‘Is this a crime scene? Is there a murder?’
He turns away, but she won’t be shaken off. ‘Come on Harry. Why are you here?’
‘I’m not on duty, Kelly. I knew the owner, that’s all.’
‘The builder who was stabbed? He was known to you lot?’
‘No, he wasn’t known to me. He was a relative. And that’s not for your column.’
‘Come on, Harry. Something’s going on, isn’t it? First the murder, now this.’
‘If you know anything, you tell the cops. They’re over there.’
She comes right up close to him and says in a hoarse whisper. ‘We need to talk. There are other things going on.’
‘What other things?’
‘Coincidences, Harry. Too many.’
She’s just desperate for a story, he decides, looking at her wild hair, her over-eager eyes. He turns to Peter. ‘I’m going now,’ he says. ‘We’ll talk in the morning.’
He heads for his car and Kelly chases after him. ‘I mean it, Harry,’ she cries. ‘We can help each other…’
He slams the door and drives away.
When he gets home the lights are on for him. Jenny is in her dressing gown at her computer, whispering into the headset. She smells rather than hears his arrival, her nose twitching. She gets to her feet and removes the earphones.
‘Better not touch me,’ he says, aware of the chemical stench on his clothes, in his hair and deep in his throat. When he’s had a shower and thrown his clothes into the machine she’s made coffee and toast. The darkness is paling in the eastern sky through the kitchen window.
‘Was it bad?’
‘Nothing will survive that fire. Peter Rizzo was out there. He looked like he knew that was the end of the business.’
‘Is that what’s bothering you?’ She puts a hand on his arm.
‘That, and a few unanswered questions.’
‘About Greg?’
He nods, then remembers she can’t see that. It still catches him out. ‘Yes, about Greg.’
‘I discovered he had another email address,’ she says. ‘One that’s not entered on his home computer. It doesn’t have anything over a month old, all personal messages.’
‘A woman?’
‘It’s not clear. One person, though. They sign themselves ‘J’. They’re more ultimatums than love letters—I hate being like this. I want everything to be resolved. What are you going to do? That kind of thing.’
He thinks of Jamila, eight months pregnant, and tells Jenny about her.
She ponders. ‘That could fit. I’ll check the messages again. Oh God, poor Nicole. We won’t tell her.’
But they may have no choice. It could be a motive for murder. Would her family have arranged for the boy to meet Greg and kill him? Could they have firebombed the depot?
‘I’ve also been trying to find out more about Alexander Kristich,’ she says. ‘He and Sandi Krstić, if they are the same man, seem to lead a charmed life. He got into all kinds of trouble in Queensland and Vanuatu, before that the Philippines and Malaysia. He seems to have a knack of getting in with influential people who pull strings for him—allegedly.’
‘A con man.’
‘Well, yes. With a darker side. His first wife died in a fall from the balcony of a twenty-third-floor apartment on the Gold Coast. And a man who lost his life savings in one of his scams and went on TV to complain was killed a week later in a hit and run.’
‘The twenty-third floor,’ Harry says. ‘That’s where he is now, in the Gipps Tower.’
‘Oh yes…His lucky number.’
Later that morning he returns to the Creek to view the place in daylight. Greg’s building is just a blackened hole now between shattered brick side walls. Faint traces of steam still rise into the air and the whole site stinks of toxic smoke. Harry has to jump around large puddles from the fire hoses to approach the scene, fenced off now by police tape.
The black shell of a ute stands in the forecourt. He can see several men in yellow protective clothes moving about inside the collapsed shell, between crumpled roof sheeting and steel trusses hanging limp like spaghetti.
When one of them comes outside to get a drink of water from his truck Harry goes over and flashes his police ID. ‘Found anything?’
‘Looks like it started in that corner over there, at the back.’
‘That’s where the office was. Cause?’
The man shrugs. ‘Not yet. We’re testing for an accelerant.’
‘Any signs of a break-in?’
‘Oh mate, if there ever were signs they’re gone now. But you’re welcome to take a look.’
He gives Harry a jacket, gloves, mask, helmet and a pair of boots, and they go into the ruin, stepping carefully over the hazards. All that’s left are the husks of steel equipment, piles of charred timber, puddles of melted plastic. In the corner where the office stood, the side wall has collapsed inward. What might once have been a computer casing is visible beneath a heap of blackened bricks. Paper has all gone to smoke and ash. Harry remembers a safe in one corner, but when he hauls away a twisted steel beam and slab of brickwork, he finds the burnt-out steel box, deformed by heat or impact, the door burst open and the contents incinerated.
Harry’s foot crunches on something as he leaves the office area, a shard of rippled glass. The kind that was in the window at the back, where the wall has fallen outward into a narrow yard that separated the building from the rear boundary fence. He goes over and examines the remains. Looks over the back fence at the roofs of neighbouring buildings and an odd watch-tower construction standing up against the sky.
