by Peter Corris
They stopped at a light and she unzipped his fly and slipped her hand inside. 'Jesus,' he groaned. 'Be careful.'
'Think about something that doesn't excite you.'
'I can't think about anything except you.'
'Even with a dead kid in the back?'
Phillip accelerated away from the light. 'Yes. Yes. Even so.'
'Good,' Trish said, pulling her hand out. 'I had my doubts about you, Phillip, but they're beginning to go away.'
Phillip was suddenly clearly aware of something he'd dimly sensed. 'You've been in this situation before, haven't you? That's why you're so calm about it. It's part of the job.'
Trish Tillotson was no stranger to death and had dealt out the dose herself several times when occasion demanded. Her own background had been one of underprivilege and emotional and physical neglect, and she was unsentimental about the streetwalkers, parlour girls and criminal fringe groupies she had dealt with. She despised drug addicts and took the view that there was a category of sub-humans who had to be kept in check. Dave Scanlon's daughter fell outside the usual parameters, but she wasn't about to grieve over her. Trish had her eyes set on achieving high rank in the force, early retirement on a good pension with many favours owing to her. She had already accumulated a few, and felt secure in her manoeuvrings with such people as Thomas Kippax. She prided herself on an ability to pick winners, and also to ride them home.
'Turn left,' she said. 'Have you any idea how many people are killed accidentally in this state every week?'
'No.'
'Lots. Scores. Life is dangerous. Everyone's dispensable. The idea that life is sacred is a joke. It can be snuffed out by a leaking brake line, or a bee sting. We're here. Go down that driveway and pull up in front of the third garage door. I'll open it and you can run the car in.'
'Why don't you use it?'
'I don't own a car. I can always get a lift.'
'Won't it seem unusual to the other residents here?'
Trish's hand slid back onto Phillip's leg. 'D'you think you're the first man who's put his car in my garage?'
Phillip gulped. 'I suppose not.'
'You bet not, but I'll tell you one thing—you're the most attractive.'
Phillip nosed the Saab down the dark driveway towards the roller door. Trish left the car, pulled a set of keys from her bag and opened the door. She went inside and flicked on a light. The car crept forward and stopped just short of a pile of tea chests. Phillip switched off the headlights. Trish left the door open and came to the driver's window. 'This is where you decide some things,' she said. 'You can back out of here, drive to the nearest police station and tell them everything that's happened, or you can help me hide her and come inside. Choose, and do it quickly. I have to tell you, the offer's only good for a few seconds.'
Phillip reached back and released the lock on the rear door. He climbed from the car and stood close to Trish. The light in the garage was not strong and the lower half of her face was in shadow. She looked dark and mysterious, slant-eyed and exotic in her rumpled black suit and creased blouse. He noticed a brown streak that had striped her face from eye-socket to jawbone like Indian warpaint, where she had brushed back her hair with a bloodied hand. He touched the mark, feeling her smooth, tight skin and hearing the sharply indrawn breath. The tiny voice, deep inside his skull, telling him to pull out of this madness, fell silent.
'Tell me what to do and I'll do it.'
Trish felt a surge of triumph. She was uninterested in equality, stimulated by compliance. 'Behind these boxes.'
The tea chests were empty and Phillip eased them away from the wall as Trish shut the garage door. They lifted the body from the car and put it on the cement floor. Phillip rearranged the chests so that the body was completely hidden from view. All he felt about the inert bundle was that it was surprisingly heavy.
The flat was expensively, but austerely appointed, with a minimum of furnishings and appliances. Phillip, no connoisseur, had a feeling that the two paintings hanging in the sitting room were originals and good. Trish made two gin and tonics and brought them out to the balcony, where there was a view back over parkland towards the city.
'We could go up to the roof,' she said. 'You can see the water from there.'
Phillip gulped his drink and leaned back against the brick wall, which still held a little of the day's heat.
'This is fine. It's great.'
'You're not trying. It cost too much to be called great. You're nervous—is it about me or what we're doing for Thomas?'
'Both.'
'Action is the best cure for indecision. Who said that?'
'I don't know.'
