The Tower (29 page)

In the end Troy let Randall order for both of them. He seemed to care about his food, and obviously knew his way around a Chinese menu. For the next hour, as they worked their way through a banquet and two bottles of wine, Randall did most of the talking, telling Troy how he'd worked for Warton in Shanghai, one of thousands of Western architects and engineers across Asia. As he spoke, Troy found himself warming to the man. He mightn't appreciate boxing, but beneath the easy manner there was earnestness and ambition and curiosity, all qualities Troy valued. He asked why he'd become an engineer, and Randall told him about his father.

‘What about you?'

Troy explained how his parents had died.

‘Were you in the car?' Randall asked.

‘No.'

He remembered the two uniformed police who'd come to the front door and told his grandmother, remembered her collapsing on the floor.

Randall said, ‘Fourteen would be a hard time to lose both your parents.'

Troy looked away. Sometimes it seemed as though his whole life had been a response to the searing pain of that separation. But of course, most of the time he didn't think about it.

His grandmother had looked after them for a few months, but she'd been affl icted by premature senility. Georgie had recognised it first but said nothing. The penny didn't drop for Troy until the day he found her purse in the kettle.

‘I was a handful,' he said. ‘Didn't help gran at all. Georgina, my sister, was very angry at me for a long time.'

They'd been made wards of the state, and Georgie had blamed him for that. After a few months in a boys' home in Liverpool, where he'd been in fights almost every day, he'd been fostered by a big family in Guildford. Catholics, but not happy people. Troy had never been sure why they'd taken him in. The father was an electrician with a government department. Georgie had gone to a solicitor and his wife in Killara, on the other side of the city geographically and socially. They hadn't seen much of each other after that.

‘The guy at Guildford used to get drunk about once a week,' he recalled. ‘Really hammered. After I'd been there a year he was laying into his wife one night—this woman was a saint—I subdued him with a frying pan.'

‘Subdued?'

Troy shrugged. ‘It was only aluminium.'

‘Still, you're a strong bloke.'

‘I wasn't so big then, but I had to do something pretty drastic. It knocked him out.'

He could recall the awkward weight of the pan, how hard it had been to wield. He'd used more force than he'd intended.

‘That's why I got into boxing,' he said. If you've got that anger in you, Troy thought, you need to learn how to control it. He really should take up boxing again.

‘He didn't tell the cops about the assault?'

‘Wouldn't have done his reputation with his mates much good.' Troy smiled at the memory. ‘I was lucky, over the next few years I did a lot of stuff I shouldn't have. Picked up a few times, but never charged.'

It was just as well, or he'd never have got into the police.

‘Hard times?'

‘Not really.'

After the frying pan incident, he'd lived on the streets. Actually, it had been in a shed at the back of an old railway yard. In those days, western Sydney was full of recently closed industrial sites. The authorities had come looking for him, but a month later he'd turned fifteen, and never saw them again. There'd been a government payment for homeless kids in those days; they'd called it the running-away-from-home allowance. At the time it had seemed a bearable sort of existence.

The hard thing had been losing his parents. Sometimes, gathered around a bong with other homeless kids, in the shed or some squat, he'd look at them, go over the little he knew of their backgrounds. Most had come from single-parent homes, some had been abused. They had parents who were drug addicts and crims. He felt like saying,
There's been
a mistake. I shouldn't be here
. But he hadn't known who to say it to.

‘Street kid,' Randall said, sounding impressed.

This was why Troy rarely talked about those times.

‘It was what I did,' he said. ‘Not who I am.'

He'd tried God. Never went to church, but sometimes, at night, lying there in a sort of loft at the top of the shed, feeling scared and clutching his mother's rosary beads, he would pray. He got into speed and dope, nicked things to make it possible. On balance he felt God had looked after him. A few years later he'd met Luke, and gradually the priest had turned him around. He'd got a job, gone to TAFE to finish his schooling and achieved a reasonable pass.

