Crucifixion Creek (3 page)

But it is a nightmare for Harry, with its multitude of cascading steps, its unexpected
shifts of direction, its jagged corners. He follows Jenny through the obstacles,
tensing to leap forward to snatch her from danger. She seems oblivious to the risks,
accepting the unreliable guidance of her two nieces and the remembered images in
her head. But Greg is always making changes, and she can't see those.

They are nearing the difficult descent to the family room when Nicole rushes out
of a bedroom, fiddling with her hair, hugs her
sister and guides her down to safety.
Harry hands over the chocolate cake that Jenny has baked for dessert and thankfully
accepts a beer from Greg. Greg has already had a few, Harry judges, his gestures
sweeping, verging on belligerent. He fetches a tray of meat from the kitchen and
marches out to the barbecue on the deck with barely a word. Nicole notices and gives
Harry an apologetic little smile. ‘It's been a bad week,' she whispers. ‘You know,
people letting him down.'

‘Sure.' He goes out onto the deck, where Greg is stabbing the meat. ‘How's it going?'

‘Great.' Greg spins around and yells through the door, ‘Nicole, where did you get
this steak?'

Harry doesn't hear the reply. He goes over to the rail and looks down at the rock
shelf far below. Something vanishes under a bush. Possum maybe.

‘Yeah, sorry, what?' Greg is at his elbow. ‘Were you at that siege last night?'

‘Yes.'

‘Cops killed another poor bastard, didn't they? Jeez mate, why do they even bother
giving 'em tasers?'

‘He was high on ice and he'd just shot his girlfriend dead while we watched.'

‘Christ.' Greg deflates all at once, the aggression abruptly gone. ‘Sorry, mate,'
he mumbles. ‘I don't know how you do that stuff.' He shakes his head. ‘How
do
you
do it? Because of your mum and dad?'

‘Eh?'

‘Nicole has this theory you went into homicide because…' He shrugs.

‘Because what?'

‘You don't really still think it was murder, do you?'

‘Someone ran them off the road. Either it was deliberate or they were criminally
negligent. If it was an accident they should have stopped, tried to help, called
triple-O.'

‘No evidence, Harry.' Greg is almost pleading now. ‘The cops, the coroner, the press…No
one found any real evidence of another vehicle.'

‘The paint scrape on the bodywork.'

‘From the fence post.'

‘No, wrong kind of paint.'

Greg shakes his head. ‘I just…it can't be good for Jenny, knowing you still think
it was deliberate, having to live with that thought.'

Harry says nothing.

Greg hesitates, then presses on. His words are becoming a little slurred. ‘Nicole
said Jenny's been back to the specialists. Anything?'

‘Not really. No change. Not
much they can do. We've got her name down for a dog.'

‘Oh.' Greg runs out of steam again. He turns to the barbecue and lights up the burners.

‘I read about a case the other day,' Harry goes on. ‘Bloke in America, same thing
as Jenny—blindness arising from traumatic brain injury in a car smash. Nine years
he was blind. Then one day he was struck by lightning, and his sight came back, just
like that.'

Greg stares at him, perhaps wondering if this is some kind of terrible joke. ‘Truly?'

‘Yes. That's how it is. The problem's in the brain, you see, not the eyes. They don't
understand how it works.'

‘Shit. I just think…Put it to bed, Harry, eh? All this raking in the past. It's three
years now. I mean, today, the anniversary thing, every year…'

‘And every day and every minute,' Harry says quietly. ‘I'm going to get the bastards,
Greg. Sooner or later, I'm going to get them.'

Greg suddenly lurches to the rail and throws up. Harry hopes the possum got clear.

On the drive back home Harry says, ‘So what's the problem with Greg? Did Nicole say?'

‘It's to do with work. She's worried about him. He keeps it all to himself, and things
get on top of him. She said I should try to persuade you to leave the force and join
Greg and run the business side, let him concentrate on the building work. Could be
a brilliant partnership, she said.'

‘Oh yes?' Nicole once confessed to him, after a few wines, that she thought he was
selfish to do the work he did. What if he got hurt in the line of duty, where would
that leave Jenny?

