by Noel Beddoe
Gordon makes his way down to the driveway with great difficulty, says, ‘Sorry about that.’
Lawrence starts the engine and reverses onto the street. He guides the car across the little bridge over the railway line, drives down to the beachfront, turns south.
He says, ‘None of my business. But she’s right, you know.’
Winter doesn’t reply.
Further along, Lawrence says, ‘Chilly, how much sick leave you got stacked up? Your years of service, it must be heaps. You should rest up, get your back right. Might be better for May, I reckon, if you did.’
Lawrence decides that there’s hostility in the silence that follows, but, after a while, he finishes saying what he’s been thinking while waiting in the car.
‘Chilly, I’ve grown to like you. I’ve liked working with you and I’ve learned a lot. You don’t question people. You have conversations. Now, Peter Grace is a good detective, no doubt about that, but he turns up, he’s got this list of questions, he reads one out, gets an answer, writes it down, moves on and asks the next one. With you, there’s no way to know where the talking’s going to go, then, afterwards, I realise I understand something I didn’t know before. Where’d you learn that, by the way? Did you learn that from Mick Laecey?’
In a while Gordon says, ‘Perhaps.’
‘So, you’ve got a lot. You bring value. But this, what you’re doing now while you’re so sick, I mean, what’s the point?’
‘I went to see Michael Laecey. He said a man called Lupce Valeski knows more than most about what’s happening on Cringila. Maybe, if I see him, it could give us something that could be a breakthrough.’
‘So, what’s this about? Trying to be like Mick Laecey? Trying to be him?’
Gordon shrugs and scowls ahead. There’s no more talking all the way to Cringila Hill. Then, as they commence their ascent, David Lawrence says, ‘We’ve got company.’
A white station wagon with the logo of a local television news network has fallen in behind them. Lawrence peers into the rear view mirror. ‘Ian Battle,’ he says in a tone of distaste.
At the home of Lupce Valeski, Lawrence parks. On the verandah of Valeski’s home, he can see a blue-grey cloud of cigarette smoke drifting upwards. Valeski is watching their arrival. ‘You go on up,’ Lawrence says. ‘I’ll have a word to the jackals from the media.’
By the time Lawrence gets back to the parked vehicle the driver is out and has hefted to his shoulder a commercial-weight video camera. Ian Battle waits for Lawrence on the footpath.
‘Why don’t you get a real job?’ Lawrence asks, though he’s aware that the camera is running by now and is focused on him.
‘I’ve got a real job,’ Battle tells him. ‘I’ll tell you what it is. I work in a drive-through bottle shop and get people their beer and wine and potato chips, and I make the money to pay my mum board. And I’ll tell you what I’m doing here now. When they’ve got a spare camera and cameraman the station rings me up and I come out and see if I can get something that might make tonight’s bulletin. They don’t pay me. But, see, it could be good if I get something that runs because that might help make it a good bulletin.
‘I’ll tell you something else. The network could cut the news tomorrow and put on re-runs of cartoons and that would cost less than a news operation and draw the same advertising. But I don’t think that would make this a better town. And I can tell you what this item is going to be: “Police have not dropped Hijazi slaying. Investigations continue.” And I’ll put together a shot of me here talking to you like this. It isn’t going to be any knockout article but it won’t make anyone look bad, and maybe I can get it to run and perhaps even get the voiceover. It’s my little effort for the day to keep Scooby Doo and Tom and Jerry at bay for a little while longer. Then, maybe, one day I’ll get a real job at the channel. What you’ve got, Detective, is a real job, something I presume you want to do, gives you a little bit of power. Among other things, that’s what I’m trying to do. Anyway, we’ve got our shot of me talking to you. I won’t ask you for a statement. And please don’t give me shit about the car. There’s nothing wrong with the car. The station had it looked at, after last time, to be sure.’
Lawrence takes a long look at Ian Battle, thin strand comb-over, horn-rimmed glasses. ‘You gave all that a bit of thought after last time, didn’t you?’ he says.
‘Yes. I did.’