'Perhaps I did. Anyway, it's true, so let's act.' She took Phillip's hand and led him back into the sitting room, where she produced a hand-held tape recorder. She switched it on and presented it to Phillip. 'Say, "Keep your mouth shut and the girl will be all right".'
Phillip paled. 'I can't say that.'
'Try it. Just for fun.'
'Fun?'
'Wrong word. Just pretend you're dictating to your secretary.'
Phillip took the recorder and closed his eyes. Speaking slowly he said, 'Keep your mouth shut and the girl will be all right.'
'Good.' Trish rewound the tape and pressed several buttons on the machine. When she replayed it the voice was deeper with the vowels flatter. She wound the tape back again, lifted the phone and dialled. When the call was answered she played the tape, hit the STOP button and hung up the phone.
'They'll be listening and they'll record it,' Trish said as she erased the tape. 'But that's several electronic interferences with your voice plus telephone transmission. Unrecognisable, unidentifiable. Now, we've attended to Thomas's business for the time being. Come in here.'
She led him into the bedroom, peeled back the cover to reveal black satin sheets with white pillows. Phillip reached for her but she pushed him away. 'We're going to take this slow and easy. A first fuck's a very important thing and it's idiotic to rush it and mess it up. Don't you agree, darling?'
Phillip nodded nervously. Never sexually aggressive, he had endured enough humiliating episodes of impotence, especially in first encounters, to be willing to be guided by someone with more confidence and experience. She slipped off her jacket and gestured for him to do the same. He did. Then she unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it from his trousers and ran her hands over his chest. She plucked at his nipples, leaned close and teased them with her teeth and tongue.
'Do the same to me.'
Somehow, Phillip's clumsy fingers unfastened the blouse and the brassiere. He trembled at the sight of her small brown breasts, firm and up-tilted with large dark nipples. She stroked his hair as he nuzzled at them, groaning as his teeth closed and his tongue teased the erectile tissue. She unbuckled his belt and pulled down his trousers and underpants. Phillip found trouble with the waistband of her skirt and she helped him with it, crooning and rotating her hips slightly to wriggle out of the skirt and panties. She wore a suspender belt supporting dark-tinted stockings. Her thighs were narrow and hard, almost scrawny. Her crotch was shaven so that her sex was a long, gaping pink fold. She closed her legs on Phillip's probing hand.
'What if I said that's enough,' she whispered. 'What would you do?'
Phillip mumbled incoherently. Her hand had closed around his penis, stroking gently.
'Oh, please, no, don't . . .'
'You want me?'
'Yes. Yes.'
'You want me!'
'Yes.'
'What do you want to do?'
'I want . . . I want . . .'
'No, you don't. You want to look and touch. That's all.'
'No.'
She eased away from him, kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bed. Phillip bent to remove his shoes and socks. He crawled onto the bed and attempted to manoeuvre himself on top of her.
'Hold your cock,' she said.
'Wh . . .what?'
'Hold your lovely cock. See what
I'm doing.'
She had put two fingers inside herself and was stroking her clitoris, exposing it as it engorged, pressing the lips of her vagina aside.
Phillip's erection stiffened further as he watched her. She pushed him slightly so that he rolled onto his back. She rose above him and took his penis in her hand, guided it towards her.
'You're ready,' she said.
As he entered her she wet two fingers and slid them up into his anus. Phillip shouted and came immediately in two arcing thrusts.
She let her weight sink onto him. 'Move and you're a dead man,' she hissed.
She bore down, grinding, pressing, swivelling until the movement was painful for Phillip and he shouted again. She kept on and rode forward so that one of her breasts pushed at his mouth. He sucked it in and bit hard, inflicting pain and experiencing it. She screamed as he bit her and gripped his testicles. He orgasmed again, bellowing in ecstatic agony, and she came with him, shuddering and moaning. 'Yes, ah yes. Thank you, thank you. Yes. Yes.'
