On Cringila Hill (14 page)

‘His bearing.'

‘What?'

‘You liked the way he carried himself. He seemed composed, and had a presence.'

Luz shakes her head in frustration hearing her friend's command of English.

‘Go on,' Yasemin says.

‘When we in class, you know, some of the other boys just clowns! Never Jimmy. He don' think nothin' of them lessons, he tol' me that, he don' think they got nothin' to do with the way he's livin' his life, but he sits polite, tries to listen. He says to me that's just respeck, respeck for the teachers. Them people put them lessons together, tryin' to help us even if we don' find nothin' in what they sayin' got any meanin' for us. Just what one person should do for another. Once he was sittin' near me an whisper somethin' made me laugh an' the teacher say, “Luz, listen what you bein' tol'.” Jimmy says, no, sir, was his fault, he 'pologise. Everythin' over quick, everyone feelin' good. He can do that, Jimmy. Made me feel good, how he could do things like that.'

‘Yes, he's like that. Everyone respects Jimmy. He's a wild boy and I wish he wasn't, for his sake, but people do respect him.'

‘So time come sometimes we eat our sandwich in the quad together at lunch, jus' talk, laugh together. Then one of us said, “See you in The Mall?” So I went down when we said. An' I was nervous, you know, maybe he's not gonna come, make me feel stupid for goin' down. But then he came, smilin' in his way, lookin' pleased to see me. Then we was jus' walkin' aroun', lookin' in tha shops, talkin 'bout what we see, laughin'. If I made a joke he'd know it was a joke an' laugh. Tha's nice, you know, when you both know a thing's a joke. Sometimes we went to the movies.' Luz turns her head to look at Samuel, sitting away up the beach by himself. She says, ‘One day we come down here, an' we did it in those bushes up there.'

‘Luz …'

‘I'm tellin' you this. Never tol' no one else.' She pulls her knees up, hugs them. ‘We knew we was gonna, walkin' here. We felt like we hadta. The time had come, you know.' She frowns, shakes her head. ‘When Jimmy kiss me I felt like my spirit went outta me an' inta him, through our mouths. An' then being with him … I felt like he was carin' for me, carin' how things was for me. Then, after, all I wanted was to be with Jimmy, couldn' think 'bout nothin' else. I'd think, we could make a baby, how it was bein' for us, make a new human being, an' there ain't nothin'
bigger
than that anyone could do. But later at night I'm not sleepin', thinkin' I'm such a stupid person, English no good, how he could care 'bout me? Maybe just pretendin' so he could get what he wanted. What if he laughin' about me, sayin' bad things. Then you tol' me he was. An' then I said what I said to him and thought, well, that's it now, that's all over, 'bout me an' Jimmy. I felt bad. Worst I ever felt, until that thing happen' with Abdul.'

‘Oh, Luz I'm so ashamed. I'm so regretful.'

‘Nah, you my fren. You didn' mean nothin' bad. Is jus' what happen'. Sometimes in a way no one meant them to.'

‘It's true.'

Yasemin looks along the beach to where Samuel is watching them. Luz stands, dusts sand from her bottom. ‘Come on,' she says. ‘You gotta get to work.' Luz puts an arm around the shoulder of her friend. ‘Soon you be gettin' ready for them big exams, get yourself to university, gonna be a lawyer.'

‘I won't get the scores to get straight into law, Luz.'

‘No, maybe not, but you got that worked out because you clever. You won't be roun' much then. Maybe we don' get down here together too much no more.'

‘We can make time, Luz.'

‘Things change. People get busy.' She looks across the wind-flattened bay. ‘Been good for me, comin' here with you.'

They stand together, watching the scope of the sea.

Luz says, ‘Time for you to be gettin' on. Things for you to do.'

The two women hold hands in the manner of friends who are very young, and walk north together.

Chapter Fifteen

The tide is dead low, so they walk along the beach towards the surf clubhouse across damp, tight-packed sand.

‘Okay,' Piggy says, ‘I'm here. What's up?'

‘My grandfather knows we saw Abdul get whacked.'

Piggy stares at the rolling surface of the sea. ‘Oh,' he says.

‘Yeah. An' if he knows other people must know.'

‘I guess.'

‘Grandfather says we maybe broke some law.'

‘What law?'

‘Somethin' about concealin' a crime or somethin'.'

Piggy shakes his head, frustrated, spits down onto the sand.

‘Concealin' a crime? How we concealed any fucken crime? I mean, there's Abdul down in a pool of blood like you said. We didn't drag him off into the bushes.'

‘Well, maybe there's some law we gotta report what we know, make ourselves available. Maybe there's a law we gotta be good citizens.'

‘You think so? No one told me about no law.'

‘Maybe that's not gonna help us too much. My grandfather seems to think there's one. He's a man knows a lot.'

