Wrigley swallowed some beer, giving Shaun a straight-on gaze, searching his still, too-serene face for a sign, some clue to tip him over one way or the other. His phone fluttered almost inaudibly inside his jacket: he withdrew it, checked the caller’s number and put it away again. Then in a decisive moment he snatched up the slip and shoved it in his shirt pocket.‘I’ll do it, Shaun,’ he said.‘Just don’t make me regret it, right?’
‘You have my word as an ex-policeman.’
Wrigley laughed, finished his beer and stood. Giving Shaun his card he said,‘Call me tonight sometime after nine. I’ll either be home or on the mobile.’
‘I appreciate it, Dave. And I don’t ask this lightly.’
‘Just watch your step, mate. Rest assured people will be watching you, so don’t do anything that’s gonna put you back in the hole. Don’t leave yourself vulnerable.’
Shaun, still sitting, nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I learned that one the hard way.’ He scribbled Jo’s number on a beer coaster and gave it to Wrigley. ‘This is where I am at the moment. Just in case.’
Wrigley accepted it, turned to go, then said, ‘Stay clean, Shaun. And for what it’s worth, I prefer to believe you guys didn’t do the killings. It was a fucked case right through—too many questions and not enough answers, no murder weapon and no surviving witnesses at all apart from you. Seems a little too convenient for me. But I have to say I’m in a very small minority. Most people I know would cross the road soon as they saw you coming.’ He was gone and on the phone as soon as he hit the footpath.
Shaun thought, someone should’ve told Bernie Walsh.
Mid-afternoon, and Stan Petrakos was still lounging around in his white terry-towel dressing-gown, feet up on a stool as he watched TV. ‘Oprah’ had just finished and the theme from ‘Neighbours’ was starting up. He channel-surfed, then killed it. Fuck TV. Stan’s mood had not yet begun to lift after another heavy all-nighter. In his hand was a bloody Mary—his third— which he repeatedly stirred with his finger before sucking it. He always knew exactly when his mood shifted from black to a lighter shade of grey—it was like passing through a solid steel cell door, emerging from deep gloom into clear daylight. This sudden change was invariably accompanied by a sensation of immense relief—almost a rush, whooshing through his bloodstream like a liberating army, scattering the enemy troops. Mood swings like Stan’s were hellish. A doctor had told him years earlier that he might have a ‘chemical disorder’ stemming from the trauma, and he even used the word ‘schizophrenia’ when Stan questioned him further. Stan didn’t believe a ‘chemical disorder’ could be caused by trauma—it was something you either had or didn’t. The doc told him it could be ‘brought on’ by alcohol or drug abuse, and Stan’s habits were not exactly moderate. He never went back to that doctor. Stan knew that schizophrenia sufferers were medicated out of existence and sometimes even subjected to brain surgery.
Music—that might help. He sorted through a pile of CDs, but couldn’t decide. How about . . . Radiohead? Fuck that— he didn’t feel like sucking lemons right now. Oasis? No-o-o. Nick Cave? Not, not, not. What about something more relaxing—The Corrs? He was partial to them. Where was his fucking Corrs? He had a fistful of CDs, then another, finding the right one at last, but he couldn’t open the bastard. Then it snapped open, crack, the CD flew out, and all the CDs crumpled in his hands and crashed to the floor.
A strange thing happened—Stan started crying. A huge sob, a muffled explosion deep in his chest, then an overflow of tears that rocked him.
He couldn’t stop. He sat on the floor, sobbing and snivelling like a baby, covering his face—CDs all around him like trashed toys. Stan was used to bouts of depression—‘anxiety attacks’— but this cry-baby stuff was a recent and alarming development. Stan Petrakos did not cry—he made other people cry. If anyone saw him now—Jesus.
He let out a yowl, clamping his hands to his ears.
Then he realised he was sitting in warm liquid—and saw with horror that he had pissed himself. Urine pooled out between his legs on the polished wood floor. He stared— numbed, open-mouthed, powerless to stop his flow as the fluid spread amongst the CDs.
Stan made a pistol with his thumb and forefinger, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Here was the man who sent Lou Galvano packing, sitting in his own piss, blubbering like a bitch. Terrific.
