Old Scores

by Whish-Wilson, David;

  Foley glanced at his watch. Just gone twelve. It was safer to make noise while there were people and traffic around. He could spend half an hour prising off the hooded roofing nails from the asbestos sheets, or he could take advantage of the material’s brittle nature and kick himself a hole. He chose the latter, stepped back and slammed his boot down, once, twice, heard the sheet crack on the third attempt. Knelt and pulled the sheet back, heard the nails groan out of the jarrah beams, put the sheet aside. The hole was just enough to drop into, making sure that he maintained the weight on his hands, placing his feet carefully on the ceiling joists. Now he turned on his torch, saw that the ceiling hadn’t been reinforced. He crawled over to the weight-bearing walls that framed a series of offices, separated from the floor of the bank. There was less likelihood of a motion sensor or a security camera inside an office, and it was the best place to hole up and wait for the manager to arrive. He chose the largest corner office and crouched, began to cut at the plasterboard with a gyprock saw, made a hole large enough to shine the torch into, looked down and saw the manager’s desk, perfectly positioned for him to drop to. Foley sawed a bigger hole and placed the slab of sisal-reinforced plaster in the roof cavity beside him. Lowered his toolbag down onto the desk. Braced his hands on the nearest joist and swung down into the hole, dropped the five feet onto the leather blotter; a minimum of noise. The manager’s office had a single window that overlooked the floor. Foley stood back and tried to picture the office from the floor, the manager arriving in the morning, killing the alarm, the chime of his keys, moving towards the office. The hole in the ceiling would be visible from the window, but assuming the manager didn’t check the window first, he would unlock his door and then meet Foley. He would be polite. ‘Good morning’ was the first thing the manager would hear.

  47.

  Swann could smell the burning prison from South Fremantle; it had the nasty taste of plastic and rubber, burning garbage and mattresses. He’d driven past the massive stone walls on his way home, orange and magenta light flaring inside roiling smoke columns that rose a couple of hundred metres before dispersing and drifting across the town. TRG vans stationed at intervals, in case the men got through the walls, the snipers on the rat-runs over the yard not patrolling, but leaning on the rails and aiming into the yards. Ambulances and fire trucks, unable to get through the gates. Media vans and news helicopters. Locals gathered in the street to watch. Cheers and shouts from behind the walls. A couple of hundred family members crowded into the carpark, worried and agitated, beginning to abuse the TRG and screws changing shifts.

  Blake Tracker wanted to join them. There was talk on the radio of transferring prisoners by bus to Canning Vale. Even a glimpse of his father was worth the chance of getting caught. He was dressed in clothes borrowed from Des Foley. It was a good disguise, except for his plaster-cast wrist, that Marion had dressed and set at home. But Swann talked him around. Prison guards from all over the city would be called off shifts to help at Fremantle, including from the juvie facilities. There was every chance that Blake would be recognised. The attitude of the police and guards at the prison was obvious – skittish, aggressive, their orders to shoot on sight, to not let the situation get further out of control.

  Marion had packed a bag and gone to Sarah’s house for the night, perhaps longer. Blake would stay there too, but first there was something that might help his father.

  ‘Your father’s Datsun truck, does it have a winch?’ Swann asked.

  The kid understood, nodded. ‘Yes. But I’m coming. You don’t know which jetty, or where. I can go in, attach the winch-hook.’

  It would save time that Swann didn’t have. ‘Alright, but only that. Then you sit in the truck.’

  *

  Away from the suburban streetlights, the tannic water of Bibra Lake was impossibly dark in the moonless night; the day’s heat dissipating over the ring of swamp trees, the haunting call of a boobook owl in a rivergum.

  Swann backed the truck down the sandy track towards the old bones of the jarrah jetty, the swimming hole for generations of local kids. The jetty was barely wide enough to take the truck, but it didn’t flinch as it took the weight. Without being asked, Blake stripped down to his jocks. Swann passed him the Dolphin torch. ‘Sure you’re ok to do this?’

