Resurrection Bay

by Emma Viskic

  ‘An Australian thriller at its finest. A captivating read from first page to last. In Caleb Zelic, Viskic has created a character with depth and heart who will linger long after the final page’

  Jane Harper, author of The Dry

  ‘An outstanding debut which takes the darkest and dirtiest elements of classic noir and sharpens them up with a viciously modern edge. Pacy, violent but with a big thundering heart, it looks set to be one of the debuts of the year and marks Emma Viskic out as a serious contender on the crime scene’

  Eva Dolan, author of Long Way Down

  ‘This is a terrific book and the writing is sharp, punchy, visceral and propulsive. The story grabs you by the throat from the opening pages and it never once slackens its hold. But what really brings Resurrection Bay to vivid life is the integrity and humanity of its characters. I love the world that Emma Viskic has created, in all its complexity and in all its truth. More please!’

  Christos Tsiolkas, author of The Slap

  ‘An outstanding debut novel from an author you’d hope is busy on the next instalment right now’

  The Newtown Review of Books

  ‘A rattling plot-driven thriller that is not for the faint-hearted… never takes a predictable turn’

  The Age

  ‘This is pacey and intelligent storytelling and Viskic nails the 3 Ps of crime fiction – plot, place and people you believe in and care about… Viskic has created a genuinely unique and captivating character who deserves a place alongside Jack Irish and Cliff Hardy’

  P.M. Newton

  ‘Viskic’s characterisation, dialogue and plotting are on par with some of the heavyweights of crime writing’

  Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘A compelling, highly recommended read’

  Books+Publishing

  ‘A tour-de-force excursion into good, evil, and the labyrinth of human motivations. Emma Viskic has created a brilliant protagonist in the profoundly-deaf, and irrepressibly obstinate Caleb Zelic, and has produced one of the year’s best crime novels’

  Pages and Pages Booksellers

  ‘Crime, danger, love, heartbreak, betrayal, murder, hope, violence, and enough surprises to keep you wolfing down the words right to the very end’

  Narelle Harris

  ‘Sad and funny and thrilling and very, very good. It’s even got a kicker of an ending. You should read it. Now’

  Fair Dinkum Crime

  ‘A highly enjoyable debut’

  The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

  RESURRECTION BAY

  EMMA VISKIC

  For Mum

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20.

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  26.

  27.

  28.

  29.

  30.

  31.

  32.

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  1.

  Caleb was still holding him when the paramedics arrived. Stupid to have called an ambulance – Gary was dead. Had to be dead. Couldn’t breathe with his throat slit open like that. The ambos seemed to think so, too. They stopped short of the blood-slicked kitchen tiles, their eyes on Gary’s limp form in his arms. A man and a woman, wearing blue uniforms and wary expressions. The woman was talking, but her words slipped past him, too formless to catch.

  ‘It’s too late,’ he told her.

  She stepped back. ‘You got a knife there, mate? Something sharp?’ Speaking slowly now, each syllable a distinct and well-formed shape.

  ‘No.’ The tightness didn’t leave her face, so he added, ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Anyone else in the house?’

  ‘No, but Gary’s kids’ll be home from school soon. Don’t let them see him.’

  She exchanged a glance with her colleague. ‘OK, how about you put Gary down now, let us check him out?’

  He nodded, but couldn’t seem to move. The ambos conferred, then ventured closer. They coaxed his hands loose and laid Gary gently on the floor, their fingers feeling for a pulse that couldn’t be there. Blood on their gloves. On him, too – coating his hands and arms, soaking the front of his T-shirt. The material stuck to his chest, still warm. Hands gripped him, urging him up, and he was somehow walking. Out through the living room, past the upended filing cabinet and slashed cushions, the shattered glass. Away from the terrible thing that used to be Gary.