He says, ‘What do you think?'

‘Maybe. When you've had enough of what you're doing now.' Then, after a pause, ‘I
overheard a bit of what Greg was saying to you about tracking down whoever caused
the accident. I think he's right, Harry. It's not something you need to do. It wouldn't
bring your mum and dad back, and it wouldn't help me to see again.'

He thinks, is that how other people see me? A shell-shocked obsessive, compulsively
scratching away at old wounds? Does Bob the Job believe that? The other guys in the
squad?

4

At times like this Kelly Pool tends to brood on the past. When she was twenty-three,
a hundred years ago, she managed to break a murder case while working for a small
suburban newspaper. It was a combination of persistence and local knowledge—she unearthed
the evidence police needed to crack the grieving husband's alibi. In return, the
cops gave the paper first lead on the story and acknowledged Kelly's crucial role.
For a dizzy, unbelievable spell she was a star.

After a fortnight of record sales and international exposure, the paper's owners
threw a party for her at a top hotel in the city, where she drank a large amount
of champagne and fell into conversation with a charming man who congratulated her
and told her that she obviously had a huge future in front of her with one of the
big nationals.

‘As long as it's not one of Murdoch's,' she said, and began a rant about what rubbish
they all were and how the editor of the Sydney paper was a total moron and sleazy
scumbag. Full of her new self as beacon of journalistic integrity, she became more
and
more expansive. ‘I wouldn't accept a job from him if he crawled across hot coals,'
she said, and the man smiled. ‘Oh, I don't think there's much chance of that,' and
bade her good night. A friend immediately appeared at her elbow, eyes bright with
excitement. ‘How did it go?' she asked.

‘What?'

‘With—' She mentioned the name of the Murdoch editor. ‘That you were just talking
to. Did he offer you the job?'

She is still working for the small suburban newspaper. And at times like this, being
sent out to interview some little old lady who's lost her cat, or in this case her
friends, Kelly lacerates herself with the bitter memory of the moment when her brilliant
career crashed. It wasn't fate, she tells herself. Fate guided her to the one big
chance of a lifetime. It was a character flaw that made her blow it.

And what kind of a name is Phoebe Bulwer-Knight anyway? What is she doing living
here, among the Mahmoods and Cheongs and Krishnamurthis, the last survivor of a vanished
Anglo-Saxon tribe? In Crucifixion Creek of all places.

She leaves her car on the main road that forms the eastern boundary of the Creek
because she's not sure about taking it into Mortimer Street, which is narrow and
has a reputation. The street sign has another hand-painted sign mounted on the pole
beneath it, Crow Country. What Mrs Bulwer-Knight is doing here really is a puzzle,
but not one Kelly has any wish to solve.

As she makes her way along a line of tiny period villas, looking for number eleven,
she is suddenly paralysed by a shattering noise. A gleaming Harley-Davidson with
extravagant handlebars roars up alongside her and sidles past. Its rider turns his
head to her, black helmet, black shades, ominous. Steroids, she thinks, from the
bulging flesh of his tattooed neck and arms, and there's a large red and orange logo
on the back of his black leathers. She stares back, defiant. Fucking middle-aged
teenager.

‘Grow up,' she says, but he can't hear over the Harley. He twists
the throttle to
a devastating pitch and speeds off.

A little way down the street an elderly lady standing at the kerb gives a stately
wave to the bikie as he roars past, and he waves back. Phoebe, Kelly realises. She
approaches and shakes the lady's hand. At the far end of the street the bikie is
disappearing into what looks like a fortress—high steel walls, a watchtower, cameras,
razor wire.

‘They must be afraid you might break in, Mrs Bulwer-Knight,' Kelly says, and the
old lady chuckles and invites her in for tea. When they are settled among plump flowery
cushions, sipping Earl Grey from Wedgwood, Kelly says, ‘I recognised you from Facebook.
And YouTube, you're very big on YouTube.'

Phoebe clearly has no idea what she's talking about.

‘At Balmoral Beach. The waitress filmed you, with your friends.'

