‘Almost certain.’
She nodded briskly. ‘I’m having trouble finding another sergeant. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, that the police force should be short of homicide detectives?’ It sounded like a conversation she’d been having with other people for a long time. ‘I’ve got five people doing double shifts tonight, but tomorrow they all vanish.’ She looked around. ‘Rogers was supposed to be here,’ she said, referring to the police commissioner. ‘You haven’t seen him?’
Troy shook his head. Kelly looked almost rattled, and this made him nervous. It was the job of senior officers to maintain unflinching enthusiasm, no matter how irrational this might be.
She went on, ‘Have you heard of a man named Henry Wu?’
‘No.’
The questions were starting to annoy him. He felt like telling her he’d been busy with other things.
‘Runs Morning Star,’ she said, ‘who own this building. A very aggressive man, and well connected. Anyway, we’ve shut down the building site indefinitely.’
Of course they had. It was what you did. He said, ‘I want to be on the investigation.’
‘I can’t permit that. I know you’re anxious, this is personal, but there’s procedure we need to follow.’
‘It’s not because of Mac—not only. I feel fine.’
She shook her head almost angrily. ‘Sometimes it takes a while. After these good people have finished with you, go home and sleep. There’ll be debriefing, counselling . . . I’ll call you tomorrow.’
Don’t be angry with me, he felt like saying, but she had turned her back on him and was talking to Ferris and his partner, who’d been waiting impatiently and only just out of earshot. Then she turned again and lowered her voice. ‘You need to know something. Siegert at Central is gunning for you and McIver—he thinks you ruined the good reputation of The Tower, for which he feels responsible. He just told me the man you shot would be alive but for the reprehensible behaviour of my two officers.’ Troy stared at her. ‘It’s going to be a media frenzy, and he’s looking to distract attention from the illegals. There’s concern about how this man Bazzi was allowed to get away.’
‘That was hardly our fault.’
‘Of course not. But it could be made to look like it. Do you see what I’m saying?’
Troy felt himself starting to sweat. He’d acted appropriately within the situations that had occurred, but Kelly was saying people might argue those situations should not have occurred. This was out of his league; it all came down to McIver. And Kelly was telling him something about that too, in the comments she’d made earlier on the phone. Troy was not used to politics, had rarely felt its breath on his cheek. But he knew it was out there, waiting for him like everyone else.
Kelly said, ‘You and Mac don’t share equal responsibility. He was the senior officer, disobeyed an instruction to come up here. You might want to consider that.’ Troy’s mind was blank now. He wanted to help McIver, but for the moment he didn’t know what to do. Kelly said, ‘You only went up to help him.’ She was watching him closely, her lipstick glistening in the harsh arc light. ‘Was he capable?’
‘The sergeant was fine,’ he said. ‘He has my complete support.’
She pulled her lips back, and touched one with her tongue. ‘That narrows your options.’
He nodded, dimly aware of what she was getting at, and said, ‘So what happens now?’
‘It goes to the commissioner. Once upon a time that wouldn’t have happened, but these days . . .’
Troy knew what this was about, at least. Frank Rogers had been running the New South Wales police force for six months, and everyone knew how concerned he was about the media. Some said he didn’t have much time for anything else.
‘Siegert and I each try to be first to talk to Rogers in the morning,’ said Kelly. ‘He’ll decide if you’re to become a hero or a disgrace to the force.’ He started to smile but realised she wasn’t joking. She went on quickly, glancing behind her, ‘Your statement will be the vital document.’ She took his arm and started to guide him back to the two IA officers. Before they reached them she said in a low voice, ‘Everyone knows Rogers is a genius at manipulating the media. But it’s a two-way thing. They influence him too. What they print in the morning will be crucial.’
‘Crucial?’
She nodded and turned away. He wanted to ask what she meant by that, but she was already shaking Ferris’s hand, heading for the lifts.
