‘How is Cole? He’s such a nice young man. How is he?’
Tears found their way to Sandra’s cheeks at that point as she struggled with the tragedy of the situation that lay before Lynette in the next day or so. She desperately wanted to tell her that Cole had been framed for murder, that three attempts had been made on his life and that he was stuck somewhere in southern Italy, but the issue that choked her the most stared back at her from the other bedside table. In an ornate silver frame sat a photo of Cary, arm in arm with his beloved wife.
‘He’s fine, Lynette. He’s home in Melbourne and sends his love.’
‘I was worried, Detective, that that Italian man might have killed Cole.’
‘What man, Lynette?’
‘The man that did this to me, the man with the knife. The man that stayed at the Marlborough Hotel.’
Sandra opened her briefcase again to a frown from the young nurse, but this time she reached for a tissue. She’d heard enough to both know and prove that her friend was innocent of all allegations.
The office of the Toe Cutters was hushed in silence only rarely present in a detectives’ muster room. A respectful quiet, usually reserved for the most important of occasions: a big arrest at the end of a taskforce, the eclipse of an investigation. Such was the level of importance that the Toe Cutters had placed onto their probe into the activities of the corrupt Detective Donny Benjamin. It was Donny, they believed, who could lead them to a satisfying conclusion to the even more corrupt pastimes of his superior, the wily Inspector Mack. Donny’s evidence would solve the New Zealand tragedy and unravel the corrupt connection between law enforcement and the Griffith Mafia.
There was an air of anticipation in the muster room as the detectives looked up expectantly at their leader, Superintendent Fountain. He had deliberately stepped out for a coffee to kill some time, knowing that the real killing would be felt by Donny, who even now was sitting alone in the locked interview room, awaiting his fate. He had spent a good portion of that day under guard in the police wing of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the doctors and nursing staff there giving him the once-over for his cocaine ingestion, monitoring his progress until he was given the all clear. The Superintendent had then had him frogmarched down to the interview room, where he’d sat nervously now for the past couple of hours.
Apart from consuming half-a-dozen coffees and taking as many anxious toilet breaks, Detective Benjamin hadn’t said a word. His choice of silence suited the Superintendent, as he himself was on stand-by, waiting for a call from Sandra. The last thing he needed to do was interview the catch of the year without being fully armed with all the facts. His mobile rang, just as he opened the interview room door. He continued in, answering the call.
‘Detective Butler, how’s New Zealand?’ he asked, somewhat louder than necessary for Sandra’s audibility, more for the convenience of his suspect.
Donny sat with his elbows on his knees, giving his best impression of total indifference, when in reality he was listening to every word of the conversation unfolding before him on the Superintendent’s phone. He was desperately trying to work out a way through his mess.
‘Well done … fantastic … wonderful. When can she return home? … The Italian … Massimo … positive identification … Griffith … That’s fabulous news, Detective Butler, and we’re so pleased that Sergeant Goodwin has been cleared … Yes, now Homicide Squad will take over …’ Fountain was privately pleased with the news about Cole but refrained from saying anything more than Donny needed to hear. He disconnected his call, turned his mobile off and dropped it on the desk in a deliberately aggressive manner. He pushed one of the two lattes he had purchased from the take-away café towards Donny, whose head was still bowed.
‘I think we can probably start the interview now, Detective Benjamin.’
Donny remained true to his position, completely silent. The Superintendent switched on the audio tape. Once he had been through the mandatory procedure of time and date and letting the suspect know his rights, Superintendent Fountain got straight to the point.
‘ We can do this formally a little later on, Donny, for now let’s just have a casual chat about it.’
Donny’s ‘no comment’ attitude continued.
‘You’re fucked, Donny. And this is how our case will unfold. You’ve been under surveillance for weeks, in and out of every shit hole in Melbourne, selling drugs, taking cash, knocking off gear from raids, making telephone calls to the old Godfather in Griffith.’
The Superintendent noticed the first movement from Donny at the mention of the word ‘Godfather’. Donny’s head rose slightly until their eyes met.
‘We’ve even got you photographed coming and going with Inspector Mack and the Godfather, in Lygon Street, Carlton, late one night.’
