Roll With It (37 page)

‘You’ve been in my head for a decade,’ I said and he grinned, frowned and then said: ‘So if I told you some of the real stories, could you use them instead of stuff you’ve made up?’ And so we had a beer, with another ex-policeman, which led to a lot of the details within this fiction being absolutely real, even when unlikely. Laver asleep seconds before shooting Coleman, for example? Pretty much as it happened. A man behind a door being shot repeatedly by a high-powered SOG gun, but not physically appearing to have been hit, until he toppled? Real. Sadly, I promised these men that I would not mention their names but I do want to say thank you, for the wild stories, for a lot of laughter and most of all for trusting me with such intimate details of real-life police work in my city. Given they were talking to a former (if brief) police roundsman, who had covered the official version of some of the anecdotes, now telling me what really happened and how things unfolded – this trust was no small thing.

And the book is a lot better for the insights. Thanks again.

While I’m on mysterious acknowledgements, cheers to a leading police reporter and friend for ‘the Italian job’ story. And, for that matter, to all the fellow hacks of my time at the
Herald and Sunday
Age newspapers.

A final thankyou to the staff of Media Giants for covering for me when I needed it so I could complete drafts of this novel. Especially to Alex McNab for reading the final first draft and giving me some great insights. And to everybody at Hardie Grant for taking a chance on an attempt at an entertaining crime novel without the words ‘Under’ or ‘Belly’ somewhere in the title. A huge thankyou to Fiona Hardie and Sandy Grant for agreeing to read the manuscript, to publisher Fran Berry, editor Rose Michael and copy editor Allison Hiew – especially for agreeing to stomach my attack on auxiliary verbs. (And to HG’s Jane Grant, and my legal advisors Greg Sitch and Luca Costanzo.)

Last and not least, thank you to the Bangers for their friendship and lace-out passes, and to the ice hockey Rookies for endless adventures.

And to my brother, Shonko, for ‘Frankie’ (short for Frankenstein), my city-cruiser bike made entirely out of parts of other bikes and still my transport of choice around my hood.

If you’re not yet convinced, I fully recommend bike riding as a way to get around your city. The air feels great on your face and you notice the details of the streets. Long may your wheels roll.

Nicko Place

This ebook published in 2013 by Hardie Grant Books
Published in print 2013 by Hardie Grant Books

Hardie Grant Books (Australia)
Ground Floor, Building 1
658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121
www.hardiegrant.com.au

Hardie Grant Books (UK)
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34–35 Southampton Street
London WC2E 7HF
www.hardiegrant.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Copyright © Nick Place 2013

Cataloguing-in-Publication data is available from the National Library of Australia.

Roll With It
eISBN 978 1 74358 013 4

Cover and text design by Lanz+Martin
Cover image courtesy of Matthias Lanz
Digital editing by Hannah Koelmeyer