Silent Kill

by Peter Corris

  The coffee came and we stirred and drank.

  ‘Let’s get to it,’ I said. ‘Why have you come out of the shadows, as it were?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but do you remember asking me whether my organisation had employed Bright?’

  ‘Yeah, you ducked the question.’

  ‘That was before you revealed what sort of monster he is. Well, we didn’t use him on that particular job, but we did recommend him to an . . . affiliate organisation.’

  ‘So you feel some responsibility for the death of Melanie Kim?’

  Jones shook his head. ‘No, certainly not directly. That’s something we would not have tolerated.’

  ‘Of course not. You just assault and kidnap people.’

  ‘Have your fun, Hardy. No, but I do feel some responsibility on account of those women he killed and what he might do in the future.’

  ‘You should.’

  ‘Perhaps. Anyway, as things stand, he went rogue, to use your phrase, probably triggered by the Kim killing. I want to help you if I can.’

  ‘So far all you’ve done is talk and buy me coffee. Start helping.’

  ‘You’re a difficult man to deal with, Hardy.’

  ‘Listen, I don’t like you. I don’t like corporations and corporate fixers and lobbyists and lawyers and the whole shonky crew you’re a part of.’

  ‘You’re a primitive. Don’t you realise how corporatised the world has become? Everything is outsourced and contracted to big organisations.’

  ‘Yeah, to avoid responsibility and accountability.’

  ‘You and your kind are dinosaurs, on the way to extinction.’ ‘Maybe, but we’ll get up the noses of people like you and have some fun while we’re still around. I’ll finish my coffee and be on my way unless you’ve got something useful to say.’

  ‘We did use him on several other jobs—industrial espionage, I suppose you’d call it. His real name is Stefan Balakin. He’s a former Australian intelligence officer. I imagine that if you have contacts in the intelligence community they would be able to give you more information.’

  ‘The intelligence community doesn’t give out information.’

  ‘You’ve proved your resourcefulness. I suggest you prove it some more. That’s all I have to tell you.’

  He got up and, as if by magic, Barney appeared in the coffee shop. Jones gestured to him to pay for the coffee, which he did. Then the two of them left. I remained in my seat, swilling the dregs of the flat white in my cup.

  I’d tried to avoid dealing with intelligence people, but inevitably I’d run up against a few over the years. Most of them I disliked and distrusted. They performed non-jobs, wasted enormous amounts of public money and were only accountable to people playing the same meaningless game higher up the pole. There were exceptions—occasional genuinely useful operations that headed off disasters. There was also the odd agent who bucked the system and lived in the real world and focused on protecting innocent people and making life difficult for guilty ones.

  Josh Carey was like that. He’d resisted promotion into the managerial ranks and concentrated his energies on putting fanatics out of business and resolving disputes between different factions in ethnic communities before they got out of hand. He was a maverick within the service, tough and intelligent, and he spoke about ten languages. He’d helped me some years back in a case that could have spiralled into an ‘honour killing’ nightmare without his intervention.

  There was something compatible between us and we met for a drink from time to time, but not in the last year. With Carey, there was always the chance that he’d been eased out, but it was worth a try. After walking back to my office and finding, as I’d expected, that Jones had wiped the voice recording, I rang Carey’s mobile.

  ‘Carey.’

  ‘Are you sure? Better check your file on yourself.’

  ‘Cliff Hardy. I had a feeling I might be hearing from you.’

  That was Carey, smart as they came. I could imagine his superiors’ irritation at his lightning-fast ability to absorb facts and make intuitive leaps. He knew straight off what I wanted to talk about so there was no need to mention names, which we wouldn’t have done over the phone anyway. He was in Sydney as part of a team discussing intelligence agency transparency with a similar group from another country, which he didn’t name. He said he could squeeze out a free hour or so. He was staying at a hotel in the Rocks and proposed meeting me at Circular Quay mid-afternoon.

  ‘Why there?’

  ‘So we can catch a ferry to Manly.’

  ‘Why Manly?’