12
Dunlop called the Randwick house as soon as he got on the road. There was no answer and he began to worry and to increase his speed. He was tired and his nerves were stretched from the events of the day and he drove poorly, narrowly avoiding a collision as he took a turn too wide. He tried the number several times again with the same result and was fearing the worst when he cruised past Scanlon's house. It had happened once before—a house containing two witnesses under his protection had been located by the persons being testified against. Dunlop recalled the feeling of entering the house after being called away by what turned out to be a diversionary tactic. The house had a quality of emptiness he would never forget. The witnesses were never seen again.
Interior and exterior lights were on and the security gate stood open. Dunlop parked on the other side of the street and scouted the corner block carefully. All appeared to be quiet but he couldn't understand the open gate. He edged along the high wall and peered around the gate pillar. Scanlon's red Mercedes and the minders' blue Falcon were in garage slots with the motor scooter alongside them. Dunlop tried the number again and heard the phone ringing inside the house, but there was no reply. He replaced the phone with his pistol, bent low and went through the gate. He worked his way up the side of the drive, moving silently on the tanbark using the cover of the shrubs and flowers.
He reached the garage, cursing silently as he misjudged a step and crunched once, loudly, on the gravel. He looked back down the drive and could see signs of another vehicle having been driven in recently. A van, to judge from the tracks. Other marks indicated wheeled equipment having been unloaded—the swimming pool cleaner. His own tyre marks were clearly visible. No others. The bonnets of both cars in the garage were cold. The lights in the house seemed to come from perhaps three rooms. Dunlop tried to remember the layout—the games room, probably, the main sitting room and the kitchen. He left the garage, keeping to the shadows, and inspected the pool area and adjacent lawn and garden. A light breeze stirred the tops of the tall trees growing alongside the high cyclone fence. A few plastic practice golf balls lay on the lawn alongside a bucket, and a club rested against a pool chair. Otherwise, nothing.
Dunlop slipped across to the back door of the house and eased it open. His sense of smell, acute since he stopped smoking, detected liquor, tobacco, fried food. He moved through the kitchen into a hallway, keeping close to the wall with his pistol held ready. There were more lit rooms than he had thought. A beam of light showed under a bedroom door and he listened at it but heard no sound. He crouched and pushed the door open. The door swung with a soft sigh and Dunlop looked into what was obviously Mirabelle's room—three-quarter bed, posters on the walls, TV and VCR, CD player, videos and discs. An indentation on the bed suggested that someone heavy had sat there since it had last been made up.
The games room was at the end of the hallway and the door was closed. Dunlop turned the handle and let the door drift half-open while moving back out of the line of fire in the approved fashion. He heard harsh, staccato breathing.
'Sammy? It's Dunlop.'
No response.
'Fuck it,' Dunlop said. He kicked the door fully open and went in. Sammy Tadros was lying on the floor, ashen-faced and unconscious. The right side of his shirt was blood-soaked from shoulder to waist. The laboured breathing was his. Another minder, George Bracken, sat in a chair beside the pool table. His arms were drawn behind the chair's back and his ankles were taped to its legs. Four strips of wide tape across his face left only his nose and eyes uncovered. No sign of Barton, the third minder.
Dunlop put his pistol on the green baize and strode across to Bracken. He ripped a strip of tape away from the man's mouth. 'Where's Scanlon?' he shouted.
'He's . . .'
A movement behind him made Dunlop turn, but not in time to prevent Scanlon from getting between him and his pistol. Scanlon held a shortened, double-barrelled shotgun, its stock cut down to pistol-grip size, in his meaty, freckled fist. 'I'm right here, Carter. Dunlop, sorry. And I'll kill you if I have to.'
'Jesus, Dave. What the hell d'you think you're doing?'
'Well, so far, I've put a bullet in your mate here and got this other bloke to do as he's told. What happens next is more or less up to you. Have you found my little girl?'
Dunlop shook his head. The truth.
'No, and you don't give a fuck either, do you? Just so long as you get me up there singing. Well, things've changed a bit.'
'That's not true. We've got people . . .'
'Don't shit me. I know what goes on. I've been in it for over twenty fuckin' years, remember?'
'Calm down, Dave. This isn't going to do any good.' Dunlop forced himself to abandon the rigid stance he'd taken when Scanlon appeared. He was calculating his chances of getting to the shotgun. Scanlon had been said to be drunk but there were no signs of drunkenness now. The heavy, badly balanced weapon was held very steadily. He pointed to Tadros. 'How bad is he hit?'
