Monty tried to meet Charlie’s eye, but she looked at everything except him. She licked at the specks of salt on her lips as she stared around the place, a creamy strand of mayonnaise glistening on her chin.
‘The cops said Reece Harper killed her,’ he said.
‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!’ she sang to the restaurant as if it were the chorus of a song. A bit wacky was clearly an understatement. He made a placating motion with his hands. ‘Shhhh ... do you want us to be thrown out before you’ve finished your burger?’
She laughed, high and sharp. ‘I have finished.’ She burped to prove it and sat down again. Monty handed her a cigarette and they both lit up. There was a No Smoking sign over the door but he doubted anyone would be brave enough to challenge them. He pushed a paper napkin towards her, hoping she’d wipe the mayonnaise off with it. She didn’t.
He returned to his question. ‘So, why not Harper?’
Charlie stared at him through the curling smoke of her cigarette, trying to remember. For a girl like this, four years must seem like a lifetime.
‘I sometimes gave him a turn, felt kinda sorry for him. He was a bit slow, but always a gentleman. He would never have hurt no one.’
‘Some of the other girls said he was pissed off that night because Lorna turned him down.’
‘Lorna was more choosy, she wasn’t so good at closing her eyes and thinking of England.’ She giggled at the tired joke.
Monty pulled his face into an expression of fatherly concern.
‘Reece stank like a fart and was ugly as a sack of smashed crabs, but I gave him a mercy fuck all the same. We talked for a while after, then he calmed down and went home.’
‘So, you mean after the fight with Lorna he...’
‘Reece was no murderer, that’s what I told the cops then and that’s what I still say now.’
‘Remember which pigs you spoke to?’
She said nothing. Her eyes narrowed as she jetted a stream of smoke into Monty’s face. He knew he was onto something; it was as if she was trying to think things through, trying to balance the reward with the risk.
Finally she said, ‘You said you’d give me some dosh for the railway locker.’
Monty dug into his pocket and produced a crumpled fifty. He unfolded the note and laid it on the table just out of Charlie’s reach, then repeated his question.
‘I can’t remember their names.’
He softened his voice. ‘They frightened you?’
She hesitated and placed a skinny hand over her mouth, nodded without looking at him.
‘There was a pig working Vice at about this time, his name was Tye Davis,’ he said, noting her gleam of recognition. ‘He was accused of taking bribes from a pimp, to look the other way when you and your mates were picking up tricks.’
‘Yeah, he used to get freebies from us girls. I never had much to do with him. I don’t mix with cops. There was talk, but.’
‘What kind of talk?’
‘That him and some other cops were setting up business, planning on running some girls of their own. Kitty and Lorna were recruiting for them. They were going to be the managers or some such shit.’
‘Kitty Bonilla?’
‘Yeah.’
The first KP murder victim. Monty’s mind began to whirl. Perhaps taking bribes had been the very least of Tye’s misdemeanours.
Aloud he said, ‘I have a cop mate in Central. He looked at the records and said part of your interview was missing. There’s no mention that you saw Reece Harper after his fight with Lorna. They reckoned Reece followed Lorna after she turned him down and killed her in the park.’
Charlie sprang to her feet. ‘Why should I give a fuck?’ Heads in the fast food restaurant turned. ‘If the cops want to pin it on the wrong bloke, who’s now dead, what do I care? It’s not going to get Lorna back.’
Twitchy and anxious now, Charlie lifted her wrist to her mouth and sucked, staring out of the window into the city night.
Then something or someone in the street caught her attention. She drew breath with a gasp and whipped her head back to Monty, lunging for the fifty on the table. The speed at which she moved took him by surprise. Before he knew it she was on her feet and out of the door.
He reached the pavement outside McDonald’s just in time to see Champagne Charlie running across the road, dodging traffic. A taxi missed her by inches, its honking horn almost drowned in the sound of squealing brakes. On the other side of the road now, he could see her heading for the steps leading down to the station.