Lawrence wonders how often he’ll encounter Ian Battle in the years ahead. As he turns and walks towards Lupce’s property, he swaggers a little, tries to look like a serious man on weighty business, for the camera.
On the verandah Lupce Valeski and Gordon are seated in plastic chairs on either side of a table. As Lawrence arrives Lupce is stubbing out a cigarette. There’s no seat left for Lawerence but this doesn’t seem to trouble either Lupce or Gordon. The young detective reaches a hand to test the sturdiness of the verandah railing and, satisfied, leans his buttocks against it.
‘So,’ Gordon says. ‘Thank you for receiving us Mr Valeski.’
The old man waves a hand.
‘Lupce,’ he says. ‘Call me Lupce.’
‘Well, fine. Thank you. Thank you for receiving us, Lupce. I notice that when people on Cringila Hill have meetings with the police, normally the place is on the front verandah.’
‘Yeah? Maybe this what they think – people gonna see the car, down inna street in front of tha house, know the police is come. Maybe people think if you go inside, you hidin’ somethin’.’ The old man’s voice is raspy, his lips take time to frame the words.
‘I see. Were you waiting out here for us after our telephone call?’
‘Nah. Sit out here lots, these days. Sit out here thinkin’. Rememberin’, you know? What it used to be like. How the things that happen happened.’ He reaches for the cigarette packet, draws out a smoke, lights it with a match, waves the matchflame dead, throws the blackened little stick onto a crowded ashtray. ‘Been thinkin’ this mornin’ ’bout my grandson.’
‘Your grandson.’
‘Yeah. Goin’ fishin’ with him tonight. First time inna long time.’ He frowns, narrows an eye against the smoke that’s reaching it from his cigarette. ‘He been sayin’ new things. Jus’ lately he talk to me inna new way. I been sittin’ here thinkin’ maybe he gonna say a particular thing tonight, maybe ask a question. Maybe time’s come. Bin wonderin’ what it is I might say, if he does that.’
‘Ah. Anyway. Mr … Lupce, I wanted to ask you your thoughts about the murder.’
Lupce turns his attention from the view and gives Gordon a hard stare. Lupce says, ‘Murder? Who says there was a murder? Never set down there was no murder. Tha’s what was agreed … he went away, to Queensland. I talked about all this before, lots of years ago, with that other man.’
‘That other man.’
‘Yeah. The other detective. Older man. Big long head. Long face.’
‘Michael Laecey?’
‘Yeah. Tha’s him. Thassa name. Detective Sergeant Laecey.’
‘Lupce, I’m not talking about anything you discussed with Michael Laecey, years ago. I’m talking about Abdul Hijazi. He was found on a footpath with his brains blown out by a gun. I don’t think that there’s any reasonable doubt that he was murdered.’
David Lawrence watches Lupce develop a small smile, sees something of relief in the smile.
‘Abdul! Sure! Course! Poor little Abdul. Never knew who to be, Abdul. Never knew how to be. Then look what it come to. Look how he finished.’
‘Yes. Well. It’s an important thing that we have got to try to sort out. And I spoke to someone a little while ago who said, talk to Lupce Valeski. He may have an idea other people haven’t got.’
Lupce pulls down the corners of his mouth then. ‘Dunno nothin’ ’bout that. All I’m gonna say is what everyone else woulda said. Not from roun’ here. Nothin’ of Cringila
. Whoever done that, he from far, far away.’
The blood has drained from the face of the older detective, his hands are trembling.
‘Chilly,’ Lawrence says, ‘you Okay?’
‘Just …’ Gordon’s face contorts. Lupce observes him with interest. ‘Spasm. Bad spasm,’ Gordon says.
‘Chilly, we should get you home.’
Winter waves a hand in dismissal. To Lupce he says, ‘Just anything, you know? Something that might have occurred to you that no one else might have said.’
Lupce watches his visitor for a while. He says, ‘How good are ya?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘How good are ya? You good like that other man, that Big Face Laecey? He’da seen, you know. He’da known this true thing I’m gonna say.’
‘Yes, well, I’m not going to tell you that I’m as good as he was. Still, try me. What is it?’
