by Tim Ayliffe
After all the years chasing down stories, Bailey was now part of the story. The guy being tailed. The source of information for cops like Dexter.
What had been done was done. He couldn’t change it now. Neither could Dexter.
‘C’mon, Bailey. A known terrorist leader. When you stop and think about it, you’ll see I didn’t have much of a choice.’
‘You made a choice all right,’ he said, coolly.
Dexter leaned back on the car. ‘Think what you like. I’m not going there right now. It’s been a long bloody day.’
Bailey was angry but part of him understood why she’d done it. She was the most senior counter-terrorism cop in the state, it was a no-brainer. He just didn’t like being used. Especially by the woman who shared his bed.
A train squeaked to a halt on the platform just beyond the fence. Background noise that reminded Bailey what they really should have been talking about.
‘So, what’d you make of it?’
‘What?’
‘The recording,’ he said. ‘Notice the background noise? Might help with Mustafa’s location.’
‘We’re already looking at that.’
‘And?’
‘It’s been three hours.’
Dexter was talking while staring at her office across the street and it was grating on Bailey. ‘Are we done here, are we? Nothing else?’
She fixed him with a squinting stare. ‘Don’t get all sensitive with me. We come at this from very different places, Bailey. Different jobs.’
‘So nothing?’
‘I want to know how Mustafa al-Baghdadi knows so much about the raid in Roselands. He’s talking like he’s got a whole bloody team of terrorists out here. That’s what’s got me worried.’ She pointed at the neon police sign across the street. ‘And that’s why I need to get back up there.’
A group of people appeared at the exit to the train station, laughing and talking loudly about the bar they were going to next. One guy was swaying as he walked, fiddling with his phone, telling the others that he was booking them an Uber.
‘One more thing,’ Dexter remembered something. ‘Where’s Miranda?’
‘I sent her to Gerald’s house with the doc. They’re staying the night. He and Nancy have good security. Electric gate. Cameras.’
‘I’ll send a uniform around, get them to park out front. At least until we work out how you’re involved. If that last phone call was a threat aimed at you, your family,’ Dexter said.
‘You think it was?’
‘Eye for an eye,’ she said, quoting Mustafa. ‘We all know the saying. Just not what it means coming out of his mouth. Where’s Anthea?’
It was weird hearing Dexter say his ex-wife’s name.
‘In Italy with the banker.’
Ordinarily, Bailey’s nickname for his ex-wife’s husband would have sparked a smile from Dexter. Her face barely moved. It was like a wall had risen up out of the ground between them.
‘What about you?’
‘I’m a big girl,’ Dexter said, dismissively. ‘And I really need to get back to work.’
‘Will you let me know what turns up?’
Between Ronnie and Dexter, Bailey was hoping that they’d get something of value off the recording.
‘I’ll do what I can.’
Or whatever the hell she wanted.
CHAPTER 27
It sounded like an earthquake.
Vibrating glass, inches from his head. White flickering light.
Bailey opened his eyes. His bloody phone.
He reached across and grabbed it from the coffee table beside the couch, where he’d fallen asleep listening to the Rolling Stones.
‘So, you do know how to answer your damn phone.’
A grumpy voice barked down the line.
Bailey was resting the phone on his ear, eyes closed, his head flat on the couch.
‘Bailey?’
The voice was familiar.
He hadn’t registered who it was because he was only just coming to, struggling to read the little digits on his watch: 6.10 am.
‘Bailey, you there?’
It was Father Joe.
‘It’s six o’clock in the bloody morning, mate.’
‘Calm down, sleepyhead,’ Joe said. ‘You know I’m an early riser. You asked me for help and I’m giving it to you. I didn’t realise this was a nine to five arrangement.’
‘Sorry, Joe.’ The old priest was right. ‘What’ve you got?’
‘That kid you’re looking for, I think I’ve found him.’
Bailey jolted upright, shaking his head. ‘You what?’
‘Tariq,’ Joe said. ‘I think I’ve found him.’
‘Where?’
