by John Byron
Murphy thought about it. ‘Yeah, I got me balls stomped on in a collapsed scrum. Some fucken Manly prick. Laid me up for the weekend.’
‘You probably ruptured something, and the vas deferens re-established during the healing process.’
‘Fuck me, I really had no idea. So I’ve been shooting live rounds ever since?’
‘Sounds like it,’ Mack said.
‘Damn, I’ll have to get it done again.’ Mack was taken aback, so Murphy added, ‘It’s like a kick in the balls, mate. I’m not that keen for another one.’
Mack raised his forehead and blew out both cheeks. ‘It’s not the most comfortable procedure,’ he eventually agreed.
Murphy recognised his error, so he bent his head and turned from the SOCO. ‘Sorry, Mack, I’m all over the fucken place. There’s just too much going on.’
Mack placed a hand on Murphy’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Spud. Everyone understands.’
Murphy wasn’t entirely convinced he’d recovered his ground but he turned back around and nodded his thanks. ‘So —’ he croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘When can I have my house back?’
‘This afternoon will be fine,’ said Mack, clearly happy to change topics. ‘My crew’s about done there, and the clean-up detail will only take a couple of hours.’
‘And what about Sylvia? When should Jo and I go up there?’
‘You could go now if you want to, but she’s still in a coma. I’m told she looks pretty rough. She’s definitely recovering, though, so there’s no urgency.’
‘So what are you saying, keep away?’
‘I’d wait until she’s conscious. There’s no benefit to Sylvia in you going now, and it will just be traumatic. Better to go when she knows you’re there.’
‘Okay, good advice,’ Murphy said, trying not to sound relieved. ‘Would you mind telling Jo that yourself? She’d take it better from you.’
‘Okay, I’ll talk to her.’
‘All right, that’ll do for now. Thanks, Mack.’
Mack regarded Murphy with an appraising gaze then turned and left the office. Murphy closed the door then sat down heavily behind his desk, holding his head in his hands for a moment, in case anyone was watching through the window. But when he looked up, it was all just detectives going about their detecting, so he opened his drawer, poured a decent measure of whisky into his coffee cup and drained it in one go.
Just when you thought you had the measure of the game; just when you thought you could see all the pieces in play. Something always snuck up behind you to fuck you up. This homicide business was full of fucken surprises.
It dawned on him that Sylvia would’ve known about the recanal thing last winter. She was a fucken nurse – of course she knew. All that time she was pretending to care for his tender balls, she was just trapping him into giving her a baby.
Then the penny dropped. It had never been about happy families: she’d probably been planning this all along. Trick him into knocking her up then shoot through; take him to the cleaners with the paternity to hold over him.
That fucken scheming bitch.
Wednesday 16 January – morning
Jo looked at the piece of folded notepaper in her hand, her stomach plummeting and her mind reeling at its significance. Inscribed by a finicky hand were the words VESALIUS and Stephen Porter over a Sydney phone number. She remembered him now, that odd but oddly forgettable Vesalius buff who’d approached her after her public lecture last year. A trainspotter, Sylia had called him.
And she’d had his number all along.
Medium everything and unremarkable in every way, but he’d looked familiar when she’d first seen his face blown up on the Homicide Squad incident board yesterday afternoon. Now she knew why: she’d met him, spoken with him, taken his phone number. Then folded the piece of paper and promptly lost it among her scrappy pile of lecture notes. She hadn’t given the man a moment’s thought since, until now when she was finally sorting through all her case notes.
She stood frozen with indecision. She felt an urge to tell someone, even an obligation, but she was afraid of her brother’s reaction. Thijs would feel compelled to tell him; Amy too, very likely. Her face flushed as she realised her oversight could find its way into the newspapers. But there was no doubt it was a pertinent fact. She needed to talk to her brother anyway: she’d wing it on whether or not to tell him, depending on his mood. She walked over to Murphy’s office and knocked on the door, pulling him out of some grim reverie.
