by Zane Lovitt
I stomp along the path to the patio, find myself among pot plants and creepers lit only by the moon and my phone. Tyan’s back door glowers like a monolith, its surface a ratty kind of tin that shudders as I try the handle, then rap against it.
‘Tyan!’
If Rudy has come tonight, if he felt hurried by our altercation yesterday and caught Tyan off guard and somehow overpowered him and right now Tyan is learning the true meaning of hubris, then this door would be open and unlocked, right?
Then again, no one is answering.
At first, I only lift up the doormat out of curiosity: this is where Rudy said he found a key. If he has come, if I’m too late to stop him, then it might not be here.
It’s here, amid the patterns of dirt you find under doormats that haven’t been moved for decades. I realise I can go inside and check that everything is okay. It’s running the gauntlet, the gauntlet being a twitchy Glen Tyan with a gun. But we have to talk.
I unlock the door, hold the key with my shirt so as not to leave a print, return it to its nest under the mat and step inside yelling, ‘Tyan! It’s me, Jason!’
My makeshift flashlight reveals a vestibule, cobwebbed work boots and waxy sneakers. Boards creak and thunk beneath me as I make my way to the next door.
‘Tyan!’ I yell again, knock.
No answer.
The handle turns and I pull on the door with the flesh of my pinkie, feel the reek of cigarettes slap my face, catch sight of the sink and then a barren kitchen counter. I’m about to step through when I realise where I am.
My stomach flips. Can’t help a gasp.
Bending down, pointing my phone at my feet, I see nothing. It doesn’t seem to be there, which is how fine it is, because then I make out where it’s tied to the nail in the doorframe.
‘Better watch out,’ a dry voice says from the dark.
I shudder back, frightened twice over.
‘Hello?’
A long sigh in reply.
‘Didn’t you hear me knock?’
‘Yep,’ he grunts. ‘Wanted to see if you’d…you’d trip it.’
I lean gently through the door and my phone reveals a thick haze of tobacco smoke and Tyan sitting at the kitchen table, grinning sleepy-eyed, a bottle of something and a glass tumbler before him.
‘Come on, then.’
I step over where I think the line is and hope for the best. The green shine box is there, ominous like the home of his pet tarantula, though the weapon within supposedly only shoots blanks.
‘You know, if Rudy sets this thing off on Friday, he’ll just turn and run.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Tyan says, already impatient. ‘I’ll pack it into the corner. It’s fiddly, so I haven’t…haven’t done it yet. Shut the door.’
‘Can I turn a light on?’
‘Over there, the hall switch.’
He means the switch on the other side of the room. I edge my way over and it lights up the hallway, provides a quantum of light for the kitchen.
It’s whisky. The bottle on the table.
‘You’re just sitting in the dark, drinking?’
Another equivocating grunt.
‘You know what they say. If you’re thirsty then it’s too late!’ Tyan cackles to himself then bellows: ‘Sit down!’
Tyan quickly interprets my hesitation and says, ‘I’m not drunk. I’m not drunk.’ He says it twice, which means he’s drunk.
I pull out one of the ancient vinyl seats and lean on the table as I drop down.
‘I came to tell you that I’ve changed my mind. I’m in. With Rudy…I mean…’ I search my words. ‘Taking out Rudy, like you said this morning. I agree.’
‘Mmmm,’ Tyan groans. It’s possible he doesn’t remember our conversation this morning.
‘But I want to be clear…I’m only agreeing to this because it was Rudy who killed his mother, not Piers.’
Tyan groans again. ‘That’s bullshit.’
‘Did you know he’d threatened to kill her, three days before she died?’
He doesn’t respond. Maybe he’s trying to remember.
‘It’s the only scenario that makes sense. He killed her and hid the vase in Piers’s workshop and that’s why you found it there.’
‘He was a fucking kid—’
‘Which is why you didn’t suspect him.’
‘Fuck me,’ he says, goes to speak, belches, continues: ‘Why the fuck would he be sore at me if he’s the one who fucking…fucking…’
‘Because he’s nuts. It’s how he hides from himself what really happened.’
