The Enemy Within

by Tim Ayliffe

  ‘I’m not sure what to do.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘I’m on my way home from the hospital.’

  Bailey started to formulate a plan. ‘Go home, pack a bag. I’ll jump in the car now and meet you. You can stay at my place tonight.’

  Abdo went silent on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Jonny? You still there?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Jonny?’

  Breathing. ‘Okay.’

  ‘And Jonny?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Anything looks strange outside your place, just do laps around the block until I get there. Most of these guys are cowards who like to talk tough on the internet. But there are some violent bastards out there too.’

  ‘Thanks, Bailey.’

  Bailey had never been to Jonny Abdo’s place but he didn’t need to ask for his address. It was staring at him from the computer screen on his kitchen bench. Abdo lived in an apartment in Bankstown, around forty minutes’ drive from Paddington. If Abdo was on his way home from St Vincent’s Hospital, then Bailey would be up to half an hour or so behind him. He needed to get moving.

  He grabbed his car keys and flew out the door, dialling Ronnie’s number as he jogged along the street to the spot where he’d parked his car.

  ‘Come on. Come on. Pick up.’

  Ronnie didn’t answer so Bailey left him a garbled message telling him to call back, urgently. If he couldn’t trust the police then Ronnie Johnson was the person he wanted to watch his back.

  CHAPTER 31

  ‘Oh my god.’

  A woman’s voice.

  ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.’

  Distressed.

  A hand landed on Bailey’s shoulder.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  A man’s voice.

  ‘Buddy. Buddy.’ The man was now tapping Bailey on his back. ‘Are you okay?’

  Bailey didn’t answer. He couldn’t take his eyes off Jonny Abdo’s lifeless body. His eyes, plastered open in fear. The pool of blood growing like a contorted halo around his head. The left side of his face caved in, broken by the impact of hitting the concrete. Bailey had seen dead bodies before but not like this.

  ‘Did you know him?’

  The man was kneeling down beside Bailey, his voice softening.

  ‘Yeah, I knew him.’

  Minutes earlier, Bailey had been knocking on the door of Abdo’s apartment. He had figured that the lawyer had just gone out to get some takeaway. The guy had been at the hospital and may not have had a chance to eat dinner. It had made sense. Bailey had decided to wait on the steps of the apartment building so that he wouldn’t miss him when he got back. From his position at the entrance he could also monitor people walking in and out of the building. See if anyone had been encouraged by the Blokes Brigade to pay Jonny Abdo a visit.

  ‘Think he jumped?’

  Hearing the man’s question startled Bailey back to the present. He got to his feet and stepped past Abdo’s body closer to the road, looking up at the balcony from which the lawyer had just fallen ten storeys to the ground.

  Bailey turned to the woman and the man who were both standing beside the body. ‘Did either of you see anyone else come out that door?’

  The woman didn’t answer because she was talking into her phone. Alerting police. Asking for an ambulance. Although there wasn’t much that the paramedics could do other than scoop the dead body off the footpath.

  ‘Mate!’ Bailey tried again, this time directing the question at the man. ‘Did you see anyone come out of that building?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, sorry, I didn’t. I –’

  Bailey didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence, sprinting up the front steps of the apartment building and into the foyer. Ordinarily, there would have been two options for Bailey to choose from to get to the upstairs floors, but the ‘out of order’ sign on the elevator door had reduced those options to one. The stairs.

  Taking the steps two at a time, he’d made it up the first flight when he heard a loud thud below. The sound of a heavy door closing. There was a small window on the landing and he stopped, peering through the glass, spying two men running through the carpark at the rear of the building. A carpark he had no idea was there. The building must have had another exit on the ground floor. Bailey had missed the two men by only seconds. Leaping down the stairs, he took a right at the bottom where he guessed the exit would be. The door was literally only a few metres from the staircase below a dusty neon exit light that clearly wasn’t working. No wonder he’d missed it.

  Pushing open the door, Bailey started running between parked cars trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness as he looked for the men he’d seen through the window. He was certain they were men by their body frames and the way they moved.

  The only light outside was coming from a dim, flickering lamp in the corner of the carpark. It was reflecting off vehicles in a way that made it impossible to see inside windows. Bailey stopped in the middle of the driveway. There must have been around fifteen or twenty car spots and every one of them was taken. Using the palm of his hand to block the distracting light, Bailey watched and listened, alert to any sign that the two men were still out here.

  Nothing.

  No movement. No sounds. Only the whistle of his breath, the hum of the traffic, and the distant echo of a magpie song.

  An engine started and the headlights of a hatchback came on directly in front of him. High beam. Blinding. The engine revved into gear and the car lunged towards him, leaving him no time to get out of the way. He jumped into the air, landing on the bonnet, rolling onto the windscreen, bouncing onto the gravelly dirt. Lying on the ground, he watched the red tail lights of the car race down the driveway and disappear into the traffic.

  Dusting the dirt from his sleeve, Bailey rolled onto his back, allowing his body to play catch-up and report any injuries he may have sustained during the hit and run. His hand was burning after breaking his fall on the gravel, but his wrist and fingers were moving all right. His shoulder was also aching and his ribs were sore but that could have been the lingering bruises he’d suffered earlier that week when Benny Hunter had pushed him down a staircase.

