Crucifixion Creek (2 page)

‘This could go on for ever,' Deb mutters. When Harry doesn't reply she starts the
engine again to warm them up. Outside two uniforms are crouched behind their patrol
car, blowing into their hands with misty breath. Deb takes a sip from her takeaway
cup. ‘And why do we need to be here? Nobody's dead, far as we know.'

She wants conversation and Harry rouses himself, picking up his own cup. She is five
years older than him and more experienced. This is the first time they've been sent
out together.

‘Not yet, but when it happens we'll be right here.'

‘Does this remind you of Afghanistan?'

‘In a way.' He doesn't really want to respond but knows he should. Sharing confidences
is an important part of team-building, apparently. ‘Sydney is very like Afghanistan,
only here the Taliban wear Armani.'

She gives a croaky laugh and lights up again. The whole car stinks of it. ‘Not in
this neighbourhood.'

‘No.'

Another long pause, sipping as the coffee cools. ‘They say you died over there.'

Oh dear. He likes Deb, what he's heard of her—fierce, thorough. But she wants to
talk. And smoke. He thinks of Carmen in the tobacco factory and tries to picture
Deb dancing flamenco.

‘Who does?'

‘Oh, you know, some of the blokes were talking. Is it true?'

He nods.

‘Seriously? How long?'

‘Eighteen minutes.'

‘Shit. Didn't that—?' She stops.

‘Leave me brain-damaged?' He smiles and she ducks her head, embarrassed. ‘No, I was
like this before. We had much better A&E than you get around here.'

‘Did you…see stuff, like they say?'

‘You mean a bright light? Someone dressed in white beckoning at the end of a tunnel?
No, nothing like that. Nothing at all. Maybe I was going,' he grins at her, ‘elsewhere.'

At that moment a bright light from the TOU truck blazes on the front door which is
opening slowly. A woman stands there looking blinded and disoriented, clutching a
bundle to her chest, perhaps a baby. One of the men in black calls to her, urging
her to walk forward. She puts a hand to her eyes against the glare and begins to
move, painfully slowly, towards the light. After she has taken four or five steps
there is a sharp noise, muffled inside the car, like the branch of a tree cracking,
and the woman falls. Then several more shots, and they get a glimpse of a figure
in the doorway toppling backwards into the house. ‘Fuck.' Deb grinding her cigarette
out. Black figures are running forward.

They get out of the car and wait. Watch the TOU secure the scene and call the ambos
to the victims. Scene of crime join in, filming, and when the last black figure has
cleared the house the white overalls move inside. The last one waves from the doorway
and Harry and Deb move forward to look at the bodies.

The woman, shot in the back, has fresh bruising all over her face and arms. The bundle
she was carrying is a white woollen jacket. In the hallway, stretched out on the
floor, lies her killer. They have an ID now. Stefan Ganis: known to police as an
armed robber and dealer in methamphetamine. Deb opens his lips to expose the blackened
and missing teeth of the meth user. She pulls back an eyelid and looks at the pupil.
‘High as a kite.' She seems enthusiastic about poking about in the corpse and Harry
turns away—not squeamish, God knows, just a feeling, close to superstition, that
the dead are out of it and deserve to be left alone.

The TOU men (they are all men) have put two bullets in him, and Harry is thinking
ahead. Police shooting, a Critical Incident Investigation Team from another command
brought in quickly.
When that happens they'll most likely all be cleared out and
interviewed, and he's impatient to have a look around the house before then. He begins
to move off. Deb says, ‘What's this?'

She has rolled up the man's sleeve to inspect his tattoos, and she points to a solid
block of black cross-hatching on his left biceps. Harry squats down and makes out
a pattern faintly visible beneath the hatching. ‘He's inked over another tattoo.'

‘Old girlfriend's name?'

‘No, an emblem of some kind, probably a bikie logo. Looks like he got kicked out
of one of the gangs. You don't get to keep the colours. Come on.'

They begin to work quickly through the rooms, all of them in chaos as if the place
has been trashed. Almost all of the stuff tossed around seems to be hers, except
for one small corner with T-shirts and a pair of heavy biker boots. Above them, he
has haphazardly taped a spread of photographs to the wall, a little shrine above
the Harley boots. There are several pictures of him with some hairy, beefy blokes,
all grinning at the lens; a faded old snap of a middle-aged woman, arms folded, perhaps
his mother; a photo of a white tow truck.

