The Tower

by Michael Duffy

  ‘We got the right marble,’ he said, and saw she was impressed, despite herself. This was good.

  He felt his erection stiffening and came into the room and sat down, running his hand down her back as the give of the mattress pushed their thighs together.

  ‘Come here,’ he said.

  Kristin turned and kissed him. Her lips were thin and her breasts small. In many ways she was not especially feminine, although her arse was big enough. But she was very determined, about everything, and he was enjoying that. His last girlfriend, if you could call her that, had tended to get emotional about things. Randall liked variety.

  ‘So why are thirty-eight of the countries marked?’

  He took her hand and put it on his thigh, feeling the small piece of paper drop between his legs. ‘They’re the ones I’ve been to. I want to visit every country on earth one day.’

  She frowned in concentration and he waited patiently, working on her spine with his nails.

  Eventually she shivered and said, ‘I’ve been to thirty-two. How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  ‘Well, I’m only twenty-eight.’

  They kissed for a while but then she stopped. ‘You never told me you’d been to Iceland. Who do you know there?’

  She was from Iceland, worked for the United Nations or some related NGO—she’d told him the first time they’d met but he hadn’t taken much notice. He recalled her saying her organisation helped women who’d been trafficked for sex, and guessed she must be a player to get sent to Sydney, a far more pleasant posting than most places with trafficking problems. Randall liked players.

  ‘I was flying from New York to Frankfurt one time and we had to land, some engine thing,’ he said, licking her ear. ‘Only an hour, we didn’t even get off the plane.’

  ‘So you’re cheating,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  She put her arms around him and pushed him down on the bed, each of them a little excited now.

  After a bit, she said, ‘Is the camera on?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like it.’

  ‘I want it now. But don’t get up.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, reaching out while she sat up, running her fingernails down his chest. He felt around on the bedside table, careful not to knock the open wrapper of coke, eventually locating what he was looking for. It had been difficult to find a camera with a remote control, and he’d wondered what other people used it for.

  ‘Let’s make a movie,’ she said, coming down at him with her tongue out, her backside wiggling at the camera.

  This, he thought, is going to be good.

  But then the phone rang.

  Three

  McIver had been gone a while and Troy was starting to feel anxious. He was pretty sure the sarge was pissed. You were supposed to look out for fellow team members, but with McIver it was hard because he did like a drink. He thought about the last time they’d worked together, a domestic killing at Forbes. They’d been away for almost a month, which was not unusual. McIver had spent every evening with colleagues or acquaintances he made in town. Sometimes he would ask the motel where they were staying to provide a room so they could watch a DVD. He had a big collection, with lots of Westerns. Troy didn’t like Westerns usually, but Mac’s were pretty good. When it wasn’t a film night, McIver would be at a pub or club, often with his guitar. He had a fine voice, and could play just about anything, though he had a particular liking for old American songs, blues and country. But always there was a bottle nearby.

  Unsure what to do next, Troy headed over to the entrance to the construction site. When a security guard asked him his name, he produced his ID and went inside. In theory he should wait for instructions from McIver, who was his boss. But Mac didn’t work like that. He decided to talk to the head of security.

  The space—what would be the atrium of the building—was enormous, perhaps five storeys high, and well lit. Three portable offices were stacked at the far end. He had a word to one of the guards and was directed to an office. As he walked towards it, breathing the cold smell of concrete, someone called out to him. He turned and saw a short woman standing next to a man, both of them in uniform. The woman was about fifty with blonde hair. She would have been attractive once, he thought.

  ‘Inspector Gina Harmer,’ she said, extending her hand.

  She had one of those looks that told you she was sizing you up, wanted you to know. As they shook hands her phone rang. She began a conversation about manpower and the guy next to her made notes on a clipboard he was holding. After a while, Troy continued on his way.

