Karen says it loud. Not obnoxious, just noisy enough to test the theory that the name is an incantation, a spell that will still the office flow. Brendan played quality poker, but Paspaley ripples among the toy police. The setting gets appreciably quieter then strives to revert.
The matron shakes her head. ‘If he’s retired it would need to go through LAC. There’s forms.’
There’s forms. Karen lays her card down. ‘Is he retired? I actually don’t know the first thing about him.’ On the card is a title, a signature.
Mike Samo.
The matron frowns, lashes keys.
—
‘How’d you go.’
‘Progress. How do you feel about a visit to Temple.’
‘Too easy,’ says Brendan. ‘Due there meself; Bercovitch wants an update.’
‘I see…Me and him aren’t talking.’
‘So I gathered. What happened?’
‘No comment.’
‘Fair enough. What should I tell him?’
‘I don’t know—give the truth a razz.’
‘The truth is I’m your glorified driver. And I don’t even get to drive.’
‘I know. It isn’t fair.’
‘Bugger fair.’ Brendan watches her turn the engine, release the handbrake. ‘Just tell me what you’re hogging, Ms Millar. The glory or the damage?’
‘I wish I knew.’
‘You know,’ says Brendan. ‘You just don’t want to say it out loud.’
—
‘That’s weird,’ the matron said. ‘See here? Empty field. It should say Resigned, Retired, Discharged, Deceased. I haven’t seen that before. It shouldn’t be possible.’
‘Got a forwarding address?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What are these?’
‘Case numbers.’
‘Cases he worked?’
‘No—insurance stuff. Worker’s comp. He got injured on the job.’
Yeah, every other week by the look of it. Paspaley, first man through the door, fucking shock troop. ‘Does he draw disability? They’d have to post the cheques to somewhere.’
A slump of the shoulders that signals defeat. ‘That’s a different system.’
‘Time,’ said Karen Millar, flagrantly lying. ‘It’s on my side.’
—
What if a policeman just vanished one day—and no one went out to look?
Brendan laughs; Karen voiced it. Didn’t mean to, but she’s caught in the hot crossfire of Sydney peak hour: turning into traffic, pressure hemming on every side, the angles tight and the calls split-second. It doesn’t take much to break the chain of command—any boofhead move will do it—and then the intersection will cry with the pain of a dozen horns.
‘I take it you’re talking about the Incremental,’ says the passenger. Karen takes a momentary vow of silence and pilots to smoother waters. She isn’t talking about the Incremental. Brendan smiles: ‘Maybe we should file a Missing Persons.’
She pulls up three blocks from Temple and nails the angled park at pace. ‘On Rawson? Fuck that. To file a Missing Persons you’ve got to want the bastard back.’
‘Ha.’
‘Post this for me? It’s on your way.’
‘Done.’
‘And don’t forget the receipt.’
‘God no.’
She takes the envelope that Brendan has not laid eyes upon and addresses it with a brisk pen. Roger Paspaley, care of. Her partner receives it gravely and looks equivocal, his frying pan of a face simmering perhaps with indecision. Thick lips that mouth the names: Margaret, Ipswich. Karen heads him off at the pass. ‘Don’t ask,’ she says. ‘And don’t tell.’
‘Don’t ask,’ he says emptily, uploading the data like a hypnotee. It’s a religious maxim that will save souls, spare sorrows. ‘And do not ever ever tell.’
05
Imagine the world where Bob Mack loved you back. The parallel universe. What does it look like? At the death you take a second glass of red to promote sleep, demote inquiries such as this.
Someone should have made him. Okay, so it wasn’t part of the blueprint, the cosmic master, but one of them—Bob, God—should have taken a hit for the team and given you what you wanted. The apartment feels empty of both.
It’s fucked up, Peter Coren.
—
You are diligent about the lights, but you never turn off the television. It runs twentyfourseven in unbroken silence, a faithful idiot, the home fire you keep burning to scare off burglars and bad luck. Its blue flare is like the mozzie zapper, zapping the nightmares that float through the complex in search of hosts.