Donny casually, and almost arrogantly, remained silent, preferring to remove the plastic lid from the take-away cup, gulping at its contents.
‘We’ve had the bag of powder found on your dining-room table analysed. Pure cocaine, Donny.’
Still silence from the chair opposite.
‘We’ll be charging you with the death of the Inspector’s daughter.’
The Superintendent’s comment found the chink in the armour of the corrupt police officer.
‘She brought the bag of powder into my joint, and she told me to take some.’
‘That’s great, Donny, you just stick with that answer, that’s absolutely fabulous—a naïve 21-year-old telling a 30-year-old detective what to do.’
‘In the absence of anything else, that’s the truth,’ Donny replied with a smarmy little smirk.
‘And you came home this morning at 5.55 a.m., took your jacket off and then your watch. Checked your emails, Chloe took a piss; you took the bag of powder out of your right trouser pocket, chopped it up with your Visa card and snorted two lines each. In the absence of anything else, that’s the truth.’
For the first time since his arrest, Donny showed signs of losing the plot. He realised there must have been a camera inside his apartment. He knew he was fucked and began to nibble manically on his fingernails.
‘And the Mafia, over the last few months, have had a hitman running around Australia and the rest of the fuckin’ world, trying to kill an honest detective from the ACA … On the instructions of you and Inspector Mack, and in the absence of anything else, Donny, that’s the truth also.’
This latest revelation by the Superintendent caused Donny’s face to turn a sickly shade of grey. His eyes began to search frantically for a hole in the wall that he could crawl out of. It was now time for the Superintendent to drop a few trump cards on the table.
‘And we’ve tracked the Mafia hitman from Calabria to Melbourne to Griffith to New Zealand, where he murdered the old-timer and attempted to murder his wife. Who, I might add, has now positively identified him. And we’ve got your phone taps talking your cocky head off to the Godfather in Griffith, including helping with the importation of a container-load of drugs.’
He then dropped into Donny’s lap the brochure of the Citroën 2CV with the notations in Inspector Mack’s handwriting.
Fountain eased back in his chair and waited for the full reaction, knowing, of course, that everything he’d said was correct—except for the taped phone conversations, which were a bluff. He also knew it would be the bluff card that worked hardest on Donny. He only hoped Donny really had made a few mobile telephone calls to the Godfather, and that the calls were damaging.
Fountain sat and watched a man in strife, a man pondering his next ten years in ten seconds. Donny’s nervous system reacted so adversely to the shock revelations that he, like Chloe, attempted to stand from his seated position. Fountain shifted in his own chair and braced the table. Then, as had Chloe, Donny’s shoulders and chest started to convulse, and he vomited all seven coffees over his shirt front.
The Superintendent pressed ‘stop’ on the recorder.
12th July
Tommy’s BlackBerry rang
for the first time in its short life. It sat on the beautiful marble surface of the bedside table of his suite at the Hotel la Casa di Giama in the centre of Gerace. The hotel, chosen by Mario, was completely free of any associations with the N’Drangheta. He leaned across Jude to grab it. She stirred but then buried her head back under the covers.
‘Yo,’ was the only response he offered as he answered. It was Sandra, finishing up her long day. She was halfway between the Melbourne airport and home, and couldn’t resist passing on the news, the same news that the Superintendent had passed on to her only moments earlier. News of the complete and unequivocal admissions of Detective Benjamin, relating to more than three years of corruption and conspiracy with Inspector Mack as well as the many meetings and arrangements with the Griffith Mafia, who had imported Massimo to kill Cole … on and on Donny had apparently babbled, interrupted only by the occasional coffee belch or request for toilet breaks.
‘So you can come back home now, Cole. And stop calling yourself Tommy or Robert, or anyone else you have been hiding behind.’
By now Cole was well awake. He was delighted he was no longer a wanted man but he had no intention of returning home immediately.
‘We have to find the cave, Sandra. Then we’ll come straight back.’
‘Leave it to your Italian mates, Cole. Just come home. It’s over.’
‘It’s not over till Massimo’s locked up, Sandra. For Jude or me.’