He had to catch her.
About to step onto the road he was forced to leap back when a souped-up VL swerved by him. He heard adolescent male laughter and flipped them the obligatory bird. When there was a break in the traffic at last, he flapped across the road as fast as his loose trainers would allow, down the steps to platform one. He stood for a moment under the vaulted glass roof, his eyes taking in the echoing vastness of the near-empty railway station as he searched for Charlie. Few silhouettes darkened the window of a train as it slid from the platform with barely a pneumatic hush. A man was buying a ticket from the automatic machine. A group of tired soccer fans stood around a boarded up newsstand, spitting, smoking and talking.
The clanging of a locker door and the sound of hurried footsteps ahead drew his attention and he saw Charlie’s sticklike figure heading towards the exit stairs. He ran to follow and soon found himself on the street again. With her head hunched and her stride brisk, Champagne Charlie strode under the green tubular footbridge that stretched like a caterpillar above the road, up the pavement and towards the quieter end of the street.
Several minutes later Monty found himself in the same stretch of road where Linda Royce had been abducted. The absence of pedestrians was eerie compared to the hustle and bustle of the club district only a few streets away.
Ahead, a vacant plot of rain-washed weeds marked by a developer’s sign stretched alongside the railway track. Here Charlie stopped and leaned against a light pole, breathless after the exertion of her walk.
Monty caught up with her as she was adjusting the plastic strap of her high red sandal.
‘Hey, I still need you to talk to you about my girl Lorna.’
She opened her mouth, no doubt to tell him to do something physically impossible to himself, but her sentence petered out before it started. Her eyes widened as she tried to focus on something over Monty’s shoulder. He turned to see two men walking up the pavement towards them. In the flicker of the faulty streetlight their movements looked jerky, like computer graphics. He had to squint to make them out. Both were wearing long coats, one man was tall and beefy, the other smaller and wiry.
Champagne Charlie echoed his own thoughts when she said, ‘Oh fuck!’
He glanced back to see her toeing off her shoes. In an instant she’d stepped out of them and was thumping away bare-footed up the pavement.
One of the men has to be her pimp, Monty thought. As he was the one who’d got her into trouble, the very least he could do was prevent them taking off after her and giving her a beating.
He turned to face them and braced his legs like a sailor on a heaving deck, making it obvious that he was not going to let them pass. But when they stopped in a shadow about two metres away from him, it became clear that they had no intention of chasing after Champagne Charlie.
‘Well, well, well, what have we here?’
At the sound of the voice Monty didn’t need to see the face to identify the speaker. It was Keyes, one of the cops who’d trashed his flat.
The instant the larger man stepped under the light, a hazy memory that had been stuck somewhere in the dark recesses of Monty’s subconscious flashed into awareness. Now he remembered where he’d seen their names before—in the case notes he’d been reading the night he was drugged. In his mind’s eye he saw his notebook, and in his own handwriting the names of the Vice cops who’d worked the KP murders: William Keyes and Duncan Thrummel.
Now he
knew exactly what they were doing here.
Shit.
Thrummel moved to stand next to his older colleague, his gait rigid, his arm pinned to his side.
Keyes said, ‘We’ve got to bring you in, McGuire. You’ve been interrogating witnesses while on suspension. You have the right to remain silent...’
‘Blah blah blah,’ Thrummel finished, taking a step forward.
Monty saw Keyes take the handcuffs from his coat pocket. He gestured to Thrummel’s stiff right arm. ‘Since when has making an arrest involved a baseball bat?’
‘Shut it, McGuire. Put out your hands,’ Keyes told him.
Monty made to put out his hands, but before the cuffs could be snapped, he jerked his knee into the soft flesh of the older man’s groin.
He ran.
