by Luke Preston
Bishop walked over and crouched in front of her. ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’
She stared back at him blankly.
‘Ma’am? Can I help you?’
She started. ‘What …? Oh, I’m sorry. It’s my husband; he’s a driver for Armaguard. I can’t get him on the phone. I’ve been waiting, but everybody’s so busy.’
‘What’s his name, love?’
‘Jamie Gale.’
Bishop patted her hand. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ Heading toward his desk, he picked up a victim list, scanned through the names. Then he made his way back across the office and sat next to her.
He was never any good at this. No one is ever good at it, but Bishop always struggled to find the words, which he knew always made it worse. His face gave the answer long before he opened his mouth.
‘His name was on that list, wasn’t it?’
Bishop nodded.
‘I thought so. I just needed somebody to tell me, to know for sure.’ She stood up and held out her hand. Bishop shook it. ‘Thank you, detective.’
‘Can I have someone drive you home?’
She shook her head, disappeared into the sea of activity and was gone.
The noise started from the elevator and rolled back in waves. Cheers, claps and wolf whistles flooded the room. Within a matter of moments, every badge was on their feet and their hands slapping together like a chant. Bishop headed over to what everybody was so happy about. Rayburn, Cooper and Taylor barged through the office with shit-eating grins.
‘We got ’em,’ Cooper yelled.
Bishop didn’t know who they thought they’d got, because the two beaten-up bastards they had cuffed didn’t look like they could rob a blind man, let alone an armoured truck. Everything Bishop needed to know about them he could tell by their ‘tribal’ tattoos, Adidas tracksuits and oversized sunglasses. They were gang bangers, small-time drug dealers, fifty-dollar pimps at best. It was complete bullshit, but that didn’t stop every badge whooping and cheering as Rayburn lapped it up. Cooper shoved the stooges over to a couple of uniforms and told them which interview rooms to let the poor bastards sweat in. When they were gone, Rayburn hushed the room and pointed at the clearance board.
‘We put up those names in red, and sometimes they stay in red. But today, due to the hard work of every cop on this team, today we can change those twelve names to black.’
The room erupted. Fists were thrown in the air and hands were slapped on sweaty backs.
Rayburn gestured for quiet again. ‘Be proud. Enjoy this moment, but only for a moment. This thing is far from over. This fast and effective result is all due to good police work. Be proud of it. But this is far from over. We still need admissible evidence and we still need confessions if we’re going to close this fast.’
The audience clapped one last time and dispersed. When the badges parted, Rayburn saw Bishop leaning against a desk with a crooked smile on his face. ‘What’s your problem?’
‘They didn’t do it,’ Bishop said.
Taylor chimed in; Bishop could smell the grog on his breath. ‘They have jackets for armed rob, they were found in the area. How do you explain that?’
‘Did you find the guns, the cash, anything?’
‘We’ll break them and get it in confession,’ Rayburn said.
‘There’s nothing to confess to, mate.’
Rayburn shook his head. He was still smiling. ‘I thought I told you to go home.’
‘Don’t be more interested in looking like you’ve solved the case, rather than actually solving the case,’ Bishop said.
Rayburn’s face hardened. The smile disappeared. ‘What did you just say to me?’
Although it had been many years since Bishop and Taylor had uttered more than a couple of words to each other, Taylor’s eyes sent him a warning. They told him to back the fuck off.
‘Respect the rank,’ Cooper said, his voice low and dark.
Bishop held up the SD card. ‘I’ve got surveillance of the job. The shooters were trained. Those two fuckwits you dragged in don’t know shit from shit. Just have a look at it; that’s all I’m asking you to do.’
Rayburn was about to tear Bishop three new arseholes when Chief Inspector Wilson walked in. He saw their faces and their clenched fists. ‘Everything alright?’
‘Yes sir,’ Rayburn said, his whole tone changing. ‘We just picked up a couple of suspects. They look good for it.’
‘Good work.’