  He blinked in the pallid Melbourne sun. The woman’s voice hummed faintly, but he gazed past her to the street. It looked the same as always – a row of blank-faced houses; trampolines in the front yard, labradoodles in the back. There was his car, two wheels up on the curb. He’d been finishing a job down the Peninsula when Gaz texted: a great result, back-slapping all round. It had been an hour before he’d read the message, another two in the car, stuck behind every B-double and ageing Volvo. He should have run the red lights. Broken the speed limits. The laws of physics.

  Police lights strobed the street as dusk turned to darkness. Caleb sat on the back of the ambulance tray with a blanket around his shoulders and the company of a pale and silent constable who smelled of vomit. His own stomach churned. He couldn’t rub the blood from his hands. It was in his pores, under his nails. He scrubbed them against his jeans as he watched strangers troop in and out of Gary’s home. They carried clipboards and bags, and wore little cotton booties over their shoes. Across the road, the lights from the news vans illuminated the watching crowd: neighbours, reporters, kids on bikes. He was too far away to see their expressions, but could feel their excitement. A charge in the air like an approaching storm.

  The constable snapped to attention as someone strode down the driveway towards them. It was the big detective, the one who’d searched him and seemed a little disappointed not to find the murder weapon. Around Caleb’s age, mid-thirties at most, with short-cropped hair and shoulders that challenged the seams of his suit. Telleco? Temenko? Tedesco.

  Tedesco stopped in front of the young policeman. ‘Move the reporters back from the tape, Constable. If you feel the urge to up-chuck again, aim it at them rather than the crime scene.’ He turned to Caleb. ‘A few more questions, Mr Zelic, then I’ll get you to make your statement down the station.’

  The easy rhythms of a dust-bowl country town in his speech, but his face was half-hidden by shadows. Caleb shifted a few steps to draw him into the light.

  Tedesco glanced from him to the nearest streetlight. ‘If it’s too dark for you we can move closer to the house.’

  Metres from Gary’s body. The stench of blood and fear.

  ‘Here’s fine.’

  ‘I take it you had more than just a business relationship with Senior Constable Marsden.’

  ‘He’s a friend.’ No. No more present tense for Gary. From now on, only past: I knew a man called Gary Marsden, I loved him like a brother.

  Tedesco was watching him: a face hewn from stone, with all the warmth to match. He pulled a notebook from his pocket.

  ‘This urgent call he made, asking you to come, can you remember his exact words?’

  ‘I can show you, it was a text.’ His hand went to his pocket, found it empty. Shit. He patted his jeans. ‘I’ve lost my phone. Is it in the hou
se?’

  ‘A text, not a call? Not too urgent, then. Could just be a coincidence he asked you to come.’

  ‘No. Gaz always texted me, everyone does. And he was worried. He always used correct grammar, but this was all over the place. Something like, “Scott after me. Come my house. Urgent. Don’t talk anyone. Anyone.” All in capitals.’

  Tedesco flicked slowly through his notebook, then wrote. Careful letters and punctuation, a firm, clear hand. He’d be able to read that back in court without a stumble. Gaz would have approved.

  He kept his pen poised. ‘Who’s Scott?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t care what dodgy dealings your company’s involved in, Mr Zelic. I’m homicide, not fraud, not narcotics. So what are we talking about here? A deal gone wrong? In over your heads with someone?’

  ‘No, there’s nothing like that. Trust Works is legit. We do corporate security, fraud investigation, that sort of thing. My partner’s an ex-cop – Frankie Reynolds. Ask around, half the force can vouch for her.’

  ‘And Senior Constable Marsden? How does he fit in?’

  ‘He was just helping out on an insurance case, earning a bit of extra cash.’

  It had been a flash of fuck-I’m-good inspiration over Friday-night beers with Gaz. A solution to a job that was way too big for them. One that Frankie had tried to talk him out of accepting. Why the hell hadn’t he listened to her?

  Tedesco was talking again, asking if Gaz had … something. Many problems? No, that couldn’t be right.

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘Money problems,’ Tedesco said. ‘You said he was earning extra cash. Did he have money problems?’