Soon enough his thoughts went back to that dreadful day—or evening, right on dinnertime—when the seven-year-old Stan went to his father’s workshop to fetch his big brother George. George, a strapping twelve-year-old, was his hero. He’d had fistfights at school and won them all. He’d started to shave and could grow a moustache. He’d fucked girls before Stan even knew what the word meant. He let Stan tag along wherever he went with his gang, on the prowl. He stood up to his brute of a father, and once intervened when the old man was beating up on his mother, Iris. That was an act of incredible bravery. Stan watched and felt the blows as his father pounded into George on that occasion, punching his face with a sickening force before turning his attention back to his wife, who was desperately trying to stop him. Stan saw from his wild, blazing eyes that his old man was absolutely off his head—a psychotic, rage-fuelled madman. Not long after that his mother died in a helicopter crash.
In his mind Stan pushed open the door to the workshop. He could hear the buzz-saw screeching and wondered what George was up to. When he stepped inside he saw blood and bits of flesh spattered all over the walls and ceiling. He opened his mouth but could not scream—his throat had choked up tight. George was slumped over the saw, his head hanging by a thread as the blood-soaked blade sang on, issuing a fine spray from George’s open throat. The workbench ran with red. It dripped from the edge and made a pool on the concrete floor. The pool was growing bigger, edging towards Stan’s feet . . .
He turned and ran, finding his voice with a scream that brought his father running from the house.
Stan knew without having to be told that George had killed himself. He was absolutely devastated—but not surprised. They’d both been gutted by the loss of their mother, but George had a bigger burden than that to carry. In retrospect he saw that his big brother, tough and game as he was, had no real option. Stan clearly remembered George saying to him one night, not long before he took that final step, ‘Do you want to know a big secret?’ Stan had listened, enthralled and horrified, as the words were whispered in his ear. Afterwards they had both cried for hours and hours.
At that age Stan had no grasp of the notion of suicide. How could you take your own life? It was simply out of his range. But George not only understood it, he was prepared to go all the way. And in that horribly gruesome, agonising way, ripping his throat apart with the old man’s equipment, in his favourite place—as if to spite his father. One thing Stan knew for sure—if he ever did decide to pull the pin he’d never be able to match his brother on that score.
Half an hour later Stan had popped 15 milligrams of Valium and was soaking in the bathtub, feeling drowsier by the minute. Next to him was a large Stolichnaya—bloody Mary without the tomato juice this time. People slashed their wrists in the bath, but no way was Stan prepared to sit in a warm soup of his own blood. Staring at the water he saw thick strings of red juice swirling through it. This was scaring the hell out of him—was that real? Fuck. He really shouldn’t be alone when the black mood hit—he knew that much from experience. Stan had always kidded himself these so-called ‘black moods’ were part of his hangover, nothing more. In company, drugs and booze aboard, mixer music thumping, he was alive, a supreme dynamic force, but afterwards—alone— came the downside, the big drop. When he fell asleep his horrors only escalated, which was why he fought sleep the way a child does. Sleep gave no respite: sleep was worse. Gulping straight Stoli, he eventually gave up and went with the flow, spinning downwards in his Valium-induced torpor. Stan’s unconscious interior was a ravaged, blackened battlefield, ripe with the stench of wrecked and unburied corpses. Carnage, death, m
ore death, bullet holes, bloodied stumps where heads once were—everywhere it was the same. He was the last surviving member of his accursed tribe, every other one of them having died violently—even his grandparents in Crete. All night they’d been tortured in front of each other for hiding Australian troops. The bastards had driven a white-hot wire into his grandfather’s penis—or so the old man had once told him after consuming a bottle of brandy one night. No wonder he was so fucked up.
