by Ann Michaels
Chapter 6
The Afternoon of Friday November, 18, 1988
Harry de Groot
Singing Days Done
The gate which led to the island fort was closed, and locked, because the fort was only opened to tourists at certain times. But this didn’t matter to me, as I was to meet with the potential squealer under the footbridge. So after rattling across the timber footbridge, I took the weathered staircase down to the rock floor, near the water’s edge, and stood there in the spirited, salt wind, with my back to the wall of sandstone blocks. This waiting game of police work was one of the main reasons that so many coppers took up smoking. But I had given up the habit some years ago, when my ex-wife wanted to get pregnant, and so, I had nothing else to do but wait.
Twenty minutes later, a bloke in acid wash jeans and a Billabong t-shirt, sidled up alongside me looking like a colicky baby, with an old man’s face. He also looked anxious, as he kept biting his lip, as though, expecting a cigarette to be hanging off it.
‘You the bloke from the coppers?’ he asked, out of the side of his dry lips.
‘Yes, I’m Detective Harry de Groot and you’re Tyler’, I said easily.
The man looked confused. ‘Nah, me name’s Keith, but the business I own does tiling, you know.’
‘Ah, alright. Got it’, I replied, feeling confused myself.
He shifted about a bit nervously and then shot me an intense look. ‘Look I’m caught up with some dirty dealings and it’s not sitting right with me. Me Mrs tells me to shut up and we can set ourselves up, pay off the house and all that. But me, I haven’t been able to sleep……’ Then his voice rose an octave. ‘But let me tell you now, I won’t go to court or anything like that. Info is all I’m giving you, and then, I’m done.’
I nodded and waited as he squirmed and looked about; took out a cigarette –a Winfield Blue - and then put it back, and kicked a rock, and then, started talking.
‘See the Ruslen operation knows that the cops are turning up the heat.’ He pointed a ragged fingernail at me in an accusatory way. ‘And you lot seem to think that you’ve been careful ‘n that. But you haven’t, and so, stuff has been moved about and things shut down, and then opened up elsewhere. When you lot go to find the trail, you won’t find one. Got it?’
That wasn’t strictly true, I thought, as I had only seen the Water Board trail of information this morning, and it could, in a pinch, provide some evidence that Ruslen was funnelling dirty money by paying contractors under the table, and also, making money with the increased sales price when he flipped the property. Kerry was at this moment copying the stuff that we had viewed on the visual display unit and she would hand it all over to me personally tomorrow night.
‘I know what you’re thinking, but I can guarantee you that any information that you think you have got on Ruslen, has already disappeared. You’ve been followed, and forget about the land Titles Office, too, ‘cos Ruslen, she don’t take no chances….’
I jumped, as the air shuddered from the explosive ‘crack’ of a gunshot, followed by the whizz of a bullet, and I saw, seemingly at the same time, a person in a clown mask hanging over the balcony and pointing a gun, and Keith the tiler (if that was indeed his name), crumple to the ground, like a house of cards, as a bullet exited his frontal lobe. All this probably occurred in a few seconds, but it felt like time was stretched out and in slow motion. But it was over in a moment, and I knew, without a doubt that, my first and perhaps only informant on this case was dead.
After checking the dead man’s pulse, just in case, I took off running, clattering up the wooden stairs and along the long, shuddering footbridge. But I was too late. There was no gunman -or gunwoman, in sight.
I turned around and looked about me; there was nowhere to hide in any direction that I could see. Whoever fired the gun, was a damn fast runner. Or, they had disappeared into thin air, but that wasn’t possible.
Keith had said that Ruslen was a ‘she’. That was curious. As far as I knew, Peter Ruslen had no wife, or sister. His father, Philip Ruslen, according to the newspapers, was in a persistent vegetative state, after having been injured whilst playing polo about eight years ago; his mother, Kristina Ruslen, was a well-known socialite, who raised money for hospitals and other well-known causes.
I ran over to my car, almost in a daze, to radio for an ambulance, but as I bent to open the door, I noticed a collection of finger marks on my driver side window, which were very obvious in the glaring, afternoon sunlight. I peered closer and noticed a rip in the weatherstriping, which sat between the bottom of the window and the glass. And suddenly, I was fairly sure that someone had recently used an implement, like a coat hanger, to disengage the lock-pin mechanism of my car door, in order to gain access. But why?
I quickly walked over to the nearby milk bar and used the public telephone to report to headquarters and request the dispatch of an ambulance –although, nothing now could save Keith the tiler.
I slowly walked back to my car and peered into the car window again, but the sun’s glowering rays were combative, impeding my vision. The fingerprints were suspicious, but I could not see anything amiss. So I opened the door, and popped the bonnet, so I could take a gander at the engine. I tinkered around a bit and checked things over, but everything seemed in order. Then, I checked the tyres and the bolts holding them, and again, I could see no obvious issues. I shrugged my shoulders.
But even though I had to wait around for the ambulance and the Crime Scene Operations Team, I avoided getting back into the car. I paced about and thought about how I would never get used to the horror of violent death; its barbarity and savagery, and its remorselessness. It always puzzled me how some people could so easily take another person’s life, for gain –as often was the case. To me, anything acquired in such a brutal manner would be tainted. As would I. People who have psychopathic tendencies, however, have little or no conscience and empathy, and for this reason, we should be very afraid of them.
Some hours later, the Crime Scene Operations Team had grilled me over the details of Keith’s murder and the ambulance had rocketed away in a cloud of dust; it was time for me to leave. I reluctantly pushed myself into the car and I was soon on my way back to headquarters. I felt hollowed out and drained, half listening to the police radio chatter in the background, as I baked in the hot afternoon sunlight, which made the car like a pressure cooker. I was thinking that my investigation had largely gone belly-up. If it was true that my Water Board intelligence had disappeared, it would also be likely that other mainstream sources of evidence may have vanished. And Ruslen was onto me.
It was about a half hour later, as I was driving along the Great Western Highway, that I became aware of a movement on the passenger side of the car. As I slowed and stopped at the traffic lights, I glanced down, and everything became more ghastly, a scene from a bad horror movie, as an Eastern brown snake reared up, right there, on the acrylic, grey carpet of the car, ready to strike at me. My reflexes zipped into to gear and I shot out of the car, like a cannon ball, into the stalled traffic and slammed the door shut, as the snake hit the glass of the window, and ricocheted off. It was a horrible sight!
I was sweating as I left the car right there on the road, with the blaring horns, shaking fists and exploding curses. I ignored it all and bolted into a nearby newsagent and telephoned Sargent O’Brien to report the latest happening. His response was that, ‘this case is becoming a bloody joke’. A bit of sympathy wouldn’t have gone astray, but you’ll never get that from The Sarge.
Soon enough, a tow truck was dispatched to remove my car to some place which could deal with an angry and highly lethal reptile and I went straight to the nearest pub and threw back a stiff, single malt, Scotch whisky. I decided that I would call it a night.
……except, as I came out of that pub, ready to hail a cab, I met a group of ladies looking for some fun.