by Ben Sanders
‘Hence the smoking?’
‘Yeah … I suppose.’
‘You ever try to get him to quit?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t worry about him getting lung cancer?’
‘He’s intelligent enough to have balanced the risk of early death against whatever satisfaction he gets from working through a pack of Marlboros every day.’
‘Nice way of looking at it.’
He shrugged, good side only. ‘He’s reconciled the decision quite happily; I’m not going to be able to undermine whatever rationale he’s gone with.’ He paused and considered it. ‘Telling him to quit would be selfish because ultimately I’d miss him if it killed him. Also, it’s none of my business.’
She didn’t answer. The jug clicked. Hale added tea bags and boiling water to two mugs, levelled them up with milk.
‘I’ve got scones as well,’ he said. ‘If you’re that way inclined.’
Her eyebrows rose approvingly. ‘You cook scones?’
He smiled. ‘I’ve never had an offer of food met with such incredulity.’
‘No. I just can’t picture you as a baker.’
‘Trick is to pop in a bit of lemonade. Helps aerate the mixture.’
She shook her head. ‘Jesus. No, I think the tea will do me. But thanks.’
He nodded towards the door. ‘Come sit in the living room. More comfortable.’
She followed him through, eyes on the wavering liquid line in the mug. She sat down slowly on the low couch, mug cantilevered awkwardly in cupped hands. Hale took an armchair opposite.
‘He was meant to come to this thing tonight at my parents’ place,’ she said.
‘Yeah. He told me.’
‘He only managed to stay for about twenty minutes.’
Hale didn’t answer. Another car passed. He tensed until the light through the ranch slider had vanished.
‘It was just one dinner,’ she said.
Hale nodded. ‘He doesn’t like dinners very much.’
‘He never answers my calls.’
‘He never answers mine either. Trick is to not answer his.’
‘He doesn’t tend to ring me in the first place.’
Hale tried to stretch his legs. The stitches wouldn’t comply. He settled for a hunch. She nodded at his vinyl music collection, arranged neatly on a bookshelf.
‘You can get those on cassette tapes now,’ she said. ‘In fact the really progressive folk buy what’re called CDs.’
He feigned offence. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’
She laughed: a flash of even teeth. ‘No, you’re right. I’ve got a box of old LPs buried somewhere in the garage. Somehow I managed to keep the music and give away the record player.’
‘Well. If you’re polite, and don’t condescend to my scones, you can borrow mine and relive your distant youth.’
She took a sip, smiled eyes only across the top of the mug.
Hale said, ‘Were you hoping for advice on Mr Devereaux, or were you wanting to intercept him?’
‘I thought I might get both. With a bit of luck.’
‘Why did you think he’d be here?’
‘I called him earlier and he was at the station. I thought he’d probably guess that I might try to reach him at home, and come here first. So I just gambled and came straight to your place.’
Hale laughed. ‘I think you give his little brain too much credit.’
She smiled weakly, and they were quiet for a spell. She said, ‘Do you think he’ll lose his job for killing that guy?’
‘No. I don’t think he will.’
‘Honest opinion, or are you just being reassuring?’
‘Honest opinion.’
She nodded slowly. Hale considered bringing the shotgun through from the kitchen. He chose not to, in the interests of living room etiquette.
‘You think he’s all right at the moment?’ she said.
The tea was substandard: too milky. He hoped she found hers acceptable. He said, ‘I suspect he’s probably feeling a little stretched. But he’s used to that. It comes with the territory.’
‘Is he stretched because of actual workload, or because he’s obsessed?’
‘Sort of question you’d need to ask him.’
‘You think he’s obsessive?’
Hale nodded. ‘I guess. Probably his best and worst quality, depending on perspective.’
‘You consider it a virtue?’
He nodded. ‘Then again, I’m not his girlfriend.’
They sipped some tea.
She said, ‘Every time a car goes past, your hackles go up.’
He smiled wearily. ‘I’m a little stretched too.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘If not now, then eventually.’
‘What happened?’
He looked at the window while he thought about what to censor. Beyond the reflected room, trees swayed under the weight of darkness. He said, ‘I was searching a house, and the owner found me.’
She didn’t show any surprise. She reached and set the mug down on a table beside the couch. ‘And you’re carting the gun round in case he manages to find you again?’
‘Yeah. Essentially.’
‘Is that how you got hurt?’
He nodded. ‘He had a shotgun with him. I got a pellet lodged in my side.’
Something doubtful about his frankness: ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. I took it out. And I got stitches.’
‘Does Sean know?’
‘He doesn’t know about the stitches.’
‘Does he know you got shot?’
‘Yeah, I told him. I haven’t told anyone else yet. Except you.’
She didn’t answer. Another car passed. He tried to maintain indifference.
At length she said, ‘So was this a work-related break-in, or purely recreational?’
‘Work-related.’ He smiled. ‘Although I do enjoy a good house prowl.’
‘Are you allowed to tell me the details, or is it covered by investigator-client privilege?’
He laughed. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
She zipped her lips, mimed a locking motion, flicked away the key.
He said, ‘You remember the fight club robbery back in early January?’
She nodded.
