Gun Control

by Peter Corris

  She was getting wound up again and I was determined not to react.

  ‘What sort of people do you mean, Cathy?’

  ‘You were an officer in the army, weren’t you? There’s a photo of you up in that room with a woman I take to be your mother. You’re all dolled up as a lieutenant and she looks that proud. And you’re a friend of Frank Parker. Well, Colin was a wonderful, honourable man and he . . .’

  ‘He’s not dead, Cathy.’

  She stopped in mid-sentence. ‘Oh, God, this is a bloody nightmare.’

  ‘All I meant was, how could he acquire all this intelligence from the position he held in the operation?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I hope you and Colin took precautions when you talked about this.’

  ‘Of course we did. Some of our colleagues sussed what was going on between us and when we kept ourselves to ourselves more than normally they thought it was just that. Sex. Colin didn’t want to tell me anything but you can’t maintain a relationship like that, can you?’

  ‘No, you’re right. He didn’t mention your name but he said there was someone else. I got the feeling it was someone he needed to protect. I thought he was going into hiding when he took off from here. Why would he go to your place when people knew about you two and he’d obviously put himself in someone’s firing line?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He must’ve put something there he needed. Or something that would endanger you. Any idea what?’

  Although it was early she was already close to emotional exhaustion from all the permutations. She shrugged. ‘Christ knows.’

  ‘We’re going to have to find out,’ I said. ‘Because I doubt Christ is going to tell us.’

  13

  Cathy said she’d had a cryptic text message from Hawes, probably while he was still at my place.

  ‘I couldn’t contact him all day yesterday,’ she said. ‘So I called in sick this morning. I went to the doctor’s to get a certificate, and when I got home I found Colin . . . the way he was.’

  I reminded her about Hawes’s note and told her about the Greenhall case and how it had involved me with cops, Hawes and now her. She asked to see the note again and read it several times, almost reverently.

  ‘He trusted you,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t easy for him to do with all this shit going on. I’ll trust you, too.’

  ‘Good. Now we have to assume Colin was spotted somewhere and followed to your place and that’s where they attacked him, right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘We’ll assume they thought he went there for comfort and not because he’d put something vital there. I’m guessing he meant to pick up whatever it was and go quickly, maybe leaving you some kind of message.’

  ‘So maybe they think they’ve given him the signal to pull his head in. They don’t know what he’s got and they don’t know how much he’d told you.’

  ‘Have to hope that’s right and that they’re not after you.’

  ‘I don’t think they would be. Cops’re chauvinistic bastards. A short-arsed chick with small tits and thick ankles wouldn’t rank with them much.’

  This was encouraging; she was toughening up by the minute.

  ‘So it’s somewhere between possibly and probably safe for us to search your place for whatever Colin hid there.’

  ‘Between possible and probable’s close enough for me. Have we got any allies, Cliff?’

  It was a good question. ‘There’s Frank Parker, who you seem to know about. I don’t know quite how he could help. He did say there was a shake-up in the force coming but that’s all he said. I’m going to have to talk to Timothy Greenhall; he’s the rich client I mentioned. I need to know more about him but you saw the note—Colin implies he’s involved with the GCU. Greenhall needs to be told that this might have something to do with his son’s death. There must be more he could tell us. And then there’s this guy.’

  I took the card Paul had given me from my wallet and held it so we could both look at it. The card was heavy duty and elegantly embossed. It announced Arthur Soames-Wetherell, SC, and gave his address as Pennyfeather Chambers in Martin Place, with fax and phone numbers and an email address.

  ‘Soames-Wetherell,’ Cathy said in a plummy accent. ‘Pennyfeather . . . and this is a bikie’s brief?’

  ‘He’s no ordinary bikie,’ I said.

  Cathy’s flat was in Stanmore, close to the station. It was in a small block of four, plain looking from the outside but solid, worth a bit and appreciating because of its position, and I wondered if she owned it.

  ‘You’re wondering if I own it,’ she said as we pulled up outside in a taxi. Both our cars were well known by the police and mine by the Bravados. We’d probably need replacements—another call on Greenhall’s pockets.

  ‘I wonder about everything,’ I said.

  ‘I do, thanks to my dead mum, okay?’

  She was touchy and needed careful handling; stress was causing her to have mood swings, not the best thing in a partner, if that’s what she’d become. We went up a narrow cement path past a scrap of lawn to a set of steps leading to a small porch.

  ‘Front ground-floor flat,’ Cathy said, ‘no view, noisiest and cheapest until an airport noise program double-glazed us for free.’

  She used a key to open the door into a short passage giving access to flats one and two. Another key opened her security screen and front door. Ordinary keys, a breeze for anyone half expert. I held her back, took the .38 from its holster and went cautiously in without the theatrics you see on the screen. If someone serious is waiting for you in a situation like that it doesn’t matter how many hands you have on your gun; if you’re not quick you’re dead.

  All clear. She pushed past me and pointed to the signs of Colin Hawes’s struggle—a broken chair, displaced books, a broken vase and spots and streaks of blood on the rug.

  ‘Did they teach you search technique at the Academy?’

