‘That doesn’t make him a frigging saint,’ Gil said, with a sharp bitterness.
A sad smile crossed Simon’s face. ‘No argument on that from me. But nor was he quite as black as his reputation. He cultivated that, to appear strong and invincible. It worked – at least for a time.’
‘Until Sergio Russo arrived,’ Kris observed, putting more puzzle pieces together.
‘He didn’t mention names, but I hear talk out there, and there’s been an increase in activity. And while it seems that there’s more drugs on the street, it’s also more tightly controlled – more professional and hardline. There’s a lot more fear now than there was this time last year. Vince had concerns about the future – including his own.’
‘Do you know what’s in the envelope?’ Gil asked.
‘No. But I can guess. He felt it time to put some matters right. And he had a great deal of respect for you, and faith in you.’
Simon went to an old metal filing cabinet in the corner, pulled out the top drawer, and reached in with his right arm, groping on the inside of the cabinet top at the back.
After withdrawing his arm, he tossed something to Gil, who caught it with one hand.
‘I put a small magnet on it. No-one ever thinks to look up,’ he said, with a cheeky schoolboy grin.
He saw them out, and they found Phil admiring the bike. While Gil spoke with him for a few minutes, Kris hung back.
‘How did you two meet?’ she asked Simon, quietly.
‘I found him on the streets, when he was out of prison with nowhere to go. I knew Digger at the pub around the corner needed help, so I introduced them. Gil made a good job of the pub, Kris. Turned it from a total dive into a great venue and a good business, with a responsible alcohol policy and no gaming machines.’
‘So I gather.’ She’d heard similar from Deb and Liam, and the fact that he’d sold the hotel for so much, without it having a gaming machine licence, testified to the soundness of the business.
‘You’ve not known him long?’ Simon asked, with that same restrained curiosity he’d shown earlier.
She considered a vague answer, then dismissed the idea. ‘A very long, intense few days,’ she said honestly. ‘I’m a police officer, from his old home town.’
‘Ah. I did wonder.’ He took a business card from his shirt pocket and passed it to her. ‘If you need me for anything, please don’t hesitate to call. Kris …’ He paused, watched Gil for a moment, both respect and affection showing on his face. ‘Gil’s had to be hard and tough to survive. But there is a great deal of compassion and gentleness in him, too, and I hope some day he finds a way to express it.’
Compassion and gentleness – yes, he had those qualities, and she’d seen glimpses of them. How to get through his armour remained a challenge, though, and would be at least until the current threats were overcome.
Gil shook hands with Phil, beckoned to Kris, and strapped on his helmet. With a quick farewell to Simon, she joined Gil on the bike, and they rode cautiously out on to the lane, pausing to check for anything suspicious before turning on to the road.
A few suburbs away, in a main shopping street, Gil found a parking space in front of a café, across the road from the bank.
‘Wait in the café and keep a lookout,’ he suggested. ‘This will take me ten minutes or more.’
Half a dozen tables in the café were already occupied, but there was still a vacant table by the large, open window, with a good view of the front of the bank. She sat there and watched the people going into and coming out of the bank, the people on the street, all the activity around, anything for signs of a threat.
Other than a couple of men engaged in a lively conversation on the corner, she could see no-one who appeared as though they could be keeping an eye on anything, and when the guys in the corner moved off she relaxed a little.
The waiter brought the coffee she’d ordered, and she was stirring in sugar when footsteps stopped beside her, two hands leant on the vacant chair, and Craig Macklin said, ‘Hi, Kris. In town to do a little banking, hey?’
Every sense went on full alert.
‘Hello, Craig,’ she said coolly. ‘What brings you here?’
Macklin sat down at the table, nodded towards the bank. ‘We thought we’d better keep an eye on the place. Make sure that if Gillespie turned up, nobody else did. I didn’t know you were coming down with him. It’s good to see you again.’
