by Alex Hammond
They had nothing to do with any of their current cases.
Will slid the bundle back into the envelope and gritted his teeth as he lifted himself up out of the chair. After pouring himself a glass of water, he popped the lid to his painkillers. He didn’t like that he was getting used to their acrid, chalky taste. He was starting his seventh week of taking tramadol and the label warned of prolonged use.
Bringing the package with him, he crossed the room and reached the door that connected Miller’s office with his own. He knocked twice out of habit and pushed the door open.
It was dark in the room. Pale beams of light cut through the thin gaps of the Venetian blinds at the window. Miller’s picture frames lay stacked against the wall and most of his boxes were still unpacked. The desk was piled with papers, the tray for briefs overflowing. Miller had brought with him a goodly number of clients, whereas all Will could offer was an organised crime family and his own possible expulsion from the law. Will placed the parcel in the centre of the desk and turned to leave. In the dim light he could see the inbuilt bookshelf, mirror to the one in his own office currently lined with rented law books. Miller’s was bare but for worn paperbacks on the early history of Sydney. Will pulled the door closed behind him and left the building.
FOUR
They had travelled north-west to where city became country. He looked up for powerlines but there were none in these new suburbs, only the vast, overcast sky turning a deeper shade of grey. The weather app on his phone suggested there would be no rain, but Will wore his trench coat all the same. This was Melbourne, after all.
The long street they arrived at was disorienting. Its houses were carbon copies, all bought straight off the plan, identical but for the numbers on their white aluminium letterboxes. At first Will was unsure if the address he’d been given was correct. The frame of a large building had only recently been erected on its concrete slab, while pallets of bricks lined the muddy expanse of a future driveway.
He stepped out of the hire car as the driver opened the day’s paper. Photos of last night’s accident were splashed across its front pages. Will’s body shook as he struggled to push aside thoughts of Eva, of the attack. He’d left half-a-dozen messages on her mobile and several more with the hospital, trying to get hold of her. Meanwhile a gnawing paranoia had clung to him all morning and he’d spent the car ride looking over his shoulder at the traffic, searching for masked men.
Perfect, he thought. This is the headspace to be in when you’re meeting violent criminals.
Will walked across the muddy drive and stepped up onto the foundations. Plastic sheeting fluttered around him, and through gaps in the unfinished roof he could see the clouds picking up speed.
From behind the brickwork of a central fireplace stepped a man – taller than Will – with a rangy gait. His head was shaved down to the same length as his stubble, while a black driving coat matched his jeans and workman’s boots.
It was Caja, head enforcer for the Ivanics.
Instantly Will was back in that winter’s night the last time he’d seen the Ivanics – beaten, on the ground, Caja standing above him blinking as the rain washed across his cold grey eyes. Caja’s men had concealed weapons beneath magazines – pistols, knives, iron pipes – he never saw which. ‘No more negotiations,’ Caja had said. And so Will had offered them the only thing he could.
Now Caja looked at him with practised nonchalance. ‘Take a seat,’ he said.
Will pulled over one of the many stray milk crates as Caja nodded to two broad Holdens that had pulled up on either side of the hire car. The driver cast a blinking glance at Will and wound up his tinted window.
Two men got out of the lead car, wearing skin-tight Gore-Tex over dark denim. They scanned the street. Caja nodded to them and they opened the passenger door of the second car. Looking more like an orthodox priest than a gangster, Milivoje Ivanic emerged from the vehicle. His long grey beard was groomed to a blunt end. The ceramic beads that hung from his wrist rattled as he reached up to remove wraparound sunglasses, which he then tucked into an Everlast tracksuit.
A smaller man slid out of the car after Milivoje. His skinny chinos were rolled up at the cuff and he dodged the mud in the yard as he tried to keep his white canvas loafers clean. His purple V-necked cardigan offered little protection against the windswept site and he wrapped his hands around his chest as he stepped up onto the slab. This was Ramir Ivanic – Milivoje’s nephew and reluctant protégé.
What Will knew about the Balkans was limited – he remembered the Bosnian War and UN intervention from his childhood, and he had only a rough idea of the ethnic and religious map of Serbs, Croats and Bosnians.
What he did realise was that the Ivanics were products of this conflict, a complex intertwining of blood feuds and ancient enmities.
‘Mr Ivanic,’ Will said, holding out his hand.
Milivoje didn’t shake it.
‘You know Ramir,’ Caja said, nodding to the smaller man who offered Will his hand under duress. Will shook it, remembering the beating he’d given Ramir after he’d attacked Will two months earlier. The memory’s contrast with last night’s events was an abject lesson, one that his boxing trainer had insisted on – There are always fighters who are better and worse than you. No man can win forever. Harry was fond of stating the obvious as though it were obscure wisdom.
As Milivoje sat on a crate his entourage followed suit.
Caja remained standing, but spoke for the old man. ‘You owe us a debt.’
‘Not just any debt. I made a specific deal with you. I said I’d represent your associate Nicholas Aaron.’
