by Peter Corris
'Shit. All right, George, get on the blower and get help for Sammy.'
Bracken massaged his wrists and limped towards a telephone. 'What're you going to do?'
'I'm going with Dave.'
'Do I tell them that?'
'Yeah, and tell them Mr Scanlon probably won't be testifying tomorrow. Get busy.'
Bracken dialled and Dunlop bent down to examine Tadros. His pulse was strong and the bleeding had stopped. Tadros was built like a bull and would survive. As he straightened up and heard Bracken giving directions, he wondered about Mirabelle Scanlon. This case had fallen badly apart and was claiming casualties; he hoped that the most innocent person involved was not the worst of them.
Scanlon stood by Dunlop's car with an overnight bag at his feet.
'What's in there, besides the shooter?' Dunlop said.
'Not much. Let's go.'
They heard the ambulance siren before they were a block from the house. Scanlon looked back at the winking red lights. 'Good house, that,' he said. 'I'm going to miss it.'
'Burning your bridges, Dave?'
'Something like that. Let's get moving.'
'Where're we going?'
'Just drive. Let's get this settled first.'
Dunlop's mobile phone rang and he ignored it. He drove in the direction of the city and told Scanlon that he had found where Mirabelle had hidden and that she had been taken away by a man and a female declaring herself to be a policewoman. 'You were muttering the name of the boat when you were pissed. You must have sobered up awfully fast.'
'I did.'
'Why was that?'
'Something occurred to me. Was Mirabelle all right when they took her?'
Dunlop sensed that Scanlon would detect a lie. 'We found blood, Dave. Not a lot and we couldn't tell whose. They carried her.'
'Bastards. Descriptions?'
Dunlop shook his head. 'Not good ones. Nothing much on the bloke. Big, fit. The woman was dark and skinny. That's about all.'
Scanlon said nothing and stared through the windscreen for several minutes. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, found it was empty, swore, wound down his window and threw it out. 'I'm going to kill Kippax if anything's happened to Mirabelle. Get that straight. He's a scumbag like his brother. Neither one of them's any loss.'
'I'm not sure you could negotiate immunity for killing both Kippaxes.'
'I'd get immunity. I'll give you another name. Chief Inspector Edgar Georges. Just think of the tales Edgar'd tell with his nuts in the wringer. And don't forget your old mate Ian McCausland. You'd like to see Ian up to his neck in the shit, wouldn't you?'
'You bet I would! Did he actually do the hit?'
Scanlon ignored the question. 'I should have sent her away somewhere, but that would've sent Kippax a message. It's your fucking fault for letting her loose. I should've known this Witness Protection stuff was Mickey Mouse bullshit.'
Dunlop chose his words carefully. 'It should have been tighter, you're right. Things go wrong. Look what happened back at your place. If it means anything to you, Dave, she did a bloody good job of skipping out. You're right there, too. You can't hold on to anyone who wants to get away, not if they're smart.'
Scanlon hawked, cleared his throat and spat from the window. 'Suddenly, I'm smart, am I? Shit, I feel lousy. You want to ring in about your mate?'
Dunlop shook his head as he slowed deliberately to bring the car to a stop at another light. 'He'll be all right. They're not the first bullets Sammy's taken. He told me once his dad was one of those maniacs who caught slugs in his teeth. Carnival act in the old country or somewhere. Got hit a few times in that game, I'll bet. So, it's in the family.'
Scanlon laughed harshly.
Dunlop drove quietly away from the lights and glanced across at his passenger. The weatherbeaten face looked drawn. His left eyelid twitched and sagged. 'I talked to a doctor about you, Dave.'
Scanlon was chewing at his lower lip. 'Yeah?'
'He reckoned you were a heart attack or stroke case, waiting to happen.'
'Fuck him. I'll last long enough to get Mirabelle safe, and that's about all that matters in my shitty life.'
Dunlop was driving along Cleveland Street, heading towards Victoria Park. He took a left turn and pulled up in a small side street.
'What the fuck are you doing?' Scanlon growled.
'I'm sick of driving nowhere.'
'I've been trying to think.'
'So, give me the results.'