‘What is it, sis?’
‘I’ve just spoken with Mack,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘About visiting Sylvia. Or not visiting her.’
‘I think we should follow his advice.’
Jo was unconvinced. ‘She needs us, Dave. She’d want us there.’
‘She’d want us here, trying to catch the fucker. Mack says she’s oblivious. What if it throws us off our game?’
Jo exhaled. ‘All right. But let’s talk about it again tomorrow.’
‘Okay,’ he said, but she could tell he would be of the same mind then.
She lifted a sheaf of papers. ‘I’ve figured out the bank’s file formats.’
‘Have we got the data converted into spreadsheets yet?’
‘Angelo’s writing a script for it.’
‘Who?’
‘Niko.’
‘Oh, right. Great.’
‘And the provost is sending all Porter’s central records over by courier now. They’re rousting the medical faculty and the art school, too, to see what they’ve got locally. I have a contact in her office for anything else we need.’
‘Thanks, Jo.’
‘And I helped Amy go through the week’s video from your backyard camera. There’s nothing relevant.’ Murphy raised an eyebrow, but Jo didn’t expand.
She’d been heart-warmed and saddened in equal measure, watching her friend at home, unselfconscious and free. Sylvia had read, cooked, played guitar, talked on the phone, dipped in the pool, danced around a little to a soundtrack Jo couldn’t hear. Sometimes she just sat there, happily stroking her belly. Other times she’d been pensive and tearful, but each time she’d pulled herself together. Murphy had brought a stultifying weight to the mood whenever he’d appeared, the tension tangible even through that tiny, silent aperture. But mostly it was a documentary film of a week in Sylvia’s most private life, spent in peace and calm, in sadness and occasional joy. Jo had made herself a copy.
‘I’ll look through the university files when they arrive,’ she continued flatly, ‘but I’m not sure what I’m meant to do after that.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want to wake up and for all this to not be happening.’ She teared up again and he motioned to come around to her, but she waved him down. ‘I still want to help,’ she continued once she could speak. ‘But I’m not sure how to be useful.’
‘Stay here, sis, we need you. There’s always work on an investigation for a sharp pair of eyes and a good brain.’
‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’
‘Don’t let it go to your head.’
Jo laughed and almost told him then about Porter’s note, but she remembered something else and went the other way. ‘Dave, did you know Sylvia was pregnant?’
‘No. Did she tell you?’
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘I’m surprised,’ he said.
Jo shrugged, but she was hurt to have been kept in the dark.
Her brother ventured a line. ‘I suppose she hadn’t decided yet.’
‘Decided what?’
‘Whether to keep it.’
‘She’d have wanted to keep her, Dave. She would’ve been worried about you.’
‘That’s not fair, Jo. I never even knew.’
‘Yeah, no shit.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘She wouldn’t have been able to bring it up. You were
always so unyielding.’
‘About what?’
‘About not having children.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with knowing your limitations, Jo.’
‘But you wouldn’t even discuss it with her.’
‘We did discuss it,’ he objected. ‘Several times.’
‘No, you just shut her down and ruled it out. That’s not discussion, Dave.’
‘So she complained to you about it?’ he asked, exasperated.
‘She’s my best friend.’
Murphy sighed. ‘I can’t believe we’re fighting about this.’
‘We’re not fighting, it just makes me sad.’ Jo wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘That poor little girl.’ She turned away without looking at him. She couldn’t confide in Murphy like this. She’d keep the phone number story to herself, for now.
Jo was nearly out the door when Murphy said, ‘Actually, there is something you could do.’
She turned back.
‘Reckon you could contact Sylvia’s family, let them know?’
‘Why would we do that?’ she asked. Sylvia seldom mentioned her childhood in Western Australia. Jo knew there was some sort of unpleasant backstory that Sylvia never talked about, and she’d had bugger-all to do with her family since coming to Sydney. Jo really couldn’t see why that should change now.