The detectives took him over the scene, and he told his story again. He was thinking of it as a story now, a version of events that would strike different people in different ways. After he’d been swabbed for gunshot residue they took the lift down to ground level. They went in the officers’ car down to City Central, not far away. The other two were silent during the drive through the dark and empty streets. They hadn’t been exactly unfriendly, but it was clear they wanted to keep their distance. This disconcerted Troy, even though he knew it was how it had to be. He felt isolated. He had to make sure he was thinking for himself.
‘Bloody City Central,’ Ferris murmured as they circled the streets. Even at this time of night there were police cars everywhere. ‘You ever worked here?’
‘No,’ said Troy.
‘Don’t. There’s parking inside for six cars, and then you’re on your own.’
Eventually they parked down on the side of the road that ran between the station and the Darling Harbour precinct opposite.
Inside the station a tall man in a suit was waiting for them. He was in his early fifties, like Kelly, and had silver hair and piercing, pale blue eyes.
Ferris looked from him to Troy and said, ‘Superintendent Ron Siegert.’
The superintendent stared at Troy, making no effort to shake hands. ‘We haven’t met earlier because I’ve been here trying to clean up the mess Jon McIver and you created for us.’ Troy had never seen anyone speak through clenched teeth before, but Siegert was coming close. When he said nothing, the superintendent went on, ‘That man should not have died. I intend to see the right thing done here. There’ll be no cover-up.’
His face was red with anger.
‘We don’t do cover-ups,’ Ferris said tersely. ‘Come on, we need to get Detective Troy’s statement.’
Troy took a step forward and Siegert moved to block his way. He was close to Troy’s face, trying to make a deal of staring down at him, although there was only four or five centimetres difference in their heights.
‘I knew your father,’ Siegert said.
Troy froze. His father had been dead for eighteen years. He’d been a cop too, although he’d left the force two years before he died. Troy didn’t often come across anyone who’d met him.
Siegert said, ‘We were detectives together. He was a good man. Jon McIver’s not worth his bootlace.’ The super turned on his heel and stormed off.
The IA detectives led him through corridors and up some stairs, and Troy thought about what Kelly had said to him about the media, trying to work out what she had left unsaid. Wondering if there was any message there. Anna sometimes went to services at an evangelical church called ChristLife, and when he’d gone with her last week there’d been a banner saying: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? Now he asked himself: What would McIver do?
Slowly, an answer started to form.
‘We’re going to ERISP this,’ Ferris said. ‘Okay?’
Troy realised he had to think quickly now. A filmed recording of the interview was not what he needed. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘Let’s do a typed record of interview.’
‘ERISP is standard.’
‘It’s what I’ve been advised.’
Ferris looked at him. Troy had chosen not to have a representative of the Police Association involved, and from IA’s point of view this was good. They wouldn’t want him to change his mind on this by pushing him too hard.
‘If that’s what you want,’ Ferris said at last. ‘But you know how it might look.’
‘It’s what I’ve been adv
ised,’ Troy said.
It was a nice phrase, and seemed to express some inner reality. As though there was indeed someone else inside him now, thinking more clearly than he was, telling him what to do.
Troy was shown to an area of the station where an old tracksuit and a pair of running shoes had been put on a chair. He changed into them slowly, retaining his wallet and keys. They’d already taken his weapon, back at The Tower. It was the absence of the gun rather than his suit that affected him most.
As they took his statement, it was typed up on a laptop. Troy kept things as simple as he could. At the end, the computer was spun around and Ferris told him to check what had been written.
Troy passed a hand over his eyes and yawned. ‘I’m tired, can’t see the screen properly. Can we print off a copy so I can read it on paper?’
‘If you could just check this quickly we won’t keep you,’ said Ferris, pointing at the laptop.
‘It’s been a big night.’
‘How ’bout I send you a copy to sign tomorrow.’
‘No,’ Troy said, forcing himself to keep it light. ‘I want to take a signed copy with me now.’
Ferris smiled. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure I can print this out here, I don’t think my laptop is compatible with this system. I promise you’ll have a copy tomorrow. I’ll email it to you.’
