Troy looked at him dubiously. ‘You’re sure about this?’
‘Believe me, I can almost use the arm again. How do you think I got my trousers on?’ He started doing up his buttons, clumsily. ‘The greatest risk now is infection, hospitals are full of it. That’s why I’m leaving.’
McIver had briefly studied mathematics at university many years ago, and was a keen student of risk analysis. This gave him some unusual opinions, but Troy knew there was no point in challenging them.
‘Where’s your bag?’ he said.
‘I’m travelling light. If you’d just turf the fresh fruit out of that plastic, you can empty the top drawer into it. Then we’re out of here. Do you reckon it’s too early for a drink?’
‘I’d say so.’
McIver grabbed the get-well cards that were sitting on the windowsill and pushed them clumsily into the bag. His left arm didn’t seem to be working at all well, but he was cheerful. He said, ‘The thing I’ve learned about alcohol in the bloodstream these past few days, your body doesn’t top it up automatically.’
‘Is that right?’
‘You have to do it yourself.’
As they passed the nurses’ station, the sergeant said, ‘Jon McIver releasing himself on his own recognisance.’
The nurse frowned. ‘You’re still at risk and I want you back in your bed immediately.’ Looking at Troy she said, ‘You’re a bad man for helping him.’
McIver said, ‘Detective Troy is helping me escape so we can catch some really bad men.’
‘I’ll have to report this, you know.’
There was probably a law against helping someone leave hospital, but Troy didn’t care. He looked at the clock behind the nurse, and saw the morning briefing would be well underway by now. His mobile was turned off.
As they walked to Troy’s car, McIver said, ‘Have you noticed how nurses like cops?’
‘The younger ones do,’ Troy agreed, thinking of Anna. ‘Then they grow up.’
But the sergeant was not listening, he was off on one of his riffs. Getting out of hospital had lifted his spirits. ‘They like order, and we maintain order. And people who like order think about threats to it a lot. So do we. Basically, we’re both anxious types of people who need reassurance.’
Troy grunted. He didn’t see this in Anna and himself.
McIver said, ‘The one back there, did you notice the name on her tag?’
It had been Sue Ann, but Troy wasn’t going to say so.
‘She must be twenty years younger than you,’ he said.
‘I’ve been thinking lately I need a younger woman. They can be more forgiving.’
‘Not necessarily.’
McIver frowned as they left the hospital, as though the matter was of considerable importance. ‘You have to choose carefully, too.’
When they reached the car, Troy said he’d take him home.
‘It’s all right,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ll come into the city with you.’
They got into the vehicle and Troy started the engine. It had been a good day so far, but you couldn’t expect it to last forever.
He said, ‘You’re not well enough to go to work.’
‘Just take me to your leader, and leave the rest to me.’
They set off, and Troy concentrated on finding his way through the heavy traffic. McIver had his eyes closed and was looking pale.
As Troy drove, he told McIver about Damon Blake. The singer had scratch marks on his upper back, and his DNA had been taken to compare with the skin scrapings found beneath Margot’s fingernails. Then there was the union complaint about Stone. And the handbag.
‘So you didn’t have to search for it after all,’ said McIver.
Troy realised he’d forgotten to cancel the morning’s search of the park after Randall had brought the bag in last night. He felt a pang of guilt. If he’d gone in for the briefing, he would have realised and been able to stop it then. Now it was too late.
They drove in silence. Eventually McIver opened his eyes and looked around. ‘This is not the way to the city.’ He didn’t sound angry, just interested. But it was a dangerous kind of interest.
‘I’m taking you home,’ Troy said. ‘What you do then is up to you.’
‘I hope we’re not about to have a serious disagreement, Constable.’
We have to at some point, Troy thought. ‘You’re still a sick man, and I’m taking you home. If I brought you into work they’d sack me.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me pointing this out, but you don’t seem to be firing on all cylinders yourself.’
‘I’m taking you home.’
‘If you do that, I’ll sack you.’
‘You can’t sack me.’
‘Wanna make a bet?’
As they drove to Gladesville, McIver abused him, without pause and expertly. It was done with a light touch and only gradually did Troy realise McIver was quite serious. He also realised he didn’t care. Today he felt different about things: better.
McIver said they would never work together again and reflected sourly on Troy’s lack of loyalty. For a while Troy shut him out, but then he listened, thinking he might learn something. He said a few things himself, but it was just like throwing petrol on a fire. McIver was more angry than he’d expected. Maybe he should have taken him to work, but it was too late now.
Finally they reached Gladesville. Troy stopped and they both fell silent for a moment.
‘This is your last chance,’ McIver said, his eyes glinting with fury. ‘I’d say you’re in enough trouble as it is.’
For a moment, Troy wavered. But then he wondered what McIver would have done in this situation when he’d been thirty-two.
‘Get out of the car, Sarge,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ve both got things to do.’
He got back onto Victoria Road and was soon stuck in traffic, so he checked his phone messages. There were several: one from Randall saying what a good time he’d had last night, one from Georgie, and others from acquaintances interstate who’d only just heard about the incident on the weekend. There was nothing from Stone. As the traffic ground its way east, he called a few of them, using the hands-free phone.
