Cross Off

by Peter Corris

  'I've got you and Mrs Browning in two better rooms. More secure.'

  'Thanks, Ann. She's very tired.'

  Ava lowered her sunglasses and looked at the intense young woman with the dark skin and white uniform. 'Hello, there. You must be Miss Torrielli.'

  'Yes.' Ann looked surprised.

  Ava nodded. 'He's mentioned you. Luke, I've got to lie down. I'm whacked.'

  Dunlop and Ava were taken to the Tropicana suites—adjoining, two-bedroom units with sitting rooms and large balconies. Ava said she was going to sponge herself down and sleep for a few hours.

  'Your things are all here, Mrs Browning,' Ann said.

  'Call me Ava.'

  Ann and Dunlop went to his suite. She opened the mini-bar. 'Drink?'

  'Light beer. Thanks for all this. Any trouble?'

  Ann popped two cans. 'None. As far as people here are concerned, Mrs Browning had an accident. I sort of hinted it was related to the cruise. They can't do enough for you. I've guaranteed you won't be taking any action.'

  Dunlop laughed. 'That was smart.'

  'I am smart.' Ann opened her bag and took out a notebook. She swigged from her can, sat down at the coffee table and flicked through the pages. 'A Harold Clements registered the day after you. Malibu wing. He left the day you went to Cooktown.'

  'Short stay.' Dunlop drank some of the beer.

  'Yes. He also booked on the Cooktown cruise. His room was cleaned, of course, and I couldn't get hold of anything he used. For fingerprints, I mean.'

  'He'd probably have been careful about that,' Dunlop said. 'I wish I'd thought faster. I should have guessed he'd been here.'

  Ann shook her head. 'Wouldn't have done any good. He checked out before going on the ferry. Must have left his car at the marina. He'd have been on a plane out of Cairns within an hour of getting back. Besides, you had a bit on your plate.'

  'Yeah. Did you check on the car?'

  'Avis. Returned that afternoon. The airlines won't tell you anything, but there were Australian and Ansett flights going all over the place.'

  'What could you find out about his time here?'

  'Almost nothing. Very quiet. No-one really remembers him.' Ann consulted her notes. 'He ate in his room. Was very precise about the time he wanted the food. The maid who cleaned the room says there was nothing for her to take away except a little orange plastic cap near the rubbish bin. Overlooked. She described it to me. Sounded like a syringe cap. He could be a junkie.'

  'Mm. How did he pay? As if I didn't know.'

  'Cash. Same for the car.'

  'Only way,' Dunlop said. 'Many thanks, Ann.'

  'What now?'

  'I don't know. We won't be here long. A couple of days I'd guess.'

  Ann got up. 'Happy to help any way I can.'

  She went out and Dunlop picked up her beer can, intending to throw it away. When he realised that it had barely been tasted, he drank it himself. He checked on Ava. She was sleeping under a sheet with her knees drawn up and the knuckles of her right hand bunched and very close to her mouth. The red hair was dull and he could see grey in the roots. The scuffed sandals were resting in the waste paper bin and the unflattering blouse and skirt were wadded up on top of them. On the bedside table there were two cigarette butts in the ashtray and an empty split of champagne.

  Ava slept for most of the afternoon and ordered dinner in her room. 'Piss off,' she said to Dunlop. 'I'm not coming out until I don't look like I've gone ten rounds with Tyson.'

  Dunlop ate in the coffee shop. He went back to the suites, made sure the doors were locked, and changed into swimming trunks and a T-shirt. He avoided the lagoons, kidney-shaped pools and those with sandy beaches and found a twenty-five metre pool with marked lanes. He swam twelve laps. A woman in a white bathing suit was swimming steady, tireless lengths, turning economically, barely disturbing the water. Dunlop dried off and watched her, recalling Cassie May Loew's stylish stroke. The woman finished and flipped out of the pool. It was Ann Torrielli.

  'Off duty?'

  Ann nodded and pulled off her cap and goggles, shaking out her thick hair. In the dim light, wearing only the white one-piece, her skin looked very dark. Dunlop wanted badly to touch her. She didn't draw away.

  'How's Mrs Browning?'

  His throat was dry. He coughed. 'Asleep.'