‘Well, yeah, I gotta give you that. So. What you gonna do?'

‘Grandfather says we should tell 'em we was shocked. That we're sensitive young children, don't know bad things can happen in the world, stuff like that, not ready to face the nasty parts of life. We're victims, what we come through, an' saw. Just comin' out of it.'

Piggy stoops and picks up a stone that's been washed up by the tide. He turns it over in his fingers, looks at the patterns of colour left by the washing over it of the sea.

He says, ‘That sounds pretty good, what he's told you. Shit, maybe it's true.'

He reaches back his arm, hurls the stone into the water in a curving arc. Jimmy watches the far-off splash it makes and finds himself surprised at the strength of Piggy's arm.

Piggy says, ‘There's another way.'

‘Yeah? What's that?'

‘Be crazy.'

‘Crazy?'

‘We can be crazy. Plenty of people think
I'm
crazy. Shit, it's been a help to me.'

‘That right?'

‘Yeah. How're
you
gonna be with this? You okay?'

‘I think so. I'll go to the police with Grandfather.'

‘When?'

‘Dunno. Tomorrow morning maybe. My grandfather wants to go fishin' of all fucken things. I'm goin' with him tonight. Get that outta the way, then I'll go see the police, act like I'm dazed, tell all I know. Which, when you get down to it, is maybe not too fucken much.'

‘So tomorrow's it.'

‘Looks like it. You can come, if you want.'

‘Nah. If I go in with ya, they're gonna think we cooked it up. I'll go my own way, let 'em get the same story two different places.'

They stand awhile, watching the sea, smelling the air. Piggy says, ‘This shit just goes on and on, don't it?'

‘Yeah. Been confusin'.'

‘What's been the worst part for you?'

‘Since it all started? What happened about me an' Luz. That's the thing started this all out bein' a disaster for me.'

‘Yeah? That's worst?'

‘Can't get over it. Jus' as bad now as the day it happened. Worse, maybe. When we started, me an' Luz, it got to be so strong. Where we got to, what I felt was … I dunno … excited. It was beautiful, what I felt. Then, crash, all over. Fucken near killed me.'

‘
Killed
you!'

‘Well, nah, I wasn' gonna die, but it felt … deep, the hurtin' from what happened. What she said! Was like someone chopped off part of me with an axe. I dunno what it was I even done. Then that thing happened to her.'

Piggy turns his head and watches his friend, frowning.

‘It rocked me. Done some insane things. I'd see some woman, think, that's Luz, run up, grab her by the arm, she turns aroun' …' He shakes his head. ‘Not her. Nothin' like her, you know.'

Piggy gives a snort of laughter.

‘Well, I'm pleased you think it's funny.'

‘Nah, you know, jus' thinkin' … maybe you coulda got arrested.'
He gives a snarl of unconstrained laughter. ‘You know, “Well, officer, I was jus' walkin' through the shoppin' centre, keepin' my own thoughts, an' this fucken kid comes rushin' up an' gropes me! Says he thought I was his girlfren. Officer, I'm seventy years old!”'

Jimmy tries to look angry but can't keep himself from smirking. They begin to walk back towards the surf club.

‘Not over it, about Luz. Not even close to gettin' over it,' Jimmy says.

‘One thing at a time, right? First get this thing cleared with the cops, if that's what we gotta do.'

‘
First thing is go fishin' with Grandfather, get that outta the way. Then clean up with the police.'

‘Sure. Where you goin' fishin'?'

‘Out on the harbour.'

‘Anyone else?'

‘Nah. Just him an' me.'

‘You an' your grandfather alone in a boat in the dark on Port Kembla harbour. Could get interestin'.'

Chapter Sixteen

David Lawrence has his right arm down by his side, the keys to the Force's Commodore in his right hand. He jiggles the keys. From where he stands, near the front door to their lounge room, he can see furniture, decorations, on an occasional table, a black-and-white framed photograph of a man and woman standing beside a Holden car in front of a weatherboard school building.

The Winters are in the kitchen but May's voice is raised and David can clearly hear her remarks.

‘There's no need for you to go,' she says. ‘
You
know that. You
know
that. Someone else could easily do it. That's the problem though, isn't it? That's the problem to you. There could be some little sliver of glory. There could be some chance of a tiny accomplishment that would make your superiors praise you. You can't think of giving that up, can you, and run the risk, maybe somebody else might get the glory? That's what's important to you, not your health or what it might mean for me.'

Gordon's voice is muted by comparison, but Lawrence hears him say, ‘I love you, May.'

‘I know you do,' she says, after a pause. ‘That's a part of the problem.'

