Winter Traffic

by Stephen Greenall

  ‘Does it matter.’

  ‘I think it does. One police to another.’

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t cruise around Darlo at first light when there’s a yellow flag against your name.’

  ‘A yellow flag, eh. And who put that on?’

  I did. ‘Brendan Tavish.’

  ‘Brendano, the dark old horse. He hiding in the cupboard?’

  ‘Nope. It’s just you and me.’

  ‘And Tycho.’

  ‘And Tycho,’ agrees Karen. She holds up the single page unnoticed in her lap. ‘And the vic.’

  ‘You, me, Tycho and the vic. We sound like one-hit wonders from the seventies.’

  ‘You’re in good form, detective. All things considered.’

  ‘It’s the scotch, my dear. Come—have some.’

  ‘No thanks. Gin and tonic.’

  Rawson laughs and makes it happen. He begins to walk across the room, deliver the goods, but she heads him off at the pass / tells him Put it on the bed. The thing between them: Millar rises and the gun doesn’t leave dead centre of his chest. She picks up and drinks, eyes unhappy and unblinking. You can’t mistake the good it does her.

  ‘Koestler,’ says Karen. ‘There was something rotten in his Denmark.’

  Rawson’s quizzical smile. ‘I would have to concur.’

  ‘That echo you’re hearing, it’s called nostalgia. Old song from way back. Why’d you kill him?’

  ‘You’re telling the story, Nancy Drew.’

  Rawson cuffs his other wrist, holding them high as a show of good faith. Before she can object he has picked up the phone to hail room service. ‘Need some more Johnnie up here, quick smart. And Tanqueray.’

  ‘We won’t be here that long,’ Karen tells him when he puts down the receiver. She takes up the page and reads.

  Dear Ajax,

  My first confession is to disappointment. I harboured such high opinions of you. In the early years, I told myself you were simply an entertaining presence in my court—salutary, bracing—but in time I realised the truth must be less straightforward. It generally is.

  So I followed your progress with detached fascination, never quite knowing why. Was I in love with you? Of course—in the sense that every man worships his diametric self. That is what you are to me, my inverted correlative. A person of the senses, physically powerful, beloved of men and of women. Heroic, reckless, disordered, inimical to the life of the mind, to the inside intellectual. My opposite soul.

  I always looked forward to seeing you, but often with obscure dread. I loved you, was protective of you, thought about you in quiet moments. I hated you deeply, longed for news that you had died.

  Rawson is the meeting place of many emotions. ‘I can remember burning that,’ he says quietly. ‘Inverted correlative. What a fuckwit.’

  ‘My version was coded,’ she says. ‘I take it yours was plain English.’

  ‘Sadly, yes—yes it was. Where’d you get it.’

  ‘Chris Slane. Koestler gave him a copy.’

  ‘Did he fucken really.’

  ‘Slane knew it was a bargaining chip. He just couldn’t read it.’

  ‘And you decoded it when?’

  ‘Last night. This morning.’

  ‘Clever girl. Bob and Tone really know how to pick ’em. What a chauvinist pig is me, seeing only the hair and legs and cheekbones.’

  ‘You called me asexual.’

  ‘True. I also said I don’t remember you from Goulburn.’

  ‘But you do.’

  ‘Of course. That final night at the bar, I had a red-hot go.’ Karen confirms the claim with a nod and the Tangled Man grimaces. The guilty regrets you ought to own but can’t. ‘Thought I was in there for a while.’

  ‘You were, Bobby Cobra. Just not with me.’

  Door knock. Rawson hides his servitude and puts a fifty on the counter; Karen conceals her weapon. A young lass in hotel livery enters the room, smiling awkwardly at its strange dialectic. She divests herself of the miniature bottles, five of them, and is invited to take the currency.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Thanks!’

  ‘Heavy tipper,’ says Karen when they’re alone, when the gun is out again, loud and proud.

  ‘I’ve recently come into some money. Great Aunt Myrtle, God rest her soul.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘About Myrtle?’

  ‘About Koestler.’

  Rawson arranges the little vessels like facts. ‘Doesn’t work that way, darling. Yours is the burden. Another?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I don’t want you breaking down on me.’

  ‘No fear. I’m strong on gin.’