  ‘I want the guy who’ll be tailing me to see the sights. They tell me sometimes there’s penguins on Manly Beach. I doubt he’d ever have seen a penguin.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘There was a whale with a calf in the harbour the other day. Might still be there.’

  ‘Even better, though I suspect he’d rather eat it than watch it.’

  ‘Okay, the Quay it is. Sayonara.’

  ‘Close,’ Carey said.

  The day had turned cool and blustery and there was rain in the air. The ferries pulling into the Quay bucked and heaved with the swell until firmly moored. I waited just outside the terminal, early as usual. I saw Carey approaching from the far end of the concourse and calculated that he’d arrive at three-fifty, exactly the time he’d suggested. He was a great one for precise times and punctuality. I’d tackled him once on this, saying it made him predictable.

  ‘I can be as late as Oscar Wilde or as early as you when it matters,’ he’d said.

  I was looking at my watch as he strode up. Carey was tall and lean with thinning hair and a waistline kept trim by squash. He’d invited me to play with him once but I’d declined; I knew he’d be tigerish in a tight space. I’d countered with an offer to play tennis but he said the game was too slow. Now we shook hands and went to buy our tickets. The Manly ferry left in three minutes.

  ‘You checked,’ I said.

  ‘Of course, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’ve got more time to spare. Have you spotted your tail?’

  ‘She’s there. She’s pretty good.’

  ‘But you’re better?’

  ‘Older.’

  The ferry pulled in, splashing the unwary who stood too close to the edge of the wharf. Carey was wearing an overcoat and scarf and I had on my heavy leather jacket with the collar turned up, so we were able to stand out on a fairly protected section of the deck, but still a bit huddled with our hands in our pockets.

  It was going to be a rough ride; the swell was high and the engines churned hard, battling it. We weren’t alone on the outside—claustrophobics, those sensitive to the diesel fumes and shutterbugs hoping for whales, or at least dolphins, were clinging to the rails.

  ‘Stefan Balakin,’ Carey said.

  ‘You recognised him from the photo in the paper.’

  ‘Only just. He’s something of a chameleon. He was bulkier when he was with . . . us, and had much longer hair.’

  ‘Your mob must have a complete file on him—background, habits, secrets . . .’

  ‘Closed, very closed. So closed the media never got a sniff because the people who regularly leak to the media didn’t have a clue. In any case Balakin was always sort of peripheral, almost a freelance, like a newspaper stringer in a way.’

  ‘The file isn’t closed to you is it, Josh?’

  ‘No. I took a look, but it’s surprisingly sparse. Balakin’s parents were Russians, of course, got out in the seventies when things were loosening up. Balakin was born here and recruited after university in 1993 when he was twenty-one. Bilingual from the cradle, very useful.’

  ‘Did you work with him?’

  ‘Once, when there was a Ukrainian scare in Melbourne, a factional thing that threatened to blow up big.’

  ‘Was he any good?’

  ‘Yes and no. Violent. A woman died.’

  ‘I need to know everything about him—what he’s likely to do, where he’
s likely to go.’

  Carey nodded. ‘I’ll tell you what I can, but you have to know what you’re up against.’

  ‘I’ve met him. I know what he’s done. I know he’s a martial arts expert and can be charming when he wants to be.’

  The ferry ploughed through the waves towards Manly. Exposed in mid-harbour, with the wind whistling and blowing spray from the crests of the waves, the deck travellers retreated inside and Carey and I did the same so as not to be conspicuous as the only on-deckers.

  I glanced at the other passengers. There were lots of Asian faces, as there are everywhere in Sydney, and the full range of humanity—families, adolescents, men and women singly and in groups. I spotted at least three candidates for Carey’s tail. There was no way to know who was the right one, but I was sure Carey knew. He seemed oddly reluctant to add to what he’d said. His narrow, lined face was set hard and he pulled a bunch of tissues from his pocket and dabbed at his nose.

  ‘Bloody cold coming on,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, Josh, you were saying . . .’

  He sniffed. ‘I’m not the only spook who spotted Balakin.’ ‘Okay, so?’