‘My client’s daughter was injured. He wants me to find who did it.’
‘Are the police still working on it?’
He nodded. ‘They haven’t had much luck.’
‘And what about you?’
‘I’ve been shot. So I must be getting somewhere.’
She tried to laugh, but it didn’t really make it off the mark. ‘What happened to the daughter?’ she said.
‘She got hurt during the getaway. The money was in a caravan towards the rear of the site. A crowd formed around it during the robbery.’
‘So they had to beat their way out.’
‘Yeah. More or less.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘She wasn’t at the time. Multiple head injuries.’
She drew her legs up beside her on the cushion, rested her cheek against a fist. ‘How many is multiple?’
‘Three.’
She was quiet a while. ‘Have you got a file or something?’
‘It’s at the office. You want to see the pictures?’
‘Not really. I’m just thinking.’
He didn’t reply.
She said, ‘They had to fight through a crowd to get to the road.’
He nodded. ‘They had a car waiting.’
‘So it’s frantic. They want to leave in a hurry. Why’d they take the time to hit her three times?’
The question hadn’t occurred to him before. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
She said, ‘I would have thought if you wanted to get away in a hurry, you wouldn’t stop to hit someone more than once.’
‘Bit of a half-hearted escape, you think?’
/>
She made a face, shrugged as if dismissing the idea. ‘I think the psychology seems a bit off. You want someone out of your way, you hit them once. I don’t know. Hitting someone two or three times implies a greater level of aggression.’
It made sense. He saw theories ease out of the shade. That cool internal rush that heralded progress.
‘Earth to John.’
He looked back at her. ‘You could work in forensics,’ he said.
She laughed and stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
‘You don’t want to stay and see if he shows up?’
‘No.’ She arched her back, spoke through a yawn: ‘The Boyfriend Game gets old quite quickly.’
Hale stood up. ‘I’d better walk you out.’
‘Yeah. Go and get your gun.’
Progress. Devereaux felt poised to announce ‘case closed’. A bit longer and you might actually crack this.
He background-checked Douglas Allen. A troubled history unfurled. Adolescent drug possession flourished into more serious offending: Douglas had done time for fraud, and injuring with intent. As such, his January third robbery attendance served as strong cause for suspicion.
If only it had been picked up.
He ran some checks on the fictional Douglas Haines. Nothing: police, driver-licence and credit-rating databases returned zero hits. Land Information indicated nobody by the name Doug or Douglas Haines owned Auckland property. A Securities Register check came back empty. To be anticipated, when hunting someone non-existent.
So why did nobody click that this was the case?
He trawled incident room filing cabinets and accrued some fight club robbery paperwork. Attending officers’ reports, follow-up documents from CIB, witness lists and statements. It took him three trips to get everything back to his desk.
He scanned the witness lists first. Doug Haines had made page one. An address was noted, but no driver’s licence number. Devereaux wondered how he’d picked the name: he’d encountered a few pseudonymous Smiths, but this was his first Haines. He flipped through another folder: crime scene photographs, additional shots that established wider physical context. Twenty minutes in: an image of a neighbouring property showed a Haines Haulage truck, backed into a driveway. Dougie was clearly quite blasé with regards to fake name selection.
He progressed to the next ream of paper: CIB progress reports. The witness lists would have been checked for prior offending. He wanted to know who’d signed off on them.
There were about five separate copies of the actual list, eighty names total. Extra sheets were appended, further information on those with a criminal history. Douglas Haines/Allen was not included. Devereaux re-read the lists. No indication of who’d performed the vetting. He appraised the stacks of paperwork. He could read ceaselessly all night and achieve nothing but blindness.
His desk phone rang. He answered and mumbled a greeting.
‘You sound like you need a beer,’ Pollard said.
Devereaux laughed and closed his eyes. He put an arm on the desk and sat head in hand. ‘Too many Nurofen. It wouldn’t be a good mix.’
‘You asked me to call you back?’
‘Oh, yeah. Thanks. Have I missed much?’
Pollard said, ‘They found tyre tracks in the lawn at the Turner address. We matched them to a tread pattern they found at the Haines or Allen place or whatever the hell his name is.’
Devereaux switched off his desk lamp. The dark behind his eyelids lost its bloody tint. ‘So it was definitely Douglas who did Turner and the PI.’
‘It’s stacking up that way.’
‘And we haven’t found him yet?’
‘No. We haven’t.’
‘You’re slurring a wee bit.’
‘I’m not surprised. I’m three gins in to a long night.’
Devereaux didn’t answer. Around the room, lonely telephones rang in ragged symphony.
Pollard hissed breath through his teeth, easing the quiet aside. ‘Look, if there’s nothing else, I’ll let you go.’
Fatigue left comprehension lagging: auditory input took a second or two to decrypt. Devereaux said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ He opened his eyes. The mess around him recrystallised, and he remembered why he was here. ‘Oh, hang on, wait.’ He stirred random papers, trying to keep his brain out of bed. It wasn’t even that late. Get a grip, for God’s sake. ‘Are you there?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Do you know who did the backgrounding for the fight club thing?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The fight club robbery in January. Who ran the background checks on the witness lists?’
