Winter Traffic

by Stephen Greenall

  ‘My mate.’

  ‘Yeah—Jamie Sutton. The ferry, the small matter of your alibi.’

  ‘Sutton is a lot of things,’ says Slane in a coiled voice. ‘But he is not my mate.’

  He extends his hand and Karen realises that she wants to touch him. An odd sensation. Because of it, she promises herself that she’ll break off first—but in the event she doesn’t.

  10

  You are fifteen years old when the world rears up and tries to kill you. You know it as The Event, as being over before it starts, as being over in the time it takes to read this sentence.

  That is the nature of a car wreck: it appears to transpire out of nothing, an on-the-spot decision made then and there in the mind of God. It is only much later that you realise the truth.

  It was an accident, yes—but it was not accidental. The fatal bend was preordained, decided in a time before roads or cars or people. Its malignance lies waiting in the universe forever.

  —

  The Event was the end of your parents. In a way, it was also the end of you. Your map was redrawn. You were never just a girl again, you were the survivor of The Event.

  —

  Growing up, you dreamt about it. Recurringly: nights without number spent in closed and single cinema. Everyone said this was normal, perfectly normal, but that is one more thing you never gave agreement to. For one thing, it was never the right car or right setting. These distortions felt like a lack of respect. For the dead; for the essential truth of The Event.

  You told the psychs about The Dream and it made them happy. Small alterations proved that you were ‘colonising’ what had happened to you.

  Colonising.

  You spent four months in hospital getting tired of the psychs.

  —

  These many years later, The Dream is still a lie. The car is still the wrong colour, wrong model, wrong landscape, wrong time of day. If it was crime you’d never solve it, not with inconsistencies like these, burdened by a witness who cannot self-agree. The wreckage cartwheels from a fixed point aflame, settling on water, burning like tragic fuselage.

  It’s bullshit: your parents died inland. Velocity was your chief ingredient. The sedan had three occupants—two in front, one in back—and that is fair enough because it tallies with what we know. But when you dream The Dream the person in the back is difficult to chart, her eyes are amiss, you cannot see what she’s looking at, she does not look like you.

  10

  Karen navigates to Paddo and hopes the mail is good. Turning into the street she sees a crime scene of a car, a boil on the pristine arse of the suburb. Panel van, a reef of flames that lick the skirt.

  Mr Fuck.

  —

  Koestler’s voice is inside her now, the delicate gift of his phrasing that she acquired from his journal. With enough care you could fake the elegant copperplate, but not the particulars of his inner working—the mechanism that was his mind. It is a timepiece whose tick and tock she would know anywhere.

  She knows it now: Karen is the quiet reader, existing without detection, happy to let the man across the way chat with Angelo de Souza. The notice she takes of their lurid vehicle is only intermittent because her hands feel so full. Also her heart, chest, mind, lunchless viscera. The urge to run is powerful, to burn away the anxiety that rises in every cell. Part of her still thinks it’s a hoax, a gee-up, but a lesser part now—one that gives up more of its share with every scented page.

  Slane’s flick will be finishing soon. Daniel Day Lewis will have stuck with Winona, ditched Michelle. Tough luck, Countess—should have done something different with your frigging hair.

  I could save you some of that precious time. Tell you how it ends.

  Corkscrew fizz. It nags at her, a tumbler that won’t quite fall. It nags despite the explosive device in her lap, a bomb that masquerades as a beautiful book. She closes it and smoothes her hand across its creamy leather face. Vanilla perfume, age of innocence. Koestler gave his masterpiece a name but she doesn’t understand what it means.

  But I already know how it ends.

  Karen is ready. She lifts the sun visor so that the light will strike her hair, which she unties and shakes out like a model selling conditioner. Just a tiny flourish in the landscape, a minuscule action in the story of the street. From thirty yards away, facing the wrong direction, you’d have to be an observational genius to notice.

  Or just a man attuned to women, a thing she knows him to be.

  The tumbler clicks; the nag evaporates.

  Christopher Slane reads Edith fucking Wharton.