Harry studies the pictures carefully, making his own record of them with his phone.
He can just make out the name painted in vivid letters on the truck door—
13 Auto
Smash
. He peels the photo off the wall and slips it into an evidence bag.

Deb looks over his shoulder. ‘What's that?'

Reluctantly he offers her the plastic pouch and she examines the photo inside. ‘Important?'

He shrugs.

She peers more closely. ‘Why 13?'

‘The thirteenth letter of the alphabet is M. Short for meth.'

‘Really? The tow truck from hell. Just the sort of thing you'd want in an emergency.
Can't see the rego.'

‘I'll see if the techs can bring it up.'

She starts to ask him why, but he turns and moves on to the mess in the kitchen.

Crime scene will have bagged and removed any drugs, cash and weaponry, and taken
3D laser scans of all the rooms, which will have recorded every dent and scratch
and bloodstain. The two of them sift through the debris anyway, without result.

It is after 5:00 a.m. when they are told to leave by the Critical Incident Team.
Outside they see the TV cameras and reporters at the barriers, waiting for the local
area commander to give a media briefing.

Harry's phone rings: Superintendent Marshall. Bob the Job. He pictures the old man
in his pyjamas, pacing around his living room with his phone at his ear, grey hair
awry, his big frame looming over the tiny porcelain ornaments his wife liked to collect.
‘Sir?'

‘Harry, I've just had Wagstaff in my ear. What's the latest?'

Harry fills him in.

The superintendent grunts unhappily. ‘Deb Velasco with you?'

‘Sir.'

‘Getting along all right?'

‘Of course.'

‘Good. She's a fine officer, Harry.'

Harry wonders why he needs to say that. Is she under some kind of cloud? As he turns
to look at her he sees her face illuminated by the flame beneath her cigarette.

By the time the CIT officers release them, a bright clear day has dawned. The TOU
tank has gone, as have the reporters and the TV crews and the sense of menace. Metal
shutters are being raised in the windows of one or two of the neighbouring houses.
As Harry makes his way to the car a woman, a wild-haired redhead, bursts out in front
of him, coat flapping, listing under the weight of a large bag slung from her shoulder.

‘Harry!' she cries, as if they are old friends. He tries to place her. Forensics?
Domestic violence liaison?

‘Kelly Pool,
Bankstown Chronicle
.' She thrusts out a hand which he ignores.

‘You've missed the fun,' he says. ‘They've all buggered off.'

‘That's okay, I was at the briefing. Same old speech—tragic death, detectives investigating,
appeal for help from the public blah blah. But this is my patch, see. Crucifixion
Creek. So what was the guy's name?' She snatches out a notepad and pen, standing
poised as if she seriously expects him to tell her.

‘Piss off, Kelly Pool.'

‘Oh, Harry. That's not nice.'

‘And how the hell do you know my name?'

‘I never reveal my sources. And a very famous name too, Harry Belltree. Son of the
judge, right?'

‘No comment.' Harry pushes past her and reaches for the car door handle.

‘I know this neighbourhood, Harry,' she calls after him. ‘Maybe I can help you.'

Deb has been listening to this exchange with interest. As she tugs at her seatbelt
she looks across at him. ‘What was that all about? What judge?' And then her eyes
go wide and her jaw drops. ‘Belltree? Belltree! Oh fuck—Danny Belltree! “First Aboriginal
judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court!” He was your dad?'

‘Just drive the car, Deb.'

‘How could I have missed that? Nobody told me! How come nobody told me?'

He wonders about that.

2

Five hours later and twenty-two kilometres away, across the city to the north-east,
an elderly woman puffs her way down the hill towards the bay. Phoebe Bulwer-Knight
missed her bus and now she's hurrying in case they give up on her and go home. The
three of them have been meeting for brunch every Friday for over twenty years, ever
since she retired from being Charlie's secretary and bookkeeper, but she has missed
the last four Fridays with her hip and the problems with the drains. Now she's worried
that the tradition may be broken. She should have phoned, of course she should, but
she was already late.