Scanlon sighed, unzipped his bag and took out a tape recorder. He pressed a button and a voice filled the car: Keep your mouth shut and the girl will be all right.
'Electronically modified,' Dunlop said, 'over the phone and recorded again our end. His voice probably sounds entirely different. Sophisticated stuff.'
'Kippax has the best, so does the police department. We've got two ways to go and I can't make up my mind.'
Dunlop rubbed his hand over his face and felt the rasp of his whiskers. 'Look, I'm tired. I've been outsmarted a couple of times today and I've got no pride left. If you've got two ways to go, for Christ's sake tell me about them, because I haven't got a bloody clue.'
'The policewoman at the yacht club could've been Trish Tillotson. It figures—Kippax, Loomis, Tillotson. The description fits her.'
'It's hardly a description. Still, okay. What's the second thought?'
'How did they know Mirabelle was on the loose? Who told them? Who was running the safe house? You must have a leak. That's what hit me back when I was getting pissed. I thought you and me could put on a bit of pressure.'
Dunlop ran the names, faces and records of Maddy's colleagues rapidly though his mind. He felt confident of all of them. Then the realisation hit him—Lucy Scanlon had had a mobile phone and the opportunity to make calls after Mirabelle had taken off.
13
Trish Tillotson and Phillip Krabbe made love three times in the space of little more than an hour. They were both exhausted after the third occasion and fell sweatily asleep, wrapped together in the tangle of satin sheets and covers that had come adrift from the mattress and pillows. Phillip awoke first, startled to find himself in a strange bed with a red-tinted light shining into his eyes. At some point in the proceedings, Trish had turned on the light which gave her naked body a metallic glow. She had got Phillip to remove her stockings and had tied his wrists to the bedposts with them. She had lowered herself onto him, teasing by lifting herself almost clear then easing down again. The third time he had entered her from behind. He looked at her as she slept. There were fine lines around her eyes and mouth, visible now that the light make-up she wore had been eroded.
She woke up suddenly as his hand wandered towards her crotch.
'What are you doing?'
'I just wanted to touch.'
'Touch then.'
He stroked her and she moaned, thrusting herself at his hand. He lifted himself up but she shoved him, collapsing his elbow, forcing him down. 'Don't be selfish,' she said. 'Do it to me.'
She was still slick with his semen. He rubbed and probed, falling into a rhythm with her writhing and thrusting. She whimpered softly as she came and then lay back with her dark, damp hair fanned out on the white pillow. 'That's one I owe you.'
Phillip had not given the events of the night a thought since entering the bedroom, but they came into his mind, sharply and full of threat, as his erotic arousal waned and he emerged from what felt like a sex-induced trance. Trish held his hand clamped to her crotch and she appeared to be drifting back to sleep. Phillip was wide awake, fighting terror. He faced prosecution, possibly gaol, disbarment and disgrace, and for what? He was unsure of the answer. Was it for the wealth he could win from his association with Thomas Kippax, or the amazing favours to be had from the woman lying next to him? Surely both, and which was the more important hardly mattered.
'What's on your mind, lover?' Trish's voice was husky and rough, her usually carefully enunciated vowels had slipped.
<
br /> Phillip lied. 'Mind's a blank.'
'Bullshit it is. You're worried about little Miss Yacht Club down there in the garage. No, not her really—you're worried about your wonderful career and your bright, shining future. What was it going to be, Phillip—your future?'
'A great deal of money, very quickly, and then . . . I'm not sure now.'
'Doesn't sound like much of a plan, but I like the sound of the money. You can still make it, don't worry. It all comes down to how we play Thomas Kippax. Why d'you think he was willing to go this far . . . well, a long way anyhow, to get hold of the girl?'
'Her father must have something very telling. Evidence of some kind.'
A light breeze crept in under the blind and stirred the sex-laden air in the room. Trish shivered. 'Sydney's too cold for me. I'd like to be somewhere hot, really hot. Spain. Have you ever been there?'
'Yes.'
'Is it hot?'
'Some of the time.'
'Not good enough. Might be better to travel. Go to all the hot places so you never had to wear clothes, or only little bits. How does that sound?'
