Truth

by Peter Temple

  ‘There’s Annette Hogan,’ he said. ‘She wrote to Mrs Crossley. See what I can do, boss. Call you back.’

  Tomasic rang when they were sitting in the heat, drinking bad coffee at a place on the waterfront. The whole area had been worked on by architects, every place he went back to had been tricked out.

  ‘Spoke to the friend, she’ll be home in fifteen,’ Tomasic said. ‘Newtown. Know where that is, boss?’

  ‘Can you find your dick, son? Address?’

  Annette Hogan came to the door, a tall, desiccated woman in her sixties, beaky nose, led them into a sitting room. One of the chairs still had its plastic wrapping.

  Birkerts asked the question.

  ‘Father Cusack died about six months ago,’ she said. ‘He’d had a few heart attacks.’

  ‘He had a parishioner called Valerie Crossley,’ said Birkerts.

  ‘Mrs Crossley, yes. She’s dead too. A month ago, thereabouts.’

  ‘This is delicate, Mrs Hogan,’ said Birkerts, ‘but it’s very important. Do you know anything about the last confession Mrs Crossley made to Father Cusack?’

  Annette Hogan’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not thinking Father Cusack would tell anyone about a confession, are you? Don’t you know about the sanctity of the confessional? Not Catholic, are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Birkerts. ‘Proddy dog. Lapsed.’

  ‘Well, he’d be excommunicated, wouldn’t he? In the confessional you’re facing the power of God. The priest can never speak of what he hears. He’d be sinning. Good heavens.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Birkerts.

  Silence. In the passage, a board creaked. Villani thought that would be the friend.

  ‘There’s a Father Donald,’ said Villani. ‘I don’t know if that’s the first name or the surname.’

  She was still offended at the heathen inquiry. ‘Father Donald? Not in this town. Never heard of a Father Donald.’

  Villani stood, Birkerts followed.

  ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Hogan. Did you know Mrs Crossley?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  Villani said, ‘The place where she died? Where’s that.’

  Annette Hogan gave them directions. She walked them to her front gate and waited for them to drive away.

  ‘I don’t think we’re on a winner here,’ said Birkerts.

  ‘We may not even be on a horse,’ said Villani. ‘Look for somewhere to buy smokes.’

  They stopped at a fish and chips shop. Villani went in, hunger took him, he had trouble remembering breakfast. He went back to the car with cigarettes and six dollars worth of chips, hacked with a cleaver, six to a big spud. They ate them on the spot, the oily parcel steaming sharp vinegar on the armrest between them.

  ‘This’s how the cars get their smell,’ said Birkerts, taking the last chip, chewing, thoughtful. ‘Egg farts, Whoppers, vinegar, chip fat, cigarette smoke, Old Spice, four-day socks.’

  ‘Put it in an aerosol, subdue the violent with a spray in the face,’ said Villani.

  ‘Then shoot them a few times to be on the safe side. Why are we going to this gerry place? I’m not making connections.’

  ‘In time, you may see the utility,’ said Villani.

  ‘I’m going to miss you so much,’ said Birkerts. ‘Just being with you.’

  ‘I’ll come around to your house inspections. Shitfaced. Tell everyone I’m the neighbour. Break stuff. Jump in the pool.’

  Birkerts turned the key. ‘Navigate me,’ he said.

  IT WAS a T-shape of yellow brick, a tarmac parking area, a dozen splintering E. nicholi in a long strip of dead grass.

  They went up a concrete ramp with handrails. In a waiting room with brown vinyl tiles, Birkerts pressed a bell five or six times.

  A door opened and a sad red-faced balding woman in blue came out.

  ‘Not visiting hours,’ she said.

  Birkerts showed her the badge, said who they were. She went redder.

  ‘I’ll get matron,’ she said. ‘Have to wake her.’

  They went outside, leant against the rails, smoked.

  ‘What happens on a free Saturday night?’ Villani said.

  ‘Thought you’d never ask,’ said Birkerts. ‘Used to take my wife to dinner. Then I took this other person to dinner. Now I get a pizza in. Have to be careful you don’t order a Coke with it. Costs a hundred bucks and you don’t even get a straw.’

