“Debra,” Ronnie said, with a sigh. “Anning was a crook. We’re not sure quite what he was into but it was something big enough to have Chelsea killed for and it is what got him killed in turn.”
“Simon was… He was...” She seemed to be trying to rally to his defence but something kept preventing her. Had she suspected something all along? Or was it just that she knew from the news that he had stabbed a woman fourteen times and left her to bleed to death in an alley? Tears welled in her eyes.
Ronnie looked at me. It was my cue to jump in with a plea for Debra’s help. But I couldn’t drag this poor woman into it. Planning our sting when it was all abstract and theoretical was one thing but seeing our star performer in the flesh and imagining her trying to bluff a hardened criminal was another thing altogether.
“We need your help,” Ronnie said. “There’s only one way to take down the man who ordered Simon’s and Chelsea’s deaths. We need to trick him into a confession. And, for that, we need you.”
She shook her head. “No. This is crazy. If you know who killed Simon, you should go to the police. It’s nothing to do with me.”
“She’s right,” I said. “We should find another way.”
Ronnie gave me a scowl under his brows that made me wish I hadn’t spoken.
“Debra, there is no other way. I used to be a cop. I know how they work. They can’t touch the kind of man we’re after. He keeps his hands clean. He makes other people kill for him. He’ll have ten loyal soldiers to swear he was with them for any time he needs an alibi. Unless we get someone on the inside, we will never reach him.”
She shook her head again, beginning to panic. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not on the inside of anything. I think you should both go now.”
“Debra, you could help us put a very bad man behind bars. No-one else can do it. It has to be you.”
She stood up. “No. This is crazy. Please go.”
I stood up too. “Ronnie?” He looked as if he would argue but, in the end, pulled out his wallet and withdrew a business card. It looked like a Telstra card, with the front scribbled over and a number written by hand on the back. He pushed it across the table towards Debra.
“If you want to talk some more about it, give me a call.”
Debra looked at the card as if it were poison and made no move to pick it up. With a sigh, Ronnie joined me on my feet and we let Debra see us out of the building. Standing outside in the busy street, offices and cafes along one side, apartment blocks and glimpses of the river on the other, we were the only still people in a bustling thoroughfare. I waited for Ronnie to explode and tell me I’d just blown our only chance. But he stayed ominously quiet. He looked up and down the street with a sneer. Finally, he said, “Come on, let’s get out of this fucking kindergarten.” In a flash, I saw what he was seeing. There was no-one in sight who was more than half Ronnie’s age.
We walked about five minutes to where we’d parked Ronnie’s old Volvo wagon, neither of us speaking. I tried to recall the various options Ronnie had outlined the previous evening. Hacking, breaking and entering, torture, murder… The more I turned them over in my head, the more I realised we really were at the end of the road. Debra Heinzer had been our last chance and she was a dead end. There was no way that frightened little woman was going to be of any use in an underworld sting operation.
The interior of the Volvo was hot and had that musty, old car smell. I wondered about why Ronnie had such a crappy car when he had such a nice house. Then I realised there was almost no computer tech in the car at all; no screens on the dashboard, no web of sensors, no clever algorithms watching to see if the driver was growing drowsy. It was a car from another era and Ronnie had chosen it quite deliberately. My companion obviously had a very strange relationship with technology. There were no smart devices in his home. He had one TV and it had no streaming services. He had an old hi-fi system with a tape deck and a turntable along with the CD player. There was nowhere on it to plug in a phone and no Bluetooth connection. And yet, he used his top-of-the-line smart phone with at least as much sophistication and skill as I’d ever seen, and his house had a state-of-the-art surveillance and security system that, in its complexity and functionality, left me baffled.
We sat in the car, not moving. I supposed Ronnie was going through his options again, as I had, and coming to his own conclusions.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I said.
“What, like talk our only possible collaborator out of helping us?”
“I didn’t—” I bit my tongue. He knew that as well as I did. “No, I mean like hurting someone.”