  —

  Whoops: de Souza cartwheels out of car—out of scene and suburb. A boot to the fundament propels him along the vector.

  The flurry prompts the girl in silver Falcon to alight. The brief smoothing of skirt, of suit—a mirthless shimmy to get herself correct. The man attuned to women trains his eyes in the rear view, pre-emptively striking for a comprehensive squiz.

  A labour in vain / the mirror can’t afford that kind of scope.

  —

  The passenger seat is vacant for all of fifty seconds. Then her. ‘Thanks for getting back to me.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ The legend extends an open hand. Bear Claw. He winces to locate some charm, exert a modicum of grace. ‘Constable E. M. Rawson at your service. Stands for Electro-Magnetic.’

  ‘Millar. We’ve met.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘Goulburn, 1985. You were a guest instructor.’

  ‘Is that so. And what was I instructing the guests to do?’

  ‘Hand-to-hand.’

  ‘I don’t remember you.’

  ‘It was a big class,’ she says. ‘Have you spoken to LAC?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I got the message. Not to be rude, Detective Millar, but what the fuck are you playing at.’

  ‘Pourquoi?’

  ‘Recruiting me onto your Koestler case. I’m poison to a meteor like you. Career kryptonite.’

  ‘But I always heard you were Superman.’

  She says it straight—no irony, no cute tricks of voice. Rawson ignores it and goes over the top. ‘Let me save you some grief. A bloke like me in the corridor, you’re supposed to pretend you don’t know who I am.’

  ‘No one’s that good at pretending. You think I’m a meteor?’

  ‘I think you’re a pain in the arse.’

  ‘Think what you want.’

  ‘About a Toecutter in a skirt with a Mosman accent? Thanks, darlin—I will.’

  ‘They said you’d make it hard.’

  ‘Don’t take it personal. It’s just that I’ve had two of the dumbest conversations of my life in this car and I’ve got fuck-all energy for a third.’

  She grips the present in her lap, wondering how he can miss its fragrant draw, the supply of its gravity. The book doesn’t belong in this third-hand shag-wagon; it sits disparate, calling attention to itself, and any true detective would instantly see.

  ‘Koestler. I can break it.’

  ‘What’s to break? Slane did it.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘Course not. He wouldn’t dirty his hands.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t plan it,’ she says, straightening in her seat, holding it together despite a host of complications. ‘Maybe he lost his temper.’

  ‘Chris doesn’t do that.’

  ‘You sure? Friends fall out for all kinds of reasons.’

  ‘Friends, eh. Is that what they were.’

  Karen cocks her head as though thinking on the run, as though voicing old suspicion. ‘Koestler was a bachelor; Slane is attractive. Maybe the judge made a pass?’

  The Busted Incremental hammers his fist on the dash. Ex-fly. But Millar doesn’t flinch. ‘Holden’s good. Talk to him.’

  ‘I’m talking to you. A good collar could make my career. Word to the wise, might even save yours.’

  Rawson laughs / it’s funny. ‘Alright, Pippi Longstocking. But you’re wrong about Koestle
r. He was a bachelor alright, but he didn’t like men.’

  ‘Boys?’

  ‘None of the above. He was one of those asexuals you sometimes get. One of nature’s spectators.’

  ‘And how would you know that.’

  ‘Because he could have had me, baby, but he somehow passed it up.’ Rawson looks to see if she’s smiling. Nup / nothing. ‘Old Newton was asexual. You know—the gravity bloke. You’ve got a bit of it going on yourself.’

  ‘Gee thanks.’

  ‘Great hair but.’

  ‘Regarding this car, Detective Rawson.’

  ‘You likey?’

  ‘It’s hot.’

  ‘Ay?’ He casts the wrath of his yellow hangover in her direction. ‘Why the fuck are you running checks on my ride.’

  ‘Boredom. But don’t sweat it—Internal is all in the past.’

  ‘A rottie never changes its spots.’

  ‘You mean leopard.’

  ‘Adapting the metaphor—little talent of mine.’ Rawson offers her legs a candid leer. ‘You got any talents to report?’

