Get Even

by Peter Corris

  'Where is my husband?'

  'He's at home.'

  'Why are we here?'

  Maddy looked again at Dunlop, who seemed helpless to keep from responding like an automaton. 'Your dog was killed and dumped in the swimming pool,' he said. 'Evidently as some kind of warning or threat. We thought it best that you didn't go back to the house.'

  'I see. Well, I must say I never cared for that mangy mongrel anyway.'

  Maddy's anger made her lean forward in her chair. 'Your daughter asked for the dog to be brought here. What d'you think she's going to say when she finds out it's dead?'

  Lucy Scanlon shrugged, barely lifting the lightly padded shoulders of her stylish dress. 'Her father will come up with some way of softening the blow, as he has with every hard fact she has ever faced.'

  Maddy's instinct told her that all Dunlop would get from this self-contained woman would be what she wanted to volunteer. 'Are you aware of your husband's present situation, Mrs Scanlon?' she asked.

  The almost imperceptible shrug came again. 'Up to a point. I gather he is going to lay information against some of his former associates in order to protect himself from criminal proceedings. Very sensible, if a little late in the piece.'

  'You don't sound very sympathetic towards him, or towards your daughter, if you'll excuse me saying so.'

  'I can hardly hope to stop you saying whatever you please in an establishment like this, Ms Hardy. David has . . . provided well for me up to this point. Or almost up to now. The last few years have been . . . difficult. To be honest, I'm not sure that I can go on . . .'

  Dunlop's snort of derision made both women start. He was back on his own territory and assertive. 'I don't think you understand anything, Mrs Scanlon. The killing of the dog is sort of . . . symbolic. It means you and Mirabelle are targets just as much as Dave. If it means anything to you, Dave's more concerned about that than for his own safety.'

  'Bravado. Macho bullshit, as his daughter would say.' Lucy Scanlon rose from her chair as if she was about to sweep out of the room. Then she looked around and saw that there was nowhere to sweep to, and that her companions were unlikely to be impressed. She sat down and crossed her shapely legs. 'Do you think I might have a drink?'

  Dunlop picked up on Maddy's slight nod. 'What would you like, Mrs Scanlon?'

  'Scotch and ice, please. You must excuse my sharpness. This is all very difficult and I'm on edge.'

  'We're every one of us on edge, Mrs Scanlon,' Dunlop said, thinking that this was the first real sign of it she'd given. 'That's what this business is all about. Maddy?'

  'Some white wine, please.'

  Dunlop went out and Maddy leaned forward in her chair. 'This is hard for you,' she said. 'It's none of your doing, but your husband is in a very dangerous situation and . . .'

  Lucy Scanlon had recovered ninety-nine per cent of her composure. 'I wouldn't say that.'

  'Wouldn't say what?'

  'That David's difficulties are his responsibility alone. He wasn't overly ambitious, but I could see the opportunities. I pushed him, Ms Hardy. Pushed him quite hard, and for a time it all went quite well. Do you know how disgusting a policeman's job really is?'

  Maddy shook her head. 'Not really.'

  'Almost no-one does. It's vile, dealing with the dregs of society day after day, week after week. The only other people who get their hands that dirty are saints of various sorts. Bound-for-heaven types. Well, policemen are sinners, and they want some rewards here on earth.'

  It was a standard defence of police corruption, but Lucy Scanlon obviously embraced and accepted it powerfully. Maddy nodded non-committally. 'Has Mr Scanlon told you what you're facing—relocation, changes of identity?'

  'My husband doesn't tell me things, Ms Hardy. These matters have been discussed.'

  'And what is your attitude?'

  'Everything is negotiable. Ah, good, thank you so much, Mr Dunlop.'

  Dunlop handed glasses to the two women and nursed a coffee mug himself. He was tired and hungry, rattled by Lucy Scanlon's forcefulness and Mirabelle's hostility, and unsure of Maddy's attitude towards him. While he'd been out of the room he had checked on the security and accommodation arrangements. The Scanlons were the only clients in residence. Apart from Maddy there were three other WPU officers, two men and one woman, taking shifts at the TV monitor, manning the phone and fax machine and simulating normal activity around the place. Lucy and her daughter had their own bedrooms adjoining the sitting room where she was presently sipping her drink. They shared a bathroom, an arrangement Dunlop thought unlikely to be workable for long, and had only the clothes they had been wearing when picked up.

