by Peter Temple
On the snow that cold, misted evening, they watched the men slide a stretcher under the sleeping girl, two men carried her to the vehicle without the slightest strain, she could have been a dog, a greyhound.
Curled up. She was curled up.
VILLANI TOOK a used Age from the basket, sat at the corner table. The waiter was with him in seconds. She was Corin’s age, student labour.
‘Two sourdough toasts,’ he said. ‘Still got the little Italian sausages? With fennel?’
‘Certainly do.’
‘Two. And a grilled tomato. Long black, double shot. That’s after.’
‘You know your own mind,’ she said.
‘Together a long time,’ Villani said. ‘My mind and I.’
‘That’s like a lyric.’ She sang, softly: My mind and I, it’s been a long, long time.
She was older than Corin. Mature student. Post-graduate student.
‘How do you know I’m a talent scout?’ he said.
‘Your hands,’ she said. ‘Strong but sensitive talent-scout hands.’
‘I don’t have a card on me.’
‘I’ll give you mine.’
He had finished, plate taken, sniffing the coffee when Dove came in carrying a briefcase, on time to the minute. The waiter followed him to the table.
‘Breakfast?’ she said.
‘No, thanks. Long black, please.’
When she’d gone, Villani said, ‘Be clear, stuff like this, it’s not on the phone, not in the office.’
‘Sorry, boss. Had a go at some phone data last night. It’s six months of calls, it’s a mountain.’
‘You didn’t put it in the system, did you?
‘No, no, I did it at home.’
‘You’ve got the program at home?’
‘Well, not the big one, no. But enough. I did this in the last job. All the time.’
Dove didn’t want to say the word feds.
‘And?’
‘I had it look for clusters. It’s called unsupervised learning.’
‘I know that,’ said Villani.
‘Sorry. Boss. Turns up many clusters, big and small. Three around Mark Simons. Of Simons & Galliano, the bankruptcy kings. And they twin with calls to a Ryan Cordell. He’s some kind of accountant, financial advisor. When it starts, it’s like a feeding frenzy. He calls Curlew, Curlew calls Hendry, Bricknell, they call others, some then call Cordell, it’s back and forth.’
Dove’s coffee came. She pointed at Villani’s glass. He made the short sign.
‘This is helpful?’ said Villani.
Dove reached down to his briefcase, put a folder on the table, opened it.
‘Not that, no,’ he said. ‘On the night, the Prosilio night, Bricknell, Curlew, Simons, Jourdan, Hendry and Brody all made and received calls from the casino LA. At 11.23, Bricknell calls Koenig. At home in Portsea. That home. Then, 11.29, Bricknell calls a mobile, pre-paid, so that’s probably a dead end.’
Villani could see where it was going.
‘At 12.07,’ said Dove, ‘Bricknell calls the number again. At 12.31, the number calls him. At 1.56, he calls the number again. At 2.04, it calls him.’
‘Pause here,’ said Villani. ‘This is a very small cluster. Cluster of two.’
‘Yes.’
‘So what then?’
‘I’m still looking at that.’
‘Well, Bricknell calls Koenig. They’re friends. Later he repeatedly calls someone who’s on a pre-paid in the name of a cat. The person calls him back.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So fucking what?’
Dove kept his eyes on his notes. He drank half his coffee.
‘Got a theory?’ said Villani. ‘Want to tell me your theory? Koenig and the St Thomas boys? What?’
‘They go to the gym together,’ said Dove. ‘To Rogan’s in Prahran. Same workout group. Bricknell, Simons, Brody, Curlew, Hendry. And Jourdan.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Sniffed around.’
‘You’re suggesting that although we latched on to Koenig by mistake…’
‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe we were being pointed at Koenig.’
Villani ate, considered. ‘Phipps?’ he said.
‘Not answering the phone. Not at home. Neighbour says she hasn’t seen him for a while. But that’s not unusual, she says.’
Dove put his hand in his jacket, took out his phone, slid it, talked, yes, no, yes, okay. He put the phone away.