David takes this as his cue and moves out onto the front verandah. He closes the door behind him as softly as he can. He takes in the view. It's an overcast morning again but there's no rain. He looks down the hill over rooftops, between the pale trunks of gum trees to where the ocean laps up onto the beach. Eucalypt boughs and leaf clusters criss-cross each other creating patterns like lace. There are strollers on the sand, he can make out brick steps up the headland to his left, the stone-walled seabaths at the end of the beach to his right. He goes and waits in the Commodore.

Gordon makes his way down to the driveway with great difficulty, says, ‘Sorry about that.'

Lawrence starts the engine and reverses onto the street. He guides the car across the little bridge over the railway line, drives down to the beachfront, turns south.

He says, ‘None of my business. But she's right, you know.'

Winter doesn't reply.

Further along, Lawrence says, ‘Chilly, how much sick leave you got stacked up? Your years of service, it must be heaps. You should rest up, get your back right. Might be better for May, I reckon, if you did.'

Lawrence decides that there's hostility in the silence that follows, but, after a while, he finishes saying what he's been thinking while waiting in the car.

‘Chilly, I've grown to like you. I've liked working with you and I've learned a lot. You don't question people. You have conversations. Now, Peter Grace is a good detective, no doubt about that, but he turns up, he's got this list of questions, he reads one out, gets an answer, writes it down, moves on and asks the next one. With you, there's no way to know where the talking's going to go, then, afterwards, I realise I understand something I didn't know before. Where'd you learn that, by the way? Did you learn that from Mick Laecey?'

In a while Gordon says, ‘Perhaps.'

‘So, you've got a lot. You bring value. But this, what you're doing now while you're so sick, I mean, what's the point?'

‘I went to see Michael Laecey. He said a man called Lupce Valeski knows more than most about what's happening on Cringila. Maybe, if I see him, it could give us something that could be a breakthrough.'

‘So, what's this about? Trying to be like Mick Laecey? Trying to
be
him?'

Gordon shrugs and scowls ahead. There's no more talking all the way to Cringila Hill. Then, as they commence their ascent, David Lawrence says, ‘We've got company.'

A white station wagon with the logo of a local television news network has fallen in behind them. Lawrence peers into the rear view mirror. ‘Ian Battle,' he says in a tone of distaste.

At the home of Lupce Valeski, Lawrence parks. On the verandah of Valeski's home, he can see a blue-grey cloud of cigarette smoke drifting upwards. Valeski is watching their arrival. ‘You go on up,' Lawrence says. ‘I'll have a word to the jackals from the media.'

By the time Lawrence gets back to the parked vehicle the driver is out and has hefted to his shoulder a commercial-weight video camera. Ian Battle waits for Lawrence on the footpath.

‘Why don't you get a real job?' Lawrence asks, though he's aware that the camera is running by now and is focused on him.

‘I've got a real job,' Battle tells him. ‘I'll tell you what it is. I work in a drive-through bottle shop and get people their beer and wine and potato chips, and I make the money to pay my mum board. And I'll tell you what I'm doing here now. When they've got a spare camera and cameraman the station rings me up and I come out and see if I can get something that might make tonight's bulletin. They don't pay me. But, see, it could be good if I get something that runs because that might help make it a good bulletin.

‘I'll tell you something else. The network could cut the news tomorrow and put on re-runs of cartoons and that would cost less than a news operation and draw the same advertising. But I don't think that would make this a better town. And I can tell you what this item is going to be: “Police have not dropped Hijazi slaying. Investigations continue.” And I'll put together a shot of me here talking to you like this. It isn't going to be any knockout article but it won't make anyone look bad, and maybe I can get it to run and perhaps even get the voiceover. It's my little effort for the day to keep Scooby Doo and Tom and Jerry at bay for a little while longer. Then, maybe, one day I'll get a real job at the channel. What
you've got, Detective, is a real job, something I presume you want to do, gives you a little bit of power. Among other things, that's what I'm trying to do. Anyway, we've got our shot of me talking to you. I won't ask you for a statement. And please don't give me shit about the car. There's nothing wrong with the car. The station had it looked at, after last time, to be sure.'

Lawrence takes a long look at Ian Battle, thin strand comb-over, horn-rimmed glasses. ‘You gave all that a bit of thought after last time, didn't you?' he says.

‘Yes. I did.'

Lawrence wonders how often he'll encounter Ian Battle in the years ahead. As he turns and walks towards Lupce's property, he swaggers a little, tries to look like a serious man on weighty business, for the camera.

On the verandah Lupce Valeski and Gordon are seated in plastic chairs on either side of a table. As Lawrence arrives Lupce is stubbing out a cigarette. There's no seat left for Lawerence but this doesn't seem to trouble either Lupce or Gordon. The young detective reaches a hand to test the sturdiness of the verandah railing and, satisfied, leans his buttocks against it.

‘So,' Gordon says. ‘Thank you for receiving us Mr Valeski.'

The old man waves a hand.

‘Lupce,' he says. ‘Call me Lupce.'