‘What matters most from this is what we left with.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. What? Sad people, grieving people, maybe some who are confused and angry?’
‘Nah. Tha’s not what matters. Gonna go away, all that. Time passes. Abdul’s dead now, nothin’ gonna happen about that. Is the gun.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Now is guns here. Never was before. Guns gonna happen. Nothin’ gonna stop it.’
Gordon screws his eyes shut, leans his head back against the front wall of the house, gives a growl of pain.
‘Chilly,’ Lawrence says, ‘this is crazy!’
Gordon blinks, his eyes have tears in them. ‘David, perhaps you’re right.’ He struggles to get a wallet from the pocket of his suit coat, drags a card from it, drops it on the table. ‘Lupce,’ he says, ‘I’m not well.’
‘Sure. See that.’
‘I’m going to have to end our discussion. That’s my card. Ring that number and someone will get you to me. If anything comes into your mind, you think it may be something new, no matter how small, please call me.’
David helps Gordon get up. They shake hands with Lupce. The cameraman films their departure. When they’re in the car and driving north, Gordon says, ‘Did you hear what he said?’
‘What? The guns?’
‘No. About Michael Laecey?’
‘What difference can that make? Something they talked about years ago.’
‘I don’t know. It’s just that when I heard that I felt like something terrible had happened.’
‘Yeah? What was terrible?’
‘I don’t understand that yet. But let me tell you this: it rocked me. I’m just not sure why.’
Chapter Seventeen
From the time he went to bed he’s known there wasn’t going to be any sleeping. He lies still, not to disturb his mother, waits for the appointed time. To divert his thoughts, he tries to remember the look of his father’s face. The images twist away from him now, won’t hold in his brain. There’s a thing he believes, but he tries to hold back from knowing what it is. It scratches away, eating its way into his knowledge.
When it’s time he rolls out of bed. He’s still dressed from the night before so it’s only a matter of pulling on a jacket. Outside there’s heavy cloud, a bit of westerly wind, no rain. It’s dark and cold. The Hill is silent.
The Brougham waits on the street, an aluminium dinghy tethered to its rear. Jimmy leans down to the open window by the driver’s seat, greets Jose Barradas. He lowers his head further, nods to the dark shape beside the further door, ‘Grandfather.’ He walks around the car and gets into the back seat. He hears Lupce’s raspy voice say, ‘Jimmy.’
They head up towards Flagstaff Road. Boat and trailer bounce along behind as they travel down to Warrawong, over the hill to Port Kembla. They turn right at a roundabout, drive between dark, giant, silent factories and warehouses. The Brougham slows to ease the coupled-up pair of vehicles over railway tracks. Jimmy sits hunched, watching the cold world beyond the car window. The little convoy sweeps around a traffic island, stops beside a building marked ‘Water Police’. Jose hangs his head out the window as he backs the trailer down a concrete ramp. Its wheels settle in the dark waters of Port Kembla outer harbour.
Jimmy’s wearing canvas trousers that reach down to his calves, tennis shoes without any socks. He slips out of the Brougham, walks up to his thighs in cold water, untethers the boat from the trailer, guides it to float on the water surface, holds it there by a rope that is tied through its bow, as Jose reverses up the slope and parks the car.
Illuminated by a single fluorescent light on a pole, a jetty runs out into the harbour. Three old men stand upon it, silently manoeuvring fishing rods. When Lupce walks down from the parking spot they offer greetings. He walks onto the jetty, chats to them quietly. Jimmy ties the rope through a metal ring that is bolted to a wooden stanchion at the water’s edge, walks up to where Jose sits in the Brougham.
Through the open window, Jose says, ‘You’re actually gonna do this?’
‘Looks that way.’
‘You’ve heard him cough? You know how sick he is, what he’s got? Get that cold air into his lungs out on the water, maybe it’s gonna kill him.’
‘His call. Is what he wants to do. He’s goin’ out. I’ll go with him.’
‘Yeah.’ They look at the old men talking under cold lighting out on the jetty. Jose says, ‘There’s everythin’ in the boot. Bait. Best possible. Need a hand with it?’