Thoughts flitted through her mind as she assessed his words. Too many unanswered questions. ‘We’ – who was ‘we’? Joe and him? His unit? How had they known Gil had a safety deposit box? How did they know it was at this bank? And how did they know Gil was in Sydney?
Okay, the last might have been a good guess, but the other questions needed answering, so she asked point-blank, ‘How did you know Gil uses this bank?’
‘His lawyer told us. When it became clear what they’d killed the other lawyer for, we figured we’d better put some protection on the bank. Don’t want any more mob hits, in broad daylight or otherwise.’
That sounded reasonable, but she still had an inkling of doubt. It was … too neat. Perfectly logical … assuming that Gil’s lawyer had been convinced that he or others were in such danger that he had to divulge confidential client information.
‘So, what are you doing here with Gillespie?’ Craig asked. ‘Steve Fraser said you were off having a long weekend with your boyfriend.’
‘Change of plans,’ she replied, determined to keep any information she gave him to a minimum. Maybe she was catching Gil’s distrust, but the inkling of doubt scraped in her head like fingernails on a chalkboard, too loud to be ignored.
‘Where are you going to go? Gillespie needs protection – they want both him and the will. We can organise a safe house for him.’
‘Thanks, Craig, but no. We’ll make our own plans.’
He leaned forward, spoke low and urgently. ‘Look, Kris, you need to be careful. The people after Gillespie – it’s not just the old local mafia now. The new guys – Sergio Russo and co. – they’re big players internationally. They’ve got access to resources we can only dream about, including all the cutting-edge technology. They eat cops like us for breakfast.’
A warning or a threat? Impossible to tell.
‘Or they bend them. So we’re going to fly under the radar for a while.’ She stood, dug in her pocket for money, and dropped a five-dollar note on the table to cover the coffee she’d scarcely sipped.
He followed her out. ‘You’re not suggesting …?’
She put her helmet on, started the bike. ‘I’m not taking chances, Craig. Too much doesn’t add up.’
She didn’t wait for his response. Gil emerged from the bank, and she caught a break in the traffic, did a U-turn, and picked him up. As she glanced back to pull out into the traffic, she saw Craig already talking on his phone.
The road they were on led into the city, but Kris didn’t stay on it. Gil held on, the large manila envelope tucked inside his jacket, as Kris wove through inner-suburban streets, taking many twists and turns until they were sure they weren’t being followed.
Gil had seen Macklin with her, had held back inside the bank to keep from distracting her, only leaving when she’d started the bike to make the pick-up smooth. He’d known something wasn’t quite right when the manager of the safety deposit area showed definite nerves around him. But it took time to go through the procedures, unlock the box, and check the contents.
The cardboard box he’d put there, almost fourteen years ago, was still there, apparently untouched, underneath the document envelope Simon had deposited. With no use for the box now that Vince was dead, he left it there, taking only the envelope. He hadn’t opened it in the presence of the manager. He didn’t particularly want to open it. Whatever it contained couldn’t be good news, irrespective of Vince’s assurances to Simon. And Macklin’s presence near the bank was unlikely to be good news, either.
Close to the city, Kris drove into a multi
-storey parking lot, and up the ramps to the roof. No-one followed them in. She parked near the exit ramp, but with a view of the ramp leading onto the roof.
She pushed up her visor. ‘Do you think this is safe enough, for now?’
He dismounted, yanked off his helmet. ‘Yes. What was Macklin doing there?’
She hung her helmet on the handlebar, shook out her hair. ‘Making sure there was no trouble if you turned up at the bank. That’s his story, anyway.’
A good cover story, except for one fact. ‘No-one but Simon knew which bank.’
That didn’t surprise her. ‘I asked how he knew. He said your lawyer told them.’
‘Bullshit. He didn’t know. More likely they accessed my bank accounts, tracked the payments for the box.’
