Dead Heat (2 page)

‘Gilmore’s clean, though?’ Paz asks.

‘You bet. But if you’re not there when they show up, the world thinks you’re a cheat for the rest of your career. Especially when you’re as good as Tim.’

He sighs, and I wonder if he’s slept at all.

‘Can you get us into Gilmore’s room?’ I ask.

He nods.

‘He’s sharing with Oscar Ryan, the hammer-thrower. Have you heard of him?’

I shake my head.

‘You will have, by the end of these Games,’ Hunter Brown says and, for a moment, he smiles. ‘Anyway, Oscar’ll let us in.’

‘Well,’ Paz says. ‘Let’s go and wake him up.’

CHAPTER 2

THE LIFT IS
tight and intimate, and I get the feeling Hunter Brown wants to tell me something. Before he gets a chance, the doors open and we’re out into a long, straight corridor. The place smells of fresh paint and new carpet.

We walk down the corridor until Brown stops outside a door and says, ‘This is it.’

A brooding hulk of a guy opens the door and fills most of the frame. He looks as though he could crush a man without breaking a sweat, and without losing much sleep over it, either. I assume he’s Oscar Ryan, but I never find out because he gives the slightest nod of recognition to Hunter Brown while scowling at all three of us, and then melts back into the darkness and disappears into his room.

‘There’s something you need to know about Tim Gilmore,’ Brown says as he leads us through the gloom. ‘He is not in a great place right now.’

The room is square, and one wall is taken up by a picture window, while another is covered with white high-gloss kitchen units. The floor is wooden and scuffs noisily, and there is a
flat-screen TV stuck to one of the magnolia walls. A single bulb, underneath the extractor hood above the cooker, lights the entire scene. I fall into one of the sofas opposite the Aussie team coach. The dim light casts long shadows and gives his eyes a hooded and careworn appearance.

‘What do you mean – “he’s not in a great place”?’

Brown sighs.

‘He has a media image as the all-Australian hero. He struggles to live up to it. This is the best chance he’s had of winning Olympic gold.’

‘He’s feeling the pressure?’

‘Too bloody right.’

Behind the coach, Paz is skulking around the place, picking up bottles of protein supplements and boxes of pasta. Looking for clues.

She stops pacing and sits down next to me on the sofa. I ask her if she’s found anything interesting and she shakes her head.

‘Gilmore’s the messy one,’ Brown says as I gaze across the unwashed plates and unfolded sports kit littering the room. There’s a book on the sofa with its spine broken and a scrap of paper marking the point Gilmore had reached. I find myself wondering if he’ll ever finish it.

Then I notice writing on the bookmark. I pull it out and turn it over in my fingers, before handing it to Paz. It’s a phone number written on top of a supermarket receipt.

‘Mobile phone,’ Paz says. ‘Could be something.’

‘That’s a local supermarket,’ I say, ‘so he’s only recently written the number down. Who does he need to contact in Rio that isn’t already on his phone?’

I pull out my own phone. I dial the number and listen to it ringing out.

CHAPTER 3

THE MARACANÃ STADIUM
is an imposing fortress, and there is excitement on the faces of everyone bustling past me, as I wait outside and soak up the atmosphere.

Officially I’m on duty tonight, supervising the VIP section. In reality, I have front-row seats for the show. It’s a thank-you from the city for four decades of service. Juliana is holding my hand and I can feel the excitement pulsing through her. She’s proud of me. She told me as much as she was straightening my jacket before we left. Paz is on my other arm clutching Felipe, her young boy, to her side.

‘Keep your eyes open tonight,’ she tells him. ‘You’ll still remember all of this when you’re as old as Carvalho.’

Paz winks at me and flashes that toothpaste-advert smile. We’ve been working on the Gilmore case all day, without much joy, and we’re both keen to shake off the day and enjoy ourselves. The air is crackling with anticipation and pride. The biggest show on earth has arrived in Rio. I think of Igor Morales, a friend of my dad’s when he was alive, and now a lifelong friend of mine. We play dominoes together on Friday nights and he tells me stories
of watching Uruguay winning the World Cup in 1950, with two hundred thousand people crammed inside the Maracanã Stadium.

‘Hold on to Felipe,’ I tell Paz. With every step we take towards the stadium, the crowd gets tighter.