He gritted his teeth. “Someone has to do something,” he said.
My phone rang. It was Terry Marchant. I took the call.
“I’m here with Ronnie,” I said. “You’re on speaker.”
“Excellent. Our good friend DI Reid has been bending my ear about you two. Seems you’re not his favourite people. Even so, he’s longing to talk with you both. I told him it would have to be at a neutral location and he agreed to see you in my office. How does that suit you?”
Ronnie was staring out of the window and didn’t look like he wanted to talk. “Sounds great,” I said. “When?”
“Can you get here in half an hour? Otherwise it will have to be tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yeah, half an hour is no problem. We’ll see you there.”
I hung up and looked at Ronnie. He continued to stare out of the window.
“I think the best thing we can do now,” I said, cautiously, “is to give everything we have to the cops and let them run with it.” He said nothing, just sighed and started the engine “What do you think? Isn’t that what we should do?”
He pulled away and into the traffic. “What I think is that they must give away doctorates of philosophy in cornflake packets. Because how a galah like you managed to get one is a bloody mystery otherwise.” His voice was calm and measured but his driving was aggressive and erratic.
“I – I’m sorry. I just didn’t think she—”
“Listen. We don’t tell the police anything they don’t already know. Do you understand?”
“No. I don’t. Why shouldn’t we? It’s not like we’ve got any big leads or a new breakthrough.”
“We’ve got Debra Heinzer.”
“But she—”
“Doesn’t want to help us? No, she doesn’t. But she will.”
“I don’t see—”
“There’s a lot you don’t see. Debra’s going to help us. Mark my words.”
“But...”
“But nothing. Just keep your mouth shut about her. If she comes up, let me do the talking. All right?”
“But the cops have already interviewed her – more than once by the sound of it.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
What the hell was he planning to do? As we wound our way through the busy streets to the CBD, I imagined him digging up dirt to coerce her, threatening her family members, promising to sabotage her business rivals… I would not have put anything beyond Ronnie Walker. I stole a glance at his face. His expression was set and grim. Maybe I should have been more concerned about his mental stability. The man had been a special forces operative and a cop and, even by his own admission couldn’t hold down a job. PTSD might be the very least of his mental health problems. What if he was prone to psychotic episodes? I’d seen what he was capable of when he took down those two bikies. Was he planning to hurt Debra Heinzer? Would he hurt me if I tried to stop him? And how did I end up living in the same house as a deranged killer?
My only conclusions, by the time we’d parked in a multi-storey car park by the river, were that I had to get out of Ronnie’s house as soon as I could, that I’d take my chances with the bikies finding me in a motel in some little outback town, and that being a vigilante hero was definitely not the life I wanted to lead.
* * * *
Terry Marchant’s prune-faced receptionist made us sit and wa
it in his cramped waiting room. It was something I would definitely not miss when all this was over.
“Ronnie!” the lawyer exclaimed, emerging from his office at last. He seemed genuinely pleased to see the old bugger and shook his hand, warmly. His smile dipped a little as he turned to shake my hand too. “Young Master Luke,” he said, then, to Ronnie, with a grin, “The Force is keen to see this one.” They both guffawed and we were ushered towards a meeting room with a polished wood table and uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs. The hatchet-faced lawyer was so cheerful, I wondered if he’d been drinking all morning.
“DI Reid will be here any moment,” he said, as we sat. “Anything you need to tell me?”
“No, I think you’re up to date,” said Ronnie. “Luke’s staying at my place until this is resolved.”
“Sensible precaution.” He grinned at me and winked. “Get him to tell you some of his dog show stories. You’ll wet yourself.”
I smiled politely, unable to imagine my gruff companion as a wit and raconteur.
“I’m thinking of moving on,” I said. I saw Ronnie’s head swivel my way but I didn’t look. “It might be better if I lay low somewhere.”
Marchant looked concerned. “But I thought—”
“Somewhere where the people out to get me don’t know where to find me.”