  Lucy finished her drink quickly, the first hurried movement she had made. She stood and smoothed her dress. Even in her high heels she was diminutive, with a figure that was slightly rounded without being plump. 'I'm rather tired. I think I'll go to bed.'

  'There are some toiletries in your bathroom,' Maddy said. 'I could lend you a nightgown.'

  'Thank you, but I'd swim in it, my dear. I can sleep in my slip.' The glance at Dunlop was minimal, but sufficient. As intended, he had a fleeting image of that small, efficiently arranged body in a silk petticoat.

  'Good night, Mrs Scanlon,' Maddy said.

  'Good night to you both. I have to say that I'm quite impressed with your procedures so far. But I must give you fair warning—as of tomorrow I will start to become a little . . . demanding. For example, I don't like to spend two days in the same dress.'

  Not to mention the shoes and underwear, Maddy thought.

  Dunlop said, 'If you could make a list of what you want from the house and leave it out here, I'll see that the things are brought over. Perhaps you could ask Mirabelle to do the same.'

  'Thank you. All she ever wears are jeans, T-shirts and sweaters, but I imagine she'll have some specific requirements from her record collection.' Lucy's face looked older as she moved out of the patch of dim light she'd been occupying. There were lines around her eyes and mouth not noticeable before. She smiled suddenly, showing small, even white teeth and a flash of pink tongue. 'It's a pity about the dog. Good night.'

  Dunlop and Maddy went back to the kitchenette that adjoined Maddy's room. 'Jee-zus,' Dunlop said. 'I thought I'd seen hard.'

  'Come on, Lucas. She got through to you. Going to trot over there tomorrow and pick up her smalls, are you?'

  'Thought I'd get you to do it. You might learn a thing or two.'

  'Stuff that. You don't look the best. When did you last have a decent meal?'

  'A decent meal? I don't remember. I haven't eaten anything since midday. What've you got here? I could knock something up.'

  'You never did enter the nineties did you? The fridge is full of stuff to stick in the microwave. You can be eating something hot in ten minutes.'

  Dunlop chose lasagna. Maddy put the package in the oven, poured another few inches of wine for herself and opened another light beer. He ate and drank, telling Maddy, between mouthfuls, what he'd learned from Scanlon about the evidence he would present, the enemies he faced and the indications that he had surprises in store for the SCCA. Maddy listened in silence and watched him, thinking that he'd aged more than he should have in the time since she'd last seen him. She knew some of the details of his career, particularly two woundings he had suffered, but nothing of what he'd been through emotionally. The frown lines between his eyebrows had deepened. When he'd finished eating she noticed that he'd developed a habit of gnawing at the inside of his lower lip.

  'He's holding back,' Dunlop said. 'It's going to be messy. I can feel it.'

  'You can always use the daughter to prise it out of him.'

  'Yeah, I thought of that. This is a shitty business, isn't it?'

  'They told us that in training. Do you have a normal case load now, or do you just do these big-time jobs?'

  'I've got a case load, but these things get priority, and with so many inquiries going on they seem to be coming up more and more. What
about you?'

  She nodded. 'Case load plus bits and pieces. I'm doing a bit of instruction myself these days.'

  They chatted about aspects of the job. Maddy did a tour of inspection and when she returned Dunlop put his arms around her.

  'Only if you promise it's not in place of fucking either of them.'

  Dunlop kissed her. 'The job got in the way the first time. I thought I'd get some revenge on the job. I've been thinking about you, Maddy.'

  To their surprise, it was as if the intervening years hadn't happened. As lovers they had been immensely compatible, with similar quirks and the same preferences as to position and pace. In her room, on the three-quarter bed, they fell straight back into it. Maddy liked to begin passively, being undressed and caressed and talked to. In some mysterious way this brought her to a point of arousal, close to orgasm, that launched her into assertive, energetic foreplay. They were both muscular and fit, and the love play was close to wrestling, almost a test of strength. They paused for Maddy to roll the condom onto his erection, and when Dunlop pinned and entered her she resisted momentarily and then opened to him, drawing him down and folding herself around him.

  'Oh, Jesus,' she moaned. 'Oh, darling. Oh, I love that. I fucking love that!'

  Remembering, Dunlop rolled to the side, allowing her to curl up and press against him, getting leverage and finding a rhythm. They fucked energetically, sweating and gripping shoulders and hips. Maddy came first and Dunlop rode in on the last spasms of her orgasm like a surfer following a collapsing wave to the beach.