  Blake walked out past the leaf litter, arms wrapped around his body despite the heat. Kept the torch off until he’d swum to the last jetty pilings. Long legs following the glazed yellow light down into the brown depths, the soles of his feet glowing among the leaves roused off the lake bottom, a kid with a good set of lungs; down for nearly a minute. Big rush of bubbles and a bobbing head, treading water with big eyes, fear there despite the brave face.

  ‘Found it.’ He was treading water twenty metres away. So the car had pitched off the jetty and rolled further out. ‘How deep?’

  ‘Not deep. ’Bout twelve feet.’

  Swann began to roll the winch chain off the spool, hoping there was twenty metres. Blake swam over and waited. The torchlight, Swann noticed, was directed into the water beneath Blake’s treading legs, back into the dark towards the car and the murdered couple.

  Swann drew the chain out in arm-lengths, links clanking shoulder to hand, counted twenty-five before the spool ended. Had a last look around the shoreline, then lowered the cast-iron hook. The boy turned and swam, eager to get the job done and get out of the water. When most of the chain was in the water it became too heavy, and he dropped it, took to duck-diving and dragging the chain along the bottom, the torchlight panicky, returning to the surface to draw breath. On one of these resurfacings he started swimming rapidly towards the jetty until he reached the shoreline and staggered and slipped over the muddy bottom, fell onto the sand, gripping the car keys taken from the ignition. There were goosebumps on Blake’s arms as he stepped into his clothes, not looking at Swann and not looking at the lake either.

  Swann moved to the side of the truck and engaged the winch, holding down the rusted iron lever, felt the truck body stiffen and jerk as it took the weight, and began to crunch the links one by one over the spool. When ten metres of chain was on, he felt the strain lessen, instead of increase, which was unusual. Five metres to go and Swann thought the hook might have separated from the Mercedes, so easily was the chain coming in. Swann looked to Blake just as the chain spurred on a metre, then a great splash as something broke the surface; the boy jumping with his fists raised.

  Swann cut the power to the winch. ‘Shit, Blake, we’re in luck.’

  There it was, the boot of the black Mercedes, like the mouth of a deep-sea monster, the silver decal glinting in the torchlight. The nose of the Merc was down with the weight of the engine, but the boot was floating on the winch hoist, meaning that it still contained a pocket of air. A year underwater and there was a chance something might be retrieved.

  ‘Toss me the keys, and wait in the truck.’

  Blake didn’t need to be asked twice. He climbed onto the jetty and into the cab. Swann clambered down onto a beam at surface level. With one hand supporting himself on the chain, the light from the torch playing over the water further out, he slid in the keys, barely rusted, and turned the lock. It took a few attempts, but the lock caught, popped.

  Swann steeled himself for the stench. He reached above for the torch and shined it inside the boot. Two skeletons, laid upon an oily slurry of dissolved paper and flesh, twin bullet holes in both skulls. He could only see three exit holes. Water had entered the boot, but only until it reached an equilibrium with the trapped air. The Grednics’ bodies had been at the rear of the boot, first to take on water. Cardboard boxes of files had been turned to slush, except for two, wedged into the wheel-arches above the waterline, and a suitcase that had presumably floated. Swann hefted the boxes of files and the suitcase onto the jetty, climbed onto the boards and loosed the winch a couple of turns, enough so that the boot took on water. Swann wanted the Mercedes to sink, and he climbed back down and slammed the boot, a slash
of water over his legs, left the keys in the lock, unhooked the chain from the towbar and watched the Mercedes settle, then roll forward and slip beneath the surface. Swann stood and watched the churned water become clear. No sign now that they’d disturbed the dead.

  It was on the drive back to Coolbellup, Blake staring into the cone of light rising up Winterfold Road, when the thought occurred to Swann. ‘Blake, when you took the revolver off Carter, the detective, can you remember how many bullets were in the chamber?’