Phillip looked at her whiplike body, coppery under the coloured light. Gymnasium-conditioning had shaped her flat stomach. He remembered the pinioning strength of her sinewy thighs and the grip of her long-muscled arms. Incredibly, he wanted her again. He would do a lot to keep her. 'It sounds wonderful, but what do you mean by playing Kippax?'
'I want to know what David Scanlon knows. Otherwise, Thomas holds all the cards.'
'You mean blackmail him? That's a very serious offence, very dangerous.'
Trish laughed and lifted herself up on one elbow. One small, brown-tipped breast jutted towards Phillip. He wanted to touch it but her expression was concentrated and fierce. 'You think so? How many prosecutions for blackmail can you recall in this state in recent years?'
'I see,' Phillip said.
'Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It happens all the time. In politics, say. That's just one great big blackmail from start to finish. Police work's the same. How many crimes d'you think would get solved without informers?—and they're all being blackmailed, one way or another. Your father was a past master at all this stuff.'
Phillip smiled. 'Was he?'
'What's funny?'
'Nothing. It's just that I've spent most of my life trying to be unlike my dad. Studying, going abroad, not going into the police force. And here I am playing the same game, according to you. I guess you can't escape your breeding, or upbringing.'
Trish shrugged. 'It's the sharp end. The real world. The way things happen. Most people have absolutely no idea of what goes on. Some of the investigative journalists get a sniff of it from time to time, but the game's set up so that they can't publish what they find out. Anybody who thinks in terms of the fair go is a bloody idiot. Expect the worst and do your best for yourself—that's my motto.'
'And if the worst happens?'
'Don't whinge about it.'
Keith Krabbe had never been given to philosophising, but Phillip suspected that what Trish had stated approximated his father's position. He found it persuasive—play for the high stakes and accept the risks. His previous strategy suddenly seemed overcautious and dull and he realised that he'd been moving in this direction as soon as he'd accepted the commission from Thomas Kippax. There was a frisson in the thought that Kippax himself was now only just another player, not the maker of the rules. He felt a need to prove himself; he wouldn't hold this woman's interest just because the sight, smell and touch of her made blood flow to his cock.
'So we have to get hold of Scanlon somehow, before Thomas knows about it.'
And eliminate him, most probably, Trish thought, but she didn't say so. She kissed Phillip hard with her bruised, split mouth, enjoying the pain. 'That's right. We have to get Dave to come to us, and from what I know of him, he's not going to sit quietly in some safe house after getting that message. He'll come looking.'
'For Kippax?'
Trish frowned; deep furrows appeared in the tight skin between her eyes and the effect was disturbing, as if the workings of her brain were being exposed. 'That's logical to expect, but I'd like to deflect him in my direction. It's about time I contacted Thomas, anyway. Would you make some coffee, and put a shot of brandy in it? You'll find everything you need in the kitchen.'
'You don't want me to hear the call.'
A sensual, puffy-lipped smile replaced the frown. 'I'm protecting you, darling. Trust me.'
Thomas Kippax slept poorly at the best of times, and worse when under stress. He was in no more than a light, troubled doze when the bedside telephone rang. He reached for it eagerly; sleep was unproductive. 'Kippax.'
'I don't think I have to identify myself, do I?'
'As you wish.'
'We, the liaison officer and myself, have the merchandise and contact has been made with the buyer.'
'Good, but I can assure you that this is a secure line. There's no need . . .'
'Very well. When Dave Scanlon hears what's happened he'll want to come after you in some way. I want him to be deflected to me in the first instance.'
'Isn't he . . . under protection?'
'That won't stop Dave. Now, I'm guessing he'll make contact with Edgar Georges. What you should do is talk to Edgar and get him to steer Dave towards me.'
'Why?'
'I can handle Dave. I can really put the screws into him. Will you do as I say?'
Kippax reflected. The woman was putting herself directly into the firing line—for a reason, presumably. He could see no present danger in it. 'Very well. The merchandise is safe?'
'Oh, yes. Very safe. I think you're going to be very happy with the results.'
