He stopped, and waited. After a while she said, ‘What’s the problem?’
‘He’s on a bond for vandalism, more graffiti. Plus he’s refused to make a call. That means the magistrate tomorrow will keep him in. “Minister’s Son on Remand”, not the headline we want.’
‘He’s not actually the attorney general’s son.’
‘He will be, if the possession charge gets out.’
‘Well, kids are difficult—’
‘Brain up, for Christ’s sake, Detective. Stephen Brunton’s the best attorney we’ve had in ages, but if he can’t control his own stepson, how can he control the state? We need to look after him.’
‘Why?’
Thanks to Mabey, she knew the police minister was a factional enemy and rival of Stephen Brunton. Many police also didn’t like Brunton, because he’d softened the bail laws: the Police Association had issued a press release accusing him of being soft on crime.
‘Are you trying to be difficult, Constable? I know you checked up on me with Ray Vella.’
‘Sir.’
‘Can we just get on with this?’
‘Yes, sir. What about his biological father?’
‘Fucking conference in Geneva. The kid’s in the lockup tonight, should be okay. Look, you can’t say I’ve spoken to you. What you need to do, visit your local LAC, say you have insomnia or something, a fight with your boyfriend. Check on some work.’
She wished that just for once she knew what was going on. ‘This is for the good of the trial?’
‘Log on to COPS like you did the other day, because you’re concerned, look up Hirst. It’s not blocked anymore. Then call Mabey. She can get him out in the morning. I’ll sort the prosecutor.’
‘She’s on a plane to Perth.’
Mabey had told her that afternoon she was off to a wedding in Western Australia.
‘Okay,’ Wagner said. ‘Then we’ll go with option two.’
The next morning she turned up at Waverley Local Court and parked down by the school. Walked up to the brown-brick building, found her way in and spoke with the police prosecutor, a man named Schofield. Forty, tubby, flushed.
‘You’re an appropriate person?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bec said. ‘The arrangement is—’
Schofield put up a hand. She saw he’d spoken to Wagner, had not enjoyed the experience. ‘Met the kid before?’
‘No.’
‘Get you into the cells. Zaros?’
A uniform stepped forward and Schofield told him to take Bec through. Then, ‘He’s in the dock, I say bail’s applied for, you’re a—what?’
‘Family friend.’
‘Done deal.’
Schofield turned away, back to his files.
Ian Hirst was pale-skinned, mop of dark hair, thin. Spots around the mouth. He was the person Mabey had met outside court last week. Whoever had shot him in the thigh would have had to aim with care, as there wasn’t much flesh there. He looked younger than twenty-three, but maybe that was because of the narrow face and large eyes. There’d been a singer in an old band she’d once liked, The Cure. Doleful. You could see some women would find this attractive.
He was polite enough, had a surprisingly strong voice, confident manner. Smiled a little when Bec said she was a friend of his mother, and she saw he’d been around, knew more than many kids his age. About some things, anyway. ‘I don’t have to post bail but if the magistrate agrees, you’ll be released into my care. That means you don’t break the law again until you’re sentenced for this. Okay?’
‘I guess.’
‘Need to do better than that. I need a promise.’
The kid smirked and Bec felt tired, knew she should have said no to Wagner. She turned and banged on the locked door. When it was opened, she stepped through, said over her shoulder, ‘Enjoy Silverwater.’
‘No. Look. All right.’
She went back in, lifted him by his shirt and slammed him against the wall; he didn’t weigh much. ‘You’ll grow up fast in there.’
The kid looked scared and Bec let go of his shirt, wiped her hands on her trousers.
‘I’m grateful, really. Thank you.’
‘You’re full of crap,’ she said. ‘But we can talk about that later.’
After the magistrate had bailed Ian, Bec walked off, the kid stumbling after her. Poor little boy, she’d seen too many in her first years in the job. It was what uniformed police did, clean up after adults who couldn’t do it for themselves. Clean up all their varieties of shit, their relationships and crimes and habits and illnesses. It was work without dignity, work that destroyed a little of you every day you did it. Or so she’d found.