‘There’s a reason they call me the Polygraph, you know.’ I register his use of the present tense. ‘Piers lied from the word go. Fucking… lied about everything. It was obvious. Believe me, mate…’ He leans forward theatrically, head wobbling. ‘I know what cunts look like when they’re guilty.’
‘I don’t want to argue,’ I say, reeling from the stink of booze. ‘I’m just saying, he killed his mum. So I guess I don’t feel sorry for him like I did before.’
Tyan pours himself another generous shot and declares:
‘What a load of old cobblers.’
He drinks, wipes his mouth and says, ‘Now listen. I want to tell you something.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Did you bring cigarettes?’
As if that’s something I might do.
‘No. Sorry.’
Tyan thinks on this.
‘Fucking…’ He touches his pockets like he’s looking for his wallet. ‘Nothing’s open now, I suppose.’
‘What did you want to tell me?’
Tyan hums with confusion, then appears to remember. ‘Right. Yeah. I’m telling you this because…I’m just telling you.’
‘Okay.’
‘This is fucking ages ago.’
‘Okay.’
‘There was…You know Malcolm Lau?’
‘No.’
‘You remember him?’
‘No.’
‘Good. It’s good you don’t remember. He was a paedophile. A real fucking…Anyway, he was on the news.’
Tyan drinks again. I wonder if this is going to be a long story.
‘He had a trial. In two thousand aaaaaaand…’ Tyan jolts his head forward, as if trying to fling the memory to the front of his brain, ‘…three?’
‘Okay.’
‘And the trial…He didn’t go down. He was up on these…indecent act with a minor, these…It was fucking…He was a nonce. A disgusting bastard. You need to remember that.’
I say nothing now. Tyan doesn’t need encouragement.
‘And he had this scar on his belly. And the victim, who fucking got up in court, and that is fucking hard to do…This kid’s fucking twelve and gets up there in front of everyone and says that the bloke who assaulted him had a scar on his belly. And then Malcolm got up in the box, and he showed the court the scar on his…here, on his stomach,’ Tyan points to his appendix, jabbing himself hard with a finger. ‘Here. And he still got off. Fucking bullshit.’
Tyan slumps on the table. In other circumstances, he would slump like this because he’s exhausted. Tonight, he’s just getting comfortable.
‘Now I used to drink a lot. As in, a lot. Farts stunk of booze. And the Lau case wasn’t mine, I never worked in…fucking…not sex crimes. But he got off and I was, I dunno. I was tight as fucking…of course I was…Right?’
‘Sure.’
‘So what would you do?’
‘What would I do?’
‘Yep.’
‘If I was…drunk?’
This seems to frustrate him and he waves at the air, or maybe at me.
‘I found out his home…home address. I looked it up. I got his LEAP file. I got his address.’
‘Right.’
‘And I went there.’
‘Right.’
‘And I shot him.’
46
All of a sudden we’re drenched in light. I flinch and raise a hand in protection, but
Tyan doesn’t move. He grunts. It’s only the light from a small window in the house next door, but it comes on like a Nazi spotlight compared with the darkness before.
‘That’s Freddie. He’s got…fucking…dodgy prostrate…prostate. Cancer. Gets up a dozen times a night.’
It’s a bathroom light, small and high. It allows me to properly make out the horror of Tyan’s eyes. Burning red and flabby and wet. He’s been crying. Not just crying, bawling hard. I don’t know how he can see out of those pupils.
‘He’s…His name’s Frederico. I call him Freddie. His dunny’s actually out back, you know like an outhouse. In the cold like this he gets up and pisses in his washbasin. Shit.’
Tyan is scanning my face. It’s illuminated like his own.
‘I’d forgotten about that.’
He means my injuries. I’d forgotten them too.
‘You were saying you shot someone.’
A small wail as he remembers.
‘Yeah, now…Now, this is secret. You got to promise not to tell anyone.’
I go to say, ‘I promise,’ but Tyan doesn’t give me the chance, just keeps on talking. My promise is assumed.