  ‘Two bullets. That’s for sure. I thought about them a lot, when I thought about the copper coming for me. One for him, but if he got too close, one for me. Just like in the movies.’

  Two bullets, just as Swann remembered. He’d assumed that the fifteen-year-old, on the run, had loosed off a few shots in the bush. Two bullets left in the revolver from the six-shot chamber. Two shots each into the Grednics’ skulls. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Carter’s service revolver, used in a double murder, an execution made on the behest of the Conlan brothers; Grednic privy to all of the Conlans’ financial secrets, and Grim Greylands looking to buy them.

  Carter had his revolver back. Swann didn’t think that he’d be in a hurry to destroy it. He needed it to demonstrate to the bosses that he was capable of retrieving his service weapon. Three exit wounds in the Grednic skulls. The Grednics had been murdered elsewhere, put into the boot after they’d bled out. There was a small chance that in one skull there might remain a slug matching Carter’s revolver.

  Swann returned Gerry Tracker’s truck to its park by his front door, let himself in with the keys and left them on the fridge. It was late, and by the time Swann returned to the Statesman, Blake Tracker was asleep on the front seat. He drove the boy west into White Gum Valley to Sarah’s house. The house was rented under her boyfriend’s name, as were the phone line and all the utilities, a precaution suggested by Marion at the time. Swann’s home wasn’t safe, but they would be safe there.

  Swann guided the boy up the front steps, let himself in, showed him to his bed on the sleep-out couch. He was asleep again before his head hit the pillow.

  Outside, Swann lit a cigarette and leaned on the Holden, looked up at the stars cartwheeling across the night sky, thinking of Terry Accardi, remembering him as a kid from the neighbouring streets, always in the black stubbies and brown singlet, bare feet, a wharf rat like Swann had been, his ageing parents unable to keep him in line. The look on his face the first day in uniform, proud and nervous, mischief in his smile. Swann grateful that Accardi’s parents weren’t alive to see their only son buried. That role would fall to Swann.

  He thought of the Conlan brothers then, their smug faces on the river last week – the world before them, theirs to take and shape and destroy. Looking up at the stars Swann made a promise, whispered it back to himself, knew that Accardi would approve.

  48.

  The sun began to rise over the Darling Scarp, with a blush of colour on the ridgeline and the remnant chill darkness over the sand plain. Swann drove to Gould’s apartment but parked the Statesman a block away in the hospital zone. He carried the suitcase and the boxes, their weight adding to his exhaustion, up the four flights of stairs and, instead of using his key, knocked on Gould’s door. Gould answered immediately, the wild, haunted look of sleeplessness and anxiety. Inside, he flicked through the first file in the first box, cracked a big smile. ‘More like it. I can use this.’

  Swann looked around the apartment, had a bad feeling, sharpened by the smell of death on the boxes. Better to be safe. ‘We need to move. Hogan knows you’re back. Up until now it hasn’t mattered.’

  Gould’s rictus grin, the fear of a home invasion like the last, Leo Ajello’s thugs shattering his kneecap with a ballpein. ‘One of the apartments I inherited, it’s empty at the moment. Haven’t found a new tenant. It’s right across the hall.’

  ‘Perfect. Leave most of the other stuff. Boil the electric kettle. Like you’ve just popped out.’

  They carried the Grednics’ material across the hall, entered the east-facing apartment, streaks of orange light breaking over the lowlands. This apartment smelt no better than Gould’s. Swann opened a window, the easterly still cold off the desert, but that would soon change. Gould began unpacking the files from the boxes, laying them out in a grid. Swann looked in the cutlery drawer for something to crack the suitcase lock.

