Winter Traffic

by Stephen Greenall

  ‘Which it was—Education’s loss was our gain. I used to teach in a dungeon like this.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Oh, about the same time you were born.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like you miss it.’

  ‘Zero per cent,’ says Scully. ‘Little bastards stole my faith in humanity.’

  ‘And joining the force helped you get it back?’

  ‘Yep. Now I get to hang out with my favourite kind of people.’

  ‘Dead ones.’

  ‘And good sorts like you. Ready to love me?’

  She’s suffered enough: Scully slides the yellow folder in her direction and opens it in the same motion. A single sheet, the familiar gloss of grey that is more than paper, less than metal. ‘You X-rayed it,’ says Karen.

  ‘The MD in me.’

  ‘Why X-ray a book?’

  ‘To see its bones.’

  A square of light surrounded by a nothing of dark blue, all the text eviscerated. The inner life of the journal disclosed, and yet she has no frame of reference. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘You disappoint me, Supergirl. What’s that?’

  She follows the point of his finger and detects a hairline fracture. ‘Outline?’

  ‘Skeleton. Buried inside the rear cover, expertly.’

  Expertly: she glimpses the ghost of Koestler, steaming the liner, lifting it away like human tissue. Delicate pincers, the ones reserved for valuable stamps and insect specimens. A tiny space in which to enclose a secret. ‘It’s the missing page.’

  ‘And she’s back.’ The scientist produces a new zip-lock, inside it a single leaf of that same lovely paper. Karen crowds the fresh evidence, looking calm but rollercoasting inside; the stroke of her eye takes in a soup of alpha-numerics. ‘I’ve labelled it Codex One,’ says Scully. ‘It’s chess notation.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Nothing. Gobbledygook.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘In chess terms, I mean. I ran the moves and it doesn’t scan—pawns shifting like rooks, kings dancing all over the shop.’

  ‘You know about that stuff?’

  ‘I dabble.’

  Karen glares into the middle distance, thinking about a game her dad encouraged her to like. She enjoyed the clean lines, the rules of clear agenda, but the more she explored the more frightening it seemed: tiny armies on a tiny field, but the permutations infinite. Event horizon: Dad always beat her, but then Robert started rolling her too. Fuck that; her teenage gaze averted finally from the revelation that chess is accountancy, just a mind-crushing weight of numbers. ‘Koestler was clobbered with a chessboard,’ she says. ‘It can’t be coincidence.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think so.’

  Scully makes an ungainly crouch and Karen hears the hatch of the steel door. When he straightens he holds a metal tray, the murder weapon on top like a dish created for her dining pleasure. Alabaster, black and white, three square feet of hard arena. The chequer pattern reminds her of kitchen floors in apartments long ago—someone dropped the meat knife, stained an entire quadrant with a long reef of blood. Sizeable artefact, heavy enough for a Cold War tournament, the very last thing that went through Angelus Koestler’s head.

  ‘I did a fresh prints analysis,’ he says. Karen arches an eyebrow to articulate the question, and Scully shrugs. ‘Your predecessors were shit. Mine too.’

  ‘Mine weren’t shit. They just restricted themselves to a single line of inquiry.’

  ‘Yes—the line of Slane.’ Scully’s fingers are delicate wires, plugging into the board at the edges, making contact lightly, bearing the thing like the head of a respected chief. ‘Who only ever touched the implement like so.’

  She gets his drift. ‘He handed it over like a present.’

  ‘Like something valuable.’

  ‘New prints?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then it doesn’t have much value to me.’

  ‘Does it not?’

  She thinks about the question. She thinks about Holden, about the crimes that make crimes possible. Everything is incest. ‘Where’s this going?’

  Scully motions her closer and takes up the tweezers; she watches him scrape tinily at a corner of the board, exposing a fragment. No—a pigment, a flake of dark that looks volcanic, supersolar. Scully’s thick glasses magnify his eyes, magnified already by scientist glee. They fixate around the x and y of revelation, the point at which they arrive together.

  The board is not made of alabaster. That’s only a layer, a cunning veneer. The board is green like jade or American money.

  ‘Come on, Supergirl. Tell me what you see.’