Bloody thing’s broken.
You run daily, twice, and eliminate coffee, drink warm milk before the appointed time. All of which is wonderful, except the other party—sleep—is never true to the appointment.
No, sleep is like children or sex, God made it for other people.
—
Koestler, the patron saint of your insomnia. St Angelus, the first dead soul who ever kept you up at night. You shouldn’t take evidence to bed with you, but the touch of his vellum is reassuring, that scent of moist vanilla. When you hold his book you are holding Sydney, a cesspit that looks and smells just lovely.
Eros, Thanatos, truth of the position. You lie in his arms and sour the bed, wine going to vinegar, a wondrous female machinery running onwards to junk, glittering never, a cancerous milk that never turns into babies.
05
Water views. Karen knows them intimately. David and Giselle live seven blocks away—always have, always will. ‘What’s this bloke’s story,’ says Brendan.
His story? He is the harbourmaster, the herald who went unheeded. Beowulf was an unhappy family. ‘Shifty Barron,’ says Karen.
‘Shifty? Nice.’
‘Remember that ferry collision a year back?’
‘Sort of. No one killed.’
‘Wrong. Some older girl got a fright, had a heart attack. This bloke was the captain.’
‘Bugger.’
‘Not of the Pea—the other one. Scamander. The Coroner said it wasn’t his fault.’
‘Your dad the Coroner?’
‘My legal guardian the Coroner. But Mr Barron here had a tot of rum in his blood, maybe two. Disqualified for life.’
‘Ooh. Ouch.’
Too right, ouch. Forty-three years on the Sydney water, half of it heading up the ferries: master pilot, tenth gen, final scion of a long line of whalers. They hand-picked him to take the Queen out to Pinchgut during the Bicentennial, the bloke sporting two hundred years’ worth of sea-time, some of it actual, all of it forfeit. A tot of rum, maybe two? Mother’s milk for the likes of him, insulin for the diabetic.
‘Poor bastard,’ says Brendan Tavish idly. ‘Why we talking to him?’
‘It’s a follow-up. They spoke to him after the killing, wanted his professional opinion.’
‘What’s his connection to the judge?’
‘Not talking about the judge. I’m talking about Sophie Dance.’
Brendan shifts, uncomfortable, a nascent wedgie for the ever-seated man. Cobblers Beach. Does he remember? Yeah—sort of. All of Brendan’s remembrance is vague. ‘Sounds like our inquiries have widened.’
‘That bother you?’
‘Regarding that thing I posted the other da—’
‘You never said how you went with Berc.’
‘How do you reckon? He asked about Slane, wanted to know why we haven’t re-interviewed the alibi bloke. Jimmy Sutton.’
‘Jamie.’
‘Him too. Tony’s not too interested in alternative theories. That the reason you and him are on the outs?’
‘No. Comment.’
‘He offered us some extra Myrmidon love, said Casey would put two blokes at our disposal.’
‘That’ll make them happy.’
‘Yeah. Buncha cunts.’
‘What else did you tell him.’
‘Berc? Nothing much. Just that you’ve exonerated Slane, turned your attenti
on to every big conviction from the late 1980s.’
‘Jesus, Brendan.’
He laughs, animated for the first time since morning tea. ‘I said the Myrmidon stuff was greatly appreciated, then bowed and scraped my way out the door.’
Naturellement. ‘You’ll keep,’ she promises, menace-free. She unclips her belt and says, Let me hit this bloke for a yarn.
—
Barron, old and small, patrolling the edges of the field, his line-machine an incontinent zimmer. The menial and undemanding job of a semi-retiree; probably knows someone at the club, the mighty Mosman Whales. He sees her coming from a long way out.
‘Hey there. I’m—’
‘I know who you are.’
Yeah? Because that would be some trick. Badgeflash. ‘Karen Millar, on the job.’
‘Sure. Death Squad.’
‘So—my reputation precedes me.’
‘No, you just all look alike. Walk the same, talk shit the same.’
‘Got a minute?’
‘Not really.’