‘A woman rang Crime Stoppers last night,’ he said. ‘She’s in a building across the road from Prosilio, just come back from somewhere, she’s been away. Saw something.’
Villani found the waiter’s eyes, made the sign. She glided through the tables.
‘It’s taken care of,’ she said.
‘How’s that?’
‘Jack Irish sends his regards.’
She pointed to a man sitting in the window, he was reading a newspaper.
They rose. Dove took the direct route, Villani went via the man.
‘Can’t be bought,’ he said.
‘I always knew you were cheap,’ the man said. ‘But free? That’s undercutting your fellow officers. Still using the no-bruising wet towel method?’
‘They want to confess. It’s a relief for them.’
‘Think about going into private practice. Help the guilt-haunted get closure.’
‘People like you. Killed anyone recently?’
Irish smiled. ‘You’ll be the first to know. Well, the second probably.’
DOVE SPOKE to the woman from the desk in the foyer. Her name was Keller. The security man went up to the sixth floor with them, walked to the last door in the corridor, pressed the buzzer, looking into the camera eye beside the door.
‘Security, Mrs Keller,’ he said.
The security door slid into the wall, the second door was opened by a Eurasian woman with short grey hair, perhaps sixty, handsome, high cheekbones, dressed in black from throat to toe.
‘Thank you, Angus,’ she said, very English. ‘Come in, gentlemen.’
They followed her down a passage hung with paintings into a big sitting room, grey carpet, three white walls, a wall of glass, three big paintings. The furniture was chrome and black leather.
Dove did the introductions.
‘The head of Homicide,’ she said. ‘I’m so embarrassed. It’s really nothing. I thought a constable would come.’
‘You’ve been away I gather,’ said Villani.
‘I flew to Singapore last Friday,’ she said. ‘And I got back last night. The duty security man told me there’d been someone murdered in the Prosilio building and I asked when and he said the night before I left and it was a woman.’
She paused. ‘Well, I saw something, it’s probably nothing but when I heard, it gave me a turn, I thought I should…’
‘Tell us, Mrs Keller,’ said Dove.
‘Come over here.’
They went to the window wall, she slid open the glass door, they went onto the balcony into the warming day. It looked onto the west face of the Prosilio building, dark glass unbroken by any projection.
‘My husband bought off the plan,’ she said. ‘We were given the impression we would look over open space to the harbour. A park, I thought, from the brochure. It didn’t actually say that.’
‘It’s not what they say,’ said Dove. ‘It’s what they don’t say.’
She gave Dove her full face, her eyes. ‘Yes, that’s so right. We were in Zurich, Danny wasn’t well, we were dreaming of warm weather, the sea. I wanted Byron or Noosa but he was such a city person, he grew up in Gilgandra and he used to say he never wanted to live anywhere with a population under three million.’
‘On the Thursday night,’ said Villani.
‘Yes. Well, I keep late hours, stay up late, stay down late. I was out here having a cigarette, I still can’t smoke inside, he’s been gone for…anyway, it was after midnight and a car went up that ramp.’
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She was pointing at the base of the building. A long ramp ended at three roller doors.
Villani said, ‘What’s behind the doors?’
‘Trucks come and go,’ said Mrs Keller. ‘Deliveries. All day long. A huge garbage truck reverses into the one on the right, where the car parked. It comes every day…how amazing.’
A truck was reversing up the ramp. ZoomaWaste.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘The truck. As if I’d arranged it.’
The roller door rose, the truck went in, they could see its snout.
‘A car parked there?’ said Dove.
‘Yes. And a man got out of the front. He was on the phone, and then the door went up. Not all the way. He walked in and the car drove in.’
‘And this’s around 12.30am?’ said Villani.
‘Close to that, yes.’
‘What happened then?’
‘The door went down,’ she said. ‘And then in a few minutes it went up again, the car reversed out and drove off.’
‘You wouldn’t have noticed the registration?’ said Dove.
‘My eyes aren’t that good. Anyway, I didn’t think a great deal of it. I mean I thought it was an odd way to get into the building but it didn’t look, well, illegal. I thought it was just staff.’
