by Peter Corris
'You got more than you bargained for when you came to see Miles that day, Cliff. Didn't you?'
'So did you.'
Wrong thing to say: it set her off again and she almost stumbled and started to sob quietly. I steered her slowly up Hay Street through a thick press of people out to shop, eat, have a good time. Her shoes and feet were covered in blood. I hailed a taxi in George Street and sat beside her in the back.
'Glebe,' I said to the driver.
'Where?' she said.
'You're coming to my place.'
She nodded and slumped back in the seat. Would the driver see blood on the floor when he cleaned the cab? Maybe. Would he do anything about it? Again, maybe. I stopped the cab in Glebe Point Road. No point in leaving a clear trail to the house.
I got her there. She was calm. She took off her shoes and stockings and I gave her a damp towel to clean her feet. The head butt had set up a ringing in my damaged ear. I stripped off my clothes, cleaned the cut with alcohol swabs and applied a dressing. I put on fresh clothes and joined her. Her usually immaculate hair was untidy and there were strain lines beside her eyes and mouth. She was still beautiful, but she'd never quite wear that imperturbable expression again.
I made coffee and we drank it laced with Black Douglas scotch rather than Courvoisier. She sat quietly for a while, nursing her cup. She looked around the room, taking in the books, CDs, photos and general air of careless maintenance. There were magazines and newspapers lying around and a glass and a coffee mug on a bookshelf. The carpet was new but hadn't seen a vacuum cleaner for a while.
When she seemed to be more or less composed, I said, 'Where did they pick you up?'
'At my place. Freddy… he helped me find it and lent me some of the money. I didn't know he had a key. I suppose I should have. What's going to happen now? Were you going to tell Miles about Malouf contacting you?'
I liked that about her, not having the first thought immediately for herself. I said I wasn't sure and that I'd have to think things through again now that Freddy was out of the picture.
'What about Lester?'
'I don't think he amounts to much without Freddy, do you?'
She shook her head. Mention of Freddy raised the inevitable question. 'Are you going to tell the police what happened?'
'I don't see why. Lester's going to cover it up in some way, and as far as I'm concerned it was a kind of self-defence.'
'Thank you. Oh God, what about the knife?'
'It's in the pocket of my jacket. Tomorrow it'll be in the sludge at the bottom of Blackwattle Bay.'
I showed her the spare room and found her a clean T-shirt. She kissed me on the cheek. When beautiful young women kiss you on the cheek you know you're over the hill, but I didn't really feel like that. As Wesley said, I still had some moves.
I took some pills. The pain in my side eased and the ringing in my ear dulled down. I thought about May Ling's knife work as I drifted off to sleep. She didn't owe him money anymore.
24
Standish collected May Ling in the morning. I brought him up to date on the recent events and told him that Freddy Wong had been killed by accident, with no likely repercussions for May Ling or me. She had regained complete control of herself by then, had showered, used my comb and didn't look any the worse for not having any makeup. She'd washed and rinsed her stockings and cleaned her shoes. Looked just about ready to go to work. Standish was all protective solicitude. He was relieved to hear that one of the people threatening him was out of the picture. I wondered what he'd think about his lover if he'd seen the way she'd stuck it to Freddy.
'Thanks again, Hardy. What now?'
'I have to think. As I said, the Wongs were all set to double-cross Houli. I'm going to try to find a way to make use of that.'
'Surely you just go to the police now and tell them Malouf's alive and leave it to them to catch him?'
'Don't you want to know what it's all about?' 'Not really, no.' 'I do,' May Ling said.
That wrong-footed Standish and he buckled straight off. 'Do what you have to do,' he said. He must have thought that sounded limp so he added, 'Do you need any more money?'
I said I didn't. May Ling wanted to visit Gretchen to make sure she was all right. Standish seemed to think that was an excellent idea. I told them to be careful, to keep close to other people and lock the doors.
'I think we might take a short holiday,' Standish said. 'But you have the mobile number in case you need any help.'