After his third conversation the phone rang. It was Randall.
‘Big night?’ he said.
‘Pretty good, thanks. It was an interesting place.’
‘I mean afterwards. Did you call that number?’
‘No,’ Troy said, examining the car up ahead. ‘I didn’t.’
‘You can tell me.’
‘Maybe some other night.’
‘You looked to me like a man in no mood to go home.’
He wondered for a moment if Randall knew, the way he was going on. But he couldn’t.
‘What about yourself? Did you call the magic number?’
After a pause, Randall laughed. ‘If you’re not going to show me yours, I’m not going to show you mine.’
They talked some more, agreed to have lunch soon. Hung up.
It took forty minutes to get back to the office. When he arrived, he parked and got out of the car, wondering what sort of reception he was going to get from Stone. If he was there. He let his anger about the investigation rise up, washing away any sense of guilt for his own behaviour over the past few days. A young woman came around the corner from the street, brown and wearing a blue singlet and Adidas track pants. She was moving gracefully but seemed preoccupied. It was Susan Conti.
‘Nick,’ she said when she saw him.
She’d been to a gym not far away, and he told her about his own exercise, the running and swimming. They slowed down, and stopped before they reached the door.
They discussed the investigation and she described her interview with the Thai prostitute who worked at the brothel where one of the Pakistanis had gone on Sunday night. Immigration and someone from a United Nations agency had been there too, and Conti was fired up with details of sex trafficking.
‘This woman paid fifteen thousand dollars to
the trafficker to come here. Now she has to work it off.’
‘Like the men,’ he said, thinking of the illegals.
She bridled. ‘It’s different. They’re not working as prostitutes.’
She sounded disappointed in him. If only she knew, he thought. He asked about the morning’s briefing.
‘The sergeant didn’t seem on top of things, exactly. He seems like a good bloke, but he’s not a natural organiser.’
Her brown eyes were flashing.
‘Oh well.’
‘He’s not what we expected. I’ve heard a lot about your blokes, elite squad and all that.’
Don’t get me started, he thought. But with his own failure to call off the search for the handbag, he could hardly criticise Stone.
She said, ‘I’d always thought I wanted to work in Homicide one day. But you’re not a happy family, are you?’
He decided to change the subject. ‘It’s a hell of a building, isn’t it? The Tower.’
Here too Conti had her own opinion. ‘My brother’s an engineer. He says it’s a stupid design, because the structure takes up too much of the floor space.’
‘I would have thought the Empire State Building was a good model?’
‘The ratios all change because it’s so much bigger. There’s an engineer called Baker my brother worked with in Seoul, he invented something called the buttressed core. Like a centre with three fins sticking out. Most of the really big new towers use it.’
She was talkative when she got going.
‘Don’t tell Sean Randall,’ he said.
‘I think he’d know. This is a good one for him to be sitting out as an engineer.’
‘It’s not going to win any awards for design?’ Troy said.
Conti shook her head. ‘Not for security, either.’
Maybe she had a sense of humour after all.
They went into the police station.
‘Any luck with the tunnel?’ he said.
‘We know someone at the council must have given them the key. We just can’t prove it. Yet.’ She pushed open the door to the women’s change rooms and went inside.
The office was busy, with half a dozen detectives at work on the phones. Troy looked through the glass panel at the front of Stone’s office and saw him there, talking to a woman whose face he couldn’t see, but who might be Kelly.
‘G’day, Nick.’
He turned around. It was Danny Chu, sitting at a spare desk and peering at the computer screen. He stood up and they shook hands.
‘Back from Taree?’
Chu nodded. ‘We made an arrest. I was looking forward to a break, but the super brought me in this morning.’
‘We could do with some help. You’re looking good.’
Chu was a balding man of medium height, with an easy air to him. He looked as unlike the common idea of the tough detective as it was possible to be, and Troy knew just how effectively he could make this work for him.
‘You know someone’s making a doco about The Tower?’ Chu said.
‘I believe so.’
‘They talk to you?’
Troy looked at him carefully. ‘You are kidding.’
‘I’ve got a friend in the industry. Apparently, Siegert spoke with them. Before all this happened.’
‘On camera?’
Chu nodded. ‘The word is Rogers wanted him to. So he said some nice things. Nothing too effusive, but he was pleasant about the project.’ Chu snorted with laughter. He was one for the gossip.
Troy said, ‘Rogers wouldn’t be too happy about that now.’
‘I’ve heard they might be calling the doco The Tower of Babel.’
‘Don’t even joke about it.’
Troy glanced around the room, trying to catch Ruth’s eye. He wanted to know if they’d had any response to last night’s media appeal. But she was hunched over her desk, not looking at him.
He called out, ‘Anything on Mr A?’
Someone said, ‘Eighteen calls, all of them useless.’
It was disappointing. He started to tell Chu about Mr A. As he was talking, Stone emerged from his office and crossed the room. He was staring at Troy, his expression blank.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘The superintendent would like a word. Now.’