  ‘They move slowly but they do move. Cliff, there’s no way the powers that be can allow it to get out that a former intelligence agent is a sadistic serial murderer.’

  ‘You mean they’ll be looking for him as well? That had crossed my mind.’

  ‘More than that. The aim will be to remove him in total secrecy, erase him in what’s called a silent kill.’

  28

  Carey said that in rare instances the intelligence chiefs sanctioned the removal, leaving no body, witnesses or clues, of people whose existence constituted a serious threat.

  ‘To national security?’ I said, although I knew otherwise.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, but more often to the organisation itself.’

  ‘I’ve wondered about a few cases,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes it’s botched and then there has to be a cover-up, usually poorly managed. I’m sure Balakin will be targeted this way. I doubt anyone has been assigned to the job, but there will certainly have been a beefing-up of the controls—airport checks, shipping departures, credit-card usage, that sort of thing.’

  ‘So I could just sit back and let it happen?’

  ‘You could, but you’d never know.’

  ‘I’ve got a client who wants closure.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘No, it’s personal, too.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You’ve got a certain look. Last time it was all about a woman. How about now?’

  We’d reached the Manly wharf, and joined the passengers shuffling off. It was my turn to delay a response. How much did I want to get Bright for what he’d done to Pen and how much was it a professional exercise? Not for the first time, I didn’t know.

  We hadn’t seen any whales or dolphins and there weren’t any penguins on the beach. We strolled along the Corso, each with a packet of chips.

  ‘Well?’ Carey said.

  ‘What does it matter? Yeah, there’s a woman involved. I’ve got a question for you. If I was to get to Balakin first and everything about him was exposed, how would you feel about that, you being the dissident you are?’

  We stopped and Carey flicked a couple of chips at a flutter of seagulls. ‘Get real, Cliff. If you got there first, steps would be taken to make sure you hadn’t got there at all.’

  ‘I’d be careful.’

  ‘You’d better be.’ He paused. ‘I knew I wouldn’t be able to put you off. I’ve been trying to think of something about him that mightn’t be on the file, or not obviously, to give you an advantage.’

  ‘I’d be grateful, Josh.’

  ‘The only thing I’ve been able to come up with is chess.’

  ‘He plays chess? That’d be on his file, surely?’

  ‘Yes, but listen. I happened to mention that I played a bit and he challenged me to a game. He beat me and won a fair bit of my money.’

  ‘You played for money?’

  ‘He insisted on it. Said he only ever played for money.’

  ‘Isn’t that unusual?’

  ‘It is, but the really funny thing was he insisted on speaking Russian throughout the game. I speak pretty good Russian so it wasn’t a problem, but he said he could only play chess when thinking and speaking in Russian. From the way he played I’d say he was an addict. They get that way, like bridge players.’

  ‘Really addicted?’

  ‘Yeah, there’s something about chess and bridge that’s compulsive, apparently, especially for good players. I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but it applies to crossword doers as well. You ever know anyone who did cryptic crosswords?’

  ‘I do, my sister. She was super bright, smarter than me. She began doing them when she was still in primary school. She couldn’t start the day until she’d at least made some progress with the cryptic. Made her late for school sometimes. Drove our mother nuts.’

  ‘That’s it. I bet she still does them.’

  I saw my sister and my nephew and niece infrequently. They lived in New Zealand and I didn’t go there often. I’d last paid them a visit a couple of years ago and, sure enough, she was doing the cryptic while getting breakfast for her kids.

  ‘You’re right, she does. So I have to look for somewhere Russian-speakers play chess?’

  ‘At a very high level. Do you play chess, Cliff?’

  ‘No, and I don’t play bridge or do cryptic crosswords. I’m a linear thinker.’

  ‘You’re lazy,’ Carey said. ‘Push yourself, you’ll need to.’

  Both waistline-conscious, we fed most of the chips to the seagulls before catching a ferry back to the Quay. I amused myself by trying to spot Carey’s tail and played it like a guessing game: Blue scarf? Brown jacket? Beret? I was wrong every time, or so he said.

