by Peter Corris
'Your attitude is not helpful. Miss Hardy has been reprimanded and re-assigned. She has taken her medicine and will have to abide by the consequences. I am persuaded that the real negligence here is yours. Tadros wounded, Scanlon dead . . .'
'Don't forget the dog, Rusty, with his throat cut. That's got to be my fault too. Oh yes, and the girl—broken neck, fucking great wound in her leg . . .'
'That garage was gone over, inch by inch . . .'
'You just can't grasp it, can you? Trish Tillotson's an expert. She'd be three jumps ahead of you on one of her slow days. She knows how to protect a scene-of-crime site and how to make it look like there's been a kid's picnic there with balloons and chocolate crackles.'
Burton looked down at his notes. 'You say there was a Saab sedan in the garage, but you didn't even get the number.'
'There was a lot happening and I wasn't fucking-well taking notes. I read the number and tried to remember it, but I'd just found a dead girl and then her father was terminating in my car. I'll admit to that deficiency—I fucking forgot it!'
'You should have . . .'
Dunlop's control snapped. 'Don't fucking tell me what I should have fucking done! You weren't there. Your kind's never there. I had Sammy Tadros down and . . . has anyone talked to Edgar Georges?'
'He's gone on leave, and don't even bother to ask about Thomas Kippax. I've read your statement. It's the most complete can of worms I've ever seen and no-one wants to open it.'
Dunlop sneered. 'That'd be right. Pick away at the mozzie bites and ignore the fucking shark that's going to swallow you alive. This discreet little inquiry you've been conducting is a farce. It's all bullshit. Trish Tillotson murdered the girl, or helped her on her way and no-one's even going to ask her a question or two.'
'She's . . .'
'Got high-level protection. I know.'
'I was going to say that she's a senior officer with an impressive service record.'
'She's a cold-blooded murderous bitch, corrupt from head to toe.'
Burton shuffled papers uneasily. 'Can't you see the way things stand? You're levelling accusations at a respectable business figure, a grieving widow, senior police, while you yourself are under a cloud for negligence and inefficiency.'
'Why am I here, then?'
'I hope to persuade you to undergo a psychological evaluation. It's a stressful role, the one you've been fulfilling for some time now with distinction. This is for your protection. It can secure you generous sick or retirement benefits . . .'
'No way.'
'I'm sorry. Observations have been made and your conduct has been deemed erratic to put it mildly. Look at you, you're twitching as you sit there. You're skin and bone. When did you last sleep?'
'Fuck you.'
'You're irrational, ignoring your own best interests. A suspension is the very least you can expect.'
'No, it's not.' Dunlop tossed the envelope onto the polished surface. It skidded across and teetered on the edge, almost falling into Burton's lap. 'I resign.'
'A video?' Thomas Kippax was sceptical. 'What the hell do you mean, a video? Of what?'
Trish Tillotson, sitting alongside Phillip Krabbe, both in Kippax's commodious leather office chairs, shrugged. 'I don't know. That's all he said.'
Kippax moved things around on his desk with impatient hands. He had been reluctant to meet with the policewoman again after hearing of Scanlon's death, but Phillip Krabbe, uncharacteristically, had insisted.
'I'd say you were getting well beyond your brief,' Kippax said. 'Requiring him to produce evidence.'
'My brief was never very clear, Mr Kippax,' Phillip interposed smoothly. The events and emotions of the past few days had produced remarkable changes in him. He no longer had a sleek, self-satisfied look. Worry and exertion had stripped flesh from him; excitement—sexual, physical and mental—had raised the tempo of his metabolism and existence. He spoke more quickly than before and let fewer words do more work. 'It was necessary to press Scanlon. Detective Tillotson was right in taking the initiative.'
Sex finished well behind the pursuit and exercise of power as a motif in Thomas Kippax's life, but he had experienced it enough, and most recently and satisfyingly with Lucy Scanlon, to appreciate its power and recognise the signs of it at work. He's screwing her, he thought. Or rather, she's screwing him. The thought of playing the unholy matchmaker would have amused him if there had not been so much at stake. With his new perception of Krabbe and Tillotson as allies, the dynamics of the meeting had subtly changed and not, in his instinctive judgement, for the better.