  ‘Yes and I was good, found every bloody thing they’d hidden. I’ll take the bedroom and you start here. Apart from that and the kitchen there’s only the little room I use as an office and the bathroom and toilet.’

  ‘What about the floor?’

  ‘Plastic fake wood veneer over a slab.’

  ‘Manhole?’

  ‘In the small room. Bit obvious, wouldn’t you think?’

  I shrugged and started in on the living room. I worked the chairs and couch over, feeling the upholstery and probing the padding. Nothing. The two bookshelves were stacked with hardbacks and paperbacks ranging from psychology to chick lit. The dust told me they hadn’t been disturbed for a while. I reflected that if Hawes had come here to recover something and there’d been time for him to be attacked, his hiding place must have been somewhere it’d take a while to get to.

  There were three pictures on the walls—a Turner print, a moody framed black and white photograph of a beach somewhere and one of a Police Academy graduating class. Hawes, one of the tallest, was in the back row; Cathy, one of the shortest, was in the front. I took them down and investigated the backings with the result I expected. None.

  After a bit more moving of ornaments and unscrewing of light fittings with no result, I stood in the middle of the room and tried to think. What would I do if I’d hidden something in my girlfriend’s flat and came to retrieve it? If I thought I was safe for a while? First I’d probably have a drink. But nobody hides things in refrigerators anymore, if they ever did. Then what? It’s the twenty-first century. I’d think computer.

  I went into the small room that would catch the morning sun at the front of the flat. A big blank computer screen stared at me from a desk. There was barely room for the desk and the swivel chair; a lot of the space was taken up by a three-tiered shelf crammed with CDs and DVDs.

  I went out to the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out a stubby of beer, popped the cap and took a drink while leaning against the clean-as-a-whistle sink. Cathy must have heard me moving around be
cause she came into the room with her frustrated-and-it’s-all-your-fault face on.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Cathy,’ I said, ‘how well d’you know your movies and music?’

  It took quite a while with our excitement mounting, but the result was a big letdown. There was nothing out of place, nothing concealed. Cathy swore and looked at me. I swore too.

  ‘I’ve been so dumb,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t hide anything here to expose you to danger.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘Where did he go seeking shelter from the storm?’

  ‘Your place.’

  We found the disks in a batch I kept in the spare room. Music I thought I’d like and didn’t—a Guy Clark tribute album, a Ray Charles duet effort, some inferior Merle Haggard and a few others. The disks were in a case with something written on the spine in Italian. It wasn’t Mario Lanza or even Pavarotti.

  We went back up to the spare room, which doubles as my ‘home office’, and I booted up the computer.

  Cathy inserted one of the disks and the message that came up required a password.

  ‘Do you know his password?’

  ‘Of course. You’re obviously not married now, but were you once?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did you conceal things from your wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Look away.’

  She was in charge now and I did as she asked. She typed in the password.

  ‘It’s audio,’ she said and hit the appropriate key.

  ‘Is this a secure line, Chas?’ a male voice said.

  ‘No names, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘So it’s not secure?’

  ‘It’s fucking secure, don’t worry about that, but I’m worried about you.’

  ‘I told you at the time why I did it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. But this next thing . . .’

  ‘It’s necessary.’

  ‘I wonder. I fucking wonder.’

  ‘He’s ratshit. He’ll talk under pressure. D’you want a meeting?’

  ‘I hate fucking meetings.’

  ‘Didn’t always. You loved them, mate.’

  Laughter.

  ‘Kill it,’ I said.

  ‘Why? There’s more.’

  ‘I bet there is. Lots more. But this isn’t the time or place to listen to it.’

  She ejected the disk. ‘Who was ratshit?’

  ‘Who knows? Dusty Miller, probably, or someone we don’t even know about.’

  ‘Your client, for example?’

  On the attack again, she was remorseless.

  ‘That’s our next port of call anyway. He’s someone who might not want to talk to us. You and that disk could be useful.’

  She put the disk back in the case and dropped it into the shoulder bag she carried and challenged me to object. I shrugged and drank the dregs of the beer I’d opened on the way in.

  ‘Talk to people who don’t want to talk. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Do you enjoy it?’

  ‘Sometimes, usually after the event.’

  ‘Mr Enigmatic,’ she said. ‘Where’re we going?’

  ‘Where the money is. We’re going to need some.’

  I phoned Greenhall’s factory and finally got through to him after several attempts by minions to fend me off.

  ‘You say it’s important,’ Greenhall said without preamble.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘What have you found out?’

  ‘Too much and not enough. I have to see you and I mean now.’

  ‘Now? I’ve got a hundred things . . .’

  ‘Nothing as important as this, Tommy.’

  ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘I called you Tommy. Want the full moniker? How about Tommy Greenfall, pistol shooter?’

  Silence at the end of the line, then, ‘Okay, where and when?’

  ‘My office as soon as you can make it.’

  He had one last try. ‘I don’t like your tone.’

  ‘I don’t like using it. I’ll be waiting.’

  I cut the call and got ready to use the phone again. Cathy stopped me.

  ‘I want to check the hospital.’