  I walked back to where I’d parked my car near the office and drove to Glebe. I knew there was trouble brewing when I hung up my scarf and jacket on the hallstand and saw the spare key sitting there. I’d brought the boots in from the car hoping to strike an interesting note, but it was a wrong move.

  Pen was sitting in the living room with her knees drawn up and a tight smile on her face that disappeared when she saw the boots.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You want me to put them on? Want to take a photo?’

  I was tired, cold and frustrated and I wanted a drink. I threw the boots onto the couch. ‘No, yes, if you want to.’

  Her laugh ended in a despairing sob. ‘Do you know how . . . used . . . I felt when you had me dress up like that?’

  ‘You didn’t seem to mind at the time.’

  ‘That’s part of it.’

  ‘Not as used as when . . .’

  ‘Worse, in a way.’

  I moved towards her but she stood and put up her hands with fists clenched.

  ‘Pen, what’s happened?’

  ‘Lavinia says I have to get away from you and this whole mess.’

  ‘Lavinia’s the psychologist?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pen picked up the bag she’d left at the bottom of the stairs and moved towards the passage. ‘I’m sorry, Cliff.’

  I nodded. ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  ‘I’ll get him,’ I said.

  She turned back and for a second I thought she was going to change her mind but she just had a last look around the room.

  ‘I know you will,’ she said. ‘And you’ll kill him or try to or someone else will and you’ll think you’ve done a good job.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I know, and you never will.’

  I could hear her sobbing as she went down the passage. She closed the door quietly behind her and I stood there listening to the sound of the engine starting and her car moving slowly away.

  29

  I didn’t break things and I didn’t get drunk. I put the
boots in a cupboard and went on a long walk through Jubilee Park and up through Annandale. The early part of the walk took me along Blackwattle Bay past the giant Moreton Bay figs. Something about the old, massive solidity of those trees comforted me. They’d survived major changes—the homeless camped in the shelter they provided during the Depression, the rejuvenation of the park and now the yuppies drinking champagne under their branches at birthday parties.

  The walk tired me so much I stopped thinking about Pen and Balakin and everything else. I ate a sandwich, drank one glass of wine with my pills and fell into bed and a deep, dreamless sleep. If Pen had left a scent I didn’t notice. She hadn’t left her black slip.

  In the morning when I booted up the computer there was a message from her: Don’t look for me.

  I spent some time on the web searching for chess clubs in Sydney, particularly near Bondi where Pen had said Bright had known his way around like the back of his hand. I rang a few, got voicemail from two and at the one that answered the man exhibited shock when I mentioned playing for money.

  ‘None of our members plays for money,’ he said.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone play chess for money? I thought Bobby Fischer made a fortune.’

  ‘Of course it happens in big international tournaments, but you were asking about the local scene, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His tone was sniffy. ‘It happens in cafés around the place. Ethnic cafés, if you know what I mean.’

  I did and I started Googling in my amateurish way, usually needing to revise a question three or four times to get a result. After a bit of this scrambling I came up with something promising—the Kiev Café in Bondi Road advertised itself as the home of Russian cuisine combined with facilities for ‘competitive social chess’.

  I filled in the day with a gym visit, and reading about chess and Russian customs. I tried to think of strategies I’d use if I actually found Balakin in the café or, more likely, if I learned things that helped me to find him. In particular, I had two things to worry about—his hapkido and his knife.

  At 8 pm I parked in a side street off Bondi Road and walked back to the café, which was upstairs through a narrow entrance slotted between a patisserie and a bottle shop, both doing good evening business. It looked the kind of place, like the Marinos restaurant, where the proprietor lives above where the money is made. I went up the stairs and into a fairly large room with about ten tables, a bar and what my reading had told me was a samovar. There were posters of Russian scenes on the walls and notices in Cyrillic script. Couples and groups of three or four were eating at half the tables and at three others men were bent over chessboards. A rack along one wall held several chessboards and boxes of chessmen. No Stefan Balakin.