“I see. Well, you must do what you think is best.” He didn’t sound very convinced that it was a good idea. At least he didn’t sound so cheerful now. That had been creeping me out.
A soft tap at the door and Ms. Pruneface came in with Reid and Bertolissio. We all stood and shook hands.
“Any progress?” I asked. Reid scowled at me as if I should only speak when spoken to.
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss ongoing cases, Mr. Kelly.”
“Even though it was my de facto who was killed?”
“Your partner’s case has been closed, Luke,” Bertolissio said, speaking rather more gently than her boss. “The man who killed her is dead and the investigation into Simon Anning’s death has been moved into another department.”
“Did you ever find out why he killed her?” I asked, coldly.
Reid cut in. “Probably a sexual motive.”
“What?” In amazement, I looked at Bertolissio but she was staring at the table.
“He thought it was a date,” Reid said. “She thought it was a couple of old friends getting together. He tried it on. When she said no, it turned nasty.”
“What a load of shite,” Ronnie growled. He, too, turned to Bertolissio. “And you go along with this load of bollocks?”
“What I think the DI is trying to convey is that the motive is still uncertain and there are many possible scenarios.” She said it smoothly, looking at Reid all the time. “However, it is possible we will never know what Anning’s motive was because he’s dead and the investigation is now closed.”
“And what about the person who ordered him to kill her?” I asked. “Are you investigating that?”
“No,” said Reid. “As DS Bertolissio just said, the investigation is closed.”
“Then what the fuck are we all doing here?” Ronnie asked.
“A very good question, Detective Inspector,” Marchant said.
Reid shook his head and sat back, looking like he’d had enough of the whole business. Taking her cue, Bertolissio spoke. “We’ve received a complaint that you two have been harassing a local businesswoman; a Ms Debra Heinzer.”
“Bloody hell!” Ronnie said.
“What? We were just there thirty minutes ago,” I said, confused. “It was the first time we’d ever seen her. We spoke for about ten minutes.”
Reid jumped back in. “She says you wanted her to take part in some kind of illegal sting operation. She says you barged in uninvited and were behaving aggressively and tried to intimidate her into joining your little vigilante crusade.”
“She’s lying!” I cried. What the hell was going on?
“She doesn’t want to press charges,” Bertolissio said, watching me carefully, as always. “But she will if you try to approach her again.”
Ronnie focused his scowl on Reid. “And whose name did she drop to get such prompt and enthusiastic service from our boys in blue?”
Bertolissio looked away. Reid looked like he might explode. Luckily, Marchant said, “Well, I’m sure my clients won’t be speaking to...” He consulted a note he’d made. “...Ms Heinzer again. So, if there is no other business...”
“Walker?” Reid asked, still glaring at Ronnie.
“I’ll talk to who I damned well please.”
“You’ve been warned.” He turned to me. “And you?”
I wanted to argue, just because the man was so very unpleasant, but I reminded myself I was getting away from it all as soon as I could. So I said, “Yeah, whatever.”
And that appeared to be it. Reid and his sidekick left without goodbyes.
“Harassment?” I asked whoever cared to answer.
“Bullshit,” Ronnie said.
“I think you’re right,” said Marchant. “Ms Heinzer obviously has friends in high places. I suspect DI Reid’s gruffness was mostly a cover for his acute embarrassment.”
“Couldn’t we sue them or something?” I asked. “They’ve done nothing but harass us all along.”
Marchant opened his mouth to answer me but Ronnie stood up, saying, “Come on. We’re off.”
The lawyer stood up too and they began saying their goodbyes. Reluctantly, I joined them.
Chapter Nineteen
Ronnie and I reclaimed the car and drove back to his place with hardly a word spoken. I watched him along the way, checking his mirror, slowing down, speeding up, taking abrupt turns.
“Are we being followed?” I asked, tightness growing in my stomach.
“Nah,” he said. “Just being careful.”
When he reached the house, he reversed into the drive – something he hadn’t done before.
