunderstanding. I’ll talk to Flynn. I’ll sort it out.’

  The story was on the ABC news as Nick got out of the shower. A body believed to be that of Danny Grogan, proprietor of the Crypt nightclub in Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, had been found around dawn in the stairwell of an apartment building in Bondi, not far from where he lived. The body was spotted by a man delivering newspapers. According to the news report it hadn’t been formally identified but the delivery man had recognised Danny. The building was cordoned off and police were interviewing residents to discover whether Danny had visited any of the apartments. Cause of death was yet to be determined but according to an ambulance officer on the scene Danny had died of an overdose.