‘The New Zealand detectives will have Massimo identified for Cary’s murder in a couple of weeks, once Lynette is strong enough to view his photo. Just come home, please.’
‘Jude and I would always be looking over our shoulders. We will be home in a few days, promise. Too much can happen in a couple of weeks, Sandra.’
‘Crazy man.’
‘Good woman, you. And thanks for New Zealand.’
‘You’re welcome. Say hello to Jude.’
‘And I’ll say hello to Leigh,’ said Cole with a smile. ‘I heard a little story the other day, about you and him.’
‘Good night, Boss.’
‘Good morning, Detective.’ Cole leant across Jude again to replace the phone on the bedside table. She stirred again, rubbing her shoulders in to the pillow, and accepting Cole into her arms.
‘Sounded like good news, handsome.’
‘It’s official. I can be Cole again.’ He nuzzled into her.
The owner of Café La Vista on the Plati piazza was a little surprised as she opened the door that morning to a crowded set of outside tables and chairs. She hadn’t even turned on the coffee machine and already she had a notepad full of espressos. Massimo sat at the head with his lieutenants, Illario and Giuseppe, to each side of him and a few underling thugs kitted out in overalls ready for a heavy day’s work completed the table. There was a violent wind ripping through the township, uncharacteristic for that time of year and enough to raise goosebumps on even the toughest of Calabrian punks.
Around the corner wandered Lydia. She too was up bright and early, as she had to be at school in less than an hour for her final exam.
‘Uncle Massimo. You have never been up so early in all your life!’ she joked as she kissed her father ‘hello’ and then walked over to her favourite uncle.
‘Go to school and get smart,’ Massimo instructed with a smile.
‘Yes, Uncle; ciao, Papà,’ she said as she again kissed her father.
‘Lydia, please do me one quick favour,’ Massimo requested.
‘Si, si, Uncle.’
‘It’s cold and I have to wait for my coffee. Can you run over to my apartment and get me a jacket?’
With more enthusiasm than would normally be expected from a teenager on an errand, she seized upon his keys, calling out ‘Of course, Uncle’ as she skipped across the piazza to the door of Massimo’s dwelling.
The espressos were placed in the centre of the table.
Massimo requested an additional coffee as he looked across to the other end of the piazza and an approaching, somewhat dishevelled, older man.
Lydia bounded up the flight of stairs and into the main room of the aged building. She looked around for a likely place for a jacket in the middle of summer. Taking herself into Massimo’s bedroom, she opened an ornate antique wardrobe and grabbed the first jacket she found. As she started to walk from the room, she stopped and glanced to her left through the window that overlooked the café and the now seven seated men, all busy in conversation. The seventh and older man was the poorly dressed peasant nit-keeper who had scared Jude the previous evening in the forest. He’d come to explain his sighting of a girl with long blonde hair and a tall, strapping man, looking into a cave. Lydia felt sure that the group would stay seated for a moment. She carefully opened the top drawer of the bedside credenza, as she had done once or twice previously. She pocketed a couple of loose packaged condoms and moved on to the back of the drawer. She knew exactly where to look. The old Cuban cigar box sat temptingly beneath a neat stack of underwear. Lydia opened it. Quickly snatching one of a few clear plastic bags, with ten ecstasy tablets within, and placing the items securely in her skirt pocket, she walked briskly back down the stairs with Massimo’s jacket.
By the time she had delivered it and the apartment’s keys to their owner, the old man had finished his tale. Six men sat around a table, all frowning.
‘ Grazie, Lydia,’ Massimo said, still deep in thought and thousands of miles away from the conversation. He realised his niece was saying goodbye.
‘Ciao, ciao, Lydia, and be good at that dance party tonight.’
The wind that was whipping through the Aspromonte Mountains didn’t reach across the Mediterranean to Provence. The morning was sheer heaven. At least that’s how Dorothy summed it up as she padded barefoot across the marble-tiled floor of their large bedroom with a tray of coffee and croissants. Her lemon chiffon gown with its matching feather-boa collar shimmered as she walked. Her husband sat proudly up in bed. Their smiles met, as did their coffee cups, as Dorothy snuggled back into bed.