He hadn’t been aware of the street’s gradient until his calves started to burn and his lungs laboured for air. No time for a backward glance, he could hear the thud of feet chasing after him. He sensed it was the younger man, Thrummel, matching every stride of his and more. The clatter of wood on concrete indicated the baseball bat had been dropped. Less encumbered, the distance between them narrowed until Monty could hear his pursuer’s breath.
Ahead he saw the white railings of a new footbridge across the railway track. It connected Wellington Street to a series of building sites that were slowly changing into a complex of classy boutiques, restaurants and arcades. If he couldn’t shake off his pursuers in this maze of construction, there was a good chance he could still lose himself in the Saturday night crowds in the clubbing district on the other side.
Hope of escape brought with it a final rush of adrenaline. With a surge of speed, he pumped a last burst of energy into his aching muscles.
He failed to see the taped-off patch of pavement until he’d tripped over it. With a flurry of flailing limbs, tangled orange tape, witch’s hats and flying trainers, he tumbled through the air over the exposed manhole. The breath escaped from his lungs with a painful whoosh as he landed face first on the pavement. The phone in his pocket crunched against his hip.
But time did not give him the luxury of catching his breath. He was already on his hands and knees when Thrummel’s boot caught him in the side, knocking him onto his back. The wiry younger man was on him in an instant, sitting on his chest and stifling any further attempt to draw air into his starving lungs. He grabbed a hunk of Monty’s hair in his fist and slammed his head into the pavement with a splintering crack that vibrated through to his teeth.
The stars were still dancing in his head when he felt an invisible band around his chest tightening and relaxing, tightening and relaxing. Thrummel was bouncing around on top of him, fumbling under the back flaps of his coat in an attempt to extract the handcuffs from his belt.
‘I’ve got you now, cocksucker,’ Thrummel said through huffing breaths.
Head splitting, starved of oxygen, the best Monty could do was bat out at the hands that attempted to cuff his own. But while his left hand parried, his right hand crept towards his coat pocket and the plastic bag of chilli powder. He brought his hand out with a jerk, letting fly in the direction of the man’s eyes, at the same time closing his own to protect them from the cloud of red powder.
Thrummel toppled off Monty’s chest, yelling as he fell backwards into the manhole. ‘Acid, the fucker’s put acid in my eyes!’
Monty didn’t hang around long enough to hear Keyes’ bellowing reply.
sunday
23
A worrying aspect about the organised serial killer is that he learns from his mistakes and tends to get better each time.
De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil
Stevie had chosen an East Perth cafe for her meeting with Tye. She’d arrived early and queued for a table with the crowd of casually dressed couples salivating for their traditional Sunday breakfast. Finally she’d been given a table for two by the window.
She watched him manoeuvre his car into the disabled parking bay just outside the cafe. His battered Falcon station wagon had seen better days. Patched with rust, sporting a cracked windscreen and a precariously balanced muffler, the old bomb would have won a yellow sticker if Stevie had still been in uniform.
Not wanting to spend any longer than necessary with him, she’d already ordered their coffees and his sat steaming across the table from her.
He smiled as he slid into his seat. ‘Hiya, babe.’ He’d aged since she’d last seen him. The environment in which he worked was reflected in his face; skin cracked as a clay pan, hair spiked as spinifex, a rugged look that could probably still drive women wild. But not her, she wasn’t even sure if she could meet the challenge of sitting with him at the same table. Her armpits prickled with the sweat of her unease and she hated herself for it.
After a sip of coffee he broke into a beaming smile.
‘Black, two sugars, you remembered. Maybe there’s hope for us after all.’ He gestured at her old bomber jacket and shot her an ironic wink. ‘That Suzi Quatro-does-grunge look is a turn on, but I still kinda wish you’d dressed yourself up like you used to. Heads turned when I walked with you on my arm, made me feel proud.’
Yeah, tarted up made me all the more easy to catch and pin down, you bastard.
She took a deep breath. Stay calm, she told herself, don’t provoke him, and above all don’t show him how shit scared you really are. ‘We need to talk about my daughter,’ she said, reassured by the steady sound of her voice.