  An echo, another round of tingled deja vu that causes Kara to frown.

  ‘It’s kryptonite.’

  06

  Zugzwang. Now there’s a stupid bloody word. Rarer than the thing it describes. In chess there is no waiving away, no forfeit of your turn. The rule is compulsion: you have to make a move, carry on, put one foot in front of the other until the execution square.

  So that’s exactly what you do.

  —

  In earliest days they called him the Jack. Nineteen seventy-seven, lifting a totalled car off the pedestrian it was killing, undeterred by the flaming wreck adjacent, the one that kept all lesser men at bay.

  ‘Bobby Cobra’ came later. You know because you asked. A chore you loathe because it puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes it is worth the pain to know—to collect the tale behind every nickname and so history the world. Every Mack Truck, every casually passing Buster McGovern.

  Blue Movie. It’s infamous, and one reason is this: starring in it was the only bloody thing they ever suspended him for.

  You assumed it was a sex tape, just one more seedy anecdote from eighties Bloke World. You develop a nose for that stuff, the smirking half-reference in the tea room that triggers warning like the smell of off milk. You hone it quick and what woman doesn’t—your sense of which stories to ask about, which to leave alone.

  You were wrong about Blue Movie. Christ, if only it was a bloody sex tape. So-called drama, genuinely woeful, the boom mike visible in every second shot. Celluloid Rawson is a fat PI with a silly hat, a dark and plastic zugzwang of a moustache. Seventy-eight minutes of unconvincing plot, of not being able to take it serious: slipshod dialogue, clumsy stunts, Ozploitation from the year you finished uni.

  The script was written by an admirer—at one point Rawson smiles and darts his eyes at the camera, thinking the scene complete. The hopeful beam of a little boy who only wants to please…Then the other actor says something and Bobby Cobra jumps, remembers his line.

  —

  It’s strange: on film he has no presence. He cannot act or hold the moment, cannot bring himself to bear. He has no charisma except at the end, his death scene, a long slow walking into water. At that point he is abruptly magnificent, Gielgud fused with Pacino, the three of them communing out there on la plage.

  It was supposed to be Bondi but they couldn’t get permission, filmed at Manly instead. Like maybe no one would notice. Spoilers, all the Norfolk pines in the background who are waving and screaming This is frigging northside.

  —

  You know about authenticity, about snaring it in the wild. Perhaps, in the shallows, he became oblivious to the camera. Perhaps at last his world was mute and he could not hear it rolling.

  06

  A skyline wind that comes out of the land, not the sky, the sky just a closed theory trapped between low western cloud and a rimfire horizon. It passes through wheat belts to graze an early rising farmer who’s thinking about logistics. Who will find me, the house is a shambles. That wind gathers pace and decision, easting to a city and stroking a jogger as she stretches, as she seeks to be comfortable within her discomfort. At half past five it is frigid in the dark, the cusp of unforgiving night and the empty rubric of day.

  Caron Daley watches the shape that she is and thinks all sorts of things. The voice that tells him h
e shouldn’t be here is the voice he ignores. Always. He looks in the mirror and the voice lapses. It is his favourite thing to do.

  He looks up again and the jogger has disappeared, gone running, vanished for an hour. That’s okay—plan of attack still stands. Better to approach when there’s a bit of light anyway. The low and sibilant voice of ABC starts giving him the news, a genie in the dash that speaks of scandals political, shipwrecks avoidable, massacres foreign. A woman has been bashed on the North Central Coast; Hurricane Ritchie has fucked up half of Guatemala. Caron hears the lot, absorbent, comfortable despite the discomfort. Patience is primary among the virtues of police.

  The tap on his window is hard, triple-headed, and it makes him flinch.

  Jesus. The jogger, she got big on him.

  —

  Caron decommissions the radio, winds the glass. ‘Wow, man.’

  ‘What are you doing,’ says Karen.

  He takes a breath. Adrenaline. ‘Was on my way home, thought I might run into you.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘I’m on nights now.’

  ‘So what.’

  He hesitates; this has gone pear-shaped. ‘Maybe we could grab breakfast or something.’

  Karen with hands on hips, running gear lined with sweat. Looking around, internally debating, ambivalent like the breeze. She doesn’t want to grab breakfast or something. ‘Walk me in.’