  He plays bartender again, Karen watching him do it. She is a cat-like presence, angular, reminding him of Clio with the paw. The gin is in a jussive mood but not her voice. ‘They tasked you onto Beowulf. Supporting role, working under one bloke you hated and another you’d fallen out with. It didn’t matter—you put in because the case touched a nerve. A little girl snatched, molested, strangled, dumped. Daughters at home a similar age.’

  ‘So far, so good.’

  ‘Paspaley liked Meath—but you didn’t. The forensics weren’t up to it. The theory of the crime didn’t sit with the tide. Meath couldn’t have landed his boat at Cobblers in the window they needed. You took your doubts to Holden and he told you to piss off, follow orders. You lost sleep about it.

  ‘Then something put you onto Koestler—something solid enough to push for interview. Paspaley pushed back, but you rounded up Faulkner and the three of you went over there, St James, a casual chat. Koestler was courteous and you blokes played it light, minded your manners.

  ‘The other two left satisfied. But not you. You didn’t like what you heard—a shine in his eye, a tremor in his voice. The cop in you was drinking but he wasn’t drowned, not yet. So you stewed about it, watched Meath go down, festered some more.

  ‘Time goes by. Life goes on. But then, out of nowhere, you get the letter. Dear Ajax, my opposite soul, I’m disappointed bla bla bla. It was me who snatched and molested, who strangled and dumped. I beat you / I laughed.’

  Rawson inclines his head. ‘Not perfect,’ he says. ‘But not bloody bad.’

  ‘What was the link? What put you onto him.’

  His gaze moves faster than light, backwards in time. ‘He had a Daimler. Ever driven one?’

  ‘Sure—handles like a Sherman.’

  ‘The wheel-base on those things is nuts, distinctive. The astronauts had tyre marks from the scene but Paspaley and that, they were already down Meath Avenue. Still, only eleven cars like that in the fucken state, it’s the work of a morning to account for them. How often you get a break like that? Every other killing I ever worked was a bloody white ute.’

  ‘Faulkner fed me a line, said the three of you went up there on account his car was pinched.’

  ‘But it was,’ says Rawson. ‘By me.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have quizzed the bloke about Sophie direct. God no, not even Faulkner—and there was a time when he was diamond. You get a judge in your sights, you move extremely fucken careful or not at all. I put a line through the other Dames and that left me with a problem. So I lifted it, took samples, dirt and sand—had a bloke in Evidence run it on the sly. Samples turned out consistent with Cobblers Beach.’

  ‘Which bloke.’

  ‘Does it matter? It wasn’t no conspiracy.’

  ‘Curious.’

  ‘Hugh Scully.’

  ‘Don’t know him,’ says Karen.

  ‘Good man in a pinch. He knew it wasn’t on the level but he only gave a shit about the science.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What I didn’t have was hair, tissue. Something that would have nailed it.’

  ‘But you went to St James on the pretext. Sussed him.’

  Rawson nods. ‘He came straight out and asked about it. Beowulf. Felt bad we were wast
ing time on his vehicle.’

  ‘And you pegged him.’

  ‘Walking out he gave me this look. I didn’t have a name for it till later.’ Rawson shakes his head. ‘A glance between diametric selves. The old vulture winking, basically daring me to do him on the spot.’

  ‘It was a long time until you did him.’

  ‘It was a long time until he wrote.’

  ‘He wanted you to do it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He wanted you to—and you obliged.’

  ‘Watched his light go out is what I did. Said into his face, What’s the point of you? There isn’t one. You’re a stain, a mistake, a wrong fucken turn. A pedo is an also-ran, just a scumbag / a nothing. I came to scrub you, wipe us clean.’ Rawson raises his glass and toasts, drinks to douse a fire. ‘Read the part about Sophie.’

  ‘No thanks. Once was enough.’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘She gave way to me like a perforated edge.’

  ‘As did he, Karen Millar, as did he…He held it up when I walked in. The chessboard. I thought it was protection, but later I kept going over it. Bastard wanted it used—put it up like a suggestion.’

  ‘You could have just read him his rights. Collared him.’

  ‘Yeah. But what kind of man does that.’

  ‘A police man.’

  ‘I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about him, a person who serves the law his entire life and then goes animal against a child. After that he plans it out—death—arranges it like a puzzle. Like a fucken wedding.’