  'Are you all right?'

  'Sure. Where do you live?'

  Ann rubbed at the damp ends of her hair with a towel. 'Here. Want to see how the peasants are housed?'

  'I'd better not. Better stay close to . . .' He stepped forward and put his arms around her. She took the ends of the towel draped around his neck and pulled his head down. They kissed.

  In his room, with their bathing suits on the floor, Dunlop was surprised to find himself nervous. His erection failed when he attempted to pull on the condom from the packet he got from a vending machine in the toilet by the swimming pool.

  'Don't worry,' Ann said. 'It happens. Turn over and I'll give you a massage. And stop thinking about your dick. It's not the part of you I'm most interested in.'

  Her fingers were soothing him, working the tension out of his neck and shoulders. 'What is?'

  She slapped his buttocks. 'I'm a bit of a bum woman. Remember that movie where Bette Midler's friend's holding a gun on these two hoods and she gets them to drop their pants? She says, "Nice buns, boys. Been working out?" I found that very sexy.'

  Dunlop hadn't seen the movie but he laughed and very soon afterwards his confidence returned. Ann Torrielli was a good lover, readily aroused and energetic without being gymnastic about it. After a longish period of celibacy Dunlop was enthusiastic but hasty.

  'Sorry,' he said.

  'The night is young.'

  They drank some wine. Ann stroked him and rolled another condom on. Then she mounted him. As he slid up inside her Dunlop groaned.

  'Good?'

  'God. Yes. Don't move. Okay. Jesus, Ann.'

  'I want to do it. Let me do it.'

  She rode him and he didn't know when he started to move but it happened and they found a rhythm. He felt he could go on and on. Then she collapsed, falling forward, shuddering. He came in long, hard spasms, the ecstatic feeling travelling down his legs and back up into his groin.

  'Told you,' Ann said.

  They were both too wound up and excited to sleep. They drank some more wine. Dunlop checked on Ava and found her sleeping peacefully, her hands no longer making fists.

  'What's she really like?' Ann asked.

  Dunlop stretched out beside her, resting his hand on her smooth thigh. 'I like her. She's had a rough life and she's dead ignorant, but she's tough and brave, funny too. She played it very cool with the man who raped her.'

  'How?'

  'She waited for her moment. Then she squashed his nuts and clobbered him in the kidneys.'

  'Still, he would have killed her if you hadn't been there.'

  Dunlop nodded in the darkness. He had a very strong wish to tell Ann everything about the case, to get her contribution. He felt she'd earned his trust, deserved it. But all his training and experience said otherwise. Dunlop's life had been more lonely than usual since the Loew disaster, consisting of work, the occasional round of golf, the odd brief sexual adventure. With the exception of Col Brown, the friends of his earlier days, when he was married and in the police force, had fallen away. Partly through his indifference, partly due to the circumstance of changing his identity when he joined the NBCI. He was not, by nature, a sociable man and his self-imposed near teetotalism and the high degree of secrecy involved in his job had driven him close to being a recluse.

  'What are you thinking?' Ann said.

  'I was wishing I could talk to you about this business. I'm not super-bright or super-sensitive. Bit of a plodder. I can always use an extra brain. You went to university.'

  Ann was silent and for a moment Dunlop thought she'd fallen asleep. Great, now he was a bore as well. But then she took the hand that was on her leg a
nd laced her fingers into his. 'Do you realise what you've just done?'

  Christ, what? Dunlop thought. 'No.'

  'You've put me off guard by telling me you're dumb and you've opened up a line of questioning that will allow you to decide whether to trust me or not. "You went to uni" leads on to "what did you study", "how old are you", "where are you from", "how did you get into this game", etcetera, etcetera. You're a very devious man.'

  'I never thought of any of those things.'

  'Being smart isn't entirely rational. You're smart enough, Mr Dunlop.'

  'You're angry.'

  'No. I like you. I enjoyed the fucking. I want more. I'm also bloody interested in your job and I'd love to help you some more. But maybe you shouldn't talk to me about it.'

  'I want to.'

  'But don't soften me up by telling me you're not smart. I didn't like that bit.'

  'Shit. I don't know what to say.'

  'That, I can't tell you.'