  As he climbed the metal stairs he could hear raised voices inside. He opened a door with a sign saying SECURITY, and found two men standing by some sort of control panel. One, who looked Lebanese, was in a security guard’s uniform. He appeared fit and alert, unlike some people in his line of work. The other was a tall guy in a suit, his head shaved, one of those stupid little clumps of hair just below his bottom lip. They stopped talking when Troy came in, and introduced themselves. Peter Bazzi was the shift manager for Tryon, the company that protected The Tower. Sean Randall was security manager for Warton Constructions.

  ‘I just arrived,’ he said with an Irish accent, coming over and clasping Troy’s hand. ‘Peter here called me at home. It’s a terrible thing that’s happened. Of course we’ll give you our full cooperation.’

  You will, Troy thought, as he wrote their names in his notebook.

  He said, ‘What were you arguing about just now?’

  ‘It’s your colleague. Peter let him go up unaccompanied. It’s not company policy—we have liability issues.’

  Troy looked at him more closely. Despite the annoyance the guy was showing, he had amiable eyes. Troy figured that, unlike many security managers, he was not ex-police.

  ‘Do we know who the woman was?’

  Randall’s smile faded and he looked away from Troy.

  Bazzi said, ‘There’s no record of a woman coming onto the site tonight.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no?’

  The guard looked anxious, almost distressed. He shrugged. ‘At the moment we just don’t know what’s happened.’

  No wonder the two men had been yelling at each other.

  Troy looked out the window and saw the inspector still standing in the middle of the atrium, briefing another group of police. The search operation had been organised with impressive speed, especially for a Sunday night. He turned back to the various computer consoles. ‘So where’s Sergeant McIver?’

  ‘There are two search groups up there,’ Randall explained. ‘One moving up the building and the other coming down from level forty, which is the highest point where she could have come off. Your sergeant said he was going to join the upper sweep, which had just reached level thirty-five. So Peter sends him up with one of our guards—you need a pass to operate the lift. But your sergeant tells the guard to stop at level thirty. The man protests but in the end does what he’s told. McIver gets off and the guard comes back. This is making us nervous.’

  Dealing with McIver tended to have that effect on people, Troy thought.

  ‘If there is a killer up there,’ Bazzi said, ‘they could meet.’

  That might be the killer’s problem. McIver was armed and dangerous and under the infl uence. But he should be up there too, watching the sergeant’s back.

  ‘How long’s he been gone?’

  ‘Almost ten minutes now. I was just going to have a word with Inspector Harmer.’

  Not a good idea, Troy thought. He said, ‘I’ll go up and get him back. Would that make you happier?’

  Bazzi shook his head, but Randall looked at his watch. ‘I’ll come with you. You’ll need someone to work the lift.’

  Troy nodded. Despite the flavour-saver, the guy looked capable enough. Also, he didn’t seem the type to make a fuss. Depending on the state they found McIver in, that could be important.

  They clattered down the st
eel stairway and walked across the concrete floor towards the lifts—though only the two goods lifts were in use, according to Randall.

  Troy said, ‘Do you need a pass for the stairwells?’

  It turned out that you didn’t; in fact at the moment you didn’t need a pass to get from a stairwell onto any of the floors. Randall went into a little speech about how security had to be a compromise between ideal standards and the requirements of construction. Troy found himself paying attention, despite the irrelevance of most of this. Randall was a natural talker, and it wasn’t just the accent. He told Troy there were CCTV cameras trained on the lifts and the stair exits on the ground floor, which was how they knew the killer hadn’t come down that way. ‘If there is a killer,’ he added.

  ‘Is there a digital record of lift movements?’

  ‘No,’ said Randall, his amiability dropping a few notches. ‘I wish there was. The system doesn’t do that. It can do a lot. Turn a lift on and off. Make a pass inactive with the hit of a button. But there is no historical record.’

  ‘So we don’t know how the victim got up there?’