He sat on the patio most of the afternoon, cradling a stubbie, lost in thought. I didn’t join him until early evening when I asked what kind of carry out meal he’d prefer. We settled on Chinese – it seemed to be his preference when he didn’t actually care much what he ate – and I made the call. When it arrived, he joined me in the kitchen to eat it at the big wooden table.
“Here’s some new rules,” he said, half-way through his special fried rice. “One is, don’t go near the front windows and don’t go out the front of the house. I’m expecting bullets from a drive by or a Molotov cocktail through the window any day now – most likely in the evening.”
I took the news in grim silence. He’d said as much before, just not quite so definitely.
“Two. Keep a bag packed. I’ll give you an old backpack. We might have to do a runner. When I say go, you bloody well go.”
I swallowed a mouthful of rice that seemed to dry on my tongue. “Should I head for the car?”
“Depends. I’ll tell you at the time. If I’m not about, just go, anyway. The keys will be in the ignition, just in case.”
I didn’t have to ask in case of what.
“Three. Ah, never mind. Two’s enough, hey? Don’t want to confuse you. Any questions?”
I studied my sweet and sour pork and its congealing sauce. “I meant what I said at the lawyers. I’m going to shoot through. Tomorrow, maybe.”
He took a deep breath. “You know what I think about that.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I won’t follow you next time.”
“I didn’t expect you would.”
“Yeah, well. Suit yourself, mate. It’s your funeral.”
“Will they still come after you when I’m gone?”
“I reckon.”
It seemed grossly unfair that his life might be in danger just because he helped me. But thinking in terms of what was just or fair was an indulgence for old philosopher me, not something that made much sense for new fugitive me. What a bunch of ancient Greeks believed a virtuous man might
do in a just society seemed a light year away from my present reality.
I watched Ronnie finish his meal and most of what I’d been unable to eat. Then I cleared up and went to my room. Ronnie appeared a few minutes later with a small backpack and said, “Do it now.” I did. I’d want it tomorrow when I left. It took about a minute to put everything I had into the bag. I didn’t want to join Ronnie as he resumed his brooding by the pool, so I lay on the bed and did some brooding of my own.
The fact that my new partner seemed unreasonably angry with me, made it easier to disregard his advice and clear off. I knew I owed him a lot – maybe even my life – but we weren’t going anywhere with the investigation. The only thing I could think of to do was to bugger off for a while and let things settle down. The past couple of weeks had been insane. I really needed somewhere quiet where I could focus on what my life meant without Chelsea. Like most Australians, I’d lived all my life in the city but I had vague romantic longings for the bush. Now, it seemed, the Red Centre was calling to me. I wanted red dirt and rocks, big skies and solitude. Maybe that would help me grieve. Anyway, I’d find out in a couple of days’ drive. I spent a while looking at maps and planning routes and, as night closed in, I fell asleep on top of the bed.
I woke at three AM, cold and uncomfortable but too sleepy to make the effort to get up, get undressed and go back to bed. So I lay with my eyes closed and tried to make myself sleep again. It might have worked except that Guilt, my constant companion since Chelsea’s death, crept up onto my pillow and started whispering in my ear. “You’ve done nothing but let her down,” it said. “You’re about as useless as a detective as you were as a boyfriend. And now look, you’re planning a road trip when you should be trying to get justice for her.”
I sat up in the dark. My phone charger had a little green LED that gave the bedroom an eerie, underwater glow. If the bikies found me and dropped my weighted body in the Brisbane River, my last living moments might look something like this. Only a hell of a lot murkier. But they must know where I was by now, so why hadn’t they come for me? What were they thinking? What was Mr. Big planning? Why wouldn’t Debra help us? Why had she set the cops on us? What was the scam Anning had been involved in? It couldn’t have been money laundering. People who gambled online used credit cards or cryptocurrencies. Archerfield Enterprises, yes, they had plenty of access to cash through ordinary gambling outlets, but not Brisvegas Games, their whole business would be cashless.
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