‘Nah. I can handle it.’
‘How’s things been?’
‘Oh. Strange.’
‘I can imagine. What are you gonna do next?’
‘No idea. He wants I should join the union, join the party. I don’ want that. He wants I should be what he intended, fulfil some destiny. It’s about his world, not mine.’
‘I understand.’
‘Yeah?’
‘They used to talk about that all the time, my dad, Lupce, Darko, that crew. About settin’ something up for us, leave us a place in the world. It was where they got a lot of their meanin’ to keep goin’ when things were tough.’
‘Yeah. Still, you going down that path?’
‘No way. I mean, there isn’t any path. The steelworks is down to seven thousand jobs. Nearly thirty thousand in the glory days. That fallin’ away, it’s only gonna keep happenin’. Our folks were the cheap labour in their day. That’s what our family had to offer, got us brought out here; we were cheap labour. We weren’t invited along for our good looks. We could get things done for next to nothin’. Cheap labour’s in Asia now. That’s where the jobs are goin’. It isn’t gonna change, you know.’
‘What? Make steel in Asia?’
‘Sure. Day come, we’ll be making buildings in Port Kembla out of Chinese steel.’
Jimmy gives a scoffing laugh.
‘You listen to your Uncle Jose. I do these things he asks me, do the job he got me, which is a very good job, understand me, I’m very grateful, but it’s just money for now, you know, there’s no future in it. It’s all windin’ down. You see that, you’re a bright kid. I’m still at uni, studying IT, then I’m gonna study law. Old ways are dyin’.’
They watch as Lupce clasps the jetty railing to support himself through a coughing spasm. He spits into the water.
‘Like him,’ Jose says, gesturing towards the old man.
Jimmy watches bleakly as Lupce recovers. ‘I’ll get the stuff,’ he says, and gathers up the fishing creel, a polythene box that holds green prawns on ice. He opens the lid of a white bucket and sees the dark, shelled animals struggle on sand, groping about themselves with their tiny claws.
‘Where’d he get the nippers?’ he asks Jose.
‘Vlatko had a job in Gerringong. He took lunch beside the Minnamurra, towed the boat down, pumped for nippers while the tide was low.’
‘Geez, he got some.’
‘Knows what
he’s doing about fishin’, Vlatko.’
Jimmy carries the gear down to the water’s edge. Lupce has composed himself, left his companions, come down to the boat. He ladles salt water into holding tanks that are in the dinghy. Jimmy settles his burden towards the bow of the boat.
‘Come on,’ Lupce says.
Jimmy and Lupce turn the bow towards the dark water, clamber in. One gentle tug and Lupce has the outboard purring. He’s seated at the stern, Jimmy on the bench seat in the middle of the dinghy facing his grandfather. Their knees nearly touch. Lupce throttles up and swings the boat in an arc away from the jetty. Great white-painted rocks make two long seawalls that retain the mouth of the harbour. Beyond those jaws lies a dark mass of the sea. They can hear it hit up against the stones. Lupce turns the little boat in a curve that puts the ocean behind them, and steers back towards the western bank. A long way ahead a row of electric lamps bolted atop tall stanchions light a massive wooden pier that pushes out from the dockland. Twisted around from the waist, Jimmy stares at the floodlit pier. He can see a giant freighter tied to bulwarks on the pier’s northern side. That’s where they’re heading.
It’s a large harbour and it takes some time for them to make their way across its smooth surface. They don’t speak. Apart from the low murmur of the motor and the little bubble of the wake created by their passage there is no sound. While Lupce steers, Jimmy draws handlines from a basket, frees hooks out from the corks the lines are wound around. By the light of a torch he opens a bait bucket, fetches up some of the little, wriggling clawed creatures, lifts the shells on their backs a little so that their guts will ooze in the dark water and create a smell-line for hunting fish. He then impales them on hooks, testing with his thumb that the barbs stay just inside the carapace, like his grandfather has taught him, so that the hooks will bite into the jaw of a striking fish.