  A phone was flashing on the ground a few metres away and Bailey patted his pocket, realising it was his. It took Bailey a few goes to get to his feet and by the time he made it to his phone the call had already gone through to voicemail. It was Ronnie Johnson and he was calling again.

  ‘Where are you?’

  Ronnie was allergic to pleasantries.

  ‘Bankstown. Jonny Abdo’s dead.’

  Bailey wasn’t much better. Straight-talking saved time.

  ‘We need to meet and – what?’

  ‘Abdo.’ Bailey took a breath, wiping his sweaty brow with the back of his hand. ‘Jonny Abdo’s dead.’

  ‘What the hell?’

  Ronnie obviously had something else on his mind but Bailey’s news had just trumped the next thing he was about to say.

  ‘A white supremacist group published Jonny’s details on social media. He got doxed, or whatever the hell they call it. I came out here to pick him up. Was waiting outside his building. Poor bastard lands on the fucking footpath beside me.’

  Bailey was walking down the driveway towards the front of the apartment building. He could hear sirens in the distance. Police. Ambulance. Emergency sounds howling together into the night.

  ‘What the hell, bubba?’ Ronnie said. ‘You don’t think he –’

  ‘No. He was pushed, I’m certain about that.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because the two guys who did it just tried to run me over in a fucking hatchback.’

  The sirens were getting louder, which meant the paramedics and the police were getting closer. Bailey didn’t want to be there when they arrived. He didn’t like the prospect of spending the rest of his night being quizzed about why he had come to Abdo’s apartment, and what else he knew about the p
eople who may have killed him. Especially if there was a corrupt cop involved.

  ‘You should get out of there.’

  More people had come out of the building and they were standing in a semi-circle around Abdo’s body. Some of them hugging each other and crying. Abdo clearly had friends inside these apartments and news of his shocking death was spreading fast.

  ‘That guy!’ The man who had been talking to Bailey earlier was now pointing his finger in his direction. ‘He was outside when he fell.’

  ‘Ronnie, I’ve got to go,’ Bailey said into the phone.

  ‘Wait!’ Ronnie said, sharply.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The reason I rang. Harriet Walker. I’ve been tracing her last movements and I know where she went before she was killed.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Ronnie cleared his throat. ‘You need to get out of there, Bailey. Now. Hang up the phone. Meet me in Leichhardt.’

  ‘Leichhardt?’

  ‘Sharon Dexter’s house.’

  ‘What?’ The mention of his dead girlfriend’s name stopped Bailey’s legs from working and he turned his back on the crowd of people that were all now staring at him. ‘Why are we meeting at Sharon’s house?’

  ‘Because Walker visited there around midnight the night before she was killed.’

  ‘Ronnie, I don’t get it. Why would she –’

  ‘I’ll explain when I see you. Now hang up the phone and get the hell out of there.’

  Bailey ended the call and walked over to the guy from earlier. ‘I need to talk to you.’ He grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the others. ‘Did you see the car that just sped down the driveway? The hatchback? White, I think.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I did. It turned into the road right in front of us. Didn’t get a good look inside.’

  ‘The victim. The dead guy over there.’ Bailey pointed at Abdo’s corpse. ‘His name’s Jonny Abdo and those guys in the hatchback killed him, I’m certain of it. And they just tried to run me down in the carpark out back. Did you get a licence plate?’

  A sharp pain shot through Bailey’s head and he rubbed his temples with his fingers, momentarily closing his eyes. Maybe he’d hit the ground harder than he thought.

  ‘Only a partial. DGX or maybe DCX… one? I think there was maybe a nine in there. Are you okay?’

  Bailey ignored the question. ‘That’s good. That’s good. Tell that to the cops.’

  ‘What? Where are you going?’

  ‘I can’t be here right now. I’ve got to go.’

  The man grabbed Bailey’s arm around the elbow. ‘Wait. Why? You can’t leave. What’s your name?’

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ Bailey brushed away his hand. ‘I’ve really got to go.’

  Before the man had a chance to respond, Bailey turned around and jogged off down the street, peering over his shoulder only once to make sure that he wasn’t being followed.

  His car was parked around the corner and he climbed in, starting the ignition as he fastened his seatbelt, ducking his head when he noticed the blue flashing lights of a police car in his side mirror. He waited for the cops to pass before he spun his wagon out onto the street, doing a U-turn so that he wouldn’t need to drive past Abdo’s building. At this time of night he would make it to Leichhardt in around twenty minutes.

  He had another phone call to make on the way. Annie Brooks answered after two rings.

  ‘Hello, stranger.’

  ‘Annie. Sorry it’s late.’

  ‘What’s wrong? You’re panting like you’ve just run a marathon.’

  Ordinarily, Bailey would have laughed at that. The thought of him finishing a marathon was ridiculous. He could barely walk two laps of Centennial Park.

  ‘Jonny Abdo was killed tonight. Thrown from the balcony of his apartment block in Bankstown.’

  ‘What? When did it happen?’

  ‘About ten minutes ago. I came here to meet him.’