  'So, how old are you, where are you from, and how did you get into this game?'

  Ann laughed, freed her hand and dug him in the ribs with her elbow. 'Bastard. I'm twenty-eight. I'm a three-generation North Queenslander. My great-grandfather came out from Calabria to cut sugar cane, like the kanakas. After school I went back there to see what it was like and I stayed in Europe for a few years.' She drew a deep breath. 'Then I came back. I did legal studies and anthropology at James Cook and I'm in this game because there's a recession on and it was the best job I could get. I told them I could shoot and do tai-kwon-do. I couldn't then but I can now.'

  Dunlop said, 'I'm thirty-nine. I'm a second-generation New South Welshman. My grandfather was a coal miner in the north of England and he came out to be a coal miner in the Hunter. I'm divorced, no kids. I'm an ex-cop. I didn't go to university and I'm sorry for putting you on the spot.'

  Ann kissed him. 'You're not. You got what you wanted. Can I have some more wine?'

  Dunlop got up and poured two glasses. He found the copy of the tape he'd made in the Cooktown hospital and put it into a player he'd bought in Port Douglas. The original had already been sent to Canberra. He came back to the bed, gave Ann her wine and played the tape.

  'The question,' he said when the tape ended, 'is how come the attacker was so sure that she was lying?'

  'Because he did the hit?' Ann said.

  Dennis Tate was very spooked on the flight south. He jumped at shadows, imagined watchers and interceptors in the terminals. When his luggage came off without a hitch he felt the tension in his stomach ease a little. This was bad for him. His sugar level, tested on the plane to Brisbane, at the terminal there and again on the flight to Sydney, was jumping around. Worrying. He went into the toilet and assembled his pistol. He washed his hands and face and tried to get a grip on things. The scratches were raw and itchy. Those thorns must have carried some kind of poison. His kidneys still ached.

  He took a taxi to his flat and unpacked. Everything he'd touched at the resort he'd either wiped clean or put in a plastic bag and taken away—an inflexible rule. He went through the stuff now and noticed that one of the used syringes was missing a cap. He swore. The cap was unlikely to provide a print but you couldn't be sure. And it was a signpost of a kind, pointing in his direction. Sloppy work, again. He tested the blood sugar again. Still high. The airline food hadn't helped. It was hard to judge the carbohydrate content. He was still passing blood in his urine. He went for a long walk through Randwick and Kensington, ending up near the Prince of Wales Hospital.

  The big pub across the intersection beckoned. When young, Tate had been a binge drinker, getting thoroughly drunk half a dozen times a year and scarcely touching alcohol otherwise. He'd seen the soldierly skills leached away by booze too many times. The result was always fatal. Alcohol was counter-indicated for diabetics and the restriction hadn't worried him, but now he felt in need of some comfort. A drink or a woman? His balls still hurt. Maybe he wouldn't be able to perform. He crossed the road and went into the pub. The sugar was all buggered up anyway. Tonight he'd get drunk. Tomorrow he'd put his metabolism back on the rails. Then he'd get in touch with Grant Reuben.

  Vance was getting very edgy. He rang Reuben several times a day and swore when he got what he was sure was the run-around. He began to think of ways of putting pressure on the lawyer. He had plenty of dirt on him, but Long Bay Gaol was no place from which to exert leverage. And it came down to a question of who had the most dirt on who. And that came down to a question of balls. Vance was aware that his confidence had slipped a notch or two since he'd been inside. Women. Why were they always the problem? First his mother with her preaching and praying. Then the birds with their greedy demands for time and things and money. Then Ava, then Shelley. He hadn't shown a lot of balls in either case.

  He rang Reuben again and got him.

  'Contact has been made,' the lawyer said.

  'And?'

  'A reason has been stated.'

  'Don't piss me around. What reason?'

  'Revenge. Something to do with a child.'

  'Shit!'

  'The fee is requested, the lesser fee.'

  Vance closed his eyes. Not dead. Okay. Probably better. But scared, she'd better be good and scared. 'Pay it,' he said.

  'We'll just have to await developments.'

  Vance hung up and signalled to the guard that he was finished. He turned and saw George Frost walking towards him. He lit a cigarette and stood his ground.

  'So?' Frost said.