  Murmurs in the corridor; Gould’s ears pricking, relaxing when the voices became familiar. Swann located a steel knife that broke at the first attempt. ‘Fucking Samsonite.’ Under the sink he found a screwdriver, began to prise around the lock, broke the rubber seal, no water coming out. It took three minutes of patient work, levering and cracking until he’d broken the metal frame of the lock. He then placed the suitcase on the ground and began to stamp, once, twice, felt the lock weaken. A final stamp and it broke. Gould left the boxes, holding the suitcase firm while Swann worked the screwdriver back and forth, the male and female parts separating. He lifted the lid. Cash, and plenty of it. Two passports in plastic covers. A cashier’s box with a key. Some jewellery in a plastic bag. A Rolodex. More files: manila bound in cotton ties. Printouts and envelopes. Stamps and letterhead pages. Organisational charts. Bank statements, receipts, money transfers.

  ‘This looks the goods, Frank. Even if it’s a year old. Grednic wouldn’t have taken it otherwise, wherever he was planning to run.’

  Swann nodded, climbed on one knee. The faux-leather couch wasn’t far to crawl, anticipating the relief of closing his eyes, dousing the burn with darkness. He was halfway there when the banging started in the hall. Gould froze. Swann made for the door, looked out through the peephole, saw four of Hogan’s men gathered outside Gould’s door, including the mercenary Jones, a side-arm loose at his groin. The door kicked in, one man outside to control the hall, the others rushing in. Swann conscious of his breathing, his feet at the line of the door, the breeze behind his back. The detective in the hall eyed the door across, glancing left and right, murmuring into a walkie-talkie. A minute and the men emerged. Jones holstered his pistol, for a terrible moment looked at the door across, but was interrupted by the man with the walkie-talkie, passing it over. Jones walked and talked out of Swann’s line of sight, towards the staircase; the others followed.

  Hogan had demanded that Swann call. There was every chance he’d put out a warrant for him on the police radio-bands, thousands of eyes and ears better than a few detectives’. A warrant for Dragic’s murder.

  Swann needed to stall Hogan. A few more hours and Gould would have the files sorted, a narrative translated from the ledgers and statements that Swann could use.

  Gould was waiting on his word, poised over the files. Swann nodded that it was safe. ‘Sort that into what’s useful, and what’s not. I need to give Hogan something, and copy the rest.’

  He waited a beat, opened the door. Gould sucked in an audible breath. Swann stepped into the hall, crossed into Gould’s apartment. Listened for the sound of the mens’ return. They hadn’t tossed the place, which meant that they’d likely be back. He sat before the phone and dialled the number from memory – Central. Asked for Detective Inspector Ben Hogan, was put through immediately.

  ‘Swann, when I get a team to you, you’re gonna wish –’

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  Time to take what he could, before the end.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You’ve been speaking to Carter, about the Grednics’ Mercedes. Carter has been speaking to me.’

  Hogan was silent, a whole new vulnerable flank exposed. Swann not mentioning Carter’s gun, used to kill the Grednics, didn’t want it thrown in the river.

  ‘Alright Swann. What you wanted. Gerry Tracker’s release. It’s signed. And soon, the Tracker boy’s conviction annulled.’

  ‘I’ll believe it when he walks free, and I see the paperwork.’

  ‘You may have noticed there’s a riot going on at Freo, and Tracker’s in the thic
k of it.’

  ‘You let the Freo screws know, I’ll handle the rest.’

  ‘What’s your interest in two Abos, anyway?’

  ‘You wanted material on Conlan, I’ve got it. At least I had it. I saw it when I buried Dragic. It was under the dash in the ute; fell out when I went over a pothole. Didn’t know what it was at the time, so I left it in the car. Dragic’s father’s in the picture now. He won’t give it up. Reckons it’s worth something. I reckon it is too. Told him you’d be dropping by to pick it up. When you’ve got that, and Gerry Tracker’s out, and I receive the pistol used to shoot Dragic, and the casings, and a lab report that proves the casings belong to the gun – I’ll tell you where the Mercedes is. Whatever Grednic had on Conlan – it’s all in there.’