‘They’ll only see it on the news otherwise. I don’t need the static.’
‘I’ve never even met them, Dave. Shouldn’t you do it?’
‘Nah, they don’t like me. And they’re creepy.’ Murphy had only met them the once, as far as Jo knew, over an intensely awkward lunch in Margaret River. ‘At least you’re neutral. Anyway, you’re good at that sort of thing.’
‘What, because I’m a woman?’
‘Exactly.’
Jo snorted.
‘What?’
‘You really don’t have a clue, do you?’
‘What’d I do now?’ he asked, his arms opened wide at his sides, palms facing forward. His stance reminded her fleetingly of one of the standing figures in the Fabrica. She turned and walked out without another word.
Wednesday 16 January – afternoon
Porter spent the morning in neuroanatomical study then returned to Coogee, lunching at a homely cafe at the northern end of the bay while he caught up on the news. He was unsettled to find his face on all the front pages but he was satisfied that his disguise was holding up. Sylvia Murphy was still in an induced coma, due to her brain injuries, but the doctors were cautiously optimistic. Apparently she had been pregnant, but was no more. Porter felt no regret at that detail – if anything it simplified things for later, when he would return to claim her heart.
He paid his bill and strolled along the boardwalk. The beach was crowded – had none of these people a job? – but he enjoyed its demotic feel in comparison to the tedious beautiful-people tone of certain other beaches nearby. He climbed the hill at the southern end into the park opposite King’s apartment, hoping to reconnoitre the terrain at his leisure. It proved more difficult than he’d hoped.
He found it necessary to keep moving, due to factors he’d failed to anticipate. There was a playground directly opposite her building, for one – always a difficult setting for a middle-aged man to linger in without attracting suspicion. Then a leisurely pause at the top of the rise earned him a disgusted admonition from a passing jogger, and he realised that the nearby cliff-face overlooked the women-only sea baths. No loitering was possible here, either, especially on a hot summer’s day when the baths below would be well patronised. To make it all worse, the long-sleeved shirt he wore to cover his wounded elbow was as conspicuous in its way as the livid bruise and nasty graze on his neck.
He wandered around the southern headland and into the back streets until dusk, then ate dinner at a small Thai establishment. After dark, he collected his Gladstone bag from his car and returned to the park, seizing a quiet moment to settle into his vantage point within the brush.
It was a tiresome wait of some duration. The moon was full and creeping into the canopy of the Norfolk pines by the time King finally returned home at 11.30, once again escorted by a plainclothes security detail; a woman this time. Porter sighed with frustration while they passed inside, then settled down to wait for his chance.
Wednesday 16 January – night
Murphy couldn’t fucken believe it. Finally on his way home for the first time in days, nine o’clock at night, and he runs into the fucken crone next door at the local supermarket. The shopkeeper had helpfully pointed her out, so he’d been obliged to make a great public fuss over her heroic rescue of his poor unfortunate wife, and then he’d had to give her a lift home. A pain in the fucken arse it was, being a pillar of the community.
He settled her into the passenger seat and latched a seatbelt he’d have sooner wrapped around her scrawny throat. As he pulled out of the carpark, she murmured, ‘Dear Sylvia; she deserves better.’
‘Yes it’s horrible, what happened,’ Murphy mumbled. ‘Lucky you were there.’
‘That’s not what I mean, Mr Murphy. I mean, she deserves better than you.’
Murphy twisted to look at her. She gazed levelly back. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked.
‘Watch the road,’ she said, and he turned back to the front. ‘I know how you treat her. You’re a big man out there in the world, Mr Murphy, but it’s who you are at home that counts. And I know what kind of man you are.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Murphy sneered, glaring over again. ‘And what kind is that?’
The old hag smiled tightly and shook her head. ‘I don’t use that sort of language.’ She looked out her side window at the full moon breaching the ocean horizon. ‘Your wife is lovely,’ she said softly. ‘She deserves much better.’
