White Dog (Jack Irish Thriller 4)

by Peter Temple

  Something flitted through my mind. ‘I might have a look,’ I said. ‘Can you drop off the keys?’

  ‘I’ve got them with me,’ she said. ‘I’m in the car, on Punt Road, I’m going to Macedon. My father’s complaining about his health.’

  ‘You’ll pass close by. I’ll meet you.’

  I gave her directions, looking at the pie with lust. I put it back in the switched-off oven, watched sad Barry for a few more minutes. He was interviewing the federal industrial relations minister, until recently a big undisciplined dog easily teased into outbursts of barking. Now he’d been to obedience school, bribed media turncoats had drilled him, and he uttered the same affable low-key bark over and over.

  I went downstairs, jacketless, to the corner, stood in the light and shivered. A car came down the street inside thirty seconds, the driver waved, so precise was my estimate of the time it would take to drive from Punt Road to Linda’s corner.

  The car pulled up in front of me. I went to the driver’s side.

  ‘It’s a bit spooky,’ said Sophie. She gave me an envelope. ‘It’s been hired in my name for six months.’

  ‘I’ll have a look and give you a ring.’

  ‘Thanks, Jack. I didn’t know who else to tell.’

  I went back to Linda’s apartment and opened the envelope. Galvin Security Storage, 112 Rigoni Street, Tullamarine. A swipe card, two keys, and a PIN number for unit 164, entrance J, an account for $300 for six months’ rental.

  I put my head back against the sofa, closed my eyes. Tomorrow. In the morning, early.

  I was running out of tomorrow mornings. I groaned, rose and found keys, left without thinking about a coat.

  Tullamarine was no lovelier by night, high fences, ugly buildings, glaring security lights, oil rainbows lying in the pitted streets.

  Galvin’s sign said the premises were guarded by twenty-four-hour video-monitored security. The swipe card got me through the boom gate, into a floodlit compound with a huge, low, windowless single-storeyed building of cinderblocks. Roll-up garage doors A, B and C faced us. I went right, foolishly, had to drive around the building to get to door J.

  I got out, cold, moist air, shivered in my shirt, and approached the door. An electronic keypad was under a light to the right. I put in the card, tapped in the PIN and the door rose, a low clanking noise, dark inside except for the glow of a small console with a single fat button. The instruction said: PRESS FOR 20 MINUTES LIGHT. DOOR WILL CLOSE IN TWO MINUTES.

  I pressed. Tube lights flickered, stabilised, showing a corridor, roll-up doors on both sides, big numbers spray-painted on them. I walked down the internal road under the white lights and, before I reached storage unit 164, the entry door behind me clanked down.

  J 164 was on the right, halfway to the end. Another light button. A key unlocked the door, you had to raise it by hand.

  A cinderblock box, a bit bigger than a single-car garage. In the middle stood a red Maserati, from the 1960s, I thought. Framed artworks leaning against the walls, perhaps a dozen, a few pieces of furniture at the back.

  I looked at the works along the nearest wall. All the artists were dead except for one and he was a day-to-day proposition: blue-chip art, investment art. Was this Mickey’s small cashable stash, put here in Sophie’s name in case he went under because of Seaton Square and people wanted to seize his assets?

  I walked to the back of the chamber. A glazed colonial bookcase, it would buy two Mercedes. A commode, Egyptian Revival, if genuine worth a bit. A small desk, Georgian.

  I looked in the car, opened the glovebox: a manual and a logbook. The boot opened – empty. I checked the bookcase, the desk drawers.

  Cabinetmakers of old often amused themselves with their work, Charlie taught me that, and I always groped fancy antique furniture, even in public places.

  I removed the four top desk drawers and felt around above them, stuck my arm in and felt the back, looked in a few other places. I studied the commode, touched the ram’s broad head on the right, ran my fingers down its sides, feeling the smooth curled horns, finding the small buttons at their centres.

  I pressed one. It didn’t yield. Neither did the other. I pressed them simultaneously and they went in. My pulse quickened. I pulled at the ram’s head.

  It slid forward.

  A secret drawer, narrow and deep. In it a notebook, long and slim, two videotapes. I flipped the notebook: names, dates, amounts, page upon page. I looked at the tapes. One had no label, the other said COPY.