  ‘Okay. What about your run?’

  ‘I’ve been, Sherlock—I was warming down, not up.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Really call that surveillance?’

  He has a charming laugh, warm and handsome like his aura. The most beautiful man on the NSW force. Wanted to be a model, but he came from a line of hard-eyed coppers who would have pecked him to death like an albino in the nest if he’d leveraged their genes to move wristwatches, shaving cream. Would have suited him, though—he’s vain as fuck, notorious for it. Caron gives some conversation a razz. ‘They reckon Rawson’s shot through.’

  Zero response. Maybe she didn’t hear. Karen is breathing hard as they move towards the complex. Gives her running a proper stab does Kaz. In time she speaks: ‘Mike Samo told me personal leave.’

  ‘Bullshit. Mike Samo knows your name?’

  ‘Get on with it, Caron.’

  ‘I want to step in.’

  ‘You can’t. You’re the Robbers.’

  ‘Make the request. I’m up for this.’

  Carmel Waters looms. Sounds like a recording star from the seventies, 110 apartments for urban professionals on the make. Waterside, upscale, a nice central garden and a pool beyond the gate. Caron can remember it, but longingly. Karen offers a neutral hello to a couple coming out and holds the door for him. ‘Why are they saying he shot through?’

  ‘Because nobody’s seen him. That’s usually a pretty good sign.’ She rolls her eyes and Caron makes the sensible additions. ‘Flat’s deserted, mobile’s dead. He didn’t give his workshops.’

  Karen unlocks her mailbox. Junk, bill, junk/junk/bill. So the prick did have a mobile. ‘I’m back paired with Brendan,’ she announces, focus mostly on the post. ‘And even if I wasn’t, there’s a few hundred Homicides I’d request before you.’

  ‘Because of our history?’

  She winces. Contempt for him that he referenced it. Contempt for herself. ‘That was two minutes, two years ago.’

  Caron’s smile is a weapon. ‘Two minutes? That’s slander, girl.’ He reaches out to brush a stray strand of her lovely hair, licensed to by his careless, near-universal success with women. Karen hyper-extends his wrist and the man collapses like a storm-hit tent.

  ‘No means no, Caron.’

  No means no.

  —

  ‘Hey there, lazybones.’ Brendan pulls up late but it’s early, not quite seven, the lazybones ironic. He offers her a styrofoam cup of service-station coffee and she thinks about it. Yeah, alright, fuck it.

  Victoria Road with a million other early birds. Third gear is better than first. It’s the same route Bob Mack takes. Karen feels a stab to the heart of her limerent self and it wakes her up. She vows it’s like the coffee, last one for the day.

  ‘It’s weird how they make running machines,’ says Brendan at the red. She follows his line of sight, women in the window as though for sale, working a row of Infinity 2000s. A toney gym men aren’t allowed to join.

  Clarification needed. ‘Weird how they make them—or that they make them?’

  ‘Um. That they make them.’

  ‘Why weird?’

  ‘Look around,’ he says, a sweep of his hand that he learnt from Delvene Delaney. He means the planet. ‘Greatest running machine ever made.’

  Othello at the State. Giles brought his wife.

  Karen doesn’t bother to point it out, the reason they make running machines. She thinks about the Infinity 2000 she bought when she moved out of the share house, went to live alone.

  —

  They have rapport. They even have a running joke: Peter Coren, a thousand years on the job, a million cigarette butts to show for it. His spectacled negativity is a fame unto itself, an iron pessimism no feel-good story ever tempered. ‘It’s fucked up,’ concludes Pete at almost any old juncture, as though he can’t retire until he’s uttered the verdict a billion times, witnessed a trillion fucked-up things. Tiresias. And yet, just as fixedly, the man is unaware of his catchphrase—of the office girls doubling over in the background when he lays it clockwork down.

  ‘It’s fucked up,’ says Brendan Tavish at every missed yellow, declarative in the same distinct manner as the source, three words uttered as one. Is that the price of petrol? It’s-fucked-up.

  ‘Fucked up,’ agrees Karen, smiling and joining in, referring now to the wind chill, the inflation rate, the still-burning wells of poor old Kuwait.