  ‘No, but he’s got a young family, money always comes in handy. Look, the case has to be connected. It’s a couple of big warehouse robberies. Gaz thought the thieves had an inside contact.’

  ‘Constable Marsden wasn’t killed by some dodgy warehouse manager, Mr Zelic. He was executed. Executed – that’s a word you don’t hear thrown around the outer suburbs too often.’

  A happy-looking word: a little smile for the first syllable, a soft pucker for the third.

  ‘Blood all over the walls and ceiling.’ Tedesco waited a beat. ‘All over you. That’s someone sending a message. Who? And what?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was just talking to people. Nothing dangerous, nothing … I don’t know.’

  The detective’s eyes pinned him. Grey; the colour of granite, not sky. If the silent stare was an interrogation technique, it was wasted on him: he’d always found silence safer than words.

  ‘Right,’ Tedesco finally said. ‘Come this way. I’ll get someone to take you to the station.’

  ‘Wait. The dog, the kids’ dog, I didn’t see it. Is it …?’

  The detective’s words were lost as he turned away, but Caleb caught his expression. A flash of real emotion: sorrow. Fuck. Poor bloody kids. Tedesco was halfway across the road, striding towards the crowd. Later, deal with it all later. Just hold it the fuck together now. He jogged to catch up and followed Tedesco under the police tape. Cameras turned their black snouts towards him. Lights, thrusting microphones, a blurred roar of sound. He froze.

  Tedesco was in front of him, his mouth moving quickly. Something about parachutes? Parasites?

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Caleb said, then realised he was signing. He tried again in English.

  The detective gripped his arm and hauled him towards a patrol car, half pushed him inside. The door slammed shut, but couldn’t block the hungry faces.

  Caleb closed his eyes and turned off his aids.

  Scott. A soft name, just sibilance and air. Who the hell was he? And why had Tedesco taken twenty seconds to flick through a clearly blank notebook when Caleb had mentioned his name?

  2.

  He showered and dumped his bloodied clothes in the apartment block’s rubbish skip, showered again. A glimpse of something Halloween-like in the bathroom mirror: skin white against dark hair, black pits for eyes. What now? Try to sleep? Eat? He wandered into the living room. The pink walls and striped orange furniture jarred, even in the dimness. They were remnants of the previous tenant, along with the purple carpet and lingering scent of incense. Frankie had winced at the colours when she’d first visited, and given him a tin of white paint as a housewarming present. In the eighteen months since, he’d got as far as moving it from the floor to the hall table. Ten litres. Would that be enough to re-paint Gary’s kitchen? Have to hose it down first. Scrub the walls and ceiling. The floor.

  Something terrible rose inside him, clawing to get out. Move. Move and keep moving. He strode from the room and was halfway to the front door when the strobe lights began to flash: someone ringing the doorbell. It was Frankie. She was wearing her usual jeans and battered leather jacket; her short, grey hair purple-tipped and scarecrow-wild.

  ‘Cal.’ She hefted her backpack onto her shoulder and opened her arms. ‘Fuck, mate. I’m so sorry.’

  He leaned into her bony embrace, blinking against the sudden burning in his eyes.

  She squeezed hard, then let go. ‘… home? I’ve … hours …’

  ‘What?’

  She peered at him, then flipped the light switch. He flinched in the sudden brightness.

  ‘When did you get home?’ she said slowly. ‘I’ve been texting you for hours.’

  ‘I’ve lost my phone. I’ll look for it later, I have to go now.’ The words caught on his tongue; too fast for his mouth. ‘I have to talk to everyone. Somebody has to know who Scott is.’ He stepped forward, but Frankie was blocking the doorway, her face oddly blank.

  ‘Cal, it’s one a.m.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked at his watch. His hand was shaking.

  She draped an arm across his shoulders, tall enough for it not to be too much of a stretch.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, and steered him into the living room. ‘Sit down. I’ll be back in a sec.’ She disappeared into the kitchen.