‘Are you confident that nothing from New Zealand can come back to you?’ she asked, having extracted his worries from him the night before, halfway through a bottle of vintage Moet & Chandon.
Mack was decidedly more comfortable with the New Zealand problem this morning, having slept on it now for more than two days. He was certain that his worst-case scenario was that the wretched bed-and-breakfast woman might identify Massimo, but nothing could lead back to him directly. And he would warn Massimo when he saw him in Calabria the following morning to collect the balance of the million dollars.
‘When are you going to turn your phone back on, darling?’
‘It stays off until after we’ve got the money.’
‘But won’t that dago Mafia man want to talk to you?’
‘No, darling. It’s all locked in, all arranged. Nothing to worry about, my pet. From the moment we left home, till the moment we’ve hidden the money, that phone will stay off. No interruptions for us, my sweet, and no way any prying cops can track my phone.’
‘What time’s your ferry leaving, handsome?’ Dorothy asked as she wriggled closer to her husband.
‘Four o’clock, petal. Plenty of time for us, don’t you think?’ Mack answered as he placed his hands gently on the nape of Dorothy’s neck and let his fingers wander down to the delicate lace-covered buttons at the top of her negligee.
The big Italian Commissario’s hands skimmed across the surface of his topographical map, an identical copy to the one carried by Jude and Leigh, who were in the forest on their second and last day of searching. The Commissario, Cole and Mario were finishing up a meeting before heading off to the RV to wait for the afternoon.
‘They won’t be late back this time, I can promise,’ Cole said.
‘No problem, Robin Hood,’ grinned the big man.
‘So what happens if they don’t find a cave by tonight?’
‘We bring in the Assault Team and the tanks, and scour Plati and San Lu
ca,’ said the Commissario. ‘We have a hundred men who will re-do the mountain; we’ll block the port so no ships can leave, and spend the next week searching for the drugs.’
‘We’ll find them,’ vowed Mario. ‘In the meantime we have to get to the RV.’
As they rose from their table and rolled up the map, the wind hit the courtyard, throwing leaves and debris against the back windows and door.
Mid-afternoon found Cole sitting impatiently in the rear seat of a nondescript car parked in dense brush at the RV. Alongside him, the ever-serene Commissario flicked quietly through pages of reports. Even Mario, calmly ensconced in the driver’s seat, listening intently to the low hum of a police radio, was devoid of conversation. The silence of his companions, broken only by the constant whistling of the wind and the regular smack of leaves as they peppered the side of the car, had Cole on edge. Their covert hidey-hole was becoming claustrophobic. Just then the Commissario asked to inspect the 9mm Browning that Cole had taken from Pino during their fight on the Venice train; he needed to log the make and serial number for later investigation. Cole gladly handed the weapon across and decided to take a walk. He quietly closed the passenger door and let loose the build-up of nervous energy in his legs. Pushing through the wind, head down, hands deep in his jacket pockets, his thoughts drifted back to the audacious sting that he and Jude had pulled off against the N’Drangheta, and now here he was wandering aimlessly through the rugged forest of the Aspromonte, looking for something that no other investigator could find, a booty of drugs. Madness, he thought.
A crack under foot startled him. He looked up and spun a full circle, squinting through the semi-darkness of the woods. A leaf hit his face; he pulled it away and looked again. The Commissario’s car was well behind him now, far in the distance. Another crack. He focused well off towards a clump of oak trees, skirted by wild thistle bushes. Something moved—Cole saw an image, a silhouette, easing back behind a tree, a male figure. He sprinted ahead a dozen paces and took cover behind a similar oak tree, then peered out. The male figure was also looking at him, face on. Cole and Massimo stared at each other, only twenty metres apart, fallen leaves blowing in the air. Cole pulled his head back and rested, breathing heavily, back against the bark. Instinctively he reached for a firearm that wasn’t there. He thought of racing back to the car, yelling to Mario and the Commissario, but held back. He feared for Jude and Leigh, who were still out there, somewhere. He slowly peered back but Massimo was gone.
On the Run Page 26