  Later, when they had peeled apart, she said, 'God, that was good.'

  Dunlop nuzzled at her firm, small breasts. 'It's always so religious with you. Makes it dirtier and more fun.'

  'I should go and check on things one more time,' she said. 'The bloody job.'

  Dunlop rolled over and hugged a pillow. 'You'll find me asleep, love. But my Dick Tracy wristwatch alarm will wake me in time.'

  'For what?'

  'You want a real man, don't you?'

  'Sure.'

  'Davo and me are gonna play a round of golf.'

  'Jesus,' Maddy said.

  'There you go again.'

  6

  Dunlop spent most of the morning on the telephone. He rang the Randwick house and asked about the client's state of health. He was told that Scanlon had slept well, eaten breakfast and was chipping golf balls on the back lawn. He had organised for his regular maintenance man to clean the pool. Dunlop arranged for Lucy Scanlon's and her daughter's clothes to be collected. He rang Burton and others in the WPU to discuss the intricacies of the case.

  Peters, one of Dunlop's superiors, said, 'Did he tell you something it would be inadvisable for us to talk about on the phone?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good, I thought he might. That's some confirmation. We can't be sure it's the truth. What's your judgement?'

  'Hard to say. He's a shrewd, experienced man. Truth isn't something hard and fast with him.'

  'Point taken. How're things down there by the water?'

  'Tense and bound to get tenser. We're going to have to come up with something else, especially for the wife. You can feel her costing the furniture.'

  'Like that? We're working on it. I take it Ms Hardy can keep the lid on things for a day or two?'

  'Not longer.'

  'Well, the ante goes up when he opens his mouth. We'll have the press to worry about, more lawyers than you can shake a stick at, phone tappers—the lot. Stay with it, Luke.'

  Dunlop phoned Scanlon and agreed on a tee-off time. Then he spoke again to the team, arranging for officers to be present on the golf course. As he put the phone down he became aware of Mirabelle, smoking a cigarette, drinking a can of Coke and leaning against the door jamb. He could see that she was regarding his crumpled clothes and unshaven face thoughtfully.

  'How's Dad?' she said.

  'He's okay. Want to come over and see him? We're playing golf this afternoon.'

  'Golf, yuk.'

  'You could caddy.'

  She laughed, then scowled as if annoyed with herself for being amused. 'No way. If you were sailing it'd be different.'

  'Another time then.'

  Mirabelle blew smoke, shrugged and slouched away. Dunlop reflected that her manners were excessively bad in the same way that her mother's were excessively good. Psychology territory. So far, all exchanges with Maddy had been cool and professional as the safe house personnel busied themselves with their various tasks. Before he left he took her aside.

  'Everything okay?'

  'Lady Muck's giving me a bit of a hard time. She's hard to like. The kid can't decide which one of us to shit on most. Otherwise, not too bad.'

  'They're working on another venue. You'll be the first to know.'

  'Put 'em in orbit for a year, I say. What about the dog dilemma? Who breaks the news?'

  'Shit, I forgot.'

  'Don't worry. I'll do it. Take care, Luke.'

  Dunlop drove to his house in Marrickville, showered, shaved, ate a sandwich and collected his golf clubs. Stopped at a slow light on the drive to the eastern suburbs, he flicked open his Guide to the Golf Courses of Sydney. He learned that the Cliffs course had been the brainchild of some golfing doctors in the 1940s. Originally a nine-hole layout, it had been extended to eighteen when more land became available in the 1960s after the closing of the old quarantine station. 'A links course, par 71, 5486 metres for members, with undulating fairways, dominated by the ocean and water. Several stretches of water to hit over, few bunkers.' On the whole, Dunlop preferred bunkers to water.

  At two p.m. he conferred with the man in charge of the protection team, a nuggetty Lebanese named Sammy Tadros.

  'It's not bad,' Tadros said. 'The hospital's secure and you've got the sea on that side. A man placed up there with field glasses,' he pointed to a high point near the middle of the course, 'can keep a pretty good eye on things.'

  'Good,' Dunlop said.

  'Course, you're fuckin' mad to be out here hitting little balls around in the sun. Doesn't the man play pool?'

  'I don't play pool,' Dunlop said. 'The man needs to relax, get some exercise, develop confidence in the people looking after him. If he sits around at home all day doing nothing, who knows what useless thoughts might run through his head?'