  I pushed the ram’s head back and tried the one on the left. No luck. He didn’t repeat himself, your ancient craftsman.

  I took the items and left the building, the enclosure, drove back along the tollway-avoidance route. It was busy, the city never seemed to quieten, people’s nightlife now began when it used to end. In Linda’s parking bay, I sat for a moment, feeling the tiredness of too much sitting.

  Time to watch a video.

  My door opened.

  ‘Get out, cunt.’

  A body, an arm. A knife pointing at my throat, a wide blade, held on its side.

  I dropped a video and the notebook between the seats, got out with the other tape.

  He was standing back, squat and pale, football head, a leather jacket. ‘Walk,’ he said.

  I walked out to the street.

  ‘Stop.’

  A dark vehicle pulled forward, a stationwagon, the man’s hand gripped my belt, pulled me back into the knife. It pressed against me at a point beside my spine where a thrust would penetrate some vital organ quietly pulsing in the body’s inner dark.

  ‘Hands back or die, cunt.’

  I obeyed, felt the handcuffs. The back door opened. He walked me across the pavement, into the car, powerful hands inside dragged me, pushed me down, down, between the seats, my face down, something thrown over me, a foot on my neck, the vehicle moving.

  The chicken pie in the cool oven. It would be wasted.

  I thought of that, how irrational is the mind.

  ‘Hear me, Jack?’

  We’d been driving for a long time, irregular stops, starts, slowdowns, then acceleration, a feeling of cruising at speed, we had to be on a freeway.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, eyes closed, thinking about my breathing, about keeping it regular and deep, moving the diaphragm, trying to flex my muscles to fight off cramp in my arms and legs.

  ‘You’re a stupid cunt, Jack. I don’t understand that, it makes no fucking sense to me.’

  Even through the blanket over me, I thought I knew the voice.

  ‘Get him up, let him sit.’

  The foot came off me, the blanket was pulled back. I tried to raise my upper body, couldn’t, you needed hands. I got a hand, it gripped my shirt collar, pulled me up, choking me. I squirmed, got to my knees, got a foot to work, to push, managed to twist and get onto the seat. The pain in my legs as I half straightened them made me close my eyes.

  We were on a highway, four of us, men, in a big station-wagon, my arms aching from being behind my back. Something wrong with my eyes, I blinked a few times. Dark tinted windows. You had to get used to them. I looked at the man beside me, he wasn’t looking at me, a big, fat man, no hair. I couldn’t see the people in front because of the headrests, then the driver looked back at me – potato nose, glasses, big lower lip.

  I knew him well and the fear I felt dried my mouth and my eye sockets.

  You are likely to remember someone who held you by the hair like a trophy, slapped your cheeks repeatedly, jerking your head back and forth. You will certainly remember the intense, stinging pain, the taste of your tears as they ran down into your open mouth. And if the person then ground your head into the floor and pissed on you, full recall is guaranteed.

  ‘Call me Reece,’ he said. ‘Should make you call me fucking Mister.’

  Reece Stedman, formerly of the Victoria Police.

  We drove in silence down the Western Highway, the new outer-urban awfulness to the right, we passed Melton, went into
the valley of Bacchus Marsh. On the slope going out, the driver spoke.

  ‘Fucking bang takes out a whole fucking building,’ he said, flat, nasal voice. ‘Got to be the luckiest cunt on earth to come out of that. Like a second fucking life. You’d go and comb fucking beaches, wouldn’t you?’

  I felt something close to relief. They didn’t plan to kill me. They could have killed me where I stood on the pavement in Carlton. This was going to be another punishment. I could survive this.

  ‘But fucking no,’ he said. ‘So I take the fucking trouble. I drive through the fucking traffic to your fucking shithole to give you a personal message. I tell you very nicely to fucking cease and desist in your fucking annoying behaviour.’

  Stedman wound down his window, sent his cigarette butt out, raised the glass. He held up his left hand and I saw the rings.

  ‘Why, Jack?’ he said. ‘The woman’s dead, you don’t owe anybody a shit, you’ve got the money, we gave you a nice present, what the fuck can you hope to achieve by going on with this?’

  ‘Just curious,’ I said. ‘I wanted to know what happened to the women. And Wayne.’