Stan had learned to hate Germans and Germany since the day he was born—it was bred and drip-fed into him from day one. Even now when he saw an ancient war criminal being paraded on TV he felt like killing someone—anyone. ‘I FEEL LIKE KILLING SOMEONE,’ he occasionally said aloud in a crowd for no apparent reason, when the black mood encroached. He had developed a habit of shouting at people—strangers— in the street, for no reason except that he felt bad. ‘GO AND FUCK YOURSELF!’ was the staple as he marched angrily along the footpath, picking up cafe chairs that were in his road and hurling them onto the street. That, or simply ‘HEY, CUNT!’ which, together with a pumped, belligerent stance, was usually enough to scare the shit out of a passing citizen. He sometimes felt like a roulette player, desperate to get rid of the last of his cash on one more spin. Stan would never have children, so the family was done for. Why hold out? The time had to come. It was like the overwhelming urge to jump from a cliff.
Stan’s heart and soul were eaten away with corruption, but the final step—suicide—was too hard. The act could be postponed for as long as he could find an excuse to avoid it. It was a simple deal: shotgun in the mouth, shut the eyes, trip both triggers. Boom—oblivion. Freedom. Ecstasy. But then came the after-image: bits of his brain and skull plastered all over the room, inter-cutting with that everlasting snapshot of George in the workshop. No, he was but a pale shadow of his brother. Of course it was always possible to swallow a bottle of pills, but that was pathetic: a woman’s way out. He was therefore caught in a bind. The sad, tragic fact was that Stan lacked his brother’s stones for the alternative. However, what he had instead was the ability—and the will—to harm others: ‘I FEEL LIKE KILLING SOMEONE’. That substitute victim was going to be Shaun McCreadie. Stan’s mind was made up. Kill Shaun McCreadie and he bought peace of mind for himself. And anyhow, the bastard cried out for it. He was long overdue. Eliminate him, the little voice said, and push back the nightmare. Lying there in a soporific state he thought, have to lose the blues fast. Pop a few uppers, do some blow, that’s the drill.
Appearances counted for a lot in Stan’s world. It was important to look the goods even when you felt like shit. It was like show business. Now and then Stan wore a classy suit for no particular reason—just to be seen looking like a success story. People respected you more if you wore good clothes. With regard to his financial situation, he had a plan. He intended to open an S&M joint—dungeons, they were called—where Suzen would operate as a dominatrix. He’d sounded her out and she seemed interested enough, provided there was no actual sex involved. People paid plenty to be whipped, abused and pissed on. Problem was, Stan’s convictions prevented his name appearing anywhere on the paperwork. That was where old Rick Stiles came in. Stan knew a councilman who had indicated he could help with the permit—for a price. That was the way business was done. First, though, Stan needed some start-up money. Where that was coming from he did not know. He had no desire to use his own diminishing funds unless it was absolutely necessary.
In a while Stan’s confused and morbid thoughts faded to a soft, fuzzy black, with little starbursts shooting like comets across a darkened screen. He then slid a little deeper into the bath; the solid crystal glass slipped from his fingers onto the tiles—somehow not shattering—his jaw dropped and he began to snore, gently riffling the tepid water that lapped at his chin.
At around nine-thirty that night, Shaun McCreadie switched off the mobile phone that used to be Bernie Walsh’s, staring thoughtfully at the little silver piece. Initially Dave Wrigley had been reluctant to reveal the name, since the individual in question was a serving police officer. But in the end friendship prevailed over ethics—he held no brief for the man anyway— and he breathed the two words Shaun needed to hear before disconnecting.
Bill Simmonds.
Big Bill Simmonds: longstanding, knockabout copper from the old school. In his earlier years he was famous for ripping doors off premises by chaining them to his car, a huge Yank tank, and driving away, dragging the door down the street. Stories abounded of his colourful exploits at his favourite watering holes and at the regular Friday night soirees at the home of a famous criminal barrister, attended by senior detectives, judges, socialites and arch villains alike. They were all in the same soup together. This was the era when ethical standards came from the barrel of a service revolver or a brown paper bag, and when suspects exercised the right to remain silent at their peril. During his stint in the long-defunct consorting squad he had accumulated so many underworld contacts it was sometimes impossible to tell which side he was really on.