‘Way ahead of you.’

I grip Juliana’s hand and push forward into the crowd. People are smiling and joking as they shuffle slowly forward. It takes us fifteen minutes to get into the VIP section. Felipe is wide-eyed with excitement. Our seats have been covered in sky-blue leather, in time for the Games, and cup-holders have been built into the armrests. I guess Igor Morales wouldn’t recognise the place.

‘Will you watch Felipe? I’m going to get drinks,’ Paz shouts above the roar of the crowd, which seems close to fever pitch before the ceremony has even begun.

The stretched-plastic roof feels like canvas above us, as if the whole crowd is cocooned in a Bedouin tent as the last of the daylight begins to fade and the first of the stars emerge. Music pumps through the air, and the giant screens hanging from gantries high above our heads race through the superhuman achievements of previous competitors. It is visceral. And intoxicating. I turn and kiss Juliana’s cheek, same as I’ve done for the past forty years, and feel the warmth of her skin.

‘Break it up, lovebirds.’ Paz smiles as she returns through the crowd. ‘I got hot dogs.’

Suddenly the crowd erupts as, twenty yards to our right, the presidential party arrives. We are the
almost-VIPs
– the
security-approved buffer between the real VIPs and the cheap seats. Felipe spots the President and points in astonishment.

With perfect orchestration, the stadium fades to black the instant the President takes her seat. Stars peer down curiously through the yawning centre of the roof and the music stops, replaced by the whistles of the crowd. Then silence. One last breath before the madness.

When it happens, it is a roar and a cacophony. The first boom of fireworks shakes the blood in my arteries, and there’s an explosion of colour and fire. The music returns, driving and insistent. Hundreds of musicians suddenly appear from every tunnelled entrance and flood onto the arena surface, coming together to play an ear-shattering fanfare. Juliana is inching forward to get the best possible view. The entire sky is ablaze, and now, behind the musicians, hundreds of athletes are streaming into view. They move in teams, bathed in restless and garish lights, swirling around the edge of the field.

Flags start appearing on the screens. Afghanistan, Antigua and Saudi Arabia all join the parade. As we watch, the Australian flag flutters onto the giant screens and a section of green-and-gold-clad spectators cheer far away behind us. The camera follows the flag down to its bearer, a man in his mid-twenties with a square jaw, broad shoulders and tight bronze skin. I stare at the huge screen, transfixed and disbelieving, because the man holding the flag is Tim Gilmore. His eyes have a far-away quality and he is wearing earphones. He’s chewing gum and staring straight ahead. I glance over towards Paz, who looks confused.

‘What the hell?’

I shrug and she frowns.

‘Easiest missing-person case we’ve ever solved, I guess.’

I glance back up to the screen, but Gilmore has gone. Instinctively I move forward from my seat and push up against the waist-high metal bars separating us from the arena. An official heads towards me, but I show him my badge and he backs off. Instinct tells me to keep my badge out, chained around my neck, as I sense Paz on my shoulder. We search out the Australian team and, in the distance, I can see Gilmore leading them towards us in the parade. Fifty yards away, maybe. He is holding the flag in one hand, and in the other he has his javelin, symbolically held aloft as he leads his team forward.

‘Is that even allowed?’ Paz asks.

I shrug again, as my stomach starts to tighten slightly. As we watch, Gilmore hands his flag to a teammate. I can see that it’s Oscar Ryan, the hammer-thrower. Gilmore turns and looks our way and, with his javelin held aloft, steps away from his team and begins to jog slowly against the flow of the parade, directly towards us.

Gilmore picks up pace, heading for the presidential party with his javelin held aloft. All at once, I am convinced something terrible is about to happen. I see his arm pull back into a throwing position, and finally the President and the crowd around her see the danger. Gilmore arches his back, ready to sling his javelin forward.

A woman next to me screams, but the music pumps on. Suddenly I’m aware of the gun in my hand and the cold metal of the trigger on my finger. I do not choose to fire; I don’t make any conscious
decision. It just happens. Three times, straight into the chest of Tim Gilmore. He twists and falls to the floor, and I watch a security team spill out from the VIP section and drag his lifeless body away out of sight. A huddle of nearby athletes watch on, horrified, but soon they are swept away in the tide of others. My gunshots were lost in the explosion of fireworks, and the TV cameras are pointing elsewhere. The show goes on.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Paz says, and I turn to find her right next to me, badge out and gun drawn. ‘What the hell just happened?’