‘It was meant to be Otara CIB. But Don McCarthy had it moved up to Central.’
‘Yeah, I know. But do you know who ran the checks?’
‘On the witnesses?’
‘Yes. On the witnesses.’
Pollard thought about it. A glass-on-glass chime preceded a gentle glugging. ‘It was Carl Grayson,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, yeah. He volunteered for it. I can’t think why he wouldn’t do it if he asked for it.’
THIRTY-FIVE
WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, 10.27 P.M.
Devereaux sat at his desk and felt implications drawing clearer. His last conversation with Leroy Turner was getting some good mental air time:
Because cops did it. Because cops robbed that bank. Because cops robbed that fight club thing.
He’d dismissed it at the time. The conspiracy aspect reeked too heavily of urban myth. Plus the gospel according to Leroy had to be taken with a pinch of salt. But maybe he’d been closer to the mark than anticipated. The Douglas Allen angle raised fresh queries. Namely, was Dougie’s prior offending covered up, or was it genuinely overlooked? Maybe Douglas had official assistance in keeping his name out of the suspect pool.
As a law-breaking scheme, it probably had potential: a badge-toting inside man. Divert attention should the wrong people come under the law enforcement lens. Eliminate suspects before they were nominated as potentially dubious. Ensure the likes of Doug Allen garnered no official attention.
He rubbed his eyes and saw swimming phosphorescence. It was Grayson who distracted Lloyd Bowen long enough for Devereaux to secure a cellblock visit to Howard Ford. Maybe he’d been aware of the connection between Ford and the late Leroy Turner. Then again, he’d used Grayson’s computer to access Turner’s details after Ford had revealed the name. Maybe Grayson thought Turner was privy to more than he was. Maybe Grayson cupped Doug Allen’s ear and whispered ‘Kill him’.
He sat there for another minute, just thinking. Then he found his car keys amid the disorder and headed downstairs. He drew some worried looks — is that guy fit to drive? He couldn’t help but wonder the same thing.
It was fifteen minutes from the city to Grayson’s place off Gillies Ave. He parked in the short driveway beside the house, headlamp reflection gliding orb-like across the windows.
Grayson met him at the front door. One arm propped a sleeping daughter, his neck encircled in tender embrace.
‘Hi, Sean.’ He sounded tired, not welcoming.
‘Can I come in?’
A short pause settled. Devereaux sensed the silent yearning to decline entry.
But in the end Grayson just nodded and said, ‘Yeah. Give me a second.’ He tilted his head towards the stairs, stepped away to jettison his passenger.
Devereaux took a pace inside and closed the door gently. A light clicked on upstairs. A female voice, and then Grayson’s muted tone. He heard Grayson say, ‘Sean Devereaux,’ and then, ‘I don’t know.’
Devereaux stayed in the entry hall and waited. A warm domestic odour prevailed: curried chicken, a floral aroma from a bouquet of roses on a small table. Inside the door, two miniature pairs of pink trainers were arranged neatly beside a pair of leather men’s shoes. A moment later Grayson came back downstairs, flexing pins and needles out of one arm. His hair on one side was perked, as if mussed from s
leep.
Grayson smiled, ‘Not more printing, I hope.’
‘No. Just a bit of a chat.’
‘Good.’ Clipped, a hint of impatience. He finger-combed his hair to restore order, gestured down the hallway. ‘We’ll talk in the office.’
Devereaux led the way through, flicked the light. The shelves rose up, packed to topple. Grayson closed the door.
‘We’d better keep this brief, man. It’s getting round to eleven.’
‘Yeah. We’ll keep it brief.’
Grayson read something in the tone. He leaned back against the door and folded his arms. ‘What’s up?’
A chair was tucked in beneath the computer table. Devereaux would have killed to sit down. He compromised and rested a hand on the back support.
He said, ‘You did the background work on the witness lists for the fight club job.’
Grayson’s chin dipped to his chest, he passed a palm across his forehead. Bloodshot eyes settled on the window. ‘Yeah. Rings a bell.’
‘You did check them?’
‘Yeah.’ He looked worried, tried a smiled. ‘What’s with the frown?’
Devereaux shook his head. ‘How did you stuff it up so badly?’
Grayson’s expression slackened. He wiped his mouth with his wrist. Stubble scratched. ‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘How did you stuff it up so bad? Have you heard what’s been happening?’
‘Yeah. Of course. The Haines/Allen shit.’
Devereaux nodded. ‘And we would have been on to him a month ago if the background work had been done properly.’
‘Sean—’
‘No, Carl.’
‘Jesus, don’t shout. You’ll fucking wake—’ He closed his eyes, exhaled through his nose, opened his eyes. ‘You’ll wake her up again.’
‘Yeah, well. It’ll be the least of your worries.’
Grayson spread upturned palms. ‘What? This is bullshit. I don’t even know what you’re—’
‘Okay, look. Shut up and listen. I’ll lay it out for you—’
‘Yeah. Lay it out for me.’
‘Essentially, you failed to properly background-check a witness to the fight club robbery back in January. If you’d done your job, that witness would have been a suspect—’