The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender

by Marele Day

  My voice was quiet now. ‘What was it about the manuscript you didn’t want found? You were prepared to kill me for it. You wanted it back as much as Lavender.’

  ‘I told you. Because it implicated my father.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten something, Sally. That bit you saw on the screen wasn’t part of the book. Mark had finished the book. But the book hadn’t quite finished Mark. You didn’t want the manuscript found not because it implicated your father but because it told the whole world who your real father was! You’ve got a lot in common with your father. You know what the final irony is? Both of you wanted the book back and you were both prepared to kill for it. For a book that the publishers rejected.’

  ‘He’s not my father. He’s not! How many more times do I have to tell you!’

  ‘It’s yourself you’re trying to convince, Sally, not me.’

  How many times had I screamed like this, pulled away from my mother when finally she told me my father was like those old men in the park. Sally was denying her father like I’d denied mine. Both of us denying these men who had spawned us.

  I felt sympathy for her but it was too late. She and her father had done too much to me and mine for forgiveness. She would survive. And make a name for herself. Whichever name she chose. She was a child of this city.

  The child of Harry Lavender.

  There was a knocking on the door of the change rooms.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I called. ‘I think we’d better get dressed, Sally. Sounds like we’ve got visitors.’

  The perplexed child appeared again, the child who had held a lethal toy on me what seemed an eternity ago, the child who had played elastics and had eventually been tripped up.

  Now the question marks had been fired into my eyes.

  We dressed slowly, eyeing each other, strippers in reverse.

  She put make-up on, painted a red smiling mouth, drew lines that defined the beautiful dark eyes.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  Sally nodded.

  I opened the door and let in the outside world.

  CAROL was in street clothes, flanked by two uniformed female colleagues.

  ‘Every time I see you lately, Claudia, you’re wet.’

  ‘Someone in this city has to stay clean.’

  Carol ignored my comment.

  ‘The receptionist informs us you’re having a tea party.’

  ‘You’ve missed most of it. There’s only dregs left.’

  ‘Who’s your friend, Claudia?’

  ‘This is the child who’s going to break Lavender. This is Sally Villos, Harry Lavender’s daughter.’

  Sally didn’t even say hello. Just smiled her defiant painted smile at Carol.

  When Carol’s eyebrows returned to their normal position her eyes narrowed. ‘What happened to your hand?’

  ‘I . . . I fell over. The floor was slippery.’

  Then Carol turned to me and sighed. ‘I can’t hold her for being someone’s daughter, even if it is Harry Lavender.’

  ‘Getting pressure from above, eh Carol?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  The policewomen shifted uncomfortably in their big shoes.

  ‘One of your superiors threatening you with a country posting if you make any moves towards Lavender?’

  ‘What’s happened to you, Claudia? Are you so deep in dirt you can’t see anything else?’

  What was happening to me? I had a lump of steel where the heart should be, I was accusing everyone of working for Lavender, even the angels, I’d beaten up a woman who was no more than a child. I’d done my job. Right to the bitter end. I had made the hard choices, left my children, honed myself down. The Amazon. No breast, no heart.

  The girl’s smile was smug now, watching the discord between Carol and me. She knew who she was and she was untouchable. One of her powerful fathers would get her off, have a few words to the right people. She would be successful, one way or another, in this beautiful corrupt city.

  ‘Are you laying charges?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m laying charges. She . . .’

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  The sauna room exploded.

  Then I exploded. Into laughter. I laughed uncontrollably till the tears ran down my legs.

  I began trying to shape the laughter into words.

  ‘She pulled a gun on me. Can’t you hear the shots?’

  Carol signalled the two policewomen to go and attend to it.

  ‘Here,’ I said, throwing them my towel, ‘you’ll probably need this.’

  ‘Claudia, if I could think of some charge to lock you up with I would. Bring yourself down to the station tomorrow morning and make a statement. In the meantime just get out of my hair and don’t call me. I don’t care if it’s rape, murder or genocide, just don’t call me. OK?’

