He could see she wasn’t naturally like this; the coke was making her frolicsome. That was what it was for.
The mobile rang and he stared at it in surprise.
‘Randall?’
It was Eman Jamal, saying he’d just had a visit from Henry Wu.
Randall wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
‘It’s eleven o’clock,’ he said, panic running like electricity over the surface of his naked body. Pushing the girl’s head away.
‘How the fuck he knows where I live? Had this big bloke with him. Really big. I didn’t know whether to ring you.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
‘He never told me not to.’
Wu had insisted on being told Asaad’s address, and in the end Jamal had given it to him.
‘Why’d you do that?’
‘He’s a scary guy, mate, you know his rep.’
‘I’ve heard stuff,’ Randall said, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder, trying to push her away, but she wouldn’t go. ‘You think he’s, ah, violent? Potentially?’
‘Mate, you’ve said it yourself.’
Jamal blathered on, sounding eager to please. Randall realised he must have done a deal with Wu, given him Asaad’s address in return for keeping his company’s contract with The Tower. Cutting out the middle man. Which meant Henry didn’t trust him anymore.
‘Did he mention me?’
‘No mate.’
‘Did he ask you where you got Asaad’s address?’
‘I told him I’d only just got it from my people. Said I was about to ring you. Don’t worry, I didn’t drop you in it.’
What bullshit.
‘Cheers, buddy.’
‘You take care.’
Randall disconnected. This is it, he thought. The time when I find out what Henry Wu is capable of. The sweat was running down his sides now, so much of it he could feel the trickle of moisture. He looked out into the hallway, over towards the front door. Feeling scared again, it was eating away at him.
‘This is no good,’ the girl said, straightening up and doing the thing with her hair again. Her voice was slurred. ‘Percy doesn’t want to come out to play.’
He slapped her on the side of the face and she fell backwards and lay still on the carpet. He got up and stood over her, noticed her body was almost the same colour as the beige carpet. She looked serious and her cheek was red, but she wasn’t crying.
Looking up at him, she said, ‘I think it’s time for me to go home.’
WEDNESDAY
Twenty
There was a colour photograph of Margot Teresi on the whiteboard now. Troy looked at it as Little fidgetted and Stone ran over the state of the investigation with them. Stone had already told him that he was taking back control of the day-to-day management of the investigation. Troy had been relieved; maybe his complaint to Kelly had had some effect. He was still second in charge of the investigation, but now he could get out of the office more.
In other parts of the room, detectives worked the phones, putting together a picture of Margot’s life by calling every number listed in her phone records. On the board, Margot was still alive, rich, vivacious. Other pictures were up there too, including an artist’s image of the man who’d shot McIver, almost certainly a Pakistani.
‘Obviously having a victim ID is good,’ Stone said, ‘but we still don’t know an awful lot. We’re hoping the details of Margot’s life will lead us to an explanation of what happened. I’m seeing Ben Wilson; Nick and Conti are visiting this singer. We’re still chasing Jenny’s parents.’
Troy wasn’t paying much attention. Stone had an annoying habit of repeating himself, going over the known state of the investigation out loud, as though afraid he’d forget it otherwise. This contributed to the sense of things going around in circles, even when they weren’t.
He looked at his watch. He’d talked to Damon Blake’s agent yesterday evening, and learned the singer was in Brisbane, due back this morning. They had an appointment in his apartment later.
They’d discovered Bazzi had a bank account in a business name, and had been receiving three hundred dollars a week from a company owned by Margot Teresi. He’d withdrawn two hundred dollars every month, presumably to pay Asaad. Ten thousand dollars in cash had been withdrawn the morning after Bazzi disappeared. In Melbourne.
Little said, ‘What about the payments Sidorov must have been making to Bazzi?’
‘No sign of them yet,’ Stone said. ‘Bazzi’s gone cold on us. He could have had an escape plan. I’ve got Melbourne airport checking their cameras in case he flew out under another name. We’ve discovered Tryon missed Asaad’s connection to the Wolves. The Gangs Squad are talking to people, trying to find where they might be hiding him.’
‘We’ll never find him.’
‘You never know. If he was working on the side, not cutting his brothers in on some action, they mightn’t be happy with him.’
Moving on, Stone explained that a thorough search of Margot Teresi’s apartment had revealed nothing, except that she’d been obsessed by The Tower. There were hundreds of pages of photocopied newspaper stories and documents relating to it. Her Porsche was in the garage down below, as Jenny Finch had said it might be. Other police had visited the house on the river and found it empty. The investigation would now start to interview all of Margot’s friends and anyone else she’d seen recently.
Troy had some thoughts on this, and was about to voice them when Stone turned to Little and said, ‘Tell us about the illegals.’
‘Can we talk about the victim a bit more?’ said Troy.
Stone frowned. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘We need to push on. I want to know where we’re at with these people.’
It seemed to be another of his habits: jumping around mentally.
Little explained the illegals were being held in individual cells now, unable to talk to each other. Ruth had drawn up a timeline for each man, showing what he said he’d been doing for the whole of the evening on which Margot Teresi died. They’d been cross-checked, and today would be followed up with new interviews.