  He looked back at me. ‘That is so fucking smart, I can’t fucking believe it. Listen, I’ll tell you what happened. Then you promise me, you’ll fucking forget everything, never speak of it again, enjoy the money? How’s that?’

  ‘I accept,’ I said.

  He hacked to clear his throat. ‘You’ll let this business go? Forever and a fucking day?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s over. Forever.’

  ‘What kind of records you kept?’

  ‘Just some stuff in a file. Not much.’

  ‘Notes, that kind of thing?’

  ‘No, I don’t keep many notes.’

  ‘Where’s the file?’

  ‘Where I was staying.’ I said Linda’s address. ‘The key’s in my pocket. You can go back and get it.’

  ‘And this tape?’

  ‘It’s from Mickey’s lock-up.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Mickey’s lock-up. Near the airport.’

  ‘How’d you know about that?’

  ‘Found out today. It was in Sophie Longmore’s name.’

  A whistle. ‘Well, fuck. How’d we miss that? You’re a clever boy, Jack. Watched this tape?’

  ‘No, haven’t had a chance.’

  ‘That’s good, that’s good. What else you find?’

  ‘Nothing. There’s a Maserati, some paintings, few pieces of furniture.’

  ‘Right. So you’ll draw a line under this now?’

  ‘Yes. I will.’

  ‘You see, Jack,’ he said, ‘that’s how easy it could have been.’

  ‘It would be nice to have the handcuffs off.’

  ‘Jeez, sorry, forgot. Happy, get the cuffs off Jack.’

  The fat man beside me pushed me forward, stuck a hand in, cursed, pulled at my right arm. My right hand came free, I brought my arms around my body, blissful relief.

  ‘What happened to Katelyn Feehan?’ I said, straightening my arms, elbows cracking, the cuffs dangling from my left hand.

  ‘An accident,’ Stedman said. ‘Bloke got carried away, hurt her. Tiny little whore, too small to be a whore, could pass for thirteen.’

  ‘The body was never found.’

  ‘Funny that,’ he said.

  ‘And Wayne?’

  ‘Gimme a smoke,’ Stedman said to the man beside him. A hand offered a cigarette, lit it with a lighter.

  ‘The fucking Dilthey,’ he said around the cigarette, oozing smoke. ‘Unreliable prick. Can’t have a cunt like that knowing anything you want quiet. Just outlived his usefulness.’

  ‘And he killed Janene?’

  ‘Put her in a hole, the dumb fuck said. Some fucking dog will go in and find her one day. Should’ve taken care of it myself but, busy night, can’t do everything.’

  He didn’t know about Janene. She was safe.

  ‘I don’t understand about Mickey,’ I said.

  ‘Out of hand. Blow for breakfast, lunch and dinner but he wants in, he wants to play with the big boys. Then he threatens he’s got the goods. Exit visa that second. Date stamped. But not a bad bloke, Mickey, good head on him when he was straight, talk sense into arseholes. As at the fucking River Plaza that night. One minute the pricks are knocking back the Dom and sniffing the happy snow, then they’ve got a fucked-up whore problem, freeze like bunnies in the light.’

  I had a clear picture of the whore, Katelyn Feehan, in the photograph Janene’s mother gave me, taken on the day of the excursion to Gippsland. I saw Wayne and Janene and Katelyn, the three of them, going down the highway in the Porsche. It must have been a good outing, an agent and his models, all doing nicely.

  ‘Why not just knock him?’ I said. ‘Why set Sarah Longmore up for it?’

  ‘Can’t just knock the cunt. Too many fucking questions, you just knock him.’

  ‘But Sarah’s trial was going to raise a lot of questions.’

  Stedman glanced back at me. Even in the dim light I could see the contempt. ‘Mate, mate,’ he said, ‘you know fuck-all, don’t you? The bitch wasn’t ever going to trial.’

  How stupid I’d been. Sarah was always doomed, we could never have saved her. The point of the whole business was to provide an explanation for Mickey’s death that could never be disproved.

  We were slowing, Stedman turned off the highway, climbed a hill on a dirt road. My feeling of relief was gone.

  ‘So, can we do a deal?’ I said, trying to keep a whine out of my voice.

  ‘Deal’s done, mate,’ he said. ‘Just dropping in here to see about some business, take you home.’