Rayburn took the SD card out of Bishop’s hand. ‘I’ll take a look at it. I’ve been giving you a bit of slack, you’ve had a rough couple of months, but I want you to go home, get some rest and think about becoming a team player.’ He turned to Wilson. ‘I want him out of here. At least for a few hours.’
When they were gone, Wilson said, ‘They want to see you on the eleventh floor.’
‘Who?’
‘The commissioner.’
*
Bishop waited outside Commissioner Mackler’s office and watched silent back-to-back coverage of the robbery on the television in the corner of the room.
The door to Mackler’s office opened and Wilson poked his head out. ‘Come on in.’
Bishop scanned the room and saw Mackler standing behind her empty desk with her knuckles on the glass top and her cool eyes on him. Coming up a woman in the Victorian Police Department wasn’t easy. Rising to commissioner by forty required her to be more politician than cop. Most of the street guys didn't trust her and she didn't care.
She had the youngest senior staff in the history of the VPD and earned the nickname The Brat Pack by the cops who had made a career out of policing. They were young and hip, their minds filled with university degrees and their hearts with ambition.
They filled out the room checking the latest news updates on iPads and phones while Bishop stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.
‘What have you got?’ Mackler asked.
‘Huh?’
‘On Justice? What have you been doing?’
‘I’ve just spent the past hour waiting to see you,’ Bishop said.
Mackler’s eyebrow rose. She stared Bishop out. He wouldn’t budge.
‘Look,’ Wilson said. ‘Everybody’s blood is high. What we need to do is work out where we go from here.’
Mackler sat, swung her feet onto the desk. The room relaxed. ‘Well,’ she said with her palms raised toward the roof. ‘Where are we at?’
‘The human intel we received yesterday from Roach Blacker checked out,’ Bishop said. ‘There’s a network of corrupt cops in this department. Their leader goes by the name, Justice.’
‘Like Oak Park?’
Bishop nodded. ‘There’s a strong possibility that they’re behind this robbery as well.’
‘A robbery you knew about?’ one of Mackler’s staffers said without looking up from their phone.
‘A robbery we all knew about,’ Bishop said.
Mackler swung her feet off the desk. ‘But which you failed to stop.’
Bishop threw a glance at Wilson. He shook his head slightly.
‘You need to let Rayburn in on this. He’s down there right now force-feeding a confession into a couple of nobodies.’
‘For now,’ Mackler said, ‘we need to play our cards close to our chest. I don’t want to run the risk of letting Justice slip through our fingers.’
‘Then, I’m going to need more manpower,’ Bishop said.
‘I agree.’
Bishop relaxed his shoulders and smiled. ‘Good.’
‘So, you’re being reassigned to traffic and operations,’ Mackler said. ‘I’m putting Simons and Behan on Justice.’
‘Who are they?’
She motioned to the two young kids on her senior staff in tailored suits and manicured hair.
‘They look like a couple of accountants.’
‘They’re extremely well educated.’
‘Their mothers must be very proud.’
Mackler stood up and was about
to unleash hell when Wilson interjected with, ‘I think what Commissioner Mackler is trying to say is that we’re widening the scope of the investigation.’
Bishop took a breath and let the air out of his nostrils. ‘This is bullshit,’ he said.
Commissioner Mackler sat back in her chair. ‘You’re dismissed.’ She turned the television on; the continuing news story now had her attention.
Bishop looked at everybody like they were crazy and left. He pressed the button to the elevator in the hall as Wilson caught up.
‘Hell, I’m sorry, kid. She thinks education is more important than balls.’
He pressed the button to the elevator a couple of more times but it didn’t speed it up. ‘I was there, Wilson. Just around the corner. I could have stopped it.’
Wilson put his big hand around Bishop’s neck, just like he used to when he was a kid. ‘More than likely, I think you would have been another body bag lining the street.’
*
The office was half empty. Not a badge of rank in sight. Down the hall, Bishop heard a ruckus and headed in that direction. The observation room was a shitbox with no windows, no air, a couch and a tiny black-and-white television connected to the interview room. It was rarely used, except by the odd badge who wanted to sleep off a shift. Today it was packed. Detectives huddled around the screen, watching Rayburn interrogate one of the stooges. Bishop stopped in the doorframe and watched.
