THE DEVIL IN THE RED DIRT: DIVIDED IN LIFE. UNIFIED IN MURDER

by Michael Smith

  The phone was ringing in the office, the men were ignoring it. “Can someone get that phone?” asked someone, presumably, given all the grey running through his beard, one of the most senior in the room.

  “It’s been ringing off the hook all morning. I’m a bloody celebrity.” Clarke seemed a little regretful, not for ruining a pair of men’s lives and sending Sydney’s underworld into turmoil, just about how much of a burden answering the phone was, and all the unwanted attention he was getting

  “Our advertising sales today alone beat our targets for the next…” The newspaper’s Director of Media Sales stopped talking when he saw Lescott had sat amongst the group.

  Lescott looked at the ringing phone. “That’d be the front desk. They’re trying to warn you that Detective Chief Inspector Alan Livingstone is on his way up. Something about threats against Thomas Clarke’s life.”

  “I’m sorry… Who are you?” Clarke questioned, knowing full well that this man wasn’t Alan Livingstone.

  “Detective Chief Inspector Alan Livingstone,” lied Fred Lescott, once again.

  “We’re in the middle of an important meeting here,” a senior editor protested.

  “You’re right. I’m sure the death threats will wait for you to finish.” Lescott began to inspect his fingernails. The newspapermen looked at each other in disbelief.

  “As I was saying… Our advertising sales… As a result…” The editor had begun to talk uncertainly, only to be interrupted by a vexatious sound: it was loud and it was scratchy. Lescott had pulled a pen out of his pocket and had begun scribbling straight onto the meeting room table. The men turned to see him drawing a crude portrait of a man being shot in the head. It was only stick figures, but it conveyed his message quite beautifully. “Our targets. They’ve…” Still the scratching continued.

  “This would be much quicker if you stopped stuttering…” Lescott butted in, without looking up from his macabre art.

  “Are you being serious?” Thomas Clarke slammed his fist on the table.

  “Intelligence provided by a CI in Darlinghurst not a couple of hours ago suggests members of the mob are coming here, today, to kill a Thomas Clarke, his editor and anyone they can lay their hands on.” Clarke and another, more senior looking man, gulped loudly. “I’ve come to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “But you’re not…”

  “I believe James Harris has been arrested on buggery charges. The New South Wales Police Force has been riddled with downright dirty cops for years. Your article may well flush out some of the force’s corruption and lead to fairer, better policing in New South Wales. I applaud you. I believe they’re readying a medal for you.”

  “Really?”

  “No. Not really. You dishonest idiot. All you’ve done is endanger yourself and those around you. I hope it was worth it.” Lescott smiled, as though his words weren’t deeply insulting.

  “You’re quite rude, sir,” said the indignant editor.

  “You came here to mock us?” piped up another.

  “No. I came to protect Mr Clarke. Men are most likely on their way here now; they may even be in the building.” Lescott made a point of pricking up his ears as though he’d heard something. The others followed suit fearfully. “I’ve sent an officer to pick up your wife and children at your home.”

  “My wife’s at work… And my children are in school.” Clarke’s eyes widened in fear.

  “Where would that be?” Lescott pulled out his notebook.

  “She’s a typist over at Cummings and Partners. The kids go to school at Redlands in Cremorne.” Where Harris was all muscle and brawn, Lescott was a clever little bastard; you could tell he’d grown up small in a tough place. He was several steps ahead. He was playing chess while everyone else was still learning to walk.

  “A working woman?”

  “She’s one of them ‘Feminists.’ She liked to work. What can I say?”

  “Fuck me. You poor bastard.” Lescott put his notepad away and stifled a smug smile. “We’ll send men there immediately.”

  “But you’re not Alan Livingstone…” Clarke asked.