  Knocks on the glass door.

  They went in, the receptionist showed them to an office. The woman behind the chipboard desk had blood in her eyes, bleached hair, the face of a barmaid turned wardress.

  ‘Shirley Conroy, matron,’ she said. ‘Police, I gather.’

  ‘Introduce you to Inspector Stephen Villani,’ said Birkerts. ‘Head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad.’

  ‘Meetcha,’ the matron said, not impressed. ‘Sit if you want.’

  ‘Mrs Valerie Crossley,’ said Villani.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She died recently.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Someone came to see her a few months before. A priest. Is that right?

  ‘What’s it about, this?’

  ‘We’re the police, matron,’ said Villani. ‘We ask the questions. Ever had any benefit from a patient’s will?’

  Lockdown. Tight mouth, eyes.

  ‘Moving on then,’ said Villani. ‘Someone other than Father Cusack visit Mrs Crossley not long before she died? Easy question that. I have others. They get harder.’

  No hesitation. ‘Yeah, a man said he was a relly.’

  ‘Keep a record of visitors?’

  ‘Properly run, this place,’ she said. ‘Inspected twice a year.’

  ‘I’d be profoundly shocked if it wasn’t. See the book?’

  Matron pressed a button on her phone, they could hear the shrill sound from the next room. The blue woman opened the door.

  ‘Visitors’ register, Judith.’

  Judith took seconds. Matron found the page with ease, turned the book to face Villani, pointed at a line.

  Name: K. D. Donald

  Relationship: Nephew.

  Address: 26/101 Swanston Street, Melbourne.

  ‘Mrs Crossley called him Father Donald,’ said Villani.

  Matron’s thin mouth lengthened. ‘Mrs Crossley was not in the full possession of her facilities at the time. Thought her dog was under the bed.’

  ‘What about her faculties?’ said Birkerts.

  ‘Heard her confession,’ said Judith from behind them.

  They turned heads.

  The blush upon the flush. ‘I heard him say it,’ said Judith. ‘May the almighty and merciful God grant you pardon, absolution and remission of your sins. He said that.’

  A story.

  Someone told a story. Where?

  In the Robbers, it would have been. In the awed first months, you laughed at any story the hard men told, understood or not. Who told it? What was it? To do with confession? Pardon? Absolution?

  It would not come to him, it lay just beyond the breakers, in the deep water, in the dark, slippery moving kelp of the mind.

  In the baking car, Birkerts started the engine, the air-con fought the heat. Villani’s mobile. Tomasic.

  ‘Getting nowhere on that Rib assault, boss. System’s down, no one in Geelong there in ′94. Also, the only Father Donald in the whole country died three years ago.’

  ‘Our lucky day.’ Villani put the phone away. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said. ‘Such as it is.’

  HE SHOWERED, put on the gown, went to the kitchen and opened a beer, drained half of it, took it to a chair near an open wall-length window. The television was four metres away, framed in a bookshelf.

  He used the remote, waited in mute for the news, unmuted. After the world-in-turmoil graphics, the stiff-faced newsreader said:

  Our top story tonight, more shock waves rip through the state government after startling claims by Opposition leader Karen Mellish. Political editor Anna Markham reports.


  Anna, the dispassionate professional in all her handsome, calm cleverness. She said:

  It’s a complicated story Opposition leader Karen Mellish told the media twenty minutes ago. But it boils down to this. The son of Attorney-General Anthony DiPalma, the stepmother of Planning Minister Robbie Cowper, and the ex-wife of Assistant Crime Commissioner John Colby all appear to have made large windfalls from buying apartments in the exclusive Prosilio building in the Docklands precinct.

  Footage of the three men: the AG in full flight in the chamber, cow-faced Cowper defending some planning decision in the outer suburbs. Then Colby, in uniform, the hard face, talking about bikie gangs.

  Anna: she lifted her dimpled chin, tilted her head.

  Karen Mellish says people close to DiPalma, Cowper and Colby bought apartments off the plan in Prosilio. They put down $80,000 deposits, borrowed from a company called Bernardt Capital Partners. Two years later, the same company sold the apartments to Asian buyers for around $750,000 each. Then Bernardt paid the owners sums ranging from $410,000 to $450,000.