The contraption makes a low whirr, leaking paint onto the winter surface. You need clear lines to conduct the game. ‘Why the hostility, Ces?’
His progress doesn’t stop; it is steady, ongoing. ‘What’s this about. The girl or the Desert Pea?’
‘It’s not about Desert Pea.’
The Tidemaster grunts. The Pea wasn’t as bad for the world as the girl was—but it was worse for him. Sophie Dance. ‘Have to dredge that up do I.’
‘If you don’t mind.’
‘I do mind. You lot come to me, done so twice. And never paid attention.’
‘The tide is complicated.’
‘Bullshit. It just didn’t suit, didn’t fit your story.’ Barron pauses and evil-eyes her. ‘No, you’re not all the same. Those other pricks were giants.’
That’s true—but the Age of Giants is done with now. Karen looks past his embittered face, tinged yellow like the medicine he doesn’t take. An admiral cast upon the shore, taking this job because it’s close to water. She says, ‘These other pricks. They got names?’
‘Paspa something. I took him out to the point and showed him what I was on about, drew him a bloody map. This was before they even made the arrest. Not that I expected any better from him—bastard walked off the bridge disappointed. I knew the frame-up was on.’
‘What about the second bloke?’
‘You don’t care about the second bloke. You care about the little bloke, the judge. The one that copped it.’
‘Did Koestler tell you why he was interested?’
‘I didn’t ask. Do I look that bloody stupid?’
‘Regarding the second bloke—did he come around before or after they collared Meath?’
‘Just after. Asked all the right questions, said keep it to myself. Riley.’
‘Rawson.’
‘Yeah.’
‘He leave disappointed, too?’
‘He left broken—but not from anything I said. Just a broken bloke in general, fit to hang himself.’
‘He’s better now.’
‘Shit. Imagined him dead.’
‘You stand by what you told them?’
Ces snarls, a hostile exasperation that only land folk can inspire. ‘I don’t stand by it—the water does. You think the tide has a say in the matter? You think it changes its mind?’
No—she doesn’t. His backdrop is the traffic of the sea, stately and serene, and you could sit up here for years and never see the sort of accident that ended him, the discord that flowed. So much more plain harmony in the world than is ever reported…The field is high vantage, the harbour looking like a jaw and the Opera House its one incisor, jagged and ingenious. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, apologising on a wide behalf. ‘It should have been done a lot different.’
Barron is vinegar. ‘I don’t reckon I’m the one you should say sorry to. Only, I gather it’s a bit late. That bloke Meath would have had a charming old time inside.’
No doubt. Karen shudders. It’s-fucked-up.
The Tidemaster agrees. ‘Almost went to the paper about it. I should have, but I didn’t want to get that big dark bastard offside.’
‘Rawson?’
‘Get real. What have you got in your little satchel? You hold it tight.’
She looks down to assess the accusation. The article is about her person constantly, borne like armour. ‘It’s a report the judge wrote before he died. Your statement is central to his finding.’
‘Good. Someone needs to sort it out.’
Karen nods and retreats, hating the gesture for its suggestion of vow, commitment. She’d like to sort it out but justice is work-life balance, rare-cooked steak.
Great in theory, fucking hard to get.
—
‘Beer o’clock,’ says Brendan Tavish. ‘Thirsty?’
‘I can’t afford to be,’ says Karen.
‘Broke is it? All those new clothes. That’s why we can’t give the ladies equal pay—you’d just go out and blow it all on shoes.’
Karen smiles. He has a way about him, can say that sort of thing and the spirit doesn’t get lost. ‘I’ve got something on.’
‘Hot date?’
‘Family dinner. How’s the weekend shaping?’
Rubbing his hands now. ‘Footy tonight with the young bloke. Campbelltown. Tough test the Raiders, but carn the mighty Maggies.’
‘Aren’t they the ones that everybody hates?’
‘You’re thinking of Collingwood. No one hates Wests. You’ve got to be good to be hated.’
She makes a cool survey of a man who would say such a thing, wiser than he knows. He looks cheerful, pleased; imminent coldies have given him a new gear in which to operate and surge. He’s switched himself off for the week because that’s what rational people do.