Outside on the white footpath, she slipped on sunnies while he squinted in the harsh light. Pale and bony, he was like an unpleasant creature of the night, scuttling along after her. She knew he was limping because he’d been shot, but the limp seemed to go deeper than that, to be part of him.
‘You swim, Ian?’
‘Uh, no.’
‘Run or work out maybe, boxing?’
‘No. I’m an, um, artist.’
‘Artists don’t need to keep themselves fit?’ She walked, hoping he’d peel off and that would be the end of it. Hadn’t called Mabey, not wanting to spoil her trip. Ian lurched after her, and she said, ‘That was a question.’
‘Uh, where are we?’
You could become patronising in the job, because of the situations. It was to be fought. ‘I’ll take you home.’ She paused with a hand on the side of the Volkswagen, not wanting him in it, already regretting the offer. The repulsion built inside her, twisting. ‘To your mum’s.’
‘Ah, no. I live in Newtown.’
He might leave stains on the car seat. Not that there was reason to think that, but she had a thing about cleanliness in her personal space. She didn’t have much; there was her bedroom, but that wasn’t her own place. The Volkswagen was all she had.
‘Get in,’ she said. ‘I have to mow a friend’s lawn in Kensington, I’ll take you home after that.’
She hoped this would make him back out, say he’d catch a train up the road. But for some reason he replied, ‘Okay. There’s Trish.’
A girl was walking towards them, dressed in black, dark eye makeup. She too looked out of place in the sunlight, un-Australian. Ian took a few steps and spoke with her, came back and asked if she could come too. Bec felt resentful but it was too late now, told them to get into the car. Fortunately the girl did not smell.
Magda had offered the use of their house while Tim and she were away in Europe, if Bec found herself in the city at night. They were generous that way, it still surprised her.
‘Bring a friend,’ Magda had said, with a wink.
It was a pleasant brick house in a dead-end street called Shepley Close, with a park next door and tennis courts across the road. Perfect for children, although soon after they’d moved in, their neighbour sold to a developer who was building four townhouses. There was no action on the building site today.
Bec pulled a plug of brochures from the letterbox and picked up a free newspaper on the front lawn. Magda’s Hyundai was sitting in the driveway and the garage was locked; presumably Tim’s Commodore was safe inside. She put the paper in the recycling bin, took out the keys and opened the front door. There was a hall leading to the back of the house, with a large open doorway onto the lounge area to the left. She went in with the two kids.
In the big kitchen they drank water, then went out to the shed next to the garage. The mower started without trouble—Tim was good with machines—and Bec explained to Ian how it worked, giving a demonstration. She was used to this from her navy days, training. As she pushed the Victa through the thick grass she remembered how much she enjoyed passing on knowledge. Almost no one had done it for her when she was a kid, outside of school, but she had the urge herself.
She handed over to Ian and watched. He had no feeling for the work, no sense of when to slow down, increase speed, of
how to cover the lawn methodically. His weak leg didn’t help, but it wasn’t just that. Before long she was laughing at him and he got it, he was grinning himself. The response made her feel a little better about him and the way the day was turning out.
While he kept mowing she checked the inside of the house for leaks, then went out onto the street with Trish, and they wandered about the small park. There was a raised concrete platform at the far edge, about two metres square, and Trish kept eyeing it. Bec walked across and examined the squat structure. In the middle was some sort of large hole covered by a metal grille, which she recalled Tim saying led to an underground stormwater drain. Sydney experienced mighty dumps of rain in summer, and the sandstone beneath the city was laced with tunnels to get the water to the sea. Bec leaned over and saw a maintenance shaft with a ladder running down one side.
‘Fuckin’ A,’ murmured Trish, climbing onto the platform with unexpected energy. She peered into the darkness. ‘I’ve been down there.’
‘Here?’
‘We go down from Maroubra. It’s where Slip does his art.’
‘Slip?’