'Maybe a harbour cruise,' I said, 'or a houseboat on the Hawkesbury. Keep a lookout for Malouf.' May Ling laughed.
'You've got a sick sense of humour, Hardy,' Standish said. They left. I thought May Ling might give me another peck on the cheek but she didn't.
Sabatini rang. Airport. Want to pick me up?' 'In the bar,' I said.
He was nursing a beer when I arrived. No sign of jet lag. I got a Hahn Lite and we went to a quiet corner. I started to speak but he stopped me, reached into his bag and pulled out a tape recorder.
'Okay?'
I thought about it and decided it wouldn't hurt to have a record of events-things said and speculations made. I gave him chapter and verse while he finished his drink. He stopped the recording while I got two more. As I crossed to the bar I couldn't help thinking about Richard Malouf and his apparent awareness of the movements of some of the players-Standish, May Ling and me. I looked around, but there was no one answering his description, unless he was a master of disguise.
Resuming, I got to where the Wongs had picked up May Ling and me and there I did a bit of editing, much as I had for Standish. But Sabatini was a journalist.
'So who killed him?'
'It was a kind of accident.'
'Bullshit.'
'I was there, you weren't.'
'You don't trust me.'
'Look, the situation is fluid. At some point we're going to have to deal with the police. We'll be trying to hold the best hand we can, exert the most leverage. We don't need to give anyone ammunition, anything they can use to apply… opposite pressure. Shit, I'm talking like a physicist.'
'This tape is my professional property. I'm a working journalist. I don't have to make its contents available to anyone.'
I shook my head. 'That's what the book says, but you know and I know that the right judge in the right court can put you in gaol and the police can paint any picture of you they like with the cooperation of your press colleagues. Ever been busted for pot? Pros? Ever up on a DUI? Go through your accountant's work on your tax with a fine-tooth comb, do you? Make sure every claim is kosher? You know how it works.'
Sabatini turned off the recorder. 'Tell me off the record.'
I finished my beer: two lights in an hour. Probably all right to drive, but best to wait a while.
I said, 'When it's over. Maybe. But don't worry, you'll get your story.'
He had to be content with that and we got down to planning how to draw Richard Malouf out into the open and what to do after that.
'Why not tell the police that he's still alive, wait for his call and get them to trace it?'
'No,' I said, 'from what I've been told about him and from what he said himself, he'd take very good precautions against that.'
'Then do as he says, broker a deal with the police.'
'They wouldn't be in it. That's one of things worrying me. He's not playing the game he says he is. He can't really imagine the police would let him go, even if the business he's involved in is huge and he's in the clear on the two deaths.'
'Why not?'
'Too hard to cover up. Too many favours to call in at too high a level. No, we need to get hold of him ourselves and dictate the terms.'
'How?'
'How d'you squeeze information out of people who don't want to give it?'
He looked uncomfortable. 'I wouldn't put it quite like that, but one technique is to put pressure on someone else, someone the subject cares about. Who does Malouf care about?'
'On the face of it, only himsel
f, but I'm wondering. Houli told Rosemary that Malouf wasn't his real name, remember? If we could find out what his real name is, who he is, we might get somewhere.'
'Jesus, that's a big ask, but…'
'What?'
'I remember when I was researching him, when I thought he was dead, I came across some anomaly, something that didn't quite fit. I dismissed it and I can't remember now what it was, but there was something. I'd have to go through my files.'
'Where are they?'
He reached into his pocket and took out a memory stick attached to his keys. I pointed to the overnight bag at his feet.
'Is your laptop there, your notebook, or whatever?'
'No, I left it with Rosemary. Anyway I'd have to go to my computer at home because it's all encrypted, the software…'
'Don't tell me, I wouldn't understand. Let's go.'
In the Coogee flat, Sabatini dumped his bag and went straight to the computer in his workroom. He had it up and running in a split second and began tapping the keys, wiping boxes and scrolling at a rapid rate the way they do.