  ‘OK, Carol,’ I said, still trying to stifle the laughter.

  I said goodnight to Margaret and left the change rooms, leaving the mess for Carol to clean up. Carol’s authoritative voice echoed down the mirrored corridor: ‘Now then, Ms Villos, how do you happen to have an illegal firearm in your possession?’

  How can you do it, Carol? How can you do that with a straight face?

  THE city was quiet. A fine, misty rain was sweeping the streets. Everything smelled fresh and clean. Carol’s driver was sitting in the police car munching a hamburger, holding it in the bag still and taking large bites. I said good evening to him on my way past. He looked surprised, nearly startled, a nice boy whose mum had probably warned him about talking to strange women. I walked past the Queen Victoria Building majestic in the rain, its warm, pink, arcade lights like jewels in the crown, towards the cab rank in Park Street.

  Of course there were no cabs to be seen, or any other vehicles, except a van that loomed out of the darkness of a side street. As I was about to cross the road it suddenly gathered speed and headed straight for me. I’d seen that van before. At the mailbox. I turned and ran back down George Street. The van spun around and pelted down the street after me.

  The police car driver had scrunched up his hamburger bag and was about to drop it on the ground when I flung open the passenger’s door.

  ‘Drive!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just drive!’

  ‘But . . . but . . . what about Detective Rawlins?’

  ‘I’m working with Detective Rawlins. Now move before the bastard rams us!’

  He moved. Hard and fast and just in time.

  I turned around and beyond the glare of the van’s headlights saw Carol stepping out onto the street with Sally and the policewomen.

  ‘Keep going!’ I shouted, as the driver slowed.

  ‘But the lights are red.’

  ‘So? You think that’s going to stop them?’

  I’d made a mistake getting into a car with a law-abiding policeman. I had to get out and use my best weapon, my feet.

  But not yet, the van was too close.

  ‘Turn right into York Street.’

  ‘But it’s one-way.’

  ‘It’ll be dead-end if you don’t. Now move!’

  He put his foot down and round the corner we went, skidding on the greasy road. The van didn’t follow.

  ‘Good. I think we’ve lost him.’

  But we hadn’t. The van had cut through the Queen Victoria Building and was heading straight for us.

  ‘Accelerate! Down the car park ramp!’

  When we got into the darkness of the underground car park I opened the door. ‘Thanks for the ride. Here’s $50. Give the bastards a run for my money.’

  He drove up the second ramp and disappeared. I waited under cover till the van also went up the ramp. Then I ran. I had to get through to America and get through before Lavender did. I ran down Market Street, following the Monorail and the sign pointing to Darling Harbour.

  In the misty rain a tall-masted vintage yacht was slowly heading towards Cockle Bay. I ran up the wide pedestrian walkway across Darling Harbour. Then I heard it. The v
an, right behind me. In front of me was something I’d never seen before—a closed gate. Then I remembered that in this city of facades, part of the walkway had been a bridge, Pyrmont Bridge. I climbed through the gate just as the van came to a screeching halt.

  A door slammed and I looked behind. The Maori was lumbering towards me. In his hand I saw the glint of a knife. Involuntarily I bit my tongue. O’Toole’s dead body flashed before me, his hand, his hand holding his . . . I felt sick, everything started swaying. But it wasn’t just me. The ground was moving. The bridge was opening to let the yacht through. It was so close I could nearly touch it.

  I couldn’t go back. I had to keep running forward. The man in the control tower was gesticulating wildly but I had to go on. I could feel the Maori behind me, feel his hot, panting breath. I could see the water now in the ever-widening gap.

  Concentration of mind, body and spirit to a point of bright light, a point far beyond the gap. I leaped, airborne, flying through space, watching the gap widen still further. Then down, down I came, down to the ground on the other side, clinging to it like a baby to its mother.

  Behind me I heard a shout. I turned and saw the Maori flying through the air towards me. Down, down he came, down short of the safety of the other side, falling like a rock into the waters of Darling Harbour.