  “No. I’m not. You’re quite the investigative journalist. I commend you for that. I lied. In truth I’m a lowly dogsbody detective and my name and rank wouldn’t have got me past the battle axe on reception downstairs. If I don’t make it past that woman. I don’t make it up here. I don’t save your life. You die. That’s no skin off my ballsack to be honest, but it would mean my job. So, I lied. But that was my only lie. The rest was true. DCI Livingstone sent me. You’re in danger. And while you’re here, these fine gentlemen are all similarly in grave danger. We need to get you into protective custody at once. Hopefully Prince’s men aren’t waiting for us in the lobby or on the street.” Lescott paused for effect.

  “I don’t believe you.” Clarke reached for a phone set. “I’m going to call Livingstone and clear this up.”

  “I knew I should have posted those life insurance forms.” Lescott’s meticulously constructed blasé act was terrifying Clarke’s colleagues. He’d failed to convince his target, but he’d convinced his target’s colleagues.

  “You should go,” the most senior of the men suggested from the head of the table. The others murmured in ardent agreement. The journalist sitting next to Clarke pressed onto the cradle to disconnect the call.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to finish your meeting?” Lescott smiled.

  Clarke shook his head, he was petrified. His colleagues packed up his things and passed him his jacket. They were practically pushing him out the damned door.

  Lescott noticed that they’d cracked open an incredibly old, expensive bottle of cognac to celebrate. He leant over, grabbed it and took a sniff. “That’s beautiful, do you mind?” The men shook their heads in shock. Lescott drank straight from the bottle. “It’s a little fruity for my taste, but overall I’d say I’m a fan.”

  “Are you sure you’re a policeman?” Clarke asked.

  “I am.” Lescott ushered Clarke towards the door having seemingly forgotten to give the cognac back.

  On their way through the bullpen, Lescott stopped by the desk of the man who had pointed him in the right direction; he was now doing his best to buff the gash from his desk. Fucking journalists.

  Lescott grabbed the man’s phone and dialled a number from his pocket book. “We’re on our way. The kids are at Redlands in Cremorne, the wife’s in the typing pool of Cummings and Partners.”

  As the pair walked through the foyer and out of the offices, people stopped and stared. It looked entirely like Lescott had taken the man against his will. Clarke, in two minds as to whether anything Lescott had said was true, stayed uncomfortably close to his kidnapper as they walked. He was nervous. He ought to have been, the life raft he was clinging to was leading him straight into the storm. “I appreciate your efforts, Detective…”

  “Livingstone… It’s the least I could do. Duty as a policeman. Sacred oath to uphold the law and protect the innocent. Blah blah blah.” Lescott had nearly done his job. The need for the masquerade was swiftly disappearing. He pushed the double doors open and looked up and down the street. “It looks like we might be alright.”

  “If you’re not Livingstone. Who are you? Clarke inquired. Lescott ignored the question and opened the back door to let Clarke in. Clarke was having second thoughts about trusting the man, and not a moment too soon. He lingered by the door as he waited for an answer that would not come. “I’m not getting in there until you tell me who the hell you are.”

  When Lescott reached into the back of his trousers, Clarke knew exactly what he was reaching for. He went to run. Lescott was too quick for him. With his free hand, the detective grabbed the fleeing journalist by the back of his collar, pulled him back and then pushed him face-first into the side of the car. When Clarke fell in an unconscious heap, Lescott cursed. He was worried he might have seriously hurt the man. His fears were allayed when the journalist began softly snoring in t
he gutter.

  Having bundled Clarke onto the back seat, Lescott took a gulp of the cognac as he fiddled with the dials on his car stereo. Clarke groaned softly as music filled the air. “Are you a Dylan fan? I’m a big Dylan fan.” No answer came from the back seat. Lescott turned the volume up and began to sing along in a warbling voice as he drove off. “You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone; for the times they are a changin’.”

  Amongst unfamiliar surroundings, Thomas Clarke came to from a deep sleep. A good sleep. The kind of sleep that makes you forget about life while it nourishes your soul. The throbbing of his crown went some way to remind him of the predicament he’d voluntarily walked into. The drunk in front of him did the rest.