'Here it is, look.'
On the screen was a photograph of a school soccer team. The boys looked to be about sixteen or seventeen and wore that confident expression that goes with private school and sporting prowess. The names of the players were listed at the bottom of the photograph. Sabatini pointed. A tall, dark haired youth stood in the back row and a smaller, less dark boy was in the middle row. According to the list of names the smaller boy was Richard Malouf and the taller was William Habib.
Sabatini put his finger on the boy in the back row. 'That's Malouf without a doubt, or the man we know as Malouf.'
I peered. 'They're alike, but you're right.'
'I sort of noticed it when I was working on this stuff but I just put it down to a glitch in the names. I should've checked. Now that there's some doubt about Malouf's identity…'
'When I've run up against a name change or confusion,' I said, 'I always check the dates. How do the dates we know about him stack up?'
Sabatini worked through his notes and his published pieces.
'The football photo is of their last year at school. If he did a four-year honours course at WA there's a three-year gap between leaving school and going to university.'
'I've heard of a gap year, but not three years. We need to find out more about William Habib. The starting point's the school.'
Sabatini sighed. 'I'll try. I need some coffee. Would you mind? The milk's probably off, though.'
'I'll leave you to it.' There was plenty of ground coffee in the kitchen but the milk smelt dodgy. I was glad to get out into the fresh beachside air.
Coogee is hilly, good cardiac exercise territory. I tramped up a few hills and finished at the shops in Clovelly Road. I bought the milk and a bottle of wine and some sandwiches. Who knows how long an Internet search takes? Could be hours, so I bought a paper as well and looked at the headlines on the way back. The news about the economy was good- things that should be up were up and things that should be down were down. The government was happy; the opposition was grumpy. The experts were puzzled.
Sabatini was clattering away, swearing occasionally and muttering to himself. He had some classical music I didn't recognise playing softly; no surprise there, I can only recognise 'Bolero' and a couple of Beethoven concertos, a bit of Tchaikovsky at a pinch. I made the coffee and took a mug and a sandwich in to him.
'Thanks,' he said, with his eyes on the screen.
'How's it going?'
'Takes time.'
I went out onto the balcony to drink my coffee and look at the water. Many times I've been tempted to move to the eastern suburbs, get a flat with a view, swim eight months a year. Something holds me back.
I heard Sabatini's printer chattering-a good sign. I finished the coffee, opened the bottle of wine and drank some with a sandwich. A greyish morning had given way to a bright afternoon. I read some more of the paper and dozed in the sun.
'We've come up with something.'
I jerked awake as Sabatini came out onto the balcony with a sheaf of printout in his hand.
'I got on to the school, Riverside Grammar. They have the students' outstanding results over the last twenty odd years and Richard Malouf is right up there. No sign of William Habib. Same for sporting achievements and there the position is reversed. Malouf OK at soccer; Habib good at everything.'
He flicked through the sheets. 'A Richard Malouf died in Cooktown Hospital in 1992. A drowning. The school has him listed as a departed old boy. A brief report in the Cooktown Courier says he was accompanied on the swim by an unnamed school friend who failed to save him.'
Sabatini held up another sheet. 'A Richard Malouf enrolled at the University of Western Australia in 1994.'
'I wondered about that,' I said. 'When you've been a star at a Brisbane private school why do you go to uni in Western Australia? It's a long way to go to get away from home.'
Sabatini went on. 'This Malouf didn't do so flash except at computer stuff. He was brilliant at that. But he captained the soccer team and was the opener for the cricket team; handy pace bowler, too.'
'Sounds more like Habib. Any trace of him and why the switch?'
'William Habib was charged in 1990 for assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. He never appeared in court. Bail was posted and forfeited. This is the kicker-Selim Houli put up the bail.'
We talked around that for a while. It looked as if William Habib had assumed the identity of Richard Malouf and had gone as far away as he could to gain his credentials using Malouf's school results to get him started. Then he worked his way back east and found himself a spot where he could gain access to a lot of business accounts and manipulate others, under cover of legitimate activity with Selim Houli as some kind of backer.