'I trust so.' Kippax plumped up a pillow; he was beginning to enjoy himself. 'Do you think the SCCA schedule as presently set will stay in force?'
A pause.
'I think not.'
She knows a hell of a lot more than she's letting on, Kippax thought. But then, so do I. 'Good. Was there anything else?'
'No. Good night.'
Kippax hung up and then dialled Edgar Georges' number. He took a malicious pleasure at the thought of the fat policeman being awakened from a no doubt deep and drunken sleep.
'So,' Scanlon said. 'Any ideas?'
Dunlop had to think fast, difficult in his tired, confused state. He decided that he needed every edge on Scanlon he could get, and the suspicion about Lucy was a definite edge. He shook his head wearily. 'No. I'd swear they're all okay. Maybe someone spotted Mirabelle in Rushcutters Bay. Who knows?'
Scanlon hammered the dashboard with his fist. 'Fuck it. I thought there might be a fast way. Okay, if we have to get to Kippax through channels we'd better go and see Edgar Georges. D'you know Edgar?'
'I know the fat bastard,' Dunlop said slowly, 'and I don't like him.'
'Me either. That could almost make it fun if it wasn't for Mirabelle. Edgar's got a fancy place in Paddington. I think I can find it. We're going to have to stop for some smokes though.'
Dunlop started the engine. 'Why not go straight for Tillotson?'
'Because I don't know where the bitch lives. Not many people do. But fat Edgar's one who does.'
14
Edgar Georges' immense belly pressed hard against the elasticised waistband, stretched to the limit, of his black silk pyjamas. He'd been asleep when Kippax rang and the conversation had been so brief and so quietly conducted that his wife had not stirred. Georges had got up, urinated, and mixed himself a brandy and soda. He was going to need something to sustain him through a visit from a badly stirred-up David Scanlon. He stood at the downstairs bay window in what he called the den of his terrace house, holding his drink in one hand and meditatively scratching his crotch with the other. The street was leafy and quiet. Two of the things he'd paid a bundle for back when the real estate market was booming. It sometimes irked him to think that he'd never get what he'd shelled out for the house, not this century. Georges didn't like being tak
en for a mug. Not that he intended to sell. He'd retire to the place at Horse Bay in a couple of years and keep this as his city base. He tried to remember the French phrase the agent had used. Couldn't. Sipped on his drink. A .38 automatic was under a cushion in his favourite armchair—the one upholstered in beige leather with the smoker's stand beside it.
He crossed the room, opened a drawer in a roll-top desk and spread some papers on the desk top. Then he ripped the cellophane from a packet of Rothman's filters, took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He placed the packet on the pale leather covering the arm of the chair and returned to the window. A few minutes later, he saw the Laser drive past, heard it stop and turn at the end of the street and watched it park almost directly opposite. The passenger got out—Scanlon, looking eager but edgy, carrying a bag. The driver's head was down, swivelling, cautious.
Fucking lucky to find a spot, Georges thought. But then, Dave Scanlon always was pretty lucky, up till now. Georges lit the cigarette, took a drag and put it in the ashtray on the stand. He balanced his glass on the beige leather and went to the door. There was the sound of the gate opening and footsteps on the path, coming up to the porch, crossing the tiles. He opened the door before a knock or a ring sounded. The twin dark holes at the end of a sawn-off shotgun stared back at him.
'Jesus, Dave.'
'Shut up, Edgar, and back up, or your guts'll be dripping down the wall.'
Georges backed into the den. Kippax had told him to resist, appear reluctant, even alarmed. The advice wasn't necessary. Scanlon was dishevelled, unshaven, wild-eyed. He held the brutal-looking weapon rock-steady. Georges flopped down into his chair and picked up his cigarette. His pistol was only inches away but it might as well have been a mile. He recognised the other man now—Carter, going by some other name. Trish Tillotson had known it. In the witness protection game now. What the fuck was he doing, letting Dave Scanlon run around with a shooter like that? Suddenly, Edgar Georges was very afraid. He drew on the cigarette and reached for his glass. Scanlon was looking suspiciously around the room, taking in the expensive furniture, the bar, the gilt light fittings.