  He dropped his head into his hands. Three days ago, he’d sat on this couch and convinced Gaz to help with the case. It was an insurance job – a couple of professional hits on a Coburg warehouse and the theft of two million dollars’ worth of cigarettes. Gaz was just doing a few interviews, hunting around for similar cases. Three days. Seventy-two hours. What the fuck could have happened in that time?

  ‘Executed … Blood all over the walls and ceiling.’

  A touch on his shoulder. Frankie was standing over him, holding a mug that smelled like cat food.

  ‘Creamed mushroom,’ she said, setting it on the coffee table.

  He stared at it: Frankie’s idea of food preparation was to open a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

  ‘You made soup?’

  ‘Made? Give me a fucking break, it’s from a tin. It was either that or Weet-Bix.’ She slumped onto the chair opposite and nudged her backpack with her foot. ‘I brought Johnny along, too. Figured you wouldn’t have anything stronger than beer here.’

  A drink would be good. Bad. Terrible for Frankie. She’d been dry for six years, but when they’d first met, back in his early days as an insurance investigator, she’d worn the scent of whisky like perfume.

  ‘Maybe later,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck, Cal, I don’t know what to say. You found him? Jesus.’ She ran a hand through her hair, standing it on end. ‘And the phone – how’d you manage to call the cops?’

  Clutching Gary’s phone. Speaking into the silence, praying someone would hear, someone would come.

  ‘I dialled and talked. The lead detective’s a guy called Tedesco. Know him?’

  She squinted, then shook her head. ‘Must be after my time. What’s the story? Are you a suspect? The bastards told me fuck-all.’ She looked a little bewildered by her ex-colleagues’ lack of love.

  ‘I don’t think so. Everyone calmed down a lot when they realised I didn’t have a knife.’

  ‘You don’t think so? Jesus Cal, why didn’t you ask for an interpreter?’

>   Heat flushed his face. ‘Because I didn’t need a fucking interpreter.’ ‘Don’t get your dick in a twist. You and I both know you

  struggle sometimes. Like when you’re tired, or distressed, or people are throwing questions at you. I’d be surprised if you got half of what they said.’

  ‘I got everything. Tedesco thinks Gaz was into something dodgy. Us, too. He wouldn’t listen to me about the insurance case.’

  ‘The warehouse job? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Gaz texted, said someone called Scott was after him.’ He swallowed. ‘I didn’t get it until it was too late.’

  ‘He called me, too.’ She looked away. ‘I let it go through to voicemail. I was in the middle of … Fuck.’

  God, who else had Gaz tried to reach out to?

  ‘What did he say in the message? Anything about the job or Scott?’

  ‘Nothing, just to call back. But Cal, there’s no-one called Scott involved in the case.’

  ‘Are you sure? There are a lot of employees at the warehouse. Then there’s the security company, the …’

  ‘Mate, I’ve been so far up those guys’ arses I know who needs more fibre in their diet – there’s no Scott. And nothing about the job makes me think the thieves are violent.’

  ‘You said a security guard was hurt in the second robbery.’

  ‘Mild concussion, barely had a bump. Almost feels like they went out of their way not to hurt him.’ She tapped the arm of her chair, an arrhythmic pattern that involved every finger. ‘How was Gary … Was he … Did it feel professional? How’d they get in?’

  ‘Broke in the front door.’ No, that wasn’t right. Standing on Gary’s porch, the winter sun behind him, shining on an undamaged lock. ‘God. He opened it. He opened the door to them.’

  ‘Would he have checked before opening it?’

  ‘A cop with young kids? Every time.’

  ‘So it was someone who looked harmless – a charity collector, a delivery guy.’

  But he’d taught Gaz how to watch, back when they were kids. How to read people’s hands and eyes. How to know when a sideways glance meant he should run, when it meant he should throw the first punch. Could he have got it that wrong? Opened the door to some guy carrying a clipboard and a knife?