‘But you’ll always look hot to me, babe, no matter what you wear. Do you still blub every night over those old movies? Me Bogey, you Bacall—remember?’
She gritted her teeth. ‘Tye...’
In a soft low voice he began to hum. Stevie’s stomach tightened at the familiar tune. She’d tossed Casablanca out of her collection the day she’d booted him from her home.
‘You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh ...’
‘Wrong woman.’
He stopped. ‘What?’
‘It was Bergman in Casablanca, not Bacall.’
A cloud passed across his face, he’d always hated being contradicted. He made a quick recovery. ‘Gee I miss those nights. But you’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you? A sergeant in the SCS, I’m proud of you Stevie, I really am.’
Nestling into the director’s chair, the wooden joists squeaking under his solid bulk, he smiled again, not taking his eyes off her.
The chain of events ran through her head again. She couldn’t stop it. It was her corruption allegations that had pushed him over the edge, but the tension had been building since the news of her promotion several weeks before. At first his unenthusiastic response had been a puzzle; later she couldn’t for the life of her understand how she’d misread the signs.
What was it he’d said as he’d grabbed her by the hair, just before he’d raped her? You think you’re better than me, bitch? Well I’m going to show you just how bloody wrong you are.
She suppressed her shiver, keeping her own expression blank as she stared straight into his smiling eyes, the same beguiling smile he’d fooled her with five years ago. She realised then, with an inner shudder, how very much like De Vakey’s it was.
The heat rose in her face. ‘Izzy,’ she said.
‘I bought her something. Here.’ His teeth flashed as he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. When she wouldn’t take it, he flicked the lid to expose a gold nugget on a fine chain.
‘This is what I spend most of my time at these days, digging these things out of the ground. It’s a filthy job, but it pays well. Izzy was asking me what I did the other day—’
‘You had no right to turn up like that,’ Stevie interrupted.
‘Give her this from me, will you?’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Then she’ll understand. When I told her about the nuggets, she thought I worked for KFC.’ He laughed. To a casual listener it might have seemed a joyful sound, but Stevie had heard it too many times before and it chilled her bl
ood. ‘She’s a smart one,’ he went on. ‘I’m looking forward to getting to know her better. There’s something about the innocence of a child, isn’t there?’
She wrapped both of her hands around her coffee cup as if she were cold. The heat burned through her palms but she hardly noticed. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she whispered.
‘It doesn’t have to be like this,’ he said, his voice equally soft. He reached across the table and loosened her grip on the cup. ‘Don’t do that, you’ll burn yourself.’ His touch seared her skin more than the hot cup. She moved her hands away and stored them safely in her lap.
‘I agreed to this meeting to give you a way out, to save you grief, work out a compromise. I’ve got money now, Stevie, enough to get the best lawyer in the state on my side.’
He’d agreed to this meeting? He’d bloody asked for it! Under the table she twisted at a paper serviette, spearing it with her fingers, shredding it.
As he talked she listened for the telltale inflection in his voice, the precursor to one of his violent mood swings, but his tone continued in an easy calm. ‘My lawyer rang me this morning and drew my attention to the Sunday paper.’ There was a paper lying on the vacant table next to them. He reached for it and turned to page three. ‘I could almost hear him rubbing his hands together with glee on the other end of the phone. “I mean, really,” he said, “a dangerous, demanding job like she’s got, what hope has she of being granted full custody.” Then when I mentioned your loopy mother, who’d also be caring for Izzy, he almost came in his pants. I mean gee, your poor old mum. When I told him to leave her out of this, he told me to back off. If I wanted my daughter back I had to leave this side of things to him.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m really sorry about this.’
‘Yeah, you sound it.’ Stevie snatched the paper from him and read the headline. ‘Police re-enactment hopes to jog memories and catch impotent killer.’
SH01 - An Easeful Death Page 21