‘Ian. There was this building where RailCorp had its security guys. The dare was no one could tag the front door on New Year’s Eve and get away. They knew it was on and had guys standing right outside, it was like impossible. Ian strips down to his Ys and covers himself in grease, this terrible green stuff he got in a workshop. Runs up with his can while someone distracted the guards, does the business. The guards weren’t sure what to do, he’s so filthy. You know how they love those uniforms?’
Bec nodded, half caught up in Slip’s Great Adventure. Trish had come alive with the story, looking her in the eye and seeming an altogether more plausible human being. You could see how in another place, Berlin or Melbourne, she might amount to something.
‘First guy goes to grab him, Ian slips out. Leaves grease all over the guy like snot.’ She stopped, wanting Bec to ask what happened next. ‘But he didn’t make it. The other guy got a lock around his neck, the bastard. Couldn’t get out of that, gave him like permanent headaches. What a prick.’
‘But you still call him Slip, even though he didn’t get away?’
‘Yeah well. Marks for effort.’
Bec asked what they did in the tunnels, and Trish described a space called the Cathedral. This was a vast concrete chamber fifteen metres high at the junction of several tunnels, with a big outlet leading down to the cliffs at Lurline Bay, just north of Maroubra. Usually the Cathedral was dry, and a few of the kids had rigged up lights and ladders and adorned its walls, like an underground art gallery. Slip, according to Trish, was the Picasso of the tunnel world. ‘Down there, hardly anyone knows what you do and that’s part of the kick. It’s the art of the invisible.’ Another pause to see how Bec reacted. ‘The fuckwit maintenance workers come along each few months and paint over what we do. They’re so stupid. They think that discourages us, they don’t see that’s all part of it. We like that none of it will last.’
Bec asked if it was dangerous. A stupid question, but hard to suppress her inner cop.
‘Yeah,’ said Trish. ‘“If it rains, no drains.”’
‘Sorry?’
‘What we say. You don’t want to be down there when it really rains, the water comes through like a tsunami, wash you out to sea. We’re down there right now, finishing off a big piece. Gunna rain soon, it’s a rush.’
She peered down the hole. ‘You need a light all the time, need to know where you are. If you get lost, you’d be fucked.’
‘Rats?’
‘Not too bad, except after rain, washes stuff down. Rain is bad, period. You can go in it’s a fine day, lose track of the time, and suddenly, boom! Once we were in the Cathedral and it was perfectly dry. Then our feet started to get wet, then this roaring sound, whooshka! These kids from Pagewood came down with boogie boards, seriously friggin’ crazy. They went all the way to Lurline Bay.’
Bec grabbed the grille and tried to lift it, but the thing was locked down. Trish pointed to a crude keyhole on its edge, a slot maybe a centimetre long. ‘We’ve got this metal thing to open all of them. It’s easy.’
‘Illegal.’
‘It’s so easy to hide in this city, if you want to.’ She slid off the concrete platform and walked away.
Half an hour later Ian finished the basic mowing and Bec decided to forget about the whipper snipper for the day. The Neills weren’t due back for another fortnight, and she’d return and mow again just before, clip the edges and make the place neat for them. It was soothing to see other people living perfect lives, even if this was not your own fate.
Ian’s T-shirt was soaked with sweat but he’d come through, made an effort. They drank more water and she locked up, drove them to McDonald’s and bought lunch. Ian and Trish ate hungrily and talked about music, checked their phones. Like normal kids.
Outside, Trish asked Bec what she was doing that afternoon.
‘I might go for a run.’
The girl giggled as though it was the best joke she’d heard in a long time. Bec said goodbye to Ian, trying again to see any of Karen Mabey in him, and failing. Wanted to tell him how much better things would be if he chose differently. Knew there was no point. On the way home she had the car cleaned, special attention to the interior.
At the end of the day, there were two types of folk, the clean and the dirty. A crude division but it got you a long way. Ask anyone in the job.