‘That’s what I wondered. I got a definite whiff of week-old fish. I don’t know whether it’s Craig himself, or Joe Petric, or someone else manipulating them, feeding them information, but I refused Craig’s offer of a safe house for you.’
He took the envelope out of his jacket, turned it over in his hands. The sun burned warm on the concrete around them. He flipped the envelope again, reluctant to be drawn in to whatever Vince had planned.
She leaned against a concrete column, nodded at his hands. ‘You need to open it, find out what’s in it, and then we can decide what to do from here,’ she said.
Yeah, he knew that. His pocket-knife made short work of the seal, revealing two smaller envelopes inside. His gut clenched, and he was mightily tempted to tear them both into shreds, unopened.
He handed one to Kris. Opened the other himself. Unfolded several sheets of paper, headed ‘The Last Will and Testament of Vincenzo Francesco Russo’. He skimmed the standard legalese, and focused on the bequests.
A bequest to the hostel Simon managed, and large gifts to several other charities.
An allowance for his ex-wife, for her lifetime.
An allowance for his former mistress.
A more generous allowance for his current mistress, plus the apartment she lived in.
Nothing too surprising in those – unless it was that there were only three women named. Maybe his other mistresses hadn’t meant as much to him. Or maybe they’d already had enough gifts from him. Vince had been insanely wealthy, his legitimate investments and development projects far exceeding the drug money that had originally seeded them.
Gil turned the page, and the next item leapt out at him: ‘To my natural daughter, Marcella Doonan …’
Although Gil had already suspected, anger blurred the confirming words. How could Vince have watched her live the life she had and have done nothing all those years? He’d let her be used by others, by just about everyone. Her father. Jesus, Gil wanted to throw up. He leaned over the parapet, sucked in some traffic-tainted air. All the generous bequests in the world couldn’t make good Vince’s sin – even if she’d lived. But Vince was too bloody late.
‘Gil? What’s wrong?’
She was by his side, her arm clasping him as if she thought he might fall.
He shoved the pages into her hand. ‘The bastard definitely was Marci’s father. He knew it all along.’
She skimmed the first page, slowed on the second, and whistled when she saw the sum of money Vince had bequeathed to his daughter.
As if five million dollars could have changed anything for Marci, Gil thought bitterly. She’d have gone through it in no time, been preyed upon by others. And she would still have sold her body, because that was the only value she’d ever learned to place on herself.
‘Gil.’ Kris clutched the pages, her hand shaking. ‘Gil, did you read on?’
He read it over her shoulder, and it wasn’t just the shaking of her hand that made the words hard to follow.
‘To Morgan Gillespie … the properties listed in schedule A appended to this will … all my shares in San Damiano Enterprises … and the remainder of my estate after all bequests are distributed.’
NINETEEN
He couldn’t get his head around it. The bastard had left property and shares to him.
‘He’s mad,’ he argued. ‘There has to be some catch. Maybe they’re derelict, or on a uranium dump.’
Kris flipped over the page, scanned it. ‘Gil, I don’t think there are many uranium dumps in Point Piper. Or Double Bay. There’s got to be twenty or more properties listed here, and they all sound – well, significant.’
He didn’t look at the list. The twisted truth was sinking in. Luxury apartment and housing developments had been Vince’s interests these past ten years, and Gil could guess some of the addresses on the list – and some of the prices they’d be valued at.
He slammed a hand against a concrete pillar, the sting of the rough surface proof he wasn’t asleep, caught in some hellish nightmare. He gave a harsh laugh. ‘No wonder Tony wants this, and wants me dead.’
‘Yes,’ Kris agreed. ‘If he’s seen a copy, or the solicitor told him its contents, he’ll be livid. Did you read this bit? “It is my explicit wish and instruction that my son Antonio and my nephews” – he lists four including the Flanagan boys – “do not benefit in any way, now or in the future, from my estate.”’
‘Fuck.’ There wasn’t much else to say. That clause on its own amounted to a death warrant.