  'So you're going to let him win, are you, Luke?'

  'If I have to.'

  Scanlon arrived with two WPU officers. He unloaded a newish set of Ping clubs and an aluminium buggy from the boot of the car and wheeled the kit across to where Dunlop stood with his bag. It was Wednesday and the course was almost deserted in the warm afternoon. Scanlon's grin was wide as he shook hands with Dunlop.

  'Wednesday's quiet,' he said. 'The fucking doctors're busy carving people up and the members are buggered after a Stableford comp and a piss-up they have on Tuesday. I had a word with the pro on the blower. We'll be right.'

  'What did you tell him?'

  'That I wanted to have a quiet round with a villain and that we'd be having a bet or two. I said there'd be a couple of hundred in it for him. You'd be able to handle that, Luke, wouldn't you?'

  Dunlop laughed. 'You're a bastard, Dave. Starting to suck on the tit straight off, eh?'

  Scanlon pulled out a wood, slipped off the cover and began to take practice swings, apparently untroubled by the dangers facing him. Dunlop watched the fluid motion, unimpeded by the man's bulk. The competitive instinct in him was strong and he said, 'Your wife and daughter are all right.'

  More well-grooved swings. 'I know.'

  'How's that?'

  'Mirabelle rang me just before I left home. Let's get on with it. While I'm feeling loose. Ten bucks a hole?'

  'You're on,' Dunlop said, still mulling over the communication between Scanlon and his daughter. He wondered what else, if anything, had passed between them other than affirmations of well-being. Maybe Maddy would know.

  The first hole was a longish par four with a ditch and some ti-tr
ee scrub running up the left side of the fairway. There was a rough patch about two hundred metres out where the ground dipped. A decent right-tending drive and a straight, medium iron shot should see the ball on the slightly elevated green. A light breeze was blowing into the players' faces. They tossed for first strike and Dunlop won. Confident of his driving, he hit the ball straight down the fairway and was astonished to see it land far shorter than he'd expected.

  'Wind's tricky here,' Scanlon said. 'Have to keep under it.' He took a one iron and hit his ball low and right, finishing fifty metres past Dunlop's and better positioned for the next shot. Dunlop over-clubbed and put his ball in a bunker at the back of the green. Scanlon's five iron ended two metres from the pin. Dunlop's trap shot left him about the same distance away. Both men took two putts to get down and the hole was Scanlon's.

  Dunlop was carrying his clubs while Scanlon was wheeling his lightweight buggy. As they progressed to the second tee, Dunlop noticed a man strolling along in the rough, apparently looking for lost balls. He recognised him. 'I need a caddy who knows the course,' Dunlop said. 'You out-foxed me there, Dave.'

  'Part of the game,' Scanlon said.

  Dunlop won the next hole and exposed a weakness in Scanlon's game. Both men hit seven irons onto the green, but both were left with ten-metre putts. Dunlop put his close, but Scanlon's ball, missing the hole by only a few centimetres, went well past. Dunlop tapped in but Scanlon took two more putts to hole out.

  'You gave that a whack,' Dunlop said.

  'I hate to squib a putt. I'd rather have a go than come up short.'

  The new few holes were halved at par or bogey with both playing steadily and staying out of trouble. On the long, par four, eighth hole Dunlop's drive carried beyond a fairway bunker 250 metres out and skipped off a hard mound to land a hundred metres from the green.

  'Shit,' Scanlon said. 'You're a lucky fucker.' His drive landed in the bunker. Dunlop birdied the hole while Scanlon made bogey. In an odd way, Dunlop found that observing the security precautions around the course helped his game. He noted the flash of field-glasses in the far distance; the man repairing divots on the sixth fairway was WPU and he was sure the groundsman fiddling with the sprinklers around the seventh green was familiar. The golf course was a series of valleys and plateaus and by the ninth hole Scanlon was showing signs of weariness. Dunlop, twelve years younger and a four day a week jogger, was feeling no strain. He observed Scanlon closely as the big man hauled his buggy up the rise to the tee. He was sweating and short of breath but not actually distressed. Unlike Dunlop, who had smeared his face with an insect-repelling sun-block cream before hitting off, wore tinted glasses and a sun-visor, Scanlon was bareheaded and unprotected. His face and nose were pink—a skin-cancer clinician's nightmare.