‘I wanted to be a priest for a bit,' he said. Most people were surprised at this, but Randall just nodded. Troy recalled him saying earlier he was a Catholic too. It was something else they had in common. ‘I was all for it, but one day Luke told me I was only doing it to please him. He said I wasn't cut out for that, but still needed a family. It was either the army or the police.'

‘Why the cops?'

‘Luke said it was like the priesthood. Having an unhappy past could be a help.'

‘So this is why you're so self-controlled.' Randall added quickly, ‘I'm not saying you're a loner, but you're independent, aren't you?'

He was going deep too quickly. But Troy was in the mood. He finished his wine and waited impatiently as a waitress refilled his glass. ‘I guess. After something like that, both parents at once, you don't want to take any chances.'

It was a long time since he'd talked about himself, and he remembered now how useful it could be. Some things do not exist until they are said. Things can die unless they're said again.

He was feeling good. And it wasn't just the wine.

Randall's attention had been distracted by something behind Troy. ‘Don't turn around,' he said, ‘but Henry Wu is over there.'

From the corner of his eye Troy saw two Chinese men in expensive suits approaching them. They'd eaten already and were on their way out. One of them, the taller one, stopped a few times to speak briefly with other diners. Troy recognised him as the man he'd seen in Siegert's office on the first day of the investigation, arguing to have the site kept open. He saw that the men Wu was talking to made an effort to rise, but he would indicate by a hand on their shoulder that this was not necessary. They seemed deeply grateful for this.

The sight made Troy uneasy. In his life he'd had almost no dealings with wealthy people. He mistrusted them, but knew they were probably no better or worse than most. But the way the man was weaving his way across the room made his skin crawl. He looked at Randall and saw he was staring at Wu. The Irishman was slightly flushed, maybe from all the wine they'd drunk.

Wu cleared a nearby table and walked over to theirs, as if he'd been heading for them all along. As Randall stood up, Troy caught a glimpse of his face just before he composed himself. He looked nervous, not himself. Then he was beaming, introducing his client to Troy, who got up and extended his hand. Keeping his hands by his side, Wu bowed slightly, showing no sign that they had met before.

‘You're enjoying your meal?' Wu smiled at Troy, bestowing his amiability as though it was precious.

Troy pushed hard against his resentment, wondering what it meant that Wu had allowed them to stand up.

‘Please, sit down and enjoy your meal in peace. I thank you for your work in the Morning Star Tower.'

Then he was gone, and Troy noticed people at nearby tables staring at Randall and himself.

‘The royal progress,' he said.

‘Something like that,' Randall agreed. There was sweat on his brow. ‘He's an important man in a big company. Morning Star has done very well ever since the PRC got Hong Kong back. A lot of joint ventures on the mainland with the army people, huge expansion throughout Asia, Africa.'

‘They're in business with the Red Army?' Troy said.

‘Half the big companies in China involve the army,' Randall said. ‘You should go there one day. It's a wild place.'

A slender waitress clad from ankle to wrist in silver lamé arrived with a tray and placed a bottle of Möet and two frosted glasses on the table, explaining they were a gift from Mr Wu. She opened the bottle with a pop and a big smile, while Randall regarded the performance appreciatively. Troy kept his eyes off the woman. The way he was feeling tonight, he might leap up and hurl himself on her. Not really, but he was feeling strange. It was a long time since he'd drunk so much, and it was affecting him differently from how he remembered. But then, the emotions the alcohol was working on were new: the shooting on Sunday night had hit him harder than he'd been prepared to acknowledge. Certain things had been brought to the surface.

He told himself he shouldn't have any more to drink, and then he was picking up the champagne glass and the thought disappeared.

‘It looks like your job's safe,' he said after his first mouthful. ‘They can't be going to sack you if they're giving you the good stuff.'

‘The champagne's for you,' Randall said, pinching his little beard. ‘You're the one in the papers. To be honest, it won't do me any harm to be seen here with you.'

Randall was using him but at least he was open about it. Part of his charm.