  ‘I’m a human lie detector.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Yeah: that one about you not remembering me from Goulburn is a beauty.’

  Rawson tries to grin but it just won’t fire. ‘Your calibration’s off…Tell me, you going after Jamie Sutton like Holden did?’

  ‘Haven’t decided. They say he’s the silent type.’

  ‘True story.’

  ‘I like the silent type. A shame he hates coppers, I’d love to have a chat.’

  ‘Why? To ask him if Slane was on the ferry?’

  ‘To ask him why he was on the ferry…Look, if I lay off him will you put in?’

  Rawson’s embittered smile. Voices inside, the advice-giving angel who is forever rebuffed. ‘The little girl who cut her teeth by cutting toes. Tony Bercovitch’s protégé. Davey Chestwyn’s goddaughter. Fuck me dead, girl, you really think I’m gonna sit in a hot fucken car and make a deal?’

  ‘You can trust me, Michael.’

  ‘No, Karen—I can’t. I’m a corrupt policeman. Corruption is what I do for a living.’

  ‘Stop talking shit.’

  ‘Why would I lie?’

  She looks down and away, past the threshold of the thing she wants to say. Is destined to and then feel stupid evermore. ‘You’ve got the Peter Mitchell on your mantelpiece.’

  ‘I pawned it, love. Years ago.’

  Millar looks at the gallery. Tears: if you gird your jaw, blink slow, no one is able to tell. ‘Why are you doing this. Taking the risk.’

  Rawson is almost tender. ‘Darlin, you wouldn’t know risk if it whistled you in the street. Risk is getting up in the morning. Risk is the second fucken race at Canterbury Park.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  He sighs and decides, tells her Hop out, sweet cheeks—there’s something you should see.

  The man follows his instruction quicker than she does, leaving the van and going straight for the gallery. Karen grips her pale leather and catches his darkwing shadow, moving like a little kid who walks then runs, walks then runs.

  09

  The psychs tape you when you are growing up. You grow up hating them. Later, you will be the one to walk into interview rooms and announce yourself to the prisoner, hit a button and start the inquisition. Maybe that’s why you became a cop.

  No—that isn’t why. It starts before that, when you begin taping them: the psychs. You tell David and Giselle that you need the dictaphone for school, but really it’s payback. You take the little tapes and file them away—Dr Kagan, Dr Eliott—and for the first time since The Event you sleep properly. Even The Dream recedes in its power, its bad nocturnal frequency.

  Soon you’re taping David, Giselle, your brother. Then friends at school, then awkward first dates. The good stuff you keep, but life is mostly not about the good stuff—repetitive, trite—so mostly you wipe it. The technolog y gets smaller and more expensive but you always invest. By nineteen you are addicted, as fully committed to the daily theft as any klepto. The pyro flare of wearing a wire, of going to sleep to the spoken noises of the day, yourself like a character, the only one in the play who’s open to the secret.

  See? A born Toecutter is what you are. That thing most loathed, most unforgivable.

  09

  ‘You look like you need a drink.’

  A tight smile that says Go away. It’s one of a trillion tics in a city, a world, where life is not recorded. Nothing keeps, nothing saves.

  ‘Genuine offer.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  The energy of the week is changing around them: at half past four on a Thursday afternoon it proceeds like an algorithm, like cityscape electrons attuning to pleasure, football, drinking, late-night shopping.

  ‘Meeting somebody?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Karen. She is the tight smiler, the no-thankser. She needs a drink but needs other things worse: shower, cellular cleanse, a washing away of her Paddington afternoon.

  —Not a word.

  —Fine.

  —Pain of death.

  ‘But that’s just it,’ says Lenny Clarke. ‘I’m the someone you’re here to meet.’ A bell goes off to signal happy hour. ‘But from the look of it that’s news to you.’

  Karen sneers and says his name like a profanity. ‘Bercovitch.’

  —

  Lenny offers her card and Karen shakes her head, walks away. Alone in the cubicle she gets intimate. A single earphone, a singular need to know all over. Did that shit actually happen? Caallum staring at the pill in Rawson’s hand, Rawson giving him the wind-up finger.