The illegals claimed they’d been exhausted, on Sunday night as every night, after working a twelve-hour day. They’d cooked and prayed, in some cases written letters or read for a while. It was possible to go for a walk in the car park, outside the area where they lived. It was also possible to use the stairwell to go to other floors, but Bazzi had caught two of them exploring the retail level a few weeks earlier and got violent.
‘The retail floor’s being fitted out, the level of activity’s increasing,’ Little explained. ‘He didn’t want them wandering around.’
‘The poor bastards must have been desperate for a bit of space,’ said Troy.
‘They were moved to other accommodation for a weekend’s break once a month, some sort of boarding house in Campsie. It’s a pigsty, but they were free to come and go. Visit the Opera House. Several visited the Thai prozzie we caught in Darlinghurst, Sally Tanuchit. Some of them have friends here. This seems to have been a well-run operation, where pretty much everyone benefited.’
‘Are we sure there were only twenty-one living there?’ said Stone.
‘We checked the stuff we picked up there. There were only twenty-one beds.’
Stone was looking at a spreadsheet. ‘Putting what we know together, we can’t account for Khan’s whereabouts for about half an hour that night, between eight fifteen and eight forty-five.’
Little said, ‘One bloke reckons Khan was a bit of a wanderer, he went upstairs some nights. Actually, the bloke wondered if he was a bit embarrassed about using the toilet in the camp, went off to have a piss in private.’
‘The time’s right,’ said Stone. ‘If they’d met on the retail level, the shooter could have given Khan the gun and kept going.’ Wherever it was he’d gone. ‘Let’s try Khan again this afternoon. We’ll have another go at Sidorov too.’
‘What about the construction company?’ said Troy. ‘Reckon t
hey knew this was going on?’
Stone shook his head. ‘Taylor swears blind he had no idea, and I believe him. There was nothing in it for them.’
‘Still, they don’t look good.’
‘Stupidity’s not a crime.’ Stone rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache. ‘You can see what might have happened. Margot was in the building pursuing this weird obsession her cousin told us about. She accidentally sees something she shouldn’t have, some indication of the illegals. She’s killed to keep her quiet. It was a big operation, a great deal of money involved, some nasty people.’
‘It was idiotic to kill her on-site,’ Troy said.
Stone shrugged. ‘She turned up in the middle of something, posed an immediate threat, someone panicked.’
It was a theory, Troy thought. ‘Why would Bazzi have let her onto the site, given he knew about the illegals?’
‘The place is huge. You’ve got your twenty-one workers tucked away right down in a car park, it’s night-time. You wouldn’t think there was much chance of her crossing paths with them.’
No you wouldn’t. Troy thought Stone’s theory possible, though unlikely. But for the moment he couldn’t think of a better one.
Later in the morning, when most of the detectives had gone out, Stone emerged from his office and told Troy he had to go to Parramatta to see Kelly and the media officer, to decide when to announce that the victim was Margot Teresi. They also had to get pictures of the shooter and his dead colleague out to the media.
Troy said, ‘Do you have to go to Parramatta to do this? It’s a five-minute phone conversation.’
‘Kelly wants me out there.’
‘Just say no.’
‘There are other things she wants to discuss.’ Suddenly Stone’s voice was angry. ‘After the way you handled Jenny Finch yesterday, you have no credibility as a critic of my management style. You need to refl ect on that. Make sure you take Conti with you to see Blake. Do you think you can do that?’
Troy felt himself turning red. After Stone left the room, he sat staring at his computer screen for the next five minutes. Finally, he started to read through the new notes and witness statements on [email protected]. They were building a picture of Margot’s life, her activities in the days before she died. There were no breakthroughs, no startling anomalies jumping out of the pile of information, but the investigation was acquiring a shape and substance. There was something there for his subconscious to work on.
The most important new information was the report on the CCTV he’d obtained from the bank, which had been viewed by Conti and Johnson. They’d compiled a list of everyone going in and out of The Tower on Sunday evening. It showed Margot entering alone at 6 pm, an hour before she landed on the roof of the police car. Troy wondered what she’d been doing for that hour. From what Jenny Finch had told him, he assumed Margot had treated the visits almost ceremonially, perhaps as a way of honouring her parents. Maybe she’d gone up to an empty floor and just sat there.
He looked again at the list of people who’d entered the building that night. There hadn’t been much happening after the security guards changed shift at 4 pm, until just after 7 pm when Margot landed and the police activity began. The notes indicated that two of the people seen entering on the CCTV had not had their names recorded on the guard’s list. One was Margot Teresi. The other was a man who’d come in at 6.05 pm. Conti and Johnson had called him Mr A, and there was a note saying they’d shown his picture to Inspector Harmer and several of the guards. No one could identify him.
Troy examined the photograph carefully. It showed a tall man, probably in his early sixties, although you couldn’t see most of his face. He seemed to be bald on top, but it might be the way the light was falling in the photo. He didn’t look like a construction worker. Troy picked up the phone and called Randall. The engineer answered immediately.
‘You’re still employed?’ Troy said.
‘For the moment. You too?’