Inside again, he shows the fireman the glass on the floor. ‘It came from that window—the one on the wall that fell outwards. How do you reckon these bits got over here, unless maybe someone smashed the window from the outside?’ He shows the man where things had stood, explaining that the windows in the office partition facing into the workshop had clear flat glass. The man nods, making notes on a device he’s carrying, and crouches to pick up samples.
Harry thanks him and leaves them to it.
As he returns to the street he sees someone on a big Harley over there watching him. The figure is motionless and clad all in black. Black helmet, black glasses, black scarf over the lower half of his face. Harry moves closer, round towards the back of the bike. The man revs the throttle and roars off as Harry takes a photo of the number plate and the symbol on the man’s back, a bird’s skull surrounded by a halo of orange lettering—Crow Australia 1% MC. Harry’s phone beeps in his pocket, a text reminding him of his follow-up appointment with the police shrink.
‘So how have you been this past week, Harry?’
‘Good, good. I’ve had some time to be with the family, you know.’ He’s rehearsed this in his mind, the steady tone, the relaxed posture, remembering all the while that she’s seen every avoidance routine in the book.
‘How are they coping?’
‘It’s difficult, but we’ve got support. Nicole’s mother has been a big help to her and the girls. She’s very sensible, very capable. Now the
funeral’s past I think things will settle down.’
‘And do you need more time with them?’
‘There are still things to sort out, but we’re pretty much on top of it. No, I’d like to get back to work.’ A little smile, sad, resigned, but open. Not holding anything back. This must be what suspects feel like under interview; he imagines how phoney his expression would look on an ERISP video. ‘You don’t look convinced.’
‘I am still concerned, Harry.’
‘What’s bothering you?’
She smiles at his attempt to take over. ‘A few things. For example, when most cops go through a traumatic experience they like to go into all the particulars—number of wounds, how deep they were, how much blood, that kind of stuff. It’s a cop thing. But not you. You haven’t said a word about all that.’
It’s true, he recognises what she’s saying—they all love to rehash the gory details. Their way of debriefing, perhaps, and perhaps he was like that once. Not anymore.
‘I think the army got me out of doing that,’ he says. ‘We handled things differently.’
‘How?’
‘Oh…we spent more time keeping fit, working out. Having to be alert all the time changes your perspective somehow.’
She’s not convinced. She waits for him to say more, but he keeps silent.
‘You’re a bit of an enigma, Harry,’ she says finally. ‘All right, if you’re sure you don’t need more time, I’ll clear you for duty.’
‘Thanks.’
He takes a deep breath as he walks out, feeling relieved until he switches his phone back on. A missed call from Sam Peck.
‘Sam.’
‘Harry!’ The accountant sounds rattled. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Okay, I’ll come over.’
But first he runs a check on the motorbike at the Creek. Registered to one Benjamin ‘Benji’ Lavulo. Convictions for assault and drugs.
Harry parks in a lot behind the shopping strip, and steps out into the smell of frying. The heater is on full blast in Sam’s office. He’s got his sleeves rolled up and his forehead is glowing pink, sweat stains under his arms.
‘What’s up, Sam?’
‘We’ve had a bankruptcy notice served on us, mate.’ He shows Harry the document.
‘Who’s this come from, building suppliers?’
Sam shakes his head. ‘We know Greg owed money to a few of them, but this is a single creditor, Bluereef Financial Services. Served by their lawyer, Nathaniel Horn.’
The lawyer’s name seems familiar. Then he remembers—the list of tenants on the twenty-third floor of the Gipps Tower. Harry studies the papers, and his eye snags on a figure. ‘This…’ he shows Sam. ‘That’s not possible, is it? It’s huge.’
‘First time I’ve seen it. But there are copies of supporting documents, contracts signed by Bluereef and both Greg and Nicole, putting up their joint assets as guarantees against loans.’
‘What assets? The business, you mean?’
‘I mean everything, Harry—the business, the premises at the Creek, their house, its contents, the shares in Nicole’s name, her jewellery, the cars, everything. If this is kosher, she’ll be lucky to walk away with the clothes on her back.’
Harry is stunned. ‘Would Nicole have agreed to that?’
Sam dips his head. ‘Maybe Greg didn’t really explain it to her. I’ve seen him hand her papers to sign that she didn’t read. She trusted him. The only bright spot is his life insurance. They shouldn’t be able to touch that.’
And the dark little thought that has been lurking in the back of Harry’s mind for the past week finally emerges into the light. It was suicide. What Greg was looking for, circling the western suburbs in the small hours, was someone to kill him, in exchange for his car and the cash that was all over the inside of the wreck. He wana me do it, that’s what the dying boy said. In the end it was all that Greg could do for Nicole and the girls.