  ‘You were there?’

  Bailey ignored the question, focusing instead on the things she needed to know. ‘He’d been threatened. Someone posted his personal details on social media. Address and all that. Some white supremacist group.’

  ‘He was doxed.’

  Bailey wasn’t surprised that Annie knew about doxing.

  ‘I think you should get here, Annie. It’s a big story.’

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t see it happen.’

  Bailey’s silence answered the question.

  ‘Jesus, Bailey. You okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He didn’t want to think about it any more. He wanted the image of Jonny Abdo’s mangled body to disappear from his mind.

  ‘Have you given a statement to the police?’

  ‘No.’

  Bailey turned on his indicator and wound down his window to let some cool air in to his car.

  ‘Are you driving?’ Annie said. ‘If you’re a witness to what happened, the police are going to want to talk to you. Leaving the scene of a crime is not a good idea.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Okay.’ Annie paused, waiting for Bailey to say something. When he didn’t, she went again. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ll text you Abdo’s address. You should get moving. I’ll talk to you later. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Bailey –’

  He ended the call and clumsily typed Jonny Abdo’s address into his phone while steering his car, sending it as a text message to Annie, before throwing his phone into the back seat. He didn’t want to look at it any more. He didn’t want to answer any more calls.

  All he could think about was Sharon Dexter.

  When he had last visited Dexter’s house, she was still his girlfriend and she was still very much alive. He had been avoiding this moment for months. Now he didn’t have a choice.

  CHAPTER 32

  Leichhardt was the type of suburb where young families lived. Mostly inside compact houses with white picket fences. The planes flew low over this part of Sydney but nobody seemed to complain about the noise because Leichhardt was a place that had everything. Good transport links. Shopping centres. Parks and playgrounds. Schools and churches. And enough Italian restaurants and cafés to have earned the nickname ‘Little Italy’.

  Bailey had spent so much time with Sharon Dexter during the year before she died that her little grey cottage had become a home they’d shared together. He liked Leichhardt. The people. The houses. The history. The suburb had a persona that made people feel welcome. Like they belonged. Sydney’s infamous hipster eye-rollers didn’t work behind bars and cafés in this part of town. Bailey could order a coffee from his favourite place on Norton Street and talk about rugby with the Azzurri-loving barista who remembered his name and cared about what he had to say. Leichhardt had started to feel like home in a way that he had never felt in Paddington, where he had owned a house for decades. In Paddington he had mostly known dysfunction. A place he had treated like a hotel during the decades he’d spent living in the Middle East and Europe, only returning home to visit his daughter. When he did finally move back to Sydney on a permanent basis he was a broken man and his house became a place where loneliness lingered. Where one-night stands were the only form of intimacy he knew. Where he would sit around listening to the same Stones records, drink himself to sleep and wake up with the carpet stuck to his cheek, ready to repeat the routine all over again.

  That was before Sharon Dexter re-entered his life and gave him another good reason to get sober. Get his shit together. Be a better man. A better father. Someone who was capable of sharing days and nights with other people. Bailey and Dexter had been building something in Leichhardt that wasn’t even close to being finished before it came tumbling down.

  He parked his car a few doors up from Dexter’s cottage and turned off the ignition, taking a moment to prepare himself for what was to come. To walk inside knowing that she wouldn’t be there. That she wouldn’t open the door after a late night chasing
criminals, slide into bed beside him, wake him for a chat. Or a cuddle. He was always up for either.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Ronnie was standing beside Bailey’s car, knuckles knocking against the window, puffing on a cigar.

  Bailey opened the door, climbing out. ‘Mate.’

  ‘How long you been sitting there?’

  ‘Just arrived.’

  ‘Sounded like a shit show in Bankstown,’ Ronnie said. ‘You all right?’

  Bailey was anything but all right but it wasn’t because he’d just seen Jonny Abdo fall out of the sky and land on the footpath in front of him. He was on edge because he was about to step inside his dead girlfriend’s house for the first time since her death. The ending that he had been avoiding. The finality of loss. He never saw her body after she died. He didn’t attend her funeral. He never got to say goodbye. The lawyer taking care of Dexter’s estate had tried to contact him several times but he had always fobbed him off because he didn’t want to know. Bailey still wanted to see Dexter in his dreams and converse with her in his head. As crazy as that would have sounded to others, he was hanging onto whatever tiny strands of her that he could find. If Bailey could still imagine Dexter’s voice, see her face, then she was with him. Nobody could take her away.

  ‘Bubba?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Bailey said, finally. ‘Let’s do it.’

  He locked his car and walked towards Dexter’s house without saying another word. He had so many questions for Ronnie but he would park them while he dealt with the warm rush of sadness that had come over him. Unclipping the latch on the gate, Bailey pushed it open, the squeaky hinge and the overgrown hedge another sign that this was a dead person’s home.

  Bailey still had Dexter’s key and he slid it into the lock on the front door, leaning his head, briefly, against the wood, before turning the key and opening the door.

  Ronnie coughed behind him and Bailey turned around to see the tall man bending down, stubbing his cigar into the garden bed next to the tessellated tiled pathway.