What bullshit. Troy wanted to swear at the guy, but knew this was no time to be making enemies. ‘I have the right to a signed copy of the record of interview. You told me that at the beginning.’
There was a pause and then Ferris stood up and took the laptop out of the interview room. His partner stared at Troy for a while. Then he pulled some papers out of his briefcase and began to study them. Troy could tell he wasn’t reading.
When the IA men had gone, Troy took his copy of the signed statement and wandered around the station until he found a photocopier. There was no one about. He put the pages in the top and started to make two copies. When he was about halfway through, someone came down the corridor. It was Little.
‘Still here?’ he said.
Troy told him he was going home soon. They chatted about the investigation, but there had been no developments. The big news was that the man from level thirty-one seemed to have got away. All the car parks had been searched again, and there was no sign of him. The illegals were being interviewed, but all had denied any knowledge of the two men from upstairs or the gun. Bazzi was not at his house.
The photocopier stopped and Troy removed the statement and the copies, trying to hide the text from Little without making it obvious. He shook the other detective’s hand.
‘Until we meet again,’ Little murmured.
Outside, Troy made two calls and then wandered up Bathurst Street until he reached Hyde Park. There he stood under a tree for a while, looking up at The Tower. The rain had stopped and much of the building could be made out, soaring into the night sky. It was strangely beautiful, and he stood there for some time looking at it, populating it in his mind with all the people he knew worked there. A thousand, someone had said. He wondered if Kelly had found a sergeant to head the strike force. Eventually, after checking his watch, he walked down Elizabeth Street until he found a cab.
As they drove along Anzac Parade, Troy directed the driver to turn left into Lang Road and then into the Entertainment Quarter complex. He told him to stop down the end and got out and went over to a car parked next to the wall of the Fox film studio. A man was standing by the vehicle and they shook hands. The guy, a reporter from the Daily Telegraph, ran his eyes over Troy, pausing briefly at the ankles: the tracksuit trousers were about ten centimetres too short, and he wasn’t wearing socks. Troy gave him a copy of the statement and then turned on his heel, brushing away questions. The reporter followed him down the road, pleading for more information about The Tower, but Troy ignored him. He got back into the cab and told the driver to return to Anzac Parade and turn left at Alison Road.
At the Shell service station he went into the shop and bought himself a bottle of orange juice. As he paid, he glanced outside at the parking spaces and saw a woman sitting in a car with the interior light on. He left the store and approached the car, and she got out.
They shook hands; her grip was firmer than that of the man he’d just met. She introduced herself as Sacha Powell of the Sydney Morning Herald, and he began to tell her about what had happened. He knew McIver had spoken to her once or twice and he mentioned this, hoping there was some goodwill there. Her eyes lit up behind their glasses and he figured he was on the right track. For a moment he was tempted to lay out the political situation for her, describe Siegert’s antagonism, the decision the commissioner would have to make in the morning. But he’d told himself as he was waiting in Hyde Park there was nothing to be gained by explaining all this—you didn’t want to give these people any hint of your motives, it would make them suspicious. So now he stuck to the plan.
‘Will Rogers support you?’ she said.
He wondered if she’d heard anything, wondered why she thought Rogers might be an issue. But she was probably just fishing.
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘He’s a slippery bastard.’
‘No comment.’
She smiled. ‘Why are you giving me this?’ She waved the pages at him. ‘Tell me or I won’t use it. I need context. Your media unit’s not saying anything at all.’
He felt nervous—no, more angry than nervous—about playing games like this.
He said, ‘Do you fucking want it or not?’
She put it behind her back and smiled again. He was beginning to dislike that smile. He wondered if anyone had ever told her it made her look like a shark.
‘I have to go,’ he said.
‘I need more.’
He didn’t think so.
For the rest of the drive home he felt a little wild, not sure of what he’d done. He recalled the feel of Powell’s cool skin when they’d shaken hands and ran his own hand along his thigh, as if to clean it. The fabric was unfamiliar and he looked down, for a moment forgetting what had happened to his own clothes.