  —Where did you get it.

  —What level of spastic are you, Clam. You know—out of ten? You and Whit deserve each other, two peas in a dickhead pod.

  —Whit came to me.

  —So what? You know who runs E out of the Cross.

  —Chris wasn’t looking after Whit’s interests.

  —Whit’s interests are pissing away every bit of good luck that ever came his way. And you’re worse. You don’t seem to understand what Slane is. He’s got sixty fucken blokes, Cal. What have you got? Ten paintings and a chick called Edwina.

  —Whit sai—

  —Stop talking about Whit you dopey prick. Slane is shacked up with Whit’s sister, basically brothers-in-law. That didn’t stop him sending the muscle around to give Whit a tap. What will they do when they find out you were the one supplying the degenerate fuck.

  —We stuffed up.

  —You have a serious gift for understatement, Clammage.

  —Can you help?

  —Not a chance. You’re rooted.

  —But you know Chris. You can talk to him.

  —Jesus.

  —I’ll, y’know…

  —You’ll what? Don’t look at her.

  —But.

  —Pretend she isn’t. Fucking. Here.

  —Um, I’ll pay.

  —That’s more like it. Whit is AWOL so he can fuck off out of it. From now on it’s just you and me.

  —Okay. But the bikers—

  —Don’t worry about them.

  —Alright, I won’t.

  —We’ll split it straight down the middle, Cal. Seventy-thirty my way.

  —

  ‘I smell vanilla,’ says Lenny Clarke when Karen gets back. A happy frown. ‘Come on, let Uncle Warwick get you something.’

  ‘Tanqueray. Double.’

  ‘Tonic?’

  ‘Why ruin the party.’ Lenny’s eyebrow—then Karen’s a minute later when the journo returns. Lenny’s on the milk. ‘Great. Now I feel like a pisshead.’

  ‘Don’t,’ says Lenny.

  ‘On duty?’

  ‘On the wagon. Only one pisshead here, trust me.’

  ‘Right.’ Karen looks around without enthusiasm, all the younger suits filling up on loudmouth soup. ‘We could go somewhere else.’

  ‘You’re sweet to offer, but it’s fine. I’m on the
wagon because my feet are nailed to the floor.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  ‘I hear you’re teamed with Rawson. How’s that working out?’

  Karen raises her glass in ironic toast and Lenny nods all over again. ‘Did you really think Tony was meeting you in a place like this?’

  ‘You’re right,’ says Karen, looking about. ‘I should have known better, but it’s been one of those days.’

  ‘Cracked the case?’

  ‘Yep. Colonel Mustard, in the study.’

  ‘You got the second part right.’

  Karen gets serious. Or more serious. ‘Bercovitch wants me to farm out my progress—that about the size of it?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ Lenny smiles. ‘We’re just a couple of pawns in his game. But the reason he didn’t tell you this himself is that—’

  ‘He’s punishing me.’

  ‘You’ve been a naughty girl, Ms Millar. You were supposed to go with Carseldine, maybe stick with Brendan Tavish.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘Lovely man, Brendan. How’s his son doing?’

  ‘Cystic fibrosis,’ says Karen. ‘It’s not the kind of thing that gets better.’

  ‘He’s tits on a bull, BT, but no one’s got the heart to move him on.’ Karen looks away, refusing to bite. Solidarity. Lenny leans back in her chair. ‘How’s David Chestwyn these days?’

  ‘Couldn’t tell you. He’s a busy man.’

  ‘Basically lives there from what I hear. Must be interesting, having the State Coroner for a dad.’

  ‘Godfather.’

  ‘And former legal guardian. Blessing or a curse?’

  ‘He’s had a lot less influence than you’d think.’

  ‘Shame about the perception, though.’

  ‘I don’t care what people think,’ says Karen. ‘I’m lucky that way.’

  ‘Handy trait when you’re starring for Internal.’

  ‘You know the Koestler case?’

  ‘Backwards.’

  ‘Well, that makes one of us. It’s cold and Rawson’s useless. It might be a while before I have anything to share.’