‘Riddle me this,’ says Karen. ‘Where do they park Rex Faulkner these days?’
04
When you’re coming up, people tell you how far you’ll go. Then you meet someone who says the opposite. That you won’t. You know your problem? People don’t know what they’re getting with you. And that makes them uncomfortable.
He wasn’t being a prick about it. Actually, he was right on the money. Humans have a need to tag each other, to boil each other down to some kind of essence. But you always hated the idea of being read at a glance.
You do it yourself. Cops are taught to. At the end of the day it’s bullshit. You can’t look at a person and see the truth of their story. You can’t meet a cobber and know the quality of his pain.
04
A thin plume of a man, said to wear the same suit daily. Immaculately kept, copper-buttoned, the waistcoat tight despite having so little to gird or grip. The suit is cold but beautiful, a Savile Row provenance, a trip to London long ago.
‘Knock, knock.’
He looks up slow, as if it’s bad luck to break contact in the middle of a sentence. Like Faulkner, the desk is neatly kept, both of them illuminated by the brass lamp. Its green visor is known to her from new movies about olden times, the banks and libraries of foreign yesterdays. A treasured gift or souvenir: close colleague, grateful victim. The lamp is famous, Faulkner’s metaphor because lit whenever he is present, even at blazing noon in rampant summer.
Maybe he winks out when it does, an enchanted object that keeps him here. Perhaps he longs for a Grimm princess to enter this place and extinguish the whole bad spell. He frowns through the miasma of his own smoke and says, ‘Who’s there.’
‘I’m Millar. This a good time?’
Faulkner’s look-down-again suggests there is no such thing. The scar down the left side of his face is a celebrity in its own right, a train track leading backwards to a long-ago pain. Time has made its colour blend towards the complexion around it, grey paper scrunched then flattened out again, a wound and its environment now at peace. Genuine fortystitcher. The best/worst part is the cause, known to all. Not professional affray or a tough collar, a broken bottle at th
e Ironworks Hotel. It was a present from his wife.
‘Take a seat.’
‘Thanks. You know what this is about?’
‘Sure. Koestler.’
Word travels. Even to this place, the forgotten cellar of a mind-bending building, marked E on the map. Must stand for Escher; Scully’s nook in Evidence is Pitt Street compared to this. ‘I would have called, but your extension’s dead.’
Karen’s eyes flick to the antique phone at his elbow. Faulkner’s eyes do not. It’s just one more souvenir, there for show.
‘What do you want to know.’
He smokes, applying himself to the process with professional seriousness. She thinks about the tar pits of his lungs, the interesting heart they encase. The first known thing about Faulkner is that he is uxorious, even now as a widower. Maureen, a bad-luck woman, notoriously nuts, loved by him excessively from the day of meeting to the day of departure. And loved to this day here. Nothing else in the realm of the ten thousand things had come close to inspiring it, the sworn and total affection of Rexy Faulkner.
‘The judge’s diary,’ says Karen. ‘You’re in it.’
He ashes the fag, managing to shrug and nod in the same instant. Both reactions are tiny, fatalistic. Maybe she’s trying to be hard, rude, but his offence-taking days are behind him.
‘When’s this.’
A question bereft of curiosity. Form without content: it stands for the man. A different Karen would make a pretence of checking her palm-sized notebook—the Karen who played pool with Holden. She tries to imagine the two men catching up, beering, talking about the old times. Can’t.
‘April 1990. Twelve months before he died.’
Faulkner glances at his desk calendar, fixing himself in time. He measures his past against his present, April of ’90 versus May of ’93. A thousand days, give or take, an eventful span but not for him. He spent it here, buried alive with the gorgeous lamp.
‘His car got nicked. Daimler. Ever driven one?’
She shakes her head. ‘Can’t say I have.’
‘Like a Sherman. You know—the tank.’
‘The diary says you and Paspaley.’
‘Okay.’
‘Senior Homicide detectives for a pinched car. Really?’
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