  ‘WHY MARK BANNISTER? That’s what I’d like to know. Lavender could have paid the best writer in the country to write his memoirs. Anyone would jump at the chance.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re peeved, Brian Collier. You never know, you might get a mention,’ I said, grinning at him. ‘Anyway, you’re alive and Mark’s not. He jumped at the chance. Jumped right out of his skin.’ I was sitting on Collier’s desk, leaning forward. ‘You know how Lavender plays his cat and mouse game. He needed a loophole. Needed someone he could play on, someone expendable. It didn’t matter that it was his daughter’s boyfriend. Fathers aren’t always fond of their daughters’ boyfriends. He found out he was dying of cancer, a matter of months. He’d built an empire in this city, but that wasn’t enough for Lavender. The dying man wanted a written record, wanted to explain himself to posterity, tell the world about his life and crimes.’

  ‘OK, so he picks an unknown. But why kill him? Why bite the hand that’s writing the memoirs?’

  ‘Memoirs are accounts of people’s lives but Lavender hadn’t finished his life when Mark finished his book. Lavender thought he’d be dead by the time the book was finished. That it would be published posthumously. But he wasn’t. People with cancer sometimes linger on for years, despite what the doctors say. So what was he going to do? There was a manuscript around that exposed him, and a writer who knew everything. He couldn’t take the chance that someone who knew every intimate detail of his life might shoot his mouth off. He kept an eye on him, through Sally, asked her what her boyfriend was doing, what he was up to. He would have been able to tell by Sally’s reaction whether she knew anything, and if Mark was going to talk it would be to the person closest to him. It was OK while the book was in progress but as it was nearing completion Mark was getting jumpy. Lavender couldn’t trust Mark if he was like that. And besides, there was the heroin. Lavender’s heroin. Mark had told people he was writing a book for someone, but he didn’t say who. But he must have got greedy—finished the book off himself and put his own name to it. And sent it off to America. The bloody irony of it is that the manuscript was rejected. What time is it, Brian?’

  ‘12.45.’

  In a quarter of an hour the publishing houses of America would be open for business. I had to be first cab off the rank. I’d tried international enquiries for Nancy Grosz’s home number but it was unlisted.

  ‘And where do you fit into all of this?’

  ‘I was the bunny who had to find the manuscript. The copy Harry hadn’t managed to get rid of. He’d wiped it off the hard disc of Mark’s computer, but he couldn’t be sure there wasn’t a copy somewhere, especially as he’d sent O’Toole around to pick up the loose threads, or rather the loose discs and hadn’t found it amongst them. It’d draw too much heat if Lavender looked for it himself. He’d put the hard word down through the network but no one knew a thing. He had some time, then. He was safe for a while, at least here. So he engineered a little game. He sent that first cryptic clue to Mark’s sister. And then he just sat back and waited. Watched and waited. Chuckling at the irony, that the person Marilyn had chosen for the job was the daughter of the man he’d turned into a derelict. Then when I got off the track and went up the back alleys he sent me the second clue, guided me back onto the right track, right into the heart. What are you grinning at?’

  ‘All this time you were working for Lavender too.’

  ‘NANCY Grosz, please.’ . . . ‘It’s Claudia Valentine, from Australia.’

  There were chime bells, then Nancy Grosz identified herself.

  ‘Yes, hello, Claudia Valentine here, calling from Australia. I’m investigating a deceased estate. Mark Bannister. I believe he sent you a manuscript on computer disc, The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender. You sent him a rejection slip with a note saying the manuscript would be forwarded separately, on receipt of his further instructions. Do you still have the disc with you?’

  She asked me to repeat the author’s name and manuscript title. Would I hold or would I like her to call me back?

  I looked at Collier. ‘I’ll hold.’

  I got chimes again, an eternity of chimes, ringing like the gates of heaven. We waited, Brian furiously smoking cigarettes, waiting for the story of the century.