  ‘See that memo about overtime? No more till June.’

  ‘It’sfuckedup.’

  ‘They’re closing half the lanes on Moore Park Road.’

  ‘Thatismajorlyfuckedup.’

  ‘Someone stole the last Iced Vo-Vo.’

  ‘Fuckenfuckenfuck!’

  —

  Othello at the State and Giles brought his dog-faced wife.

  ‘I skipped breakfast.’ So claims Brendan, citing a desire to stop for something to eat. Bullsugar. He looks like he never missed a meal in his life. Brendan isn’t fat, just soft.

  The play was uneven, Iago was a boob. Karen says, ‘Have you ever visited a judge in chambers?’

  Her partner thinks about it. ‘Once or twice, evidence in-camera. Child-protection stuff.’

  ‘I don’t mean with lawyers present.’

  ‘What—just me and the gavel? Fuck no.’

  It staggered on like one of the comedies. Afternoon: visited by detectives.

  ‘What does Ajax mean to you?’

  Brendano shrugs. ‘Clean oven. Why?’

  No reason. ‘I gotta hit Gore Street,’ she says. ‘Need some info from personnel.’

  ‘Sleepwalkers, eh.’ He draws his seatbelt, a dignitary applying his sash for yet another state dinner. ‘What are we running down?’

  ‘I want contact details for an ex-hound.’ Karen calibrates, sensitive to his next reaction like a weather satellite. ‘Roger Paspaley.’

  On spec, Brendan discovers the glad-wrapped lamington in the glove box. Hers; yesterday’s. Karen gives assent to his unspoken inquiry with a curt nod. ‘What has Roger Paspaley got to do with Koestler?’ he wonders with an overfull gob.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Separate investigation.’

  Again the partner shrugs. His mouth, her crumbs. ‘Your funeral.’

  —

  He isn’t sharp, but he’s a good man. The world, the force, needs a few more like him. Possibly smarter than he lets on. Never the top performer, but they don’t keep you in Death if you’re a genuine dill.

  Yesterday, quitting time, she dropped him at his child’s school. Karen was about to drive off but then she
didn’t. The boy came out of the special-ed building and Brendan, across the way, his face just shone. The poor bugger on wrist crutches, every step a contest with himself, a body noncompliant but smiling through it like a deadset trouper. Brendan arranged him in the car with obvious love, difficult to do when it’s the ten-thousandth time.

  Cystic fucking fi. Tears welled in Karen and she had to clench and swallow, pushing it down in the hope it went someplace digestible—not hoarded deeply, a malignant sadness waiting to explode in some future hour, drag her to the bottom like a badly holed ship.

  —

  Mid-morning and this is life now—this grey sedan, this mistral rain that sweeps across in the shadow of Sleepwalkers. Waiting for Brendan Tavish. After too long a timespan she sees his untidy shape gather beneath the awning, a hefty cumulonimbus getting ready for the thirty-yard dash.

  ‘Nup,’ he says upon entry, sucking his breath like a man escaped from Mongol hordes, not mildly indifferent weather. He has managed to acquire a Snickers. ‘She wouldn’t give it up.’

  Karen closes her eyes. The one fucking thing. ‘Why not.’

  ‘She says a, she can’t find anything. And b, we wouldn’t be entitled to it anyway.’

  ‘Entitled. That’s wonderful. She uniform or civilian?’

  ‘Uniform. I wouldn’t take that crap from a civvy.’

  Would you not? Karen is up and out, stalking away before he’s had a chance to protest, forewarn, apologise, unwrap his calorific goodie.

  —

  ‘I’m Millar.’

  The foe is veteran. Matronly, grim and prim, tough like a Forresters steak. And yet the set of Karen’s hips is articulate. It says Listen here, you hard-faced bitch.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Detective Tavish was in here a minute ago. My colleague.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The computer is positioned between them—the tangible thing, but not the only thing. The sisterhood and its complex wane of effect, non-effect. Disparities of age, looks, seniority, career success. Gore Street is a dull moon, a home to barren things. ‘I need to consult with a Detective R. Paspaley on some case notes he left behind. It’s urgent.’