‘Turned up at one of the overnight shelters in Parramatta. I’d put the call out and I’ve just had one of my volunteers on the phone. She saw your story in the paper, says the kid just walked in looking for a feed a couple of hours ago. Scared shitless. Looks like he’s been roughed up a bit. Doesn’t want to go to the cops.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I’m at the gym in Redfern for the morning session,’ Joe said. ‘I told her to bring him here.’
‘I’m on my way.’
Bailey almost fell over when he stood up from the couch. The record player was still spinning but Mick Jagger had stopped singing hours ago. He pulled back the needle and rested it on the stand, rubbing his eyes again, trying to get them to focus.
He needed a shower to properly wake up and he needed to call Dexter. Whatever was going on between them, they needed to talk. She needed to know about his conversation with Father Joe, unless the cop monitoring Bailey’s phone was calling her right now. Bailey had no idea how fast that stuff happened, or whether the phone call from Joe would have sounded the alarm. Either way, the police needed to be careful. If the kid saw flashing lights and a convoy of cop cars, he’d probably run for it.
The drive to Father Joe’s gym took him around fifteen minutes. He was a few hundred metres away, looking for somewhere to park the car, when he noticed the flashing lights up the street. Exactly the scene that he’d wanted to avoid. Something was wrong.
Two ambulances were parked out the front of the gym and someone was sitting in the gutter being treated by a paramedic. There was also a small group of people standing on the footpath, including a couple of cops in uniforms.
Bailey double-parked out the front of the gym just as one of the ambulances was driving away. He flicked on his hazard lights, hopping out. There was no sign of Dexter but he’d spoken to her on the phone and knew that she wouldn’t be far away. Bailey couldn’t see Joe, either. But he recognised the person sitting in the gutter. Jake. The young boxer who was hitting the bag with Joe a couple of days ago. A paramedic in a blue uniform was wiping blood off his cheek and examining a cut above his eye.
‘Hold still, mate.’
‘I told you, lady. I’m not going to hospital.’
‘Jake.’ Bailey sat on the kerb beside him. ‘Where’s Joe, mate? What happened?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Jake was shaking his head. ‘I tried to stop them, tried to help.’
‘Give us a minute, would you?’ the paramedic said to Bailey. ‘Jake, I need you to stay still for me, please. Cut’s not too deep, a couple of steri-strips will do it. I can treat you here.’
Bailey ignored her. ‘It’s okay, Jake. Where’s Joe?’
Jake pointed his finger up the street where the other ambulance had just driven off. ‘They’re taking him to hospital.’
‘Seriously, mate.’ The paramedic was getting annoyed. ‘Just give me a few minutes here with Jake and then you can ask all the questions you like.’
Bailey stood up, his attention suddenly elsewhere. ‘Back in a moment.’
Joe had mentioned a woman on the phone and Bailey had noticed a middle-aged lady talking to a couple of cops over by the entrance to the gym. He sidled up near them so he could hear what she was saying.
‘Yes, yes, that’s right. I brought
the boy here about ten minutes ago.’
‘Then what happened?’ An overweight cop with a moustache was asking the questions. ‘And every little detail will help here, Michelle.’
‘Well, Joe met us out here and asked one of the other boys to take Tariq inside the boxing gym so that we could have a private conversation.’
‘Who took him inside?’
‘That boy over there.’ She was pointing at Jake. ‘He’s the one they punched. He’s a brave boy, he tried to stop them.’
‘So, tell us again – this boy, you said his name was Tariq?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Tariq. He was scared, scared of everything. He said he was in trouble and didn’t know what to do.’
‘Can we help you with something, mate?’ The cop with the moustache noticed Bailey eavesdropping on their conversation.
‘Yeah, sorry. Joe’s a mate. I was on my way to visit him this morning. Is he okay?’
‘Who’re you?’
‘John Bailey.’
Bailey stepped past Michelle and held out his hand to the cop, who reluctantly shook it.
‘Okay, Mr Bailey. I’m just going to ask you to wait over there, take a seat.’ He was pointing at the wooden bench beside the bus stand. ‘We’ll come and talk to you in a moment.’