Dove was watching the traffic. ‘And the make, colour?’ he said.
‘Black,’ she said. ‘But that’s not all.’
‘No?’
‘I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep and I came out here again and another car arrived.’
Villani looked at her. She ran her palms over her hair.
‘The same again,’ she said. ‘The building door went up, the car went in. But then it was nearly twenty minutes before it came out.’
In the warmth, the feeling on his skin as if a door to an icy place had opened.
‘Notice the time?’ said Dove, speech too quick.
‘Ten to two when I came out.’
Dove turned his gaze on Villani. ‘That’s precise. You’re sure?’
‘I went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. There’s a big clock. I feel anxious when I can’t sleep, so…well, yes, I’m sure. A quarter to two.’
Dove said, ‘So the car left at around two-ten?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s the same car as before?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Keller. ‘A different car. Also black. The first one was quiet, like a Mercedes or a BMW, something like that. This one made a growling noise, those big exhaust things, I could see them. Like cannon barrels.’
‘You didn’t see the registration?’
‘No. I still didn’t think anything of it. The man was wearing a vest.’
‘A vest?’
‘You know. Undershirt, sleeveless?’
‘A singlet,’ said Villani. ‘What was the earlier man wearing?’
‘I don’t really know. Fully clothed. Dark clothing.’
‘It hadn’t happened before, anyone going in there?’
‘I haven’t seen it. No.’
Dove told her what they would need from her.
Villani considered a question. It was pointless, the city had thousands of black growling throbbing muscle cars driven by muscleheads in muscleshirts. And yet and yet.
He asked Mrs Keller an open question, didn’t lead her.
‘Three,’ she said. ‘Two in front and one at the back. In the middle. Little aerials. Is that useful? It caught my eye. I should have mentioned that, shouldn’t I?’
‘Glad you noticed, Mrs Keller,’ said Villani. ‘These things can help. And you’ve been a great help all round. We’re in your debt.’
‘Well, thank you.’
They went through the sitting room, into the passage, as they walked, she said, ‘I heard you mentioned on the radio this morning, inspector. Karen Mellish. She said nice things.’
‘I’m grateful for anything nice said about me,’ said Villani. ‘It doesn’t often happen.’
‘I’m sure it does. I’m sure.’
In the car, taut, Villani said, ‘Get a doorknock there, the first three floors with the view. Might have got the regos, seen under the door. Place’s probably full of people don’t sleep, see everything. Should have been done straight off.’
Dove said, ‘Is that, I should’ve…’
He fell silent.
‘Being the boss,’ said Villani, ‘you get points for all the good work. There’s also the reverse. In this case, I came, I took over. So I blame myself.’
‘Well, I didn’t ask for anyone…’
‘And then, after I blame myself, I blame you,’ said Villani. ‘This also might have nothing to do with the girl. Just coke deliveries.’
‘Timing’s a glove-fit with the phone calls.’
‘Mr Bricknell,’ said Villani. ‘Friend of the high and mighty, patron of the arts, member of the Melbourne Group, raised eight million dollars for the bushfire appeal. You’re proposing to interrogate him about his phone calls?’
‘A test question is that, boss?’
Villani said nothing, looked ahead. He could sense Dove becoming uneasy, soon he would break the silence. Bob Villani was the master of silence, silence was the way Bob unnerved you, made you prattle, make things worse. Bob reading his school report at the end of year 10, looking at him over the top of it, folding it, putting it in the envelope, looking away as if something on the blank wall had caught his eye. He learned the uses of silence from Bob and he applied them to Mark and Luke.
Last Sunday, Luke with his bit of dumb teenage weathergirl arse, he couldn’t bear the look, the silence, he kept amping up his rubbish chatter, eyes darting.
Mark behind his doctor’s desk, the pharma reps’ trinkets everywhere, the notepads, the Porsche computer mouse with headlights, the tubes of Chinese tennis balls on the shelf, Mark lasted all of fifteen seconds.