Troy saw that Chu was staring at the floor.
When he got to the office, Kelly had moved to the far side of the desk, to Stone’s chair, and she told him to close the door. She was wearing a brown jacket today with traces of gold in it, but it was her skin that held his gaze. She was still attractive but he couldn’t help comparing her with the woman he’d been with last night, seeing the creases in Kelly’s throat and the wrinkles around her eyes. One day he would be old too; you really did have to seize the moment. He looked into Kelly’s eyes and saw they were glinting: she was more real than the other woman, more dangerous.
‘How are you, Nick?’
‘Okay.’
‘You’re not really, are you?’
‘I’m just fine,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady.
‘Your wife has left two messages for me complaining about bringing you back to work.’
Jeez, he thought. ‘I’m sorry about that, but this morning she said—’ ‘It’s not appropriate behaviour, Nick.’
‘Have you talked to her?’
‘Of course not.’ She went on about it, using the term appropriate behaviour again, as though it meant anything. At first Troy felt angry with Anna, but soon he saw it was not his wife he was upset with but Kelly. There was a kind of love in Anna’s actions. He was about to defend her when Kelly abruptly moved on.
‘You’ve complained to me about Sergeant Stone’s running of this investigation. Your phone call to me yesterday was concerning. I know you’ve expressed similar views to him. I came in this morning to the briefing, to see how things were for myself. Imagine my surprise when I found you hadn’t even turned up.’
‘Ma’am—’
Her voice became formal. ‘I’ve considered this, and decided your complaints are unreasonable and indicate that you’re having ongoing problems working with Sergeant Stone. This has led to problems with your own performance, problems I haven’t seen in your work before.’
He stood staring at her, trying to grasp the significance of what she was saying.
‘Your failure to reinterview the illegal immigrants on Tuesday as Stone requested, your failure take someone with you to interview Jennifer Finch, the unnecessary search for the handbag you arranged for this morning—which Sergeant Stone called off, fortunately.’ Most of the details were right, but the way she was putting them together it sounded as though she were describing someone else, some idiot. She went on, ‘I believe this is threatening the effectiveness of the investigation into Margot Teresi’s death. This morning, as a senior member of the team, you should have attended the briefing here. Instead, you visited McIver after Stone specifically directed you not to do that during work hours.’ She waved a bit of paper at him. Troy could see Stone’s signature on it. ‘You don’t deny you did this?’
‘No, but—’
‘I might say that direction was given on my instructions, although there was no need for you to know that at the time. Sergeant Stone was your superior officer.’
‘Ma’am,’ he began, ‘the union—’, but she went on, speaking over the top of him.
‘As a result of all this, I’m removing you from the investigation. You have the rest of the day to brief your replacement, Danny Chu. You’ll report to Parramatta tomorrow.’
For a moment he couldn’t speak. He wondered why she was overreacting like this. There was a roaring in his head, and then it struck him. Bloody McIver. He’d said he’d do something, and he hadn’t been joking. He’d talked to Kelly on the phone, while Troy had been driving in from Gladesville. Otherwise, she wouldn’t even know they’d met that morning. This was bad. The loss of whatever he’d had with Mac was even more painful than being taken off the investigation.
&nb
sp; Kelly said, ‘Nick, this is not a reprimand. It’s partly my fault, I shouldn’t have brought you back to work so soon.’ She rubbed her cheek. ‘Tell your wife that, will you? Tell her I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I’ve been so busy.’
‘I’ll tell her.’
‘She must be quite a woman, the second message was feisty.’
Troy nodded, incapable of speech.
‘Do you have anything to say at this point?’
He had a lot to say, but he wasn’t sure how rational he’d be right now. He was proud of Anna. It occurred to him that Kelly might be right, that he hadn’t been acting normally, but the thought was obliterated by a flash of anger at McIver. Shaking his head, he left the room.
As he made his way to his desk, Little called out, waving some papers in his direction.
Troy said, ‘I’ve just been taken off the investigation.’
All around him, people stopped working for a moment. There was silence, everyone aware of Kelly still in the office. Gradually the sounds of their efforts resumed. Life went on.
‘Why’s that?’ said Little.
Troy shrugged. The anger was building, he could feel it pressing on his chest. Maybe he would pay McIver a visit later on, have it out with him. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.’
He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out the few personal items there, putting them into his backpack. Little was talking to Chu nearby, but he found it hard to concentrate on what they were saying. The thought that he would have nothing more to do with finding Margot Teresi’s killer was distressing. This was the most important investigation he’d ever been involved in. It seemed to him, absurdly, that there ought to be some regulation to prevent Kelly taking him off it. But there wasn’t, of course.
Chu said, ‘Can we go through this from the beginning? Maybe go out and have a coffee?’
Troy hardly heard him. He turned to Little. ‘You were going to speak to Jenny Finch’s doctor. Did that happen?’
‘She’d been in and out of the Sydney Clinic for years.’ Little looked at Chu and then back at Troy. ‘Tried to kill herself three times before. Her doctor thought moving in with Margot was good at first, but lately he wasn’t so sure.’
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