Kippax mentally reproached himself for having shown antagonism, and affected a world-weary air, 'Scanlon could well have been lying, you know. Trying to buy time, contrive a situation more advantageous to himself. It sounds as if you'd given him very little room in which to manoeuvre.'
'If that's meant as a criticism, its misjudged,' Phillip said. 'We secured the first objective—preventing Scanlon from testifying. The point about the evidence was a logical . . .'
Trish longed to touch him—his arm, his knee, any part. Despite herself, she'd become obsessed by him in a way that she'd seen in other women and always despised. Her motto—that a cock was six inches long, more or less, and it didn't matter what other meat it was attached to—was failing her. She shifted in her seat and crossed her legs. The movement caught Phillip's eye and he stopped talking.
'I made one mistake,' Trish said quickly. 'I should have seen that he was desperately sick—dying, in fact. Those old coppers are like that—all fat guts and high colour and short breath. But the signs were there. I should have shown him the girl's knickers or something, and got it all out of him there and then.'
Kippax was the son of a wealthy man and he had fallen heir to all the advantages of his class—education, influential connections, travel. But he knew plenty of men who had enjoyed the same privileges and fallen by the wayside in the post-regulatory business world. He hadn't expanded and diversified his assets by being unobservant and uncritical. He sensed that Tillotson and Krabbe, although deferential enough now, were playing a different game. Blackmail, almost certainly. And not about the Scanlon girl. They were too vulnerable there themselves. The other thing, then. When would he ever be clear of it?
'Look, Detective Tillotson . . . Trish. I'm not undervaluing your efforts. Stopping Scanlon was the first objective, as Phillip rightly says. And that was achieved most satisfactorily.'
Trish nodded, accepting the olive branch.
Kippax willed himself to relax further. He abandoned the items he'd been fidgeting with and laid his hands squarely on the desk. 'It's possible that the pressure you subjected him to put him over the edge. What's the matter, Phillip? I hope you're not getting squeamish at this stage?'
Kippax had noted Krabbe's discomfiture. He had winced and glanced, agitatedly, around the room as the policewoman's name had been spoken. Kippax let out a laugh that was almost hearty. 'You must not concern yourself. This room is swept for surveillance devices almost hourly. The whole level is clear, although I wouldn't vouch for the rest of the building.'
'Are you sure you can trust your own people, Thomas?' Trish Tillotson asked.
A great team, Kippax thought. Backing each other up. His mind ran back over several meetings with Scanlon and others at the time when he was pressing his brother, Louis, for control of the Kippax media group. It was some years back when video camera technology was less well developed, but it was just possible. It represented a threat he had not anticipated. Allegations from Scanlon, notes, diaries, were one thing, but recorded evidence was quite another. The danger had to be considered. The question was, how to do it without nurturing another, and perhaps worse, threat?
'We have a problem,' Kippax barked suddenly. 'What's the key to the solution?'
'Edgar Georges and Dunlop,' Trish said. 'Look at it this way—Scanlon was lying or he told no-one. In either event, no problem. If he put the video somewhere utterly safe that only he knew about, it's unlikely to
turn up, ever. There's a chance, though, that he'd told Dunlop and I think Edgar Georges knows a lot more about this than he's let on.'
Kippax stopped her with an upraised finger. 'If you're right about Dunlop, then that's the end of it. The evidence will come to light.'
Trish shook her head. 'Not necessarily. My information is that the WPU bigwigs are rousting Dunlop for incompetence and negligence. They're really pissed off with him. You've seen the newspaper articles?'
Kippax nodded.
'Added to that, Dunlop's a maverick of sorts. There's no telling what he'll do. I propose that Phillip get in touch with him, sound him out, see how the land lies. Stall things, possibly.'
'Agreed,' Kippax said. 'But with regard to Georges—what's your thinking there?'
'We know Dunlop and Scanlon went to see Edgar before he came to my place. We also know that they went there to get my address. But what else happened? What else did they talk about? Why has Edgar shot through? I'd like to know.'