  ‘No. But someone was watching the CCTV monitors here all the time from the moment we knew she’d fallen. So we’re sure no one has come out of the lifts or the stairwells since she fell. There was no time. And this is the only way out.’

  ‘Apart from the vehicle exit,’ Troy said.

  ‘Sure. But that’s well guarded too, and we’ve checked the CCTV. Nothing.’

  ‘We’ll need the discs.’

  ‘Harmer has them already.’

  He continued to walk towards the lifts, but Troy stopped and pulled out his notebook to record the information he’d just been given. He’d always assumed construction sites were fairly simple places, but this didn’t sound simple. While he was writing, Inspector Harmer left the group of uniforms nearby and came over to him.

  ‘I don’t want anyone up there until we’ve cleared the building,’ she said.

  She was very short. Whatever the lower height limit had been when she’d joined the force, she must have only just scraped in.

  Troy said, ‘I won’t get in the way of your operation.’

  ‘I believe your colleague’s already up there?’

  He nodded, and sensed from the look in her eyes that she knew it was McIver, knew something about him, and was not entirely happy. He often saw that look in the eyes of older cops.

  ‘I can’t spare anyone to go up with you at the moment,’ she said. ‘Give us half an hour, I’d appreciate it.’

  The cop with the clipboard called out to Harmer, waving a mobile phone. She frowned at Troy and looked as though she was about to say more, but then the man called her again, urgency in his voice, and she walked away. Troy gave her a few seconds and then continued on his way to the lifts. If you were in McIver’s team, you had to play by his logic. Fuzzy logic. If Harmer did know him, she’d realise this.

  ‘Everything okay?’ said Randall.

  ‘Fine.’

  The lift doors opened and they got in. The lift was big, with posters on the battered metal walls advertising safety regulations and a union finance company. As they ascended, Randall was quiet, staring at the flashing numbers above the door, biting his lip. He was wearing a bulky orange jacket now, and holding two hard hats. He handed one to Troy, and told him he had to put it on.

  ‘OH and S,’ he said.

  Troy put it on, and thought about what he’d learned so far.

  ‘It’s Bazzi, isn’t it?’

  The Irishman’s face was blank. ‘What’s Bazzi?’

  ‘You record the name of everyone who comes onto the site?’

  ‘If they’re walking. And if it’s a van, we check the driver’s ID and record the rego number. Make sure it’s supposed to be here.’

  ‘Well,’ Troy said, ‘for a woman to be on the site with no record, the shift manager must be involved. It would take some arranging. I don’t see how it could be done otherwise.’

  Randall said nothing, his eyes still fixed on the flashing numbers. Then, as the lift stopped at level thirty: ‘Until tonight, I had every reason to trust the fellow.’

  The first thing Troy noticed when the doors opened was the wind. Randall had been zipping up his jacket in the lift, and now Troy knew why. Thirty storeys above the ground, no windows, the wind came straight at you, right through your clothes like you were being snapfrozen. The two men stepped out of the lift and the doors closed behind them. Apart from a light next to a stairwell nearby, the floor was in darkness. The temperature seemed to drop another few degrees.

  Troy shivered. ‘Sarge?’ he called.

  There was no answer, and the wind was so loud it was unlikely he’d be heard anyway. Taking out his mobile, he turned his back to the wind and dialled McIver’s number. He put the phone to his ear but there was so much noise he could hardly make out the dial tone.

  Randall had produced a powerful torch from somewhere. He turned it on and they walked around the floor, bare concrete with occasional piles of pipes and cable. They moved cautiously because of the darkness. Randall talked as they went. Maybe it was nerves, but he seemed to feel a compulsive need to explain everything they saw, yelling to make himself heard above the noise of the wind. Troy resisted the urge to tell him to shut up.