'It leaves us no closer to finding out what the big picture is,' Sabatini said.
'No, but at least we know something about him that he doesn't know we know. Tell me William Habib has an old mother who he couldn't bear to see troubled.'
'I checked the Brisbane phone directory. There's a column and a half of Habibs.'
'I wonder if he killed Malouf and swiped some of the things he'd need to do the identity change.'
Sabatini shrugged. 'It was a long time ago.'
It was a stalemate; far from learning anything that might give us the initiative, we were simply waiting for Malouf/ Habib to contact me when he chose. We decided that the only thing to do was wait a few days for the call and play it by instinct at that point-perhaps hinting that we knew his real identity and hoping that might throw him off-balance.
'If he doesn't call in that time?' Sabatini asked.
'You write something along the lines of "Is Richard Malouf still alive? And who is he?" Something like that and see if it touches a nerve.'
'The police'll pick up on that and they'll be after us.'
'The more the merrier. I've dealt with the police before.'
'Yeah, and lost your licence. But, okay, we'll see how it plays out. I owe you for Rosemary. Keep your phone charged up.'
We had a drink and left it at that. I drove back to Glebe. The roadwork that had been going on for almost a year was almost finished and some of the businesses that had looked to be struggling were picking up. I reckoned it was about time I saw Megan again and was thinking about that as I turned into my street. The low winter sun was in my eyes and I shielded them with my hand as I brought the car to a stop outside my house. I was still a bit dazzled when I got out and jiggled my keys, feeling for the right one.
'Hardy!'
Lester Wong stepped out from behind one of the shrubs in front of the house. The muzzle of his sawn-off shotgun was about three metres from my chest.
A voice: 'Police! Drop the gun!'
I hit the ground hard. There was a roar like an unmuffled exhaust, and shredded leaves dropped on me as I heard the pellets bouncing off the car.
'Drop it!'
Two sharp
cracks, and when I looked up I saw Lester on his back, sprawled across the tiled path and he wasn't moving. part three
PART THREE
25
I had grazed palms, bruised knees and torn trousers-pretty soft landing after facing a sawn-off. That didn't mean I could go quietly inside and pour myself a congratulatory drink. The police arrived, then the media; mobile phone signals bounced around and I ended up in Chang's Surry Hills office.
'Thought it was about time we had a chat, Hardy,' Chang said. 'Lucky for you we were there, or lucky Ali was there- best pistol shot in the service.'
Ali was still wearing his displeased expression.
'Thank you,' I said.
'You might like to help me with the paperwork.'
'We're getting whispers that Freddy Wong's not around, and now his crazy brother comes after you. We also know Sabatini flew back home today.'
'Is this a formal interview?'
'No, come on, Hardy. You're up to your balls in something too big for you. I had to talk fast to keep DI Caulfield off your case-being present at two violent deaths tends to make people suspicious. Sheer stroke of luck that now you're not just down the way from your place in the bloody morgue.'
All true, and Malouf/Habib hadn't rung. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe Lester's death, which was bound to be on the news that night, would scare him off. When I thought about it, our plan for something Sabatini could write was our best chance of provoking him and that would bring the police running anyway. It was time to come clean-well, cleanish.
I told them Freddy Wong was definitely dead, and that three people (that was stretching it a bit) whom I wouldn't name were present. I said it was somewhere between an accident and self-defence.
Ali shot an astonished look at Chang. 'Can you believe this guy?'
'There's more,' I said.
I told them that a man calling himself Richard Malouf had spoken to me on the phone, the deal he'd proposed and that he said he'd be in touch. I said that I was working with Sabatini and that we'd uncovered evidence to suggest that his real name was William Habib. I started to talk about the plan Sabatini and I had, but Ali cut me off with a snort of derision and an angry slap of his hand against the wall.