‘I have to pay for this,' Troy said. ‘I can't accept gifts from people involved in an investigation.'

‘You might not be able to afford it.'

‘I can't afford
not
to pay. So, your travel plans are back on hold?'

‘I want to stay on.' Randall leaned across the table, full of energy. ‘They're terrified someone will use the opening of The Tower next year for a terrorist attack. The tallest building in the West. Every TV network in the world will be there. It'd be quite a coup for al-Qaeda or their Asian franchise. Coordinating security for that would look very good on the CV.'

As long as nothing happened, Troy thought. ‘You're basically a happy man, aren't you?'

Randall smiled. ‘In China right now, Australians and Irishmen are building cities from scratch in paddy fields. And making their fortunes in the process.' He gestured around the restaurant with the hand holding his champagne glass, so vigorously that some of it spilled. ‘We pass this way but once. I want to be part of it.'

Randall put his glass down and excused himself. Troy watched as he made his way across the room, a big, confident man, stopping at one point to say hello to someone, straightening up when a waitress interrupted them with some hot plates, putting a hand briefly on her shoulder as he said goodbye to the diners and moved on. The performance reminded him a little of Henry Wu, men at sea on the oceans of the new world, in search of adventure. And I am just a cop, he thought, still in the city where I was born.

So, be a cop. He thought about what he should ask Randall when he came back. Take advantage of the opportunity to learn some more about The Tower. Part of him didn't care, he was having such a pleasant evening, but there was work to be done. Facts to be checked.

When Randall returned, he told him about Jenny Finch, and the big metal box she'd claimed to have seen at the top of The Tower. ‘Could she have imagined it?'

Randall shook his head. ‘It's a tuned mass damper. Six hundred tonnes of steel right at the top of the building. It can be made to rock slowly using an oil hydraulic system. It stops the building from swaying.' Troy raised his eyebrows. ‘Tall buildings are slightly flexible and they sway; even ones a lot smaller can move several metres each way in a strong wind. In The Tower, once we get all the windows on and the wind resistance increases, that would be a big problem. People inside would notice, on the top floors they might even get seasick. A damper stops that.'

‘My God.'

So Jenny Finch had been there after all.

‘Skyscrapers are wonderful things,' Randall said. His eyes lit up and Troy realised this was one of the things he dreamed about at night. ‘My favourite part is actually the other end, the substructure. Once we finish digging the big hole into that beautiful Sydney sandstone, we lay concrete pads on it and then construct something called a grillage. Are you with me, Nicholas?' They were well into the Moet by now, and Troy nodded, leaving Jenny Finch behind. ‘Layers of horizontal steel beams. On top of that there's a cast-iron plate, and the columns rest on that. Some of them go up five hundred and eighty metres.'

‘I'm impressed.'

‘It's all to do with mathematics.'

And lack of imagination, Troy thought. No matter what the maths told him, he knew he could never have the confidence to design something like that, and believe it would stay up. It just wasn't in his nature. He worried about things. He liked worrying about things.

‘Burj Dubai is over two and a half thousand feet. Then there's us. The next biggest is the Taipei 101 in Taiwan,' Randall said. ‘That's sixteen-seventy feet. The Twin Towers were one thousand, three hundred and sixty feet.'

‘You're not a worrier, are you, Sean?'

Randall laughed and lifted his glass to admire the tiny bubbles. He looked around the room. ‘So, do you like it here?'

‘I could die happy now.'

‘We'll stay a bit longer. No rush to get home?'

Troy didn't want to go home at all. ‘No,' he said. ‘What about you? Have you got somewhere to go, a girlfriend?'

Randall leaned back in his chair and shook his head. Then he leaned forward again. ‘Can I tell you a secret? In confidence between ourselves.'

‘You surely can.'

‘At the moment, I pay for it.'

‘For sex?'

Troy was aware of the occasional colleague who went to brothels, mainly when they were away on a job. But he'd never talked about it with anyone, not like this. He liked the way Randall was perfectly open about it.