When he got home Anna was asleep in Matt’s room. He looked at them both, then closed the door gently. He and she had had a good life together, once. They’d argued about it, when she first started sleeping in the other room, but not anymore. He wasn’t sure which was worse, the arguing or the not arguing. Right now, though, he didn’t really care. He went to bed and fell asleep immediately.
MONDAY
Six
Randall swung his Audi through the tunnels beneath the city and came up by the Automobile Club. He dropped down a gear and then opened up as he shot across Circular Quay, the bridge hanging high on his right. A minute later he was on it, zooming over its gentle rise in one of the few northbound lanes. They restricted them in the mornings, to allow for the flood of cars coming from the opposite direction into the city. There wasn’t much sign of the flood yet: Henry Wu was an early starter.
At North Sydney, Randall turned off the freeway and made a hard right, then dived into the warren of streets that blanketed the peninsulas of Neutral Bay and Mosman. His flat was not too far away; after the business at The Tower last night, he’d gone back to Kristin’s place in Edgecliff. The traffic running against him now, on the smaller roads, was heavier. He hoped to Christ he could finish with Henry quickly, get back onto the bridge before it clogged up. One of Randall’s definitions of happiness was Driving Against the Traffic. You lived like he had, saw enough cities, and every extra hour you spent staring at someone else’s tailpipe hurt.
But then, as Henry was presumably going to sack him, he wondered why he cared. When he’d called Wu last night to give him the news, he’d expected the fellow to be grateful for the heads-up. But it hadn’t been like that at all, and later Randall realised it was the publicity: something like this could end up hurting a building’s leasing potential. The Greens, the NIMBYs and all the other wackos were just waiting for the next scandal
so they could escalate their criticisms of the project. For some people, the fight over The Tower had become a fight for the city’s soul. They didn’t realise the building was there now, and there was nothing they could do about it. If they kept on demonising the place and made it difficult for Morning Star to find tenants, the whole city would suffer. The Tower was that big.
As security manager, Randall saw he might be considered ultimately responsible for the presence of the illegals—no matter how unfairly. Plus, the police had shut down the building site. You could see that Henry would be upset about that too.
Randall actually worked for Warton Constructions, and Henry Wu was their client, but he was very hands-on. Jack Taylor, Randall’s boss, called him the client from hell, but someone that big could come from anywhere he liked. Wu was obsessed with The Tower project— he’d even set up an office inside Morning Star to process invoices for materials. It was a highly unusual arrangement, apparently designed to introduce the company’s Chinese accounting staff to the way the construction industry in the West worked. The set-up was cumbersome and the language problems diabolical, and some of Warton’s managers had quit in frustration. They said Taylor should have refused Wu’s demands, but Randall knew it was not that easy. Morning Star was a booming company across Asia and around the Pacific, and it had established a relationship with Warton. Maintaining that relationship was more important than the details of any one job, no matter how big.
He’d spoken with Taylor last night as well, mainly about the discovery of the illegals. Jack had been mightily pissed off, and said that Tryon, the security company, was out, but he but hadn’t actually sacked Randall. Maybe he was leaving that job to the real boss. Maybe he was waiting until he found out just what had been going on in the basement of his building project. The problem was, Randall didn’t know. He didn’t have a fucking clue.
He pushed the car through a roundabout a little too fast, recovered as he came out, put his foot down, and then hit the brakes as a big four-wheel drive came out of nowhere, its snout appearing from the line of parked cars to his left. Luckily it stopped just in time, and he was able to swerve around it, narrowly avoiding a Jaguar coming the other way. As he cruised into the marina car park a few moments later, he told himself he’d done well, his heart rate unchanged despite the narrow escape. There was no doubt he was a cool driver. When he was in a car, everything seemed to come together for him. Not like last night on thirty-one. That bloody cop had been cool as ice—you could see he was a man without imagination. But he’d come through and handled it afterwards. Randall wished he was like that.
The Tower Page 5