Oscar Ryan, the hammer-thrower, is walking against the tide of athletes and is staring straight at us. A tight scrum of security guards is moving the President away from the arena, but the parade continues and the fireworks still explode and the lights continue to flash. And the only thing that has changed in the world is that I’ve got a sinking feeling that Tim Gilmore is dead.

CHAPTER 4

ABOUT A MINUTE
after Tim Gilmore hits the floor, a group of Policia Militar arrive and bundle Paz and me towards the exit. Paz twists back in time to see Juliana grab hold of Felipe, and then falls into line with me and the boots and the berets, because there is no point fighting them. Nobody says anything until we are deep enough into the bowels of the Maracanã that the fireworks are no more than muffled thuds and the crowd is a distant memory.

‘He’s Tim Gilmore,’ I say, looking at the tall military policeman leading the way.

He stops walking and turns round to face me, his eyes shining with a potent cocktail of machismo and adrenalin.

‘He went missing yesterday,’ I tell him. ‘We’ve been investigating since five a.m. this morning.’

The tall commander inches closer to me and puts a rough hand on my chest.

‘This is
my
stadium,’ he says. ‘My jurisdiction. And I didn’t ask you to talk, old-timer.’

The commander is dressed for action, with his black protective vest over navy combat gear. He has a gun strapped to one thigh
and another across his chest. None of it impresses me. I’m wondering whether Tim Gilmore is dead or alive, and this guy is worrying about the size of his jurisdiction. I ignore his guns and grandeur and look him in the eye.

‘I don’t need anyone’s permission to speak.’

‘You sure as hell need my permission to shoot in a restricted area,’ he says, jutting his chin and getting in my face to emphasise the point. ‘You’re lucky we didn’t fire back.’

He pushes at my chest to see if I’ll yield. I don’t. Instead, I slowly bring my hand up and take hold of his thumb. He is twenty years younger than me, but one of nature’s laws says that if you bend a man’s thumb back, he has only two options, regardless of how tough he is. Either he moves with the pressure, or he waits for the bone to snap. Moving with the pressure goes something like this: you move your wrist to compensate for the pressure on your thumb. Then you’re forced to move your elbow to compensate for your wrist; your shoulder for your elbow; your hips for your shoulder; and eventually you’re on the floor in front of all the men in your unit.

I see reality dawning in his eyes as he begins to yield to my pressure. Yielding to the
old-timer
. Our eyes are still locked when I sense the atmosphere change. A new team of tough guys break through the circle of men who are surrounding me and Paz. From within the new group the President emerges without breaking her stride. I let go of the commander’s thumb and he turns to face her.

‘Ma’am,’ he says, his voice laced with authority and crackling with ambition.

She comes straight to the point.

‘Who was the guy with the spear?’

‘We don’t know for sure.’

‘His name is Tim Gilmore,’ I say, and everybody turns and looks at me. ‘He’s the Australian team captain. He was reported missing overnight by his coach, and we have been actively looking for him since about five a.m. this morning. His coach was concerned because he’s been suffering from some anxiety issues.’

‘And who are you?’ the President asks.

‘He’s the guy who shot the athlete,’ the tall commander says. ‘Don’t worry, we’re dealing with him.’

The President raises an eyebrow.

‘You’re
dealing
with him?’

‘Ma’am, we have strict regulations that say we should shoot as a last resort. Two billion people around the world are watching on TV, and our protocols are designed to protect Brazil’s image and reputation.’

The President shakes her head.

‘Your protocols nearly had me skewered.’

She turns to me and takes hold of my hand.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Carvalho.’

She turns away from me and holds my hand aloft, as if I’m Barão do Amazonas, the hero from classical legend, returning from Riachuelo. I’m not comfortable with it at all.

‘This man is a hero,’ she says. ‘Anyone who treats him differently will answer to me, understand?’

She gives the commander a barbed look, before settling her gaze back on me.

‘Can I do anything for you?’

‘I want to know what happened to Tim Gilmore. He’s a young man and he’s trained his whole life to be here.’