  Fred Lescott was sitting on a busted armchair in the middle of an empty industrial facility. Maybe a warehouse, maybe a factory, they’re much of a muchness are they not. Lescott had been making light work of a bottle of cognac which, until relatively recently, had been nestled away in a dusty cellar of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, waiting for such a time that a fine man found cause to celebrate in style. Now its contents lay within Lescott’s gut and the bottle rested precariously on a protruding spring between the detective’s legs. Lescott’s face was puffy, his eyes bleary and his mouth gormlessly hanging ajar. He was loaded. He’d made a horrible job of parking his car inside the building. In a near empty space, he’d managed to crash into a stack of disused boxes.

  “Livingstone isn’t going to meet us here, is he?”

  Lescott shook his head and reached into his pocket for a bottle of pills, he clumsily poured several into his open hand and tossed them down his throat. He’d switched. His brash arrogance was gone. He was in possession of a hateful stare. When Clarke followed the direction of his captor’s eyes with his own, he saw nothing there. But that didn’t fool Clarke, the mournful resentment in Lescott’s eyes made it clear that he was watching something in that thin, empty air. He couldn’t have possibly known this, but Lescott was watching a woman playing with her child once more. As he witnessed the pair, a steady stream of tears leaked from his eyes. It seemed to Clarke that Lescott was quite the demented fuck.

  Clarke’s journalistic tendencies got the better of him. “Where are we?”

  His question was met with silence. When Lescott reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, his jacket shifted, and the revolver tucked into his trousers became visible. Clarke began to sob. Lescott, taking something like mercy upon the man, threw his cigarettes to Clarke when he had lit his own.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Now’s probably a good time to start.” Lescott threw his matches over. “Does wonders for your nerves.” He watched as Clarke attempted to light a cigarette, his hands were shaking, he was getting tears all over the timber. He was a nervous wreck. Clarke smoked the cigarette stressfully. Like it was magically going to make him feel better. Instead, it just made him feel sick.

  In the distance, a metallic pipe fell from its perch on a windowsill, it created a clanging sound that permeated the building and he jumped from his chair.

  “You’re going to want to sit down. In about thirty seconds James Harris is going to walk around that corner.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, while you’ve been sleeping I’ve been making meaningful alterations to my body chemistry. The booze, the cocaine, the diazepam. My drug dealer in Darlinghurst calls it riding both sides of the see-saw…”

  Ok. I’ve been rumbled. You’ve probably heard me using that term. Yes, I am the one who Lescott turned to for drugs. That’s kind of why I’m telling this story, it’s how I tie it all together. I was reticent to mention it given it was clearly causing him some distress. Believe what you will, but I didn’t find out how much damage it was doing until later on.

  “I call it getting by,” Lescott clarified. “It does leave me very sleepy though. So, I’m going to go for a nap in my car.”

  “No, I meant…” Clarke stopped talking as Lescott shut his eyes for a moment. They were getting heavy; it had been a long day. Clarke looked over to the door and stood up under the guise of stretching.

  “Stay where you are. Unless you can outrun a bullet, that’s a bad idea,” Lescott threatened through closed eyes.

  As Clarke sat down and finally, surrendered himself entirely to the situation, he heard the sound of a car engine in the distance. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the sounds of the place, but he realised he could hear seagulls and waves somewhere nearby. They were on the coast. Likely a remote industrial estate. As a journalist who focused on Sydney’s underworld, Clarke had written several articles climaxing with a gangland execution in just such a place.

  Harris’ car cornered through the vast doors into the facility and crept across the warehouse floor where it came to a stop just by Lescott who opened his eyes and raised himself onto unsteady feet. He climbed into the passenger seat and Harris looked him up and down. “Have you been drinking?” Lescott offered him a sip from the bottle of cognac. Ronnie Prince had been admonishing his right-hand man for his heroin use for over a decade, he’d warned him of the sloppiness it creates in a man. It was Harris’ turn to castigate a wasted accomplice. “Get in your car. Sleep it off.”

  By the time Harris sat across from Thomas Clarke, his rage had subsided. To say he was calm would be overstating things, he was still angry but he was now back in control. “I got this place for a song when the taxman came after Kate Leigh, she never let me hear the end of it before she passed, penniless and destitute. No way to go really. Better to go out on your own terms, I think. With a bang.”