  Vance shrugged. 'We have to wait and see.'

  'I thought that's what we've been doing.'

  PART II

  12

  'Tricky,' Burton said. 'Very tricky indeed.'

  Peters nodded. 'Unprecedented, I should say.'

  Dunlop was exasperated. He was sitting in a room of the office in Redfern occupied by the State's Counter Corruption Authority, one of the many organisations with which the NBCI was associated. He had been recruited after an interview in this building following his dismissal from the New South Wales police force. Peters, now sitting opposite him and exchanging observations with Burton, a senior NBCI functionary from Canberra, had done the recruiting. Dunlop never knew whether to feel gratitude or resentment. He enjoyed some aspects of the work—the intricacies of new identities and relocation, the travel, the personality clashes—but he disliked the too-frequent meetings and despised the overdeveloped bureaucracy.

  'You say she is contrite?' Burton, a pale creature, seemed to regard Dunlop's still-fresh north Queensland tan with suspicion.

  Dunlop was willing to play the fencing game a little longer. 'Very.'

  Peters arranged three pencils on the table in a triangle. 'The CCA are dithering. We've indicated to them that Mrs Belfante's evidence is . . . ah, suspect. One faction wishes to drop the case against Belfante and Frost, another holds that the physical evidence is sufficient to proceed.'

  The meeting had been going on for almost an hour and Dunlop's head was spinning as the desk men simply restated the facts in different words, adding and subtracting emphases. He was an underling who hadn't carried out his tasks satisfactorily. Low man on the totem pole. Only there as a conduit of information, or so they would have him think. His patience gave out and he expressed it by snapping a pencil in half. That got their attention.

  'They can't proceed,' he said. 'If it comes to the point, Ava will alibi Belfante and Frost. She'll admit they were with her and that she planted the evidence.'

  'She might not be believed,' Peters murmured.

  'You don't know Ava,' Dunlop said. 'She's impressive. A jury'd believe her.'

  Burton poured a glass of water. 'And she'd do this in spite of the fact that her husband put out a contract on her?'

  'There's no proof of that.'

  Burton sipped. 'It's highly likely.'

  'She's confused about a lot of things.'

  Peters could not resist his impulse for tidiness. He reached across and collected the pieces of broken
pencil, arranging them neatly. 'She faces perjury and public nuisance charges. A lot of money has been wasted on her.'

  Burton nodded. The nod seemed to imply that much of the responsibility for the waste was Dunlop's. 'She must be made to see that she is in an invidious situation.'

  'She wouldn't understand what that means,' Dunlop said. 'I'm not sure that I do, either. I've listened for an hour. Can I say something?'

  Neither Burton nor Peters spoke and Dunlop went on regardless. He said, 'Ava's willing to be a bait. She's willing to do that for having caused so much trouble for us.'

  Peters snorted. 'In return for an indemnity against her own prosecution, you mean.'

  Dunlop shrugged. 'The guy that went after her will come again. He has to. She saw him. When the word gets around that she can identify him, he tries again and we get him.'

  'Escapadism,' Burton said. 'How does it profit us?'

  'We catch him and he tells us who hired him—almost certainly Belfante and Frost, as you said. The go-between was probably Belfante's lawyer, Reuben. We net him, too.'

  Burton shook his head but Peters leaned forward interestedly. 'Are you suggesting we mount this as an NBCI operation?'

  'Why not?' Dunlop said.

  'Because if it goes wrong,' Burton said, 'we are in the shit with the New South Wales authorities.'

  'And if it goes right,' Dunlop insisted, 'we deliver them a neat package of bastards—two organised crime figures, a crooked lawyer and a hit man.'

  'Point,' Peters said, looking at Burton. 'And we could use the prestige in these straitened times. The new administration in Canberra is in cost-cutting mode. You said so yourself.'

  Burton's negative expression did not change. He particularly disliked having his own statements used against him.

  Dunlop took a tape recorder from his pocket, placed it on the table and pressed the PLAY button. Ava's tearful, distressed voice was loud in the quiet room:

  'He knew I was lying about Vance.'

  'What?'

  'I said I didn't know who killed Rankin. I thought that was what he was on about. But it wasn't. He laughed He knew I was lying about the evidence . . .'