‘I went over there and I was absolutely pissed. I went over to this place in Altona and I knock on the door and this cunt opened the door and I showed him my badge. I mean, I showed it to him. And I told him my name. That’s…That was…That’s what…was the big mistake. But I told him and I asked him if he was Malcolm Lau and he said…’ Tyan scowls, trying to recall. ‘He said…words to the effect of Fuck off.’
His expression is one of shock, like it’s hard to believe that someone might resent a late-night visit from a drunk police officer.
‘And he toddles off and disappears inside and I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing so I follow him…him in. And I see him. He’s opening the drawer, in this desk sort of thing that’s in the…inside the…Now, you imagine you’re me. What do you think? What’s the drawer he’s opening for…in there?’
‘I don’t know. A phone?’
‘Hey?’
‘To call the police.’
‘I am the police.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘I thought he was going for a weapon, didn’t I? And I drew on him and told him to raise his hands. And I said it loud and clear. And he didn’t raise his hands. I mean, his hand was in the drawer. He just fucking…’
Tyan’s eyes drop to his alcohol.
‘He didn’t raise his hands. So I fired. Got him in the guts and he went out like a light.’
He rotates his empty glass against the table.
‘So I go over to him, to get a look at the wound, because I don’t know, maybe I just fucking grazed him. But I didn’t…But…’
He breaks off. More wetness in the red pits of his eyes. His voice rises in pitch: ‘You can guess.’
‘Guess?’
Tyan wipes his nose with his wrist.
‘He didn’t have the scar. The appendix…The one I told you…’
I sit back in my chair.
Tyan says, ‘I had an old address. The LEAP record was wrong… the wrong address…This is…I found this out later. And the stupid bastard…It was…I mean, it was his fucking wallet. In the fucking drawer. Lung Yeung. That was his name. Why didn’t he…? When I told him…’
‘Was he dead?’
‘Not…No. He was out, but he was breathing, blood pissing…’
‘What did you do?’
The eyes widen, like that’s a hell of a question. He exposes to me their full colour and convolution. The light flicks off next door: Freddie heading back to bed. In the dark I’m left with that image of Glen Tyan. Despairing and wretched.
‘What I did,’ he says, ‘was fucking…He was fucking fucked up. I mean, I could tell. And I had this…thought.’
The bottle is mostly finished. He pours what’s left into his glass. A generous portion but maybe not for him. Then he stands up, holding his drink. The chair almost tips but it doesn’t.
‘Someone heard the shot, right? I mean they had to. So probably there are cops…other cops…coming. They were coming. And this bastard was still breathing…’ He points to an imaginary body on the floor. ‘Has…had seen my face. Seen my badge. Fucking knew my name. So I’m fucked.’
He stumbles confidently to the centre of the room.
‘But I can’t fucking shoot him again, can I? If he’s on the floor.’
A thumb and forefinger rise up, aimed at the imaginary innocent victim bleeding on his kitchen lino.
‘I can’t do a kill shot. That’s fucking murder. The physical evidence…spatter…exit wound…bullet lodged in the fucking carpet. That’s not self-defence. That’s a fucking execution. I can’t bullshit out any…out of that. That’s fucking prison and fucking good night nurse.’
He throws his arms in the air as if to say, What a quandary! Still holding the pretend gun in one hand and his drink in the other.
‘So what I did is…’ The gun hand shakes at me to get my attention. Like he doesn’t already have that. ‘What I did is, in his kitchen…’
Tyan rattles open his own kitchen drawer and takes something out and I can’t see at first but then the hall light catches on it, flashes a reverse silhouette right into my retina.
‘Got a knife,’ Tyan says, crafty. ‘Like this. Put it in his hand, got his prints on it.’
He lays the knife on the floor, gets awkwardly to his knees, seemingly administering to a wounded man. With rapid movements, he points to the window.
‘I shut all the blinds and the curtains. And I got his mobile and I fucking trousered that. And I locked all the doors…’ He stops, as if puzzled, then switches back to his excitement: ‘What…The plan was, was to climb out a fucking…window. Ditch the phone. So when the coppers got there I’d say…’ Another shocking belch, but he continues without noticing. ‘…there was an armed man in the house. You understand?’