  Clarke gulped.

  “Who got to you?”

  “What do you mean?” Clarke stuttered over his words, he was fearful of the stony expression on the standover man’s face.

  “Well, I know Livingstone made you print the first article. I’m sure that was great for circulation. But I don’t think that would be enough of an incentive for you to kill Prince and me… That’s what you’ve done.” Harris paused when he noticed Clarke flinch. “That second article, Livingstone had nothing to gain from it…”

  “Alan invited me for a fancy lunch at the Kelly Hotel. When I got there, we were joined by George Watson. He threatened my family, I didn’t have a choice.” Clarke fidgeted nervously.

  “And so, you plotted Prince’s downfall while he fed you oysters and champagne.” Harris shook his head. He understood Clarke’s actions. He didn’t blame the man for doing his best to survive, even if that had put his own survival in jeopardy.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Clarke asked. He could see that Harris had not yet made up his mind.

  From the front seat of his car, surrounded by smashed up cardboard, Lescott watched the two men speak. To his surprise, they shook hands and Clarke began to run from the building only to stop when Harris called him back. Lescott could scarcely believe his eyes when Harris tossed the journalist his car keys.

  “All of that for nothing?” Lescott asked as Harris jumped into his car.

  “He’s not off the hook, he’s dangling on the line.” Harris watched as Clarke struggled to find the biting point in his shitbox car. “I fucking loved that car.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?” Lescott slurred.

  “I’ve sent an associate of mine to pick up his family, they’re going to drive out into the country and stay there while the dust settles.”

  When I got the call from James, asking me to drive Clarke’s family out into the sticks from James, I wasn’t happy. I’d read the article, though I didn’t believe it, I didn’t want it getting around that I was doing him any favours. But James Harris was a persuasive man. I was powerless. Those bastard kids screamed their heads off all the way to Gippsland.

  “This associate of yours?” Lescott asked. “Is he trustworthy?”

  “No,” Harris, the bastard, answered. “But he’s what we are stuck with.”

  “Why go to all this effort to protect him?�
�

  “A man who owes you his life is far more valuable than a dead body that can be traced back to you.” Harris really ought to have written his own volume of musings, he could have called it The Art of Gang-War. It would have sold well. “You can drop me at home. I need to get out of town.”

  Harris considered where best to go. He knew Adelaide well. He’d lived there for years before coming to Sydney. Queensland was nice, but the Sydney underworld had a lot of interests there, and it could have ended up a case of Out of the frying pan and into a frying pan with slightly better weather.

  “Have you ever been out into the red dirt?” Lescott asked slowly.

  “Wet season isn’t it?” Harris dismissed the idea.

  “There’s been a lot of reports of kids going missing out there. A lot of Aboriginal kids. The cases go cold as soon as they come in. The outback’s vast. They’re never found. People going missing has been a cost of living out there since life out there started. Maybe it could be a hunting ground.” Lescott’s mind was skipping over the files and reports he’d spent his last two years reading. Perhaps that spell of solitude in Missing Persons was going to count for something.

  “The red dirt on the bodies? The tailor’s label in the boy’s pocket?” Harris scratched at his jaw in contemplation. “Only thing is… I just gave my car away.”

  “We’ll take mine,” Lescott mumbled through closed eyes.

  “We?” Harris was bemused at the suggestion they’d journey into the red dirt together.

  “We’re going on an adventure,” Lescott exclaimed in a playful, childish voice as he began to fall into a deep sleep.

  He was right. The coastal regions and the hinterlands to the south and the east were easily habitable for Western settlers. There was little adventure left in the cities. But the Northern Territory was a very different proposition. Its natural beauty was matched only by the barrenness of the land. It was, and still is, one of the most beautiful areas in the world. A real bed of jewels. But sleeping on a bed of jewels gives you an awfully sore back. As such it was still something of an unconquered frontier. The settlements out there were sparsely populated and hundreds of miles apart.