Over the years numerous allegations of corruption and improper conduct had washed off him like rainwater. A 1974 inquiry into his assets turned up a new Mercedes-Benz, a luxury time-share apartment at Surfers Paradise, an interest in an angora farm, racks of imported suits and a string of bank accounts under dummy names adding up to tens of thousands of dollars. No charges resulted, however, nor was he ever suspended from duty. In 1978 Richard ‘Bully Beef ’ Popadich, a hatchet-headed standover man-turned-police informant whom Simmonds was the last person to see alive, turned up cut into five parts in a tip at Kangaroo Ground. Only his head was never found. A perfunctory inquiry was unable to connect his murder to Simmonds and could only manage to lay responsibility at the feet of ‘a person, or persons, unknown’.
Every attempt to bring Bill Simmonds down had come to zip, giving rise to a belief that he had something heavy on every top cop in a position to hurt him. Word was, Bill Simmonds knew where hundreds of bodies were buried, stretching way, way back. This was his long-term investment portfolio. He knew the whereabouts of cadavers that no-one remembered or cared about anymore. And even now the spectacle of his massive bear shape and his ugly scowl filling a bar doorway made the bowels of normally tough, hardcore criminals run like a tap.
Simmonds was a near-mythic figure, widely thought to be the linchpin in a select group of powerful detectives known as The Three. It was supposedly Simmonds, Leon ‘Brick’ Turner and someone else. The story ran that nothing went down without The Three having a big say in it. No major robbery occurred without sponsorship from The Three, who would use their positions to protect the perpetrators in exchange for a percentage. Even murder was negotiable for a price, provided no civilians were involved. It was all part of a larger scheme of things in which trade-offs were used to maintain control over the underworld, and The Three apparently ruled with an iron fist. This was before organised armed robbery gangs largely went out of business in the eighties, due in part to stepped-up security in banks and the other usual targets, but also to a growing fear of the dawn raid, in which suspects, armed or not, could easily find themselves on the wrong end of a shotgun blast. The whole climate changed drastically in the aftermath of the car-bombing of Russell Street police headquarters, in which a policewoman died, and the cold-blooded execution of two young constables one night in quiet South Yarra.
Fired up by these attacks, major crime—the notorious ‘Majors’, since disbanded—special operations and armed robbery squad detectives did pretty much as they pleased in an all-out war on crime, targeting names and picking them off one by one. It was a watershed period in which ‘old culture’ law enforcement—based on booze, bribery and bashing—came to an end and was replaced by the new breed of dedicated gym rat with a university degree and a Hugo Boss suit, so admirably epitomised by Dave Wrigley. Internal Investigations was replaced by the Ethical Standards Department, a new chief commissioner was appointed and the whole force was restructured, rational
ised and made more accountable.
And so, with the passing of the old order, The Three had no domain left in which to operate. They faded away like a photograph exposed to too much bright light. And as for the identity of the third member of this shadowy cabal—well, that was forever uncertain. Various names were thrown around over the years. In fact, in some quarters the whole idea of whether or not The Three really existed was open to question. There were those who believed it was a fantasy, a tall tale passed on to young cops like Shaun McCreadie for inspirational purposes and embellished upon over the years.
Inspector Bill Simmonds: oversized, pathologically combative, vindictive, vile as cat shit—a manipulative bastard never to be crossed, or trusted. Held in awe in some circles, loathed by many, feared by some, and known far and wide— to his intense displeasure—as Fat Man. Simmonds was exactly the low, scheming type of arsehole to dispatch Bernie Walsh on a mission to Buzzards Hut to take care of some dirty business on his behalf. The voice on the phone came back to him—now he had a face to go with it. For such a big man he had an unusually high-pitched voice, and the angrier he became the more it sounded as if his nuts were being crushed in a vice. Shaun had worked in the same building as Simmonds for a short time, but knew him only distantly, by sight and reputation. He was far too intimidating a figure for a raw young uniform to even say good morning to. Simmonds, on the other hand, had clearly made a point of finding out all about Shaun.
12
In the Sportsman’s Bar at the Sebastopol Arms Tavern—a shabby but popular early opener on the city’s southwestern fringe, and one of a dozen or so boozers around the traps where he was not required to put down any brass—Detective Inspector Bill Simmonds leaned over the table and gave Wes Ford the full force of his grotesque smile. It was a frightening vision even for Wes, who’d had to contend with sixteen-stone human refrigerators coming at him full tilt in his playing days.
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