They didn’t exchange another word. He parked in front of his house and she struggled out of his car with her pissant bag of groceries. Not so much as a thanks for the lift. Murphy let her fuck off inside her place before he got out. Fucken witch.
Then, finally, he was inside his house, front door shut, every fucken arsehole and criminal and spiv and politician and pathetic fucken civilian on the other side. He stood against the door, head tilted back, eyes closed. Home.
Alone.
After a long moment he pushed off and made for the back room. ‘Time for a fucken drink,’ he said aloud.
He shrugged off his jacket and removed his shoulder holster, sliding the weapon into its drawer. He could hear Sylvia nag him – Why do you want to keep it in the kitchen, Dave? – completely missing the point of having a portable fucken Howitzer on the premises.
He dropped his keys into the big marble mortar, watching them land beside Sylvia’s sprawling main bunch of a dozen keys and tags and fobs. Must weigh half a fucken kilo, he mused. No wonder she kept the streamlined set to take swimming. He took the bottle of Lagavulin and a glass over to the couch. He sprawled across it diagonally, his head supported by the low armrest, his neck supported by a small cushion, and his soul supported by Islay whisky, the early tendrils of soothing oblivion reaching into those provinces of his brain that really needed to shut the fuck up and give him a night off for once.
He tried to empty his mind. Like Sylvia and her bloody meditation. Better than sex, she said. Fucken, as if. Reckoned she could empty her mind for hours at a time, away on retreat. Away from him. His response was always that she had an unfair head start on an empty mind.
Sylvia.
What the fuck was he going to do about her? He had no idea where things went from here. Sooner or later Sylvia would wake up and come home, looked like, and either she’d need nursing for the rest of her life – in which case sorry, but fuck that shit – or she’d let him help her recover fully then waltz back out the door. And then where would he be?
Fucked, that’s where.
No. He’d started it. He had to finish it, somehow. He just had to find a way.
He let the idea settle on him, then he told himself to leave it al
one for now. It was too soon; he needed to know the scenario before he could build a plan. He just had to trust himself.
He drank more whisky then slid down on the couch, looking up through the window at the high, silvered clouds. He closed his eyes and tried visualising the Gatting Ball, the young Elle Macpherson in that Tab commercial, the car chase from Bullitt. Anything. His mind tuned out at last and he dozed, dreaming in blue.
But then he came back to periscope depth, and a single concrete realisation that had been needling for attention for days finally broke through. He lifted his hips to pull out his wallet and removed Sylvia’s Denison Bank credit card. It’d been risky to carry it around this long, but he’d been reluctant to destroy it in case the narrative needed it to show up, and he couldn’t leave it anywhere in case it was found. It was the little things that always fucked people up. What to do with it now? Lost in the home, he decided. He polished the card with his shirt and went to the laundry. He flicked on the light and leaned over to peer down behind the washing machine. It was all lint and dust back there. He dropped the card into the gap. Some repairman could find it one day. It’d fit the story perfectly.
He went back to the sofa but he was wide awake again now, so he topped up his glass and turned his mind to Porter. He’d be unpredictable now he was on the run, but Murphy knew they’d have him soon. They’d harvested a ton of data in the past couple of days, and since they’d released his identity the hotline had been busy with all sorts of people who’d known him. Somewhere in there were the details that would lead them to him. It’s always in the details.
In theory, Porter could go to ground and live out his life as Mr Nobody in Buttfuck, Nowhere. But in Murphy’s experience, crims never had the patience to sit tight and lie low. Sooner or later, every bad guy raised his ugly mug above the parapet. And Murphy would be there when he did, waiting to blow it away.
At that happy thought, his exhaustion pulled him back under. He slept deeply on the sofa for a couple of hours before the dark dreaming started again, thrashing him about until he gave up. The moon was way up now, shining brightly on the courtyard and the pool.