‘Well, fine. Thank you. Thank you for receiving us, Lupce. I notice that when people on Cringila Hill have meetings with the police, normally the place is on the front verandah.'

‘Yeah? Maybe this what they think – people gonna see the car, down inna street in front of tha house, know the police is come. Maybe people think if you go inside, you hidin' somethin'.' The old man's voice is raspy, his lips take time to frame the words.

‘I see. Were you waiting out here for us after our telephone call?'

‘Nah. Sit out here lots, these days. Sit out here thinkin'. Remem­berin', you know? What it used to be like. How the things that happen happened.' He reaches for the cigarette packet, draws out a smoke, lights it with a match, waves the matchflame dead, throws the blackened little stick onto a crowded ashtray. ‘Been thinkin' this mornin' 'bout my grandson.'

‘Your grandson.'

‘Yeah. Goin' fishin' with him tonight. First time inna long time.' He frowns, narrows an eye against the smoke that's reaching it from his cigarette. ‘He been sayin' new things. Jus' lately he talk to me inna new way. I been sittin' here thinkin' maybe he gonna say a particular thing tonight, maybe ask a question. Maybe time's come. Bin wonderin' what it is I might say, if he does that.'

‘Ah. Anyway. Mr … Lupce, I wanted to ask you your thoughts about the murder.'

Lupce turns his attention from the view and gives Gordon a hard stare. Lupce says, ‘Murder? Who says there was a murder? Never set down there was no murder. Tha's what was agreed … he went away, to Queensland. I talked about all this before, lots of years ago, with that other man.'

‘That
other
man.'

‘Yeah. The other detective. Older man. Big long head. Long face.'

‘Michael Laecey?'

‘Yeah. Tha's him. Thassa name. Detective Sergeant Laecey.'

‘Lupce, I'm not talking about anything you discussed with Michael Laecey, years ago. I'm talking about Abdul Hijazi. He was found on a footpath with his brains blown out by a gun. I don't think that there's any reasonable doubt that he was murdered.'

David Lawrence watches Lupce develop a small smile, sees something of relief in the smile.

‘Abdul! Sure! Course! Poor little Abdul. Never knew who to be, Abdul. Never knew
how
to be. Then look what it come to. Look how he finished.'

‘Yes. Well. It's an important thing that we have got to try to sort out. And I spoke to someone a little while ago who said, talk to Lupce Valeski. He may have an idea other people haven't got.'

Lupce pulls down the corners of his mouth then. ‘Dunno nothin' 'bout that. All I'm gonna say is what everyone else woulda said. Not from roun' here. Nothin' of Cringila. Whoever done that, he from far, far away.'

The blood has drained from the face of the older detective, his hands are trembling.

‘Chilly,' Lawrence says, ‘you Okay?'

‘Just …' Gordon's face contorts. Lupce observes him with interest. ‘Spasm. Bad spasm,' Gordon says.

‘Chilly, we should get you home.'

Winter waves a hand in dismissal. To Lupce he says, ‘Just anything, you know? Something that might have occurred to you that no one else might have said.'

Lupce watches his visitor for a while. He says, ‘How good are ya?'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘How good are ya? You good like that other man, that Big Face Laecey? He'da seen, you know. He'da known this true thing I'm gonna say.'

‘Yes, well, I'm not going to tell you that I'm as good as he was. Still, try me. What is it?'

‘What matters most from this is what we left with.'

‘I don't know what you mean. What? Sad people, grieving people, maybe some who are confused and angry?'

‘Nah. Tha's not what matters. Gonna go away, all that. Time passes. Abdul's dead now, nothin' gonna happen about that. Is the
gun
.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘Now is guns here. Never was before. Guns gonna happen. Nothin' gonna stop it.'

Gordon screws his eyes shut, leans his head back against the front wall of the house, gives a growl of pain.

‘Chilly,' Lawrence says, ‘this is crazy!'

Gordon blinks, his eyes have tears in them. ‘David, perhaps you're right.' He struggles to get a wallet from the pocket of his suit coat, drags a card from it, drops it on the table. ‘Lupce,' he says, ‘I'm not well.'

‘Sure. See that.'

‘I'm going to have to end our discussion. That's my card. Ring that number and someone will get you to me. If anything comes into your mind, you think it may be something new, no matter how small, please call me.'

David helps Gordon get up. They shake hands with Lupce. The cameraman films their departure. When they're in the car and driving north, Gordon says, ‘Did you hear what he said?'

‘What? The guns?'

‘No. About Michael Laecey?'

‘What difference can that make? Something they talked about years ago.'

‘I don't know. It's just that when I heard that I felt like something terrible had happened.'

‘Yeah? What was terrible?'

‘I don't understand that yet. But let me tell you this: it rocked me. I'm just not sure why.'