  Karen Mellish, pinstriped suit, a severe, sexy headmistress.

  How effortless. These people made $430,000-odd without putting up a cent. Even after paying capital gains tax, a nice little earner, wouldn’t you say?

  Is this guilt by relationship? Do you know if Mr DiPalma or Mr Cowper or Mr Colby received any benefit?

  Mellish laughed.

  Anna, watch this space. That’s all I’m saying. Watch this space.

  Anna:

  The Prosilio building is owned by Marscay Corporation, a big donor to both political parties. It’s home to Australia’s most exclusive casino, the Orion, which is challenging Australia’s long-established gambling companies for the patronage of the high-rolling, $250,000 minimum-bet gamblers, almost all of them Chinese.

  The quizzical look.

  With the state elections just two weeks away, Karen Mellish’s charges could be the fatal blow to a government seriously on the nose with voters and which only a few hours ago sacked Infrastructure Minister Stuart Koenig over sex allegations.

  Villani terminated the television, finished the beer, the big Geelong chips came back. Colby? Some mistake. Colby was too clever, he would not have taken the risk. His ex-wife? Colby said once the divorce settlement was going to leave him with one ball and a twelve-year-old Holden.

  An innocent. He had been used to destroy Koenig. Someone had been watching Koenig’s town house, seen the girl arrive with Hanlon, set the whole thing up.

  Who would that be? Crucible? Would Dancer do Karen Mellish’s dirty work?

  Blackwatch Associates? They did surveillance. Cameron’s partner, Wayne Poland, had been the force’s surveillance expert. Blackwatch would work for anyone.

  Perhaps Koenig was bugged. Perhaps they heard him order the girl from Hanlon.

  Max Hendry.

  His major problem in getting AirLine to fly is Stuart Koenig, the infrastructure minister. Koenig’s told the Labor caucus the sky will be dark with pigs before Max Hendry gets government support.

  Karen Mellish’s words. So Max’s major problem went away with Koenig’s fall.

  So tired. So fucked. A life so completely fucked. What would Bob say when it was out:

  TOP COP’S TEEN:

  DAD ABUSED ME

  Mobile.

  It wasn’t his mobile, it was the one Dance gave him, squeaking in his jacket where he had thrown the garment.

  ‘Sorry to wake you, mate. Be in the sack, it being all of seven in the p.m.’

  The Dancer, cocky, always languid.

  ‘Doing my yoga,’ said Villani.

  ‘With your three Filipino personal trainers. Hear the Colby stuff?’

  ‘Just now. Yes.’

  ‘Greed is always so bad. No good comes of greed.’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘And I’m bearing other sad news tonight,’ said Dance. ‘Grace Lovett. Dead. In her pool. Fell in pissed probably.’

  A child again, adults telling him things, true things.

  ‘Tragic that,’ said Dance. ‘Drink and water don’t mix. The exception is single malt and ancient spring water, that works. So I think the little cunt’s not coming back to haunt us. Grace not being able to testify. Vid’s not really admissible now, I’d say, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’d say. Thanks for the call.’ So much more deadly than he’d ever thought.

  ‘Got the saddies, mate? Out of the rip here, boy. No fear of drowning.’

  ‘Just tired.’

  ‘Son. This shit is over. Passed through the system. All crap soon be over. Sit down, have a drink.’

  Villani sat for a time, took out his mobile, switched it off. He went to the wall, put out the lights, the room was moonlit. He went to the big leather sofa and lay along its length, closed his eyes, listened to the harsh shrieking, wailing clamour of the city.

  The black pipes laid, the water leaking down the hill to the trees, on the summer evenings when he was past sixteen, he would sit, back against the dam wall, and roll a cigarette, acrid chop chop from the Kiewa Valley, from a boy at school who stole it from his uncle. In the yielding day, the valley was so quiet that the thumps of Luke and Mark kicking the football carried to him from a kilometre and more over the hill.

  So tired.

  In a dream, the phone was ringing, he sat up, stood up, staggered, found the telephone, it was the landline, it was on a shelf.

  Birkerts.