  We went up and down hills under a near-full moon, the road got worse, corrugations gave way to bumps and potholes that were too much even for the expensive vehicle’s suspension. The headlights gleamed on water in the holes, lit up the stringy trees on both sides.

  A sick feeling was growing in me, acid rising. We rounded a corner.

  ‘Look for a fucking skull and crossbones,’ Stedman said. ‘From now. On the left.’

  Inside a few hundred metres, the man next to him said, ‘There.’

  I saw it in the lights as we turned, a tin sign nailed to a tree, crudely painted, white on black. It said: NO ENTRANS KEEP OUT TRESPASERS DIE. We drove along a pitted, wandering track, downhill for three or four kilometres, climbing for a few minutes, going to the right, then over a ridge and down steeply.

  ‘Here fucking somewhere,’ said Stedman, and the headlights picked up a parked vehicle, an old Dodge truck. There was also a white Valiant, rust patches on the boot. Stedman parked between them, lights on a corrugated iron building. He hooted, two sharp blasts.

  Two men appeared, one short and broad, wearing a beanie, the other tall and thin, stooped, hair to his shoulders. The short one had a full beard.

  ‘Chokka and Jimbo,’ said Stedman. ‘Ferals. Fucking animals. Jimbo’s the proof that fathers shouldn’t root their daughters.’

  He got out, stood with the door open, cold coming in, the sound of dogs barking. ‘Where’s the fucking stuff?’ he said, no greeting.

  Jimbo turned and went from sight. Chokka walked over. He was wearing denims near-black with dirt, a filthy upper garment. Bits of dried food were stuck to his beard.

  ‘G’day,’ he said. He smiled. Tooth stumps.

  Stedman closed the door. He walked away with Chokka, around the Dodge, out of view. I breathed out. This was just business, dodgy business, drug business almost certainly, but it didn’t involve me. The three of us sat in silence.

  Jimbo appeared in the lights, carrying a bag, half-full, yellow, an agricultural-looking bag, fertiliser, poultry feed. He looked around. Stedman and Chokka came out from behind the truck. The threesome walked towards us, went behind the vehicle. The rear door opened, I heard the bag going in, the door thunked down.

  Stedman got back in. ‘Totally scrambled, Jack,’ he said. ‘Apes would be fucking insulted to be related to th
ese idiots.’

  He engaged reverse. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.

  I breathed out, a full breath. It was going to be all right, there was going to be a way out of this.

  My door opened, two hands grabbed my head, pulled me, I had no resistance, went sideways, fell to the ground, hands dragged me away from the vehicle, I felt a huge weight on my chest, someone sitting on me.

  ‘This is the end of this crap,’ said Stedman. ‘Fucking circle closed. Look in his pockets, Chokka. Keys.’

  Hands groped me, found Linda’s keys.

  I couldn’t breathe, I tried to fight, the weight was overwhelming, schoolyard bully weight.

  ‘Cheers, Jack,’ said Stedman. ‘The boys’ll look after you. Great tradition of hospitality out here, not so, boys?’

  The men made spitty, guttural noises.

  ‘Don’t fuck him without foreplay,’ said Stedman. ‘Grease him up with the WD40.’

  ‘Bagga fucker,’ said Chokka.

  They pulled a bag over my head, my shoulders, dragged me by my feet, twenty, thirty metres over hard-packed dirt, through a doorway, handcuffed me to something.

  ‘Have a sleep,’ said Chokka. He pulled the bag off me. ‘Getting up fuckin early, right, Jimbo?’

  Jimbo laughed, a high-pitched nasal sound, somehow both childlike and chilling.

  They left, slammed a tin door. Jimbo was still laughing and the dogs were still barking. I didn’t move for a while, lying on my back, hands held behind my head, elbows at eye level, fear and self-pity pushing everything out of mind, shutting down my brain. Then I began to feel the cold – fierce cold, the ground beneath me, the air.

  Suit pants and a cotton shirt, thin socks. I would die of cold before any other fate could befall me.

  I could see my breath. There was light from a small window, just four panes, smeared, cobwebs moving.

  Light from where?

  Moonlight, it was just off full moon. You didn’t always notice the moon in the city, it wasn’t a city thing, the moon, superfluous to city requirements.

  What were they going to do to me?