The grainy image was poor, but clear enough to expose Rayburn’s people skills. He leant over the table and shoved a finger in the stooge’s face.
‘Who else was in your crew?’
‘Lawyer.’
‘Was the plan all along to kill the guards?’
‘Lawyer.’
‘What about your cut? Do you think they’ll keep it in a savings account for you while you’re inside? Come on: give me a name.’
‘Mo Everingham.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘My lawyer.’
The room and the bullshit were too much. Bishop had to get out. The air wasn’t so fresh out in the hall either, but it was better than the smell of body odour, cheap aftershave and confusion.
He was halfway down the hall when Ellison called his name. By the time he turned, she was almost in his lap.
‘So who do you like for this?’ She was being the cocky cop she had seen on television growing up.
Bishop wasn’t in the mood and headed in the other direction. She trailed behind, but in heels it was hard to keep up. ‘I know you’re working an angle. I want in.’
‘Work the assignment you’re given, Ellison.’
‘Witness reports? What fucking witnesses? They’re all dead.’
‘Looks like you’ve got an easy couple of days ahead.’
‘Let me bring it in with you.’ She motioned back to the observation room. ‘Those guys don’t take me seriously. Not until I do something big.’
He took in her lean body that could have gotten her on the front page of any third-rate men’s magazine. ‘This isn’t SC. You want to be taken seriously? Put some clothes on.’
She looked away self-consciously. Bishop felt bad. ‘Look, you just need to be patient. Wait it out. And the clothes thing: just forget I said it.’
The guilt followed him back to his desk and was pushed out of his mind when the uniform he’d asked to run the plate stepped to him with a handful of stapled pages. ‘The information you requested, detective.’
Bishop thumbed through the first couple of pages: driving record, rap sheet and address for the owner of the piece-of-shit Ford from the SD footage.
Chapter Twelve
The vehicle was registered to an Alison Allen.
DOB: 28/03/1986
HAIR COLOUR: Red
EYE COLOUR: Green
PARENTS: Deceased
OCCUPATION: Unknown
Her sheet told more of the story and nothing unique. Six counts of shoplifting, one count of solicitation.
Her Californian bungalow sat at the bend of a street in what used to be a fashionable suburb. Bishop parked a hundred feet away with the rear of his car facing Alison’s rented dump. Tilting the rear-view mirror so he could see the house, he climbed into the back seat and waited.
He was heading into his fifth straight hour of staring into the ten-inch mirror when there was finally some movement. A clunker of a Ford pulled into the driveway, and it was the same one from the Merc’s SD footage. Smoke pumped from the exhaust, engulfing the entire rear end. Through the haze, a petite woman in Daisy Dukes, cowboy boots, and sporting a head of bright red hair, climbed out and ran into the house. A few moments later, she bounced back out again, back into the Ford and pulled out into the street. Bishop climbed over the front seat, cranked up the engine and followed.
She was a good driver, legal. Kept to the limit. Gave way when she was meant to and never ran a light. She pulled into a fast food joint and grabbed a bite before heading over to the free clinic in St Kilda where she waltzed through the front door like a regular; given that none of the junkies that decorated the front steps bothered her, she probably was. An hour later, she left and was back on the road.
It was getting late. Shadows stretched out over the city and within a few blocks everything was black. Neon lights began to flicker on and the streets were slowly filling with those who preyed on the weak and valuable. Bishop followed the Ford down a series of streets where every other house was vacant, covered with graffiti or a burnt-out shell. Some of the street lights flickered, others didn’t work at all.
The traffic thinned. Bishop flicked off his headlights and cut his speed by half. The Ford moved farther ahead and almost disappeared. Then, its tail-lights brightened as she rolled to a stop outside an all-night service station. Climbing out, Alison ran across the road and into an alley. Bishop pulled into the station and sidled up to the bowser with a good view of the alley.