Bailey didn’t move. ‘Where’s Tariq?’ he asked Michelle.
‘They took him,’ she said.
‘Okay, mate. You’re not listening.’ It was the other cop this time. He was a younger version of the fat guy with the moustache, only with glasses and a beard. ‘Can you please go over there and let us do our job?’
‘Bailey!’ Dexter appeared from behind him. ‘What happened?’
‘You know this guy?’ It was the older cop with the moustache again.
‘Sorry, Alan,’ Dexter said. ‘Bailey and I go back.’
We go forward too, thought Bailey. Although he wasn’t about to tell these guys that he was sleeping with their boss.
‘I’m just trying to find out what happened,’ Bailey said. ‘As I told you on the phone, Tariq was getting dropped here. Looks like that happened as planned, then I’m a bit unclear.’
‘Detective Dexter,’ Alan stepped past Bailey. ‘What we have so far is that the kid goes inside the gym while Michelle here talks to the old priest out front.
‘Then a white van pulls up and a couple of guys jump out. The old man tries to block them from going inside and they punch him to the ground. Next, the kid over there,’ he said, pointing at Jake. ‘The kid takes a few swings at the guys who made it inside, gets belted himself, then they drag the other kid, Tariq, into the van and they disappear.’
‘Fuck it!’ Bailey said to himself. They had been minutes away from getting Tariq and now he was gone again.
‘Thanks, Alan,’ Dexter said. ‘Let’s pull the vision from any cameras we’ve got in the street and try to get a plate on the van.’
‘Already on that,’ the cop with the moustache pronounced, proudly.
‘Well done.’
‘Sharon.’ Bailey gestured for Dexter to take a walk. Away from the others. He waited until they were out of earshot before he started talking. ‘I’m going to head to the hospital to see Joe. I feel bloody terrible about this, the bloke’s in his eighties.’
‘Do what you need to. Police job now.’ She was speaking with one eye on Jake and the paramedic. ‘We’ll find the van. If these guys are half as dumb as the ones we picked up yesterday, they’ll be parked at the closest KFC getting stuck into a bucket of the dirty bird.’
Bailey liked the analogy, and her confidence. But he wasn’t so sure.
‘That kid, Jake,’ Bailey said. ‘He spoke to Tariq. Maybe he knows something.’
‘We’ll check it out.’
‘Hey, lady!’ Bailey called out to the paramedic. ‘Which hospital will I find the old man at?’
‘Vinnies, where all the emergencies go. He’s got a head injury, you may not get in to see him.’
Bailey thanked her with a nod. The hospital might not want to let him inside, but he’d find a way. He always did.
CHAPTER 28
The sandstone wall on the eastern side of the old Darlinghurst jail was one of the saddest places in Sydney. It wasn’t because of the sorry lives of the convicts who’d been forced to build it, or even the petty criminals who had died in the hangman’s noose.
Today’s sadness was in the faces of the living.
The Wall, as it was known, had been the city’s most conspicuous gay beat for more than fifty years. Mostly young men and boys would loiter along this strip of sandstone waiting for their regulars, or some lonely man to pull over and take them for a ride.
Back in the 1980s, when Bailey was a cub reporter, he would write about gay bashings at The Wall and the cops who never did anything about it. Hate crimes weren’t a priority back then because most cops thought that anyone who bashed a ‘poofter’ was doing the world a favour.
Violent bigots didn’t get away with bashing gay men anymore. Other than that, not much had changed at The Wall. The sad faces of lost boys were still plying an old trade.
‘Hey, buddy. Looking for someone?’
A bloke with a hoodie called out to Bailey just as he was closing the door of the Corolla.
‘No, mate. I’m good.’
The guy wasn’t convinced and he stepped forward, pulling back his hoodie so that Bailey could get a look at his face. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. I’m sure.’
Bailey put a bunch of coins in the meter and waited for the ticket, trying to ignore the guy who’d sidled up beside him.
‘You’re handsome. You know that, Mister Mister?’