Part of the boss manner. And Bob had the nerve to sound as if he disapproved of it, had no part in its creation, didn’t like the fact that it intimidated Gordie, the dimwit whose big father, Ken, rolled his swag and buggered off months before Gordie was born. But first he came around and had a fight with Bob, they didn’t see it, Bob said stay in the house. The men went behind the corrie-iron shed, they heard Ken’s raised voice and felt the violence like pressure on their skin, it lasted a few minutes, then they heard the ute going down the drive at speed and a sound, not quite a bang.
Bob came back flexing his fingers, he went to the tank and held them under the tap. Later they saw the gate lying a good four metres out from the posts, it must have been carried on Ken’s bullbars.
Bob said, ‘Boy knows what’s good for him, he’s heading for Broome.’
Mark and Luke were Villani’s first children, in a way. And then his proper boy child, Tony. Had he intimidated him with silence? A few times, yes. Not Corin, no, he had never given her the treatment. Well, once or twice when she was briefly a sulky teenager.
And Lizzie? Lizzie wouldn’t have paid the slightest attention or she would have looked at him in her direct, sullen way, mouth set, face set. He couldn’t intimidate Lizzie.
Laurie? Maybe in the beginning. She was in awe of him for a while, he didn’t realise that until later, years later, until she said one day: You seemed so much older than me, always judging. Much more than my dad.
But she got over that, didn’t give a shit about his silences, his judgments. She just shrugged and walked out, went her own way.
Dove was holding out. He wasn’t going to speak.
‘Not everything’s a test,’ Villani said. ‘Sometimes you just want an opinion.’
‘Can be hard to read you,’ Dove said. ‘Boss.’
‘So Bricknell was at the Orion party,’ said Villani. ‘You ask him about the calls to the pre-paid. He asks you how you got his phone records. What do you say?’
‘For all he knows, we’ve got the phone,’ said Dove. ‘We’ve flashboxed it, got everything.’
‘It’s been more than a week,’ said V
illani. ‘If he’s nervous, he’s talked to the people who brought the girl. He knows we don’t have the phone because they would have told him. He’s not going to panic, he knows we’ve got fuckall. And even if he’s willing to answer questions about his calls, he’s going to say someone borrowed his phone, a stranger stole it, they were snorting in the men’s. That kind of thing.’
Dove found his dark glasses. ‘The blood at Preston.’
‘Another mystery,’ said Villani. ‘This run started with the girl on the Hume. That’s looking doubtful. So if the car means nothing, the long-absent Alibani’s house has got buggerall to do with Prosilio.’
‘Well,’ said Dove, ‘assuming we know when the girl arrived…’
‘Assume nothing. To many assumptions already. Get Weber to see how you get to the apartment from the garbage bay.’
In thought, they drove. At the first intersection, Dove said, ‘Why’d you ask about the aerials, boss?’
‘First it was just a black muscle car. Now it’s got three short aerials.’
‘I see, boss,’ said Dove. ‘That’s certainly narrowed the field to one or two thousand.’
Villani’s mobile rang. Birkerts.
‘Tomasic’s found stuff at Oakleigh. Want to look?’
‘Oakleigh’s over. Everyone’s dead. What’s he doing there?’
‘Showbag of Ribaric memorabilia. Could be fun. Well, interesting.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Base station. Mr Kiely in command mode. Up periscope, number two.’
‘Meet me outside in, ah, ten minutes. With air-con that works.’
Birkerts was waiting, leaning against the Commodore, eating something, he wiped fingers on his lips in a lingering way.
‘DAY ONE, I thought it’s just family shit,’ said Tomasic. ‘But I had a little sniff at the book again. Wasting your time, I dunno.’
Villani walked around the kitchen table, looking at the items: a brooch, jade earrings, a gold bracelet, half a dozen photographs, one in a pewter filigree frame, a girl in white, white ribbon in her hair, a pale silk scarf, a beaded purse, a page-a-day diary, a slim silver crucifix on a chain of tiny silver beads, worn with touching, with worry.