She reaches The Esplanade at last, and the curve of Balmoral Beach lies before her.
The pale sand, the sweep of water across Middle Harbour, the little white figure
of Grotto Point Lighthouse on the far headland, a ferry making its way up to Manly.
The café on the corner and, yes, they are there, Grace and Charlie at their usual
table, and she breathes a sigh of relief. They're very still, she thinks as she gets
closer. Concentrating on the ferry? Perhaps they're having a bet on how long it will
take to cross the bay. But no, their
heads are bowed. They're surely asleep, dozing
as they wait for her to join them.

When she does, she hesitates, a flutter of alarm rising in her chest. At the same
moment the young waitress steps out onto the terrace and smiles at her. ‘They have
a little sleep,' she laughs, ‘for an hour now. Maybe more. I don't want to wake them.'

Phoebe is suddenly struck by their clothes. Both are wrapped in heavy coats that
seem too big for them now, as if they've shrunk inside them. Charlie is almost smothered
in his orange scarf—
my muffler
, he calls it—and though it is a mid-winter's day,
the sky is a brilliant blue and here in the sun it's quite warm. And the state of
Grace's hair! An unruly tangle beneath a hat that looks as if it's been in an accident.
And their clothes are filthy. There is what looks like a soup stain down the front
of Charlie's good coat, and a tear in his sleeve. ‘Oh, Charlie,' she whispers. ‘What
happened to the Manly Dandy?'

She reaches out and touches Charlie's cheek. It is so cold she recoils as his head
drops forward. ‘You must call an ambulance,' she says to the waitress.

‘What? He is not well?'

‘I believe he's dead.'

‘Oh my God! He has passed away? The lady will be so upset when she wakes.'

‘I think she's dead too.'

The girl shakes her head, eyes wide. ‘Both together…? Is that possible? Oh, that
is so sad, but also…' she struggles to find the right word, ‘…so beautiful. They
go everywhere together. I have seen them, holding hands. And now they pass away together.'

‘Please just phone for an ambulance.'

‘Sure, sure.' The girl takes a mobile from her pocket and makes the call, then points
the phone at the old couple, and it makes a loud click. The girl starts jabbing away
at it with her thumbs.

‘What are you doing?'

‘I'm sending to my friends. So sad, so beautiful.'

‘No…' but Phoebe's eyes blur, her knees buckle, and the waitress keeps tapping at
her phone as she yells to her boss to come and help.

3

Harry drops his gear off in his locker and signs out. He walks to Parramatta station
and catches a train packed with commuters in to Central. A twenty-minute walk up
into Surry Hills takes him to his street, to the plane tree at the mouth of the laneway,
bare of leaves. He can smell baking, hear the sound of an orchestra.

She comes to the door as he steps inside, hugs him, says, ‘Oh, you stink.'

‘Sorry. My new partner. Smoker.' He gazes at her face, the smudge of flour on her
forehead, the smile on her lips and frown across her eyebrows, and his heart aches.

‘They said on the news there was a siege again last night. Were you called out?'

‘Yes. But we were just onlookers. The nasties did all the work.'

He wipes Jenny's forehead and she says, ‘What was that?'

‘Just flour. Any problems?'

‘I can't find my good oven gloves. They must be somewhere in there.'

‘Let's take a look.'

They are in the middle of the kitchen table. He picks them up and puts them in her
hands.

‘Thanks. Are you hungry?'

‘Yeah, but dirty. I'll have a shower.'

‘You haven't forgotten about lunch?'

‘No.' It's the anniversary. How could he forget?

‘Poor you. You probably just want to sleep.'

Lunch is at Jenny's sister's house, which is thirty minutes away on a good day. Her
husband, a builder, once came across Frank Lloyd Wright's advice to a house client
to buy the cheapest site in a good neighbourhood because it would be difficult to
build on, and therefore a bargain and a challenge and an opportunity for the great
architect to do his stuff. Greg found a narrow and precipitous site on a gully overlooking
a reserve, which the agent privately considered unbuildable, and paid a modest price
for such a good suburb. The design that his architect devised was highly ingenious,
with seven different floor levels tumbling down the slope and taking advantage of
every angle of view and opportunity for sunshine and breeze. Unfortunately the engineering
works, largely invisible beneath the ground, consumed most of the budget, and the
house is still unfinished, limping slowly towards completion whenever Greg can scrape
up the cash and spare his men from other jobs. It has, however, earned him a reputation
as a builder for challenging small projects, and has brought him in a fair amount
of work.