The sun was coming up and the bloke looked like he should have been getting ready for school, not propositioning Bailey.
‘I’m a cop, kid,’ Bailey lied. ‘Time to go home.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He smiled. ‘Cops are some of my best clients. And you don’t look like any cop I know.’
Bailey grabbed his parking ticket and slid it onto the dashboard inside.
He started walking off up the street and then stopped. ‘Hey kid!’
‘I knew you’d change your mind.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Jimmy.’
Bailey reached into his pocket and handed him a fifty. ‘Go home, Jimmy. Give this shit away.’
‘Home?’ Jimmy folded the fifty-dollar note, shoving it in his pocket.
‘Yeah, Jimmy. Home.’
‘Why would I go home?’ He shrugged his shoulders with a sad smile. ‘I’ll just be doing the same thing for my mum’s old man. At least here I get paid.’
‘Sorry, kid.’ Bailey didn’t know what else to say.
Jimmy turned his back on Bailey and started walking away. ‘Thanks for the pineapple.’ He waved without turning around.
Bailey was still thinking about Jimmy when he walked into the reception at St Vincent’s Hospital. Paedophiles were rotten to the core, and so were the people who protected them, turned a blind eye. For the few paedophiles who got caught, the punishment never fitted the crime. How could it? Sex abusers destroyed lives. Kids like Jimmy never recovered, the best they could do was just hang on. It’s what happens when innocence is stolen.
‘Can I help you?’
A bleary-eyed guy in a blue uniform was looking up at Bailey from the reception desk.
‘I’m just checking in on someone.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Joe Henley,’ Bailey said. ‘Father Joe Henley. He’s an old priest, got roughed up in Redfern. I need to see him.’
‘Give me a sec.’
The nurse was tapping away at a keyboard with the light from his computer screen bouncing off his glasses.
‘He’s still being assessed, I’m afraid. You can’t see him yet.’
‘What shape’s he in?’ Bailey was determined to at least get some information.
‘Are you family?’
‘Not really.’
/>
‘Then you’re going to have to take a seat and wait. Sorry.’
Before Bailey even had time to respond, the nurse had moved on. ‘Can I help you?’ He was looking over Bailey’s shoulder at a woman holding a toddler with a nasty cough.
Bailey stepped out of the way and found a stiff plastic chair in the waiting area.
Ten minutes later, he was back on his feet again.
‘Any update?’ he said to the nurse.
‘Like I told you before, you’re just going to have to wait.’
Emergency rooms were busy places and the nurse had a job to do. Process patients and prioritise the ones in trouble. He’d probably already dealt with a dozen impatient people during his night shift. It didn’t seem to bother him.
‘Okay, mate.’ Bailey knew he was pushing his luck, so he sat back down.
Over the next thirty minutes, he watched people get called up, then ushered through an automatic door and down a hallway, where they were met by busy nurses with clipboards. Every time the door opened he stood up, searching for any sign of Joe. Nothing.
It was time to move to Plan B. Unauthorised entry. It wasn’t long before an opportunity arrived.
The guy behind the desk called out to the woman who had the toddler with the cough. The doctor would see her now. She got up and headed down the hall. Bailey followed. She was so focused on her son’s latest coughing fit that she missed Bailey, who was right behind her, pretending he was part of the family.
The kid didn’t sound good and the nurse on the other side of the door thought the same. She rushed the mother and child away.
Like any half-decent reporter, Bailey was good at getting into places where he wasn’t supposed to be. The trick was to look confident and busy. He smiled at the hospital staff, walking in and out of rooms, as he made his way into the main triage area. If Joe was waiting to be assessed, this was where he’d be. It wasn’t long before he found him.
‘I know you’re just doing your job, young lady.’ Bailey could hear the sound of Joe’s voice behind a curtain. ‘I’ve got things to do.’
The confidence in Joe’s voice was like an adrenalin shot for Bailey. Relief.
‘I’m sorry,’ a woman responded. ‘You’ve had a big knock to the head and the doctor needs to assess you. As soon as you’ve got the all-clear, you’ll be fine to leave.’