  ‘Steve, your mobile’s off, they rang me.’

  A car came for him. He stood in the hot street, cold to his core. He stood and smoked and they came for him with the siren on.

  IN THE van’s spotlight, two uniforms, a man and a woman, led him down the mean alley, their long shadows preceded them.

  They went by the man with his head back against the wall, they went to the end, to where the small thing lay, a little bundle no bigger than a sleeping dog.

  The cop coughed. ‘Too late for…yeah. Boss.’

  Villani took the steps and looked at the deceased, this was what you did in Homicide, if you didn’t have the stomach you should go somewhere else.

  The small person had been sick, expelled the contents of her stomach, not much, a cup of white liquid, it lay on the cobblestones around her white face.

  Lizzie’s face was dirty and there was a little sore under her left eye, she’d been scratching at it.

  ‘OD, boss,’ said the cop.

  Villani knelt and, without thought, touched the child’s forehead with his lips, it was cold.

  He stood and looked at the man against the wall, head back, knees up, all in black, a black leather cap, dreadlocks hanging from it. He had small triangles, squares and circles tattooed on his cheekbones, a Maltese cross between his eyebrows, barbed wire across his throat, under the Adam’s apple.

  His eyes were closed.

  He had an iPod plugged into his ear.

  A rage blocked Villani’s ears, his nose, made him feel weightless and enlarged, he took the steps, and he kicked the man in his fork, it was not worth it, it was like kicking a bag of wheat.

  ‘He’s dead, boss,’ said the woman. ‘He’s dead.’

  Villani turned towards the lane entrance and the spotlight went out and he could see them: Birkerts and Dove and Finucane and Tomasic.

  Birkerts came forward, touched his arm. ‘Want me to tell Laurie?’ he said.

  Villani straightened, cleared his throat. ‘That’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Mate.’

  He walked to the group, biting his lip, they said nothing, parted for him, patted him, touched him. They had come out in the night because he meant something to them, that was not something he expected. Finucane followed him.

  ‘Where to, boss?’ he said.

  ‘I’ll just go home.’

  ‘That’s home as in…’

  ‘As in Fitzroy.’

  ‘Ah, don’t know if it’s good for you to be alone, boss,’ Finucane said. ‘Don’t think so. No.’


  ‘Let me do the thinking, son. You drive.’

  Finucane drove him back to Fitzroy, walked to the door with him.

  ‘I could just come in, sit around,’ he said. ‘In case you wanted to…whatever. Yeah. Just sort of be there.’

  ‘Go home, detective,’ said Villani. ‘I don’t need anyone sitting around just sort of being there. I’m fine.’

  In the apartment, he felt compelled to shower, stood in the waterfall for a long time, listened to the landline ringing, let it ring out.

  When he was about to pour whisky into a tumbler, the ringing began again. He could not ignore it.

  ‘Villani.’

  ‘It’s me.’ Laurie. In the two words, he could hear that she had been crying.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Stephen, I have to tell you…’

  She choked, could not speak. He waited.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She rang about two hours ago and left a message. I was out and…’

  She stopped again. He waited.

  ‘She was crying. She said you never did anything to her. Never touched her. She said they told her to say it.’

  Villani felt rage rise in him again. ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s what she said.’

  Silence, Laurie sniffed, coughed.

  ‘Stephen, do you want…would you like, would you like to come home?’

  ‘Not now,’ said Villani. ‘Corin there?’

  ‘Yes. Tony’s coming home, he’s getting a…’

  ‘Good. I’ll call you tomorrow. Got something to take? To sleep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay. Well. Goodnight.’

  ‘I can’t…’

  ‘Tomorrow. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

  ‘Steve, I can’t say how…’

  ‘You believed her,’ he said. ‘You thought I was capable of it.’

  ‘You have to…’

  ‘Tomorrow. Goodnight.’

  He went back to the kitchen, poured half a glass of whisky, took it to the sofa he had slept on earlier. He sipped and a tear ran down his nose. He began to weep. For a while, he wept in silence and then he began to sob, softly at first, and then louder and louder.

  It came to him that he had never cried out loud in his life. It was as if he were singing for the first time.