‘Sure.’ He wondered what Randall meant, then figured he must have given away more about his frustration with Stone than he remembered. ‘Can I show you some photos?’
He explained what he wanted, and Randall said he could visit the police station anytime. Troy looked at his watch and asked him to call by later in the morning. It was time to pay a visit to Damon Blake.
The singer lived at the massive old finger wharf that jutted out into a bay next to the Botanic Gardens. When they arrived, Conti leapt out of the car while Troy stayed seated, reaching into his pocket for a piece of gum. His hand was on it when he recalled what Kelly had said about the chewie. He looked at Conti, standing eagerly on the footpath. She dressed well, didn’t smoke, didn’t chew. You had to think about these things. He took his hand out of his pocket, empty.
‘This is where my grandparents landed,’ she said as they walked inside the big building. Back in the nineties the wharf had been renovated with enormous effort. Now, like so many of the city’s old buildings, it housed an upmarket hotel, as well as a complex of expensive restaurants and apartments. All traces of history seemed to have been purged.
The door of Damon’s apartment was opened by a young woman of considerable beauty. Troy was torn between looking at her and the striking view of the city skyline over her shoulder. The woman said her name was Donna, and took them into a vast lounge room. She was tall and blonde and curvaceous, and had long red fingernails. She moved slowly, demonstrating a profound lack of interest in the two detectives.
The room was big and there were sliding glass doors along one side, looking out on a large balcony and then towards the Gardens and the tops of the city’s towers over the trees. In the foreground, large white boats sat motionless in the sunshine. Conti looked at Troy and raised her eyebrows.
Donna called out and a man appeared immediately. In contrast to his girlfriend, Blake was keen and focused, beaming his personality at Troy and then Conti, as they turned away from the view. He was in his late twenties, average height and build, handsome but not overly so when his face was in repose. What made him different, Troy realised as he watched Blake working on Conti, was the way he moved. He moved like a dancer, and there was an extraordinary assurance there that insisted you look at him. Troy couldn’t see how it worked, but the effect was undeniable.
‘I’m afraid we have some bad news,’ Troy said. ‘It’s about Margot Teresi. She died on Sunday night.’
Blake staggered backwards. He stared at them as though he couldn’t quite believe what he’d heard. It was almost cartoonish, yet Troy suspected it was sincere enough.
‘Was it in the car?’ Blake said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘She drives like a maniac.’
Donna, who seemed to have been brought out of herself by the news, said, ‘They’re from the Homicide Squad, Damon. Poor Margot.’
Conti said, ‘You knew her?’
‘Sure, we were all mates.’
Conti opened her mouth but closed it again. She looked at Troy, who related what they knew about Margot’s death. He took it slowly, watching the singer’s response. Blake seemed to be in shock.
‘We need to ask you both a few questions,’ he said gently.
Blake stared at him as though he didn’t understand the words.
‘I’m sorry to have to do this right now,’ Troy went on, ‘but you might be able to help us work out what happened.’
Blake nodded, and Conti murmured something to Donna and the two women went out of the room.
‘When did you last see her?’ Troy said as Blake sat down.
The singer was trembling and upset, and Troy realised he was nervous himself: the interview with Jenny Finch came back to him, his failure, and his legs went weak. He looked around, sunk down onto a sofa.
Blake shook his head. ‘We saw her last week.’ He named a club that Troy had heard of but never visited. ‘We didn’t talk, just nodded. We went out together for a year or so, but that finished six months ago.’
‘Why did i
t fi nish?’
‘She finished it. Margot did.’
There were tears in his eyes now.
‘Did you still see her socially?’
‘Sure. We were at a dinner party about ten days ago, at Miranda Edwards’.’
Troy recognised the name. They’d discovered from their work on the phone records that Edwards had been Margot’s best friend; Johnson and Bergman were interviewing her that morning.
Damon added, ‘We had a good talk, Margot seemed fine. She and Donna get on, it’s all very civilised.’
‘You visited her apartment on Sunday afternoon?’
‘Miranda’s?’
‘Margot’s.’
The singer looked steadily at Troy, not lifting a hand to the tears running down his cheeks, and shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Someone saw you in the street outside.’
Blake rubbed his cheek. He hadn’t shaved and there were a few pimples around his mouth. Troy wondered how he dealt with that when he was performing. There must be some kind of makeup. Or maybe the pimples weren’t usually there.
Blake said, ‘I go for long walks around the city. The street recharges me, you know? Sometimes I walk by Margot’s place.’
‘Did you argue when you split up?’
‘Sure. But it’s like, I haven’t been dumped in a long time. It probably did me good.’
He gave a smile of patently false modesty. Troy stared at him and wondered how it must be, to have a life where every conversation was like giving an interview to a magazine. The question was whether there was anything else there, or if this was what Blake was. Troy suspected there was more, and he talked gently for another five minutes, trying to find a crack, but Blake stuck to his story and there were no inconsistencies.
Troy said, ‘Do you think Margot was happy?’
‘Very much so. She was one of the most centred people I know.’
‘Centred?’
‘Women are much stronger than men, don’t you think?’
‘Her parents died not that long ago.’
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