  ‘Arranged you is what he did.’

  ‘Made me his instrument, true.’ Rawson stares maudlin at the page in her lap. ‘There is nothing so strange it hasn’t been done. If you can think it, there’s precedent. A hundred billion instances, nothing new beneath the sun.’

  ‘Finish your drink, Mike.’

  ‘Nobody calls me that. Just one other. Do you know who?’

  ‘I prefer to do this quiet. You don’t deserve a circus. We drive over to Pirates and process. Quick and clean, zero media.’

  ‘Thought you might give me a walk, Karen Millar. A pat on the back. I rid the world of a monster.’

  ‘Sorry, comrade. Sophie was yours to solve—but Koestler is mine.’

  ‘Yes, good, exactly.’

  ‘First thing is a lawyer. Button your lip when we get to the station, channel a bit of that Jamie Sutton.’

  ‘That Jamie Sutton.’

  ‘Poor bugger served time because of you.’

  ‘True. Unlucky. I couldn’t know he’d get caught up in that alibi shit.’

  ‘Putting Slane in the picture, though—that was deliberate.’

  Rawson smiles again, not with humour. ‘I knew Chris went around there. I had it from Kristy.’

  ‘Who’s Kristy.’

  ‘No one. Just a dream I used to have.’

  ‘She sounds special.’

  ‘Kris is a…separate conversation. I waited, watched Slane go in and come out again; went in straight after. I knew how it would play. Thought it was a neat bit of business, two birds / one stone.’

  ‘Two monsters.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t civic duty with Chris—I had a stake in wanting him off the scene…Do you remember that day in Paddington, before we went in the gallery? You said you’d love a chat with Jamie, but it was mostly human interest.’

  Karen nods. ‘People kept saying how matey the two of them were, Sutton checking into Long Bay so Slane wouldn’t have to. But I talked to Chris, saw his face when I dropped the carpenter’s name.’

  ‘The carpenter’s name—yes. And what exactly did you see?’

  ‘Hate. Just a flash, split second, but it was there.’

  ‘And Chris is not a hatey customer.’ Rawson shakes his head, speaking through a meld of regret and admiration. ‘Everyone was so busy asking Jem if Slane was on that boat, no one bothered to wonder why Jem was. No one except you, Jessica Fletcher. That was the moment I knew you were a serious…’

  ‘Detective?’

  ‘Time bomb.’

  ‘So tell me the answer, Jack.’

  Jack sighs. ‘Slane lost his temper one day, let himself down. Hit somebody he shouldn’t have hit.’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘The girl. Sutton felt brotherly about her so he jumped on the ferry, gave him a warning. Told Chris if he did it again he’d go to hospital.’

  ‘Ballsy.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as mostly human interest. It’s all human interest.’

  ‘Yeah. Because crime is incest.’

  ‘Because Karen Millar is a serious fucken detective.’

  She stands to receive the accolade. ‘Let’s do this.’

  ‘You look good with that gun in your hand. Not asexual.’

  ‘Shoot you in the leg if I have to.’

  ‘Helen of Troy. If Cavendish was here—’

  ‘If Cavendish was here, I wouldn’t let him give me a fucking nickname.’

  ‘Easy to say. Like the line about shooting me. But it’s hard to shoot someone you care about, even when it’s for their own good.’

  ‘Care about you, do I.’

  ‘Yes. For some reason…Pull the trigger on a loved one and the trauma echoes down, Karen Millar. Reprises forever…Still, I agree about you and Cav. You wouldn’t have fallen for his jive. Would have been immune.’

  ‘That shit threw me for a while. Someone said Ajax was Paspaley.’

  ‘But he was, Helen—he was. There were two Ajaxes at Troy, a greater and a lesser. I was Telamon and Paspaley was Locris. In case you missed it, the joke was on him.’

  ‘Lesser Ajax.’

  ‘The one who attacks the priestess in the temple. Cassandra. The girl who speaks uncomfortable truth and is never believed.’

  ‘He get his comeuppance?’

  ‘Of course—too many gods around not to. Locris dies on the water, far from home.’

  ‘What about the other one.’

  ‘Aren’t you the girl with all the North Shore education?’

  ‘I’m the girl who comes in late to the story.’