‘Sure.’ But not really.
With wordless pain Tyan gets back to his feet, limps left and right, restoring his knees.
‘When the coppers got there…it’s not like they’d go in the fucking door and find him and get him on a fucking gurney. It’s called…’ His hand flaps. ‘Protocol…Something Protocol. They have to get Siege Response on the line, get them to show up, evacuate the neighbours, cut off the mobile…the fucking…coverage. Get a command centre.’ ‘But…if he’s the only one in there—’
‘They don’t know that,’ Tyan declares, face shining with ingenuity. ‘I tell them…I was just waved down by this arsehole who fucking… tried to cut me. I…I tell…I fired my gun but I don’t know if I got him. Don’t know if he’s got a gun. Don’t know who else’s inside. There could be hostages. There could be fucking kids in…in…so…right… by the time they’ve gone through the fucking…Critical Incident!’ He claps his hands Eureka. ‘That’s what it’s fucking…Critical Incident Protocol. Once they’ve gone through all that…and they can’t raise him on the phone…’ He’s laughing now. ‘By the time they kick in the fucking doors, he’s succumbed. And there’s no one to say I’m bullshitting.’
Tyan stands with his arms out, begging me to appreciate.
‘So…’ I say. ‘That’s what happened?’
This appears to be the wrong question. Tyan scowls, drinks, peeks into the glass, drinks again to finish it.
‘Nah. He was dead.’
He puts the glass on the table. All that energy abandons him. Invisible and silent. He points to the invisible and silent dead body.
‘Right there on the floor. It was a cracker of an idea, but. Wish I had the chance to try and…I was going to do it. But he just…he died. He just fucking died. So I left. Fuck all to do but cut and run. So that’s…’
Tyan’s shoulders turn sharply and his body follows, swings over to the sink, rests with his back to me.
‘Shouldn’t of told you, I s’pose,’ Breathing heavy, distress returning to his voice. ‘But you wanted to know how
come I quit the force.’
47
It’s the kind of memory that would get you weeping in the dark, drinking a whole bottle of something, hankering to spew the awfulness out to whoever. It makes me think of the confession Piers never made. To me, in the prison yard at Severington. It’s what that would have been like.
‘Did they know it was you?’
When he turns back the alcohol tears are there. He’s wiped some away but more glint on his cheek.
‘Couldn’t prove it,’ he says with a calming breath. ‘They knew. I mean…It was a fucking mess. He was shot with a cop gun so the sergeant had to test them…to test them all. I had to say I lost mine. Like a fucking school kid. Wrote up an incident report and everything. And they guessed what I done. How…with the wrong address. But that was it. But they knew.’
‘So they fired you.’
He squirms.
‘Deputy-Com got the word out I should resign. I could have fucking fought them. Fought back. They didn’t want it…publicly… But I was so fucked up…’
His head lowers, watches his toes tap gently on the floor.
‘His name was Lung Yeung.’
At the pronouncement of that name he’s overcome with a full-throated sob. Hands grip the bench behind him and his shoulders and belly shudder with startling energy and a yawning comes from his mouth because he’s feeling pain like nothing I thought he was capable of.
In between the awesome heaves he howls words I don’t understand.
What do I do? Do I go to him? What are you supposed to do with a weeping father?
In the dark I can see his mouth locked wide open. The silhouette shakes and tips and the power of his suffering echoes against these old walls.
‘I wish I could tell him…I fucked up…I’m sorry.’
He needs both hands to wipe at his face, manages a growl that appears to be an attempt to pull himself together.
‘All my mates, they all turned their back. Fucking coppers. They love you when you’re working. But once you fuck up…’
He comes at me from the sink. I startle back. But Tyan only picks up the empty bottle, doesn’t see the fear.
‘It’s like with the poor bastards with PS…PST…’ He can’t say it, thinks hard. ‘Fucking abandoned. Same as me. And all of a fucking sudden I’m just sitting around.’ He jabs at his surroundings with the bottle.