Kippax's antennae fluttered and his mind raced. She's lying through her teeth. She's got something else altogether in mind. He knew now where his greatest danger lay and it was ironical that she just might have provided the remedy. He frowned, miming serious consideration of the proposition. 'You could be right, of course. You seem to have every contingency covered. What's the problem here?'
'I don't know where Edgar's gone.'
Phillip recalled how Trish had sprung into action when she'd learned of Scanlon's death. Her energy had seemed endless and he'd had to drive himself to the limit to keep up with her. He shied away from remembering the place where they'd taken the body. He could scarcely believe that she'd had the capacity to plan a strategy involving Dunlop and organise helpers. But she had. He had difficulty in concealing his admiration, but he kept to the agreed script. 'You didn't tell me about this.'
Kippax noted Krabbe's reaction. So they're not totally hand-in-glove, he reflected. That's something. He excused himself and tapped a button on his console and took a phone call, willing to observe the pair in dialogue and possible conflict. The call was routine, requiring a minimal amount of his attention. In other circumstances, he would have found the policewoman attractive himself—dark, rail-thin, dressed conservatively in white blouse and dark skirt, but giving the clothes a provocative note with ankle-strapped high heeled shoes and a black ribbon around the straight, slender column of her neck. Krabbe was obviously captivated to beyond his wit's end, Kippax concluded. The woman was in a state of near-rut, too, but no less dangerous for it. The phone call had absorbed none of his attention. He had the solution. 'I can tell you where he is. Tasmania. And I can give you some details. But please, be very, very discreet about going there and reporting back.'
'Thank you, Thomas.' Trish stood and moved towards the door.
Phillip Krabbe held his ground, showing no interest in her graceful movement. At no time had the question of Mirabelle Scanlon's whereabouts been discussed, but Phillip was becoming used to dealings in which the crucial subject went unmentioned. Now, he was acting under Trish's orders again. He advanced to the desk and extended his hand.
'Thank you, Mr Kippax. It's been a pleasure to meet you and I'm sure everything will work out well.'
Kippax shook hands, an action he disliked but had learned to tolerate. 'I trust so.'
In the private elevator that led from Kippax's office suite to a lower floor, Trish and Phillip embraced and kissed passionately.
'We're probably being filmed and bugged,' Phillip said.
'Who cares?'
Nevertheless, they waited until they were in Phillip's car before getting down to business.
'I picked up a definite reaction,' Trish said. 'To Edgar Georges. Did you notice how quick he was to tell me where Edgar is? He'd sell his own mother, that man. What about his hands?'
'Damp,' Phillip said. 'Decidedly damp. Do you think he knows about us?'
'Yes, and it bothers him. Thomas likes to control everything and everybody. He can feel this one slipping away from him and he doesn't like it. We're close to getting him by the balls.'
'We need the video.'
'Not necessarily. We could get by with knowing what's on it and by being sure that no-one else has it. Thomas's wide open to a very big bluff. He's falling for small ones already.'
Phillip swerved skilfully to avoid a motorcyclist. Since meeting Trish it was only while driving that he felt in control of anything. He didn't care. 'I can't keep up with you. What d'you mean?'
Trish laughed. 'You're not going to tackle Dunlop. Thomas was right the first time. If he's got the evidence then the game's over. I don't think he has got it. I'm still not sure it even exists. But Thomas is seriously worried about Georges. So we're going to have a little trip, just you and me, lover. We're off to Tassie for a talk with fat Edgar.'
18
Dunlop's first thought on leaving the WPU building was to get drunk. Then the American saying jumped into his head: Don't get mad, get even.
'Don't get drunk, get even,' he said aloud in the street and laughed.
Several people turned to look at him. An Aboriginal youth washing a shop window stopped whistling and grinned at him. 'Get drunk and get even,' he said. 'But better get even first.'
'Yeah,' Dunlop said. 'Thanks.'
Burton hadn't taken his gesture seriously, hadn't asked for the surrender of his credentials or equipment. Indeed, Dunlop was not sure that he could terminate his employment simply with a letter of resignation. He recalled the forms he'd signed and undertakings he'd made when he'd joined the unit. Disengagement was likely to be at least as formal and paper-bound. But he considered himself free of official restraints and proposed to use the freedom.