Again, the desperation of that evening made him shake. Hunched on the ground, his lungs burning as he sucked in air after Caja’s brass-knuckle punch to his diaphragm; the shadow from that wet alleyway loomed over him, a violent legacy for which he would continue to pay. In trying to outmanoeuvre the Ivanics to save a client, he’d put himself in bed with an organised crime family – now fear and resentment were a constant in his life.
‘No,’ said Milivoje, his deep voice carrying across the building site. ‘You offered more.’
Will took a deep breath and nodded. ‘You’re right. I said I would assist with Nicholas Aaron’s handover to the police.’
‘There was more,’ said Caja.
‘I also offered to make sure that he wouldn’t inform on your family. I told you I would make sure that when charged he would plead guilty. I also told you I would make sure that he didn’t turn over any of your men. Ramir here, specifically.’
Shame – that sudden drop in air pressure as your integrity slips out from under you.
‘But Aaron’s still missing,’ Will continued. ‘Still in hiding. I had assumed you would be in contact before now. The police have been looking for him for over six weeks.’
Milivoje glowered at Ramir.
Ramir spat on the ground and jabbed a finger in Will’s direction. ‘It’s not right. This fuck is the one who turned him over to the police in the first place.’
‘Aaron was reckless. He must accept his failure,’ said Caja.
‘So you know where he is, then?’ Will asked.
Ramir shifted again and looked at Milivoje.
‘He does,’ Caja said, nodding to the younger man. ‘He’s hiding in Torquay. What’s the address, Ramir?’
Milivoje looked again at Ramir, the sides of his mouth turning down, pushing his beard towards his belly.
‘Why are we doing this? He’s an arsehole who can’t be trusted. He’ll fuck with us. Bring the family down. We should be defending Nick, not handing him over to the fucking police.’
‘Govno jedno,’ Milivoje growled, his voice echoing against the concrete.
Ramir almost fell off of his seat. He moved his hands up to protect his face. ‘How do I know Nick will be safe?’
‘I’ll make sure he’s unharmed,’ Will said.
‘I’m not talking about the cops. I’m talking about him,’ he sa
id, thrusting a finger towards Caja.
‘Picko jedna,’ the old man growled. ‘In or out of jail, it does not matter. What protects his life are the choices he makes. This lawyer will be sure to tell him.’
Will’s heart was racing. He’d met mob lawyers. For all their bravado, they oozed compromise and stank of desperation. He didn’t want to be one of them. He would have to be smart.
This is just the beginning. They will want to keep you on a leash for as long as they can.
Will looked into Ramir’s eyes. ‘I’ll do everything I can to see that he’s not hurt.’
Ramir coughed into his mouth before sending phlegm spinning through the air. It hit the ground at speed and spread a pale stain across the concrete. ‘Fine. He’s at his aunt’s place. Nineteen Alleyne Avenue.’
Milivoje looked at Caja.
Caja picked up Will’s briefcase off the ground. ‘Thank you for your time.’
Will nodded, slowly stood, and then took his briefcase. Even so he had to pause against a treated pine beam until the pain subsided.
‘You are hurt, in trouble with other men. How long is your life to be?’ Milivoje said.
Will straightened. ‘Do you know these men?’
He set his mind against the pain and watched the movements of the old man’s face. Nothing. The same gaze as Caja, hardened by war and tempered by atrocity.
The bottom of his grey beard tapped his belly as he spoke. ‘This is someone else.’
Ramir’s sneer transformed into a smirk.
Will wanted to slap it off his face, but pressed down on the growing heat spreading through his body.
‘I understand,’ he said.
Will returned to the car with all the speed he could manage. The driver looked at him in the rear-view mirror, his eyes re-evaluating his fare.
‘My office,’ Will said.
FIVE
Last night he’d made regular trips to his apartment windows, looking through the curtains to the city street below for masked men hiding in the shadows. Between that, Eva’s refusing to talk to him and the prospect of this morning’s meeting he’d barely slept. The growing apprehension in his gut had kept him from sleeping, eating breakfast and doing anything useful with his day. The balaclavaed men, the Ivanics, Eva – they had given way to his imminent arrival at the office of the Legal Commissioner.
The streets of the legal district felt empty, as though his colleagues knew he was coming and didn’t want to catch something from his dying career.
As he walked though the sliding doors of the nondescript Bourke Street office block, a woman stepped forwards from one of the lobby statues.
Will stopped. The boiling rage within him moved up and through his arms, a building pressure that locked them to his sides. His instincts called him to violence. He shook as he held them back.
In pumps and a fitted skirt, with over-glossed lipstick, the woman stopped in her approach, her expression shifting from smug to cautious.
It was Petra de Marco.
‘Why are you here, Petra?’ Will said, his jaw so tight it was an effort to speak. ‘Must be a slow news day.’
‘It’s not. I’ve got deadlines and an editor on my back. But that didn’t stop me from coming down here to see you face the music.’
He kept walking as he struggled with his fury, pulling it down, trying to drown it under the calm waters of civilised decorum.
‘You have me all wrong.’
‘Do I? Isn’t it interesting that you’ve become a media darling, the man who brought Amber Tasic’s killer to justice, and yet you’re still fronting up here today? Must be some truth to your alleged misconduct, after all.’