She checked around for anyone in the vicinity, lowered her voice. ‘Gil – the other envelope. It’s dates, places, details of cocaine shipments and distribution, ecstasy manufacture, money laundering. I didn’t read it all, but I’m betting it’s Tony’s and Sergio’s operation. With this kind of information, we could put together enough evidence to arrest and charge them.’
He’d forgotten about the other envelope in the shock of reading the will – but it was almost as much of a bombshell.
‘Vince wanted his son convicted.’ Gil thought through the implications. ‘And he wanted me to be the one to carry the can for it.’
‘Or maybe he trusted you, more than others, to do the right thing.’
Her interpretation didn’t make much difference. It still lumbered him with a huge responsibility, and a huge risk. Why the hell couldn’t Vince have given the cops the information directly? Why involve him?
As the first angry reaction passed, two reasons occurred to him. Because he knew that Gil would follow it through – he’d find a way to make sure the information got to uncorrupted cops and didn’t get buried. And secondly – Kris mightn’t approve of this one – in Vince’s world, information could be leverage. And he might yet need that kind of leverage.
She tapped the documents with her knuckle. ‘We need to copy these. We need to know if the will is legal, if it will hold up in court, and we need to know more about Vince’s estate, and San Damiano Enterprises. I know someone who can give us expert advice.’
‘Listen, Blue, we have to be careful. I need to get you safe, away from me, until I work out how to handle this.’
‘Gil, the person I’m thinking of is my father. He’s a barrister. We can trust him completely. He won’t do anything that will endanger me. And his chambers are here in the city.’
Gil thought quickly, putting together the first steps of a plan.
‘Okay, we’ll ask him about the will. But the other … I want some copies of it, but I don’t want anyone to know about it, yet. I want to read it thoroughly first. When we act on it, it will have to be done quickly, and be well coordinated. I don’t want anything leaked or even hinted at before then.’
How he’d act, he wasn’t sure yet. It would depend on the contents, the level of detail about the operations – and it might depend on the barrister’s opinion of the will. Not to mention depending upon how long he survived, now that word could be out that he had the will.
Kris drove them to another car park, in the business end of Macquarie Street, and together they walked up the block to her father’s chambers.
The décor of the reception area spoke, in no uncertain terms, of money. Parquetry floors, solid timber front desk, leather loung
e chairs, original artworks on the walls. Behind the desk a man in his thirties, in dark suit, white shirt and tie, suggested ‘security’ rather than ‘secretary’ – an impression backed-up by Gil’s quick scan of the foyer. He counted at least three security cameras, noted the security doors beyond the area and the monitor not entirely hidden by the high desk-front.
Kris strode up to the desk with straight back, head held high and an air of confidence anyone would be hard pressed to rebuff.
‘Please inform Mr Matthews that his daughter Kris is here, and the matter is urgent.’
The security man gave them both a good once-over as he made the call to advise of their presence. Leather jackets, bike helmets, no appointment – they probably ranked high on the guy’s risk scale, Gil figured. If Kris hadn’t mentioned she was Matthews’ daughter, they would most likely have been politely escorted out.
Kris paced while they waited. It was subtle – more of a stroll, pretending to examine the artworks, but he knew her now, recognised her restlessness, the unusual tension. She faced criminals without a flinch, had dealt efficiently and logically with all the dramas unfolding around them, yet the prospect of seeing her father unsettled her.
It suddenly stunned him how little he knew about her background. She’d been in Dungirri five or six years, worked outback for longer than that, and her father was a barrister – that was about the extent of his knowledge. He knew her character – her toughness, her compassion, her courage, the ethical core of her – yet he had no clue what influences had shaped her, what her life and experiences had been before the past few years in Dungirri.
The gilt board listing the members of the chambers only gave him one more piece of information: the second name from the top, presumably ranked in order of importance, listed John Matthews, QC.
Dark Country (Dungirri) Page 26