Scanlon shrugged. 'He's got a .22 slug in the shoulder and another one seems to have nicked a lung. He'll be all right. You only need one bloody lung, last I heard.'
Bracken's voice was a thin, broken reed, forced out between lips puffed and abraded by the heavy tape. 'He didn't have to shoot Sammy. He panicked.'
'That's how much you know, son,' Scanlon said coolly. 'He had his chance, but he wasn't fucking good enough.'
Dunlop wanted to encourage talk, giving him the possibility of deflection. He winked at Bracken. 'I thought I told you to search the house for guns.'
Scanlon chuckled. 'Finding one gun doesn't mean you've found them all. Did you ever meet a cop who didn't know how to hide a gun . . .Luke?'
Dunlop became aware that it was Scanlon who was orchestrating the proceedings, not himself. The big man scooped up Dunlop's pistol and checked it over expertly by touch while keeping the shotgun levelled and his eyes riveted on Dunlop's face. Satisfied, he put the shotgun on the pool table and covered Dunlop with the pistol. 'Fuckin' thing was getting heavy.'
'Okay, Dave,' Dunlop said. 'What's the next move? Sammy needs a doctor if you don't want to face a murder charge.'
'I've faced one already. Wasn't too bad. Don't make any mistakes, mate. I'm not expecting to face any charges of any fucking kind. This is all going to end pretty soon, and surviving it's not my top priority.'
'That's crazy,' Dunlop said.
'Everything's crazy. Snatching an innocent sixteen-year-old girl to threaten her lousy, corrupt bastard of a father. You don't think that's crazy?'
'You've been contacted?'
'You bet I have. You think I've done all this just because I got impatient?'
'I can help you, Dave. Put the gun down. Let's talk.'
Scanlon put the muzzle of the pistol to Bracken's temple. Bracken's eyes opened in terror and he jerked his head away. Scanlon dug the metal in hard. 'You want me to prove I'm serious?'
Dunlop's hands went up involuntarily in appeal. 'I know you're
serious,' he said.
'Right. Now this is the way it's going to be. I know who's behind this and why. That's what you wanted to find out, isn't it?'
Dunlop nodded, judging the distance and Scanlon's likely reflexes. Too far, too fast.
'Before I shut him up, George here told me what a great operator you were, and how you like to play by your own rules. The word is you blew Kerry Loew away because you were fucking his missus. Is that right?'
Dunlop relaxed, eased a little closer, said nothing.
'I can understand that. The times I went crazy over some slut or other and fucking near tossed everything away . . . Well, it doesn't matter. The point is, we can work together on this and get a hell of a lot further than by me whistling "Danny Boy" to a mob of bloody lawyers.'
Dunlop looked at Tadros, whose colour and breathing were getting worse. He didn't have a choice, but, oddly, he didn't want one. Something about Scanlon's determination and steadiness encouraged him to think that they could work together. If Scanlon knew things he didn't know the reverse was also true—the guilty knowledge about the damage done to Mirabelle was eating at him. Like her father he felt he had to do something. Going through channels after this day's cock-ups would involve him in waist-deep paperwork. The part of Dunlop's nature that had made him a rogue cop and an improviser as a WPU officer was uppermost.
'Okay, Dave. I'm with you, provided we get help for Sammy first and fast.'
'Christ, I hope I can trust you.'
'You can.' Dunlop was surprised to find that he meant what he said.
'I'm sorry about the wog, but he should know the difference between a man who's pissed and one who's pretending. Do what you like with these two, I've got a few things to collect. See you outside in five minutes.'
Scanlon hesitated, then tossed the pistol to Dunlop. He picked up the shotgun and left the room. Dunlop heard Bracken's sigh of relief. 'You can take him, Luke,' he said.
Dunlop untied the rope around Bracken's wrists and ankles. 'I'm not even going to try. What happened to the other bloke?'
'Sammy reckoned Dave was too pissed to worry about. He let Barton go home and see his wife.'