  ‘Yes?’ I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. ‘I’m instructed by the executors of the estate to have the manuscript returned as soon as possible.’ . . . ‘I don’t think that would be soon enough. We need to access it urgently and our problem is that we’ve had a major malfunction. It seems that yours is the only copy. Would it be possible to return it via modem to our computer here?’ . . . ‘Yes? Great!’

  I gave her Brian’s number and password. Repeated it so she could write it down.

  She’d have it sent directly. I praised God for American efficiency. Then I winced at the ‘Have a nice day.’ Why did the efficiency have to be tinged with such crass ethnocentrism? It wasn’t even day here.

  I hung up and made an ‘o’ with my thumb and index finger.

  ‘It’s in the bag.’

  ‘Don’t put your skates on yet, Claudia. Tomorrow morning when that story hits the stands all hell will break loose. And what about Lavender? If he’s been following your progress so carefully he must know you’re onto it now. What’ll you do when he comes to collect?’

  ‘He’ll never find me. I’m going on holidays, as you suggested. Far away from the dirt of Harry Lavender’s city. To the land where the palm trees grow. Is there a phone around here I can use?’

  The newsroom was full of phones.

  ‘Take your pick.’

  I picked one far enough away to give me privacy. Besides, the phone on Brian Collier’s desk had just started to ring.

  I dialled the number and waited. And waited.

  ‘Steve? Sorry to ring you this late.’ . . . ‘No, it’s not all right. I think I owe you an apology.’ . . . ‘For the other day, no, for today, so much has happened it seems like years ago. I’m sorry about what I said to you.’ . . . ‘Pressure, that’s all, pressure. Sometimes the job gets . . . out of control.’ I chewed away at my bottom lip. ‘And so do I.’ . . . ‘There’s something going on here, I’ll tell you about it later. Tomorrow’s the weekend, what are you doing?’ . . . ‘Yeah? A week off? Terrific! Ever been to Queensland?’ . . . ‘Like to go again? You can meet my kids.’ . . . ‘I’ll be over as soon as I can.’ . . . ‘Yeah, I remember: in the letterbox.’ . . . ‘Yeah, in the fridge. See you, Steve.’ . . . ‘Me too.’

  Brian was just putting the phone down when I got back to his desk.

  ‘I’m glad you’re smiling,’ he said, ‘because I’ve got some news for you. Lavender’s in a coma. He’s n
ot expected to last the night.’

  The news pushed me into a sitting position and wiped the smile off my face.

  ‘Well that’s . . . that’s . . .’ I threw my hands out helplessly and slowly shook my head. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The man who perpetrated his life and crimes through technology now depended on technology for his very breath. I had him, had him in the palm of my hand. And he’d slipped away.

  ‘One more day. Just one more day. Why couldn’t the bastard have stayed conscious for just one more day?’

  ‘It’s been Harry’s game all along. His memoirs will be made public after he’s gone, just as he intended. Look on the bright side, Claudia. You’re lucky. He can’t touch you now.’

  ‘Oh no?’

  I slid off the desk, walked past all the monitors receiving news of the city, and stood at the window looking at the city herself. Her far horizons, her jewelled sea, her beauty and her terror . . . In the distance was the city’s glory, the bright arc of the Bridge curving into darkness, the shimmering star-struck waters of the harbour, the reflection of it in the city’s tall glass mirrors. All around the city lights were winking in conspiracy. I looked down below to street level. A drunk was pissing in the doorway of a pub. In another doorway a dero was nestled in for the night, nestled into the newspapers emanating from this building. It could have been Guy, it didn’t matter any more. He was just part of the city, like all of us. Part of Harry Lavender’s city.

  My city was the most beautiful harbour in the world, a childhood of open doors, of ocean breezes on hot summer nights, of passionfruit and choko vines growing in the heart of a city without pollution, the innocence of a time past, before the stench of Lavender. But the stench had always been there, I just hadn’t smelled it till there was no place left that didn’t reek of it.

  Except for museum pieces most of my city had been annihilated in the changing facades, its soul gutted, leaving as much life in it as in a taxidermist’s workshop.