‘She’d better get a lawyer, Harry,’ Sam says. ‘The trouble is, we have nothing to argue with. All Greg’s records have gone. Apart from odds and ends about his current contracts that Peter Rizzo’s been able to give me, we’ve got nothing. Tax’ll be a nightmare.’
They talk about the best way to handle this, who to get advice from.
‘You’ll have to prepare Nicole for the worst, Harry,’ Sam says. ‘This is going to get ugly, I can feel it. The terms of those loans were extortionate. Greg must have been out of his mind.’
When he gets home he tells Jenny, and she turns away from him, shocked, her face tilted up as if straining for some light she cannot see. ‘No,’ she says, ‘it can’t be that bad. Even her jewellery? How could Greg let that happen?’
‘I think it may be worse than that, love,’ and he grips her hand and tells her about the killer’s last words.
He watches tears forming in her eyes. Then her mouth sets and she turns back to face him. ‘What can we do?’
‘Not much by the sound of it. All Greg’s records have gone in the fire. We should get a lawyer for Nicole, and—’
‘No,’ she interrupts. ‘I mean, what can we do…to protect Nicole and the girls from these people?’
‘I don’t know, maybe find out what Bluereef have been up to. They’re crooks. There must be smoking guns if we knew where to look.’
‘Can’t the police do that?’
‘I can try, but…The Queensland police had a crack, and ASIC. Neither of them got anywhere. I’ve just been stood down for a week because I got too involved. They’re not going to listen to me pushing for action just because he was a mug, there’d have to be some pretty concrete evidence of a crime.’
Harry’s memories of Greg are crumbling. He no longer has a real handle on who Greg actually was. He remembers a scene in this room, when his parents still lived in this house. Greg and Harry’s father were sitting together over there at the front window, playing chess. Engrossed in the game, they barely acknowledged him as he came in. He had recently returned from overseas, Afghanistan or maybe earlier, Iraq, and was feeling suspended, not fitting in. The sight of them together pierced him, as if Greg now occupied a place that should have been his, if he hadn’t gone off soldiering in two wars with which both his mother and father thoroughly disagreed.
Not that they hadn’t been interested. They’d asked. But when he tried to describe it their faces had clouded over with distaste and disapproval.
11
The next day he returns to work, day shift. The second padlock has been removed from his locker and he senses the relief on the others’ faces as they nod and mutter their welcome back, mates. Toby Wagstaff gives him a wink and Bob the Job himself comes to Harry’s desk and shakes his hand.
He settles down. He has to make a case to the Crime Commission in favour of planting bugs and tapping phones in the houses of a number of people peripherally connected to a suspected murderer called Victor Nguyen. The idea is to trawl for incriminating material against these people on other matters, so then the police can squeeze them for evidence against the main target, Nguyen.
In between gathering and composing his submission, Harry makes searches on
Bluereef, Kristich and the lawyer Nathaniel Horn. The solicitor’s past clients include a star list of socialites, politicians, footballers and celebrity crooks, charged with everything from acts of indecency to drugs, fraud and murder. Kristich is much as Jenny said. Harry sends requests to Queensland for information on the deaths of Krstić’s wife and of the man who went public with claims of fraud. In the middle of this he gets a call from the central switchboard saying there’s a Kelly Pool on the line for him. His first impulse is to say he’s not available, but then he relents and takes the call.
She is brisk and businesslike, in the manner of someone giving it one last shot. ‘Thanks for speaking to me Harry. I’m not pestering you for no good reason. I believe I have information that will be of interest to you. I think you should give me twenty minutes to explain.’ She suggests a pub, a good choice. Not too far from headquarters but not too close.
‘Ten,’ he says.
In the event it takes somewhat longer. For a start she keeps him waiting, and he’s on the point of leaving when she bursts into the bar, coat flapping, threatening to send glasses flying from the tables. ‘Sorry, sorry! Bloody traffic. What are you drinking?’ He holds up his glass, ‘Fizzy mineral water.’
She comes back with the drinks and subsides onto a stool. ‘Well.’ She takes a deep breath and a gulp of the house shiraz. ‘Harry, there’s something going on at Crucifixion Creek. That siege, the builder’s murder, the fire—a lot of coincidence, don’t you think?’
Ah. She wants there to be a conspiracy. ‘The last two may be related, but it’s hard to see what they’ve got to do with the siege.’
‘Agreed, but the gunman was a former Crow, yes?’
That hasn’t been made public. ‘Where did you get that from?’
‘I told you, I know my turf. And the Crows are definitely Creek turf. And there’s something else. Do you remember that old couple who died together in a café at Balmoral Beach a week or so back?’
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