Maddy had told him of Lucy Scanlon's collapse on getting the news of her husband's death. She'd ceased to be a WPU client at that point and had returned to the Randwick house, where Russell and Geoff had been re-employed to keep the media at bay. He didn't anticipate any serious trouble from Russell or Geoff.
Dunlop drove to Randwick under a dark, purplish sky. A storm was gathering in the west, threatening to sweep over the city and expend its energy out to sea, or hit with full force within the next hour. He switched on the radio for a weather report and heard nothing that his eyes hadn't already revealed. People were putting up shutters; shopkeepers were checking their awnings and pulling display boards inside. Electricity crackled in the air and interfered with the radio reception. Dunlop switched off and concentrated on his driving. The wind that had been blowing all morning, and had contributed to his feeling of alienation and disenchantment, had dropped. The streetside trees were still with stiff leaves, as if braced for what was to come.
Dunlop turned into Carrington Road and, from long habit, went past the house, turned and came back. He wondered how long it would be before he'd be able to pull up outside a house without subjecting it to a wary scrutiny. Perhaps never. His resentment against the whole law enforcement culture was building. He was aware of it, but powerless to defuse it. He sat in the car, looking at the house—a temple of police corruption, with its over-elaborate security gates and florid architecture—and thought about what his life in the police world had cost him. A marriage, his very name and identity, several relationships that might have been successful in a different context. By the time he reached the gate, Frank Carter, a.k.a. Lucas Dunlop, was a very angry man.
Geoff ran his hand over his blonded brushcut and sneered through the grille. 'Big help you were.'
'I want to see Lucy.'
'Forget it. She's distraught. Not seeing anyone. She's lost her husband and her daughter. Can't you understand that, arsehole?'
Dunlop's hand shot through the gap between the bars. He grabbed Geoff's left hand and pulled it towards him, bending it down and sideways until the forearm lay across a horizontal metal strut while the wrist was braced vertically. 'I hate to think what a good yank would do to your arm, Geoff,' Dunlop said. 'It'd be a long time before you could pump any iron.
Maybe never. Shit, we're looking at a transverse ligament and muscle tear. Very nasty.'
Geoff's sunlamp tan faded; he eased back to reduce the pressure. 'What, what d'you want?'
'What I said—to talk to the lady. Press the button and open the gate. Do it easy, or I promise you'll be lifting with the right arm only.'
An electronic whirr sounded and the gate swung in slowly. Dunlop went with it, keeping the pressure on the arm until he could slip through the gap. He released as soon as he was inside and was ready for the savage right-hand karate chop Geoff aimed at his neck. He ducked under it and drove the heel of his hand up into Geoff's nose. He felt exultation as the bone and tissue gave way under the force and timing of the blow. He grabbed the gate in his right hand and swung it into Geoff's dipping head, catching him hard just above the hairline. Blood spurted and Geoff groaned as he went limp. Dunlop took no chances on the feigned collapse stratagem. He brought his knee up sharply and heard the jawbone click out and several teeth splinter as Geoff's head met it coming down.
Dunlop bent and took hold of Geoff's left ear, twisting it up, almost lifting the man from the ground as he spoke. 'I want to be sure you hear this. One, don't be around when I come out. Two, where's Russell?'
Geoff mumbled and red froth fell from his askew mouth. He choked and coughed, yelling with pain as Dunlop kept the grip on his ear. He pointed at the house.
Dunlop let him go and crunched up the gravel driveway, turning off it to follow the cement path to the steps leading to the wide porch at the front of the house. Weeds were threatening to encroach on the path. The porch had a waist-high balustrade with fluted pillars and a tiled surface. The tiles were dull, filmed with dust, and several near the door were scratched. The screen door was locked. Dunlop took out a Swiss army knife, slit the wire and unlatched the door. He pressed the bell and waited. Heavy footsteps muted by thick carpet. The door swung back and Russell stood in the opening, obviously expecting the protection of the screen.
Dunlop's pistol came up so that it was only a few centimetres from the point of Russell's square jaw.