‘Don’t be so naive. After all the noise you made in the paper, they had to bring me in. You politicised the situation.’
De Marco smirked. ‘Or did I simply bring to light your back-channel dealings and abuse of your privilege?’
‘Fuck off Petra,’ Will growled, and stepped into the lift.
He paused in the men’s room to let his anger subside before the meeting. Taking another painkiller for good measure, he waited for his frustration to abate, even though it meant he was now running late.
When he finally sat in the small meeting room, with its chipped table and plastic chairs, he felt offended. There was a brown stain next to him on the grey carpet, and two of the vertical blinds behind him were missing, their plastic pulley snapped loose.
So this is where we’ll discuss the future of my career.
A clerk sitting across from him turned through pages in a manila folder. The folder had originally been labelled ‘Behrendt’, but that was now scratched out to read ‘Harris’.
Fantastic, Will thought.
Ann Feinson walked into the room and sat down at the table. She had the harried look of a working mother and wore the utilitarian blouse of a seasoned bureaucrat. Her lips pursed at the centre of her round face as she swept the hair of her bob over one ear. She scanned down the page that the clerk handed to her as though she were refamiliarising herself with its contents.
‘You’ll appreciate the difficulty we have been placed in,’ she said, without looking up. ‘There have been some public calls for us to investigate your conduct. We’re meeting today to hear what you have to say before determining whether to take this to a tribunal.’
‘So what you’re saying is that a formal complaint has been lodged?’
‘Yes.’
‘Petra de Marco? She was just downstairs, gloating.’
‘No. We don’t simply jump whenever the press kicks up a fuss. That would be very disempowering, I’m sure you’d agree?’
‘But you acknowledge that your situation is difficult because of the press.’
‘Yes.’
‘De Marco has sources within the OPP, the police and the profession who leak information to her. It’s hardly evidence or worth acting on.’
‘I’m sorry she was downstairs. As you said, she’s well connected. I’ll look into how she knew about our meeting. But this complaint has come from another source. Not her.’
‘My previous employers, then?’
Feinson looked up from the pages.
‘We’re not some political pawn.’
‘I agree. So why pursue this? I’m not the problem here.’
‘That’s what we’re trying to evaluate.’
Will looked at the commissioner in silence. She was earnest and that’s what made her dangerous.
‘What is the complaint exactly?’
The clerk cleared his throat before speaking, his voice trembling.
‘Under section thirty point one point two of the Professional Conduct and Practice Rules, a practitioner must not engage in conduct, whether in the course of practice or otherwise, which is calculated, or likely to a material degree, to be prejudicial to the administration of justice or diminish public confidence in the administration of justice.’
Will sat back in the chair.
Feinson took a sip from a glass of water. ’As you’re well aware, a legal practitioner is an officer of the court and granted, by law, considerable privileges. These privileges require that the community has confidence in that practitioner and that the practitioner upholds the system of justice through which those privileges are conferred.’
‘I do have some recollection of my oath when I was admitted.’ Will placed his hands on the table. ‘What confidence-damaging incident are we talking about specifically? Presenting a psychic at trial?’
‘No. We’re talking about your defence of a former client by the name of Mischa Shaw. You received information from the police that she’d been arrested even though she hadn’t requested legal representation, and later you had the assistance of an off-duty police officer in the course of her defence.’
‘Brendan O’Dwyer has retired from the police.’
‘He wasn’t retired at the time of the complaint. In fact, I see that he now works for you as a private investigator. That could be construed quite harshl
y.’
‘And yet none of these things is illegal. None falls within the conduct rules. The public was only made aware of these very spurious arguments about my behaviour due to the unfounded vendetta of Petra de Marco. You do realise that had I sued her for defamation, you wouldn’t have any grounds for action? The matter would be heard by a court and you couldn’t —’
‘I am quite familiar with the scope of our powers —’
‘But I didn’t sue. I chose not to waste the time of the court. Frankly, Commissioner, I’d hoped you’d return the favour and not waste mine. This is an unfounded and personally motivated attack.’
Feinson’s face became a bright shade of red.
‘Mr Harris, I didn’t ask Grant to paraphrase the rules on practitioner privileges because I like the sound of his voice. I take this very seriously. When I accepted this role, I did so because I was aware of the grey trade in information that goes on within the justice system. Who knows how deep the roots of this go – police corruption is all too familiar to us, so why should lawyers be immune? I’m not here just to prosecute dodgy suburban lawyers who fudge their trust accounting to rip off their clients. I’m here to shut down this pervasive culture of exploited privilege and any criminal activity it supports. The legal system should benefit all its citizens equally, not just those with access to money and connections.’
Her voice became deeper as her eyes bored into Will’s. He could feel his adrenaline flowing now but being combative would not help.
‘I couldn’t agree with you more. I simply feel that the complaint made about me is tenuous.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. But I do intend to investigate one aspect a little further before making my decision.’
‘And that is?’
‘Nicholas Aaron.’
Will’s chest tightened. She’d withheld that bombshell.
‘There is a concern that you may have manipulated the system to see him charged in order to release the client you were defending.’