  I handed her the phone and she rang the number. All she could say was things like ‘Yes, I understand,’ and ‘Thank you’.

  ‘No change,’ she mumbled, handing me the phone. Then she pulled herself together and looped the strap of her bag over her shoulder. ‘Do you always talk to your clients like that?’

  ‘Clients in my game are like witnesses in yours,’ I said. ‘Sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile.’

  ‘Deep,’ she said.

  She wasn’t easy to get along with. I wondered how Hawes had managed in the past and how, and if, he would again.

  14

  Another taxi, another tense silence between us. I ushered her into the office. She looked sceptically at the spartan fittings.

  ‘A one-man band,’ she said.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Where’s he going to sit?’

  ‘Good point.’

  There was a storeroom on this level where the various tenants kept things they didn’t need or want in their offices. I went down the corridor to it, unlocked the door and fossicked for a chair of some kind. I pulled out a well-used folding number that would have to do. I carried it back to the office where it immediately became unnecessary because Constable-on-sick-leave Cathy Carter had gone.

  They made a fine pair, Colin and Cathy, good at disappearing when it suited them. She couldn’t go far while Hawes was in hospital and her staying with me suggested she didn’t have any close friends, but maybe that was wrong and she just stuck because I was in the mix of what was happening. I tried to remember whether she’d reacted with recognition to the recorded voices or to the mention of ‘Chas’ but I couldn’t recall.

  I stood by the window looking down into the street and trying to guess which of the cars that appeared was likely to belong to Greenhall. After a few wrong choices I gave up. Eventually a black Audi that had circled the block cracked it for a parking space. Greenhall, wearing a suit but no tie, got out and crossed the street quickly. He had the same stiff I-can-cope walk as the last time I’d seen him.

  Purposeful footsteps in executive leather on the stairs. I held the door open for him. He glanced at the fold-up chair leaning against a filing cabinet.

  ‘Expecting someone else?’

  ‘No, that was for you. Someone was sitting where you can sit now. She left unexpectedly.’

  Uninterested, he nodded and sat. ‘So you now know more about me than you did.’

  I went back behind the desk, took out Hawes’s note and slid it across to him. He hooked on a pair of rimless glasses and read it. ‘Who wrote this?’

  The only way to answer was to give him a summarised version of what had happened since I’d accepted his case. I held back some details for their possible shock value. I included the speculation that he didn’t believe his son had suicided. He listened in silence but his nod confirmed that point.

  He pointed to his chair. ‘Was this for whoever wrote the note?’

  ‘No, he’s in hospital fighting for his life. Now you’re going to tell me your real reason for hiring me or I’m going to drop the whole thing.’

  ‘No you won’t. You didn’t mention Frank Parker by name but I know about you and him. You’ll get his help, for sure, and your reputation is for persistence.’

  Jesus, I thought. Another one on about me and Frank.

  ‘Not necessarily on the first point,’ I said. ‘And I only persist when I feel I can trust my client at least halfway, so I still want some answers.’

  Greenhall tucked his chin down towards his chest and I noticed for the first time that his hair was thinning on top. Like a lot of men in that condition he avoided letting people see the top of his head but his distress had lowered his guard. He sighed and, again a first for him, fidgeted in his chair. Actions can speak lou
der than words: I could see now that he was basically a very secretive man and it pained him to tell the whole truth.

  ‘It begins back when I got my start. You obviously know about the pistol-tampering business. Well, I’m a strong character, I think, at least I was then. I put all that behind me. I changed my name, did the degree and I had ideas, great ideas.

  ‘I needed start-up capital. I couldn’t go for a loan because the other stuff was too fresh and any enquiry would be likely to turn it up. I knew a couple of cops from my shooting days and you didn’t have to be a genius to know that they were bent and greedy. In my university holidays I’d worked for a number of big firms as a sort of intern, although we didn’t use the word back then. I was doing economics as well as engineering and I was useful in lots of ways. I could see how these places could be robbed blind. Shit . . . I can’t believe . . .’

  He was sweating now. I slid the box of tissues across to him and he mopped his face.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not trying to make excuses for what I did, but these companies weren’t squeaky clean themselves. They were hiding money and laundering it and their payroll protection arrangements were a joke. I helped the police stage two payroll robberies and one break-in that netted them a lot of money and then I helped the companies cover up the losses with . . . creative accounting. Things were a lot looser then—no ICAC, dodgy auditors, fat cats in the ATO who knew bugger-all about trusts and offshore accounts. You get the picture.’

  I nodded. ‘This is Nugan Hand Bank days.’

  ‘A bit later, quite a bit, but same sort of thing. Anyway, I got a . . . commission from various sources and that’s how I got my start. I should’ve said that I modified some of the pistols for the hold-up guys—removed serial numbers and changed them so they could never be traced to anyone if they should turn up. One did get used and was dumped by a rogue cop, and the examination into it led nowhere.’

  ‘All that exposed you to some pretty dangerous people.’

  ‘I know, so I took out insurance.’

  ‘Insurance?’

  ‘I have technical skills you wouldn’t believe. I taped and filmed some of the meetings and discussions.’