‘Yes, and I told her to stop. Don't you find it rather ghoulish?'

‘Yes.' Kelly goes on quickly, ‘It must have been a terrible shock for you.'

‘Oh very much so. Mind you, I've seen a good few dead bodies in my time. I was a
nurse during the war, you know.' The war? As Kelly tries to calculate how old she
must be, Phoebe begins a meandering account of how long she knew Charlie and Grace
Waterford, and how much they meant to her.

‘And such an extraordinary coincidence,' Kelly prompts, ‘for them to pass away together
like that.'

‘Oh hardly.'

Kelly stops writing and looks up at her. ‘How do you mean?'

‘I saw the ambulance man take two pill bottles from Charlie's coat pocket, and frown
when he read the labels. When I asked him he was evasive, and later he showed them
to the police officers, and they had a very serious conversation.'

‘So…what are you saying? Do you think they killed themselves?'

‘Oh yes. And I wouldn't blame them for that, sitting there at their favourite table
in the sun, a final glass of wine, holding hands. But I think they felt that they
had no other choice.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well, the state they were in. Filthy dirty, clothes ruined, and so thin, as if they
hadn't had a square meal in weeks. If you knew Grace and Charlie, how fastidious
they were, how
spoilt
, you'd hardly believe it. It was as if they'd become street
people, beggars.'

‘But you said just now that he was a successful businessman.'

‘Oh very. I should know—I kept his books. He was a millionaire when that meant something,
and they owned a number of properties around here—this house, for example. When I
retired from the business Charlie gave me free tenancy for life, as part of my retirement
package.'

‘So what happened?'

‘I've no idea. As soon as the ambulance left and I'd given my statement to the police
I went back up to the bus stop and set off to see their son Justin over in Rose Bay.
It took me some time to get there, and when I finally arrived someone from the police
had already called and broken the news to him and Jade.' She frowned, shook her head.
‘I thought I was doing the right thing.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘They were so rude. Didn't even offer me a cup of tea. Couldn't wait to push me out
the door.'

‘They'd be upset, I suppose?'

Phoebe sniffs. ‘I've known Justin since he was born. I know that sneaky evasive look
he gets when he's been up to something naughty.'

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know, but when I mentioned that the last time I'd seen his parents I'd overheard
them arguing about someone—a man called Crosstitch—Justin got positively aggressive
with me, told me to mind my own business—he actually used the f-word to me!'

As the old woman continues, it occurs to Kelly that it is Phoebe, not herself, who
is leading this conversation. In fact, it feels as if she is being assessed for a
task. Finally Phoebe comes out with it. ‘So I
think you should go and talk to Justin.
I believe he'll be a little more open if he's confronted by a member of the press.'

Kelly thinks about that. It's a story anyway, the old couple passing away in their
favourite café. And if there is more to it, a scandal of some kind, a failure of
the social services, a suggestion of fraud?

‘Crosstitch, did you say?'

‘That's what it sounded like. Justin certainly reacted when I mentioned the name.'

Kelly writes down the son's address and phone number and promises to think about
it. On the way out she takes a photograph of Phoebe at her front door. ‘How long
have you been here, Phoebe?'

‘Forty years. Charlie bought the house from an Italian family. There were lots of
Italians around here then, with market gardens in the land behind. Charlie built
factories on the fields and made a lot of money. He was a very smart businessman.
That's what makes it so hard to understand what happened.'

‘And then the Crows moved in?'

‘About ten years ago. They're not bad boys really. They sometimes give me a lift
back from the shops.'

‘On their motorbikes?' Kelly tries to imagine it.

Phoebe laughs. ‘No, no. They have a big black four-wheel-drive too.'

5

Harry is working at his desk, typing and scanning his notes into the
[email protected]
database.
It's a routine chore, but the army taught him the usefulness of routine chores as
a corrective to the moments of chaos. He's been hoping to get through tonight without
chaos, but Deb Velasco shatters that hope.

‘Harry?' She's out of her seat as if she's been tasered. It's a killing, over by
Crucifixion Creek again.