  Rawson closes his splendid eyes. Feudalism, the exchanging of bad blood and combat over time, the reasons forgotten but never the spite. Men are forgetful but he suddenly remembers everything. ‘The other Ajax competes for the armour. This is afterwards, when the horse has done its thing. The armour is a big deal but he loses out to a lawyer—a smooth-talking spiv—and falls into a rage the size of West Australia. Not getting the prize sends him troppo so he slices up some cattle—mistakes them for his mates, ex-mates. Later he wakes up and realises he dishonoured himself. Only one way out of that.’

  ‘Tragic.’

  ‘For the cows, yes. Not Ajax.’

  ‘He sounds like a psycho.’

  ‘He liveth the lesson, Karen. He setteth the example.’

  ‘To cut sick on sheep?’

  ‘To wage a war that matters. To fight a fight that makes you talked about forever.’

  Ajax straightens, his skull interrupting the single shard of winter sun. Halo effect / God’s laser sight. He raises his hands to signal obeisance before the authority of the gun, supplicant before Athene, and sweeps regally out of his second-last hotel room. The next will be less sumptuous: cement floor, zero drapes or minibar. Rawson fissures with every stride, lava leaking through his cracks like a red giant powered on by rage and rancid petrol. Karen stands and falls in behind, aware how both of them are moving rich with calculations, the logistics of a progress down towards the car. The prisoner reaches for the heavy door, draws it open and turns to remove the card.

  Lights off, says the Big Ship—and the clever room obeys.

  -3

  Ben Anderson, balding but powerful, camped in his corner office. Half-moon glasses, the little chain that laces behind the neck, the specs of a lady librarian. Rawson looks down at his own little chain, a single line of mail constraining Atlas. The worlds that have lived between in his hands, passed throug
h, filtered blood and red wine. ‘Bando.’

  ‘Bobby Cob! What the fuck? Come here you bastard.’

  The embrace of a man unknown these many years, ex of force, now properly mechanic. Bando’s Cars. Bando’s apprentices. What’s the collective noun for grease monkey?

  ‘Jesus, mate. A pair of Come-Alongs.’

  Rawson, well-dressed but woolly, hands bound before him like Chewie on the Death Star. ‘I was thinking you might be a good man with a hacksaw.’

  ‘Fuck that. What are they—Hiatts? Got a Universal round here somewhere.’

  ‘Even better.’

  Bando ducks out of the room to make the search. To call it in?

  No. Christ no.

  —

  Come-alongs. Nobody calls them that anymore. Rawson breathes deep and counsels patience. His clock is ticking / finding incremental speed. When boss cocky comes back he is priestly, ceremonial, holding the Universal high, standing before the applicant like a celebrant. One key fits all. ‘Absolvo,’ says the Band. His tone is sly and Rawson grins.

  Nineteen eighty-four and the push was on, senior detectives ushered towards a spot of legal training. The brass decreed it, too many cases falling over because the field hands had no law. Two electives a year, whatever you liked the sound of, subsidies for those going on to an actual degree. Rawse and Bando liked the sound of nothing, sent to bloody night school, Monday/Tuesday evenings in Phillip Street. They mostly spent them rat-arsed, disrupting tutes with giggles like no post-graduates ever—but applying themselves, incredibly, to the Latin if not the Law. Their one bond, long forgotten, readily dusted off. Bando brings out a bottle from the safe.

  ‘Absens haeres non erit.’

  ‘He who is absent shall not inherit. Good one.’

  ‘Acta non verba. Words to live by.’

  ‘So to speak. Ad astra per…fuck. The path to the stars is rocky.’

  ‘Rocks and stars—yes. And you’ve done me a rockstar favour, Band. Nasty restraints / they were made for smaller men.’

  ‘Corvus oculum corvi non eruit.’

  ‘You said it.’

  No, a raven will not pick out the eye of another raven.

  —

  The vapour in the air feels familiar to Brendan. Like times when he’s had a row with Beth and then they have to sit in it for hours after, paralysed and uncomfortable, each of them tightly limited by hard internal barriers. Not as stressful when it’s just your partner—but a partner you hardly know? A slip of a girl who’s smarter than you? Isn’t like old days. He burps in silence, knowing that however he plays it it won’t go smooth. So Brendan says nothing, plays for nil, makes his inner self a rigid ball with no emotion / no agenda.