Alison Allen swung her hips from side to side as she strutted toward an idling Commodore. She climbed inside. Brushed her hair behind her ears, took the gum from her mouth and blew the guy behind the wheel.
It was Con Taylor.
Chapter Thirteen
He dug around in the boot and found a tape recorder and a primitive wire that Bishop latched onto the pocket of his jeans. He hit record and moved down the alley.
Con Taylor’s eyes were closed with his head aimed to the roof. Alison Allen had a face full of balls. Neither of them saw him coming. Bishop ripped open the driver’s side door, grabbed Taylor by the collar and dumped him on the concrete face first. He came up with one hand yanking at his pants and the other going for his shoulder holster.
Bishop was faster. ‘I’d think twice about that,’ he said and took aim at his skull.
A flicker of recognition flashed across Taylor’s face. ‘Jesus, Bishop. The fuck you doing?’
The passenger door opened and Alison stumbled out, her arms around her body for warmth. She avoided looking Bishop in the eye.
‘Go home, sweetheart,’ he said.
A couple of moments after her footsteps disappeared out of the alley, the echo of a busted engine faded into the night.
‘You scared the shit out of me,’ Taylor said, lighting a cigarette.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Agitated and anxious. It was a different Con Taylor from the one Bishop had seen earlier today. He was drug fucked but his habit wasn’t a twenty-four-hour thing yet.
Bishop lowered his weapon, kept it close.
‘What do you want man?’ His voice sounded as if somebody had given it the once-over with a sander.
‘How about the fifteen million, for a start.’
‘What?’
‘Where were you between four and seven this morning?’
‘Fuck you,’ he spat, making an awkward attempt to get back into his car. Bishop pulled him back.
‘Where were you?’
‘At home in bed.’
‘Alone?’
‘Nah, with
me wife.’
‘Will Trisha back you up after I tell her about Alison?’
They both knew the answer.
‘I know Alison’s car was a spotter.’
‘Go fucking arrest her, then.’
‘She wasn’t driving. You were too stupid or too lazy to go and steal a clean car, so you used hers.’
Instantly, Taylor sobered up. He planted his feet and locked onto Bishop with a hard stare.
‘Prove it.’
‘I can.’
‘With your little SD footage?’ He patted himself down. ‘Yeah, I’m not too sure where I left that. You know how it is: evidence gets lost all the time.’
Bishop felt the hum of the tape recorder against his leg. ‘That’s not all I’ve got.’
‘We’ve all got some dirt, mate.’ Taylor lit another cigarette off the butt of his last. ‘What do they expect? I can’t even pay my bills; none of us fucking can.’ Spit flew from his mouth. ‘Tell me you don’t have something going on the side.’ Bishop shook his head and Taylor dismissed him with a wave of his hand. ‘Well, you’re fucked in the head, then.’
It was starting to drizzle. The rain formed a wall of mist between them.
Taylor squinted. His face pulled to the side. ‘What do you think you’re going to do now?’
‘We go in. You come clean.’
‘Fuck you. I ain’t going anywhere.’
Bishop tightened his grip on his weapon. ‘Yeah, you are.’
Taylor paced one way, then another. Like he was already in a cell. ‘We’re everywhere, you idiot. We’re junior constables. We’re senior badges. We’re inspectors and we’re in every department. We run this department and who are you? Who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m the guy who does his job.’
Taylor sized him up. ‘You take me in and Justice will bury you.’
‘With your thumb and finger, take out your weapon,’ Bishop said.
‘You don’t have the balls.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘maybe not.’
Taylor shifted his weight, dropped his shoulder.
Bishop shot him twice.
Chapter Fourteen
Smoke drifted from the barrel, past Bishop’s scratched badge and faded into night. Sirens in the distance bounced off empty buildings and echoed for miles around. Then came the prowlers and the uniforms; they cordoned off the alley with tape at either end and stood as silhouetted guards. Homicide detectives walked the scene: primary information; chain of events; what the fuck happened. To them, Bishop didn’t exist. He couldn’t be spoken to, questioned without a rep or lawyer present. As it was, Bishop wasn’t feeling too chatty.