Roselands Police Station
With most homicide investigations, you find the murder has disrupted a fairly normal life. The relevant facts—lies, events preceding, the weapon—therefore tend to stand out from their surroundings. But Jason Teller had inhabited a world where deception and violence were common, and Rafiq Habib continued to live in such a place. Bec saw this made the elements of the case difficult to distinguish from their background. You’d find something suspicious, but there might be reasons for it that had nothing to do with the killing.
In the second week of the investigation, Imad’s townhouse in Bankstown was sprayed with a machine gun. A car stopped in the street at 2.30 am and forty-seven bullets were fired into the building where Hasna and their two young children were asleep. No one was hit. As far as could be determined from witness reports, the gun had then jammed and the car raced off, later found burned out.
‘Their parents might have been able to clear the weapon,’ Knight said cheerfully, ‘but not this lot.’
Many of the Lebanese who’d come to Sydney in the 1980s were refugees from the civil war. Some had been boy soldiers.
The next night Terry Anderson, a retired storeman in Punchbowl, aged sixty-eight, was shot dead when he opened his front door to a caller. In the morning, Knight addressed the detectives in the office; he’d been briefed by the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad.
‘Mr Anderson was unfortunate enough to live next door to Anam Salib,’ he said. ‘Enforcer for Sam Deeb. It was a dark night, house numbers hard to read, and, ah . . .’
For a moment he was lost for words, his face empty of all comprehension. Some of the younger detectives shifted uneasily. They’d developed a style to deal with situations like this, black humour. Knight’s moment of uncertainty felt like a kind of betrayal.
‘Terry Anderson’s wife died last year of cancer. He had three children, eight grandchildren.’
DAY ELEVEN
Mabey: ‘Name, rank and station, please, Officer.’
Harris: ‘Detective Inspector Brian Harris, attached to the Drug Squad, State Crime Command.’
Mabey: ‘Your squad is responsible for fighting illicit drugs in New South Wales?’
Harris: ‘There are sixty of us and we do have that corporate responsibility. But there are four hundred detectives in State Crime Command dedicated to organised crime of one sort or other, and organised crime is basically about—’
Mabey: ‘The large gentleman with the tattoos in the black T-shirt, sitting up there in the public g
allery. Do you recognise him? I don’t want you to name him.’
Harris: ‘I recognise him.’
Ferguson: ‘Objection!’
Mabey: ‘Is he the current bodyguard of Sam Deeb?’
Judge: ‘Madam Crown—’
Harris: ‘He’s one of them. The man next—’
Mabey: ‘Thank you, Inspector. I understand Operation Condor was investigating Jason Teller because you suspected he was an important part of Sam Deeb’s business operation, he ran Java nightclub?’
Harris: ‘Yes.’
Mabey: ‘Why would the Drug Squad be interested in nightclubs?’
Harris: ‘We’d identified Java as a place where drugs were sold, so we started to watch the manager. He would have to have some involvement.’
Mabey: ‘When you say “we”, you mean yourselves and the Crime Commission?’
Harris: ‘Operation Condor was a Drug Squad operation with Crime Commission support. They can do some things we can’t.’
Mabey: ‘Such as?’
Harris: ‘Induce witnesses to provide information. If a person won’t talk, they can be sent to jail.’
Mabey: ‘And what did Strike Force Condor find out about Jason Teller, in a general sense?’
Harris described Teller’s relationship with Sam Deeb, then: ‘Another interesting thing is that he was also working for himself without telling Deeb. He was importing cocaine through the airport.’
Mabey: ‘What was the scale of the operation?’
Harris: ‘Our estimate was about one shipment every two to three months, each with a street value of ten million dollars.’
Mabey: ‘Where did the cocaine come from?’
Harris: ‘I’d rather not say. Operation Condor is still proceeding.’
Mabey: ‘I understand. But it would have originated in South America, wouldn’t it? All cocaine does.’
Pause.
Harris: ‘Yes.’
Mabey: ‘Now, Sam Deeb was Jason Teller’s boss. Would he have been upset if he’d learned his employee was running his own drug operation?’
Drive By Page 17