  When they got to the edge of the floor Troy saw it was ringed with an impressive-looking steel fence broken at one point by a gap. This led onto the landing platform, which protruded a few metres from the side of the building. The wind was coming more strongly through the gap, and he felt it as he walked out and looked over the side. Far below he could see the enclosure that had been placed around the police car, illuminated by the lights inside so that it resembled a lampshade. He stepped back, the rain on his face, and looked around the desolate platform. Its base was made of iron plates, slick with water, and it would be easy to climb over the metal walls. Or be thrown. There were no shoes here, no coat or handbag. With some relief he went back onto the solid concrete, and they continued their search.

  After they’d been around half the floor, with Randall yelling out comments, Troy suggested they split up. He wanted to send him back to the part they’d already covered, just to get the sound of him out of the way. But Randall said he thought they should stick together. He put out an arm as he said it, as though wanting to stop Troy from leaving him.

  Troy called McIver’s number again, and this time held it to his ear until it rang out. Bloody McIver, he thought. Should never have let him out of my sight. Then he heard something else—a cracking sound.

  ‘That was a fucking gun!’ said Randall.

  Troy felt anxiety start to form in his stomach. ‘Do you think the noise came from above or below?’ he said, hurrying towards the stairwell.

  ‘Below.’ Randall sounded panicky.

  Troy thought it had come from above, although with the wind you couldn’t be sure. He wondered what McIver would have done, whether he would have gone up towards one group of searchers or down towards the other.

  ‘Let’s go up,’ he decided.

  Troy stepped into the stairwell cautiously. Randall almost pushed him inside and shut the door behind them. It was very bright.

  ‘You keep the lights on all the time?’

  Randall nodded jerkily. ‘OH and S,’ he muttered, as though this explained everything.

  Troy stood for a few moments listening. There was no noise. He reached beneath his coat and pulled out his gun.

  ‘Have you ever shot anyone with that?’ Randall asked, looking at the pistol.

  ‘I’ve never drawn it in my current position,’ Troy said. ‘Homicide’s a safe job. Usually.’

  ‘It’s a Glock, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a Glock.’

  They climbed the stairs to the next level and he steeled himself and opened the door and stepped out. This floor was dark too, and at first glance seemed identical to the floor below, but Troy sensed a difference in the atmosphere. Reminding himself to br
eathe, trying not to hold his weapon too tightly, he whispered to Randall to turn off his torch and stay back. Instinctively, he began to walk towards the goods lifts. Just before he reached the corner, a figure came stumbling around it towards him. Troy raised his gun, but dropped his arm when he saw it was McIver, clasping his left shoulder and clearly on the point of collapse.

  ‘Two of them at the lifts,’ he gasped, opening his arms to Troy. ‘One armed with a pistol. Mine.’ For a moment the expression of pain on the sergeant’s face was replaced by a scowl. Troy reached out and grabbed him beneath his leather jacket, taking his weight, seeing there was blood on his face. He could smell the alcohol on McIver’s breath, and the stink of his sweat.

  McIver sagged and put his good arm around Troy, and the two men clung to each other in an awkward embrace, the Glock in Troy’s right hand now under the sergeant’s left armpit, caught beneath his jacket. Troy was about to lower the sergeant to the ground when a man appeared.

  The man took a step forwards and Troy saw that he was waving a gun.

  ‘Give me your pass to the lifts,’ he demanded.

  An accent, possibly Indian. Troy peered at his face. Maybe Afghan or Pakistani.

  ‘We’re police officers. Let me put Sergeant McIver down, he’s been shot,’ Troy said, trying to keep his voice calm and level.

  This seemed to upset the man. ‘Just give me the pass,’ he said, ‘or I will shoot you.’ He sounded agitated, and the hand holding the gun was shaking.

  ‘Why don’t you put the gun down?’ Troy said. ‘This man’s a police officer and—’

  ‘Is he dead?’ the man cried.

  ‘No, he’s not dead.’

  Despite his racing pulse, Troy found he was thinking quite clearly. The man sounded terrified. If he had killed the woman who’d come off the building, he might do anything to get away.